Can people change?

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
Dennis Mahar
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Attempts to describe Absolutely Nothing usually include the fact that it doesn't and cannot exist, yet it exists.

Combine the idea of nothing with the idea of absolutes; then the idea of the dependent relationship, if Absolutely Everything exists then Absolutely Nothing exists.


emptiness states that there are three levels of dependent relationship:

(1) Gross dependent relationship - causality - the dependence of phenomena on their causes.

(2) Subtle dependent relationship - structure - the dependence of phenomena on their perceived parts (including aspects, divisions and directions).

(3) Very subtle dependent relationship - the dependence of phenomena on imputation by mind.

These ideas are remarkably similar to the theory of the origins of mathematics first proposed by the mathematician John von Neumann, who was one of the founders of computer science. The theory relies on simple manipulations of sets.

A set is a collection of things. An empty set is a collection of nothing at all. An empty set can be thought of as nothing with the possibility to become something (that is to be become a set with at least one member).

The sutras often use the word "great void" to explain the significance of Sunyata. In general, we understand the "great void" as something that contains absolutely nothing. However, the nature of the "great void" implies something which does not obstruct other things, in which all matters perform their own functions. Materials are form, which by their nature, imply obstruction. The special characteristic of the "great void" is non-obstruction. The "great void" therefore, does not serve as an obstacle to them. Since the "great void" exhibits no obstructive tendencies, it serves as the foundation for matter to function. In other words, if there was no "great void" nor characteristic of non-obstruction, it would be impossible for the material world to exist and function.
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mental vagrant
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Re: Can people change?

Post by mental vagrant »

Repeatedly stating the obvious isn't going to take anybody anywhere. I'd be interested to see a deeply formal approach to argumentation.
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Pam Seeback
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Pam Seeback »

Dennis Mahar wrote:Pam,
How can an appearance interpret an appearance? How can a projection interpret a projection? Would not reality go insane if this scenario was actually the truth of its core nature?
Why couldn't a projection realise it's projectedness?
If there are possibilities of form as there obviously is, then that is possible.


Siddhartha, when speaking about the cycle of rebirth talked about the ending of 'unwanted' rebirth didn't he?
Dennis, can a movie realize it is a movie? Can a song realize it is a song? As for the possibilities of form, there must be a foundation of 'thought seeds' from which infinite possibilities are realized, or there could not be possibilities to realize.

This is why I say that it is in the silence of the unseen laws, principles and patterns of thought, the unseen Cause, that interpretations arise and are revealed as visible or audible effects to sentient consciousness.

And yes, Siddhartha spoke of the ending of 'unwanted' rebirth, which is precisely why one must cease their erroneous belief that Life is a moving projection projecting Itself. Is not 're'birth the belief that self, in the form of appearance, is 'out there' and must be moved toward or into? Is the not 're'death the reverse belief, that self, in the form of appearance, is 'out there' and must be moved toward or into?
Dennis Mahar
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Repeatedly stating the obvious isn't going to take anybody anywhere. I'd be interested to see a deeply formal approach to argumentation.
It's hard to enrol people in 'Nothing exists'.
The argument breaks down on that for most people and they turn away.
It's hard.

Here's Lao Tsu:

14. Mystery
Looked at but cannot be seen - it is beneath form;
Listened to but cannot be heard - it is beneath sound;
Held but cannot be touched - it is beneath feeling;
These depthless things evade definition,
And blend into a single mystery.
In its rising there is no light,
In its falling there is no darkness,
A continuous thread beyond description,
Lining what does not exist;
Its form formless,
Its image nothing,
Its name silence;
Follow it, it has no back,
Meet it, it has no face.
Attend the present to deal with the past;
Thus you grasp the continuity of the Way,
Which is its essence.

Modern physics is struggling with it.
Their track of reasons got them to the point where something is missing.
the something missing accounts for 83% of the Universe in their estimate.
they call it dark matter, dark energy.
dark because it can't be heard, seen, touched, tasted, smelt.
they won't say No thing exists,
they blame their instruments as unable to pick it up or equipment failure.
they do say it's logically untenable without No thing.
Last edited by Dennis Mahar on Wed Jan 04, 2012 8:06 am, edited 2 times in total.
Dennis Mahar
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Dennis, can a movie realize it is a movie?
I'm talking about the idea of projector projecting.
meaning maker.
assigning meaning.
of falling for appearances.

the completely erroneous projection that 'magpie warbling' is 'thing in itself' that most people take for granted.
that magpie is self-established,
exists inherently.

