Water by the River

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Posts posted by Water by the River

  3. Posted

    But kidding aside, this is the Zen version of the key stage from going what some call Nonduality/Buddhism/rodents  to Enlightenment. Beginning Nonduality is still in the dream, a subtle self merged in unity with the visual field, exchanging the dual dream for the nondual dream. But still a dream. When this Unity-self gets thinner and thinner, more and more transcended (Thisdell stage 4 to Thisdell stage 5), then:

    Everything - "every vestige of self-awareness", or any subtle I-feeling/I-thought/duality (all subtle illusions) have to be seen through and transcended with automized high-speed awarenes (speed, because these illusions arise extremly fast towards the end) and familiarity (strength, because there are some very subtle "feelings" and other arisings that constitute the separate-self) with these subtle obscurations. Speed & Strength of Awareness (courtesy to Frank Yang). And that has to be done automatic, no doer/agent doing it anymore ("Nonmeditation Yoga").

    And then at the end it can really break open, in a way that can't be anticipated: You will see the Buddhas of all the universes face-to-face and the Dharma Ancestors past and present. Literally. Their essence.

    Before that stages, afterwards nowhere to go... Infinite Being.

  5. Posted

    You must only become the question “What is this Mind?” or “What is it that hears these sounds?” When you realize this Mind you will know that it is the very source of all Buddhas and sentient beings. ...  At work, at rest, never stop trying to realize who it is that hears.

    Even though your questioning penetrates the unconscious, you won’t find the one who hears, and all your efforts will come to naught. Yet sounds can be heard, so question yourself to an even profounder level. At last every vestige of self-awareness will disappear and you will feel like a cloudless sky. Within yourself you will find no “I,” nor will you discover anyone who hears.

    This Mind is like the void, yet it hasn’t a single spot that can be called empty. Do not mistake this state for Self-realization, but continue to ask yourself even more intensely, “Now who is it that hears?” If you bore and bore into this question, oblivious to anything else, even this feeling of voidness will vanish and you won’t be aware of anything—total darkness will prevail. [Don’t stop here, but] keep asking with all your strength, “What is it that hears?”

    Only when you have completely exhausted the questioning will the question burst; now you will feel like someone who has come back from the dead. This is true realization. You will see the Buddhas of all the universes face-to-face and the Dharma Ancestors past and present. 

    Bassui. Kapleau, Three Pillars of Zen

  7. Posted · Edited by Water by the River

    9 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

    There is an awakening to what you are and that's it. You are what you are, not a different thing every day. It's something definitive, you are that, that's it. Then you can start with the stories about how the trees disappear when you don't look at them and if they are still there, but that is something else, that is seeing deeply, breaking the veils of reality, opening your mind and your heart as much as possible you can, mysticism. Open yourself to the flow of intelligence that reality is, in this there are degrees, and no one will ever reach the full degree, I would say, it is mortal.

    then there are two things: realizing what you are, what is, existence without any label or structure, and there are no degrees, it is that and if there is structure it is not that, and that's it. and on the other hand open your third eye or whatever that is called

    Good points, and that resonates with me.

    • One can realize what One is and what Reality is (Enlightenment), and that is final. If its not final, it was not the essence of it.
    • Then you can have endless Awakenings in what You/True You can do (or imagine, or manifest as form).
      • Endless, because what can be imagined and manifested is endless, Infinity upon Infinity. God herself is busy exploring that, having fun at that, and will never reach the end of it (see Cantors Set Theory, and Infinity of Infinities exist already in this universe. Which means nothing else that the larger Reality manifesting our universe is capable of an Infinity of Infinities, and therefor will never run out of realms to explore.

    I am absolutely not against that, its a wonderful thing to pursue the beauty of these Awakenings. But I just prefer to do that after realizing True Nature, because else it gets the usual ego-hamster-mill of pursuing experiences relieving the ego/self-contraction suffering. So its just a matter of what to do first, what to give priority before the other. Not either/or. It can even be done parallel, and normally happens this way (Awakenings/mystical experiences of all sorts before Enlightenment).

