See here Dan, in that one comment you said some of the most realistic things I've heard, if there is one thing I believe in, it is being simple and realistic.
"Well, the notion that being calm and controlled, of itself, indicates (or is even necessarily part of) enlightenment is totally wrong."
That was "another example" of someone making a claim while acting otherwise, it wasn't in relation to enlightenment, I agree with what you said.
"enlightenment doesn't entail attentiveness at all. In fact, enlightenment doesn't entail much of anything."
Non-bias awareness, wakefulness, another word is attentiveness. Unless the words wakeful and attentive have more differences than I know of. This is not to say that one is wakeful all the time or even most of the time, it is more of a general attentiveness or 'clear sight', "seeing things truthfully", or as you said "without preconceptions". Meditation in itself I would regard as a form of attentiveness, but like I said, I'm not that good with words and attentive could refer to something else.
You can explain to me why anyone with an accurate grasp is omniscient later, I was under the impression omniscient meant something close to "all knowing". Do you say this because all possible understanding doesn't go much further than a mind clear of false imaginations?
"Dream reality and wakeful reality have the same essential nature, that's true, but our experience of them is nevertheless very different and I think the analogy is a slightly hazardous one."
Our experiences of them are very different but essentially they are both only differing experiences of sensations/mental formations. The point of significance here is that the objects we see in a dream are "as real" as the objects we see awake, both of which exist of the mind.
"Hang on, you cannot possibly know such a thing. That is purely a belief on your part. And while we're at it: where did your mind come from? What is mind, exactly? Is it the same as consciousness?"
"But at a practical level there's no reason to suppose any aspect of consciousness is not an emergent property of specific physical states and therefore does not survive after death."
I can know such a thing, for you to say otherwise you would have to specify some kind of definition of "death" that isn't "getting shot in the head or having your head cut off"... If we were to be technical, I have experienced "death" (the destruction of the form that was being experienced) almost countless times.
I have not experienced the "death" of John specifically, but I am acutely aware that John exists only as an ongoing experience of the mind, and that John's form is not the source/cause of consciousness.
The idea that experience of consciousness would end due to an experience of consciousness is ridiculous.
"Where" did my mind come from? I can't answer a "where".
"What is mind", I would say it is the "platform" of all sensations and feelings, the ongoing experience of consciousness which involves seeing feeling thinking.
You made an accurate statement when you wrote: "Consciousness is its content and nothing else."
Hence, "becoming", or, "There is no person or ego, only the feelings".
What I meant specifically when quoting Quinn was that what we call body and brain are names for a collection of ever changing experiences of the mind, it is definitely not the source of the mind and it is in no way the source of my thoughts, which continue after the "death" of a form.
