What is a person. (ie. What are you?)

Are you talking person as in personality and what makes your personality or are you speaking more in terms of human being/person?

So abstract or concrete??

Sounds like " Who am I"

A person is a monkey in clothes calling himself a human lol.

I am a collection of cells acting in concert to give rise to an illusion we call consciousness. I am in fact an advanced cellular society. A collective mind made of 100 billion citizens, each sharing information in the form of electrochemical signals sent out over a vast neural network.

Have you ever wondered with the advancement of telecommunications and the internet, if we are all coming together in a similar manner? We all share information, via the internet, and influence countless others with our online interactions. Perhaps we unknowingly giving rise to a collective consciousness in which we play the roles of neurons.

(taken from my about me )

"Well, that depends on what the definition of 'is' is...."

I guess a cell is alone. Lone cells act in such concert to make the 'I'. I am alone.

If people can come together, acting with such concert as the cells, there I see something/someone being alone.

Do you find your self relating to that?.

I have always been alone. I believe there is only ONE being in existence, and we are apart of it, just as our cells are apart of us.

Now THAT is an interesting concept. One many humans do not want to explore though...

I like that train of thought though...

He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.
-Buddha

Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration … that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves
-Bill Hicks

When I went down to the end of train tracks, everything that I was burned to the ground, it was a hard time in my life. Try realizing you don't even exist, and trying to keep it together at the same time. LOL

Since then I have shifted my paradigm, and learned to wear my ego more like a sweater. This ego I show to the world is no more real than a character I play on a video game.

I had a dream once a long time ago that I and a yogi were sitting in the stream, he pointed to some bubbles grasping onto a blade of grass underwater. "We are like the bubbles" he said, and then I woke up.
It took me many years to really realize what that really meant.

In essence I believe we are all one being, we are simply having different experiences simultaneously.
It is my hope that maybe someday we can all awaken and leave this place, or at least the ones who want to.

I have fun playing my character, but I want out of this endless theater. I want to achieve nirvana, liberation, union with god, whatever name you want to call it, To exist eternally as formless awareness, to never be reborn into a phenomenal reality, and realize truth eternally. No pain, no pleasure, nothing at all, just voidness.

Here is an excerpt from a commentary by jing Kong Fashi on "Di Zi Gui" part of the Analects, Ch. 6, written by Confucious (Kong Zi)...

Di Zi Gui means: Standards of Being a Good Student and Child.

Which in turn would result in being a good person.

"There is an old Chinese saying that a person with virtue and compassion has no enemies. “Xiao” and “Di” have been the very foundation of Chinese culture for five thousand years. Those two qualities separate a person from an animal. “Xiao” and “Di” are the minimum requirements for being a human, while compassion and virtue are the highest standards set by Confucius for being a human."

Which is very very very similar in foundation to what Shakyamuni Buddha taught, and to what Daoists later found to be proper during the forming of Quan Zhen and Zheng Yi Sects.



Peace and Blessings,
Lin

P.S.:- One can google "Di Zi Gui" and get a link to the PDF, English translation.

You believe so?. Is it not only a hypothesis?. You mean to say, you don't doubt that at all?.

(Is not belief beyond the ability to doubt?. Or are people metaphorically calling 'the most favourable hypothesis'
belief?.)

To me it sounds like a attempt at consoling myself, if and when I feel deprived of something or when I relate to another's grief.

So, from your view, what do you view as the reason you are here now as in your life?

I realize I am opening a can of worms and there may be some people that are going to get upset because I am asking such a question where some will take it the wrong way and think I am asking "what is the reason for us?" That is not what I am asking though...I am asking you personally what you think your reason is. You believe that eventually you will realize truth. Have no pain, pleasure, etc.
I am curious to see what you think of your life then.



I would say that it is his belief and others may have doubts because that is not what they believe.

Who are we to say who is right though? Maybe this view is correct.

