[sentient]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

It's such a complicated thing to talk about and no scientists, past or modern, knows what we, or consciousness, actually is. No one knows where consciousness resides, what creates it, what it is made of, and on and on. Yet, it is what we are! How can we be something, be aware we are conscious, that we are experiencing this or that and have zero information about what we actually are or what we are created of or from or how? Scientists would love to make a consciousness to put into a robot or computer I can tell you that.

So it's good to remember that ideas like "body-mind dualism" are largely non-sense. A concept like that is thrown out there and accepted as actually explaining or meaning something and it leaves out or ignores the elephant in the room, consciousness itself.

Take the phrase, "get out of his head and into the body." Consciousness is merged with the body until the death of the body. So any idea of being in the body or out of it is non-sense. We are continually merged with it. With the phrase, "get out of his head" head there is obviously referring to thought which originates in the brain which exists in the head. But then scientists have discovered brain like areas in the body which function as little brains and share data with the large organ in the head so really the brain is a network that exists in various parts in the body as well.

So that sentence or phrase is obviously not accurate in anyway but it is pointing to an idea. Everyone knows the experience of thinking too much, being too focused on ideas, and we can learn or choose (if we are aware of what we are doing) to stop focusing on thought or thinking. It's not even difficult. We can go watch our favorite tv show and boom, we are not focused on our ideas or thoughts anymore. Did we get out of our heads and into our body? Of course not. The conceptual phrase is a way to visualize something using shorthand. "Being in the head" represents the experience of focusing on thought, "body" refers to not focusing on the thinking part of moment to moment content produced by the body. Thought is as much a product of the body as any other perception created by the brain and sense organs. The head and brain are both also parts of the body. So yea a phrase like we get out of our heads and instead into the "body" is pure non-sense.

But we have a experiential link to a nonsensical conceptual phrase like that, it is a finger pointing to the moon to put it into Buddhist terms. It "means" or represents the experience of taking our focus off of thought or thinking. It has to do with what we are, consciousnesses, and what we are merged with, an animal body and it's mind. The fact that we can change what our relationship is with various input and content produced by the body proves consciousness's source cannot be the brain or body. Krishnamurti gave an excellent talk once proving through logic that consciousness and thought cannot have the same source but it was extremely hard to follow and was very complex. But nevertheless, it's true and because "we" are not the body or it's mind and are only merged with it, we have the potential to change our relationship with it's content by understanding it. We identify with the content as us and therefore live in a delusional state and act out and experience these animal natures.

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

I'd point out direct understanding or perceiving I am not the body or it's thoughts does not make me believe in (or experience) a concept of being "a disembodied mind" nor does it make me dualistic or create an experience of dualism. It is a observable fact that I am the perceiver and not the perceived. I am permanent and unchanging, all perceptions are in a continual state of change and impermanence. It is also an observable fact I am merged with this animal body and it's mind. It is the frame of reference from which I experience and perceive for this lifetime.

Dualism has nothing to do with understanding this reality. With understanding experientially what I am and what I am not. Dualism, in the negative religious or philosophical sense, is a consciousness identified with the body's mental content as self, which results in an ego that sees itself (and creates experiences) as separate from everything else, which leads to an experience of "me and that," indirect perception. Perception is filtered through mind or thought, the "personal bias" and that is where "dualism" comes into the equation in a negative sense.

Dualism, like all other concepts, is an idea, a thought or thoughts. Ideas are all temporary and continually changing. They only have the "reality" or meaning we give them. They are an optional layer to what now is. No idea actually defines anything real or actual. As the real or actual is the now as it is, before we label it with ideas or concepts. But then that conceptual human created stuff is of course real and experienced, but it is wholly a creation of mind or thought. It has no source outside of our minds. It is mind projected reality. Consciousness and it's attributes are obscured by this animal mind created reality that surrounds us and is projected.

^
We used to have this tv-program called “Talking Heads”, but I can’t remember ever watching it …

However - in practice - it is best to bring everything down to utter simplicity and a lot depends on how we regard the body:

Tantric Buddhists hold the attitude of understanding that the body is a mandala, a holy temple, and naturally sacred.

https://www.buddhistdoor.net/feature...dy-in-buddhism

*