Stian Gudmundsen Høiland?Dharma Connection
February 22 ·
For as long as one keep entertaining the notions, the structures and mechanisms that bind, that is how long one will be bound by those structures.
One will never break free from causality as long as one perpetuates the propensities for the conceiving of causality. One will never see through causality if one is unconsciously trying to spare or retain the causal structure.
As long as one thinks there is a gradual process of refinement, improvement and progress, that is how long one will have to proceed with that gradual process.
How the hell do you expect to break through karmic conditioning unless you actually let go of it? Is there a secret password, technique or correct sequence of reasoning that magically produces the breakthrough?
It's like becoming lucid in a dream. In the dream one has to question the dream *now*. At a time when otherwise it seems that everything is just fine and dandy, nothing that suggest one is dreaming, that's when one needs to do a check. Because that is the only time one can check.
The nature of causality is not going to suddenly seem as if it is out of whack. There's not going to be anything suggesting that causality is illusory. It is necessary to cut through it in full, immediately, right *now*.
One only becomes lucid at the moment one becomes lucid, which is the same moment one is already lucid—the act of becoming lucid IS the lucidity. One must be lucid before one has become lucid, which is impossible, or, rather, acasual.
You are actively fabricating these structures. They will not be resolved until, by grace, by sheer synchronicity, you immediately drop them, out of the blue—like becoming lucid in a dream. And that needs to happen *now*, not in a projected future of buddhahood.
Have you tried to pass your hand through an object? If not, why not?
LikeLike · · 417
Stuffs RedTurtle, Anthony Goh and 2 others like this.
Kyle Dixon The fact that you think the 'refinement' alluded to on the other thread is in any way 'causal', means you do not understand the so-called path of the system being referenced.
February 22 at 5:42pm · Like · 1
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland Who's saying it's casual? The guy claiming nothing is casual? Well that would be a weird guy if ever I saw one!
February 22 at 6:15pm · Like
Kyle Dixon It's interesting Stain, when I first encountered these teachings I waved the same flag you're parading in this post. I scoffed at those who thought there was anything remotely resembling a causal, or gradual process in relation to these teachings. I also pitied those who gave credence to the very structures and notions you reference above. Oh how everyone was fooling themselves, and oh how I saw through it all... and I stuck to those guns with a vengeance. I stuck to those guns until the definitive view actually dawned in my mind stream, and I was shown how foolish I had been to think I had understood anything. But one thing was understood. What I did finally understand as a result of that insight, was what these structures are attempting to frame... and in that humbling moment a newfound respect was born for the conventional templates which are associated with the buddhadharma. Not in the sense of attaching to them in a rigid way, as you misinterpret my advocacy of them to be, rather, that respect was an intimate knowledge that there was a freedom to implement them [the structures] without deluding myself that I was any closer or further from my nature as a result of doing so.
Interesting how the opposite seems to be true for you.
February 22 at 6:15pm · Like · 5
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland I may produce a similar sounding story to yours, Kyle. That you might think I couldn't is suggestive of projection of lack of realization—something which seems from my reading to be a recurrent theme with you.
But though the story you tell may sound convincing to you and others, it most certainly does so by it's appeal to common sensical notions of causality. It seems you cannot see that the view spoken of here is free from being a view and that it liberates causality. If you did, you would not try to appeal with your story.
I will not be able to see eye to eye with you in doctrinal discussions. You seem to me to have a great deal more knowledge of the intricacies of the tradition than I do. But this is not an admittance of defeat.
Let this not be a cause for bad air, though! As I said on the other thread: Happy b-day
February 22 at 6:33pm · Edited · Like
Kyle Dixon The point is to understand how and why the perception of causality seems to arise. What is the compositional make-up of the afflictive patternings which lend to the notion of our nature being obscured. Is it actually obscured? Of course not. However that is only known when in direct recognition of it.
Our nature is ka dag, free of any notions pertaining to causality, time, improvement, lack, acquisition, any of it. It is utterly pure and perfect.
Yet sight of it appears to be lost, propensities based on that apparent loss seem to proliferate. Are they real? Of course not. Is any of it real? Of course not. Yet at the same time, the Buddhas in all of their wisdom have delivered these illusory teachings, which allow us to wander along an illusory path, and gives us a chance to attain an illusory awakening. From the perspective of that awakening, yes it is directly seen that none of it was ever inherently valid. Yet that illusory process, which from the standpoint of awakening is known to have never occurred, was wholly necessary.
