Psychic phenomena! 2

“you might not get ESP as such, but the person will likely get important intuitions … Also, if ESP is possible and there are some legitimate pioneers, it would probably be a shaky realization, and it would probably be difficult to repeat it under test conditions.”

Why am I not surprised? This is your typical ambiguous new age nonsense; you have successfully defended your precious belief from getting challanged by any sort of critique. It is not possible to either prove or disprove ESP - great for you! Reminds me of the end of this clip.

By the way, have you heard of the psychic Sylvia Browne? You think she's genuine too?

“It really sounds like you are projecting the fear of death onto me. In other words, it seems likely you have dissociated with your own fear of death and are now seeing it in other people, where it isn't. We call that the shadow.”

Well, you are welcome to believe that. I don't see on what grounds you make that statement from though. (Not that you need any grounds though, obviously.) I'm not the one who clings on to an imaginary pre-Orange rainbow-teddy for consolation.

Without the fear of cessation, no rational and sane person would ever make up childish fantasies like this.

“Yes, but we're not talking about an eternal soul or own being, just a different level of impermanent phenomena.”

Yeah, right. This rainbow-body is beyond doubt permanent for you, otherwise you wouldn't go to such lengths to defend it. Obviously you just say it is impermanent in trying to avoid complete philosophical ridicule. Anyway, don't take my word for it - here it says:

“The Body of Light represents a complete and total and radical transformation of one's status of being, a rediscovery of what was primordially present, and this condition is permanent.”
 
It's funny, the ego goes to any length to perpetuate itself. And in a spiritual disguise like this it is even stronger than ever. If there is one thing I know - ultimate reality grants no goodies to separate individuals, and the Rainbow Body is a goodie for the separate individual. Eternal life, yummie!

“Why should we assume that the waking state is the fundamental state, that the gross body is the fundamental body?”

Because of evidence? Oh, yeah sorry - you couldn't care less about such trivialities. Forgot. :)

“You know when people are their true selves and when they are faking it?”

God… come on, dude.

How about we simply take this outside? Dare you answer this question: this supposed true self, is it the same or different than the body and mind? There are no other alternatives. If the true self exist, it must be either one or the other. So, which one is it? Don't want to answer? Afraid to challange your comforting beliefs?

Your turn.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

Einstein thought nonlocality was new age nonsense.  Does knowledge progress on a platform of certainty beforehand?

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

Dawid, I think you are amazingly precocious, but I think you are being a little dogmatic.

I have quoted this before, but I think it would be good to quote it again:

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

Hey David,

A lack of proof for something does not mean that something doesn't exist or isn't true. Yet that seems to be your conclusion. There is no conclusive proof for this sort of thing, nor is there conclusive proof against it. Therefore, the scientific view is to stay open minded about it, considering there is much to suggest that it could be true. If a person believes something is or isn't true without proof, they are holding on to some dogma.

You claim there is a self and it existed thru the big bang till now. So, let's see if it is true. What was it like 10 seconds after the big bang? I mean you and AC were there right? Oh, the heat of that moment is interferring with your selfs memory. OK, what type of being were you 100 lifetimes ago? Oh, you were hit on the head in that lifetime and don't remember? OK let's try something really simple. What did you have for lunch on April 1st, 1999. Surely your permanent self can cough that up very easily. If not, how is your amber belief in a “less” impermanent self not metaphysical and dogmatic?

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

“Therefore, the scientific view is to stay open minded about it”
 
So we should be open-minded about unicorns, Amun-Ra, the flying capabilities of human beings under the influence of LSD, Elvis' not being dead? In accordance with your line of logic, we must.

“Well, you tell me that I am holding on to a certain belief because I am afraid of death.”

Well, it's not just I. It's a fairly common observation (amongst people having integrated Orange and above in their cognitive continuum) regarding individuals who hold views about the possibility of eternal life for one's personal soul. I really don't see any other reason behind holding such a view, really.

“why do people like Almaas and Wilber, who have realized cessation or beyond, also believe in soul/deeper psychic?”

Probably because they are afraid of death. I don't know about Almaas, but in Wilber's case there's proof. In the very last part in Wilber's Kosmic Consciousness recording he says (my bolded text and comments):

Wilber: “…it just doesn't make sense to me that people would just pop up for a while and disappear. Also, it seems kosmically unfair. I mean, you're not allowed to have levels or waves or states or great chains of being, or any sort of spectrum of consciousness, unless everybody gets a shot … at the grand prize. And so…”

Interviewer <smug>: “You are fairminded, Ken…”

Wilber <kiddingly>: ”No, I'm a sappy romantic, that's what I really, really am. And obviously, it doesn't mean that the universe has to operate that way, and I would like to think that I can take that into account… and come up with a realistic peice of ugly, ugly universe if necessary. But… [Note, this is what drives all pre-Orange and new age beliefs: an unwillingness to accept that reality does not exist with your personal feelings in mind. The question just becomes, are you mature (post-Amber) enough to accept it, or would you rather live a comforting fantasy?] …I'm just saying that part of my remaining cognitive dissonance is… umh… the story is that it has a happy ending, and we really are just going through this ourselves, as part of this ongoing story of our own expanding capacity for consciousness and care and compassion.
 
It doesn't make sense to me that somebody would live 2000 years ago and just, you know… for just 20 years and then get snuffed out. Doesn't make sense, don't like it, don't want that to happen. So my science fiction [The question is, what would Wilber's science fiction story of the future look like?] is allowed to have that happen. So I would like to see that going on in the sense that we all kinda get recycled and get back and go at this thing, until we get it right in certain ways. But that is probably science fiction, utopian, wishful dreaming and neurosis on my part, probably.”
 
This, for me atleast, clearly indicates that Wilber is not different from any other mortal when it comes to the fear of death, i.e. he has not transcended it. A person with insight into the nature of reality don't make such statements; here is an example of a person having just seen through the illusion of death and separation. (They are listening to a tape about the Tibetan Book of the Dead.)

“But if we include the evidence of all the zone-#1 explorers cross culturally that view is immediately thrown into question.”

My only remark is: if you make UR claims of possessing special powers (and charging good people alot of money off those supposed powers) you must be able to demonstrate this ability repeatedly under controlled settings. Otherwise, you are a fraud and a trickster, if not a theif.

“And we call the nature of that body sho—not the sho in these lines of text here, but the sho that means “the basic nature of everything.””

And that can only be realized after seeing the illusory nature of the separate self/soul. Don't try to project eternalistic beliefs on Suzuki.

“Perhaps someday someone will come up with an interpretation that makes Richard Dawkins clap his hands.”

Oh, God forbid!

“You're confusing the two-truth's doctrine. The Prasangika analysis is not relevant; we are talking about different relative phenomena (ji).”

Ahh, nice excuse. Why not just admit that you are unwilling to enter into formal logical debate because of the possibility of having your consoling beliefs rendered inconsistent? (And what's more, because you don't have the Amber exit-possibility of “It is my faith, Dawid, and faith can't be questioned” available to you because of operating in a post-Enlightenment world, this is especially dangerous, I can imagine.)

Tom: ”Einstein thought nonlocality was new age nonsense.”
 
Well, obviously there is strong repeatable evidence for non-locality, therefore, Einstein was dogmatic and deluded. I personally think he was still trapped in a form of 1-tier digital thinking, and this was the case he just couldn't accept/understand this phenomena. Note, this non-locality phenomena is only mysterious if you posit that reality is made up of billiard balls. If you on the other hand posit that reality is made up of one kinda fluffy-puffy energy wave - like I, and you too Tom, do - then it is not.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

Dawid: Well, obviously there is strong repeatable evidence for non-locality …


Not in Einstein's day.  Evidence only emerged in the 1980s.


Dawid: Note, this non-locality phenomena is only mysterious if you posit that reality is made up of billiard balls.


Wrong.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

“Not in Einstein's day.  Evidence only emerged in the 1980s.”
 
Then he was right to be skeptical.
 
”Wrong.”
 
You're correct. I shouldn't comment on things I don't know very much about. (And don't say I don't know very much about the new age scene; I've attended many meetings, conferences and expos; watched countless of hours of video, etc.)

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

Yes, the new age scene.  Oooo.  I come at the question of psychic phenomena from not a new-age perspective, but scientifically.  I agree, there is no small amount of silly, magical-thinking assertions in just this very area of so-called psychic phenomena.  For my part, I've read some of the evidence, and find what I've read compelling in this limited sense: I can't imagine it's all bogus.  If it isn't all bogus, it compels quite an interesting rethink of what we know about information and how it works in this universe.

But beyond that, I won't personally go—speculatively yes, hard-theoretically no—because very little has been established.

Einstein certainly had his reasons to be skeptical, as nonlocality was but a dimly perceived implication (albeit necessary) of the early quantum formalism.  Nobody, in those early years, had any idea, if they turned their mind to it at all, what nonlocality might look like or the sphere in which it might operate.  Bohm, among physicians, took the idea most seriously.  His implicate order derived from his thinking about nonlocality.  So, too, his final theory of universal process, which he called active information.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

Is: So we should be open-minded about unicorns, Amun-Ra, the flying capabilities of human beings under the influence of LSD, Elvis' not being dead?

