Zen Anybody

[Joe Mc]

Originally Posted by Still_Waters

.....but are seen in a totally different Light.

Yes indeed !

Because as I was going to say to anyone listening, if you think mountains and rivers and raccoons are going to change for you, you got another thing coming But hey what about Cana, when the Water was turned into wine !

[Phaelyn]

Originally Posted by Joe Mc

I know you will be acquainted with the Zen saying... “In the beginning, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; later on, mountains are not mountains and rivers are not rivers; and still later, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers.”

It seems somehow apt in our conversation and to my questions and quandaries.

I suppose to put it simply, it is us who become changed ?

Or one could say, "It is us who become un-changed."

The reality is "we" are merged with a human body and it's mind. By "mind" here I am referring to thought, habitual thinking, conceptualizing and all of that. I am not referring to the me that is awareness, that's is sometimes referred to as "consciousness."

So "we" are changed. That's a given. Perception "becomes" the perceived. I'm not sure how to say that better in words, but think of a mirror. If you are experiencing a mirror, you are experiencing what is reflected on it, not the mirror itself. In the same way, when we experience ourselves or others (or anything really,) we are experiencing what "is reflected in us" (or them) not anything in us or themselves, as they really are. We experience what they and us are identified with. The reflection on the mirror, not the mirror itself!

One could also say, "it is us who become changed" it all depends on context eh. Peripheral understanding, what is included in the mind or understanding of one using a phrase like that.

I remember walking in a little mountain town at night with somebody and we were talking about all of this mystery that is life. We looked up at the stars and the infinity of space and this overwhelming sense of awe came over us. A few minutes before we were just in a normal little mountain town, now we were standing in a awe inspiring mysterious universe where very little was "known." Standing on the surface of a planet in infinite space and not "knowing" a single thing. Well we knew we knew nothing! Everything was different.

But these moments of "seeing," stepping outside the "known" are rare and our brains quickly took us out of this wonder and awareness and awe of seeing beyond ourselves and everything returned to "normal." The eyes returned to what was reflected on the mirror and not on the "mirror" itself. The "mirror" here is what is, what is before we interpret it into the known. Before we "change" it. It is seeing, perceiving, experiencing, directly.

What all of this is, what I am, becomes, is, the reflection on the mirror. How my mind, the brain, thoughts, habitual conditioned thinking, based on the "known" memory and all of that interprets what is. We see and experience everything through this filter of "self" which is not the self at all, nor is what we are experiencing what is really there. The reflection on the mirror is not the mirror.

Originally Posted by Joe Mc

Because as I was going to say to anyone listening, if you think mountains and rivers and raccoons are going to change for you, you got another thing coming But hey what about Cana, when the Water was turned into wine !

I took an elective in high school, the name of the class was "Epistemics." It somehow fulfilled a psychology credit. I should add I lived in a beach town on the west coast of the USA and so ya. Tofu and flip flops. I go into class on the first day and well, the students were largly the "hippy kids." The surfer boys and girls and the misfits of the school. The kid who took acid a lot was even in there. Some kids were not wearing shoes. A few of the females had unshaved legs. So this group was not into following "norms."

The teacher walks in and he has this side kick with him who looked like a homeless person. The "homeless person" proceeds to take a toothbrush out of his pocket and starts brushing his teeth without water or toothpaste. The teacher is chugging a huge mug of thick green liquid that he offers to some of the surfer kids who proceed to also drink from it. Anyway, he tells us all to forget everything we know about trees. Tells us they are living beings. Then we are instructed to go outside and be with these beings. Touch them, hug them, communicate with them. I did "notice" that if let go of preconceived ideas about things, I perceived them differently. Mountains and rivers and raccoons can completely change, but yea they don't change and we don't change, what we are accepting as a part of now changes, what we are identifying with changes and when the filters are put away, everything changes.

[Phaelyn]

Imagine a car being driven in a busy city. It is dealing with noise and crowds and pollution and aggressive other drivers, violence. Then later in the day, that driver and their car are driving on a secluded empty forest road. The car is the same as is the driver. What produced the change in perception and experience from noise and violence to peace and quiet? The driver only made small infrequent movements on the steering wheel. But they were the right movements! The rest happened on it's own. The driver understood what little movements on that steering wheel in the now, present moment, would lead to.

