I am a biscuit.

[Tony]

I am a biscuit – I'll explain.

For a biscuit to think it exists, it needs ingredients - flour, water, sugar, butter - and cooking.
Every thing is made up of ingredients, just like a biscuit, and all the compents have to be there in order for it to exist.

“I” is made up of ingredients.

Here I will have to put on a Buddhist hat.
What we are is pure awareness - sacred open space, with no embellishments - no ingredients, but just pure being. We can give this any name that suits you!

One day, this pure open sacred space, this pure awareness, got attracted to something – it got attracted to being aware! It had a feeling of existence, of personal existence, and it forgot pure being.

This incident (which happens every moment now!) initiated the filling of this open space with concepts. To hold the whole thing together, we needed ingredients (what are called the five aggregates) - form, feeling, perception, karmic formation and consciousness.
These are the ingredients to create a sentient being.

So a sentient being is created out of ignorance (ignorance of their true nature) and that sentient being just went on creating, and enjoying its creation...until it finds that that creation is the very cause of its suffering. This creation has to be maintained and defended, giving rise to aggression and hatred and all the other negative emotions.

However... once we recognise our true nature, there is no reason not to enjoy the biscuit! Then the benefit of others becomes the reason to create.

Each moment is a joyous, smiling opportunity to re-establish our true nature. Our only problem now is, in having made the biscuit in the kitchen, we have to clean up all the residue. That cleaning up and the putting everything away is the process of eliminating karma (it is that which is still holding the biscuit together).

When we finally put everything away, and no more biscuits can be made, we free to do whatever we choose!

However...the end of the 'biscuit business' brings the arising of unconditional love...so what are you going to do with that?!


Now doesn't that just take the biscuit?
Tony

[Tony]

THE FIVE AGGREGATES
The teaching of The Five Aggregates or The Five Skandhas, is an analysis of personal experiences and a view on cognition from a Buddhist perspective.

The teaching also provides a logical and thorough approach to understand the Universal Truth of Not-self. In the last issue's "Buddhism in a Nutshell", we conclude that self is just a convenient term for a collection of physical and mental personal experiences, such as feelings, ideas, thoughts, habits, attitude, etc. However, we should go on to analyse all our personal experiences in terms of The Five Aggregates. The Five Aggregates are:

Form
Sensation
Perception
Mental Formation
Consciousness
They are called aggregates as they work together to produce a mental being. As Heart Sutra says, Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva illuminates and sees the emptiness of the Five Skandhas.
Impermanence is one of the characteristics of emptiness. and the aggregates are also governed by the principle of impermanence. Therefore each of the aggregates is undergoing constant changes. Aggregates are not static things; they are dynamic processes.
By understanding the Five Skandhas, we attain the wisdom of not-self. The world we experience is not constructed upon and around the idea of a self, but through the impersonal processes. By getting rid of the idea of self, we can look at happiness and suffering, praise and blame, and all the rest with equanimity. In this way, we will be no longer subject to the imbalance of alternating hope and fear.


11.1   Form (Rupa)
The aggregate of form corresponds to what we would call material or physical factors. It includes our own bodies, and material objects as well. Specifically, the aggregate of form includes the five physical organs (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body), and the corresponding physical objects of the sense organs (sight, sound, smell, taste and tangible objects).



11.2   Sensation (Vedana)
The aggregate of sensation or feeling is of three kinds - pleasant, unpleasant and indifferent. When an object is experienced, that experience takes on one of these emotional tones, the tone of pleasure, the tone of displeasure, or the tone of indifference.


11.3   Perception
The function of perception is to turn an indefinite experience into a definite, recognised and identified experience. It is the formulation of a conception of an idea about a particular object of experience.


11.4   Mental Formation
The aggregate of mental formation may be described as a conditioned response to the object of experience. It is not just the impression created by previous actions (the habitual energy stored up from countless former lives), but also the responses here and now motivated and directed in a particular way.
In short, mental formation or volition has a moral dimension; perception has a conceptual dimension; feeling has an emotional dimension.


