1 = 0

[VeganAwake]

1:     Master, master! I get it! 

 

0:     Get it? Get what?

 

1:     What you said just moments ago.

 

0:    What did I say?

 

1:    You said that, at first, we suppose “choiceless awareness” means to refrain from choosing “this” or “that.” Eventually we come to understand it means to abstain from the idea that there is a “this” or “that”—that there even are two realities between which one could make a choice.

 

0:    And are you saying that you got that point?

 

1:    Before, based on what I’d heard, I assumed that it means the way we usually tend to make choices on the basis of the way we think things should be, or should not be.

 

0:     Which would be a practical meaning, on one level. We could say, from the standpoint of advaita.

 

1:     Yes, but I’m now looking at it from the standpoint of ajata; that there is no separate reality, from the start.

 

0:     Yes, go on.

 

1:     Where a relative world exists, there would be a “this” and “that” to choose between. But where the world is seen to be unreal, any of the things which we could choose between would be equally unreal. Even the “chooser” would be seen to be unreal. Isn’t this what you mean when you speak of “emptiness”?

 

0:     That’s right. Recall the Heart Sutra? “In emptiness, there is no form—no feelings, thoughts, conceptions, consciousness; no body, mind—no beginning or ending.”

 

And the Diamond Sutra—approved by Buddha—is saying, as ajata teaches, that all forms are completely and totally empty of “intrinsic existence.” Where even the body and the mind have no substantive reality, neither does the “world”—affirmed by them—sustain any reality either.

 

In regard to choiceless awareness: where even “consciousness” is recognized to be merely another of our separative distinctions, even the idea of “awareness” itself evaporates—let alone there no longer being anything to “choose.”

 

1:     So, as long as we take the world itself to be real, we haven’t really understood emptiness?

 

0:     Where we even take “existence” to be real, we haven’t completely absorbed the teaching of emptiness. In the Diamond Sutra, Buddha is said to have stated that not only is there “no self,” but “no life.” Total and complete emptiness would not be a form: such would not have a beginning nor an end. Thus we could not even designate it as “existent” or “nonexistent.”

 

1:     You’ve said that ajata means “no creation”; the implication is that not anything we take to be real ever had a beginning or an ending; that is, has ever “existed.”

 

0:     This is why it is practically necessary to comprehend the teachings of advaita before contemplating ajata. When it is clear that there “are not two things,” it can be understood that “the one thing” is in actuality no thing: formless, empty. Nothingness.

 

1:     I get that—comprehending that even the “I” is empty, as empty as any concept of nothingness!

 

0:     Then you do get the full meaning of choiceless awareness. Who is there, that could get what? There are no real “choices,” nor a real “awareness” of them.

 

1:     It seems to me that you could compare advaita to ajata, like atomic physics to quantum physics.

 

0:     As long as you bear in mind that all comparisons are empty of reality.

 

 

-- Ajata Project (Robert Wolfe)

[bennett oppel]

-1: But 0 and 1 are just figments of my imagination because its easy for me to create them both

[Moksha]

The ultimate Mystery is beyond name, analysis, or conceptual comprehension.

It is not only emptiness. It is not only fulness. 

It is not only nonexistence. It is not only existence.

It is not only nothing. It is not only everything.

It is not all of these. It is not none of these.

It is transcendent to all dualities. It is the ultimate singularity.

Edited November 6, 2020 by Moksha

[from chaos into self]

It’s hard for me to get my mind around emptiness, meaningless, formless... I don’t know what I’m looking for.

[Moksha]

2 minutes ago, from chaos into self said:

my mind

^^^ the problem.

[from chaos into self]

My being

[Moksha]

18 minutes ago, from chaos into self said:

being

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, Moksha said:

The ultimate Mystery is beyond name, analysis, or conceptual comprehension.

It is not only emptiness

Agree , the mind can't catch it, and couldn't be only nothingness

That history about ajata is inspiring

[VeganAwake]

4 hours ago, Moksha said:

The ultimate Mystery is beyond name, analysis, or conceptual comprehension.

