GENIUS FORUMS

David Quinn wrote: This implies, of course, that in the future you will lose all memory of this current life, that everything about your present incarnation will be totally forgotten. In effect, it will be someone else who takes possession of your everlasting consciousness, and everything about you in the here and now will have disappeared.

I never implied that anything of an ego would remain, any qualities or characteristics such as personality, but this does not mean 'someone else' is experiencing this mind, it only means that nothing is retained of any self-possession based in attachment to impermanent formations.

David Quinn wrote: The mind itself is an experience arising in the infinite, and like the body it too passes.

The infinite is a reference to the mind, or as you said, your own self. Nothing exists save for the mind, how could the very essence of things pass? Unless you are implying there is something separate to our mind-experience such as the body which is actually the cause/conduit of the mind and hence the mind will die with the body.

David Quinn wrote: when someone engages in life and death it means that his consciousness is lost in the delusion of inherent existence and he therefore experiences the world in terms of gain and loss. A buddha sees through all that. His mind is no longer taken in by anything, which is the essence of nirvana. It has nothing to do with physically dying.

It has nothing to do with physically dying, and there is no longer gain and loss - except for when you die, then one's existence ends and the mind is gone...

David Quinn wrote: As a metaphor, yes. Life is *like* a dream. It isn’t literally a dream. Life is like a dream in the sense that there is no objective reality and all experiences are fleeting appearances.

That's exactly correct, how could fleeting experiences end ones existence?

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:

David Quinn wrote: when someone engages in life and death it means that his consciousness is lost in the delusion of inherent existence and he therefore experiences the world in terms of gain and loss. A buddha sees through all that. His mind is no longer taken in by anything, which is the essence of nirvana. It has nothing to do with physically dying.

It has nothing to do with physically dying, and there is no longer gain and loss - except for when you die, then one's existence ends and the mind is gone...

I think David is being too soft. Even gain and loss remains after ceasing to engage in this kind of "life and death". The only thing that ceases is ignorance. The person is able to look beyond gain or loss, so they don't distort his judgment.

David Quinn wrote:

As a metaphor, yes. Life is *like* a dream. It isn’t literally a dream. Life is like a dream in the sense that there is no objective reality and all experiences are fleeting appearances.

That's exactly correct, how could fleeting experiences end ones existence?

Fleeting experiences are just one of the countless other fleeting things that are the end of ones existence. Where one thing begins, another ends.

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:

David Quinn wrote: This implies, of course, that in the future you will lose all memory of this current life, that everything about your present incarnation will be totally forgotten. In effect, it will be someone else who takes possession of your everlasting consciousness, and everything about you in the here and now will have disappeared.

I never implied that anything of an ego would remain, any qualities or characteristics such as personality, but this does not mean 'someone else' is experiencing this mind, it only means that nothing is retained of any self-possession based in attachment to impermanent formations.

It would be "someone else" in the sense that he would possess a different identity and have none of your memories. He would be as distinct and different from you as I am.

So how do your views on reincarnation fit into this?

"reincarnation" is misleading. There is a passing show of form (which includes body), none of these appearances are a possession and none can cause the death or end of ones overall existence. You act as if there is some personality-substance, perhaps based in memory, to lose and without it I will not be the same being.

Your whole death as an end theory is based on the false idea, refuted by all the sages and directly refuted by Buddha, that the body is you.

Buddha went so far as to list every single thing he could put his finger on that may be misconstrued as 'me', bones, blood, organs, etc and to say "And one should understand, according to reality, and true wisdom:
"This does not belong to me; this am I not; this is not my Ego."

Beingof1 was very correct in bringing up the blatant contradiction if you think the body is your ego and it's death is the end of the mind.

You is all de is.

Dat makes you, all.

When did all get so exclusive

as to exlude po little body?

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:Beingof1 was very correct in bringing up the blatant contradiction if you think the body is your ego and it's death is the end of the mind.

It doesn't read like a contradiction if the body-ego and mind-ego are seen as illusions that have beginnings and endings. Those very demarcations are mind, start to finish.

You on drugs cahoot?

