This part is private between me and Anonymous1 after Bohiruci
left:
(10:07 PM) Anonymous1: hmm, deep. cannot differentiate yet can
identify and react
(10:07 PM) Anonymous2: thats why i said its learnt
(10:07 PM) Anonymous1: who taught?
(10:09 PM) Anonymous2: surroundings, social, parents, basically
everything we learnt affects our sense of self
(10:09 PM) Anonymous2: the entire self concept is being learnt,
originally there is no such thing
(10:10 PM) Anonymous1: if he cannot differentiate, why does he have
the ability to 'learn' all these?
(10:11 PM) Anonymous2:
(1 yrs.) One of the first things a first year baby learns is to
separate his own little self from his environment. He learns the
difference between his body and his environment by biting
successively his blankets and the extremities of his body. The
first action hurts not, but the second one can give you a hell of a
pain (even without teeth). This biting gives the little baby the
feeling that 'body-things' somehow belong to the self but
'non-body-things' do not. Having learned this the consciousness of
the little infant has become better, because it is quite essential
for its survival and continuation to know the difference between
the self and a possibly dangerous and threatening outside. This is
the most essential and basic differentiation that has to occur. If
this little baby would be able to communicate his newly acquired
knowledge to his fellow baby's in the nursery room, who have not as
yet acquired these essentials of babyhood, he would somehow acquire
a certain leadership in the room. They would appoint him to be the
baby in charge.
(1-3 yrs.) In the first three years of
(10:11 PM) Anonymous2: why does he have the ability? through our 6
sense doors
(10:12 PM) Anonymous2:
(1-3 yrs.) In the first three years of his life the little infant
learns to understand his primal emotions. He learns how signals of
hunger, thirst or loneliness are received by the outside world and
how to use these signals for his life support. The first images are
formed in mental consciousness. He recognizes the mother, the
nipple, the cradle; more and more images are formed as he grows
older. All newly formed images make his consciousness better
equipped for life. The images and symbols he learns are the most
fundamental for his life support. Images and symbols that
correspond the most accurately with the desired objects have
leadership in consciousness over images that are more remote to
these objects.
(3-7 yrs.) With the development of language at this age the first
concepts are formed in the mind. With language the capacity for
abstraction is greatly enhanced, but the mind is still mainly
representational. Its function to operate upon the words and images
is still rudimentary developed, but now, with the help of language,
communication works so much better. The first occu
(10:13 PM) Anonymous2:
http://www.trans4mind.com/counterpoint/harris21.shtml
(10:13 PM) Anonymous2: When a baby is born, it cannot tell the
difference between self and not-self. Researchers describe the
infant's experience at this stage as "oceanic". The child has no
boundaries, and the experience is one of being undifferentiated
from the material world. Everything is self. (This is, by the way,
not the same experience as the oneness experience of enlightenment,
because it does not include a developed awareness of self.)
But as the baby interacts with the environment, it makes the
distinction between self and not-self. It bites its finger, and
feels pain. It bites its blanket and it doesn't feel pain. The baby
begins to realize that the finger is self and the blanket is
not-self. This is the beginning of the awareness that such a thing
as not-self exists. Some part of what was thought to be the self
(which in this case included everything), now is experienced as
not-self. The physical body becomes subject (by which I mean the
center from which everything else is experienced) and the rest of
the world becomes object.
(10:14 PM) Anonymous1: icic, agree, however, the thing is, this
learning ability is so natural, but yet it harms him in his
spiritual cultivation. such a paradox man
(10:15 PM) Anonymous2: it depends.. thats why we should close our
six sense doors
(10:15 PM) Anonymous2: guard it with mindfulness
(10:15 PM) Anonymous2: Here the Lord Buddha said, `Your six sense
doors must be closed so that you don't have any mental
defilements.` Then do you know how to close the door? By noting of
six things, six consciousness of seeing, hearing, smelling,
tasting, touching, and thinking about.
(10:15 PM) Anonymous2:
This is the point, what the Buddha said. When you see, say, a very
beautiful rose you realise the rose is very beautiful. Its scent is
very sweet. When you judge like that there arises a pleasant
feeling about the rose. When you feel a pleasant feeling what will
arise? Attachment, to what? To the rose. To the feeling or to the
rose? To the rose. And pleasant feeling, attachment, arises
dependent on that feeling. This attachment is to the rose. Then if
the flower is not beautiful, is ugly and produces a bad smell, when
you see it how do you feel, pleasant or unpleasant? Unpleasant.
You'll judge the flower is very ugly, `I don't want to see it.`
Then what mental state arises? Aversion. Anger.
(10:15 PM) Anonymous2: http://www.buddhanet.net/vmed_7.htm
(10:16 PM) Anonymous2:
When you judge the flower is beautiful and pleasant then you have
attachment or desire for it or to it. When you judge the flower is
ugly and produces a bad odour then you have aversion or anger
depending on the unpleasant feeling. Here you could not close your
eye doors so these mental defilements come into the mind. One of
the mental defilements comes to your mind through the eye doors.
Then when you have defilements is it good or bad? Bad. Yes. Mental
defilement is dukkha, suffering, and also the cause of dukkha,
suffering.
Then what's the thing with which you have to close these six doors?
Noting, yes, mindfulness. Mindfulness is called sati, in Pali. So
you must close all these six doors with mindfulness. And do you
know how to close them with mindfulness? Yes, noting, being mindful
of. That's why the Buddha said, `Whatever you see must be noted or
mindful of, as it is. Whatever you hear must be mindful of or
noted. Whatever you smell must be observed. Whatever you taste you
must be aware of. Whatever you touch must be noted. Whatever you
think about must be watched, as it is
(10:16 PM) Anonymous2: etc...
(10:17 PM) Anonymous1: Our six sense 'exist' but yet we have to
learn to close it. it sounds pretty self-torturing
(10:18 PM) Anonymous2: Initiated a file transfer
(10:18 PM) Anonymous2: close it does not mean we ignore
(10:18 PM) Anonymous2: or shut out six sense
(10:18 PM) Anonymous2: its not the same
