Aware Wolf

There's no practice. Just listening. Then maybe pondering. Also since its a podcast one can listen to it whenever. Tomorrow like.

"Is Leo delusional or is it Buddhism?" Gee. Let me take a stab at this one lol... - This is Leo Gura we're talking about here right who claimed to be God in his Awakening in Real Time video, omniscient, and could cure diseases (yet was so silly he didn't edit out being puzzled whether his camera was recording or not!). How do you know if someone is legit or delusional? One way is come back in a few years and see how they are doing. Delusional teachers have to reinvent themselves, find something new and improved, to sell their students. For example, Daniel Ingram in his first edition of his "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha" , claimed to be an Arahant. An Arahant is wayyyy up there -- like a Buddha really. His book is very technical and mappy and inspired a lot of young, western males. So what do we find in his second edition? That Daniel has taken up Magick! But of course! It's brilliant really because there's no vetting possible. Daniel in an interview with Guru Viking says he's had to battle some (presumably evil) magicians -- and it's like a boss fight in World of Warcraft. Daniel tells of how he used magick, in a dream, and made a rock disappear from his hand. In the second edition, Daniel now has a chapter warning of fairies. Okayyy. So early Leo was more aligned with Buddhism and now he's not...Leo is now Leo. But of course. Leo read a few books on Buddhism. Leo didn't spend years on Buddhist retreat, was never a monk, didn't get a degree in Buddhist studies. Leo in his videos regularly and consistently got Buddhism wrong. Leo never had a teacher. Leo in other words is hardly an expert, never was, and dont know shit. A lot of gurus go the Ingram and Gura route. They may start out sounding fairly sane, maybe some quirkiness, a few red flags (expert on everything, narcissism, big ego) but often eventually their house of cards falls. To explain it requires more delusion. Outside enemies. Demons. See Heavens Gate. Jim Jones. Keith Raniere. Osho. Etc etc.

If you ask a dozen Buddhists what Buddhism is about, you might get a dozen different answers. "Philosophy of non-clinging" -- Christopher Titmuss "My religion is Kindness" -- Dalai Lama There's a Buddhist sutta where Buddha says he emphasizes in his teaching suffering and the end of suffering. Note suffering is a translation from Pali of the word, dukkha. Dukkha has also been translated as stress. There's also a sutta of the two arrows. One arrow is physical pain, the other mental. The worldly feels both arrows, the instructed only feels the first arrow. Equanimity is in many Buddhist lists and should be developed. So this whole ending suffering could be drastically reduced thru the practice of equanimity. So suffering doesnt have to disappear -- you just handle it. Does Buddhism concern awakening? Phil quoted a piece in this thread where Buddhism certainly is. But what's your definition of awakening? For many nondualists, it's realizing No-Self (or non self). Well gee thats Anatta and was literally the first teaching of the Buddha (whose name literally means one who is awake). Many people if asked who is enlightened might point to the Dalai Lama. Buddhist meditation is not about stopping thoughts or even concentration. You won't find in the suttas (Early Buddhism) any concentration practices. No mantras, for example. No trances. If you look at the Satipathanna sutta where the Buddha lays out meditation -- a method the Buddha calls "a direct path to liberation" you'll find its more a roving meditation. Breathing, 4 foundations, the Elements, Death, Impermance, 7 Factors of Enlightenment... It's meditation, being mindful, and practicing for Insight. As U Tejaniya says, Awareness alone is not enough. See Analayo Excellent Guided Meditation here

I was just listening to Sarvapriyanananda today. His audios on the Drg Drsha Viveka. I think traditional Advaita Vedanta can help seekers even after they've had an awakening if nothing else it helps put the experience in words well. Also after an experience usually comes putting it into a some conceptual framework.

@Blessed2 it depends, like a lot of discussions, on how we define: mind, the I.... "What is this?" Or "Who/What am I?" Are lifelong koans.