Diebert, I can't be certain if David was suggesting bodily dissolution is the end of one's existence, but that seems to be the case, which is a perfect example of setting some imagined boundary or perishable ego-substance as oneself.

You’re the body all right. More accurate to say you are not exclusively the body. The body is the dream. When the dream becomes real you have attached permanence to the transitory, become attached to delusion. To deny the obvious reality of the moment, which is the existence of the transitory body, is to live trapped within a concept.

There is a passing show of form (which includes body), none of these appearances are a possession and none can cause the death or end of ones overall existence.

What?

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:I can't be certain if David was suggesting bodily dissolution is the end of one's existence, but that seems to be the case, which is a perfect example of setting some imagined boundary or perishable ego-substance as oneself.

How exactly are you able to identify what 'oneself' is? Once you strip something of all of its characteristics (or causes), there is no longer anything there. Name a single instance where consciousness is identified without the characteristics that make up consciousness.

Jupiviv:

If it requires the All to make up who and what you are, how long have you been around and when will you cease to be?


I began and will end whenever I'm caused to.

What causes you to be here?

In which context does the mind belong, the All or the finite?


It is a finite thing, and hence a part of the All.

Where does the all begin and your mind end?

I think I get it - sometimes its finite and other times its infinite depending on what you feel like that day?


It's only infinite in the sense that it is as much a part of the infinite as anything else. Dust to dust...

Still snipping my posts?

You have difficulty sleeping and looking at yourself with satisfaction.

So let me see here - your mind is finite because it is caused but it can hold the infinite inside of it to determine what the infinite is?



That's not what I said. At all.

You might want to consider reading my posts before replying to them.

Whoever said logic has to make sense?




David:

Hi Beingof1, I don't have the time or inclination to exchange long posts. I would rather address one or two points at a time. Hope you understand.

Sure, as long as all the critical points are addressed. I do understand the lengthy discussion thing. If I or yourself miss some point that we know is important, lets just ask again to be addressed, fair enough?

Relax, it was a lighthearted response to your list of short, sharp questions.

:)
You rarely joke around.

There is zero evidence, objective or subjective, that consciousness has a beginning. No one has ever, under any circumstances, witnessed the beginning of consciousness.


The same could be said of anything in this world. It is impossible to pin-point exactly where a cloud begins and ends, or to determine the precise moment when a cloud comes into being. However, it doesn’t follow from this that the cloud has been around forever.

The difference between a cloud, like all things, and consciousness is that you determine a clouds beginning and end.If you cannot clearly define a cloud - its clearly not a cloud or A=A. All things, including clouds, are defined by you and your mind observes all phenomena. It does follow, given this self evident truth that if the mind determines the beginning and end of all things (as you stated by simply naming a cloud a cloud) that all things are appearing to the mind, yes?

David: It means opening up to the truth that you were never born in the first place.


B1: This is exactly the contradiction. Its called having your cake and eating it to. Its a logical fallacy and you need to see through it.


David: Look at a wave in the ocean. In one sense the wave has a beginning and an end and its form is distinct enough to enable us to apply the label “wave”. Yet in another sense the wave cannot be separated from the rest of the ocean. There is really no wave at all.

1) "Look at a wave in the ocean"
With what do we look at all things? If we perceive All Things with the mind, it follows that all things are contained by the mind as they appear no where else. This logic is an absolute truth. Things only appear in a mind is truth.

2) "In one sense the wave has a beginning and an end and its form is distinct enough to enable us to apply the label “wave”."
look at what you just said. We apply a "label" because a wave cannot appear except in a mind. What does that tell us?

3)"Yet in another sense the wave cannot be separated from the rest of the ocean."
Certainly there are an infinite amount of objects in our field of awareness. This is absolutely true because we can identify things with infinite division resulting in infinitesimals as well as reality being in a continuum of flux.
An example would be - count the objects you can be aware of in this moment of time.

4)"There is really no wave at all"
There is only a wave when you define it to be so but in order for there to be a wave, an ocean, or any thing, at any time it must appear to the mind and cannot appear anywhere else other than the mind.

