Has Anyone Since Buddha Reached Nirvana, Really?

You wrote,

So true! However, I do believe in karma; most who live by the sword will die by it.

Yes. If you get into enough fights it is just a matter of time before you meet someone better, luckier or someone who was just in better shape that day. It's like my boss told me the first time I crashed his car. "It was bound to happen some time. When you spend 10 hours on the road five days a week, it is only a matter of time before you have an accident."

Good corrections. Thanks.
When enlightened there is no self to die. But freedom from the notion that "I" am dying, "poor me" is an enlightened death. I was thinking that as soon as one has achieved "death" there is no death because there's noone to be in a state of death. But as you noted, there is noone to be alive before one dies.

I like your version of karma, of being punished by one's anger. Sounds like my belief that not only is virtue its own regard but evil is its own punishment--for example having the mind of a Hitler.

As always, I attribute the impressions of conceptual contradiction in your statements to the fact that we have to utilize concepts to communicate with words, which makes such contradictions inevitable. I know that no corrections are needed, but I offer them for the sake of conversation. I realize that I trust your insights to such an extent that I never have any objections, and that makes for poor discussion. I imagine that if we should ever meet there would be a whole lot of sitting and not much conversation. Words would just get in the way...

Another of my contradictions: I said "When enlightened there is no self to die". The reality is that, enlightened or not, there is no self to die. Realizing that is, I suppose, an expression of enlightenment. But, as they say, zen mind is ordinary mind (or samsara = nirvana) so we ALL have Buddha Mind, whether we appreciate it or not. I think it is the appreciation--not enlightenment--that distinguishes people.

I see it the same. Samsara is really nirvana but viewed incorrectly. Where there is clinging and desire for more samsara results in bits of frustration and unhappiness. When you see how the cycle perpetuates you can take steps to deminish or even rid yourself of this unnecessarily road to unhappiness. I am not saying it is an easy thing to do since it sounds so simple and common sense. It is far from easy to do because our very existence is contrary to the solution.

Although what you say is true, not because I also agree with it but because it is completely in line with how I understand the texts. They reflect this very same mindset if you will. However; I also think there is another piece, that this mindset is really just the initial first step and not in fact the actual solution. This is my impression when I come to other writings that talk about completely different subjects than non-self.

Many of the things that westerners deem to be buddhist are just surface steps to actual buddhism. They are introductory aspects. I believe had they devulged everything that either no one would accept it or it would be so over the top that they would be overwelmed at where to begin.

I think even concepts like karma are just aspects to draw in people to listen to the dharma and climb their way further down the rabit hole. But it is this initial invitation that they first must accept or else they won't care to go any further. I think this is both a problem and good step. It is a problem because most never go any further down the rabit hole. They take these surface invitations as being all there is to buddhism and never investigate further. I know this because I was just like that.

With all that said, I still think there is no one living who has achieved complete anuttara samyak sambodhi.

I think we can keep this up forever. That is the way of words. Always more modifications to our statements are necessary when dealing with subjects of this nature.
Perhaps we can say that "Buddha Mind" is a state of mind where all thought effort is spent on the action at hand, and nothing is wasted on self conscious doubts and fears.

That is so, Cyracuz. As Krumple holds no one alive has attained Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi; it's unattainable because it is an ideal condition of consciousness free of/"far beyond" all categories and distinctions (as stated in the Heart Sutra). As I see it, it's an unattainable ideal because we cannot live without the indispensable categories and distinctions that mask our fundamental Unity*. Nonetheless, we can, at least in principle, realize their artificiality, a realization with many names: Moksha, Satori, Transcendence, Prajna Paramita, Awakening, etc.
*This is an extreme statement, of course. I think there are glimpses of our Unity--a matter of degrees.

Last summer a friend of mine gave me some LSD. I had never tried it before, and so I decided I'd go for it, just to see what it's like. For the next 10 hours I existed in a state where distinctions and categories became meaningless. It might have been a traumatic experience if I hadn't felt such relief at the freedom from everything I define myself as. For a while I couldn't define the borders of my own body, and that sensation was awesome. I felt enormous, and I felt as if I was everywhere. Every day distinctions were meaningless. Then I proceeded into a journey of dimensions, of sorts, where I could effortlessly view anything as both infinite and finite at the same time. The experience defies description.

It's perhaps not socially acceptable to say this, but I would really recommend everyone to take a healthy dose either lsd or mushrooms at least once in their lives. For myself I feel no need to repeat the experience, but I am glad I did it once.

Many people get addicted, and some die from them.

I don't need LSD to experience what's good in life; I prefer to live in the present reality as it is.

Me neither, CI. I haven't done it since, and probably will not again. But as for the present reality as it is, I am not sure I know what that is about. I like to think I do, but when I think about it, it seems reasonable to assume that I am wrong.

We can only rely on our personal perception about reality.

