Detachment is apathy

a reply to: TzarChasm

a hard concept to hold onto sometimes, light and dark is a process of drawing lines between worse and better, black and white, up and down. me and not me. and if i lose that, then i lose me.

Duality is what makes it seem as if there is a you that could be lost. Without the line drawer there would be wholeness - nothing separate. Is the line drawer separate from the whole?

originally posted by: Bluesma
"The choice for solely that which is impermanent"..... but everything is impermanent, there is no optional choice to make, as far as I can see. Even this "I" which "sees" is impermanent.

Yes, even the "I' seeing is impermanent. However, the Reality in which all this conditionality is arising is not impermanent - it is beyond time and space - and yet is not separate from anything arising.

Once Reality is discovered, "tasted" if you will, everything conditional pales in comparison.

originally posted by: Bluesma

It hit me this offers me an opportunity to put into words more efficiently, that "full circle" I was talking about?
My spiritual "searching" began at a very young age (nothing was stable in my childhood, so I searched for "that which is permanent, universal". ) and it continued and continued, and I dived down deeper, expanded further, until I came to the ultimate realization that-
There is nothing. There is only unending potential. Nothing and everything in one.
So there remains really nothing else but to experience the present, in all it's forms, concepts, objects and entities, and fleeting impermanence!

And instead of being terribly uncertain, it became suddenly marvelously freeing.

Does your recognition or realization include freedom from death? I understand that you feel free of the fear of death, but do you ultimately die when the impermanent body-mind dies?

originally posted by: bb23108


Does your recognition or realization include freedom from death? I understand that you feel free of the fear of death, but do you ultimately die when the impermanent body-mind dies?

I don't know if I "ultimately die when the impermanent body-mind dies." I don't feel free from death, I doubt that is possible, and don't desire that.
It doesn't matter.
Perceptual experience is always happening. Even if this point of perception which proclaims "I am" ceases to perceive (exist) there are always multitudes of other points.
I guess a simpler way to say that is that,
Life goes on. Even if mine doesn't.

originally posted by: Bluesma
Perceptual experience is always happening.

Does awareness cease to exist in deep sleep? Perception does, but does awareness?

Good question from the op

It’s the challenge of the seeker to become detached from some things of the world and at the same time attached to other things that compliment their practice.

The Sufis say: “Be in the world but not of it.” That’s not easy to do

But the seeker has to balance the reality that they are seeking higher awareness from a perspective of need and as such can’t really practice love in its fullness without the state of awareness of the Buddha or enlightened state

The greatest practice of love is by the wise knower
That said, nothing in any doctrine I have come across tells a seeker NOT to practice love. It’s just that the reality of reaching enlightenment is the goal and the practice of love must complement that.

I think Buddha is just being realistic. The seekers love can be best perpetuated on the world after he or she gains enlightenment because then they will have wisdom and knowledge along with love.

So one has to balance the idea of detachment and practice of healthy attachment to worldly endeavors

There is a form of Buddhism that concentrates particularly on worldly good actions and that is Nichiren Buddhism

originally posted by: bb23108

originally posted by: Bluesma
Perceptual experience is always happening.

Does awareness cease to exist in deep sleep? Perception does, but does awareness?

These words are used by different people to refer to different concepts. To answer, we'd need to define first and "get on the same page"
Deep sleep: do you mean deep sleep stage of non-REM sleep? Or REM sleep?

Awareness: do you mean cognisance (having knowledge of), or sentience (state of elementary or undifferentiated consciousness).

I do not think perception ceases to exist in REM sleep- images, concepts, are perceived in dream activity.
Awareness (as undifferentiated consciousness; lack of self-other distinction) does not cease to exist in REM sleep, in lucid dreaming even self awareness (self- other conceptual distinction) can exist.

In non-REM deep sleep, neither perception nor awareness is happening for me. So do those who fear death fear deep sleep as well??

When I am in deep sleep, there are others who are aware and perceiving, and experiencing at the same time. I perceive others, and an exterior world, so the whole universe is not going to crash and cease to exist just because I will.
The little "I" (me) can vanish, the big "I" (eye) goes on.

a reply to: Bluesma
"When I am in deep sleep, there are others who are aware and perceiving, and experiencing at the same time." Quote.

You cannot be 'in' deep sleep - there is no one and nothing 'in' deep sleep. Nothing appears in deep sleep.
What you are 'is' deep sleep - deep sleep is the absolute. When the light comes on when waking there is just one image of light to be seen/known - it appears as all there is.

Deep sleep is never not here.
Deep sleep is just like the tv screen. When there is no light pixels appearing, the screen is blank and empty. When the tv is switched on the light dances across the screen, the screen gets overlooked.
The tv screen appears to have separate things moving on it but it is only ever one 'thingless thing' (screen of awareness) - but it is also the whole thing (one without a second).
Because there seems to be a lot going on (in the play of light) it can distract one from the one screen of awareness - which is never not here.

