Showing posts with label Action. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Action. Show all posts


  • Geovani Geo
    "You keep coming back to justify your belief in long term practice which can eventually be quite a limiting factor. "
    Generally, it is true for most people, almost everybody.
    Buddha sat for 6 years before final awakening, Bodhidharma for 9 years, and so on.
    Malcolm said it is possible to attain rainbow body/Buddhahood in one life if one is doing thodgal practices in a retreat setting, and even then it takes years, I think up to 12 years if I can remember correctly. He said most Dzogchen practitioners are never going to attain full Buddhahood in their lifetime, but can attain liberation at the time of bardo.
    Zen Master Dogen:
    Consider the Buddha: although he was wise at birth, the traces of his six years of upright sittingcan yet be seen. As for Bodhidharma, although he had received the mind-seal, his nine years of facing a wall is celebrated still. If even the ancient sages were like this, how can we today dispense with wholehearted practice?
    Therefore, put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases, and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will manifest. If you want to realize such, get to work on such right now.
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  • On the duration it takes to attain Buddhahood:
    [1:21 AM, 10/8/2020] John Tan: Have you listened to the Dan brown? [Soh: this is referring to another video -- https://www.fitmind.co/.../dan-brown-phd-meditation-great... ]
    [1:21 AM, 10/8/2020] Soh Wei Yu: havent yet.. is it good?
    [1:21 AM, 10/8/2020] John Tan: From I AM to non-dual to one mind to no mind
    [1:22 AM, 10/8/2020] Soh Wei Yu: oic.. but not anatta?
    [1:22 AM, 10/8/2020] John Tan: To dzogchen, the view is the practice or view includes practice. You listen tomorrow, you will understand. Hale must be thinking that it is quite similar with the phases of insights But I deleted that away in the comment
    [1:25 AM, 10/8/2020] Soh Wei Yu: oic.. why delete
    [1:27 AM, 10/8/2020] John Tan: I dunno about dzogchen much, so I will stay with what I know and experience...lol. Instead of saying phases of insights are similar, will cause unnecessary issues...and I am not trying to come out some version of jaxchen or soh-chen...
    [9:23 AM, 10/8/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Ic.. you said it talks about no mind but it didnt mention about anatta realization?
    [9:29 AM, 10/8/2020] John Tan: Yeah
    [2:09 PM, 10/8/2020] John Tan: Frankly I like Dan brown video but the timeline is unrealistic.
    [2:11 PM, 10/8/2020] John Tan: The steps are however clear.
    Nauli for example. Even doing the centre extrusion will take few months of practice and to really churn the will take about 2 years. To churn and have sufficient control will take much more time. Even if you practice diligently as an exercise will take you probably 4-5 years to master.
    [2:13 PM, 10/8/2020] John Tan: As for insights, it is not a matter of pointing out, the stability will take probably 10-25 years post anatta to even have stability and that is practicing quite diligently. Resting in appearances without observer and observed will take probably more time. Into 3 states IMO and experiences require another understanding and that is important. The key is in the message I told andre and asked you what are the other ways beside anatta and do for active mode of no-agency.
    [2:16 PM, 10/8/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Oic.. but buddha said you can attain arahant between 7 days to 7 years just by practicing four foundations of mindfulness.. but i guess that timeline is for monks and often in retreat
    [2:17 PM, 10/8/2020] John Tan: That is not Buddhahood
    [2:17 PM, 10/8/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Ic.. but should have cleared the ten fetters right
    [2:17 PM, 10/8/2020] John Tan: Yes. That is why I told you to ponder on the no agency part. You need to have that insight, otherwise it is just half done. In other words it is no self in active mode. Why is it half done? Because it is normally in passive mode. So your dreams will normally remain karmic.
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      André A. Pais
      Any other ways..? I'm not sure. Contemplating conditionality perhaps? It's less conceptual and more experiential.
      Yes, seeing non-duality is not the same as seeing no-inherency. The former is more about seeing through the characteristics of subject-object, while the latter seems to be more about seeing through all types of characteristics.
      What do you suggest to see through "thingness"? I may tend to fall into PCE's.
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      · 21w
      John Tan
      I think u have explored and r familiar with the different deconstruction methods and yes DO (general dependent origination) is an excellent tool for deconstruction. It deconstructs without ignoring diversities. In DO, one feels the deep intimacy and connectedness with the diversities, yet everything dissolves into a seamless formation of a total situation. Everything includes the sense of self and others, hereness and nowness, time and space, mind and body, physical and materiality and so and and so forth.
      But I m not looking at DO. In the Taoism YouTube that Soh
      posted, Jason Gregory provides another perspective to look at the agency-action issue. The emphasis is more on habitual repetition into elimination of the agent from the action/activity.
      But I m not referring to that as well. I m looking more on the non-attachment aspect, the freedom from gain/loss, success/failure, pride and fear in any endeavour. Practicing that way, the gap between the agent and action will also be gradually reduced to none, into the flow of actionless action.
      As for falling into PCEs, there is nothing wrong falling into PCEs imo; just how uncontrived and effortless, how natural and spontaneous the PCEs are. More importantly, are the PCEs endow with deep wisdoms that sees through:
      1. self (anatta)
      2. phenomena (chariot analogy)
      3. characteristics (redness of a flower). The lurid redness that appears to stick to a red flower seems to b an inherent part of the flower. But is it? There is neither redness out there nor in here. at the flower, nor on the mind, nor...
      4. the sematics/meanings of conventionalities
      5. appearances (experienctial emptiness). Appears but not found.
      To me over-emphasis of non-conceptualities (too early) is an extreme and can be a great disservice as it "bypasses" those valuable insights that see through reifications and semantic/meaning of conventionalities.
      But seeing through "thingness" moderates this extremity, it is like the middle path between conceptual and non-conceptualities.
      Eventually and gradually, everything too will b de-constructed; no thoughts and concepts, calmly and evenly into transparent pristine appearances in natural spontaneity.
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      · 21w · Edited
      André A. Pais
      I don't understand why can't redness be in the mind - not intrinsically so, of course.
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      · 21w
      Geovani Geo
      I guess its because "redness" would be another "thing".
      · Reply
      · 21w · Edited
      John Tan
      Yes André
      , I m referring to intrinsically and inherently.
      That said, u may also want to look deeper into point 4 and compare it with the de-construction of "thingness/inherent-ness" of my earlier message:
      1. The very idea of "in", the very idea of "from" or the idea of "produce" r all sematics of conventionalities. We have mistaken "meanings" of these conventions as undeniable "reality" but they too r imputed. The mind thinks surely even without labels and designations, there is still the actuality of being "in" something, somewhere but this is not true. "In-ness" too is a formation formed from "mental constructions + sensations". They can similarly b de-constructed.
      If a mind free from all these sematics of conventionalities or total exhaustion of conceptualities, what is experience like?
      It is not "knowingness" nor a "not knowing mind", but just liberating all sematics of conventions and simply resting as mere clean, pure, pellucid sense of vivid radiance (in absorption)?
      2. Seeing through "inherent-ness/thingness" which is what I said in my earlier message.
      If u r interested, u can explore into them otherwise just treat it as some blah blah blah..🤣
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      · 21w · Edited
      André A. Pais
      Yes, redness as a concept is totally imagined. And yet, a mere appearance is present. We can't say, of course, where it appears, or what it is, etc. Those would all be designations. But conventionally, it is indeed an appearance in mind. And I've seen John and Soh talking about such example, but how they get to the "unarisen" insight always eludes me.
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      · 21w
      John Tan
      All appearances r like a finger drawing a circle in thin air, mere occurrences. Even the solid vivid sensations of "hardness", appears (in zero dimension) but r no where to b found - unarisen.
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      · 21w · Edited
      Geovani Geo
      The ultimate fairer is the free empty heart. And I am not being romantic but purely "technical". Where else are all burdens shed?
      · Reply
      · 21w
      André A. Pais
      John Tan
      I resonate very much with the investigation of our sense of localization, embodiment (feeling to be inside a body), physicality, direction / perspective ("I am here looking there"), etc. You seemed to touch it, when talking about "in-ness", "from" and existing "somewhere".
      These are sensitive topics to me, as they relate to notions of space, solidity, etc. I like very much the line of inquiry "is experience happening anywhere?", for example.
      Can you explore it a bit?
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      · 21w · Edited
      Geovani Geo
      At this point I find it quite useful to resort to "being awareness" (I think u call it PCE?). Such awareness is seeing through the luminosity of "things". But this is still a "doing", right? The "problem" with this is that there is a subtle duality awareness/stuff-being-awared. Then some may come up with the notion that awareness is not other then what is being awared. That there is only awareness. And here, I guess, is where inherency comes in. Fundamentally, is there an awareness at all? Or such awareness was also jsut a skillful means, a pointer?
      If there is not such inherent awareness, then what is here? Is there any kind of measurable dimension that could be established? etc...
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      · 21w

