Right knowledge

[sky]

Originally Posted by Bohdiyana

In a movie theater, one does not have to look at the screen or pay attention to the sounds. But to do this, one has to be aware one in in a theater and not turn over one's attention and experience to the present environment. One has to be awake and aware, present to what is, aware of what is. It is this present awakeness, this energetic assertion of a free self, that allows one to take the attention off of the present phenomena and cease that from owning experience and perception. The conceptual is not delusion, imaginary, or fictional if one's attention is on it. It is real perception and experience. One can lose oneself in a movie and experience it fully, physically, mentally, and emotionally. While immersed in the movie, one becomes the reality of it's creators. Reality becomes the movie.

The movie is a metaphor for our normal perception of the world and ourselves and our normal experience. Our attention is fully invested in the story of ourselves. That is where our attention is. On the movie our lives has created. The creators are our memory and past and thought and from that our story is woven as now. But we don't have to let this movie determine or be our experience, reality, or perception. But then how can we stop it? It is here, we are sitting in the theater. We have to know it is here and our attention is on it. If we don't know, it means we have let ourselves become it. It is us. We are the movie. If we are not aware our eyes are on the screen, and our ears are on the soundtrack, that is our reality. The awareness of what is, is the only thing that can lead to freedom.

Consciousness is said to illuminate itself like a lamp that illuminates objects in a room as well as itself. Dharmakīrti defends the Yogācāra theory of "awareness-only" (vijñaptimātratā), According to Dharmakīrti, an object of cognition is not external or separate from the act of cognition itself.

Are we experiencing the movie or aware of the fact we are paying attention to the movie so that awareness and detachment from the movie is our experience? One is separating oneself from the object of perception (cognition) there. One can be absorbed in the movie, experiencing that, perceiving that, or one can be aware one is identifying with the movie which ends the identification. When what the self is identified with changes, experience changes. One can identify with the objects of cognition or identify with that which is aware of itself and the objects of cognition.

How an object of cognition is experienced, is determined by the nature of the perceiver. What now is, how now is experienced, is determined by what we are aware of. Have we surrendered ourselves to the movie, so that it's story is our reality, or have we risen above all that and emptied ourselves of it's content by paying attention to what is going on now at a deeper level of seeing and self awareness?

One can sit in a movie theater and be fully immersed in the movie. Metaphorically, how does one sit in the theater with the movies sound and images blocked? With ear plugs in that block all sounds and a blindfold on that blocks all images? How does one get complete freedom from the movie? By keeping one's attention off of those things, which requires staying awake, noticing and being aware of when our attention goes on those things, when the ear plugs fall out, when the blindfold slips off. If one is aware with right knowledge, we find out a different movie is playing. One where we are free of conflict and self caused suffering.

Movies..... strange you mentioned them, I have never been able to watch one, never...

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Bohdiyana

In a movie theater, one does not have to look at the screen or pay attention to the sounds. But to do this, one has to be aware one in in a theater and not turn over one's attention and experience to the present environment. One has to be awake and aware, present to what is, aware of what is. It is this present awakeness, this energetic assertion of a free self, that allows one to take the attention off of the present phenomena and cease that from owning experience and perception. The conceptual is not delusion, imaginary, or fictional if one's attention is on it. It is real perception and experience. One can lose oneself in a movie and experience it fully, physically, mentally, and emotionally. While immersed in the movie, one becomes the reality of it's creators. Reality becomes the movie.

The movie is a metaphor for our normal perception of the world and ourselves and our normal experience. Our attention is fully invested in the story of ourselves. That is where our attention is. On the movie our lives has created. The creators are our memory and past and thought and from that our story is woven as now. But we don't have to let this movie determine or be our experience, reality, or perception. But then how can we stop it? It is here, we are sitting in the theater. We have to know it is here and our attention is on it. If we don't know, it means we have let ourselves become it. It is us. We are the movie. If we are not aware our eyes are on the screen, and our ears are on the soundtrack, that is our reality. The awareness of what is, is the only thing that can lead to freedom.

Consciousness is said to illuminate itself like a lamp that illuminates objects in a room as well as itself. Dharmakīrti defends the Yogācāra theory of "awareness-only" (vijñaptimātratā), According to Dharmakīrti, an object of cognition is not external or separate from the act of cognition itself.

Are we experiencing the movie or aware of the fact we are paying attention to the movie so that awareness and detachment from the movie is our experience? One is separating oneself from the object of perception (cognition) there. One can be absorbed in the movie, experiencing that, perceiving that, or one can be aware one is identifying with the movie which ends the identification. When what the self is identified with changes, experience changes. One can identify with the objects of cognition or identify with that which is aware of itself and the objects of cognition.

