Jackson Peterson
The Non-Duality of Awareness and Experience
Some make the mistake of seeing awareness as a “perceiver” of experience rather than awareness being itself experience. There actually is no “perceiver”. The perceiver is an illusion and conceptual assumption only. There is no “witnessing” awareness of experience as well as no “witness”. However, the quality of cognitive awareness is itself what experience is.
Experience by definition is something that is a known happening. If it weren’t known, then we could not call a happening an “experience”. The mistake is that the mind then assumes that there must be an “experiencer”, a basic mistake from which it then proceeds to build a story confirming the separate existence of this “experiencer”. There is no “experiencer”, only experience. Let’s look into how this illusion comes about and develops:
We could take the example of weather. If we step outside we experience what we call “weather” directly. But “weather” is a term describing various atmospheric conditions. But “atmospheric conditions” do not exist as some phenomena we can experience. We can only experience rain, clouds, clear skies and wind or its absence. When we are outside, “atmospheric conditions” can’t be separated from the rain, clouds, clear skies or wind. But when we go inside we can talk about “atmospheric conditions” as though there is such a thing apart from those actual conditions. In this case what we are discussing is divorced completely from any actual reality of immediate experience regarding rain, clouds, clear skies or wind.
We can look at the topic of “awareness” in same way. Awareness is a term that applies to the capacity to know experience is occurring. But experience is essentially actual moments of sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and feeling. We can also include the cognitive moments of thoughts, emotions and images appearing as well. It seems there is a separate thing called “awareness” that experiences are happening to. But if we look at immediate experience, we have sights, sounds, tastes, smells and feelings that don’t appear at some distance apart from the awareness of them. But like “atmospheric conditions”, we can talk about awareness as though it exists in isolation and apart from vivid experience itself. Where can we find “atmospheric conditions” apart from rain, clouds, clear sky and wind other than in our imaginations? Where can we find “awareness” apart from experience?
The mind takes this aspect of vivid experience and turns it into an “aware perceiver” through conceptual construction after the fact. This “aware perceiver” can’t be found as a stand-alone entity that views experience; you just can’t find it! You can’t find awareness, you can never find this illusive ghost called awareness, you will only find some type of vivid experience.
It’s also a mistake to say “there is no such thing as awareness”. That is the same as saying “there is no such thing as atmospheric conditions”. They are both pointers to the nature of direct experience but neither exist as actual aspects of direct experience. Rather we can say that experience is vivid and that vivid aspect we can call “awareness”. We can’t take away that “aware” vivid aspect of experience any more than we can separate the blue from the sky. The blueness and the sky are inseparable aspects of one perceptual experience. Likewise awareness and experience are inseparable aspects of one perceptual moment.
Our language implies there is a such thing as a perception that can be known without some quality of awareness. Put perceiving itself implies an awareness occurring regarding the content. In fact the perceived content is textured awareness.
This imagined stand-alone “aware perceiver” is the entire basis of ego or believed-in, separate selfhood. Our imagined personal story as an experiencing individual unit of perceiving awareness is developed from this primary error. Seeing this clearly is the realization of “no self”. The experience of separate “selfness” can still arise but it is only just an experience that is occurring to “no one”.
There is also no Great Self hidden in the background as an eternal Witness of experience. That Self (if we need such a concept) is fully invested AS experience not as a viewer of it. However it is taught in most non-dual traditions like Buddhism, that there is still an unchanging, non-manifest, non-conditioned aspect of knowingness within experience. To understand this we have to understand the nature of experience and all phenomena experienced.
All experience; as sensory moments or mental perceptions, have an aspect of vivid luminosity as experiential content, registering cognition, and empty knowingness. Those three always are present in all moments as the event. They don’t exist separately and independently ever. However these three qualities can appear in various degrees and proportions to each other and due to those fluctuations, experience can take on various hues and tones.
Sometimes the more intense luminously vivid aspect outshines the empty nature of experience which can produce a kind of cognitive bewilderment. It is in that moment of cognitive bewilderment that this secondary energetic consciousness arises which doesn’t recognize its own empty nature as pure knowing cognition. As a result the luminously formative aspect takes on greater solidity and contraction. The contraction is the result of the “am” and “I am” cognition arising in the bewildered consciousness as a sort of self grasping panic. It is that panic that initiates a kind of blind grasping that causes the collapse and contraction of the luminous field into a compact mass of dull sentience. It is this compact mass of dull sentience along with its energetic field that is mistaken to be an enduring “soul”, atman or self. It is exactly at this point the sense of being a separate subject looking out at a separate field of perceived things occur.
Literally the “lights have gone out” as well as the wisdom of self-recognition. The greater the contraction the greater the ignorance through lack of seeing the inherent empty nature of the entire energetic contraction. That’s why practices that increase and expand the energetic and cognitive space of knowing, reveal the empty nature of the formative structures of the mind, and a “release” occurs.
Alternatively the "empty knowing" aspect can predominate which allows full insight into the empty yet luminous nature of experience and reality.
If a clinging to the "empty-nature experience" happens, a type of non-functional void state occurs. So grasping at emptiness and grasping at formative luminosity are both extremes.
Recognizing the empty aware nature of luminous form is realization when also the empty aware aspect is seen to be luminously formative.
In such a case, empty and luminous experience is all there is: direct, vivid, self-knowing and thoroughly magical!
Like · · November 19, 2013 at 11:18pm
Justin Struble and Eric Blackburn like this.
Jackson Peterson "But when the dividing line between stillness and thought occurrence fades away, and instead the strength of the aware quality is intensified, the awake quality is known as rigpa"
Adieu Rinpoche
November 19, 2013 at 11:56pm · Like
Soh "However it is taught in most non-dual traditions like Buddhism, that there is still an unchanging, non-manifest, non-conditioned aspect of knowingness within experience. To understand this we have to understand the nature of experience and all phenomena experienced."
I think you're referring to Vedanta, not Buddhism.
http://www.byomakusuma.org/Teachings/VedantaVisAVisShentong.aspx
"Sankaràcàrya even mentions the exact opposite view of what Śāntarakṣita mentioned above and refutes him. In exact opposite of what Śāntarakṣita says, “The error in the view of these philosophers is a slight one – due only to the assertion of eternality of cognition.” Sankara says about the Chittamatra “The error in the view of these philosophies is only slight - they believe the non-dual mind as changing moment to moment; we believe it as unchanging eternal.”
If the meaning of the Uttara Tantra is what the Shentongpas make it out to be, it would have existed in the Indian sources too. Sankara would certainly have written that the view of these Buddhist philosophers as what the Vedas had always taught and that Buddhism is just a branch of Hinduism. Even today, if any Indian Hindu philosopher comes across the Shentong view, they would be most happy to embrace it as the correct view and take it as a solid proof that Buddhism is just a branch of Hinduism and the Buddha did not teach anything new. This of course blatantly contradicts what the Buddha himself said in Mahayana, Theravada, and Sarvàstivàda Sutras and Sàstra-s. The Buddha said that he taught something that had been lost for a long time. But the Vedas and the Vedic Bràhmins of the Buddha’s time, whom the Buddha met, had been and are still teaching the existence of true âtmà, and ‘eternal non-dual cognition’ as the Ultimate Reality.