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    • John Tan
      André
      , what I m talking abt is the phenomelogy of day to day mumdane experiences, nothing transcendental.
      I'm merely looking at how mental constructs created by our language structures and social conventions define and shape our moment to moment of experiences.
      When we say our body is having such and such sensations, the mind really thinks in terms of containment. When we try to search for the referent we called "body", we realized there is no "body" apart from the dancing and fluxing sensations. So again, there r no two parts -- body and sensations; what we designate as "body" is just these sensations.
      Once the mind sees through this "body construct", the sense of "in-ness" also dissolves. Sensations r simply present, no where, zero dimension. Same for "self/Self" as a background.
      Just this experiential taste of thorough deconstruction is enough to take up my whole life. 🤣
      As a side note, in Taoism there is the art of "sit and forget" 坐忘. To sit and forget the "body" is difficult, to see through mental constructs is much easier once we get a hang of it and it is more penetrating and insightful.
      Ok André, been chatting too much. Thks for the exchanges.
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      · 21w · Edited
      John Tan
      Geovani Geo
      to me, to be without dual is not to subsume into one and although awareness is negated, it is not to say there is nothing.
      Negating the Awareness/Presence (Absolute) is to not let Awareness remain at the abstract level. When such transpersonal Awareness that exists only in wonderland is negated, the vivid radiance of presence are fully tasted as the transient appearances; zero gap and zero distance between presence and moment to moment of ordinary experiences and we realize that "presence" has always only been a convention for these vivid ordinary experiences.
      Then mundane activities -- hearing, sitting, standing, seeing and sensing, become pristine and vibrant, natural and free.
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      · 21w · Edited
      Geovani Geo
      John
      , yes. Any single atom is it. And even all atoms of all universes together are not it. Tx!!
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      · 21w

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    • TAOISM | The Philosophy of Flow and Wu Wei
      YOUTUBE.COM
      TAOISM | The Philosophy of Flow and Wu Wei
      TAOISM | The Philosophy of Flow and Wu Wei

