[NonDualPhil] Greg Ray Kurzweil on Substance (was: Anyone interested in Ken Wilbur?)

[Guest guest]

P: Excellent, Joyce! Thanks.

 

On Jun 30, 2006, at 10:40 AM, insight wrote:

 

>> Greg: ===That's right, Pete, most forms of Buddhism don't posit a

>> substratum-view of consciouesness. Dzogchen is one form that does,

>> and it is very very much like advaita vedanta. Joyce knows about

>> Dzogchen.

>

> Joyce: If any school of Buddhism posited a substratum-view that

> had any permanence this would be seen as eternalism/absolutism and

> thus wrong

> view..If one reads about this stuff one can easily mix up ontologiy

> with

> soteriology. Dzogchen points out the state of pure and total

> presence,primordial contact with the total field of events and

> meanings;

> nonconceptual, ever-fresh awareness, supreme and indestructible.

> Nothing can come into being if this pure and total presence did not

> exist. And even our potential for experience, from which all

> appearance arises, is not to be found at all, if inquired into. One's

> potentiality for experience, which always and everywhere tries to

> grasp experience through thought, is automatically enfeebled by this

> grasping.

>

> Then, since the source of pure, positive qualities is nonexistent

> like a reflection, ever-fresh awareness that deals with mundane

> matters does not exist. The 'ultimate' or the 'relative' are

> conventional

> designations belonging to the conditioned level of the state of a lack

> of clarity. In reality, in the realm of nonduality, how can there be

> a division into the two truths?

>

> Since limiting concepts do not exist, the middle between these

> does not exist. One does not even remain in a " middle " . All things

> are seen as alike and present utter sameness.

>

> Since one cannot obtain a foundation for meditation, one will not

> obtain any result by meditation. Grasping experience through thought,

> which

> isthe sphere of operation of " our mind " , is itself the ultimate

> content of

> whatis.

>

> Why is there no goal to be brought into reality? Since both a mind that

> meditates and an " ultimate content of what is " to be meditated upon

> can't

> befound, one cannot obtain a basis or ground for meditation. Since

> that does

> not exist, who obtains a goal by what meditation? There is therefore

> no goal to

> bring into reality. The sphere of operation of mind is itself the

> ultimate

> content of what is. Any perceptible quality of an object

> that appears, or construct of mind that is born, is not other than the

> ultimate content of what is. Therefore, any intended object that

> appears

> lacks nothing. If there is nothing wrong, why do sentient beings

> wander in samsara? Because they latch onto various identifiable

> characteristics.

> When one is free from seizing on perceptibel qualities, there does not

> exist

> anything that is better or worse. This supreme path is to be

> cultivated.

>

> A bit from Manjusrimitra's Primordial Experience.

>

> Joyce

>