If we glance through the Jain literature, we again find that no Jain scholar mentions that the Buddhists believed in an eternal / permanent non-dual cognition as the ultimate reality. At least, those Jain scholars after Asanga should have done so, if that was how the Uttara Tantra had been interpreted in India."
Byoma Kusuma Buddhadharma Sangha
www.byomakusuma.org
Although he was from around the 8th century, he became popular among the Hindus ...See More
November 20, 2013 at 8:31am · Like · Remove Preview
Aditya Prasad "These Bharamins (sic) secretly implanted Hindu views of the Vedas..." Sounds a bit conspiracy theorist to me.
Why exactly I should trust "Acharya Mahayogi Sridhar Rana Rinpoche" over someone like Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche (who is purportedly a shentongpa) I do not understand.
I don't take him seriously just because he was raised Hindu but then "found Jesus" (so to speak) elsewhere.
November 20, 2013 at 10:28am · Edited · Like · 1
Soh To be fair I think archaya clearly stated that point is a postulation of his. Nevertheless the main point is his distinguishing the view of advaita and shentong crypto eternalism from the definitive view in buddhadharma. Not all shentong teachings fall into such extremes however as I have seen some clear teachers like thrangu rinpoche discussing and teaching shentong but not holding the vedanta sort of substantialist view.
November 20, 2013 at 2:29pm · Like
Neony Karby It's just the same old story
November 20, 2013 at 4:59pm · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson Soh, you still don't understand regarding the "non-manifest consciousness" as "vinannam anidassana" as Nyanananda explains in 33 brilliant sermons. Your view is just plain wrong and in no way accords with Thrangu, Dilgo Khentse, Kalu, Dudjum, Norbu, Jamgon Kuntrul or Mipham and many, many others regarding the Buddha Nature. However Nyanananda's explication is flawless in every way. Your view is crippled by the belief that emptiness is "just sights, sounds etc" and not the Buddha Nature expressing Itself as "sights, sounds etc.". Phenomena of every kind are the empty uncreated luster of the empty omniscient Buddha Mind as Dharmakaya. The "sights and sounds etc." are just the surface froth of a much deeper and non-manifest Reality. It is that much deeper, non-manifest Reality that is "changeless", unestablished, non-dependent, non-substantial and beyond the four extremes. When we investigate sights and sounds we find a luminous emptiness that is fully conscious as what you are. Your consciousness is Consciousness, a non- manifest presence that pervades all consciousness and phenomena as those appearances. You are hung up on the "sights and sounds" and not their true nature as luminous wisdom arising from emptiness. Your view borders on nihilism regarding "being, being aware". Looking directly into what's being aware reveals an infinite depth of wisdom and realization. When the Buddha spoke of "extinction" and cessation of consciousness, he meant only only the extinction and cessation of the delusionary consciousness that reifies self and things. That is not a denial of "aware being", but only the imaginary imputation of a "beingness", imagined "self",or Self, and the consciousness itself that generates such delusions. What appears at that moment of cessation can perhaps be called "the unestablished ground of being" or vijnana anidassana. Please re-read Nyanananda's 33 Sermons to clarify this matter once and for all!
November 20, 2013 at 9:49pm · Like
Soh Unestablished consciousness does not imply a metaphysical essence. It means consciousness stops fabricating deluded cognitions of subjective self and inherently existing objects. The suchness of in the seen just the seen in the heard just the heard without a fabricated observer or object being observed, as described in Kalaka Sutta, just that is unestablished consciousness. This is in contrast to the type of afflictive establishing consciousness of the twelve links. Cognizance manifest in wisdom through nonafflictive dependent origination. This is known in dzogchen as lhun grub. It is not in any way changeless or independent.
November 20, 2013 at 10:57pm · Edited · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson Soh, wisdom IS cognizance, the knowing and recognition of its empty and all pervasive nature. Sights and sounds are are like a dream that occur in the cognitive empty space that never moves beyond its own emptiness as the Dharmakaya. For example Soh, when you direct your attention upon the aware quality of the attention itself, it reveals a dimension that is immanent AS "sights and sounds" (Lhundrub) and also AS transcendent emptiness (Kadag) as all pervasive and unlimited pure Presence. You have the immanent clearly, but miss the transcendent due to the vivid clarity of "sights and sounds" that captures and limits your attention from the transcendent depths... that expresses itself as "sights sounds". Sights and sounds are symbols pointing to something infinitely more profound.
November 20, 2013 at 11:12pm · Like · 1
Aditya Prasad I'll try to be more precise in my criticism of such discussions: I could list a bunch of shentongpas (actually Jackson already did) whose views we would sit here and refute. There are two possibilities: (1) we are more realized than they are; (2) their words (like all words) serve a purpose, and it's funny to take them literally. I'll let you guess which one I believe
November 21, 2013 at 2:44am · Like · 1
Roger Mahaffey elaborate Aditya, interesting conversation Soh and Jackson Peterson
November 21, 2013 at 3:26am · Like · 1
Aditya Prasad Roger: I think it is safe to assume that *every single view* has been "refuted" by at least one person of greater realization than mine (not a high bar to hit!). Conversely, many views I try to refute have been held by someone with greater realization.
If I really believe I'm refuting one of the latter with my own realization, I'm very likely deluded. So a more generous approach makes sense: because we already know that *all descriptions* are provisional, the question becomes "which students would benefit from this particular falsehood?"
(By the same token, I can never know if people here really believe what they're typing. It may very well be that all parties involved are having fun with "joyful irony" (as Greg calls it) as opposed to reifying and comparing "real views".)
November 21, 2013 at 3:44am · Like · 2
Jackson Peterson I believe it comes down to the views of yogis versus the views of pandits. The latter are experts of maps and the former are seasoned travelers. I listen to the seasoned travelers over those who speak with the authority of one who has traveled extensively but who have only studied the maps.
November 21, 2013 at 4:00am · Like · 1
Soh Jax you are still having a view of inherency that posits a truly existing absolute. There is no buddha nature expressing itself as manifestation because buddha nature is synonymous with manifestation. You see conscious space as a transcendent truly existing thing that is beyond all manifestation with its own essence, I do not deny the experience of conscious space but I see conscious space as empty of any inherent hidden independent unchanging essence and is merely and always only total exertion without self without any hidden essence.
Space is another manifestation of the mind realm no more ultimate than a self luminous sight or sound. There is absolutely no hierarchy no one thing subsuming another. Just pure equality and one taste of everything. I do not even subtly equate space with some source or ground of being, I have seen through the view of an ultimate source or essence. You are mistaking conscious space with emptiness, but emptiness is not some transcendent space but the lack of any independent changeless inherently existing self-existence of anything and everything including conscious space which is but another clarity-manifestation. And because everything including conscious space is empty of such ontological essence, there is no hidden entities of any sort always only manifestation, total exertion of sights sounds space qualities and textures of each moment.