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    • Also related:
      [11:43 PM, 9/30/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Beyond subject-action-object
      [11:45 PM, 9/30/2020] Soh Wei Yu: The other day i just intuitively understood that tremendous merits and the perfections of paramitas comes from the actualization of anatta in practice and action.. like in generosity etc
      [11:45 PM, 9/30/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Beyond or empty of the three spheres
      [12:01 AM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: Better, what else?
      [12:01 AM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: So what do u understand from it?
      [12:02 AM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: Paramitas and fear....what have u understood and how is it different from just losing the background?
      [12:41 AM, 10/1/2020] Soh Wei Yu: If for example one does an act of generosity with a self or giver in mind, a gift in mind and a receiver in mind, or the idea of a self creating merit in mind, then the merits accrued from such an act is very limited and the action can hardly be a perfection.
      When one is actualizing anatta in that action of giving with giver, gift and recipient, the action of generosity is naturally perfected and the merits accrued is immense.
      Also there is the actual mental qualities to be cultivated but the key is in the state of equipoise or actualization of anatta otherwise the quality cannot be perfected also. For example one can practice a kind of tolerance but this is different from completely dissolving the self in actualization and equipoise, then “patience” and “equanimity” arise untainted by self even when confronted with situations.
      Just losing the background can remain an inactive perceptual level but all the paramitas are qualities of mind that are perfected when anatta beyond three spheres are actualised when facing situations and people
      Likewise for fear
      [12:42 AM, 10/1/2020] Soh Wei Yu: *without giver,...
      [12:46 AM, 10/1/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Like just chanting..
      [12:46 AM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: Much better, but the relationship is still not clear. And it is not so correct to say that if anatta insight doesn't arise, u can't perfect paramitas. In fact it goes both ways.
      So the passive and active mode of anatta. How does the gap between the actor and action being eliminated to none in activity?
      [12:47 AM, 10/1/2020] Soh Wei Yu: If one is in chanting samadhi no chanter or chanted.. not just samadhi but actualising one’s insight where self and objects are exhausted in equipoise, then that is most meritorious. Although one is not thinking of merits
      [12:47 AM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: No good.
      [12:47 AM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: This is not the key of anatta.
      [12:49 AM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: So do u have a better understanding of Wu Wei in Taoism? Effortless action, action without the sense of agent?
      [12:50 AM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: Insight of anatta is not primary for them though it is the missing key....however still, one can enter in actionless action...by what way?
      [12:51 AM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: If u do not have insight of anatta, how r u to practice?
      [9:33 AM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: Yes André, I agree with most of what u said, just 3 points:
      1. Primordial state, original face.
      What does it mean to to be without the imagined and imputed? It is simply one's primordial state, always and already so despite non-recognition.
      So the path can be directly pointing to one's original face or to rid from all imputed imagined artificialities.
      But the direct leap out of the imputed layer is often not exhaustive and thorough, many blindspots and hindrances. Therefore a short cut can often turns out to be a longer cut.
      2. Unmade, natural and spontaneous
      I agree that without imputations, there is no boundaries. Therefore all experiences is open and spacious and without the layer of imagined, whatever appears is pristine and pellucid, transpar…
      [12:42 PM, 10/1/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
      [4:05 PM, 10/1/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Lol
      [4:08 PM, 10/1/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Like zuo wang.. forgetting and dissolve self into the experience and activity
      First time i had no mind in 2006 was when i was practicing mindfulness then i forgot self into tree
      In 2008 was pondering “how is it to die and fade out of existence” then it triggered intense nondual experience but only for a short while
      [4:12 PM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: That is one way, more on no mind.
      [4:12 PM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: This is not what I m looking at.
      [4:14 PM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: 坐忘 (zuo wang/sitting and forgetting [self]) will not b unfamiliar to u. It is the direct day to day, down to earth aspect u need to look into it. U should see in terms of the paramitas, what exactly is actionless action.
      [4:16 PM, 10/1/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
      [4:20 PM, 10/1/2020] John Tan: This is imp. But the other way is equally true. Look into that direction. What if u have totally no insight at all. Does that mean u wont be able to overcome agency-action issue?
      [8:56 AM, 10/2/2020] John Tan: I wrote to Andre:
      I think u have explored and r familiar with the different deconstruction methods and yes DO (dependent origination) is an excellent tool for deconstruction. It deconstructs without ignoring diversities. In DO, one feels the deep intimacy and connectedness with the diversities, yet everything dissolves into a seamless formation of a total situation. Everything includes the sense of self and others, hereness and nowness, time and space, mind and body, physical and materiality and so and and so forth.
      But I m not looking at DO. In the Taoism YouTube that Soh posted, Jason Gregory provides another perspective to look at the agency-action issue. The emphasis is more on habitual repetition into elimination of the agent from the action/activity.
      But I m not referring to that as well. I m looking more on the non-attachment aspect, the freedom from gain/loss, success/failure, pride and fear in any endeavour. Practicing that way, the gap between the agent and action will also be gradually reduced to none, into the flow of actionless action.
      As for falling into PCEs, there is nothing wrong falling into PCEs imo; just how uncontrived and effortless, how natural and spontaneous the PCEs are. More importantly, are the PCEs endow with deep wisdoms that sees through:
      1. self (anatta)
      2. phenomena (chariot analogy)
      3. characteristics (redness of a flower). The lurid redness that appears to stick to a red flower seems to b an inherent part of the flower. But is it? There is neither redness out there nor in here. at the flower, nor on the mind, nor...
      4. the sematics/meanings of conventionalities
      5. appearances (experienctial emptiness). Appears but not found.
      To me over-emphasis of non-conceptualities (too early) is an extreme and can be a great disservice as it "bypasses" those valuable insights that see through reifications and semantic/meaning of conventionalities.
      But seeing through "thingness" moderates this extremity, it is like the middle path between conceptual and non-conceptualities.
      Eventually and gradually, everything too will b de-constructed; no thoughts and concepts, calmly and evenly into transparent pristine appearances in natural spontaneity.
      [11:00 AM, 10/2/2020] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
      [11:33 AM, 10/2/2020] John Tan: No. Magical is not empty illusory nature.
      [11:34 AM, 10/2/2020] John Tan: Magical because the radiance is unmade...not mechanical, not artificial.
      [11:36 AM, 10/2/2020] John Tan: U feel it is of a totally different dimension from the artificial. Intense radiance and wondrous manifestation r all parts of being magic.
      [11:37 AM, 10/2/2020] John Tan: Or magic by being empty and luminous.
      [11:40 AM, 10/2/2020] John Tan: His [Tinh Panh] description is quite good. Brahman or not doesn't matter as long Brahman is not any transpersonal being in a wonderland, but is the very relative phenomena that we misunderstood.

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"Not sure if you have seen this but Elias Capriles contrasts different traditions and states of realization in this interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDWDF35A-1U

Elias Caprilles interviewed by Vladimir Maykov on Ken Wilber's distortion of Buddhism and Dzogchen

He starts to mention at 17:00, then again around 19:00 and also 25:00
He seems to reference Mahā total exertion at the end" - Kyle Dixon

"Interesting...Elias Capriles talk about total exertion and non-action.  He also give an example of some one drawing a circle...which I think is very good.  My son intro-ed an artist that is like that into total non-action...every point he draws is simply perfect...when they later map and calculate the ratio and distance... Kim Jung Gi" - John Tan

"Very good.  The view is clear." - John Tan


Also here is a nice article that is related: http://www.integralworld.net/capriles1.html

THE TRANSRELIGIOUS FALLACY
IN WILBER’S WRITINGS

And Its Relation With Wilber's
“Philosophical Tradition" And Views

"Beyond Mind", Part III, Appendix 1

ELÍAS CAPRILES




Thusness and I think Zen Master Hogen's writings are a clear expression of Maha total exertion.

www.openway.org.au/

"It was on the fifth night of the intensive training session in December, when I was 25 years old, that I sat in a graveyard behind the temple, uttering 'muh, muh, muh' in a very loud voice. As I was engaged in the whole-hearted utterance of 'muh', I discovered that heaven and earth became 'muh' altogether. When I uttered 'muh' I discovered that the universe became 'muh'. When I uttered 'uhh' the whole universe became 'uhh'. All things became settled in that experience. As you are, so is the universe. The whole universe responds to your act. When you go to the bathroom, you have the universe of the bathroom. You have no other universe than this. There is no origin and no occasion for the creation of a new universe other than this place and this occasion. Between heaven and earth there is only this event. We stand at the creation of this universe. There is nothing less and nothing more than this."



