Flow With Life

Anyways let's not de-rail this thread any further

Being pedantic here, but Buddha never said "life is suffering". Life is both suffering and happiness. But yes, he did emphasize the suffering part, because he wanted people to escape from the cycle. Happiness is fleeting, not worth holding onto. Also going to be pedantic again... it is not correct to say "you will never be reborn again"; more accurate to say "birth is ended", which is how he phrased it.

Is that how causality works? Not asking sarcastically. Genuinely curious why you think this. All that arises due to conditions, is subject to passing away. If you can be swallowed up by God, he can shit you out.

Ah... this guy gets it. It's not about one state versus another, but the clinging to states is what must dissolve. I would say there isn't a "one holding onto states" though. There is just a holding on, without a "one"; verb, instead of noun.

We all know, eh? Okay. Christianity is literally all about how humans got kicked out of Heaven. Buddhism says that beings born in heaven eventually pass into other realms once their good karma runs out. All that arises due to conditions, is subject to passing away. Only if you understand the causality behind the world. If your enlightenment is based on seeing everything as illusion, that's one-sided. There are plenty of beings who do not see it as illusion. Their experience of non-illusory world is as valid as yours of illusory world. But if you understand the causal mechanisms perpetuating the world, then you can end the world by ending the causes. If you reach enlightenment, and you don't know how you got there... that's a sign it ain't enlightenment. So you flip from one side of a binary, "personal ego", to another side of a binary "no personal ego", and this is... enlightenment?

Well, thank you everyone for your perspectives. I just want to let any readers of the thread to know that my personal interpretations of Buddhism are not the only nor correct interpretation. Take care. /thread

I think I've more or less found my path. Remnants of my subconscious might still be clinging to ideas of non-dual perfection, but I watch them in the corner of my eye, and do not let them infect my mind. The way ahead seems quite clear to me, it is the path of non-craving, non-clinging, non-greed/hatred/delusion. All of these things require strong mental discernment, making distinctions sharper and clearer, not trying to erase lines or pretend they aren't there.

In Buddhism, the totality of experience is divided into five aggregates: - a sense of Form - Feeling (pleasure and pain, which can be physical or mental) - recognition or Perception (labelling, distinguishing, abstracting -- "This is a tree", "This is a cat", "This is me", "This is God") - Fabrication (thoughts, volition, story-making) - Consciousness (awareness of the above four activities) All of these are impermanent. They are not nouns, but verbs. They are not objective realities, they are all fabrications of the mind. None of them are your self, although the mind can cling to any combination of these as a self, and it can change it's mind on its sense-of-self faster than the blink of an eye. None of them are singular things, they are aggregates because they are disorganized heaps of things.

Perhaps. But I see two issues here; putting aside the Buddha's prescription to ignore it as an inappropriate question. First is that there are various states of consciousness which seem eternal, or unmanifest, or unconditioned. Buddhism has a rich lexicon covering these. Some examples include the formless attainments: the perception of the dimension of infinite space... the dimension of infinite consciousness... the dimension of nothingness... the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. There is delusion-concentration (like dreamy, half-asleep), there is non-perception (in which absolutely nothing is perceived), there is the non-dual totality I quoted earlier, there is seeing everything is being luminously white. I could go on. None of these are Nibbana, yet it is easy to mistake them for such. I'm sure Hinduism has its various samadhi states which it also discounts as being "not the final thing". But even putting aside these rarefied states of consciousness is the tendency for people to "think" their way into enlightenment, deluding themselves. Secondly, is that most people, even if they see the "real" thing, will delight in it, take passion in it, and take it as an eternal self. If one does this with Nibbana, their awakening is said to be incomplete. This is precisely why Buddha hard-rejects all notions of eternalism, precisely for this reason. So when I hear people say "I know what the Self is... it's blah blah", I already know they haven't reached the end. They've made it into something to cling to. This is why "Who am I?" is a bad question, because there ARE answers to it, and they are all wrong.

Sure you can. Unenlightened. Non-duality is not realized. Do 5-MeO-DMT. Non-duality is realized. Come down. Non-duality is not realized. Ta-da.

