Originally posted at Sifting to the Truth


What is liberation or enlightenment about, fundamentally? It is not about an experience, no matter how sublime. It is about the questioning and destruction of an unconscious and unexamined assumption.

Our mental life is full of unconscious ideas. It is not a mute, mechanical, flesh biology.

It is a structure made out of ideas.

The root of these ideas is the idea of the “I.”

Normally, for most people, this root idea goes unexamined. The tools aren’t even there to think about why one would examine it, what it would mean to examine it.

The great mystical philosophies of the world have provided those tools. The assumption of the I is brought up, out of the unconscious, and articulated, and investigated.

Expressing the concept, thinking it, and then seeing to what it relates in one’s experience — this is the process that goes on in the intellect, but goes beyond it. It employs logic, but goes beyond it. It uses words, but ends in silence.

The investigation of the unconscious web of beliefs that make up the mind… this is the work of liberation, and it is the crowning glory of that very same work that also has operated throughout the arts and sciences, throughout more academic philosophy, throughout psychoanalysis, and throughout human thought as a whole.

It is also why no experience, no matter how mind-blowing, can complete its work. Ultimately thinking alone can unravel thinking and reveal the splendor within which thinking lies.

Is that from your website?

Good chance that it's the same guy who held this Ask Me Anything on the Streamentry subreddit page:

https://old.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/c1rdwh/advaita_community_i_am_selfrealized_ask_me/

There was some blow-back from the mods there because some of the methods and frameworks he was touting were more intellectual than pragmatic. Also, there was quite a bit of self promotion. 

For what it's worth.

Yes, and also plenty of people who thanked me privately and publicly for what I'd said.

I have learned there is still a subtle difference between some forms of buddhism and advaita vedanta. There is no doubt that the non-dual spacious mind, with the option to invokve atman and brahman, is a marvellous state. Precise and vivid. Subtly joyous. Extended. Free of pain and evaluation and most clinging. The best of states.  But to some buddhists it is still a frame of reference, that needs to be maintained, that otherwise comes and goes, and that is fuelled by a newly created subtle clinging self, and thus still very very very subtly unsatisfactory and demanding of existence taking a particular form. 

Which is better? The final exhaustion of the clinging self, leading to unbinding and ability to travel through human existence in all of its forms?  Or the dwelling in the pure non-duality of the tushita devas and fourth heaven?  The strangeness of liberation? Or the clinging delight of the pure lands?  I cannot make such a judgement.

With deep love  

Malcolm

The spacious mind is not the end of the line for advaitins. That's a common misconception Buddhists have... The final end of the line is the permanent annihilation of all states and opposites and ideas, including the idea of going beyond them.

My guess is that it has not so much to do with the "I".

This is how I think it works:

At any moment there are millions of sensations handled by unconscious processes.
At any moment, the conscious mind receives some of this sensations (so sensations are know to conscious mind from the unconscious and end in the unconscious).

There are unconscious processes that, for each sensation, before it becomes conscious, they do a "loop" searching for other unconscious sensations related to the original (and from them, others).

At any moment, the conscious mind is presented not with the original sensation, but with hundreds, at the same time.
For the conscious mind, all the hundred sensations are all that exists.

So, for example, if you have a tiny sensation in your leg, the conscious mind is presented with that sensation....and your whole leg....and some parts of your body, and some visualizations and concepts about that leg.

If you think about something, the conscious mind gets a full picture about that something, including how you feel about it, some visualizations, memories, how familiar you are with it, etc.

Some conclusions about this:

1. This processes are mostly "amplifiers", if your leg hurts, you are presented with hundreds of sensations of pain, strategies to stop it, a lot of useless information about where it is located, its relationship to other parts of your body, comparisons with previous pains, etc.

2. Having lots of sensations at the same time, gives the idea of solidity.
   Having a lot of thoughts about a single sensation gives the idea of ownership.
   Having a lot of memories about a single sensation gives the idea of identity.
   So the concious mind is presented with the original sensation, thoughts that give the idea of ownership and memories that give the idea of identity.
   BUT IT'S NOT AN ILLUSION. The sensations do exist. The memories do exist. The thoughts do exist.

   This "combo" of sensations, thoughts, feelings, memories that is presented to the conscious mind, scrapping the unconscious for things related to an original sensation IS "you". In fact, you get a lot of "YOU" (too much) for every sensation.

