Showing posts with label Steve Hagen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steve Hagen. Show all posts
Oct
19
Steve Hagen - Dharma Talk "Where is the 'Me'?"
Soh


 

Also see:

Dharma Talk - Steve hagen, "In the Seen There Is Only the Seen" July 18




Steve Hagen books are also clear and highly recommended.

Excerpts:

http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2010/04/buddhism-is-not-what-you-think.html

 

 

 

 

 

    Soh Wei Yu
    I don’t think Steve is saying there is something unchanging like Advaita. Rather, he is talking about the unborn nature of dharma.
    Buddhism Plain and Simple page 115, by Zen Teacher Steve Hagen:
    With the two types of views there are two kinds of minds. As human beings, we all have what we could call ordinary minds - the mind that you've always assumed you've had. It's a calculating mind, a discriminating mind, a fragmented mind. It's the mind of ordinary consciousness, the mind of self and other. We generally think of it as "my mind."
    But there's another mind that is unborn, ungrown, and unconditioned. Unlike "your mind," it is unbound, for there is nothing beyond it. To this Mind, there is no "other mind."
    This Mind is nothing other than the Whole. It's simply thus, the fabric of the world itself - the ongoing arising and falling away that are matter, energy and events.
    Speaking of this Mind, the great Chinese Zen master Huang Po said,
    All buddhas and ordinary people are just One Mind... This Mind is beyond all measurements, names, oppositions: this very being is It; as soon as you stir your mind you turn away from It.
    This Mind is self-evident - it's always switched on, so to speak. We can - and, in fact, we do - see It in every moment. If we would refrain from stirring our minds (rest our frontal lobes, as my Zen teacher used to say) and let our conceptualising die down, like the ripples on a pond after the stirring wind has ceased, we would realise - we would know Mind directly.
    (Steve Hagen)
    .
    .
    .
    Ultimate Truth, on the other hand, is direct perception. And what is directly perceived (as opposed to conceive) is that no separate, individualised things exist as such. There's nothing to be experienced but this seamless, thoroughgoing relativity and flux.
    In other words, there are no particulars, but only thus.
    ....
    When the Buddha spoke of individuals, he often used a different term: "stream." Imagine a stream flowing-eonstantly moving and changing, always different from one moment to the next. Most of us see ourselves as corks floating in a stream, persisting things moving along in the stream of time. But this is yet another frozen view.
    According to this view, everything in the stream changes except the cork. While we generally admit to changes in our body, our mind, our thoughts, our feelings, our understandings, and our beliefs, we still believe, "I myself don't change. I'm still me. I'm an unchanging cork in an ever-changing stream." This is precisely what we believe the self to be-something that doesn't change.
    The fact is, however, that there are no corks in the stream. There is only stream. What we conceptualize as "cork" is also stream. We are like music. Music, after all, is a type of stream. Music exists only in constant flow and flux and change. Once the movement stops, the music is no more. It exists not as a particular thing, but as pure coming and going with no thing that comes or goes.
    Look at this carefully. If this is true-how a stream exists, how music exists, and how we exist-see how it is that when we insert the notion of "I" we've posited some little, solid entity that floats along, not as stream, but like a cork in a stream. We see ourselves as solid corks, not as the actual stream we are.
    If we are the stream, what is it that experiences the flux, the flow, the change? The Buddha saw that there is no particular thing that is having an experience. There is experience, but no experiencer. There is perception, but no perceiver. There is consciousness, but no self that can be located or identified.
    Buddhism Is Not What You Think
    AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM
    Buddhism Is Not What You Think
    Buddhism Is Not What You Think
    1

