What is Sentience?

[garynortham]

I don't fear death because if there is nothing after life then I'll never know and if there is something after life, oh wow what a great adventure.

[ruairi_]

great video! (and did you put VALIS there on purpose???)

[TheNeighborhoodZenPriest]

As I understand it; Self has no ownership over sentience, sentience has ownership over the self. From sentience everything follows, like a cart follow the ox.

[markcaselius]

So, the devil made me do it really is a thing? LOL!

[DeanRendar]

I sat next to a dude at the bar while eating bar snacks talking indirectly to me, but not officially because it was just outloud and not to another person, he somehow admitted he knew he was probably in the ground and is eating worms. I also overhear conversations of people saying vague bizarre things but never at me, always to a second person who just seems like they are there to enable a reason for them to be audible in public and seem normal, until you listen in, then its oddly related to a stress or worry on my mind somehow.

[bobbi]

call me a he again, and you'll never make it to Buddhahood intact.

[lorenacharlotte]

I never managed to intellectually figure out what were those sentients. Nonetheless, I added them previously to last final sentence while offering the food I’m about to consume. It reads like this: “...And I offer this food to all sentient beings in the ten directions who have not much to eat. Thank you so much for all these gifts!”. As the offering is made out of heart Zen practice it reaches all as it breaks through all self separation. Well, at least this is how it feels to me.

[martinratcliffe]

... Or simply 'sit down and shut up'

[blorkpovud]

Brad, I always get a kick out of your "how about that??" facial expression when reading a "trippy" Dogen quote.

[marcblonde]

"Sentience uses me as a vehicle to express itself." That's interesting. So basically God is white and we are all minorities.

[ErnieCT]

If sentience is using you, then do you have free will or any amount of control over your experience? And if so, how does that work?

[itsbkfl]

hey brad, what is the difference between a teacher like you and someone like ramana maharshi, as far as spirituality goes? I ask because it seems like american zen masters are very lax and easy going. Its like they don't take the practice so seriously or something like they do in the east. But in the east there are masters who have lived recently like ramana maharshi, papaji, and some others that just by being in the presence of these people- practitioners and lay people alike are suddenly enlightened. Ram Dass said that after just a few days of being with ramana maharshi, he felt a love so pure and great emanating from ramana that all he wanted to do is kiss his feat and sleep with his dirty blanket. But these american masters do not seem to have this level of spirituality about them. Maybe I'm ignorant to true american masters, maybe I have never met a true master in person though I have met several who others claim to be true masters. can you talk about this?

[osip]

talk about sentience and non sentience is nonsense

translations of eihei dogen are nonsense

sense and nonsense, dogen and buddhism, why do people waste their time talking, doing and non doing in the chimerical pursuit of voynich ?

[starlawhitson]

There is no sentience, but that absense of sentience is only one kind of emptiness that is only taught by the lower schools; it is not the highest emptiness. Every moment you experience is a product of karma, yet you still have the ability to act or not act in the present moment.