Not denying existence exists.
looking at how it exists.
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

I heard an endicronologist talking on radio about romance and 'in love' or lust.

from his sense of it.

he declared people were actually immune systems getting around on a pair of legs.
that immune systems were getting around in the crowd sniffing each other out for bits and pieces to enhance the possibility of babies with greater survival possibility.

when an immune system spotted another immune system that was 'good enough'.
Bingo!
emotional rush.

meaning maker goes,
I love you darling, darling, darling, gush, gush, gush.
please love me,
you are the sunshine of my life,
I can't take my eyes off you,
you're like heaven to touch,
I want to hold you so much.
Pam Seeback
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Pam Seeback »

Alex: One, I utterly and *absolutely* (heh heh) reject the term 'enlightenment' and all its derivatives. It is a term that conceals even as it presents, rather blatently, the worst sort of human conceit.
Saying you are enlightened, to me, is to simply acknowledge that you have discovered the unconditioned light of your consciousness, to see as 'God' sees, which is to see no conditions and no causes. This discovery is the opposite of human conceit because the discovery of it is the discovery of the pure awareness of all things, including being human. One's enlightening is a most humbling experience.
Dennis Mahar
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

One's enlightening is a most humbling experience.
If there's I AM and the rest is information.
Pam is about .ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooth of a kilobyte in a ?
No reason to get too excited.
Actually Pam is empty.
Pam Seeback
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Pam Seeback »

Mental vagrant you said, in response to Dennis' statements about the unobstructed Great Void being the foundation of the obstructed material world:
Repeatedly stating the obvious isn't going to take anybody anywhere. I'd be interested to see a deeply formal approach to argumentation.
As would I, if you want to play.

You said:
I lack the courage to do what i think i want to do, end. :/.
It is my intent to argue with you, using the obvious truth of the unobstructed Great Void and the obstructed material world that you can end. Not your physical existence as I believe you are referring, but your material world which produced these two contradictory statements:
I'm expressing my pessimism. Fearmongering, a little i suppose. Ultimately i don't care.

There is obviously soo much potential within the contributors here, shame it is mostly wasted defending 'ego' (literal). Can imagine real enlightnment in a scenario where we could cherish one anothers.
It is also my intent to argue with you, using the obvious truth of the unobstructed Great Void and the obstructed material world that to come to the following conclusion
It is pathetic that i'm soo dehumanised and unatural that i don't even know myself, utterly failed.
is a very good thing.

Are you game? As a foundation for our argument I am assuming that your pessimism and sense of failure are obstructions you would like ended. If this is not so, then there is no point in taking another step in the direction of my argument that it is because you are aware of both the unobstructed Great Void and of the obstructed material world that you now have the way to eliminate the latter and abide in the former.
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Pam Seeback »

Dennis Mahar wrote:
One's enlightening is a most humbling experience.
If there's I AM and the rest is information.
Pam is about .ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooth of a kilobyte in a ?
No reason to get too excited.
Actually Pam is empty.


Is it not you who speaks of wonder and amazement and doing the Eagle Rock? By my account, these things are not just 'information.' Rather, that there is an inference of emotional attachment and excitement of being present in the thinking of these thoughts.

I say that before one is empty [which is beyond the intellectual realization of emptiness] one is first attached to their vision of empty. I say that one must use the mind to go beyond the mind.
Dennis Mahar
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

let's take a boat off the coast for 20 miles, ditch the boat and have a nice chat about causes/conditions?

that I AM story doing the rounds has to be running at a hefty multi million dollar a year industry.
you can get I AM coffee mugs,
I AM t shirts,
you can access an I AM consultant for $200 an hour over the telephone who will fill in the details..

What we know is 'I AM' exists in a sentence.
exists in a conversation people have with each other.
exists as a money spinner.
read my lips: religion.

It is form. It is empty.

The logic of emptiness is this:
Where there is form.
there is empty.
where there is empty.
there is form.

collapsing form, collapses empty.
collapsing empty, collapses form.

no philosophical assertion can be made that is not Story.
gosh, did I just assert.

there's nothing to 'get'.
geddit?

let's make some meaning.
a new merc would be nice.
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mental vagrant
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Re: Can people change?