    • Reply
    • Remove Preview
    • 13h

    • Soh Wei Yu
    06
    In the seen only the seen is also no seer, no seeing and nothing seen
    John Tan: If seen is just seen, then there is no movement.
    Soh: Movement?
    John Tan: In the seen only the seen is also no seer, no seeing and nothing seen. There is no changing nor unchanging.
    Soh: Ic..
    Soh: The nancy also said the same.. nothing changing or unchanging
    [10:15 pm, 05/10/2021] John Tan: That is ultimate view.
    [10:16 pm, 05/10/2021] John Tan: Conventionally, there is changes and impermanence and origination in dependence as the right way of expression.
    Nancy:
    We are infinite reflections without a source
    Echoes spinning
    Fleeting images
    Flowing thought dreams
    Without sides or a middle
    Dancing without movement or non movement
    without direction or non direction
    There are no colors or rainbows without us
    Without an imaginary persona there is no imaginary heart
    Beating
    Loving all this
    That is not this
    Or that
    Or both
    Or neither
    There is no one to be free or bound
    Or gaze as infinite awe painting the dream scape with colors that cannot be seen
    Only felt
    No one to fall into your unutterable beauty
    Or fall endlessly in love with you
    ….
    At first this felt like, 'I am all this!"
    Then it felt like, 'All this!'
    Later it was .... 'Not even nothing...'
    ….
    no eyes apart from the seeing....
    no ears apart from the hearing
    no sound separate from the listening...
    no wind separate from your cheek
    no love separate from your heart
    no inside
    no outside
    the horizon that held the sky apart from the sea
    untied itself
    the timeline from birth to death collapsed
    as well as the time walker
    and left this knowing and feeling that there are no things
    simply an atemporal seamless flow without movement or non movement....
    no things to be permeant or changing ...
    feels like the first and last kiss ....
    a constant union of what was never apart...
    Soh: Sounds like she went through the stages
    John Tan: 👍
    In the seen only the seen is also no seer, no seeing and nothing seen
    AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM
    In the seen only the seen is also no seer, no seeing and nothing seen
    In the seen only the seen is also no seer, no seeing and nothing seen

    • Reply
    • Remove Preview
    • 13h

    • Soh Wei Yu
    “The next understanding you must have after anatta and emptiness is to know that all qualities similar to those that are described and sounded ontological are always manifesting presently, spontaneously and effortlessly after the purification of anatta and emptiness insights. That is, spontaneous arising is not just saying responding automatically. It is the manifestation of these blissful characteristics of nature spontaneously. Non-arising, unmoving, unchanging, pristiness, clarity... spontaneously present” – John Tan, 2009
    “Mr. T: I cannot find a ground a base, to identify with, everything is changing constantly. Arising and passing away. All of experience, where do I stand?
    Kyle Dixon: Arising and passing away are characteristics of conditioned phenomena. As practitioners of the buddhadharma, our aim is to fully realize the unconditioned nature of phenomena, free of arising and cessation. That natural and perfect nature, is the true refuge.
    Upon realizing that nature, the Buddha stated the following:
    I have obtained the ambrosia of Dharma,� profound, peaceful, immaculate, luminous and unconditioned. �Even though I explain it, no one will understand, �I think I will remain in the forest without speaking. �Free from words, untrained by speech,� suchness, the nature of Dharma, is like space� free from the movements of mind and intellect, �supreme, amazing, the sublime knowledge. �Always like space, �nonconceptual, luminous, �the teaching without periphery or center �is expressed in this Dharmawheel. �Free from existence and nonexistence,� beyond self and nonself, �the teaching of natural nonarising �is expressed in this Dharmawheel.
    — The Ārya-lalitavistara-nāma-mahāyāna-sūtra” – Kyle Dixon, 2021
    Labels: Anatta, Emptiness, Movement, Nancy Neithercut 0 comments | |

    • Reply
    • 13h

    • Soh Wei Yu
    Also, John Tan said before:
    “This is correct. "Permanent" is not referring to something not undergoing change, it refers to the absence of causing of arising.”

    • Reply
    • 13h

    • Michael Hernandez
    His comment on not having views is important. A view sets up a refuge of a temporal permanence. I have them. It is a world view. If we get down to what the view really is it's more that a thought. It's a feeling associated with it.
    For example I feel a certain way about anti-vaxxers. I have this view which is really a feeling that they are ignorant. But that feeling is dislike or disgust. It is a subtle tension around the eyes down into the the gut. This view can lead to thoughts of reasonings.
    A view is my reality right now.
    I have a view when I perceive an attractive person. I like their looks. It occurs to me to they would be a desirable mate. That view exists entirely in my imagination but certainly I feel that attraction. I certainly identify with that perception feeling. My eyes might not be directed at the person but my peripheral vision has them located while all others are blurred out. It is a very temporal experience. And it's my view that they are attractive at this time and place. While they maybe attractive to another person our attractions on examination don't match completely on all points. We slightly different views yet mostly agree. That's politics, religion and ideologies.
    They are absolutely based on now as views change.

