ZD's Mistake | Spiritualgab

Figgles
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ZD's Mistake Sept 3, 2022 5:43:19 GMT

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Post by Figgles on Sept 3, 2022 5:43:19 GMT

ZD: According to what Buddha told his disciples, he had one experience that resulted in liberation and freedom. He supposedly told them that after meditating for a certain period of time, he looked up into the morning sky from where he sat and saw the planet Venus. This sensory event triggered realization, and that's a classic kensho event.

Jeezus....look at all this 2nd hand news you're depending upon to try to make your point; "According to what Buddha told.."...."he supposedly told them..."....you constantly do this ZD...defer to the experience of others to try to augment your point on the ST forum...It's as though you've collected the stories of others and tucked them away, as support of your views, instead of simply standing confidently in your own seeing/knowing.

What's unusual is that the Buddha apparently attained freedom, realization, and permanent liberation as a result of that one event.

Haven't you also argued: "there are no causal paths to SR"?

Most people who have such things happen do not. Nevertheless, I'll drop this issue because you obviously have a deep attachment to the idea that liberation can only happen in one way.

Just because he's debunking the singular 'way' you are positing does not equal him having a deep attachment to the idea that liberation only happens one way. That's really lame logic/reasoning there dude.

Having read hundreds of spiritual biographies and autobiographies of sages, it's clear to me that each human's path to realization is quite unique.

ZD...it's actually YOU who is positing a singular "event" that lies causal to SR...."Ken Show."

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ZD's Mistake Sept 3, 2022 5:49:33 GMT

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Post by Figgles on Sept 3, 2022 5:49:33 GMT

Muttley: Just because there is dukkha doesn't mean that dukkha is necessarily driving the search.

"If" there is a "driven search" happening, then it's fair to say there is suffering behind it. Absent suffering, there would be no drive to seek something beyond this present isness...here and now....THIS imminent isness would be more than good enough.

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ZD's Mistake Sept 3, 2022 5:53:34 GMT

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Post by Figgles on Sept 3, 2022 5:53:34 GMT

Satchi: So if not then what is driving the search? You only search for something in terms of meaning and fulfillment if you think you don't have it already or you have lost it. That lack of not having what you are searching for is loss. That loss is suffering.

Yup. Crystal clear.

No sense of something amiss, no 'driven searchin' goin' on.

Seeking always has a sense of something amiss at it's core. Obviously. It seems odd to me anyone is arguing against this.

ZD has always painted his seeking for Truth as just a sort of bland curiosity/interest in attaining existential answers....It's clear he's never really taken the time to look/see what's been at the crux of his seeking.

Absent a sense that something important is missing, there is no drive to seek for existential answers. Period.

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ZD's Mistake Sept 3, 2022 6:02:35 GMT

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Post by Figgles on Sept 3, 2022 6:02:35 GMT

ZD:
If suffering is the primary driver, then suffering will be the filter through which everything is interpreted.

Makes for a pretty bleak outlook for all who are suffering, no?

This is simply not so....the Truth when apprehended dissolves falsity....so that 'filter' you insist upon, is plain and simply, (in the apprehension of Truth) no longer in play.

Fortunately, it's possible to find the truth as a result of simple curiosity.

Again...this is a false/erroneous assertion of causality of SR. Neither curiosity nor suffering are the "cause" of SR, if/when it happens.

And some lucky people find the truth without being driven by either suffering or curiosity. Paul Morgan-Somers is one example--no questioning, no suffering, no curiosity, just.....BAM! Right out of the blue, and that doesn't fit any model of how such a thing might happen.

That would be because there is no "model" that accurately captures "How" it happens.

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ZD's Mistake Sept 3, 2022 6:27:11 GMT

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Post by Figgles on Sept 3, 2022 6:27:11 GMT

ZD: FWIW, in the videos I've seen of Morgan-Somers, he never says anything about any kind of suffering prior to being inundated by "the ocean", to use his words. In fact, he claims that he was a happy teenager looking forward to playing professional soccer.

Maybe the Buddhist religion's emphasis upon suffering causes some believers to filter everything through that concept. That's okay, but it's certainly not necessary, and there are lots of people who have awakened who were not driven by suffering. I suspect that the consensus on this forum by people who have found the truth is that there are many different pathways to the truth.

You are missing the point. It's not that ALL realization of Truth has/had suffering as causal to it, it's that where there is a drive to seek for existential Truth that's strong enough to equal actual 'seeking,' that equals the presence of a form of suffering.

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ZD's Mistake Sept 3, 2022 6:28:35 GMT

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Post by Figgles on Sept 3, 2022 6:28:35 GMT

Satchi: No no no no! 😀

What is the value of seeing deeper into a transient impermanent object? That's just more mind, more perception. You need to get out of the way of mind altogether! Then what remains? You! What you are fundamentally cannot be anything you know no matter how deep or how high the appreciation.

