1. Cosmos
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    09 Sep '05 04:57
    Originally posted by AThousandYoung
    I hear a lot of talk about the "soul" but I still don't understand what it is supposed to be. Is it distinct from the "spirit", whatever that is, and the mind? Are spirit and mind distinct from one another?
    A 'soul' is early mankind's explanation for things which we now understand in terms of genetics, physiology of the brain, chemical-electrical impulses, etc.

    Souls do not exist.
  2. Joined
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    09 Sep '05 05:011 edit
    Originally posted by vistesd
    This seems to me to be a crucial matter, and one I have long pondered. The “danger” is that one will find things in such a way that they fit the “clear idea” that one has been holding to begin with. The mind, it seems, has a tendency, when confronted with anything sufficiently different as to be disorienting to its ordinary way of perceiving/thinking/categorizing, to immediately—and subconsciously—begin to “translate” things into images/thoughts/ideas it can understand. Ergo, if one who was seeking the Christ (ho Christos)—or if the seeker simply happens to be steeped in that tradition, or was studying it recently—has an experience of the “divine ground of being” (just using that as a catch-all term; could be Brahman, God, Tao, etc.), the mind is likely to translate that overwhelming experience into Christian images and terms. For a Hindu, it might be Krishna, etc. The same divine ground of being could be pre-consciously translated by different people into different terms, none of them more than a “translation.” Then, of course, they might all begin arguing about which one is right!

    Yes, the Bardo Thosgrol (Tibetan Book of the Dead) goes deeply into this. It even goes so far as to suggest that this tendency to project our expectations onto reality is what dominates the after-death state.

    The Zen response is generally to dismiss all such images as illusory, not be held onto.

    They call it "makyo" -- a compound of the Japanese words "ma" ( "diabolic" ) and "kyo" ( the world, or "form" ) -- literally, the "devil in form", that is, the tendency of the mind to be seduced, again and again, into allowing its attention to get caught and trapped by form, either imagery, or object. When the mind stabilizes in pure consciousness, then it rests in pure formlessness. This is why Buddhism equates "truth" with the "void". Not because it is "nothing", but because it is without form.

    ...But no tradition simply says, "Do this and see what happens".

    Zen masters sometimes come close to this. I think maybe the most the traditions can (should) do is to provide a framework that allows the journey to be undertaken safely (“Here’s the map; here’s your seatbelt; you can throw them both away later” ).


    Rinzai Zen Buddhism in particular is deeply and almost exclusively experiential. On a typical "sesshin" or "rohatsu" (intensive retreats) the practitioner or seeker is given a koan (rationally insoluble riddle) and nothing more. He/she is given a device, and that's it.

    In the formal "dokusans" (meetings with the master), when asked the answer to the koan, no intellectual answers are accepted. All are thrown out, without question. The mind of the seeker is pushed relentlessly into direct experience.
  3. Hmmm . . .
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    09 Sep '05 05:091 edit
    Originally posted by Metamorphosis
    [b]This seems to me to be a crucial matter, and one I have long pondered. The “danger” is that one will find things in such a way that they fit the “clear idea” that one has been holding to begin with. The mind, it seems, has a tendency, when confronted with anything sufficiently different as to be disorienting to its ordinary way of perceiving/thinkin ...[text shortened]... own out, without question. The mind of the seeker is pushed relentlessly into direct experience.
    [/b]Do you think a koan can be given and “analyzed” effectively via mail, as Seung Sahn does?

    BTW, have you ever read anything on “Centering Prayer,” a Trappist method deveolped (or re-discovered) by Thomas Keating and Basil Pennington?
  4. Standard memberBosse de Nage
    Zellulärer Automat
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    09 Sep '05 07:42
    Originally posted by Metamorphosis
    [b] When the mind stabilizes in pure consciousness, then it rests in pure formlessness. This is why Buddhism equates "truth" with the "void". Not because it is "nothing", but because it is without form.
    [b]
    Ain Soph? Just a thought.
  5. London
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    09 Sep '05 10:35
    Originally posted by vistesd
    Lucifershammer: [b]The seeker must still have as clear an idea as possible of what he is seeking.

    Bosse de Nage: If you see Buddha on the road, chop him into little pieces.

    This seems to me to be a crucial matter, and one I have long pondered. The “danger” is that one will find things in such a way that they fit the “clear idea” that one ...[text shortened]... nd. It is perhaps an attampt at a dialectical “synthesis” between the one-versus-many question.[/b]
    Btw, I really appreciate your effort in attempting a "dialectical synthesis" of two seemingly opposed viewpoints. Amidst all the cut and thrust on this forum, it is easy to forget that this is not the Debates forum - the primary goal here should be to discuss and enrich.