Of course not, because there is no evidence that those things might exist. However, there is evidence that some of these other things could have some sort of existence, not conclusive evidence that they do but data to suggest that they might.


Is: Well, it's not just I. It's a fairly common observation (amongst people having integrated Orange and above in their cognitive continuum) regarding individuals who hold views about the possibility of eternal life for one's personal soul. I really don't see any other reason behind holding such a view, really.


To a certain extent it is one of those take-the-injunction sort of things. Not that taking the injunction will amount to proof or that anyone can make these claims based solely on personal experience, but if a person has had certain experiences one will likely be more inclined to be open minded about such things and think that they could have some sort of reality. Also, there are interior sciences, so if we want to weigh in on something that falls under the province of interior science we have to take the necessary injunctions. If you want to know whether a lemon tastes sour, we have to taste the lemon. No lab test can prove conclusively whether a lemon tastes sour or not.


Is: Probably because they are afraid of death. I don't know about Almaas, but in Wilber's case there's proof. In the very last part in Wilber's Kosmic Consciousness recording he says (my bolded text and comments):


I don't think so. In Wilber's case, the quote you transcribed is evidence that he is aware of the issue, aware that he is of a type that is inclined to believe in such things (rather than a nihilistic type, for example) but that he believes he has transcended his type sufficiently is not simply acting out of emotion. That is what he was trying to express there (taken in the context of other things he has said on the issue).

What he is saying is something like this: Imagine a restaurant critic who is not a vegetarian who nevertheless goes to a vegetarian restaurant to review it. He says, “While I am not a vegetarian and don't even like vegetarian food I don't believe I am acting on that preference when I say that this is not a good vegetarian restaurant. I believe I have transcended my bias against vegetarian food and vegetarian restaurants and have given you a fair, objective review of this restaurant.”

In Wilber's case it is something like, “While I am of a type that is inclined to believe in reincarnation and that that may be what is driving this, I still think I can be objective about this.” That's what he was trying to say. And he never anywhere says that it definitely does exist only that he is inclined to think that it does.

No one knows, so it's unscientific to come out strongly on either side of the issue. That's nevertheless the sort of thing that the “scientific” New Athiests do.


Is: My only remark is: if you make UR claims of possessing special powers (and charging good people alot of money off those supposed powers) you must be able to demonstrate this ability repeatedly under controlled settings.


Well, I'm with you about requiring evidence if anyone is going to make a claim, but the way you phrase this is sort of like saying, “If anyone is going to claim that they can swim the English Channel, they are going to have to do it repeatedly before I can believe them.”

If such things are possible, human beings who are on that leading edge would not be realizing such powers in a particularly strong or stable manner.

Yes, those who make claims need to be able to back up their claims in a controlled setting (which is perhaps why Derrin Brown doesn't make the claim because if it does exist it would surely be twice as difficult with people he hasn't handpicked).

However, if you are going to go so far as to call them frauds, the burden of proof falls upon you to prove that there is some kind of trickery. I'm just trying to make a subtle distinction here between skepticism and declaring someone a fraud.

I don't believe that the existence of Randi's million-dollar challenge is proof that everyone who says they have psychic abilities is a fraud. No one, or very few people, will easily part with a million dollars. I don't think Randi and his backers are among them. They will make it extremely difficult for a person to pass their test. I believe tests should be set up for these people, but if we really want to know whether such powers exist I don't think our gold standard should be Randi's test. To think so would be like saying, “Before I believe in space travel I want to see a space ship circle our galaxy thirty times and land on each planet.”

 If we really wanted to know whether human beings had the potential for this sort of thing we would want to set up conditions in which they might be able to succeed. For example, we might provide a pool of people and let them choose from that pool.



David: “You're confusing the two-truth's doctrine. The Prasangika analysis is not relevant; we are talking about different relative phenomena (ji).”

Is: Ahh, nice excuse. Why not just admit that you are unwilling to enter into formal logical debate because of the possibility of having your consoling beliefs rendered inconsistent?


The point was that it has nothing to do with emptiness or nonduality, which is what the Prasangika analysis addresses.

When we exit Orange, we want to keep certain things and drop other things, such as exclusive or absolute truth claims, quadrant absolutism, state absolutism, type absolutism, level-line fallacies (all of which the New Atheists are guilty of). We want to keep the scientific methodology, keep the rationalism, but of course in the context of integral methodological pluralism we want to balance out those methodologies with the other basic perspective-methodologies.

In other words, it's not necessarily the conclusions of Orange-Teal atheists that we want to carry over to the higher stages but certain abilities. Some of their conclusions may carry on; others will not.


e: You claim there is a self and it existed thru the big bang till now.


Hey e. Well, I haven't exactly made that claim, nor has Wilber. It's a theory, a “useful myth,” as Wilber has called it. That there was no self since the Big Bang is also a myth as it hasn't been proven.

Also, I wouldn't go so far as to say “self” as that word has personal connotations, and the personal as we use that word didn't emerge for several billion years.


e: If not, how is your …  belief in a “less” impermanent self not metaphysical and dogmatic?


I am not categorically saying that it is so, as you categorically say it isn't so. I am saying that, considering everything, it makes more sense as an orienting myth that the materialist myth. I also think it is based on a lot more experience, awareness, and careful, integral study than the materialist or personal myths.

On this subject, all I am saying is that one sees that the ego is not quite the source of all action it thinks it is (though personal decisions are very important). Your wordview, which includes no self and nondoing, also implies this.

You say that when the self disappears, peformance increases. This implies a deeper intelligence/energy than the ego.


 

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

e: You claim there is a self and it existed thru the big bang till now.

David: Well, I haven't exactly made that claim, nor has Wilber.

Your teacher comes very close to claiming this. I believe Wilber calls it involved Spirit. Maybe that's why they get along so well. A metaphysics anonymous group in the making.

It's a theory, a “useful myth,” as Wilber has called it. That there was no self since the Big Bang is also a myth as it hasn't been proven.


Right, it says in the Bible that God created the manifest universe in 6 days then chillaxed for a day. I guess I need to see this as a possibility for the universes creation as well as the scientific materialistic view of a big bang. I really hope to someday meet Poseidon while kayaking in the ocean. What are the probabilities of all these myths? Re: No self as myth. Where are the selves of all the people who have died? Haunting graveyards, in heaven, purgatory or hell? If you can’t produce them, how is no self a myth? No-self simply stems from a deep insight into impermanence. Belief in mythology has nothing to do with it.

e: If not, how is your …  belief in a “less” impermanent self not metaphysical and dogmatic?

I am not categorically saying that it is so, as you categorically say it isn't so.


I am simply asking questions to make you, the proponent of this view, display the evidence. Saying you see rainbow bodies in your dreams just aint gonna cut it. If there is something permanent thru time, then YOU have to show this to be the case. I have asked you questions to prove the permanence of this thing that no one has ever seen. You have not answered these questions. What conclusion should I draw? The one I have drawn is that this is a belief in Amber mythology dressed up in Orange evolutionary drag. Look I don't have a problem with that belief but elevating that to 2nd or 3rd tier just does not hold water.

I also think it is based on a lot more experience, awareness, and careful, integral study than the materialist or personal myths.

Right, what did you have for lunch on April 1st 1999? If you have access to something more permanent then fleeting awareness, this is an easy question to answer. Or do you need to study and integrate more? If you need a few more lifetimes, just say so. :-)

On this subject, all I am saying is that one sees that the ego is not quite the source of all action it thinks it is (though personal decisions are very important). Your wordview, which includes no self and nondoing, also implies this.
 
I see animated conventional impermanent “selves”, that's it. I have yet to find the psychic being pulling strings behind the curtain of mythological belief.

You say that when the self disappears, performance increases. This implies a deeper intelligence/energy than the ego.

When a rock is dislodged from a cliff, it falls, if it hits a ledge it bounces with a beautiful parabolic arc. Personal or deeper psychic ontologies need not apply, they're superfluous.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

“If we really wanted to know whether human beings had the potential for this sort of thing we would want to set up conditions in which they might be able to succeed.”

David, Randi's test-people (he is not there personally since some testers believe he radiates negative energy) always asks the test subjects if they are 100% happy with the test before they begin. If they are not happy with the test, they are not allowed to try out for the challange. So your attempt to discredit the 1 million $ challange fails on this account.

“No lab test can prove conclusively whether a lemon tastes sour or not.”

Well, they can check out of the same parts of their brain lights up compared to others who have eaten the same type of lemon. Anyway, I don't demand UR evidence for zone #1 experience, I only demand UR evidence for UR claims such as ESP, healing, seeing auras and energies, or what have you. So I have not committed a kind of “quadrant-transgression” on this account.

“If anyone is going to claim that they can swim the English Channel, they are going to have to do it repeatedly before I can believe them.”
 
Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence. To me, swimming here or there isn't particularly extraordinary to me. I've seen hundreds of people swim long distances already, I don't care if someone does it again. However, if someone claims he can see without using his physical eyes - now that's something else! That ability would change everything, it would open up countless new possibilities, new scientific fields, the philosophical impact would be enourmous, etc. Simply said - it would be extraordinary. Unlike long-distance swimming, which is ordinary. Because of this, your analogy is flawed.

“Before I believe in space travel I want to see a space ship circle our galaxy thirty times and land on each planet.”
 
The logic in this analogy is insane. Right, so we have a claim ”space travel”, which we want to find out whether it is possible or not, ok? So then if a space ship managed to stay in space without exploding for like 5 minutes, it would be definite evidence that space travel is indeed possible. After a 5 minute flight, we don't need any more evidence. Then the claim ”space travel” perhaps change to ”long distance space travel” in which case we indeed need evidence of long distance space travel. So, with the claim changes the demand for what perticular evidence is required.

But say we claim that ”ESP” is possible, the evidence for this becomes to repeatedly test it to rule out any possibility of change, luck or fraud. Your analogy would be correct if you said your claim was ”ESP is possible 1 time in every 100 attempt”. If that was the claim, then we wouldn't need to repeat the test many times, because the claim is of a non-extraordinary nature.

“(rather than a nihilistic type, for example)”
 
Funny how you automatically equate the results of science - which when practiced correctly is the only practice free from individual dogma, wish-thinking, subjective bias, etc - with nihilism. Sounds an awful lot like Amber to me. As you recall, Orange science has ever since its conception been the nr 1 enemy of the Amber religious life. You have a personal notion and feeling of how the world should be, and when those feelings of security are challanged by impartial evidence, you become scared and bring up the defenses.

For me, the one definition of Orange is Accepting that reality care not about my beliefs and feelings about reality. This is expressed better by the Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön:

“The difference between theism [read: Amber] and nontheism [read: Orange] is not whether one does or does not believe in God. […] Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold […] Non-theism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves […] Nontheism is finally realizing there is no babysitter [or Rainbow Body] you can count on.”

“We want to keep the scientific methodology, keep the rationalism [and healthy skepticism, I would like to add]”
 
And that is indeed all I am arguing for.

“The point was that it has nothing to do with emptiness or nonduality, which is what the Prasangika analysis addresses.”

Not true. Prasangika analysis enter into every aspect of life. You think reality is something we just kinda play or tinker with on the meditation cushion?

Anyway, I just wanted to say one more thing regarding the rainbow body. You say it is impermanent, right? You're right now in a room of philosophical contradiction, and the walls are slowly closing in on you.

For, whatever you say, that the Rainbow Body (or soul) is permanent, or impermanent, you're still contradicting yourself by asserting that it exists substantially. For, if the soul is permanent, then it's nature is fixed and any dynamic behaviour (such as transport into a new body) is rendered impossible. Because if the soul's nature is already complete, it can't take on a new form or change in any way.

However, if you agree that the soul is impermanent, as you indeed have done, you are forced to accept it as empty. Because an impermanent phenomena by necessity is a relational entity; it completely dependends on causes and conditions for its existence. And whetever exists through dependence can't have any intrinsic identity, or soul. Therefore, as you accept the soul as impermanent, you have also indirectly accepted it as empty of instrinsic existence. Thus the soul is like a desert mirage appearing in the distance; it seems to exist substantially while it does not.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

Is: If they are not happy with the test, they are not allowed to try out for the challange. So your attempt to discredit the 1 million $ challange fails on this account.


So Randi requires people to say, “I am happy about the test” before they have a chance at winning the one million dollars, and they comply, naturally, as they won't get a chance at the million dollars if they don't.

This is not proof that Randi's test is a fair test for exploring the possibility of psychic abilities. It simply means that Randi requires them to say something before they take the challenge, and they, of course, say what he wants them to say because if they don't they won't be able to take the challenge.

At any rate, from time to time you must have intuitions about people that are not exactly like thinking, right? These intuitions might be informed by certain exterior clues—like a person's clothes, expression, eyes, tone of voice—but if you look closely I think you might find that you won't be able to reduce it all to a reading of these exterior signs.

Let's not just get backed into a corner on this issue and take one side. Let's just try to explore it.


Is: Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.


I'll go with you half way on this. Extraordinary claims simply need evidence like everything else, not more or “extraordinary” evidence, just regular evidence. We need to apply the same standards to this that we apply to everything else. The channel-swimming and space-travel metaphors were simply to illustrate that you seem to be demanding quite a lot before you admit it even as a possibility.




Is: Funny how you automatically equate the results of science - which when practiced correctly is the only practice free from individual dogma, wish-thinking, subjective bias, etc - with nihilism.


Empirical science is not free of bias. It is one of eight major perspective-methodologies and isn't even a suitable methodology for every question, though it is, of course, something to consider.

 The conclusions of Orange-Teal empiricism, materialism, and relativism will be modified by Turquoise, Indigo, Violet integral methodological pluralism. Those structures will not like the interpretations of those higher structures. In fact they won't even be able to see those interpretations and will tend to think they are seeing Amber metaphysics, Orange hierarchy or representationalism, etc.



Is: “We want to keep the scientific methodology, keep the rationalism [and healthy skepticism, I would like to add]”


Yes, I agree, and I think you're very good with the skepticism and scientific inquiry.



Pema Chodron: “The difference between theism [read: Amber] and nontheism [read: Orange] is not whether one does or does not believe in God. […] Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold […] Non-theism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves […] Nontheism is finally realizing there is no babysitter [or Rainbow Body] you can count on.”


I think Pema Chodron is really good. I have read a lot of great things by her.

However, I believe she and her teacher, Chogyam Trungpa (as well as all the New Athiests, among others) commit what Wilber calls a level-line fallacy with their entirely nontheistic perspectives. This makes sense to me, given my experience, and I think we can see how it served Trungpa, what with his philandering, alcholism, squirting waitresses with squirt guns, etc.

 It's just not the most deeply integrated interpretation given that Amber was an important building block and that it wasn't 100% wrong. There is a grain of truth in Amber, and it is that the ego is not the biggest voice in the self-system and that we can relate to that larger voice with theism and to some extent use theism as a bridge in bringing that deeper relative self to the fore. Without even a trace of theism it is questionable whether a person can realize third-tier structures in the most stable way possible.

Not along ago I quoted something from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, “God Giving.” You can listen to the whole chapter here, and here once again is that quote with a little more than I posted before.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

e: I believe Wilber calls it involved Spirit. Maybe that's why they get along so well. A metaphysics anonymous group in the making.


A lot of people have been saying things like this, but the above quote from SES should make it clear that he is speaking metaphorically half the time people take him to be speaking literally and that other times he is speaking from an enacted view and is in the realm of interpretation, for which we will have a hierarchy/holarchy (of interpretations). Usually he is speaking about horizontal and vertical realizations (!) that a person needs to take the injunction for to understand.


e: I am simply asking questions to make you, the proponent of this view, display the evidence… . I have asked you questions to prove the permanence of this thing that no one has ever seen. You have not answered these questions.


I have answered many times that if you want to understand the deeper psycic/evolutionary force kind of stuff you will have to take the injunction. It is a referent that is being interpreted. You are arguing against the interpretation without having experience of the referent. Perhaps it's because there isn't a good interpretation yet for your particular type, and you discard the rest (understandably) because they aren't suitable for your type.


e: Right, what did you have for lunch on April 1st 1999? If you have access to something more permanent then fleeting awareness, this is an easy question to answer.



Ah, I remember now: it was tofu and brown rice.

But remembering that had little to do with the particular states and stages we have been discussing. Memory of that kind is a brain, upper-right-hand-quadrant kind of thing (notwithstanding the possibility of remembering past lives, some of which are claimed to have been documented, though it's possible the kids could just be tapping into things living people know rather than remembering their own past lives—there seems to be at least something interesting happening there, though).



e: When a rock is dislodged from a cliff, it falls, if it hits a ledge it bounces with a beautiful parabolic arc.


This is a poetic metaphor, and as such it is fine, even very beautiful. However, it is not a better explanation/interpretation of nondoing than Wilber et al. have offered with the deeper psychic, evolutionary force, etc. (it is not an explanation at all but a poetic metaphor).

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

e: I am simply asking questions to make you, the proponent of this view, display the evidence… . I have asked you questions to prove the permanence of this thing that no one has ever seen. You have not answered these questions.


David  : I have answered many times that if you want to understand the deeper psycic/evolutionary force kind of stuff you will have to take the injunction. It is a referent that is being interpreted.  

From the site. “It is this ontologically given,… but it is also the dynamic center and source…”  

This is 100% the myth of the given. That there is a Being that lives forever and ever real deep inside in your center. Where is this center located, 2 inches behind your left eyeball, or is this just a metaphor too?  

You are arguing against the interpretation without having experience of the referent.  

