From http://the-wanderling.com/BuddhaSaid.html

WHAT THE BUDDHA SAID



PRESENTED BY:
the WANDERLING


  • "The Buddha's Teaching was recorded in the Tipitaka several hundred years after the Buddha passed away, and this text was then copied and recopied over a period of thousands of years. The teachings were probably recorded very well, but it is possible to doubt that the reader will now understand what those who recorded the teachings meant. For me to refer merely to the texts all the time would be like guaranteeing the truth of the claims of another, claims of which I am not certain. But the things that I tell you I am able to guarantee, because I speak from my own direct experience." (source)

  • According to Fa-tsang, (643-712) of the Hau-yen school, nobody understood a word of what ended up being the Buddha's first Sutra, so the Enlightened one resorted to a series of teachings which took into consideration the limitations of sentient beings, with the intention of gradually leading them to overcome those limitations. Thus each subsequent teaching renders obsolete the previous ones, though they all continue to function so as to accomodate the greatest number of sentient beings.

  • With the help of similes, metaphors, and comparisons as an effective part of his teaching method, the Buddha explains his ethico-philosophical contepts to his audience. These figures of speech are significant and important both from the preaching point of view and literary point of view. 
  • For the preaching point of view, the Buddha has utilized comparisons, similes and metaphors to enable the hearer understanding the "Dharma which is profound, difficult to realize, hard to understand, not to grasped by mere logic, subtle and comprehensible only by the wise." Without these figurative images the hearer may have difficulties in understanding the meaning of his teachings. 
  • With reference to literary point of view, these figurative images used by the Buddha are to make the little-known and unfamiliar, the Upamana, of an unfamiliar abstract object, familiar. Upamanas thus presented sometimes illuminate and beautify the object to be compared, and sometimes vividly present before us the unfamiliar. In short, we can say that similes (and metaphors) concretize the most abstract things. (source)

  • When in accordance with worldy convention one speaks of a self, it is not spoken from the standpoint of the supreme and actual meaning. For this reason, although Dharmas are empty and devoid of a self, there is no fault in speaking of an "I" simply to take into account the dictates of worldly convention. (source)



People equate what the Buddha said and did and call it Buddhism. Actually, what the Buddha said and did, which was later written down and translated into the sutras, was string together a group of words around already in place phenomenon veiled to others by the samsara world. In a sense it was really not much different than what Albert Einstein did when he wrote the Theory of General Relativity and Special Relativity. Einstein did not create a system of master laws and then force nature to follow, but instead, 'intuitively figured out' what went around the already in place existing occurrences, then wrote his theories to fit accordingly. No offense to the 10,000 things, but for lack of more indepth discourse, bottom line, what Sakyamuni's Enlightenment did was awaken him to the Void or Emptiness, period, that's it, Emptiness. That is, that all things are inherently Empty...which goes hand in hand with what is called for the most part, Dependent Origination, or Arising Due To Conditions. Again, all being simply written or spoken words giving verbal syntax expression around existing phenomenon FOR THOSE INTERESTED in pursuing some understanding of the Enlightenment, Awakening experience.
When speaking of Einstein and the Buddha and what either or both accomplished do not confuse the two issues. They are quite different. Einstein's efforts were a product of the intellect while the Buddha's were not. True, everyday conscious intellect may have driven Shakyamuni's initial thrust, but in the end, for Einstein, his theories were an outcome that were expressed and shared exclusively through thought processes and language, mathematical language true, but language nontheless. If Shakyamuni's Awakening was nothing more than some intellectual mental construct applied over a "Law of Nature" that just happened to be waiting to be discovered by the first person to come across it, any rational person could, using logical intellect could "learn" Awakening in the same fashion one can "learn" Einstein's theory of relativity. Such does not seem to be the case, however.


If our minds have created dualism, they should be able to un-create or deconstruct it. This is not a devious intellectual trick which claims to solve the problem logically, while leaving our anguish as deep as before. (source)


Master of the Law Ch'ung-yuan asked, "What is the Void? If you tell me that it exists, then you are implying that it is resistant and solid. If you say that it is something that does not exist, then why go to it for help?" Shen-hui replied, "One talks of the Void for the benefit of those who have not seen their own Buddha-natures. For those who have seen their own Buddha-natures the Void does not exist."


If there was such a thing as a fence on which one side was found those not-Enlightened and on the other those Enlightened, then those on the not-Enlightened side, seeking to cross over, would be greatly assisted in the endeavor by assimulating into their being, as a second nature, the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Noble Path. Once they crossed over the Four and Eight would no longer be needed nor exist. The same is true of everything. Throughout the centuries people have concocted various routes to pursue Enlightenment from the traditional to Zen, but the ultimate result, once experienced, is the same. Zen short circuits the route by endeavoring to bring forth the Enlightening experience outside the scriptures, which is a concrete, non-abstract cut-straight-to-the-bone lightning approach. The Zen way, however quick, instant or gradual, is based on the same Buddha insights before they became excessively over encumbered by scripture. A person seeking the Zen experience must somehow come to recognize the same insights as Siddhartha Gautama experienced when he Awakened to become the Buddha, which later inturn, gave birth to the scriptures. If Enlightenment doesn't come out of the blue, then laying the groundwork is the next best thing. Before his Enlightenment experience under the Bodhi Tree the Buddha tried many, many different things in his attempt to 'cross over.' After Awakening he could see what was to avail and what was to no avail. That is what he attempted to put into words for his followers. That is how the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path took root. An old saying goes: we are the results of what we were; we will be the results of what we are. A Pali text called The Anguttara says it best:
"It cannot come to pass that the fruit of a deed well-done by the body, speech, and thought should have for a result that which is unpleasant, hateful, or distasteful. But that it should be otherwise is quite possible."

People go on and on, batting their gums about everything under the sun and beyond, and most of it never adds up to very much about anything. People ask, "Why do I have to do anything about anything? The sixth patriarch, Hui-neng, as a young boy minding his own business delivering wood for his mother, overheard a stanza from the Diamond Cutter Sutra and was Awakened. Sri Ramana Maharshi never bothered with anything formal and he was awakened to the Absolute out of nowhere, so why bother to do anything about anything?"

Not a bad question. Actually it is a very good question framed in all the best samsara clothes. The short response is of course, you don't. But, what if a person did want to do something about it? Is the Enlightenment experience preordained or destined? Or can a person of their own volition persuade or exert an influence on the outcome. If a person steps in front of an oncoming passenger train and is killed, could that same person have selected not to step in front of the train and acted upon that selection by actually not doing so instead? Is it Karma, destiny, fate?


For the most part Hindu and Indian-based religious schools of thought, especially early ones, believe and promote the concept that Karma operates in a straight line, with actions from the past influencing the present, and present actions influencing the future. As a result, they saw little room for free will. A lot of that interpretation has permeated into western culture and thought, with Karma ending up being an unbending "fate" or "destiny" type of concept.
However, Karma operates more closely with the Buddhist view as formulated by the Buddha, acting more or less in feedback loops, with the present moment being shaped both by past and by present actions; present actions shape not only the future but also the present. This constant opening for present input into the causal process makes free will possible. This freedom is symbolized in the imagery that Buddhists use to explain the process: flowing water. Sometimes the flow from the past is so strong that little can be done except to stand fast, but there are also times when the flow is gentle enough to be diverted in almost any direction. (source)




"The present moment being shaped both by past and by present actions; present actions shape not only the future but also the present."


With that in mind, there is an axiom that goes:
This being present, that arises; without this, that does not occur.

Which is elaborated on from Pali and Sanskrit texts:

Acts do not perish, even after hundreds and thousands of years. On meeting the right combination of conditions and time, they bear fruit.

Vasubandhu the great Indian Abhidharma master wrote:

Material and mental elements uniterruptedly succeed one another in a series, a procession that has action as originating cause

He continues to write, and this is the punchline:

The successive moments of this procession are different; therefore there is an evolution or transformation of the series.

The successive moments are different, that is they are not the same. If they were the same they would not be different. On a fine grain level the differences are practically imperceptible. On a coarse grain level the differences manifest themselves more readily. Take those differences and stick them into their operating field of conditions and the evolution or transformation compounds itself. Conditions? Now we have conditions! What the heck are conditions? The word conditions is an english word used in our context from the sutras for the sanskrit word Pratyaya which roughly translates into: "the pre-existing conditions that allow primary causes to function." Which basically means if the conditions are absent, then the causes are prevented. Conditions are the milieu, stage set, or playing field where acts or impulses unfold. They can be increased by other conditions, decreased by other conditions, or replaced by other conditions to accelerate or postpone results in the stream of events. Which means that conditions can be, but not necessarily do modify. They arise primarily on a broader scale from causes in the distant past. When conditions do manifest themselves they are for the most part not defined, that is, they are undefined or spent, meaning they cannot create or impact figuratively further downstream responses. However, even though they are spent, they are still extremely powerful in how they impose themselves on the immediate circumstances in which they are operating. To wit:






Any shift in any fashion in the conditions up or down or across the stream relative to the cause will impact the resultant outcome of that cause.

