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tree frog
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Registered: 09/14/23
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: syncro] 1
#28613651 - 01/08/24 05:29 AM (20 days, 1 hour ago) |
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Was meditating last night on cessation. Just watching for when mental or sensory processes came to an end rather than always watching for what is new and exciting.
Turned awareness around at one point, curious if the sense of the observer ever ceased.
The center fell out after a minute or so of this and I was left with a coreless awareness of everything in the field of awareness.
No doer, no watcher.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
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tree frog
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: Nillion] 1
#28613713 - 01/08/24 06:47 AM (20 days, 22 minutes ago) |
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The dialectics of the Diamond Sutra is amazing. Do you have a favorite translation or commentary? I started studying and working with Thich Nhat Hanh's while in prison (got busted for growing in '15) and it was very helpful.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
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tree frog
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: Asante] 1
#28614814 - 01/09/24 05:21 AM (19 days, 1 hour ago) |
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Quote:
Asante said: only God moves things.
all our actions are done by the God part of our consiousness even though our ego fantasizes it was them.
Therefore, no sin committed through you is yours.
If you're an Omnicyclian.
In Buddhism, the Buddha is more awake than the gods. Maybe totally aligned with God consiousness using your theology. And he doesn't posit that he does anything. But only that when causes and conditions are appropriate, action manifests.
Essentially, when emptiness is perfected, compassion for suffering arises with no more sense of agency than taking a breath. It's just the natural course. Compassion follows emptiness the way the out breath follows the in breath.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
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tree frog
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: Asante] 2
#28617398 - 01/11/24 09:04 AM (16 days, 22 hours ago) |
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Quote:
Asante said:
the One cycle that has all minor cycli within it.
you, me, the fishes in the sea.
forever.
One of my favorite analogies is that form is the waves, emptiness is the ocean. But without the waves, there is no ocean. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
Closest thing to God I suppose in Buddhism. Emptiness. Which would be like, systemness itself. Impermanence, no self. Interbeing and interconnection. The one major cycle. Cycleness itself. Process itself.
Who is the doer? Process itself. Action itself.
Breakfast arises.
Makes itself. Born of...
84,000 hungry human bellies,
Eggs and oyster mushrooms.
As soon as my stoned ass,
Gets off this couch.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
Edited by tree frog (01/11/24 09:17 AM)
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tree frog
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: syncro] 1
#28631021 - 01/22/24 12:33 PM (5 days, 18 hours ago) |
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Quote:
syncro said: I enjoy her talks. btw, I wasn't commenting on her person, but releasing the great spirit frog as a kraken to battle.
Why was I summoned? I ducked out of the thread.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
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tree frog
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Registered: 09/14/23
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: syncro] 1
#28631676 - 01/23/24 03:40 AM (5 days, 3 hours ago) |
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It starts as a serious pursuit, as all projects done by the doer are.
The seriousness gives way to spontaneous action.
That's where the natural path and the path of mindfulness just becomes the path.
The easiest way to tell if someone has some enlightenment, rather a little or a lot, are they spontaneously joyful? Are they funny without being sarcastic, crude, or hurtful? And is all of this joy arising naturally out of the situation without pretense?
If I encounter a dharma teacher or other spiritual teacher without these qualities, I hop my ass the other direction. No clue if free will lady fits that bill, but if so, consider her swallowed.
And thanks for the kind words about frogs. I swallowed a whole universe once, but I was a great serpent that go. Not a frog.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
Edited by tree frog (01/23/24 03:57 AM)
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tree frog
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: syncro] 1
#28631752 - 01/23/24 06:43 AM (5 days, 26 minutes ago) |
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I'm probably more on board with an anti-free will lady (determinism), which seems to be what she's about. I didn't click the link above.
Buddhism takes a middle way with determinism. 'We' don't change things because there's no doer that stands apart from the doing. Still, things change.
When an itch arises, we scratch. We don't choose to scratch or not to scratch, unless, other conditions make that choice for us. Like doing sitting meditation, we might not scratch. But that's not a 'choice'. It's the interaction between multiple conditions inhibiting the scratch reflex.
