Everything is consciousness.

originally posted by: Crowfoot
a reply to: glend
Consider the koan; When all things are returnable to one; To what is the one returnable too?

Your use of the word 'koan' has made me a little curious as to your take on that particular subject. I googled it and the first result was from the Oxford dictionary which stated...

a paradoxical anecdote or riddle without a solution, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and provoke enlightenment.

Now I don't agree with that definition in the sense of how a koan can actually work regarding becoming 'enlightened'. I'm using that word 'enlightened' in the perhaps 'spiritual' sense rather than in a more mundane practical way.

a reply to: Astyanax

I'm continuing this conversation just as you're continuing this conversation.

I said that classical physics has reached its pinnacle. I didn't claim that classical physics deals with consciousness. So I don't know how these statements serve any purpose in your response to me:

Physics doesn't deal with consciousness, nor with any other immaterial object. I'm sorry, but it never will.

Expecting it to address metaphysical subjects is a bit like hoping to get milk out of a chicken.

a reply to: Astyanax

If you're feeling frisky, try a direct translation of the I Ching.

Is it even possible to have a direct translation?

Whilst translation may achieve the highest level of accuracy possible, there is a sense that it will never truly capture every nuance of the language and culture from which it is being translated, and that some of the target language's culture will slip in no matter how hard one tries to keep it out.

Taken from The Cambridge Language Collective.

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: Itisnowagain

Schema

General definition in philosophy

in psychology

in programming

Can you tell me in your own words?

a reply to: midicon

The root of koan is goan as the practice originated in Korean Buddhism.

There are many of them and the paradox they are eluding to is; it is a question you keep repeating to yourself like a mantra as trying to answer it you won't.

What happens is you stop internal thoughts by repeating it as the thoughts instead also the mind stops wandering all around no matter what you do and as soon as you notice not repeating it go back to repeating it... In time out of nowhere the question will answer itself(the paradox) in an AH HA! Epiphany sort of way. But never mind that the best you can and just go back to repeating it as there are many levels or in the terminology martial arts(Dans or belts) to it.

When discouraged after the first insight into it; Going back to the initial Ah Ha! and repeating it from there many find helpful when doubts about the practice arise.

The one I used was in recognizing the problem from the koan practice itself. Without it I likely wouldn't have been able to recognize the issue in Glends practice and offer advice to progress.

I'm looking forward to Glends use of kasina posts once he/she abandons the; We are one fallacy as they will surely contain some experiences of "enlightenment" as that practice has to do with the elements and 'light' is often a side effect of it. How it got to be some goal other than even in the many hells and heavens and all between nothing can enslave or distract you which equates to freedom? I'll never know.

Like even if what you could perceive as heaven opening and god kissing you on the forehead saying welcome... no different than clearing the crust out of the corner of the eye. Or hell beings taking machetes and cutting your arms off and adding it to the cannibal pot and blood flowing everywhere while it happens? No different than removing some crust from the corner of the eye.



Good luck on it

a reply to: Crowfoot

You might like a website called:
Zen bitch slap.

We're hyper-conscious of the mental states that seem to forget that we are conscious.

There are five gates: seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and touching; and then there's the sixth gate that dominates it all. Which gate is dominating it all? The mental gate.

The hearing of thoughts is overriding the seeing, the feeling, the tasting, the touching, and the smelling, all day.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

They are neglecting that each one of those has a consciousness if they didn't one couldn't be hearing about a dog that people are talking about not present and see a cat walking about that is present it would appear as a dog. It is listed in the Pali cannon as seven senses and each sense having a separate consciousness to itself... There is one school that teaches only one consciousness exists for those senses and that it is governed by the mind as the sixth sense which is false or heretical and not cannon.

In Hinduism such experiences are given up as a form of devotion to one's chosen god or goddess... Instead of relishing it oneself hence their version of selflessness or renunciation of the world.

Where even though you are eating, listening, viewing etc you give all of them up in devotion after much practice there is no taste in eating etc as it becomes void or perfect as an offering to the god or goddess chosen.

