David Vardy
April 23
When isn't seeing itself expressed as 'what's seen'?
LikeLike ·
Michael Zaurov and Carroll Izard like this.
Soh Seeing isn't 'expressing itself' as what's seen. Seeing is only ever just expression/what's seen, it is empty of being 'itself', and this is its emptiness of self.
It is not that there is a seeing itself which expresses as what's seen... If we say Awareness becomes manifest, that is erroneous, for X becoming Y is erroneous, or as Dogen puts it - firewood does not turn into ash.
To quote someone who does not wished to be named,
"When Self-originated primal awareness is realized to be always this spontaneous manifestation, then all manifestation are recognized to be one's empty clarity. Just this is the Dharmata, the nature of reality."
April 23 at 5:20pm · Edited · Like · 3
Soh That's the difference between substantialist and non-substantialist nonduality
April 23 at 5:21pm · Edited · Like · 1
Dean Pistilli Isn't 'seeing', just seeing? It doesn't leave much room for an expressed or an interpreter of things seen.
April 23 at 5:31pm · Like · 1
David Vardy Understood Soh. Funny, when writing 'seeing itself', it was meant to be more like 'When isn't seeing alone what's seen'. But you're right. Stating it as an expression it becomes in essence dualistic, as if there's one being an expression of another.
April 23 at 6:38pm · Unlike · 1
David Vardy However, when it's seen that verbing is what's happening in the absence of anyone verbing, the awe of the very singularity of it, leaves little in question. What's happening is what expressing is, the very movement of what's happening. There need not be anything expressing anything else. What's happening is by no means symbolic.........lol
April 23 at 6:49pm · Unlike · 1
David Vardy ......so how about "When is what's seen not what seeing is?"
April 23 at 7:05pm · Like
John 'Genryu' "That's the difference between substantialist and non-substantialist nonduality." It's tempting I know to hide behind seemingly deep statements, often copied in style from venerated works, but essentially they are still meaningless. Try not to over complicate things in order to give the impression that you know something. It tends to backfire.
April 23 at 10:58pm · Like · 1
Soh John 'Genryu' - it is not 'copied from venerated works', they are far from meaningless and represents different experiential insights, and anyway I've clarified what I meant by that in my article http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/substantial-and-insubstantial-non.html
Awakening to Reality: Substantial and Insubstantial Non-duality
awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com
This is one of the most brilliant blogs I´ve ever come across. Especially differ... See More
April 23 at 11:10pm · Edited · Like · 1 · Remove Preview
Albert Hong David Vardy
That's like asking when is salt not salty.
When this is, that is. When this isn't, that isn't.
No tongue, no salt.
No concept, no salt.
Salt depends on x, y, z.
For salt to be say not salt requires designation of function, concept, patterning of perceptual modalities.
Could be a white rock.
Or a crystal.
What specifically is it?
What happens if I take a drug that cuts the salt receptors. What is saltly becomes sweet.
Lol.
April 23 at 11:29pm · Unlike · 1
Soh Yet it is not that 'salty becomes sweet'... it is that the total exertion of sweet which is disjoint, yet is the actualization of interdependencies
April 23 at 11:32pm · Edited · Like · 2
Albert Hong You can extend the notion of symbol as the verbing.
The intepentration of everything coming together in this instant as this very arising. So completely that it has no chance to become anything.
So salty with no comparing, just that complete appearance with nothing prior during or after.
April 23 at 11:33pm · Unlike · 2
John 'Genryu' your still not getting it. Using ten dollar words still doesn't disguise the fact that you're not in fact saying anything that has any real meaning. If you had some genuine awakening, you'd be surprised by how simple things are to express clearly, directly and without pretense. There doesn't need to be such a strained effort to bamboozle people with what is essentially jargon. It's a real shame that you use the label Buddhism to do it too. That's, at best disingenuous, at worst deliberately deceptive. Is that why you guys set up this group? Hoping that those who don't really know much about the Dharma would be fooled by your act?