The sacred feminine. I make jokes about this. The female is half the planet. It seems a bit like one can over generalize here. But i think its for what purpose you're using the term -- is it helpful? Back on Actualized, they would divide people up into colors, Spiral Dynamics. Of course if you are on Actualized, you're already far ahead in colors and people who don't understand you -- are a lower spiritual color. Spiral dynamics explains everything. Lol. BUT hey if SD is helpful to you, go for it. I didn't see it. I didn't find the model useful. It's not useful if you blow UP your own ego and everyone else in your life is a lower color. I would never tell anyone "They need more green color in their life" , or "They should embrace the sacred masculine" Many times, this can come off badly. Who are you to tell another forum member what they need? Also you're using spiritual jargon. Jargon this person may not appreciate or accept. "@Joseph you need JESUS"

Sometimes i hear people say "You gotta let that shit go," sometimes I hear something like "Your actions determine your results" If Mandy served me cold soup, I'd be happy. Wow. We would have met in person for this to happen. If its cold soup served by an aunt with mild dementia -- of course I say nothing but thanks. If the soup is free, I let it go. If I've waited 45 minutes for the soup in a restaurant, than I wouldn't be happy (probably). Mindfulness gives a pause to employ hopefully a wise course. Maybe i complain to the waiter. Maybe i write a bad review online. Maybe I just don't order the soup again if the other dishes are fine. Sometimes wisdom is knowing when to let go and when to tighten up. One size does not fit all. Being free means to me having a full range of human emotions and responses.

I'm waiting for @Mandyto do a youtube video on psychedelics. I Think psychedelics can be a complementary approach on the path. I just finished watching Pollan's "How to Change Your Mind" Netflix documentary on psychedelics. His book by same name is excellent too.

This is what i point to if someone wonders about meaning in coincidences, dreams, tarot, iching,

There are no masters. In the Bible, I think the context might be, you can't serve mammon/samsara/sensuality/money and serve God. At least well with all your heart.

How does one see thru illusion ? Our senses lie to us all the time. Direct experience is fine, but again, it may be illusion at least to some degree. It might be useful for our purposes illusion, but still. Then almost immediately we put our experiences into some conceptual framework. I watch a lot of nondualists on YouTube and I don't doubt that most have had an awakening experience. But how they explain it, how they frame awakening (for everyone) -- differs greatly. Sometimes I like how they frame it, many times I don't. It's just their own take on it after the fact. Your mileage may vary. Direct experience needs to be followed up by reflection or education. The party experience cited where people got "drunk" but only drank non alcoholic beer -- a direct experience approach relies upon memory -- was I drunk ? (answer, yes). Or present moment. Do I feel drunk now? Possibly again, yes. The Placebo effect is very strong. Sometimes people think of the placebo effect as totally imaginary (not real) but it's not. It's real. There's a study heard of where they did a fake knee surgery (placebo) vs. a real one. The placebo group had real knee healing as if the surgery had been done. https://www.painscience.com/biblio/fascinating-landmark-study-of-placebo-surgery-for-knee-osteoarthritis.html Advaita Vedanta says the root problem is ignorance and ignorance is best resolved in education. The classic example is seeing a coiled rope as the snake. The direct experience is seeing ... a coiled serpent like thing that SURE LOOKS LIKE A SNAKE! You can also pray about it or meditate and it won't do much good. One will still most likely see the rope as a snake. Somebody tells you that the beer is non-alcohlic. That's the fast way to do it. Maybe the person is too drunk or giddy to hear this and can't / won't listen. Then you might say, go onto the balcony get some cool air. Splash some cool water on your face. Maybe even take some deep breaths (meditate) a bit. Meditation won't directly reveal the truth here in this story, but it might be useful to prepare you for it by calming the mind. Now the person might be ready for instruction. Ajahn Amaro has a talk where he talks of the reflective power of "Is that so?" For someone who is hypocondriac, this might help. Well, truly IMO for most it would help to be a bit more reflective.

