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Onlinesyncro
Registered: 01/14/15
Posts: 2,696
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Agency, Who is the doer? * 5
    #28613608 - 01/08/24 04:08 AM (20 days, 3 hours ago)

This came up in the yogas thread and I thought to make one for it.

In creationist writings (not necessarily meaning in a religious context), there is implication of such and such was the first that moved, and before that nothing moved, as the undifferentiated or nondual would be said to be unmoving.

This morning was interesting as I awoke and observing myself moving, I asked, what moves? Repeatedly as I did my thing for a bit I was asking. The outer world of movement became as a shell around me and within was the unmoving. It was a nice gift.

The topic of agency seems rich with paradox and koan perhaps, free will, no will, only the one will. What moves? "You are not the doer." What say you!


Edited by syncro (01/08/24 06:12 AM)


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Onlinetree frog
eats bugs


Registered: 09/14/23
Posts: 442
Loc: lives in trees
Last seen: 4 minutes, 34 seconds
Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: syncro] * 1
    #28613651 - 01/08/24 05:29 AM (20 days, 1 hour ago)

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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InvisibleNillion
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Registered: 04/14/22
Posts: 1,000
Loc: Terra Firma
Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: syncro] * 1
    #28613700 - 01/08/24 06:32 AM (20 days, 37 minutes ago)

I am reminded of the Diamond Sutra.


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Onlinetree frog
eats bugs


Registered: 09/14/23
Posts: 442
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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)

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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InvisibleNillion
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Registered: 04/14/22
Posts: 1,000
Loc: Terra Firma
Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: syncro] * 1
    #28613985 - 01/08/24 10:56 AM (19 days, 20 hours ago)

As for translations, some have been better than others, but I don't have my favorite translator memorized. Long ago I had one I liked in book form, but I don't have any copies today.

I ignore every commentary I have read, I have yet to find one I care for. Aren't most commentaries made in the context of lineages? Lineage reminds me of the Rhinoceros Sutra. I like it as much as the Diamond Sutra.

In my ignorance, regarding the Diamond Sutra, I thought there was a literary joke in the work about self not existing and about how if a person explains the work they gain merit, but a person who understands the work knows that there is neither a self to gain the merit nor merit to be had and so none would explain the non-doctrine. The entire thing is as unto a koan in this regard, so it seems. That none who grasps the meaning can speak to it, etc, save indirectly for the comedy of the joke itself. The Sutra itself is quite entertaining in this regard to my simple-minded perspective. The sharp cutting edge of the Diamond in this case being the wit of the one who composed it.

Despite not having found any commentaries I can appreciate so far I am open to the idea of them, what one do you like?


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OfflineFreedom
Pigment of your imagination
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Registered: 05/26/05
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: Nillion] * 1
    #28614008 - 01/08/24 11:14 AM (19 days, 19 hours ago)

I've been looking at the red pine one lately. I like it cause he includes excerpts from other commentaries that go into so much detail. Its like hand holding through a deeper contemplation (sometimes hand holding seems appopriate, sometimes independent contemplation seems appropriate)

for example many of the sutras start with "Thus have I heard:", red pine says: 

Quote:

Commentators have written volumes on the profundity of evan (thus). Does it mean “like so,” or does it mean “just so”? And what is the difference? Is this sutra the finger that points to the moon, or is it the moon itself?

Li Wen-hui says, “‘Thus’ is another word for our nature. Outside of our nature, nothing else is real.”

Tao-ch’uan says, “The Way of the ancients was said to be ‘just so.’ For by the time they talked about it, it had already changed. But when the Way changes, where does it go? Spit it out! It doesn’t run off just anywhere. Where does it actually go? Speak! Words won’t burn your mouth. Just: on a clear still night the moon shines alone. So: water doesn’t exist apart from waves. The waves are water.”

Chiang Wei-nung says, “When people believe something, they say ‘it is thus.’ When they don’t believe something, they say, ‘it is not thus.’ The Avatamsaka Sutra says, ‘Belief marks the beginning of the Path. It is the mother of virtues and protector of all good dharmas.’ (6) Belief is the first gate on the Path. Hence, this expression is placed at the very beginning.”




Sometimes the slightest change in looking at something can be revealing.


