Guidance requested.

[Chris]

So how do you account for your sentience?

Everything (including sentience) is dependently originated and empty. In the relative sense, when conditions are "right", experience occurs. Experiences are also empty, they do not exist as solid, static, independent things. In the absolute sense it's all illusion.

[idomebutami]

when conditions are "right", experience occurs.

I heard this mentioned before, and I understand that it has to do with the unmanifest potential that "is Reality", or Evolution. But I would like your further interpretations.

Thanks

[idomebutami]

In response to the link you sent me..

So, "seeing"...as a "verb" as an "action" or a "sense" or anything facultative, or any thought given to its existence at all, is an illusion. There are only the appearances of objects and form and color and so forth. No relationships.

In that same manner than, there is no actual sensory input of hearing, that also is a duality. Just the word "sense" alone implies a duality, a subj/obj split. There is only the appearance of sound.

But now something arises that informs me that "thinking" MUST be the same way. To "think" implies sub/obj. So there arises only this thought and then the next.

And the "watcher of this moment" is only a thought that recalls the previous thought? Its only ever capturing itself.

It still feels like there is a more subtle layer that wants to establish this whole notion of 'no-senses/thinking' as another duality. There is this "me" that has comprehended all of this and will now "see the world" as void of sensory/metal ownership or intention. But within all of this is still sort of a "sensing" dynamic by a "removed me"..all dualistic I know.

What is it that can even observe this, for that is also a duality. Everything known, everything that IS, just IS?

[idomebutami]

As i continue on with this direct seeing and with the reading of the anatta stanzas, its becoming clear that even an appearance must be an illusion. Above, I said that I can see how there is no sensory faculty of seeing, there is only the appearing of objects and form, but...that cant be true, that implies a "one" to whom appearances appear. So, in the most direct of seeing...the only thing truly existing at any moment is what I previously thought to be the expressions OF the senses, but I see now that it is this Expression/Expressing-ness that gives rise/birth to the concepts of individual senses and sensing and of course than to the belief in ONE who senses.

Yuck... i can really see how all talks of a "fundamental this" and "cosmic that" are so far off the mark.

All there is, is this. There is all of life, minus a Liver.

[idomebutami]

"Our deeply held inherent and dualistic view has very subtly and unknowingly personified the "luminous aspect" into the watcher and discarded the "emptiness aspect" as the transient phenomena. The key challenge of practice is then to clearly see that luminosity and emptiness are one and inseparable, they have never and can never be separated."

This is my direct experience. How is it seen that luminosity and emptiness are one?

[idomebutami]

"Understanding this (stanzas), practice is simply opening to whatever is."

"I" am that this morning. I even dreamed of this last night.

There is absolutely nothing left to do or think in the light of this.

[Chris]

when conditions are "right", experience occurs.

I heard this mentioned before, and I understand that it has to do with the unmanifest potential that "is Reality", or Evolution. But I would like your further interpretations.

Thanks

I meant in the way that if there is a human with a working ear and there is a tree that falls in close proximity the human will hear the sound of the tree falling. It's a conventional way of looking at things. You can take this back further to where the tree came from and how it formed and grew and where the human came from and how the human grew and how the planet that supports these organisms formed, etc. etc. for this hearing of the tree falling to occur.

Dependent Origination shows that everything is connected. I still get turned around sometimes when thinking about this. (Flipping back and forth between conventional and ultimate ways of looking at things...) But it's basically that everything is connected and dependent on everything else, and it's also empty because of this dependence. Things only exist as things conceptually and in relation to other concepts, what's actually experienced are just those sense and thought blips. They happen, but they are just luminous blips that are gone as quickly as they appear. Completely ungraspable and in constant flux.

[Chris]

"Understanding this (stanzas), practice is simply opening to whatever is."

"I" am that this morning. I even dreamed of this last night.

There is absolutely nothing left to do or think in the light of this.