    Added bonus with realizing of what one really is (True You) and what Infinite Reality really is, its essence (Infinite Being and every possible appearing including ego/separate-self not happening out of it but expressed BY that Reality)... is a tremendous relief/liberation from suffering or resistance to what appears/is, and knowing what survives death (everything that is important), and what was before birth, and what can never not be there.

     

    9 hours ago, Argonaut said:

    @r0ckyreed this post was spot on. There's always a higher awakening. One thing I've been thinking about... although its really weird... is what would happen if you tortured a mystic. At a certain point of pain, I think every human would become identified with their ego. We only know how awakened someone is within the limits of their tiny human life. 

    This topic is what has turned me away from some of @Leo Gura's most recent perspectives. Even with copious amounts of psychedelics, there are always higher awakenings, so why harm your body and disregard your human life for a temporary experience of something that you can never stabilize? I'm more of a fan of using psychedelics to have temporary experiences that allow me to raise my baseline consciousness as much as possible and embody the truth as much as my human self can. Seems like the point of the game is to enjoy it, not to constantly worry about trying to play a more advanced game and shit on the one you're currently in.

    Jesus did a good job of keeping Realization during torture (although he had a short lapse: father father why hast thou forsaken me). But of course he was Jesus.

    Let's put it this way: When getting tortured, better by pretty stable in Realization. On the other side, even if the self-contraction kicks in again during extreme pain, why is that so necessary? With an incarnation into physical reality, the reset button is pushed anyway for the vast majority of beings, and then hopefully their Karma brings them back. But all of that is relative show.

    True Being was never hurt, even if the incarnation forgets realization of True Being. And True Being has no moving parts, can never be damaged. This shift of perspective happens naturally when realizing what one is. Illusion off, illusion on, that is still on the relative level. The illusion of the separate-self never really existed (the rope was never a snake), but appeared to do say (the snake appeared and was seen). Maybe that perspective is helpful.

    Selling Water by the River

  8. Posted

    51 minutes ago, r0ckyreed said:

    What am I missing? 

    An Alien who tells you that this is the perfect recipe to forever chase your own tail (n+1), or endless higher "Awakenings" (and only Awakenings into ever changing form & manifestation btw., not into your eternal Nature). And being so busy doing that that you never actually look deep enough & realize what you have been before your parents were born. And more importantly, what you will still be after you die. And not just conceptual guessing or believing, but actually knowing.

    I mean, even our host said its endless... Endless "Awakenings"

    When is it enough? How many Awakenings? When are you happy & satisfied? Always right after the next Awakening. And then one more. And one more. Forever, never reaching the final Awakening.

    But its a free country, so...

  9. Posted

    5 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

    reading categorical statements about the infinite defining it as finite.

     

    12 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

    And this here is a quite smart post in my opinion:

    20 hours ago, Arthogaan said:

    I would say its both full and empty. Both real and imaginary. Like everything.

    As Roger Thisdell said: all of those dualities are category errors. Reality is neither this nor that, its a special third thing that cannot be named. 

    And that is it. At the end of the day, it is all pointers, all dualities, all catergory errors. IT is neither illusion nor real, not this not that, and so on... As soon as one uses a single word to describe Reality, one is already in duality. One can only say what it is not, via negative ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology .

    The answer on all of these questions and points is an awakened state of being, not the latest pointer to the Absolute of the day, which are (a) all pointers and not accurate descriptions of Ultimate Reality, and (b) from an absolute perspective, all wrong (words/duality/concepts).

    Don't worry. Yours truly is not a fan of making the Infinite/Absolute finite...

     

  10. Posted

    "And if one has transcended the illusion, one normally does something like mainly acting out of compassion. Because Reality doesn't let anyone "off the hook" or outside the illusion that doesn't have lots of compassion. Yes, Reality is smart enough to do just that. Because who controls which being gets Liberation?"