Post by mental vagrant »

My point was that there is back and forth here.

Believe it or not i actually appreciate both stances and think neither is perfect. Truth is, i'm not capable of choosing a stance because neither is holistic, we will never know is my view put concisely.
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Re: Can people change?

Post by mental vagrant »

I've forgotten when Luke was burried and you two took over :P

movingalways argues for independant driven choices

Dennis Mahar replies, he is, that's all, end, because
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Pam Seeback »

mental vagrant wrote:My point was that there is back and forth here.

Believe it or not i actually appreciate both stances and think neither is perfect. Truth is, i'm not capable of choosing a stance because neither is holistic, we will never know is my view put concisely.
You asked for a deep argument, but I can see that is not what you wanted at all. By your own admission above, you don't know what you want. How is that working for you?
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Nothing exists.
Something appears.
Hello.
Goodbye.

last one out turns the lights off.

let there be light.
who's afraid of the dark?
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Blair
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Blair »

Big fat jolly women who shriek with laughter at the antics of their children and think that sunny afternoon by the poolside will go on forever.
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Re: Can people change?

Post by mental vagrant »

movingalways wrote:
mental vagrant wrote:My point was that there is back and forth here.

Believe it or not i actually appreciate both stances and think neither is perfect. Truth is, i'm not capable of choosing a stance because neither is holistic, we will never know is my view put concisely.
You asked for a deep argument, but I can see that is not what you wanted at all. By your own admission above, you don't know what you want. How is that working for you?
I asked for deep argumentation within this discussion, i wasn't aware that i was participating. What do you want to know?
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mental vagrant
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Re: Can people change?

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Blair wrote:Big fat jolly women who shriek with laughter at the antics of their children and think that sunny afternoon by the poolside will go on forever.
Who is this aimed at, if anyone?
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Re: Can people change?

Post by mental vagrant »

mental vagrant wrote:
movingalways wrote:
mental vagrant wrote:My point was that there is back and forth here.

Believe it or not i actually appreciate both stances and think neither is perfect. Truth is, i'm not capable of choosing a stance because neither is holistic, we will never know is my view put concisely.
You asked for a deep argument, but I can see that is not what you wanted at all. By your own admission above, you don't know what you want. How is that working for you?
I asked for deep argumentation within this discussion, i wasn't aware that i was participating. What do you want to know?
Ambivalence isn't working for me, i'm not religious though. Ultimately if i'd choose between a doctrine i'm more likely to go for the nothingness, even if it is objectivity founded from subjectivity.
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mental vagrant
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Re: Can people change?

Post by mental vagrant »

mental vagrant wrote:
mental vagrant wrote:
movingalways wrote:
mental vagrant wrote:My point was that there is back and forth here.

Believe it or not i actually appreciate both stances and think neither is perfect. Truth is, i'm not capable of choosing a stance because neither is holistic, we will never know is my view put concisely.
You asked for a deep argument, but I can see that is not what you wanted at all. By your own admission above, you don't know what you want. How is that working for you?
I asked for deep argumentation within this discussion, i wasn't aware that i was participating. What do you want to know?
Ambivalence isn't working for me, i'm not religious though. Ultimately if i'd choose between a doctrine i'm more likely to go for the nothingness, even if it is objectivity founded from subjectivity.
I can understand both perspectives, i see value in a lot of views here. I see them as snippets though, universe is just too big.
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Luke Space
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Luke Space »

Hey there, I'm back. Originally I was planning to come back here after a year of serious study and dazzle you all with my brilliance but things didn't work out as I had hoped they would. Learning again, after many years of mental laziness, is harder than I thought it would be. Nonetheless, little by little I know I'll get there (become a genius). Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a lifetime. It'll happen. One has to believe.

Everyday I find new ways to think about something. Will thinking more lead to better thinking? I guess it's similar to weightlifting: not enough weight, no gains; too much weight, no gains (and can even be damaging!). But in regards to thinking, what is too much and what is not enough?

Man, I need to get some rest! I'll be back in a few days.