April 23 at 11:57pm · Edited · Like
Soh John 'Genryu' - the problem is that every person who has a genuine awakening would talk about the simplicity and directness of that realization, and that is OK, but that doesn't discount the fact that there are in fact different gradations and levels and depths and types of awakening. And it is important to point that out.
By 'substantial and insubstantial nonduality' I'm talking about two different types/levels of realization.
In substantial nonduality, all phenomena are subsumed to be expressions of one single underlying awareness that pervades and encompasses all phenomena within it, yet is seen to be not equivalent to phenomena. There is a strong attachment to a metaphysical Self or Awareness that is seen to be inseparable, yet not equivalent with, transient phenomena.
In the realization of Anatta, or insubstantial nonduality, you realize that in seeing just the seen - everything is self-luminous but without a 'Seer' or even any sort of a 'metaphysical awareness being one with phenomena'. Instead one realizes that seeing is only ever just that spontaneous manifestation, self-luminous visions, sounds, and so forth without a seer/hearer/etc. The inherency of self, an agent, seer/hearer/etc, and the inherency of any sense of a subject including 'awareness' is seen through and deconstructed in direct perception and realization.
April 24 at 12:02am · Edited · Like · 2
Soh Whatever jargons we use have very specific meanings and that can be clearly pointed out. We do not intend to confuse anyone with jargons. Rather than assume another party doesn't know what they're talking about, you should really start asking/finding out what he/she means. In this way we can have meaningful discussions.
April 24 at 12:10am · Edited · Like · 2
John 'Genryu' "Whatever jargons we use have very specific meanings and that can be clearly pointed out." Not really. They come off as someone trying to sound like various Buddhist texts who doesn't really understand them but is trying to sound as though they do. As for knowing what you are talking about, if you did, you'd be able to express things clearly and simply. You, and this group, are a con and a pretentious one at that. I do hope that nobody is taken in by your absolute nonsense, especially when you try and dress it up as having anything remotely to do with the Dharma, which it does not.
April 24 at 12:28am · Like
Soh John 'Genryu', I am expressing from direct realization and experience. I have gone through a series of realizations including that 'substantial/nonsubstantialist nonduality'.
The realization of anatta can be expressed very clearly and simply - in seeing just the seen, no seer (and this has always been the case), and everything is experienced centerlessly as gapless (no subjective observer and observed division), self-luminous (self-aware experience instead of experienced as if from a vantage point of a perceiver), disjoint (there is no linking co-ordinator or self or ground) manifestation (in all senses and mental experience).
This is as straightforward as I can put it, and this has been my day-in-day-out experience for the past 3 to 4 years, since my awakening to anatta in 15 October 2010. I can remember the moment (I was marching in my mandatory basic military training) and the contemplation (on Bahiya Sutta) that led to it. I have kept a practice journal (available for free - I do not sell anything) on my blog detailing all my experiences and realizations.
You may not recognise what I am saying, in which case that is too bad, but certainly I and a number of others in this group are expressing from direct realization and we understand each other well. I have also spoken to Zen teachers/masters and so forth who recognise what I've experienced.
April 24 at 12:34am · Edited · Like · 1
Soh Seems like he left
April 24 at 12:43am · Like
Albert Hong People believe that expression is one dimensional.
It has to be this way. It has to be simple and easy to digest.
What if that is just our bias?
What if someone else resonates with the complexities of language? Is that wrong?
People are so silly.
April 24 at 1:07am · Unlike · 2
Soh None of the suttas and sutras are all that simple actually... haha
April 24 at 1:10am · Like
Soh "This doctrine is profound, hard to see, difficult to understand, calm, sublime, not within the sphere of logic, subtle, to be understood by the wise." Majjhima Nikaya
....................
Thus have I heard. Once the Lord was staying among the Kurus. There is a market town there called Kammasa-dhamma. And the Venerable Ananda came to the Lord, saluted him, sat down to one side, and said: ‘It is wonderful, Lord, it is marvelous how profound this dependent origination is, and how profound it appears! And yet it appears to me as clear as clear!’
