You never had a choice.

[sean]

I don't think the idea of choice is abstract, convenient, necessary, good or beautiful. I think it makes everything harder. And I think what makes art great is when it rings true, not when it is a lie.

 

I also don't think illusion would be an awesome creative game, or that love = no comprehensible reason.

 

You lost me, Sean.

Your path is Bhakti yoga, my dear. My target audience is any other slightly crazy Jnana yogis on the board.

 

Also, regarding the dirt posted on Gangaji and Eli and on the state of neo-advaitic culture in the west, much more important than teachers having sex outside their marriages IMO, here are some worthwhile reads:

 

The Dangers of Pseudo-advaita

Neo-Advaita or Pseudo-Advaita and Real Advaita-Nonduality

 

 

Sean

[DentyDao]

The Dangers of Pseudo-advaita

Neo-Advaita or Pseudo-Advaita and Real Advaita-Nonduality

Very interesting. Sean, are you a fan of Shi Ramana MahaRishi? And is Adyashanti's work a reflection of these teachings?

 

*SeanD is being serious*

Edited May 15, 2007 by seandenty

[mYTHmAKER]

If there is no free will then I no longer take responsibility for my actions.

[DentyDao]

In other words, they dependently arise. This is called pratityasamutpada in Buddhism, arguably the only distinct doctrine to come out of Buddhism that did not have precedent in earlier religions. This view considers the western mechanical model "A (me) is the cause of B (my actions)" as naive which is precisely what earned Buddhism the critique by early western thinkers as a fatalistic philosophy. The other side of the same coin is the doctrine of sunyata, or emptiness, and is what led Buddhism to be characterized as nihilstic. I mention this out of irony for you SeanD, as our resident Buddhist scholar consistently advocating we immerse ourselves in Eastern thinking, yet you mischaracterize my view as both fatalistic and nihilistic based on a commonly shallow and early western misunderstanding of Buddhist doctrine.

 

I'm not a scholar. Far from it. Actually the term you are looking for here is interdependent origination. All phenomina arise interdependantly from emptiness. I think we are both pointing to the same thing; but I just want to say that it is important to realize that choice does apply in a relative context.

 

Choice is an abstraction that is convenient and necessary and good and beautiful in context, as is a sense of self. Without these we would not be human. Yet truly, choices happen without a chooser. There is no thinker of your thoughts.

That's true. Buddhism says that you are, or the sense that you are, is thinking or mind itself and, what's more, the mind does not exist nor does it not exist; it is beyond existence and nonexistence. This is what emptiness or equanimity really means; beyond dualistic.

 

There is no one who one day wakes up from this dream. One is already awake.

It's true, but the idea of Buddhism is to get to a point where the recognition of this is always present. We use skillful means, just like anyone, to realize and learn to act always from this understanding. Easier said than done. True nature is much more illusive than that. It's a matter of directing thinking to itself. Just like th teacher helps the student by pointing.

 

Perhaps the biggest real distinction here is that the mind or this sense of self is just a reflection of thoughts. Thoughts in turn are changable, impermanent. An finally, the nature or essence of thoughts, or mind, is awakening itself, the Bodhi mind, pure awareness. So, while it may be true that our true nature is always "awake" we should also recognize that this is usually obscured by the mind, by thinking; in other words by this sense of self that is so hard to shake away.

 

How to break free? and is there a way?

 

 

?

Edited May 15, 2007 by seandenty

[minus]

I thing "free will" is just like "separation". They are figments of human imagination, but what would we have without em?

Edited May 15, 2007 by minus

[hagar]

Being educated as a philosopher it probably is my mandate to speak up and throw myself into the debate. But I won't. I think that most of what is talked about here could be wrapped up in how Shopenhauer was debunked by Nietzsches critique of his concept of "negative" will, which btw is a misreading of an old vedic concept of universal will. Buddhist concept of mutual co-arising aside.

 

And to be frank, these types of discussions are very suitable for a quiet evening infront of the fireplace with an old Cognac and cigar in hand with your best lads all gathered around. But it's all ...(no offense Sean) so celebral.

