Certainty of Being
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Originally posted by Thusness:
Hi Simpo and AEN,
Yet we cannot get carried away by all these blissful experiences. Blissfulness is the result of luminosity whereas liberation is due to prajna wisdom. :)
To AEN,
For intense luminosity in the foreground, you will not only have vivid experience of ‘brilliant aliveness’, ‘you’ must also completely disappear. It is an experience of being totally ‘transparent’ and without boundaries. These experiences are quite obvious, u will not miss it. However the body-mind will not rest in great content due to an experience of intense luminosity. Contrary it can make a practitioner more attach to a non-dual ultimate luminous state.
For the mind to rest, it must have an experience of ‘great dissolve’ that whatever arises perpetually self liberates. It is not about phenomena dissolving into some great void but it is the empty nature of whatever arises that self-liberates. It is the direct experience of groundlessness and non –abiding due to direct insight of the empty nature of phenomena and that includes the non-dual luminous essence.
Therefore In addition to bringing this ‘taste’ to the foreground, u must also ‘realize’ the difference between wrong and right view. There is also a difference in saying “Different forms of Aliveness” and “There is just breath, sound, scenery...magical display that is utterly unfindable, ungraspable and without essence- empty.”
In the former case, realize how the mind is manifesting a subtle tendency of attempting to ‘pin’ and locate something that inherently exists. The mind feels uneasy and needs to seek for something due to its existing paradigm. It is not simply a matter of expression for communication sake but a habit that runs deep because it lacks a ‘view’ that is able to cater for reality that is dynamic, ungraspable, non-local , center-less and interdependent.
After direct realization of the non-dual essence and empty nature, the mind can then have a direct glimpse of what is meant by being ‘natural’, otherwise there will always be a ‘sense of contrivance’.
My 2 cents and have fun with ur army life. :-)
Hi Thusness,
Thanks again :)
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Originally posted by simpo_:
Hi Thusness,
Thanks again :)
Hi Simpo,How have you been getting on? I am planning for my retirement. :)
I think after stabilizing non-dual experience and maturing the insight of anatta, practice must turn towards ‘self-releasing’ and ‘dispassion’ rather than intensifying‘non-dual’ luminosity. Although being bare in attention or naked in awareness will help in dissolving the sense of ‘I’ and division, we must also look into dissolving the sense of ‘mine’. In my opinion, dissolving of the sense of ‘I’ does not equate to dissolving the sense of ‘mine’ and attachment to possessions can still be strong even after very stable non-dual experience. This is because the former realization only mange to eliminate the dualistic tendency while the latter requires us to embody and actualize the right view of ‘emptiness’. Very seldom do we realize it has a lot to do with our ‘view’ that we hold in our deep most consciousness. We must allow our luminous essence to meet differing conditions to realise the latent deep. All our body cells are imprinted and hardwired to ‘hold’. Not to under-estimate it. :-) -
Originally posted by Thusness:
Hi Simpo,How have you been getting on? I am planning for my retirement. :)
I think after stabilizing non-dual experience and maturing the insight of anatta, practice must turn towards ‘self-releasing’ and ‘dispassion’ rather than intensifying‘non-dual’ luminosity. Although being bare in attention or naked in awareness will help in dissolving the sense of ‘I’ and division, we must also look into dissolving the sense of ‘mine’. In my opinion, dissolving of the sense of ‘I’ does not equate to dissolving the sense of ‘mine’ and attachment to possessions can still be strong even after very stable non-dual experience. This is because the former realization only mange to eliminate the dualistic tendency while the latter requires us to embody and actualize the right view of ‘emptiness’. Very seldom do we realize it has a lot to do with our ‘view’ that we hold in our deep most consciousness. We must allow our luminous essence to meet differing conditions to realise the latent deep. All our body cells are imprinted and hardwired to ‘hold’. Not to under-estimate it. :-)Hi Thusness,
Thanks so much for the explanation. I just came back from meditating at the park... and can feel all the attachments...
I am far from retiring. But, nowadays, I don't care so much about my finances. I am working part-time as a lecturer and for this semester, need to be around the school for one or two days per week.
Right view (as in emptiness ) is not quite easy to stabilised. For the most part, it is currently mostly held as a memory.