By the way, tomorrow I start my studies in calculus. If mathematics isn't the way, I don't know what is. Who knows, maybe I'm the next John Nash. =)

Cheers!
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Pam Seeback »

mv, the piece of the puzzle that I believe you are not seeing is that regardless of how big the material universe is, regardless of what man believes is yet to discover in its vastness , is that the vast, material universe is in him. This is what is meant by the kingdom of heaven is within. The poets and mystics know this truth, the physicists are discovering this truth. I am sure you have encountered this stanza of William Blake's poem "To See A World":

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

To hold infinity in the palm of your hand means every form is in the Mind of God. You can't get more holistic than the singular-plural reality of IS.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"Though we soar into the heavens;
though we should sink into the abyss,
we never go out of ourselves,
it is always our own thoughts
that we perceive."

Can you not see the truth of these words?
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mental vagrant
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Re: Can people change?

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movingalways wrote:mv, the piece of the puzzle that I believe you are not seeing is that regardless of how big the material universe is, regardless of what man believes is yet to discover in its vastness , is that the vast, material universe is in him. This is what is meant by the kingdom of heaven is within. The poets and mystics know this truth, the physicists are discovering this truth. I am sure you have encountered this stanza of William Blake's poem "To See A World":

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

To hold infinity in the palm of your hand means every form is in the Mind of God. You can't get more holistic than the singular-plural reality of IS.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"Though we soar into the heavens;
though we should sink into the abyss,
we never go out of ourselves,
it is always our own thoughts
that we perceive."

Can you not see the truth of these words?
We are the universe, some of it. Imagination. Doesn't define everything.
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Pam Seeback
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Pam Seeback »

mental vagrant wrote:
movingalways wrote:mv, the piece of the puzzle that I believe you are not seeing is that regardless of how big the material universe is, regardless of what man believes is yet to discover in its vastness , is that the vast, material universe is in him. This is what is meant by the kingdom of heaven is within. The poets and mystics know this truth, the physicists are discovering this truth. I am sure you have encountered this stanza of William Blake's poem "To See A World":

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

To hold infinity in the palm of your hand means every form is in the Mind of God. You can't get more holistic than the singular-plural reality of IS.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"Though we soar into the heavens;
though we should sink into the abyss,
we never go out of ourselves,
it is always our own thoughts
that we perceive."

Can you not see the truth of these words?
We are the universe, some of it. Imagination. Doesn't define everything.
Now we're cooking with gas! Yes, imagination is some of it, and you are right, it doesn't define everything. It defines our sentience, no more, no less. But where you are mistaken is that we are indeed all of the universe; I remain steadfast in that knowledge. it is just that in order to discover the aspect of us that is unconditioned and therefore hidden to our conditioned view is that we must move our belief that we are a) only sentient and b) only human out of the way.

Discovering the unobstructed kingdom of heaven or unconditioned Mind is the single eye of which Jesus spoke and of which Emerson and Blake write. This is the hard part of the journey to the Alpha Omega point of seeing, the giving up of the belief that we are bound to our duality-driven, sentient human imagination. We want our cake and eat it too. We want to see as God sees, not seeing two, but we don't want to do what we need to do in order to see our infinity as God sees Its Infinity, which is to give up our seeing two.

cousinbasil spoke of death as being not an end, but a transition. Do you see it this way as well? If you do, then if at the moment of your death you remain attached to your human imagination of dualism, seeing things from an oppositional point of view, here and there, up and down, right and wrong, good and evil, love and hate, etc., do you not see that it is to this world view that you will return? Contrary to what many people believe, we don't magically become enlightened to our infinite natures at death. We may be relieved of the burden of our senses, yes, but that doesn't change our core understanding of what or who we are. And yes, I know that no one knows for sure about 'what happens before/after death', but is this not the gift of reasoning 'the things of God?' Is it not of sound reasoning to conclude that:

a) Consciousness or Life cannot be annihilated. Which leads to the logical conclusion that

b) You, who is the interpreter of Consciousness, also cannot be annihilated. Which leads to the logical conclusion that

c) Whatever is your present I-definition will remain your present I-definition until you change it. Which leads to the logical conclusion that

c) If your mind is moving back and forth between the opposites of the human imagination, then your mind will remain moving back and forth between the opposites of the human imagination. Which leads to the logical conclusion that

d) If your mind continues moving back and forth between the opposites of the human imagination, that you will not be able to see with your Single Eye/I, the hidden aspect of the totality of your Universe

If what I say does not make logical sense to you, then can you tell me of your reasoning/understanding of how you will come to know the totality of You?
Dennis Mahar
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Re: Can people change?

Post by Dennis Mahar »

Consciousness or Life cannot be annihilated.
Assertion?
Assumption?
Evidence?
Locked