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InvisibleNillion
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Registered: 04/14/22
Posts: 1,000
Loc: Terra Firma
Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: syncro] * 1
    #28614021 - 01/08/24 11:28 AM (19 days, 19 hours ago)

For me the line could be changed to "long ago in a galaxy far far away" and nothing would be lost or gained.

I suspect that we have different perspectives on the meaning and utility of terms.
I am quite simple minded and the nuances and complexities of the wording in the Sutra surely go over my head.


Edited by Nillion (01/08/24 11:29 AM)


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: Nillion] * 1
    #28614176 - 01/08/24 02:45 PM (19 days, 16 hours ago)

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.


--------------------
Omnicyclion.org
higher knowledge starts here


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OfflineFreedom
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: Asante] * 1
    #28614189 - 01/08/24 02:59 PM (19 days, 16 hours ago)

what is god?


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Onlinesyncro
Registered: 01/14/15
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: Freedom]
    #28614800 - 01/09/24 05:03 AM (19 days, 2 hours ago)

That which knows. ? We also have that described as Satchitananda, existence, consciousness, bliss. So then I ask, does existence know? How about emptiness?

We say no observer, yet to know it would be to contradict it. Perhaps we could say, no separate observer. There are times in immersion or insight that are experienced as selfless, or ego dissolution, but how did you know? It may have been an entirely different kind of thing, but was not some kind of you there in it?

It seems so much of it comes back to limitations of language.

I suppose this is a disclaimer of language. "And yet, even as I speak, Subhuti, I must take back my words as soon as they are uttered, for there are no Buddhas and there are no teachings." Statements like Brahman can't be known - it is that which knows, yet also, Brahman shines - contradictions, not that these bother me in affinity.


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Onlinetree frog
eats bugs


Registered: 09/14/23
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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)

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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Invisibleconnectedcosmos
Neti Neti
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Registered: 02/07/15
Posts: 7,426
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: tree frog] * 1
    #28614843 - 01/09/24 06:06 AM (19 days, 1 hour ago)

That is a funny contradiction

Some say no self, but who's to say?

I think no one can truly define what we are because words can't really grasp reality

They will always fall short , and with terminology having different nuanced meanings depending who interprets them


What is God? Just a word like Allah or Dao or but it points to that which cannot be boxed


--------------------


54. The true nature of things is to be known personally , through the eyes of clear illumination and not through a sage : what the moon exactly is , is to be known with one's own eyes ; can another make him know it?


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OfflineBrendanFlock
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: connectedcosmos] * 1
    #28615872 - 01/09/24 11:55 PM (18 days, 7 hours ago)

Agency is transposed behind and between the very fabric of existence.


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InvisibleAsante
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: Freedom] * 1
    #28615909 - 01/10/24 01:46 AM (18 days, 5 hours ago)

Quote:

Freedom said:
what is god?





There is one all-encompassing principle, one soul that embodies all, it is our ego which gives us individuality.

the foundation is the "me" not the Ego but the deeper Me that is in humans, in sea snails, in trees and even rocks.

its the universal Me that connects everything and is the same in everyone.

the most basic default, yet infinitely wise.

thats the One

the "All Encompassing One"

the Omnicyclion.

the One cycle that has all minor cycli within it.

you, me, the fishes in the sea.

forever.


--------------------
Omnicyclion.org
higher knowledge starts here


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OfflineBrendanFlock
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: Asante] * 1
    #28615948 - 01/10/24 03:36 AM (18 days, 3 hours ago)

You are your agency..

Do we have to debate this?


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Onlinesyncro
Registered: 01/14/15
Posts: 2,696
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: BrendanFlock] * 1
    #28616265 - 01/10/24 11:14 AM (17 days, 19 hours ago)

Quote:

the foundation is the "me" not the Ego but the deeper Me that is in humans, in sea snails, in trees and even rocks.

its the universal Me that connects everything and is the same in everyone.

the most basic default, yet infinitely wise.

thats the One




I have wondered what is meant by the Son of Man and arrived at them being the same as Ishvara, manifest. :shrugs: Then talking about Kashmir Shaivism the distinction was emphasized between Ishvara and Brahman, the latter the unmoving beyond where the former is manifest. Though it seems distinguishing them is rather arbitrary in practice, as if one is without the other, as if Shakti is distinct from Shiva, form different from emptiness, Holy Spirit different from Christ or the Father. That one throws me for a loop. "I will baptize you with water ... he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire." He being Christ presumably. The Holy Spirit is sent for us, yet Christ is there baptizing you. What is need to send another? They are one.