 

On a pragmatic level, there is a point of autonomy, where there is free will. Yet it is by most people cluttered by convention and habit. I know a guy who, after 20 years of using heroin, quit cold turkey. Now, was that not free will?

 

I was in this nihilistic/relativistic phase for a long time, and it made me very, very fucked up and unhappy.

My body however, always wanted to feel good and have fun, get smashed up and come to think of it...make babies. And my deeper bodily consciousness has a will, dormant or awake.

 

So Sean, free will is contextual? It is not. Why? If it was contextual then it wouldn't be free would it? But maybe we point to the core of the matter when you can say that greater awareness equals greater freedom. I think it was in the Book of Job where it says: Freedom is to stand firm".

 

This is where I embrace the Daoist emphasis on the body. There is no realization without integrating it into the body, and the body is the mind. The experiencing faculty is the totality of the body, and not the brain. In deep meditation, you do not realize the insubstantiality of self, you realize the faulty attatchment to the brain as the locus of perception. The "I" that is "illusory" is not the body, yet the body exists and is transformed, and decays.

 

h

[sean]

Very interesting. Sean, are you a fan of Shi Ramana MahaRishi? And is Adyashanti's work a reflection of these teachings?

I am a big fan of Ramana Maharshi, yes. This is who you mean, right? I think Maharishi the way you spelled it, with the extra "i", is the way the Transcendental Meditation guru from the 70's spelled his name. I don't know much about him at all.

 

Adyashanti is a strange one. His birth name is Steven Gray and he was actually a student within a pretty standard Zen lineage for 14 years when he claims to have become enlightened. His two primary teachers were Arvis Joen Justi, a student of Taizan Maezumi and private woman whom little is know about, and Jakusho Kwong-roshi. Post-enlightenment he stumbled across various Advaitic teachings such as those of Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj. He felt they captured the essence of enlightenment more clearly than anything he had ever read before and I believe their works began to influence his discourse with his very small, informal group of meditation students. At a certain point I think this newly influenced style began attracting a following of people more familiar with the Advaitic tradition than with Buddhism, and so his eclecticism in this vein increased. I'm guessing this is why he eventually took on the Sanskrit name Adyashanti, though I'm not sure the exact story behind that.

 

I consider Adyashanti and Aziz Kristof among the most mature Western Advaitic teachers alive today. Probably because of their background with Zen and consistent meditation practices.

 

Actually the term you are looking for here is interdependent origination. All phenomina arise interdependantly from emptiness. I think we are both pointing to the same thing; but I just want to say that it is important to realize that choice does apply in a relative context.

Pratityasamutpada has many variations in translation; I like dependent arising, or dependent co-arising but yeah, most people refer to this as the doctrine of (inter)dependent origination.

 

It's true, but the idea of Buddhism is to get to a point where the recognition of this is always present.

Yes, but this is where I see things getting very tricky. The problem here is, from a Buddhist perspective, everything is always changing. No thing can be isolated and pinpointed because, metaphorically speaking, the very finger that tries to point a thing out, is itself in flux and not a static, discrete thing. It is also co-arising dependently.

 

So the concept that a human being, whether it be their brain, their body, their mind or their soul, can have a certain kind of realization that is something and does not change is logically impossible within a Buddhist cosmology. Enlightenment can not be the maintenance of a fixed state, be that a fixed state of thought or emotion. From all accounts, enlightened beings still have fluctuations of emotions, new thoughts, new experiences, new memories. On the biologial level alone the human body is constantly regenerating cells, it's said within less than a decade there is not a single cell in your body that is the same. In subtle realms I imagine change happens even faster, without the denser forms of matter slowing the process of change down. Beings such as so-called Immortals I see as living archetypes, but even they are not exempt from interdependent origination and emptiness of self. Everything that manifests, changes. All that exists changes. Everything that is born, suffers, ages and dies.

 

Only nothing does not change.