    2 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

    Where did you learn that history? Interesting belief, but there is no controller, it would be a limitation, reality itself is a whole , there is not a puppeteer. Reality is not created, since reality is the existence. 

    In my personal experience of what kills Awakened nondual states, and in the description of that of countless others. These states need compassion & love. Without that, it just closes down. And nearly endless NDE and OBE reports.

    And sorry if I will not answer fast & everything in the next days, got a lot of stuff do it. 

     

  11. Posted · Edited by Water by the River

    Just a view points that you wrote, with quotes if yours truly written before these points of yours. Guess we snuggle together conceptually with our views closer than you thought :) 

     

    (1):

    1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

    In infinity there is no inside, there cannot be, it would be a limit. don't you understand?

     

    9 hours ago, Water by the River said:

    Your True being, believing its projections occuring IN its infinite being (which has NO inside and NO outside since its.... infinite! ^_^) to be real.

    Ummm.... yes :)

     

    (2):

    1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

    You do not understand the force of reality, for you it is a hologram, you see in 2 dimensions.

     

    23 hours ago, Water by the River said:

    Our universe alone can sustain mathematics with which infinite dimensions can be calculated/simulated/described (4 dimensional worlds, 5, n, n+1, non-euclidian, hyperbolic, and what not). Anything that can be done in this universe has to be a potential in Infinite True Being (and much more).

    We got a lift-off Houston.

     

    (3)

    1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

    you would die and you would become volatilized.

     

    On 1.3.2024 at 2:15 PM, Water by the River said:

    Looks for me the separate-self wants to be the Absolute, wants to be God. And instead of paying the price of self-transcendence and death of the separate individuum/ego to truly become truly Infinite Being, we instead blow up the separate individuum/self to God-sized-proportions.

    Yes so, pretty much el muerte is required. Fully agree.

     

    After we obviously alreay align so much, which didn't really hinder you to criticize positions that I already wrote myself - no problem btw., itsSaulGoodman, I guess we can rejoice ^_^.

     

    And this here is a quite smart post in my opinion:

    20 hours ago, Arthogaan said:

    I would say its both full and empty. Both real and imaginary. Like everything.

    As Roger Thisdell said: all of those dualities are category errors. Reality is neither this nor that, its a special third thing that cannot be named. 

    And that is it. At the end of the day, it is all pointers, all dualities, all catergory errors. IT is neither illusion nor real, not this not that, and so on... As soon as one uses a single word to describe Reality, one is already in duality. One can only say what it is not, via negative ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology .

    The answer on all of these questions and points is an awakened state of being, not the latest pointer to the Absolute of the day, which are (a) all pointers and not accurate descriptions of Ultimate Reality, and (b) from an absolute perspective, all wrong (words/duality/concepts).

    And while we are at it, if it helps: I do understand nothing. Or Nothing (capital N?). But that luckily quite well... Wonderful piece of real estate to be at...

    Hope my friend that you understand my humour and my direct answers. It takes two to tango. :)

     

    Selling vortices on the river  that the River produced already in the past.

     

     

     

  12. Posted · Edited by Water by the River

    12 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

    Then, why do you say that intelligence is an illusion, or life is an illusion? Everything that exist is real because it's the reality. 

    Look at a movie on TV. Is it real? Is this really going on? Did it really happen like that? Rather not.

    Do we know this all the time while we watch the movie? No, We just follow the story, get involved, don't think about if its just professional actors doing their job. Because if we always think that the actors were just acting, and go home after filming a scene... boring! So we buy into it, and enjoy it.

    Is the appearance of the movie on the screen real? Yes it is. Is it actually happening what is shown on the screen? Did it actually happen, was there a real story being filmed? Nope.

     

    Same with the world that looks so

    • external,
    • out there, 
    • and solid.
    • With others inside it.

    Is that true? No. Not at all. None(!) of it. It is an illusion of the highest degree. NONE of that is the case.