Good question. There's a lot to say here. On the one hand, we should expect some difference, because otherwise what's the point. Then again, an enlightened person can live an ordinary life too and not take on airs. Sometimes they say we may meet an enlightened person and not know it. Dogen says we may not even be aware of our own enlightenment. Did Buddha manifest "more"? Ramana? There was a yogi who would manifest watches ! (then a BBC documentary crew found film evidence of sleight of hand) Uusually the riches are in a spiritual kingdom. Buddhism tries to minimize craving/wanting. As Tenzin Palmo told me, even if you do get what you want -- you're still stuck in samsara. I mention often all the rock stars who killed themselves at a young age. They had riches, fame, groupies... but still... IMO, NO. But there's a book, The Diamond Cutter, by Michael Roach, a Buddhist who went into the diamond business and became rich. Roach is controversial, He's popular among the rich because he says the rich are blessed with good karma. While if you're poor -- its your own fault. Although if one spent six months at a monastery, getting up early, and getting a handle on one's mind -- it probably would be beneficial in any life path including business. Yes, but not all the time. One of Buddhisms 7 factors of enlightenment is Joy. Though another is Equanimity. No. As you point out the Buddha had bad things happen to him. There's a zen koan: "An enlightened man falls into a well. How is this so?" I like this quote from U Tejaniya: You have to accept and watch both good and bad experiences. You want only good experiences? You don’t want even the tiniest unpleasant experience? Is that reasonable? Is this the way of the Dhamma! I say No, but Tibetan Buddhist friends might disagree. I point out practically, The Dalai Lama lost his country. Tibetan monks were massacred by the PLA. Gandhi was shot. Lama Yeshe died of cancer at like 51. Trungpa died early of alcoholism. Monks get murdered. Nuns get raped. However I notice you say "dealing with" -- I think someone on the Path may be able to handle adversity better. It's not luck. It's equanimity, mindfulness, grit, and resilience. An awakened person can get stuck in traffic along with everyone else. They probably shouldn't throw a tantrum about it. Nor do I expect them to bliss out over it. Minus points too if they say "It's what the Universe wants, bro" in a non ironic way. Although it's never easy. This too shall pass... Let them prove their claims. Interesting stories though. Why do YOU walk this path? What's important to you? What is your concept of awakening? What does an enlightened @Omelettelook like? I believe our awakening is at least partially dependent upon our concept of it. There are no levels and Zen says there is nothing to attain. If there are levels or stages supposed, perhaps for pedagogical or other reasons, they don't unfold the same way for all and they're not always linear. People may be Primed too to have the expected experience: Yoga people may experience Kundalini, Mahasi people may note vibrations, Zen people may get Kensho, Shamans may receive a visit from an animal guide, Christian mystics may experience God, and Pentecostals may speak in Tongues. There’s huge individual differences too. Your experience is your experience. Your path is your path. Nothing apparently happening in your practice, practice variance, regression of practice, and spiritual bypassing will f*ck with people more than you think, even advanced practitioners. Maybe even you. Awakening is like love. The experience we have of romantic love is formulated by our concept of romantic love. Perhaps an even clearer example of something that is defined by its concept, is money. If we all woke up tomorrow forgetting what money was, there would be no money. Money, Romantic Love, and Awakening are concepts. They do exist. But your experience of love depends at least partly upon your concept of love. Your experience of awakening depends at least partly upon your concept of awakening. Although not denying there may be other factors and some nonconceptual components included too. - Whether we hold to a perfect ideal or to freedom within our humanity, awakening is a mystery with which each tradition and student has to grapple. The resolution of this mystery will finally be answered in the heart. It is here that the opposites can be held, understood, reconciled. Only the heart can contain both our perfection and our humanity. Leaving maps and expectations behind, in the end we must turn our hearts in the direction of love and awareness, come what may. In living from this awakened heart we all become bodhisattvas, all servants of the Divine. We replace any claims of levels of enlightenment with a vow to awaken each moment, together with all beings. This is the path of patience, compassion, wisdom, and generosity, the path of our willingness to live in the reality of the present. Only here can we find freedom and rest in a timeless perfection. As Suzuki Roshi put it: “Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.” If there is a self who claims enlightenment, that is not it. Instead, he went on, “What we are speaking about is moment-to-moment enlightenment, one enlightenment after another.” -- Jack Kornfield. After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.

