Solipsism and Nondualism

"If he is right, this would allow us to understand why some Theravada schools consider that Cessation is Nirvana (in this case emptiness cognizing nothingness). Exploring this might help solve "the controversy"."

Yes, I've been considering this for some time. What interests me is whether or not one's identity can shift into the perspective of That which is prior to consciousness and remain there, much the same way that the Anagami (in my understanding) shifts into identification with consciousness and more or less remains there. This shift into "That which comes prior" seems to be what Anadi is claiming to have attained at some level, related to his teaching of the Absolute State.

If that is possible, than that's what I'm after.

(now, back to your regularly scheduled programming...)

~Jackson

EDIT: I really shouldn't use words like "anagami" or whatever, because there's so much confusion around what they mean. What I mean to say is that from the developmental perspective it appears as though a shift into identification with the level of consciousness is an important landmark in its own right. But it does seem to precede what is for some people a final shift into identification at the level of That which comes prior to consciousness. Not everyone describes it this way, or even finds it all that important. It is peculiar, though. I've become quite fascinated with the idea of it - which can be dangerous. Anyways...

Hi Jackson,

To abide as the That which is prior to consciousness sure is a great accomplishment. Yet, as it was pointed to me by a student of Nisargadatta Maharaj, this is what we are, have always been and will always be. It is not an experience, a yogic attainment or a special state, but our eternal unborn true nature. If it is prior to consciousness, it is also present during ordinary waking consciousness - but overlooked.

I got the same pointer from the Ramana Maharishi / Poonjaji lineage. This is it (for them). It is not something that can be gained or lost.

Once recognized, the only work involved (for these traditions) is to lose the habit (Skt. vasana) of identifying primordial awareness (or this cognizing emptiness prior to consciousness) with body and mind. Self-inquiry and abiding in the feeling of existence (Nisargadatta's I AM) serve this purpose. These are of course other names for Kenneth's 2nd Gear practice. And of course, expertise with hardcore Vipassana will always be an invaluable asset.

Hi Alex,

Right. We never wake up to anything we weren't before. The discoveries we make through practice are really Self discoveries in this way.

But regardless of whether I am That in an ontological sense, even when I don't know or notice it, there is still this peculiar series of transformations that occur for those who practice. It's fascinating to me that we can access different aspects of our True nature at just about any stage, and yet we can also (somehow) do a sort of figure-ground reversal from one level to the next in a developmental way which results in lasting changes in one's perception.

I think that Ken Wilber has done a good job explaining this phenomenon, but it still boggles my mind a bit. I guess that one must transcend the duality of being and becoming to fully grasp this truth.

I apologize for de-railing this thread. Perhaps we can continue in another.

~Jackson

Thanks for clarity, as always, Alex! And such humility too...

In kind regards,

Adam.

ah.. what a wonderful thread.. I'm enjoying, and learning so much from, all the responses.

Hi Jackson,

Glad to see that people enjoy this thread (thanks guys). We shall let David tell us if we are derailing this thread.

This is why I come to understand that any great experience will ultimately fade away. Yet, insights and mystical experiences erode false beliefs. All Buddhist and Hindu traditions agree with the fact that the core illusion is the belief in a separate self. Through vipassana and/or self-inquiry, we see that there is no such thing as a subject or a doer, once, twice, ten times. Still, we get identified to this myth again and again. Until one day, it is absolutely clear that the rope is not a snake (I am far from this stage, but evidence shows that is can happen).

This is reason why the old Zen guys used to say that sudden awakening takes place at the first insight into no-self, but that it must still be followed by gradual practice to remove all traces of false identification.

Getting back to what is prior to consciousness, we witness everyday the fact that a subtle presence witnesses the coming and going of consciousness when we fall asleep or wake up in the morning. This simple fact shows that consciousness (vijnana or awareness of an object) is only an aggregate marked by the three characteristics. To go beyond, the trick must be to take consciousness as an object of investigation. This more or less what Ajahn Chah did, I believe.

