The "Right View" - What is Yours?

a reply to: philosopheroftruth

I think the key to understanding Right View from the Buddhist perspective is Kalama Sutta.

Right View is free from speculation, free from being acquired by hearsay.

It is something that he has proven to himself correctly through examination, through his own observations or experience accompanied by a high level of awareness and discernment.

Right View in Buddhism is concerned with the understanding of Dukkha (suffering, dissatisfaction, stress) and its nature.

a reply to: philosopheroftruth

Equanimity is a starting point to put us in a more objective state of mind, however our corruption is within, making true equanimity a fleeting state. We cannot rehabilitate ourselves. Our spirit must be renewed, and our hearts and minds converted from the good/evil oscillation to the stability and peace of truth and righteousness. This must be done by a force out side the mind and humanity. We must tap into the source, but first we must be renewed from our corruption.

So now that it's been a little while since I started this thread, lets do an exercise! I wasn't very clear in the OP, and I think that's causing some confusion as to what is View and what isn't.

Your View sets your relationship to the symbols you encounter. This includes the designations of what is "Good" and "Bad" (according to you). This often causes a knee-jerk reaction to experiences that you encounter or hear about in life. With that defined a little more, lets start the exercise (using one example from my own life):

Lets say that someone you really care about and trust (spouse or friend) comes to you with a problem. They say, that while asleep the previous night, they were awoken with a start to find a being  sitting on top of them while they are unable to move (lets say it matches the description of a ghost, zombie, vampire, succubus, and banshee all mixed together for the sake of the example). The being feels real to their senses (indistinguishable from reality), and it was grabbing them hard enough to cause pain. Your friend/spouse then tries to fight it with no result, causing the being to scream an unearthly howl. This leads to them being taken into a whirlwind, which leads them to a Fall-In Vision (where you feel like you fall down into a new environment), which leads them to the top of a tall tree with the being. The being tells them some nonsense about the structure of the universe, and then they wake up in their room, very disoriented.

How would each of you interpret this experience using your own View? Would you be able to calm your friend to keep them from spiraling or explain their experience in a meaningful way? How would you explain this if it happened to you? I'm looking for all of you to dig through your reactions to this story, and see if you can better understand how your own View defines your interactions with the composite world. I'll add my View's interpretation a little later (when I get to replying), but I think this could get some interesting (hopefully honest) answers!

a reply to: philosopheroftruth

I've had multiple, almost identical, experiences. I believe those are evil spirits that exist in a parallel world, and they are trying to lead us away from the truth. They are the puppet masters of the collectivized world system.

a reply to: dfnj2015

Exactly! You are basically explaining the Buddhist "Right View" in this post! They are VERY good at "blowing stuff up", but we need ideas to get things done in the world (they are tools to use, not something to attach onto). Where did I ever say that all thoughts are delusional? I said that you shouldn't attach onto them, but you can use them to get things done (which would be impossible if they were delusions).

This is why I break my reality up into the 3 nested parts described in the (slightly confusing) OP. I would also disagree that everyone "experiences" the world in the same way - would a schizophrenic see the world the same way as someone who is sane? That's an extreme example, but chemical differences do exists between individuals.

a reply to: MindBodySpiritComplex

We need conceptual thoughts to get things done here in the Relative Reality - nothing would happen if everyone was stuck in non-conception (an Abiding Nirvana vs the Non-Abiding Nirvana of the Bodhisattvas). The trick is to use them as tools without worshipping them - expecting a crescent wrench to explain the afterlife instead of loosening a bolt would be delusional, correct?

a reply to: nOraKat

I mostly agree (and thanks for the great text link)!

There seems to be some contention about exactly what "Right View" originally was (probably a pre-scientific version of cause and effect mixed with dependent origination), but I think the Madhyamika system espoused by Nagarjuna is the most pure version of what it should be (no devas, no reincarnation, etc...).

I just find that a lot of Buddhist ideas are not actually following the Madhyamika, causing me to doubt if it's what the Buddha really meant. It seems, to me, that the historical Buddha originally had a View very similar to someone like Robert Monroe (OOBE states were considered to be "Direct Knowledge" in most ancient cultures).

a reply to: nOraKat

Oh! And here are two more of my favorite tools to describe Buddhist "Right View" (might help someone figure something out!):

Brahmajala Sutta - this Sutra explain all of the possible "Wrong Views" and how they came to be (does not seem to match Madhyamika though).

Indra's Net - this concept explains the different "Wrong Views" in the metaphor of a fishing net.

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: philosopheroftruth

Equanimity is a starting point to put us in a more objective state of mind, however our corruption is within, making true equanimity a fleeting state. We cannot rehabilitate ourselves. Our spirit must be renewed, and our hearts and minds converted from the good/evil oscillation to the stability and peace of truth and righteousness. This must be done by a force out side the mind and humanity. We must tap into the source, but first we must be renewed from our corruption.