‘Do not say that Ananda, do not say that! This dependent origination is profound and appears profound. It is through not understanding, not penetrating this doctrine that this generation has become like a tangled ball of string, covered as with a blight, tangled like coarse grass, unable to pass beyond states of woe, the ill destiny, ruin and the round of birth-and-death. (Long Discourses of the Buddha, p. 223 also see Connected Discourses, pp. 593-594)
April 24 at 1:10am · Like
See Yong Chun Based on the interpenetration of all things, how can there be duality?
When a person sees, the cause and consequence are one, as the action of seeing, the supposed effect of what's seen, and what's experienced is all simultaneous.
Based on this, shouldn't there be no duality at all? As there is no difference between the action of seeing itself and its effect?
April 24 at 1:30am · Like
Soh The realization of no subject-object duality (itself can be distinguished into substantial and nonsubstantialist form of nonduality) does not need to imply realization of interpenetration leading to total exertion. All these are a form of direct experiential realization and not from analysis. You can see them as distinct realizations. Like http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html
Awakening to Reality: Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Enlightenment
awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com
The path that Thusness describes, his insights, are his and his alone.
April 24 at 1:39am · Edited · Like · 1 · Remove Preview
David Vardy John brings up an important point. Stages, as much as they seem to exist, are never more than fiction posing as fact, namely because there's no one to experience them. And, as long as we're featured defending them as real we're never farther than a stone's throw away from the persona. Seriousness shows up in defense of the lie there's someone to experience stages, while laughter is the remedy for what's seen to be just more of the same ole same ole. The realization is never not what's happening, the seeing of which brings the WTF of a lifetime.
April 24 at 2:31am · Like · 1
James O'Neill Brilliant article by Soh ---sub and insub nonduality
---It helped me clear up an issue I had with Wilbers expression of nonduality --- thanks Soh
April 24 at 3:46am · Unlike · 2
April 23
When isn't seeing itself expressed as 'what's seen'?
LikeLike ·
Michael Zaurov and Carroll Izard like this.
Soh Seeing isn't 'expressing itself' as what's seen. Seeing is only ever just expression/what's seen, it is empty of being 'itself', and this is its emptiness of self.
It is not that there is a seeing itself which expresses as what's seen... If we say Awareness becomes manifest, that is erroneous, for X becoming Y is erroneous, or as Dogen puts it - firewood does not turn into ash.
To quote someone who does not wished to be named,
"When Self-originated primal awareness is realized to be always this spontaneous manifestation, then all manifestation are recognized to be one's empty clarity. Just this is the Dharmata, the nature of reality."
April 23 at 5:20pm · Edited · Like · 3
Soh That's the difference between substantialist and non-substantialist nonduality
April 23 at 5:21pm · Edited · Like · 1
Dean Pistilli Isn't 'seeing', just seeing? It doesn't leave much room for an expressed or an interpreter of things seen.
April 23 at 5:31pm · Like · 1
David Vardy Understood Soh. Funny, when writing 'seeing itself', it was meant to be more like 'When isn't seeing alone what's seen'. But you're right. Stating it as an expression it becomes in essence dualistic, as if there's one being an expression of another.
April 23 at 6:38pm · Unlike · 1
David Vardy However, when it's seen that verbing is what's happening in the absence of anyone verbing, the awe of the very singularity of it, leaves little in question. What's happening is what expressing is, the very movement of what's happening. There need not be anything expressing anything else. What's happening is by no means symbolic.........lol
April 23 at 6:49pm · Unlike · 1
David Vardy ......so how about "When is what's seen not what seeing is?"
April 23 at 7:05pm · Like
John 'Genryu' "That's the difference between substantialist and non-substantialist nonduality." It's tempting I know to hide behind seemingly deep statements, often copied in style from venerated works, but essentially they are still meaningless. Try not to over complicate things in order to give the impression that you know something. It tends to backfire.