 

The materialist stops here. Because nothing does not exist, can not be measured, what is the point? It is only us lunatic, nondual contemplatives that trudge on. With a sense that even nothing/something must be One.

 

Well, we know that nothing is not something we can ever imagine. Anything we imagine is something. So maybe this nothing is much more than the absence of things (!) It is in this sense that I say the only kind of realization that can be eternal, is no realization. A realization that is never born. It just always was, always is, always shall be. This is where the humility, the nothing-specialness and the humor of all highly realized teachers that I am drawn to arises. The highest enlightenment is nothing. It's not an event. It's not an experience. It's not something missing in the so-called unenlightened.

 

I hope this makes sense, I am re-reading my words here and seeing ways I could elaborate and even contradict myself. This is all slippery ground and I don't consider myself a scholar either. I think my essential point is that I see this "recognition that is always present" not as a straightforward goal to take for granted, but as a koan of the highest order.

 

So, while it may be true that our true nature is always "awake" we should also recognize that this is usually obscured by the mind, by thinking; in other words by this sense of self that is so hard to shake away.

There is a strange paradox I see here too but I am getting sleepy and confused. I will say that one of the points Adyashanti teaches is that it's unnecessary to remove the sense of of self, only to see through the conviction that it is separate.

 

How to break free? and is there a way?

Honestly, I have no real clue.

 

And to be frank, these types of discussions are very suitable for a quiet evening infront of the fireplace with an old Cognac and cigar in hand with your best lads all gathered around. But it's all ...(no offense Sean) so celebral.

 

...

Hagar, just caught your post before hitting Add Reply. Nice thoughts. It's funny because I think I have this reputation here for being intellectual but I don't consider myself a cerebral person at all. Probably just how I come across in text. In person I am much more emotional and intuitive. I feel all of what I write here very kinesthetically, sometimes very deeply, so in my experience this kind of inquiry is all intimately related to my physical cultivation.

 

Re: the guy who quit heroin cold turkey after 20 years, I would say that is a good a case as any for divine intervention if you are familiar with biochemistry of chronic heroin addiction and how it essentially shuts down the volitional centers of the brain, making it just about impossible to pull yourself out of the addiction.

 

Re: Your statement that if free will is only contextual, it doesn't exist is compatible with my point which is that free will is not absolute.

 

Again, I absolutely do not consider what I am proposing relativistic or nihilistic. Or depressing for that matter. In fact, I find it very freeing and I am expressing intuitions that occur from my cultivation. Perhaps ironically, I'll also share that I am more active in practices like "the law of attraction" nowadays than ever. LOA presents what seems to be an entirely different and fundamentally incompatible cosmology. Yet somehow, being the integral nutjob I am, I fit it all into my worldview without a sense of contradiction, something I am acutely sensitive of.

 

Sean

[xenolith]

Would this gentleman's last actions be constitutive of divine intervention?

 

sean, I'm intrigued by your hypothesis and by the content of this thread. My cultivation practice informs me of precisely the opposite conclusion as that which you posit. Except the Love conclusion. In that respect we're identically informed. Very interesting indeed.

 

I may or may not contribute further to this thread, but I'll certainly continue to read it. Thank you.

 

Love.

 

xeno

 

edit: I meant this gentleman. Linking to individual posts has never been possible for me. Don't know why. Maybe a little look-see into this sean?

Edited May 15, 2007 by xenolith

[Wayfarer64]

About twenty years ago at the San Fransisco Renaissance Fair; a buddy and I walked around waving our arms erraticaly calling out...

"WE NEED ARMS CONTROL ! HELP SUPPORT ARMS CONTROL...!

 

That silly and fun sort of whackiness had to be done by force of choice. Can spontanious humor ever be done without choice?

 

Silly, fun and whimsical behaviors seem to me to be acutely dictated by choice. That is what makes the god-head in us happy and allows us to live through the grusome realities that we may stumble into or have foisted upon us....with at least a semblance of free will...