    • Reply
    • 1h

    • Soh Wei Yu
    The most crucial views to penetrate is the false view of 'existence' and 'non-existence'. Because that is the root of all grasping and suffering. You cannot grasp 'something' unless it is established to be existent (an attractive person, for example) or that existent thing becomes non-existent (such as the death of a loved one). Non-existence of something depends on apprehending an existent to begin with. What is non-arisen or has never originated to begin with cannot end up in non-existence. The extremes of existence and non-existence is the essential ignorance which reifies all self and phenomena into apparent reality, which is samsara.
    Freedom from extremes and the viewless view of emptiness however does not necessarily mean exactly having no views. Even Buddha had views which may be considered religious or even political (just a quick example: he was against the Brahmanic interpretation of the caste system, he did not support the caste system but was pro equality of all castes). But of course he is not attached to these views as he simply had no attachments whatsoever (otherwise he cannot be called a Buddha or an Arahant). Some views, be it religious, political, ideological, can be harmful and must be refuted strongly. Such as the anti-vax ideology. That is however not an excuse to have hate for these people. Instead, we should feel more compassion for them. However to shun politics/ideology can be another form of spiritual bypassing. Spirituality is not an escapism from the mundane, it is full engagement and full involvement without attachment. Politics is one of the many arenas of mundane life, and even if you may be politically apathetic, we do exercise our voting rights in a democratic country. Spiritual life and mundane life are not two.
    “Actually there is no forcing. All the 4 aspects in I AMness are fully expressed in anatta as I told you. If aliveness is everywhere, how is one not to engage… it is a natural [tendency] to explore in [various] arena[s] and enjoy in business, family, spiritual practices... I [am] involve[d] in Finance, business, society, nature, spirituality, yoga...🤣🤣🤣. I don't find it efforting… You just don't have to boast about this and that and be non-dual and open.” - John Tan/Thusness, 2019

    • Reply
    • 57m
    • Edited

    • Soh Wei Yu
    On how emptiness is not having no views:
    [10:43 PM, 6/6/2020] John Tan: There are two folds to it. Any view is ultimately empty... But freeing one from constructs and conceptualization has a different meaning to me. Like when see through self, we realized anatta. It is not the freeing, but must also involves the arising insight and wisdom.
    I think I mentioned I am not into without view. The freeing from seeing through self is not a form of "not knowing", contrary it is deep wisdom that allows one to understand our nature directly.”
    From Dharmawheel, Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm Smith says Madhyamaka is not a simple minded “I have no view” proposition:
    “gad rgyangs wrote:
    He clearly says in the VV that he has no view to defend. Do you think he was wrong about himself?
    Malcolm wrote:
    He states in the VV that he has no propositions/thesis concerning svabhāva as defined by his opponents. He does not say he has no views at all. For example, he clearly states in the MMK that he prefers the Sammitya view of karma.
    Your claim is similar to the mistaken assertion made by some who claim that Candrakirti never resorts to syllogisms, which in fact he clearly does in the opening lines of the MAV. What Candra disputes is not syllogistic reasoning in its entirety, but rather, syllogistic reasoning applied to emptiness.
    Likewise, he clearly asserts the view in the VV that there is no svabhāva in phenomena. Madhyamaka is not a simple minded "I have no view" proposition.
    ...
    "Madhyamaka is not a simple minded "I have no view" proposition."
    ...
    gad rgyangs wrote:
    then why does the MMK end thusly? MMK 27.30:
    I salute Gautama, who, based on compassion,
    taught the true Dharma for the abandonment of all views.
    Malcolm wrote:
    "All views" here is summarized as two in chapter fifteen: i.e. substantial existence and nonexistence.”
    “The purpose of the view is to open the mind up fully without background, duality and inherency. So that experience is fully open, direct, immediate and without boundaries. Chariot and its basis are not a cause and effect relationship, they originate in dependence.” - John Tan, 2019
    “The truth of the matter is that “pacification of views” is directly related to the realization of emptiness. If you have not realized emptiness, then you have no business talking about a lack of view, because you still perceive conditioned phenomena and are therefore cognitively endowed with “views.” Those views can only be pacified through directly realizing non-arising.
    For some reason you mistakenly believe that “no view” means something like withholding a view, but it has nothing at all to do with that.” – Kyle Dixon, 2021