I truly agree with what you say about dispassion. My biggest problem is my attachment to certain things and people. Yah, this have been problematic. I should let go of the attachment to mine.
Thanks again. :)
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Who am I?: The evolving journal and conversations of a self-inquirer just reached 200 views. lol
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This message is not about having a better experience, a more spiritual experience. It's not about escape. It's not about self-improvement. It's only about What Is. By the acknowledgement of our essence as non-dual awareness, the sense of bliss, of being 'home', a deep sense of contentment and peace is present wherever you are, with whatever you are experiencing. You will not think of trying to escape your present experience. You will see how futile it is for What Is, is inescapable, beyond acceptance and rejection.
For example, standing under the hot sun can be quite an unpleasant experience if you are giving rise to aversion to that moment of experience, mentally at war or complaining about the experience simply makes you suffer. But if you simply let go of that sense of self, a self being in aversion of an external hostile environment, you dissolve your desires and expectations and you feel totally complete, satisfied with things exactly as they are, unaltered, unmodified, uncorrected. And then even the sunrays and the heat are the bliss of Awareness, and I mean this quite literally in experience.
When you are trying to get away from that experience to some other experience which is perceived as being more pleasant, the sense of trying to escape present experience is due to a subject-object dichotomy, of being a 'someone' experiencing an 'unpleasant external situation'. In various situations, challenges, interactions with others, when the sense of a personal self arise, we lose sight of vivid nondual awareness. This is why clarity and the sense of self has an 'inverse relationship' - clarity is not apparent if sense of self is being believed in, even though awareness is ever-present, because you are overlaying/superimposing reality with a belief in something which is not reality, say, the belief in duality, the belief in a separate self, superimposing names and forms on experience and thereby believing that there exists innumerous independently existing objects in an external universe, existing in space and time.
And the question may arise, why does Awareness apparently becomes obscured when the sense of self arises? A sense of self is a sense of a reference point and it also comes with a sense of disivion. Nondual awareness is awareness without any reference points and without any divisions, whereas the sense of self is a conceptual image/identification of being someone located somewhere, separated from others. This identification with a false conceptual center and the arising opposites of a false 'hostile environment apart from us' obscures us from our original essence, we lose our direct perception of what IS. We overlay 'what IS' with our conceptual bifurcation of inside and outside, subject and object, me and others... we divide the One Indivisible Wholeness/Essence into a multiplicity of subjects and objects interacting with each other through naming and compartmentalizing conceptually. By dividing our experience we separate ourselves from the totality and no longer perceive the fundamental oneness underlying all appearances. And instead of seeing a thought as simply a thought passing by, we identify with an image of a personal 'me' and get stuck with a mental narrative and story and suffering. In the absence of all reference points is our original essence, an all pervasive awareness in which nothing is excluded or separate and nothing is personal. And there is no reference point whatsoever, a thought is simply a thought like a sound is simply a sound, a manifestation of universal awareness. Activities, challenges, interaction and experiences continues to happen in and as pristine awareness without a sense of a center or a sense of an other. Talking with others happen without a sense of 'me' and 'other'. Walking happens without a 'me' that is doing that. It's all happening like rain is happening without there being a controller of how the rain falls. Thoughts happen the same way as well, they just happen on its own accord like rain falls.
Seeing through and letting go of all reference points is all that is required. No effort to sustain a state of awareness is necessary - awareness already always is the case! You already ARE the Whole, Awareness, Totality, whatever you want to call it. IT is observing and appearing as This, whatever is appearing, right now. Awareness is complete as it is in this moment, spontaneously perfected. So what is happening is not that you are becoming more aware, but you are resting your dualizing mind, like the rippling pond settles down and then the entire sky and the moon are then clearly reflected in it in full clarity.
It's not that the sky and the moon wasn't reflected in full clarity before, but that the ripples on the pond apparently obscures its full clarity. In the same way, our dualizing thoughts and sense of self obscures the direct perception and clarity of non-dual awareness. It is the identification with a separate self (a sense of being alienated from Totality) that is clouding the waters, the sense of a reference point, a self-center, and a boundary, that is clouding direct perception of non-dual Reality.