"When a lotus flower opens, all the surrounding muddy water is contained in it. When a fruit has ripened, the roots, tree trunk, branches, leaves, soil, all the surroundings, the whole earth, are all actualized and happy in this fruit (of THIS!). Each of us is THIS! Falling leaves is a shooting sprout, a shooting sprout is falling leaves."

"Throughout this process, we are inter-relating, life after life, within all our relations with everything, so deeply interdependently ¾ this is nothing but emptiness. This is the real meaning of emptiness. Please do not misunderstand about emptiness which is not empty, nor vacant, nor "no-substance", but is, in fact, full of life and everything, selflessly.

This one penetration of our own lives and deaths through so many reincarnations, is nothing but the long process of our own self-realisation of our deepest life-meaning. This is our self-substance or self-essence which is formed, supported, influenced, nurtured interdependently with all others, not able to exist by itself. Therefore, it is emptiness, we all are emptiness, as everything is. All our reincarnations and transmigrations are possible, in reality, because of the emptiness of ourselves. We (everything) are not fixed entities."

"
Form is emptiness, emptiness is form;
Every formation (substance, essence) and all our reincarnations (transmigrations) are emptiness,
Emptiness is every formation (essence, substance) and all our reincarnations (transmigrations)."


"Zazen, running, conversation, reading, considering (and taking responsibility for) the problems of the world, having dinner or taking a bath... whatever you are doing now - that is the daily reality for you: do not try to escape it.

Each thing we are doing or facing now is our true reality, our true encounter. This is exactly the point. Whatever you are doing now, do it. Just do it. Don't avoid it. If you escape from this, you are always escaping towards some future, from the cradle to the grave."

"The realization of life is nothing more than the realization of death. Doing something with all your heart and forgetting yourself in it is the ultimate truth."

"This morning, I happened to look at a leaf of a tree. In that leaf I discovered the detailed reality of our existence. I had never before truly seen the miraculous nature of our life. I looked at the leaf in deep silence, with eyes full of tears. Thus I sat, in the depth of a special serenity and peace."

"Our daily life is, thus, nothing but miracles."

"How am I doing it?" Examine this only."

"As long as we practise sitting in order to gain something special or to satisfy our own intentions or purposes, zazen is never deepened, nor is it possible to enter a state of samadhi."

"The harder we try to clarify muddy water, the muddier it becomes. It is best to leave it alone."

"Every living creature is unique and meaningful, an indispensable link in the universal circle. When I observe closely a dry leaf, a blade of grass, an earthworm, I am struck by the deep wonder of the sacred universe. These small things may seem to be useless, but in truth nothing is useless. We are all descendents of the beginning of the universe."

"I am always being supported by you, by air, by water, by the sunlight, by people who live all over the world, by clothes, by soil, by the earth, stars, time, and space. In the end, the whole cosmos is allowing me to exist. You are also being supported by everything else in the universe. Therefore, we cannot consider ourselves to be separate; we cannot exist independently of any other thing."

"Listen to the birds singing outside. But they are not outside. There is no border between them and us: no separation. Everything, all living creatures, and the whole cosmos are the same body. We are not individuals.

Look at my hands. They appear to be separate, but in reality they are not. Both are part of the same body. When I sit, I am the tip of the iceberg. All of my ancestors are actualizing here within me. Everything is actualizing here. So, when you experience a deep transformation, the whole cosmos is also changed: because truly there is no separation."

"You speak of a breathing method and say, "It might be useful," but what is useful? The concept of usefulness can only exist in a world of techniques, and Zen is not a technique. It is the practice of the Buddha, the realization of the Way. When you are aiming for a goal, you consider the question of usefulness. In zazen, however, we do not need to progress efficiently towards any goal. Therefore, there is no method in Zen. Only sitting exists and it is everything."

"How can we attain the Buddha's Way? Do you have some special method to attain it? Is that why we do zazen, yoga, chanting, running? No, these are not ways to attain it. They are, each of them, Buddha's life itself. They are the ultimate attainment in themselves, not ways or means to reach some other goal."

"Try to combine your breathing with the rhythm of the universe. It will cause you to awaken to the truth that there is nothing but the breath of the cosmos within you, coming from an immaculate origin."

"A true Zen practitioner is a person who sees reality, who is deeply related to the world - to people, animals, plants, rocks, the sea - and through this connection is reborn with each encounter."

"Carried by the current of deep life, we are naturally led to sit. Here is the opening of a new encounter in sitting. This sitting is no longer your own."

"Zazen begins only at the point where you cast off everything."

"(a) Wisdom without compassion is too cold to feel the pain of others

(b) Compassion without understanding is blind love and cannot function in the real world
(c) Emptiness without the experience of love is a mere vacant concept with no energy to love anyone or anything in this muddy universe
(d) Zen without basic precepts is like a very refined and highly developed flower of Buddhism without stable roots. Zen masters without basic precepts are like high demons with zen disease as described in the book "Zen at War""
Thusness and I thought that this article expresses the essence of Zen well, especially for an academic article.

URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-zen/
Excerpts:

"Generally speaking, Zen cherishes simplicity and straightforwardness in grasping reality and acting on it “here and now,” for it believes that a thing-event that is immediately presencing before one's eyes or under one's foot is no other than an expression of suchness, i.e., it is such that it is showing its primordial mode of being. It also understands a specificity of thing-event to be a recapitulation of the whole; parts and the whole are to be lived in an inseparable relationship through an exercise of nondiscriminatory wisdom, without prioritizing the visible over the invisible, the explicit over the implicit, and vice versa."

"Zen does not accept, time as a “fleeing image of eternity” (i.e., Plato). Zen takes time to be living. According to Zen, theories of time built through conceptual abstraction, are distanced and separate from the immediacy of “here-now.”