Taking the metaphor a little further, imagine the city and the forest are not different places. The car and the driver never moved. The car was always parked at a city park. The steering wheel is awareness.

Originally Posted by sentient

…. Which I trust in Aztec refers to the Nagual:

Stumbled on this audio/video book while looking up Nagual if your interested.

Title:Encounters with the nagual by ARMANDO TORRES- Interviews with Carlos Castaneda- deals with Nagual and Don Juan.

It is long and has several series or videos.(1 thru 34)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO4z...CWbXst8Dz3onE1

[sentient]

Originally Posted by ImthatIm

Stumbled on this audio/video book while looking up Nagual if your interested.

Title:Encounters with the nagual by ARMANDO TORRES- Interviews with Carlos Castaneda- deals with Nagual and Don Juan.

It is long and has several series or videos.(1 thru 34)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO4z...CWbXst8Dz3onE1

Thanks, interesting.

Imo. Carlos started off good, but it seems somewhere along the road he went off rails, and I would consider his later books downright dangerous.

Since I am/was interested in Toltec culture, (you know genetically being a tiny, tiny bit of ‘Mayan’ and all), I trust the info Frank gave/gives: https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/...Diaz/410052858
http://diazfrank.blogspot.com/p/libros-publicados.html

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[Phaelyn]

Originally Posted by sentient

Using the subtle body as the path to Enlightenment ... as our bodies are not the coarse bodies only but the whole picture includes our subtle bodies.

In my culture, we have got the same names.
The double is called ‘Self’ ...

I'd just call the subtle body consciousness or me.

[sentient]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

I'd just call the subtle body consciousness or me.

No.
This is the image of a Buddhist subtle body - Three channels, central, left and right.
https://mk0buddhaweeklyqoftb.kinstac...sm-768x998.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...System.svg.png

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This is like our primitive ‘subtle body’ pic – because it shows ‘vertical path’:
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-19luOePM1...ans%2BDrum.jpg

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[Phaelyn]

Originally Posted by sentient

No.
This is the image of a Buddhist subtle body - Three channels, central, left and right.

Which is me (more or less) according to the Liṅga Śarīra. The subtle body is seen as the vehicle of consciousness in later Samkhya, Vedanta, and Yoga, and is propelled by past-life tendencies, or bhavas.

Liṅga-śarīra - The second, subtle sheath surrounding the ātman. It supports the continuity from one life to another in rebirth, bearing the consequences of karma. Consciousness in other words in my opinion. (not limiting the definition of consciousness or me much here)

Web ātman definition: the spiritual life principle of the universe, especially when regarded as inherent in the real self of the individual, a person's soul.

But yea like all beliefs in such things as this, many different versions of what all of this is or means. The beliefs also change over time and in different groups. Some groups name all kinds of bodies, like this:

Early concepts of the subtle body (Sanskrit: sūkṣma śarīra) appeared in the Upanishads, including the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad and the Katha Upanishad.The Taittiriya Upanishad describes the theory of five koshas or sheaths, though these are not to be thought of as concentric layers, but interpenetrating at successive levels of subtlety:

The anna-maya ("food body", physical body, the grossest level),
The prana-maya (body made of vital breath or prana),
The mano-maya (body made of mind),
The vijñana-maya (body made of consciousness)
The ananda-maya (bliss body, the subtlest level).

[Phaelyn]

It's interesting how some of these philosophies that have teachings of an end goal of emptiness and formlessness have so many ideas about what our form is. Really, if we are perception, the perceiver, then anything we perceive by definition is not us. So if we see a form, an image, we can't be that form or image. So who or what saw the subtle body and what would a diagram or image of that seer look like? We can name "bodies" for infinity and still have not named ourselves. There is no way for the perceiver to perceive itself yet we are self aware. It's an amazing thing. We know ourselves to exist, yet as what?.... understanding, awareness, perception, love, compassion, empathy....well those are the higher........ we sometimes exist as anger etc..... so we are not what we are identifying with as those come and go.... what is left when we remove all perceptions.... emptiness. But then emptiness is a perception.... so remove that what is left.... awareness that knows itself to not be what it is aware of... but then awareness, if it is aware of what it is not, is self aware in a sense.... to describe what it is...can't be done... as it sees description so description is not it.

[Still_Waters]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

Or one could say, "It is us who become un-changed."

Nice. Restoration of original "un-changed" nature.