So what is the remedy? Guru Padmasambhava said, "the unmodified uncorrected nature of the mind is liberated by its being allowed simply to remain in its own (original) natural condition." Full clarity is returned by not-doing, by simply letting the natural condition be as it is, by no longer clouding the waters with our dualistic vision and self-sense.Zen Master Huang Po:
"The one essence is Mind. The six sense-organs with their six sense-objects and resultant six sense-consciousnesses are, altogether, called the eighteen realms. If one perceives these eighteen realms as empty and reduces them to one essence, that essence is Mind. All Dharma students know this theoretically, but cannot divest themselves of views based on the duality and analysis of this essence and the grasping of the six senses. Being bound by these dharmas, they cannot silently understand Original Mind"
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http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=152061038160247
Nonduality: How Do You Know? Beyond Doubt and Certainty - by Jeff Foster
by Jeff Foster on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 at 6:22amQ. Jeff, do you really believe all of this 'nonduality' stuff?
I know that not a word I say could possibly be true, because no word can touch life. Life is too alive for words. So, no, I don’t actually believe in this stuff, in the sense that I cannot form it into a ‘belief’ that I’m separate from. I don’t believe in life – because there is only life. Life as it is does not require belief, and that’s the beauty of it. It is simply this – here and now. It is breathing happening, it is the heart beating, it is sights and sounds and smells appearing exactly as they appear. It is sound of the washing machine whirring. It is the taste of the cup of tea I’m drinking. So simple, so obvious, so present. So wonderfully ordinary, so extraordinarily wonderful. No need for belief, at all. All belief comes and goes, but this remains, whether Jeff believes it or not!
Life is the bonfire that burns up all beliefs, all words, even these words, leaving only presence. These words appear and are immediately burnt up. Jeff knows he is not special or different – he is simply an appearance in life. I cannot be an ‘authority on nonduality’, I cannot ‘know’ this, because these words are equal to the barking of a dog or the tweeting of a bird. It is all the One expression, it is all an expression of the One, and nobody can separate themselves from that expression and claim ownership. Nobody can teach life itself, nobody can give you that, because the dog barking, the bird singing, the sun shining is already life itself. Nobody can teach you it because everything is teaching it – everything is it.
I’m not saying “there is no authority, except for Jeff!” (and this is the guru trap of course). I’m saying there is no authority, and that includes Jeff and his expression . To be totally free from all authority, including your own... that’s the real freedom.
Q. You speak as though you know! But I’ll ask again: how do you know?
‘I’ don’t know. The ‘I’ cannot know. Because there is no ‘I’ separate from life that can know. There is only the not-knowing. And all knowledge arises and falls away in that.
See for yourself, and it’s as obvious as breathing.
Q. How do you know that?
These words come from the certainty that there is nothing to know. It’s not the certainty of the mind, but the certainty that is not-knowing itself.
All knowledge, all intellectual certainty, is just a play of thought. Beyond thoughts, there is no world. Beyond the world, there is nothing to know. Who would know it?
You see, where there is belief, there is doubt. Anything you believe, you can also doubt. If I believed any of this stuff, I could also doubt it. But because for me this is not a belief, there is no doubt either, not a trace of it.
Life as it is, cannot be doubted. In simple language, you cannot doubt that you are awake and present, right here, right now. You cannot doubt this simple feeling of being that is identical with life itself. You cannot doubt the sound of that bird singing, or the taste of this cup of tea, or breathing happening…
Oh yes, you can doubt everything you know about life, you can doubt all the language we use to point to and describe life, you can doubt even the word ‘life’ itself, but you cannot (unless you are in total denial!) doubt the reality to which the word ‘life’ points. And even if doubt appears, life is that which is doing the doubting. So in the end you can’t escape it. You are Home, no matter what. Beyond belief, beyond doubt, just this.
When there is nothing to know, when there is no belief and therefore no doubt, all that’s left is life itself, in all its beauty and rawness, and a deep, unshakeable knowing that this is all there is – and that this is enough (simply because this is all there is).
It’s not something that ‘you’ know. But, undoubtedly, it is known. Life knows, because life is. The Knowing is the Being, and in that, everything comes full circle, and life completes itself. The origin of life is its destination, and its destination is its origin. Creation and destruction are not-two.
To look life in the face, and to see only love, only an intimacy beyond words looking back at you, that’s when you know it’s all over... and only just beginning.