Space, too, is neither a container (i.e., Newtown's “absolute space”) nor an a priori limiting condition (i.e., Kant), nor the place of displacement for the volume of an extended thing (i.e., Aristotle). Rather it is a living space. Dōgen for example captures this sense of space as “the bird flies the sky and the sky flies the bird.” In this statement an independence of both the sky and the bird is recognized, but it also recognizes that the sky and the bird each become themselves only through their interdependence. In other words, what makes this space a living space is the dynamic, interdependent, bilateral play of both bird and sky, from which the living space-time as the continuum of “here-now” emerges as an ambience, where each of the terms entering the relationship through the activity is granted a full recognition of their being. This is because the Zen person lives the dynamic activity of non-dualistic “coming-together” of “the two,” whether this “two” happens to involve the “betweenness” of two individuals, individual and nature, or individual and trans-individual."

"However, an objection may be raised contra Zen's holistic, non-dualistic meaning of its “seeing” or “mirroring,” namely the objection that if there is something that is mirrored, is there not still operative a dualistic epistemological structure? Zen would respond that this objection ignores the fact that the ground of seeing is the bottomless ground that is nothing. What appears against mirror qua nothing is just an object. In such a seeing, the object alone shines forth. Hence, it is characterized, to use Nishida's terminology, as “seeing without a seer.” Below, we will explore further the structure of how things appear in Zen."

"How then does the Zen person, thus understood, live freedom? The term that Zen uses to express the idea of “freedom” is “jiyū” and it consists of two characters; “ji” meaning “self on its own,” while “yū” means “out of.” When they are used together as a compound, the phrase as a whole designates an action arising out of self on its own."

"In order for this sense of freedom to be embodied, however, Zen emphasizes that a performer of any kind repeatedly undergoes mind-body training. Takuan calls this the “body's learning,”—that is the core meaning of self-cultivation—because in “body's learning,” both the mind and the body are brought to action in one integrated whole. (The “body's learning,” neurophysiologically speaking, is closely related to an activity of the cerebellum in conjunction with the hippocampus, although it is only that.) When a skill or performing technique is learned through this method, one's own body moves freely as it is habituated to move without waiting for a command from the mind. This describes a freedom of action in a Zen person for whom the mind is completely assimilated into the object-body, while the body is equally rendered into the subject-body. They are one. At such a time, Takuan says, a spiritual life-energy of psychophysiological nature, called “ki,” permeates “one's body”—an energy that cannot be delineated by either the mind or the body. (Yuasa, 1993) In this connection, Zen also speaks of Zen's free action as a purposeless purpose, as an actionless action, for neither the purpose nor the action arises from the everyday consciousness which sets up a purpose or a goal for action. Zen calls it “samādhi-at-play,” where there is no individual qua the trans-individual, but what there is is just “play,” for the Zen person is absorbed in the activity when engaging a thing of the everyday “life-world.” In short, Zen freedom designates a term of achievement. What Zen says of freedom of action has an implication for every action people perform in daily life, from the simple act of opening a door to the magnificent play of a great athlete or performer of any kind. In them, Zen contends however, the spirituality of a performer must be expressed. Zen extends an invitation to all of us to act in this way, so that the quality of life will be enhanced with a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, free from stress and anxiety."

"Zen's methods of meditative practice are concrete ways for an individual to become a Zen person by awakening to the fundamental reality in the everyday human “life-world.” In so doing, it teaches to participate in the whole, and to express freedom in daily action, by showing one's “original face” right here-now and right in front of one's eyes."

p.s. This encyclopedia from Stanford University really has quality articles (albeit academic) on almost all philosophies in the world. Though I can't gaurantee every single one is well written, as different authors authored each of these. I am currently reading the one on Abhidharma http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abhidharma/
Also see: No Self, No Doer, Conditionality

Thusness commented: "It is a good article... ...In the article there is no obsession or singling out clarity as independent and existing by itself. "Being" here is understood within/from the context of anatta, process, verb, no locus and without agent. His term of "being" is not to single out from the ever dynamics of appearance but rather understood from the standpoint of non-action. Would be better if there is integration of total exertion (dependent origination) into it; makes the article more complete."

http://www.evertype.com/misc/vitakka.html
[Evertype]  Some remarks on conceptualization and transcendent experienceHome

Some remarks on conceptualization and transcendent experience in the Theravāda tradition, with two notes on translation

Michael Everson

This paper, written originally in 1988, was an excursion into theology -- or perhaps “noetology”. It was an attempt at commentary proper, rather than at disinterested analysis.

It is a basic tenet of Buddhism that suffering arises from false notions of self. Individuals perceive themselves as separate entities, autonomous yet dependent on their world, experiencing change and continuity. The uniqueness of each moment of existence is distorted by the filter of a self which categorizes and interprets those moments, judging them good or bad and fighting a useless battle to keep the good and shun the bad. The nexus for the introduction of false notions of self into experience is the point at which experience is conceptualized. Enlightened consciousness results when these false notions are no longer imposed upon the perceptual process.
It cannot be said that the Buddhist description of conceptualization is without its difficulties. Indeed, a Buddhist description ofanything is much entangled in relationships: just as any event in the world depends on a nigh infinite series of causes, and engenders a nigh infinite series of effects, so does a light shone on any facet of Buddhist epistemology shine and reflect off of each other facet. It is difficult to pluck one string of the sitar without causing the sympathetic strings into resonance as well. Still, conceptualization, and its relation to conditioned and enlightened consciousness, is central to Buddhism -- both to its taxonomy of the problem of existence and to its soteriology. An investigation of that relation will suggest a reëvaluation of notions of action and being.
Buddhism might be described as a kind of cure to the disease of dukkha, of ‘suffering’ or ‘unsatisfactoriness’. Existence (bhava) is an ongoing process of becoming, manifest in its constituents (aṅga). The natural (or ideal) condition for the mind is a calm flow (bhavaṅga-sota), through which (around which, in which) the constituents of becoming interact harmoniously in an “experiential stream” of what is as it is. Nyanatiloka remarks that bhavṣaṅga-sota is explained in the Abhidhamma commentaries as the foundation or condition (kaṁraṇa) of existence (bhava), as the sine qua non of life, having the nature of a process, lit. a flux or stream (sota). [Nyanatiloka 1980:38]
Conceptualization impedes the harmonious flow of bhavaṅga-sota. It is a process for ordering stimuli to consciousness, convenient for interaction with the world, but, apparently, not essential once the world has been investigated. Bondage to concepts is considered to be an inevitable consequence of the process of conceptualization because of the fiction of the self, and that bondage to concepts leads to expectation and denial, the causes of dukkha. A review of the process leading up to conceptualization will be helpful here.
The immediate precursors to conceptualization have been classified as a purely impersonal, causal process. In the Madhupiṇḍika-sutta, the venerable Kaccaṁna sums up his understanding of the Buddha’s teaching:
    Manañ-c’ āvuso paṭicca dhamme ca uppajjati manoviññāṇaṁ, tiṇṇaṁ saṅgati phasso, phassapaccayā vedanā, yaṁ vedeti taṁ sañjānāti, yaṁ sañjānāti taṁ vitakketi, yaṁ vitakketi taṁ papañceti, yaṁ papañceti tatonidānaṁ purisaṁ papañcasaññāsaṅkhā samu-dācaranti atītānāgatapaccuppanesu manoviññeyyesu dhammesu. [Majjhima-nikāya 18 (Madhupiṇḍika-sutta) (1888: I:112)]

