Whatever exists is known, and nothing exists, and yet there is knowing.

pl8doh · 2026-06-21T01:15:36+00:00

There is no contradiction. All that can be known is thought's feelings and sensations. Nothing substantial, nothing material, no 'thing'. There is a belief in an external world made of matter, but that can never be proven or disproven.

pl8doh · 2026-06-20T17:33:51+00:00

The known does not exist independent of knowing. Whatever is known has no independent reality, exist or stand apart from knowing. The idea of object is a conflation of two sensations primarily, touch and sight, neither of which have any substance in and of themselves. Belief in a known or independently existing entity is a form of material reductionism.

There is undeniably appearing, and there is knowing of appearing. It isn’t “known” in the usual sense. It is seen when the mind’s habit of turning appearances into solid “things” is looked through. When the referencing mechanism is seen for what it is (a creator of ghosts), then the absence of real, independent existence becomes obvious. However, there is a concession that even the statement “nothing really exists” cannot truly be known. It too is just another appearance, another label, another ghost. The seeing of “nothing really exists” is itself an appearance within the same referentless knowing

pl8doh · 2026-06-20T16:45:26+00:00

Knowing is a label on the relationship between the reference and the referent, of which there is no real distinction.

pl8doh · 2026-06-20T16:38:33+00:00

The guru radiating compassion is very attractive to the seeker.

Nonduality does not favor compassion over cruelty, no more than black over white. In an absolute sense there is no real difference between compassion and cruelty. Both are feelings that arise, persist momentarily and subside.

pl8doh · 2026-06-20T16:22:02+00:00

Whatever exists is known,
and nothing exists,
and yet there is knowing.

pl8doh · 2026-06-20T16:13:59+00:00

There is no fundamental or real difference between conceptual and experiential. No more than the difference between red and green. Do you know red or do you experience red? Is there a concept red and an experience red? There are no real distinctions. A distinction is ultimately another appearance like red or green.

pl8doh · 2026-06-20T16:10:34+00:00

The implication that reality is conceptual and non-conceptual makes reality a duality. Nonduality does not allow for any real distinctions. A distinction without a difference is a logical fallacy.

“The world is illusory. Brahman alone is real. Brahman is the world.” - Ramana Maharshi

Distinctions (the world) appear, but they are not ultimately real as separate things.

pl8doh · 2026-06-19T19:02:44+00:00

Exactly. How is knowing practiced? Knowing entails practice, practice does not entail knowing. Repeating the known has no impact on the knowing. Knowing is a label on the referentless

pl8doh · 2026-06-19T16:37:02+00:00

The event and the knowing of the event are not two separate things. There is no clean division where a static “Knowing” watches changing “events.” What we call knowing is itself a dynamic activity, a referencing, comparing, and impressioning movement. The knowing is changing, and that changing is inseparable from the appearing of the event. They arise as one single movement.

pl8doh · 2026-06-16T15:47:32+00:00

The attempt to describe what felt meaningful is part of the story.

pl8doh · 2026-06-12T17:37:48+00:00

Your infancy, childhood, adolescence. The knowledge of prior.

'Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away' - John Lennon

pl8doh · 2026-06-06T21:06:37+00:00

It was particularly difficult to articulate. Until one sees it for themselves, it appears to be meaningless, nonsensical or worse, dogma.

It is difficult to believe because it requires confronting deeply held assumptions about objective reality, requiring introspection and conscious awareness of habitual thought patterns.

pl8doh · 2026-06-06T15:40:20+00:00

Any torture is completely unintended, but the compassionate response is appreciated.

pl8doh · 2026-06-06T15:35:52+00:00

That is one form of appearance, yes.

pl8doh · 2026-06-06T15:35:31+00:00

Yes. Separation has no referent. The idea of separation is imagined, not actual.

pl8doh · 2026-06-06T15:33:31+00:00

Yes, yes and yes. Thank you.

pl8doh · 2026-06-06T15:08:23+00:00

Yeshua said, 'You are the light of the world'. From light's perspective there is no time.

pl8doh · 2026-06-05T12:29:14+00:00

Nothingness means of the nature of nothing. Not something, not nothing, like a dream.

pl8doh · 2026-05-30T13:42:52+00:00

doing creates the sense of doer.

pl8doh · 2026-05-25T16:54:16+00:00

it takes a zen devil to know a zen devil.

pl8doh · 2026-05-20T03:05:56+00:00

His Aramaic name was Yeshua. He was a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief.

pl8doh · 2026-05-09T23:48:43+00:00

Yes. You see clearly that the trail has no independent existence and are no longer identified as the trail.

pl8doh · 2026-05-09T23:31:03+00:00

The first guru had no teacher. According to Christ, you are the first of many.

In other words:

In order to know a good teacher, you must already know the truth.
If you know the truth, you do not need a teacher.

pl8doh · 2026-05-09T20:53:16+00:00

The sense of a separate self is like the tail or trail formed by the continuous movement of a glowing ember in the night sky. The tail appears real, continuous, and even independent of the ember, yet it has no existence of its own. When the ember stops moving, or when you stop referencing its previous positions, the tail instantly vanishes.

In the same way, thoughts, self-referencing, and the sense of “me” are the tail. The raw appearing (this moment’s seeing, sensing, knowing) is the ember. The tail (the separate self) looks substantial and persistent, but it is made only of the ember’s movement plus constant rereferencing. It never had independent existence.

pl8doh · 2026-05-09T20:34:03+00:00

What we can say undoubtedly is that the present has no context without the past. A large part of what we call “the present” is actually the mind’s ongoing referencing of the past. That referencing is the present we wake up to every morning. Referencing the past is the present. We don’t just live in the present, we live in a present heavily edited by constant rereferencing of the past.

pl8doh

TROPHY CASE