November 21, 2013 at 5:19am · Edited · Like · 3
Soh From Dharma Overground, Dharma Dan (Daniel M. Ingram):
Dear Mark,
Thanks for your descriptions and analysis. They are interesting and relevant.
I think of it this way, from a very high but still vipassana point of view, as you are framing this question in a vipassana context:
First, the breath is nice, but at that level of manifesting sensations, some other points of view are helpful:
Assume something really simple about sensations and awareness: they are exactly the same. In fact, make it more simple: there are sensations, and this includes all sensations that make up space, thought, image, body, anything you can imagine being mind, and all qualities that are experienced, meaning the sum total of the world.
In this very simple framework, rigpa is all sensations, but there can be this subtle attachment and lack of investigation when high terms are used that we want there to be this super-rigpa, this awareness that is other. You mention that you feel there is a larger awareness, an awareness that is not just there the limits of your senses. I would claim otherwise: that the whole sensate universe by definition can't arise without the quality of awareness by definition, and so some very subtle sensations are tricking you into thinking they are bigger than the rest of the sensate field and are actually the awareness that is aware of other sensations.
Awareness is simply manifestation. All sensations are simply present.
Thus, be wary of anything that wants to be a super-awareness, a rigpa that is larger than everything else, as it can't be, by definition. Investigate at the level of bare sensate experience just what arises and see that it can't possibly be different from awareness, as this is actually an extraneous concept and there are actually just sensations as the first and final basis of reality.
As you like the Tibetan stuff, and to quote Padmasambhava in the root text of the book The Light of Wisdom:
"The mind that observes is also devoid of an ego or self-entity.
It is neither seen as something different from the aggregates
Nor as identical with these five aggregates.
If the first were true, there would exist some other substance.
This is not the case, so were the second true,
That would contradict a permanent self, since the aggregates are impermanent.
Therefore, based on the five aggregates,
The self is a mere imputation based on the power of the ego-clinging.
As to that which imputes, the past thought has vanished and is nonexistent.
The future thought has not occurred, and the present thought does not withstand scrutiny."
I really found this little block of tight philosophy helpful. It is also very vipassana at its core, but it is no surprise the wisdom traditions converge.
Thus, if you want to crack the nut, notice that everything is 5 aggregates, including everything you think is super-awareness, and be less concerned with what every little type of consciousness is than with just perceiving them directly and noticing the gaps that section off this from that, such as rigpa from thought stream, or awareness from sensations, as these are golden chains.
November 21, 2013 at 5:21am · Like · 3
Piotr Ludwiński Jackson,
"It" that "expresses itself" as XYZ" is deluded view refuted in buddhism 101.
Emptiness of phenomena means that there are no objects that can be pinned down as existent or non-existent. Without any "thing" that is "manifest" how can there be "non-manifest"?
Something beyond four extremes means that that something is unreal abstraction; non-arisen from the very beginning.
]"non-manifest" always was, always is and always will be just a thought that does not point to anything. All thoughts are like that; they don't point to anything; not even to themselves. Your accusation that Soh's view is nihilistc is unfounded in same way your eternalistic and inherent imputations are.
"Buddha Nature", "Buddha Mind" or "Consciousness", "non-manifest consciousness" are not exceptions at all.
“Hey, hey, apparent yet non existent retinue: listen well! There is no object to distinguish in me, the view of self-originated wisdom; it did not exist before, it will not arise later, and also does not appear in anyway in the present. The path does not exist, action does not exist, traces do not exist, ignorance does not exist, thoughts do not exist, mind does not exist, prajn~aŻ does not exist, samsara does not exist, nirvana does not exist, vidya itself does not even exist, totally not appearing in anyway.” -- The Unwritten Tantra
There is neither non-manifest background reality (anatta) nor is there any manifest object (secondfold emptiness). Both manifest and non-manifest are just mere names. Even these names are non-arising and can't be pinned down.
Your view of something that can be pinned down as "non-manifest IT that does manifest AS sounds, sights etc is preciesly what buddhadharma is set up to refute; inherent existence/inherent reality...
"What language expresses is nonexistent." Nagarjuna, MMK
Yet you write as if your verbal map is really pointing to territory that can be pinned down.
"Any thought of ‘subject’, ‘object’ and ‘action’
Is held to be a cognitive obscuration." Maitreya
To say that there is non-manifest reality that does manifest as sounds, sights is precisely establishing subject, action and object. Non-manifest reality is clung to as "ultimate agent". Hence view of substantial source (to say there is it that is beyond four extremes etc as you usually do is to affirm substantial and inherent reality with few low quality verbal tricks to pretend it's not inherent).
What never arose in the first place cannot be afflicted thus it's primordially pure (ka dag).
Emptiness has nothing to do with transcendence. Emptiness just means that both self and phenomena never arose in the first place. It includes all phenomena.
"That one with discernment, that arahant, stops short at the seen, true to the aphorism di??he di??hamatta?, "in the seen just the seen".[1036] He stops at the heard in the heard, he stops at the sensed in the sensed, he stops at the cognized in the cognized. He does not go on imagining like that deer, taking his stand on perception. He does not imagine a thing seen or one who sees. Nor does he entertain imaginings in regard to the heard, the sensed and the cognized." Mind Stilled
Savari elucidates:
If the mind were real, all other phenomena would be real.
Since the mind is unreal, who can understand
That the real thing exists?
Neither the mind and the appearances
Nor the investigator can be found.
Being unreal they are unborn and unceasing
Throughout the three periods of time.
The intrinsic nature [of mind] is immutable, abiding great bliss.
I am afraid that your "non-manifest source" is just this; imagination, word, thought, reification.
What is liberating is this; "subject", "action", "object" are all unreal.
How are "we" liberated? By recognizing that we don't have mind; we are unreal. "I", "mind", "consciousness" does not point to any form-based or formless-based reality. That's all.
Regards.
November 21, 2013 at 5:32am · Edited · Unlike · 4
Soh Just to clarify when I say manifestation it means the total exertion of everything but does not imply any actual arising object and likewise anything that could abide or cease.
November 21, 2013 at 5:47am · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson Again I sense strongly this is a pandita argument versus a yogic. When the individual whirlpool ceases, the ocean which expressed itself as the whirlpool, the exertion of the ocean itself, knows Itself as the "non-whirlpool" Knowing. The ocean is nirvanic consciousness. It is the Mind of Clear Light. The unique method of Dzogchen is to know the nature of the whirlpool is always pure water, and identifiable in any condition. However when clearly known the whirlpool ceases. Likewise by the cessation of the whirlpool by purely mechanical yogic means, likewise the Consciousness of the ocean arises.