   Most of this information is critical for unconscious processes.
   So why are there loop processes that, before a sensation becomes conscious, loop for all this things instead of presenting the original sensation?

3. Evolution, control and power. My guess is that when we humans became conscious, our conscious part couldn't handle original sensations or they were not very good for survival.
   If there is a lion going to attack, you better get A LOT of sensations of fear, identification, position and strategies to run.
   My guess is that it is easier to make decisions (if you are not very smart) with a lot of information presented all at once.
   This works very well for simple decisions (the ones that we needed for survival), but not for complex ones (like the ones that we need now).

4. My guess is that there is a power play between the conscious mind and this unconscious processes.

5. It distorts reality. From a single physical sensation you get hundreds of sensations in the body.
   From seeing something you get a lot of impressions, positioning, relationships, etc.
   Even worse, my guess is that it builds a hierarchy with original sensations being more important that the ones that are "looked for".

6. My guess is that this "loop unconscious processes" are not on the same level, but cascade.
   So, you get a sensation in your leg and a loop gets hundreds of sensations of your whole leg.
   Then another loop get's the "whole leg" sensations and look for positioning, feelings, etc about your leg.
   Then another loop get's the "positioning and feelings" about your leg and look for....etc.

Liberation is this useless "loop unconscious processes" seen for what they are (useless and painful) and stopping them.
As they are unconscious, the moment must be triggered by the unconscious (happen on its own) and all conscious activity must stop for it to happen.

Well, enough rambling for today.

Interesting!  I would like to learn more about this.  Can you point in the direction of any resources on this point?

Hrm... what kinds of resources are you interested in exactly? I can answer any specific questions you have. This whole idea is deep in advaita -- it is the meaning, for example, of "mano nasa," destruction of mind. Mind is opposites/states/ideas. It is the meaning of Brahman, whose ultimate definition is "neti, neti" -- "not this, not that," -- the utterly unspecifiable beyond-concepts.

Ramana Maharshi says: "There is no becoming , and there is also no destruction, the opposite [of creation]; there are no people in bondage, and there are also no people at all doing sadhana; there are no people who seek the highest [i.e. liberation], and there are also no people who have attained liberation. Know that this alone is the supreme truth!"

Or I can give you little quotes, e.g. the Bhagavad Gita which says "What all beings consider as day is the night of ignorance for the wise, and what all creatures see as night is the day for the introspective sage." Meaning, again, that the sage is beyond the awareness of distinctions.

But the reality is that there's no particular resource on this point except a complete understanding of advaita vedanta. Other than asking me, you can check out my website and reading list if you like for that.

   Like using a thorn to remove a thorn, or fire to fight fire. Nonsense to oppose nonsense, illness to oppose illness. Thinking is depiction, representation; it stands in for reality, displaces reality. Once established, it (our conceptual, subject/object world as seen from ego) needs to be disestablished, in order to cleanse the doors of perception. Teachings serve as a solvent to dissolve accretions of prior thoughts; the dirty solvent then is discarded, as a  raft is no longer needed once one crosses the stream.

   That "thinking alone" can accomplish this object is certainly questionable.

terry




Love Is All You Need

(The Beatles)

Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy
Nothing you can make that can't be made
No one you can save that can't be saved
Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
There's nothing you can know that isn't known
Nothing you can see that isn't shown
There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be
It's easy
All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
All you need is love (all together now)
All you need is love (everybody)
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
Love is all you need
(Love is all you need)
(Love is all you need)
(Love is all you need)
(Love is all you need)
Yesterday
(Love is all you need)
Oh
Love is all you need
Love is all you need
Oh yeah
Love is all you need
(She love you, yeah, yeah, yeah)
(She love you, yeah, yeah, yeah)
(Love is all you need)
(Love is all you need)

aloha malcolm,

question(s)

"Which is better? The final exhaustion of the clinging self, leading to unbinding and ability to travel through human existence in all of its forms?  Or the dwelling in the pure non-duality of the tushita devas and fourth heaven?  The strangeness of liberation? Or the clinging delight of the pure lands?"

answer

Each of these possibilities...