Another example, when we're asleep we fart. When awake and in polite company, we might not. But it's the context (conditions) determining the choice. Not a separate unchanging self that lives in our heads somehow apart from those conditions.
The illusion of free will is so ingrained though that I felt like I had tourett's the first time I broke through the body/mind dichotomy. Like, my body was moving itself. Over time, I started to trust that 'someone else' wasn't moving 'my body' around. That it was just my body moving itself around when 'I' got out of the way.
That breakthrough was on vaped DMT coming down off LSD. I stretched, but it didn't feel like me stretching. I danced, but it didn't feel like me dancing. It felt like I had turned 'control' over to the DMT elves and that they were doing it 'for me'. There was no alternate dimension. Just, right here, right now. In my living room. Music pumping and my body dancing, like dancing was one long stretch that I was no more in control of than a yawn I couldn't fight.
Now, I cultivate that sense of flow with my body. And the division between tree frog's mind and tree frog's body has become more permeable. And I don't second guess myself nearly as often. Still learning though.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
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tree frog
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: syncro] 1
#28632044 - 01/23/24 11:19 AM (4 days, 19 hours ago) |
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Have you read much Dogen?
Your comment reminded me of this.
Quote:
To carry the self forward and illuminate myriad dharmas is delusion. That myriad dharmas come forth and illuminate the self is enlightenment.
https://www.lionsroar.com/the-genjo-koan/
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
Edited by tree frog (01/23/24 11:20 AM)
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tree frog
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: spinvis] 2
#28632165 - 01/23/24 01:59 PM (4 days, 17 hours ago) |
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I've been reading a bit of systems sciences as well as reading some of Bhikkhu Analayo's stuff regarding signs, name and form and the arising of consciousness, etc. and I think I'd put it like this.
There's form, the material universe. Which can be described as interdependent and embedded processes.
There's name, the way we turn the above processes into signs or symbols that the mind can grasp easily. Not just language but the literal sense impression, tree. The way a tree hits you on all five aggregates. If you grow entheogens, cop is another sign that maybe better demonstrates what I mean by how it hits you.
Consciousness co-arises with name and form.
The error, I think, as in, where the sense of the doer arises, is in the naming. We make semi-permanent concepts around processes. Turning process into object.
The Buddha didn't say things don't exist. He said things are impermanent (process) and not self (interdependent, embedded, systemness).
Personally, I think once people get a taste of freedom and well-being, rather from entheogens or the dharma, it's hard to turn away from the path. Sometimes I resent both my practice and my psychedelics. But it's the way I sometimes resent having to breathe when I want to smoke cigarettes or hold my breath for long periods of time. Eventually, breathing always wins.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
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tree frog
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: Freedom] 2
#28633005 - 01/24/24 08:10 AM (3 days, 22 hours ago) |
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Quote:
Freedom said: I think once you get a clear enough glimpse of the emptiness of self, that organizing principle stops working, and entropy or deconditioning starts dissolving the self constructs, which leads to a sort of progression on a path, where new vistas continue to open along the way. This process may be helped along through practices.
And for clarity, the appearance of self returns (typically), its just that once its seen for what it is (or isn't), its power to organize the conditioning process is lost or diminished.
It may be that without that glimpse, practices are a continuation of a self practicing, although by accident one may forget the self while practicing.
This sounds right to me.
I've had such experiences multiple times with entheogens but it's much easier to mentally dismiss.
I had one meditation experience where I was doing dry insight work on the sense of self. Tracking them down, investigating it until it dissolved as not self. Moving on to the next place it arose. For a moment there was a gap. Just sense impressions flowing without a center. Meditative 'ego death'.
I've gone back and forth on if that was stream entry. Either way it was impossible to unsee and very hard to replicate with dry insight work.
I can get to boundless awareness now pretty easy using annapanasati. And generally hold myself more gently and take myself less seriously.