Yuppers! Well said.

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ZD's Mistake Sept 3, 2022 6:32:41 GMT

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Post by Figgles on Sept 3, 2022 6:32:41 GMT

ZD: Correct, and thinking that there is only one path to the truth is a rather fundamentalist mindset.

You are actually the only one at this point who is positing a "causal path" to SR.

Of course there will always be a seemingly "experiential path".....whatever happened up to the point of SR, but SR reveals that none of it actually "caused" SR, but rather, was simply the prelude to the awakening to the "Lucid" dream.

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ZD's Mistake Sept 3, 2022 7:00:17 GMT

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Post by Figgles on Sept 3, 2022 7:00:17 GMT

Muttley: Curiosity.

Even after it's recognized that relative truth is malleable, that no absolute abstraction exists. Even after - long after - one has realized that chasing a high is futile .. or .. one has actually had their appetites satisfied. Even after one comes to terms with the fact that no one man can save the world, and that utopia is an impossible dream, that the poor, sick and hungry will always be with us. Even after one has accepted the inevitability of death, and has no unresolved emotional issues with those he has lost. Even after a man has realized that his enemies ever really only come from within, and yet still there are times when battle becomes inevitable.

Still, you see, Grace is a mysterious gal. See seems fickle to those that approach her directly.

Still, after all this, remains. The Question.

I can tell you this from first hand experience. The curiosity, the interest in The Question, at that point, becomes a quite exhilarating, all-consuming interest. A time of wonderful, colorful and glorious confusion.

That sounds like you are merely dressing up a tattered paper doll in sparkly clothes. Is confusion that has you feeling something is missing, to the point that you are driven to seek really at that time of driven seeking.... "exhilerating...wonderful....colorful and glorious"?

All those relative insights you lists above are still no substitute for ultimate transcendence/freedom from the dream.

Last Edit: Sept 3, 2022 7:00:32 GMT by Figgles

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ZD's Mistake Sept 3, 2022 17:02:06 GMT

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Post by Figgles on Sept 3, 2022 17:02:06 GMT

ZD: The answer to all "why" questions is exactly the same, but this must be realized. Why do particular thoughts appear? Why is one interested in one thing and not another? Why are some people curious about the true nature of reality, but most are not? Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do humans slaughter each other over ideological concepts?

It's odd that with a whole bunch of relative questions...questions that can indeed be answered quite easily relatively speaking, you've then included one singular existential question, which is of course, ultimately misconceived.

The question of why particular thoughts appear...why is one interested in what's he's interested in...why do humans fight religious wars, can all be answered from a position within the dream, but the 'why is something rather than nothing,' has no known answer/resolve because the question itself is misconceived. It's an existential question....one that only gets seen as misconceived when there's a shift in locus of seeing that reveals it as such.

Gutei was the Zen Master who held up one index finger in silence whenever he was asked a "why" question. I used to do the same thing with my daughter, and she found it very irritating. Recently, however, she called and said, "Dad, I understand the one finger now." Too funny!

Omg....the difference is, your poor daughter was likely just asking relative questions related to experiential stuff....whereas Gutei the Zen Master was engaging students who were seeking Truth.

You continually conflate and mix contexts ZD. Confusion.

All one needs to do is contemplate a "why" question, and then shift attention away from thoughts. Sooner or later, if one seriously wants to know the answer, the question will suddenly appear.

So more questions appear or did you mean to say an answer appears? If it's the former, you are prescribing a practice that just means more confusion and if the latter, and you're talking about knowing the answer to such a question as "why is there something rather than nothing"? If so...that's delusion. That question has no 'known answer,'....it's misconceived.

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ZD's Mistake Sept 3, 2022 21:51:09 GMT

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Post by Figgles on Sept 3, 2022 21:51:09 GMT

ZD: There is only "what is"--a unified infinite field of being. Whatever we want to imagine about "what is" will be abstract and imaginary. One can either accept "what is" as it is, or one can imagine that it should be different than it is.

In response to the question, "Does ZD always operate from the Whole?" ZD silently dances a little jig. Can the meaning of responding like this be grokked? The question implies that there are two things here, a Whole and a part. Is that true?

Einstein wrote, "When something vibrates, the electrons of the entire universe resonate with it. Everything is connected, The greatest tragedy of human existence is the illusion of separateness." That's a pretty good pointer.

From a conventional perspective there are the 10,000 things, but this is primarily a ND forum.

And yet you still are conflating scientific unity/connection, which is a relative facet of the story only and not Truth, with a Nonduality pointer.

Seriously Zd, you've never left the dream!....you're fast asleep, merely thinking that your relatively speaking 'expanded viewpoint,' = the shift that is SR.