How do we know this? Just go back to the Einstein analogy above where he just 'intuitively figured it out.' Over periods of thousands and thousands of years observant people have seen rise to the same thing over and over and have placed words around the phenomenons observed. For more in a similar vein refer to David Hume who said knowledge is not attained by reasoning a priori, but arises ENTIRELY from experience, when we find that any particular objects (or phenomenon) are constantly conjoined with each other. 

Again, to illustrate: Two people are master jugglers. They are each able to juggle eight or ten balls at one time. With much practice and perfect timing each of the jugglers has been able to toss a ball from their group of balls while in the midst of juggling to the other juggler without missing a beat, switching balls one at a time to the other person while still themselves in mid juggle. They have done it over and over for up to an hour and never missed. They are fifteen minutes into their act when the lights go out and they are plunged into total darkness. The next thing you know one of the jugglers misses a catch. Now he is down one ball and the timing starts to go haywire because instead of ten balls he now has nine while his fellow juggler still has ten. In addition the sound of the ball falling is unsettling impacting concentration. The next thing you know the balls are all over the floor. Everything was the same at the start between the two jugglers, the only thing that changed was the conditions, that is, the lights went out, causing the outcome of their juggling to be different than all the other times they had performed the act.
For any of it to work though, there would have to be "moments" and "successive moments." Vasubandhu, mentioned above, writes of succesive moments, using the plural of moment, suggesting that moments are made up of more than one, with moment in this case, seeming to be mutually interchangeable with what is typically called "the present" or "now." But what is the present? Everytime anyone says "now" they have to say it again because the first now is gone, ad infinitum. Well, and it may not hold water, but if one has to use words, the present is probably best described as that which is performing it's own function after the dissoulution of the previous becoming, but before the arising of the next becoming, also ad infinitum. Buddhaghosa in the Visuddhimagga writes of the present of continuity and the Samyutta Reciters say it is of two kinds: material and immaterial. Material continuity "lasts as long as the muddy line of water touching the bank when one treads in the water to make clear." Immaterial continuity "consists of two or three rounds of impulsions." Nagarjuna, taking issue with the Abhidhramists however, implies if time is composed of separate parts such as past, present (that is, now), and future, time would lose it's coherence. If present and future are considered products of the past, both present and future would be inseparably enmeshed in the past, hence not be able to be separate entities. If, on the other hand, the present and future are separate features from the past, that would make them unconnected, thus not caused by and without reference to the past. Nagarjuna thus implies the present and future do not exist, there is no actual graspable "static moment" of time, while at the same time not denying the "unmediated experience of change." Although the stages of time have a before and after, each he concedes, has it's own integrity. That is where I come in and say it is the own integrity that becomes focused on smaller and smaller by humans to become known orally among men as "moments" or "successive moments." Dogen writes in the Shobogenzo:
Life is a stage in time and death is a stage in time, like, for example, winter and spring. We do not suppose that winter becomes spring, or say that spring becomes summer

In the flow of things there is no specific concrete instant when winter is suddenly not anymore and wham, spring all of a sudden exists. Even though an actual standing alone moment in time is not a truly existing thing because it cannot exist independently of other moments in time, of which there are none, hence it can't, there is though still, the unmediated experience of change. It is that experience that becomes artificially contrived and delineated by human concepts into smaller and smaller increments that when small enough become practically non-existant and for that are called "moments" and when strung together "successive moments."

It is commonly held to be the case that what was in the past are gone, what are at present are transient, and what will come have not yet occurred. Consequently, even though after having accepted the Dependent Origination View that all dharmas are mutually dependent as causes and conditions for their coexistence, one still regards Dharmadhatu as a flow of dharmas. Past dharmas have faded away, present dharmas are apparent but transient, and future dharmas have not arrived and are unpredictable. This view of Dharmadhatu is under the limitation of the notion of time, and as such it deviates from the correct meaning of the Buddhist Dharmadhatu. Dharmadhatu is neither limited by space nor by time. According to the correct view of Dharmadhatu all dharmas in the past, all dharmas at present and all dharmas in the future are all together in the Dharmadhatu. Ordinarily people can experience only a mi-nute part of all dharmas at present (becoming "moments" as described above), and therefore people sustain the view that dharmas in the past are gone and future is unpredictable. If one practices according to Buddhist teachings and thereby comes out of the bondage of the fixed view of a space-and-time framework, then it is possible to experience or witness dharmas in the past as well as dharmas in the future.













THE WORD "RIGHT." What Does It Mean?


Before moving on there is another thing. Again, it has to do with words and their meaning. The fourth of the the Four Noble Truths refers to eight precepts prescribed by the Buddha:right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. The first thing everybody starts jumping up and down about is that's a lot of rights, especially coming from the all time champion of non-dualism. But, you have to remember the Buddha is framing in words from his Enlightened state what he would like his non-enlightened peers to experience, so he has to use words he hopes they will understand. The problem is that the non-enlightened take issue with the words saying that as soon as a word is used, "right" for example, then dualism raises it's ugly head, because "right" has an opposite "wrong." Buddha knows that but doesn't experience it so he doesn't have a problem with it because he knows the meaning he means about the word "right" from his Enlightened state. The problem is in his non enlightenedpeers experiencing it. The thing is the word we translate into "right" from the sanskrit word "samma" does not translate exactly into "right" so realistically there is no opposite "wrong." What happens in this case right view is not dualisticly opposed by wrong view per se', right intention is not opposed by wrong intention per se' etc., etc. Doesn't matter much anyway because they are actually no more than conceptual abstracts culled out of the same phenomenon, bracketed in a given section of that phenomenon, and then clothed in the words right view, wrong view, right intention, wrong intention.
If right doesn't translate into right with wrong being the dualistic opposite, then just what is meant when the word right is used by the Buddha like he uses it in the Eightfold Noble Path? For the answer to that we will again have to go to an illustration:
Back in the old days when a dollar was a dollar a farmer had borrowed $200.00 against his land in order to bring in a crop. With the money he had used half to buy seed and half to live on for the year knowing he could take his crop to market and sell it for $400.00, doubling his money. With the double amount of money he would pay back the loan and still have $200.00 left to replant a new crop and get by the entire following year, except without the need to borrow any money. He also knew if he didn't pay back his loan he would lose his farm. The crop came in as expected. He divided the grain into ten bags he figured were worth about $40.00 each, loaded the ten bags on his wagon, hooked up his draft animal and headed toward the grain market in the big city.
Part way there one of the wheels hit a rather large stone in the road. The farmer got out of the wagon and checked the wheel. He noticed the axle was somewhat bent, but to fix it would require him to unload the entire wagon because the weight of the grain was too heavy to jack it up. He did notice that part way through one revolution of the wheel it leaned in toward the top and in the rest of the revolution it leaned out. He was sure the wheel would not fall off however, so he continued on his journey. What he didn't notice was that on each revolution the wheel went around and leaned in at the top the rim rubbed across two of the cloth bags filled with grain. After awhile the wheel wore a hole in both of the bags and unknown to the farmer the grain began to fall out. By the time he reached the market the two bags were totally empty.
Now the farmer had eight bags, each bag worth $40.00 for a total of $320.00. Needless to say he was a tad upset. With the wagon empty he returned home without incident. He paid off the debt he owed which left him $120.00. To have it end up the way he hoped he knew he needed $200.00, $100.00 for grain, $100.00 to live on through the year. Being $80.00 short meant a lot of compromises. Did he just buy $60.00 in grain and try to live on $60.00; did he buy the full amount of grain he needed and scrape by on even less; did he borrow the amount he was short? What? You can see all the various ramifications. But the punchline is that when the wheel was not out of kilter it could be considered "right" because a wheel that is true is the way it is supposed to be. But, after the axle was bent the mere fact that the wheel ended up rubbing the grain sacks until they lost their grain doesn't exactly make it "wrong." The farmer might have not liked it, and true, it impacted his long term situation adversely, but other factors entered into it. What about the stone? What role did it play? How did it get in the road just at the place the wheel ran over it? What about the farmers driving, why didn't he go around the thing in the first place? How about his decision not to unload the wagon and fix the axle? Why wasn't he more alert the rest of the trip to the market when he knew the wheel wobbled? I could go on and on, but what I'm getting at is that in order for a wheel to work at it's best, being out of kilter is probably not the best way to go. So, now, if you have carefully followed the thread I have weaved up to this point, you should have arrived at a fairly good insight into the use of the word right as intended by the Buddha. Armed with that understanding we should be able to move along...
When I was sixteen years old or so and had first crossed paths with things Zen, envying my soon to be mentor's lifestyle living on a trust fund, I asked him how I could do the same. He told me to faithfully put $100.00 a month into a savings account every month and never touch it. One day it would accumulate into a rather tidy sum, of from which, one could live off the interest.
He was drawing an analogy between that and what we have been discussing above in that what one does at any given moment can produce impulses which inturn, meeting the right combination of conditions will bear fruit. Thus said, the right action, speech, and thought [right as used in the way we have previously suggested] at this moment can impact one's future positively like saving $100.00 a month faithfully might.
The Enlightened sage Luangpor Teean always said that the past is gone, incapable of being changed or rectified, while the future has not yet arrived: whatever we do, it must be done in the present. If we act well now, today will constitute a good past for tomorrow. And tomorrow, when it comes, will turn out to be a good future for this day in which we have already done good. It is useless to worry about things that are past and cannot be put right and just as useless to worry about things that have not yet happened: to worry about things that cannot eliminate suffering in the only place it is found, in the present.