Even the idea of refinement is nothing more than familiarization with that wisdom. There is no process, yet a process appears. There is no path yet a path unfolds. There is no liberation yet liberation occurs.
When I appear to be rigidly promulgating dogmatic structures, and seem to be wrought with shortsighted misunderstanding which doesn't grasp the perfect nature of inborn wisdom... it is because you cannot very well tell people there is nothing to do and everything is truly self-perfected. There is no possibility for that to be understood until it is directly encountered through genuine realization.
February 22 at 6:54pm · Edited · Like · 8
Kyle Dixon But thank you for the birthday wishes, and I would never allow for our opinions to make for bad air. I respect your opinion, even if I express disagreement, I understand what you are trying to point towards.
February 22 at 7:00pm · Like · 4
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland People reading this, who don't already know, might be interested in knowing that Kyle is a student of highly revered Dzogchen master Chogyal Namkhai Norbu.
In contrast, I have not been in personal contact with any such highly renowned teacher. My knowledge of the traditions has come from books.
It may be very interesting to investigate the assumptions and notions underlying any evaluations done on this basis.
Does access to a master act as a cause for realization? Does it somehow increase the likelihood of recognition? Does the lack of such conditions decrease the chance of, or even preclude, recognition?
February 22 at 7:04pm · Edited · Like
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland Kyle said:
> (...) you cannot very well tell people there is nothing to do and everything is truly self-perfected. There is no possibility for that to be understood until it is directly encountered through genuine realization.
This is the point of contention (I do agree with the last sentence, though).
The concept of skillfulness still applies to such non-pointing, though (cf. neo-advaita circus).
February 22 at 7:12pm · Edited · Like
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland Telling people, in effect, that there is much to do, that we are deluded... How do you suppose that that somehow primes the insight that there is nothing to do, that everything is self-perfected?
Beside the point that recognition is, in final analysis, acasual and therefore cannot be caused, there is the issue of not just leaving that bit out, but actually teaching the opposite.
That doesn't make sense even from a casual perspective (i.e. delusion leading to wisdom, causes leading to acasual effects, etc.).
This paradoxical bind here is like a bent stick about to snap. When the stick finally snaps, the ultimate perspective becomes just as valid in a teaching context as the conventional—they are both conventional.
What caused the separation of ultimate and conventional was the fabrication of just that separation. When it ends, nothing has changed, except now all of a sudden there's no problem with mixing ultimate and conventional—the discrimination was all just in the mind; an arbitrarily erected barrier now seen in all its arbitrariness.
Like the example of dividing by zero:
> It's like being deathly afraid of mathematically dividing by zero because one thinks the universe is actually gonna rip into oblivion if one does—never ever daring to divide by zero, stressing over it, worrying that others might do it, getting obsessed about it and trying to make sure no one ever does.
The stress, worry and obsession, and the behavior and actions it engenders, that arise because the threat is misunderstood as real are 'actual' casual effects which condition further casual effects. The false notion that dividing by zero is catastrophic, which in nature is completely impotent, magically gains the power of 'actual' casual efficiency!
The whole casual complex that arise from taking that threat as real is instantly rendered ineffective when the nature of that notion is recognized, immediately freeing all related karmic potential.
February 22 at 7:48pm · Edited · Like · 1
Viorica Doina Neacsu To undo karma means to undo each and every conceptual thought...
February 22 at 8:52pm · Like · 1
Stuffs RedTurtle Reading the dakini book, it seems like there is some underlying stuff going on
Like attatchment to forms and such, attatchments to nice touch, visual objects etc etc.
You see, I only conceptually understand no self
I have to remind myself that in seeing there is only the seen, and to meditate in this way. I touched something however it was most certainly not anatta, because mostly I am grasping and being averse. But it is wonderful and enlightening these discussions. Thank you
And happy birthday again Kyle Dixon!!! Enjoy that sweet little boy of yours!!
February 22 at 10:21pm · Like · 1
Stuffs RedTurtle Also if anyone has I phone, I downloaded an app a while back called vajra tv. Excellent!!!
February 22 at 10:23pm · Like · 1
Kyle Dixon Stian, wisdom is uncaused and self-perfected. Which means the dharmata [nature] of dharmins [phenomena] is never lost or compromised in itself. It is like space.