 

There certainly seems to be an element of fate in my life. Without the will to go on and meet it, there would be litle to recommend life to me, if/when things get pretty aweful. The challanges that we greet with a grin may be taken a bit more lightly, so I believe that we do have the choice as to how we act & react to the events of our lives.

 

But who knows - What if it is all just a pre-programed sort of dream state we are in that allows us to manifest our wills in efforts to create loving kindness or any other sort of behaviors like some sort of test for the after life...There does seem to be an element like that in many of these entries...

 

Namste-Pat

Edited May 16, 2007 by Wayfarer64

[DentyDao]

I am a big fan of Ramana Maharshi, yes. This is who you mean, right? I think Maharishi the way you spelled it, with the extra "i", is the way the Transcendental Meditation guru from the 70's spelled his name. I don't know much about him at all.

Me too. Yep that's the guy.

 

Well, we know that nothing is not something we can ever imagine. Anything we imagine is something. So maybe this nothing is much more than the absence of things (!) It is in this sense that I say the only kind of realization that can be eternal, is no realization. A realization that is never born. It just always was, always is, always shall be. This is where the humility, the nothing-specialness and the humor of all highly realized teachers that I am drawn to arises. The highest enlightenment is nothing. It's not an event. It's not an experience. It's not something missing in the so-called unenlightened.

 

Well perhaps I need to read Adyashanti's work to cet a clearer picture. But it seems that he 'is' trying to evoke some realization. And I think that the term realization doesn't imply, a state, but rather a recognition of what's already there.

 

I hope this makes sense, I am re-reading my words here and seeing ways I could elaborate and even contradict myself. This is all slippery ground and I don't consider myself a scholar either. I think my essential point is that I see this "recognition that is always present" not as a straightforward goal to take for granted, but as a koan of the highest order.

This makes sense. Writing Koans and comtemplating true nature is another form of meditation; a method to realize true nature.

 

There is a strange paradox I see here too but I am getting sleepy and confused. I will say that one of the points Adyashanti teaches is that it's unnecessary to remove the sense of of self, only to see through the conviction that it is separate.

Maybe in removing the seperation, we 'choose' to see our true nature.

 

The Buddha compared it to polishing a diamond. The diamond is always there, just obscured by the mud of ego.

[Cameron]

 

 

 

Again, I absolutely do not consider what I am proposing relativistic or nihilistic. Or depressing for that matter. In fact, I find it very freeing and I am expressing intuitions that occur from my cultivation. Perhaps ironically, I'll also share that I am more active in practices like "the law of attraction" nowadays than ever. LOA presents what seems to be an entirely different and fundamentally incompatible cosmology. Yet somehow, being the integral nutjob I am, I fit it all into my worldview without a sense of contradiction, something I am acutely sensitive of.

 

Sean

 

 

It's not incompatible at all. They work great together. My understanding of Adya's take on LOA is it's totally appropriate to engage in like the "Secret" talks about. The only real difference would be with awakening he says it's all seen as the dream state. Of course you may still want to have fun in the dream state(why not!)

 

The real transfomation as I understand it-Ime not there yet-is with awakening it's no longer about "me, me, me" and "I want, I want, I want" because the "me" and the "I" are no longer center stage.

 

Life moves you.

 

But as Adya says when your still in the dream state LOA might be necissary and helpful stuff.

 

In addition, the 10 commandments, Buddhist precepts, laws etc are all ways to make people in the dream state act correctly.

 

It's all dream land/ego land stuff. Which is totally approporiate and helpful for all of us living in the dream state.

[TwoTrees]

seandenty - I can't decide if this is fatalistic or nihilistic. Either way it's a bit limited to think that everything could be one sided.

 

I think we need to carefully examine this view. The real 'you' is beyond such extremes as nonexistence. We have the ability to awaken from the dream. I think this is what happens when philosophy becomes a substitute for actual experience.

 

At first glance of the early posts here, some memories surfaced.