Getting accustomed with the teachings and methods of the Nisargadatta lineage, it seems that their main method is to hold on to the sense of being. We know that we are present. We cannot stop being present. Thoughts can come and go, they do not affect the fact that we are present. We do not need a special insight or experience to know that we are present, etc. So we hold on to that.

Ok, now this sense of being or feeling of existence (the feeling 'I AM' as Maharaj put it) is still perceived. So it is still an object. What witnesses the naked feeling of existence is what we are after. What witnesses it is what we are.

So as I understand it, the trick is to hold on to this 'I AM' (feeling of existence) and let go of everything that is associated to this feeling of existence (when all thoughts fade away, there might be sensations here and there that tend to get associated with the feeling of being).

This is basically what Anadi did to go from the state of being to the absolute state. It is like falling asleep while keeping a seed of consciousness. Ultimately, one should be able to reach a state of deep sleep where a subtle presence-awareness cognizes the blankness of deep sleep. But Anadi is right to say that the most difficult thing is to totally let go, without falling asleep...

- Alex

Well at this point I don't think we can derail it, but there are a lot of different directions it could go. I expressed, as well as I could, the insight that inspired the thread, though I'm not sure anyone followed it.

To recap: I was trying to resolve some subtle dualities that remained in my thinking - mainly the perception of an "objective universe" or reality (even a pantheistic or panentheistic one in which I participate or co-create) vs. "subjective reality "or "embodied experience" being "all there is." The insight was that in terms of an objective universe, if such a thing could be said to exist, like me, it has no "center." And that ultimately the World (or Reality) is an idea, like the "self" with no intrinsic existence.

Now there's a lot of ways that that might apply to some of the comments that Alex and Jackson are making. First thing I can think of is that at some point one has to transcend the processes of identification and it's opposite, dissociation (and trancendence itself for that matter).

Thank you David.

I am not yet sure to understand your insight. The difficulty being that these insight are paradoxical by nature and therefore difficult to communicate.

"That ultimately the World (or Reality) is an idea, like the "self" with no intrinsic existence" is IT.

This is precisely what Mahayana Buddhism calls emptiness of self and phenomena. It yo got there, this is the Mahayana insight. Everything is mind-only (Skt. Cittamatra) and mind is no-mind (empty).

"The insight was that in terms of an objective universe, if such a thing could be said to exist, like me, it has no "center." And that ultimately the World (or Reality) is an idea, like the "self" with no intrinsic existence."

Okay, I think I grok that. The way this appears to me is that in the ultimate sense there is no separation between "me" and anything else, and there is no separation between anything and anything else. So that is kind of like the flattest, least hierarchical construction of the ultimate there could possibly be, with no real differentiation between what appears to the dual self to be "things." This non-differentiation applies not just to the seemingly apparent "things" in the universe but to the universe itself. This is a sort of recursive meta non-duality. I see no end to it, I see no beginning. I see no size, or better said, no way to ever even think about or determine size or time or any kind of limit whatsoever. It is everything, and that means EVERYTHING -- the stuff you can see, the stuff you can't see, the stuff you can imagine and the stuff you can't imagine. This, then, is not a "thing" that we could ever hope to "get" or understand, by definition, and is so mind-bogglinglhy and thoroughly non-dual and amorphous as to be what you said --

"... it has no "center." And that ultimately the World (or Reality) is an idea, like the "self" with no intrinsic existence."

This is sort of like anti-matter that no bottle can hold. It's anti-concept and thus no mind can hold it. The best way to get this is not to try to get anything and just be, as we are already it. It's the unltimate simplicity. The very Simplest Thing.

Yes?

No?

And just to round this out, what I get frustrated by is even attempting to describe or talk about this. That's not anyone's issue but my own, but this isn't a complete account of what's right until I say that I know for certain, will go to my grave knowing for certain, that I AM THAT.

something i'm unclear about: solipsism, i'm quite familiar with. I was one of these as a child...although maybe not a full on solipsist since I didn't doubt the reality of my senses, just my thoughts. i'd doubt if people existed when they left the room, a very selfish worldview where only what was before me was termed 'real'. I was the center of the universe. I think I can see the connection to non-duality because nondualists doubt an objective world because it depends upon a conceptual framework, but for a nondualist does that mean there are no other beings? I think the bodhisattva ideal would seem very strange in the light of there not being other beings to save from suffering.