"...is still a frame of reference, that needs to be maintained, that otherwise comes and goes, and that is fuelled by a newly created subtle clinging self, and thus still very very very subtly unsatisfactory and demanding of existence taking a particular form."


terry

That's a bizarre answer. The final exhaustion of the clinging self is not still a frame of reference that comes and goes. That's the whole point.

Terry is just taking revenge on me for encouraging him to watch too much Turkish TV.  :-)

But he kind of has a point, in that there is a series of frames of reference that can come and go after the final exhausation of the clinging self. Michael Taft's interview with A H Almaas has some nice coverage on this point.

https://deconstructingyourself.com/podcast/dy-011-reality-let-loose-guest-h-almaas

Thank you Nintheye, I do think I see the point. This is tricky to discuss because of doctrinal differences, difficulties verbalising non-dual experiences, and the slight differences in experience that I suspect arise from the particular paths that people take.

So without wishing to promote divisive arguments, I would say that I understand this as a kind of dissolution or absoprtion in the non-dual state that then becomes the basis for all ongoing experience.  I think some Buddhists would see this as their goal, and others would wish to go beyond this to take the fuel out of this experience as well, and then reassemble themselves liberated from this state as well as all others. So just my opinion, and I don't expect anybody else to agree, but I do enjoy talking about these things to help refine my understanding and find the boundaries of my experiences. Much appreciated.

I appreciate the response. I would just note that from the advaita standpoint, nonduality -- or Truth -- is not a state nor is it an experience. States and experiences have beginnings and ends, but Truth has no beginning and end, and it is already always the case. It is simply the truth. Indeed it is so true it cannot even really be called 'the truth,' since that's a phrase and phrases have limitations.

From the advaita standpoint, the Truth is that there is no one who could then take the 'fuel' out of the Truth and then 'reassemble' themselves... because there is no one, period. People aren't. Only Truth is, and in fact Truth is beyond even 'is' and 'is not.'

Thank you. I think we have delinated the difference in view precisely.

Metta to you!

Next project - a cancer cure!  Or world peace!  

Heh.  I mean the difference in views between the two of us.  :-)

Don't ruin my joy!   

aloha jc,

   Perhaps "the final exhaustion of the clinging self" is an hallucination. It is certainly a projection. Of the clinging self. This reminds one of "the desirablilty of desirelessness."

   What is "a frame of reference?" Let's say it is "context." The understanding that allows us to make sense of impressions. If any notion of a "clinging self" exists in our understanding there is "still a frame of reference that comes and goes." It is more in the nature of things than some particular delusion. That is, the coming and going of understandings is no more or less real than the clinging self. We dispose of both at once. Picture, frame and all.

   It is not bizarre to question whether any spiritual attainment is not based on a more subtle form of ego. It probably is. Certainly the real is unmoved by criticism or doubt. Or validation.

   Actually, I was pointing out to malcolm that his thinking was slightly out of order, though with respect for his more eloquent terms.    

  The ego is generally more subtle than the commanding self.

terry


   
from "the sayings of ramakrishna"

241. Just as gold and brass are tested by a touchstone, so are the sincere and the hypocritical Sadhus distinguished by persecution and calumny.

god is greatest, if god permits...

(I meeeaaan...........who would have guessed one season would have 76 episodes, inshallah? allahu akbar!)

I like the way they changed the light around ibn arabi everytime he appeared, almost gave him a halo...remember the scene where ibn arabi walks into the sick man's tent and says, "women out" and all these strong outspoken women got right up and filed out?...wow...that's real spiritual power).

It was good stuff though, bra, mindless tv with reverence and dignity. Tv just another extension of religion. For the masses.

terry

aloha malcolm,

   The heart of this is "the absorption in the nondual state that then becomes the basis for all ongoing experience." The buddha, while considering whether to try to enlighten people at all, said, "The truth is subtle and hard to know." "The nondual state" is not in any way something which "then becomes" anything at all. This "nondual state" underlies all "experience" or understanding or knowledge or existence.

   You speak blithely of being liberated from liberation, and this is precisely the danger, that we may identify the Ultimate and then go on past it, as though it were one more experience in a succession of changing experiences. The word "god" obscures god. Naming god does not reveal her. The nondual state is always present, it is your essential nature, every child displays it, every eye sees and is seen with it

   Your real insight here is "just my opinion." You "understand" what cannot be grasped. The tao te ching says, "I don't know its name; I call it 'the Way'." A subtle but essential distinction. The so-called Way does not exist in any experiential way.

