Where is Peter Ralston wrong?

[Davino]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

Yes , what you say is inevitable. If the manifestation of the absolute is infinite, it has no origin, it is not expanding, it is infinitely expanded. This implies that if there is intelligence and consciousness, as we know, these are infinite, absolutely interconnected and total. And this intelligence and consciousness encompass the totality of reality, and you can connect with it and be one with it. This is phase 2 of spirituality and it has no end. There are infinite degrees, but first anyone has to reach phase 1, which is the opening to the absolute, to the nature of all that exists, whether it is a drug addict, a rat, or universal intelligence. Without this the phase 2 is confusing, I think that for navigating in infinity first you have to see that anything is the absolute, it's the same god or a rat

Absolutely so 💯. Glad we've both clicked. I'm so happy to have had this conversation. Yes, now I see.

[kbone]

1 hour ago, Breakingthewall said:

Yes , what you say is inevitable. If the manifestation of the absolute is infinite, it has no origin, it is not expanding, it is infinitely expanded. This implies that if there is intelligence and consciousness, as we know, these are infinite, absolutely interconnected and total. And this intelligence and consciousness encompass the totality of reality, and you can connect with it and be one with it. This is phase 2 of spirituality and it has no end. There are infinite degrees, but first anyone has to reach phase 1, which is the opening to the absolute, to the nature of all that exists, whether it is a drug addict, a rat, or universal intelligence. Without this the phase 2 is confusing, I think that for navigating in infinity first you have to see that anything is the absolute, it's the same god or a rat

@Breakingthewall

Right, the path of Zen is cutting through the worldly nonsense, without giving much to the mind to hold on to... transcending to and realizing _______ is phase 1 (in some Zen circles, it's realizing the Void/Nothing/Emptiness/No Mind/etc).

The phase 2, emanation/immanence of/as _______ , is quite hard to come to terms with without phase 1. Many do get stuck at phase 1 and/or somewhere in the return to ______ as the ALL/Wholeness/Everything.

The expressions vary throughout cultures, schools of thought, speerchal literature, etc, but ______________ , in its purest essence, is the same.

Poetically speaking, the bird in an empty cage can only actually fly absolutely freely with two wings fully realized: a wing of Nothingness and a wing of Everythingness.... and in between the two its life flows (tips hat to Parsons and Niz). 

 

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, kbone said:

Heraclitus and Huang Po both pointed to the same impermanence and the same no-self. That's why I asked, "So, do you think Heraclitus ever realized what the Zennies (like Huang Po) point to?" After all, it was said he was a bit on the melancholic side, but not sure how often that was or whether he died that way. Democritus supposedly was the laugher, but I haven't read into him much either. 

Both Heraclitus and Huang Po are profound and intelligent, and I agree with everything you've said, but we're not talking here about being wise, intelligent, happy, enjoying life, understanding impermanence, understanding the spontaneity of reality, but about being open to the unlimited, and when Huang po talks about an infinite mind can't help but perceive closure. But perhaps the problem is semantic.

But his rejection of thought and conceptualization seems limiting to me. For him, every concept or idea is false. And then he says that reality is a mind, which is a closed concept, since mind is equivalent to relationship, and relationship is the manifestation of the absolute. Relationship is made of the whole, not relationship is the whole. The mind is made of the whole. To say that the whole is a mind points out its limitation to me like an arrow. It may be open about many things, but not about the essentials. Blasphemy? Well...

For him, ultimate reality is the experience of the formless. Here, alarm bells are ringing. The whole is not an experience, it is the substance of experience. 

He says enlightenment cannot be sought because that's it. Another mistake: enlightenment isn't, it's not "this," but direct, without conceptualization. That's the experience of a cat. The experience of a cat isn't enlightenment; it's closed. The opening is in the heart, in your entire being. It's the opening to absolute infinity, to the limitlessness of total power, to the absolute glory of limitless infinity and it's absolute power, it's absolute joy of being unlimited, or better, the fact that joy means unlimited, , it's absolute expansión in all the dimensions. Seems that Huang Po is closed to this, imo it's the problem of the Buddhists, they reject suffering, thought, maya, as "false", then they reject the absolute, and are close to it. 

Edited July 11 by Breakingthewall

[Breakingthewall]

2 hours ago, kbone said:

some Zen circles, it's realizing the Void/Nothing/Emptiness/No Mind/etc).