You are focusing on appearances of the five senses and the five skandhas rather than Buddha Wisdom. You miss the Buddha Wisdom because of a lack of deep samadhi practice where the yogic meaning of "shunyata" is revealed. Nyanananda explains this all flawlessly. More and deeper meditation practice is necessary. Also the phenomena of thogal visions that appear as sights and sounds are "non- dependent" appearances. Likewise rigpa consciousness is not a dependent consciousness. The vast "space-like" wisdom is completely unestablished, non-manifest and omniscient, and compassionately responsive.
November 21, 2013 at 6:13am · Like
Soh This is known out of yogic realization. There is no ground of being, source, whatsoever underlying manifestation because spacebeingness itself is another manifestation, total exertion. Oceanic awareness is simply total exertion and nothing hidden. To state otherwise is to posit an intrinsic essence and would mean the realization of emptiness or even anatta has not clearly dawned. In my I AMness phase I too realized that spacelike oceanic awareness but it was mistakenly reified into a ground of being and source of phenomena. Such erroneous views is only fully seen through after penetrating later into anatta and emptiness.
Malcolm has clearly stated that lhun grub appearances are non afflictive dependent origination. They are not dependently originated only in the sense that it is not part of the twelve links of afflictive dependent origination, however the general theory of dependent origination (this is, that is) still applies otherwise one will again fall into the fault of inherent, independent existence. Substantialist view.
November 21, 2013 at 6:40am · Edited · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson The problem is your reduction of the meaning being conveyed to be portrayed by the word "essence". Its not an essence of any kind. Essence is an imputed very subtle substance. It's not known here that way at all. It's absolutely empty presence as a totality, like a hologram: empty form. All yogis know this..
November 21, 2013 at 6:41am · Like
Roger Mahaffey I follow what both of you are saying and its a very interesting discussion. Experience agrees with Jackson Peterson I know what he is saying, but at the same time I know what Soh is saying. It seems this is where emptiness teachings and Advaita part ways. Not saying you are an Advaitist Jackson but what you say does seem to imply some kind of actual presence, or some kind of infinite limitless substratum and what Soh is saying is completely negating that and bringing it back to emptiness. There always seems to be something that cognizes all objects, that is before any arising or appearance yet not separate from appearance. But I have seen on some of these groups that people have also looked into the nature of awareness and found it empty as well.
November 21, 2013 at 6:51am · Like · 1
Roger Mahaffey Resting in 'I AM' often brings a profound peace, clarity, and wisdom. That has been my experience. I see the emptiness of objects and self. But as far as awareness being something that is while everything else is empty.... hmm ?
November 21, 2013 at 6:53am · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson Roger Mahaffey, I am not saying anything like Advaita, but rather classic Buddhism. Awareness is completely empty! It is pure Wisdom, the Mind of Clear Light. It is completely without any sense of "I am" or "am". All the Dzogchen masters and Mahamudra masters say that the Dharmakaya is all pervasive empty knowingness. It is not an entity. It is the Ground of Being, yet is unestablished emptiness, yet is Consciousness. To know it is completely absent of something to rest in or a someone to rest in "it". You cant get there from here. Rather your personal existence ceases like a whirlpool in the ocean ceasing to whirl. But the "ocean" isn't annihilation or extinction of sentience, rather it is total Sentience. There is no you to become it. There is no it to become. It is empty of all defects and afflictions but is not absent of all the Buddha qualities.
November 21, 2013 at 7:10am · Like · 1
Soh hi roger yes awareness is empty but at the same time there is no denial of awareness just the mistaken notion of awareness as a changeless hidden independent something or perceiver of perception. awareness is selfilluminating appearance. see
November 21, 2013 at 7:25am · Like · 1
Soh http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/.../joel-agee...
Awakening to Reality: Joel Agee: Appearances are Self-Illuminating
awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com
November 21, 2013 at 7:25am · Like · Remove Preview
Soh and http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/.../zen...
Awakening to Reality: A Zen Exploration of the Bahiya Sutta
awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com
What a surprise, to find my picture and recent journal entries on your brilliant...See More
November 21, 2013 at 7:28am · Like · 1 · Remove Preview
Roger Mahaffey At work will check it out tonight, thanks for all the discussion ppl!
November 21, 2013 at 8:24am · Like · 1
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland From the blog post extensively quoting Joel:
> The "knower" who "exists continuously" can be a misleading formulation. This knowing is not an entity, and doesn't exist in the way objects seem to exist. The recognition shows it to be unfindable. Peter ...See More
November 21, 2013 at 9:19am · Edited · Like · 1
Roger Mahaffey That is a fascinating line right there.... so the insight itself is the 'knowing' rather than some kind of ontological beingness.
November 21, 2013 at 9:21am · Like
Greg Goode Ah, awareness vs emptiness and clear light, oh my! And advaita and substantialism and ontological beingness and capitalized nouns like Consciousness and Sentience and I AMness! Reminds me of the rigpa wars we had over a year ago. I missed all that!
Things sure get hoppin when Jackson comes to town!!
November 21, 2013 at 10:18am · Edited · Like · 4
Aditya Prasad Well, see, the most important thing is that you get the _words_ right...
November 21, 2013 at 10:17am · Like · 1
Roger Mahaffey I was hoping to hear from you in this discussion Greg Goode I thought it was pretty interesting! I have not seen one like this before and it hits on things that I am curious about.
November 21, 2013 at 10:26am · Edited · Like
Greg Goode Hi Roger, I don't practice Dzogchen or Mahamudra, which are at the center of these discussions. So I don't have too much to say about all this. But I do find inter-path discussions fascinating and informative.
November 21, 2013 at 10:36am · Like · 2
Jackson Peterson There is a "knowing", with no reason for the mind to make it a "knower" , but it does. Its an imaginary posture. If the "knower" is beyond the mind that imputes self inherency, then it remains unestablished in every way. The mind seems to need to conceive of "knowingness" as some essence or substance. It has no model for an unestablished, thoroughly empty "knowingness". Yet Yogis know this impersonal knowing directly.
November 22, 2013 at 3:00am · Like
Roger Mahaffey Its not a static thing but nonetheless it knows. I think this is semantics... in the end there is some kind of inner knowing or beingness it cant be contained but its there.
November 22, 2013 at 3:15am · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson Roger Mahaffey, Indeed!
November 22, 2013 at 3:16am · Like
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland No, that is incorrect, or rather, imprecise.
> In the end there is some kind of inner knowing or beingness
> It cant be contained but its there.
> Its not a static thing but nonetheless it knows.
The inaccuracy is the "is", "it" and "knows".
That might seem like mere semantics and to a certain degree it is, but there is something deeper going on here.
This will not be clear until the very compulsion to *even account for* the "knowing" is dropped.
November 22, 2013 at 12:51pm · Edited · Like · 3
Roger Mahaffey See talking about these things and holding onto views are different things.
November 22, 2013 at 7:03am · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson Roger Mahaffey, no master would deny your observation. There indeed is a changeless presence of cognizance that is exactly what your "are" in all moments. You are never less nor more, except in dreams...