Trying to equate mind with the universe is itself an overlaying of conceptual thought.

Did you just think that in your mind? Show us a universe outside of your field of awareness.

Look at what Huang Po says elsewhere:

This Dharma is Mind, beyond which there is no Dharma. And this Mind is the Dharma, beyond which there is no mind. Mind in itself is no mind, yet neither is it no-mind....

Ordinary people look to their surroundings, while followers of the Way look to Mind, but the true Dharma is to forget them both. The former is easy enough, the latter very difficult. Men are afraid to forget their minds, fearing to fall through the Void with nothing to stay their fall. They do not know that the Void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma.

What this means is crystal clear. The only way you could observe surroundings is with the mind. Once you realize this, the source of all thought and thus the source of all things is infinite stillness. Like I said earlier in this thread. The infinite field manifests when thought is absent.

This is not some magical formula, you do it all the time. It is the space between each word in this sentence. It is the stillness between the words and images in your mind - that - is no mind. It is the source of all thought beyond the void.

It would be "someone else" in the sense that he would possess a different identity and have none of your memories. He would be as distinct and different from you as I am.

David bro - you are confusing ego identifying memory with consciousness as a whole. The genes from your parents were passed to you through morphic resonance. The genome is a template that is blank, You could have been a kangaroo without the whole of the human race and its collective memory giving you the identity of a human. You do not have "individual" memory. You have collective memory from the entirety of all life. The specific code was passed through to you by your parents memories.

Consciousness has an infinite membrane for memory.


Please address this statement:

You cannot divide your consciousness up - it always remains a 'whole' no matter what happens.

Do you agree?




Appreciate you Seeker

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:Diebert, I can't be certain if David was suggesting bodily dissolution is the end of one's existence, but that seems to be the case, which is a perfect example of setting some imagined boundary or perishable ego-substance as oneself.

The self is what the self does: imagining boundaries. That way the self is always busy perishing. How could it ever settle?

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:reincarnation" is misleading. There is a passing show of form (which includes body), none of these appearances are a possession and none can cause the death or end of ones overall existence.

If one's "overall existence" is a finite thing like consciousness then it will most definitely die.

Buddha went so far as to list every single thing he could put his finger on that may be misconstrued as 'me', bones, blood, organs, etc and to say "And one should understand, according to reality, and true wisdom:
"This does not belong to me; this am I not; this is not my Ego."

He also said that the body must be nurtured and controlled. Would he say that if he thought the body is totally illusory compared to the mind and doesn't influence it in the least?

And if he truly believed that anything whatsoever that is called "the self" is utter delusion and ignorance then he wouldn't say that a person(self)'s thoughts and actions have consequences, one of which is that person(self)'s future existence. He also wouldn't attribute any teachings to a self, viz., himself, and in fact wouldn't teach anything to anyone to begin with.

Beingof1 was very correct in bringing up the blatant contradiction if you think the body is your ego and it's death is the end of the mind.

This is all your imagination. No one except you has said that the body is the ego, or defined the ego to mean the location of consciousness. All we've said is that consciousness is located in the body, and if that is so hard for you to accept then you've got a serious mental block. The "ego" as usually defined on this forum is a contradiction in terms - a thing that exists beyond itself. You are getting worked up over a pitiful non-issue.

Also, just because somebody uses "me" or "you" to refer to and demarcate things doesn't mean they are deluded or imagining a false self. If it did, then you are one of the most deluded people on this forum, seeing as you(delusion) have repeatedly invoked quotes attributed(delusion) to a person(delusion) who lived(delusion) two millennia ago(delusion), and claimed that your own(delusion) and some other forum members'(delusion) understanding of that person's(delusion) literary output is far superior(delusion) to that of the rest(delusion), which you(delusion) have called idiotic(delusion).

And while we're on the subject of delusion, I sincerely hoped I wouldn't have to spell it out to you like this.

Beingof1 wrote:Jupiviv:

If it requires the All to make up who and what you are, how long have you been around and when will you cease to be?


I began and will end whenever I'm caused to.