Welcome to Life Without A Centre, the life you are already living... the life you've always been living.
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I would like to ask about my meditation experience.
I was doing insight meditation, and after a while I started having a kind of dream, it felt like I was asleep and dreaming, but I was not sleepy at the time, and I do not think I was sleeping either because I could wake up immediately.
Is there something wrong with the way I meditate? Should I concentrate more or could I have been daydreaming?
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Certainty of Being? how can being being certain unless it is assumed it is a dead thing or entity. Egs Being kind, being wise, being jealous - all present continuous tenses lah. It is a herenow phenomena of one's being.
I'm not sure I understand what you said about 'how can being being certain unless it is assumed it is a dead thing or entity'. Being, Presence, Awareness/Knowing happens regardless of your feelings at the moment.... If you pause all your conceptual theories for a moment and just ask or inquire, Who am I? And you turn the light of knowing around, you'll notice an undeniable presence, knowing, awareness, existence, being. And this is an absolute fact that once directly realized there must be 100 percent certainty as it is a direct, non-conceptual encounter of your most fundamental essence. To keep things simple... pause all conceptualizing thoughts for a moment. Are you still present without thinking? Yes! The fact of being and knowing is still irrefutably present. You. or Presence-Awareness, is Present... it is a self-evident fact. And the activity of knowing which is also the same as being is present... the present activity of seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, etc, all that is happening right now. This is the certainty of existence and being. -
Originally posted by Beautiful951:
I would like to ask about my meditation experience.
I was doing insight meditation, and after a while I started having a kind of dream, it felt like I was asleep and dreaming, but I was not sleepy at the time, and I do not think I was sleeping either because I could wake up immediately.
Is there something wrong with the way I meditate? Should I concentrate more or could I have been daydreaming?
Hi Beautiful951,
IMO, just follow as per instruction for the meditation.
Last time, i have a non-buddhist teacher who taught me how to inteprete the images from dreams and meditation. But i don't do these kind of practice anymore. The meditation dreams are similar to the dreams of sleep. They usually are karmics and subconscious materials represented in a symbolic format.
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Originally posted by Beautiful951:
I would like to ask about my meditation experience.
I was doing insight meditation, and after a while I started having a kind of dream, it felt like I was asleep and dreaming, but I was not sleepy at the time, and I do not think I was sleeping either because I could wake up immediately.
Is there something wrong with the way I meditate? Should I concentrate more or could I have been daydreaming?
Hi Beautiful,
Seems like you have to heighten your clarity aspect of mind... bring more energy and wakefulness/awareness to your meditation... sleeping-like is not the way...keep your eyes half-open or open completely if you are closing them now.
Are you meditating under any qualified teacher? Best to!
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Originally posted by simpo_:
Hi Beautiful951,
IMO, just follow as per instruction for the meditation.
Last time, i have a non-buddhist teacher who taught me how to inteprete the images from dreams and meditation. But i don't do these kind of practice anymore. The meditation dreams are similar to the dreams of sleep. They usually are karmics and subconscious materials represented in a symbolic format.
Thanks for sharing.. on a sidenote, I think some dreams contain spiritual messages or lessons or reminders.
I had this strange dream yesterday where I found some of my bunk mates (lol) had realized no-self. Their bodies were sort of transparent.... V cool. I think its the minds symbolic way of telling me to live in total transparency without self though I didnt consciously know what it meant in the dream.
Then I interviewed one of them and he said... Its not that you don't exist but what you are is the stuff of the universe (not exact words). I also asked another, what are you? And he simply replied with a simple physical gesture... Cant exactly remember what but I intuitively understood it to mean something like "just this, this sensate body mind". The dream was a good reminder and inspiration for me.
If you have another interpretation I'm interested to hear..
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Originally posted by Fugazzi:
Certainty of Being? how can being being certain unless it is assumed it is a dead thing or entity. Egs Being kind, being wise, being jealous - all present continuous tenses lah. It is a herenow phenomena of one's being.
Your Being or Essence is nothing dead.... it is pure aliveness, consciousness, intelligence.
Being, Presence, Awareness/Knowing IS, regardless of your feelings and thoughts at the moment.... it is fundamental and ever-present.
