-- "Are you still afraid of this?"

Originally posted by divegeester
“A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker..."

Is this thought really yours?

Originally posted by black beetle
Is this thought really yours?

Is that a question you really don't know the answer to?

Before the next thought presents itself,
who can tell what it will be?

If we think we control our thinking,
why should this be difficult?

Originally posted by Taoman
Thank you for these words of light.

de nada

Originally posted by divegeester
Is that a question you really don't know the answer to?

Ignoring how to bring to a halt the stream of mental events, you suffer. Ignoring how your thoughts arise, how they cease, how they condition other things and how they are related through subtle relays of causes and effects, you suffer. Ignoring how to perform close investigation of existents, you suffer. Unable to closely investigate existents genuinely, without following theories, you suffer. Unable to cut the string of your thoughts since you cannot evaluate the nature of your mind, you cannot establish your original personal orthopraxis. Instead, naively and pretheoretically you bring up an innate misapprehension regarding your own nature. I am not attacking you. I ‘m attacking your rigid view of practice. I do not imply that your views per se (or any other views) are “false”, I argue that your blind attachment to them is the ground root of your suffering, because due to this attitude you remain caught in the net of attachments. The validity (of a thought, of an argument, of a theory of reality, of epistemology, of a belief) is measured by its efficacy alone, and not by its conformity to the principles of formal logic, of a specific religion, of a philosophical or a metaphysical doctrine, or of epistemology.

If I were telling the above to our Dasa, you would happily agree with me! But now that I ‘m talking to you, you cannot see it, because you believe that you and our Dasa are quite different. However, you two are exactly the same as regards this very common ground root of suffering and the means of its establishment. You are not different than him, as you are not different than anybody else who is attached rigidly to specific theories and views. This rigid attachment is the root delusion that lies at the basis of your suffering; and this root delusion is caused strictly by your insurmountable passion to keep up dueling on the Mountain carrying your Raft on your back. Of course, this does not mean that I am “right” and that you are “wrong”, whatever I say is merely provisional and not some kind of authoritative “absolute truth” that supposedly “comes from G-d” and must therefore be “respected”. It simply means that the reality I perceive is quite different than yours. No problem though: there are as many realities (all of them equally real) as many are the sentient beings.

So to me, our conversation has to do about the nature and the efficacy of the differ thoughts that arise. I am “barking” neither because I am indeed a supposedly “good dog”, nor because I am a “bad dog”, nor because I am both, nor because I am neither; and certainly not because I want you to tell whether I ‘m a “good dog” or not. I ‘m seemingly “barking” because methinks you are putting forth a particular view of praxis that, according to your untenable evaluation, it represents something “greater” than the empty projections of your mind
😵

Originally posted by black beetle
Ignoring how to bring to a halt the stream of mental events, you suffer. Ignoring how your thoughts arise, how they cease, how they condition other things and how they are related through subtle relays of causes and effects, you suffer. Ignoring how to perform close investigation of existents, you suffer. Unable to closely investigate existents genuinel ...[text shortened]... enable evaluation, it represents something “greater” than the empty projections of your mind
😵

Dude, whatever you're smoking, do share with the group!

I do not smoke😵

No Religion. No Attachment. Nothing Holy. If I see an Aprilia RSR250 hard on gas, what does an ant, an eagle, a dog, a goldfish see? Different sentient beings, thus different realities out of the One, for each sentient being is collapsing differently the wavefunction. As a self-measuring system I self-organise my wavefunction splitting it into non overlapping wave packets. After having, by means of this conceptualization, made my own measurings observable in a self consistent and efficacious way, thanks to my consiousness and to my free will I choose which channels I may occupy. This way, I know when my next though will arise, as well as its content. This way, I am not hi-jacked by my mind and my mind serves me in full.

Are you still afraid of this?
😵

Originally posted by black beetle
Ignoring how to bring to a halt the stream of mental events, you suffer. Ignoring how your thoughts arise, how they cease, how they condition other things and how they are related through subtle relays of causes and effects, you suffer. Ignoring how to perform close investigation of existents, you suffer. Unable to closely investigate existents genuinel ...[text shortened]... enable evaluation, it represents something “greater” than the empty projections of your mind
😵

Wrapping up snide commentary in intellectual pseudo-philosophical syntax, which you and one or two other Buddhist types in this forum do, is not really that clever my friend. I prefer people I'm debating (or arguing) with to have the courage to honest, open and direct. So I think you are confusing me with a member of the small group here who are actually impressed with this sort of pompous gobbledygook.