I look at people in my life that hold their convictions strong and have no doubt whereas I doubt their beliefs. From that experience, I tell myself to realize that they are going to believe what they want and it is not up to me to ask them if they doubt it. I will just respect them enough to let them have their beliefs whereas I will continue my search

This all sounds like a lot of intellectual masterbation. Just sit down and meditate

Maybe it is, but I am an intellect at heart and thrive off this

I have a BA in philosophy . I thought philosophy would give me some answers, but all it did was create more questions. The reality is that I have learned more about who and what I am by sitting and meditating than any philosophical work I have ever read. The constant stream of thoughts just adds layers between us and our original nature, and there's a lot of wisdom in the old taoist notion of forgetting. Then again, I'm just a rabbit with a teapot on his head, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

It much better to use the head to balance teapots than to use it in thinking...

I am short and stout, but I am not a tea pot...

I am a spirit living as a human

tip me over & pour me out

Well, maybe that is the problem..my BA is in Psychology...my MA (I am currently going for) will be in professional mental health counseling. Could be that Psychology and Counseling are leading me down the wrong path...

Hell, I am just a hand holding a lotus flower, what does that say about me??

And even if the rabbit twitches and the teapot shatters on the floor, the tea remains tea (although in a form that is now much harder to drink).

Have you ever heard of the thud experiement?





It says you should beware the monks with a statue that is missing a hand

Should one not use the mind in exploration?

Its a fine line. Philosophy on the one hand, a never ending stream of words, referring to other words. On the other hand we have sleep. This is about as close as we can get to no thoughts.

I find that there is a third option, which is natural curiosity. This natural curiosity may express itself with a question, or with a dropping of assumptions and simply looking. Trying to suppress natural curiosity is tying our hands behind our backs. Natural curiosity is actually the most powerful thing that we have.

If someone can ask a question in all sincerity, without expecting a definite answer, they are doing more to walk their path than someone who meditates for two hours every day in nirvakalpa samadhi.

If we don't have the stability to stay with what the questions opens up, then it cannot work its magic, however. So there are two sides to every coin.

I don't doubt this no, I am certain we are all one. Perhaps I am just delusional though.

I am enslaved, trapped, bound to this world. My purpose in this life is to break free, and never return.

I am not enlightened, of that I am certain.

I will be reborn again if I died today, of that I am also certain.

The purpose of my life is to awaken, and achieve liberation.

I think the mind is a useful tool to a certain extent... For example, I can get in my car and drive to the beach, but to go swimming I have to get out of my car and walk down to the water. I would also disagree with sleep being as close as we can get to 'no thoughts' Not that I am a meditation master by any means, but emptying your mind during meditation is much different than sleeping.



Natural curiosity is great in so far as it can lead you towards the path, but I think that it can only take you so far. To tread upon the path, you have to let go of the curiosity in my humble opinion.



Not sure I follow. Can you elaborate? Specifically how someone asking a question without expecting an answer is more profound than 2 hrs a day of nirvakalpa samadhi. I think you are comparing apples and oranges, but I gotta lean towards the guy who can do the 2 hrs/day nirvakalpa samadhi

Brilliant experiment but with a fatal flaw - they should have prepared some sort of safety net to prevent the prolonged hospitalization!
Thanks for posting that.

What happens in deep sleep? Our world appears to disappear. We have no recollection of any thought process (this is deep sleep.. not dreaming sleep). This is a product of the stilling of thoughts. It is natural so we don't make much of it, but when we don't get this sleep, we begin to notice the power that it has.

Reaching such a state through meditation is freeing, since it reveals a polarity of consciousness, and it probably has some other functions which I can't speak to with any degree of authority. I haven't spent 2 hours per day in nirvakalpa samadhi. In this I am going more on stories. Such as Buddha mastering the 8th Jhana, being told that that was the highest state, but knowing within himself that his search was for something else. Or my teacher telling me that we all reach nirvakalpa samadhi in our sleep. We just don't know it, or know that we know it.