That what I see limiting. Maybe I'm wrong , but the idea of void is absolutely meaningless. Void of what? What means void if you are there being the void? It isn't void if you are that. Maybe it's without form, but there is total potential, total potential is something, don't need to look like a table, its enough that is a reality. Then seems that they can't see that, that they really think that they realized the void because their mind is silent and can't see that silent or noise is exactly the same, both are manifestations of the reality

Edited July 11 by Breakingthewall

[Davino]

@Breakingthewall I see it the same way. I experienced the void and it's just like that.

Although advanced meditators like Frank Yang claim that there is a deeper nothingness awakening which they call cessation where you hit rock bottom and consciousness reboots again the whole of Reality. That seems to have benefits in baseline consciousness and rewiring the brain.

Although I've never understood the buzz for the nothingness Awakening. It's just another cool facet of Consciousness.

[Breakingthewall]

22 minutes ago, Davino said:

Although advanced meditators like Frank Yang claim that there is a deeper nothingness awakening which they call cessation where you hit rock bottom and consciousness reboots again the whole of Reality. That seems to have benefits in baseline consciousness and rewiring the brain.

Although I've never understood the buzz for the nothingness Awakening. It's just another cool facet of Consciousness.

All of this is because, even if they claim otherwise, their perspective is that of an observer. They haven't realized that they are the reality. they operate from a limited perspective. They think otherwise, that they are enlightened because they silence the mind and perceive directly, but there is perceptor and perception, that's why for them the perception of silence is more true than the perception of maya, because Maya make them like confused. They don't realize that they are maya. If they would say: the silence can allow openess more easy than noise, then ok, but no, they say: the silence is the openess. That's wrong. They confuse a mental state with reality itself . For them enlightenment is a mental state where you realize that "this" is everything. But no, openess is not realizing it, is be open to what reality is, not realizing, it's very different, in another dimension because the reality is you, you are that, you don't realize that you are, you open your perception because was closed. You was looking to a wall all time, then you remove it, it's not about silence.

Edited July 11 by Breakingthewall

[Leo Gura]

On 7/4/2025 at 8:11 PM, Inliytened1 said:

Leo discovered Ralston and consumed what was good about him where it pertains to Truth.  So when you are getting Leo you are also getting Ralston.   You don't need both teachers.  At least not in my opinion.  

Ralston teaches different things than me. There are things Ralston can teach you that I cannot. And there are things I can teach you that Ralston cannot. I should not be your only teacher because that would be too limiting for you. And Ralston is also limited.

Edited July 11 by Leo Gura

[Davino]

@Breakingthewall The everpresent nature of Reality is indeed very beautiful.

[kbone]

@Breakingthewall

Fair enough. I haven't read into Po to be all that clear on the specifics. Maybe you're right; maybe he was just a super smart Ch'am ,aster deluded on his own rice wine. Dunno, doesn't matter. I do not even know about which translations are better, and Chinese/Japanese are quite different than English. I've seen some examples of good versus bad translations, and considering the accuracy you're demanding, there's that potential. But, generally speaking, Huang baby liked paradoxes, koans, and riddles that sought to trip the mind, not feed it food for thought, or throw it a life raft after phase 1.

Blasphemy in Zen? Nah. Case in point: from Mumonkan (The Gateless Gate)

Monks in the Eastern and Western halls of a Zen monastery argued over the ownership of a cat. Zen Master Nansen, witnessing this, held up the cat and said, "If any of you can say a word of Zen, a word that transcends dualism, I will spare the cat. Otherwise, I will kill it". No one responded. Nansen then cut the cat in two. 

Later that evening, Joshu, Nansen’s disciple, returned to the monastery. Nansen told him what happened. Joshu, without a word, took off his sandals, placed them on his head, and walked out. Nansen then said, "If you had been there, the cat would have been saved". 

Some of the Zenners didn't mind going to drastic lengths to trip the mind. Some great stories...

There's nothing wrong with saying that "actual enlightenment can't be sought"; it's either right here, right now, flowing as the spontaneous moment that every moment is, or it isn't. Period, not up for negotiation, and it IS whether one is sitting on a yoga mat, filleting fish by the river, driving a dump truck, attending a funeral, taking a bullet for a complete stranger.... always accessible, always unfolding in/as oneness. That's not limiting... on the contrary. It's spontaneous action without all the second guessing, and mind's endless strings of ifs, and, or buts. Is it OK do think things through for certain contexts, sure. It is what it is. But if the existential questions remain, cloud the present moment, of have one in a mental pretzel, it ain't Zen.

