What's the Point of Religion?

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Stop pretending there's any discussion going on here, between any of you. There is only a back and forth of 'seems like your wrong here', 'no, seems like your wrong about that', 'your mistaken, your just doing this wrong'.

Read the comments between you three if you think otherwise, not making this up. Not taking any more questions guys, not without an appointment, especially if you have an issue with agreement on anything, even definitions.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

how is communication supposed to happen without agreement or common ground for the topics discussed?

But I tried with my first attempt. If you want to take that as common ground, you'll have to accept the problem as stated there, that with life itself these problems keep arising. That means the actual ignorance includes Dennis his denial of the possibility of 'brokenness' as it would be denial of birth, illness, conflict and death arising. A form of nihilism which is not the way.

You cannot just get agreement. It's through opposition and change the understandings develop. Through life and its suffering. Buddha speaks not of removing suffering but of perceived truths about how it arises, becomes and fades. About attention, focus and understanding bringing clarity on this process and clarity of mind in general.

The remaining question here would be "is here any liberation in it for me?". Or: can a dog have Buddha nature?

[Tomas]

This forum only becomes more of a ghost town with time. There is literally about 5 posters, maybe 3 regular ones. I predict we'll drop off soon enough too. In that inevitable case, cya buddies.

Stop being a girly-boy (if indeed you are a boy).

[Dennis Mahar]

That means the actual ignorance includes Dennis his denial of the possibility of 'brokenness' as it would be denial of birth, illness, conflict and death arising. A form of nihilism which is not the way.

I'm not denying anything.
If it is it is.
There can't be a predicate 'brokenness'.

If I'm talking to someone and I'm committed to the predicate 'this person is broken', I'm not listening.
If I'm looking at an event like death and thinking this is broken I'd have to check the predicate.

[Tomas]

Stop pretending there's any discussion going on here, between any of you. There is only a back and forth of 'seems like your wrong here', 'no, seems like your wrong about that', 'your mistaken, your just doing this wrong'.

Read the comments between you three if you think otherwise, not making this up. Not taking any more questions guys, not without an appointment, especially if you have an issue with agreement on anything, even definitions.

you're, you're, you're, you're

Stop being a lazy writer and speller.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Tomas, you post after a couple weeks just for that reason? I don't think I will stop being lazy.

you'll have to accept the problem as stated there, that with life itself these problems keep arising. That means the actual ignorance includes Dennis his denial of the possibility of 'brokenness' as it would be denial of birth, illness, conflict and death arising. A form of nihilism which is not the way.

You cannot just get agreement. It's through opposition and change the understandings develop. Through life and its suffering. Buddha speaks not of removing suffering but of perceived truths about how it arises, becomes and fades. About attention, focus and understanding bringing clarity on this process and clarity of mind in general.

The remaining question here would be "is here any liberation in it for me?". Or: can a dog have Buddha nature?

The position that life itself is suffering, is that denying the possibility of ending suffering? Or is it suggesting ending/changing what 'life' means for us now?

Not sure what you meant about the dog and Buddha nature.

[Leyla Shen]

L: Can you prove brokenness or not?

J: No.

Well, how strange you are! I give you a cup and tell you to fill it with water. No problem. I then take the cup, smash it on the floor and tell you to fill it with water. What would you say? Its cupness was only an appearance that can’t be proved and is meaningless?

J: We both know you'd just look for a way to criticize/mock anyway.

J partially quoting L:

dummy!

When actually:

L: Agreement occurs or not during a discussion, dummy!

Show me a single instance where it is not the case that the agreement you are insisting on occurs during a discussion and that therefore a person asserting otherwise is not a dummy.

~

How do you reconcile this:

J: It was made very clear that I was against Dennis' idea that there's no brokenness.

With your earlier assertion that:

Conceptual assertion is meaningless, it is of the same empty nature as all other appearances (which are all that exist).

And further with your insistence on agreement?

The reason I ask is because every time you assert them, there’s an expectation that those around you agree, even if there is no logical (meaningful) reconciliation possible.

~

On the question of suffering:

J of Dennis: He's got a lot of insightful one-liners such as 'meaning maker'. (no sarcasm)

Many of which sum up the various forms of clinging people exhibit, whether it is motive for social approval or to ideas which require an infinite regress of justifications, hence his repetition of causes/conditions when confronted with almost anything.

What I've noticed is that he supports discussion and displays or implies various opinions and views in a subtle way, yet cannot answer with the affirmative when asked any question regarding anything even remotely specific. Refuting that he has an opinion, while putting it on display.

