Apologies for the delayed response Bhante, you are good at putting much into few words and it takes some time to attempt understanding.
pudai wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2023 12:02 am
Buddhism is typically taught as there are five senses with the mind being the sixth and consciousness makes one aware or alive.
That is the wrong teaching; the eye all in and of itself as an organ of perception is a wholly full functioning consciousness and a mind of it's own...
I believe we are saying the same thing but my understanding of it is still early.
I say: Rupa eye + eye vinnana.
You say Rupa eye IS eye vinnana combined too.
Nama-rupa? Nama being eye vinnana and rupa being rupa eye?
applying the yoke to the eye known as samadhi tames it like the ox herding pictures. Eyes going one way ears going another way nose going one way is the tar trap of the monkey but all of those consciousnesses are not one otherwise its mind only..
You say applying the yoke to the eye or ear... is samadhi. Is this anapanasati taking only eye with the breath? In the seen there is only the seen. In the heard, there is only the heard? One object of salyatana at one time? So strongly connected to eye and seen, no sound or touch or smell steals attention?
When I watch and listen to people talk, sometimes both eye and ear consciousness work together. Same object so it's ok?
Alternatively, I hear washing machine washing clothes right now while I read and cognize your writing. This is the tar trap monkey scrambling in many directions? Rupa ear and ear vinnana attend washing machine noise, rupa eye and eye vinnana read words, rupa mind and mind vinnana cognize scramble of words and noise?
...or the Madhyamaka school and saying that's ALL there is "Is mind" as the all the fact of samsara and nibbana as elements existing refutes that.
I don't know Madhyamaka school but it sounds like you are accusing them of believing vinnana is only 1 (all mind) and not 6(5+1 mind).
Consciousness is where all the life awake and aware exist... the eye in jhana is different than the ear in jhana the nose etc... all of those separate consciousnesses needs to be yoked as they are a bhavayana all in and of themselves...
I think you explain further the point from above, each consciousness of salyatana is different than another (eye consciousness separate from ear consciousness...). When observing this way, must it be jhana or can it be samadhi without jhana or are jhana and samadhi same thing?
...believing in "oneness" as a reality if such a thing were true when death occurred all people would experience it at once... but as we know in Buddhism unless heat leaves the body? It's not dead as Nirodha goes. Whn someone says head and heart when the mind is in the heart its hot it's aflame and then when reversed it cools like a fever.
Not necessarily. Fingers are part of the hand, but cut one finger and the other fingers do not feel it.
Heat comes in two ways though. Heat of passion and heat of heart release. You speak like someone is supposed to cool both or maybe I'm not understanding.
Noticing yourself like a baby upwrapped in a blanket well fed before noon to stare at the ceiling until night happy you dont have to work happy you can leave any argument or task just like Gautama in the Bhrama suttras and say it is a worldling pursuit is abandoning what has arisen and seeks refuge elsewhere due to suffering arising...
Maybe you can confirm I understand you correctly here. You are stating residing in pleasant abiding from noon to night = worldly indulgence and = aversion from suffering = not the path?
When zen says nirvana and samsara are the same they are not joking one is grasping at all the dos and do nots while the already done walk right on through and afterawhile it the one noble truth of suffering as all that is existing...
Before enlightenment chop wood, fetch water. After enlightenment chop wood, fetch water, smile.
What if before enlightenment a baby upwrapped in a blanket well fed before noon to stare at the ceiling until night happy?
whats strange is thats what gautama realized as ENLIGHTENMENT his only place he could put his mind out of suffering was remembering a time a place such and such existed and thats what he did... laying there poisoned beaten robbed raped whatever? He'd place his mind back to that point.
I maybe understood that story under the tree wrong. I thought he identified the childhood memory as a jhana but not enlightnment? Are you saying that memory was enlightenment and he holds the memory to access enlightenment during bad times?
Samadhi is that nature and so is death it comes to one point the eye yoked like a monkey in the tar trap the other five buddha bodies are free to move on and return as when all things are returnable to one... To what is the one returnable? Eye is that was the samadhi or focus goes back to the other five being aware and awake not asleep or "cold"... heart of the teaching is what such and such as this used to be called.
Do you speak here about imperturbability of eye consciousness which allows other 5 consciousness freedom? For example, having pervasive akusala thought one can yoke to the eye, and mind is freed of the akusala thought? Then one can unyoke the eye and return to equal 6 senses?
Honestly if I were Gautama? I'd yoke my mind to cow dung instead of all the way back to his ignorance under that tree...
Why not the breath? Why cow dung? The breath was with him then, with him from birth to death. With all of us from birth til death. Seems easier than a memory of shady trees or cow dung.
there is a path and it is said don't forget the Tang is also one for the hearers to be mindful of during the three watches.
Can you please speak more on this? What is Tang? I also do not understand what the three watches means unless this is arising, persisting, and fading of a sense consciousness.
Tibet is an easy path but only two remain; Twinkling bells and a bunch of whores yelling at cows. As only path as like the stupid natives of the mid-west drunk on the sky and call it god such are those in the land of the snows...
If I understand you here, this is sort of mean assessment even if some truth. Rights and rituals, proselytizing, and believing in sky people while skiing in the alps still have some wholesome qualities compared to many other activities people could do instead.
I hope my interpretations and questions are as path-focused as your insights have been. I'm looking forward to continuing the discussion.
Be well Bhante.

Just as a bird, wherever it goes, flies with its wings as its only burden; so too is he content with a set of robes to provide for his body and almsfood to provide for his hunger. Wherever he goes, he takes only his barest necessities along. This is how a monk is content.(DN11)