If you pause all your thoughts, feelings, and concepts for a moment and just ask or inquire, Who am I? And you turn the light of knowing around, you'll notice an undeniable presence, knowing, awareness, existence, being. And this is an absolute fact that once directly realized there must be 100 percent certainty as it is a direct, non-conceptual encounter of your most fundamental essence.
Pause all conceptualizing thoughts for a moment. Are you still present and aware even without thinking about anything? Yes! The fact of being and knowing is still irrefutably present. You are undeniably Present and Aware as pure existence... it is a self-evident fact.
And the activity of knowing which is also the same as being is present... it is present throughout all activities, like activity of seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, and even thinking, all that is happening right now, is the activity of knowing. This is the certainty of existence and being.
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existence and being is only reality and only real when it and if is in action. How can one pause thoughts. thinking can never be stopped. When one is indifferent to the mind (thinking process as well as feelings, emotions = clouds/movie) one is Being existential (the sky, inner sky/screen). What one is being now is all that is. Herenow is the only phenomena that allow one to partake of what is. An what is transcends polarities of good/bad,hot/cold dichotomies of what ought to be what should be or what it was. Consciousness simply mirrors what is. No past no future. Mind is a photocopier - accumulating images!
My holding a book cannot be equated as reading. My thinking that i am peaceful is still thinking. The actual reading process (action) is the isness. My presence radiating peace (being peaceful) is what is. My radiating anger is what is.
Of course, this is my experience and you are free to be you.
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Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Thanks for sharing.. on a sidenote, I think some dreams contain spiritual messages or lessons or reminders.
I had this strange dream yesterday where I found some of my bunk mates (lol) had realized no-self. Their bodies were sort of transparent.... V cool. I think its the minds symbolic way of telling me to live in total transparency without self though I didnt consciously know what it meant in the dream.
Then I interviewed one of them and he said... Its not that you don't exist but what you are is the stuff of the universe (not exact words). I also asked another, what are you? And he simply replied with a simple physical gesture... Cant exactly remember what but I intuitively understood it to mean something like "just this, this sensate body mind". The dream was a good reminder and inspiration for me.
If you have another interpretation I'm interested to hear..
Yah... i think the dream is a reminder to practice. :) Additionally, it may also be a reminder to see beyond the surface appearance of other people in the army life. Sometimes, we may meet people in the army life that we have some reaction to...The dream may serve to inform that these people are pure awareness as well.
There was one time that i slacken and did not practice. I had a dream of a bug that goes into my ear. When i woke up, i went to the internet to find out the meaning and discovered that 'bug in the ear' is a French term for hint or warning. Consciously, i have never heard of this proverb.. although i might be French in the previous life ;) The next day after the dream, there was a follow-up dream where a rainbow-coloured luminous leopard-catlike being tell me that i need to proceed with my practice/training and he specifically said that ' this is the hint'. .. and proceed to show me what is happening in the planet and the future ...
Regards
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Originally posted by simpo_:
Yah... i think the dream is a reminder to practice. :) Additionally, it may also be a reminder to see beyond the surface appearance of other people in the army life. Sometimes, we may meet people in the army life that we have some reaction to...The dream may serve to inform that these people are pure awareness as well.
There was one time that i slacken and did not practice. I had a dream of a bug that goes into my ear. When i woke up, i went to the internet to find out the meaning and discovered that 'bug in the ear' is a French term for hint or warning. Consciously, i have never heard of this proverb.. although i might be French in the previous life ;) The next day after the dream, there was a follow-up dream where a rainbow-coloured luminous leopard-catlike being tell me that i need to proceed with my practice/training and he specifically said that ' this is the hint'. .. and proceed to show me what is happening in the planet and the future ...
Regards
I think your assessment is spot on... Few days before that dream my practice slackened and I wasn't feeling too good, feeling sick (physically ill) and tired (physically and mentally). And then I noticed my samadhi is gone, sort of. The dream sort of inspired me to be back on track in my practice.
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Originally posted by Fugazzi:
existence and being is only reality and only real when it and if is in action. How can one pause thoughts. thinking can never be stopped. When one is indifferent to the mind (thinking process as well as feelings, emotions = clouds/movie) one is Being existential (the sky, inner sky/screen). What one is being now is all that is. Herenow is the only phenomena that allow one to partake of what is. An what is transcends polarities of good/bad,hot/cold dichotomies of what ought to be what should be or what it was. Consciousness simply mirrors what is. No past no future. Mind is a photocopier - accumulating images!