This is great! You are going much deeper in describing your "View" than most have been able to do so far! I feel like a view is an overview of your entire person, so looking at similarities and differences between them can tease out how the human brain processes information.Trying to interpret it with my own "View", I get the following:

Our internal corruption is our attachment to ideas/concepts, but the world of "Samsara" keeps you in a state of attachment for it's own benefit so it can use you to accomplish it's goals instead of your own (like being stressed about money, for example). Our only way out is to realize "Shunyata" (Ultimate Reality), since that is a state free from all conception (thus not inside OR outside ourselves).

I like the poetry and metaphor of your View, and looking at it that way (opposed to literally) is helping me understand what you're saying a little better!

a reply to: philosopheroftruth

That's not quite what I mean, but I have been somewhat vague for the sake of contemplation and discussion. Ideas/concepts themselves are not corruption. It's the quality and nature of our ideas/concepts that are corrupt, but yes, the world does use our faults for its own agenda.

There are two forms of ideas/concepts. One being arrogance (our nature), and the other being truth (divine nature). Our arrogance is in our genetic structure. That's why we age and die. So our corruption doesn't have to be learned...it's instinct. We must be redeemed and have our concepts converted by the Divine Truth.

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: philosopheroftruth

I've had multiple, almost identical, experiences. I believe those are evil spirits that exist in a parallel world, and they are trying to lead us away from the truth. They are the puppet masters of the collectivized world system.

That's cool, too - literal interpritaions can be just as interesting! I ended up being lucky/unlucky enough to be the type of person who encounters many odd experiences, and I needed a place to store that information. This is why my View covers topics that other people might ignore - a person's View reflects the information they have encountered.

This started over 5 years ago, and I tried to use a more literal interpretation back then than I do now. This proved to be impossible for me to do without contradiction (the puzzle pieces just wouldn't fit). I ended up chasing delusion for a few years trying to get everything lined up, but I ended up just scrapping it and started from scratch - this led me to a View that better fits my entire life experience.

I'm glad you responded to my inqury! You seem to be one of the only people brave/open enough to put your View on the line! I'd be interested to hear how you reconciled all the puzzle pieces to get ideas like dreams, meditation, and physics (if your View includes them) to play nice with the idea of parallel world entities! Do OOBEs and people like Robert Monroe play into your View?

I am more impressed by Buddhism than any other thought stream on Earth.

It is science. It has served as a wellspring of insight for western psychologists and neuroscientists, so much so that mindfulness is the basic gateway method used by psychotherapists to help people get some sort of distance between thei experiences and the place from which they observe.

Also, as to 100% truth.

Charles Sanders Peirce did not think it was possible:

“The very being of the General, of Reason, consists in its governing individual events. So, then, the essence of reason is such that its being never can have been completely perfected. It always must be in a state of incipiency, of growth.” – C.S. Peirce, The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, Vol 2 (1893-1913), pg. 255, Indiana, 1998

Isn't that wonderful though? I love how creatively mysterious the universe remains to us. We always assume we know more than we do; we fail to take serious account of what we know we don't know.

Objective reality is exciting. I personally find the adventurous spirit of modern science - inwards, the brain, outer space - to be an infinite Smörgåsbord of meaning.

On another note: this is why gnostics with a history of major (and still unresolved( trauma believe as they do. By violating the principle of symmetry, or having had their own symmetry processes violated against, the canalization of their early-life brain wiring - and the experiences/meanings it encoded - serve as a basic 'foundation' for embodied perception:

I'd like to share this chart, as this thread really did touch me.



All of reality appears to be a dialectic between a 'yin' and a 'yang' pole. I prefer the term 'point-counterpoint', as it has less religious baggage with it.

In every act of perception, there is the observing pole, and the object pole. Every perception of an object is never "standing alone", but being weighed against "scaffold" of the development of the brain-self up until that moment.

The observer pole, however, is not as simple as is typically thought. When we observe, we are both psychically involved with an object; and at the same time, and in deeper way, our observer pole already possesses a feeling quality. Thus, the observer-object relation is paralleled by the value-judgement relation. That is, every perception of an object has an implicit evaluation of the object; and every object, as soon as it is experienced (i.e. evaluated) is reflexively communicated through the face; in other words, when you interface with an object, you are simultaneously evaluating it for yourself, and unwittingly presenting a judgement for whomever may be observing you.

This is a fundamental co-dependence, as Buddhism also observes.

I point this out because most of the time we are narcissistically self-involved, and so failing to realize the way we produce impressions on other brain-minds, setting, or triggering, evaluations, via the way and manner we respond to our own experiences.

a reply to: philosopheroftruth

This is a really complex subject. I believe there are some dreams that are to be taken symbolically, and dreams are what they are. They're often partially coherent and foggy. It's just the mind integrating fragments of data.

