So you are aware that awareness is aware while awareness is not aware that it is aware? 
I think about this as a large lake in which whirlpools are present. At this place of whirling there arises a strong sense of me, mine, my self. A strong sense of individuality and seperation. None of this is any moment real. The water of the whirlpool is everywhere the same stretch of water. It is only because of whirling that the impression of seperation arises.
The more the mind whirls around khandha’s with an understanding of this is me, this is mine and this is my self, the more it becomes trapped in a vision of seperation, of local mind, being born, death, etc.
I do not accept there are biljons of minds. I do not accept and limits to mind or any real seperation.
We cannot approach this from the perspective of a whirlpool
What i believe it that it is possible that the local or personal perspective from which we experience the world can totally vanish, collapse. At this moment the world as always sensed, ceases. Mind becomes absorbed in her own empty knowing nature.
I suspected this might be your answer to my question; that the mind becomes fixated on the awareness of itself and Nibbana is this mind that dwells in permanent reflection of its own luminosity or so on.
May I offer a suggestion: rather than thinking like this, maybe it is more beneficial that in your conception of the lake and the local whirlpools indicating a sense of individuality, maybe there is another feature of the lake that isn’t a whirlpool (with sense of individuality), but something else that seeks out these whirlpools in order to help dispel them? Maybe this other feature is not guided by any sense of individuality, but rather is formed from a previous whirlpool losing all sense of individuality and transforming through the altruistic wish to dispel suffering? This seems to me a more satisfying and beautiful conception than an awareness that is fixated on knowing itself.
I think it is beautiful this conception of a mind that loses obsession for local or personal perspective with which we experience the world, but instead of being replaced by a mind that gets obsessed with its own awareness, rather it is replaced or leaves in its wake the capacity/function to dispel suffering; that to me sounds more beautiful and worthy of aspiration.
It is just irrational to think that there is no sense processing going on while unconscious.
Ofcourse the mind detects all kinds of things.If there is not a mind and processing while unconscious, you also do not awaken due to a load noise or someone shaking you. The mind detects this ofcourse and processes these sense inputs…before you become aware of this. This is always so.
Nothing is immediately aware. It may seem so, but that is a illusion.
It is irrational to think that one must be conscious to know things. Knowing does not at all depend on being conscious. Some even say that almost all communication between people happens on a subconscious level, but people always think that they are so conscious and aware of everything happening while fact is…we are for the greatest part unaware of what really happens in contact with the world, other beings etc.
This analogy is given in the book: Why materialism is baloney. I would recommend it to you. However, it’s idealism. Your whole idea is idealism. All are mind.
It’s different from Theravada Buddhism, where the mind can and does completely cease at parinibbāna.
I was going for a trap that if the mind can only know one thing at a time, and your notion of nibbāna is always there and have this innate knowing, why is it that only stream winners first see nibbāna? This is a clear change. Since the mind is always only have one object a time, you cannot retreat to say nibbāna is in the background. Because there’s no background in knowing. There’s only one object at a time for the mind. And the only time the mind can first see nibbāna is in attaining stream winning, it implies a change from not knowing nibbāna to knowing nibbāna. Thus since you intergrated knowledge or knowing or capacity to know into nibbāna, any change there implies your notion of nibbāna is not the unchanged.
The orthodox way is better to just say that the knowing is part of the 5 aggregates and not nibbāna.
I have said many times that i believe that an awakened one is free to choice for final nibbana or for rebirth and help others. I personally have no other wish then to arrive at detachment and peace and help others.
Do not forget this is total peace, and the end of suffering. I can feel you more or less ridiculize all.
But i do not think you and i really know what Maha Boowa and Tibetan Teachers really realise when they meet the Citta.
I’d never heard this word before, but I suppose it is apt. I apologize if my tendency is disagreeable; I try and remember how ridiculous I am, but forget sometimes.
Yeah, I can’t claim any realizations and I apologize if it seemed I was claiming otherwise.
Yes, that is true. In my view mind is the base of life and all existences. But mind is not a thing. It essence is empty. Its nature is clarity or the ability to know.
Is have never sees any convincing description of mind. I do not believe in endless minds.