    ‘And, brothers, the mind and mental objects are the cause for the arising of mental consciousness. The meeting of the three is sense contact; feelings are the result of that contact; what one feels one perceives; what one perceives one reasons about; what one reasons about one differentiates; what one differentiates is the origin of the sign of perceptions and obstructions which assail a man with regard to mental objects to be comprehended by the mind, in the past, the future, and the present.’
Interaction between one of the sense-bases (the five senses and the mind) and an object gives rise to the attentive faculty of consciousness, that is, of awareness of objects. The meeting of the three is contact (phassa); from this contact arises sensation or feeling (vedanā). The living being with functioning sense organs must interact with objects, become conscious of them through contact, and feel or sense them. When the ego intrudes and makes the connection “I experience this object”, the process loses its impersonality, and becomes first a kind of deliberate and conscious, then a subconscious and automatic activity, conditioned by karmic predisposition. Kaccāna’s description points to this shift from impersonal to personal in his movement from a simple ablative construction to the inflected personal verb: “Phassapaccayā vedanā, yaṁ vedeti taṁ sañjānāti” ‘From the condition of contact [arises] feeling; what one feels, one perceives’. Suddenly it is an individual person (puggala) who experiences sensation; and when he does, he perceives, knows, or recognizes (compare sañjānāti with Latin cōgnōscit). A person has arisen here out of nonperson: attā out ofanattā. That ego, once established with its faculties of memory and volition, will evaluate its sensations in terms of itself; it will judge, and desire. That ego is a confluence of material and mental processes, and, apart from them, has no real existence.
Conceptualization arises from perception. “Yaṁ sañjānāti taṁ vitakketi” ‘What one perceives, one reflects on’. This is indicative of the insidious nature of the ego to take the original subjective experience and “objectivize” it. Though each object, contact, and sensation be unique, the ego takes them only in relation to itself and its past, present, and future experience and needs. The concepts (vitakkā) which arise through perception tend toward proliferation, for the ego becomes attached to them. Conceptions become preconceptions, and the whole scheme is filled with error.
The Buddha was concerned about the detrimental nature of attachment to speculative views of existence and of the Transcendent. The problem is not whether or not the views themselves have validity, for it is clear that they do, depending on, and with respect to, the particular point of view. “The fact that existence is a relative concept is often overlooked by the worldling.” [Ñāṇananda 1974:20] It is axiomatic that the frog knows what the tadpole cannot; but the question here is whether or not the tadpole’s point of view is wise, and the Buddhist approach would be to say that no point of view is worthwhile unless it is a view which encompasses reality as it is. That view is impersonal. From the Sutta-nipāta:
    “Mūlaṁ papañcasaṁkhāyā” ti Bhagavā
    “‘mantā asmī ’ti sabbam uparundhe,
    yā kāci taṇhā ajjhattaṁ,
    tāsaṁ vinayā sadā sato sikkhe.” [916 (1913:179)]

    ‘“He should”, said the Lord, “break up the root of these signs of obstruction,[1] the notion ‘I am the thinker’. Whatever his subjective desires, he trains himself to give them up, always mindful in his discipline.”’

It should be noted that both E. M. Hare [Sutta-nipāta 1944:134] and Hammalava Saddhatissa [Sutta-nipāta 1985:107] have mistranslated mantā asmi as ‘all the thoughts “I am”’ and ‘all thought of “I am”’ respectively. A better reading would have mantā <mantar ‘thinker’ (< Sanskrit *mantṛ) and take the deictic ’ti as setting off the phrase mantā asmi as translated above. (Cf. Neumann’s translation “Ich bin’s, der denkt”, ‘I am the one who thinks’. [Sutta-nipāta 1911:299]) The Commentary to the Sutta-nipāta, however, explains this phrase by mantāya:

    ...tassā [papañcāya] avijjādayo kilesā mūlaṁ, taṁ papañcasaṁkhāya mūlaṁ ‘asmī’ ti pavattamānañ ca sabbaṁ mantāyauparundhe, yā kāci ajjhattaṁ taṇhā uppajjeyyuṁ, tāsam vinayāya sadā sato sikkhe upaṭṭhitasati hutvā sikkheyyā ti. [Paramatthajotikā II.iv.14 (1917:II:562)] {My emphasis.}

    ‘...from this [obstruction] comes the root, the impurities which begin with ignorance: this root of the signs of obstruction is ‘I am’, which results in pride, and he should break up all [this] by wisdom, whatever the subjective desires that should arise, for/of these he trains himself to give up, ever mindful, he should discipline himself, being one whose attention is firm.’

