A Universe from Nothing?

[Ben Dhyan]

Eh? Mindfulness been my main PRACTICE for many years, in different schools, so I am talking from solid practical experience.

One of the problems with a syncretic approach is ending up as a jack of all trades and master of none.

No necessarily...in your case you found a teacher that suited and that was that...you do not have the deeper subtle understanding of other traditions to see that though they may use a different approach, the goal is the same... Apart from my Christian upbringing...I studied with the Theosophical Society for many years in the mystical tradition which covers all religions, ancient and modern....one of the things I learned is that there are common underlying principles linking all religions... Having said that...my own evolution led me to Zen, and still mind meditation is what I practice...

 

[Rick O'Shez]

No necessarily...in your case you found a teacher that suited and that was that...you do not have the deeper subtle understanding of other traditions to see that though they may use a different approach, the goal is the same... Apart from my Christian upbringing...I studied with the Theosophical Society for many years in the mystical tradition which covers all religions, ancient and modern....one of the things I learned is that there is common underlying principles linking all religions... Having said that...my own evolution led me to Zen, and still mind meditation is what I practice...

No, I have had many teachers and explored many approaches, not just Buddhism, though that has been my main practice.

So basically you're a theist who has done some meditation? OK. As you know I don't subscribe to your woolly syncretism and the air of superiority behind it, but that is probably another discussion.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

No, I have had many teachers and explored many approaches, not just Buddhism, though that has been my main practice.

So basically you're a theist who has done some meditation? OK. As you know I don't subscribe to your woolly syncretism and the air of superiority behind it, but that is probably another discussion.

So basically you are an atheist who is a devoted follower of a social activist Vietnamese Zen teacher who sucks...and hates religious unity in diversity...

 

[Rick O'Shez]

So basically you are an atheist who is a devoted follower of a social activist Vietnamese Zen teacher who sucks...and hates religious unity in diversity...

So all you can do is attack one of my past teachers? Petty and childish. So much for your woolly syncretism, which is really a glorified ego trip with it's arrogant air of superiority.

And it's very odd that a teacher who "hates religous unity in diversity" would write a book like this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/73184.Living_Buddha_Living_Christ

How little you know. Talking the talk is easy, how about walking the walk?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

So all you can do is attack one of my past teachers? Petty and childish. So much for your woolly syncretism, which is really a glorified ego trip with it's arrogant air of superiority.

And it's odd that a teacher who "hates religous unity in diversity" would write a book like this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/73184.Living_Buddha_Living_Christ

Haha...I was only joking by holding a 'mirror' up to you ...you (not your teacher) appear to have a hate issue wrt theism and so called syncretism .....I love all serious students of life, and Thich Nhat Hanh is doing his best...and his past students...

 

[syo]

...who here believes that the universe originated from nothing?...

Absolutely not. Nothing leads to nothing.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Haha...I was only joking by holding a 'mirror' up to you ...

Nonsense, you were just being spiteful. I know your passive-aggressive tricks by now and can see through the childish games that you play.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Nonsense, you were just being spiteful. I know your passive-aggressive tricks by now and can see through the childish games that you play.

As ye judge so shall you be....truth is that a good test of the progress of a zen student is their remaining sense of attachment to their teacher and/or school...an evolved student will have learned detachment and let go...they are not emotional when their school or teacher is criticized...

 

[godnotgod]

Mindfulness is just paying attention to experience, and might well include clock-watching.

But it's not about the clock, but rather about your consciousness and how it perceives clock activity. Ultimately, it is the merging of subject and object.

I would also advise caution in assuming that an inner experience of timelessness or stillness has any correlation with the world "out there".

The inner experience of timelessness IS the world out there. But the conceptual frameworks of Time and Space superimposed over the world out there create the illusion of discontinuity between the two. Once in awhile the inner and outer worlds 'synch' together, and this is in fact called 'synchronicity', a psychological event coined by Carl Jung:

http://www.awakeninthedream.com/catching-the-bug-of-synchronicity/

 

[godnotgod]

...one of the things I learned is that there are common underlying principles linking all religions... .

I agree, and am trying to understand why it is that some of us see it this way, while others see them as black and white, diametrically opposite views. I suspect it is a matter of retention of previous mental conditioning being in the way. Alan Watts described this as 'contaminating the present with the past'.

