Hi Johan, it’s clear to me you have a deep and sophisticated mental appreciation of this topic, however as this approach is not currently yielding rich rewards in terms of bringing you forth in contentment from this maze, I suggest the following:
Meditate.
Meditate, and
Meditate again.
Perhaps through some simplicity you will find what you need at this time to move forward, remember there is only so much one can achieve in a life-time.
Thank you Buddha.
Johan
thank you also
You sure do make this subject confusing. What do you mean by paradoxes and duality? I understand the concept of monism in Buddhism but what does that have to do with paradoxes and duality?
Please go into more detail on this experiment and what you feel that it proves. I am very interested to hear your further thoughts.
-Skep
Also, I am interested in both of your thoughts on meditation. Isn’t meditation no more than disassociation from reality? It seems that meditation is a wonderful way to escape or relieve stress but I find no real answers in clearing your mind. Answers come from filling your mind and thinking. What are your thoughts?
My thoughts on thinking are that if one expects thinking to unravel the mystery of the universe one is going to be disappointed. Just as when I close my eyes the world still remains, so when my brain rots and disappears so the world still remains, if I expect my finite brain to decipher the infinite I will be disappointed.
Meditation is not merely relaxation; meditation is a way of connecting with what transcends the noise of human thinking.
If you are truly the skeptic you say you are, it will be your path to try and work out everything for yourself, it is my belief that you will end up with a headache and a deep discontent, however from this low point you will be able to move forward with humility. I wish you every success on your journey, and sincerely hope that if I am wrong and you are the first human being to understand all, then I will have the humility to accept that I was mistaken.
I value thinking; because it can take us to the door. But if we want to step in it will be through experience, because it’s the nature of reality.
I have nothing against thinking and discussing. I’m not a Buddhist; but maybe I have experience what Buddhists have experienced. I can think a lot without using a metaphysical ground, but I will always describe the reality from the outside and this, Skeptic, give us the duality.
In deep meditation we can measure Teta wave-lengths, but in some cases we can go one step further, and without dying we die. It have happened to me twice in my life. When I read about Satori I can recognize my experience, but it’s still not fully explained. All I can do is to make people curious or more skeptic, so it will probably be best to leave it there and behave more philosophical. I’ll give it one more try:
Every point in the universe is observing, and beyond separation there is only one observer. You can split your brain in to how many you that you want, all you will do is that you separate information. Observing is maybe not the correct word because it refers so much to vision. The word experiences is better. Using our senses do not give us a full understanding of different objects. When you go to an artschool (where I spent my youth) you learn how to see the reality for what it is instead of seeing it in the form of symbols. Normally when people look at objects they are using their total experience to see what it is, and not only vision. If we do not recognize an object with our vision it’s hard to se what it is. But once we understand what it is the form takes place. The more information you have about the object the more real it becomes. It is possible to experience life “from inside” where we can totally identify with other objects. It’s not like I’m looking at another object anymore; it’s like I am this information. It’s very hard to describe. The experience becomes total instead of what we experience when we see life as symbols. Our self is no longer limited to our senses but it becomes a floating state that can shift it’s focus. We are no longer “looking out from our box”, but rather becomes “one with everything”. Communication in the holistic field is not limited to what we normally take for separate bodies. If you changes your brains wave-lengths you will transcend this limitation, and communication between different parts of the holistic system is possible. The universe is one giant field, or call it brain, and as long as the different parts are communicating it does not feel separated. But when there is no output or input between the parts it will not be aware about the information that is available in the other parts.
I’m only able to describe the model here. Understanding of this must be experienced, and it can not be acheaved by knowledge - but communication.
Meditation is connection with the reality.