    This is out of respect for your understanding, hoping you will understand, not from any desire to criticize or establish some better opinion. You know, my friend.

terry



from masao abe, "God, Emptiness, and the True Self":

Throughout its long history, Mahayana Buddhism has empha­sized: “Do not abide in samsara, nor abide in nirvana.” If one abides in so-called nirvana by transcending samsara, one is not yet free from attachment, namely, attachment to nirvana itself. Being con­fined by the discrimination between nirvana and samsara, one is still selfishly concerned with his own salvation, forgetting the suffering of others in samsara. In nirvana one may be liberated from the dual­ities of birth and death, right and wrong, good and evil, etc. But even then one is not liberated from a higher-level duality, i.e., the duality of samsara and nirvana, or the duality of the secular and the sacred. To attain thorough emancipation one must also be liberat­ed from this higher-level duality. The Bodhisattva idea is essential to Mahayana Buddhism. Not clinging to his own salvation, the Bodhisattva is one who devotes himself to saving others who suffer from various attachments—attachments to nirvana as well as to sam­sara—by negating or transcending the so-called nirvana which is attained simply by transcending samsara.

Therefore, nirvana in the Mahayana sense, while transcending samsara, is simply the realization of samsara as really samsara, no more, no less, by a thoroughgoing return to samsara itself. This is why, in Mahayana Buddhism, it is often said of true nirvana that “samsara-as-it-is is nirvana.” This paradoxical statement is based on the dialectical character of the true nirvana, which is, logically speaking, the negation of negation; that is, absolute affirmation, or the transcendence of transcendence; that is, absolute immanence. This negation of negation is no less than the affirmation of affir­mation. The transcendence of transcendence is nothing other than the immanence of immanence. These are verbal expressions of Ultimate Reality, because Ultimate Reality is neither negative nor affirmative, neither immanent nor transcendent in the relative sense of those terms. It is beyond these dualities. Nirvana in Mahayana Buddhism is expressed as “samsara-as-it-is is nirvana,” and “nirvana-as-it-is is samsara.” This is simply the Buddhist way of expressing Ultimate Reality. Since nirvana is nothing but Ultimate Reality, to attain nirvana in the above sense means to attain libera­tion from every sort of duality.

Zen takes this Mahayana position in its characteristically radical way. “Killing a Buddha” and “killing a Patriarch” are Zen expres­sions for “not abiding in nirvana.”

Now we can see what Lin-chi meant when he said, “Encountering a Buddha, killing the Buddha; encountering a Patriarch, killing the Patriarch. . . . Only thus does one attain liberation and disentangle­ment from all things.” In this way, Zen radically tries to transcend religious transcendence itself to attain thoroughgoing freedom. Therefore the words and acts of the Zen masters mentioned earlier, though they seem to be extremely antireligious and blasphemous, are rather to be regarded as paradoxical expressions of the ultimate truth of religion.

from "birdsong" rumi/barks


Essence is emptiness.
Everything else, accidental.

Emptiness brings peace to your loving.
Everything else, disease.

In this world of trickery, emptiness
is what your soul wants.

or an end to cynicism...

there was a time in hawaii when some sort of "harmonic convergence" was predicted and people went around telling each other, "visualize world peace"...this was many years ago now but occasionally one still sees the bumper sticker: "visualize whirled peas"...

Your words are always precious jewels terry, received with delight. Absorbed, even. But I think you are going to drive me to poetry, because prose is just too linear.


PLAY

Nobody told me about this place
Created from the shock of arrival
Enveloping, endless, beyond time 
Shall I soak in the warmth or dive in the currents?
Play!


WORDS

I said that
That was said
That was I
I was that
Now I'm not
Until I say it again.


Aroha cuz.  Malcolm

Maybe my attempts at humor just aren't obvious enough, even when I used smileys  

Note:   = smiley denoting humor is being employed.

from 'birdsong,' rumi/barks


Spring overall. But inside us
there's another unity.

Behind each eye here,
one glowing weather.

Each forest branch moves differently
in the breeze, but as they sway
they connect at the roots.

that must be why nobody gets my jokes...

Terry, we have a lot in common.