April 23 at 10:58pm · Like · 1
Soh John 'Genryu' - it is not 'copied from venerated works', they are far from meaningless and represents different experiential insights, and anyway I've clarified what I meant by that in my article http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/substantial-and-insubstantial-non.html
Awakening to Reality: Substantial and Insubstantial Non-duality
awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com
This is one of the most brilliant blogs I´ve ever come across. Especially differ... See More
April 23 at 11:10pm · Edited · Like · 1 · Remove Preview
Albert Hong David Vardy
That's like asking when is salt not salty.
When this is, that is. When this isn't, that isn't.
No tongue, no salt.
No concept, no salt.
Salt depends on x, y, z.
For salt to be say not salt requires designation of function, concept, patterning of perceptual modalities.
Could be a white rock.
Or a crystal.
What specifically is it?
What happens if I take a drug that cuts the salt receptors. What is saltly becomes sweet.
Lol.
April 23 at 11:29pm · Unlike · 1
Soh Yet it is not that 'salty becomes sweet'... it is that the total exertion of sweet which is disjoint, yet is the actualization of interdependencies
April 23 at 11:32pm · Edited · Like · 2
Albert Hong You can extend the notion of symbol as the verbing.
The intepentration of everything coming together in this instant as this very arising. So completely that it has no chance to become anything.
So salty with no comparing, just that complete appearance with nothing prior during or after.
April 23 at 11:33pm · Unlike · 2
John 'Genryu' your still not getting it. Using ten dollar words still doesn't disguise the fact that you're not in fact saying anything that has any real meaning. If you had some genuine awakening, you'd be surprised by how simple things are to express clearly, directly and without pretense. There doesn't need to be such a strained effort to bamboozle people with what is essentially jargon. It's a real shame that you use the label Buddhism to do it too. That's, at best disingenuous, at worst deliberately deceptive. Is that why you guys set up this group? Hoping that those who don't really know much about the Dharma would be fooled by your act?
April 23 at 11:57pm · Edited · Like
Soh John 'Genryu' - the problem is that every person who has a genuine awakening would talk about the simplicity and directness of that realization, and that is OK, but that doesn't discount the fact that there are in fact different gradations and levels and depths and types of awakening. And it is important to point that out.
By 'substantial and insubstantial nonduality' I'm talking about two different types/levels of realization.
In substantial nonduality, all phenomena are subsumed to be expressions of one single underlying awareness that pervades and encompasses all phenomena within it, yet is seen to be not equivalent to phenomena. There is a strong attachment to a metaphysical Self or Awareness that is seen to be inseparable, yet not equivalent with, transient phenomena.
In the realization of Anatta, or insubstantial nonduality, you realize that in seeing just the seen - everything is self-luminous but without a 'Seer' or even any sort of a 'metaphysical awareness being one with phenomena'. Instead one realizes that seeing is only ever just that spontaneous manifestation, self-luminous visions, sounds, and so forth without a seer/hearer/etc. The inherency of self, an agent, seer/hearer/etc, and the inherency of any sense of a subject including 'awareness' is seen through and deconstructed in direct perception and realization.
April 24 at 12:02am · Edited · Like · 2
Soh Whatever jargons we use have very specific meanings and that can be clearly pointed out. We do not intend to confuse anyone with jargons. Rather than assume another party doesn't know what they're talking about, you should really start asking/finding out what he/she means. In this way we can have meaningful discussions.
April 24 at 12:10am · Edited · Like · 2
John 'Genryu' "Whatever jargons we use have very specific meanings and that can be clearly pointed out." Not really. They come off as someone trying to sound like various Buddhist texts who doesn't really understand them but is trying to sound as though they do. As for knowing what you are talking about, if you did, you'd be able to express things clearly and simply. You, and this group, are a con and a pretentious one at that. I do hope that nobody is taken in by your absolute nonsense, especially when you try and dress it up as having anything remotely to do with the Dharma, which it does not.