But Dzogchen isn't concerned with the fact that wisdom is self-perfected, dzogchen is concerned with recognition and non-recognition of wisdom, and the implications of both.
There is one basis [wisdom] and two paths [knowledge and ignorance].
February 23 at 2:24am · Like · 4
Petrus De Columna There goes the difference between conceptual realization and the realization of liberated awareness.
February 23 at 5:51am · Like
Dannon Flynn To get back to the topic, here are the three statements of Garab Dorje:
One is introduced directly to one's true nature or "Direct introduction."
One attains certainty about this natural state or "Remaining without doubt."
One continues with confidence in liberation or "Continuing in the non-dual state."
If one's true nature is introduced and recognized and Rigpa dawns, and if we can then continue without any doubts... then we can let go of cause and effect...
However that is a very ideal state and like surfing we fall of the board many times and must catch the next wave, and when that wave comes you have to paddle hard until it catches the board.
But if you have no doubts and are abiding in knowledge of your true unconditioned natural mind, then all the other stuff is silly. But letting go of causality cannot be a technique to become lucid. Kyle is right about this. It cannot be an intellectual thing where it makes sense intellectually that if you let go of causality then you will attain a-causal self-arisen. Letting go of causality is not a cause for the a-causal. lol... Not believing in cause and effect does not produce lucidity in a dream, rather by some ray of lucidity like grace, a recognition or understanding or wisdom arises for no reason. Once that happens, cause and effect is seen to be a story.
Either you are lucid or not (in a dream) and that makes all the difference. But if you are lucid, and a dream character tells you that you are not, you will laugh at them. If you are not lucid, and a dream character tells you that you are not, you may get angry, confused, think he is talking philosophy, act arrogantly, or defensively, or pause and look with insight and tA DA! Lucidity!
February 24 at 7:14pm · Like · 2
Dannon Flynn Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche says to be as Instant Awareness, not wondering if you are doing it right or wrong, because that wondering if you are doing it right or wrong is discursive thought.
February 24 at 7:56pm · Like · 1
Tom Radcliffe Yes, you are right. Freedom happens when it does.
February 24 at 8:59pm · Like
February 22 ·
For as long as one keep entertaining the notions, the structures and mechanisms that bind, that is how long one will be bound by those structures.
One will never break free from causality as long as one perpetuates the propensities for the conceiving of causality. One will never see through causality if one is unconsciously trying to spare or retain the causal structure.
As long as one thinks there is a gradual process of refinement, improvement and progress, that is how long one will have to proceed with that gradual process.
How the hell do you expect to break through karmic conditioning unless you actually let go of it? Is there a secret password, technique or correct sequence of reasoning that magically produces the breakthrough?
It's like becoming lucid in a dream. In the dream one has to question the dream *now*. At a time when otherwise it seems that everything is just fine and dandy, nothing that suggest one is dreaming, that's when one needs to do a check. Because that is the only time one can check.
The nature of causality is not going to suddenly seem as if it is out of whack. There's not going to be anything suggesting that causality is illusory. It is necessary to cut through it in full, immediately, right *now*.
One only becomes lucid at the moment one becomes lucid, which is the same moment one is already lucid—the act of becoming lucid IS the lucidity. One must be lucid before one has become lucid, which is impossible, or, rather, acasual.
You are actively fabricating these structures. They will not be resolved until, by grace, by sheer synchronicity, you immediately drop them, out of the blue—like becoming lucid in a dream. And that needs to happen *now*, not in a projected future of buddhahood.
Have you tried to pass your hand through an object? If not, why not?
LikeLike · · 417
Stuffs RedTurtle, Anthony Goh and 2 others like this.
Kyle Dixon The fact that you think the 'refinement' alluded to on the other thread is in any way 'causal', means you do not understand the so-called path of the system being referenced.
February 22 at 5:42pm · Like · 1
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland Who's saying it's casual? The guy claiming nothing is casual? Well that would be a weird guy if ever I saw one!
