If "everything is energy" then what does this mean?

[atanu]

So, yeah, I do agree that "nirvana" is not an absolute, but is a placeholder symbol for the unknown. It's so liberating to drop attachments to ideas and simply be, here, now.

Nirvana is described as unborn, unformed, and uncreated. How can it be a placeholder symbol for the unknown?

Which 'symbol' is not a mental creation? Which 'placeholder' is not a mental creation?

So simple... even a fool can do it.

Yeah. I have to agree.

 

[YmirGF]

Yeah. I have to agree.

The one thing I will add is, "So simple... even a fool can do it, but not the foolish." (Assuming one gets the play on words.)

 

[atanu]

How to describe. Only 1:48 am... still early.

My best advise to those who are fascinated by the stillness and the silence is to be attentive. Pay attention and listen to the silence.....
2:27 am... not bad.

Huh. So the attentive self is still there? Yes. Not bad.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

How to describe. Only 1:48 am... still early.

Even in deep meditation one is still at the mercy of preconceptions and expectation. You experience, for the most part, precisely what you expect, blissfully unaware of what lies beyond current comprehension. A loop of a sorts forms between expectation and experience supporting beliefs with affirmations of their validity, cementing the ideas into certainty. This feedback loop is a very tough nut to crack. There is much beyond the stillness and the silence but it is incredibly difficult to express this knowable, but undefinable, feature of reality in verbal terms. Currently, there are no words or verbal expressions that encompass the magnitudes of experience that are available directly as awareness naturally expands, touching and changing all in its wake, much like how we subtly alter the world around us as we pass through it during our busy days.

My best advise to those who are fascinated by the stillness and the silence is to be attentive. Pay attention and listen to the silence. Eventually you just might hear something in that silence. At first, it will seem to be no more than a whisper of a whisper, coming from all around you but also from nowhere in particular. In some ways, the stillness and silence is a doorway. A hub, if you like, through which many tantalizing adventures in consciousness can be known. But, if you are happy at the doorway, stay as long as you like. It's all good.

2:27 am... not bad.

I think we just witnessed a somnambulist in action.....the conceptualizing brain won't shut down even in sleep...what chances of realizing a still mind while awake...

 

[atanu]

The one thing I will add is, "So simple... even a fool can do it, but not the foolish." (Assuming one gets the play on words.)

I see that you chose not to answer as to how a placeholder/symbol can be unborn, which is how Nirvana is described.

 

[YmirGF]

I see that you chose not to answer as to how a placeholder/symbol can be unborn, which is how Nirvana is described.

My own feeling is that they are simply an example of rather poor choices of words made necessary by the understanding of those Buddha was addressing. If an artist has only 2 colours to work with there's not a lot he or she can do about it. You have to make the best of a crappy situation. No fault on Buddha.

Besides I'm not big on arguing about a concept that I do not see as being an existential reality.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

'Insight'? So, isn't that the basis?

We've been through this before. Insight ( prajna/panna ) is a quality of mind, so there is just change and the knowing of it.
Remember how in the Heart Sutra the Bodhisattva uses this prajna wisdom to gain full and perfect vision? It couldn't be clearer.

You are simply incapable of thinking outside your Atman/Brahman box, which is why you will never understand or appreciate what Buddhism teaches.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I see that you chose not to answer as to how a placeholder/symbol can be unborn, which is how Nirvana is described.

It simply means that Nirvana is a potential which we all have, this is expressed by the teachings on Buddha nature in Mahayana.

Your continual sniping at Buddhism stinks of sectarianism. I think you find Buddhist teachings a little threatening because they challenge the comfortable beliefs you have grown attached to.

It's like you want Buddhism to be another school of Hinduism, you can't cope with a different view. Well it IS a different view, so get over it. We don't do the Atman/Brahman thing.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

So the attentive self is still there?

No "self" is required, just knowing, awareness. Again you are still stuck in your Atman/Brahman box.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Insight is another word for perception or understanding.....and these concepts imply duality and not non-duality...

Wrong again. In Buddhism insight is a quality, it doesn't require a self or "subject".

Remember the Bahiya Sutta passage?

"Then, Bāhiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress."

I know I am wasting my time, you are clearly not interested in understanding Buddhist teachings, you just want to preach your shallow syncretism and twist everything to fit the beliefs you are so firmly attached to. And when you are proved wrong you indulge in childish point-scoring. Like your tiresome new-age chum.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

No "self" is required, just knowing, awareness. Again you are still stuck in your Atman/Brahman box.

Haha...all other concepts representing God are now obsolete....just call me knowing Rick from now on...

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Haha...all your names representing God are now obsolete....just call me Rick from now on...

You are so predictable with your passive/aggressive crap. And see the penultimate line of my last post, #2030.

You are just a trollish time-waster, and dishonest with it.

 

[atanu]

My own feeling is that they are simply an example of rather poor choices of words made necessary by the understanding of those Buddha was addressing. If an artist has only 2 colours to work with there's not a lot he or she can do about it. You have to make the best of a crappy situation. No fault on Buddha.

