Question for Advanced Meditators: Cessation

[What Am I]

45 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

An interesting experience for sure, especially if it opened the interest for these topics.

Strangely enough, despite the extreme profundity, it wasn't this specific experience that tipped me over the edge into understanding the reality of spirituality. I saw it as a very bizarre curiosity for which I had no reference, and I left open the small chance that it was just a short-circuit in my brain from drug use or something. I wonder how many other psychedelic users are experiencing highly prized states of consciousness while remaining clueless. I'd guess a ton.

[emil1234]

5 minutes ago, What Am I said:

 I wonder how many other psychedelic users are experiencing highly prized states of consciousness while remaining clueless. I'd guess a ton.

haha true

[Breakingthewall]

7 hours ago, Water by the River said:

Infinite Nondual Impersonal Being replaces the separation/grasping/suffering of the ego in daily life. An

But there could be degrees of that. You could be with some suffering but perceiving you as infinite impersonal being. You suggest that it's something that happens one day and then you always are without separation/grasping/suffering. It could be like that sometimes, others no. Depending of the circumstances. And even you perceive yourself totally open, infinite, impersonal, the reality, this reality could perceive itself absolutely, all it sacred openess, the absolute freedom and joy of being, the immutable existence, or not so deep, mixed with the experience. Or according to you, when it's totally open once it's always totally open?

Edited July 8 by Breakingthewall

[Breakingthewall]

@Water by the River  

and there is something else, correct me if you think I'm wrong, because I could be completely wrong.

In addition to being infinite, impersonal and free, there is a living substance of the infinite. By the very fact of being infinite, it is everything, and this totality manifests itself in what they call mystical love or infinite love, the total brilliance of sacred, immutable existence, which is the core, the heart of reality and truly the only one. reality, the immutable because it is everything, the total absolute, which now takes the appearance of this concrete situation. 

You can't be totally open to that long time because it burns, it has to be partially veiled to maintain this experience. 

Edited July 8 by Breakingthewall

[Water by the River]

13 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

But there could be degrees of that. You could be with some suffering but perceiving you as infinite impersonal being. You suggest that it's something that happens one day and then you always are without separation/grasping/suffering. It could be like that sometimes, others no. Depending of the circumstances. And even you perceive yourself totally open, infinite, impersonal, the reality, this reality could perceive itself absolutely, all it sacred openess, the absolute freedom and joy of being, the immutable existence, or not so deep, mixed with the experience. Or according to you, when it's totally open once it's always totally open?

 

On 22.8.2023 at 7:49 PM, Water by the River said:

Well, it is, like often, not either/or. How to integrate all these diferent perspectives? Even Full Enlightenment develops. The Awakenings before that also. Or as Ken Wilber said: From experience, to plateau, to permanent. Yet, Enlightenment is a decisive shift, or realizing/being/understanding for the first time fully the nature of ones True Being and of Reality.

Daniel Brown, Pointing out the Great Way: PATH WALKING: ENHANCING THE REALIZATION [after Full Enlightenment]

Just as certain conditions serve as obstacles to maintaining enlightenment, other conditions, properly understood, serve to enhance it. Theterm path walking (lam 'khyer) pertains to the type of lifestyle, behavior, and specific practices engaged in after enlightenment that serve to enhance and consolidate the realization as an enduring condition of mind.The term lam hhyer means "to walk along a path." A traveler who crosses over a mountain needs a plan for discovering the new territory. Likewise, the practitioner whose mind crosses over from seeming individual consciousness to the enlightened mind is more likely to stabilize and consolidate the realization with a plan for everyday behavior and activity. The path-walking instructions provide that plan."

So again from peak to plateau to permanent.

"Tashi Namgyel lists a variety of everyday situations that best serve to enhance the realization. These include when there is attachment to ordinary experience, when the practitioner is caught up in passion and hatred, when the practitioner is meditating and is finding it very difficult to settle the mind, and when the mind is so much at rest and happy in everyday life that he or she is less likely to recognize the real nature of idle thoughts (TN, pp. 619-20). The best time to practice is when there are passions (hhu phrig), and especially when these passions are intense (drag po; TN, p. 619). In short, any difficulties (dka ngal) encountered in everyday life become good vehicles for consolidating the realization, and the more intense the better.

Awakening already brings a lot of bliss, but not yet all tools necessary to move towards freedom from suffering/psychological resistance.

Basis-/Full-/Great Enlightenment (different names for different traditions, basically understanding/realizing what one really is and what Reality is) brings for the first time the possibility for sustaining bliss by dissolving progressively the hangover/remains of the separate self during/over(!) the following years/life-time. Awakening does not bring that potential yet fully, because there is still somebody who "awakens". And of course most remaining "hang-overs" of the separate-self will let themself know by what they do best: Causing suffering. But now, after Enlightenment, there is a tool available to work with what has not already been dissolved: Looking into their essence, AND into the being doing the looking. 