Here the dative mantāya would also prove difficult for Hare and Saddhatissa’s readings, where we should expect *manā asmi (formanāya asmi) ‘of the thought “I am”, since we have mano ‘thought’ opposed to mantā ‘wisdom’, as I think the Commentary has it, or even manta (< Sanskrit mantra) ‘charm, doctrine, Holy Scripture’. [Cf. Childers 1875:238-39, and Rhys Davids & Stede 1979:520-22] In any case, I find the present suggested reading more in keeping with the spirit and the sense of the intent of the text, and with the goals of the tradition generally.[2] It is the conceptual attachment of agent to action (yaṁ maññati taṁ mantar), resulting from the initial separation of agent from action, which the Buddha attacks in the Kālakārāma-sutta, not whether or not there exists a thinker at all.
It is true that identification with (or even the ‘real’ existence of) the personal ego is denied elsewhere by the Buddha:
    ...sutavato ariyasāvakassa avijjā pahīyati vijjā uppajjati. Tassa avijjāvirāgā vijjuppādā “Asmī” ti pi ’ssa na hoti, “Ayam aham asmī” ti pi ’ssa na hoti, “Bhavissanti, na bhavissanti, rūpī, arūpī, saññī, asaññī, n’eva saññī nāsaññī bhavissan” ti pi ’ssa na hoti. [Saṁyutta-nikāya XXII.47.6-7 (Atthadīpa-vagga) (1890:III:46-47)] {My punctuation.}

    ‘...for the noble learned disciple, ignorance is abandoned and knowledge arises. From this cleansing of ignorance and coming into existence of knowledge, his “I am” is no more, his “This I exists” is no more, his “I will be, I will not be, I will have form, I will not have form, I will be conscious, I will be unconscious, I will be neither conscious nor unconscious” is no more.’

Yet there is no suggestion that a universal (albeit Vedāntist) ontological interpretation of aham asmi ‘I am’ would be rejected, though such a rejection could be inferred, I think, in the readings of Hare and Saddhatissa. J. G. Jennings has remarked that “[t]he an-attadoctrine so strongly emphasized by [Gotama] declares the transience of individuality, yet insists upon an ultimate or fundamental unity”. [1974:571] While the Pāli commentarial tradition would doubtless reject a Vedāntist claim of an essential unity to Reality, I see no reason to think that a radically non-attached, Liberated notion of “I am” is instrinsically inconsistent with Buddhist teachings. Pure being is neither conceived nor attached, It just Is, and if there is for “me” only “being”, then, it seems, “I am”.[3] The conceptual attachment of agent to action results from an initial (erroneous) separation of agent from action.
The source of the delusion standing in the way of Liberation (papañcasaṁkhā) is the personal notion “I am a thinker” (mantā asmi). Mindfulness is the method by which one learns the process of letting go (vinaya); that process begins with the elimination of attachment to the things perceived (pleasure, pain, desire, dislike) and culminates in the elimination of attachment to the identification with the notion that there is in fact a perceiver apart from the perception. This process of detachment from ego is admittedly difficult to describe, and it may be fruitless to attempt to do so. What may be more fruitful is to investigate the effects precipitated by that process. By and large, they derive from a fundamental revision of the process leading up to conceptualization, and from the removal of the causes leading to conceptual proliferation and egoistic “ownership” of experience. The Sutta-nipātadescribes the one who has managed this:
    “Sa sabbadhammesu visenibhūto,
    yaṁ kiñci diṭṭhaṁ va sutaṁ mutaṁ vā,
    sa pannabhāro muni vippayutto
    na kappiyo nūparato na patthiyo” ti Bhagavā ti. 
    [914 (1913:178)]

    ‘“He who has discarded all theories about anything seen or heard or conceived is a monk who is enlightened and liberated; there is no rule, no abstention, no desire for himself”, said the Lord.’
He is ‘disarmed’ (visenibhūta) with respect to all views based on what has been seen, heard, or conceived; he is liberated, has laid down his burden (pannabhāro, having, perhaps, “enlightened” his load!), and is without desire. There is no self to be concerned for.
What is the character of the impersonal viewpoint? In the Kālakārāma-sutta, transcendent experience is characterized quite comprehensively:
    Iti kho bhikkhave Tathāgato daṭṭhā [diṭṭhā in Burmese MSS] daṭṭhabbaṁ diṭṭhaṁ na maññati adiṭṭhaṁ na maññati daṭṭhabbaṁ na maññati daṭṭhāraṁ na maññati, sutvā sotabbaṁ sutaṁ na maññati asutaṁ na maññati sotabbaṁ na maññati sotāraṁ na maññati, mutvā motabbaṁ mutam [sic] na maññati amutaṁ na maññati mottabaṁ [sic] na maññati motāraṁ na maññati, viññātvā viññātabbaṁ viññātaṁ na maññati aviññātaṁ na maññati viññātabbaṁ na maññati viññātāraṁ na maññati. [Aṅguttara-nikāya 4:24 (Kālakārāma-sutta) (1888: II:25)]

    ‘Thus, O monks, the Tathāgata, having seen whatever is to be seen, does not conceive of what is seen; he does not conceive of what has not been seen; he does not conceive of that which must yet be seen; he does not conceive of anyone who sees. Having heard whatever is to be heard, he does not conceive of what is heard; he does not conceive of what has not been heard; he does not conceive of that which must yet be heard; he does not conceive of anyone who hears. Having felt whatever is to be felt, he does not conceive of what is felt; he does not conceive of what has not been felt; he does not conceive of that which must yet be felt; he does not conceive of anyone who feels. Having understood whatever is to be understood, he does not conceive of what is understood; he does not conceive of what has not been understood; he does not conceive of that which must yet be understood; he does not conceive of anyone who understands.’
Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda’s translation of this passage proves problematic. [1974:9-11] For the sake of brevity and simplicity, I will make a neutral reconstruction of this passage using just the verb karoti ‘to do’ as an example, since it is first the construction which is in question. “Iti kho bhikkhave katvā kātabbaṁ kataṁ na maññati akataṁ na maññati kātabbaṁ na maññati kattaraṁ na maññati.”Ñāṇananda would translate this so: “A Tathāgata does not conceive of a thing to be done as apart from doing; he does not conceive of ‘an undone’; he does not conceive of a ‘thing-worth-doing’, he does not conceive about a doer.” This “thing to be done apart from doing” is offered by Ñāṇananda as an alternative to the sense given in Buddhaghosa’s Commentary to the Aṅguttara-nikāya, which, according to Ñāṇananda, takes the words

    ‘[katvā kātabbaṁ]’ in the text to mean ‘having [done], should be [done]’, and explains the following words ‘[kataṁna maññati’ as a separate phrase meaning that the Tathāgata does not entertain any cravings, conceits, or views, thinking: ‘I am [doing] that which has been [done] by the people’. It applies the same mode of explanation throughout. [1974:10 n.1]
(Buddhaghosa’s original reads

