Pam: Since you equate the dream with the only known reality, then it would seem that you also equate the dream ending when the known reality ends. Just how do you propose to achieve this task when all you have at your command is the known reality?
John: So you do agree I can refer to life/existence/experience/consciousness/being/sensation somehow. Thanks for allowing that Pam, it was really started to seem like you were denying any of that exists at all!
But consciousness doesn't actually exist, does it, that's what makes it seems like a dream. If it actually existed, it would be an objective reality. I know you don't like to be exact in your language, but this is why we get into hot water when we dialogue. Dog does not mean cat, dog means dog.
I fully acknowledge the dream-like quality of consciousness because of the truth of impermanence, however the concept is too loosey-gooesy for my liking.
"The dream" is really a great way to reference it if we're being honest, because that is what it resembles and it is an easy and shared notion.
"The dream" may be a great way to reference it for you because it is easy, and I do understand its reference, but for me, what is definitive trumps what is easy. In this case, 'impermanence' is a superior concept to 'the dream' as it leaves no room for misinterpretation.
First off, the dream is the only known reality, you already know that, nothing can be known beyond or outside it, even if such exists.
"I" cannot achieve the task because "I" do not exist; reality/causality does ;)
I.E, 'the dream' plays out on its own.
Tho there is the feeling/sense of free will, it does seem to be just another egotistical illusion doesn't it.
Presuming that is true, 'enlightenment', or even any wisdom at all, will only come about via chance/providence/fate/destiny/causality.
The logic continued tho explains that "God", being ensnared and suffering, will eventually inevitably find wisdom through dispassion.
I.E, the desire for existence inevitably burns out.
The illusion of egotism is eventually known as illusion.
God finds wisdom through dispassion because passion is the clinging to permanence. Do we see eye to eye on this point?
Just because it seems paradoxical when you think about it doesn't mean anything, and that's why an over attachment to language and definition can be so dangerous.
Only if the attachment is of ignorance, not of wisdom. I see a greater danger in your preference for 'easy' than mine for exactness in reference to finding wisdom.
The truth that it is 'dream' is undeniable if living in the one reality, it is only deniable in thought, i.e, living in the ten thousand realities and delusions.
Yes, impermanence is undeniable.
Pam: Of course God is ensnared by Maya, but if God refuses to reason logically the why and how of Maya using precision of definition, he will fail to wake up.
John: God wakes up on his own, after recognizing that existence is suffering, talking is if anything a hindrance. It is only useful if this view is wrong, and I accept the possibility that it is wrong. Your precision of definition was not precision but confusion, obviously I'm aware the word 'experience' implies all sorts of undesirable things, but it doesn't have to be taken that way and it's obvious how it was being used, I'm more than happy to refer to 'the dream' if that is more precise to you.
Impermanence is the most precise to me.
Language in itself is meaningless, in terms of wisdom its only purpose is in its usefulness, if it ends up being more useful to refer to everything by way of a metaphor about mice elephants and clouds, then that is what we should do.
Why do you equate usefulness with meaninglessness? To me, the opposite is true, useful = meaningful. Also it simply is not true that wisdom refers to everything by way of a metaphor about mice and elephants and clouds. Perhaps for a beginner, yes, but for those in big-boy pants, metaphors are rejected in favor of hard core truthful language such as form is impermanent.
My complaint tho really was about your contradictory actions; all at once you continuously refuse to accept that there is individuated dreaming, implying that any differentiation is illogical as the infinte/God/causality is The All/One/Undifferentiated, and then simultaneously you break everything down so 'precisely' into 'thoughts'/'delusions'/'logic'/'reason'/'doing'/'causing'/'thinking things' vs 'thinking of things'/"my I is God's I"/'conventional'/'form doesn't move'.
If you are referring to my questioning of your concept of 'individuated dreaming' as a denial of differentiation, then I see where you came to believe what you believe, but my questioning of your use of the concept of 'individuated dreaming' was not a denial of differentiation, instead it was a denial of the existence of a dreamer, as in
individual. Yeah, yeah, there goes Pam again, being so darn definition-picky. :-)
Quote:
Pam: Give me your logic of the dream, the waking up, the sustaining of the waking up and then maybe we'll have that honest conversation you so desire.
I've provided logic in tandem with your dream-speak:
John: Dream=Dream=Suffering
Clinging to the fallacy of permanence=suffering
Dream dream dream = suffering suffering suffering
The greater is the clinging to permanence, the greater is the suffering
meditation =less or no sensation=less or no consciousness of form = less or no suffering
Because consciousness = distinctions, it is not possible to be conscious of no sensation or form, the inner-hearing of the beating of your heart during meditation should be evidence of this truth. What can be caused, however, is the realization that sensation/form is impermanent and that when the realization of impermanence is complete, attachment to form ends, therefore suffering ends. The glory of the truth of impermanence is that it is true in all possible worlds, sensation being but one possible world.
habit =perpetuated habit
make habit of meditation =less or no sensation=less or no consciousness of form= make habit of less or no suffering
Hope habit leads to complete cessation of dream.
What does hope have to do with the logic of impermanence? Either there is knowledge that things are impermanent or there is not.
That's that entire theory as I see it, life really is that simple.
Another theory:
dream dream dream = suffering suffering suffering
mindfulness = less suffering and less egotistical delusion
habit= perpetuated habit
make habit of mindfulness =perpetuated habit of less suffering and less egotistical delusion
Hope that habit sticks and leads to cessation of suffering (or at least) of egotistical delusion
(That is your theory summed up, is it not?)
No theory, rather, certainty that form, distinction, consciousness is impermanent with the understanding that at times, ignorance takes over and wisdom is forgotten.
I think it is! Hence some evidence here demonstrating that you should learn to communicate as well as me ;)
Hmmm, is it possible that the evidence you have provided of your theories and hoping is evidence that your communication of wisdom could be lacking? :-)