Only the mind seeks. Only the mind suffers. Only the mind bifurcates this/that (even Aristotle said, "The Whole is greater than the sum of its parts"... in/as mind, it's all dependently arising). That said, it is painfully self evident that a mind divided against itself is in conflict and seeking will happen once it becomes aware that it has backed itself into a corner. No one needs to be told that. 99.9% of humanity live with existential anxiety, which is why speerchuality and religions appeared thousands of years ago. The thoughts, broken down, start to ferment like a good manure that makes the mind ripe for a healthy seed. Wisdom of one's ways starts to flourish. That's what your phase 1 dealio alludes to.... the seeking to transcend the concepts, the parts, the divisions, the categories, the words.... all the mind's bifurcated thought structure become the manure for a perfectly-timed, sound, spontaneous insight, flash to find its way through, collapsing complexity into clarity, dropping off baggage. Even if you're implying that it's all already within the infinite, sure, that's fine, but is it a declaration or a conclusion, or is it something realized (i.e., kensho/satori)? Zen is a teaching for cutting through, not a mind-made declaration about what it is that one sees after phase 1 and phase 2.

I'm not saying Huang baby is right or wrong, limited or unlimited, or anything else. I was not even really a meditator, in the classic sense. I sensed it was all a mediation, a devotion, a pursuit for what is true.... what is Truth. I was more of the type that looked for and contemplated what they might point to in some given writing,,, what was in my face but between the lines. I didn't care if they said this or that, or even how consistent they were... I do know the mind feels more comfy with its own brand of consistency. I did see how many such Zen sayings are meant to engage the mind in a counter-programmed way. I don't get lost in the words, but see what they attempt to point to. In phase 1, it doesn't have to make perfect sense; it never will. Mind is within existence, not the master of it. If you want to come back and organize it all some super coherent system, fine. But what actual coherence alludes to is what is present prior to mind, and it is the mind that chops it all up into puzzle pieces for half a life, and then spends the other half putting it all back together. In the meantime, don't lose a piece of the puzzle, or else you might have to make one up!! 

Good pointing can hit the spot, sprout a dormant seed, or collapse of structure/node that supported suffering self, not necessarily "only" because they are right and/or powerfully and contextually delivered, but also because a mind is ready (when a student is ready, the teacher will appear type of thing). It can happen at any time.... make yourself prone. A Zen story, a shared insight, a  pain in the ass ____, ... whatever can elegantly contextualize the associated thoughts directed toward a dormant insight that opens another vista. The depth of one's contemplation, the clarity of one's mind, the focus and devotion of one's attention into the mystery... all potentially indicative of being prone to the acausal apprehension of the Infinite. Oddly, it is recognized as hab=ving always been Here, just hi

Words are just words, Thoughts are just thoughts. Contexts are just contexts. Things are just things. All just appearances within what is. When existential TRUTH is apprehended, one can more consciously reach out and grab any of one them and take it for a ride to see what happens.

[kbone]

2 hours ago, Breakingthewall said:

That what I see limiting. Maybe I'm wrong , but the idea of void is absolutely meaningless. Void of what? What means void if you are there being the void? It isn't void if you are that. Maybe it's without form, but there is total potential, total potential is something, don't need to look like a table, its enough that is a reality. Then seems that they can't see that, that they really think that they realized the void because their mind is silent and can't see that silent or noise is exactly the same, both are manifestations of the reality

@Breakingthewall

The Void is just an expression, but it is not meant to be the end all be all of living, nor is it enlightenment. I tend to not think Huang baby thinks so either. Ch'an was radical in its approach, but more practical in its endgame. The Void is a realizable and radical shift, but not much can be said about its depths. And yes, at least in my recollection, it is a monster collapse of everything once thought to be 'real'. 'NOTHING' was the first word that arose in the mind, after the dust had settled, and the discussion with/as the Infinite played out. It didn't even make sense to the mind at first, as it was not very aware of all the Zen theoretical literature stuff other than a few books and Alan Watts type of stuff. It didn't have to make sense, the radical shift was all that was present. The sense of existence from/as which the individuated perception is/was devoid of substance, but all was/is appearing... every thought arose within/as the NOTHING - pure awareness -, but distinct as appearances. The things were sensed as basically automagically, ornamentally existent, like a dream world, but... basically... just "perfectly so". It was like an acid trip or even like what people describe here as 5meo, but I was as sober and clear as the sky. Concepts arose, perfectly so, but I didn't give them much credence or pursue them, as the Presence in/as what IS was so very strong. So hard to explain, but that's just it. I was up in a bean field, living in a mud brick and rock hut with no water or electricity for a few months. The Presence sometimes as crystal clarity, sometimes as The Beloved was just the whole atmosphere... the I was just an arising, dancing in and out (much like the photons stuff, I suppose). 