    Daṭṭhā daṭṭhabban ti disvā daṭṭhabbaṁ.
    Diṭṭhaṁ na maññatī
     ti taṁ diṭṭhaṁ rūpāyatanaṁ ahaṁ mahājanena diṭṭham eva passāmī ti taṇhāmānadiṭṭhīhi na maññati. [IV.iii.4 (1936: III:39)]

    ‘Daṭṭhā daṭṭhabbaṁ means “having seen what is to be seen”.
    Diṭṭhaṁ na maññati means “I see the thing seen which is even seen by the people”; one does not conceive {of it} by desires or conceits or opinions’ [i.e., he does not conceptualize about it].)
Ñāṇananda prefers to treat the formally ambiguous daṭṭhā/diṭṭhā as ablative of the past participle (so katā from kata) “giving the sense: ‘as apart from [doing]’; and, ‘[kātabbaṁ kataṁ]’ taken together, would mean ‘a [do-able] thing’.” He suggests that the absolutive forms sutvā, mutvā, and viññātvā are “probably a re-correction following the commentarial explanation”, and that the ablatives suttā, mutā, and viññātā evince the most correct reading. [Ñāṇananda 1974:10 n.1] I am not certain that his revision is necessary. F. L. Woodward’s translation seems to follow Buddhaghosa with respect to the verbs suṇāti, maññati, and vijānāti: “[Doing] what is to be [done], he has no conceit of what has been [done] or not [done] or is to be [done], he has no conceit of the [doer]”; but he readsdaṭṭhā as the nomen agentis: “[A] Tathāgata is a seer of what is seen, but he has no conceit of what is seen”. [1933:27] Following Buddhaghosa, I would suggest that “Tathāgato katvā kātabbaṁ kataṁ na maññati” etc. should read ‘Having done what is to be done, the Tathāgata does not conceive of what is done; he does not conceive of the undone; he does not conceive of that which must yet be done; he does not conceive of a doer’. ‘Conceive’ (maññati) here means ‘to make a concept of’. Important too is the translation here of kātabbaṁ. There is really no reason to suggest that Buddhaghosa would have the gerundive be taken in an obligatory sense ‘should be done’, or the valued (read judged!) sense of ‘a thing-worth-doing’, as Ñāṇananda has taken it. [1974:10-11, 10 n.1] The context does not require that the form be understood as a participium necessitatis, but only as a future passive participle. According to Manfred Mayrhofer, the meaning of the future passive participle “ist die des ‘in Zukunft getan werden müssenden’, ‘is that of “that which must yet be done”’. [1951:174] Ñāṇananda’s obligatory “should” is unnecessary, for the deed which “is to be done” comes about through the exigencies of causality. That the Tathāgata is beyond causality is not taken into consideration by the forms of Pāli grammar, but he is nonetheless certainly free from obligation and evaluation. The deeds of most individuals are causally effected, and the point of the text is that once a deed is done, the Tathāgata is no longer concerned with it, or with the deed undone, or the deed yet to do, or the doer. He is concerned only with the doing, and only in the moment in which it is done. It is fairly easy to see that Ñāṇananda’s “thing to be done as apart from doing” is an attempt at just such an understanding, though I think the textual revision of absolutive to ablative is unnecessary.
What is there, then? Just seeing, hearing, feeling, or understanding. There is no agent, no patient, no recipient, no locus: only the verb, the process, or rather, the proceeding. To be enlightened is not to be or to do any thing: it is only being, or doing. This is admittedly circular, and it is proverbial to any student of mysticism--and certainly recognized by the Buddhist tradition itself--that little can besaid which can give any real sense of what goes on in transformed consciousness. Buddhism offers nonetheless its own kind of description, always tending toward the practical, toward the causes which will bring about the Liberation itself: that is, toward the empiric. The path to Liberation is twofold: moving away from deluded action, and moving toward wise action.

It is all the more significant for its corollary that the entire process [of cause and effect] could be made to cease progressively by applying the proper means. Negatively put, the spiritual endeavor to end all suffering, is a process of ‘starving’ the conditions of their respective ‘nutriments’ (āhārā), as indicated by the latter half of the formula of Dependent Arising. However, there are enough instances in the Pāli Canon to show that it is quite legitimate to conceive this receding process too, positively as a progress in terms of wholesome mental states. [Ñāṇananda 1974:46-47]
The eradication of conceptualization and the cultivation of a dispassionate, impersonal observation is the key to Liberation. “Ever-becoming and ever-ceasing-to-be are endless action.... Ceaseless action is the Universe.” [Merrell-Wolff 1973:247] Since the being embodied must be a part of such action, his hope must be to loose himself from the bounds of causal action: he must seek Liberation. Perhaps it is not so ironic that in order to do so, he must realize that there is nothing but action; for then he is, so says the Buddha, free.

Notes

[1] I prefer here the reading of papañca as ‘obstruction’ or ‘hinderance’ to the commonly met with ‘obsession’. Here I follow Rhys Davies’ suggestion that papañca is at least semantically related to *papadya ‘what is in front of the feet’, where he compares Latinimpedimentum (though Sanskrit prapadya should give Pāli papajja). [Rhys Davies 1979:412] An obsession is an obstruction, but not all obstructions are obsessions. Cf. also above, in the passage taken from the Madhupiṇḍika-sutta, where papañceti is taken in its sense as derived from Sanskrit prapañcayati ‘to describe at length’, from prapañca ‘diversity’. Back to text.
[2] Robert Buswell has pointed out to me that Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda has arrived at the same conclusion. [Ñāṇananda 1971:31] Back to text.
[3] Without really trying to second-guess the Tathāgata, the argument here is simply that he might recognize a distinction in the semantics of aham asmi with respect to his own description of the Enlightenment, and that of the Vedāntists. (He would almost certainly reject the use of such metaphor for paedagogical purposes, however.) Jennings is right to point out that the Vedāntist schools and their concepts of, for example, māyā, contributed to the Buddha’s own teachings. [Jennings 1974:cix-cx] Certainly, it can be said that useful comparison can be made between the Buddhist and Vedāntist traditions if such semantic differences are reconciled. Fundamental unities are realized in the Buddhist tradition at least insofar as the alienation of attāand anattā are concerned (Cf. the remarks on bhavaṅga-sota above.). Back to text.

References

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Childers, Robert Cæsar. 1875. A dictionary of the Pali language. London: Trübner & Co.
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