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Post by Stranger2 on Mar 10, 2020 15:02:07 GMT
One of the pinnacles of Buddhism is Dzogchen. Basically it's a practice of achieving and abiding in a states of direct perception of the reality of our nature of mind - awareness, and perceiving the world naturally in this state of consciousness. The root texts are: Self Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness By Padmasambhavaand Longchen Rabjam:
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Post by Stranger2 on Mar 10, 2020 18:48:32 GMT
The take-away from the modern studies of consciousness (Chalmers, Hoffman etc) is that the awareness is the unconditional and uncreated Fundamental Reality (FR) (to be exact, it is either the FR itself, or its fundamental quality). Whether there is also a material side of FR or not is actually irrelevant. What is important is that the world we perceive is simply a collection of ever-changing forms of the FR, just like waves on the ocean of clouds in the sky. These forms are simply basic perceptions (visual, tactile etc, plus feelings) that appear in our awareness. These forms take weird shapes, in our minds we recognize the images of ourselves, people and objects in these forms, then we believe that all these people and objects are "real", we construct a mental image in our minds of the "world" consisting of separate self, other people and objects, and we "project" this mental image on the scene of the basic forms-perceptions that appear in the FR (awareness). This is how we construct a fictitious imaginary "world" in our minds with an associated unconscious belief that it is real. Then our minds become prisoners of this fiction because we develop egos around the sense of separate self, we become attached to our selves, to pleasures and thrills of this game, which inevitably brings confusion, fear of death and losses, dissatisfaction and suffering. Being so captivated by the fiction, we ignore the FR and never even notice it, although it is present in our direct experience every single moment. Dispelling and removing this fiction from our way of perceiving the world, recognizing the FR and changing our perception to the natural direct perception of the world simply as a flow of forms in the FR brings us liberation from the fiction and unconditional freedom, peace and happiness. In simple words, the recognition and direct knowledge of the FR as the true reality is the path to freedom from the slavery to the fictitious mind-created reality. The sense of separate individual self and the ego that evolves and revolves around it are all part of the fiction of the "world", so they also start dissolving once the fiction of the "world" starts falling apart. Essentially, this is what Buddhism is about.
An amazing thing is that the FR is not something out of reach from us, not some mysterious and unknowable Divine, or a fundamental material field. It is simply our own intrinsic awareness, the very nature of our mind that we have a direct access to in our direct inner experience. In other traditions like Advaita it is called the Self (Atman), although this Self has nothing to do with our sense of individual self (it is important not to confuse them!). If we could just stop that mental fiction of the "world" for a moment and look at our direct conscious experience, we should be able to recognize the FR immediately. It is the fiction of the "world" that screens us from this simple recognition.
Now, this is how it sounds in Buddha's own words (from Pali Canon). Buddha never used a specific name for FR but points to it by describing its qualities like "unfabricated", "unborn", "unconditional", "luminous", "unrestricted", etc. Later in Mahayana school this FR was named "the nature of mind" or "Buddha's nature".
Consciousness without surface, without end, radiant all around, is not experienced through the solidity of earth, the liquidity of water, the radiance of fire, the windiness of wind, the divinity of devas [and so on through a list of the various levels of godhood to] the allness of the All. — MN 49
Those who know this unfabricated state, their minds released through the ending of [craving], the guide to becoming, — Iti 44 (i.e. the craving is the guide/cause for rebirths/becoming)
Like the flame's unbinding was the liberation of awareness. — Thig 5.10
And when a brāhman, a sage through sagacity has known [this] for himself, then from form & formless, from pleasure & pain, he is freed. — Ud 1.10
Freed, disjoined, & released from ten things, the Tathāgata dwells with unrestricted awareness, Vāhuna. Which ten? Freed, disjoined, & released from form... feeling... perception... fabrications... consciousness... birth... aging... death... stress*... defilement, he dwells with unrestricted awareness. Just as a red, blue, or white lotus born in the water and growing in the water, rises up above the water and stands with no water adhering to it, in the same way the Tathāgata — freed, disjoined, & released from these ten things — dwells with unrestricted awareness. — AN 10.81
The unfashioned, the end, the effluent-less*, the true, the beyond, the subtle, the very-hard-to-see, the ageless, permanence, the undecaying, the surface-less, non-objectification, peace, the deathless, the exquisite, bliss, solace, the exhaustion of craving, the wonderful, the marvelous, the secure, security, nibbana (nirvana), the unafflicted, the passionless, the pure, release, non-attachment, the island, shelter, harbor, refuge, the ultimate. — SN 42.1-44
This was said by the Blessed One, said by the Arahant, so I have heard: "There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated is thus discerned."
