syawaworht

I think the wrong lesson to draw for this is that it's just a systems problem. Somehow if we do a different song and dance, the outcome will be different. I've been thinking that the end state of capitalism and communism are not that different - what is the difference between wealth that you can't spend in a million lifetimes and "no" wealth at all? The endpoint is the same, the game becomes about relative power over others, in service of an unending hunger.

Capitalism is the manifestation of the aggregate human psyche. We've agreed that this part of our selves that desires to possess things and the part that feels better when having even more, is essential. This is the root we need to question, but have not yet dared to question. Because if we follow this path of questioning, and continue to shed each of our grasping neuroticisms, the final notion we may need to shed is that we are people, individual agents, instead of nonseparate natural phenomena.

We will have to confront that question eventually because we will always have to face the truth.

Agree with this.

Yea it's quite confusing and subtle, but there is something there. I'm not a teacher so I don't know how to phrase this to address where you are coming from, but I will say in general, our first reaction is to impose mental frameworks and preconceptions to try to understand things. Kind of what your first inclination is ("element of mind"), and of course the article and many of the posts here.

But I think it is all talking in circles, when the experiential truth can be directly observed (through practice). So I absolutely want to encourage your seeking.

My own experiential insight is not definitely not complete, so of course the guidance of a master or of course your own direct practice should be preferred.

But to the extent I have observed awareness, the idea of an entire "experiencer" is an extrapolation and fabrication. See how you generate that concept. And then, look closely at what's actually going on, there is "consciousness" of the components of the aggregate. (Maybe not dissimilar to some of the lower level mechanisms proposed in the article).

Phenomenal consciousness as being raised here, and probably in most people's minds, is probably taken to be the self or at least deeply intertwined with the concept of a separate self. The article tries to define it left and right, but I think most people will look at their own experience and then get stuck in this conversation.

"Consciousness" in the traditions is maybe closer to some of the lower abstraction proposals put out in the article.

I don't think the idea of illusory is necessarily the right view here. Maybe most clearly the thing to say is that there is "not" self and "not" consciousness. That these things are not separate entities and instead are dependently arisen. That consciousness is also dependently arisen is probably more contentious and different traditions make different claims on that point.

It isn't surprising that "phenomenal consciousness" is the thing everyone gets hung about, after all we are all immersed in this water. The puzzle seems intractable but only because everyone is accepting the priors and not looking more carefully at it.

This is the endpoint of meditation, and the observation behind some religious traditions, which is look carefully and see that there was never phenomenal consciousness where we are a solid subject to begin with. If we can observe that behavior clearly, then we can remove the confusion in this search.

Yea, I don't think he's reached a point where he's seen the territory apart from the map. His post is still a lot of confusion running in circles in the space of concepts and mind.

When it is seen clearly how the mind is delusion, then the rest of the teachings fall naturally from that observation.

Humans don't learn because of our short lifespans. If humans from ancient Greece were still alive, we might have learned something.

But our short lifespan is also a boon in many other ways.

I don't mean to belittle RMS's achievements, but as a general point, I don't think that simply adhering to conviction is courageous. It's the easy way out. It's the way that doesn't address the greys in reality, for the sake of simplicity of what you believe in. You are not tested in your decisions, because you have already refused to make any.