November 22, 2013 at 8:51pm · Like
The Non-Duality of Awareness and Experience
Some make the mistake of seeing awareness as a “perceiver” of experience rather than awareness being itself experience. There actually is no “perceiver”. The perceiver is an illusion and conceptual assumption only. There is no “witnessing” awareness of experience as well as no “witness”. However, the quality of cognitive awareness is itself what experience is.
Experience by definition is something that is a known happening. If it weren’t known, then we could not call a happening an “experience”. The mistake is that the mind then assumes that there must be an “experiencer”, a basic mistake from which it then proceeds to build a story confirming the separate existence of this “experiencer”. There is no “experiencer”, only experience. Let’s look into how this illusion comes about and develops:
We could take the example of weather. If we step outside we experience what we call “weather” directly. But “weather” is a term describing various atmospheric conditions. But “atmospheric conditions” do not exist as some phenomena we can experience. We can only experience rain, clouds, clear skies and wind or its absence. When we are outside, “atmospheric conditions” can’t be separated from the rain, clouds, clear skies or wind. But when we go inside we can talk about “atmospheric conditions” as though there is such a thing apart from those actual conditions. In this case what we are discussing is divorced completely from any actual reality of immediate experience regarding rain, clouds, clear skies or wind.
We can look at the topic of “awareness” in same way. Awareness is a term that applies to the capacity to know experience is occurring. But experience is essentially actual moments of sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and feeling. We can also include the cognitive moments of thoughts, emotions and images appearing as well. It seems there is a separate thing called “awareness” that experiences are happening to. But if we look at immediate experience, we have sights, sounds, tastes, smells and feelings that don’t appear at some distance apart from the awareness of them. But like “atmospheric conditions”, we can talk about awareness as though it exists in isolation and apart from vivid experience itself. Where can we find “atmospheric conditions” apart from rain, clouds, clear sky and wind other than in our imaginations? Where can we find “awareness” apart from experience?
The mind takes this aspect of vivid experience and turns it into an “aware perceiver” through conceptual construction after the fact. This “aware perceiver” can’t be found as a stand-alone entity that views experience; you just can’t find it! You can’t find awareness, you can never find this illusive ghost called awareness, you will only find some type of vivid experience.
It’s also a mistake to say “there is no such thing as awareness”. That is the same as saying “there is no such thing as atmospheric conditions”. They are both pointers to the nature of direct experience but neither exist as actual aspects of direct experience. Rather we can say that experience is vivid and that vivid aspect we can call “awareness”. We can’t take away that “aware” vivid aspect of experience any more than we can separate the blue from the sky. The blueness and the sky are inseparable aspects of one perceptual experience. Likewise awareness and experience are inseparable aspects of one perceptual moment.
Our language implies there is a such thing as a perception that can be known without some quality of awareness. Put perceiving itself implies an awareness occurring regarding the content. In fact the perceived content is textured awareness.
This imagined stand-alone “aware perceiver” is the entire basis of ego or believed-in, separate selfhood. Our imagined personal story as an experiencing individual unit of perceiving awareness is developed from this primary error. Seeing this clearly is the realization of “no self”. The experience of separate “selfness” can still arise but it is only just an experience that is occurring to “no one”.
There is also no Great Self hidden in the background as an eternal Witness of experience. That Self (if we need such a concept) is fully invested AS experience not as a viewer of it. However it is taught in most non-dual traditions like Buddhism, that there is still an unchanging, non-manifest, non-conditioned aspect of knowingness within experience. To understand this we have to understand the nature of experience and all phenomena experienced.
All experience; as sensory moments or mental perceptions, have an aspect of vivid luminosity as experiential content, registering cognition, and empty knowingness. Those three always are present in all moments as the event. They don’t exist separately and independently ever. However these three qualities can appear in various degrees and proportions to each other and due to those fluctuations, experience can take on various hues and tones.
Sometimes the more intense luminously vivid aspect outshines the empty nature of experience which can produce a kind of cognitive bewilderment. It is in that moment of cognitive bewilderment that this secondary energetic consciousness arises which doesn’t recognize its own empty nature as pure knowing cognition. As a result the luminously formative aspect takes on greater solidity and contraction. The contraction is the result of the “am” and “I am” cognition arising in the bewildered consciousness as a sort of self grasping panic. It is that panic that initiates a kind of blind grasping that causes the collapse and contraction of the luminous field into a compact mass of dull sentience. It is this compact mass of dull sentience along with its energetic field that is mistaken to be an enduring “soul”, atman or self. It is exactly at this point the sense of being a separate subject looking out at a separate field of perceived things occur.
Literally the “lights have gone out” as well as the wisdom of self-recognition. The greater the contraction the greater the ignorance through lack of seeing the inherent empty nature of the entire energetic contraction. That’s why practices that increase and expand the energetic and cognitive space of knowing, reveal the empty nature of the formative structures of the mind, and a “release” occurs.
Alternatively the "empty knowing" aspect can predominate which allows full insight into the empty yet luminous nature of experience and reality.
If a clinging to the "empty-nature experience" happens, a type of non-functional void state occurs. So grasping at emptiness and grasping at formative luminosity are both extremes.
Recognizing the empty aware nature of luminous form is realization when also the empty aware aspect is seen to be luminously formative.
In such a case, empty and luminous experience is all there is: direct, vivid, self-knowing and thoroughly magical!
Like · · November 19, 2013 at 11:18pm
Justin Struble and Eric Blackburn like this.
Jackson Peterson "But when the dividing line between stillness and thought occurrence fades away, and instead the strength of the aware quality is intensified, the awake quality is known as rigpa"
Adieu Rinpoche
November 19, 2013 at 11:56pm · Like
Soh "However it is taught in most non-dual traditions like Buddhism, that there is still an unchanging, non-manifest, non-conditioned aspect of knowingness within experience. To understand this we have to understand the nature of experience and all phenomena experienced."
I think you're referring to Vedanta, not Buddhism.
http://www.byomakusuma.org/Teachings/VedantaVisAVisShentong.aspx
"Sankaràcàrya even mentions the exact opposite view of what Śāntarakṣita mentioned above and refutes him. In exact opposite of what Śāntarakṣita says, “The error in the view of these philosophers is a slight one – due only to the assertion of eternality of cognition.” Sankara says about the Chittamatra “The error in the view of these philosophies is only slight - they believe the non-dual mind as changing moment to moment; we believe it as unchanging eternal.”
If the meaning of the Uttara Tantra is what the Shentongpas make it out to be, it would have existed in the Indian sources too. Sankara would certainly have written that the view of these Buddhist philosophers as what the Vedas had always taught and that Buddhism is just a branch of Hinduism. Even today, if any Indian Hindu philosopher comes across the Shentong view, they would be most happy to embrace it as the correct view and take it as a solid proof that Buddhism is just a branch of Hinduism and the Buddha did not teach anything new. This of course blatantly contradicts what the Buddha himself said in Mahayana, Theravada, and Sarvàstivàda Sutras and Sàstra-s. The Buddha said that he taught something that had been lost for a long time. But the Vedas and the Vedic Bràhmins of the Buddha’s time, whom the Buddha met, had been and are still teaching the existence of true âtmà, and ‘eternal non-dual cognition’ as the Ultimate Reality.