Even Ken Wilber said in the Interview-Audio series Kosmic Karma on the question of Tami Simons: Anybody 24/7 permanently in realization, including deep sleep, with zero lapse? Answer by Ken Wilber: A clear no.

But that is not a bad thing. Enlightenment gives the chance the reorient the remaining character/body-mind fully (or as much as possible) during the rest of ones lifetime. And when the remaining character is not aligned or has a lapse and goes into separation again: clearly noticed by suffering. Suffering and fear reduce dramatically, and a door/method is opened up to progress towards dissolving what remains of bliss/fear/suffering, or the remaining character which is not yet fully aligned.

Ken Wilber gave a description on the possible (longterm) enlightened outcomes, depening on the character. 

Ken Wilber, The Eye of Spirit, Chapter: The Eye of Spirit:

Ken Wilber also wrote in "One Taste" that one can remain an enlightened jerk. Or that realized Dzogchen adepts are sometimes depicted as looking incredibly bored (seen IT, done with it). Nisargadatta smoked a lot until it finally killed him. Adi Da ran quite some cult. The list of less-than-integral Enlightenment-expressions is long....

But also the enlightened archetypes of the link above are possible. So it depends a lot on the personality that was there before Enlightenment. There seems to be a huge variability.

And the soul ripens also after Enlightenment, over many lifetimes (Christopher Bache, LSD and the Mind of the Universe: Diamonds from Heaven, Dustin DiPerna: Earth is Eden, and Jürgen Ziewe). Enlightenment is not the end of the soul, just the end of the "separate-soul". There seems to be a long path also afterwards, and not just the crude Nirvana-extinction-gameover of early Buddhism. Buddhism developed a lot towards that view in the following centuries/millenia (see Rainbow Body for example).

Selling Water by the River

[Water by the River]

13 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

You can't be totally open to that long time because it burns, it has to be partially veiled to maintain this experience. 

Um. No. It burns the remnants of the illusionary separate-self away. Wonderful!

13 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

In addition to being infinite, impersonal and free, there is a living substance of the infinite. By the very fact of being infinite, it is everything, and this totality manifests itself in what they call mystical love or infinite love, the total brilliance of sacred, immutable existence, which is the core, the heart of reality and truly the only one. reality, the immutable because it is everything, the total absolute, which now takes the appearance of this concrete situation. 

 

And "It" and "the" actually is You.

You don't burn You away, just the illusionary "small/separate you".

[An young being]

2 hours ago, Water by the River said:

You can't be totally open to that long time because it burns, it has to be partially veiled to maintain this experience

What do you mean by burning? A burning physical sensation?

[An young being]

 

2 hours ago, Water by the River said:

You suggest that it's something that happens one day and then you always are without separation/grasping/suffering. It could be like that sometimes, others no. Depending of the circumstances.

Looks like there's no way to stay blissful and pleasurable at the same time!

[Water by the River]

Just now, An young being said:

What do you mean by burning? A burning physical sensation?

No. When one knows that the nature of every single I-thought/I-feeling/"building-block" of the separate-self-illusion, they arise and evaporate in Infinite Being. Since they are an illusion. They arise, one looks into their nature (Suchness, mere appearance), and they stop/evaporate.  That is the essence of Trekchö (Dzogchen).

And with that comes the understanding that these arisings were illusions all along, appearing in Infinite Being. 

So these arisings of the separate-self evaporate (or "burn") in the nature of True Being (which is pure groundless infinite emptiness/vastness in which the world and the separate-self-illusions arise/appear), and are no longer bought into.

Then, all of that is just cut off (if nothing needs to be done by the character), or one lets the character do its thing in clarity (technical Mahamudra-term) where the mindfulness (another technical Mahamudra-term) of the nature of the mindstream (thought and feeling-stream) as mere empty (mere appearing) arisings is not broken.

In summary: The separate self is seen through because Awareness is strong enough (aka each and any separate-self building block/concept has been seen through) and fast enough (these arisings get very fast, 20+ arisings per seconds or something I would guess before the loop closes) to cut off the illusion in real-time.

And then Infinite Being/Infinite Consciousness "can close the loop" and understand itself. And the "understander" of that is another separate-self-illusion, which gets cut off also (Cluster of sensations/thoughts claiming ownership of other clusters of sensations/thoughts/feelings). And then, the Infinite Totality can understand itself. Which is the death of the separate-self, because the illusion is just no longer believed. So Absolute Reality (totally empty nature) burns & kills the separate-self, quite literally. But since that was just an appearing illusion, nothing more than an illusion is lost.

And all of that is not a funny idea, a nice story, fancy concepts. It is actually the death of what you thought you were. Sayonara separate-illusion-character, hello Infinite Being. Infinite Being, which was "there" all along, since there is nothing else, but cosplaying as a illusionary separate-something-arising appearing within itself and giving rise to buying-into-that-appearances, aka I-thoughts I-feelings).