The born, become, produced, made, fabricated, impermanent, composed of aging & death, a nest of illnesses, perishing, come from nourishment and the guide [that is craving] — is unfit for delight.
The escape from that is calm, permanent, beyond inference, unborn, unproduced, the sorrowless, stainless state, the cessation of stressful qualities, the stilling of fabrications, bliss. Iti. 2.16
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Post by Stranger2 on Mar 10, 2020 18:50:17 GMT
Similar quoted can be found in the Dzogchen school of Tibetian Buddhism:
"There is simply realization or its lack in the basic state of phenomena For those with realization who reached the state of bliss there is pure perception For those without it there is non-recognition of awareness and habitual patterns of dualistic perception from which sensory appearances manifest (as dualistic separate objects) in all their variety, although (in reality) none of them stray from the basic space (of awareness)" (Longchenpa, from the treasury of Dahrmadhatu)
"A hundred things may be explained, a thousand told, But one thing only should you grasp. Know one thing and everything is freed - Remain within your inner nature, your awareness!" (Padmasambhava)
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Post by mironlang on Mar 11, 2020 1:39:30 GMT
what i mean by not believing anything is... its just either "I know" or "I dont know" ... i do not believe in anything at all at this point.
OK, that's fine, but I'm just curious what do you know. Let me ask you: do you know if 1. your consciousness exists? 2. anything outside your consciousness exists? 2. my consciousness exists? 3. material world exists?
1. Yes i know it exists.
2. Yes i know it exists.
3. I do not know. You might be an advanced bot or something. but i don't know really.
4. Material as in matter does not really exists. its a projection by a sentient being. If there are no observers it does not exist.
* on one : in 3D and beyond
* on two : just to qualify.. it know it exists technically here in 3D not sure upward but likely.
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Post by Stranger2 on Mar 11, 2020 2:13:06 GMT
OK, that's fine, but I'm just curious what do you know. Let me ask you: do you know if 1. your consciousness exists? 2. anything outside your consciousness exists? 2. my consciousness exists? 3. material world exists?
1. Yes i know it exists.
2. Yes i know it exists.
3. I do not know. You might be an advanced bot or something. but i don't know really.
4. Material as in matter does not really exists. its a projection by a sentient being. If there are no observers it does not exist.
* on one : in 3D and beyond
* on two : just to qualify.. it know it exists technically here in 3D not sure upward but likely.
and how can you know/verify/prove that anything outside your consciousness exists?
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Post by mironlang on Mar 11, 2020 4:43:07 GMT
1. Yes i know it exists.
2. Yes i know it exists.
3. I do not know. You might be an advanced bot or something. but i don't know really.
4. Material as in matter does not really exists. its a projection by a sentient being. If there are no observers it does not exist.
* on one : in 3D and beyond
* on two : just to qualify.. it know it exists technically here in 3D not sure upward but likely.
and how can you know/verify/prove that anything outside your consciousness exists? Let me borrow a post from an admin of this site
Nothing to prove, no-one to convince.
I do not feel the need to prove anything. it takes a lot of time and energy
Thanks
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Post by Stranger2 on Mar 11, 2020 12:46:23 GMT
Nothing to prove, no-one to convince.
