No, I don't think of it that way. To me it seems that ego is part of the conventional truth.

For instance, a rock may be part of the conventional truth (or conventional reality) but a rock is not ego.

I don't follow your last sentence though.

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Thank you, this kind of discussion can lead to me explaining my logic. We have to entertain the concept and relate about it. If we see no room for it, then I can't clarify anything.

The rock as you are thinking about it, IS conventional truth, however no such rock exists.

Only thoughts on rocks exist, without thought there is no rock, no thinker, and no way to convey a rock exists.

Right, but now you are talking about what Buddhists would call the Deep truth.

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Alright i am in the dark as to what you are pointing out. So we have to clarify it because I am not familiar with the words and terms and system of understanding. So you may have to explain slowly so as we don't skip something or make an assumption that needs to be clarified.

But as for what you agree with there, I am hoping we agree that the 'ego' can essential be turn on with thought, and without thought there is no ego. The rock too doesn't exist without a thought upon it, and there is no way to show that it does without thought/ego.

So every time we look for ego, it is there, but that is not to come to the conclusion that ego is always there.

Well, its something I mentioned earlier, something we have discussed before and parrallels the union of Method and Wisdom. [URL = http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine#section_2]The Doctrine of Two Truths[/URL]

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Ok so we have one truth which is the daily human and daily living, and the deep truth we is when we don't turn the ego on. We dont' have thoughts that validate the self, and thus are left selfless egoless and timeless.

You are protesting my separation of the 2. But we have to make sure that we are not resisting a separation because of a certain doctrine. We should be able to test it ourselves, to prove it wrong etc. and if its correct then we might say the doctrine is wrong, or we might say that we have misunderstood the doctrine.

But we must remember the doctrine itself is manifested through the non deep truth, that is by ego and human thought, not buddas thought, but YOUR thought, that is when you end thinking, there is no two truths doctrine and never was, nor was there someone to interpret it.

So really the question is, what happens when we turn off the faucet (ego/thought/self) forever? or do we still think this is not possible. I think you agree it can be done for a small period of time (meditation) but what if we do it eternally?

Nothing is eternal.


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No 'thing' is eternal. the tao IS eternal. It is timeless. We are talking about a timeless place, we can use the word duration if that helps. We are talking a place we time neither starts nor finishes.

Or to satisfy you better, we will not bring thought, ego, time anything to being again, we want to know what happens when these things never again arise.

You are or were claiming perhaps that this isn't possible I want to question that and if we find out its possible I want to enquire into what happens if we do it.

Too bad you have to deal with being a "thing."


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Ok we have regressed to the question of what is ego again.....Who is it that has to deal with this?

No dude... We haven't. We are dealing with the Two Truths.

What we have once again regressed to is you denying the conventional. Which is fine, you don't have to think its right, but by now you should have at least some understanding of the point of view.

It is not a denial. Are we to take the doctrine as holy and truth, or are we going to go into and see for ourselves?

Is it in the spirit of Buddha's teachings to deny whats obvious and what we can test because of what we think we understand, from someone else conveying to us, through at least one translation of language, that originates 10k years ago channeled through rsis, through deities, through the cosmos.

In other words we need to match scripture to what is, not match what is to scripture.

We can cleary eliminate the conventional, therefore it is not needed.

It is not a denial, it ceasing to validate it.-not an action, but instead a cessation of the act of validation.

Validating it is not an ego that validates the conventional, the Ego IS the conventional, they are the same movement. When you see this you will see the the two truths doctrine still holds truth, yet the conventional is no longer valid.

yes the point of view, of some buddhists, but not buddha. Buddha ceased the thoughts that were his ego.

I am not interested in point of view, I am interested in tangible logical truth not based on any doctrine or interpretation as all buddists (of which i am not) should be.

Dude, you really need to work on not being so condescending ... this is it - after this I am done dealing with you. Your "I am right, you are wrong" attitude keeps you from having any communication with anyone else. You are a broken record, anytime someone says something you disagree with you just say - oh you are indoctrinated. You just assume that no one has tested this against their experience. That is insulting - but you appear to be too wrapped up in yourself to even realize you are being an *******.

Anyhow - you are completely off the mark. You can not deny the conventional. Buddha tried, it didn't work. It wasn't until he had the realization of the middle way that he attained enlightenment.

I have an experiment for you - go and deny the conventional truths of reality, so do not eat or drink water (or any liquid) for a month. Tell me how it works.

Heres the thing would you rather me assume that you have an arogance problem and so I sugar coat my words for you. Or would you rather I assume that you are arrogantless (egoless) and therefore i don't have to sugar coat my words. Which offends you the most as someone who studied buddhism, which should offend you the most?

I am correct and I will show you why, once you get over the feeling you are being condescended. If you keep come back to the fact that I sound like I'm talking down to you, then I'm afraid your ego got in the way and we aren't able to communicate in the first place.


We spent the whole time talking about my words and my condesendingnes and haven't even gotten to the point. How about brush aside my tone, like Buddha would and then we can have a real discussion. Afterwards when you clearly see that I am correct, we can talk about my tone. But if you are going to say my tone needs to change before you give my notion a chance, I'm going to suggest you start from the beginning of buddhism agian or Christ either way.

No your belief that it should come between me and you is stopping you from seeing something simple and blatantly obvious. I'm not really into sugar coating my words with someone who should know better.


