Developing a language of gnosis

[Michel]

Okey dokey But, I may not be as thorough as you, Michel. Fair warning Whereas you are a sniper, gathering tons of information about the target and environment before engaging with great accuracy and efficacy--I appear to be more of a buckshot. LOL. Hitting various connected targets, sometimes with very little impact.

Well, I've never been compared to a sniper. LOL But shotguns and sniper rifles can both hit the target.

[Jhanananda]

Interesting term: moksha.

Moksha

 In Indian religions and Indian philosophy, moksha (Sanskrit: मोक्ष mokṣa), also called vimoksha, vimukti and mukti,[1] means emancipation, liberation or release.[2] In soteriological and eschatological sense, it connotes freedom from saṃsāra, the cycle of death and rebirth.[3] In epistemological and psychological sense, moksha connotes freedom, self-realization and self-knowledge.[4]

In Hindu traditions, moksha is a central concept[5] and included as one of the four aspects and goals of human life; the other three goals are dharma (virtuous, proper, moral life), artha (material prosperity, income security, means of life), and kama (pleasure, sensuality, emotional fulfillment).[6] Together, these four aims of life are called Puruṣārtha in Hinduism.[7]

The concept of moksha is found In Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism. In some schools of Indian religions, moksha is considered equivalent to and used interchangeably with other terms such as vimoksha, vimukti, kaivalya, apavarga, mukti, nihsreyasa and nirvana.[8] However, terms such as moksha and nirvana differ and mean different states between various schools of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.[9] The term nirvana is more common in Buddhism,[10] while moksha is more prevalent in Hinduism.[11]

Thank-you, Michel for giving us the benefit of your research.  As you may know the Sanskrit 'moksha' is vimokha' in Pali.

[Jhanek]

I want to refresh this thread as I found it very usefull, thank You guys for a lot of work You have done:

The fifth aggregate cognition, "viññana," is typically translated as "consciousness."  However, this must be nonsense, because if we were to accept that the Buddha said "viññana" means "consciousness," then it would imply that he found enlightenment to be an unconscious state, because enlightenment was described by him as free of the five aggregate of cognition.

You may find this interesting. In my book of dhamma lectures term "viññana" is translated as 'knowing, consciousness of; noticing, that something has happened. One of the five khandha'.
So there is no contradiction. Example: the ear noticed the sound. Thats the viññana aspect. Only noticed, nothing else.

What comes next? Sañña. One may say here comes consciousness but it seems rather like marking + or -. Evaluation. This was good/bad sound or noise.

Then comes vedana, sensation, body reaction. One may be scared because of noise.

4th comes reaction of the mind, sankhara.

Being enlightenment means cessation of the above mentioned due to constant consciousness.

The point is: who is conscious of what? Understanding of the subject is crucial. One say: body is conscious. Other say: mind is conscious. Then someone say: I am conscious that [my] mind is away. Or even: I observe my mind investigating my body.

There is this body that is impermanent. There is mind, flow of awareness. There is the observer, somehow close to ' I " or "me". I haven't "seen" more 'phenomena' from my personal experience but I think there is something else that I felt but can't give it any definition(let not consider OOB now).

Arahat state in that way of understanding would mean breaking habbit of mind's reaction. How is it possible? Constant consciousness of present body sensations + already eradicated all of the past reaction patterns.

The problem is:  this matches the definition from one book, not from other book. Goes with one translation but not with the other. Do we know anyone that is alive and may be the living example of the state of arahat to clear the definitions?

There are now 3 options:
a) one rediscovers the technique and corrects the current state of knowledge / definitions
b) there is someone living somewhere and is able to correct it within english
c) follow this path fast in the present state assuming that all we have now is correct

Otherwise I am afraid that developing a language of gnosis that will be unified may take decades.

Is there any short list of the 'stuck' points like: "consciousness" , "cognition" ,"self" , "non-self" , "volition" , "concentration" , "mind" ?

After the above 30 years, I spent 10 years taking each sutta and read them deeply, to see how they apply, not just applied to my life, but how they applied to my interior life as a contemplative and mystic.  After that 40 years of rigorous study and practice I feel that I have found a few significant errors in how all mainstream religions tend to misinterpret the life and teachings of their progenitor.

I have spent the last 13 years offering up my findings to my fellow Western Buddhists, contemplatives and mystics. My wish is that my life’s work serves a few of you as well as it has served me.

This is insanely a lot. Tons of effort. Maybe we can gather together and push out some unified dictionary if there is no chance of someone correcting it?

[Jhanananda]

I want to refresh this thread as I found it very usefull, thank You guys for a lot of work You have done:

You may find this interesting. In my book of dhamma lectures term "viññana" is translated as 'knowing, consciousness of; noticing, that something has happened. One of the five khandha'.
So there is no contradiction. Example: the ear noticed the sound. Thats the viññana aspect. Only noticed, nothing else.

What comes next? Sañña. One may say here comes consciousness but it seems rather like marking + or -. Evaluation. This was good/bad sound or noise.

Then comes vedana, sensation, body reaction. One may be scared because of noise.

4th comes reaction of the mind, sankhara.

Being enlightenment means cessation of the above mentioned due to constant consciousness.

The point is: who is conscious of what? Understanding of the subject is crucial. One say: body is conscious. Other say: mind is conscious. Then someone say: I am conscious that [my] mind is away. Or even: I observe my mind investigating my body.

The premise that I have come to realize, which is essential for any mystic, is most of the devout never lead a contemplative life, so they never learn how to shed the cognitive processes.

The second premise is, since the priesthood come from the devout; and the mystics are almost always marginalized by the priesthood, then the commentaries provided by the priesthood, is almost never correct.

So, what we mystics and future mystics must learn is to shed the cognitive processes, while just retaining consciousness alone.

There is this body that is impermanent. There is mind, flow of awareness. There is the observer, somehow close to ' I " or "me". I haven't "seen" more 'phenomena' from my personal experience but I think there is something else that I felt but can't give it any definition(let not consider OOB now).

The first step is to still the mind.  After that, then the charisms start to come.

Arahat state in that way of understanding would mean breaking habbit of mind's reaction. How is it possible? Constant consciousness of present body sensations + already eradicated all of the past reaction patterns.

The problem is:  this matches the definition from one book, not from other book. Goes with one translation but not with the other. Do we know anyone that is alive and may be the living example of the state of arahat to clear the definitions?

We just have to keep in mind that "we know a tree by its fruit."  The fruit of the arahat, is, in addition to the charisms, freedom from addiction, and other habits of the mind are critical for one to be an arahat.

There are now 3 options:
a) one rediscovers the technique and corrects the current state of knowledge / definitions

Once one has successfully stilled the mind, then the technique become irrelevant.

b) there is someone living somewhere and is able to correct it within english
c) follow this path fast in the present state assuming that all we have now is correct

Otherwise I am afraid that developing a language of gnosis that will be unified may take decades.

Is there any short list of the 'stuck' points like: "consciousness" , "cognition" ,"self" , "non-self" , "volition" , "concentration" , "mind" ?

This is insanely a lot. Tons of effort. Maybe we can gather together and push out some unified dictionary if there is no chance of someone correcting it?

We all here are correcting the language of gnosis.

[Frederick]

"Once one has successfully stilled the mind, then the technique become irrelevant."

This has been one of the best pieces of advice that I have seen for meditating. I try to do this each time I sit.