Love this. Brilliant.

Oh is that the secret to your insights ? getting wasted ? Present = Present ? Or was it FAS ? LOL The Troll appears ! I wondered why @Mandy, @Phil couldn't make any headway. But sure, I'm away. I'll block you so I don't have to read anymore enlightenment stink. Erp.

Nope. Now we're at anotherrr layer. What is this nothing? Are we any further along? Is this your Present = Present except you've subsituted Prsent = Nothing ? Have we deluded ourselves into thinking we understand it, that we're actually answering something? Perhaps @Mandy could be of help here:

I loved this "So what is now from no standpoint?" -- it's short, beautiful, powerful. It's something to ponder.

This. I wrote up a post pointing out similar things. Then immediately after I saw Phil make a post and he's saying the same thing too but he's much nicer. I said @Someone here too much word bullshit expanding on his TRUTHS. Phil pointed out the conceptualizing, the layers involved. It amused me to see how Phil said the same thing but with grandmotherly kindness. I loved Mandy's pointers here in this thread -- they were really very good -- but did they hit home? I Did it do any good ? Nope. I see posts where @Someone here Good God. I think I threw up a little in my mouth reading that. Present = Present. Okay, buddy. This is absurd. This is worse than nondual bears. You've shifted from being a seeker, a questioner to pedantically lecturing on your own views. Which frankly are word salad bullshit. You don't answer questions. If you've got it all figured out, cool, or you're a troll, we're done here I guess.

Anytime there's a "of course" -- hold unto your wallet. Tell me what is this "now" you speak of. define it, please. That's, excuse my language, bullsh*t loaded upon more bullshit. It means nothing. Its like word salad. Define immediate. define experience. and omg experiencer s. this stream of nows that you speak of -- is it one right after another ? if so, which one is the present? which one is NOWest Now? Is there a cutoff or no? If there's no cutoff then everything is the Now. past Nows are now Now. Nice. If there is a cutoff how is it determined? Is this minute Now? This second? This billionth of a second? This trillionth? Wait didnt that trillionth of a second already pass? There's sensory processing lag. So arent we actually living in the past, not some "NOW"?? There was a Star Trek Original series where everything was greatly sped for Kirk while time seemed to freeze for the Enterprie and crew. There's no time. Time is a construct. So there's no present. There's no "immediate" , "experience" is a bullshit word but I"ll point you to that experience is an illusion. Is your experience reality? Always? Illusions are not what they seem, doesnt mean they dont exist. "Experiencer" sounds dualistic. See @Philpointers even on this thread. Find this experiencer. Ya could be. I usually present with words like "its a POV", "a perspective" I recommend that you do this. My posts here are often to show people have settled on a POV early and arent considering alternatives. However I think my post was quite clear even if you didnt like it. "Have you ever had a dream you thought was real?" -- why would you think Im guessing here? Does my question sound like I'm guessing or perhaps I'm trying to have you consider question something? again, you go too far. did I deny cause and effect? If you think that you failed to read Baizhang's Fox! I hoped to help you consider cause and effect. I liked the Malaria example but it didnt do a damn thing did it? Why do I drink water? WHY DID THE BOWLING PIN FALL DOWN? Why do you drink water? I suspect you dont understand my point so Ill spell it out Maybe I'm thirsty. But that's vague and what is this "thirst" and who does it happen to? There's a signal sent to drink *something*. Maybe I dont think "it'll quench my thirst" like you assume (after the drinking of water)--(maybe it won't). Maybe I don't drink water. There's a choice of beverages here that you are skipping. hmm. Why did I choose water instead something else? I'm not entirely sure. Maybe I drank water in advance of being thirsty because I'm a hydro homie. Maybe its a habit. I fast and I've dry fasted and many days I don't drink anything at all. If being thirsty is the cause to drink water it seems to be a weak one, your example strikes me as a just-so story invented often after the fact to explain it away. If you were honest, you'd have to say you dont know yourself why you drink water much less know why I drank water. "Why did the Mr. Smith marry Ms Jones?" -- A: "Mr Smith was thirsty/horny." It's sloppy analysis. Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy traps I say this with kindness but you assume too much, write too much and listen too little and reflection is not ongoing. "Not falling into causation." Why was he turned into a fox? "Not ignoring causation." Why was he released from the fox body? If you have an eye to see through this, then you will know that the former head of the monastery did enjoy his five hundred happy blessed lives as a fox.[5] Not falling, not ignoring: Odd and even are on one die. Not ignoring, not falling: Hundreds and thousands of regrets!