What is important to consider of course, is having set into motion the correct set of principals in the past, so the fruit beared from those endeavors would be impacting one's present.To have that present be a positive experience my mentor's suggestion, extracted from the sutras, went something like:


1.) From the first generate only thoughts with the right escort.
2.) Support right thoughts already risen.
3.) From where thoughts arise, generate no thoughts that carry negative escort.
4.) Dispell any negative thoughts already risen.


Right action and speech should follow, inturn easily meeting the precepts of the Eightfold Noble Path and the results therein. Simple, simple stuff.
People come to me and ask how do we know any of the above is true? In the end can we even trust something or anything to be true since the word-concept true pops up just likeright pops up with all of it's relative and dualistic ramifications? Well, lets try another illustration before proceeding:
Although they are not found as hunted or hunter in the same environment, both tigers and zebras are striped. The zebra is striped, it seems, so that while running in a herd to escape being preyed upon, the confusion of stripes from animal to animal as they overlap makes unclear to the hunter an individual animal. The tiger's stripes, on the other hand, is to make itself unclear to it's prey as it uses stealth to come within leathal striking distance. In each case both the seeking tiger and the sought upon zebra is trying to infer it is not there.
Therein lays the rub. Infer it is not there. If the tiger is there but infering it is not, it has to be there to inorder to infer it is not there. In other words, it is not not there even though it's prey may be being deceived by beliving it is not. If the tiger is there, then in both cases it is there, that is, the tiger is there because it is there and it is still there even though through camouflage and deception it is attempting to infer to it's prey it is not. It is that implied not being there when it is that is the deception, that is not true. The actual fact of the tiger being there, regardless of what the tiger's prey thinks or doesn't think is the truth. If the tiger were a human and using camouflage and deception as a ruse it would be lying.
Dualist and relativists would argue there is no truth, real or otherwise, especially so, absolute truth. For the most part arguing with words against a word based argument is to enter into a battleground basically unarmed...or at the most, armed only with weapons your host opponent gives you. But, if you go back to my illustration and not battle over truth existing or not existing and see, for example, that if the tiger is there and that is reality inturn taken for the truth, and agree that in the deception infered toward it's prey it is still there, then perpetrating the fact that it is not there would be in fact, not true.
People also have a problem with the meaning of originating cause and successive moments being different.
'Originating cause' does not have the same meaning as caused by or to be caused by. For example, a generally accepted axiomatic statement has been made that goes something like "From a tiny acorn the mighty oaktree grows."...which suggest that for every oaktree tree that exists there was once an acorn that existed before it. But where do acorns come from? For the most part they fall from the limbs of oaktrees, which by inference would indicate that before every acorn was, an oaktree was. But how can that be? Before the firstfirst oaktree what was there?
That which makes an oaktree eventually an oaktree includes not just the acorn and the acorn only, but requires the right soil, moisture, nutriments, weather, temperature, location, etc. All of that stuff is called determinants. A determinant does not necessarily mean a sequential order of things, that is, one thing in order first before the other. For example, for the oaktree and the acorn before it to be the acorn or oaktree they are or are to become, the various determinants, soil, moisture, nutriments, etc., must all be in place and exist all at the sametime, not first one and then the other sequentially. The originating cause is like an acorn from which an oaktree springs. But, without the various determinants in place I wouldn't hold my breath.
Now lets try 'successive moments being different'. Again, fairly simple stuff. At the coarse grain level, lets say you the reader for example, are sitting in front of a computer and haven't left the room or moved from your chair for several hours, so engrossed are you reading my material. You haven't left the room yet if you think about it you are hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles away from the exact spot you were when you first sat down. How so? Simply put, the earth rotates while it orbits the sun. The sun moves in it's own direction while being swept along in the rotating galaxy, the galaxy itself moving on it's own path while being swept up in the inflation/expansion of the universe, etc., etc. At the fine grain level each of the billions of electron clouds clumped together to form the mental/material enity that represents that which you are are whisping around each of their own successive nuclei, none of them in their locked in orbits ever returning to the exact same spot because they too, like you and the overall vast expanse of the universe are being swept along and away from where they were. Nothing anywhere at anytime can ever be the same, from the minutest charmed quark being in the exact spot once once upon a time, to any two snowflakes ever being just alike. Fine grain, course grain? How could that be so?


In Zen lore Pai-chang Huai-hai (724-814) was a great Zen master, especially known for Hyakujo's Fox and the following No Ducks story:


Prior to his awakening experience Pai-Chang was a student of the also great Zen master Ma-tsu Ta-chi (709-788). One day while Pai-chang was still his student the two were out walking together and saw in the sky a formation of wild ducks. Ma-tsu asked, "What is that?" Pai-chang said, "Wild ducks." Ma-tsu said, "Where have they gone?" Pai-chang replied, "They have flown away." Ma-tsu then twisted Pai-chang's nose, of from which Pai-chang cried out in pain. Ma-tsu said, "When have they ever flown away, they have been here since the beginning."


When have they ever flown away, they have been here since the beginning! Sounds like fairly straightforward Zen-type discourse between master and student, except from the first not a thing is, which is, by the way, the same thing as having been here since the beginning. Ma-tsu was testing the awareness of his student. When asking 'what is that?' Pai-chang answered 'wild ducks.' To substantiate his level of understanding that all is One, that is, that his answer 'wild ducks' was in the Absolute, that his reply encompassed ALLabout the scene of the ducks: 'clouds on the mountains and the moon on the sea,' etc., etc. Instead Pai-chang replied 'they have flown away' showing Ma-tsu that Pai-chang missed it twice. To Pai-chang the that in 'what is that?' was only wild ducks over there, mountains over there, sky over there, him over here. Hence, they, the ducks, could fly away. To Ma-tsu, all is One, how could anything fly away (or electron clouds orbit or be swept up in the inflation/expansion of the universe?). No over here, no over there, no Ma-tsu, no ducks.
Wild ducks may be One with the universe, but they still are what they are, regardless of how they may or may not be separated out or what they are called or not called. Although all is One, a given duck is unique in the universe because at the moment it is, it is nothing else, nothing else it. Like Shen-hui said:
"One talks of the Void for the benefit of those who have not seen their own Buddha-natures. For those who have seen their own Buddha-natures the Void does not exist."
So, added all together how does all of it work and what, if anything, does it mean to you? Again, another illustration:

You go to Las Vegas on a certain day on a certain time and select a given video poker machine out of all of the machines in all of the casinos in all of Las Vegas. You buy twenty dollars in quarters and start putting the coins into the machine. Pretty soon the quarters are all gone, you haven't won anything, get up and leave. What has happened? Of the money that you have or had you are now out twenty dollars, twenty dollars you won't spend somewhere else with all of it's downstream ramifications. Ramifications such as items you could have possibly purchased and their use thereof or taken out of circulation for others not to use. You also took not just twenty dollars, but twenty dollars in quarters out of circulation and put them into a video machine, plus, you using the machine at a given time at a given place prevented others from using the same machine at the same time, which bumped them to some other machine or none at all, impacting their own and others downstream flow. Now, as money, those quarters have inherent downstream impact anyway, but now they are sitting in a video poker machine waiting to impact the next person, or the next, or the next. But, lets say instead of losing your quarters you hit a royal flush and won four thousand quarters for a total of one thousand dollars. Now you have a thousand dollars you will distribute and spend in your own lifestream activities, impacting those who come in contact with the money from you just like you have been impacted by having a thousand to spend you didn't have before, etc., etc. Plus, by you winning, you have denied the further use of that money by anybody else who may have accessed the machine and how any of it may have impacted them and others and others and others.
So, what am I getting at? I am just pointing out that everything is interconnected. No matter what you do or don't do, in doing it or not doing it, everything is impacted because everything is interconnected. And that is the answer to why you are. If you were not, at this moment, and did not tie up or ever tie up all the aggregates or constituents that make you up, then those aggregates or constituents either might not have ever existed, or if they did, would be split up and used somewhere else, bumping everything from where it is to some other place to some other place to some other place...because if you were not, that is, never existed, then everything and every part that ever proceeded leading up to you being you would not have unfolded the way it has or be where it is or was or be impacted by what you are or have done or will do. The mere fact you are tying up the aggregates or constituents you are tying up is WHY the universe is the way it is. See how important you are? If it wasn't for you nothing else would be the same. In other words:
This being present, that arises; without this, that does not occur.







Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where
we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience
and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.

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IN THE WAY OF ENLIGHTENMENT: The Ten Fetters of Buddhism

Some excerpts from TheTaoBums forummer Lucky7Strikes. He is 20 years old like me. He had gone a long way in a short amount of time, and was very willing to let go of his deeply held beliefs and recently had insight into non-dual and experienced No-Mind.

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...No-self is not seductive. I see that it is as reality truly is. It didn't make sense to me because I didn't understand it, or I tried to understand it without direct experience. The very act of "trying to make sense of it" is a mistaken approach to understanding a direct insight. And since my experience was governed by the attempt to make sense of it, it is not whole, it is not sincere. (By the way, your thinking of "categorical framework" is yet another "categorical framework.") But explanations in Buddhism have been as direct as anything I have come across. You can't get much direct than that.

I speak mainly of my own mistakes in approach to Buddhism in the previous paragraph and believe that you are encountering similar problems. But I can only speak from my experience, so I am doing that. ^_^

After considering many aspects of Buddhist thought I discarded it for the dual model of Consciousness and Object because of the problem of "free will" (but that is another discussion). Like you, I tried to make sense of it, which was a mistake and when it didn't make "sense" to my liking, I couldn't agree with it. But during meditation, Kunlun, etc, I realized that the very concept of Background or Watcher was very detrimental to exploring and evolving into newer ground of experience that my body (I was not consciously doing this) was trying to break through (Kunlun does this through two aspects). It was as if I had let go of thoughts, but then clung to a state of consciousness that was supposedly behind those thoughts, a new "entity" of sorts. There was a dropping of thoughts only to come to another level of "thoughts." I felt that the progress I was making through Kunlun and meditation was continually shifting and challenging this "ground."

So for sometime I gave to the mantra "thinking, but no thinker, sound but no hearer on and on, free will be damned :D " And immediately everything fell into alignment. There was nothing holding my practice in the sense of "goals" (higher state, purer state of consciousness and such) or a crash between through/ground, evolution/identity. The act itself was all there was. Really all aspect of practice changed when I delved into this switch in perception, and not only was there no longer a division between me "practicing" and not practicing, but every waking hour was truly practice itself! There was no need to "stabilize" any state, but simply recognize thoughts and thoughts, walking as walking, wanting to sit as sitting, sitting as sitting, etc.

So I hope you give it a try. It's quite a new opening.

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And here is the precise problem of interpreting reality dualistically as phenomenon and Consciousness. Experience is always non-dual. Why? Because when we try to investigate its duality, already another experience arises. We can never ascertain the duality of experience, because upon seeing duality, we see the new non-dual "duality" and not the original experience (itself also non-dual) attempted to be investigated. Hence we can never perceive the original experience and analyze it, but only transform it into a new experience.

So if there was a background called "Consciousness" and the foreground, the two would need to present themselves as one. But our daily experiences are different! From moment to moment a different experience arises! The table, the chair, hunger, thought of "what is consciousness?" all arise in their difference. So there is no point to ascribing a one unifying term to call these experiences as one, if we do so, we are discarding the very basis of language which is to discern and sort through differences.

You are still thinking in the definitive dual aspect of phenomenon and consciousness. There is no such division in experience. The division is made only upon a senseless label like saying wind is separate from blowing.

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D: The description of the tissue box might not be the direct experience of it, but you have experienced tissues boxes and you will know what is being referred to (say you formulate a mental image of a tissue box while reading about it). That means it is within the bounds of name and form (nama rupa). Therefore, it is a phenomenon. Consciousness is not like a tissue box. You can neither give it a form nor a description. Why don't you try? Again, Awarenss (which is a result of conscious' interaction with objects) is not the same as Consciousness.

Lucky7Strikes: If you read my post again, its purpose was to show you that no phenomena such as "tissue" box can be established. That in fact when I form a mental image of it, it will not be the tissue box, but its mental image and that when I see a tissue box, it will be a vision and not the box, that if I touch it, it will be the sensation of cardboard and not tissue box, and so on. In fact, no tissue box can be found.

Likewise, when we return to what you said about phenomena being able to be describe, there is no such phenomena to be described at all. The description itself is already the non-dual phenomena. What you are not understanding is that there is no solidified "it" to begin with, everything is fleeting without boundary nor definition. There is only conventional usage of language, but we must understand them to be conventional symbols and not accurate indications of reality.

I'm not sure where I mentioned the difference between awareness and consciousness and why you brought it up. But I will answer that with what you wrote to Bob, that you are too "fixated on words to understand."

D: :) Everything in our material universe has a beginning and an end (they are temporal). Pure Consciousness (the True Self) has no beginning or end. I agree that Consciousness is Luminous Emptiness...and I also agree that in experience they are inseparable from it's objects... but that is not all. That is not what the Turiya state shows....Consciousness stands and exists in it's own light without any objects (go back to the gap between thoughts)

BTW, have you wondered why it is called "luminous"?

Lucky7Strikes: Before stating that everything in the material universe has a beginning and an end, one should first investigate whether there is such thing as a material universe, and the very concept of beginning and end, and whether these ideas are conventional communicative tools or hold to reality, as in whether the symbols match the actual experience.

You don't agree on the usage of the word emptiness or consciousness, so agreement on the term "consciousness luminous emptiness" doesn't mean much here. :P .

Luminosity is simply the pure quality, the self-aware clarity of moment to moment arising of any experience. It points to direct experience without a line between "background" or "foreground" Just this, now.

The gap between thoughts is simply experiencing another experience that is without thoughts. There is nothing special about it at all. You think, then you taste, then think again. There the tasting was the gap. If you are then going to say, "no, simple pure consciousness between the aggregates, form, thoughts, etc," then it is formless consciousness as it is. And then we have another experience after that, yes? So what's so special about it? (This is kind of off topic, but I also want to metion: Didn't the world in your view come about from this so call Absolute Self? Why? Why did all this suffering come from this absolutely pure source that is eternally blissful? Does it play games with our suffering? That's kind of cruel don't you think?)

We love saying "beyond, beyond, beyond" but the truth must be applicable this very moment as it is in whatever state there is. That this Consciousness in beyond time, that it is beyond space, beyond description, beyond this and this and this. Xabir writes about "I Am" ness, but then you refuse to acknowledge that it can be described, and you even wrote above that it cannot be experienced. Why not see reality as it is right at this moment and let the idea of the Ultimate rest? We should be investigating our wrongly held assumptions and not creating a demi-God concept of "beyondness" over and over again as if trying to attain a godly state. Simply see each moment in its non-dual arising, it unlocatability, and be free in it. Why create more unnecessary struggle? It is the "soul"s game, the ego's play. 

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This is the eternal nature of impermanence, not eternal "stillness." When the notion of "witness" is discarded, we experience stillness in movement because we perceive it without a center, without a reference point. We also experience movement in stillness because equanimity that arises from seeing phenomena as empty.

In fact, the position you take above is detrimental to meditative progress because the seeker continues to try to find states that are "absolutely still," clings to it, believes it to be ultimates, sees phenomena as rising in it. I do not know what your practice consists of, but if it is finding states without thought, I'd suggest that is a method towards insight and not trying to reach a "still" state.

I'm not sure how many times the importance of luminous aspect has been stressed in these discussions. The experience has not be dismissed, but incorporated.

Bob, I think you are confused at the application of terms as characteristics or nouns. Luminosity is not a noun, it is not a thing, it is a characteristic. Like "roundness" or "roughness" Because everything I see in a particular room is round, I do not think to myself "ah ha!" there is "roundness" behind the object! But rather the object is displaying a characteristic of roundness and so on. 

This problem arises because of seeing dualistically as "perceiver" and "perception." It is a similar problem of objectifying certain way or moments of perception and discriminating one as perceiver and other as perceived, kind of like saying, hearing "taste", or touching "sound." Of course, this is impossible, what is actually happening is the mind and language symbolizes them in order to relate them in non sensical manners.

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That's exactly right. I am not I. There was no "I" to begin with. Only the flowing of consciousness-phenomena in various forms, there is typing, there is speaking, there is breath, just like a rock that falls to earth by gravity, does my consciousness function from moment to moment according to laws, habits, nature, and harmony.

There is no confusion. Even your confusion is the expression of luminous emptiness expressing itself by the very laws of this universe. Please (I say this with real respect) note that what you wrote above addresses nothing that I wrote, but is just a pure re assertion of your views. Discussions like this is often difficult to carry out and again, fruitless.