What causes you to be here?

The All.

In which context does the mind belong, the All or the finite?


It is a finite thing, and hence a part of the All.

Where does the all begin and your mind end?

The All is eternal, and includes my mind.

The All is eternal, and includes my mind.

How does that gestalt out of a 'talk is cheap' into a profound experience of it.

As if 'pulled' out of universe 'looking in'.

Commanding Position
troops assembled in orderly fashion.

What gives.

All we've said is that consciousness is located in the body

Exactly, all you've done is taken a delusion and proclaimed it as truth.

Also, just because somebody uses "me" or "you" to refer to and demarcate things doesn't mean they are deluded or imagining a false self.

If someone refers to the body as 'me' and it's dissolution as the end of existence then yes they are imagining a false self.

You know nothing of any truth, as being points out the deeply rooted contradictions and just plain idiocy- enlightenment exists and one can cease to engage in life and death- but death is still the final end, I just don't engage with it.

I'm the infinite, but I'm finite. The all is eternal, but I'm not, but it still is me.

My existence began 30 years ago, but I can't remember it, and I know death is the end of my existence- having never experienced it, but I know this end is coming and cannot escape it- the impending unfathomable non-existence.


Forever am I liberated,
This is the last time that I'm born,
No new existence waits for me.


According to you, we experience birth and death (metaphorically) multiple times - why then would Buddha proclaim it's cessation? Unless he is talking about the obvious one time birth- meaning everyone's liberated!


Your writing here is extremely detrimental to the enlightenment of anyone that reads from you - it surprises me those engaging in this conversation aren't refuting one or the other views, for clearly one can't have both views at the same time.

I often get the feeling people refuse to outline the view they have because they prefer sitting on the fence, though I can't fathom why, check if you like, read every thread, every comment. You and beingof1, perhaps also movingalways, are the only others who have mentioned anything clear related to this subject. How one can know the truth and not be sure of it? That doesn't make sense. Dennis is a good example, obscurity masking his view.

Phew,
a tick of approval off seeker would be disastrous.

meditate on 'unowned' seeker.

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:

All we've said is that consciousness is located in the body

Exactly, all you've done is taken a delusion and proclaimed it as truth.

I'm still waiting for your argument...

Also, just because somebody uses "me" or "you" to refer to and demarcate things doesn't mean they are deluded or imagining a false self.

If someone refers to the body as 'me' and it's dissolution as the end of existence then yes they are imagining a false self.

I've already said that I don't refer to the body's dissolution as the end of all existence, only the end of the body itself. The same for the mind.

Forever am I liberated,
This is the last time that I'm born,
No new existence waits for me.


According to you, we experience birth and death (metaphorically) multiple times - why then would Buddha proclaim it's cessation? Unless he is talking about the obvious one time birth- meaning everyone's liberated!

That's right. Everyone, whether they are being born, living, dying, or dead, is already liberated from false conceptions of birth and death, which don't exist by definition. The birth and death the Buddha is speaking of is precisely the kind of birth and death you believe exists, i.e, death as the end of *all* existence, birth as its beginning, and "life" as the unimpeded continuation of a finite thing no matter what happens.

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:"reincarnation" is misleading. There is a passing show of form (which includes body), none of these appearances are a possession and none can cause the death or end of ones overall existence.

If by “one’s overall existence” you mean Nature itself - the ALL - then you would be correct. However, neither the body nor the mind comprise the ALL.

Your whole death as an end theory is based on the false idea, refuted by all the sages and directly refuted by Buddha, that the body is you.

I don’t subscribe to that theory, for I affirm that neither the body nor the mind is me.

Buddha went so far as to list every single thing he could put his finger on that may be misconstrued as 'me', bones, blood, organs, etc and to say "And one should understand, according to reality, and true wisdom:
"This does not belong to me; this am I not; this is not my Ego."

That is true. But note that the Buddha also extended this reasoning into the realm of consciousness as well.

For example, he taught about the emptiness of the Five Skandhas:

THE FIVE AGGREGATES
The teaching of The Five Aggregates or The Five Skandhas, is an analysis of personal experiences and a view on cognition from a Buddhist perspective.