I see now that you think the two truths doctrine is not a doctrine.
Why are why talking in the air, its so simple, test yourself and prove me wrong. I can't find ANYONE who has tested it, but I know some people that have, Buddha, Jesus, JK, Lee....

I notice you get insulted EXTREMELY easily.
Why do you get to just say this, when we can test it but you refuse to test it since I am not talking to you in the tone you want me to?
You are saying these words but refuse to try it. That makes them dogma.

You don't know this, you read this.

I'm going to show you the realization he had.
ITS RIGHT HERE, YOU THINK YOU HAVE A SOLID FOUNDATION, THIS STATEMENT DOES NOT BY ANY MEANS WHATSOEVER CONTRADICT WHAT I AM SAYING

when your ego is not so bruised, come back we'll have a real discussion.

Do you even know the story of Buddha's life? Of his enlightenment?

Seriously, you talk a big game but offer nothing but insults and talk down to people. All you have to say is, "That's cool, I have a different view" Instead you insult people and tell them they are wrong. Believe what you want, its all good - but, you shouldn't assume that people haven't really thought things through and tested hypothesis against their experience. That is condescending, arrogant and prickish.

I offered you an experiment to test the validity of the Conventional Truth - try it see how it works. It didn't work for Shakyamuni, but maybe it will work for you.

Ciao

fyp

I know what changed him. I know he was a follower of the vedas before he went of to 40 something days of meditation before he came back 'enlightened'. Some people think he denounced the vedas when he came back.

I know that his teaching is truth, but all offshoots that radiate beyond his present moment are corruptions of this truth.

This game is your own insecurity, I don't talk anything big, I said I know what buddha knew. Neither me nor Buddha thinks this is big game talk.


I have not put out and insult, you choose to take these words that way, I've said many times in this thread it is your own insecurity that allows me to offend you. and I think it would be more offensive if i treated you like someone who couldn't handle it.

This is not true though, would you like me to pretend that its just a new perspective so that I can spoon feed it to you? Isn't that talking down? I think that would be REAL condescending.


yes I told them they are wrong but you shouldn't count that as an insult. If been very clear, I would like to keep this direct, but now we have 10 pages of you feeling insulted and expressing that feeling.

Its not an assumption its a blatent observation that you an others haven't. Once you give it a chance you'll see why that is a logical FACT.


These are names that you have resorted to calling me.

This experiment does not test what we are questioning whatsoever not even the slightest bit.

newguy: Stop. Stop parsing. Start over. Forgive. Forgive me, nek, everyone. No theory. Say what you're willing to say of that which you've realized for yourself...

Not sure what you meant, I just want to be clear, I don't need a change of tone from someone else before I will release something I know because I require respect or something like that . I need that change first otherwise the words are useless.

Again not sure what you mean here, possible its a positive quip.
But I want to be clear I can logically explain this 'test' but one has to do it for oneself. I cannot do it for someone, the have to do the 'experiment' themself.

I don't have anything to forgive, im not holding something in because I'm upset, I'm 'not saying it' because the words hold no meaning without context

1)Nek realizes the differences between the two pillars (many names for the two things), described in the two truths doctrine.

2)I don't know if Nek see that we can turn off the conventional truth. Nek agrees we can, or Nek disagrees and believes (knows we cannot).

3)The question, if we believe we can 'turn off' conventional truth is what happens if we turn it off forever.

4)I'm not sure if Nek believes that is impossible, or if he believes that we should not do it because the two truths doctrine says we should not.

5)Newguy1234 thinks we can turn off the conventional, and that we should, and wants to discuss the ramifications of doing this.

6)Newguy1234 cannot discuss the ramifications with Nek, as Nek won't validate the possibility of this action.


all this so far should be simple and clear.

I said, no theory. I don't even know what you mean by turning off the conventional. Have you done it? Are you walking around right now with the conventional turned off? Can you turn it off for the next 30 minutes? 30 seconds?

ahh i missed this little thing, keep in mind words have different meaning to me, so sometimes I miss the easiest of contexts. It HAS to be theory, when we discuss it, that is the only thing that is not theory is ACTUALLY doing it for oneself. However discussion of the theory will help.

In other words I cannot show you, you have to show yourself.

This is the nature of the highest discussion of truth....everything else can be tested externally, this one thing must be tested internally.

We are talking about a moment of 'no thought' the moment where we don't validate thought, some will call this meditation, some will call it the opposite of meditation (people who think we should meditate on a subject for instance)
I have to be condescending for a moment, forgive me for this one as I feel its not my fault: but yes obviously.


I am gong to dodge this slightly for now, and for good reason. We need to concentrate not on me and my results, because then instead of examining the truth of it all people will just ask me to fly without dying etc. But the simplest answer is yes.

Also we should remember for you anything external to your mind is produced by thought, so what I can do shouldn't matter or make a difference the real question is can the "I" do it.
This is what I will ask of you. My question first is can you turn it off for one instant.....? If you can then we can move on....

It's "off", go on...

PS. No theory please.

Firstly its all theory because its words and conversation, and words are not the thing or the description is not the described. Anyways....

If your are being superficial, just to proceed, it won't help.

But if we can put the mind into a state in which there is no thought, for just one moment. Then go to that place and tell me where time is in that state.

That is not to say......... to do it (choiceless awareness CA ), and then reflect on it...... but rather to be in CA and in that moment where is time? So to be in that moment, but not to reflect....where is time?