Is cause and effect still viable? What causes malaria? Answer: A mosquito But is this true? It's not all mosquitoes but the female Anopheles mosquito that causes malaria. And it's not actually the mosquito but a virus the mosquito carries. The virus must be transmitted into the body by the bite of the mosquito. No bite , no malaria. Also the body has to be overwhelmed by the virus for malaria to occur. So what actually causes malaria? MALARIA Consider a very simple linear problem. What causes a bowling pin to fall down? It's hit by a bowling ball? Certainly that has to be clear. Nope. Many pins will still stand up. They might wobble but still stand. The pin only falls down once past it's recovery point. So what actually causes a bowling pin to fall ? -- It's falling. I like the zen koan Baizhang's fox "Does a enlightened person who practices with great devotion still fall into cause and effect? "

Again, I think its going too far. The table may be more than just a mere thought, but it's going too far and its a delusion reifying objects as physical or special. What is a physical object? Maybe you're dreaming it all. Have you ever had a dream you thought was real? How do you know? You say you can knock on wood to verify it -- but that knock is just a memory. Your senses are telling you something but your senses lie to you all the time. Even Science says the wood is atoms and atoms are mostly blank space and energy.

My POV is there is no Now. "Now" . I dont understand the people who think there is. It seems obvious (to me) its a delusion too.

It can get pretty good. It can get pretty bad. The Buddha had back pain. His sangha schismed and his cousin tried to kill him. Ramana was robbed and beaten. Gandhi was imprisoned and shot. Jesus was an exception as nothing bad ever happened to him. U Tejaniya writes: "You have to accept and watch both good and bad experiences. You want only good experiences? You don’t want even the tiniest unpleasant experience? Is that reasonable? Is this the way of the Dhamma!" I often suggest not happiness practices but instead equanimity practice as its very practical.

Like I Dream of Genie?