And one doesn't "overlook" that death of the illusion.  And it comes with huge spacious vastness (infinite boundlessness) of Nonduality appearing in Infinite eternal Being/Infinite Consciousness. When each arising in the mindstream and each appearance of the visual field ("world") is seen as mere groundless appearance (empty, mere lucid appearing, not solid, not "out there") happening within ones True Infinite Being, and no stories/concepts are made out of that (since these are just more concept-arisings appearing "within" IT, made of IT/suchness). And on top as the icing on the cake comes huge waves of Sat-Chit-Ananda whenever Infinite Awake Nondual Being is not clouded by the separate-self-illusion-cloud and its contraction.

And everything else is just varying degrees of cyclic misery/suffering/contraction/duality, going round in circles in its latest pet-project to release the contraction/suffering of that illusion. With best regards from the separate-self illusion.

Bassui in Kapleau, 3 Pillars of Zen: Your Buddha-nature is like the jewel-sword of the Vajara king: whoever touches it is killed.Or is it like a massive, raging fire: everything within reach loses its life. Once you realize your True-nature, all evil bent of mind arising from karma extending over innumerable years past is instantly annihilated, like snow put into a roaring furnace.

 

Letting it burn by the River

 

 

[Breakingthewall]

59 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

Absolute Reality (totally empty nature)

Great answer, thanks. About that fragment...let's see. 

The nature of reality is essentially empty, absolute immensity, as you said, but at the same time it is absolutely full. That's what I meant by an openness that can burn not only the false identity but also physically. Let's see, the opening to full totality, or infinite love, or total light, means according to my experience (which as I already said can be identification, although I think not) that the infinite, by the very fact of being infinite, is everything, and that totality is an immutable reality. everything that was and will be, eternally, concentrated in a formless singularity. It is not a realization of freedom, like infinite vastness, but of absolute, unimaginable power. You can't be open to this constantly, it seems toxic, radioactive to say the least. 

Then, in my experience, that could be distorted, there are two faces of reality: the empty face and the full face. 

If reality were absolutely empty, nothing would arise, it would simply be nothing, but reality is. As you have said, the infinite being. What is this infinite being? It's you obviously, but what are you really? When infinity opens up and shows what it is, it blinds you. It is the explosion of infinite supernovas from infinite multiverses, something you can only intuit. It is not flat imagination that creates images, it is total power that creates dimensions and life. You can't be open to it, it has to be veiled or it would kill you, not your ego but your body. 

This means that reality is not imaginary. If it were, a subject that does the act of imagining would be needed. Impossible. Reality is just the absence of limits, and as you said it's impersonal. An infinite being that imagines is personal, that's a mistake of appreciation, a limited perception. The reality is everything due the absence of limitations, and this "everything" is the total realization. There is nobody imagining or creating, it's only the infinite flow that arises like a natural phenomena from the totality, that ultimately is you, but a you absolutely impersonal, pure light, or pure love could be a definition.

Edited July 9 by Breakingthewall

[An young being]

Two different views for the same word, burning 🔥 both are interesting, one sounds like pointing towards karmic reaction that creates and ends suffering, the other points towards physical death due to body not being able to handle excess energy. I don't know which is correct, but the second one sounds a safer bet lol.

[Davino]

@Water by the River I've been meditating like a mad man lately. You gave me some good pointers. I'll keep meditating.

I know that we have some serious discrepancies regarding metaphysics but I'm surprised that we also have many more things in common than what I had assumed.

[Breakingthewall]

On 9/7/2024 at 4:18 PM, Water by the River said:

When each arising in the mindstream and each appearance of the visual field ("world") is seen as mere groundless appearance (empty, mere lucid appearing, not solid, not "out there")

I think it's much more of that. 

I agree with how you define the continuous realization of being the infinite being of unlimited vastness, but I would say that everything that appears has an infinite foundation. one thing does not exclude the other. The vision that all form is a hallucination seems flat and dual to me, since it assumes a subject, the infinite being, and an object, the dream. I'm almost sure this is wrong

[Water by the River]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

The vision that all form is a hallucination seems flat and dual to me, since it assumes a subject, the infinite being, and an object, the dream

Infinite Being IS the dream appearing "in" Infinite Vastness/Being, which has no outside.

Appearance is the "light" of consciousness. Appearance is not substantial or material, just mere appearance (in Tibetan Buddhism then called Clear Light, which it actually is. Lucid and bright and no more solid and dense. That is the case when the illusion of dense/material/solid/dual/out-there-ness is lifted, because it can also appear in such ways). And not "out there", but nondual.