My holding a book cannot be equated as reading. My thinking that i am peaceful is still thinking. The actual reading process (action) is the isness. My presence radiating peace (being peaceful) is what is. My radiating anger is what is.
Of course, this is my experience and you are free to be you.
I agree with much you write... though I should also note that pausing the conceptual thoughts is definitely possible and has been my own experience. This pause is in my understanding, necessary for an initial direct glimpse/realization of our true essence. The pausing of the conceptualizing process is necessary for a direct touch of our essence without intermediary... it is also what allows the transcendance of dichotomies to touch/realize 'What Is'.
In fact in the very first post of this thread, I wrote about how the realization of Being arose through a cessation of conceptual thoughts and in that moment of thoughtlessness there remains only a Certainty of Being, Existence... this is the end and answer to my self-inquiry of 'Who am I', the realization beyond doubt of my true essence, what I truly am.
But what you wrote about the knowing and presence in action is also true... as the activity of knowing is always manifesting in and as all sensations, thoughts, feelings and actions. They are all the activities of Awareness.
Would appreciate if Thusness and Simpo could add in their comments.
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Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
I agree with much you write... though I should also note that pausing the conceptual thoughts is definitely possible and has been my own experience. This pause is in my understanding, necessary for an initial direct glimpse/realization of our true essence. The pausing of the conceptualizing process is necessary for a direct touch of our essence without intermediary... it is also what allows the transcendance of dichotomies to touch/realize 'What Is'.
In fact in the very first post of this thread, I wrote about how the realization of Being arose through a cessation of conceptual thoughts and in that moment of thoughtlessness there remains only a Certainty of Being, Existence... this is the end and answer to my self-inquiry of 'Who am I', the realization beyond doubt of my true essence, what I truly am.
But what you wrote about the knowing and presence in action is also true... as the activity of knowing is always manifesting in and as all sensations, thoughts, feelings and actions. They are all the activities of Awareness.
Would appreciate if Thusness and Simpo could add in their comments.
Hi Fugazzi,
It is possible to have no thought arising at all. What is left is an infinite/borderless Presence.
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Originally posted by simpo_:
Yah... i think the dream is a reminder to practice. :) Additionally, it may also be a reminder to see beyond the surface appearance of other people in the army life. Sometimes, we may meet people in the army life that we have some reaction to...The dream may serve to inform that these people are pure awareness as well.
There was one time that i slacken and did not practice. I had a dream of a bug that goes into my ear. When i woke up, i went to the internet to find out the meaning and discovered that 'bug in the ear' is a French term for hint or warning. Consciously, i have never heard of this proverb.. although i might be French in the previous life ;) The next day after the dream, there was a follow-up dream where a rainbow-coloured luminous leopard-catlike being tell me that i need to proceed with my practice/training and he specifically said that ' this is the hint'. .. and proceed to show me what is happening in the planet and the future ...
Regards
If you don't mind me asking, how do you practise? I hope to know so I can tell if I am practising the right way or not.
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One never can step into the same river twice - I wonder how certain can being be? The tree (cos of the inadequacy of lang constraint) is actually treeing. It is changing every second.
Talking about love is not love, the being loving the act of loving is the reality. Existence precedes essence lah not the other way round.
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Originally posted by Fugazzi:
One never can step into the same river twice - I wonder how certain can being be? The tree (cos of the inadequacy of lang constraint) is actually treeing. It is changing every second.
Talking about love is not love, the being loving the act of loving is the reality. Existence precedes essence lah not the other way round.
Hello,There is an unborn, the deathless. The Presence that we talk about is 'this' and it is not separated from the change.
When we share the same experience, then we can talk meaningfully. As of this writing, it is not something that you have experienced as typically the mind is 100% flowing with mental formations.
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Originally posted by Beautiful951:
If you don't mind me asking, how do you practise? I hope to know so I can tell if I am practising the right way or not.
Hi Beautiful951,At different stage the practice is different. So i can't really give you a definite answer... sorry
Understanding the dream content is not a requirement. In fact, if it is done before any insight has been developed it may lead onto a different path.
