Hi Mayka, I'd love to share some of my experiences and insights from my recent Vipassana retreat, but it involves things such as opened chakras and more kundalini happenings. Not very Zen, I'm afraid and could make poor old Bill! cough up his tea. : )
Mike ________________________________ From: Maria Lopez <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Thu, 7 April, 2011 8:19:52 Subject: Re: [Zen] Re: Does Zen contain spirituality? Mike: Would you be so kind to post and sharing something about whatever your experience will be on that retreat?. This kind of sharing while the energy of a retreat is still fresh is usually most helpful. And don't worry it will pass.... Mayka --- On Wed, 6/4/11, mike brown <[email protected]> wrote: >From: mike brown <[email protected]> >Subject: Re: [Zen] Re: Does Zen contain spirituality? >To: [email protected] >Date: Wednesday, 6 April, 2011, 11:50 > > > >Steve, > >Thanks mate, I'm well and hope you are, too. I don't have a great deal of time >to answer your previous post as I'm preparing for a 3 day Vipassana retreat >starting tomorrow. Lot's of new doors to open and explore so I'm looking >forward >to returning and carrying on this diescussion! Just one thing that jumped out >at >me that I'd like to ask you. You wrote below: > >>..if Ultimate Reality is without inherent qualities such as intentionality, >>and >>all phenomena are unreal illusion, thenhow did this unreal illusion ever >>arise >>at all? The Advaita Vedanta people give no answer to this. > >Ok. Can you tell what you agree/disagree with in the below quote from Ramana >Maharshi (which also, btw, seems to point at a particular meaning of >'emptiness'). For me, I think that he is much like Buddha in that he doesn't >concern himself about where the universe began or came from (i.e. questions >about the metaphysical), but rather concerns himself about how we can free >ourselves from the illusion. > > >"“Without consciousness >Time and space do not exist; >They appear within Consciousness >But have no reality of their own. >It is like a screen on which >All this is cast as pictures and move >As in a cinema show. >The Absolute Consciousness >Alone is our real nature” > >Mike > > > > > > ________________________________ From: SteveW <[email protected]> >To: [email protected] >Sent: Wed, 6 April, 2011 7:58:30 >Subject: [Zen] Re: Does Zen contain spirituality? > > > > >--- In [email protected], mike brown <uerusuboyo@...> wrote: >> >> Steve, >> >> What you describe below sounds very much like the Buddhist doctrine of >> annicca. >> >> In Vipassana meditation, the discomfort caused by sitting for prolonged >> periods >> >> of time gives us the insight that pain is not one 'block' of unchanging >> experience, but is arising/passing in a kind of continous 'flicker' (pretty >>much >> >> like a light bulb appears to be solid but isn't). Likewise, there is no >> solid >> reality called 'you' (or anything else, for that matter) for this to be >> happening to Is this something like what you mean by the below? >> >> Mike >> >> Hi Mike. I hope you are well today. Yes, of course it includes the >>understanding that all phenomena are impermanent. But one point I wished to >>convey was that the traditional Buddhist idea of The Twelvefold Chain of >>Dependant Origination may not be the final word. This is hinted at in the >>Tantric teachings (Anthony, I am NOT talking here about fucking my way to >>enlightenment!) as well as the Tathagatagarbha teachings. The traditional >>Twelvefold Chain teaching is based upThe obvious philosophical objection to >>this >>is that, if Ultimate Reality is without inherent qualities such as >>intentionality, and all phenomena are unreal illusion, then how did this >>unreal >>illusion ever arise at all? The Advaita Vedanta people give no answer to >>this.on >>the conventional idea of an unbroken chain of deterministic cause-and-effect. >>My >>experience in meditation convinced me that phenomena are really discontinuous >>because time-sequence itself is an illusion. Because all that really exists >>is >>Now, there can be no talk of this leading to that. But what about the >>relationship between Being and phenomena? In my opinion, the Advaita Vedanta >>ALMOST get it right. But they seem to side with Being over Becoming, in much >>the >>same way as the ancient Greek philosopher Parminides. They discount phenomena >>as >>a mere appearance upon the face of static Being. For them, the world is >>unreal. >>Not only that, but they assert that the Self is NirGuna, without qualities. >>Also, if this were so, then theoretically, the moment that any one person >>became >>liberated in Moksha, the entire illusion would disappear. I agree with the >>Heart >>Sutra when it says that Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form. I also think >>that I get what the Mahaparanirvana Sutra means when it depicts the Buddha, >>on >>the final night before his Paranirvana, telling his monks that, although up >>until now they have meditated on Impermanence, No-Self and Suffering, they >>have >>deluded themselves and must see that the Buddha is really Permanence, Self >>and >>Purity. Of course, this one word, "Emptiness" has been no end of vexation for >>Buddhists. The Prasinga Madhyamaka define it as "Emptiness of Inherent >>Existence." The Yogacara define it as "Emptiness of Subject and Object". The >>Tathagatagarbha (of which the Mahaparanirvana Sutra is an example) define it >>as >>"Emptiness of Other." You may be interested to know that there is a modern >>movement among the Theravada which seems to endorse the Tathagatagarbha >>view-point! The people in that movement are hermit-meditators who claim that >>traditional Theravada teachings are mistaken because they are based upon the >>talking of scholars and not the actual experience of meditators. I have >>meditated diligently my entire life, and I must say I agree with them. IMO, >>the >>traditional teachings of Dependant Origination, Impermanence, No-Self and >>Suffering apply only to the relative plane of understanding. IMO, The Buddha >>transcends all such conceptualization. The Kashmir Shaivite people say that >>the >>world is certainly real in the way that a reflection is real. You know, >>without >>reflected phenomena, Being would not be aware of Being. Can you see this? >>Form >>is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form. Together they are the Mystery of What Is >>looking at What Is. What Is is What? If all things return to the One, to what >>does the One return? To all things. I bow to all things as to the One! IMO. >> >> >> >> >> > >
