For the Arhat…

Robin Woods, modified 2 Years ago at 7/28/21 7:05 AM
Created 2 Years ago at 7/28/21 7:05 AM

For the Arhat…

Posts: 189 Join Date: 5/28/12 Recent Posts
Does it feel like the universe is 'shot through' with 'god's love'? 

Do they literally see dependent origination - in real time - whenever they observe anything. So that the leaf contains the whole universe; that the leaf IMPLIES an entire universe?

Does everything feel simultaneously empty and yet completely full at the same time? 

Does the sense of an independently- existing past or future just seem completely ridiculous- to the extent that it's almost painful to try and conceptualise a 'future'? Can you almost forget you have a job? 

I'm just trying to figure out if yesterday's intensely vivid middle-path A&P was a glimpse of the End State - or just a bit bonkers? 
Adi Vader, modified 2 Years ago at 7/28/21 8:00 AM
Created 2 Years ago at 7/28/21 8:00 AM

RE: For the Arhat…

Posts: 268 Join Date: 6/29/20 Recent Posts
I will answer your questions sequentially.
1. No
2. The presentation of DO has two aspects. One is a cosmological sense. It is an extrapolation and there is no direct experience of it. The other is the sequence of mental events that lead to dukkha in the privacy of our own minds. That is understood so deeply that it doesnt happen any more. Trishna/Tanha/Thirst - that is a particular mental move that simply loses all power. Like a car run out of petrol. Reaching this point requires so much familiarity with operating principles of the mind as opposed to the details of our lives that these operating principles are now etched in memory. In interacting with other people, with some degree of attention one can sense the other person being shunted around by those operating principles. One can intuit what is happening in somebody else's mind with regards to these operating principles (Basically the ten fetters and the DO chain as a mechanism for the ten fetters to express themselves)
3. To (mis)quote Nisargadatta - Love tells me I am everything, Wisdom tells me I am nothing, between the two my life flows like a river
4. 'We' live in two worlds. One of them is the relative world of me and you. My laptop and your latop, my property and your property. If somebody tries to steal my property, I will kick them where it hurts. In this relative world, there is most certainly a past, a present and a future. There are details. The future may hold a lamborghini or a begging bowl - there are pluses and minuses of both. One doesnt forget 'anything'. There is a job, it puts a roof on my head, why should I forget it? There is no need to forget it. 

Anything intense or vivid is not going to stay. Awakenning is a cooling down of the fires (passions and compulsions). It is freedom. Thats it!
A Dietrich Ringle, modified 2 Years ago at 8/5/21 1:22 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 8/5/21 1:22 PM

RE: For the Arhat…

Posts: 881 Join Date: 12/4/11 Recent Posts
A leaf can imply the whole universe without it actually being it. An arhat is fine with that contradiction. He can see it that way or see it just as a leaf, although leaves are typically dirty from animal by-products, pollutants from the environment, etc. The thing he shares in common with the leaf is lacking the desire to understand his situation. His work has been put aside.
A Dietrich Ringle, modified 2 Years ago at 8/5/21 1:32 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 8/5/21 1:32 PM

RE: For the Arhat…

Posts: 881 Join Date: 12/4/11 Recent Posts
An arhat can either continue his work as a contemplative or taking the supermundane as his primary source of wisdom, reach absorption in jhana. He can see this decision in real time.
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Kaloyan Stefanov, modified 2 Years ago at 8/6/21 5:23 AM
Created 2 Years ago at 8/6/21 5:23 AM

RE: For the Arhat…

Posts: 83 Join Date: 2/18/21 Recent Posts
What Adi basically said above. Full No-self, Full Non-duality, everything limunous, effemeral, centerless, agentless (if this is what is meant by Arhat) is actually super mundane most of the time once you get used to it.

One thing to to add on the DO bit:
Dependent Origination is one of these terms that different people use differently. I am no expert on DO as a term or conceptual framework, although I did find it useful at times in my practice. Adi has commented a bit on DO used in the more traditional Buddhist sense.

If DO is meant as a loose synonym of causality, as some people use it, i.e. everything (all thoughts & sensations across the 6 sense doors incl. all the content) originates dependently, happens due to cause and effect and is linked to everything else, then the Arhat sees that all the time, yes. It "all happens by itself" as the Tibetans say, and it is 100% of the time there.

​​​​​​​By intuitive extrapolation the Arhat concludes that this is an underlying principle for the whole universe (although obviously purely scientifically in an ontological sense you don't know and can't know).
George S, modified 2 Years ago at 8/6/21 1:36 PM
Created 2 Years ago at 8/6/21 1:07 PM

RE: For the Arhat…

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
A. Dietrich Ringle
The thing he shares in common with the leaf is lacking the desire to understand his situation.

Boom emoticon​​​​​​​

(not that I'm an arhat)

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