Could Nothingness Be Another Dimension In And Of Itself?

[Papoon]

Having said that - there are delightful dhyanas such as luminous space-like mind. Such states are like psychological weather. Making them the aim is 'craving fine material existence'
I forget the Pali term for that, but it is warned about in various texts.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I don't 'follow' Chopra, but he is a maverick and a genius.

Of course you follow him. You are a Chopra clone and you defend his ideas by any means, including dishonesty and misrepresentation. Even to the extent of posing as a Buddhist so you can twist Buddhist teachings and pretend that they support your master's bizarre pseudo-Hindu cult.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Therefore, any such consciousness that is present must be, logically speaking, universal and non-local in nature.

You still don't get it. These notions are all contradicted by sunyata. Sunyata is not compatible with "universal consciousness" or "cosmic consciousness".

It's clear from the Heart Sutra that sunyata applies to all the aggregates equally, consciousness doesn't get special treatment. Following your logic the other aggregates would also have to be universal, non-local and cosmic. Non-local feelings!? Universal perceptions? Cosmic volitions?! Ridiculous and clearly wrong, which clearly shows that you are wrong.

By the way your so-called logic doesn't actually make sense. Universal doesn't imply non-local at all, it just means that consciousness has the same basic quality from person to person. And it certainly doesn't imply cosmic consciousness, which is pure fiction. You can repeat your belief mantra as often as you like but it doesn't make it true.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Having said that - there are delightful dhyanas such as luminous space-like mind. Such states are like psychological weather. Making them the aim is 'craving fine material existence. I forget the Pali term for that, but it is warned about in various texts.

I've had some experience of the first formless jhana ( infinite space ) but only on meditation retreats when I was doing a lot of practice. Honestly I don't think that most lay-Buddhists experience these states often enough to worry about getting attached to them.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

This is the explanation given by all the Buddhist teachers I have been fortunate enough to associate with, both Theravadin and Tibetan.
Regarding 'enlightenment' - Gautama did not propose a terminal state, or 'cosmic consciousness'. The Four Noble Truths, the succinct summation of Buddhism, states clearly that nirvana, the goal of Buddhist practice, is the absence of craving and aversion - nothing more, nothing less.

Sure...but the fact remains that there is a state that exists when the mortal mind ceases striving....that state is Nirvana...the reality that is represented by the concept of Nirvana is called Brahman or God in other traditions, and the Tao in another, or the One Mind, Cosmic Consciousness, etc... It's a case of a rose by any other name smells as sweet...

 

[Unification]

No, the Sariputra reference.

It's quite simple for me. Everything in the texts represent something within the human being and is metaphysical. None of it is exoteric or historical.

Sari means mother. Putra means son or child.

The son or child of a mother.

In this case, the Sariputra is the right/eastern hemisphere of the brain and the sons or children are seeds of thoughts deriving from the eastern sphere of the brain.

In which case, the seed that arose from the east hemisphere will be watered and grow into a wonderful flower. (This is metaphysical)

Not quite there yet but the seed/child being watered and on its way/path to enlightenment within the human being.

It's all cute and exoteric and hobby seeing literal images of a Buddah statue and one statue to the left and one to the right but the texts are referring to within the human being.

Buddah and his sidekicks... one on the left and one on the right.
These are the west and east spheres of the human brain with the "Buddah" in the middle.

It's no different than "Jesus" in the middle and the one thief on the left and the other on the right.

The 12 links are the 12 pairs of cranial nerves that regulate our reality, perception, senses, consciousness, etc.

At the end, there are 12 gates "chanted." When one enters deeply within and penetrates beyond the mind, beyond the 12 brain gates of the 12 cranial nerves, one reaches the pearly gates, the gates of wisdom.

The three groups of 6's are 666, the number of the human: the animal/beast and all of it's inner experiences.

It's why these words never pass, what the human being experienced within thousands of years ago, the same human beings experience within today, and why the texts are still useful and valid.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

..the reality that is represented by the concept of Nirvana is called Brahman or God in other traditions, and the Tao in another, or the One Mind, Cosmic Consciousness, etc... It's a case of a rose by any other name smells as sweet...

This is just woolly syncretism and lazy wishful thinking. You simply haven't had enough experience of all these traditions to make such bland generalisations. It's pure guesswork.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Lordy, this thread has turned into a surreal new-age nightmare. I'm outa here!

 

[Unification]

Lordy, this thread has turned into a surreal new-age nightmare. I'm outa here!

Good day now.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

This is just woolly syncretism and lazy wishful thinking. You simply haven't had enough experience of all these traditions to make such bland generalisations. It's pure guesswork.

But now you show your prejudice...you do not know what experience I have had...I have had ample experience in all those tradtions I mentioned and can attest that Nirvana represents the same thing as Brahman, Tao, and Cosmic Consciousness...

 

[Unification]

But now you show your prejudice...you do not know what experience I have had...I have had ample experience in all those tradtions I mentioned and can attest that Nirvana represents the same thing as Brahman, Tao, and Cosmic Consciousness...

It's what is called "dogma." Only a respector of certain words, traditions, and what their closed brain gates want to see due to not being open and one. Their way is the only way. Us vs them.

 

[Willamena]

Hmmm....dunno...for me the concept empty can only represent a relative state...for absolute nothing does not exist....empty must always refer to something in absence...