Buddhism does not dismiss that each momentary experience is luminous, that is is aware. And awareness is the very nature of the phenomena being expressed and perfectly non dual. There is no "seer" and no "objective phenomena." There never was. So although I say there is the action of typing, speaking, and breath, it is different than when these activities are experienced as bare sensations. The habitual symbols we use to label typing as "typing" or speaking as "speaking" in the mind drop off. This is what I am beginning to experience more and more than in the past when I, like you (in a desperate attempt to preserve my free will, the pride of struggle, etc.).

I too desperately wanted there to be the absolute, the God, the holy, but it limits the mind to solidifying experiences and states of consciousness or bliss. Any "absolute" term, be it no-self, Self, This, That, is a limitation and a grasping.

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I think you misread my post. I used "hearing taste" and "touching sound" to show the mistaken way of viewing a perceiver. I'm not hiding behind concepts. It is these concepts that greatly hinder actual practice. Any identification or solidification through symbolic terms such as "consciousness" or "book" or "chariot" in a continous manner (of course, this is beneficial to certain states of practice, kinda like "noting") is a limitation on oneself.

You can call consciousness as beyond phenomena all day. But it just doesn't make sense. Tell me what that experience is. Is it blissful? Then the feeling of bliss is its phenomena. Is it empty? Than formlessness is its phenomena. Is it nothing? Than it is no conscious. Is it pure? Than it's purity is its phenomena. Searching for this ultimate state or identifying it, glorifying it, is like dreaming the impossible goal, an imagination that is worst, it is imagining the impossible, so you will never be satisfied no matter what stage of practice you arrive at.
 
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Sure Dwai, you can say that last part too. But in my opinion, you have to apply it in a different manner as it is easily susceptible to dualistic misunderstanding. You see phenomena and consciousness as different things so the last edition also wouldn't make sense. It contradicts your very first sentence.

There is no denying there is the continual "taste" of consciousness from one event to another. Indeed, there is no experience without the consciousness aspect. Let's say you look at the desk and it is brown. Then you see the window as white. Then you see the sky as blue. Do you think "ah, it is the background of "color" or the doing of "color" that is producing all these various colors? Probably not. Color is an continuous aspect of the varying phenomena, not an agent or a substream.

But what I wrote above is just what Xabir has written over and over to you. You refuse to open your mind to an alternative due to attachment to tradition.


http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/issues/2009/spring/magical.php

For the meditator who sees things as they really are, explains the late Mahasi Sayadaw, there is no “I” or “being”—only mental and physical phenomena coming together in the present moment.


Seeing the mind (mental phenomena, which incline toward sense-objects) and body (physical phenomena, which change) as they really are is the purification of view.

Visuddhimagga 2, 222
A meditator will rarely have wandering thoughts once concentration becomes strong. Instead, there will be an uninterrupted flow of pure noting mind most of the time. If a wandering thought does enter the mind, the meditator will be able to note it immediately and the thought will pass away. The meditator sees physical phenomena as they really are: that they are subject to alteration and that they are not able to know or experience anything. They are insensible (abyakata), inanimate, just like a log or stone.
As the meditator is noting, it becomes obvious that the noting mind resembles running to and sticking with the noted object. Likewise, it becomes obvious that the six types of consciousness—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking—seem to go to their respective sense objects. The meditator is seeing and understanding mental phenomena as they really are, seeing their characteristic of inclining, or being drawn toward, sense objects.
For the meditator who sees things as they really are, it is obvious that the mental and physical phenomena are different. They are not taken as one and the same anymore, as they were before the practice of meditation. When the meditator observes the rising movement (of the abdomen when breathing in), he or she can at least discern between the rising movement and the noting mind. Similarly, the meditator can differentiate between the falling movement (of the abdomen when breathing out) and the noting of it; the sitting posture and the noting of it; the intention to bend, the bending movement, and the noting of it; the intention to stretch, the stretching movement, and the noting of it; the visible form, the eye, the seeing, and the noting of it.
Before a drum is beaten, its sound does not exist in the drum itself, the drumstick, or anywhere in between. Even though a sound occurs when the drum is beat, the sound does not originate from the drum or the drumstick. The physical phenomena of drum and drumstick are not transformed into a sound nor does the sound originate from anywhere in between drum and drumstick. In dependence on the drum, the drumstick, and the hitting of the drum, the sound is a completely new phenomenon each time the drum is hit. The drum and the stick are different from the sound.
In the same way, before you see something or someone, seeing does not exist in the eye, in the visible form, or anywhere in between. The seeing that takes place neither originates in the eye nor in the visible form. The seeing consciousness neither originates in the eye nor in the visible forms, which are physical phenomena. It also does not originate from anywhere in between. Seeing is actually a new phenomenon that arises due to the combination of the eye, the visible form, light, and your attention. Thus, the eye and the visible form are different from the seeing. The same is true for the other senses.
When you understand the difference between mental and physical phenomena, you are likely to reflect that neither the mind nor the body alone can perform actions such as sitting, standing, walking, bending, stretching, seeing, hearing, and so on. Only the mind and body together can perform these activities.
Because of this, the mind and body together are mistaken for “I.” One thinks, “I am sitting; I am standing up; I am going; I am bending; I am stretching; I am seeing; I am hearing,” and so on. In reality, there is no “I” or “being” that sits, stands up, and walks, but only mental and physical phenomena. That is why the Visuddhimagga (2, 231) says:
In reality, mind conditions matter, and matter conditions mind. When the mind wants to eat, drink, speak, or change posture, it is the body that actually eats, drinks, speaks, or changes posture.
When we expand on this, we can say:
The volition to eat is mental, but what actually eats is the body. The volition to drink is mental, but what actually drinks is the body.
The volition to speak is mental, but what actually speaks is the body.
The volition to sit down is mental, but what actually sits down is the body.
The volition to stand up is mental, but what actually stands up is the body.
Some meditators may use similes to describe their experience of mental and physical phenomena. The Visuddhimagga (2, 228) gives these similes:
A coach is so called because of the way that its components are assembled: the axles, wheels, body, and shafts. However, if you examine each component separately, there is no coach to be found. A house is so called when its materials, posts, beams, etc., are fit together. Other than these materials, however, there is no house that can be found. A tree is so called because it includes a trunk, branches, and leaves, and so on. But apart from these parts, no tree can be found.

In the same way, a being is so called because he or she is composed of the five aggregates of clinging, i.e. mental and physical phenomena. However, if you pay attention to each of these phenomena separately, you will no longer have the conceit that, “I am so and so,” or the wrong belief that, “I am a person.” You realize that, in terms of ultimate reality, there is no being that exists. All that exists is the mind, which is able to incline to the object and know the object, and matter, which is not able to know the object and is subject to alteration. This realization is called “seeing things as they really are.”
Being able to come up with a good simile, however, doesn’t matter. Without thinking deliberately, while you are simply noting, you are able to discern between mental and physical phenomena, and you understand that in this body there are only mental phenomena that are able to know objects and physical phenomena that are not able to know objects. Besides these two phenomena, there is no being, I, soul, or self. This understanding comes naturally and is the peak of the insight knowledge of mental and physical phenomena. This insight knowledge in turn is called “the purification of view,” as it helps to remove the deluded view that a being really exists (atta-ditthi). That is why the Mahātīkā [the commentary to the Visuddhimagga] says:
The phrase “seeing mind and matter as they really are” means seeing them as just phenomena and not a being by observing their individual characteristics, thus: “This is mind; this much is mind; there is nothing more than this (i.e., no being). This is matter; this much is matter; there is nothing more than this (i.e., no being).” This is purification of view, as it eliminates the deluded view that a being really exists. Thus should it be understood.
The individual characteristics of physical phenomena (such as alteration or roughness and hardness) and individual characteristics of mental phenomena (such as inclining toward the object, mental contact with the object, feeling, perceiving, or knowing of an object) only really exist in the moment they occur—not before or after. That is why you can only be truly aware of the specific characteristics of mental and physical phenomena when you observe them from moment to moment. In this way, you understand that there is no “I” or being, but only mental and physical phenomena. This understanding is called the purification of view. It means that this understanding can eliminate the wrong view of a person or being.
When the characteristics of mind and matter have been understood as they truly are by noting the presently arising objects, the meditator comes to see the causes of those phenomena. With this, the insight knowledge of conditionality will arise: the realization that certain causes give rise to certain phenomena, whether in the past, present, or future. This insight knowledge can take various forms, depending on a person’s aspiration, spiritual maturity, and intellectual ability. The Visuddhimagga identifies five forms, which are explained in the sections below.