How an object of cognition is experienced, is determined by the nature of the perceiver. What now is, how now is experienced, is determined by what we are aware of. Have we surrendered ourselves to the movie, so that it's story is our reality, or have we risen above all that and emptied ourselves of it's content by paying attention to what is going on now at a deeper level of seeing and self awareness?

One can sit in a movie theater and be fully immersed in the movie. Metaphorically, how does one sit in the theater with the movies sound and images blocked? With ear plugs in that block all sounds and a blindfold on that blocks all images? How does one get complete freedom from the movie? By keeping one's attention off of those things, which requires staying awake, noticing and being aware of when our attention goes on those things, when the ear plugs fall out, when the blindfold slips off. If one is aware with right knowledge, we find out a different movie is playing. One where we are free of conflict and self caused suffering.

Over the years I have gained the wisdom to be very careful about things that can be explained.

It could very well be that the movie has only been replaced by a new movie. One where I am playing the part of the guy who no longer identifies with the part I was playing when I identified with him.

I think the knowledge that everything about this body, mind, consciousness, feeling, personality is impermanent and therefore cannot be solely identified with is knowledge that can be seen and understood but I also think it stops there with regards to knowledge.

It can’t be replaced with a different story. As far as I can see so far, it can’t be replaced at all. It can only be seen for what it is and that is that I am not this or that.

From there what is left or what is looking is not something that can know itself with respect to knowledge anyways. There is something there, it just cannot be known nor can it be described or talked about. It cannot be called the observer or the one watching the movie. It may be that but those thoughts don’t come from it.

It’s a mystery or at best, it’s simply beyond form and therefore unable to be comprehended or understood.

The Buddha said you are not this, you are not that. He didn’t say what you are. My experience is the same.

I think that's why the term "I AM" has always resonated for me.

Thoughts?

[naturesflow]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

Over the years I have gained the wisdom to be very careful about things that can be explained.

It could very well be that the movie has only been replaced by a new movie. One where I am playing the part of the guy who no longer identifies with the part I was playing when I identified with him.

I think the knowledge that everything about this body, mind, consciousness, feeling, personality is impermanent and therefore cannot be solely identified with is knowledge that can be seen and understood but I also think it stops there with regards to knowledge.

It can’t be replaced with a different story. As far as I can see so far, it can’t be replaced at all. It can only be seen for what it is and that is that I am not this or that.

From there what is left or what is looking is not something that can know itself with respect to knowledge anyways. There is something there, it just cannot be known nor can it be described or talked about. It cannot be called the observer or the one watching the movie. It may be that but those thoughts don’t come from it.

It’s a mystery or at best, it’s simply beyond form and therefore unable to be comprehended or understood.

The Buddha said you are not this, you are not that. He didn’t say what you are. My experience is the same.

I think that's why the term "I AM" has always resonated for me.

Thoughts?

You can attach anything to the I AM but if your not attached to it (seeing past conditioned self) then you can be anything and still know who you really are..

We create the manifestation of ideals or desires (the story) so unconditioned or the formless awareness (I am) is then immediately conditioning itself into the image and likeness of that concept or ideal, as the one creating all that.

In the realization of you as the "I AM" one can become consciously aware of their own attachments by looking more directly at what is, because in this way your looking more directly at yourself and what is in you attached and conditioned.


Emptiness, aware is clarity of being (all of you) as the I am and then your noticing all of what is there, through an open flow of clarity, aware and empty of attachments. It just is. You just are.

[Bohdiyana]

Originally Posted by sky123

Movies..... strange you mentioned them, I have never been able to watch one, never...

I saw movies in school. Like kindergarten on up. Not all the time but sometimes. I remember watching the movie "the red balloon" in the auditorium in like 2nd grade. Then of course on TV and in movie theaters. Then there's music videos that are like short movies. How do you go through your whole life with never seeing a movie? Seems like that would be hard to do in this culture. It would be like never reading a book in the times before electricity. Were you raised in some kind of cultist environment or with off the grid parents? Even thinking of holidays, there are all these iconic movies that are watched year after year like, "It's a Wonderful Life." Seems like movies were just a part of my environment from the time I was born. They were shown in school, in my home, in theaters and drive ins where my parents would take me.

[Bohdiyana]

Originally Posted by BlueSky

I think the knowledge that everything about this body, mind, consciousness, feeling, personality is impermanent...