    Is it real? The appearance of it yes. Like a hologram, but appears totaly solid/out there/material/(or aka duality) in the unenlightened state. But in Truth, it is only You, Your True being, believing its projections occuring IN its infinite being (which has NO inside and NO outside since its.... infinite! ^_^) to be real.

    Believing that there is material reality "out" there. Solid. With "others" than oneself. And that is the most magnificent illusion, because it is just not true. It is only True You. Infinite Being. Only that, in all possible universes. Limitless/boundless/infinite, hence in all possible worlds/realms/dimensions. 

    Playing a game of hide and seek...

     

    Selling Understanding of the magnificent illusion by the River

     

    Disclaimer: If one hasn't fully transcended the illusion, it can feel damn real if one doesn't respect that actions have consequences, or Karma. If one hits ones toe with a hammer, it WILL hurt, and will not feel like an illusion. Illusion doesn't mean that the ego can do what it wants and then don't care whats the feedback. It will be made to care... :ph34r:

    And if one has transcended the illusion, one normally does something like mainly acting out of compassion. Because Reality doesn't let anyone "off the hook" or outside the illusion that doesn't have lots of compassion. Yes, Reality is smart enough to do just that. Because who controls which being gets Liberation? Infinity Reality. And Infinite Reality is not dumb... Rather infinitely intelligent. And how doesn't reality let a being "off the hook"? By making it suffer. Not today darling, whatever you did what not what was expected to experience realization, and now please do/try something else. And since Reality doesn't tell that directly (because its a big game/maze/Lila): Suffering is the tool to make the hamster-wheel go round...

  14. Posted

    8 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

    Being is always now, this moment encompasses everything, it is infinite. Ok, but this moment has depth, and that depth is veiled. The first step is to realize what you are without what arises. then penetrate into the essence, into the quality. It is not just being, it is much more. Intelligence is not within the being, it is the being. life too. They do not occur within the being, they are inherent, and they are deep and alive, as absolute as the being.  The change is absolute, same than the immutability, they are the two faces of a mirror, because change is always changing. 

    Reality/True Being has the potential of infinitel intelligence. So is is infinite intelligent.

    Our universe alone can sustain mathematics with which infinite dimensions can be calculated/simulated/described (4 dimensional worlds, 5, n, n+1, non-euclidian, hyperbolic, and what not). Anything that can be done in this universe has to be a potential in Infinite True Being (and much more).

    Same with life. True Being is not a dead Nothing. Every potential and intelligence we see must be inherent as potential in Infinity. "It" True You is that which is aware, and that which understands and creates all, maintains all, and it is THAT which does all understanding.

    What else could manifest the show? And be aware of it.

    Realize it, and you will have these facets all at once. 

    Why do you create a duality between True Being, then Intelligence, then life, then infinite, the flow, and all the other stuff. Hasn't it been written many times True Being/Absolute is infinite (not finite), and has infinite potential? Infinity easily fits into True Being.  All of the various infinities mathematics can describe.

    Buuut the path to realizing that Infinite True Being is first getting rid of anything finite, and limitations, and filters/dualities/lenses of perceptions... because these cloud the realization of "the" Infinite True Absolute Being.

    Neti Neti. Impersonal. No duality via filters/centers/contractions of the separate self. And then looking what remains, what is always there.

    "Bombing" oneself to boundlessness and nonduality, or whiteouts, (or what not) via psychedelics doesn't not dissolve these  last filters/centers/contractions fully (at least I have never seen one case). Not enough time & clarity in these states. This dissolving of  filters/centers/contractions has to be done with "on-board-means", not only external devices. It is the price the universe demands, transcendence of the little ego. Like, at least getting rid a little bit of the annoying bug as entry ticket to the Absolute, so to say...