"To recap: I was trying to resolve some subtle dualities that remained in my thinking - mainly the perception of an "objective universe" or reality (even a pantheistic or panentheistic one in which I participate or co-create) vs. "subjective reality "or "embodied experience" being "all there is." The insight was that in terms of an objective universe, if such a thing could be said to exist, like me, it has no "center." And that ultimately the World (or Reality) is an idea, like the "self" with no intrinsic existence."

This is a big problem, how to reconcile the two. As we go deep and start questioning our world-view, especially what was held to be so obvious for so long, we do come to a solipsist subjective view, because we are being empirical and when we deny everything only the subjective perspectival view seems undeniable, but instead of staying trapped in that solipsist cage we break through by recognizing that there is no self in this perspectival view. No self means no 'in-here', and also no 'out-there' (objective reality) because the two are interdependent ideas and cannot stand on their own. So I think the key lies in seeing the interdependency of such ideas as subjective vs objective. Both ideas have many assumptions to their existence and are indeed just ideas.

so it seems that the solipsist rightly questions the existence of an objective world as just an idea.. but fails to see the subject as having that very same fragile existence

My dog and the three cats that adopted my family are probably solipsists. Mu!

Alex, one interesting thing about the view the insight we're discussing reveals is that it deconstructs the differences between Materialism and Idealism - it's all the same ultimately.

Chris, we definitely share the frustration, but you did a beautiful job discussing it. Yes.
I think that what I was referring to with the "hall of mirrors" phrase was the recursive nature of experience - "recursive meta-noduality" is an excellent way to put it.

Michaelz - what the idea of solipsism brings us up against is epistemological limits on a personal existential level. Ultimately our current phenomenological experience (what's happening right now) is all we can really know (for sure - in an absolute sense). We cannot know whether "other beings exist" though there may be a strong sense or intuition of that in our current experience as an aspect of that experience. On a purely conceptual level, how could they, if there are no separate things? On the other hand this is not to say that they do not (exist) - or that they do. We may play a part in an infinite symphony of consciousness - or THIS NOW may be all there is - we can never know (though the ideas of either view, and of separate things and beings may arise and pass). Part of the insight was becoming comfortable with the not knowing - as Shinzen Young's teacher once admonished him, "I expect you to get to the point where you no longer need there to be a world when you turn around." Shinzen is careful to say that he didn't mean that there was no world when he turned around, or that there was - just that he no longer needed it to be there. "Part of it is getting past the need to know [in general]" he says.

Cont

But this next part is the most difficult to express - the two basic views - Solipsism vs Objective Realism - or more accurately THIS NOW being all that exists vs. Participating in a Universal Reality (I also equate the perception of an ultimate transcendental quality subsuming the whole of experience - Awareness itself - in this camp)

- These two views share the same nature.

Whether you believe that we are microcosms participating together in a great Cosmic Consciousness, or that THIS NOW is all there is - not only can you never know, but it makes no difference ultimately.

To recap: From the point of view of THIS NOW, the idea of Objective Reality can be imagined (never directly experienced in sense perceptions mind you) - perhaps when it occurs to us this is how we participate in it - rather the way we participate in another persons consciousness intersubjectively when we embrace - or perhaps not...

But if this Objective Universal Reality exists, it must share our nature as we co-create it - yet if we look within to examine this nature, there is none - there is no self - just recursively slipping perspectives - recursive meta-nonduality.

Jeez... How arcane was that?

There was a guy on a message board I used to manage a long time ago whose adopted online name was "RKane."

Thanks David.
Science is a lie, Truth an arcane paradox.