The teaching also provides a logical and thorough approach to understand the Universal Truth of Not-self. In the last issue's "Buddhism in a Nutshell", we conclude that self is just a convenient term for a collection of physical and mental personal experiences, such as feelings, ideas, thoughts, habits, attitude, etc. However, we should go on to analyse all our personal experiences in terms of The Five Aggregates. The Five Aggregates are:

Form
Sensation
Perception
Mental Formation
Consciousness

They are called aggregates as they work together to produce a mental being. As Heart Sutra says, Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva illuminates and sees the emptiness of the Five Skandhas.

Impermanence is one of the characteristics of emptiness. and the aggregates are also governed by the principle of impermanence. Therefore each of the aggregates is undergoing constant changes. Aggregates are not static things; they are dynamic processes.

Taken from Buddhism in a Nutshell

I’m with the Buddha on this one. Consciousness is just as empty as the body when it comes to the ego or self.

Beingof1 wrote:

David Quinn wrote:

Beingof1 wrote:There is zero evidence, objective or subjective, that consciousness has a beginning. No one has ever, under any circumstances, witnessed the beginning of consciousness.

The same could be said of anything in this world. It is impossible to pin-point exactly where a cloud begins and ends, or to determine the precise moment when a cloud comes into being. However, it doesn’t follow from this that the cloud has been around forever.

The difference between a cloud, like all things, and consciousness is that you determine a clouds beginning and end.If you cannot clearly define a cloud - its clearly not a cloud or A=A. All things, including clouds, are defined by you and your mind observes all phenomena. It does follow, given this self evident truth that if the mind determines the beginning and end of all things (as you stated by simply naming a cloud a cloud) that all things are appearing to the mind, yes?

Yes, so long as we acknowledge that the mind is also an appearance.

Beingof1 wrote:

David: Look at a wave in the ocean. In one sense the wave has a beginning and an end and its form is distinct enough to enable us to apply the label “wave”. Yet in another sense the wave cannot be separated from the rest of the ocean. There is really no wave at all.

1) "Look at a wave in the ocean"
With what do we look at all things? If we perceive All Things with the mind, it follows that all things are contained by the mind as they appear no where else. This logic is an absolute truth. Things only appear in a mind is truth.

2) "In one sense the wave has a beginning and an end and its form is distinct enough to enable us to apply the label “wave”."
look at what you just said. We apply a "label" because a wave cannot appear except in a mind. What does that tell us?

3)"Yet in another sense the wave cannot be separated from the rest of the ocean."
Certainly there are an infinite amount of objects in our field of awareness. This is absolutely true because we can identify things with infinite division resulting in infinitesimals as well as reality being in a continuum of flux.
An example would be - count the objects you can be aware of in this moment of time.

4)"There is really no wave at all"
There is only a wave when you define it to be so but in order for there to be a wave, an ocean, or any thing, at any time it must appear to the mind and cannot appear anywhere else other than the mind.

I agree that things can only exist as appearances to the mind. But this doesn’t mean that the mind is an eternally unchanging substrate. It too is fleeting and impermanent.

Beingof1 wrote:

Trying to equate mind with the universe is itself an overlaying of conceptual thought.

Did you just think that in your mind? Show us a universe outside of your field of awareness.

Your own field of awareness, which is a universe unto itself, is outside my field of awareness. I am not privy to what you will experience, for example, when you walk away from your computer.

Beingof1 wrote:

Huang Po wrote:This Dharma is Mind, beyond which there is no Dharma. And this Mind is the Dharma, beyond which there is no mind. Mind in itself is no mind, yet neither is it no-mind....

Ordinary people look to their surroundings, while followers of the Way look to Mind, but the true Dharma is to forget them both. The former is easy enough, the latter very difficult. Men are afraid to forget their minds, fearing to fall through the Void with nothing to stay their fall. They do not know that the Void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma.

What this means is crystal clear. The only way you could observe surroundings is with the mind. Once you realize this, the source of all thought and thus the source of all things is infinite stillness. Like I said earlier in this thread. The infinite field manifests when thought is absent.