  • Reply
  • 56m

 

Labels: , 0 comments | | edit post
Apr
23
Buddhism Is Not What You Think
Soh

Here are some excerpts from the book 'Buddhism Is Not What You Think' by Zen teacher Steve Hagen. Thusness and I think the book is very well written and very complete. Highly recommended. Thusness noted that many practitioners stop at the phase of non-dual, few penetrates in-depth and see clearly the meaning of Anatta and Dependent Origination.

However Steve Hagen is able to cover all the insights that Thusness wrote, and be able to link One Mind to Emptiness. Not many people know how to link One Mind to Emptiness. That is, All is Mind due to its empty and luminous essence. All is talking about this moment of manifestation, yet many cling to Oneness and cannot see the D.O. nature. As Thusness wrote to Longchen previously, This is also the understanding of why Everything is the One Reality incorporating causes, conditions and luminosity of our Empty nature as One and inseparable. Everything as the One Reality should never be understood from a dualistic/inherent standpoint.

Steve Hagen is one of the few who are able to capture the essence of Buddhism and explain it eloquently to his readers, urging them to SEE (and not believe or conceptualize) the truth in direct perception.

I have collected three of his books which are all very good, Buddhism Is Not What You Think: Finding Freedom Beyond Beliefs; Meditation Now or Never; Buddhism Plain & Simple. Buddhism Plain & Simple is a more simplified version which is more suitable for beginners as an introduction, Meditation Now or Never is more on meditation practice, while Buddhism Is Not What You Think is a deeper, more in-depth exploration of the teaching.

Amazon link to Steve Hagen's books: http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Hagen/e/B001ILMDIW/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1


Here's a review by Joan Tollifson:

http://www.joantollifson.com/recommend.html

STEVE HAGEN: Buddhism Is Not What You Think: Finding Freedom Beyond Beliefs; Meditation Now or Never; Buddhism Plain & Simple; and How the World Can Be the Way It Is: An Inquiry for the New Millennium into Science, Philosophy, and Perception. These are all outstanding and very highly recommended books, especially Buddhism Is Not What You Think. Steve is one of the clearest and most articulate living Zen teachers I've come across. I recommend him for his subtle understanding of emptiness, impermanence, and true nonduality, and also for his intelligent approach to meditation and "practice." Steve is excellent at clarifying the distinction between conceptual thought and direct perception or awareness. He is excellent at exposing conceptual reifications, especially the most subtle and ubiquitous ones, which are so easily mistaken for reality. He sheds light on the thinking mind's habitual tendency to try to grasp reality conceptually, and then to mistake the map for the territory. I especially appreciate how Steve talks about emptiness, not as a formless, nihilistic void or a big empty space, but rather, as thorough-going flux, the impermanence that "is so complete, so thorough, that nothing is formed in the first place to be impermanent." This is the Zen understanding of emptiness or no-self. Emptiness is everything, as it is -- the seamless wholeness in which there really are no separate, substantial, persisting, independent "things" to be found, except as ideas in conceptual thought. Steve teaches formal Zen practice in a pretty bare, plain, stripped-down way, but it is still rigorous and ritualized. I'm not drawn anymore to this kind of strict, formal Zen practice, so some aspects of Steve's approach don't resonate here, but the essential core of what he says is outstanding. His book on meditation, Meditation Now or Never, has some chapters in it that are absolutely superb, and it's not just about meditation, it's about life. (Again, I don't resonate with the insistence on formal practice or with the necessity of certain forms, postures and hand positions, but if you can take that part lightly as simply suggestions and possibilities, then the essence of what he's saying about meditation and living life is right on the mark -- see especially chapters 17, 28, 33, 34, 10 and 2 in this book -- beautiful!). Steve is truly humble, down to earth, articulate, bright and very awake. A Zen priest in the lineage of Dainin Katagiri and a former science researcher, Steve heads the Dharma Field Meditation and Learning Center in Minneapolis, and if you're looking for a Zen center, this is a truly wonderful place. Norm Randolph, who also teaches there, is also wonderful. Books, tapes, excellent classes on CD, a newsletter that frequently includes articles by Steve and Norm, talks on-line and more information here. Very highly recommended.