When one realizes oneself as the screen (ever present and never changing - stable) and not what is appearing on the screen (ever changing) then one is free from suffering from the feeling of being separate - the separate person vanishes - there just seamed to be an illusion of separateness.
When the stable screen has be unveiled ones true nature has be found.
Christ is the moving light image which is born in the stable. There is nothing outside the stable (screen) - there is no thing other.

The character that is appearing on the screen (and all that is appearing) just does what it does and the screen of awareness just sees the happening.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

Rubbish.

There is a reality, in which perception exists, and perceives a physical form, that they call" Bluesma" (or another name), and it can be in deep sleep- they can experience me in deep sleep. They can feel my heartbeat with their hand, they can listen to my breath, they can monitor the mechanisms in that body.

The big "I" is both self and non-self.
If I close the right eye, the left eye continues to perceive.


Very young children pass through a stage where they think that if they hide their face, others cannot see them, because they cannot see others. That is a misconception and expanding beyond ones own experience, to recognizing experience of others, is one of the fascinating and exciting experiences of this level of reality. At least I think so.

Feel free to ignore us, if it is your preference and gives you pleasure. We can cease to exist for you, but that has no bearing on us as points of perception and consciousness for the big "I".

My little toe may be in complete denial about the other body parts surrounding it existing. Whatever.

originally posted by: Bluesma

Feel free to ignore us, if it is your preference and gives you pleasure.

What is being ignored?

a reply to: Bluesma

There is nothing. There is only unending potential. Nothing and everything in one.
So there remains really nothing else but to experience the present, in all it's forms, concepts, objects and entities, and fleeting impermanence!

And instead of being terribly uncertain, it became suddenly marvelously freeing.

Yes - it is marvellously freeing.
But who or what becomes free?
The who disappears when it is realized that there is only the present.
The present is all there is and it is doing itself so all the heaviness of 'your personal life' is lifted away. The realization maybe brief so the feeling of freedom may also be brief but one has had a glimpse of that freedom.

a reply to: Itisnowagain

The realization is brief?

What is realized cannot be un-realized.

Even while delving deep into experience of self/other, past/ present, here/there, it remains underneath it all.

Experience of duality and non-duality is not an either/or proposition.

originally posted by: Bluesma
a reply to: Itisnowagain

The realization is brief?

Well you seem to have forgotten.
Or at least not seen the extent of what is obvious.
There is no separation.

a reply to: Bluesma
The screen of awareness is all there is with light appearing in/on/as it.
The screen is one without a second - nothing can appear outside the screen.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain

Well you seem to have forgotten.
Or at least not seen the extent of what is obvious.
There is no separation.

I have forgotten nothing.
There is no separation
and
There is perception of separation.
Perception of separation allows for experience of relation.

originally posted by: Bluesma


I have forgotten nothing.
There is no separation
and
There is perception of separation.
Perception of separation allows for experience of relation.

It seems you have forgotten nothing - in favour of something.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain

It seems you have forgotten nothing - in favour of something.

What things seem to you, what I seem to you,
is only what is appearing, upon your screen.

originally posted by: Bluesma

originally posted by: Itisnowagain

It seems you have forgotten nothing - in favour of something.

What things seem to you, what I seem to you,
is only what is appearing, upon your screen.

There is no personal screen. There is just the present which is not two things.
The present is the screen which is ever present and the present appearance on the screen is constantly appearing different.

This is always This but This constantly looks different.

a reply to: Bluesma

I have forgotten nothing.
There is no separation
and
There is perception of separation.
Perception of separation allows for experience of relation.

There is no separation - so how can there be 'your' screen and a separate 'my screen'?

The idea of time gives rise to there being separation.
The 'there and then' has a apparent separate you in it but there is no 'there and then'.
There is only the present and it is doing itself.

originally posted by: Itisnowagain

There is no personal screen. There is just the present which is not two things.
The present is the screen which is ever present and the present appearance on the screen is constantly appearing different.

This is always This but This constantly looks different.

It is a personal screen, because this moment is made up of many different points of perception.
What you are perceiving, and what I am perceiving, is not the same. Even in the same moment, the same NOW.

Acknowledging that does make a "hole" in the "whole" experience; an experience of being just a tiny little "I", in a sea of endless "I"s. I don't find that worrisome, because it is temporal, impermanent.
There is other visions, landscapes, and views behind what you see... some are curious to adventure into them, and partake in relation. Some are not so curious. *shrug*. Stay there then, watch your screen, pretend what you are perceiving is all there is.

I am whatever you believe me to be- for you. Your screen shows you what you want/need to see.