Consciousness Experiencing Itself as Temporal Reality

The Unmanifested vibrates both through this phenomenal existence and as this phenomenal existence.The 8^th verse of the Buddhist masterpiece The Heart Sutra (Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya) goes:

“Whatever is Form, that is Emptiness and whatever is Emptiness, that is Form”

[whatever ("yad") is ("sa") form ("rūpa"), that is emptiness ("śūnyātā"), whatever ("ya") is ("sa") emptiness ("śūnyātā"), that ("tad") is ("sa") form ("rūpa")]

But what about looking in the mirror at the Heart Sutra with this statement in reverse:

“yad nāmarūpam sa satya ya satya tad nāmarūpam” ?

I am again inclined to regard Buddhism as Advaita Vedānta reflected in a mirror. This statement from The Heart Sutra, in a Vedāntic treatise would read:

“yad nāmarūpam sa satya ya satya tad nāmarūpam”,

That is:

“All that is Name and Form is Being and whatever is Being is equally Name and Form.”

India has had this great gift of skillfully handling the paradoxical language.
In order to clarify this statement in reverse, I'm quoting below from an older post:

“When the Consciousness objectifies itself as a visible form, or, in other words, when the consciousness experiences itself as a temporal reality, only then can It be conceptualized. When the One Consciousness reveals itself as an object or a thought, it paradoxically and simultaneously obscures itself. This is why it is so hard to see beyond the world of dancing and playing forms (Skr. “rūpa”) and concepts (Skr. “nāma”), the underlying reality. However, the objectified, the manifested or the visible aspect of reality, as a whole, in other words, this dance of māyā represents, for India, just a symbolic representation of the absolute Being or the Unmanifested, that vibrates both through this phenomenal existence and as this phenomenal existence.” (http://luciandantes.blogspot.ro/2014/02/thresholds-of-awareness.html)

We All Have Our Own Bodhi Tree

Under the Bodhi Tree, Prince Siddhartha Gautama was just sitting, in absolute silence. He lost any interest in any purpose whatsoever and gave up any desire of reaching awakening.

This is why we now have the Buddha.

Each of us has their own Bodhi Tree.

Any quest for understanding is a quest for liberation in disguise.
The same principle applies in the Buddha’s case. The need to understand conditioning/limitations arises in humans, not out of simple curiosity, of course, but out of the need for deconditioning. Unfortunately, we have this strange persistent determination: in our journey toward deconditioning, we create new mind patterns and so we add new layers of conditioning between us and the final liberation that we seek, always pushing it forward in a future that never comes.

We forget all the time that, by definition, the future never comes.

What actually could have happened to the Buddha?

First: A traumatic event: he crosses the threshold of the paradisiac, protective environment as he steps out of his comfort zone and acquires this straightforward visualization of illness, old age and death. These moments of despondency equate with the call to adventure, to a heroic endeavor, and with a new type of mindset, that is: a new type of conditioning.

Second: he accepts the challenge, starts questioning everything and leaves the protection of the environment, the mirage, the world of appearances and so he sets off for a seeking adventure that we all are very familiar with, because there are so many seekers around us and there is a seeker in each of us as well.

This is his philosophical and ascetical stage. During the quest, he becomes acquainted with all major philosophies of India and with all religious belief systems of his time. In addition, he gets along well in yoga practices.

Nevertheless, this is not the Buddha yet, this is only an exchange of IDs.

He just traded the illusion of a prince who is terrified by illness, old age and death for the life of renunciation. Not only did he see the appearances of suffering, but also, he found himself ensnared by the illusory powers of a monk, whose meditative demeanor would have seemed, back at the moment of his departure, as the only way out of suffering.

Illumination is now the last desire that he’s got left, an ardent desire that makes him push every spiritual practice beyond the limit. This is his new hope, his new dream and his new kind of expectation. Namely: the enlightenment that will happen sometimes, soon, in the future, as a result of renunciation and constant practice.

Henceforth, he exchanges the identity of a prince for the identity of a philosopher and a wondering monk. He is in this stage a seeker of enlightenment; he is seeking a state of mind where there is no suffering.

Now, don't get me wrong, this effort was necessary, like the training in the ballet. The movements in ballet seem effortless because there is such a great deal of effort behind, that is -all those years of hard work and exercise. Therefore, this need for understanding was a preparatory stage to both the Enlightenment and to the later doctrine of the Eightfold Path.

The last stage, under the Bodhi Tree, is that stage where the former prince Siddhartha and present mendicant leaves the vehicle behind: the seeking, the effort, the journey, the idea of a purpose, the idea of identity, the idea of idea, the need for understanding, the path itself.

