[NonDualPhil] Richard's new(?) thingy

August 17, 2006

On Aug 17, 2006, at 5:54 AM, carolina112900 wrote:

> NonDualPhil , Insight <insight wrote:

>>

>

> Freyja: OK, well I don't think this section here below

> is necessarily new, but maybe the seeds of some

> kind of interesting (or not)

> discussion here. Basically, he's saying

> that Mr. Buddha and all Buddhists suffer from

> dissociation and they do not want to be here

> in this world right now. From one point of view,

> it makes sense. What do seekers think they are

> going to get by searching for enlightenment? Do

> they just want to be put out of their misery?

>

> OTOH, isn't it possible to be fully immersed in

> the human experience with all its pain, joy and

> everything else, and also, what is the absence of

> suffering without suffering?

>

> As the Buddha says, I teach two things.

> Suffering and non-suffering.

>

> How would the dolphin know the joy of being

> in the water if it did not leap out?

P: Yes, very interesting point of view, Freyja, thanks.

There are two different ways of experiencing

suffering:

a) as personal, hot, claustrophobic mental pain. ( this

is happening to me)

b) as impersonal drama spicing a plot, just as pepper

burns the tongue, but makes the food taste better.

Obviously, is the sense of a perishable 'me' among

perishable things which gives suffering its sting.

There is no disassociation implied in trying to exchange

one perspective for the other.

Also, there is the very obvious, but hard to get realization

in Buddhism that 'not being conscious' is not a bad thing,

that it's the ideal " state. " We welcome it, and seek it every night

as we go to bed: that sweet surrendering, that delicious

fading into being not.

>

> .......................

> Consequently, when a person who `doesn't care about what is the exact

> philosophy behind it' blindly practices `Vipassana' it is a further

> withdrawal from this actual world than what `normal' people currently

> experience in the illusionary `reality' of their `real world'. All

> Buddhists (just like Mr. Buddha) do not want to be here at this place

> in space – now at this moment in time – as this flesh and blood form,

> walking and talking and eating and drinking and urinating and

> defecating and being the universes' experience of its own infinitude

> as a reflective and sensate human being. They put immense effort into

> bringing `samsara' (the Hindu and/or Buddhist belief in the endless

> round of birth and death and rebirth) to an end ... if they liked

> being here now they would welcome their rebirth and delight in being

> able to be here now again and again as a human being. They just don't

> wanna be here (not only not being here now but never, ever again). Is

> it not so blatantly obvious that Mr. Buddha just did not like being

> here? Does one wonder why one never saw his anti-life stance before?

> How on earth can someone who dislikes being here so much ever be

> interested in bringing about peace-on-earth? In this respect he was

> just like all the Gurus and God-Men down through the ages ... the

> whole lot of them were/are anti-life to the core. For example:

>

> • [Mr. Buddha]: `If there is someone who is unaware of the

> Tathagata's most profound viewpoint of the eternally abiding,

> unchanging, fine and mysterious essential body (dharmakaya), that it

> is said that the body that eats is not the essential body, and who is

> unaware of the Tathagata's path to the power of virtue and majesty;

> then, this is called suffering. (...) you should know that this

> person necessarily shall fall into the evil destinies and his

> circulation through birth and death (samsara) will increase greatly,

> the bonds becoming numerous, and he will undergo afflictions. If

> there is someone who is able to know that the Tathagata is eternally

> abiding without any change, or hears that he is eternally abiding, or

> if [this] Sutra meets his ear, then he shall be born into the Heavens

> above. And after his liberation, he will be able to realize and know

> that the Tathagata eternally abides without any change. Once he has

> realized this, he then says, `Formerly, I had heard this truth, but

> now I have attained liberation through realizing and knowing it.

> Because I have been entirely unaware of this since the beginning, I

> have cycled through birth and death, going round and round endlessly.

> Now on this day I have for the first time arrived at the true

> knowledge'. [endquote].Chapter 10: The Four Truths; [647b]; `The

> Great Parinirvana Sutra'; (T375.12.647a-c); Redacted from the Chinese

> of Dharmakshema by Huiyan, Huiguan, and Xie Lingyun (T375);

> Translated into English by Charles Patton.

>

> It can be seen that he clearly and unambiguously states that he (Mr.

> Buddha) is `the eternally abiding, unchanging, fine and mysterious

> essential body' even to the point of repeating it twice (`the

> Tathagata is eternally abiding without any change') and (`the

> Tathagata eternally abides without any change') so as to emphasise

> that `someone who is able to know that the Tathagata is eternally

> abiding without any change ... shall be born into the Heavens above'.

> And to drive the point home as to just what he means he emphasises

> that `the body that eats is not the essential body' ...

> which `essential body' can only be a dissociated state by any

> description and by any definition.

>

August 17, 2006

> Freyja: OK, well I don't think this section here below

> is necessarily new, but maybe the seeds of some

> kind of interesting (or not)

> discussion here. Basically, he's saying

Richard's page where it is from:

<http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedcorrespondence/sc-buddhism.htm>