    BTW, LH—it sounds as if your understanding of “soul” is getting close to something like “the suchness that I call myself, as it is manifest in (and from) the suchness of the ‘all of all of it,’ with whatever inseparable elements that make up that suchness.”

    Another term sometimes used for 'essence' and 'form' is quiddity or 'whatness' (Lat. quid - "what", "in what manner"😉.

    St. Thomas Aquinas conceived of God as that being whose essence was Existence itself. All that exists exists by virtue of that essence of God. In the words of the Nicene Creed, "[God is the] Creator of All that Is, Seen and Unseen".

    Just one thing to remember though - the quiddity of me is not me. The design or blueprint of a building is not the same as the building itself*.

    The quiddity of "all of all of it" is perhaps a little difficult to understand. It would have to be the quiddity of the totality of all Being. What makes "all of all of it" or "all that is" "all that is"? I would think the only answer could be - that it exists. Note - the quiddity is not Existence itself, but the property of existence. In other words, "all that is" is because it is entangled-with (borrowing your term) is-ness itself.

    In simpler terms, the quiddity of "all of all of it" is that "all of all of it" was created by God.

    * Funny how that should come up in a thread that has included analogies of the finger not being the Moon and the map not being the territory.

    That phrase entangled-with is just my attempt to capture the idea that, to see just the ground (e.g., Brahman) and not the figures/forms that stand out (ex-ist) from the ground, is as much illusion (maya) as to think that the figures/forms are somehow separate from the ground, and not connected with each other through the ground.

    This is the key point I keep emphasising (and, I think, is related your constant "slipping back"😉.

    It is perhaps an attampt at a dialectical “synthesis” between the one-versus-many question.

    And this forum is the better for it. 🙂
  6. Hmmm . . .
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    09 Sep '05 16:551 edit
    Originally posted by lucifershammer
    Btw, I really appreciate your effort in attempting a "dialectical synthesis" of two seemingly opposed viewpoints. Amidst all the cut and thrust on this forum, it is easy to forget that this is not the Debates forum - the primary goal here should be to discuss and enrich.

    [b]BTW, LH—it sounds as if your understanding of “soul” is getting close to ...[text shortened]... “synthesis” between the one-versus-many question.


    And this forum is the better for it. 🙂[/b]
    Thanks for the kind words. 🙂

    Let me offer two points:

    1. I have difficulty thinking of my essence or quiddity or suchness as a “blueprint” for a few reasons.

    (a) A blueprint can be drawn up, rolled up and filed in the round file; or stored in a drawer; or used over and over again (think pre-fab housing). A building ex-ists in/from the surrounding landscape. If my essence is simply my design, you can simply map it out for one of those transparent flip-page things in biology books.

    Or—another analogy—I don’t see the written score as the essence of the music played from it…

    (b) We have been using “cartography” as a metaphor for talking about, analyzing, describing “what is a soul.” The blueprint metaphor seems to me to fall into that category.

    (c) I think the blueprint analogy has the same problems, at least for me, as does, say, the old watch/watchmaker one—i.e., it’s too inorganic and mechanical.

    (d) I just don’t think my essence or quiddity is separate from me, as the blueprint is separate from the building(s) built from it. I think the quiddity of me is me; let’s say that complex of features that is absolutely required for there to be me—hence, essence, essential. If you chop off my toes, am I still somehow me? If I lose my memory, am I still somehow me? What can you not separate from me in order for me to remain me (and I don’t mean the social me)? Maybe that quiddity is not a “thing,” nor a blueprint, but simply a kind of active coherence of features.

    2. I have been letting this Aquinian essence/existence stuff percolate idly for a long time now, since you first raised it to me in another thread. Surely I owe you at least an attempt a response by now? 🙂 Anyway, I’ll give it a shot: My essence is my existence!

    Now I can get condemned both by theists, for heresy; and by monists for lapsing into maya! I can only really respond to the latter, since I am more in that camp (though I am hardly “orthodox” wherever I go). I’ll try to explain:

    To use a very simplistic, though common, metaphor—I am a wave heaved up, moved by and filled with the ocean. I am distinct as a wave; I have perspective as a wave, I can see other waves; I may have some free will as a wave, the capability to steer myself a bit here and there like a surfer. And someday I will fall back into the ocean of which I am.