I will say that from experience in places of confinement, that concepts such as 'freedom' or 'free will' comes closest to Sean O's main focus here. What situations of confinement do I speak of here? Jail and forced relationships.

 

Being forced to remain in a room with bars and an extremely controlled environment (even the activity of using the toilet becomes a big deal all-around) had this insidious and delusory effect on my entire constitution. It came from constantly showing the 3 C's ('calm', 'composed', and 'compliant') when most times I just wanted to lose all reason, perplex things with resounding pugnacity. Yet in a room mostly lit with flickering brightness, I found myself just closing my eyes and entering into a world of my own in quiet meditation. Because of the way that I carried myself and the respect I'd given other inmates around me, I was not bothered (definitely a good thing). I can definitely say with full understanding "I know why the caged bird sings". It is a liberation that cannot be touched by the forces that work against individual freedoms, the restrictive authorities that amass the entire universe. There is something inside every one of us that allows this space so that each may roam about in complete amenity, regardless of unpleasantness or restraint in the nature of our surroundings. It's just a matter of locating and tapping into it, forbearing to any interception of such.

 

Even though I must also say that I cannot feel "freedom is empty", I can understand how some may believe so. When I was released and came back out into the sunshine, the air, and society, immediate relief rushed through me like downpouring rain. This (however limited) sense of freedom that was given at that moment was suspended in time, I could only smile from the deepest part of my being and send it out in infinite appreciation. To do as I wished again, without audience, restraint (handcuffs or guard), and humility; had to be the best thing I'd felt in regaining from absence in my life thus far. This regained freedom, which immensely amplified my appreciation as it should always be, regardless of privation; gives me its recognition with firm resolve.

 

There's a few more posts on this thread I'd like to reply to, which will be done in good time.

Fantastic topic, as always ... makes me think too much ...

 

-Michelle THTT

[Lozen]

That's interesting. When I was in jail (well, just a holding cell) I had the same experience of finding a strength and resilience I didn't know I had... but what I found was that when I got out, I didn't feel relieved, I felt that I saw more examples of lack of freedom outside of the cell, I recognized it... It was like the veneer that was keeping me from understanding ways in which I could be controlled was gone and I noticed it everywhere. A little tiny bit of PTSD, I'm sure.

[xenolith]

This regained...gives me its recognition with firm resolve.

Such is the Tao...gained by means of great loss.

 

Some of the wise seek said loss for said purpose. Refer to the gentleman above.

 

Kindest regards and gratitude for your contribution TT.

 

Love.

 

xeno

[Cameron]

Adyashanti works with people in prison. One of the things he said about visiting with the 'lifers'(people in there forever..you can guess the kind of stuff they did to get there) is 2 profound things(for me anyway).

 

1. He says when talking with many of the ones that are interested in awakening when they go back to when they did whatever they did most often an unconsciousness arises over them. Especially the ones who are seriously into awakening when they visit the time when they did it it's almost like it wasn't them and it was like a bad dream that occurred.

 

All of the identification and attachment that causes suffering is based on this notion of a seperate 'me'. As soon as the seperate 'me' is seen through the trance of ego is lifted and the 'real you' may emerge(so I here).

 

Adya says from the persective of awakening if you chop someones head off you realize your head is rolling on the floor.

 

2. He also noticed for the 'lifers' that it wasn't until they really accepted that they were going to be in prison until they died with really no hope of getting out that they could come to peace. The ones that were lifers and still struggling with the thought of getting out someday had the most suffering.

 

Obviously, this is not a situation any of us would ever wish to be in. But from where they were at only after accepting 'what is'..that they were lifers..that they could be at peace and possibly be on the path to awakening.

[xenolith]

All of the identification and attachment that causes suffering is based on this notion of a seperate 'me'. As soon as the seperate 'me' is seen through the trance of ego is lifted and the 'real you' may emerge(so I here).

Indeed. There is the self, that which is harmonious with the Tao. There is the ego, that which is not. Choosing which of these will form one's action is exercising of free will.