------------

Quotations from 'Buddhism Is Not What You Think':

...All things are like this. Indeed, it's impossible for any conceived object not to be like this. Nothing stands on its own. Nothing has its own being. Each thing is inseparable from, and inter-identical with, all that it's not.

Thus perception is an objectless Awareness since, when we just see, what is truly seen involves not objects but the Whole. Nothing actually forms as an object; nothing stands apart. No matter where we look, there's just this.

Here's another example of a foolish-sounding Zen question that is actually an expression of just seeing: What is the sound of one hand clapping? When we conceive of a hand, it's just a single, isolated hand, and we're puzzled at the question. To clap, we need two hands. But this is approaching the question in our ordinary way - that is, conceptually.

With naked perception however, we see that a hand is not a separate and distinct hand. Everything is included with it. One hand clapping is the sound of two hands clapping is the sound of ten hands clapping. It's the sound before and after two hands clap. It's also the sound before and after one hand claps.

Conceptually, we think that sound is sound and silence is silence. The two seem neatly separated and distinct - in fact, opposite of each other. But this is only how we think, how we conceptualize. This is not how Reality is perceived, before we put everything into neat, nicely labelled (but deceptive) little packages.

We think there only has to be sound for there to be sound. We overlook that there must also be silence for there to be sound. And because of sound, there is silence. Were there no sound, how could there be silence?

Before you strike a bell, a sound is already here. After you strike the bell, the sound is here. When the sound fades and dies away, the sound is still here. The sound is not just the sound but the silence, too, And the silence is the sound. This is what is actually perceived before we parse everything out into this and that, into "myself" and "what I hear."

The sound of the bell is inseparable from everything that came before and that will come after as well as from everything that appears now. This includes your eardrum, which vibrates in response to it. It includes the air, which pulses with varying waves of pressure in response to it.

It includes the stick that strikes the bell. It includes the metallurgists, past and present, and those who learned to extract metal from ore and those who fashioned the bell. And it includes that ancient furnace, that supernova obliterated long ago in which this metal formed.

Remove any of these - indeed, remove anything at all - and there can be no sound of the bell. The sound of the bell is thus not "the sound of the bell." It is the entire Universe...

....

.....What Nagarjuna is pointing to is that believing things are impermanent involves a contradiction. First we posit separate, persisting things (in effect, absolute objects); and then we refer to them as impermanent (that is relative). What we fail to see is that we are still holding to a view of substance. We don't really appreciate the thoroughgoing nature of change, the thorough-going nature of selflessness.

We don't really appreciate the thoroughgoing nature of change, the thorough-going nature of selflessness. Nagarjuna makes it abundantly clear that impermanence (the relative) is total, complete, thoroughgoing, Absolute. It's not that the universe is made up of innumerable objects in flux. There's Only flux. Nothing is (or can be) riding along in the flux, like a cork in a stream; nothing actually arises or passes away. There's only stream.

..... That forms appear to come and go cannot be denied. But to assume the existence of imaginary persisting entities and attach them to these apparent comings and goings is delusion....

....

"The Song of the Jewel Mirror Awareness," a poem by the great Chinese Zen teacher Tung-shan, speaks of the very same Awareness that the Buddha pointed to. This image of a jewel mirror was used as a way to express the source from which all things issue. All the myriad things, thoughts, and feelings we experience appear like images in a mirror: vivid yet insubstantial. The ungraspable mirror is what's Real, while the seemingly isolated things that appear in it are not.