To reach it in meditation is an opportunity to recognize that though there is this seeming cessation, that there is something that is aware of that cessation.

This noticing can only happen through natural curiosity. Imagine what would have happened to the Buddha's story if he had not had this natural curiosity. He could have just practiced the 8th Jhana until he died. Instead, he continued his search.

In this perspective, natural curiosity IS the path. Everything else is scenery.

Thats not to say that achieving nirvakalpa samadhi cannot be a manifestation of natural curiosity, and hence, quite vital. If we abandon natural curiosity for the sense of peace that arises in that state, then we have lost the path, however.

I have heard of the thud experiment. I actually have a copy of the study in front of me. There are MANY problems with the you tube video as a matter of fact. Some of things are true, but not all. The way the patients were admitted is almost all true, they all said they were hearing voices that said, "empty", "hollow", and "thud" After they were admitted they did act normal again. They were administered psychotropic drugs, but did not take any of them. Their stay ranged from 7-52 days with an average of 19 days.
The most interesting thing about the experiment (in my opinion) was that the patients who WERE insane know that the pseudopatients were not insane. They would often tell the pseudopatients and the staff this.
So, Psychiatry does have its problems and we in the field do admit it. I am not studying Psychiatry though, so I guess I am better off. There is a difference between Psychiatry and Psychology. In Psychology, we do also admit that we certainly do NOT have the all of the answers and are still looking.
The same as anything we may follow at this time. There is no tangible truth in any of it, yet we all have our paths that we will follow.



If anyone finds the monk, please let me know so I can explain why I have the hand LOL



So, you are becoming awakened and achieving liberation in this life...may I ask how?
What is your path?

This post started as a very brief response and took on a life of it's own - for some reason I am compelled to mention this as a preface...


Hmmm, there are things at odds here.
I completely agree with your first statement about non-duality. It is not an intellectual idea or conclusion, it is an absolute certainty for me as well. Perhaps we're both deluded, I'm OK with that.

The thing that I'm struggling with is this, I'll try to express it. Unfortunately, words always sound so presumptuous, arrogant, rehearsed, artificial but sometimes you've just got to say, fuck it!

There is no duality, there is not two. Notice that the Hindus do not say there is one or we are one. They say that there are not two. THis is significant.
That which is, is not born, does not die, but is and is not. It is existence and non-existence. It is not two.
We, as organic creatures, are encased in a bag of skin and equipped with sensory organs that constantly reinforce a sense of separation from the environment and each other. That separation is constantly reinforced by each of us and our conditioning and social conventions. It starts with early childhood and is very difficult to see through.

We are no more separate from the environment than a whirlpool from the stream or a wave from the ocean. We cannot possibly exist without our environment nor does our environment exist without us. Without our miraculous sensory apparatus, the environment is nothing more than various configurations of electromagnetic waves. Everything is not form and substance, not stuff, but relationship. There are no particles of stuff in the universe, only waves. We only perceive stuff and particles due to the particular nature and tuning of our sensory organs.

You recognize this, you know this, so how much more awake can you be?
It is not a matter of being awake or enlightened or not either.
THere is the thought that what is (and is not), is not enough.
There is desire that demands more. To transcend the endless cycle of life and death and the joy and suffering.
That is human nature combined with conditioning, that is the drive which feeds and clothes us but also makes us suffer. The need to become that which we are not. When there is no longer attachment to the desire to transcend, then there is freedom to simply be. And what a marvelous, miraculous existence it can be, and what a horrible painful existence it can be. One cannot exist without the other. They arise mutually, give meaning and substance to each other. Just as life and death, existence and non-existence arise mutually, they are not two, they are non-dual.

