Discussion: Jupta's "Barriers on the Spiritual Path"

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
User avatar
Kelly Jones
Posts: 2665
Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 3:51 pm
Location: Australia
Contact:

Re: Discussion: Jupta's "Barriers on the Spiritual Path"

Post by Kelly Jones »

Leyla Shen wrote:What's, to you, is an emotional state?
Any states of mind characterised by emotion.

Emotions are psychological ups and downs. Any mental experience based on the gain/loss dynamic.

Equanimity is in the same group as psychological contentedness, tranquillity, peace, and so forth; which is basically the same category as happiness, since it's typically what people try to hold onto / gain.


.
User avatar
Kunga
Posts: 2333
Joined: Wed Dec 06, 2006 4:04 am
Contact:

Re: Discussion: Jupta's "Barriers on the Spiritual Path"

Post by Kunga »

No, your version of equanimity is the worldly definition, not spiritual.

"He who sees the meaning of the equality of all phenomena and realizes the mind as unborn like the sky is perfecting [realizing] the phenomena of the world and beings as the naturally pure buddha-field, the state of equanimity of unborn spontaneous accomplishment". [Longchenpa]


In Buddhism, equanimity (upekkhā, upekṣhā) is one of the four immeasurables and is considered:


Neither a thought nor an emotion, it is rather the steady conscious realization of reality's transience. It is the ground for wisdom and freedom and the protector of compassion and love. While some may think of equanimity as dry neutrality or cool aloofness, mature equanimity produces a radiance and warmth of being. The Buddha described a mind filled with equanimity as "abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility and without ill-will."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el006.html

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .nypo.html
User avatar
ardy
Posts: 341
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2013 6:44 am

Re: Discussion: Jupta's "Barriers on the Spiritual Path"

Post by ardy »

Kelly Jones wrote:
ardy wrote:KJ: No, think about the essence of identity, before any content or meaning is applied to "it", not after.

What is really holding the unchangeability of identity, is Reality itself. It has always been, and always will be: itself.

See, there is something happening right now: that is an eternal something, no matter what form or meaning it is given. That's the unchanging "it" anchoring the absoluteness and reliability of truth.

ardy: Kelly - you, movingalways and I are talking about the same hub, your assumption that logic and rationality is what is taking you there is your perception of IT. We stand on nothing, we grip on nought.
We aren't talking of the same thing at all. Your talk is that reasoning is driven by egotism, and can't show what is ultimately true. MA wants to get rid of reasoning before it has finished its work, so she can experience happiness (unconsciousness). My talk is that reasoning does show what is ultimately true, and needs to be plied diligently and uncompromisingly until the mind no longer experiences any delusions and false thoughts.

The closer you get to IT the less you can say about it.
Then stop talking.

Surely you realise that Lao Tsu was extremely close to IT yet could chatter for hours about the "Nameless Name"? Or do you think his disciples were brainless cult members who couldn't recognise their toenails from their nipples?

Reasoning points to the fact that things don't have ultimate boundaries, and that names are convenient pointers. That's what words are. It doesn't mean they can't do their job perfectly, as pointers. Or that one has to stop using them. In fact, rather than give up words, one uses the ones that work. Ones that point to themselves also.

If you think words delude and mislead, then you don't know their use. At some point, someone has told you, so to speak, to cut down the forest of delusion by laying aside the axe; it was a bad piece of advice.


.
Lao Tzu is a semi-mythical figure from 6th century bc. Not a lot is known about him except he tried to cross the border at age 80 and was not allowed to leave until he had stated all he knew about the Tao - thus the Tao te Ching.

grabbed this one from him as a pointer to a couple of issues I have with logic and the rational mind. Q how does the logical mind deal with what Lao Tzu is saying here?

Look, it cannot be seen - it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard - it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held - it is intangible.
These three are indefinable, they are one.

From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark:
Unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
Form of the formless,
Image of the imageless,
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.

Stand before it - there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the Tao, Move with the present.

Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao.


