Debate over 'deathless door'

[SilenceMonkey]

I can give you an example: if suddenly you feel stressed and heavy, you’ll know something will happen to cause that. You might not know the exact detail. Another example is if you work in an environment where beings are loaded with heavy karmic thoughts, you know you are affected.

That’s obvious. But your constant criticism that knowledge makes people bad practitioners is just invalid. The proof is that some of the best practitioners on the planet use knowledge as a means to reach liberation.

P.S. If you don’t quote me in your replies, I won’t get notified. And these conversations will drag on longer than they need to.

Also to everyone else, I’m sorry for hijacking the thread.

[LastLegend]

So it’s not a valid criticism from East to West? I judge because I study my mind and I can sense through engaging that we are entangled together...as far as karma goes.

I think you’re just being judgemental, to be honest. You’re playing Chan master with strangers, people who don’t even practice in your tradition.

Every tradition has their own methods of practice. Some traditions value study more than you do personally. Do you have the right to say an entire tradition is wrong?

Think what you like...it’s all in Sutras. The one I quoted the other day when Mahavairocana describes his realization in Mahavairocana Sutras.

Also I remembered you argued with me the definition of consciousness (versus perceptions) yet Sujato quoted, “For one knows tastes through tongue.”

I also quoted... “You should make your own mind & body uncluttered and serene, unentangled in any objects whatsoever. Sit straight, rightly aware, and fine-tune your breath so it is well adjusted. Examine your mind to see it as neither inside nor outside nor in between. Watch it calmly, carefully and objectively; when you master this, you clearly see that the mind's consciousness moves in a flow, like a water-current or like heat waves rising without end.

When you have seen this consciousness, you find it is neither out nor in: without hurry, objectively & calmly observe it. When you master this, then melt and flux over and over, empty yet solid, profoundly stable, and then the flowing consciousness will disappear.

Those who get this consciousness to disappear will then destroy the obstructing confusions of the Bodhisattvas of the ten stages. Once this consciousness is gone, then the mind is open and still, quiet, serene and calm, perfectly pure, and enormously stable.”

That’s from a Chan Patriarch Daman. Just to make point that consciousness needs to be transcended.

https://terebess.hu/zen/daman.html

[Malcolm]

You’re playing Chan master with strangers, people who don’t even practice in your tradition.

He does not even practice in his own tradition. Its all blah blah blah.

[LastLegend]

I can give you an example: if suddenly you feel stressed and heavy, you’ll know something will happen to cause that. You might not know the exact detail. Another example is if you work in an environment where beings are loaded with heavy karmic thoughts, you know you are affected.

That’s obvious. But your constant criticism that knowledge makes people bad practitioners is just invalid. The proof is that some of the best practitioners on the planet use knowledge as a means to reach liberation.

P.S. If you don’t quote me in your replies, I won’t get notified. And these conversations will drag on longer than they need to.

Also to everyone else, I’m sorry for hijacking the thread.

We can disagree...but Mahaprajnaparamita Sutras are clear about what’s going on.

[LastLegend]

You’re playing Chan master with strangers, people who don’t even practice in your tradition.

He does not even practice in his own tradition. Its all blah blah blah.

Whatever.

That depends on what ya mean by practice.

[SilenceMonkey]

I can give you an example: if suddenly you feel stressed and heavy, you’ll know something will happen to cause that. You might not know the exact detail. Another example is if you work in an environment where beings are loaded with heavy karmic thoughts, you know you are affected.

That’s obvious. But your constant criticism that knowledge makes people bad practitioners is just invalid. The proof is that some of the best practitioners on the planet use knowledge as a means to reach liberation.

P.S. If you don’t quote me in your replies, I won’t get notified. And these conversations will drag on longer than they need to.

Also to everyone else, I’m sorry for hijacking the thread.

We can disagree...but Mahaprajnaparamita Sutras are clear about what’s going on.

That doesn’t mean have are justified in criticizing people for discussing dharma with terms you don’t understand. It’s actually a bit arrogant, imposing your Chan on everyone else. Especially if you don’t even practice, come on.

[LastLegend]

That’s obvious. But your constant criticism that knowledge makes people bad practitioners is just invalid. The proof is that some of the best practitioners on the planet use knowledge as a means to reach liberation.

P.S. If you don’t quote me in your replies, I won’t get notified. And these conversations will drag on longer than they need to.

Also to everyone else, I’m sorry for hijacking the thread.

We can disagree...but Mahaprajnaparamita Sutras are clear about what’s going on.

That doesn’t mean have are justified in criticizing people for discussing dharma with terms you don’t understand. It’s actually a bit arrogant, imposing your Chan on everyone else. Especially if you don’t even practice, come on.

