The What-Is-Not

[Patti]

fire? oxygen?

[Spiral]

Well I'm done with guessing. I need to go out and buy a candle and just do this every day. I've been trying to get back into daily meditation and I think this will do the trick.

[Patti]

Well I'm done with guessing. I need to go out and buy a candle and just do this every day. I've been trying to get back into daily meditation and I think this will do the trick.

I think we're all guessing spiral. I'm sure there's no wrong answers and more than one answer, but we're all looking for Shannon's answer.

[Shannon]

You can't guess your way to enlightenment. lol

[Spiral]

I am the flame and the flame is me. That's my guess... I'll be gone this weekend so can't start this till I get back home... more time to keep guessing.

[Shannon]

You can't guess your way to enlightenment.

In the United States for almost seventy years now, we have been bombarded with TV and radio and print advertising that tells us everything must be instant and effortless.

This is advertising reality... not reality.

Did Buddha guess a bunch of times until he landed on Enlightenment? If he had, would he have even realized he had come to Enlightenment?

Guessing is worthless. Guessing is trying to skirt the process that leads to genuine understanding. Guessing is the easy way out... and it doesn't do anything.

When you understand the answer, when you have put in the time and the contemplation, when you realize the answer and the understanding that leads to it, guessing is unnecessary.

You cannot guess your way to understanding. If you wish to understand, meditate on the candle flame and what it appears to be, but is not. Keep going until you understand. When you do, there will be no question in your mind, because you will no longer be fooled by the physical world around you. It will disintegrate to your understanding. The Matrix will be revealed.

Guessing is an ostrich with it's head in the sand trying to describe the sunset.

[Spiral]

I understand completely I was just being a lamebrain and making a useless post. But after this weekend and another bout with terrible thoughts I just sort of gave into them. I don't know exactly what happened but I am more at peace with myself. Time to go buy that candle.

[WildFlower]

Another Koan:

Shuzan held out his short staff and said, "If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wish to call this?"

[Patti]

I have to say, I don’t get this. I don’t mean this in an argumentative way, I just don’t understand. I’ve always been one to tell people that they feel what they feel and their feelings are never wrong, it’s what they feel. And this seems very similar to me. You want people to see what they see but then you tell them it’s wrong. How can what they see be wrong? They see what they see. What makes your sighting right for anyone other than you?

[Jay]

What do I see when I gaze into a candle flame? It is not the flame.

What do I feel when I pass my hand over the candle flame? It is not the flame.

What do I smell when I blow the candle out? It is not the candle.

It's the idea I have of a flame, the idea is of the mind, the idea is an illusion.

[Shannon]

I have to say, I don’t get this. I don’t mean this in an argumentative way, I just don’t understand. I’ve always been one to tell people that they feel what they feel and their feelings are never wrong, it’s what they feel. And this seems very similar to me. You want people to see what they see but then you tell them it’s wrong. How can what they see be wrong? They see what they see. What makes your sighting right for anyone other than you?

If I have a target, and I drop a bomb thirty miles away from it, did I miss the target? I want people to see what I see, not what they see. They already see what they see. If they already saw what I see, they wouldn't have to try to figure out what I see.

My experience has been that feelings can be wrong, and blind acceptance of them is not really always a good method for staying healthy. If I blindly accepted my feelings all the time, as you seem to suggest, I would never have left the ex who was physically, emotionally and mentally abusive to me, because my feelings still to this day tell me that I love her. Had my rational mind never gotten the upper hand, I would either be dead or in prison right now for killing her in response to her borderline personality. In this case, my feelings were wrong.

You cannot simply toss aside all challenges and say that there is no wrong answer. While it is true that some things cannot have a wrong answer, there is no learning without a restriction to what is being targeted. Imagine saying that on a mathematics test, "There is no wrong answer, if you feel that the answer is correct, then it is." I don't know about you, but someone who achieves a degree in engineering with a test like that, I don't want working on any part of the airplane I'll be riding in.

In this case, there is a specific answer I am looking for. If you understand, great. If not, keep trying until you either do understand, or no longer wish to understand.

[Shannon]

What do I see when I gaze into a candle flame? It is not the flame.

What do I feel when I pass my hand over the candle flame? It is not the flame.

What do I smell when I blow the candle out? It is not the candle.

It's the idea I have of a flame, the idea is of the mind, the idea is an illusion.

and?

[Jay]

What do I see when I gaze into a candle flame? It is not the flame.

What do I feel when I pass my hand over the candle flame? It is not the flame.

What do I smell when I blow the candle out? It is not the candle.

It's the idea I have of a flame, the idea is of the mind, the idea is an illusion.

and?

And? Well, I guess I need to ponder this a lot more

Basically it would mean that not only the flame, but all is an idea, an illusion. Sought fit to my personal interpretation which would differ from another person who would bear witness of the same flame, object, event or person. Two (or more) different ideas from the same source. Perhaps the source isn't even present.

Hmmm, not too profound, back to the drawing board, or the candle for that matter...

Perhaps related, old question that does keep popping up is "How do we know that for example a strawberry is red?", is it possible that the color we perceive to be red is perhaps purple? Or doesn't have any colors, but we see them, because we want or need to see them, or we believe to be seeing colors? We make what we want to make of it?

[Spiral]

I think about those things all the time! Like my red could be your green... or whatever! Insane.