Then there are the vivid dreams. Usually life like, yet disturbingly surreal. I always sense an external presences feeding ideas, delusions, temptations, into my stream of thought. Its like they're looking for my weakness and trying to intimidate me. Those seem to be a blend of literal interactions with symbolic principles.

Finally there are the sleep paralysis episodes. The astral projections. The old hag strangulations (my wife saw it happening to me too). Those I believe to be real entities directly attacking me after they fail at deceiving me during a vivid dream. I usually wake up from vivid dreams and nightmares into a paralysed state from which point I have left my body and actually wrestled with evil spirits in the astral plane.

This has been going on since around 2012, though I have had some intermittent sleep events as a child.

How do I reconcile this with everything else? I believe the existing universe is a medium (similar to water) that is being manipulated by various vibrational frequencies to form layers of superimposed energy densities. In short I believe parallel dimensions exist, and spirits can move from one to another. I draw a lot of my ideas from Quantum Field Theory.

Meditation is a tool that increases focus. Nothing more. It can sharpen your mind or it can destroy you. I know of someone who destroyed himself with meditation by inviting spirits into his life.

In my experience, it's not all black and white. Literalism and symbolism are often blended. Truth is often contaminated with lies. The difference between the material realm and the spiritual (in the paranormal sense) is energy density. There is but one source of unadulterated truth, and that comes from God Himself.

I can't comment on Robert Monroe, as I know very little about him.

I guess Bhuddies are retarded then. I dont have to explain why somone would tie their own children up. I just have to know it's wrong.

Having an explanation will lead to creating an excuse. This is how the mind works. And why animals cannot commit wrong.

originally posted by: philosopheroftruth
...
How would each of you interpret this experience using your own View? Would you be able to calm your friend to keep them from spiraling or explain their experience in a meaningful way? How would you explain this if it happened to you? I'm looking for all of you to dig through your reactions to this story, and see if you can better understand how your own View defines your interactions with the composite world. I'll add my View's interpretation a little later (when I get to replying), but I think this could get some interesting (hopefully honest) answers!

This will get pretty long, but here is how I would explain this (since it happened to me, I can add details):

In a way, a person has 2 bodies - their physical body, and the mental map/idea of their body. These would be called the Objective Body and Subjective Body in my View, and the Created Body and Desire Body in Buddhism (Buddhism also posits a third body in Ultimate Reality called the Truth Body). Whenever you dream, have an OOBE, or enter a "Fall-In" vision, you are functioning solely in your Subjective Body (within your mind/thoughts).

In waking life, you are taking in sensory information which your mind then uses to create a mental copy of the world - this is the only way you could consciously interact with and remember details about the Objective world. If you go into an OOBE and are still in a copy of the real world, you are in this mental copy. Your mind is constantly rendering the world around you while awake, trying to predict what is going to happen next for your own survival. This is the source of "feeling a presence" when no-one is actually there - your brain is making a guess about a hiding threat, and then it predicts where that threat would be located by rendering a mental entity/avatar/actor to match the scenario.

Under normal situations, you can't see these guesses. This is due to how fast the brain is at checking its Subjective guesses with Objective Reality. Sleep Paralysis is a known medical condition that causes a state where the Objective Body is asleep, but the mind (and the Subjective Body by proxy) is awake. This results in a state where your mind is unable to check 100% of it's guesses, causing in a feedback loop of sorts. There are many ways other than sleep paralysis to prevent your brain from checking it's guesses, many with somewhat differing results.

When I woke up in sleep paralysis at the beginning of this experience, I noticed a stream of thoughts hidden beneath the experience - meditation helped me notice them. I wondered what time it was. I wondered why I couldn't move. I wondered if someone broke in. I wondered if someone drugged me. I then felt a presence (my brain's best guess). Next there was a shadow mounted on top of me. I wondered if it was a woman. It took the form of a woman (in black/white and flickering). I wondered if it was a ghost. I then asked (with my subjective voice, not objective) "Who are you?!". It then asked me "Who are you?". I got angry. It got angry. I tried to fight it with my Subjective Body. It grabbed my Subjective Body, screamed at me, and pulled my Subjective Body away from my Objective Body. This resulted in me being completely unable to check my guesses against Objective Reality, and caused me to "Fall-In" to the direct experience of a thought. This can cause a feedback loop of a situation/emotion/thought unless you are able to realize that your guesses arn't real and stop reacting (the emotions/thoughts cause your mind to make a guess, which causes you to react to the guess, which causes another guess, etc...).

Hopefully that explains enough for people to understand the concept. I would to love to hear some other people explain this with their own Views! This is just how I've personally found to process/stop/enjoy these types of experiences - it's a helpful tool for me!

a reply to: philosopheroftruth

Until it is realised that there is no thinker separate to thought there will be confusion and conflict.
The belief is that there is a 'you' that thinks thoughts - this is duality.

Whatever appears (including thought and sensation) simply just appears - there isn't anything separate that does it.