I am sorry dude carry on.

[Supramundane]

Whatever practice we do should lead to understand that this nature never needed anything...it’s just that we have been covered with karma for long we have to practice to decrease karma.

Are thoughts karma or carriers of karma?

Theravada seems caught up with 'sankhara', thought formations.

I have never heard the term mentioned in Mahayana systems.

It’s the fourth skandha. This would be all possible mental states (the 51 mental factors) and the so-called nonconcurrent formations. This is just an academic classification... it’s basically what we work with in gradual forms of meditation.

The fourth aggregate is the second link of dependent origination and is considered karma.

All correct. But Mahayana tends to focus on emptiness, i think, and not on thought formations.

It would be interesting to trace the differences in doctrine and practice based on this divergence.

That said, Zen ---which is Mahayana too--- seems to focus on duality rather than sankhara or sunyata.

All semantics perhaps in the end!?

[Supramundane]

Sorry to everyone, i seem to be in a completely different time zone from everyone else in Indonesia and so miss out on the dynamic back and forth of this forum.... and all the drama!

[SilenceMonkey]

All correct. But Mahayana tends to focus on emptiness, i think, and not on thought formations.

It would be interesting to trace the differences in doctrine and practice based on this divergence.

That said, Zen ---which is Mahayana too--- seems to focus on duality rather than sankhara or sunyata.

All semantics perhaps in the end!?

Well, the thought formations include the six root afflictions, twenty minor afflictions and the eleven virtues. So any practice that involves working with the afflictions and cultivating virtue would be working with skandhas. The first five of the mental states are involved with how the mind engages with objects, and the second five + the last four have clear connection with shamatha and vipassana, as well as prayer, confession and bodhicitta, etc...

If we’re talking emptiness, why wouldn’t that apply to the mental states?

[PadmaVonSamba]

Sorry to everyone, i seem to be in a completely different time zone from everyone else in Indonesia and so miss out on the dynamic back and forth of this forum.... and all the drama!

Drama Wheel

[Supramundane]

All correct. But Mahayana tends to focus on emptiness, i think, and not on thought formations.

It would be interesting to trace the differences in doctrine and practice based on this divergence.

That said, Zen ---which is Mahayana too--- seems to focus on duality rather than sankhara or sunyata.

All semantics perhaps in the end!?

Well, the thought formations include the six root afflictions, twenty minor afflictions and the eleven virtues. So any practice that involves working with the afflictions and cultivating virtue would be working with skandhas. The first five of the mental states are involved with how the mind engages with objects, and the second five + the last four have clear connection with shamatha and vipassana, as well as prayer, confession and bodhicitta, etc...

If we’re talking emptiness, why wouldn’t that apply to the mental states?

Of course, my friend, that's why i said at the end that is maybe just semantics.
Metta

[Supramundane]

Sorry to everyone, i seem to be in a completely different time zone from everyone else in Indonesia and so miss out on the dynamic back and forth of this forum.... and all the drama!

Drama Wheel

Very punny !

[Supramundane]

Actually PvS, I might be strange, but the most memorable discussions for me are the multi-page arguments among members, often bickering over some obscure translation or point. When we read something in a Sutra or in a document, it is flat and dead on the page; however, when personalities are involved and you get that dynamic back-and-forth, dissecting the ideas and looking at them from all different directions, in that Socratic Crucible, which today we would call a "flame war", that is when learning really occurs.

There is one memorable one on the self on this forum that I read avidly and remember fondly.

So vive 'dramawheel'

[SilenceMonkey]

Samskaras are essentially what is in the mind. Mahayana is very much dealing with samskaras, though we may not use that word very much.

In terms of duality, samskaras are duality and Shunyata is nonduality.

[Supramundane]

Yes, we are in agreement.

[florin]

Luang Po is the greatest dzogchen teacher alive. Lots of people from inside Thravada don’t understand him and his teachings and that, to some degree, shows that he transcended the meanings transmitted inside theravada.

[Supramundane]

Simply ceasing sankhara will not lead to a supramundane world, i'm afraid...

The Arhant only realizes one-fold emptiness... but even one-fold emptiness is more than simple awareness/single-pointed meditation.

Let's break it down like this: the Buddha made the realization that birth and death do not exist outside the mind...

thus, treating awareness as a 'deathless door' is incorrect, as it is still within the mind...

i don't see how the leap in logic can be made to declare the awareness jhana 'deathless' or an experience of Nirvana.

I query whether Ajahn Sumedho is mainstream Theravada or whether he is following his own path (does anyone know Theravada well enough to comment?)