L in reply to J: And isn't the point that what is referred to in buddhism as "enlightenment" could not be a cessation of either one or all of the five aggregates and the life and living that springs from them, but rather a natural -- or, wise -- appearance of them. Otherwise, we might just as well call any ascetic enlightened; or indeed anyone who has minimal capacity for discernment. So, let's take discernment (since this forum values thinking in particular). When engaged in a conversation with a Bodhisattva, would his wisdom and enlightenment not be the appearance rather than absence of discernment itself, or does it take two people for one of them to be wise and enlightened?

There are some pretty clear statements there, and some questions, too. But you never replied.

Disagreed without reason, I take it.

D: The remaining question here would be "is here any liberation in it for me?". Or: can a dog have Buddha nature?

J: Not sure what you meant about the dog and Buddha nature.

By both, is meant karma.

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Leyla! How good to hear from you again! How've you been?

Going to have to treat carefully while talking to you...so let's see if we can slowly work with my nonsense to hopefully find some communication of truth in it, however unlikely, k?

What I mean is, there's a kind of conceptual assertion which involves imagining *thing* whether it is God, Chakras, the beginning of time, free will, and so forth for 10,000 years, which is absolutely meaningless and relates in no way to what is actually real. This is what I was referring to.

On the other hand, there is a knowledge of truth that is derived from nothing more than a direct awareness of how these things occur. For example, one can be aware and sure that one's actions aren't being made out of free will. Simply through the way actions/thoughts arise almost spontaneously. This is true for the arising of all thoughts and actions including the thought 'free will', only demonstrating the opposite point.
The same with the impermanence of formations, it isn't something you know for certain through thinking about, it is something that is seen. It's certainly true because it remains true at all times. If one were to think 'this remains here unchanging permanently', that very thought would also be impermanent, only demonstrating the opposite point.

So here I am making a contrast between asserting unfounded imaginations such as God, chakras, free will. As opposed to reflecting an awareness of what is. What is there and remains true. Not so much a metaphysical assertion rather than an explanation/communication of what's right in front of us.

You'll notice I don't assert much to do with the outside world, such as theories related to the big bang or physical processes.
Now before you mistake me and assume absolutes, I'm not saying that all people cling to delusions and imaginations about the world that hold no relevance to what is actually real, just most people. I have a hard time believing you would be unaware of this. So for a start, was that at all clear? Can you understand this distinction?

I should say that if you do continue to play verses or demonstrate a grudge rather than working toward actually communicating something, (however long that takes as I'm a fuckin' idiot) then there would be no reason for further discussion.

[Tomas]

I should say that if you do continue to play verses or demonstrate a grudge rather than working toward actually communicating something, (however long that takes as I'm a fuckin' idiot) then there would be no reason for further discussion.

You live in a rabbit hole.

[Dennis Mahar]

If you find that all phenomena lacks inherent existence,
does not exist from it's own side.
is produced out of causes/conditions
That this empty nature of phenomena too is empty.

How can you say it is broken.
It is what it is and isn't what it isn't.

There's no logic supporting brokenness.

If you are going to argue delusion is brokenness you miss the point.
Delusion is causes/conditions.

It is what it is and isn't what it isn't.

nothin' to fix.

[Pye]

Dennis writes:

If you are going to argue delusion is brokenness you miss the point.
Delusion is causes/conditions.

It is what it is and isn't what it isn't.

nothin' to fix.

including the wanting to fix . . . .

[Dennis Mahar]

including the wanting to fix . . . .

(:

[Leyla Shen]

To the question from Dennis, “What’s broken?” Cahoot wrote:

The water heater on my travel trailer.

Dennis:

such is the way of it.

what's broken?

you won't be able to prove brokenness.

Dennis writes:

If you are going to argue delusion is brokenness you miss the point.
Delusion is causes/conditions.

It is what it is and isn't what it isn't.

nothin' to fix.

including the wanting to fix . . . .

Yes, so your delusion that there’s no water heater on Cahoot’s travel trailer that needs to be fixed and that brokenness can’t be proven is what it is,—a delusion. Causes/conditions…

[Leyla Shen]

I should say that if you do continue to play verses or demonstrate a grudge rather than working toward actually communicating something, (however long that takes as I'm a fuckin' idiot) then there would be no reason for further discussion.

You live in a rabbit hole.

Mind goggling, innit?

[Cahoot]

It is like a tree. The trunk is the absolute. All branches lead to the trunk and are part of the trunk. Since the trunk is attached to all it has nowhere to go to find anything, so the trunk has no movement. There is a branch off the trunk called movement. Branching off of movement is the broken branch, which can be large or small in relation to the other branches.

The water starts to warm up but the heater can’t hold it when it gets too hot. So it's functioning according to form in regards to energy.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

The position that life itself is suffering, is that denying the possibility of ending suffering? Or is it suggesting ending/changing what 'life' means for us now?

