No-self, soul and not-self

Lovingkindness said:
Empathy without action is pity — and pity feeds no one.
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Loved that. “Truth” must be lived. Action and heart/experience integrated with a concept lie empathy. With “love” I tend to nurture (or at least ATTEMPT to nurture) my loved ones’ potential and wellbeing. But I also experience subtle energy between me and them, or at least a feeling that I interpret as being actual energy going out and coming in. So the concept of “love” must have both to be really true. You made a Very good point. Kirkigard (sp?) made a similar point about a true “Christian” (which to me is basically just one way of saying a spiritual person, spiritually is the main thing). To him a Christian lives the example that JC gave. Coherence between the concept, one’s actions, AND one’s genuine subjective experiences. Giving with a glad heart is even better than giving.
Back to your ocean metaphor—wholeness and integration is more real than definitive parts alone. Context is King. Requires gestalt like thinking and perceiving. I sense the whole journey my wife and I have made in our 51 year marriage. It is a lake within the ocean.
 
Lovingkindness said:
Liberation is seeing that those formations arise and pass like waves on the ocean — temporarily visible, always water, never an independent self.
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I know you advocate non-grasping somewhere in this thread, and that quote is in line with non-grasping. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a song I wrote about a moment in which I was able to not cling/grasp. I come back to that song and moment to remind myself to flow:

 
otherbrother said:
I know you advocate non-grasping somewhere in this thread, and that quote is in line with non-grasping. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a song I wrote about a moment in which I was able to not cling/grasp. I come back to that song and moment to remind myself to flow:

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Lovingkindness said:
much suffering comes from grasping.
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That was your comment that led to me sharing a link to a song I wrote about a moment of flow. The link is somewhere else on this thread. I couldn’t locate your non-grasping remark at the time I thought to share the song
 
Thomas said:
Still water, its 'resting' state, is conditional, determined by the force of gravity upon it. The moon draws water, the moon makes waves. A drop of water spreads and finds its level. A drop of water in space resembles a bubble, there's no force acting on it. All of it is conditional state. The molecular bond is a conditional state – break the bond and you have hydrogen and oxygen.
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What you call conditional seems also like “doing” as an experiential mode in each human. The ocean as oneness seems like the experiential mode called being (as in be here now, fully being, beingness). The experiential mode “relating” (which love is part of) may well be a bridge between the universal beingness and the conditional doing that apparently separate object beings must do to live in the context of a conditional realm, physical existence,
 
otherbrother said:
What you call conditional seems also like “doing” as an experiential mode in each human.
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I'm suggesting everything outside God is 'conditional', in that only God is unconditional, as in without condition, determination, limitation, and so forth. What the Pre-Socratic Milesians called apeiron ἄπειρον, 'boundless', 'infinite', 'indeterminate' and everything that is, arises from and out of the apeiron through arche, it's 'origin', 'principle', 'beginning' which is itself infinite and boundless (apeiron).

In this John arche as synonymous with Logos (John 1:1).

otherbrother said:
The ocean as oneness seems like ...
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I regard the drop-in-the-ocean analogy as addressing an experiential element of spiritual realisation, but not addressing the totality of it, in that the relation of a 'drop' to the 'ocean' is quantitative, whereas the relation of 'human' to 'being' is qualitative.

Any experience of the all, of the totality, of one-ness, is nevertheless from a given point?
 
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otherbrother said:
The experiential mode “relating” (which love is part of) may well be a bridge between the universal beingness and the conditional doing that apparently separate object beings must do to live in the context of a conditional realm, physical existence,
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Maximus the Confessor developed the concept of methorios μεθόριος, 'boundary', 'frontier', found in Philo of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa to describe humanity's unique role as the mediator between the physical and spiritual. According to this, humans were created to unify earth and heaven, and synthesise in themselves all cosmic polarities such as the spirit and matter, intelligible and sensible, heaven and earth, and so on.
 
Thomas said:
Any experience of the all, of the totality, of one-ness, is nevertheless from a given point?
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Yes. But God’s Being rubs off on busy little drop in the form of unexpected divinity like the God aspect of Jesus, a human. The ocean it is greater, more real than the drop, so the drop’s limited perspective is transcended sooner or later (usually later, after integrating spiritually with ego/flesh). Christ was an example of a drop receiving its oceanic nature.
 
Lovingkindness said:
This is what “I” believe the Buddha was saying.———
Think of a vast, boundless ocean — an endless expanse of perfectly clear water. The whole ocean is nothing but interconnectedH₂O; its molecules never have a separate, lasting identity. Waves arise, travel, and dissolve back into the sea, but no wave is an independent, unchanging thing — each wave is just water manifesting briefly.

In Pāli/Sanskrit there isn’t a single word for “not‑self” in ordinary English; the terms used are anattā (Pāli) or anātman (Sanskrit), often rendered as “no‑self.” “Not‑self” emphasizes the practical method: examining experience and seeing what is not a fixed, owning self. “No‑self” points to the ontological insight: there is no abiding, independent self to be found.

Awakening reveals the conditioned mind for what it is: a shifting, composite process — a cluttered collection of habits, memories, and afflictive patterns accumulated over a lifetime. That conditioned process is not an individual, immutable self. The awakened insight is the recognition that the true nature of mind has no fixed identity; it is like another molecule of H₂O — simply water appearing in different forms. Nothing “becomes” the awakening in the way a separate thing could; there is only the clarity that what we called “I” was never a permanent entity. But “ nothing” can realize “nothing”. The ocean is not empty. it’s an endless vast beauty free from a fixed self and the suffering of a self.

So: the conditioned mind can cause confusion and suffering, but it is not a self. Liberation is seeing that those formations arise and pass like waves on the ocean — temporarily visible, always water, never an independent self. This is just what I believe for what it’s worth. Please may you and all living beings be well and happy. free from suffering and the causes of suffering. Peace 😊
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The whole Buddhism thing just sounds like a horror movie to me. Losing self? No self? No thanks. I'm into MORE self. Me, expanded. Until I am all things. Not nothing.
 
otherbrother said:
Yes. But God’s Being rubs off on busy little drop in the form of unexpected divinity like the God aspect of Jesus, a human.
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Well, I can't comment because I don't know what you mean. If you mean 'God' is some contingent and accident with regard to Jesus' nature, I find that idea incomprehensible.

otherbrother said:
The ocean it is greater, more real than the drop, so the drop’s limited perspective is transcended sooner or later (usually later, after integrating spiritually with ego/flesh). Christ was an example of a drop receiving its oceanic nature.
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Where the drop/ocean analogy falls down for me, is the comparison to water. Human nature is not like water; the human mode of being is not like water's mode of being, so the analogy only goes so far, and most push the analogy beyond its logical limit.

Then again, I think in terms of Logos rather than ocean, in which case Jesus was there before all else!
 
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