Why/how does there arise the distinction between a pleasurable and painful sensation?

[lmfao]

What I've found myself wondering recently, is that it's strange that some sensations and feelings are regarded as good whilst some are regarded as bad. I might be meditating for example and pain will arise. If I'm mindful enough I get the impression that I'm just associating negative thoughts to neutral sensations. Even if one starts to become mindful through intense pain and become aware of the fact that the sensations are neutral you can never forcibly remove the negative thoughts (being mindful will start to get rid of them). One answer which I can understand (and the answer is extremely profound to experience and grasp) is to say "without suffering and pleasure and ego you wouldn't exist" but that's just arguably a description of what is rather than why it is (although this is the case for all why questions I guess). 

On a slightly separate note another thing which I sometimes wonder is why is it sometimes you can be unconscious and at other times you are conscious. It's funny because once you're in a non-dual state you think "how is it possible to be unconscious when the present moment is right in front of you" but then māyā always come back. And the only conclusion flowing from my thoughts is that every moment and at all times you are "divine" but thoughts cloud awareness. I think I've said this like 1 billion times in the past but talking about non-duality feels so weird because you realize that language is just another part of the happening with no inherent meaning and I've now created a paradox by using language to state language is meaningless. I can't help but feel you're coning someone if you use language to explain and understand awareness/consciousness. Perhaps there is no answer for why reality is the way it is, seems like an extremely scary void to embrace. 

If anyone has thoughts on what I've said, fire away.

Edited October 5, 2018 by lmfao

[StephenK]

@lmfao I think that the pleasure/pain difference comes down to a movement towards or away from whatever sensate arising is occurring. I personally find it hard to differentiate between a sensation and the mental impression of that sensation. As for language, I think that when it comes to non-duality, language is used for deconstruction rather than construction (this is not how we normally think of the utility of language). Non-dual teachings that really rock your world end up chipping away at the foundations of the megalithic structure we call "ego" -- at least that is my experience.

[Mu_]

2 hours ago, lmfao said:

What I've found myself wondering recently, is that it's strange that some sensations and feelings are regarded as good whilst some are regarded as bad. I might be meditating for example and pain will arise. If I'm mindful enough I get the impression that I'm just associating negative thoughts to neutral sensations. Even if one starts to become mindful through intense pain and become aware of the fact that the sensations are neutral you can never forcibly remove the negative thoughts (being mindful will start to get rid of them). One answer which I can understand (and the answer is extremely profound to experience and grasp) is to say "without suffering and pleasure and ego you wouldn't exist" but that's just arguably a description of what is rather than why it is (although this is the case for all why questions I guess). 

On a slightly separate note another thing which I sometimes wonder is why is it sometimes you can be unconscious and at other times you are conscious. It's funny because once you're in a non-dual state you think "how is it possible to be unconscious when the present moment is right in front of you" but then māyā always come back. And the only conclusion flowing from my thoughts is that every moment and at all times you are "divine" but thoughts cloud awareness. I think I've said this like 1 billion times in the past but talking about non-duality feels so weird because you realize that language is just another part of the happening with no inherent meaning and I've now created a paradox by using language to state language is meaningless. I can't help but feel you're coning someone if you use language to explain and understand awareness/consciousness. Perhaps there is no answer for why reality is the way it is, seems like an extremely scary void to embrace. 

If anyone has thoughts on what I've said, fire away.

I think we can only speculate why reality is the way it is, but I will say it being a void is only very partial is it not, isn't it also amazing, terrifying, mysterious, hilarious, meaningless, graspable, ungraspable, and then mysterious again....

[Privet]

11 hours ago, lmfao said:

If anyone has thoughts on what I've said, fire away.

Sorry for your problem. Mu!

[deci belle]

Mu made a point about speculating about why reality is the way it is—  without a doubt, no one knows. There is nothing to know in that regard.

It's just the way it is, but there are authentic wisdom teachings being kept alive that are aimed at helping people to become partners with creation; by developing an impersonal relationship with creation based on the potential inherent in each unique created karmic situation. It's not magic, it's science.

In terms of taoism, it is called the dual cultivation of the science of life and the science of essence which enables one to take over creation and appropriate its potential for the purpose of natural, automatic and "passively derived" spiritual (nonpsychological) evolution. It isn't "done" per se. It's a matter of awareness potential, developed over a long time of self-refinment. It simply involves seeing.

Buddhism calls this "operation" selfless spiritual adaption within Suchness as is. Names don't matter. What matters is that it is possible for one to see reality as is, and without relying on one's own power through observation of virtuous non-resistance, partake of the essential nature of creation itself as oneself presently and impersonally without dealing directly with the created karmic energy of situational process. Instead, one deals with essence directly without intermediary by virtue of the essential nature of the created inherent in each created cyclically evolving situation.

The reason this is possible is because created karmic energy and the absolute nature of reality's essential potential not being different is also not different than our own selfless awareness stripped of its conditioned overlay of learned and inherited personality patterns of conditioned identities.

That might sound fancy and high-falutin', but it's just a matter of recognizing (seeing) this real potential in the midst of situations in order to adapt one's own impersonal enlightening potential to everyday ordinary (delusional) conditions selflessly, which is how one transcends karmic evolution within the creative without being subject to the laws of creation. It's what being a partner of creation means. There is no reason why.

It's just the way it is. It's an open secret in the midst of delusionally created evolutionary cyclical process. Since the nature of karmic process is cyclical, there are universally recognized critical junctures that can be exploited by spiritually (nonpsychologically) developed people.

It may very well sound utterly inconceivable~ which is exactly what it is. That's where non-resistance comes in handy, because one does not "do" it. It's spiritual; that is to say, nonpsychological. Therefore one moves without doing anything (in the context of the situation), by virtue of psychological clarity, or "stillness".

"Stillness" is used as a technical term because psychological clarity is free of patterned content, or "momentum". The mind-ground itself is neither stillness nor movement. It's just the awake quality of nonoriginated selfless awareness.

The truth is, there is no way to see true reality without complete acceptance of the conditional sphere without employing a personalistic (selfish) perspective because ultimately, they are the same, that is, impersonal and selfless. Individuals are not separate from their situational environment. Taoism says that the world is the sage, which means that a sage is so due to being able to see and adapt to the world as an organic totality without entertaining arbitrary conclusions relative to oneself and one another. 

This gets back to the OP in terms of the "decider" or experiencer of attraction, rejection and null interpretations of phenomena. This is due to believing the illusory knower, thinker and liver of life is one's absolute identity (separate from the totality of karmic being) outside of real absolute selfless nature. One's true nature is enlightenment right now. No one is otherwise. There are no two minds. The human mentality stripped of its conditioning is itself the seat of enlightenment on the spot.

Of course, it is not arbitrarily arrived at for the liver of life to come to the conclusion of what ultimately feels good or not, in terms of situational evolution, but actually exploring the thresholds and extreme limits of such stimulus is not for the faint of heart. Meeeeooowwww!!

As for making arbitrary distinctions relative to the being that is going to die based on the karmically conditioned psychological apparatus, pleasure and pain, and their long-explored relativity (sexually "deviant" relativism comes to mind), there is no limit~ as for "How far can too far go?", to quote The Cramps, certain boundaries become faint and fuzzy.

 

 

ed note: typo 5th; typo, 7th; add without employing a personalistic (selfish) perspective because ultimately, they are the same, that is, impersonal and selfless to 10th;

Edited October 9, 2018 by deci belle