LucidFlight wrote:So... pudgala. How do you feel we can improve our lives through your teachings?

First I want to point out LucidFlight's use of the word feel in her question. A body can feel hot, cold, tired, sad, angry, depressed, etc., but what kind of feeling is improve lives through teaching? How do you feel we can improve our lives through your teachings? is a sentient question asking me if I hold such a sentiment or belief in my mind—I do not.

And further I offer no teachings or preachings of my own. I am a Zen dust-devil that enjoys putting together posts like this. How they're interpreted, used, or abused is a function of the viewer's perceptual strategies. A number of wise human beings have arrived at this same understanding:

"We don't see things as they are – we see them as we are!"

pudgala2 wrote:This is a reference posting where I can refer interested posters as to my understanding of the pivotal concept of sentience. I am not a teacher and I have no interest in arguing, persuading, or proving anything to anyone—the end of suffering is all I'm interested in. And I enjoy using this computer and posting my best understanding of what works for me. If it doesn't work for you continue on your own way.

The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch is not mine but it works for me and I'm just using it here to shed some light on the meaning of sentience.

pudgala2 wrote:The Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch:
We have now vowed to deliver [give up, let go of] an infinite number of sentient beings; but what does that mean? ... Each of them has to be delivered [dispelled] by oneself by means of his own Essence of Mind; only by his own deliverance, is it genuine.

Now, what does it mean, "delivering oneself by one's own Essence of Mind?' It means the deliverance of the ignorant, delusive, and the vexatious beings that spring up within our own mind, by means of Right Views [Four Noble Truths of Suffering]. With the aid of Right Views and Prajna [perspicacity], the [belief] barriers thrown up by these delusive and ignorant beings may be broken down; so that each of us will be in a position to deliver himself by his own efforts. .

Note: My postings are only for those who are seeking an end to suffering. Anyone current in Western psychology will realize the insights expressed in the Platform Sutra are just now beginning to reappear in effective cognitive emotive psychotherapy.





Plato employs the maxim 'Know Thyself' extensively by having the character of Socrates use it to motivate his dialogues. Plato makes it clear that Socrates is referring to a long-established wisdom. ~ Wikipedia

Impartial self observation leads to self awakening which leads to self liberation. ~ Vernon Howard

This is a philosophy forum—not a day care center for immature trolls.

Being with the immature is like going on a long journey with an enemy. ~ Buddha

"The primary motivation of the average human being is to hurt someone else in order to give himself a false thrill; so that he feels what he calls good which is self destruction." Vernon Howard

Wake Up! Grow Up! Lighten Up!

Posting Pathway of pudgala2:
1st Zen Haiku, 2nd DefCon, 3rd DefCon, 4th DefCon, 5th DefCon, 6th Buddha, 7th Sentience, 8th SixthPatriarch,
9th Nut Cases, 10th HoundDog

Seek help

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

LucidFlight wrote:I'm not sure how I feel about this.

Do you mean how you feel about being female....

pudgala2 wrote:

My postings are only for those who are seeking an end to suffering.

Then shouldn't you be telling people that the light is always present in the mind, the way to end suffering is to recognise the light that is there and ignore [forget] the shadow?
Your thread title states the absence implies of [presumably 'desirable'] light, thus implies the need to acquire the light or find the light or reach the state of standing in the light.

I suggest the end of suffering comes from stopping doing the wrong things rather than from starting doing the right things, or so I found. This could be stated as 'the root of suffering is wrong self identification, and the end of suffering comes when he stops identifying himself as that which can suffer'.

Fenrir wrote:Seek help

The only help Pudgala2 needs is the help of a translator to speak English on his behalf.

Little Idiot wrote:

Fenrir wrote:Seek help

The only help Pudgala2 needs is the help of a translator to speak English on his behalf.

The english in the OP is excellent.

Being unable to discern any coherent direction is not a problem with the english used.

I'm rather more concerned with the coherence (or lack of it) of the OP than whether i can twist it to comport to some vague wibble of my own.

LucidFlight wrote:I'm not sure how I feel about this.

Well, at least you know how to use the word "feel" properly.

LucidFlight wrote:I'm not sure how I feel about this.

Don't worry your purdy little head about it, darlin'. Now why don't you pop the kettle on?

pudgala2 wrote:is a sentient question asking me if I hold such a sentiment or belief in my mind—I do not.

Can a question be sentient, going around asking people things? Well, I can't really tell you, because I'm the delicate seed of a dandelion, floating on the winds of nature's inherent causality, through the windows of day care centres, and across the meadows and car parks of modern reality. How does one hold a sentiment in the mind, in the same way that a rock is held upon a riverbed, or in the hand of an animal with opposable thumbs? Well, I'm not really sure. What does it all mean?

pudgala2 wrote:

I used to be a werewolf, but I'm alright noooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWW!!!

pudgala2 wrote:

Socrates: The unexamined life is not worth living

Well, that's just something Socrates says.

It was easy for Socrates, as a wealthy Greek, to say that, but what of his slaves?

I've been reading the OP like instructions from Ikea, turning it around, looking at the front and back, and still can't make sense of it.

It's a kind of dadaism.

pudgala2 wrote: How do you feel we can improve our lives through your teachings?[/i] is a sentient question asking me if I hold such a sentiment or belief in my mind—I do not.

You said in your reference post that (my numbers);
(1) sentient—capable of feelings, beliefs, opinions, or convictions about something.

(2) sentient beings: denotes specific beliefs, opinions, convictions, etc. held in the mind. You could generalize the term and use it to refer to human beings who are so dense, opinionated, zealous, or self righteous that they appear to be solid and not compositional but then you would not see the individual trees that make up the forest of bewilderment in which they are lost.


From substuituting (1) into (2) any sentient being must be a being which has sentience, and thus is a being capable of feelings, beliefs, opinions, or convictions about something. A sentient being must have a mechanism to be so capable, lets call this mechanism 'mind'

Now you say 'How do you feel we can improve our lives through your teachings?[/i] is a sentient question'

So you say the question is sentient, which means by (1) the question has a mind (or other mechaninsm) that enables it to be 'capable of feelings, beliefs, opinions, or convictions'.
This is clearly nonsense, as the mind providing any sentience is the mind of the one thinking of the question ('your mind') the question has no sentience apart from what you provide. Like all questions, and all thoughts without your attention it disappears, its only power comes from you, its only existence is in you and it depends upon your sentience, not its own.


Since you also said 'Suffering is an alarm telling mind it is time to wake up, pay attention, and return to Original Mind by releasing the sentient beings composing the personal and artificial sense of self that is suffering.'
I assume you mean something along the lines of withdraw your attention from these thoughts/questions (and return attention to Original Mind). It's going to be a lot easier to be understood if you stick to a more conventional use of the words 'sentience' and 'being' - ascribe sentience and being to the person, not not to the question, assuming you have a mild interest in anyone being able to access the content of your post, its a lot more practical to try use a fairly mainstream understanding of terms like these.

(That's what I was pointing out when I said something about a translator earlier)

Just a load of shit. The guy needs serious help. He posted 11 times and how many threads as he started? 4 or so?

Spinozasgalt wrote:It's a kind of dadaism.

One dream, one soul, one prize
One goal, one golden glance of what should be.

One shaft of light that shows the way.
No modern man can win this day.

I suppose that the moral of this story is that the forum moderators are more tolerant of preaching from assholes who subscribe to Eastern traditions than from Christian assholes.

That's a double standard. All of the preaching needs to result in moderator action.