The First Way of Seeing Conditionality

Seeing the Causes of Matter

Some meditators see the causes of matter. They see that physical phenomena have been continuously occurring, from birth up to the present moment, due to the four causes of ignorance, desire, clinging, and volitional actions in the past. They also see that the nutrition they receive in the present preserves the body, and that the desire to sit, bend, and so forth results in the physical actions of sitting, bending, etc. As well, they see that hot and cold environments give rise to hot and cold physical sensations.
A meditator can empirically observe the present causes for physical phenomena, such as nutrition, consciousness, and weather. But one cannot directly observe the causes from the past, such as ignorance, desire, clinging, and volitional actions. However, even before beginning meditation practice, a vipassana meditator has already accepted intellectually that wholesome actions lead to a good life and beneficial results, whereas unwholesome actions lead to a bad life and unbeneficial results. Therefore, when one practices and empirically observes ignorance, craving, clinging, and volitional actions in the present, one will inferentially realize that they were also operating in the past.
The mental and physical phenomena that make up our lives are all unsatisfying. Attachment to them is the cause of suffering. Not knowing this truth is called “ignorance of suffering and its cause.” Believing that the phenomena of life are actually satisfying and the cause of happiness is called the “delusion of pleasure and its cause.” These two kinds of delusion are deeply rooted in the hearts of ordinary people. They devote themselves day and night to enjoying as much pleasure as possible. Day and night, they do everything they can to get the most out of their present life and to enjoy better lives in the future. These delusions, therefore, cannot be overcome simply through study.
On the other hand, the cessation of the defilements and volitional actions as the causes of suffering leads to the complete cessation of all mental and physical phenomena at the time of entering parinibbana. One is no longer reborn as a human or deva, man or woman. This is called the truth of cessation.
Ignorance of the peace and happiness of nibbana, as well as ignorance of insight practice and the path (the causes of happiness and peace), can be called “ignorance of suffering and its cause.” Believing that nibbana must be awful and that insight practice and the path are causes of suffering can be called the “delusion of pleasure and its cause.” In other words, these are distorted and wrong understandings of the truths about the cessation of suffering and the way leading to its cessation.
If these two kinds of ignorance are very strong, one may actually fear nibbana, thinking that after parinibbana nothing will arise, nothing can be known or experienced, and one cannot meet others anymore. One may even make disparaging comments about liberation, saying, “Nibbana is complete annihilation. It can’t possibly be good. Practicing to attain it is simply going to a lot of trouble, mentally and physically, to attain annihilation!” For ordinary people, this active form of ignorance and wrong understanding of the four noble truths occurs only at certain times. However, it occurs in its dormant form along with every object that is not noted. Therefore, if ignorance is noted at the time of its occurrence, it can be empirically seen by the meditator.
In addition, if these mental and physical phenomena are mistakenly believed to be satisfying, liking and attachment arises. As a result, the desire to become more prosperous arises. This is clinging. Because of clinging, various activities—volitional actions—are performed.
Craving, clinging, and volitional actions can be seen by noting them as they are occurring and by recollecting them from the past. When the meditator sees in practice how volitional actions have their origins in ignorance, craving, and clinging, he or she realizes that because of volitional actions in the past there is continuous arising of physical phenomena in this life starting at the moment of rebirth-linking (the consciousness that gives rise to rebirth after death based on karmic accumulation). At the same time, the meditator understands that these physical phenomena also arise because of ignorance, craving, and clinging. We call this “realizing the causes of physical phenomena empirically and inferentially.”

Seeing the Causes of Mind

When seeing is noted, the meditator understands and comprehends that seeing occurs when there is the eye and a visible form. Or the meditator understands and comprehends that with the meeting of the eye, the visible form, and the seeing, there is contact between the object and the mind. The same is true for all the senses. Furthermore, when a meditator notes “seeing,” or “hearing,” or “touching,” or “thinking,” etc., he or she can see that contact with the object arouses pleasure or displeasure in the body or mind.
Pleasure is enjoyed and therefore the desire for continuous enjoyment arises. The meditator wants to get rid of the displeasure and wants pleasure instead. The clinging to pleasure causes actions of body, speech, and thoughts with the aim of gaining enjoyment. In this way, the meditator empirically sees the causes of the mind in an adequate manner.

Inferential Knowledge Regarding the Past and Future

Once a meditator has empirically seen the causes of mental and physical phenomena in the present life, he or she concludes with inferential knowledge that they must be the same in the past and future: “In the past, there were only these mental and physical phenomena which occurred due to certain causes. In the future, there will only be these mental and physical phenomena which will occur due to certain causes.”

Overcoming the Sixteen Kinds of Skeptical Doubts

A meditator who understands and comprehends that in the past, future, and present, there are only mental and physical phenomena that give rise to other mental and physical phenomena can abandon and overcome the belief in a self and the related sixteen kinds of doubts, which are as follows:
Five doubts about one’s existence in the past:
1. Did I exist in previous lives? (the notion that the “I” has existed forever)
2. Did I not exist in previous lives? (the notion that the “I” only exists in this present life)
3. What was I in previous lives? (rich or poor, lay, ordained, Myanmar, Indian, brahma, deva, human or animal, etc.)
4. What did I look like in previous lives (tall, short, fat, thin, fair, dark, etc.), and who or what created me in previous lives (God, Brahma, or another celestial being or did I spontaneously come into existence)?
5. What type of person was I in previous lives?
Five doubts about one’s existence in the future:
6. Will I have another life after death? (the notion that the “I” is indestructible and eternal)
7. Will I not have another life after death? (the notion that the “I” will disappear after death)
8. What will I be in my next life?
9. What will I look like in my next life, and who or what will create my next life?
10. What type of person will I be in my next life?
Six doubts about one’s existence in the present:
11. Is there an “I” (being, self, soul, spirit) in this body?
12. Is there not an “I” in this body?
13. What is this “I”? (rich or poor, lay, ordained, Myanmar, Indian, brahma, deva, human, or animal, etc.)
14. What does this “I” look like?
15. From where or what previous life did this “I” transmigrate?
16. To where or what future life will this “I” transmigrate?
These sixteen kinds of doubt only arise in those who believe in the existence of a “self.” They do not arise in those who understand that there is only a succession of mental and physical phenomena based on cause and effect—devoid of a “self” or an “I.”
One can only have doubts about whether or not a rabbit has horns if one does not really know what a rabbit looks like. If one has actually seen a rabbit, however, it would not be possible to entertain this doubt.

The Second Way of Seeing Conditionality

Some meditators experience the conditionality of mental and physical phenomena arising as follows:
I see due to the eye and visible forms. I hear due to the ear and sounds. I smell due to the nose and odors. I taste sweet, sour, and so forth, due to the tongue and flavors. I know touching sensations due to the body and tangible objects. I think, reflect, and note objects due to the heart-base and various mental objects. Due to wise attention, living in a suitable place, associating with virtuous people, listening to the dhamma expounded by the wise, and having mature paramis (virtues or perfections), there arises wholesomeness and the ability to practice insight meditation. Due to unwise attention, living in an unsuitable place, associating with evil people, listening to the words of immoral people, and having poorly developed paramis, there arises unwholesomeness. Wholesome volitional actions based on delusion, craving, and clinging result in a fortunate rebirth, in good and pleasant objects at all six sense doors, and in many beneficial results. Unwholesome volitional actions based on delusion, craving, and clinging result in an unfortunate rebirth, in bad and unpleasant objects at all six sense doors, and in many unbeneficial results.
The physical phenomena that make up the heart-base, eye, ear, and so on, have been arising continuously since the first moment of this life due to past volitional actions.
The physical activities of sitting, walking, bending, and so on are caused by the intention or desire to do so.
The temperature of the external environment causes physical sensations of heat or cold. The nutrition in the food one eats gives energy to the body…
Meditators who understand and comprehend that in the present, there are only mental and physical phenomena that give rise to other mental and physical phenomena, inferentially understand that the same is true for the past and the future.

The Third and Fourth Ways of Seeing Conditionality

Some meditators see the arising, presence, and disappearance of conditioned phenomena while observing presently arising objects. From this, they understand that the first arising of the mind in this life is just another moment of arising of the mind. They also understand that death is just another moment of disappearance of the mind. They understand that aging is the successive presence of mental and physical phenomena. Therefore, the causes for mental and physical phenomena are understood. It can be understood in this way:
For aging and death, first there must be arising or rebirth.

Arising or rebirth in turn is generated by volitional actions.

Volitional actions are generated by clinging.

Clinging is caused by attachment to mental and physical phenomena.

Attachment results from pleasant and unpleasant sensations.

Sensations are brought about by contact between the mind and sense-objects

Contact originates from the sense-bases, the sensitive matter of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind (i.e., because of the eye-sensitivity and the mind, seeing occurs, and so on).

The sense-bases come into existence due to the mental and physical phenomena on which they depend (i.e., the sensitive matter of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body are based on the physical organs, and the mind is based on its physical base and the other mental elements).

Mental and physical phenomena are generated by various types of consciousness, such as rebirth-linking consciousness, the life-continuum and sense-consciousness.

Consciousness has its origin in volitional deeds that one has performed in past lives for one’s well-being.

