What is View?

An Eternal Now SG

A view is a fundamental belief one holds about reality. For example, "everything exists" (sarva asti)

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The root of both these mistaken positions is "is" and "is not" -- for example "I exist now, and I will continue to exist after death" or "I exist now but when I die I will cease to exist".

~ Loppon Namdrol

An Eternal Now SG

At base, the main fetter of self-grasping is predicated upon naive reification of existence and non-existence. Dependent origination is what allows us to see into the non-arising nature of dependently originated phenomena, i.e. the self-nature of our aggregates. Thus, right view is the direct seeing, in meditative equipoise, of this this non-arising nature of all phenomena. As such, it is not a "view" in the sense that is something we hold as concept, it is rather a wisdom which "flows" into our post-equipoise and causes us to truly perceive the world in the following way in Nagarjuna's Bodhicittavivarana:

"Form is similar to a foam,
Feeling is like water bubbles,
Ideation is equivalent with a mirage,
Formations are similar with a banana tree,
Consciousness is like an illusion."

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"In other words, right view is the beginning of the noble path. It is certainly the case that dependent origination is "correct view"; when one analyzes a bit deeper, one discovers that in the case "view" means being free from views. The teaching of dependent origination is what permits this freedom from views. The teaching of dependent origination is what permits this freedom from views."

~ Loppon Namdrol

bohiruci SG

View is very important .A practitioner who does not succeed in eradicating wrong actions is still salveable .However ,if a practitioner who falls into the Wrong view of NO KARMA EXIST , slandering Triple Gem ,Distorting the idea of 4 Pheonomenon [Impermanence, Happiness,Self , Purity ]

Falls into the avici hell as he/she does not see the need to repent on Wrong View and committing 5 offenses

Fcukpap SG

view should be distinguished from belief

it could be a momentary conjecture than firmly held thought or opinion

conjecture can go through endless refutations till some recurring patterns consolidate it

An Eternal Now SG

Fcukpap, actually view is belief, and view stands in the way of true freedom. The dissolving of views is liberation. Please read http://nickdowntherabbithole.blogspot.com/2011/...

Conversations: Breakthrough!!!

I am the most relaxed I have been ever. This just got easier. Now stay soft, stay supple, stay interested, have fun. It’s all just causes and conditions, man. :-)

Me: Something seems to be reoccurring as I try to maintain attentiveness to sensuousness and that is whether this process/path to AF, is about “seeing” something in the right way, or more so about cultivating the right conditions (just being attentive to sensuousness) long enough for the brain to flip a switch (AF) because when the mind leans to the “seeing” something in the right way, I wonder, what am I not seeing and when it leans to the other way, I wonder if all it takes is just doing this continuously non-stop
AFer: it entails a commitment to live like this for as long as now lasts . its a lifestyle, not a means to an end, living like this is it.
Me: What do you mean?
AFer: living like this is the answer already, suppose no one had told you that af exists.
Me: oh man, I just saw what I’m doing…..so goal oriented…addictive personality shining through. If no-one told me AF existed, I’d just be cultivating the modes that make life happier and I’d be happier.
This realization latter on in the day led to a breakthrough which I described to my good friend Owen.
Me: I realized ”I” am aiming for a goal, and that is subtly inhibiting the process of freedom. I saw that I was holding onto a belief, a stream of thought: “I had to work to get AF!”
No doubt, there is some “work” involved but as you know it’s a tricky business. So, I looked at the belief. The thought that came up, came up with agitation too and I looked at the sensations of agitation in the chest and the thoughts of goal oriented-ness and realized that they were just beliefs and belief is ”me”. I saw that there is a belief that those sensations are unpleasant. I saw that there was a belief that “I” was agitated and “I” had the desire to not be agitated.
Then everything that came up, relationship stuff, practice stuff, all of it was seen to be supported by a belief, and one by one beliefs came up left right and centre, virtually everything I think about-> based on an unquestioned belief.
And belief is what stands in the way of actuality! Plop!....a magnificent entrance to a PCE. Up comes another belief. I look at it and see it is what seems to hold everything else in place. “I” believe that “I” exist via a flow of becoming, via a sense of “being”-> “I” believe that the flow of sensations at the chest are “unpleasant” and worthy of causing tension in this mind/body organism-~~> “I” believe that the “unpleasant” sensations must be waited out with equanimity due to them being “unpleasant”~~-> and on and on. Belief after belief, identity after identity, all entangled up together to support the flow of becoming. Look at the belief that those sensations are worthy of their “unpleasant” for a feeling “me” status…...no, they aren’t.... magnificent entrance to PCE