 

[godnotgod]

Absolutely not. Nothing leads to nothing.

Via of your intuitive mind, is it not apparent to you that Nothing implies Everything, and vice-versa? In reality, it is not possible to have the one without the other.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

The inner experience of timelessness IS the world out there.

No, it really isn't, it's just an inner experience.

This is easily proved. Next time you meditate check the time on a clock before you start. When you finish meditating check the clock again and you will see that a certain amount of time has passed. The world has moved on while you've been having your inner experience.

Why do people have this need to project their subjective experiences out onto the universe? It's rather egocentric really, there is a sort of arrogance behind it.
Like "Oh, I had an experience of inner stillness, so that means the universe must be still too!"
Well, no actually, the universe isn't affected one iota by your "mystical" experiences. All that changes is your perception of it. Hopefully.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I agree, and am trying to understand why it is that some of us see it this way, while others see them as black and white, diametrically opposite views. I suspect it is a matter of retention of previous mental conditioning being in the way. Alan Watts described this as 'contaminating the present with the past'.

There are woolly syncretists who arrogantly claim to have a higher view and try to bang square pegs into round holes, not caring about the mess they make, not caring that they are misrepresenting traditions in a wholesale manner. And there are other people who recognise the diversity and don't do that.

 

[syo]

Via of your intuitive mind, is it not apparent to you that Nothing implies Everything, and vice-versa? In reality, it is not possible to have the one without the other.

you mean that nothing leads to something?

 

[idav]

Eternity is merely ceaseless existence...there is no existence without movement....and no movement without existence...but the movement is not existence...and existence is not movement...

Time is a measurement or observation made by the human mind...whatever that measurement or observation is, it does not have any reality other than that of being conceptual...eternity is just the reality of existence..any and all abstractions from eternity as measurements of time are not real, but mental constructs..

Tell that to a guy who would return from a black hole un-aged. Tell them their youth is all a concept in their heads. Thats what experiments in time dilation suggest would happen, movement would continue just outside of time. That is a description of something real not made up, not just a mental construct of measuring movement.

 

[Valjean]

Like time and distance, or matter and energy, boundaries between reality and 'mental constructs' blur when you look closely enough at them.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Like time and distance, or matter and energy, boundaries between reality and 'mental constructs' blur when you look closely enough at them.

Could you give an example?

 

[godnotgod]

No, it really isn't, it's just an inner experience.

This is easily proved. Next time you meditate check the time on a clock before you start. When you finish meditating check the clock again and you will see that a certain amount of time has passed. The world has moved on while you've been having your inner experience.

Why do people have this need to project their subjective experiences out onto the universe? It's rather egocentric really, there is a sort of arrogance behind it.
Like "Oh, I had an experience of inner stillness, so that means the universe must be still too!"
Well, no actually, the universe isn't affected one iota by your "mystical" experiences. All that changes is your perception of it. Hopefully.

You forget that you yourself are, to the tune of 100%, the Universe itself.

The clock comparison fails. You did not read what I said:

"...the conceptual frameworks of Time and Space superimposed over the world out there create the illusion of discontinuity between the two."

Remove the artificial overlays onto nature of Time, Space, and Causation, and 'the observer, the observed, and the entire process of observation merge into a single Reality'.

 

[godnotgod]

you mean that nothing leads to something?

Even disregarding that notion, the moment you infer one condition, you are doing so within the context of the other, although unwittigly so. When you say 'something', it automatically exists against a background of 'nothing'. You cannot have something without nothing, just as you cannot have solid without space. The focus being on 'something', because it is in the foreground, causes us to ignore the passive background of nothing, thinking there is only something.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

The clock comparison fails.

No it doesn't fail at all, anyone can try my experiment and the proof is there. It's simple and repeatable, no ifs or buts, and no need for pseudo-spiritual gibberish.

So do my experiment and tell me what happens. Does time come to a grinding halt while you are meditating? Does the clock stop? Does time come to a grinding halt while you are asleep?

Are clocks imaginary? Is night and day imaginary, the tides, the lunar cycle and so on? Or is it really just your theories which are imaginary?