abrakamowse

@Natura Sonoris I see... Ok, here there's a cheaper one but not sure if it is the same quality and it's not very cheap. :-P https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/isbn/9780824828936/

$ 25 here https://www.amazon.com/Ox-Herder-Zen-Parable-Illustrated/dp/0807615110/ref=pd_sim_14_4?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0807615110&pd_rd_r=MA4X9TGF33K3RAR1MBB9&pd_rd_w=W50J4&pd_rd_wg=GxTPc&psc=1&refRID=MA4X9TGF33K3RAR1MBB9

The only thing I know is that I AM. The problem is that after the knowing that I AM thoughts appear and say "I AM the body" "I AM bored" "I AM sad" "I AM happy" That happens because those thoughts are covering reality.

Awesome Martin!

@Snick what is doubt? I know is a thought, but what generates it?

And even that is only an idea... the mind makes it an object right?

But how that sensation of physicality is created? If there's no consciousness we wouldn't be knowing that there's a body. That's why I think that the body is inside consciousness. In fact there's no inside or outside, but you got the idea...

I had the feeling that the body mind creates the thoughts and consciousness picks up which one is the one needed to experience. Consciousness is the discriminator that the advaita vedanta teachers talk about. But I don't know, just guessing.

That makes me remember a part in the Bible where a soldier goes and asks John The Baptist about what he should be, because he was a soldier and he had to kill enemies. John said "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely--be content with your pay." He didn't tell him not to kill...

We are eating ourselves

I really have no idea what I am doing, but I am doing it anyway. I am trying to focus on awareness, observing everything as the witness. And meditating everyday half hour or more. And when I meditate I do mindful meditation with self inquiry. I also do meditation observing an object, like a candle, a glass of water, etc...

Nice @Shanmugam that's good stuff. Now I don't believe in anything upfront but I try to see all the options and keep them "open" until some experience confirms it. And even when that happen I am always open to change my ideas, or a new thing that I discover makes me change my opinion, but I try not to cling to my opinions. I really posted that more to try to show another "side" of the coin but I really don't know if any of the theories is true, because we need to defy the conventional thinking (that is that the brain makes the thinking) and the unconventional (like the one I posted about the heart) we have to double check like the way you did. And we only have our experience, any idea that we get from "other" people is not on our experience and it becomes a belief. Remember the old saying... "If you meet the Buddha, kill him.”– Linji We can not rely even on the scriptures and at the end of the path we have to even let go the idea of enlightenment.

I read an article that people who got heart transplants get the skills or abilities of the person who was the donor of the heart. It was published on an Chinese newspaper that I got in the subway in NYC. We don't know nothing at all. https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/health/388617/transplants-changed-our-personalities/

How do you know that there's a body?

Is there a brain?

Nice, that makes sense. Thanks @cetus56

I am studying the buddhist doctrine, something that I feel so true and really helped me to understand what was happening to me was how a "person" is created. That is the 5 aggregates of buddhism. I found this on wikipedia: What caught my attention was that Buddha grouped consciousness into the 5 aggregates, and I had the idea that we are consciousness. So, it can't be an aggregate right? What am I missing? Thanks!!!!

Thanks @Leo Gura that's why I was wondering what did Buddha mean with that. Not sure if that "consciousness" is the pure awareness that Nisagardatta talks about, our true self, the absolute... or something different. I think he's talking about our consciousness as a separated being, the lower self consciousness. Not the higher self.

You have to drop everything. No desires at all, not even desire for enlightenment. The ego wants this and wants that... the ego wants "things" but who you really are doesn't need anything and it's not a thing. And it's already "whole". The desire of doing something is actually not letting you achieve whatever you want to achieve. You can't do nothing from the ego perspective, we are limited when we are identified with thoughts, emotions, body, objects... It's a paradox. You have to stop desiring to achieve what you really want. Jesus said "For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it." The life Jesus is talking is our life as a little self, our ego, desires, etc... if you lose that you will find your true self.

That's difficult to give a response. Because as you said that "nothing" is a concept and "not a thing" cannot be grasped by the mind, it becomes an object. Same thing happens with the idea of seeking our real identity. You have to seek it without seeking it... hhehe... that's why Zen call it to cross the "gateless gate" por "pathless path". I think that's were intuition comes into account. And intuition is the way our true self "talks" through silence. This is from my experience, I am still working on understanding all this really. :-)

What they say is that we create suffering, by giving value to the things of the world. Like a car. If I buy a car, I am happy. If I can't buy a car I am unhappy. The car doesn't have happiness, there's no happiness or unhappiness in the car. We superimpose happiness because we think that having the car will give us happiness. The only happiness is in the Brahman, that's why when we buy or get things, objects, car, houses, a good job, a family, a beautiful woman/handsome man etc... in fact we are seeking that eternal joy that is you, the true and only self. If you think about it (thought can't never grasp the absolute, but I will try) if there's something, it must come from nothing. There's should be nothing there to something appear. That's why something without any concept, as nothing or something, something that is outside of space, time, etc... can "create" or make the world appear. I don't think we are in a body. Because our identity can't be in the body. You know who you are, not because of what you think you are, you know it because of what you are not. What is left is you. You are not your body, or senses, or thoughts, etc....