If we glance through the Jain literature, we again find that no Jain scholar mentions that the Buddhists believed in an eternal / permanent non-dual cognition as the ultimate reality. At least, those Jain scholars after Asanga should have done so, if that was how the Uttara Tantra had been interpreted in India."
Byoma Kusuma Buddhadharma Sangha
www.byomakusuma.org
Although he was from around the 8th century, he became popular among the Hindus ...See More
November 20, 2013 at 8:31am · Like · Remove Preview
Aditya Prasad "These Bharamins (sic) secretly implanted Hindu views of the Vedas..." Sounds a bit conspiracy theorist to me.
Why exactly I should trust "Acharya Mahayogi Sridhar Rana Rinpoche" over someone like Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche (who is purportedly a shentongpa) I do not understand.
I don't take him seriously just because he was raised Hindu but then "found Jesus" (so to speak) elsewhere.
November 20, 2013 at 10:28am · Edited · Like · 1
Soh To be fair I think archaya clearly stated that point is a postulation of his. Nevertheless the main point is his distinguishing the view of advaita and shentong crypto eternalism from the definitive view in buddhadharma. Not all shentong teachings fall into such extremes however as I have seen some clear teachers like thrangu rinpoche discussing and teaching shentong but not holding the vedanta sort of substantialist view.
November 20, 2013 at 2:29pm · Like
Neony Karby It's just the same old story
November 20, 2013 at 4:59pm · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson Soh, you still don't understand regarding the "non-manifest consciousness" as "vinannam anidassana" as Nyanananda explains in 33 brilliant sermons. Your view is just plain wrong and in no way accords with Thrangu, Dilgo Khentse, Kalu, Dudjum, Norbu, Jamgon Kuntrul or Mipham and many, many others regarding the Buddha Nature. However Nyanananda's explication is flawless in every way. Your view is crippled by the belief that emptiness is "just sights, sounds etc" and not the Buddha Nature expressing Itself as "sights, sounds etc.". Phenomena of every kind are the empty uncreated luster of the empty omniscient Buddha Mind as Dharmakaya. The "sights and sounds etc." are just the surface froth of a much deeper and non-manifest Reality. It is that much deeper, non-manifest Reality that is "changeless", unestablished, non-dependent, non-substantial and beyond the four extremes. When we investigate sights and sounds we find a luminous emptiness that is fully conscious as what you are. Your consciousness is Consciousness, a non- manifest presence that pervades all consciousness and phenomena as those appearances. You are hung up on the "sights and sounds" and not their true nature as luminous wisdom arising from emptiness. Your view borders on nihilism regarding "being, being aware". Looking directly into what's being aware reveals an infinite depth of wisdom and realization. When the Buddha spoke of "extinction" and cessation of consciousness, he meant only only the extinction and cessation of the delusionary consciousness that reifies self and things. That is not a denial of "aware being", but only the imaginary imputation of a "beingness", imagined "self",or Self, and the consciousness itself that generates such delusions. What appears at that moment of cessation can perhaps be called "the unestablished ground of being" or vijnana anidassana. Please re-read Nyanananda's 33 Sermons to clarify this matter once and for all!
November 20, 2013 at 9:49pm · Like
Soh Unestablished consciousness does not imply a metaphysical essence. It means consciousness stops fabricating deluded cognitions of subjective self and inherently existing objects. The suchness of in the seen just the seen in the heard just the heard without a fabricated observer or object being observed, as described in Kalaka Sutta, just that is unestablished consciousness. This is in contrast to the type of afflictive establishing consciousness of the twelve links. Cognizance manifest in wisdom through nonafflictive dependent origination. This is known in dzogchen as lhun grub. It is not in any way changeless or independent.
November 20, 2013 at 10:57pm · Edited · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson Soh, wisdom IS cognizance, the knowing and recognition of its empty and all pervasive nature. Sights and sounds are are like a dream that occur in the cognitive empty space that never moves beyond its own emptiness as the Dharmakaya. For example Soh, when you direct your attention upon the aware quality of the attention itself, it reveals a dimension that is immanent AS "sights and sounds" (Lhundrub) and also AS transcendent emptiness (Kadag) as all pervasive and unlimited pure Presence. You have the immanent clearly, but miss the transcendent due to the vivid clarity of "sights and sounds" that captures and limits your attention from the transcendent depths... that expresses itself as "sights sounds". Sights and sounds are symbols pointing to something infinitely more profound.
November 20, 2013 at 11:12pm · Like · 1
Aditya Prasad I'll try to be more precise in my criticism of such discussions: I could list a bunch of shentongpas (actually Jackson already did) whose views we would sit here and refute. There are two possibilities: (1) we are more realized than they are; (2) their words (like all words) serve a purpose, and it's funny to take them literally. I'll let you guess which one I believe
November 21, 2013 at 2:44am · Like · 1
Roger Mahaffey elaborate Aditya, interesting conversation Soh and Jackson Peterson
November 21, 2013 at 3:26am · Like · 1
Aditya Prasad Roger: I think it is safe to assume that *every single view* has been "refuted" by at least one person of greater realization than mine (not a high bar to hit!). Conversely, many views I try to refute have been held by someone with greater realization.
If I really believe I'm refuting one of the latter with my own realization, I'm very likely deluded. So a more generous approach makes sense: because we already know that *all descriptions* are provisional, the question becomes "which students would benefit from this particular falsehood?"
(By the same token, I can never know if people here really believe what they're typing. It may very well be that all parties involved are having fun with "joyful irony" (as Greg calls it) as opposed to reifying and comparing "real views".)
November 21, 2013 at 3:44am · Like · 2
Jackson Peterson I believe it comes down to the views of yogis versus the views of pandits. The latter are experts of maps and the former are seasoned travelers. I listen to the seasoned travelers over those who speak with the authority of one who has traveled extensively but who have only studied the maps.
November 21, 2013 at 4:00am · Like · 1
Soh Jax you are still having a view of inherency that posits a truly existing absolute. There is no buddha nature expressing itself as manifestation because buddha nature is synonymous with manifestation. You see conscious space as a transcendent truly existing thing that is beyond all manifestation with its own essence, I do not deny the experience of conscious space but I see conscious space as empty of any inherent hidden independent unchanging essence and is merely and always only total exertion without self without any hidden essence.
Space is another manifestation of the mind realm no more ultimate than a self luminous sight or sound. There is absolutely no hierarchy no one thing subsuming another. Just pure equality and one taste of everything. I do not even subtly equate space with some source or ground of being, I have seen through the view of an ultimate source or essence. You are mistaking conscious space with emptiness, but emptiness is not some transcendent space but the lack of any independent changeless inherently existing self-existence of anything and everything including conscious space which is but another clarity-manifestation. And because everything including conscious space is empty of such ontological essence, there is no hidden entities of any sort always only manifestation, total exertion of sights sounds space qualities and textures of each moment.