Volitional actions arise from ignorance and delusion.
Noble beings, such as bodhisattas, fully realize conditionality in this way, by seeing dependent origination (paticcasamuppāda) in reverse order. Ordinary meditators are also able to realize conditionality this way and overcome the sixteen kinds of doubt. This is the third way of seeing the conditionality of mental and physical phenomena.
Other meditators realize conditionality by seeing dependent origination in forward order. That is, they realize that ignorance and delusion generate volitional actions, and that volitional actions generate consciousness, and so on. Noble beings, such as bodhisattas, fully realize conditionality in this way. Ordinary meditators are also able to realize conditionality this way and overcome the sixteen kinds of doubt. This is the fourth way of seeing the conditionality of mental and physical phenomena.

The Fifth Way of Seeing Conditionality

Some meditators see the conditionality of mental and physical phenomena in terms of the relationship between volitional acts and their results. This relationship between volitional action and its results is divided into the cycle of volitional actions (kamma-vatta) and the cycle of results (vipāka-vatta). The cycle of volitional actions includes ignorance and delusion, volitional action, attachment, clinging, and existence based on volitional actions (kamma-bhava). The cycle of results includes consciousness, mental and physical phenomena, the sense-bases, mental contact, and feeling.
If a meditator considered conditionality in detail, he or she would see each of the five causal factors and the five resultant factors. If a meditator considered it in general, he or she would not differentiate each individual cause and result. Instead, he or she would simply see volitional action as the cycle of volitional acts, and would see the kammic results of volitional actions as the cycle of results.
In the following sections, I explain how the Patisambhidāmagga, in the Pali Canon, explains the cycle of volitional actions and the cycle of results.

Causal Factors from Previous Lives

The volition generated as one plans to perform a wholesome or unwholesome action is sankhāra. It is the volition that compels one to perform that action right away. However, the volition that is generated while actually performing the wholesome or unwholesome action is kamma-bhava.
Here’s an example of kamma-bhava: while giving something to someone, you let go of the thing and hand it over to the recipient so that he or she can do with it as he or she pleases. In the case of killing, you do that act so that the other being dies. In this way, the action is completed. It is just the same with other wholesome or unwholesome deeds.
There are five causal factors that occur as follows:
Ignorance and delusionlead to craving

Craving leads to clinging

Clinging leads to volition involved in preparing to act

Preparing to act leads to volition involved in carrying out the act

After carrying out the act one mistakenly thinks that the act is a cause for happiness and that the result to be experienced will be happiness
With this, ignorance is generated again, followed by craving, clinging, and so on. In this way, volitional actions, supported by ignorance and craving, can lead to rebirth.

Resultant Factors in the Present Life

When a meditator is noting mental and physical phenomena from moment to moment, it is obvious that successive moments of consciousness (seeing, hearing, etc.) are part of an ongoing mental process. In the same way, the moment of rebirth-linking consciousness of this present life can be understood as the successor to the last moment of consciousness (i.e., death) of the previous life.
If a meditator notes phenomena continuously from moment to moment, he or she will see new phenomena coming into existence. He or she can then realize inferentially that the phenomena at the moment of rebirth arose in the same manner. The same is true for the six senses, contact, and feeling. These resultant phenomena eventually give rise to the five causal phenomena when the six sense-bases mature.

Causal Factors in the Present Life and Resultant Factors in Future Lives

When the sense bases become mature in this present life, the five causal factors are generated: ignorance or delusion, wholesome or unwholesome volition, craving, clinging, and volitional action that result in new life. These five factors are generated when performing volitional acts in the present life and are the causes of future rebirth.

Patisambhidāmagga, 30
These present causal factors lead to the arising of the five resultant factors in the future:
In the future, there will be rebirth-linking consciousness, mental and physical phenomena, the six sense-bases, contact between the mind and sense-object, and feeling or sensation. These five resultant factors will arise in future existences caused by volitional acts performed in this life.

Patisambhidāmagga, 51

Inferential Knowledge

The five causal factors that were generated in past lives are the same as those generated in the present life. Also, the five resultant factors that will be generated in future lives will be the same as those generated in the present life. Therefore, if one empirically perceives the causal and resultant factors in the present life, one will also inferentially realize the causes generated in past lives and the results that will be generated in future lives.
These five resultant factors are all contained within one moment of consciousness. Therefore, if one is aware of these resultant factors in a general way, one will see all of them together as a whole. For example, when one notes a pleasant or unpleasant object, one is aware that the sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, or thought simply arises of its own accord as the result of past volitional action. One is not aware of each resultant factor separately, noticing, “This is consciousness; these are the mental and physical phenomena,” and so on.
Instead, one experiences all five of the causal factors together during a single moment of noting, seeing that they are the past causes. One then realizes that all volitional activities performed for the sake of one’s well-being, whether physical, verbal, or mental, whether in this life or the next, constitute volitional action that will lead to rebirth. However, one doesn’t see the resultant factors separately as, “This is ignorance; this is volitional action,and so on.
Because the meditator finds only the causal and resultant factors at the time of noting, he or she concludes, “In past lives too, there was only volitional action and its result. In future lives too, there will only be volitional action and its results. There is only volitional action and its results, and no individual or personality who produces volitional action or enjoys or suffers its results.”

MAHASI SAYADAW was born in Burma in 1904 and ordained as a Buddhist monk at age twenty. He published many volumes of Buddhist literature in Burmese, including a Burmese translation of the Visuddhimagga. The teaching presented here is adapted from his newly translated Manual of Insight, edited by Steve Armstrong and Deborah Ratner-Helzer. Many of the early Insight Meditation teachers in the West were trained in Mahasi Sayadaw’s tradition of vipassana meditation. In 1979 he traveled to the West and taught at the newly founded Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. He died in 1982.
Someone asked me:

"What does "realized as non-inherent" mean?

I don't understand what Thusness said:

(in Buddhism) non-dual is understood from a non-inherent and anatta perspective, when non-dual is understood from an inherent but non-dual perspective, it is advaita.

Could you elaborate?"



I said:

I wrote this post based on what Thusness/PasserBy said about 2 months ago.
http://newbuddhist.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5652

There are two kinds of bond: one is the bond of seeing dualistically, experiencing in terms of subject and object. The other is the bond of seeing inherently, where consciousness and objects of consciousness are treated to have inherent existence/essence. Both bonds must be removed, but they are separate bonds.

Seeing, hearing, smelling, etc... even thoughts, when realised as not divided into an observer and observed, inside and outside, then everything is experienced as the display of consciousness. To see everything is consciousness is non-dual insight, but there must be further insight into anatta and emptiness to realise the empty nature of consciousness. This is the transition from Stage 4 to Stage 5 and 6 of Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Enlightenment

It is not that manifestation are 'display of THE Consciousness' - there is no 'The Consciousness' as Consciousness is empty, in the same way we cannot accurately say that 'Clouds and Rain are the display of THE Weather', as 'Weather' as such is a convention but utterly without substantiality, essence, and location.

In other words, we may have notions of an all-pervasive Awareness, or Self, and experientially it is non-dual and this is a correct experience. But it is like the word 'Weather' - you can say everywhere you look into the sky, weather is not apart from that, but is there a truly existing 'Weather' apart from thinking about it? Is it located somewhere, or is it only these patterns of weather that dependently originate moment to moment? Similarly 'Awareness', 'Self' is simply a convention but is ultimately 'empty' - it is simply these self-luminous manifestation that dependently originate, it is just the stream of aggregates. That is why the Buddha talks about five skandhas instead of a One Consciousness, however non-duality (no subject and object) is already automatically implied by fully understanding anatta and five aggregates or eighteen dhatus. It is not that all five skandhas are just one awareness - that is just non-dual insight, but the insight into anatta is to see that the 'one awareness' cannot be found in or apart from the skandhas and dhatus, that there is simply the stream of aggregates. The experience is however still non-dual. When we understand that 'Awareness' like 'Weather' isn't something inherent, we also free ourselves from notions like 'things happening in Awareness' - just like you cannot say 'things happen in Weather' - weather isn't a findable essence or container of those phenomena, rather there is just those stream of phenomena which are conventionally called 'weather'.

Next is... can there be Consciousness without conditions? In Buddhism, no. In other religions, Consciousness is treated as a metaphysical essence, Self, substance, an ultimate source of everything that is one with yet transcends all manifestation, God, that has inherent existence. But in Buddhism we do not understand Consciousness in such ways. We have to factor in dependent origination.

So in other words, those in other religions who experience non-duality (subsuming subject and object into undivided One Mind) may claim something like "All There Is Is Consciousness", but they disregard conditions. They treat Consciousness as something inherent. But in Buddhism, we have to factor in causes and conditions. As Thusness commented on my friend Longchen's insight into Emptiness after realisation of non-dual,

I can see the synchronization of emptiness view into your non-dual experiences --. Integrating view, practice and experience. This is the essence of our emptiness nature and right understanding of non-dual experience in Buddhism that is different from Advaita Vedanta teaching. This is also the understanding of why Everything is the One Reality incorporating causes, conditions and luminosity of our Empty nature as One and inseparable. Everything as the One Reality should never be understood from a dualistic/inherent standpoint.