Johan
Please don’t misunderstand my skepticism as close-mindedness. That is the last of my sentiments. In fact, my questions directed towards yourself, meditation, and Buddhism are an example of my open-mindedness. So please don’t feel that I am acting in any way other than humility and vice versa, I will expect and respect your own humility. On your belief that I will end up with a headache and a deep discontent per my approach, hmmm, I won’t disagree with that. But overall, I’m content with my discontent. I am just skeptical of the fact that you are claiming that there is another way to attain knowledge.
I never expected to hear such a low blow from a buddhist. I never claimed the ability to attain infinite knowledge. Please show me where you got such an idea. Anyways, I’ll let it go because I am truly interested in understanding the concept of meditation. Please entertain my questions and skepticism as I don’t mean to threaten your beliefs, only understand them.
This is more along the lines of my questioning. This is the exact concept of which I am trying to understand. This trancendent consiousness needs to be further explained for me to understand. Must’nt the noise of human thinking (or may I just call this concept ‘consiousness’) be turned “on” in order to experience anything? If your mind is turned off, what tool are you using to experience? Your soul? Something else? or maybe you will say that I must meditate to find out and that answer would be fine, but does nothing to explain the concept. Again, please don’t take this as an attack, just a skeptical analysis.
Thanks for clearing the duality subject up. I see exactly where you are coming from now.
Glad you gave it one more try. You could haven’t explained yourself more clearly this time. It seems that your concept very closely resembles Cartesian duality, although not exactly.
Understood and now that I understand you, I very clearly see that I disagree with you. I very strongly believe that this feeling of oneness is only an illusion of the mind. I am very strictly a monist and a physicalist and until it is proven that there is a dual nature to reality, I can find no reason to believe in a duality. Why do I disagree? If I am not mistaken, my so-called “identity” and consiousness is contained solely in my body or more specifically the brain. For you to say that you have extended your consiousness beyond the boundaries of the brain, is to say that all of the universe has taken on the function of the brain. Are you saying that I can tranfer my consiousness to a tennis ball? a tree? a glass of water? If so, what are you suggesting is the function of the brain? or are you suggesting that we have a trancendent non-physical soul? if so what is this soul made of? This secondary dualistic substance, where did it come from and how does it interact with the physical. Sorry, dualism gets quite confusing with analysis, but hopefully you understand where I am going with it.
peace,
-Skep
Hi Skeptic, I am glad you have taken some time to produce such a reasoned and coherant statement, I hope that your effort will lead to our further understanding of these subjects within life. From experience it appears to me that if one truly wishes to attain a thing and if one puts ones whole energy into it then one will realize that goal - eventually. As a dear friend of mine once said, (paraphrase) “the fact that it is in you to wish for it means that it is who you are already, if this was not your path it would not be your dream.” (I like this because it shows how existence is not based on western concepts of time. A “typical westerner” who believes only in what they can themself see or touch; represented it seems by Thomas in the New Testament, he is the man who on being informed that Christ was risen demanded the need to place his fingers in the holes the nails had made before he would believe.) -With every step we move away and again closer to each other in our belief.- I have only partial understanding of time in the way most people around me do “these days”, I see each moment as existent in its own right; with a cause and effect of its own irrespective of the causal chain in the physical world, and also always of course connected by its causal chain in the physical world. (Don’t be alarmed, I am not going to suggest Monday does not follow Tuesday, it does albeit 6 days later.) As Zen teaches “the answer to your question is on a notice pinned to a tree” This cannot be understood unless one too can break free of the physical chain of time. Where the notice is and what it says may appear to the viewer before or after the question appeared in the mind and this would make no difference to the veracity of the answer. (One may say that it will make a difference in the mind of the viewer, i.e. be unnoticed by the man who had not yet asked the question, noticed possibly by the man who had. This is not however the fault of the notice or the tree.) Again we approach fundamental differences in belief and is perhaps why I chose to suggest that you were a mortal attempting to understand the infinite. The reason I say this is due to the form of your approach; it is one that desires proof not feel. Without admitting feeling, meditation call it what you will into your investigations is like wearing blinkers because one decides it is easier to see where one is going whilst they are on; or like choosing to live in a 2 dimensional world where the choice of 3 is available. All one has to do to access this “third dimension” is to relinquish the control of ones own reason. To constantly believe it is ones own reason that will enable one to see through the barrier caused by using ones own reason is to create the means of failure whilst expecting those very means to be the ones that bring success. Due to this belief I chose to state that I thought your rational mind approach was doomed to failure. I appreciate you see this as a low blow but I also see you are not too badly hurt.