The infinite field is manifesting all the time. It isn't something which only appears when a certain class of things are absent. It is fully present in every single moment, regardless of whether we are entertaining thoughts or not.

You won't find the infinite if you try to suppress thought. At best all you will uncover is another aspect of mind - that is to say, just another illusion. You have completely misunderstood Huang Po here.

Beingof1 wrote:Please address this statement:

You cannot divide your consciousness up - it always remains a 'whole' no matter what happens.

Do you agree?

Not sure what you mean. My consciousness of this moment can be divided from my consciousness of previous moments. Each moment comprises a distinct field of awareness in and of itself.

He who shall remain eternally nameless wrote:

I'm the infinite,

No.

but I'm finite.

Yes.

The all is eternal,

Yes,

but I'm not,

Right, and therefore:

but it still is me.

No, it is still the infinite, with or without you. You cannot make the same claim.

My existence began 30 years ago, but I can't remember it, and I know death is the end of my existence- having never experienced it, but I know this end is coming and cannot escape it- the impending unfathomable non-existence.

Thirty? Nah, I reckon maybe a year—tops.

I have a delicate but completely indulgent palate, which comes with an appreciation for the finest aged whiskey. You’ve a way to go yet before you can make a claim to 30 years of full-bodied life, rather than an episode of confused and distorted drunkenness from drinking cheap wine.

Non-existence is not unfathomable to those who have fathomed existence. How could it be? Escaping it is, however, even harder than living for 30 whole years!

You’d have to become immortal to survive body death, like a Nietzsche; and even then, like all gods, even you would still be subject to decay.

Leyla Shen wrote:I have a delicate but completely indulgent palate, which comes with an appreciation for the finest aged whiskey. You’ve a way to go yet before you can make a claim to 30 years of full-bodied life, rather than an episode of confused and distorted drunkenness from drinking cheap wine.

What you're saying it that your drunkenness is better than his? Certainly more expensive and decadent, I'll give you that :-)

And Seeker is 30 now? Last time he said he was 19. Perhaps he's Jesus today, starting his mission? False self this, false self that, who cares, right?

jupiviv wrote:
If it requires the All to make up who and what you are, how long have you been around and when will you cease to be?

I began and will end whenever I'm caused to.

What causes you to be here?

The All.

If it requires the All to make up who and what you are, how long have you been around and when will you cease to be?

In which context does the mind belong, the All or the finite?


It is a finite thing, and hence a part of the All.

If the mind is finite, how does it know the infinite?

Where does the all begin and your mind end?

The All is eternal, and includes my mind.

Where does the all begin and your mind end?

David:

The difference between a cloud, like all things, and consciousness is that you determine a clouds beginning and end.If you cannot clearly define a cloud - its clearly not a cloud or A=A. All things, including clouds, are defined by you and your mind observes all phenomena. It does follow, given this self evident truth that if the mind determines the beginning and end of all things (as you stated by simply naming a cloud a cloud) that all things are appearing to the mind, yes?


Yes, so long as we acknowledge that the mind is also an appearance.

If you want me to acknowledge that the mind appears, you must tell us where it appears.

Where does the mind appear?

I agree that things can only exist as appearances to the mind. But this doesn’t mean that the mind is an eternally unchanging substrate. It too is fleeting and impermanent.

You tell me, what does "things can only exist as appearances to the mind" mean? What are the implications?

Did you just think that in your mind? Show us a universe outside of your field of awareness.


Your own field of awareness, which is a universe unto itself, is outside my field of awareness. I am not privy to what you will experience, for example, when you walk away from your computer.

Ah hah - the million dollar question. Since all things appear to a mind - you just popped the mind out of the body and extended it to all things that appear. You may not realise that but I would ask you to think it through logically.

You nailed it " a universe unto itself" and "my field of awareness." The implication here is possession by a self. You just owned your universe by implying a self separated from the universe you claim to own. It is very subtle but it is true.

