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+--- Thread: The What-Is-Not (/Thread-The-What-Is-Not)
RE: The What-Is-Not - Litisthebest - 04-25-2011
(04-25-2011, 02:29 PM)Shannon Wrote: Jay has come closer than anyone so far. Keep going. You're not there yet.
I actually feel nothing. What I mean by that is that I feel in the present and everything else seems to be blocked out. All the other crap floating in my mind seems to go away. Just really into the current moment.
RE: The What-Is-Not - Jay - 04-27-2011
(04-27-2011, 12:02 PM)Blueness Wrote: There is no spoon!
Lol, for the first time in my life I actually 'get' that phrase, instead of just conceptualizing the hell out of it. But then the question remains; what is the spoon?
RE: The What-Is-Not - Shannon - 04-27-2011
What is the flame, if it is not what you see and not what you feel? Why do you see what you see and feel what you feel and smell what you smell, if that is not what it is?
RE: The What-Is-Not - RainbowAbyss - 04-27-2011
The flame is what Is through every experience of it, the sum of all and nothing really, but a 'flame' is what we 'think' it is because that is the communal language and perceptual agreement on a universally subjective and relatively repeatable experience. It is only through knowing what the flame is not that the flame can be known and it is only through knowing what the flame is that what is not the flame can also be know, but that's just an intellectual and linguistic distinction that is not reality. To say the flame is what we see, feel, or smell is to label sections of passing water in a river or spots of water in a pond, through our minds breaking the glass of an unbroken mirror. A 'flame' is a shard of glass, a flame is the mirror, I'm the mirror, your the mirror, were all the mirror.
RE: The What-Is-Not - Shannon - 04-27-2011
Sounds like gobbledygook to me. lol The answer is still awaiting you.
RE: The What-Is-Not - RainbowAbyss - 04-27-2011
I'm sorry u don't understand lol
RE: The What-Is-Not - Shannon - 04-27-2011
I do understand. I understand that you're giving the same answer that has already been given, and it's not the answer.
RE: The What-Is-Not - Spiral - 04-28-2011
The answer comes within. Everything is nothing. It's about knowing the deeper meaning behind the phrase which is what I think most people find challenging to understand.
I'm 99.9% sure that's the answer. But I'm one of those people that have a hard time knowing exactly what that means.
RE: The What-Is-Not - Jay - 04-28-2011
I actually got it for about an hour, yesterday, I think. It's being non-reactive to your thoughts and knowing that you're not your thoughts, you're the observer, and you stop identifying with them, because there is no need for it, and it's instant, nothing emotional drags along. And you can choose to completely be indifferent to a thought or feel unconditional love for it. Also you become very aware of everything, your breathing, your surroundings without any effort. I became very aware of my actions when I was making myself something to eat, lol. I also noticed that most of my chakra's felt pretty much open, especially the throat, heart and solar plexus. It was also very easy to connect to a higher consciousness, I got these almost all-encompassing insights that were pretty mind-boggling. But when I started identifying with some old familiar thoughts that normally would keep me occupied I could notice that it started to diminish, that's when I tried harder to keep it and "lost" it.
I'm not really sure what I did to get myself in that position in the first place, have been listening/reading a lot from Eckhart Tolle along with some random articles off and on for the last week, and reading a lot about the Four Noble Truths but I notice with this stuff it's very fleeting (could also be from sleeping pretty badly for the last few weeks). I can read something or listen to it but it's mostly gone after a few days. When I 'got' it I tried to acknowledge to myself that there isn't a past (since I'm very past oriented) and succeeded in that, after that I focused on the cause of suffering (which is craving/desire) and trying to become non-attached to it, but I noticed that I was attaching myself too much to the outcome of getting it so I let it go. Then I noticed how aware/present I became of everything.
RE: The What-Is-Not - Shannon - 04-28-2011
Sigh.
Gentlemen... ladies... let go of your ideas. Let go of your beliefs. Let go. Just gaze at the flame.
