GENIUS FORUMS

Don't have any specific ideas in mind for this one but I would like to hear everyone's thoughts on suffering and their own experiences/understandings of the path and what one ought to do. This came to mind after contemplating the Buddha and his teachings and wondering what people thought of nirvana and things like 'ending every substratum of rebirth'.

You want to start this forum inside this forum? Chasing your own tail still, I see.

I vowed to myself I would catch it... I also received the suggestion that a thread was the right idea.

how about getting it in to Context.

If I asked you what's happening, what's going on, what are you experiencing right now.

By the time you tell me what you're experiencing, it's after the fact.
By the time you tell me what you're experiencing, you're not experiencing it anymore - it's over.
By the time you tell me what you're experiencing, the experience you're describing is in the past.
When you tell me what you're experiencing, you're not describing what you're experiencing.
You're describing a concept of what you were experiencing
you're describing a belief in what you were experiencing
you're describing a memory of what you were experiencing.
when you tell me what you're experiencing, the only thing you're not describing is what you're experiencing.
It's not possible to do that.

So you can never tell me what you're experiencing when you're experiencing it.
All experience shifts quickly, immediately in fact, to concept, belief, and memory.

That's true but you still know exactly what experiencing is like as you do it every fading moment, explaining it won't work but there is no need. We are still able to communicate practically about experience if we remain aware. You know where I am coming from at least when I say "very non-attached". Something that I still contemplate is to try and attune the understanding of the workings of life and experience, your description of how it is constantly fading into memory is what makes this something that is hard to keep aware of and correctly understand. One point of consciousness leading to the next as you said, predicting is similar to understanding, the practical side of it at least.

An example of the kind of predicting/understanding I'm talking about is me knowing that I can close my eyes, have a little non-attached looksy into the darkness, and consciously move into experiences of varying degrees of depth. An example of what I mean by depth is the difference from a slight fading image in the mind to an experience akin to waking state, being there. This kind of practical understanding is also related to suffering, something you mentioned in relation to it was sticking your hand in the flame and learning from it.

Our experience can be used to better understand our life and the workings of our minds, even if you are enlightened, it is not easy to grasp it correctly and remain aware without entertaining false imaginations, especially with the shallow experience of one mind, it is my understanding that it is almost impossible to properly attune this as a single being, like the alone man in the desert unable to distinguish certain things, he would be lost in the conceptualizations. This is why I wanted to talk practically about enlightenment as it is experience-based, all descriptions not being the thing as you admit, philosophical discussion often moves quickly away from the reality of our experience, as you said, concept memory description. Also I am, and am not, the same no person I was 10 seconds ago, me now feels wrong not mentioning that.

Nagarjuna argues the experiencer or that which experiences directly is of the nature 'peaceful',
the conceptual dichotimies that follow is something else.

dealing with suffering practically,

the mainstream narrative is that,
'he hit me first' or 'he started it' provides an acceptable rationale for what comes next.
It's thought that a punch thrown second is legally and morally different than a punch thrown first.
the first punch is wrong and the second punch is right.


If you are punched are the causes of what comes later due to the actions of the puncher.

what's a rationale that forestalls suffering in that case?

don't just say 'Jesus told me to turn the other cheek so I could get a place in heaven'.

When would I say anything like "get a place in heaven"? There is no extra or different place/'heaven' then what we already experience, although to me it is a paradise.

The only logical thing to do in that case is run, turning the other cheek is if you make the choice to stay and possibly keep getting bashed, or staying and fighting, three options.

The causes of what happens next may be due to the actions of the puncher but the punchers actions were due to some previous ones and so forth, the puncher is no person, I've seen people be spoken to straight forward, and should be completely aware of what they are doing, yet they do it anyway, the circumstances lead them.

What Nagarjuna said is true, and the 'empty mind' state is definitely the non-attached way to be while your here, but it also isn't the Buddhas 'final solution' which it seems we can't know about, we can't ignore that the whole idea was ending the process of rebirth. I can understand it as I do things like today having my eyes closed for hours and hours barely even experiencing with no memory and no feeling of it, but like I said we can't really know, this is part of what I wanted to attune.

the perennial philosophy, Great Chain of Being breaks it down to Body, Mind, Spirit.
those domains of experience interacting in human being.

in order to show how most suffering is optional, we have to come at it like that.

to experience body is to experience isolation
to experience mind for human being is to share a consensual reality with others.
to experience spirit is to experience 'no boundary'.

Ralph Nader's metaphor was,
spirit, primordial essence, being like a transparent eyeball the appearances pass thru',
mind, taking the appearances as quantities or math and generating formulae, which it isn't ultimately.