Originally posted by divegeester
Wrapping up snide commentary in intellectual pseudo-philosophical syntax, which you and one or two other Buddhist types in this forum do, is not really that clever my friend. I prefer people I'm debating (or arguing) with to have the courage to honest, open and direct. So I think you are confusing me with a member of the small group here who are actually impressed with this sort of pompous gobbledygook.

What exactly did you evaluate as "snide commentary" as regards my replies to you?

What exactly did you evaluate as "intellectual pseudo-philosophical syntax"? If my thesis is indeed pseudo-philosophical, kindly please feel free to debunk it.

Am I considered "not honest" because I dared to attack your rigid views of practice?

How did you came to conclude that I have not the courage to be open and direct, since I always explain in detail my strings of thoughts and I am ever ready to change my mind on the spot when I see that my thesis is not tenable?


I don't give a rat's @$$ to impress you or anybody else; I am eager to learn from anybody, so I listen everybody's story carefully and I evaluate it according to my awareness. Authorities, I don't like them. Religious way of thinking, I don't like it. Preaching, I don't like it. Rigid views of practice, the so called absolute truth, nonsense painted as "words of G-d"... These unhealthy monsters created out of the human mind are the targets of my attacks, not the individuals who are serving them according to their convenience. Theoplacy, is another enemy I constantly attack. And this nonsense known as "objectivity" too. And non-originality, too.
So I 'm not confusing you with anybody else, I know that you are divegeester my friend.
Are you still afraid of this?
😵

Originally posted by black beetle
I do not smoke😵

No Religion. No Attachment. Nothing Holy. If I see an Aprilia RSR250 hard on gas, what does an ant, an eagle, a dog, a goldfish see? Different sentient beings, thus different realities out of the One, for each sentient being is collapsing differently the wavefunction. As a self-measuring system I self-organise my wavefunction splitti ...[text shortened]... am not hi-jacked by my mind and my mind serves me in full.

Are you still afraid of this?
😵

Okay, here's the thing.

We must be precise in the things we say to others, because others cannot get into our heads and contextualize our words with the groovy imagery we're seeing when we are speaking them. You can take a barrel of fortune cookies and see significance in all the different arrangements of the fortunes that are possible, so being explicit in our meaning is paramount lest we be misunderstood.

To undertake the quest for higher truth and gain a deeper understanding of external reality as well as the inner mind (the "soul" if you will), it is my belief that the first tool—but certainly not the last—that must be wielded is logic. The next tool should be mathematical analysis, and in particular the ideas of continuous change, limit processes, and other notions that typically fall under the dread heading of "calculus". But the universe is not deterministic, and so other tools to be included in the kit are probability theory and statistics. Phenomena that seem impossible can suddenly, with a proper understanding of probability, become quite possible; and the reverse can also prove true, sometimes. Grasping such things, we may be steered sooner rather than later toward deeper knowledge and keener truth.

These analytical tools are a start, for they can help cut away the enormous barrage of noise in the world around us. One does not have to be a logician or mathematician to gain a sufficiently intuitive grasp of these tools to make good use of them. It was Bertrand Russell who said "Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise." Speaking for myself, I can say this rings true. And with these tools I can say I truly understand why the infinity of real numbers is greater than the infinity of whole numbers. I could say more on this, but it is getting late.

Unlike in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Truth underlying reality is not likely to boil down to a single number. There is not likely an absolute frame of reference, much less a central "supreme being" who has dominion over all souls and "commands" them like so many pawns on a chess board. I would find such a being abhorrent, as I do most religions and "holy" things. Many of the things you say resonate with me; but, on the other hand, there is manifestly a lack of precision permeating much of your prose. You may tell me, perhaps poetically, that precision is vague and vagueness precision. Up is down and down is up. Yin and yang and yabba dabba doo. You may do so, but it'll be as water off a duck's back to my mind.

No, a single number is not at the root of everything. But it could be that mathematics is. Mathematics is as much art as science, and it is not, by a long shot, comprised exclusively of cold calculations and dead reckonings. My path, if you want to call it that, is the way of logic and mathematics. I try to work on it every day, to gain further insights into the nature of nature. However, be assured that I also, from time to time, read a poem. 😉

Infinities I think I can handle. It is finiteness that I am afraid of.

Originally posted by black beetle
I don't give a rat's @$$ to impress you or anybody else...

Well, that's fairly direct, I must admit. 😉

Originally posted by black beetle
What exactly did you evaluate as "snide commentary" as regards my replies to you?
What exactly did you evaluate as "intellectual pseudo-philosophical syntax"?