He now comes to this realization:

How could there be a path, when there is no tomorrow?

I have come to realize that only when the human being that we know call the Buddha was able to give up the effort (the need to understand, to explain, to achieve awakening etc.), then and only then he actually awakened.

This supreme renunciation, which is giving up the desire to reach enlightenment, made him capable of looking at himself with an equal eye and in a state of utter equanimity. Prince Siddhartha, the monk, the philosopher, the Awakened One and "this body" and "emptiness" – they all are the same thing. In other words, he was able to assume each of these evanescent identities and, at last, to look at himself from the highest perspective, which is the radiant core of the consciousness of the entire Universe. This means that at this final stage he doesn’t care that much about any of these identities because, in essence, he comes to the realization that there is no identity whatsoever.

There is no clinging, no fear, no attachment, no duty and no identity, besides the functional-relational one. Of course, he remains fully aware that this is a human body, this is its masculine gender; this body must be fed and so forth. However, there is no subject of suffering anymore there to be found, there is no longer an "I" and no duality. The body is going to encounter pain, old age, illness and death, BUT there is a still point, a motionless place within, and he is now capable to seal off this center of pure awareness from any suffering, as the sense of the “I” has vanished. Nirvana is the pure and peaceful awareness that has remained after extinguishing the flame of the “I”.

There is no suffering anymore because there is no longer a sufferer.

This is what happened when the ego dissolved completely, as the need to reach Enlightenment was the last barrier between him and Enlightenment.

For both conventional and teaching reasons, he might have continued to act in the world in this or that way, but the sense that there is an "I" was no longer active in him, even when he would speak in first person, delivering sermons and so on.

The stage after the last stage: teaching - return journey and the necessity of a map

The Buddha did not follow and did not need the Eightfold Path for himself. He creates this kind of design in order to make this process of deconditioning accessible to others and I don't think that in creating this (let's say) therapeutic doctrine he has to struggle too much. It just pours out. He doesn't make any additional effort, the understanding is there, so complete, that the entire Universe is now speaking through his mouth. The effort is purely physiological: he just has to open up his mouth and speak.

The Buddha has ventured into uncharted waters by himself and when he later "returns" to the community, he draws up a map for the rest of the humankind. Therefore, we now think that the map is necessary, and there is a yonder shore. Nevertheless, for him, no map had been necessary and in the last stage of his quest, under the Bodhi Tree, he discovers that when the effort comes to a halt, the yonder shore is everywhere and everything. All this adventure of the Buddha was necessary maybe in order to prove that the center is everywhere.

The center is total awareness.

 We all have our own Bodhi-Tree

There is a tree of enlightenment for every one of us, waiting for us, ready for us, specially designed for us. We spend our entire lives running and running to get there and sit down under our own Bodhi Tree.

Eventually, we realize that it can’t be somewhere out there, but it’s in here and everywhere at the same time. There is no need to plan, to go or to run in order to grasp it sometimes in the future. We can give up the path altogether.

We just have to open up to the suchness of any given experience and thereby sanctify the place and the moment we are in.

Joseph Campbell broken down? Ethnic vs. World Religions

“Buddhism was the first of the world religions, as contrasted with the ethnic religions, the local religions into which one is born. One is born a Hindu; one is born a Jew; one chooses to profess Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam.” (J. Campbell: Myths of Light: Eastern Metaphors of the Eternal)

After being admonished myself by a contributor to Philosophy of Religion Community that there is no such thing as “ethnic religion”, I admitted that he might be right and that J. Campbell's distinction should pass some tests, since the respective contributor told me that he knows personally quite a few Hindu converts.

 I am always eager to experience new things. After getting myself auto-excommunicated recently from the Atheism Community, under the charges of posting on spiritual communities, which is a mortal sin and heresy in any respectable system of militant atheism, I decided to seek various public views whenever I come across such inciting ideas as “ethnic vs. world religions”, because this kind of public discussions are more able to enlarge my own perspectives an get a clearer picture than traditional scholarly works.

I think this is the new kind of scientific approach, not only from the perspective of a comparative History of Religions, so I decided to ask our readers and contributors to share their views on the subject, provided that the overall attitude is a moderate one and, whenever possible, academic references are provided.

The fruitful, rational and moderate dialogue on religion, art, philology and philosophy between the Occident and the Orient that had been enlivened by the European pioneering sanskritists and sinologists during the 18^th century was followed by various cultural and religious exchanges throughout the following two centuries. These in turn have led to so many mutual influences upon the studied religious systems themselves and even to undeniable syncretism. This long and complex evolution makes a hard toil out of any 21^th century attempt to write a coherent and systematic history of religions, because many distinctions and characteristics which were common-sense prerequisites to a proper religious interpretation and scientific methodology 100 years ago are now obsolete.