April 24 at 12:28am · Like
Soh John 'Genryu', I am expressing from direct realization and experience. I have gone through a series of realizations including that 'substantial/nonsubstantialist nonduality'.
The realization of anatta can be expressed very clearly and simply - in seeing just the seen, no seer (and this has always been the case), and everything is experienced centerlessly as gapless (no subjective observer and observed division), self-luminous (self-aware experience instead of experienced as if from a vantage point of a perceiver), disjoint (there is no linking co-ordinator or self or ground) manifestation (in all senses and mental experience).
This is as straightforward as I can put it, and this has been my day-in-day-out experience for the past 3 to 4 years, since my awakening to anatta in 15 October 2010. I can remember the moment (I was marching in my mandatory basic military training) and the contemplation (on Bahiya Sutta) that led to it. I have kept a practice journal (available for free - I do not sell anything) on my blog detailing all my experiences and realizations.
You may not recognise what I am saying, in which case that is too bad, but certainly I and a number of others in this group are expressing from direct realization and we understand each other well. I have also spoken to Zen teachers/masters and so forth who recognise what I've experienced.
April 24 at 12:34am · Edited · Like · 1
Soh Seems like he left
April 24 at 12:43am · Like
Albert Hong People believe that expression is one dimensional.
It has to be this way. It has to be simple and easy to digest.
What if that is just our bias?
What if someone else resonates with the complexities of language? Is that wrong?
People are so silly.
April 24 at 1:07am · Unlike · 2
Soh None of the suttas and sutras are all that simple actually... haha
April 24 at 1:10am · Like
Soh "This doctrine is profound, hard to see, difficult to understand, calm, sublime, not within the sphere of logic, subtle, to be understood by the wise." Majjhima Nikaya
....................
Thus have I heard. Once the Lord was staying among the Kurus. There is a market town there called Kammasa-dhamma. And the Venerable Ananda came to the Lord, saluted him, sat down to one side, and said: ‘It is wonderful, Lord, it is marvelous how profound this dependent origination is, and how profound it appears! And yet it appears to me as clear as clear!’
‘Do not say that Ananda, do not say that! This dependent origination is profound and appears profound. It is through not understanding, not penetrating this doctrine that this generation has become like a tangled ball of string, covered as with a blight, tangled like coarse grass, unable to pass beyond states of woe, the ill destiny, ruin and the round of birth-and-death. (Long Discourses of the Buddha, p. 223 also see Connected Discourses, pp. 593-594)
April 24 at 1:10am · Like
See Yong Chun Based on the interpenetration of all things, how can there be duality?
When a person sees, the cause and consequence are one, as the action of seeing, the supposed effect of what's seen, and what's experienced is all simultaneous.
Based on this, shouldn't there be no duality at all? As there is no difference between the action of seeing itself and its effect?
April 24 at 1:30am · Like
Soh The realization of no subject-object duality (itself can be distinguished into substantial and nonsubstantialist form of nonduality) does not need to imply realization of interpenetration leading to total exertion. All these are a form of direct experiential realization and not from analysis. You can see them as distinct realizations. Like http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html
Awakening to Reality: Thusness/PasserBy's Seven Stages of Enlightenment
awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com
The path that Thusness describes, his insights, are his and his alone.
April 24 at 1:39am · Edited · Like · 1 · Remove Preview
David Vardy John brings up an important point. Stages, as much as they seem to exist, are never more than fiction posing as fact, namely because there's no one to experience them. And, as long as we're featured defending them as real we're never farther than a stone's throw away from the persona. Seriousness shows up in defense of the lie there's someone to experience stages, while laughter is the remedy for what's seen to be just more of the same ole same ole. The realization is never not what's happening, the seeing of which brings the WTF of a lifetime.
April 24 at 2:31am · Like · 1
James O'Neill Brilliant article by Soh ---sub and insub nonduality
---It helped me clear up an issue I had with Wilbers expression of nonduality --- thanks Soh
April 24 at 3:46am · Unlike · 2
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