This is an interesting question. David, I want to try to paraphrase your thing here. You seem to be implying that even though we may have a satisfying insight into "direct reality", whether abiding or non-abiding, there can still arise questions on the intellectual level about how to interpret this tangible, bare insight. I think you are onto something. For one thing, if we take the traditions at face value, many great realizers did "philosophy" in this sense of searching for an intellectually satisfying articulation of their realization. I think everyone does this, whether deeply realized or not, albeit with more or less rigor. I admire your rigourous attempt here! To me, and I wonder if you agree, the main interest in pursuing the articulation is not per se to be intellectually satisfied with my own model but to develop a way or ways of speaking that is more inviting or less threatening to others. As you said, chris, you can invite someone to have an experience of no-self-- but some folks are put off by that phrase. Some are put off by what they percieve as solipcism in non-dual teachings, too, for example, and this certainly could have to do with the way these teachings are often glossed with a sort of subjective idealism. This language may be appropriate to the living experience, but it may be no more than adequate, and in addition to alienating some "hard-headed realists" it may be untrue in some sense.
On another note, David, since you are pondering these things and seem to have an interest in Philosophy, have you read much of the later Heidegger? There is an interesting trend of practitioners of Dzogchen, Zen and Mahamudra who are also philosophy professors and who attempt to use some post-Heideggarian approaches to thinking and language to articulate Rigpa, non-duality, emptiness, etc.

Their interest is specifically in propagating a language and thinking not bound by dualistic representational constructs such as we are discussing here, and to me they are definitely onto something. For someone interested in pursuing a "post-metaphysical" articulation of spiritual practice, experience and realization this approach is much less heady and much more grounded-- IMO- than say Wlber's stuff, which by this definion isn't post-metaphysical at all but more like a hyper-conglomerate of all the different metaphysical models in one mushed up system, subsumed within subjective idealism... but I digress. Jackson, you might be interested in this tangent if you find Wilber's work valuable-- as I do, as much as I like to rag on him.
Finally I'll mention the way in which in Tibet there was a shift, represented by the Dzogchen teaching, from the epistemological orientation of Madhyamika and Yogachara (i.e., they asked "how/ what do we know" questions) to an ontological orientation, in which the Dzogchenists were describing from the premise that Being (Tib- Zhi) is aware (rigpa, yeshes, etc). By starting with that description, they don't really have to introduce any epistemological questions about how to know that Being is aware, you can just *be* aware! If you don't have to ask "how to know" questions, there is much less tendency to be pulled into "what is known" questions, which always seem to circle around a few dichotomies such as self-world, permanent-impermanent, one-many, buddha-sentient being, nirvana-samsara, etc. From their perspective, Yogachara idealism and Madhyamaka deconstruction can be meaningfuly adopted during certain practices or phases of practice but shouldn't be believed in or held to be true. They're value is more explicitly as frames for certain practices, which is a pragmatic rather than dogmatic approach to metaphysics. What do you think?
---Jake

"This is an interesting question. David, I want to try to paraphrase your thing here. You seem to be implying that even though we may have a satisfying insight into "direct reality", whether abiding or non-abiding, there can still arise questions on the intellectual level about how to interpret this tangible, bare insight. I think you are onto something. For one thing, if we take the traditions at face value, many great realizers did "philosophy" in this sense of searching for an intellectually satisfying articulation of their realization. I think everyone does this, whether deeply realized or not, albeit with more or less rigor. "

Thanks Jake! I agree with your paraphrasing of "my thing." I do think that questions may arise on an intellectual level regarding how to understand or interpret one's intuitive insight regardless of how deep that insight is. Part of this is due to the state locked nature of some of the insight (being linked in some cases to high concentration states). The need to have a conceptual understanding of one's intuitive insights and to have a congruence between such insight and one's conceptual maps is not only linked to the ability to express this to others, but also because one's concepts can lead one into identification. Finally, it is needed to translate to translate this insight into not only speech, but action.

Analysis plays an important role in Buddhist tradition, Theravada included (as well as non-Buddhist enlightenment traditions like Platonism). If I were to summarize Mahamudra practice it might be to say that motivation is trained, then concentration and subsequent access to prelinguistic cognition, then one practices philosophy through both analysis and phenomenological exploration. This last "sets the stage" for enlightenment to dawn during the Yoga of the One Taste and nonmeditation.