Oh, absolutely, it's all about you. If you don't care, who cares? Let me give you an example. A child believes in in a Black Witch. An adult asks him: "How do you know if she exists, how do you prove it?" The child answers: "Nothing to prove, no-one to convince." OK, then, keep believing in the Witch, who cares That's what most people do anyway - they have totally ridiculous beliefs and do not even bother to question them. Isn't it what WPP believers do as well? That's fine, but if you look at how people get in trouble, it's often because they do not question their beliefs. Most wars and dictatorships were supported by people who did not question their beliefs and trust in their governments. This is also what the adepts of religious sects do - they do not question and do not prove their beliefs. On the other hand, most developments in science and philosophy were catalyzed by questioning and disproving common beliefs. So, the bottom-line is: noone is obliged to prove anything to anyone. It's just if you don't bother to question and prove/disprove your beliefs to yourself, you will be stuck with your beliefs, even though they might be the cause of your troubles or impede your development spiritually and intellectually. But again, if you don't care, who cares? So, it's all fine but I'm just saying: earlier you said "Believe nothing!" and then you said "I know that something outside your consciousness exists", and when I ask you how do you prove that, you said "Nothing to prove". Your statements contradict each other, because if you refuse to prove to yourself that "I know that something outside your consciousness exists" is true, then it becomes a belief. But you said "Believe nothing!". "Believe nothing" means not taking any knowledge without proving to yourself that it is true. If you think you know something but did not bother to prove it to yourself ("Nothing to prove"), than that becomes a belief, but you just said "Believe nothing!". So, if you refuse to prove anything to yourself, and also at the same time refuse to have any beliefs, than you can not have ANY knowledge at all, because any unproven knowledge is a belief by definition.
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Post by mironlang on Mar 11, 2020 15:44:45 GMT
I have proven the things i know of course. to myself If you have proven it to yourself then that is it. Your experience cannot in the slightest be fathomed by anyone else. Thanks for the time stranger2.
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Post by girlscout on Mar 11, 2020 16:04:07 GMT
Nothing to prove, no-one to convince.
Oh, absolutely, it's all about you. If you don't care, who cares? Let me give you an example. A child believes in in a Black Witch. An adult asks him: "How do you know if she exists, how do you prove it?" The child answers: "Nothing to prove, no-one to convince." OK, then, keep believing in the Witch, who cares That's what most people do anyway - they have totally ridiculous beliefs and do not even bother to question them. Isn't it what WPP believers do as well? That's fine, but if you look at how people get in trouble, it's often because they do not question their beliefs. Most wars and dictatorships were supported by people who did not question their beliefs and trust in their governments. This is also what the adepts of religious sects do - they do not question and do not prove their beliefs. On the other hand, most developments in science and philosophy were catalyzed by questioning and disproving common beliefs. So, the bottom-line is: noone is obliged to prove anything to anyone. It's just if you don't bother to question and prove/disprove your beliefs to yourself, you will be stuck with your beliefs, even though they might be the cause of your troubles or impede your development spiritually and intellectually. But again, if you don't care, who cares? So, it's all fine but I'm just saying: earlier you said "Believe nothing!" and then you said "I know that something outside your consciousness exists", and when I ask you how do you prove that, you said "Nothing to prove". Your statements contradict each other, because if you refuse to prove to yourself that "I know that something outside your consciousness exists" is true, then it becomes a belief. But you said "Believe nothing!". "Believe nothing" means not taking any knowledge without proving to yourself that it is true. If you think you know something but did not bother to prove it to yourself ("Nothing to prove"), than that becomes a belief, but you just said "Believe nothing!". So, if you refuse to prove anything to yourself, and also at the same time refuse to have any beliefs, than you can not have ANY knowledge at all, because any unproven knowledge is a belief by definition. May I interject? Perhaps it isn’t that beliefs matter at all, but the principles that guide our behaviour. Wars and such are founded on greedy - take what you can get - behaviours. If this is against what one stands for, they wouldn’t be happening. Too many just go along, it seems.