If you've read Sam, you're ahead of the game then. But your implications are very different than his. Sam doesn't say nothing matters and he doesn't have a nihilistic view of no free will at all. Okay. I can give you one objection off the top of my head. The brain studies are on relatively trivial decisions (raise your left hand if....). Maybe it's a different system if you ask someone to sit down and ponder an issue and weigh the pros and cons. Maybe. I think there's causes and conditions certainly for our actions. How could there not be? Attributing things to quantum works on the very smallest level. The brain is a couple levels above quantum so I dunno. I do think the brain changes and perhaps in a problem you're giving me one neuron branch might on the fly give more weight to a choice than another. Unless one is a ominiscient God -- and can model a human brain that changes on the fly -- you're not going to be able to predict the end results 100%. Again, I'm with you until you get to your implications where you delve into nihilism. It's a POV. I don't think it's "True" nor is it beneficial. Zen says there is no good or bad -- but a zen master added "There is good and bad!" If you rape, murder etc and think it's not your fault because you believe you don't have free will (and you've read Sam Harris) -- you should reread Harris. Although it might all be turning on the word "fault" maybe the murderer/rapist is never really at "fault" -- but they can still be considered a danger and locked up for plenty of years. Vs. someone with no criminal record, good work history, who one day misidentifies and mistakenly eats some pot brownies and does a strip dance in front of Walmart. As Buddhism says, we are all heirs to our karma (actions). We have to take responsibility for them. Saying we're not at fault seems to me to be dangerously suggesting that we are not responsible for our actions and consequences. Maybe you don't mean that. See Harris's chapter five on Moral Responsibility. He writes: We need not have any illusions that a causal agent lives within the human mind to recognize that certain people are dangerous. What we condemn most in another person is the conscious intention to do harm. Degrees of guilt can still be judged by reference to the facts of a case: the personality of the accused, his prior offenses, his patterns of association with others, his use of intoxicants, his confessed motives with regard to the victim, etc. If a person’s actions seem to have been entirely out of character, this might influence our view of the risk he now poses to others. If the accused appears unrepentant and eager to kill again, we need entertain no notions of free will to consider him a danger to society. Why is the conscious decision to do another person harm particularly blameworthy? Because what we do subsequent to conscious planning tends to most fully reflect the global properties of our minds—our beliefs, desires, goals, prejudices, etc. If, after weeks of deliberation, library research, and debate with your friends, you still decide to kill the king—well, then killing the king reflects the sort of person you really are. The point is not that you are the ultimate and independent cause of your actions; the point is that, for whatever reason, you have the mind of a regicide. Certain criminals must be incarcerated to prevent them from harming other people. The moral justification for this is entirely straightforward: Everyone else will be better off this way. Dispensing with the illusion of free will allows us to focus on the things that matter—assessing risk, protecting innocent people, deterring crime, etc. Let me post a bit more of Sam here cause I think he expresses it well" One way of viewing the connection between free will and moral responsibility is to note that we generally attribute these qualities to people only with respect to actions that punishment might deter.22 I cannot hold you responsible for behaviors that you could not possibly control. If we made sneezing illegal, for instance, some number of people would break the law no matter how grave the consequences. A behavior like kidnapping, however, seems to require conscious deliberation and sustained effort at every turn—hence it should admit of deterrence. If the threat of punishment could cause you to stop doing what you are doing, your behavior falls squarely within conventional notions of free will and moral responsibility. It may be true that strict punishment—rather than mere containment or rehabilitation—is necessary to prevent certain crimes. But punishing people purely for pragmatic reasons would be very different from the approach that we currently take. Of course, if punishing bacteria and viruses would prevent the emergence of pandemic diseases, we would mete out justice to them as well. A wide variety of human behaviors can be modified by punishments and incentives—and attributing responsibility to people in these contexts is quite natural. It may even be unavoidable as a matter of convention. As the psychologist Daniel Wegner points out, the idea of free will can be a tool for understanding human behavior. To say that someone freely chose to squander his life’s savings at the poker table is to say that he had every opportunity to do otherwise and that nothing about what he did was inadvertent. He played poker not by accident or while in the grip of delusion but because he wanted to, intended to, and decided to, moment after moment. For most purposes, it makes sense to ignore the deep causes of desires and intentions—genes, synaptic potentials, etc.—and focus instead on the conventional outlines of the person. We do this when thinking about our own choices and behaviors—because it’s the easiest way to organize our thoughts and actions. Why did I order beer instead of wine? Because I prefer beer. Why do I prefer it? I don’t know, but I generally have no need to ask. Knowing that I like beer more than wine is all I need to know to function in a restaurant. Whatever the reason, I prefer one taste to the other. Is there freedom in this? None whatsoever. Would I magically reclaim my freedom if I decided to spite my preference and order wine instead? No, because the roots of this intention would be as obscure as the preference itself.

Genies can be tricky. Do I have free will now? What is free will? How will my life change if I don't have free will and I now get it? or Vice versa ? Will it be better or worse? And what happened to the traditional three wishes thing??