Continued

The danger is, of course, particularly for people at lower levels of development, is the seductive nature of discourse. There is a risk of intellecutalization, and substituting conceptual understanding for direct intuitive insight, or otherwise getting sucked into word games and identification with one's own thoughts (and not practicing). Nevertheless, there are times when conceptual understanding facilitates intuitive insight.

Yes, I'm familiar with Heidegger, though I'm no Heidegger scholar. I was a philosophy major in college. The comment about only being able to imagine objective reality I stole from him. I love how the idea of Dasein plays into these ideas. I'd be interested in getting the names of these "post-metaphysical thinkers." I believe, along with Shinzen Young, that developing a precise language and vocabulary is the next challenge of mystical technology.

Have you ever read any of the Time, Space, and Knowledge series by Tarthang Tulku? Hokai turned me on to that - great stuff in this vein, with practical exercises too. Some of that cropped up here as a matter of fact. He speaks about perceiving a Gestalt between what is known and not known.

Yes, TSK really fascinated me for a while there! I would love to see what I could get out of it now that I have a taste of what I was "looking for". I think that he and Trungpa both went a long way to reaching out to Westerners in a way that incorporated their insights into the cutting edges of Western Philosophy.
Coming from the other side I can think of two interesting people off the top of my head:

Joan Stambaugh is a Heidegger scholar and translator with a particular focus on his later work. She is also familar with the Kyoto School of Japanese Pure Land and Zen practitioners who were also articulating their traditions in a deep dialogue with Western Philosophy, and with whom Heid spent some time while he was in Japan in the '20s. She has a book "The Formless Self" which looks at the similarities and differences between the buddhanature/sentient being dynamic of Japanese Buddhism and the key phenomena of Heideggarian thought, such as ontological differance, da-sein etc.
David Michael Levin is another philosophy professor who is a scholar of Heid, Derrida, the phenomenologists, etc. as well as being a Dzogchen practitioner. He has an interesting series of books which really seems to blaze a trail into new linguistic territory. He seems to be really onto something; if you're interested in a way of articulating insight into the nature of mind/Being without falling into idealism or realism he's actually doing it by running with Heid's insights into the limits of metaphysics and his own understanding of Rigpa/Being.

This is all very interesting. I wasn't very aware of Heidegger until recently, and especially his commonalities with Eastern thought. I've recently developed an interest in cross comparison between recent Western thought and Buddhism (thanks to David Loy).. and so I got the book "Buddhisms and Deconstructions" Google book link: www.google.com/books?id=08t--V-MkqIC&lpg...construction&f=false

which has a bunch of articles by different professors comparing Derrida with Buddhism. I also just ordered "The trespass of the sign: deconstruction, theology, and philosophy'Ž" which explores connections between negative theology, mysticism, and deconstruction. veeeery interesting Google book link: www.google.com/books?id=_UfLFHUUxTQC&pri...v=onepage&q=&f=false

Time Space Knowledge.. sounds great, I'll check it out.

anyway, I don't know if you'll find the above books too interesting, I'm just reading them to give myself some exposure to Western philosophy and Buddhism, and their inter-link. I really do agree with you Haguan that the desire for intellectual grasping is so strong in many, and I've noticed it in myself. I'm actually a big hesitant in going into academia simply because I don't want to become so absorbed in intellectualizing all the time. finding the balance I think would be even more difficult for someone who has to read and think deeply philosophical all the time. Though what draws me to philosophy is its pragmatism and the books that i'm reading are for the purpose of deepening insight and being able to explain to others. That's why I've found continental philosophy to be so interesting, it seems much more in line with our interests than older and ancient stuff...

If you check out the thread I posted on Western emptiness teachings.. you'll find a link about how western philosophy can be used pragmatically to deepen insight. This is what Greg Goode does, if you check out his site ( www.heartofnow.com ) you can read about him (PhD in Philosophy) and what he does (philosophical consultation). He actually uses philosophy as a therapy.. as a means to deeply question, deconstruct, reconstruct, and this is so cool in my opinion, because philosophy for most is just intellectual porn.