Yes, Nibbana in practice refers to the peace that is inherent to abiding in emptiness, in the stilling of all formations. No person creates this. For example, if one makes a descent into emptiness (MN121), no person creates this emptiness. At the same time no one creates the peaceful nature of this emptiness, this stilled nature. This stilled dimension. One cannot say that this is a result of the Path. No it IS the Path.
Emptiness is always in the background i believe. But background is also not really good. I think it is better to say the emptiness penetrates all. Something like that.
Are there not sutta’s who say that there is still perception or knowing while the khandha’s have ceased?
I apoligize if my words were hurtful. Sorry.
No. Clearly not. Perception and knowing (consciousness) are part of the 5 aggregates. If you can find one, show me.
Anyway, I understand your position to be just the dhammakāya described by Burgs. I don’t think it’s fruitful to convince you but this is just for the public then.
They weren’t! I think they were apt!
I think this is an important point.
Mind in Buddhism is conditioned, finite, limited. I suspect this to be the true significance of annata. If you believe Nibbana to be something, it is not mind. If you think it is you are entirely on the side of Advaita or similar Gnostic systems.
Does Buddha have a mind? Do you see it as merely provisional? What do you think is meant by the term “Buddha-mind”?
That would have to be explained by those who come up with this concept. How they think it can be reconciled with mind being not-self.
If mind is Not-self, which it certainly is, then the mind is Empty. I think reconciling that, we can agree that the mind can also be infinite when perceiving Nibbana. I think the Arhat can experience the full Bliss of Nibbana before Parinirvana, and have such a mind be fully affected by the benefits of full Nibbana. The Arhat doesn’t jump up a notch in Realization before and after passing away. What does death have to do with knowledge? They are simply freed from the grips of pain and suffering, if they wish to be. So I think the non-conceptual mind can help one ascend to the point of being able to understand what the Buddha understood, as an Arhat. But that may be pointing at the moon. And yet the truth may be: “there is no moon”, but that’s why we can say that there is one, or call it that. Such is the gift of Emptiness. What lies beyond? I think the Buddha wanted us to know.
Hello @Dharma,
It is very hard to decipher what you write sometimes for my limited mind. Take this for instance:
What do you mean by ‘infinite’ in this sense? Are you using ‘infinite’ as a superlative indicating your reverence for this mind perceiving Nibbana? Are you using it not as a superlative, but rather saying that this mind cannot be measured or calculated in comparison with some other more mundane finite mind?
Even were we to agree that this mind is “infinite” in some sense, it isn’t clear at all what work you would do with this definition to explain what you mean with the concept “buddha-mind.” My best guess is that you intend “infinite” as a superlative to argue in some way that this mind is not subject to arising/ceasing/disintegrating as part and parcel of a conditioned thing like the regular mundane non-infinite mind.
It is intriguing watching the conversation between adherents of the Third Turning and First Turning, but I fear there is a lot of misunderstanding by way of not taking particular attention to the usage of terms and establishing a base of shared common understanding.
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Well ultimately I’m not happy when it comes to having to limit life forms when it comes to Buddhism. I believe all beings have Bodhicitta, and the sense for Metta. After all, what is the purpose for life, the cause for life? It’s to attain a higher Metta in Cessation or Awakening. So we all need such.
What mind is limited? Only a mind that limits itself. With the concepts of self and ego, with materialism, and sensuality. It’s hard for such a mind to be cleared into the takeoff to the infinite space of Nibbana. But the Skandhas are Empty. So even a very limited materialistic person has the innate capacity for an infinite mind. I believe even an ant does, even bacteria do, even atoms in their energy, and smaller objects as well. I think Emptiness teaches us that there are no limits to goodwill, and that is my main and only point.
Yeah, the way you’re using language is quite different and difficult to relate to. It is jumbling quite the bevy of words taken from jargon of all three turnings and extent traditions and the hodgepodge makes it difficult to decipher the point you’re wishing to engage with.
As someone fairly familiar with the Second Turning, your usage of the word emptiness with a capital E as some stand in for just about everything does raise the proverbial eyebrow of idiosyncrasy.
I believe in the Buddhayana, the Ekayana. Three Vehicles are provisional. Ultimately the Buddha only taught from His Supreme Perfect Enlightenment, so all of Buddhism I feel one must hold dear. Hehe.
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So basically as Mork might say, “Nanu-Nanu”
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