And as Longchen also wrote, "the conditions and factors are also inseparable from the non-dual oneness."

To understand the relationship between Dependent Origination and Consciousness one must study the Buddha's teachings on the 18 dhatus, the relation of conditions to the manifestation of consciousness, emphasis on anatta and emptiness instead of just emphasizing on discovering Brahman, One Consciousness, etc. It is not to deny All is Mind, but it is to understand All is Mind "due to" its empty nature and luminous essence, due to dependent origination and anatta. It is to see Consciousness not as an ultimate source of everything, but as interdependently originated manifestation, as Vajrahridaya puts it: there is the concept of the creative matrix in Buddhism and this matrix is without limit and is infinite. But it's not an eternal self standing infinite. It's an infinitude of mutually dependent finites... or "infinite finites" that persist eternally without beginning or end and without a source due to mutual, interpersonal causation you could say.

First of all Awareness is not like a mirror reflecting the world, but rather Awareness is a manifestation. Luminosity is an arising luminous manifestation rather than a mirror reflecting. The center here is being replaced with Dependent Origination, the experience however is non-dual.

One must learn how to see Appearances as Awareness and all others as conditions. Example, sound is awareness. The person, the stick, the bell, hitting, air, ears...are conditions. One should learn to see in this way. All problems arise because we cannot experience Awareness this way.

Zen Patriarch Bodhidharma explains, "With the condition of the eye, forms are seen, With the condition of ears, sounds are heard, With the condition of nose, smells are smelled, With the condition of tongue, tastes are tasted, every movement or states are all one's Mind."

Also, Nagarjuna explains, "When sound and ear assume their right relation, A consciousness free of thought occurs. These three are in essence the dharmadhatu, free of other characteristics, But they become "hearing" when thought of conceptually."

When consciousness experiences the pure sense of “I AM”, overwhelmed by the transcendental thoughtless moment of Beingness, consciousness clings to that experience as its purest identity. By doing so, it subtly creates a ‘watcher’ and fails to see that the ‘Pure Sense of Existence’ is nothing but an aspect of pure consciousness relating to the thought realm. This in turn serves as the karmic condition that prevents the experience of pure consciousness that arises from other sense-objects. Extending it to the other senses, there is hearing without a hearer and seeing without a seer -- the experience of Pure Sound-Consciousness is radically different from Pure Sight-Consciousness. Sincerely, if we are able to give up ‘I’ and replaces it with “Emptiness Nature”, Consciousness is experienced as non-local. No one state is purer than the other. All is just One Taste, the manifold of Presence.

To summarize:
Awareness is just a term, a label, a convention. I don't mean there is an ultimate pure awareness outside of the skandhas.

The term 'pure awareness' is also confusing -- for example as Thusness said, the experience of Pure Sound-Consciousness is radically different from Pure Sight-Consciousness. There is no 'THE Pure Awareness'. There is simply the six consciousness that dependently originates along with the six sense objects and faculties. I believe I have been pretty clear on that in my previous post. I use 'pure' in the sense of directness, nakedness, without conceptual layering.


Lastly I shall leave a quote by Traleg Rinpoche which I think is very important. The shentongpas have a point, they are trying to point out that you cannot deny the luminous aware nature to prevent over negation by certain Madhyamika followers. But in that process they reified luminous awareness into something unchanging. However, true Buddhism, as Traleg Rinpoche suggested, does not deny luminous-awareness/Buddha-Nature, but it also understands it's empty nature (empty of inherent existence).


Traleg Rinpoche:


Accepting the reality of buddhanature does not mean that one has to accept the Shentong interpretation of emptiness. Shentongpas regard the nature of mind as empty of defilements but not empty of its intrinsic nature. The notion of buddhanature, however, does not in itself imply that mind has any intrinsic nature. Many of the great Kagyü and Nyingma masters, in fact, have interpreted buddhanature to mean that mind is empty of both the defilements and any kind of inherent existence.
Written by Thusness/PasserBy at forum topic Mind and Self-Liberation
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Something I wrote in another forum, and re-edited, after discussing with Thusness (and still probably imperfect).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Subjectivity9 View 
Post
S9: No, what else are phenomena then, besides thoughts? Don’t say Awareness, please, as we both agree that there is ‘Constant Awareness,’ but sometimes Awareness is without illusions, illusion being described as wrongful view/or wrong perspective.

When we think that Awareness is being thought, what we are saying is that Awareness cannot be without thoughts. Any advanced meditator will tell you, in a New York minute, that this simply isn’t the case. Granted thoughts cannot be without Awareness, but this is because Awareness lends temporary existence to these thoughts, not the other way around. Can you see that they are not equal in this way? Thoughts are pure imagination, just as dreams are.
I think it is better to approach this way:

Non-conceptual thought VS conceptual thought instead of  Awareness VS Thoughts.

If you see it is “Awareness Vs Thoughts”, then it is dualistic and inherent view.  If you see it as non-conceptual thought, then eventually you will realize both non-conceptual and conceptual thoughts share the same luminous essence and empty nature.  Non-conceptual thought is non-verbal and direct.  It appears still and with the tendency to reify it is often mistaken as ‘Unchanging Witness’.

Therefore in your experience of the “I AMness”, I advise you to understand this experience from the perspective of “direct and non-conceptual aspect of perception” and how by being “direct and non-conceptual” creates that sort of ‘certain, unshakable and undeniable’ confidence.  That is, if a practitioner is fully authenticated from moment to moment the arising and passing phenomena, the practitioner will always have this sensation of ‘certain and unshaken’ confidence.
First of all there is no objective reality to thoughts, vision of tree, etc. Like David Carse said, what all this is is All That Is, pure Being Consciousness Bliss Outpouring; it is your perception of it as a physical world that is maya, illusion.

Awareness is not a tree or a thought in the sense that Awareness obviously is not objective like a 'thing' existing 'outside' separate from us. In fact, nothing exists 'outside', as explained earlier:

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
What David Carse said requires more than the “I AMness” realization you narrated in your post “Certainty of Being”.  It also requires more than just glimpses of the non-dual state that can be induced by penetrating the question:

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

It requires a practitioner to be sufficiently clear about the cause of ‘separation’ so that the perceptual knot that creates the ‘division’ is thoroughly seen through.  At this phase, non-dual becomes quite effortless.  The three following articles that you posted in your blog are all about the thorough insights of seeing through the illusionary division created by mental constructs.  They are all very well written.  It is worth revisiting these articles.

1. Body/No-Body
2. The Teachings of Atmananda and the Direct Path
3. The Direct Path

Of all the 3 articles, I like Joan’s article Body/No-body best.  Do not simply go through the motion of reading, read with a reverent heart.  Though a simple article but is not any less insightful than those written by well-known masters, it has all the answers and pointers you need. :)

Next, there are several points you made that is related to the deconstruction of mental objects but you should also note that there exist a predictable relationship between the 'mental object to be de-constructed' and 'the experiences and realizations'.  For example “The Teachings of Atmananda and the Direct Path” will, more often than not lead a practitioner to the realization of One Mind whereas the article from Joan will lead one to the experiential insight of No-Mind.  As a general guideline,

1. If you de-construct the subjective pole, you will be led to the experience of No-Mind.
2. If you de-construct the objective pole, you will be led to the experience of One-Mind.
3. If you go through a process of de-constructing prepositional phrases like "in/out" "inside/outside" "into/onto," "within/without" "here/there", you will dissolve the illusionary nature of locality and time.
4. If you simply go through the process of self-enquiry by disassociation and elimination without clearly understanding the non-inherent and dependent originated nature of phenomena, you will be led to the experience of “I AMness”.

Lastly, not to talk too much about self-liberation or the natural state, it can sound extremely misleading.  Although Joan Tollifson spoke of the natural non-dual state is something “so simple, so immediate, so obvious, so ever-present that we often overlook”, we have to understand that to even come to this realization of the “Simplicity of What Is”, a practitioner will need to undergo a painstaking process of de-constructing the mental constructs.  We must be deeply aware of the ‘blinding spell’ in order to understand consciousness.  I believe Joan must have gone through a period of deep confusions, not to under-estimate it. :)
This blog has evolved. I've just completed a revamp of the blog. This is the third major revamp, (the second major revamp being mainly done by Thusness/ByPasser in March 2009, which added many new features to the blog). Techies like me and Thusness would pay particular attention to these things ;)

Here are a few of the changes and new features -

- changed to a completely new blog design
- added 'contact us' form (on the menu above)
- fixed rss problem of not being able to show updated posts (sorry that your suscribed rss feed hasn't been updating since last year!)
- added new features to the sidebar like 'recent comments' and 'share it'
- each post now shows date of post
- each post now shows 'posted by' at the beginning of each post
- new icon included below each post to allow emailing of blog posts to friends
- flickr badge at the bottom of the blog that displays five randomly selected pictures from 'zen enlightenment' category
... and other minor changes and fixes