Mixing reality with the rational seems odd to me. You speak as if the rational [of an unenlightened person] is reality which I disagree with.

I never said that one should stop talking, I said the closer you get to IT the less you can speak about IT and this is accepted by most masters and I have experienced this myself. Once you are enlightened then many masters have spoken lots including Hakuin who claimed his strength was the 3".

Koans were devised to break through logic and the rational mind yet you claim that logic and rationality is the correct vehicle! I am only saying there are many vehicles, some excellent and some are bombs. You and others who think like you, may have discovered something the old masters tried to discard is actually a gem but it seems a remote possibility to me, until you prove you have passed over.

So if you want to offer me some insight into your dharma then you need to give me much more than is obvious from your posts. You strike me as a searcher like most of us here.
User avatar
ardy
Posts: 341
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2013 6:44 am

Re: Discussion: Jupta's "Barriers on the Spiritual Path"

Post by ardy »

If things could be expressed like this with ink and paper,
what would be the purpose of Zen?
Huang Bo


Just looked at this item whilst looking for something else. Seems appropriate doesn't it?

And this favourite that you all would have read points to a fault in logic.

身是菩提樹, The body is a Bodhi Tree;
如明鏡台. The mind is a bright mirror on a stand.
時時動拂拭 , Over and Over again, act to wipe it clean;
勿使惹塵埃!7 Do not let it become tainted by dust.
Huineng responded,
菩提本無樹, Bodhi is fundamentally not a tree
明鏡亦非台. and that bright mirror also has no stand.
佛性常清凈, Buddha nature is invariably pure and tranquil
何處有塵埃! What place is there for dust!


And last one by Hui Neng's student Sikong Benjing’s:

见道方修道,When one sees of the way, then one cultivates the way,
不见复何修。but when one doesn't see it, what can be cultivated?
道性如虚空,The nature of the way is empty and void,
虚空何所修。and if empty and void, what is there to cultivate?
遍观修道者,These who would observe the cultivation of the way everywhere,
拨火觅浮沤。are grasping at fire and groping at froth.
但看弄傀儡,And yet when you consider a puppet,
线断一时休。if you break the threads, in an instant, it rests
User avatar
Kelly Jones
Posts: 2665
Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 3:51 pm
Location: Australia
Contact:

Re: Discussion: Jupta's "Barriers on the Spiritual Path"

Post by Kelly Jones »

If you care to continue the discussion, ardy, I'll repost the thread over at the Men of the Infinite forum. And end with my latest reply.

See you if I see you.


Kelly
User avatar
ardy
Posts: 341
Joined: Tue Oct 29, 2013 6:44 am

Re: Discussion: Jupta's "Barriers on the Spiritual Path"

Post by ardy »

Hi Kelly - will do, but it does not appear to be on this site. Is this a google opportunity or is it hidden on this site somewhere?

regards
Leyla Shen
Posts: 3851
Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 4:12 pm
Location: Flippen-well AUSTRALIA

Re: Discussion: Jupta's "Barriers on the Spiritual Path"

Post by Leyla Shen »

Kelly:
Emotions are psychological ups and downs. Any mental experience based on the gain/loss dynamic.
Sure. But there’s definitely a difference between a gain-loss dynamic and gain and loss. It is not possible for the dynamic to exist without the actuality, of course. One can gain and lose things, but it doesn't follow that every instance of gain and loss produces in the mind the gain-loss dynamic. Certainly, this outcome would have to be the result of reason; enlightenment, and its absence would produce “the false creations” (figments of mind):

The six states of being in Samsara,
The happiness of heaven,
The suffering of hell
,”

Equanimity is in the same group as psychological contentedness, tranquillity, peace, and so forth; which is basically the same category as happiness, since it's typically what people try to hold onto / gain.
Sure, insofar as it proceeds as above, i.e., insofar as any one of those things are the result of a gain-loss dynamic.

It’s difficult to imagine, for instance, a capacity to reason absent of equanimity, but it would certainly be a different kind to that of a person whose equanimity is rooted in the gain-loss dynamic.
Between Suicides
Locked