When this organism encased in a bag of skin and it's associated knowledge, memories, thoughts, desires, conditioning, etc... dies, then this particular collection of knowledge, memories, etc... is no longer in existence but 'that which is', remains. Another body is born and again is blessed with the spark of consciousness if you will, or awareness, and it then goes on to become conditioned and fills with all the thoughts, memories, and so on, over time because time is thought. And it is conditioned to want and need and try to become that which it is not. And eventually, in some, a spark ignites that wants to transcend everything but it is just a thought, like the one that wants anything else, only it's paticularly persistent because what it wants can never be satisfied until death. It wants to know what lies beyond death, the great mystery, the meaning of life. But nothing lies beyond death. Death is just what is not life. The great mystery is the unanswere question. When answered, it is no longer mystery. But there can never be a state where the human brain and the limited nature of thought (which is simply the action of knowlege and memory, fear and desire) can answer all questions, so there will always be the great mystery.

So the desire is there to transcend, so be it. Sit with it and go into it very deeply. Why is it there? What can you learn from it? What is it telling you about you? about everything around? This is why the question unanswered is more important than meditation, I think. Meditation presupposes the answer, the answer is to be found through meditation, why else do it? But the question alone makes no suppositions. It is alive! Answers are dead! Being with the question is very valuable. If you go into that particular desire, to transcend, very deeply, what happens to it? I don't know the answer and I'm not looking for an answer from anyone. It is for each of us to find out for ourselves.

If that is what is (and perhaps it's not and I'm totally full of shit - that's OK too), what is it to awaken?
What is liberation?
Is there a state other than existence and non-existence?
Other than that which is?
If so, is that not a duality?
I say you ARE awake, you ARE enlightened, you just don't recognize it because of conditioning and habit.



I'll take a stab at the original question:
What is a person?
A person is an organic creature that is blessed with self awareness. That self awareness is a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it is simply a way in which the universe becomes aware of itself and has an opportunity to revel in it's own mystery and beauty. It is a curse insofar as it is subject to the conditioning of millenia of social convention which causes it to forget it's true nature and leads to profound fear, desire, and suffering.

You have made me curious. I am googling the brainwaves in sleep vs meditation :-).


Yes but you only recognize the cessation after the fact.



Sorry Todd, I still just see the curiosity as a vehicle or a tool to bring one to the path. Try entering meditation and focus on how curious you are about what's going on, and I am willing to bet your meditation will not be very deep. Of course some meditations like Zen use natural curiosity as a tool within the meditation, but again it's a means, not an end.



Tell you what Todd, you take the path of natural curiosity, and I will stick to meditation. Whoever reaches enlightenment first gets a Coke on the runner up

Todd,
Are you willing to share what it is that you practice and with whom?
I am always impressed with your insights and presentation.



AHHH! This is a scam!
The one who reaches enlightenment first knows that both will enjoy the Coke equally!

Empty? Hollow? Jeez, so half the Taobums probably would have been commited!



I guess my issue with psychology has always been that it's not really a science, but tries to pass itself off as one. I am not sure about the United States, but psychology in Canada is part of the arts program. I mean if you want to study the brain using scientific methods, study neuroscience. This abstract metaphysical concept of the "psyche", well I am just not so sure that you can adequately study it using empirical tools. Anyhow, I will shut up about it now .

BTW, see what happens when you try to make a brief comment about mental masterbation on Taobums? You get sucked into the intellectual maelstrom.



Haha

How do you know this?

I am suggesting that there is something that registers everything, and the thing that is not aware when there is no thought, might not be so solid after all.

I am not here to convince you, since we all find this out in our own way.

If your goal is to reach a state, then meditation is wonderful means. What I am pointing toward is what you are. You already are it. So am I. So who wins the Coke?

(And I'm not saying, don't meditate!)

Xuesheng,

Thank you. I study with Adyashanti. Also Mukti and Loch Kelly, who filled in for Adya on a retreat during his sabbatical to recover from Bell's Palsy. I wouldn't really call it studying though. Exploring is a better word.