Respectfully.
Justin
Thanks for the response Justin. My only question for you is, if I am to abandon reason, what shall I replace it with? and what leads me to believe that I am better off with this replacement?
I can give you many reasons to accept reason and rationality as a maxim, but I find no benefits to the meditative lifestyle. Well that is unless my sole desire was to live a stress free life, but it is not. I desire to enjoy a fulfillng life of actively pursuing purpose and understanding. Life is just too precious to live it so passively.
Hi Skeptic,
Have you ever read any of Kant or Schopenhauer? Schopenhauer has a very good book called “The world as will and representation.†Which sees the world as a complete unit and how we are a part of this single world. It is very similar to the Eastern thought on the subject, but with the western philosophical approach. What follows is a short piece I’ve been working on for an essay on time. It’s about the World as it is, and the world as it’s represented to us through our five senses. The universe has a life of its own through things like cause and effect, because we are a part of this chain of cause and effect it makes us singular and a part of the universe as a whole. We can never be separated from the universe, yet in our minds we can “cling to our ego†and see ourselves as a separate entity, when we are always a part of the whole.
How we and other life relates to the external world
The world we see, (what we see is different from the complete world, which I shall come to in a moment) is constructed only in our minds built from the stimuli receive from our 5 senses. While our 5 senses show us a picture of the world, it doesn’t show us the complete picture. We only see part of the light spectrum, we can see visible light, but not infrared. We can only hear part of all the sounds that are made in the world, like the way you can’t hear a dog-whistle when its calling a dog, yet the dog still comes running. So all the stimuli that exist yet don’t get experienced by any of our senses go unnoticed as if they didn’t exist when in fact they are quite real. This breaks the world into two sections, the world we can experience and the world, which can only be known through inference. This is what I take Kant and Schopenhauer meaning when they use the words Phenomenon (the world we can experience through our senses, which only exists in are minds because it’s the partial picture of the world), and Noumenal (which is the complete world that exists in reality, but we can never see, as the only world we can see must be filtered through our senses. The real raw world can never be made know to us, as our senses both allow and block it from forming in our mind’s eye).
It’s from using our 5 senses to build the Phenomenon world, which only exists in our mind, and then using our powers of reason and logic to deduce knowledge of the Noumenal. We use the Phenomenon world of our senses, which can be a valid interpretation although only ever a subset of the Noumenal world to distil knowledge of how the Noumenal world operates. These operations are normally hidden from us, as we don’t directly experience them through a sense or gain knowledge of them directly. But using our conscious mind we can logically order events that happen on the Noumenal, which we perceive in the Phenomenon to understand what went unseen, but was implied.
So we can see that the Noumenal world follows rules, yet we can never see the actual rules. As the Phenomenon world does not show them, but implies them. We only see the Noumenal world as it’s represented by the Phenomenon world of our mind and in the Phenomenon we can see that some events cause other events to happen. There must be rules for how this happens, as the Noumenal world would be in a constant state of chaos. The Mind works logically, and our mind is a part of the Noumenal, so the Noumenal must also have the ability to work logically, otherwise our minds would be unable to do logical thinking.
It should be noted that our body lives in the Noumenal, but we can only see it through the Phenomenon. Like the way the eye can never see its’ self, but can see the world.
Pax Vitae
In a recent post “The Skeptic” spoke thus:
"Thanks for the response Justin. My only question for you is, if I am to abandon reason, what shall I replace it with? and what leads me to believe that I am better off with this replacement?