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Post by Stranger2 on Mar 17, 2020 14:26:43 GMT
Here is the buddhist view on the way of liberation at the moment of death. The "experience of total darkness revealing the clear light [of awareness]" is what modern NDE accounts refer to as a state of Void. In this state it is easier to recognize the "clear light" of awareness, the nature of mind, the true Self, and remain in this state. The "clear light" is simply the illuminating clarity of awareness, it's not any kind of a visual light. So, this quote is saying that every being has a chance of liberation at the moment of death, but very few recognize it and choose it, the majority will follow the unfolding of the fictitious "movie of life" (bardos) driven by their addiction to it and to their fictitious separate selves. Sukhavati is probably what Gnostics called "Pleroma" - the realm of enlightened existence with no illusion of separation beyond the worlds of duality and the cycle of reincarnations (samsara). Even in the realms of enlightened existence there are many stages of enlightenment leading at the end to unconditional liberation (Nirvana) when all traces of remaining karmic afflictions and obscurations get completely dissolved. "[At the moment of death] the consciousness loses its faculty of knowing the forms. This is the experience of black luminosity, similar to a midnight blue or a dark night. In an ordinary being, the mind sinks into total darkness. This whole process of dissolution, from the beginning up to the experience of black luminosity, is called the bardo of the moment of death. At the end of the dissolution, the clear light, or mind's basic nature, is revealed. All beings have an experience of the clear light, but the ordinary being does not recognize it. But even if it is extremely fleeting and goes unrecognized, this experience of the clear light occurs to every being. On the other hand, if a person has recognized the true nature of mind within his or her lifetime, the mind can recognize the fundamental clear light at this final moment of the bardo of death and, to whatever degree this recognition is stable, can remain absorbed in it. For such a yogi, the daughter clear light, which was experienced during his or her lifetime, and the fundamental mother clear light unite. This is the state of buddhahood." "We do not become free at death. Since karma conditions our mind, it determines the course of our bardo experience and the rebirth we will take. What is most important is our karma and our actual inner experience. This is why it is essential to become aware of the need for spiritual work from now on: study, devotion to practice, living according to discipline based on an understanding of karma, and cultivating the practices that will help us at the time of death. On the basis of Dharma practice in general, if certain practices are mastered during our lifetime, we can gain liberation while passing through the different bardos at the moment of death and after. If we have realized mahamudra, or the nature of mind, during our lifetime, we can, at the end of the bardo of death, recognize the clear light and achieve liberation." "In general, there are many fields of enlightenment: at the level of the Truth Body, or dharmakaya; at the level of the Enjoyment Body, or sambhogakaya; or at the level of the Emanation Body, or nirmanakaiya. Sukhavati is an enlightened field with forms, at the level of the Emanation Body, or nirmanakaya. Because of this, it is still subject to certain limitations. For example, in Sukhavati a certain type of change, or impermanence, remains. These are not the gross impermanence and change we know in our own plane of existence, but a subtler kind. To be reborn in this spiritual state puts an end to the cycle of rebirths. There, the mind is freed from karmic obscurations and its enlightened qualities begin to reveal themselves and to work for the benefit of beings. But even if the mind is quite purified of the karmic veils and most of the veils of mental afflictions, subtle obscurations still remain. Nevertheless, it is a state in which we experience important enlightened qualities from which we can help those who remain in samsara. There are many ways to come to help them and guide them toward liberation." form Kalu Rinpoche "Luminous Mind: The Way of the Buddha"
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Post by Stranger2 on Apr 9, 2020 17:11:29 GMT
"If you are always aware, you will look at the world and see its emptiness. If you give up looking at yourself as a soul, as a fixed and special identity, then you have given yourself a way to go beyond death." Buddha. The Way to the Beyond (Pārāyana Sutta)