My practice? Nothing fixed. I have consistently stood or sat for 5 or so years. Right now I am pausing that... so nothing fixed. Natural curiosity?

Sad, that if you say you hear voices stating certain things you are deemed schizophrenic...

I agree with you that the US does try to pass off the art of Psychology as a science. They try to use science to back up their beliefs, but that certainly does not happen all the time. There are so many contradictions in their studies because it certainly is an art.

Mental Health Counseling is an art...talk therapy that many people do not believe in either.

Yes, you got sucked in...and I must take pride in that because like I said...I thrive off this hee hee

I like where ths is going:

http://www.livevideo.com/video/ConspiracyC...e-no-cures.aspx

Its called , "Psychiatry, No Science, No Cures.

ENJOY!

Peace,
Lin

Todd have you ever read Jed McKenna's: Spiritual Enlightenment THE DAMNEDEST THING?

I highly recommend you get it if possible, I think you would love what that man has to say.
I believe it is available on audio book on a torrent somewhere if you search for it.

Yeah, I read it over a year ago. I also read its sequel, though not the last in the series. My roommate at the time had them.

I enjoyed them a lot. I became interested in this Jed McKenna character, and when I looked into it, the story began to seem more and more like fiction. Thats not surprising since one of the qualities of an enlightened being on his list (assuming I remember correctly) is to use untruth in order to teach.

If I come across the last book, I might read it.

Edit: I especially liked the way he pointed to a thread of realization in America, pre-hinduism, pre-buddhism, pre-taoism. I helps to see that this is a human thing, even if it doesn't take off in as obvious ways.

Hi Todd,

Well good point, and to be honest I can't really answer. I guess I was operating under the assumption that when 'time' seems to disappear during meditation that the mind was still and just kind of stops. Now you have got me reconsidering it. Again, I am by no means greatly skilled at meditation, and I can't speak on some of the deeper levels because I probably haven't even touched them.

This natural curiosity you describe seems similar to some of the taoist concepts of being constantly aware, but I don't know if they would go so far as to call it a 'curiosity'. My understanding is that this is achieved by lessening the clutter in the mind to the point of emptiness. Once the mind has emptied you have no buffer between yourself and the tao. You don't think, you just act.

Here's my question, can 'curiosity' be seperated from the ego?

It is VERY true! I admit this from my perspective of a Counseling standpoint. There are many people that will admit this. One of my professors who has a PhD in Psychology will admit this also. There is not a problem with admitting this. The problem is that the way in which the media will portray this.
The truth is just as Oolong Rabbit said, it is an art not a science. The problem is that they are trying to push an art into the Medical Model. I don't know how many people know about the medical model but that is all about the disease. Mental illness is not a disease though. That is the problem. They are trying to fit the square peg into the round hole.
My profession is Counseling which has NOTHING to do with prescription drugs. It is talk therapy, which other have a problem with also. In my opinion, if someone needs someone to speak to in a guided manner, that is my profession. It is not what many think though. It is not the Freudian couch scenario. It is controversial just as there are many things on this forum controversial.
It is what I will say again, What is the path you choose? Is there tangible truth? No--just as in psychiatry, counseling, psychology.
As I said, there is a difference in psychiatry, counseling and psychology. People often mistake them and interchange these even though there are distinct differences.

Yeah, curiosity is just a word. I use it because it is something that we can all relate to. That is useful, because truth is something that we can all relate to, even if we do not know it. We might say that curiosity is what remains when the mind is stilled, but it is important to realize that it is also here, now. It actually drives us. It is not separate from our day to day drives. It is merely filtered through assumptions and conditioning, but there is a pure curiosity that does not refer to the self, or ego, so much. This is what operates in a child who expresses natural wonder, or in us whenever we aren't thinking about things in a fixed way.