I can give you many reasons to accept reason and rationality as a maxim, but I find no benefits to the meditative lifestyle. Well that is unless my sole desire was to live a stress free life, but it is not. I desire to enjoy a fulfillng life of actively pursuing purpose and understanding. Life is just too precious to live it so passively."
this is my reply:
Hello again;
You were not asked to abandon reason but asked not to abandon a more contemplative approach which incorporates both the seen and the unseen. Thus a replacement is not necessary. Balance is required to be in harmony with ones surroundings, too much mysticism leads to imbalance within the individual as does too much rationalisation.
It is rather specious of one to suggest one finds no benefits to the meditative lifestyle, unless one has liked it for oneself; all you know of it is what others have said about it. Of course you find no benefit as you have not yet learned from it. To learn of such things one must experience. (This is why non-logical Zen poems are used. Often specifically designed to be meditated on until they bring enlightenment, they cannot be “worked out” with the mind so the individual is brought to the higher conciousness through the poem or story and is freed from the cycle of human thought and logic; thus finding greater understanding and harmony between their surroundings and their inner life.) Only the individual can unlock his own door, no amount of discourse upon how others have passed through the door can avail the man who cannot find the unique answer to his own unique question.
We see again the idea meditaion is good only for relaxation or the relief of stress, again we approach our diverse belief, as I say, I cannot give you proof, science looks for proof, I feel scientific proof is not necessary. Perhaps the reason meditation is important is it enables an individual to move beyond the human sphere, and to feel. Once the mind has been silenced, greater truths beyond the minds knowledge can begin to make their presence felt. The focus in successful meditation may switch for example to the space in-between things where the human mind has no role to play. Until one has tried this for oneself (and given it a fair try - not a try that one’s is glad to see produce no result, or where the results are ignored -) one can have absolutely no concept of what benefits it brings.
Practically speaking one has to approach ones fear, one has to be able to remove oneself from the mental constructs one has developed in order to understand life, one has to have courage. After all goes well new constructs come into being where the mind is incorporated rather than dominant. Don’t worry it does not have to be replaced, nor does one have to forego an active life of search and exploration; would you say a Siberian shaman has no full actively pursued and purposeful life just because he travels where a scientist cannot see him?
There is no need to forego one’s independence, one can maintain a rational mind though one has developed how to control it. This is a broadening of one’s life not a restriction and not a passive way to live.
J.
Last year I took a book out from the library called Zen for Cats by Henry Beard. I lost it and had to pay the library 30$ for it. I finally found it just the other day so I thought I’d post a few things i thought were so cute.
Here goes:
The Master’s Cat makes not efforts.
If the Master throws a stick,she will not fetch it.
If there is a fire in the Master’s house, she does not sound the alarm.
If a burglar enters the seizes his possessions, she refrains from attacking the intruder.
Having no purpose, she cannot fail.
Never failing, she incurs no blame.
Blameless, she is the apple of her Master’s eye.
Straight lines never lead to success.
Things are found only by indirection.
Circling is the motion of pursit.
Withdrawing is the direction of attack
Vanishing is the perfection of resistance.
Here are some koans:
What is the sound of one jaw chewing a mouse?
Where was your favorite napping spot before your nine lives?
If you encounter the Buddha on a garden path, bite him. (that’s a clever one)
How could a cat get a human’s tongue? ( heh heh)
People bite me frequently. So what. So what if they don’t?
I thought they only rubbed your tummy? 
humm?
… so i did miss something
me to.
Johan
Its a tradition, you rub the tummy of the Buddha for good luck.
oh yah… I got that … After considering you might also be talking about rubbing a cat’s tummy … ahem 
But actually I was referring to Buddha’s post…
I was referring to a totally different post, but posted in the wrong thread… I’m very familiar with that Buddha used to rub his cat’s tummy so that people should not bite him.
Johan