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2020 15:33:13 GMT
"While trying to avoid difficulty may be natural and understandable, it actually doesn’t work. We think it makes sense to protect ourselves from pain, but our self-protection ends up causing us deeper pain. We think we have to hold on to what we have, but our very holding on causes us to lose what we have. We’re attached to what we like and try to avoid what we don’t like, but we can’t keep the attractive object and we can’t avoid the unwanted object. So, counterintuitive though it may be, avoiding life’s difficulties is actually not the path of least resistance; it is a dangerous way to live. If you want to have a full and happy life, in good times and bad, you have to get used to the idea that facing misfortune squarely is better than trying to escape from it." From Lions Roar
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2020 11:50:13 GMT
'O”A roshi is a person who has actualized that perfect freedom which is the potentiality for all human beings. He exists freely in the fullness of his whole being. The flow of his consciousness is not the fixed repetitive patterns of our usual self-centered consciousness, but rather arises spontaneously and naturally from the actual circumstances of the present…His whole being testifies to what it means to live in the reality of the present.” I don’t know about all of you but this quote by Zen master Richard Baker about his instructor, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, concisely expresses the preeminent motive of my life: “self-actualization.” Or, in more pessimistic terms, this quote could be said to describe the dominant anxiety of my existence: that I’m somehow failing to live the life I was meant to live, that maybe I’m squandering my waking moments by falling into thought patters about people’s perceptions of me, whether or not my accomplishments will take me where I want to go and if I’m spending my days in stagnation or making progress towards a greater goal. ..... By clearing the mind of expectation, we can finally sit at the outermost edge of the plateau that is each of our lives. In rejection of the sturdy ground of ideology, the safety of desired outcomes and routes for achieving them, we are constantly gazing at the beauty of the moment and the ways we thrive in its spontaneity.' whitmanwire.com/opinion/2016/04/07/zen-buddhism-offers-path-towards-self-actualization/
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Post by Stranger2 on Apr 20, 2020 14:32:28 GMT
"When even the last traces are gone” is when all the dirt of delusions has been washed off, together with the soap of the teaching, training, and enlightment, and nothing at all remains – no smell of Zen, no ideology, no philosophy, no Buddha. Then the true nature functions freely and without any obstacles."
Morinaga Roshi, commentary on The Ceasing of Notions
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"Ignorance means ignoring the truth of reality, shutting one's eyes to the awakened state. Although the light of reality is ever-present, ignorance chooses to remain blind. The nature of this blindness is to believe in the existence of a separate, independent self. Trungpa Rinpoche also used to say that ignorance is very intelligent. It is actually the intelligence of samsara, which is fighting a continual battle for survival and constantly looking for ways of keeping up its own illusion, its own self-deception.
From the point of view of ego, emptiness seems like annihilation, because it is the actual experience of egolessness. To enter this state, we have to take a leap into the dark and be willing to risk the feeling that we may lose our whole existence. Letting go completely is like death, and this is exactly what liberation is all about. Emptiness is the experience of vast openness, spaciousness, and freedom. In it, the limitations and complexities of individual existence fall away; the boundaries between inside and outside dissolve; and everything is spontaneously present in its natural purity and perfection, free from the duality of subject and object. The brilliance and clarity in which all phenomena appear as they really are, yet are seen to be empty in essence, is called luminosity.
Wisdom, which is called the mother of the buddhas, is nothing other than the understanding of emptiness. This is the great secret of awakening. All the buddhas are born from this realization, for only the wisdom of emptiness can give birth to enlightenment. Wisdom is the direct, transformative experience of the reality of emptiness in our own lives. It is the living certainty that nothing exists as a separate entity in the way we normally believe."