'Spirit' is also where the eternal part comes in. But we have been here before many times, lets continue by rightly assuming each of us has understood as much as has been understood before and try and move ahead from there. Understanding often comes with being able to predict. My example of prediction/understanding was knowing that if I focus I can create the experience of whichever thing at a whim. Now lets do the same for the details of human nature, suffering and death, smoothing it out.

I have shown myself capable of many things similar to this which can't be proven to others, not that I have any desire to do so, but also can't be proven to myself, meaning I don't know the specifics of how they occur in my experience or how to bring them about with accuracy, this is where 'progress' of a kind is still possible. (words as pointers)

I have shown myself capable of many things similar to this which can't be proven to others, not that I have any desire to do so, but also can't be proven to myself, meaning I don't know the specifics of how they occur in my experience or how to bring them about with accuracy, this is where 'progress' of a kind is still possible. (words as pointers)

It looks like you are running a lawsuit.
to be or not to be.
what's the law appearing as the possibility?
what is being formalised?
what is being obtained?
a possibility for 'control'?
master of the universe?

We both know there is nothing worldly to be obtained at all, otherwise we would be taking very different paths. I'm talking about attuning what I understand, the only kind of progress I know of, I said one day after decades I would create/write something, I wouldn't do that if I was going to be describing the wrong thing or not portraying the full picture. I personally wouldn't want to hear "vibrational frequencies" in another book. You might notice I often avoid being specific and saying the wrong thing, (you do the same) and this is still only talking to the other few people who are actually aware, I don't often commune about this sort of thing to people.

Yours isn't an everyday 'business as usual' conversation.
Yours goes where conversations don't ordinarily go.

so what does 'I'm talking about attuning what I understand' involve.

I've tried to do this before but often you move back into philosophy, this should be strictly experience based. A few examples of what it involves and topics I want to understand with more accuracy are: the conscious visualization of events laying down the general path for future events. Another is karma and what it actually involves, if anything, a hard thing to keep aware of. Another is the 'impossible' manipulation of the physical world and how it works in terms of the contrasting beliefs of observers. Another is the experiences following death. Another is the possibility for 'leaving here' or "the end of all formations, the
forsaking of every substratum of rebirth". These are definitely not "business as usual" topics and can't be approached as if business is usual, which is why I'm talking to you as you have the minimum amount of conceptual clinging.

You're talking about conditioning the Realisation which is odd because the realisation was the breakthru' in to the unconditioned nature.
It looks like desire for particular conditions arising, a lust for power.

The experience of absolute is of unconditional.
Absolute thoughts arise in that space generating unconditional love, unconditional peace, kindness, freedom from discontent/afflictive emotions.

You are only repeating why it is so hard to do what I am talking about, keeping aware of these things is almost impossible when the specific concepts mean nothing. That doesn't mean it can't be 'figured out'.
Its not like we are Jedi and I'm asking for the secrets of the dark side, it is definitely not a lust for power, it is just so I can tune it out, otherwise it is almost hypocritical/idiotic to share the understandings with others when it will just confuse them and won't give them real answers, I'd rather avoid leading people astray, Jesus for example, or even Buddha in some respects. You asked before why it sounds like a law suit, it's only because I was aware that you would force a plea/case otherwise it would be brushed off.

Tao's resolution:

That which.

if I look at the life of my body I observe that all kinds of
marvellous operations are performed spontaneously in it without the
concourse of that which I call 'me'. My body is maintained by processes
whose ingenious complexity surpasses all imagination.
After being wounded, it heals itself
By what? By whom?
The idea is forced upon me of a Principle, tireless and friendly, which unceasingly creates me on its own initiative.

The Tao follows only itself. There is still a sort of experience based 'pattern' that we can be aware of and figure out, "this causes that" can be used to more accurately understand those five or so topics I brought up. I'm not going to leave this alone until it is done, if I start will you sincerely continue along with me? Or are you only available for wise speculation?

Discovered some ants hiding their eggs under a Buddha statue in the garden.

'That which' IS

this causes this EXISTS,
what exists depends for existence.

Yes yes, but like you said there are two truths, pattern still works and can be used, so are you refusing then?

in order to?

for the ultimate sake of which?

There is no reason. People that know still think there are things to do, Buddha and Lao Tzu thought so. Or is non-action and talking about dependent origination OK but everything else isn't? Everything has to become a law suit on GF doesn't it.

The movement of joy/suffering is of the nature dependent arising,
it merely exists.
it doesn't pretend to 'be'.

what are you aspiring to?

Nothing. Maybe write something when I'm older if I get around to it, or just to learn, shouldn't you be advocating this? This is some of the only genuine 'research' possible.

enlightenment, being a condition, arises spontaneously when the conditions are ripe.
machinery.
that's what non-action means.

I may have missed something, but has the topic been addressed, yet?