What you have done is seeing the tangent of looking outside from an inside.This is the first logical distinction possible but logic is the art and craft of thinking. You believe you are looking 'outside' at a universe. The universe comes into being when space is severed. Your body cuts an inside and blocks an outside, right?

What is keeping most a prisoner in their body and brain is the attachment to the 'inside'. The mind itself is in a state of continuously breaking symmetries. Its constantly breaking things into 'bits' of data by the process of thought.

An analogy:
If you watch and listen to a CD with a movie on it, you can only see and hear a single bit of information in units of time. It would be Time by each Sine wave. If you eject the CD and were to look at the entire CD at zero time and duration, you then would see the singularity of the movie as a whole.

In order for you to perceive things, (such as me at my monitor) you must be limited by bits of time, duration and wave pattern. This is to say, to be omniscient would result in your thought being spred to infinity and aware of only the singularity or a single 'bit' of data. It would all be white noise or an incomprehensible field of energy. This is experienced when thought is absent but awareness remains in consciousness. Although all forms and thus all possible worlds are in existence, we are aware of one universe because of the individual things or bits.

Your body/brain acts as a resistor to consciousness and creates mind. This is obvious by our thought. It slows the field of energy down into comprehensible bits of data.Your field of awareness is not limited by a finite amount of objects it can contain in its field but thought is.

To believe you are still in your body is to not understand the logical implication of "all things appear to the mind."

let me give you a biological example of what I am saying:
There are trillions of cells that make up your body. Each with their "universe unto itself" and "field of awareness." Each cell is aware of its environment and communicates with other cells. Just as our society has professions in which people do a specific job very well, the cells create subregions, each of which allows certain cell functions to operate more effectively. I am speaking mainly of prokaryotes. The "universe' for a cell in your body - is your body.

Now get this - it takes the trillions of cells to make up the "whole" you and singular consciousness. That is because - as is evident in all of nature and life - consciousness is fractal.

Huang Po wrote:
This Dharma is Mind, beyond which there is no Dharma. And this Mind is the Dharma, beyond which there is no mind. Mind in itself is no mind, yet neither is it no-mind....

Ordinary people look to their surroundings, while followers of the Way look to Mind, but the true Dharma is to forget them both. The former is easy enough, the latter very difficult. Men are afraid to forget their minds, fearing to fall through the Void with nothing to stay their fall. They do not know that the Void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma.


B1: What this means is crystal clear. The only way you could observe surroundings is with the mind. Once you realize this, the source of all thought and thus the source of all things is infinite stillness. Like I said earlier in this thread. The infinite field manifests when thought is absent.


David: The infinite field is manifesting all the time. It isn't something which only appears when a certain class of things are absent. It is fully present in every single moment, regardless of whether we are entertaining thoughts or not.

Is that what you thought I meant, really? Oh I see, you snipped my post so you could spin it to mean something other than what I wrote - honesty David - its sacred.

Here is the second paragraph that you snipped:

B1: This is not some magical formula, you do it all the time. It is the space between each word in this sentence. It is the stillness between the words and images in your mind - that - is no mind. It is the source of all thought beyond the void.

You won't find the infinite if you try to suppress thought. At best all you will uncover is another aspect of mind - that is to say, just another illusion. You have completely misunderstood Huang Po here.

And you have completely misunderstood/ snipped me here.

You cannot divide your consciousness up - it always remains a 'whole' no matter what happens.
Do you agree?


Not sure what you mean. My consciousness of this moment can be divided from my consciousness of previous moments. Each moment comprises a distinct field of awareness in and of itself.

That is called memory being reviewed in the present moment. You cannot be anywhere else but here and now David - and you that.
You just answered with nonsense and I think you know it is nonsense - you are way to smart to not know.

But lets go with your answer. If you had multiple consciousness because each moment of time gives birth to a brand new one, this means there are an endless amount of finite consciousness that you experience and therefore, it is infinite transcending memory itself. If you cannot recall an experience of consciousness does not mean it was not - it means it transcends memory.

Even if you answer with a projection - consciousness is amazingly resilient because it can turn non-existent models into more proof of its infinite state.