What I described doesn't lack for being relative. Everything is relative.

Emptiness is not "absolute nothing," on that we agree.

I think defering to "absence" affirms a denial that emptiness doesn't.

 

[Unification]

This is just woolly syncretism and lazy wishful thinking. You simply haven't had enough experience of all these traditions to make such bland generalisations. It's pure guesswork.

Traditions are exoteric. All of those texts you are referring to are internal experiences. The same processes going on within you goes on within others, if other words offend you... It's no wonder you haven't experienced oneness and syncretism. You have a dogmatic and divide/dual approach and aren't open and aware of that quite yet.. it's due to your own consciousness being divided and not yet one.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

What I described doesn't lack for being relative. Everything is relative.

Emptiness is not "absolute nothing," on that we agree.

I think defering to "absence" affirms a denial that emptiness doesn't.

Ok..thank you Williamena..

 

[Unification]

You still don't get it. These notions are all contradicted by sunyata. Sunyata is not compatible with "universal consciousness" or "cosmic consciousness".

It's clear from the Heart Sutra that sunyata applies to all the aggregates equally, consciousness doesn't get special treatment. Following your logic the other aggregates would also have to be universal, non-local and cosmic. Non-local feelings!? Universal perceptions? Cosmic volitions?! Ridiculous and clearly wrong, which clearly shows that you are wrong.

By the way your so-called logic doesn't actually make sense. Universal doesn't imply non-local at all, it just means that consciousness has the same basic quality from person to person. And it certainly doesn't imply cosmic consciousness, which is pure fiction. You can repeat your belief mantra as often as you like but it doesn't make it true.

The cosmos, universe, and world are within you. It's your own. It's your own minds/heart. Your minds/heart are your own local universe/world/cosmos.

You came from the cosmos so the cosmos is duplicated within you.

 

[godnotgod]

Of course you follow him. You are a Chopra clone and you defend his ideas by any means, including dishonesty and misrepresentation. Even to the extent of posing as a Buddhist so you can twist Buddhist teachings and pretend that they support your master's bizarre pseudo-Hindu cult.

This can only have come from the dark and tortured mind of Dr. Evil himself.

 

[godnotgod]

Having said that - there are delightful dhyanas such as luminous space-like mind. Such states are like psychological weather. Making them the aim is 'craving fine material existence'
I forget the Pali term for that, but it is warned about in various texts.

Sure, but what if it is a purely spontaneous event?

 

[godnotgod]

These notions are all contradicted by sunyata.

I don't see any contradiction. To the contrary, I see only support.

It's clear from the Heart Sutra that sunyata applies to all the aggregates equally, consciousness doesn't get special treatment.

That's not the point. The point is that, even though consciousness has no self-nature, it continues to exist as universal consciousness. It has always been universal consciousness, but that has been obscured by the heavy investment in a self. There is no such 'I' or self, that is conscious. That is the point of the Heart Sutra and of Zen as well. If there is no such conscious 'I' or self, and if, as Thich Nhat Hanh has told us, consciousness continues to exist, then there is no containment or encapsulation of consciousness by any vessel or entity. There is no you that is doing consciousness; it is consciousness that is doing you. Science has it backwards: the brain does not create consciousness; consciousness creates the brain, now proven by studies showing long-term meditators actually growing thicker cerebral cortexes than non-mediators.

Following your logic the other aggregates would also have to be universal, non-local and cosmic. Non-local feelings!? Universal perceptions? Cosmic volitions?! Ridiculous and clearly wrong, which clearly shows that you are wrong.

There is no self or 'I' that is conscious that is feeling, touching, seeing, hearing, or tasting. There is only feeling, seeing, hearing touching, and tasting, just as there is no such 'it' that rains. You are not this separate ego called 'i'; you are the universe looking at itself through your eyes. Get yourself out of the way so you can see.

By the way your so-called logic doesn't actually make sense. Universal doesn't imply non-local at all, it just means that consciousness has the same basic quality from person to person. And it certainly doesn't imply cosmic consciousness, which is pure fiction. You can repeat your belief mantra as often as you like but it doesn't make it true.

Where does your consciousness leave off and the world begin?

 

[Unification]

This is the explanation given by all the Buddhist teachers I have been fortunate enough to associate with, both Theravadin and Tibetan.
Regarding 'enlightenment' - Gautama did not propose a terminal state, or 'cosmic consciousness'. The Four Noble Truths, the succinct summation of Buddhism, states clearly that nirvana, the goal of Buddhist practice, is the absence of craving and aversion - nothing more, nothing less.
Keep at it Spiny. Strive with diligence

Nobody knows what "Gautama" proposed. The bright light is only experienced within any human being through being in darkness. "The Gautama Bodhi within."

The goals vary, the texts vary, their meanings and interpretations vary, the quotes vary, the agenda's vary throughout the same traditions. Real Buddhism isn't even a religion or exoteric practice...it's an inner practice and inner nature/character and no one even needs the texts to discover this inner nature and to know themselves.

Explanation is essentially just knowledge of something, one has to directly experience/know it within themselves.

 

[Unification]

Exactly. Who needs all those other mystic mumbo jumbo words anyways?

Complex interactions are diverse, words and language and meanings are diverse.

It's the human animal nature within them that is easily offended and emotional about the use of other words they don't like.