Look I have had Big Experiences but they all end. That is the tell. And while they are happening I would have never said the source of the experience is inside somewhere. That sort of interpretation dissolves in the enormity of what is happening. But I can see how afterwards you could conclude, as delusion crept back in,…well yeah it is inside of ME, I don’t see it anywhere else now so it has to be inside ME somewhere. It came from ME, I am a great realizer!! When in actuality it was only an impermanent conditioned state of mind. But hey I guess it sells books and gets people to meditate.  

Perhaps it's because there isn't a good interpretation yet for your particular type, and you discard the rest (understandably) because they aren't suitable for your type.  

David, you can use carbon dating to see how old something is. You are telling me I have to dream rainbow bodies and that will show me I lived from the time of the big bang? How is this not 100% metaphysics? I have dreamt that I could fly, I would never claim that I was a Boeing 747 upon waking! Look it may be fun to be Peter Pan and live forever, I just don’t see it as a reality. And I don’t see how having Amber metaphysical beliefs is going to magically turn those beliefs into a reality. No matter how many books I buy from Almaas.    

This is a poetic metaphor, and as such it is fine, even very beautiful. However, it is not a better explanation/interpretation of nondoing than Wilber et al. have offered with the deeper psychic, evolutionary force, etc. (it is not an explanation at all but a poetic metaphor).  

There can never be a final epistemological explanation. Haven’t you figured that out yet? So we are either relegated to retrofitting comforting myths or finally seeing thru them. You don’t want to consider giving up the fantasy of a separate very special self. No problem…whenever you want to look into it, let me know.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

“Thus, Emptiness as True Self, Emptiness as pure Consciousness, Emptiness as Rigpa (pure knowing Presence), Emptiness as primordial Wisdom (prajna, jnana, yeshe), Emptiness as primordial Purity, even Emptiness as Absolute Subjectivity: all of these bridging notions began to spring up in the Mahayana and Vajrayana to supplement (and even replace) the notion of no-self, which, strictly speaking, was wrong both phenomenally and noumenally.”
 
Nagarjuna on Yogachara and reificationist ontology like this:

(From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-FrTSeWUrs)

“The Muni’s teaching that the entire world is mere mind [true self, pure consciousness, knowing Rigpa, Absolute Subjectivity, primordial Purity, etc etc] is intended to remove fears from the simple minded. It is not a teaching that concerns ultimate reality.”

“Mind is but a name, it is nothing apart from its name. Consciousness must be regarded as but a name. The name too has no own being. Shunyata expresses non-origination, voidness, and lack of self. Those who practice it should not practice what is cultivated by the inferior.”

“Whoever accepts consciousness as momentary, cannot regard it as permanent. If the mind is impermanent, how does it contradict Sunyata? When the Buddhas accept the mind as impermanent, why should they not accept it as empty?”

Consciousness is just another guide, such as the Four Noble Truths, that help the inferior Buddhists get on the right track. If everything is ultimately empty, including emptiness, how can one even begin to think that the idea of consciousness, is ultimately true? The Yogacharins can create all the conceptual truths that they want, but all they are doing is creating more Hinayanas, that will have to later be abandoned.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

Dawid: As soon as the first clinging occurs, in any house, in any country, on any planet, in any galaxy, in any universe - Dukkha is immediately there to teach. And her compassion is so great that she does not give up on you until the final abandonment of the very last attachment.  


:-) It’s true eh! You don’t have to read or study anything but your own mind. Just let Dukkha show you the truth of the attachment of your own mind at whatever stage or state you find yourself at. So go back to when you wanted to commit suicide. It was really Dukkha trying to take your hand and show you something but you did not want to see it then. So now that you can face her, are you more or less pessimistic then you were then?

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

“It was really Dukkha trying to take your hand and show you something but you did not want to see it then.”

Yes, I can see that now. It's quite remarkable, really.

“So now that you can face her, are you more or less pessimistic then you were then?”

I can't be pessemistic anymore. When pessimism used to arise, I blamed the world. Now I see that Mara with his armies and daughters is an aspect of myself, of the conditioned mind.

“Look it may be fun to be Peter Pan and live forever, I just don’t see it as a reality.”

I believe only a person having fully integrated Orange into his/her system could make a statement like this. And only a person who makes a statement like this could move higher on the colourful ladder.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

“It was really Dukkha trying to take your hand and show you something but you did not want to see it then.”

Yes, I can see that now. It's quite remarkable, really.
 
Crazy isn’t it!? We are taught to avoid that which disturbs us but really we need only look at it. Befriend it even. Make little kids befriend snakes and spiders etc and they grow up less fearful.



“So now that you can face her, are you more or less pessimistic then you were then?”

I can't be pessemistic anymore. When pessimism used to arise, I blamed the world. Now I see that Mara with his armies and daughters is an aspect of myself, of the conditioned mind.

 Nice! invite them out for dinner! :-) I was talking to a neighbor this weekend and she was all upset about Obamma. How he was not going to protect us. I asked her, Does making friends out of your enemies make you more or less susceptible to being attacked? It always amazes me how fearful so many people are. It's there just below the surface smile.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

The Muni’s teaching that the entire world is mere mind [true self, pure consciousness, knowing Rigpa, Absolute Subjectivity, primordial Purity, etc etc] is intended to remove fears from the simple minded.


This is from the Bodhicittavivaraṇa, not the Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā. If we want to look up everything that is attributed to the name Nagarjuna we'll have to bring up that soul stuff again. The Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā is the only one that everyone agrees is surely his. Some people claim he lived 400 years—do we want to include all the books that were written under his name during that time period?



Shunyata expresses non-origination, voidness, and lack of self.

This also comes from the Bodhicittavivaraṇa.

I don't think this scholar knows what he is talking about. Emptiness is not the expression of non-origination, voidness, and lack of self. Emptiness is beyond all such concepts.

And this “other schools are inferior” stuff simply isn't accurate. Some schools may truly err on the positive side of the Middle Way, and some schools (like the one this scholar goes to) may truly err on the negative side. But to say all these other schools are in error because they use words like Rigpa or Self or Absolute Subjectivity isn't informed. Many are just using them as bridging metaphors.

It also isn't of a very good tone. It leads to a kind of fundamentalism based on conceptual ideas of Emptiness, when Nagarjuna's teaching in the Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā is simply that it is beyond all conceptual ideas, period.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

“Nagarjuna's teaching in the Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā is simply that it is beyond all conceptual ideas, period.”

Yes, so why do you cling on to conceptual ideas like “Pure Subjectivity” or “Primordial Witness”?

(Btw, it doesn't even matter if the Bodhicittavivarana was not actually written by Nagarjuna, because the text is in exact accordance with the logic of the Mulamadhyamakakarika. If you disagree I'd be happy to debate this with you.)

I quote Wilber again:

“Thus, Emptiness as True Self, Emptiness as pure Consciousness, Emptiness as Rigpa (pure knowing Presence), Emptiness as primordial Wisdom (prajna, jnana, yeshe), Emptiness as primordial Purity, even Emptiness as Absolute Subjectivity: all of these bridging notions began to spring up in the Mahayana and Vajrayana to supplement (and even replace) the notion of no-self, which, strictly speaking, was wrong both phenomenally and noumenally.”
 
The Superiors - Shakyamuni Buddha, Nagarjuna, Shantideva, Chandrakirti, Buddhapalita, Aryadeva, Je Dzongkhapa, Bodhidharma, Dogen - are those who have understood and explained emptiness as dependent arising, and dependent arising as emptiness. Those who identify emptiness with the mentioned metaphysical entities above all lack the mark of true wisdom.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

For some reason, some people never seem to experience paranormal phenomena.  I have a friend like that:  nothing unusual ever happens to him.  A life lived in a small, bright circle of normalcy and predictability.  He's comfortable there, but many like him apparently find a need to defend that little circle vigorously, and probably suffer for it.  Getting their panties in an indignant bunch any time someone reports something anomalous.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

How does that song go, it's a small world after all ….

200 years ago, relativity and quantum theory and quantum chromodynamics and Fredian slips and collective unconscious and nonlocality and ….. were all paranormal.

Para-normal, “beyond normal.”  Gimme normal, baby, normal.  I said normal!

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

Now that, Bruce is a great observation!

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

Is: Yes, so why do you cling on to conceptual ideas like “Pure Subjectivity” or “Primordial Witness”?


I don't believe I am clinging to concepts like that. In fact, for myself I haven't decided yet which is the best approximate ultimate or bridging metaphor. I'm still looking into that.

I don't think there is anything wrong with having a favorite approximate ultimate, especially if one understands that ultimately no conceptual ideas apply (and, of course, it's fine also for those who don't understand the Middle Way or haven't been introduced to it, though likely not the ideal).

For example, I don't think it's wrong that you favor conceptual ideas like “emptiness” and “non inherent existence” and “emptiness as dependent arising and dependent arising as emptiness” (though we should understand that words like “emptiness” imply “fullness,” that “nonduality” implies “duality”—the conceptualizations will either be nihilistic or metaphysical or perhaps even both sometimes).