I don't think we are impermanent. I don't think we change. But then I am referring to "me" conceptually as "myself as I am" apart from what I am identified with or attached to. I am the unchanging "me," that which perceives or is aware of...then the stuff that is perceived or aware of...well that is always changing and not me in a sense. But then "I" do change as what I identify with changes because I exist as perception which is an experience of now and this experience includes a perception of myself as I am.

Yea this stuff is hard to express in words! It's hard because every single thing I write can be taken or understood multiple ways. Even that phrase in the past posts, "I am" can be taken many different ways. I would write it as "I am as what?" instead of just "I am" because we always exist as something. There is always a perception or something present as experience.

Let's say conceptually I am this sage who is free from all of my conditioning, I identify with nothing, I am like a clear piece of glass, well where am I? Am I at the beach? In a forest? In my room? Talking to someone? Listening to someone? I am perceiving wherever I am. And that perception is my experience. So in a very real sense, it is what I am in that moment. "I am" should not be a conceptual mental exercise. A conceptual self that exist apart from all else. There is no truth in that. It is merely a conceptual exercise as I always exist as something. It is what is here, a cool ocean breeze, a taste of water, a moment in time.

Mooji likes to say, find that within you that is not changing. That is the same thread that has run though your entire life. The "you" that was 5 years old, 15 years old, 25 years old and so on.

Those phrases like "there is no permanent unchanging self" really are misleading. To me what that phase is saying is we are an unchanging perceiver, but then what we are perceiving changes. The phrase includes the knowledge or awareness that we exist as something like I said. So somebody writes down in a philosophy book, there is no permanent unchanging self because what we are perceiving is always changing. What is before our consciousness moment to moment is always changing. But we as we exist as a perceiver or that conscious awareness never changes. One day we will leave our body and it's mind. What we are perceiving will change in profound ways, but we will not change as the eternal perceiver. And like I said, we exist as experience. So our experience of ourselves changes. Our tricky conceptual brains can invent an idea of ourselves as we exist apart from experience or a perception, but really they cannot be separated. The writers of Buddhist philosophy understood this perception thus, stating there is no unchanging permanent self has to be understood in this context. There is a "me" that never changes, but it is that which perceives constant change therefore experiences the new each moment. "Self" is also understood to be projected conditioning and if one is free of one's conditioning, that "self" is not there to be projected outward or seen inwardly. But of course a "self" is aware of all of that and experiences it.

[Bohdiyana]

It's like a book on cooking is full of cooking content. So if you want to ask, how do I make a cake? You can find that content in that cooking book. I call that book a cook book. Now lets say one copy of that book is a misprint and all of the pages are blank. Now it has no content. So if you ask how to make a cake, there is no answer there in the content. But the book is still there. It is exactly like every other cook book except there is no content within. We are a book that responds with our content, or our conditioning. Without our content, we don't respond with content. But we are still a book, still a perceiver, still an aware consciousness. We still respond, but we don't respond with our content, we respond with our nature, what is there under our conditioning.

[sky]

Originally Posted by Bohdiyana

I saw movies in school. Like kindergarten on up. Not all the time but sometimes. I remember watching the movie "the red balloon" in the auditorium in like 2nd grade. Then of course on TV and in movie theaters. Then there's music videos that are like short movies. How do you go through your whole life with never seeing a movie? Seems like that would be hard to do in this culture. It would be like never reading a book in the times before electricity. Were you raised in some kind of cultist environment or with off the grid parents? Even thinking of holidays, there are all these iconic movies that are watched year after year like, "It's a Wonderful Life." Seems like movies were just a part of my environment from the time I was born. They were shown in school, in my home, in theaters and drive ins where my parents would take me.

No I wasn't brought up in a cult just never been interested in them. I go to the Theatre, Opera, Ballet and music Concerts, but never Movies..

[Ground]

Step 5 (following Step 4)

The next Chapter 2 is titled 'Inference for oneself' and starts with

Inference is twofold - for oneself and for others

Now considering the starting point of this thread, the Kalama sutta, only inference for oneself is relevant. Why? Because in the Kalama sutta it reads:

When you know for yourselves ...

So it is completely irrelevant what others believe to know.

The problem regarding the setting of this sutta however is that the buddha talks to the community of the Kalamas and he is adressing his questions to this community and they seem to answer his questions like a choir.
So obviously quite some social pressure may be involved here since the setting is thus that it would require a lot of courage for an individual to contradict the mainstream opinion of the community or even to contradict what the buddha asserts.
The majority of the community admires the buddha and wants to get his approval so they answer his question the way he expects them to answer.

