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

These are known as the "unanswered questions" which the Buddha always refused to answer because they do not lead to liberation from the stress & suffering of existence, but only to entanglement. He puts aside questions of identity: He puts aside questions about the nature of the cosmos, and of the soul: Instead, the Buddha focuses only on questions dealing with stress & suffering, and how they are caused by actions (conditioned by intentions), without reference to who/what is doing the actions, or who/what is experiencing the entailing stress & suffering. This is the ultimate compass. This is how to not get lost in the infinitely-recursive rabbit-holes of self-delusion. To not get lost in contrived pragmatically-impotent philosophical conceptual Towers of Babble. To not get lost in equally ridiculous Zen riddles and paradoxes. To not get lost in indecision due to trying to blend together contradictory worldviews and paths. Zoom in on what this is really all about: putting an end to stress & suffering. Something we all know. I'm posting here because I'm curious what this community thinks about the above ideas, which seem to run counter to the main theme of this forum.

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.

I watched it. Thich Nhat Hanh is of the Zen tradition, and as I said, I have no knowledge of Zen traditions. I do not believe that the Zen enlightenment and the Theravada enlightenment are referring to the same thing. Zen does not seem to touch on the ending of birth, but rather dispelling the "illusion" of death. But the problem is not whether death or birth are illusions. The problem is that there is suffering. If your enlightenment is based on "knowing that death is an illusion", then you will suffer once you stop knowing that. Hence, why I keep mentioning pigs, aka. unenlightened minds.

Oh, the causes of the next life are closer than even "this life". Because "this life" still implies time... past and future. There is ONLY now, this moment, and all of the causes are found here. But the untrained mind cannot see the causes; the trained mind can. That's why there is a path to follow, simply to train the mind to see the causes. Simply seeing is sufficient to bring the cause to an end. Refer to the prior pinching example.

The authenticity of the Buddha's words in the texts is a contentious topic for the scholars to squabble about. I'm interested in whether this 2600-year body-of-knowledge consisting of (1) texts and commentaries, plus (2) unbroken living lineages of monks, is a worthwhile map to follow. A combination of my intellectual understanding of the teachings, combined with personal meditative experience seems to suggest that it is worth following. However, I'm not here to convert anyone. Just engage in some stimulating conversation.

No, I am not implying. I am using conventional language to describe a phenomenological experience. I can be more precise: there is now an experience of being a human. Now there is the experience of old-age and illness of this human. Now there is the experience of this human's death. Now there is the experience of birth as a pig. Etc. Nothing passes from moment to moment, simply the workings of causality, and the unfolding phenomenal experiences. There is no enlightened being, nor regular dudes. There is suffering as experienced, or there is not.

I do not refer to a physical body, as such. Simply the experience of being embodied. One life, human, next life, pig. What happened to the previous "human body"? Who knows. Who cares? I'm pig now. Descriptions of the final state tend to be paradoxical, nonsensical, and yes they sound very much like some of the things that Non-dual traditions teach. This is likely what spawned Zen and Tibetan traditions (while the Theravada faithfully, or dogmatically depending on how you see it, stuck to their texts). But no, nothing is said to leave the system, nor is it said that there was something left from, nor something left towards. No coming, no going, no standing still. The path is completely untraceable, as if it was never walked. Indeed, there can be no path to Nibbana, or else, there would be a path out, defeating the whole purpose of a permanent salvation.

Close. More precisely, when a being attains the 4th stage called Arahant (the highest stage of awakening in Theravada), it can be said that their mind has no passion for anything, not even for Nibbana. Without passion, they produce no further karma (intentional actions). However, the body-mind continues to act (by the momentum of past karma) without producing new karma. Unlike the Jains which believe one must burn off all past karma, in Buddhism, you simply need to see how present karma is created. Once you see it, you stop; like how if one realizes they are pinching themselves, they will stop because it simply hurts. At this point, the following can NOT be said of the Arahant: they exist, they don't exist, they both exist and not exist, they neither exist nor not exist. Concepts of existence, non-existence, self or non-self are simply irrelevant to the Arahant. When the body-mind of the Arahant dies, because no further karma is being planted, no further birth takes place. As for the "mechanics of existence", Buddhism teaches Dependent Origination, which is way too involved to explain here, but suffice to say that no, they do not change the mechanics of the system, they change its input variables, causing them to leave the system entirely; like a system crash when you divide by zero.

Here's the thing, you are holding this conception in your mind that there is this "cosmic ocean", and that all of the "waves of experience", so to speak, must be the activity of that cosmos. But I am holding no such conceptions. There is simply what can be pointed to in direct experience. Nibbana is the ending of rebirth, in direct experience. EDIT: to more directly address your question: the idea of "beings" no longer applies

I do not mean intellectual knowledge. I do mean exactly the direct experience that you speak. The problem is that an experience is fleeting. Even if it is an experience of seeming eternity or infinity. I'm sure rebirth in the realm of "feeling like I'm absolute infinity" is quite pleasant. Not so pleasant when, after one's good karma runs out, you are reborn as a pig in a slaughterhouse, totally unenlightened. And round and round the wheel we go. I am not talking about the entire universe freezing, for that is to posit an external universe outside of direct experience. There is simply the halting of the continuance of an experience of birth, succeeding the experience of death, in direct experience.

But then non-confusion, say "realizing oneself as the sea", is a mental quality, and hence, is conditioned. The knowledge itself is conditioned, and so the knowledge is impermanent. The knowledge arose due to one's actions. The Christians say, we got kicked out of the garden out of original sin. The Buddhists would say... our past accumulated good karma ran out. Nibbana is not simply a nice aerial view of the cosmos, it is bringing the wave-making to a complete end, never to begin again.