At any rate, it's fine for people to explain emptiness like that and offer that kind of stuff as bridging metaphors and approximate ultimates. It's crucial that we do have conceptual ideas like that; such conceptual ideas form our View.

What you offered is a traditional Buddhist view, but won't that change or evolve? Views must evolve and change, unless we think that someone came up with the perfect View that no one will ever improve on.

Many people are beginning to think that “emptiness as evolutionary unfoldment and evolutionary unfoldment as emptiness” is an improvement on “emptiness as dependent origination and dependent origination as emptiness.” I would say that the former transcends but includes the latter.

The great pioneers that you mentioned didn't have any understanding of evolution nor the scientific evidence to support it as we have, so we wouldn't expect them to say anything about it. But it's because we've learned a lot since then that we need to update the View.



Is: Btw, it doesn't even matter if the Bodhicittavivarana was not actually written by Nagarjuna, because the text is in exact accordance with the logic of the Mulamadhyamakakarika. If you disagree I'd be happy to debate this with you.)


I will have to read the Bodhicittavivarana more carefully and get back to you on this. I would also love to read Murti's book, which Wilber says is the best interpretation of Nagarjuna, along with a few differences he mentions in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. Has anyone read Murti's book?




Is: Those who identify emptiness with the mentioned metaphysical entities above all lack the mark of true wisdom.


All this stuff is in the realm of interpretation, approximate ultimate, bridging metaphor, view. If we say “everything that arises is dependent” it is an interpretation or view with a kosmic address. Someday, at the very least, there will be something to replace that (for some there already is).

The whole point of the Wilber quote from SES is that there are different bridging metaphors people can use to get to the nonceptual and that these can land either on the positive or negative side of the Middle Way or perhaps try to straddle the fence like paradox or tetralemma.

 When people like Shibayama talk about “absolute subjectivity” they are not saying anything to contradict the Middle Way; they simply think that “absolute subjectivity” is a more accurate conceptualization or better bridging metaphor for the nonconceptual, better than “emptiness” or “no self,” for example.

If you ask me, it's a type difference: Some people will really resonate with “emptiness” or “no self.” Some people will resonate with “absolute subjectivity” or “the Self.” Or they will think it just makes more sense at the end of the day, like Shibayama and Ramana Maharshi, to describe the indescribable as “being” rather than “not being” (Wilber, in a footnote on page 288 of Integral Spirituality, writes that he believes “Emptiness” is more accurate than “Absolute Subjectivity” but that they are both pointing toward the same thing/non thing).

If we insist that everyone describe the indescribable as “Emptiness” we will be committing a type absolutism, insisting that our type of path (via negativa) is the best or highest, while via negativa is not a level but a type that spans all levels (like “masculine” and “feminine”).



Almaas: It is this ontologically given, and spontaneously functioning, evolutionary dynamism of the self that we see driving human psychological evolution, which is experienced directly in self-realization, but lost sight of in the experience of the ego-self. The dynamism of Being drives the evolutionary thrust of the self at all stages of its development, but it is also the dynamic center and source of any activity and creativity in the state of self-realization. (The Point of Existence, pg 485)


e: This is 100% the myth of the given. That there is a Being that lives forever and ever real deep inside in your center.



Well, for one thing he's not saying that “there is a Being that lives forever and ever.” He is saying that there is some “involutionary given” that was here since the Big Bang. This is in the realm of interpretation—he is interpreting something he and others have become aware of.

In general Almaas has not been as postmetaphysical as Wilber, but he is actually pretty good on this particular issue, as we've seen from the “guidance” quote I have posted a few times. He interprets it as an “optimizing force,” which is kind of like a self-organizing principle set in an evolutionary context, rather than some metaphysical being that one gives one's life to.

There is actually empirical evidence to support the existence of some kind of involutionary given like this:

“Most physicists today believe that when the Big Gang occurred, it seemed to be following certain physical laws described by mathematics. These mathematical matrices therefore must have been present at or before the Big Bang (i.e., as involutionary givens), and not something that came into being after the Big Bang and were then inherited by the future (which would be an evolutionary a priori for subsequent moments, and which do indeed exist; but these mathematical forms appear to be involutionary a priori—not anything created in the past but present all along).” [1]

When you say that there are no such givens, you are contradicting these physicists. What sort of evidence do you have to back up your claim, to show that these physicists are wrong?


e: You are telling me I have to dream rainbow bodies and that will show me I lived from the time of the big bang? … . And I don’t see how having Amber metaphysical beliefs is going to magically turn those beliefs into a reality. No matter how many books I buy from Almaas.    

I use the “Rainbow Body” as a poetic metaphor, once again. It is surely Amber that way many Tibetans conceptualize it, though perhaps not all.

At any rate, “you” is a personal pronoun. “You” were not alive before you were born in this lifetime. I don't think there was anything personal at the time of the Big Bang. I think it was probably pretty radically impersonal/pre-prepersonal. But some amazing things began to happen: many stars were born, lived, and died in such a way to create all the elements necessary for biological life. Quarks and atoms evolved into Shakespeare, Tagore, Neruda, etc.

There is thus reason to believe that those mathematical matrices may have had something to do with that evolution, that there was a kind of evolutionary intelligence there from the beginining but that it couldn't see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. It's hard to imagine that in a way that isn't personal, however, isn't it? But that's our challenge if we want to try to imagine it in a postmetaphysical way.


David: This is a poetic metaphor, and as such it is fine, even very beautiful. However, it is not a better explanation/interpretation of nondoing than Wilber et al. have offered with the deeper psychic, evolutionary force, etc. (it is not an explanation at all but a poetic metaphor).

e: There can never be a final epistemological explanation. Haven’t you figured that out yet?


Have I said there was? I have said that each interpretation has a kosmic address and will one day be replaced by a better one. That is why I used “better” in the above quote rather than “final” or some such thing.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

e: This is 100% the myth of the given. That there is a Being that lives forever and ever real deep inside in your center.



David: Well, for one thing he's not saying that “there is a Being that lives forever and ever.” He is saying that there is some “involutionary given” that was here since the Big Bang. This is in the realm of interpretation—he is interpreting something he and others have become aware of. 

He is interpreting an experience of a large conditioned state of mind via Amber myth dressed up in Orange scientific drag. He can in no credible way say that he has access to the big bang. If it’s a poetic description then fine.  

When you say that there are no such givens, you are contradicting these physicists. What sort of evidence do you have to back up your claim, to show that these physicists are wrong? 

Platonic forms!?! Dude please, EVERYONE goes with what they know and create a constellational ontology in their minds of beings in the sky by connecting star dots to try and relate and figure out their existential problems. So of course physicists have to predicate apriori mathematical forms. They are still under the spell that their rational mind is going to figure this all out. Plus they spent a hell of a lot of money on PHD’s and they need to produce something to keep the grant money flowing to pay off student loans. So, since they have long lost sight of the trail of the indivisible atom then of course they are going to suggest mathematics as etheric lines. The creation myth shape shifts Orange. So the basis of their discipline (mathematics) is the next line of defense to preserve their ontologies. This will go on for awhile then they may move to consciousness. It’s an empty shell game of the aggregates. 

Quarks and atoms evolved into Shakespeare, Tagore, Neruda, etc. 

Quarks and atoms don’t evolve into anything. Molecules are holons that contain atoms. The larger holons i.e. the bodies of  Shakespeare etc. contain molecules a few holons back i.e. cells, organs etc.  

There is thus reason to believe that those mathematical matrices may have had something to do with that evolution, that there was a kind of evolutionary intelligence there from the beginining but that it couldn't see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. It's hard to imagine that in a way that isn't personal, however, isn't it? But that's our challenge if we want to try to imagine it in a postmetaphysical way. 

Agreed, all we have to do is realize there is nothing personal.   

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

“Many people are beginning to think that “emptiness as evolutionary unfoldment and evolutionary unfoldment as emptiness” is an improvement on “emptiness as dependent origination and dependent origination as emptiness.” I would say that the former transcends but includes the latter.”

As I have said, since dependent origination/emptiness (there is no difference) is a prerequisite for evolution, your proposal to renew the formula is superfluous. Dependent origination/emptiness already contains any notion of evolution. That is why this wisdom is timeless and therefore superior.

I still think this debate originates from the fact that you don't yet understand what emptiness is. It seems you still believe emptiness is something substantial, whereas it in fact is nothing but the non-finding of a substantially existent, self-sufficient entity. Emptiness an advanced concept to comprehend, probably it requires Green or higher, because it is a concept that doesn't point to some-thing. Unlike the concepts “chair”, or “gravity”, or “rage”, “π”, the concept “emptiness” points to a state of mind which is unable to find a designation appearing to cover a certain area of parts, or a designation  appearing to exist independent of parts.

So in the case of chair, gravity, rage or π, we can always point and say: That's it, that is X. But in the case of emptiness, we can't point, because emptiness is nothing but exactly a non-affirming negation; a consciousness unable to find objective existence. It is very subtle. You should put some effort into trying to understand it, because it is the key to happiness, freedom and compassion.