What does she love more than Shiva? Therefore the more one goes to him the more she can enliven, (for him, you, their unity.) They reunite in eye-le three. "Clean up in eyele three please."

Individual agency may want to play. Teacher agency wants you to go into deep silence, yet it empowers play. Fruit is sovereignty, yet they want you to keep discipline and cook all the seeds.


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InvisibleThe Blind Ass
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Registered: 08/16/16
Posts: 26,657
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: syncro] * 4
    #28617153 - 01/11/24 04:00 AM (17 days, 3 hours ago)

trace back where the question originated from right to the very tippity top of its branches and down to the very most bottom of its roots, then cut them all off and see what remains; regardless of how fanned out things might get, or, of how far apart they might seem, eventually you'll hit the tap of seemingly nothing but something in which is everything & in which everything is contained of as emptiness (in a manner of speaking, but, note - the term itself is highly misleading).

To have a chance at finding it as leading to nowhere beyond the here and now, beyond oneself, whereby one is already present at by the very means by which nothing but pure presence unifying everything can be found as the same as that which is both as what there is to cognize as that as which is being recognized, as that which is the same unity multiplied of its own vast potentiality from having no beginning and knowing no end?

So much power is so enormous it cannot but stand out of itself without anything helping it outside of itself to give it a hand.
Nevertheless, meanwhile, everything is everywhere all at once, everyplace is in space, all space is ever expanding infinitary openness, like the eternal phoenix triumphant, the buddha's sly smile while simply referring to suchness as the non-absolute nature of emptiness, a real illusion - even that isn't it, just a simile or metaphor, analogy, something to compare it with which to contrast it with.

Moreover; and, as such, as to the above, 'it' - this question - as to 'doing' is purely naturally of a nature of which its own nature ultimately is unconditionally 'deathless'.

Its funny you know?  "The Big Bang" ...
Oh, you mean, something just burst and over time particles collided across timelessness itself just to diffuse itself like an ocean without a planet like a planet without a solar system, like a solar system without a galaxy, like a galaxy without a cosmic system -  only to express those very things itself, without ever doing a thing but for something akin to a dream dreaming dreamers also capable of dreaming endlessly with a visa granted via the very enchantment of its own luster putting itself into a delusive sleep, in essence, allowing ignorance, which in turn, allows for everything?  Without ignorance, there is no awareness, without awareness there is neither perception nor non perception.  Without perception nor non perception there is but pure absence of all form - with the absence of all form there is emptiness, with emptiness there is emptiness of even itself - hence - the true nature of things being empty also entailing that the nature of said nature is of a non-absolute emptiness, allowing for something, rather than absolute voidness of all actuality in there would not even be reality?  Its primal nondual awareness of oneself and all else as completely intra-interwovenness as plucked by causality of its own doings from becoming forever for all eternity.


But for the eyes, the ears, the noses, the mouths, and arms, how else can something beyond even magic itself not notice this suchness? 

without something else for reference is telling of itself....as...telling of itself as placeless.

I like calling it the primordial mind, but who cares what one calls it, it has no name, lmao.  my brain structure will function to predict solutions for any and everything it can possibly get its grubby little mitts into, once you dip the tip into infinity's hole, you'd best be damned sure you're double strapped or ready to become aware of a likeness to an all-father, all-mother, all-family, all-in-all, all at once, always already together forever for an eternity chilling out so hard it energetically condenses to a point until merging virtually itself anew before bursting again and so on and so forth.  Matter, compounded matter comprised of more basic particulate, as interaction via spacetime's waveletting of light and gravity and other forces upon the world of subatomics; and, further beyond the quantum even, lies nothing but more unlimitedness - the mark of what's already always unbegotten having always already gotten there before you find it, as how can something omnipresent and so omnidirectionally spread infinitely about not always already all potentialities expressing the phenomenon by which something can even come to know of a reality via that something's energy's essentially being the ultimate kingpin of transformation itself?