When we realize that it is present and available, we can begin to look for and notice it. There are other paths to this, and I can't say which is right. They all have their traps, such as the ego taking the question and trying to use it to get something. Such as the ego trying to assume the stance of curiosity. All of that has a certain energy, but if we let it settle down, what is flowing through us?

What is a person?

I am

I am singular… I am part of the whole…

I just recently picked up a copy of Peace is The Way by Deepak Chopra and was reminded of the term Ubuntu through a book endorsement by Desmond Tutu

Ubuntu an African term expressed as “a person is a person through other persons”

We are part of something much bigger than the person. Our existence weaves through the illusion of time in unison with all around us.

How we develop the person impacts the whole. Knowing ourselves through meditation or other means, raising one’s self awareness we reach clarity of mind, peace, quiet, stillness… Transcending ‘I’

Clarity can open up a sense of purpose giving the person a more grounded insight into the whole and how they fit in. As a person we have opportunities to touch so many lives with something as inconsequential as a smile or a kind word. Through an open heart and mind we are a person.

One person's view

Facinating conversations to ponder. Interesting how a child's curiosity and wonder is that wide eyed look that is making patterns of the outside world in order to conceptualize it and differentiate things; whereas a Taoist's curiousity is the same energy but towards the opposite direction: to feel the oneness and patternlessness. They are zigging, and we are zagging.

So I think we can refine the word curiosity, that, in Buddhist terms, a fundamental part of vicara and vitarka, that which can lead to prajna wisdom. Therefore curiosity is hugely important, yet the term carries too much baggage of samsaric associations.

I speculate that what might be the raffination is something like the-universe-searching-to-evolve-ness. A species presumably evolves after many painstaking processes of trial and error, but something is driving this species to evolve, us to evolve, the universe to evolve. This word would be clearly void of ego. Yet it contains the propulsion force that would subsequently be translated in our minds as curiosity.

Upon his own enlightenment, the Buddha started to turn the dharma wheel with the statement, “All sentient beings, the great earth, and I have at once entered the Way.” With his realization, he was acknowledging the fact that each one of us is perfect and complete, lacking nothing. What he was looking for, what we’re looking for, we already are. But this needs to be realized. Only then can it function; only then can you make use of it in your life. When this truth of our perfection is not realized, it remains just so much religious rhetoric.

The “heap of flesh” refers to the gross elements of earth, air, fire and water, and the aggregates of form, sensation, perception, conception and consciousness—the components that define the totality of human existence. When we carefully examine the nature of the self, we discover that it is made up of aggregates. When we examine the nature of anything, we come up with aggregates. What is a tree? Roots, trunk, branches, leaves, fruit—aggregates. What is a self? History, thoughts, memories, ideas, body, mind—aggregates. What is it that exists beyond these aggregates? This is the fundamental religious question.

Most eastern and western philosophies declare that beyond aggregates lies an essence—the essence of a tree, the essence of a self. And the essence of a self has been frequently referred to as the soul. In his practice of self-exploration, the Buddha found, however, that when he went beyond all the aggregates, he found nothing. The self is essentially empty. It is only a perpetually shifting collection of aggregates. This realization has been verified by tens of thousands of Buddhist men and women who for over 2,500 years have undertaken the rigorous practice of studying the self. The self is empty. It is not fixed. It is a mental construct, an illusion.

-Roshi John Daido Loori, Abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in NY

As long as we are doing the quoting thing--

"Form is emptiness; emptiness is form; form is not other than emptiness; emptiness is not other than form."

--The Heart Sutra

Are you saying that what is being referred to there is an illusion?

Todd,

Who are asking the question to?

Actually, it was addressed to you, but you can ignore it. I think I am going to retreat from posting for a bit. There is a little too much attack and defend in me, and its not fun.

Ok.

If you come across this reply at some point Todd, are you familiar with Steven Harrison's work?
I just picked up his book "The Question to Life's Answers" and if you're in the reading mood, I think you would appreciate his perspective regarding the importance of the question, inquiry, curiosity...