    This is a figure/ground metaphor, and has its limitations. But (a) I have no essence as “I” separate from my ex-isting out from the ground of my being; and that I-ness formed from the ground is transient. (b) The ground from which I am formed is not transient, and its nature is my "underlying" essence. (c) However, it is the nature of that ground to form from itself forms. (d) Hence my existing form is an expression of that essence and part of my essential nature. And (e) An aspect of my essential nature is to also form forms, to create, to imagine, to shape my life as I go along—but always subject to the nature of the ground from which I cannot separate myself. Just before he died, Ramakrishna’s disciples were pleading with him, “Please don’t go! Please don’t go!” He replied: “Don’t be silly. Where could I possibly ‘go’.”

    So essence and existence are inextricably “entangled,” and cannot in reality be separated.

    Kabir wrote: The Holy One manifests himself [sic] in a myriad forms; I sing the glory of the forms!”

    ************************************************

    Re Metamorphosis, post with the analogy of the lost temple—I am not satisfied with even my descriptions. So I have to see….
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    09 Sep '05 21:45
    Originally posted by vistesd
    Do you think a koan can be given and “analyzed” effectively via mail, as Seung Sahn does?

    BTW, have you ever read anything on “Centering Prayer,” a Trappist method deveolped (or re-discovered) by Thomas Keating and Basil Pennington?[/b]
    I think koan-work is possible under any circumstances, but for most people probably works better under some semblance of in-person structure, such as in a guided retreat. But ultimately the koan is meant to be "with" one throughout one's life. Personally I think that Ramana Maharshi's "Who Am I?" is the ultimate koan.

    I've seen Seung Sahn in person, by the way. Sat in one of his talks in Toronto over 20 years ago. I even payed a visit to his center there at that time and participated in some of his meditation practices. A very fine teacher, though I lost track of him over the years.

    "Centering prayer", from what I know of it, is very similar to Sufi "zikr" work, the constant remembrance of God. That being a prayer that is more effectively a type of meditation, or perhaps the place where prayer and meditation overlap each other.

    Have you explored this method?
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    09 Sep '05 21:53
    Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
    Ain Soph? Just a thought.
    Ein Soph as the "unknowable, infinite God" would be very similar to the Buddhist notion of "formless void", yes, although the Buddhist approach would eliminate any attempt to ascribe "Being-ness" to this formlessness. But then again, I'm not sure that Jewish mysticism ascribes "Being-ness" to Ein Soph either. It seems to emphasize only the limitlessness and unknowableness of "it".
  9. Hmmm . . .
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    10 Sep '05 15:251 edit
    Originally posted by Metamorphosis
    I think koan-work is possible under any circumstances, but for most people probably works better under some semblance of in-person structure, such as in a guided retreat. But ultimately the koan is meant to be "with" one throughout one's life. Personally I think that Ramana Maharshi's "Who Am I?" is the ultimate koan.

    I've seen Seung Sahn i ...[text shortened]... haps the place where prayer and meditation overlap each other.

    Have you explored this method?
    Centering Prayer is actually closer to Soto shikan taza, I think. You sit comfortably and allow your mind to become quiet. If thought arise, you let them go. When you "catch" yourself following thoughts or images ("thinking" ), you simply say silently to yourself a "sacred" word or short phrase, which becomes a trigger for returning to "not thinking." The sacred word can be anything really (I just used "letting go" ). At the beginning, you might be repeating the sacred word a lot.

    There is a kind of "active prayer" that is recommended for non-sitting periods, which is saying any short prayer phrase repetitively to the heart-rhythm. This seems close to the Hesychast use of the "Jesus Prayer." But the sitting prayer/meditation is the center.

    Yes, I did an 8-day CP intensive retreat (mostly in silence) a number of years ago. That is where I first experienced what I might call kensho, based on Zen descriptions.
  10. Standard memberoilman
    Glory To GOD !
    Jesus Is Lord !!
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    12 Sep '05 07:16
    Originally posted by KellyJay
    I'll tell you what I think; soul is our inner makeup, our life. the essence
    of what we are, our true selves, while spirit is the spark of life that is
    us. I'm sure others may have a different view but this is always what I
    thought about those two words, if it makes sense.
    Kelly
    The spirit and soul are so inner-twined that the only thing that can separate them is the Word of God. And even that is only a separation for clarrifcation of which one is functioning at that given moment. The spirit is perfect without sin once it has be made alive in the born again process of recieving Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour. The spirit fuctions in the realm of faith, hope, love, reverence, and worship and it is spirit to Spirit communication. The soul functions from the realm of imagination, affection, conscience, memory, and reason, however the soul is in need of grace and mercy. " Work out your salvation with fear and trembling " (Philipians 2:12 ) The flesh, or body, is non redeemable and will return to the earth but the spirit and soul will enter into eternal life with God and will recieve a incorruptable body or eternal damnation with satan and will be cast into the lake of fire. You choose !
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