I had a handful of a few books that I had bought at different book stores (computers were just becoming available at the time, but I lived up in the Himalayan foothills far from any internet cafe). I struggled to read between the lines of them or understand them before 12 Sept 1998, but afterwards, I could rip through them and easily identify the 5-10-15% of them that were useful (most of it shit). That's how I am attempting to interpret your focus on this 'closed' idea you're locked in on. For me, I could just tell where it was meant to make sense to the mind versus where it was pointing to existential Truth, in much the same way you are just cleaning house of anything that doesn't ring as "open" to you. I get it, and I think you should just stick with it and/or let it go altogether. That cleaning house phase went on for years, even after the bliss bunny stuff wore off weeks later. Stay true to your intuitive awareness of what needs to be done. I'm just providing feedback on how it can be integrated, not stating that you are right/wrong.

In the deepest nirvikalpa samadhi, there is a consciousness without content (thingness). Evidently, it is the highest state of emptiness meditation that can be achieved in sitting meditation. But even then, it is considered a state, not realization. Sometimes, I suspect the Void is potentially considered as distinct from this state (alluding to kensho/satori). I dunno all the specifics. Don't really care too too much, but hard core meditators have said as much. What is considered the highest state, sahaja samadhi, is the one that rings more 'real' for this mind, though it's more or less an effortlessness than most tend to explain to me. I meditate on occasion now just to clear the cobwebs, but Truth is just happening.

Point being, I don't worry too much about all the definitions and the making sense of other people's post-mortem constructs, as so many people have so many words and different interpretations based on those words, and so, very often it becomes a semantic affair. I try to hear where the person is coming from, what they're banging on about, and the intensity of their expression. Sometimes someone's expression grabs my interest, so I might chime in. I find the intensity of your search story appealing and the intensity of expression quite refreshing, but I do sense our minds have different levels of acidity and alkalinity, hehe. I do love a good show, and I thank you.

[samijiben]

I don't think Peter Ralston is wrong, I think he is perfect, but as many others pointed out, he is limited, which means vulnerability to misinterpretation & corruption. 

He is not "missing" anything in his worldview. It's not the case that his understanding of reality is incomplete because he forgot to mention the significance of psychedelics or Love or whatever. 

It is YOU that is "missing" something here because you are USING Ralston as a TEACHER —

This dynamic is untenable and must Die.

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, samijiben said:

He is not "missing" anything in his worldview.

Yes he is.

[Breakingthewall]

6 hours ago, kbone said:

. I get it, and I think you should just stick with it and/or let it go altogether

Thank you for your condescension. I appreciate it, and it's extremely helpful. I hope it makes you feel better. What I wanted to say is that being present and forgetting the fragmentation produced by the conceptual mind isn't true openness. You can believe what I say or not. If you are interested in what I meant to try to understand I could explain. I'm trying to have conversations without measurements of egos.  let's see if it's possible. What you explained about nothing is what happens when you realize that what appears is empty, just an hologram. In my experience It's just a realization, mean that you detach the meaning that the mind gives to everything and then everything appears empty. But really it's full, everything is infinite, but in a different plane. The vision that says that everything just appears magically is limited, everything appears because there are no limits. It's very different. The zen vision is flat, lacks depth, and it's so because they reject "maya". Yo can give a lot of advices about letting go and that, or try to understand what I'm saying, your choice 

Edited Saturday at 07:56 AM by Breakingthewall

[Breakingthewall]

19 minutes ago, samijiben said:

don't think Peter Ralston is wrong, I think he is perfect, but as many others pointed out, he is limited,

Limited doesn't mean that he's not all-encompassing, but its depth is limited. Depth can be both limited and unlimited. If it's limited, then you're operating from a closed configuration, like Ralston, and your job is to open it up so it's unlimited, not to teach people your ideas that come from your limited configuration, but that's what almost every teacher does.

[Kuba Powiertowski]

@Breakingthewall I'm wondering if the closest to the full, open spirituality you're writing about aren't the Vedanta representatives from the lineage of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa—beginning with Swami Vivekananda. Ramakrishna proposed a completely different approach within Advaita Vedanta, very different from its source version, Adi Shankara, which he called Vijnana Vedanta. Sounds very reasonable😉.