Here you go:

Fallen into phenomena you cannot break free, because attaining forms, sounds, smells, tastes, things to be touched and things to be evaluated you are chained on characteristics and thus chained in theories. Since the conception of a self, of a being, of a soul, of a person does not occur, the “good stuff” is just a projection of your mind; form is emptines, emptiness is form.

So when your next unsupported projection is to be produced by you, acknowledge that a thought of your mind supported by nothing is to be produced, acknowledge that a thought unsupported by form is to be produced. The self-existence of the mind is enormous, but the mind is neither existent nor not existent and its projections are empty. How can you side-step your projections? Just dive into the silent intervals that occur between each single projection of your mind: become an Observer and break free -there is no thing you have to break free from but You; who are You?

Ignoring how to bring to a halt the stream of mental events, you suffer. Ignoring how your thoughts arise, how they cease, how they condition other things and how they are related through subtle relays of causes and effects, you suffer. Ignoring how to perform close investigation of existents, you suffer. Unable to closely investigate existents genuinely, without following theories, you suffer. Unable to cut the string of your thoughts since you cannot evaluate the nature of your mind, you cannot establish your original personal orthopraxis. Instead, naively and pretheoretically you bring up an innate misapprehension regarding your own nature. I am not attacking you. I ‘m attacking your rigid view of practice. I do not imply that your views per se (or any other views) are “false”, I argue that your blind attachment to them is the ground root of your suffering, because due to this attitude you remain caught in the net of attachments. The validity (of a thought, of an argument, of a theory of reality, of epistemology, of a belief) is measured by its efficacy alone, and not by its conformity to the principles of formal logic, of a specific religion, of a philosophical or a metaphysical doctrine, or of epistemology.

If I were telling the above to our Dasa, you would happily agree with me! But now that I ‘m talking to you, you cannot see it, because you believe that you and our Dasa are quite different. However, you two are exactly the same as regards this very common ground root of suffering and the means of its establishment. You are not different than him, as you are not different than anybody else who is attached rigidly to specific theories and views. This rigid attachment is the root delusion that lies at the basis of your suffering; and this root delusion is caused strictly by your insurmountable passion to keep up dueling on the Mountain carrying your Raft on your back. Of course, this does not mean that I am “right” and that you are “wrong”, whatever I say is merely provisional and not some kind of authoritative “absolute truth” that supposedly “comes from G-d” and must therefore be “respected”. It simply means that the reality I perceive is quite different than yours. No problem though: there are as many realities (all of them equally real) as many are the sentient beings.

So to me, our conversation has to do about the nature and the efficacy of the differ thoughts that arise. I am “barking” neither because I am indeed a supposedly “good dog”, nor because I am a “bad dog”, nor because I am both, nor because I am neither; and certainly not because I want you to tell whether I ‘m a “good dog” or not. I ‘m seemingly “barking” because methinks you are putting forth a particular view of praxis that, according to your untenable evaluation, it represents something “greater” than the empty projections of your mind

So here's another 'unsupported empty projection from the rigid mind of the deluded, suffering one': If you want a level conversation with someone, don't talk down to them.

Where's the snide commentary? you ask - I say, go figure.

Am I still afraid of this? you ask - I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Originally posted by Soothfast
Okay, here's the thing.

We must be precise in the things we say to others, because others cannot get into our heads and contextualize our words with the groovy imagery we're seeing when we are speaking them. You can take a barrel of fortune cookies and see significance in all the different arrangements of the fortunes that are possible, so being explic ...[text shortened]... . 😉

Infinities I think I can handle. It is finiteness that I am afraid of.

Edit: “We must be… …misunderstood. “

Yes; I am as precise as it gets.


Edit: “To… …truth.”

Methinks Math is just another language, therefore it is just another tool for the mapping of the reality, thus the convention remains. That is, Math cannot provide us with a 1:1 mapping of the reality. In my opinion all we can have herenow thanks to Math is merely a mathematical 1:1 representation of our mapping of the reality, a representation of the way we perceive specific fractals of reality thanks to our collective subjectivity as regards our consensus about the proper using of the epistemic tool known as “Math”.
I see too that the Universe is not deterministic, we agree. Over here I join hands with Acerbi and I clarify that, herenow, in my opinion the universe is epiontic;


Edit: “These… …getting late."

Yes; as long as you remain free of attachment and you are aware of the fact that Math is not some kind of “Universal Truth” but simply a tested under specific circumstances way of ours that eases us to describe our ever changing physical world, I see no problem. Euclid would drove crazy if someone was asking him to bring up a triangle with three 90 degrees angles, but hopefully we managed to know better long time ago.