[Lozen]

I guess I'm confused (I know, I know, I'm just a simple Bhakti yogi) about how to apply this philosophy to what I see--which is just all this light... but there is light around individual people, and there is a web connection people, and yet it's not ALL light. Like, there's some individual control over it... All I know is that I said a prayer for someone and I watched while an orb appeared over his head just waiting for him to connect... but he didn't. I would call that a choice. So if our bodies fall away and there is only light, how does that change the fact that right now on this plane the light is separate, appears as individualized, and whether or not to let it flow through you apepars as a choice?

[eatyourgreens]

on the acausality of volition:

 

beware of reification!

freedom may be empty, but emptiness is empty too.

thus, it doesn't abide as some independent entity "outside" volition, waiting to subsume it into choicelessness. the reality of choicelessness in no way impinges upon that of choice. the imputations of both choice AND choicelessness only exist as projections within the very conceptuality you implicitly decry!

 

just my 2 cents...

 

-christopher

Edited May 16, 2007 by eatyourgreens

[sean]

So if our bodies fall away and there is only light, how does that change the fact that right now on this plane the light is separate, appears as individualized, and whether or not to let it flow through you apepars as a choice?

Within the context of the "no choice" framework I am playing with here, I would say that the appearance of choice can be enjoyed regardless if it is absolute or not. In the same way that you can play a game and even get very passionate about it and enjoy it thoroughly, even though you know the rules are made up and have no real universal validity.

 

on the acausality of volition:

 

beware of reification!

freedom may be empty, but emptiness is empty too.

thus, it doesn't abide as some independent entity "outside" volition, waiting to subsume it into choicelessness. the reality of choicelessness in no way impinges upon that of choice. the imputation of both choice AND choicelessness only exist as projections within the very conceptuality you implicitly decry!

 

just my 2 cents...

 

-christopher

Yes, I think this is so much closer to what I am reaching for here!

 

When I say empty I don't mean it in a materialist sense; lacking abundance, an empty wallet, etc. I mean interdependently co-arising with and in and as Tao, already and always. Empty is a word that has an indescribable, blissful feeling to me, from my experiences in meditation. It has a brightness to it. It's the dark light in the void, and also the light within manifestation. Another way of wording what you wrote, that "emptiness itself is empty", is that emptiness is form. no? Another way of saying that you never had a choice is, you chose everything. This is all of your creation. That is the framework of the Law of Attraction. I think these views are two sides of the same coin.

 

Thank you for your thoughts.

 

Sean

 

PS- xeno, nice to hear from you. To get the direct link to a post, just click on the link to the far right of an individual post, e.g., "Post #33", and it will pop up and give you the URL. Then just paste that into your post and that should do it.

[eatyourgreens]

Another way of saying that you never had a choice is, you chose everything.

 

 

beautifully put.

 

(though still these statements are kind of extreme )

 

 

-christopher

Edited May 16, 2007 by eatyourgreens

[Smile]

After discussing all this, now what?

[Cameron]

After discussing all this, now what?

 

 

BACK TO YOUR MEDITATION CUSHION!

 

*Hits Max over the head with stick*

[xenolith]

sean, thanks for the post linking advice. What you've described is what I've been doing, nonetheless my efforts to link to a post other than the first post of the thread returns a link to the first post of the thread...not the post within that thread that I wanted to link to...I leave it you to determine whether it's me or is systemic...just trying to help.

 

I've posed questions to you in the context of this thread, I'd prefer that you respond to those rather than the ones associated with the operation of the site. Again, just trying to help.

 

Love.

 

xeno

Edited May 16, 2007 by xenolith

[sean]

Hey xeno, the only other question I saw of yours was whether a guy you linked to who mummified himself was an example of divine intervention. I have no idea.

[xenolith]

Hey xeno, the only other question I saw of yours was whether a guy you linked to who mummified himself was an example of divine intervention. I have no idea.

No need to hey me. I'd hoped that you'd expend a little more energy in your answer to my question. Should you later so choose, I'll be grateful.

 

Love.

 

xeno