Besides I'm not big on arguing about a concept that I do not see as being an existential reality.

It is your opinion that the scripture we are talking about represents mere poor choice of words.

The Buddha is unambiguous that Nirvana is unborn, uncreated, and unformed. I do not think that there is any example of an unborn 'place-holder' or an unborn 'symbol', as you have claimed.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Wrong again. In Buddhism insight is a quality, it doesn't require a self or "subject".

Remember the Bahiya Sutta passage?

"Then, Bāhiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress."

I know I am wasting my time, you are clearly not interested in understanding Buddhist teachings, you just want to preach your shallow syncretism and twist everything to fit the beliefs you are so firmly attached to. And when you are proved wrong you indulge in childish point-scoring. Like your tiresome new-age chum.

There it is...but alas you do not understand the very scripture you believe in...that is what is meant by..."it's the moon stoopid" I don't mean that literally, it is just the saying that is meant to bring the aspirants attention to the goal, rather than the explanation of the goal...

What the passage is explaining to the aspirant is that.....when there is no 'you' in connection with seeing, hearing, sensing, and cognizing, then this is the end of stress and suffering.. This is totally what I have been trying to convey.....the seer is one with the seen, the hearer is not separate from the heard, the sensor and the senses is one, and congnizer and cognized are in union...

But be not deceived, this union or realization, is not possible just by understanding the meaning of the constructive conceptualized passage you quoted, it must be realized directly with a mind free from thought...

You are never wasting your time....I am patient to the extent you are patient...

 

[Ben Dhyan]

You are so predictable with your passive/aggressive crap. And see the penultimate line of my last post, #2030.

You are just a trollish time-waster, and dishonest with it.

I have just posted #2034 and had not read your post #2030....and it appears I was prescient in showing you that you misunderstand where I am coming whereas I understand where you are coming from. I am what I am today from having struggled through the esoteric and arcane meaning of these sort of tracts of not only Buddhism, but all the other religions as well, for decades... Long story short...it's the moon stoopid!

 

[Aupmanyav]

.. and are deceived into thinking that the conceptual mortal mind can find peace. It can never happen .. ever .. for Nirvana is not realized through any mental experience .. but through the cessation of thought ..

You certainly have a right to your views, but I beg to differ on all counts. 1. Finding peace is possible and not at all difficult. 2. Nirvana which I translate into understanding is a very mental thing. 3. I do not find any meaning in cessation of thought. It is part of the meditation for a moment before you pay attention to a question with a clean/concentrated state of Mind.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

You certainly have a right to your views, but I beg to differ on all counts. 1. Finding peace is possible and not at all difficult. 2. Nirvana which I translate into understanding is a very mental thing. 3. I do not find any meaning in cessation of thought. It is part of the meditation for a moment before you pay attention to a question with a clean/concentrated state of Mind.

1. I mean an enduring peace..your body is yet to go through the travails of the attrition of aging and death.. Of course if you are permanently our of body in the avatarical sense, please do say so...
2. Duality is not considered Nirvana...
3. What relevance does what you find meaning in have to do with the absolute...only when the mind is free from conceptualization as the only means of understanding is it liberated...

 

[Aupmanyav]

You say Buddha is your guru but you don't like his central teaching, and you still cling to cultural Hindu beliefs like Atman/Brahman, though you have had to redefine these beyond all recognition. And a part of you is very sceptical and thinks it's all nonsense anyway, and looks to science for the answers.

It is never necessary in Buddhism or Hinduism to walk in the guru's steps. You are allowed to choose your own way. Buddha did that, and in Hinduism, there is the famous story of Vaishampayana and Yajnavalkya. I differ from my other guru, Adi Sankaracharya too. Buddha said in Kalama Sutta that one should not take the word of a scripture (piṭaka-sampadāna) or teaching of a person (samano no garū) as the absolute truth. That is the beauty of Buddha's message. I see no problem in taking help of science, I believe that the days of hermitage or arm-chair philosophy are over. Not taking science's help will only get us woo.

2:27 am... not bad.

Go to bed, YmirGF. There will be a tomorrow too (well, it is already tomorrow here).

.. what has the perception?

Brahman, which is in your form. The books said 'Tat twam asi' (That is what you are).

This feedback loop is a very tough nut to crack.

It is tough but I would not term it as 'very'. Possible to do it.

 

[metis]

Simple. One understands.

Or maybe they think they understand.

Frankly, I don't much get into it one way or the other, taking the position of "whatever is, is".

 

[metis]

In fact, all these words denote the same thing - nirvana, moksha, jnana, enlightenment, deliverance, emancipation, etc.

Not according to the basic definitions. For example, the concept of what supposedly happens with "moksha" is quite different that that which supposedly happens with "nirvana" as they are simply not interchangeable words.

However, I am not going so far along that line where I can say that one can't see them as being similar or even the same since one's own opinion on each, including what supposedly happens with each, can vary.