Ask yourself... what am I seeing? You think you see the flame, but it's not the flame you see. What is it that you see? What is it that you are looking at, which you don't see? Why can't you see what you're looking at, which you think you see but don't?
This isn't some mumbo jumbo everything is nothing nihilistic "if I say it confusingly enough people will think it's deep" stuff. It's a point so simple, so obvious, that we completely miss it on a daily, hourly and minute by minute and second by second basis. But by understanding this point, you can begin to see the matrix itself.
I want you to tell me, what is a flame, if not what you see when you look at it? Why and how can you see what it is not, and not what it is? The flame is not what you see. How can that be?
RE: The What-Is-Not - WildFlower - 04-28-2011
The finger that points to the moon is not the moon
RE: The What-Is-Not - RainbowAbyss - 04-28-2011
This isn't some mumbo jumbo everything is nothing nihilistic "if I say it confusingly enough people will think it's deep" stuff. It's a point so simple, so obvious, that we completely miss it on a daily, hourly and minute by minute and second by second basis. But by understanding this point, you can begin to see the matrix itself.
Is it light? lol
also Shannon, whatever your answer is I'm sure it is very simple and mind bending in its matrix revealing power but I have got to say some of the stuff the guys have said, especially Jay, have been really cool as well. My genuine EXPERIENCE of looking into the fire and letting go of thought is that everything becomes transparent, empty, and yet all woven together, there is a dissolution of observer and observed.
I don't know what I am looking at if I let go of my beliefs. All I know when I look at the flame, I am looking at light, maybe I am seeing something in my mind and not really seeing whatever the flame is.
Also, it may not be the answer your looking for, and it may not have been any intended experience or response in your experiment, but everything is nothing-in the Buddhist sense, is about as far from nihilistic and mumbo jumbo as you can get.
Anyway I give up trying to get an answer but will continue flame gazing on occasion, as it is really fun, thanks for the suggestion and I do look foward to the final revealing of this koan
RE: The What-Is-Not - Shannon - 04-28-2011
(04-28-2011, 02:10 PM)RainbowAbyss Wrote: This isn't some mumbo jumbo everything is nothing nihilistic "if I say it confusingly enough people will think it's deep" stuff. It's a point so simple, so obvious, that we completely miss it on a daily, hourly and minute by minute and second by second basis. But by understanding this point, you can begin to see the matrix itself.
Is it light? lol
also Shannon, whatever your answer is I'm sure it is very simple and mind bending in its matrix revealing power but I have got to say some of the stuff the guys have said, especially Jay, have been really cool as well. My genuine EXPERIENCE of looking into the fire and letting go of thought is that everything becomes transparent, empty, and yet all woven together, there is a dissolution of observer and observed.
I don't know what I am looking at if I let go of my beliefs. All I know when I look at the flame, I am looking at light, maybe I am seeing something in my mind and not really seeing whatever the flame is.
Also, it may not be the answer your looking for, and it may not have been any intended experience or response in your experiment, but everything is nothing-in the Buddhist sense, is about as far from nihilistic and mumbo jumbo as you can get.
Anyway I give up trying to get an answer but will continue flame gazing on occasion, as it is really fun, thanks for the suggestion and I do look foward to the final revealing of this koan
Oh, jeez, you are SO close to "getting it"... just need to make one more realization, and... click!
I'm not saying the answers that have been posted had no value, they were just far from what I am trying to share. This flame gazing meditation can be used to do many different things. Early in my studies, my first instructor had me gazing at flames all the time, and every time I would be getting a different discovery out of it based on her questions afterwards. You can use a simple candle for many things... it's amazing. I think I spent nearly two years just working with a simple white candle in the evening before she started teaching me using other things.
The "mumbo jumbo" comment was just me becoming exasperated. I really want to explain it to you, but if I do it won't have the same value.
RE: The What-Is-Not - Shannon - 04-28-2011
(04-28-2011, 12:59 PM)WildFlower Wrote: The finger that points to the moon is not the moon
Neither is the ... oh, wait, can't give it away. lol