What it is really suggesting is to take all the Buddhist notions on this and shove it up the stove and set it alight. This isn't hyperbole. The amount of people who have distilled popular nonsense out of the "non-arising" or "not becoming" of suffering is staggering and the base of a whole world religion. But since we're here, the best interpretation is to release, to unblock. This theme of fluency and flexibility has always been connected to the time this particular wisdom was thriving. Nothing is stopped but the stopping, the hindrance, the static. Fluency which means essentially not resting in one place, for consciousness not to land and build a nest for self and pure mental attachments to grow. This whole "restlessness of eternity".

All we're doing here is getting to something central to the human experience: existence as imperfection, like a wobbly wheel. Assertion, counter, movement. The friction involved is then being experienced as suffering, stress, unpleasantness, pain: dukkha. This is why at the core Buddha taught about arising and cessation, the tension and release of existence. Then "there is no landing of consciousness, thus not having landed, not increasing, not concocting, is released". Release arising with notions like "life is fulfilled, the task done, that there is nothing further for this world". But still in the cycle of normal, uninterrupted breathing.

This is clear as well in writings of "modern" sages:

• Experiment and improvise. Try not to settle into any one kind of practice, though. Mix it up. Always be alert, intelligent and flexible ... It is only at this point that the real benefits of truthful living start to emerge in terms of perfect freedom, utter certainty, pure spontaneity, fearlessness, immeasurable peace, and so on. -- David Quinn

[SeekerOfWisdom]

Great reflection of clinging. Dennis wasn't wrong, nobel prize winner. I can see how that relates to suffering in terms of the mind focusing, 'landing' on something such as a stress for the future or what's perceived as wrong, then that hindrance is what builds agitation,stress, unease. 'Release' being moving on, letting go, freedom, without constraint.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Dennis wasn't wrong

It did sound like a broken record that could need a push. But the opposition and movement could have involved any poster, really.

[Leyla Shen]

Well, I never knew it was so hard to understand that a heater that isn’t heating is broken and, if you want to use it to heat--yes, you need to fix it, even though when it’s working it’s caused to work just as when it’s not working it’s caused not to work.

So now, the non-deluded simply laugh and go, “Well, that’s reality!”

And, instead of fixing the heater, go hunt a cow to wrestle for its hide to keep warm just to prove they’re not clinging to their heater which isn’t broken.

Fantastic.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

landing' on something such as a stress for the future or what's perceived as wrong

There are so many fields of landing. You mention a couple of macroscopic and crude ones but the principle is the same.

[Pye]

The history of metaphysics is littered with addresses to pain/suffering as a problem-in-itself; as something wrong; as defect; as humanity’s Fall, failing, error - and its thoroughgoing elimination as humanity’s greatest task.

There’s your nihilism for you.

Life needs to bend away from pain; address it at all costs, but it will never eliminate it as the condition of its own sentiency.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Life needs to bend away from pain; address it at all costs, but it will never eliminate it as the condition of its own sentiency.

Pain is essentially a signal, a warning sign. It's part of the signal paths of life, no matter if some signals can indeed get crossed.

Perhaps a more universal mode: any position opposes its own opposition; might address it at all costs, but it will never eliminate it as the condition of its own positioning.

While yielding can fade some particular conflict, it cannot be used to oppose all positioning either. Now that would be nihilism.

[Dennis Mahar]

seeker,

Great reflection of clinging. Dennis wasn't wrong, nobel prize winner. I can see how that relates to suffering in terms of the mind focusing, 'landing' on something such as a stress for the future or what's perceived as wrong, then that hindrance is what builds agitation,stress, unease. 'Release' being moving on, letting go, freedom, without constraint.

Magnificent John.
You saw it like in a flash by the look of your exuberance.
You 'listened'.

Detachment.

The possibility is 'living life in a wonderful way'.

It looks drab when I write it.
Pye 'shows' it.
Ya' gotta love that kid.

[Cahoot]

Well, I never knew it was so hard to understand that a heater that isn’t heating is broken and, if you want to use it to heat--yes, you need to fix it, even though when it’s working it’s caused to work just as when it’s not working it’s caused not to work.

So now, the non-deluded simply laugh and go, “Well, that’s reality!”

And, instead of fixing the heater, go hunt a cow to wrestle for its hide to keep warm just to prove they’re not clinging to their heater which isn’t broken.

Fantastic.

Each form is designed for particular functions even though you can hammer a nail with a drill.

[Leyla Shen]

I wonder how heavy that thing is?

General forms and particular forms.

Functional discernment is its own proof.