But I was a huge mess when I started practicing. And now I'm a big mess that can at least laugh at himself and show himself some compassion. So, that's quite an improvement. Rather I'm selfing or not.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
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tree frog
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: syncro] 1
#28633161 - 01/24/24 10:43 AM (3 days, 20 hours ago) |
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I'm just getting into Longchenpa but also find a lot of resonance there.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
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tree frog
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: Freedom] 1
#28633231 - 01/24/24 12:08 PM (3 days, 19 hours ago) |
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That's where I first heard him. I ordered a translation and commentary called maya yoga but haven't gotten into it yet.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
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tree frog
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: spinvis] 2
#28634477 - 01/25/24 12:53 PM (2 days, 18 hours ago) |
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Light meditation trips me up in the tibatan terminology and I tend to get hung up on eye consciousness in particular being into psychedelics. Lately the entheogens have been drawing me into shadow work. Granted I fell back into some habits over covid so there's a lot of shadow work happening around boundaries and precepts.
Is light a metaphor for the reflexive nature of mind to cognize?
The text above and stuff I've read on Nirvana suggests that the mind can't cognize itself in the typical sense.
That the Nirvana event is touching the essence and the place cognition ends because the essence is both the birth and death of all cognitive events.
A sign arises after (Oh, I touched it). But the cognitive act is again a sign and not the essence itself.
I experience it like the event horizon of a black hole.
Conceptual questions like is it aware of itself don't cross the threshold. I think Nagarjuna pointed this out to me with his being/non-being, coming/going dichotomies.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
Edited by tree frog (01/25/24 01:50 PM)
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tree frog
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: spinvis] 2
#28634617 - 01/25/24 02:58 PM (2 days, 16 hours ago) |
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I see.
All phenomena are shown to have the same source (stream entry).
Samsara is forgetting this. Nirvana is the awareness of this.
Interesting that I found the source by digging in the dark. There was a warmth and a profound stillness. And a sense of immensity.
The sign that arises for me is like a black hole. An immense inky blackness with an event horizon. So I never did get the light metaphors. But I have attachments to the sign light and had to abandon it a long time ago.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
Edited by tree frog (01/25/24 03:00 PM)
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tree frog
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: Freedom] 2
#28634697 - 01/25/24 04:19 PM (2 days, 14 hours ago) |
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Yup, that did it.
The mind of the Great Sage of India was intimately
conveyed from west to east.
Among human beings are wise ones and fools,
But in the Way there is no northern or southern Patriarch.
The subtle source is clear and bright; the tributary
streams flow through the darkness.
To be attached to things is illusion;
To encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment.
Each and all, the subjective and objective spheres are related,
and at the same time, independent.
Related, yet working differently, though each keeps its own place.
Form makes the character and appearance different;
Sounds distinguish comfort and discomfort.
The dark makes all words one; the brightness distinguishes good and bad phrases.
The four elements return to their nature as a child to its mother.
Fire is hot, wind moves, water is wet, earth hard.
Eyes see, ears hear, nose smells, tongue tastes the salt and sour.
Each is independent of the other; cause and effect must return to the great reality
Like leaves that come from the same root.
The words high and low are used relatively.
Within light there is darkness, do not be against the darkness. (nothingness/absolute);
Within darkness there is light, do not be against the light. (material/relative).
Light and darkness are a pair, like the foot before
and the foot behind, in walking. Each thing has its own intrinsic value
and is related to everything else in function and position.
Things exist as real as how the lid and box fits.
Truth corresponds like the sharp arrow piercing (through things).
Reading words you should grasp where it’s coming from. Do not come up with your own rules.
If you can not comprehend the way, on a far journey how would you know the road.
Progress is not about far or near, delusion can block (you) as firmly as the mountains and rivers.
I respectfully say to those who wish to be enlightened:
Do not waste your time by night or day.
-------------------- Listen to the silence behind the engines' noise. Jesus, Sweets, listen. Hear it? It's a love song. For whom? You are loved. ~ David Foster Wallace, Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way
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