11.5   Consciousness

Both the eye and the visible object are the physical elements, therefore they are not enough to produce experience by themselves. Only the co-presence of consciousness together with the eye and the visible object produces experience. Similarly, ear, nose, tongue and body are the same. Consciousness is therefore an indispensable element in the product of experience. Consciousness is mere awareness, or sensitivity to an object. When the physical factors of experience, e.g. the eyes and visible objects come in contact, and when consciousness also becomes associated with the physical factors of experience, visual consciousness arises. It is not just the personal experience. The way that our personal experience is produced is through the functioning of the three major mental factors of experience, i.e. the aggregate of perception and mental formation. There are:

eye consciousness
ear consciousness
nose consciousness
tongue consciousness
body consciousness
mind consciousness


(the mind has three consciousnesses - to follow)

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Different traditions may view this slightly differently.

There are eight consciousnesses. Five of the senses, three of mind.
The sixth perception.
The seventh is judgement.
The eighth is the storehouse of thoughts.

In normal life the action between the 6th 7th and 8th happen very quickly.

An example:
The eye consciousness see something, that is perceived by the 6th consciousness. This immediately goes very quickly (hardly noticed) to and through the 7th consciousness (judgement) which looks into the 8th consciousness to identify what it sees. It then that the 7th consciousness can judge whether it is good or bad.

This is our habitual reaction. We get into a pattern of behaviour, we program ourselves.
Meditation is about de-programming ourselves.

The closer we look, the fascinating it is!
The 8th consciousness is not only the software, it is also the hard drive.
So it has two names, Alaya (all ground) and Alayavidjnana (storehouse).

The Alaya 8th consciousness is very closer to Essence. But is still conceptual, however when that is deleted ...that could be enlightenment! Anyway Alaya at our level is good enough, though it is a non-thought vacant state. Here we need the help of Mipham's 'The Lamps that dispels the Darkness'. One merely has to look into this vacant state, and rests without any alteration.

That is Essence!......well, baby essence!

This is all theory, you do need a teacher to take you through all this. You have to admit this is so interesting.

[humanalien]

I am a biscuit


I know you are but what am i? Sorry.
I couldn't resist a little peewee herman
humor.

[Flash]

I am a biscuit


I know you are but what am i? Sorry.
I couldn't resist a little peewee herman
humor.

You know what i do with a biscuit Pin'eal n'est-ce pas? LOL

Ok, off topic, sorry.

i did read your post, I am on reflexion right now, nothing to add other than stupid comments, but I could not resist.

[Tony]

I am a biscuit


I know you are but what am i? Sorry.
I couldn't resist a little peewee herman
humor.

You know what i do with a biscuit Pin'eal n'est-ce pas? LOL

Ok, off topic, sorry.




i did read your post, I am on reflexion right now, nothing to add other than stupid comments, but I could not resist.



Once we know how a biscuit is made, we can do what we like with them....dunk 'em...or make 'em as nutty as you wish!

¤=[Post Update]=¤



I am a biscuit


I know you are but what am i? Sorry.
I couldn't resist a little peewee herman
humor.


You look like a "Jammy dodger" to me! Do you have then in America?

[RMorgan]

Here it is Tony,

I´ve got one of your baby pictures to prove it! :)

http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/5768/687683-gingy_large.jpg

Cheers,

Raf.

[nenosema]

fabulous!
..very interesting

i appreciate your use of words, for us'es with untrained eye , that have to look up definitions......


always enjoy these thoughts

[Tony]

Here it is Tony,

I´ve got one of your baby pictures to prove it! :)

http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/5768/687683-gingy_large.jpg

Cheers,

Raf.




You got me...I still have the same hair cut!

[pugwash84]

If you're a biscuit then I am a rose, I need food and water and a lot of light and I need to be rooted and connected to the earth. Only then shall I blissfully bloom and show my beauty.

That has to be the best looking biscuit btw!

[greybeard]

You and your half baked Ideas Tony.
Very creative.
But who does the dishes?

Chris


PS In all seriousness your posts are very constructive and thought producing Tony.

Best wishes

[nenosema]

jesus, does the dishes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_Z1k3LUa2E&feature=related

withlove