Edit: “Unlike… …"holy" things.”

Yes'


Edit: “Many of… …my mind.”

There is no lack of precision. I do not speak “poetically”, I am precise to the hilt. (There is no “up” and “down” without a point of reference, and this point of reference does not exist inherently, does not exist on its own, separated from every other observer contained in the observer Universe; “up” and “down” are just another conventions. Also, there is no “Yin” and “Yang” without a point of reference, so I choose Gankyil and I break free from this dualism, discarding this conventional notion too on the spot because I don’t use to carry my Raft when I duel on the Mountain). There are simply different levels of awareness. You see, I didn’t describe a “rose” as “a fantastic and holy creature of G-d that smells divinely and still can make one bleed if one isn’t careful”. Koans are nothing but fierce attacks to rigid views and preconception; they are hardly understandable in the RHP realm of existence because they were designed in order to ease well trained monks at specific periods of time and places to understand whatever has to be understood (that is, the nature of their mind and the nature of the physical world, so that they could be liberated from Dukkha). If you ignore how to handle them, a barrier they remain.
Our divegeester bangs his skull on a barrier he doesn’t even sees, but it’s his head, and he is free to do his thing. The barrier that blocks him stands there, but all he sees is my finger that points towards that barrier. Hopefully he could sort it out, or maybe not. No big deal; there is no thing that “has to be sorted out” anyway;


Edit: “No, a single… …poem.”

Mathematics is art and science, yes. But it is not the root of everything. It is the root of a specific way of thinking according to our collective subjectivity. The sharper you are getting as regards your noble ArtScience, methinks the most you are aware of the fact that you are dancing in a quantum realm of existence (Popper’s World 3) and thus you are becoming more and more a product of your products. Math is only Us; I argue that the mathematical mind-only projections are empty, they are lacking of inherent existence, they do not exist on their own.
As regards Poetry, oh well, I ‘m not this advanced; the lazy Madhyamika inside me prefers the catuskoti😵


Edit: “Infinities I think I can handle. It is finiteness that I am afraid of.”

Why are you afraid of finiteness?
😵

Originally posted by divegeester
Here you go:

[i]Fallen into phenomena you cannot break free, because attaining forms, sounds, smells, tastes, things to be touched and things to be evaluated you are chained on characteristics and thus chained in theories. Since the conception of a self, of a being, of a soul, of a person does not occur, the “good stuff” is just a projection of your m ...[text shortened]... Am I still afraid of this? you ask - I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Obviously, my replies to you are not a snide commentary. I am nobody’s teacher. I respect you as much I respect myself, and I do not hesitate to spend my time in order to communicate with you. This doesn’t mean that I am forced to agree with you when I disagree. I did not talk down to you; instead, I am attacking openly and directly your rigid views of practice, not your person. Kindly please feel free to debunk my thoughts in full by any means and help me to stand corrected. And kindly please accept my sincere apologies if I offended you by any way. Namaste.

I have to figure no thing, to me it’s as simple as that: you are talking, I evaluate your thoughts; I am talking, you evaluate my thoughts. Who is thinking? Who performs the evaluation? Your mind alone thinks and evaluates, my mind alone thinks and evaluates. I am aware of the fact that I am not my mind and I know that my nature is the nature of my mind. Who are You? And what is Your Nature?

The Middle Way is not good for anybody; and some koans are hell. And I know you have absolutely no idea what I am talking about; this is the reason why you stated earlier that “That's about the weave of it”, whilst this is not the case (and this is the reason why I replied you the way I did: I had to give you specific pieces of information according to my tradition as regards the essence of this specific koan, a quite honest and one of the hardest to be conquered). If it will finally become your Personal Koan or not, it is strictly up to you.
Forget about me, I ‘m irrelevant. This is nothing but a conversation regarding the most fruitful way of the evaluation of the mind (and there are plenty of them), not a personal clash between us two. Should you have specific questions about that koan, I will give you specific, non-authoritative answers according to my tradition, hints that they could ease you to see it in the future on your own without using your eyes. Together we advance Upstream.
May You Be Always Happy!
😵

Originally posted by black beetle
Obviously, my replies to you are not a snide commentary. I am nobody’s teacher. I respect you as much I respect myself, and I do not hesitate to spend my time in order to communicate with you. This doesn’t mean that I am forced to agree with you when I disagree. I did not talk down to you; instead, I am attacking openly and directly your rigid views of ...[text shortened]... n your own without using your eyes. Together we advance Upstream.
May You Be Always Happy!
😵

Well thanks for the loan of the koan, hope you don't moan🙂

Hey, did I just make a poan?