There is neither subject nor object (these are illusion-arisings), but only Infinite Being. Hence nondual. Impersonal Nondual Infinite Being. There is no subject hallucinating anything. There is just Infinite Being. THIS. The illusion-arisings of the hallucinating subject (and its necessary illusion-counterpart, the "object")  can drop away anytime, restoring the original state of impersonal nondual Infinite Being.

The appearances of the "world", thoughts, feelings, the character, any understanding, any concept, states, Awakening, non-Awakening, dream, sleep, deep sleep, waking, any state and anything perceivable just floats/rolls through "this" Impersonal Reality which is always right here. And "this" impersonal Reality only perceives itself. And at some point, understands "itself" and realizes "its" (nondual) nature, and what it has always been. Yet, "it" only ever has been "itself".

Who is reading this again? And then replace "it" with... 

Selling just IT Water by the River to itself

[Breakingthewall]

27 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

And not "out there", but nondual.

On 9/7/2024 at 4:18 PM, Water by the River said:

L

Yes, that's what it seems, but it implies solipsism. Only this experience is real, nothing is outside of that experience, then, you are an hallucination. That's what you suggest?

[Water by the River]

6 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Yes, that's what it seems, but it implies solipsism. Only this experience is real, nothing is outside of that experience, then, you are an hallucination. That's what you suggest?

https://www.actualized.org/forum/search/?&q=leavitt&author=Water by the River

 

 

[Breakingthewall]

@Water by the River @Water by the River 

Imagine absolute emptiness, there is no perception but there is timeless existence empty of content. deep meditation, deep sleep, fetal state, call it what you want. then, something appears and interrupts the timeless void. colors, shapes, sensations. Let's say the fetus has come to light, a new perspective appears.

The question is: everything that appears are empty images, a decoration of unreal shapes that appear and create the illusion of an individual who perceives, or really these shapes are in turn perspectives interacting with each other, individuals.

Any perspective that is anything other than the timeless void is really an individual or holon. What is the problem with this? everything is the same substance, but the perspectives of this substance are infinite. Perceived reality is not illusory in the sense that the people you see on the street are their own perspective and each of them is made up of an unimaginable number of self-perspective holons that are grouped into increasingly complex systems at a higher level. 

Non duality means that everything is the same substance, not that there is only one perspective and everything is illusion, that's solipsism. It's obvious that you are an individual, it's not an illusion, call it illusion makes no sense, because there is a perspective, yours, that is transitory. You could say that the perspectives are transitory, just perspectives, not absolute, anything, but not unreal or illusory, because that means solipsism, and it's obviously impossible because it's limited

[An young being]

I don't know if there are many individual perspectives or not, but I believe that atleast two perspectives exist, me and the universe. Whether both are the same or not, I don't wish to discover yet.

[Breakingthewall]

21 minutes ago, An young being said:

I don't know if there are many individual perspectives or not, but I believe that atleast two perspectives exist, me and the universe. Whether both are the same or not, I don't wish to discover yet.

If there was only one perspective, mine, who would create everything that appears? a mischievous god who plays hide and seek because he's bored? That religion is less credible than Yahweh imo.  God is the infinite perspectives interconnected and synchronized, creating and limiting each other, any other possibility is dual and impossible

Edited July 11 by Breakingthewall

[Javfly33]

4 hours ago, Water by the River said:

Infinite Being IS the dream appearing "in" Infinite Vastness/Being, which has no outside.

Appearance is the "light" of consciousness. Appearance is not substantial or material, just mere appearance (in Tibetan Buddhism then called Clear Light, which it actually is. Lucid and bright and no more solid and dense. That is the case when the illusion of dense/material/solid/dual/out-there-ness is lifted, because it can also appear in such ways). And not "out there", but nondual.

There is neither subject nor object (these are illusion-arisings), but only Infinite Being. Hence nondual. Impersonal Nondual Infinite Being. There is no subject hallucinating anything. There is just Infinite Being. THIS. The illusion-arisings of the hallucinating subject (and its necessary illusion-counterpart, the "object")  can drop away anytime, restoring the original state of impersonal nondual Infinite Being.

The appearances of the "world", thoughts, feelings, the character, any understanding, any concept, states, Awakening, non-Awakening, dream, sleep, deep sleep, waking, any state and anything perceivable just floats/rolls through "this" Impersonal Reality which is always right here. And "this" impersonal Reality only perceives itself. And at some point, understands "itself" and realizes "its" (nondual) nature, and what it has always been. Yet, "it" only ever has been "itself".

Who is reading this again? And then replace "it" with... 

Selling just IT Water by the River to itself

What you say seems correct but Your view seems just another Non duality view. 'Just let go and focus/rest in ___Infinite Being/Awareness/Etc".

This might bring some peace and solace but it does not get you into the Driver seat, so to speak, therefore does not provide complete Liberation.

I do not belief you are Liberated by what you write. 

Edited July 11 by Javfly33