I arrived, therefore, to the conclusion that such distinctions as “East and West” and “Ethnic and Universal” are mere valuable tools for organizing the colossal amount of available material in the hands of those enthusiastic scholars preparing a new “History of Religion”-sort of analytical work in five volumes, which requires them to append the afferent bibliography to the book. The boundaries between East and West, ethnic and global, tend to be erased in our era dominated by internet and scientific discoveries.

Such a discussion on “ethnic vs. world” distinction in a comparative approach of religions is meant solely to provide some directions and signposts in this large and complex area of religious-related studies referred to in academic area as “History of Religion” discipline.

In order to arrive to fruitful conclusions we should focus on the following two central aspects that can lead to a possible answer. Please feel free to pick-up one of them, or address them collectively, or in whatever manner it might seem more convenient to you, or even try a different approach, from an original perspective.

1.      One’s ethnicity is or is it not essentially linked to one’s religious affiliation in the so-called “ethnic religions”?

If you tackle this item from a Hindu or Jewish perspective, please also address my additional queries, assuming that I am a Christian – a word that defines my religious orientation and I am also Romanian –a word that defines my ethnicity:

a)     Can I become a Hindu? Can I become a Jew? Can I chose to be a Hindu/Jew (as religion), but at the same time keep my declared ethnicity (Romanian)? 

b)     If yes, is this a wide-spread phenomenon and (for instance) can I show-up tomorrow along with 20.000 Romanians in Benares and ask to become Hindus, all of us? Will we get a green light for this?  

c)      If yes, can anyone trace back from at least three generations a significant amount of people who initially were, ethnically, non-Hindu/non-Jew, but their grandsons are now recognized, socially and religiously, as Hindu/Jews? Or is this kind of “Hindu converts” phenomenon just an isolated, recent, phenomenon that might be considered only as some sort of extravagance or cultural fashion by the mainstream Hinduism/Judaism?

2.      As a consequence to the above, if we want to point out some flaws to J. Campbell distinction, we will have to try to:

a)     provide scientific references that there is a Hindu/Judaism religion (but not an isolated cult) independent from any Hindu/Jewish ethnic group;

b)     deny the fact that there is an essential requirement to be born a Jew/Hindu or meet any other ethnicity-related requirement in order to be a Jew/Hindu;

c)     provide substantial evidence (references to public, secular sources are required) that for at least three generations there are Hindu converts and/or Jewish converts that are also recognized as Hindu/Jews by mainstream Hindu/Jewish communities, in order to avoid generalizing isolated cases or accidents;

d)     ascertain that there is such a group or a community of people that cumulatively and explicitly: a) declare themselves Christian/Buddhist and 2)when asked about their ethnicity they declare themselves Christians/Buddhists;

3.     Possible consistent arguments against Campbell’s distinction, but only when one reads his statement literally:

a)      “one chooses to profess Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam” vs. “one is born a Hindu; one is born a Jew” is contradicted in practice, by the fact that one’s religion is usually handed-down from parents to children, so the statements “one is born a Hindu” and “one is born a Christian” are interchangeable, to some extent, unless we take into account that one can be born a Christian irrespective of his parents’ ethnicity; Usually, the individual is not expected to become an adult and only then asked to make his choice (“I chose to profess Buddhism” etc.).

b)      “one chooses to profess Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam” kind of statement doesn’t cover religious practices in industrialized societies, wherein the majority of people who are, formally, Buddhist or Muslim or Christian are in fact non-practicing Christians etc. or even atheists and attend religious services just on such occasions as : when getting married, when being baptized, when dying etc.

When sharing your views, please take into account that this is not a debate on the universal value of this or that belief system, but an attempt to figure out to which extent one’s ethnicity is linked to one’s religious orientation. Likewise, the adjective “universal” in “universal religion” or “world religion” kind of wording doesn’t equate with “universal value”, but only with the ability to accept new followers without any ethnical requirements. I am myself a big admirer of the Bhagavad-Gītā, the big scripture of Hinduism, whose universal value has gained a huge recognition in the Western hemisphere – that is: in another cultural environment, different in many aspects from that in which Bhagavad-Gītā originated. And still, according to J. Campbell theory, which is raised for discussion here, Hinduism is an ethnical system of religious beliefs and practices. 

Any offensive statement will be ignored/deleted, as well as any political/harsh dogmatic attitude.