I'm going to be 77 years old in July, and a friend and I are celebrating a combined party at a golf club to invite mutual friends and family. We met the owner last Friday to discuss our plans, and I'm pretty sure those events are "real."

My wife and I are leaving for a National Parks tour tomorrow for 18-days, and I'm sure that's real too!

Not much in my life that doesn't seem real, but who knows? I may be fooling myself.

C.I., obviously you realize that "reality" is not a problem until some event renders it so (Fresco has made this clear). As far as I'm concerned illusions can be wonderful; it's what art is about. But I wouldn't want to conflate fiction with reality, except, of course, for our appreciation for the "truths" that both can teach.
It seems clear to me that the positive experience enjoyed by Cryacuz with LSD is what I would call an acid test of his essential sanity. It is why Aldous Huxley's experience with such psychodelics were so edifying for him. I have never dared to try them; my many years of residence in Hollywood revealed to me the potential for disaster in their use by people of unsound mental/spiritual stature.

Yes. And my experience with acid kind of felt like the parameters of those perceptions were tweaked off the scale.

I was a little uneasy about trying LSD myself, having heard of and seen people who never "came down" again. The day after, when it wore off, I could clearly feel that my psyche was kind of ragged, as if my self needed some time to solidify again. I can well imagine that if I'd done it again soon after the consequences could have been very unfortunate. So I haven't done it since, and I don't really feel the need or desire to do so either.

I think, as you say, that perceptions are more important than "real events". Knowing the difference is important, but we shouldn't dismiss perceptual notions that seem to be illusions just because they are not real (in the sense "part of the shared reality of all of us). Such experiences can give us much.



Most likely you are, but you have that in common with all of us. Luckily the illusions are persistent, perhaps because of our perpetual ideas of self. During my LSD experience I realize that the only thing that changed was my ideas and perceptions of self, but that in turn changed everything. I knew what was "normal" all the time, but when I abandoned that thought temporarily, the whole world changed into a holistic experience of presence, merely being without boundaries or definition. If I hadn't known in the back of my mind that I would return to normal, it would perhaps have been scary. Experiments in the 60's where people were given LSD without knowing about it suggests that this is so. Most panicked and became very afraid.

C.I. said "Not much in my life that doesn't seem real, but who knows? I may be fooling myself."

Crycuz answered: "Most likely you are, but you have that in common with all of us. "

I add: That's what most anthropologists mean by "culture."

When you hear the term, live is an illusion or that there is non-self. It isn't talking about your life not existing. It does exist. The reason it is confusing is because of how the terms are being used. In english we don't have very good words to describe what the buddha meant by these things. It took me a long time to understand exactly what he meant, and I have now a simple way of explaining it.

The concept of non self is meant to mean we don't have a permenant thing that we are refering to when we talk about ourselves. The actual reaity is we are like a stream of experiences that is forever changing. However; since we have awareness we tend to view ourselves as being substantual or even unchanging entities. Since we are in a constant state of change, it would be more accurate to say there is no self because how can you point to something which is constantly changing and solidify it into something?

It is like every day objects. Sure they currently are in their states but those states could change at any moment. If a cup breaks and shatters on the floor, do you still refer to it as a cup? No, because it has changed states. Sure you could try to put it back together but it really isn't the same cup. Not only that but what were the materials it was made from, where did they come from? If it was glass more than likely it was some sand somewhere and before that some rock and before that?

This is why the cup is considered to be an illusion since it is in all reality not a cup. Only at a moment is it a cup, and then later something else, and yet later something else. Everything in our existence has this nature and its called non-self. It really has no identity because to identify it is to attempt to solidify the object into something which in fact is not accurate.

Our brains and our bodies and even our minds are the exact same way. We are not the same people we were at age five. We are not even the same people we were two days ago. The only thing that bridges us, is memory and it is this memory that causes us to become attached to the identity of our selves. Without this memory we actually would exist in a constant state of present moment as experiences streamed in we would just live in the present moment. Just like everything else does. We are an exception because we attach to these identities and want to hold onto the present moment and refuse to let it go.

Thanks, Krumple. Very helpful. I especially like your reference to memory as the mechanism by which we transform changing experiencess into the illusion of static "things" (pseudoentities). I would like, however, to paraphrase your statement--
"The actual reaity is we are like a stream of experiences that is forever changing. However; since we have awareness we tend to view ourselves as being substantual or even unchanging entities."--
That is so. But I would stress that we ARE streams of experience; we are not subjects that HAVE experiences. In the latter form of speech we are implicitly described as solid agents of experience, the illusion of a solid Cartesian self. This is not your attention, I know. It is a function of conventional language.
I would also remind your readers that the cup is not a cup even before it broke. In various moments it can be a paper weight, a weapon, a paper clip container, etc. To insist that it is always "a cup" no matter how it is used is to suffer the condition of "hardening of the categories."