  15. Posted

    27 minutes ago, MellowEd said:

     

    Still scaring 'em to the lord, hm? ^_^

    https://www.multidimensionalman.com/Multidimensional-Man/Life_after_death_on_the_lowest_dimension.html

    https://www.multidimensionalman.com/Multidimensional-Man/The_Medium_Dimensions.html

     

    Lets scare the flock to the lord? Lets scare the flock to the lord! All kinds of people in hell:

    :)

    Selling (illusory) Heavens and Hells by the River

  16. Posted

    29 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

    Of course, I'm available to be drilled, called liar, insane, deceived, etc, then I would answer trying to develop my position to be understood. 

    I may be completely wrong in everything I say, but two things are certain: what I say comes from direct vision and if it is mental speculation I usually say it, and I don't lie to appear to be more than I am

    I like that.

  17. Posted

    17 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

    If you say that for me, you show small perception. I'm zero touchy, I just like to drill in the psyche of the people to see inside them. It's not easy, people have many layers. So some "touches" sometimes are necessary.

    Well, I guess, if you like drilling into the psyche of the people, then you also have to allow some drilling by the people, of the people, for the people. You know, sportsmanship and such. :)

    And lets take all the drilling with a grain of salt, and do the drilling it in style & humour. Which we all mostly do, I guess. 

  19. Posted

    23 minutes ago, Javfly33 said:

    Reality is so infinite there had to exist other infinities. Other Infinite Realities/Gods. 

    An Infinity of Gods, co-creating a shared dream.

    Looks for me the separate-self wants to be the Absolute, wants to be God. And instead of paying the price of self-transcendence and death of the separate individuum/ego to truly become truly Infinite Being, we instead blow up the separate individuum/self to God-sized-proportions.

    And for the problem of all the "other" separate-selfs/egos: Also Infinite Gods. Somehow also oneself, but somehow also Gods.

    Seems for me like I want to have my cake (Transcendence/Absolute/True Being) and eat it too (staying the ego/individuum/separate-self). 

    Oh well. Looks for me like the quadrature of the circle, but what do I know... ^_^

  20. Posted

    15 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

    Openness is to stop closing your being to it and allow it to flow through you and clarify your perception, making it unlimited. (1) Be totally honest, do you perceive some limitation? (2) Is your perception really unlimited? (3) Open to all the dimensions?

    (1) No, and (2) yes and (3) yes. 

    There is a reason why there is fluctuation between your openness and closedness, and that are open with psychdelics. And I am talking about how to permanently remove that reason, and stay open.

    17 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

    I can't, I tried, but really make me so bored and almost sick that I can't stand even 5 minutes, the same than 99% of the spiritual content.

    Ok. If you perceive no value or truth in that video, then you perceive no value or truth in that video.

    Just do what you do and like to do, and do it in the way you like doing that. 

    For me that is completely fine. I guess you will also get fruits&benefits from your path and increase the openness.

  21. Posted

    Just now, Yimpa said:

    This pointer has honestly bewildered me for the longest time. That was, until I realized that the difference between one hand clapping compared to two or eight or 99 is all relative, yet all experienced in the same fundamental Consciousness.

    Concentration on that Koan long enoug literally results in an Awakened nondual state of Infinite Being, and doing it even longer it can result in Realization of True Being. And that IS the sound of the one hand clapping, literally.

    What a wonderful & relaxed teaching tool for the Roshi. Imagine: No explanation needs to be given. No discussion with the disciple. No questions. One can easily reject any answer to the Koan-solution by just shaking the head. Only the right state of Infinite Impersonal Being will pass... and then its already done.

    Sounds a bit one-dimensional (if only done like described above, which of course it isn't done purely like that, but there is a tendency for it often) for this time & age? Yup, same here... But in the right setting works perfectly fine.

     

  22. Posted

    4 minutes ago, Yimpa said:

    Heh, it’s like asking an iPhone to use the Find My iPhone feature on itself. But hey, maybe in the future it’ll be possible, who knows!

    That why it is a Koan. Which any pointer to Reality is. Some longer, some shorter.

    He asked for:

    10 minutes ago, Water by the River said:

    If you had to condense

    In Zen they also give "What is the sound of one hand clapping". Points to the same Reality, has the same answer. Which is a realization of Infinite Being, presented &  combined with a nondual Awakened Awareness state.

