does view shape realisation?
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how important is view in serving as condition for our realisation into the truth?
until the truth dawns on us(which may be in stages,and not 'one stroke');can we be sure of anything?
the answer is an absolute no.
it's obvious ,isn't it? anything than direct,unshakable realization is not good enough(and to reach this requires quite a degree of integrity/questioning,or else one may be deluding oneself )
im reading this article -
http://kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/The+Controversy
The Controversy
There is no consensus in Buddhism about what Ultimate Reality is. Let's be honest about this from the start and not soft-pedal it. Broadly speaking, there are two competing and mutually exclusive views about what constitutes the "final understanding." One view is that everything that can be experienced is "dependently arisen" according to conditions. That means that there is no inherently existing Primordial Awareness. Let's call that the conservative Theravada view. The other view is that there is an inherently existing Primordial Awareness that is uncompounded and unconditioned. It is said to pervade and give rise to all things, and as such is considered "non-dual" or "not-two." Let's call this the Mahayana/Vajrayana Buddhist view, although it is also shared by the more progressive elements within Theravada Buddhism such as the Thai Forest Tradition.
Buddhists have been arguing about this question of "dependently arisen" vs. "inherently existing" awareness for over two thousand years, and there is no resolution in sight. We are not going to resolve it here. One thing we can do, though, is acknowledge that there is this disagreement and see for ourselves how it comes about--because it is not some obscure point of doctrine; rather, these views are based on the actual experience of real flesh and blood humans who do these practices and come to radically different conclusions.
So let's look at how this happens. It is simultaneously easy to understand and impossible to resolve. It has to do with the assumptions you take into your practice. If you believe, as do the conservative Theravada Buddhists, that everything must be investigated for the three characteristics of suffering, impermanence, and no-self, you will not find primordial awareness. You will find only suffering, impermanence, and no-self.
If, on the other hand, you believe that nothing you can do will reveal the truth and that the best thing to do is to surrender completely to this moment, you will discover Primordial Awareness.
This is actually quite a good joke on all of us, so let's take a moment to enjoy it. It isn't even complicated. Because the recognition of Primordial Awareness is "uncompounded," anything you can do will distract you from recognizing it. "Anything you can do" includes investigating your experience through an act of will. The very act of investigation is compounding the situation and preventing the recognition of Primordial Awareness. This awkward situation of using the fabricated mind to seek out the truth of the un-fabricated has been likened to sending the chief of police to investigate an arson, when the chief of police is himself the arsonist. The culprit will never be found.
As a practical matter, I can only recommend that you try both approaches and see which one leads to happiness for you. In the course of a day, there is plenty of time to do some investigation practice and some non-dual practice. If you've read my description of 3rd Gear of the 3-Speed Transmission, you know that I have come down on the side of an inherently existing "cognizant emptiness" as the Tibetan Dzogchen masters are fond of saying. Although all of my formal training in Buddhism is in the conservative Mahasi Sayadaw lineage of Burmese Theravada Buddhism, the only thing that makes sense to me now is to surrender. I don't believe that "I" can find out anything true, given that "I" am a fiction. So, I surrender. And in this moment of surrender, I know the happiness that is not dependent upon conditions.
I urge each of you to find out what makes the most sense for you and to pursue that. And I urge you not to spend a lot of time and energy trying to win people over to your view, which in any case is likely to change over time as you spiral ever deeper into an infinitely deep universe.
May you be happy.Kenneth Folk
July 2009...............................................................................
it seems the author (at the moment of writing the article) is holding a belief in a Self .
is there a Self or is there isn't? for ur pondering ...
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Just a sharing... nothing definitive...
IMO, although Primordial awareness is said to be unconditional, the road leading to the experience followed by realisation of it, is not.
Awareness is not separated from phenomena... all along is like that... but the factors leading to this insight is not unconditional.
At a point, we cannot say whether awareness is conditional or not... because these are concepts.... tying up like a knot. . a conceptual knot... degrasp and it is no longer a concern.
The problem here is words... they are conceptual frameworks... 'what is' can be said to be this or that, or anything...but its 'ungraspable'. Even the concept 'ungraspable' is still a concept. The problem is that word can only be understood as concepts and mental construct... must undertstand the limitation of concepts.
That's just my opinion though.
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This article by Kenneth Folk is outdated and no longer represents his current insight and realization. In one of his recent post, he stated blantly that he was wrong, his model and teaching was incomplete, and that he wanted to present his new understanding (in his Kenneth Folk 7 Stages of Enlightenment)
In fact, most of Kenneth Folk's articles are outdated, as he hasn't written any articles since he realized Anatta (but there are recent forum discussions about it). Well, not exactly 'out-dated', but those articles only present the path from I AM (aka Thusness Stage 1/2) to the Substantialist Non Dual phase (aka Thusness Stage 4) but not his recent insight of Anatta (aka Thusness Stage 5).
During late 2010, probably around the same time as me, Kenneth realized Anatta. The realization of Anatta dissolves the construct of an inherent Awareness.
There is only ever this stream, process of experiencing, there is no subject whatsoever. Scenery sees, sound hears, the process flows and knows without a knower.
Here is what Kenneth wrote about his recent realization (read whole thing but especially see the underlined):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqYUNHrLFq0
Transcription:
... You do this kind of "looping thing where mind tries to be subject and object at the same time or oscillates between them. And it says "No ... no "I" here.
So that's the test for the 7th stage. You can no longer find anything that you would recongnize as "I". So what you are left with is objects. There are simply these phenomena and these phenomena can be broken down into seeing, hearing, tasting, touching smelling and thinking - the 6 sense doors according to Buddhism.
Sof if you think about that, you are nothing other than a sense organ. I am nothing other than a sense organ. There's no agency here. There's no doer. There are just these 6 sensory inputs including thinking.
That is an extraordinary recognition. And the freedom that comes from that recognition is the happiness that is independent of conditions, AKA Enlightenment.
And notice it's in the seeing is only the "seen" ... that is exactly the experience - in the seeing is only the "seen" ... it's not the seeing ... it's not seeing as the seer, there is no seer. We don't have a subject receptor. There isn't anything in this mind that can pick up a subject.Now what that means is that, although we can logically infer that there must be a subject, we can not experience that. The subject is always inferred. So even the practices that involve Awareness, practices that involve letting Awareness be aware of Awareness et cetera, those are practices - transitional modalities or transitional phases which eventually have to be let go of. Because we can not perceive Awareness, we can only infer Awareness.
So we could talk about this in terms of 1st and 2nd order phenomena. 1st order phenomena are the six sense doors: seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling and thinking. 2nd order phenomena would be things like "I know there's Awareness because there has to be." Fine, I don't disagree with the logic, but "you" don't know that. That is an inference.
So subject is always inferred. And as long as we don't feel obligated to take that step or make that leap into inference, we don't create self. [JG: ... there's the object but not the inferred subject] Yes. And as long as we stick with that we're golden. There is the object and the hearing is just the heard. That's it. And although we might like to make it more complicated, it doesn't have to be, and it turns out we're much better off when we don't complicate it. ...