After such one becomes a jiva or pure soul and that god or goddess will dwell directly within as an enimation or what's known as a bliss body that is beyond suffering but not beyond death/reincarnation.

a reply to: Crowfoot

Thank you for that informative reply.

a reply to: midicon
No worries

a reply to: Crowfoot

There is no self separate from what is happening.

It is the process of thinking that creates the self, rather than there being a self having any independent existence separate from thought.

a reply to: Crowfoot

It is listed in the Pali cannon as seven senses and each sense having a separate consciousness to itself...

I can't find anything about that online.....

Do you have a link that shows that... 'each sense has it's own consciousness'... has ever been stated?
I would be very interested in reading about it......where did you read the list?

We are word and idea junkies; we are addicted to semantic systems.

This means that we use words/ideas with an unchallenged confidence that they bear a somewhat accurate correspondence to the actual state of things, Reality.

Within a limited context this may be somewhat true. We can record information, instructions, recipes, etc. in words, and another human will be able to use those words to approximate the "real-world" conditions we intended to refer to. This semantic functionality has apparently given our species a large evolutionary advantage.

BUT... for "spirituality", inquiry into Reality, into our true condition, words/ideas are worse than useless. They are potentially our biggest impediment.

This is because we may tend to assume that the objects/actions which words refer to, ACTUALLY EXIST IN THE WAY THE WORDS THAT REFER TO THEM SEEM TO DEFINE THEM. That is, we may tend to view our experience as being actually made up of the objects and actions that the words we are using to describe it imply.

This is a fundamental mistake, due to the fact that ALL experience is in actuality an infinite, constantly changing, non-repeating, indefinable (in any final way), unpatterned field of miraculously appearing Radiantly Present "energies" existing nowhere else than IN experience, perceived by unknowable, miraculously appearing "consciousness". But our use of words implies that objects and actions may actually exist in the way we refer to them, as knowable, definable objectively existing "beings", "things" and "situations".

This is actually NOT the case.

Taken from theopendoorway.org

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Is it even possible to have a direct translation?

It certainly is. Simply represent every word of the original text as its literal equivalent in the target language.

A direct translation doesn't attempt 'to achieve the highest level of accuracy possible.' It’s more like the lowest. The translator does not make any effort to ensure that the translated work even makes sense in the target language.

For example, the French words cul de sac translate correctly into English as 'dead end' (street), but their literal translation is (pardon the vulgarity) 'arse of a bag'. That is what would appear in a direct translation.

There actually is a more or less literal translation of the I Ching. I have a copy of it. I call it the Evil Twin.

a reply to: socialmediaclown

So I don't know how these statements serve any purpose in your response to me.

They are a legitimate response to someone who invoked the limitations of physics in a thread about metaphysics.

a reply to: Astyanax

Oh yeah....
I have bought electrical goods that have direct translation.......almost if not impossible to follow.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

I think I got my request in first on that one! You answer me, then I'll answer you.

I am entirely willing and able to do so, I promise. But you first.

a reply to: Astyanax

For example, the French words cul de sac translate correctly into English as 'dead end' (street), but their literal translation is (pardon the vulgarity) 'arse of a bag'. That is what would appear in a direct translation.

'Bottom' ......not 'arse'.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

This caught my interest for some reason, reality existing because we make it exist? or do we, so I randomly opened by Zen Flesh Zen Bones mini book to see what it wants to tell us, this is the story, I hope you all enjoy it.

Nothing Exists

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another. He called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.

Desiring to show his attainment, he said: "The mind, Buddha, and sentient beings, after all, do not exist. The true nature of phenomenon is emptiness. There is no realization, no delusion, no sage, no mediocrity. There is no giving and nothing to be received."

Dokuon, who was smoking quietly, said nothing. Suddenly he wacked Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe. This made the youth quite angry.

"If nothing exists," inquired Dokuon "where did this anger come from?"

a reply to: quintessentone

Thanks for the koan

Who said that reality exists because we make it exist?

a reply to: Itisnowagain

À côté votre vielle fille, certainment. Mais en général, c'est un mot utilisé au sens vulgaire. Larousse:

cul. 1. (Vulgaire). Partie postérieure de l'homme et des animaux, comprenant les fesses et le fondement.