"Luminous Emptiness" by Francesca Fremantle
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2020 6:55:55 GMT
"Somewhere inside yourself, there is a Real You. It’s likely covered by layers of cultural conditions, repressed emotions, and identity confusions. As we go through life in a hyper-cultural era, constantly influenced by films, TV, music, and social interactions with diverse groups of people, we try on different identities. This testing of the waters can be a path to self-discovery, but often it just leads to a convoluted view of the self. It also leads to egotism, which only perpetuates the cycle of false identity. Egoists project their fantasy selves onto the world, causing unnecessary confusion and sometimes even violence. Mass egoism is always on the rise as cultural outlets find more efficient means of delivering information to individuals. As a result of collective egoism, we become part of a marketing strategy or political game rather than behaving as we should— as human beings naturally navigating the world. There is a way to be a unique and interesting individual without being an egoist. If you reflect and look within, you’ll be able to strip away that which makes you not you. Over time, your true self will emerge. It’ll emerge slowly and naturally, since it’s not what we might think of as a “self” or an “ego”. It’s your core, you at your most organic and comfortable. It’s easy to grow old without a sense of self. You can jump from group to group, passion to passion, job to job, with a definite feeling of belonging but without the ability to recognize who you really are. If you never look within, you’ll never even know that you’re missing out on anything. Discovering who you really are isn’t something you do by going on adventures, having romantic trysts, and living a hedonistic lifestyle. It’s an internal process. The irony is that people seem to think they can find themselves by looking elsewhere. That’s just silly. You find yourself by looking within yourself. Remove all external influences for a bit and see what happens. Or, at the very least, work on acknowledging the influence that external influences have on your sense of personality. Then you can start turning inward and becoming who you actually are." www.thedailyzen.org/2015/06/16/cultivate-individuality-not-ego/
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2020 13:30:40 GMT
The Buddha said, “Let me ask you something, Subhuti. If someone were to amass inconceivable wealth and then gave it all away in support of charitable causes, wouldn’t the merit gained by this person be great?” Subhuti said, “Extremely great, Sir. But though this merit is great, there is no substance to it. It is only called ‘great.’” The Buddha said, “Yes, Subhuti. Nevertheless, if an open-minded person, upon hearing this sutra, could truly realize what it is teaching and then embody it and live it, this person’s merit would be even greater. All the buddhas, and all their teachings about enlightenment, spring forth from what this sutra teaches. And yet, Subhuti, there is no teaching.” The Buddha’s point here is that when you realize there is no self and no other, you give an incomparable gift. It’s the ultimate generosity, both to others and to yourself (neither of whom exist). All Buddha awareness—that is, any mind that sees reality as it truly is—arises from this realization. There is no distance away from mind. It’s all an imagined trip. Mind never moves as the source. It doesn’t “come back” to itself, because it never leaves. Heaven and earth were born when I was, and the only thing that was born is the “I.” The whole world arises out of that unquestioned “I.” And with it arises the world of naming, and the sleights of mind that match those names. Out of that story come a thousand—ten thousand—forms of suffering. “I am this.” “I am that.” “I am a human.” “I am a woman.” “I am a woman with three children, whose mother doesn’t love her.” You are who you believe you are. Other people are, for you, who you believe they are; they can be nothing more than that. If you realized that the mind is one, that everyone and everything is your own projection (including you), you would understand that it’s only yourself you’re ever dealing with. You would end up loving yourself, loving every thought you think. When you love every thought, you love everything thoughts create, you love the whole world you have created. At first, the love that overflows in you seems to be about connecting with other people, and it’s wonderful to feel intimately connected to every human being you meet. But then it becomes about mind connected to itself, and only that. The ultimate love is the mind’s love of itself. Mind joins with mind—all of mind, without division or separation, all of it loved. Ultimately I am all I can know, and what I come to know is that there is no such thing as “I.” From thework.com/2017/07/a-mind-at-home-with-itself/
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2020 14:31:32 GMT
When don Juan refers to balance, the concept is not one whit different than what Buddha himself realized. It is only through clearing all the misconceptions and emotional detritus accepted by our right-side ego awareness that this form of true balance occurs. It has nothing to do with Eastern philosophical concepts that have been grafted wholesale onto New Age doctrines about balancing a duality of positive and negative forces as Castenada relates in the first passage. Opposing
principles in first cognition polarity thinking cannot be resolved, they can only be morally equivocated leading to a position of moral relativism. This is Hinduism put in the mouth of don Juan and I can guarantee you that he never taught such philosophical drivel. This state of true emotional balance and equanimity is not something one can artificially force into being. When one achieves this, balance is a naturally occurring byproduct. The path of the warrior, as defined by don Juan's teachings, is to become all of who we are, not just what our daily awareness makes us believe we are.
- from clarifying the don juan teachings for the second cognition
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