Yes, suffering is a learning mechanism. Without suffering, one would be complacently happy. But with suffering, comes the search for a way out. I don't know what you mean by "to eliminate suffering means to eliminate happiness", unless you mean it in some non-dual sense in which one no longer sees a distinction or preference between them. But then that non-dual state of awareness could be considered a sort of "happiness". Thought experiment: say you are getting dental surgery and their anaesthetic isn't working... in scenario A, you are non-dual enlightened where pain and pleasure don't "exist", and in scenario B, you are not enlightened. I'm sure you can understand why A would be preferable to B.

Sorry. I did not mean to make it sound like "you're not so wise yet". Simply that the factors that lead me to Buddhism, and whatever factors lead you to your path differ. I was simply trying to point out what the differentiating factor might be. I am not enlightened in either sense of the word, yours or mine. But I have seen enough to have an idea of where the two paths might lead. I seek not happiness nor understanding. I know suffering in my heart, and if there is a way to put it to an end, then that is what is worth pouring my efforts into. I don't even mean to say that I'm depressed and I'm looking for happiness. Nah, I've tasted pure cosmic bliss and heaven. If I wanted to pursue cosmic union or non-dual "perfection of everything", I could have chosen to do so. But heaven doesn't wash out the taste of knowing that suffering exists. When you climb the throne of God and look down upon the cosmos and say "This is perfection", and the denizens of hell look up from their torment and find no saviour... well, then the search for a way out begins; a totally individual journey, although it is nice to have compassionate beings to help guide the way. I have noticed the hole, that's what this whole post is about. The hole is explicit and intentional, not an accidental "oops we forgot to talk extensively about the nature of reality, our bad!". It is pragmatic. Focus only on what is absolutely necessary to end suffering. You need not wonder about the nature of the burning house you are in. Just find the exit, and walk out.

Well, you have your path and I have mine. When you gain a deeper insight into the 1st noble truth of suffering, then perhaps these teachings may become open to you. I wish you well.

Context, my friend. You speak of "beings" transmigrating from one moment to the next. It seems you are not able to step out of that paradigm. You keep asking where beings go, or where they come from. All inappropriate attention, as stated in the OP. The experience of being a pig, with a mind totally unenlightened, is one possible experience that can "take place" in this only present moment. The kinds of enlightenment that you seem to be alluding to do not eliminate the possibility of the above experience. Yeah, absolute infinity is great. But again, next you will be butchered as a pig. The being butchered as a pig part is what is being avoided.

The Buddha taught in different levels in accordance with his audience. To most followers, he would speak about rebirth. But to more advanced students, you are correct, there isn't really a "next life"; the only statements that can be made are about whether something is present or absent in immediate experience. Why walk on a path? Because Samsara. Because their are realms of woe: hell, the animal womb, not to mention human sufferings. Because since beginning-less time there has been this wandering lost through such realms of suffering. Yes, there are heavenly realms too. You can become one with God or the Cosmos, for instance. In Buddhism, these are just pleasant experiences that do not last, and they do not mean anything more than that. And now you say, "aha! but just there you are talking about past/future lives!" Then put aside the issue of past/future lives. This moment is as it is. Suffering arises. Suffering passes away. Suffering arises. Suffering passes away. The Buddha is actually highly optimistic... he teaches the permanent eradication of the arising of suffering. Someone in the "future" might be flayed and burned for 30 days straight. Maybe it is "me" or maybe it isn't. I don't care. If the outcome is avoidable, then it is worth avoiding. It matters not whose suffering it is, or whether it is "real", whatever that means. That is the paradox. No. The path, all the Buddhist teachings, even Nibbana must be let go of. Even letting go, must be let go of. But if you let go too early, say if you let go of the raft before reaching the further shore where it is safe, then you will be cast adrift once more. No, the problem is that YOU keep positing these conceptual phantoms: "beings". I speak not of beings, I speak of phenomenal experiences. Suffering as an experience, and non-suffering as an experience are distinct. I have no idea what these "beings" you speak of are. I don't care who or what goes or doesn't go anywhere or exists or stops existing. Tear down these Towers of Babble. Suffering is something to be experienced, not conceptualized away.