Ok, but if additional questions come up again, feel free to ask. :)

[idomebutami]

Well there is this great sense of mystery surrounding everything now, and it appears that I still have some investment in cause and effect, but for now...im just going to continue to let everything I thought I knew continue to dissolve. It feels like its working without my efforts, and any attempt to "look" at it is not "it".

Theres still this personal intertia...just gunna let it flow...

[idomebutami]

But it's basically that everything is connected and dependent on everything else, and it's also empty because of this dependence.

You lost me at empty. Luminosity is the is-ness of emptiness?

Its crazy, but for the first time...the use of personal pro-nouns feels free from obligation. If that makes sense. Im still typing as a person..but it almost feels like its a tool or method...and not an ABSOLUTE aspect of Reality.

[idomebutami]

If everything "seen" is simply everything, removed of the illusion of sensory faculties, than what accounts for the "disappearance" of the "world" (appearance of objects and form) once the eyes are closed?

It feels like that whole subtle subjectivity as luminosity dynamic is what is muddying this..

[Chris]

You lost me at empty. Luminosity is the is-ness of emptiness?.

Things are said to be empty because they do not exist in a solid, static way. They are empty of inherent existence. On a relative level, a table is empty in that it's a table because of it's parts and the materials used to make it and people use it in a certain way and understand it as a table, etc. A table isn't a thing, it has no table essence. It's dependent on many parts and concepts, etc.

The emptiness that I am talking about is not the absence of anything, for example the empty space in a cup. Experience is said to be empty because it is "vividly present yet completely un-locatable".

(I'm jumping back and forth between relative and absolute again, please forgive me but it's hard not to as emptiness applies to everything.)

As for luminosity, I understand it as a way of describing senses and thought. The little blips that I keep talking about. Vivid, yet unlocatable. It's not anything special, it's what we're already used to experiencing. I thought luminosity was a special experience we'd have of things once there was a certain level of realization or something, but it's just the everyday experience of things. Experiences is luminous in the same way that a movie seems so real we forget it's an illusion.

Its crazy, but for the first time...the use of personal pro-nouns feels free from obligation. If that makes sense. Im still typing as a person..but it almost feels like its a tool or method...and not an ABSOLUTE aspect of Reality.

Something we look for to see if someone "gets it" or not. :)

[Chris]

"Our deeply held inherent and dualistic view has very subtly and unknowingly personified the "luminous aspect" into the watcher and discarded the "emptiness aspect" as the transient phenomena. The key challenge of practice is then to clearly see that luminosity and emptiness are one and inseparable, they have never and can never be separated."

This is my direct experience. How is it seen that luminosity and emptiness are one?

The luminous aspect is the fact that it's there. The emptiness is that it's not solid, static. Everything is luminous and empty. When we mistake the luminous as us or awareness or whatever, we make it into a solid thing and believe transient phenomena happen in the awareness or are made of this awareness, etc.

When we realize that everything (every sense experience and thought) is both luminous AND empty, that is right view and there is nothing left that is a constant or ground of being.

[idomebutami]

It's funny, I can see all of this so clearly now. Gosh Chris, why didn't you just tell me this in the first place? Hahahahah ;)

Can you please take a look at my post from 9:59 AM this morning

Thanks

[Chris]

If everything "seen" is simply everything, removed of the illusion of sensory faculties, than what accounts for the "disappearance" of the "world" (appearance of objects and form) once the eyes are closed?

It feels like that whole subtle subjectivity as luminosity dynamic is what is muddying this..

It goes back to that discussion we had about conditions being “right” in order for an experience to occur. On a conventional level of understanding, there needs to be an eye for sight, ear for hearing, etc. But outside of concepts, there are just blips of senses and thought. It’s the conceptual overlay that creates the seeming solidity of things. They are illusion in that they are impermanent, ungraspable, and in constant flux, not because they don’t exist at all. That would be a nihilistic.

Hope that helps.