It is not only emptiness. It is not only fulness. 

It is not only nonexistence. It is not only existence.

It is not only nothing. It is not only everything.

It is not all of these. It is not none of these.

It is transcendent to all dualities. It is the ultimate singularity.

And ajata is pointing to the deep recognition that even the so-called ultimate singularity is completely lacking in reality.

Hence 0 not 1

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by VeganAwake

[Moksha]

48 minutes ago, VeganAwake said:

And ajata is pointing to the deep recognition that even the so-called ultimate singularity is completely lacking in reality.

Hence 0 not 1

Ajata is not created (0), and infuses all of its creations with its essence (1).

[VeganAwake]

10 hours ago, Moksha said:

Ajata is not created (0), and infuses all of its creations with its essence (1).

Well it points to apparent existence or creation as ultimately having never been and thus making the idea of infusion non-applicable to the teaching of Ajata.

Its saying that the whole of existence and all apparent happenings/experiences, simply never occurred!

[snowyowl]

I remember from maths that 0^0 = 1. Nothing, with zero dimensions, equals unity. Unity is made up of an infinity of fractions, which is what we are! 

[Adamq8]

Unmanifest=manifested

Empty=full

Not happening = happening 

One thing i don't understand is when they say that experience and so forth never happened, well what is THIS then? Even if its just empty nothingness, then nothingness and creation is the same.

0=the groundless ground of everything, aka nothingness, aka buddhamind aka God aka Self, 

A dream is totally empty to, and life is to. 

But to say that something is nothingness and so forth is a limited notion, cause obviously non existence=existence

Allness=nothingness.

0=everything/nothing at all

But to say these things is a limitation, I think that everythingness is a better word,  cause that would include nothingness aswell.

It just is and it is empty and a dream and at the same time it has not happened but here we are anyway

[Moksha]

9 hours ago, VeganAwake said:

Well it points to apparent existence or creation as ultimately having never been and thus making the idea of infusion non-applicable to the teaching of Ajata.

Its saying that the whole of existence and all apparent happenings/experiences, simply never occurred!

That is the Mystery. How can Tat be beyond time and space, and still suffuse the world of dream with its essence? It is both Brahman and Atman. How can Consciousness be outside of time, and yet manifest within time, progressively realizing itself through enlightenment?

Our human mind tends to think in dualities: existence vs. nonexistence; 1 vs. 0; change vs. changeless; illusion vs. reality. We can't understand Tat, the ultimate non-duality; we can only directly experience and point to it.

Some of my favorite pointers:

I am that supreme Self, praised by the scriptures as beyond the changing and the changeless.

I am what is and what is not.

I am the gambling of the gambler and the radiance in all that shines. I am effort, I am victory, and I am the goodness of the virtuous. Among the Vrishnis I am Krishna, and among the Pandavas I am Arjuna.

There, within the body of the God of gods, Arjuna saw all the manifold forms of the universe united as one.

Lord of the gods, you are the abode of the universe. Changeless, you are what is and what is not, and beyond the duality of existence and nonexistence. You are the first among the gods, the timeless spirit, the resting place of all beings. You are the knower and the thing which is known. You are the final home; with your infinite form you pervade the cosmos.

But of what use is it to you to know all this, Arjuna? Just remember that I am, and that I support the entire cosmos with only a fragment of my being.

[Moksha]

13 minutes ago, Adamq8 said:

But to say these things is a limitation, I think that everythingness is a better word,  cause that would include nothingness as well.

Bingo  The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. It is beyond our ability to name it. Fortunately, we don't need to name it; we just need to realize it.

[Adamq8]

@Moksha Exactly ?

[Moksha]

6 hours ago, snowyowl said:

I remember from maths that 0^0 = 1. Nothing, with zero dimensions, equals unity. Unity is made up of an infinity of fractions, which is what we are! 

I like that