November 21, 2013 at 5:19am · Edited · Like · 3
Soh From Dharma Overground, Dharma Dan (Daniel M. Ingram):
Dear Mark,
Thanks for your descriptions and analysis. They are interesting and relevant.
I think of it this way, from a very high but still vipassana point of view, as you are framing this question in a vipassana context:
First, the breath is nice, but at that level of manifesting sensations, some other points of view are helpful:
Assume something really simple about sensations and awareness: they are exactly the same. In fact, make it more simple: there are sensations, and this includes all sensations that make up space, thought, image, body, anything you can imagine being mind, and all qualities that are experienced, meaning the sum total of the world.
In this very simple framework, rigpa is all sensations, but there can be this subtle attachment and lack of investigation when high terms are used that we want there to be this super-rigpa, this awareness that is other. You mention that you feel there is a larger awareness, an awareness that is not just there the limits of your senses. I would claim otherwise: that the whole sensate universe by definition can't arise without the quality of awareness by definition, and so some very subtle sensations are tricking you into thinking they are bigger than the rest of the sensate field and are actually the awareness that is aware of other sensations.
Awareness is simply manifestation. All sensations are simply present.
Thus, be wary of anything that wants to be a super-awareness, a rigpa that is larger than everything else, as it can't be, by definition. Investigate at the level of bare sensate experience just what arises and see that it can't possibly be different from awareness, as this is actually an extraneous concept and there are actually just sensations as the first and final basis of reality.
As you like the Tibetan stuff, and to quote Padmasambhava in the root text of the book The Light of Wisdom:
"The mind that observes is also devoid of an ego or self-entity.
It is neither seen as something different from the aggregates
Nor as identical with these five aggregates.
If the first were true, there would exist some other substance.
This is not the case, so were the second true,
That would contradict a permanent self, since the aggregates are impermanent.
Therefore, based on the five aggregates,
The self is a mere imputation based on the power of the ego-clinging.
As to that which imputes, the past thought has vanished and is nonexistent.
The future thought has not occurred, and the present thought does not withstand scrutiny."
I really found this little block of tight philosophy helpful. It is also very vipassana at its core, but it is no surprise the wisdom traditions converge.
Thus, if you want to crack the nut, notice that everything is 5 aggregates, including everything you think is super-awareness, and be less concerned with what every little type of consciousness is than with just perceiving them directly and noticing the gaps that section off this from that, such as rigpa from thought stream, or awareness from sensations, as these are golden chains.
November 21, 2013 at 5:21am · Like · 3
Piotr Ludwiński Jackson,
"It" that "expresses itself" as XYZ" is deluded view refuted in buddhism 101.
Emptiness of phenomena means that there are no objects that can be pinned down as existent or non-existent. Without any "thing" that is "manifest" how can there be "non-manifest"?
Something beyond four extremes means that that something is unreal abstraction; non-arisen from the very beginning.
]"non-manifest" always was, always is and always will be just a thought that does not point to anything. All thoughts are like that; they don't point to anything; not even to themselves. Your accusation that Soh's view is nihilistc is unfounded in same way your eternalistic and inherent imputations are.
"Buddha Nature", "Buddha Mind" or "Consciousness", "non-manifest consciousness" are not exceptions at all.
“Hey, hey, apparent yet non existent retinue: listen well! There is no object to distinguish in me, the view of self-originated wisdom; it did not exist before, it will not arise later, and also does not appear in anyway in the present. The path does not exist, action does not exist, traces do not exist, ignorance does not exist, thoughts do not exist, mind does not exist, prajn~aŻ does not exist, samsara does not exist, nirvana does not exist, vidya itself does not even exist, totally not appearing in anyway.” -- The Unwritten Tantra
There is neither non-manifest background reality (anatta) nor is there any manifest object (secondfold emptiness). Both manifest and non-manifest are just mere names. Even these names are non-arising and can't be pinned down.
Your view of something that can be pinned down as "non-manifest IT that does manifest AS sounds, sights etc is preciesly what buddhadharma is set up to refute; inherent existence/inherent reality...
"What language expresses is nonexistent." Nagarjuna, MMK
Yet you write as if your verbal map is really pointing to territory that can be pinned down.
"Any thought of ‘subject’, ‘object’ and ‘action’
Is held to be a cognitive obscuration." Maitreya
To say that there is non-manifest reality that does manifest as sounds, sights is precisely establishing subject, action and object. Non-manifest reality is clung to as "ultimate agent". Hence view of substantial source (to say there is it that is beyond four extremes etc as you usually do is to affirm substantial and inherent reality with few low quality verbal tricks to pretend it's not inherent).
What never arose in the first place cannot be afflicted thus it's primordially pure (ka dag).
Emptiness has nothing to do with transcendence. Emptiness just means that both self and phenomena never arose in the first place. It includes all phenomena.
"That one with discernment, that arahant, stops short at the seen, true to the aphorism di??he di??hamatta?, "in the seen just the seen".[1036] He stops at the heard in the heard, he stops at the sensed in the sensed, he stops at the cognized in the cognized. He does not go on imagining like that deer, taking his stand on perception. He does not imagine a thing seen or one who sees. Nor does he entertain imaginings in regard to the heard, the sensed and the cognized." Mind Stilled
Savari elucidates:
If the mind were real, all other phenomena would be real.
Since the mind is unreal, who can understand
That the real thing exists?
Neither the mind and the appearances
Nor the investigator can be found.
Being unreal they are unborn and unceasing
Throughout the three periods of time.
The intrinsic nature [of mind] is immutable, abiding great bliss.
I am afraid that your "non-manifest source" is just this; imagination, word, thought, reification.
What is liberating is this; "subject", "action", "object" are all unreal.
How are "we" liberated? By recognizing that we don't have mind; we are unreal. "I", "mind", "consciousness" does not point to any form-based or formless-based reality. That's all.
Regards.
November 21, 2013 at 5:32am · Edited · Unlike · 4
Soh Just to clarify when I say manifestation it means the total exertion of everything but does not imply any actual arising object and likewise anything that could abide or cease.
November 21, 2013 at 5:47am · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson Again I sense strongly this is a pandita argument versus a yogic. When the individual whirlpool ceases, the ocean which expressed itself as the whirlpool, the exertion of the ocean itself, knows Itself as the "non-whirlpool" Knowing. The ocean is nirvanic consciousness. It is the Mind of Clear Light. The unique method of Dzogchen is to know the nature of the whirlpool is always pure water, and identifiable in any condition. However when clearly known the whirlpool ceases. Likewise by the cessation of the whirlpool by purely mechanical yogic means, likewise the Consciousness of the ocean arises.