Anyway, there is reads

When you know for yourselves ...

and this means that the 3rd Chapter titled 'Inference for others' meaning 'autonomous syllogisms for others' can be ignored. Actually 'Inference for others' can be ignored because of reasons which become evident only after right knowledge has been established.


"Of course you are uncertain, Kalamas. Of course you are in doubt. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born.
...
"So, as I said, Kalamas: 'Only go by direct perception and rational reasoning based on direct perception. When you know for yourselves after having rationally analysed that, "These aims are not worthwhile to pursue - then you should abandon them.

"Now, Kalamas, 'Only go by direct perception and rational reasoning based on direct perception. When you know for yourselves after having rationally analysed that, "These aims are worthwhile to pursue - then you should rationally analyse by what rational means they can be attained and pursue them accordingly.

[BlueSky]

Originally Posted by Bohdiyana

I don't think we are impermanent. I don't think we change. But then I am referring to "me" conceptually as "myself as I am" apart from what I am identified with or attached to. I am the unchanging "me," that which perceives or is aware of...then the stuff that is perceived or aware of...well that is always changing and not me in a sense. But then "I" do change as what I identify with changes because I exist as perception which is an experience of now and this experience includes a perception of myself as I am.

Yea this stuff is hard to express in words! It's hard because every single thing I write can be taken or understood multiple ways. Even that phrase in the past posts, "I am" can be taken many different ways. I would write it as "I am as what?" instead of just "I am" because we always exist as something. There is always a perception or something present as experience.

Let's say conceptually I am this sage who is free from all of my conditioning, I identify with nothing, I am like a clear piece of glass, well where am I? Am I at the beach? In a forest? In my room? Talking to someone? Listening to someone? I am perceiving wherever I am. And that perception is my experience. So in a very real sense, it is what I am in that moment. "I am" should not be a conceptual mental exercise. A conceptual self that exist apart from all else. There is no truth in that. It is merely a conceptual exercise as I always exist as something. It is what is here, a cool ocean breeze, a taste of water, a moment in time.

Mooji likes to say, find that within you that is not changing. That is the same thread that has run though your entire life. The "you" that was 5 years old, 15 years old, 25 years old and so on.

Those phrases like "there is no permanent unchanging self" really are misleading. To me what that phase is saying is we are an unchanging perceiver, but then what we are perceiving changes. The phrase includes the knowledge or awareness that we exist as something like I said. So somebody writes down in a philosophy book, there is no permanent unchanging self because what we are perceiving is always changing. What is before our consciousness moment to moment is always changing. But we as we exist as a perceiver or that conscious awareness never changes. One day we will leave our body and it's mind. What we are perceiving will change in profound ways, but we will not change as the eternal perceiver. And like I said, we exist as experience. So our experience of ourselves changes. Our tricky conceptual brains can invent an idea of ourselves as we exist apart from experience or a perception, but really they cannot be separated. The writers of Buddhist philosophy understood this perception thus, stating there is no unchanging permanent self has to be understood in this context. There is a "me" that never changes, but it is that which perceives constant change therefore experiences the new each moment. "Self" is also understood to be projected conditioning and if one is free of one's conditioning, that "self" is not there to be projected outward or seen inwardly. But of course a "self" is aware of all of that and experiences it.

What you wrote reminds me of a couple of amazing experiences I had. What I experienced is that we are like a two sided coin, one side existing as something and the other side is emptiness or the void. The nothing that is everything.

The point to me of the whole experience was that there cannot be one without the other and I see this relating to what you are saying in regards to us always existing as something even if that something is the experience of existing or as perception itself.

Applying what you wrote to myself internally when I think of “I AM”, I come away with even the experience of I AM is not beyond existence because it is a perception.

Yes I am not my perceptions but I am not beyond them either.



Thank you for your wisdom, I really enjoy your posts.

Blessings

[Ground]

Originally Posted by Bohdiyana

I don't think we are impermanent. ...

Those phrases like "there is no permanent unchanging self" really are misleading. To me what that phase is saying is we are an unchanging perceiver, but then what we are perceiving changes. The phrase includes the knowledge or awareness that we exist as something like I said. ...

What is before our consciousness moment to moment is always changing. But we as we exist as a perceiver or that conscious awareness never changes.

That is misleading since "we as we exist as a perceiver or that conscious awareness never changes" before death but that awareness ceases with death.

Now if you do not want to cease then that is a human trait but that 'not wanting to cease' exactly is what is caused by a sentiment of 'a self' that doesn't ultimately exist. Knowing that is also right knowledge based on direct perception and inference.