Consider for example, the simple act of smelling a rose. We see the rose, feel the rose, bring it close, breathe in through our nose. We "smell the rose," as we say, though this refers more to how we conceptualize our experience than it does to what is actually experienced. To say we smell a fragrance would be closer to the actual experience.

But where does the act of smelling a fragrance takes place? If we attend carefully, we can see that all of our usual accounts of the experience start to break down.

Is the fragrance in the rose? If it was, how could you smell it? You're here while the rose is "out there" somewhere. On the other hand, if the rose were removed, you surely wouldn't smell the fragrance. But if you were removed - or if the air in between you and the rose were removed - you also wouldn't smell it.

So is the fragrance in the rose? Is it in your nose? Is it in the air in between? Is it in the air if no one is around to smell it? If so, how could we tell? Is the fragrance in your brain, then? And if it's in your brain, then why is the rose necessary at all?

Ultimately, the simple act of "smelling a rose" - or any other act involving a subject and object - becomes impossible to pin down and utterly insubstantial.

Gradually, however, we can begin to appreciate what the experience of smelling a rose actually entails. It's of the nature of the mirror itself - that is, that the source of all experience is Mind. As such, the act of smelling - or seeing or hearing or touching or thinking - literally has no location. This non-locality is the very essence of Mind.

....

From his other earlier book, 'Buddhism Plain and Simple'



Buddhism Plain and Simple page 115, by Zen Teacher Steve Hagen:

With the two types of views there are two kinds of minds. As human beings, we all have what we could call ordinary minds - the mind that you've always assumed you've had. It's a calculating mind, a discriminating mind, a fragmented mind. It's the mind of ordinary consciousness, the mind of self and other. We generally think of it as "my mind."

But there's another mind that is unborn, ungrown, and unconditioned. Unlike "your mind," it is unbound, for there is nothing beyond it. To this Mind, there is no "other mind."

This Mind is nothing other than the Whole. It's simply thus, the fabric of the world itself - the ongoing arising and falling away that are matter, energy and events.

Speaking of this Mind, the great Chinese Zen master Huang Po said,

All buddhas and ordinary people are just One Mind... This Mind is beyond all measurements, names, oppositions: this very being is It; as soon as you stir your mind you turn away from It.

This Mind is self-evident - it's always switched on, so to speak. We can - and, in fact, we do - see It in every moment. If we would refrain from stirring our minds (rest our frontal lobes, as my Zen teacher used to say) and let our conceptualising die down, like the ripples on a pond after the stirring wind has ceased, we would realise - we would know Mind directly.
(Steve Hagen)
.
.
.
Ultimate Truth, on the other hand, is direct perception. And what is directly perceived (as opposed to conceive) is that no separate, individualised things exist as such. There's nothing to be experienced but this seamless, thoroughgoing relativity and flux.

In other words, there are no particulars, but only thus.

....

When the Buddha spoke of individuals, he often used a different term: "stream." Imagine a stream flowing-eonstantly moving and changing, always different from one moment to the next. Most of us see ourselves as corks floating in a stream, persisting things moving along in the stream of time. But this is yet another frozen view.

According to this view, everything in the stream changes except the cork. While we generally admit to changes in our body, our mind, our thoughts, our feelings, our understandings, and our beliefs, we still believe, "I myself don't change. I'm still me. I'm an unchanging cork in an ever-changing stream." This is precisely what we believe the self to be-something that doesn't change.

The fact is, however, that there are no corks in the stream. There is only stream. What we conceptualize as "cork" is also stream. We are like music. Music, after all, is a type of stream. Music exists only in constant flow and flux and change. Once the movement stops, the music is no more. It exists not as a particular thing, but as pure coming and going with no thing that comes or goes.

Look at this carefully. If this is true-how a stream exists, how music exists, and how we exist-see how it is that when we insert the notion of "I" we've posited some little, solid entity that floats along, not as stream, but like a cork in a stream. We see ourselves as solid corks, not as the actual stream we are.

If we are the stream, what is it that experiences the flux, the flow, the change? The Buddha saw that there is no particular thing that is having an experience. There is experience, but no experiencer. There is perception, but no perceiver. There is consciousness, but no self that can be located or identified.


Labels: , , , , , , , 1 comments | | edit post