     

    So the explanation above was so to say to premium-deluxe-royale-maximum-explanation-Koan. Which guarantees a smack from the Head-Zen-Roshi for too much explanation & conceptual-overkill-Koan(s), but hey... I am not a pure Zen non-conceptual aficionado.

    And if somebody wants a filibuster yours truly is not exactly opposed to that also... ^_^

  23. Posted

    4 minutes ago, Davino said:

    If you had to condense all your teachings for Enlightenment/Awakening what would you say?

    Find out what you really are. And what Reality is.

    And if these are two separate "things", or just one Reality.

    And if there can be anything "beyond" or besides Reality, like "two Realities" (which is of course a contradiction in itself, but normally not examined). Or if that Reality is infinite, nondual, one (or alone) without a second, all there is.

    And then if this Infinite Reality/Being is what one really is, or the thing that says "I" in the mindstream.

    Something along these lines...

    8 minutes ago, Davino said:

    After many time reading your posts I haven't still gotten your full essence and message. I'm curious to know, what is it that you are into really?

    Finding out if one really controls which thought emerges next in ones mindstream is a good investigation-question. Specifically, do you control which thought you think next and its content? And the next. And the next.

    That investigation gives a very good indication on wether the entitity one thinks one is really controls which kind of thought/feeling emerges next.

    Do I control which thought/feeling emerges next in the mindstream?

    Maybe play around with that a little if you are interested.

  24. Posted

    One doesn't even control which thought emerges next, or its content.

    Any thought/feeling, especially I-feelings/I-thoughts/Identities happen by itself. One can not control which thought/feeling arises next. There is just the illusion-thought (also arising by itself) that one could. Which itself is a thought which "one" didn't control.

    A thought is a "universal" event triggered by causes & conditions of the totality of all form/manifestation/Infinite Being. The feeling/thinking that "I am" is just an arising happening in True Being, but not controlled by anything separate/ego.

    There are just clusters of thoughts/sensations taking owernship for other clusters of sensations (like thoughts/feelings/bodily sensations), happening and moving by itself in True Infinite Being/Reality.

    On an Absolute Level, it is that radical.

    That should be a little hint that the separate-self/individuality/ego doesn't even exist in the first place in the way one normally perceives/feels it, but is just a brilliantly made illusion.

    It is an illusion of the highest degree happening in True Infinite Being. 

    And that True Being can understand that, and realize its True Infinite Being.

     

    Selling Water by the River

  25. Posted

    Welcome to Infinity of Gods. One could call that the Solipsists end-game. An infinity of separate-God-selfes. Indras Net (see link below) gone "ego" or "separate-self".

    The alternative would be: There is only one Reality. A Nondual & Infinite Unity of Infinite Being/Consciousness.

    Maybe that the whole thing is just the Real You, infinite and Impersonal Pure Consciousness/Awareness/Reality, splicing itself (apparently) up in infinite perspectives of Indras Net? Not a separate "God" in each node? Every single spiritual tradition over millenia that has made it to the nondual realization declared that there is ONE Infinite Being without (a second), manifesting itself in a myriad of (appearing) perspectives/beings.

    If that Infinite Being is infinite, it is by definition a unity, a Nondual being without anything outside of it. And no other besides it. That Infinite Being is Reality itself. There are not two realities.

    With declaring an Infinity of Gods, one is just cementing a separate-self (aka duality, not non-duality/Awakening) and blowing it up to God-like dimensions. Which is the opposite direction of stabilizing Nondual Awakening by transcending that which causes the separation/duality. That is at least my experience.

    One Reality, one Infinite Being, without a second. That is the testament of all spiritual traditions that came before and that made it to the Absolute.

    Just a little information sign along the road of Infinite Gods, if you don't mind. In order to not loose time traveling in the opposite direction of the intended destination. Every being is the own master of its Karma, and has freedom to choose.

    Selling Water by the River