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From: johnw@farside.eng.ready.com (John Wheeler)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Consciousness and Buddhism
Message-ID: <1991May16.203346.2760@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 16 May 91 20:33:46 GMT
Sender: news@nas.nasa.gov
Organization: Ready Systems
Lines: 90
Approved: prabhu@amelia.nas.nasa.gov

In response to a letter from pingali:

*My comments are surrounded by asterisks. johnw* 

Hi,

There has been the experience of thoughts arising and
passing away and there is the question "Who is the 
knower"? There is no "knower". 

*This is not so. Obviously, you know your thoughts. You are the
 knower of them.*

There is only "knowing".

*Correct there is the knowing process. But how can you leave out the
 knower? There is the thing known (thought), the subject (you), and
 the perception of knowing* 

Thoughts are transient and fleeting - that is a fact.

*Yes*

But that fact can only be seen with awareness - mindfulness.

*No. It does not require any special technique to see. It is
 simple to observe at any time*

But meditation does not end there. Not only are thoughts
transient and fleeting - consciousness itself is fleeting
and transient. It also is an empty phenomenon that arises
and passes away. 

*No. I maintain that this is the biggest error made by interpreters
 of Buddhism. Consciousness is not a phenonmenon (an object), it
 is non-objective. It does not arise nor does it pass away. Knowingness
 or the act of perception of things rises and falls, but awareness, pure
 subjectivity, does not cease at any time.*

I have had a brief insight into this -
but my meditation teachers speak of this as real turning
point in practice. *Everything* that arises is impermanant
and is seen to falling away. 

*Yes, but awareness is not a thing to be objectively known, since it
 is non-objective. Consequently, it is not subject to the law of
 impermanence, which applies only to the objects of perception.*

There is then no resting place
at all - there is nothing to be grasped, no security 
even in awareness. Only when all foundations of a belief
in a separate self have been undermined are we left
with the wisdom of insecurity. There is complete protection
and freedom because there is *no one* to be protected.

*I believe you are seeing only half of the matter. It is true that there
 is no separate self, and the dissolution of this notion is a key
 to understanding Bhuddha's sublime philosophy, but it would be
 wrong to conceive that the result is simply a state of insecurity,
 much less would such a state be wisdom. This borders on simple
 nihilism. Buddha taught that nihilism was an error.

 He also spoke of Nirvana, that ineffable, sublime state, beyond description,
 very glorious indeed. Sometimes he called it the Void. What do you think
 he meant by the Void? That which is beyond all objective chracteristics,
 and cannot be described in terms of any other thing, unborn, undying,
 neither permanent, nor impermanent. Remember, Buddha was not a nihilist.
 Just to say that there is no self or (ego) and that there is nothing
 real, all is impermanent---this is not the teaching of the Buddha. This
 is nihilism, or existentialism, but it cannot be the glorious liberating
 knowledge that made Buddha "The Light of Asia." 

 What do you make of these statement made by various enlightened Buddhist 
 masters describing the supreme state or reality they had awakened to:

 The Great Void (Buddha)
 The Clear Light (Padma Sambhava)
 The One Mind (Ch'an Buddhism)
 The Pure Mind (Huang Po)
 The Unborn (Bankei)
 Consciousness (in the Lankavatra Sutra)
 You (Hui Neng, founder of Cha'n)

If any of this makes sense, know that is only the palest reflection
of the light I have received from my own teacher, himself a liberated
Buddha, whose wisdom shines like the sun.

Take care,

johnw