“I will have to read the Bodhicittavivarana more carefully and get back to you on this.”

Looking forward to it!

“All this stuff is in the realm of interpretation, approximate ultimate, bridging metaphor, view. If we say “everything that arises is dependent” it is an interpretation or view with a kosmic address.”

You are right! And the superior view that emptiness=dependent-arising&dependend-arising=emptiness is the only view which acknowledge this. It is the only view which recognize itself as empty, as non-substantially existent, while all the other views cling to an ultimate ontological entity in which the I is preserved. Therefore, this view is compatible, indeed it requires, the 2-t insight of kosmic adress. The other views do not, because they all need to posit an eternal, unevolved ultimate Entity - Primordial Awareness, Pure Subjectivity, Radical Witness, etc.

“they simply think that “absolute subjectivity” is a more accurate conceptualization or better bridging metaphor for the nonconceptual, better than “emptiness” or “no self,” for example.”

The fallacy here is that you don't recognice the difference between affirming positives and non-affirming negatives. “Absolute Subjectivity” is an affiming positive, you can say ultimate reality is X. This is a problem because as soon as you start to cling onto a positive, logical fallacies ensue since affirming positives operate within the realm of duality, while ultimate reality evidently is non-dual. “Emptiness” (non-capital e) is a non-affirming negative. It merely negates and introduces nothing new in its place (unlike positive negations), one therefore only say ultimate reality is not X. By doing this, you recognize that, as Bodhidharma states: “Words are illusions” and therefore merely negate all vain attempts to grasp or understand the non-dual nature of ultimate reality through dualistic concepts. This kind of grasping is the cause of all forms of suffering.

“If we insist that everyone describe the indescribable as “Emptiness” we will be committing a type absolutism, insisting that our type of path (via negativa) is the best or highest, while via negativa is not a level but a type that spans all levels (like “masculine” and “feminine”).”

Aren't you enthralled by the prospect of understanding and taking part in the highest expression of wisdom? Since non-affirming negatives are a mark of higher wisdom than any kind of affirming positives, wouldn't you want to celebrate this unique insight? Then, as we have acknowledged the highest wisdom, we can calmly and with compassion use lower forms of expression to teach those who are not yet ripe for ultimate knowledge; like the Buddha, teaching through upaya-devices like the 4 noble truths, or like Nisargadatta, teaching through devices like “You are That”.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

Bruce: Any time someone reports something anomalous.


I think that's an important point. When anomalous data is habitually dismissed or rationalized away (like Amber dismisses Orange data, for example) it begins too look more like the defense of a world view or particular story rather than scientific inquiry, which is always heading into the unknown.



Is: Dependent origination/emptiness already contains any notion of evolution. That is why this wisdom is timeless and therefore superior.


You'll have to come up with some evidence to show that there is any understanding of evolution in the dependent origination traditionally understood by Buddhists. It would be a real bombshell if you could find any.

When you call this dharma “timeless” it makes it sound as though you don't think it has a kosmic address or can be improved upon, as though it will always be true.



Is: Emptiness …  in fact is nothing but the non-finding of a substantially existent, self-sufficient entity.


This is one interpretation or conceptualization of emptiness. This does not describe the experience of emptiness nor the realization of emptiness. The experience of emptiness (or, we might say, nonduality to avoid confusion with emptiness interpretations) and the realization of emptiness is beyond existence and non existence. That is the point Wilber is trying to make in the above quote and the point Nagarjuna makes with the tetralemma.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

David: There is thus reason to believe that those mathematical matrices may have had something to do with that evolution, that there was a kind of evolutionary intelligence there from the beginining but that it couldn't see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. It's hard to imagine that in a way that isn't personal, however, isn't it? But that's our challenge if we want to try to imagine it in a postmetaphysical way. 

e: Agreed, all we have to do is realize there is nothing personal.  


I'm not sure I understand you. Up until this last line, we seemed to be in disagreement about everything. It seems like you changed your mind at the end of your post or suddenly understood my position better and we came to an understanding, but I may be misreading you.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

I think you may be saying that there is nothing personal in the beginning, at the Big Bang, that the personal emerged ten thousand years ago with Red. We agree on that.

A lot of people then get thrown by the idea of the second face of God and how that could be considered integral, let alone third tier.

People don't have too much trouble with the first face of Spirit; people have a relatively easy time believing in Absolute Subjectivity or Absolute No Subjectivity (Nagarjuna, of course, believed nonduality is neither, beyond both), though Western Orange does tend to have an issue with it. Sam Harris was the one New Atheist who didn't, and he and Hitchens were going to discuss it, and I think Hitchens may have been convinced because I heard him say something complimentary about Buddhism recently.

Some people won't want any face of Spirit but that. Green Advaita and Boomeritis Buddhism, for example, tends not to believe in an energetic aspect, spirit as process, the Tao—it tends to believe in just static nonduality, thus freeing themselves to act as they desire and live the postmodern lifestyle, planning one vacation after another until they die, if they can afford it.

But most often these days (aside from integral Christians, Sufis, Kabalists, etc.) have trouble with the second face, taking any kind of a second person perspective on this because they think it's Amber and can't imagine how taking a second person perspective on it would be anything but Amber (aside from some visualization technique for first-face, static-Now purposes).

But here's how it works: With Amber, people are just imagining a sky God, whom they pray to. Their only connection to this God is through imagination, written works, perhaps some kind of “miracle” here and there, occasionally some kind of prophet.

But with ego awareness one becomes aware of this energetic impulse (3p, L/9) that can also be regarded as their deepest phenomenal self, but guess what? There will still be this extraordinarily narcissistic self-sense (Red, the ability to individuate) that won't want to give up control; they call it “the controller” in Big Mind Process. This controller sees things very personally; it is terminally personal; it can't relate to anything in a non-personal way.

(If you are having trouble seeing this controller, think about the things you fear most.)

Thus, if the person is going to fully push through to nonduality as a stage (in action as well as meditation) they will have to work with it for awhile with each of the three faces of Spirit. Their terminally personal controller will have to take a second-person perspective on the Tao and learn to give up control. Otherwise the controller will arise and take control of the vehicle when things that it fears arise or things that it desires arise (common sense applies, of course).

This doesn't necessarily mean that the Tao itself has anything personal about it; it simply means that there is an aspect of human development that can't do anything but take things personally whether these things are pre-personal, personal, or trans-personal. It's saying more about the human being than it is about the Tao.

That said, there is much more about the process that we don't know than we do know. I think that Western Orange, for example, with its entirely mechanical view on things has only an incrementally better understanding about how things work than Amber.

In fact, Western Orange as we know it might very well be seen to have a lot of dissociative aspects in a thousand years. I believe that's Wilber's view on it, that the extreme anti-Amber view of much of Western Orange (as if Amber is 100% wrong) is in part pathological, dissociative.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

“The mind cannot conceive of emptiness. If we say it is existence, that is wrong. If we say it is non existence, that is wrong. It is indescribable.”

Have I ever said anything else? I pointed out in my last point that: “It seems you still believe emptiness is something substantial” and it is really clear that you think emptiness = utter non-existence. This is simply wrong.

“In fact, without a doubt all the other schools combined (Mahamudra, Dzogchen, Yogacharra, Advaita, much of Zen) surely have produced as many or perhaps more realizers than this one small school, the Prasangikas.”

I don't know about how many enlightened beings each lineage have produced, but you also have to take into account that there are different degrees of realization. For example, a person only recognizing the emptiness of the self is less enlightened than a person recognizing the emptiness of both self and phenomena. It is my understanding that some schools without a basis in reason might only experience the formless realms and think that he/she is enlightened, or the emptiness of self/person only. Using Tibetan analogies, this might result in a reincarnation as a Diety, but not constitute breaking the chains of cyclic existence. Prasangika analysis make sure every last seed of cyclic existence is destroyed, while some lineages might unconsciously be fine with a deva-rebirth in a celestial realm.

Wilber: “You are not on this side of your face looking at the mountain out there; you simply are the mountain, you are the sky, you are the clouds, you are everything that is arising moment to moment, very simply, very clearly, just so.”

The Prasangika philosophy is designed to induce just this realization, David. There is no contradiction. The reasoning is soteriological in nature.

Prasangika analysis is the philosophically most advanced. (This is generally accepted, even Robert Thurman recognizes it in this video, starting at 6 minutes.) It might indeed not be the best/quickest practical method for getting people to realization, I don't know, but it is the best philosophy for breaking down any conceptualizations or reifications the mind might have; also it is the philosophy most compatible with science since it posits no metaphysical entities.

“his view is neither, both, etc.—beyond all conceptualization”

Yes. The question is whether or not you agree with him? If you do, you should abandon your clinging onto Awareness as an independent entity. But to do that, you need to integrate Orange into your system. Are you ready to actually hear what Pema had to say: it is only in your pre-modern fantasies that there is a celestial hand to hold on to for comfort. Reality is not for the faint-hearted.

“You'll have to come up with some evidence to show that there is any understanding of evolution in the dependent origination traditionally understood by Buddhists.”