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Originally posted by Fugazzi:
One never can step into the same river twice - I wonder how certain can being be? The tree (cos of the inadequacy of lang constraint) is actually treeing. It is changing every second.
Talking about love is not love, the being loving the act of loving is the reality. Existence precedes essence lah not the other way round.
Hi Fugazzi,
If what is real is always in action, is there certainty in 'becoming'?
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There is no certainty in becoming and if one is certain - then know this that it has conditions fulfilled or yet to be fulfilled. It is goal-oriented. If that is the case, one is already no longer herenow but psychologically in the future. What is, is missed or an adulterated expereince. Hence the necessity to become comes into play.
If one is an end unto oneself now the need to become is no longer there - one simply allows whatever that comes or manifests to be. If one is angry one is totally in it, if one is loving one is totally in it. It is a peak, it is intense but once it is over, one is no longer looking for the same experience. Also, one remains choiceless and yet aware of the everchanging ... Also, there is no rite/wrong, hot/cold/nite/day .... duality is transcended. Where thinking is duality is!
Lest it is misconstrued, my meaning is that of being ... eg being kind, being jealous, being .... however, one has to understand that existence knows no certainty and life is never certain. When one expereines each moment in and of itself as it is one is no longer being certain and yet one is amenable to the certainty of change. Only change is certain. Eg the chair in one's room is the same after 5 days of unuse. However, can one assume that one's spouse is the same? If one assumes that - then that person is no longer perceived or partaken of as a living, breathing and evolving ... but as an entity to be used and put aside and used again. When one can relate that suffices but relationship is different. Relationship is a thing. But people cannot deal with uncertainty hence the want, the need to make it into a relationship. Relating is difficult cos one is one the inside matters!
Though I digressed , it was merely to exemplify and simplify wherever possible.
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Originally posted by Fugazzi:
There is no certainty in becoming and if one is certain - then know this that it has conditions fulfilled or yet to be fulfilled. It is goal-oriented. If that is the case, one is already no longer herenow but psychologically in the future. What is, is missed or an adulterated expereince. Hence the necessity to become comes into play.
If one is an end unto oneself now the need to become is no longer there - one simply allows whatever that comes or manifests to be. If one is angry one is totally in it, if one is loving one is totally in it. It is a peak, it is intense but once it is over, one is no longer looking for the same experience. Also, one remains choiceless and yet aware of the everchanging ... Also, there is no rite/wrong, hot/cold/nite/day .... duality is transcended. Where thinking is duality is!
Lest it is misconstrued, my meaning is that of being ... eg being kind, being jealous, being .... however, one has to understand that existence knows no certainty and life is never certain. When one expereines each moment in and of itself as it is one is no longer being certain and yet one is amenable to the certainty of change. Only change is certain. Eg the chair in one's room is the same after 5 days of unuse. However, can one assume that one's spouse is the same? If one assumes that - then that person is no longer perceived or partaken of as a living, breathing and evolving ... but as an entity to be used and put aside and used again. When one can relate that suffices but relationship is different. Relationship is a thing. But people cannot deal with uncertainty hence the want, the need to make it into a relationship. Relating is difficult cos one is one the inside matters!
Though I digressed , it was merely to exemplify and simplify wherever possible.
Hi Fugazzi,
I do not want to dwell into philosophy but just to point out the differences between Reality, Truth and Existence. Reality is ontological (metaphysics), Truth is proportional (logic and reason) and existence is phenomenological (human life as they are lived). AEN’s narration is strictly ontological while Buddhism is more phenomenological.
This thread is AEN's diary of his direct experience of 'beingness' that is non-conceptual. He is narrating this particular experience of ‘certainty of being’ that resulted from his realization of “I AM”. Although the experience is more Advaita Vedanta than Buddhism, it is still an important phase of a sincere practitioner during his spiritual journey.
As Simpo pointed out, it will be difficult to comment meaningfully if you do not share the same experience and direct realization. Buddha is clear about this experience and has warned not to mistake a ‘state of experience’ as ultimate and reifies ‘a transcendent experience’ into an ‘Absolute Reality’. The doctrines of anatta and emptiness are the antidote to relinquish practitioners from the ultimate attachment of “I AM”.