You are focusing on appearances of the five senses and the five skandhas rather than Buddha Wisdom. You miss the Buddha Wisdom because of a lack of deep samadhi practice where the yogic meaning of "shunyata" is revealed. Nyanananda explains this all flawlessly. More and deeper meditation practice is necessary. Also the phenomena of thogal visions that appear as sights and sounds are "non- dependent" appearances. Likewise rigpa consciousness is not a dependent consciousness. The vast "space-like" wisdom is completely unestablished, non-manifest and omniscient, and compassionately responsive.
November 21, 2013 at 6:13am · Like
Soh This is known out of yogic realization. There is no ground of being, source, whatsoever underlying manifestation because spacebeingness itself is another manifestation, total exertion. Oceanic awareness is simply total exertion and nothing hidden. To state otherwise is to posit an intrinsic essence and would mean the realization of emptiness or even anatta has not clearly dawned. In my I AMness phase I too realized that spacelike oceanic awareness but it was mistakenly reified into a ground of being and source of phenomena. Such erroneous views is only fully seen through after penetrating later into anatta and emptiness.
Malcolm has clearly stated that lhun grub appearances are non afflictive dependent origination. They are not dependently originated only in the sense that it is not part of the twelve links of afflictive dependent origination, however the general theory of dependent origination (this is, that is) still applies otherwise one will again fall into the fault of inherent, independent existence. Substantialist view.
November 21, 2013 at 6:40am · Edited · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson The problem is your reduction of the meaning being conveyed to be portrayed by the word "essence". Its not an essence of any kind. Essence is an imputed very subtle substance. It's not known here that way at all. It's absolutely empty presence as a totality, like a hologram: empty form. All yogis know this..
November 21, 2013 at 6:41am · Like
Roger Mahaffey I follow what both of you are saying and its a very interesting discussion. Experience agrees with Jackson Peterson I know what he is saying, but at the same time I know what Soh is saying. It seems this is where emptiness teachings and Advaita part ways. Not saying you are an Advaitist Jackson but what you say does seem to imply some kind of actual presence, or some kind of infinite limitless substratum and what Soh is saying is completely negating that and bringing it back to emptiness. There always seems to be something that cognizes all objects, that is before any arising or appearance yet not separate from appearance. But I have seen on some of these groups that people have also looked into the nature of awareness and found it empty as well.
November 21, 2013 at 6:51am · Like · 1
Roger Mahaffey Resting in 'I AM' often brings a profound peace, clarity, and wisdom. That has been my experience. I see the emptiness of objects and self. But as far as awareness being something that is while everything else is empty.... hmm ?
November 21, 2013 at 6:53am · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson Roger Mahaffey, I am not saying anything like Advaita, but rather classic Buddhism. Awareness is completely empty! It is pure Wisdom, the Mind of Clear Light. It is completely without any sense of "I am" or "am". All the Dzogchen masters and Mahamudra masters say that the Dharmakaya is all pervasive empty knowingness. It is not an entity. It is the Ground of Being, yet is unestablished emptiness, yet is Consciousness. To know it is completely absent of something to rest in or a someone to rest in "it". You cant get there from here. Rather your personal existence ceases like a whirlpool in the ocean ceasing to whirl. But the "ocean" isn't annihilation or extinction of sentience, rather it is total Sentience. There is no you to become it. There is no it to become. It is empty of all defects and afflictions but is not absent of all the Buddha qualities.
November 21, 2013 at 7:10am · Like · 1
Soh hi roger yes awareness is empty but at the same time there is no denial of awareness just the mistaken notion of awareness as a changeless hidden independent something or perceiver of perception. awareness is selfilluminating appearance. see
November 21, 2013 at 7:25am · Like · 1
Soh http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/.../joel-agee...
Awakening to Reality: Joel Agee: Appearances are Self-Illuminating
awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com
November 21, 2013 at 7:25am · Like · Remove Preview
Soh and http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/.../zen...
Awakening to Reality: A Zen Exploration of the Bahiya Sutta
awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com
What a surprise, to find my picture and recent journal entries on your brilliant...See More
November 21, 2013 at 7:28am · Like · 1 · Remove Preview
Roger Mahaffey At work will check it out tonight, thanks for all the discussion ppl!
November 21, 2013 at 8:24am · Like · 1
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland From the blog post extensively quoting Joel:
> The "knower" who "exists continuously" can be a misleading formulation. This knowing is not an entity, and doesn't exist in the way objects seem to exist. The recognition shows it to be unfindable. Peter ...See More
November 21, 2013 at 9:19am · Edited · Like · 1
Roger Mahaffey That is a fascinating line right there.... so the insight itself is the 'knowing' rather than some kind of ontological beingness.
November 21, 2013 at 9:21am · Like
Greg Goode Ah, awareness vs emptiness and clear light, oh my! And advaita and substantialism and ontological beingness and capitalized nouns like Consciousness and Sentience and I AMness! Reminds me of the rigpa wars we had over a year ago. I missed all that!
Things sure get hoppin when Jackson comes to town!!
November 21, 2013 at 10:18am · Edited · Like · 4
Aditya Prasad Well, see, the most important thing is that you get the _words_ right...
November 21, 2013 at 10:17am · Like · 1
Roger Mahaffey I was hoping to hear from you in this discussion Greg Goode I thought it was pretty interesting! I have not seen one like this before and it hits on things that I am curious about.
November 21, 2013 at 10:26am · Edited · Like
Greg Goode Hi Roger, I don't practice Dzogchen or Mahamudra, which are at the center of these discussions. So I don't have too much to say about all this. But I do find inter-path discussions fascinating and informative.
November 21, 2013 at 10:36am · Like · 2
Jackson Peterson There is a "knowing", with no reason for the mind to make it a "knower" , but it does. Its an imaginary posture. If the "knower" is beyond the mind that imputes self inherency, then it remains unestablished in every way. The mind seems to need to conceive of "knowingness" as some essence or substance. It has no model for an unestablished, thoroughly empty "knowingness". Yet Yogis know this impersonal knowing directly.
November 22, 2013 at 3:00am · Like
Roger Mahaffey Its not a static thing but nonetheless it knows. I think this is semantics... in the end there is some kind of inner knowing or beingness it cant be contained but its there.
November 22, 2013 at 3:15am · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson Roger Mahaffey, Indeed!
November 22, 2013 at 3:16am · Like
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland No, that is incorrect, or rather, imprecise.
> In the end there is some kind of inner knowing or beingness
> It cant be contained but its there.
> Its not a static thing but nonetheless it knows.
The inaccuracy is the "is", "it" and "knows".
That might seem like mere semantics and to a certain degree it is, but there is something deeper going on here.
This will not be clear until the very compulsion to *even account for* the "knowing" is dropped.
November 22, 2013 at 12:51pm · Edited · Like · 3
Roger Mahaffey See talking about these things and holding onto views are different things.
November 22, 2013 at 7:03am · Like · 1
Jackson Peterson Roger Mahaffey, no master would deny your observation. There indeed is a changeless presence of cognizance that is exactly what your "are" in all moments. You are never less nor more, except in dreams...
November 22, 2013 at 8:51pm · Like
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