I said that dependent arising/emptiness is a prerequisite for evolution. If all this were non-empty - evolution could not occur. Everything would be eternally frozen in inherent existence.

Re: Psychic phenomena! 2

Is: “It seems you still believe emptiness is something substantial” and it is really clear that you think emptiness = utter non-existence.



What????  :) You've been calling me a reifier for months!

What have I said to make you think this?



Is: It is my understanding that some schools without a basis in reason might only experience the formless realms and think that he/she is enlightened, or the emptiness of self/person only. … It is my understanding that some schools without a basis in reason might only experience the formless realms and think that he/she is enlightened, or the emptiness of self/person only. …  Prasangika analysis make sure every last seed of cyclic existence is destroyed, while some lineages might unconsciously be fine with a deva-rebirth in a celestial realm.


I think you're right that there are different levels of realizations. There are some important distinctions to make in that area.

I don't think the Prasangikas are the only ones capable of destroying every last seed of existence, however. Also, once again, realization is beyond both existence and non existence, so I'm wondering how far that analysis really goes. If it basically means inquiry until the job is finished, I think it's good. I haven't really seen exactly how it works yet.

Also, you just said that I believed that “emptiness = utter non existence” and that that is wrong, and I agree with you, but then here you talk about analyzing until “every seed of cyclic existence is gone.” Maybe you meant some particular sort of existence with “cyclic existence”?

In any case, I was reading Dzogchen: The Self-Perfected State by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu earlier, and I acame across this:

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I got to go to work, and will respond when I get back. I just wanted to quickly refute this point though:

David: “Again and again they affirm that it is absolutely true that it is impossible to affirm anything about the absolute. This is the performative contradiction of the Prasangika school. It's not unlike the performative contradiction of relativists where they say nothing is absolutely true or that there can be no universal truths.”

Nagarjuna's Refutation of Objections, says:

If I had any [inherently existing] thesis,

Then I would have that fault [of contradicting my own thesis

that there is no inherent existence].

Because I have no [inherently existing] thesis,

I am only faultless.

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I understand the point: Even his view is empty. From the perspective of emptiness, all views are empty, including his.

Still, however, he has a view or interpretation that he is holding to be absolute. There is no way around that. Saying he doesn't have a thesis doesn't mean he doesn't have a thesis. It just means he is not admitting to have a thesis.

His thesis is that all views are empty including his, and he is holding that to be absolutely true. That's fine, but let's not kid ourselves: He is affirming is own doctrine to be absolutely true.

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I'm also not convinced that the Mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā and the Prasangika doctrine are synonymous.

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It's funny how most threads, no matter the starting topic, end up being about Nagarjuna and the Mulamadhyamakakarika.

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To recap the emptiness story to see if I've got it: inherent existence is a fiction; so, therefore, is emptiness.  Am I missing something?

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Bruce: “It's funny how most threads, no matter the starting topic, end up being about Nagarjuna and the Mulamadhyamakakarika.”

That's prolly because threads here often concerns what is ultimately, or really, or actually, or intrinsically, true. This is a very dodgy topic, which I believe mr Nagarjuna has been one of the greatest in elucidating.
 
David: “The Prasangikas say that the non-affirming negative (the second part of line 3) is superior to any kind of affirmation (line 2). But neither should be asserted according to Nagarjuna.”

The non-affirming negative is the most effective tool in the dualistic world to try to describe the absolute. But just as in Buddha's raft analogy, before the absolute can be realized directly, even dualistic tools like the non-affirming negative must be let go. The ultimate is neither empty nor non-empty, only nominally are these terms used. This is why Nagarjuna - unlike other schools who cling to the I as consciousness, the continuum of the collection of aggregates, the samskara, as inherently real conventionally, or whatever - has no inherently existing thesis, and hence does not fall prey to your criticism.

“Still, however, he has a view or interpretation that he is holding to be absolute.”
 
Yes, Nagarjuna has plenty of views, both positive and negative. One example of a positive view, or thesis, is the very first verse of the MMK:

Neither from itself nor from another,
Nor from both,
Nor without a cause,
Does anything whatever, anywhere arise.
 
This is a positive, assertive thesis - not a consequence, which is Nagarjuna's trademark. The thing is though that it is not propounded to be ultimately true, only nominally/conventionally true. Nagarjuna has no view that is ultimately true, he only refutes other views claiming ultimate ontological status - like Pure Consciousness, Primordial Subjectivity, Radical Emptiness, etc etc. And why does he do this? Because of the verse you quoted - the ultimate can not be grasped conceptually. All kinds of grasping = dukkha. And like all buddhas and bodhisattvas, their main objective is to alleviate all the suffering of sentient beings.

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“What????  :) You've been calling me a reifier for months! What have I said to make you think this?”
 
Because you charge me of nihilism, while my view of emptiness never falls into that extreme. Here is an example: “which is more accurate and in keeping with Nagarjuna's view than the simply no-self, non-existence description…”. You here (indirectly) accuse me of asserting that non-existence is somehow the final reality, while I have never done such. Mmkey? :)

Also, you have never in my eyes said anything that demonstrated that you have understood that emptiness = dependent arising/form. You constantly say that whenever emptiness is used, it is a complete negation into utter non-existence, while emptiness is only a complete negation of intrinsic existence.

“It may be the best for some people, but I don't see that it's simply the best. So everyone who chooses Zen or Advaita or Dzogchen are a bunch of louts compared to Prasangikas? I don't buy this at all. Also, I think the Prasangikas do posit a metaphysical entity: their own doctrine, which they assert is absolutely true.”

The last part I have already refuted. About the other schools being “louts” however, I haven't said that. I'm sure that all these schools have their own ways to destroy the seeds of cyclic existence, zen has awesome koans, for example. All I'm saying is that the Prasangika school is the only one which makes perfectly clear, and in dualistic language that all people can understand, that nothing whatsoever should ever be grasped onto, and offers the logical tools to back this up/to help students.

Advaita people for example clings on to Pure Conciousness, something that causes suffering. For example, say that you cling onto the idea that: ”When I am enlightened, I will have constant consciousness, always”. So, what happens if one morning you realize that you weren't conscious all through the dream-cycle?! Dukkah! :O Or what happens if someone, like me, comes up to you and say: “What evidence do you have that this Pure Consciousness exist? I don't believe you, based on reason X and Y.” What would happen would be conflict, and from that conflict - Dukkah! This is evidence that one has not been liberated from cyclic existence.

“We can take different valid perspectives on it, and Pema and Trungpa have offered a few of them but not all of them. From the perspective of the separate-self sense, as a matter of fact, there is a Higher Power (3p, L/9], but we can also see that Higher Power as being our own Deepest Self or Nature. We can simultaneously believe in nonduality. The former is simply a relative or phenomenal truth.”

My point is that this argument only works - as a relative truth - if the self or I is empty. Otherwise there will be a constant, inseparable split between the I and the not-I.

I think most my points here actually boils down to the most brilliant 2-tier Wilber-quote ever:

“Nobody ever has any truth, just various degrees of falsehood.”

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“Nobody ever has any truth, just various degrees of falsehood.”

FWIW, this quote by Wilber was not an expression of a view he was endorsing, but the (unintended) consequence of taking a representationist / non-enactive perspective.  I've commonly seen people understanding it as you have, though – as an expression of a 2nd tier truth.

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How come you say that, Bruce? The quote comes from recognizing that all dualistic expressions - may they be positive assertions, affirming negations, non-affirming negations - lack ultimate ontology; one doesn't fall prey to the myth of the given. One literally can't say anything that is a given timeless truth for all. However, the ”various degrees” part comes from recognizing that all dualistic expressions may be placed hierarchically closer to- or further away from the truth. These two combined without any inner contradictions experienced to me easily constitutes a 2-tier understanding.

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Back in April, I put up a post regarding this question on the Integral Life website.  This is what I said:

I have a general question just on interpreting something Wilber has said.  I'm raising it because, in recent weeks, I've come across several references to a sentence in the following passage which appear to interpret it in the opposite way that I believe Wilber intended.