February 22 at 6:15pm · Like
Kyle Dixon It's interesting Stain, when I first encountered these teachings I waved the same flag you're parading in this post. I scoffed at those who thought there was anything remotely resembling a causal, or gradual process in relation to these teachings. I also pitied those who gave credence to the very structures and notions you reference above. Oh how everyone was fooling themselves, and oh how I saw through it all... and I stuck to those guns with a vengeance. I stuck to those guns until the definitive view actually dawned in my mind stream, and I was shown how foolish I had been to think I had understood anything. But one thing was understood. What I did finally understand as a result of that insight, was what these structures are attempting to frame... and in that humbling moment a newfound respect was born for the conventional templates which are associated with the buddhadharma. Not in the sense of attaching to them in a rigid way, as you misinterpret my advocacy of them to be, rather, that respect was an intimate knowledge that there was a freedom to implement them [the structures] without deluding myself that I was any closer or further from my nature as a result of doing so.
Interesting how the opposite seems to be true for you.
February 22 at 6:15pm · Like · 5
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland I may produce a similar sounding story to yours, Kyle. That you might think I couldn't is suggestive of projection of lack of realization—something which seems from my reading to be a recurrent theme with you.
But though the story you tell may sound convincing to you and others, it most certainly does so by it's appeal to common sensical notions of causality. It seems you cannot see that the view spoken of here is free from being a view and that it liberates causality. If you did, you would not try to appeal with your story.
I will not be able to see eye to eye with you in doctrinal discussions. You seem to me to have a great deal more knowledge of the intricacies of the tradition than I do. But this is not an admittance of defeat.
Let this not be a cause for bad air, though! As I said on the other thread: Happy b-day
February 22 at 6:33pm · Edited · Like
Kyle Dixon The point is to understand how and why the perception of causality seems to arise. What is the compositional make-up of the afflictive patternings which lend to the notion of our nature being obscured. Is it actually obscured? Of course not. However that is only known when in direct recognition of it.
Our nature is ka dag, free of any notions pertaining to causality, time, improvement, lack, acquisition, any of it. It is utterly pure and perfect.
Yet sight of it appears to be lost, propensities based on that apparent loss seem to proliferate. Are they real? Of course not. Is any of it real? Of course not. Yet at the same time, the Buddhas in all of their wisdom have delivered these illusory teachings, which allow us to wander along an illusory path, and gives us a chance to attain an illusory awakening. From the perspective of that awakening, yes it is directly seen that none of it was ever inherently valid. Yet that illusory process, which from the standpoint of awakening is known to have never occurred, was wholly necessary.
Even the idea of refinement is nothing more than familiarization with that wisdom. There is no process, yet a process appears. There is no path yet a path unfolds. There is no liberation yet liberation occurs.
When I appear to be rigidly promulgating dogmatic structures, and seem to be wrought with shortsighted misunderstanding which doesn't grasp the perfect nature of inborn wisdom... it is because you cannot very well tell people there is nothing to do and everything is truly self-perfected. There is no possibility for that to be understood until it is directly encountered through genuine realization.
February 22 at 6:54pm · Edited · Like · 8
Kyle Dixon But thank you for the birthday wishes, and I would never allow for our opinions to make for bad air. I respect your opinion, even if I express disagreement, I understand what you are trying to point towards.
February 22 at 7:00pm · Like · 4
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland People reading this, who don't already know, might be interested in knowing that Kyle is a student of highly revered Dzogchen master Chogyal Namkhai Norbu.
In contrast, I have not been in personal contact with any such highly renowned teacher. My knowledge of the traditions has come from books.
It may be very interesting to investigate the assumptions and notions underlying any evaluations done on this basis.
Does access to a master act as a cause for realization? Does it somehow increase the likelihood of recognition? Does the lack of such conditions decrease the chance of, or even preclude, recognition?
February 22 at 7:04pm · Edited · Like
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland Kyle said:
> (...) you cannot very well tell people there is nothing to do and everything is truly self-perfected. There is no possibility for that to be understood until it is directly encountered through genuine realization.
This is the point of contention (I do agree with the last sentence, though).
The concept of skillfulness still applies to such non-pointing, though (cf. neo-advaita circus).
February 22 at 7:12pm · Edited · Like
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland Telling people, in effect, that there is much to do, that we are deluded... How do you suppose that that somehow primes the insight that there is nothing to do, that everything is self-perfected?
Beside the point that recognition is, in final analysis, acasual and therefore cannot be caused, there is the issue of not just leaving that bit out, but actually teaching the opposite.
That doesn't make sense even from a casual perspective (i.e. delusion leading to wisdom, causes leading to acasual effects, etc.).
