SDC wrote: ↑Fri Jul 13, 2018 4:16 pm
Very sorry for the delay, been a busy few weeks.
Saengnapha wrote: ↑Wed Jul 04, 2018 4:21 pm
The only way that it is possible to understand my statement, 'in a sense, there are only wrong views', is to let go of
all your thinking and discover the nature of mind, not the content of it.
Nature of mind is not the most fundamental position in regards to phenomena. Such a view assumes the existence of mind to
precede experience. That means mind is always going to be pre-phenomenal and more primordial that experience itself. Do you see how complex that assertion is when you say "nature of mind" as opposed to something like "nature of Things"? You describe it as a letting go, but in its essence it is merely the adoption of a view that would strip one of their responsibility in regards to a nature that is more fundamental mind. "Mind", in your model, is "content" that always exists regardless of the experience, i.e. it can never be overcome because of the prominence you granted it.
Saengnapha wrote: ↑Wed Jul 04, 2018 4:21 pm
Self and phenomenon are not different in their essence. That is your view without having a view, a viewless view, because there is no center that is looking out. The nature of the mind does not grasp because it knows. If you see your own nature, you know this to be true.
There is a center of experience: the body. You cannot physically abandon the body. What you can abandon is ownership of that center, by seeing that ownership is implied by holding to that pre-phenomenal priority I discussed above, i.e. even though it is just a phenomena, it arises with a significance that places it outside of that nature. This cannot be denied out of the picture, because even that denial serves to reassert that significance negatively. In other words, denial of significance is a significant act and therefore cannot serve to remove significance; all you can do is transfer it to somewhere else. This of course changes nothing - the significance of ownership remains whether or not you call it self.
I think the difficulty we are having is in what we define as phenomena. For example, do we really see things or are we seeing the 'image' of things? I think Buddha as well as neuro scientists say that all experience is within our minds, the thought structure, the image making activity, our perceptions. We are not actually having a direct experience of sense objects. We have experience of our thought structure, the world mind. This gives the impression that this structure precedes the sense bases and is primordial which it is not.
So, I agree with you that the body is central. According to U.G., if you see that this structure can never touch 'life', can never go beyond itself, an event is triggered that stops the assignment of ownership, identity, craving, and attachment leaving the body in its natural state which has an extraordinary intelligence that operates maximally when there is no interference from the thought structure. It is the end of stress and that separate entity. Cessation. It is a death experience but the body continues. U.G. said many times that all it takes is a fraction of a second of the break of this continuity and the whole thing collapses, the end of the dream of existence. However, the caveat he states is that no activity of this world-mind or thought structure can ever bring this about. No amount of energy or will can be brought to bear because this also is part of the conditioned structure. A complete letting go takes place. It is not volitional. All becoming ceases along with notions of time and space. Of course, I'm repeating U.G.'s words as you are repeating someone else's words that describe this subject. No blame in this, it cannot be any other way as long as the structure remains in place. He often said 'there is no one here and no one having an experience'.