Here's the passage (with the sentence in question bolded and underlined):

In chapter 2, we briefly mentioned the idea that: Kosmic address = altitude + perspective. What I would like to do is unpack that idea a little bit more, to show both what post-metaphysical thinking is like, and how spiritual realities —- or any realities, for that matter —- need to be conceptualized in a post/modern world (using the world “post/modern” to mean items that both modernity and postmodernity accept).
Let’s start with the diagram shown in figure 4. For the moment, let’s assume that diagram is accurate. It looks like a fairly simple representation of some commonly accepted realities -— things like atoms, molecules, symbols, concepts, ecological systems, and so on. But remember that things like, for example, holarchical planetary systems can only be seen and grasped starting at around turquoise. So if we are looking for the “location” of something like global eco-systems, the first rule is simple: eco-systems exist only in a worldspace of turquoise or higher.
Ah, we say, but surely eco-systems existed in the real world 100,000 years ago, even if humans were only at, say, magenta, and could not see or conceive them. But that is exactly what you are NOT allowed to do according to many modern and all postmodern epistemologies. You cannot postulate a single, pregiven, ahistorical world that is “simply there” and to which representational methods give various degrees of access. If that were so, then what we think of today as “eco-systems” will probably be understood, a thousand years from now, to be energy sinks of dark matter controlling access to an 11th dimensional world of hyperspace…. Well, you get the point. If we claim that our epistemologies are basically representational maps (or mirrors of nature), then just as we of today will invalidate what was taken as knowledge 1,000 years ago, so tomorrow will invalidate our knowledge of today. So nobody ever has any truth, just various degrees of falsehood. This is the myth of the given; this is everything postmodernity savaged; and this is not something we can believably call upon (Wilber, Integral Spirituality).
As I read the sentence, I believe that Wilber is saying that commitment to representationism and the myth of the given entails commitment to a model in which one only ever has “degrees of falsehood,” since one's representations of pre-given reality will always be subject to updating or even invalidation in the future.  Whereas, in a post-metaphysical, enactive view, truth is a dynamically emergent feature of enacted worldspaces, not a measure of correspondence to fixed, pre-given reality. 

This is how I read what he is saying.  However, the several references to this passage that I've come across in various publications (or posts – most recently in an essay by Geert Drieghe) have all taken the sentence, “nobody ever has any truth, just various degrees of falsehood,” to be Wilber's description of what is actually the case (or what his actual position is), and not simply an implication of the representationalist/mirror of nature approach.  These writers seem to be saying, “In a post-metaphysical world, we have to admit that we never have truth, only varying degrees of falsehood.”  They might use the metaphor of the asymptote to describe this view.

In my view, this is a misunderstanding (and perhaps reveals the writers' continuing commitment to a representationist paradigm themselves).

What do you think?

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I think exactly what I wrote in my last post, and I agree when those guys say:

“In a post-metaphysical world, we have to admit that we never have truth, only varying degrees of falsehood.”
 
You see, what you get if you remove the ”just various degree of falsehood“-part is plain Green, which is transcended in 2-tier. But if you include it, you get a brilliant integration of Orange + Green: we are never able to formulate a dualistic sentence which is the given truth for all. Why? Simple: reality is evidently non-dualistic, while sentences are by necessity dualistic. (This is the Green part.) But neither do we deny the reality of an Absolute that exists independent of all sentence-makers. Why? Simple: if there were no such Absolute, it would be impossible/senseless to arrange views into a truth-hierarchy. (This is the Orange, and to some degrees Amber, part.)

(Note: of course my sentence above is kosmic adressable as well. It is a 2-tier falsehood with a less degree of falsehood relative to 1-tier falsehoods.)

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Bruce, how did the people on the forum respond?

I think you're probably right, it certainly seems to parse that way. I don't think Wilber would consider turquoise and above, and his ideas today, just different degrees of falsehood…

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Bruce, this is an interesting topic we might move to its own thread.  Let me give one observation here.  Wilber's language in the underlined quote, as I so often find with him, is more dramatic than it is well expressed or even well thought.  Note his use of extreme words (nobody has any truth, just …).  Having committed himself to drama, he misses the contradiction that degrees of falsehood implies degrees of truth, so one cannot have “just” degrees of falsehood, and it cannot true that “nobody” has “any” truth.  The terms “just,” “nobody” and “any,” though, suggest that falsehood reins in any representationalist view, a colouring I find reflected in his statement that you are not allowed to say ecosystems did not exist 100,000 years ago.  I find that statement foolish, personally.

And what happened to the holonic theory of transcend and include?  Out the window.

Binary either-or thinking and talking is what I mostly see.

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Tom,
I've been lurking around over here trying to find a really good example for a “language on holiday” post for the IPS pod. I had thought this thread might serve well until you came along, pumped a little crank into the language and put it back on the job.

Good work and a dead-on analysis.

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good points, tom, and thank you.

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Thanks, Steven, and Nicole.  I find Wilber often careless in his use of language, which is a form of holidaying Wittgenstein likely wouldn't consider a respectable language holiday.

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indeed, and this is a good example of how it can catch up behind him and bite him, as they say. 

or, it's just that people wilfully misunderstand him :), those silly people…

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Is: Because you charge me of nihilism, while my view of emptiness never falls into that extreme. Here is an example: “which is more accurate and in keeping with Nagarjuna's view than the simply no-self, non-existence description…”. You here (indirectly) accuse me of asserting that non-existence is somehow the final reality, while I have never done such. Mmkey? :)


I don't think you're a nihilist, Is. Honest!  :)



Is: You constantly say that whenever emptiness is used, it is a complete negation into utter non-existence, while emptiness is only a complete negation of intrinsic existence.


I've never said that.  :) But I'm glad you make this distinction here, between utter non-existence and the negation of intrinsic existence. How would you describe the difference between the two?


Is:
All I'm saying is that the Prasangika school is the only one which makes perfectly clear, and in dualistic language that all people can understand, that nothing whatsoever should ever be grasped onto… . So, what happens if one morning you realize that you weren't conscious all through the dream-cycle?! Dukkah! :O Or what happens if someone, like me, comes up to you and say: “What evidence do you have that this Pure Consciousness exist? I don't believe you, based on reason X and Y.” What would happen would be conflict, and from that conflict - Dukkah!


I like what you say here. It reminds me of the way Andrew Cohen often teaches meditation, which is to have no relationship to your experience.




Is: My point is that this argument only works - as a relative truth - if the self or I is empty. Otherwise there will be a constant, inseparable split between the I and the not-I.


Yes, you're right: That was a relative truth.

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Also, I want to make the point that people can “cling” to concepts like Awareness and Consciousness and get very deeply into the process. In fact, a person can complete the traditional enlightenment process and still be using the word “awareness” to describe nonduality, like Nisargardatta as I quoted earlier (“awareness that isn't aware of anything”).

The description of nonduality has its importance, but it is not the most important thing. As we see with Nisagardatta, a person can complete the traditional enlightenment process and still have something different than the Prasangika interpretation or even something that isn't correct according to Prasangika analysis.

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I'm still finding it interesting as a path, though, the Prasangika. Do they do the analysis kind of like self-inquiry or koan work? Is it an all-day thing?

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“How would you describe the difference between the two?”
 
Well, utter non-existence is just nothing. For what it's worth, imagine a black void without any appearances or structure of any kind, and with nobody aware of it, that's total non-existence I guess. A negation of intrinsic existence however simply means that any independently existing entity cannot be found under analysis; only dependent phenomena are ever found. Appearances and structure (or conventional existence) is never negated.

“Do they do the analysis kind of like self-inquiry or koan work? Is it an all-day thing?”

I don't really know the details. All I know is that they start with Shamatha concentration practice, and then when they have kick-ass concentration they move on to insight practice, which is the various kinds of analyses of the world. The analysis is done during formal meditation, using the concentration developed earlier to support the reasoning or wisdom mind.

They start with the 7-fold reasoning, which we've talked about before:

X (the designated) is not inherently the same as-, different than-, possessing-, the base of-, depending on-, the mere collection of-, or the mere shape of- its basis of designation.

First they use it on an example-object - a chariot/car - to gain initial understanding of what emptiness is. During this example period, they don't need to actually break through into a realization of emptiness, they only need to understand how the reasoning works. And it works as follows:

1: First you must identify the object of negation, in this case: inherent existence. If you can not do this, the reasoning will be useless.
2: Then you must understand that if the object searched for during analysis won't be found in any of the 7 ways, then it will without any doubt follow that the object can't inherently exist. This is because what might happen otherwise is that one will search for the object in these 7 ways and not find it, but instead of gaining a realization of emptiness, one will start to question the validity of the analysis, thinking that even though the object was not found under analysis, it probably could exist inherently in some other way… So the utter thoroughness of the 7-fold reasoning must be fully understood.
3: Finally you do the reasoning in the 7 ways until the object is not found. This is a startling, impressive and sometimes fearful discovery, and what happens is that a void presents itself to your mind; this mental picture of a void is a conceptual understanding of emptiness. The void appears because something you once thought were there is not. Imagine the void that presents itself to your mind when you run over to a mirage finding it to be non-existent as an oasis full of water. Then when the understanding becomes non-conceptual and direct, the mental picture of the void disappears and left is only ultimate reality - suchness.

So, after doing the chariot-example, they then move on to the I, which is the root source of all suffering. When they've realized the emptiness of the I (the person), they move on to analyze other phenomena within ones own continuum - the skandhas: form, consciousness, feelings, discriminations, perceptions - and finally to phenomena outside ones own continuum, things like chairs, cities, pots, tea, etc. It is said that when the person first realize the emptiness of the I with great force, they merely need to turn their attention to another object (within or external to the personal continuum) to realize that emptiness as well, without having to go through all the reasonings again in a robotic fashion.

When all this is done, one also realize the emptiness even of emptiness itself, of progress on a spiritual path, of karma, and of attainment. This is complete Enlightenment, the non-dual final reality called suchness.