“These sensations are negative” is a belief…looking at it like it from the angle of belief and it all evaporates. Everything that I believe somehow for better or for worse conditions the current experience of the flow of sankhara. So analyzing every belief that comes up cuts the sequence that leads to sankhara forming. What remains without any belief conditioning the flow of sankhara? Actuality! So many subtle beliefs of how the current moment need play out, conditioning the flow of becoming.
Owen: the end of notions
Me: actuality is not about belief. Belief is the thicket of views and views are ‘me” and “me” always stands in the way of actuality. Goal oriented-ness is all about belief. Results do occur but actuality does not in the moment. Actuality occurs when beliefs drop away.
Owen: something I read a while back in one of thich nah han’s books “Right View is No View”.
Me: so, Ive just blown the door wide open and seen all the blocks. Whatever stands in the way of actuality is being held stuck in place by a belief. So subtle and tricky this mind. Suffering is a belief. It occurs because there is a belief that suffering occurs. No belief there to condition suffering, no suffering!
Owen: that’s lovely….god, it all comes back to zen
Me: if you question all beliefs, including the one which is behind why you aren’t free from suffering right now in this very moment, perhaps you will be. Beliefs are thought patterns that loop back endlessly, locking the mind on a route that for good or bad keeps actuality at bay.
They are like the cords that tie us down. They foster the sense of being and strengthen it’s compounding. Seeing the illogic nature of each belief, seems to make it disperse like clouds in the wind
As I was doing this on the bus, just watching every feeling every thought, they were all based on some belief or other. Why is PCE mode not occuring? Because PCE mode can’t occur at the moment as  ”I” am agitated. Who is agitated???? Look closer! And there is the belief that there is a feeling “me” that is agitated….but the further back I go, the actual sensations that seem to be the trigger of agitation are “believed” to be “unpleasant”.
Another frickn belief!!!!...that there is agitation there, that it is influencing being, that it is a hindrance, that it causes suffering—-> all based on belief; a locked in loop of ignorant belief….and as I watched, each belief kind of evaporated…made my brain go blank …almost like momentary fruitions…and plop! PCE…then more beliefs, and then evaporating and then plop! PCE….and now..
Owen: wow
Me: it seems it is key. “I” am my beliefs. What stands in the way of actuality? “Me” !
Owen: ok, I got to play with that. Thanks man.

Almond Cookies SG

The right view is we are sinners and Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.

Weychin SG

The right view is we are sinners and Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.

Buddhist do not aim for heaven and neither do not accept that view!

Do you really want to know why?

An Eternal Now SG

Want to add that there has been a synchronistic event, like always. Whenever I need some pointers, they come to me. Like Namdrol will start posting on view… Nikolai will post something about it too… Cool stuff.

An Eternal Now SG

Oh and forgot to add, I was jiust contemplating on the implications of view in daily life over the past few days.

An Eternal Now SG

Just posted in ttb: I have just come to a new realisation of the implications of views in daily life. I could have misunderstood what goldisheavy meant but I think it has to do with the fields of meaning. I have realised how ideas, beliefs, notions, views pervade our life and causes attachment.

I now see that every single attachment is an attachment to view, which, no matter what it is, comes to two basic clinging: the view 'there is' and the view 'there isn't'.

I started by noticing how in the past I had a sense of self, body and awareness... That these all seem so real to me and I kept coming back to that subjective sense and this is no longer the case now: I don't even have a sense of a body nowadays. Then I realized that all these clingings are related to view.

The view of There is.... Self, body, mind, awareness, world, whatever. Because of this clinging on to things as existent, they appear real to us and we cling to them. The only way to eradicate such clingings is to remove the root of clinging: the view of 'there is' and 'there isn't'.

The realization of anatta removes the view of 'there is self', 'there is awareness' as an independent and permanent essence. Basically, any views about a subjective self is removed through the insight that "seeing is just the seen", the subject is always only its objective constituents. There is no more sense of self, body, awareness, or more precisely there is no clinging to a "there is" with regards to such labels. It is seen that these are entirely ungraspable processes. In short the clinging and constant referencing to an awareness, a self dissolves, due to the notion "there is" such things are being eradicated.

The realization of dream-like reality removes the view of 'there are objects', the universe, the world of things... One realizes what heart sutra meant by no five skandhas. This is basically the same realization as anatta, except that it impacts the view "there is" and "there isn't" in terms of the objective pole, in contrast to the earlier insight that dissolves "there is" of a subjective self.

What I have overlooked all these while is the implications of views and how the thicket of view causes all clingings and suffering and what underpins those thicket of views, and how realization affects and dissolves these views.

bohiruci SG

I now see that every single attachment is an attachment to view, which, no matter what it is, comes to two basic clinging: the view 'there is' and the view 'there isn't'.

thats nice

With Palms together in veneration

Homage to the Awakened Nature
Homage to the Thus Come One

Mahaprajna paramita