 

[Davino]

@Kuba Powiertowski My personal practice for openess are Michael Thaft meditations. He's the best I've found in the opennes, spatiousness domain.

 

[samijiben]

42 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes he is.

I meant to say he is perfect as Peter Ralston, there is nothing wrong with his teachings and work. 

Besides, who says you have to agree with or even understand a teacher's personal worldview to use them for what their worth and juice em for wisdom & insights? 

That's all I meant, that Ralston is fine as a teacher, so long as he is used as such, not a fucking deity.

31 minutes ago, Breakingthewall said:

Limited doesn't mean that he's not all-encompassing, but its depth is limited. Depth can be both limited and unlimited. If it's limited, then you're operating from a closed configuration, like Ralston, and your job is to open it up so it's unlimited, not to teach people your ideas that come from your limited configuration, but that's what almost every teacher does.

Not gonna lie, completely lost you here, if seems you are doing some self-referential trickery thing with your words here, and that is most concerning.

 

[Breakingthewall]

16 minutes ago, Kuba Powiertowski said:

@Breakingthewall I'm wondering if the closest to the full, open spirituality you're writing about aren't the Vedanta representatives from the lineage of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa—beginning with Swami Vivekananda. Ramakrishna proposed a completely different approach within Advaita Vedanta, very different from its source version, Adi Shankara, which he called Vijnana Vedanta. Sounds very reasonable😉.

 

 

You can perceive that Ramakrishna is operating from an open configuration, or at least seems so, Vivekananda same, maybe you couldn't agree in what they say about service or many things that they said , just their perspectives, preferences, but they are not limited or at least seem so. The thing is that their explanations are confusing, but maybe because they are from another culture or just their minds are in different frequencies, they don't articulate with precision, just evocative, but at least not limited, you can perceive broad vision, depth 

 

 

[Breakingthewall]

1 hour ago, samijiben said:

Not gonna lie, completely lost you here, if seems you are doing some self-referential trickery thing with your words here, and that is most concerning.

Let's imagine that reality is unlimited. It's not closed in any of its dimensions/perspectives/possibilities. Reality is configured in structures, like a human, for example, precisely because it is not limited. These structures are created in relation, synchrony, connection, with other structures, ad infinitum, since, as we have said, there are no limits in any direction.

Due to their configuration, in order to operate, exist, or remain, they operate on a closed frequency, since the framework in which they exist demands it. It's a matter of existing or not existing, and they operate to exist. It's an automatic and eliminatory process. What is incoherent is not functional and does not exist, period.

So, at a given moment, these structures reach a critical point where they tend toward breaking the limitation imposed by the need to synchronize with the whole, like a change of phase. 

This isn't easy because the limitations the mind has created to limit itself are real. The mind is an interface for connecting with the whole, and at the same time, it is the whole. Reality, as we said, is unlimited. Therefore, it operates in infinite interconnected dimensions, and each of them is the total reality. The part is the whole, the whole is the part, as you know.

This need for coherent interconnection is what closes, since form doesn't exist by itself; it exists in relation to infinite forms. Therefore, it focuses on synchronicity and loses the dimension of absolute depth. 

So, to get to the point, when someone like Ralston says, "Reality is consciousness," they're staring at a wall. . They just don't know it. If he would say: reality is concious, would be different. And when someone like Huang Po says that reality is "this," without a concept, they're separating reality from concept when concept is not separate from reality: it is one of its forms. Unlimited reality also manifests itself as a concept. The error is not conceptualizing, but losing the openness in conceptualization. There are closed concepts and also open concepts. That is the key: not to deny the concept, but to open it, to sustain it as a living structure of openness itself,  zen are placing themselves in the position of deny something in favor of anything else. They're defining enlightenment as peace and emptiness vs confusion and maya, thereby limiting and flattening their vision. It's not a question of whether they're wise, happy, functional, kind, and a good person. It's a question of whether or not their structure allows for unlimited openness

Edited Saturday at 10:16 AM by Breakingthewall

[Kuba Powiertowski]

@Breakingthewall It's important to remember not to build a new identification based, for example, on unlimited openness. This is a dead end, like any attempt to weld oneself onto any conceptual framework. The absolute is one thing, and relative levels of self-knowledge are another. Self-knowledge or Self-discovery is based on experience that occurs on relative dual planes, not necessarily "physical" or "material." Duality is the interaction between sets and elements of sets. Therefore, boundaries and limitations are an inherent feature of every relative duality—we could say they are the very nature of duality.