This paradoxical bind here is like a bent stick about to snap. When the stick finally snaps, the ultimate perspective becomes just as valid in a teaching context as the conventional—they are both conventional.
What caused the separation of ultimate and conventional was the fabrication of just that separation. When it ends, nothing has changed, except now all of a sudden there's no problem with mixing ultimate and conventional—the discrimination was all just in the mind; an arbitrarily erected barrier now seen in all its arbitrariness.
Like the example of dividing by zero:
> It's like being deathly afraid of mathematically dividing by zero because one thinks the universe is actually gonna rip into oblivion if one does—never ever daring to divide by zero, stressing over it, worrying that others might do it, getting obsessed about it and trying to make sure no one ever does.
The stress, worry and obsession, and the behavior and actions it engenders, that arise because the threat is misunderstood as real are 'actual' casual effects which condition further casual effects. The false notion that dividing by zero is catastrophic, which in nature is completely impotent, magically gains the power of 'actual' casual efficiency!
The whole casual complex that arise from taking that threat as real is instantly rendered ineffective when the nature of that notion is recognized, immediately freeing all related karmic potential.
February 22 at 7:48pm · Edited · Like · 1
Viorica Doina Neacsu To undo karma means to undo each and every conceptual thought...
February 22 at 8:52pm · Like · 1
Stuffs RedTurtle Reading the dakini book, it seems like there is some underlying stuff going on
Like attatchment to forms and such, attatchments to nice touch, visual objects etc etc.
You see, I only conceptually understand no self
I have to remind myself that in seeing there is only the seen, and to meditate in this way. I touched something however it was most certainly not anatta, because mostly I am grasping and being averse. But it is wonderful and enlightening these discussions. Thank you
And happy birthday again Kyle Dixon!!! Enjoy that sweet little boy of yours!!
February 22 at 10:21pm · Like · 1
Stuffs RedTurtle Also if anyone has I phone, I downloaded an app a while back called vajra tv. Excellent!!!
February 22 at 10:23pm · Like · 1
Kyle Dixon Stian, wisdom is uncaused and self-perfected. Which means the dharmata [nature] of dharmins [phenomena] is never lost or compromised in itself. It is like space.
But Dzogchen isn't concerned with the fact that wisdom is self-perfected, dzogchen is concerned with recognition and non-recognition of wisdom, and the implications of both.
There is one basis [wisdom] and two paths [knowledge and ignorance].
February 23 at 2:24am · Like · 4
Petrus De Columna There goes the difference between conceptual realization and the realization of liberated awareness.
February 23 at 5:51am · Like
Dannon Flynn To get back to the topic, here are the three statements of Garab Dorje:
One is introduced directly to one's true nature or "Direct introduction."
One attains certainty about this natural state or "Remaining without doubt."
One continues with confidence in liberation or "Continuing in the non-dual state."
If one's true nature is introduced and recognized and Rigpa dawns, and if we can then continue without any doubts... then we can let go of cause and effect...
However that is a very ideal state and like surfing we fall of the board many times and must catch the next wave, and when that wave comes you have to paddle hard until it catches the board.
But if you have no doubts and are abiding in knowledge of your true unconditioned natural mind, then all the other stuff is silly. But letting go of causality cannot be a technique to become lucid. Kyle is right about this. It cannot be an intellectual thing where it makes sense intellectually that if you let go of causality then you will attain a-causal self-arisen. Letting go of causality is not a cause for the a-causal. lol... Not believing in cause and effect does not produce lucidity in a dream, rather by some ray of lucidity like grace, a recognition or understanding or wisdom arises for no reason. Once that happens, cause and effect is seen to be a story.
Either you are lucid or not (in a dream) and that makes all the difference. But if you are lucid, and a dream character tells you that you are not, you will laugh at them. If you are not lucid, and a dream character tells you that you are not, you may get angry, confused, think he is talking philosophy, act arrogantly, or defensively, or pause and look with insight and tA DA! Lucidity!
February 24 at 7:14pm · Like · 2
Dannon Flynn Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche says to be as Instant Awareness, not wondering if you are doing it right or wrong, because that wondering if you are doing it right or wrong is discursive thought.
February 24 at 7:56pm · Like · 1
Tom Radcliffe Yes, you are right. Freedom happens when it does.
February 24 at 8:59pm · Like
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