Also, the aforementioned, as in right here and now itself, is telling itself about how things in general cannot be, or do, or be, or work  - in other words - Constancy of Change = Transformation.  If not for all things in tandem with every other thing else in general also doing the same, too, then how else could things be, let alone change in order to become what they inevitably be as pure sport-like loving spontaneity? 

In short...

No need for there to be a doer and or an agent, simultaneously, No need for there not to be a doer ageing stuff as an agent of the agency of change!...(ha)...but we may as well enjoy being for with it we've been enabled to seem like we are as we seem anyways, at least, for the duration of time of an awareness being such as it is embodied energy of the primordial good-goody-god in whatever the form it is as expressed as, with, by, and or through as you, I, and all sentient lifeforms.

ps.  i'm pretty darn exhausted and I'm aware of some technical difficulties and a series of hiccups made throughout my post. Apologies if that makes it difficult to understand, not to mention I perhaps waxed a bit too thicc with the poetic, but, with that said, I do hope the root of the question you asked will be found at some time within the now, as resoundingly so, while not looking outside of what's always within you & you within it. 

So long as the gist is crisp enough for you to grokk ~ t'sall more or less, good fun, for goodness itself, and as such, my post will have been made basically good, and, if so, then thank goodness.

Slightly entertaining to entertain pondering these sorts of things, right?  I've no claim to absolute truth, I merely let this post flow of vision like artistry to express what I cannot help but suggest of what's been ingested of mind through the senses wandering about without warning.  Whether fishing for feedback, of genuine curiosity, or out of compassion to aid another ~ even if at times, technically wrong, or, sometimes totally out of bounds, :lol:... how else can I forge myself, learn critically, while aware without seeing how I do without testing my ignorance thoroughly?

Hopefully, what becomes of it is like an elixir of wisdom worth truly pouring.  It's not quite there yet, despite having been a long time coming, and, no matter how long or short the one's life seems to be, what is worthwhile beyond goodness, wisdom, & tempered compassion to one's relative situation as per one's incomplete knowledge of understanding all the facts, something which whenever looking back, seems to thrive on ever more than before?  Verily accumulating experience seemingly manifesting as such so as to be pointed untoward?

Well, maybe at another time we can go at it again.
To exchange ideas, compare, stare, dare, and a bit more - just not this morning... b/c i'm too tired to edit & revise...despite the wall of shit I now stare at as my workplace begins calling, oh me, oh my, oh goodness gracious...:lol::popcorn:  :thumbup:


--------------------
Give me Liberty caps -or- give me Death caps


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Onlinesyncro
Registered: 01/14/15
Posts: 2,696
Last seen: 20 seconds
Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: The Blind Ass] * 1
    #28617342 - 01/11/24 08:07 AM (16 days, 23 hours ago)

A friend just arrived at an ashram in India on a holy river for an extended stay and program of tapas, say. What I had forgotten somewhat, rather near completely in the wakeful day, as she had too, was peace. She sent pictures and vibes saying it is so easy to exist there! Coming from high plains winter and plugged into the man-net and tech and hope in indulgence, the struggle and stress of mere first world no less. The peace transmitted, the deep beauty of nature and the temple and setting, the atmosphere, from on high on earth such peace.

Not that your words need addressing - the last questions if I understood, not that I did or need to but to enjoy the art, but for dukkha. Nothing needed to do but for dukkha, not to over emphasize but it is. And why for dukkha? As said above compassion is as natural as the next breath in them. Dukkha is the only thing untoward I guess. May all have peace.

When invoking such presence it can only be for one thing-

Sarve Bhavantu Sukinah
May everyone, everywhere, be happy


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Onlinetree frog
eats bugs


Registered: 09/14/23
Posts: 442
Loc: lives in trees
Last seen: 4 minutes, 34 seconds
Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: Asante] * 2
    #28617398 - 01/11/24 09:04 AM (16 days, 22 hours ago)

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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Invisibleconnectedcosmos
Neti Neti
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Registered: 02/07/15
Posts: 7,426
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Re: Agency, Who is the doer? [Re: The Blind Ass] * 1
    #28617600 - 01/11/24 01:02 PM (16 days, 18 hours ago)

:manofapproval:


--------------------


54. The true nature of things is to be known personally , through the eyes of clear illumination and not through a sage : what the moon exactly is , is to be known with one's own eyes ; can another make him know it?


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