"Welcome to my Buddhist school "

Thankyou, may i take off my shoes?

This is where i'm comfortable, as it's often forgotten that the scriptures can only indicate the supramental reality, and never directly describe its true nature.. the knower transcends the scripture.

"that is actually a major point of contention in the Buddhist schools."

Welcome to my Buddhist school

@chris S said

"It certainly wasnt the ego we use in daily life, otherwise how could we communicate, make a living and live our normal lives? So we still have to accept it to some degree.. Buddha clearly understood this.
Again his claim to fame is the middle path.. A two truths scenario. The real claim of 'no ego' is realising the psychological illusion... to try to destroy something is to cling to it, or to attack an illusion is to make it real."

I would say, it is more the "false Ego" that is remedied, the glamour of our reflection in the material and the mistaking of it as our identity.

"Something to keep in mind:
In Buddhism, one attempts to "destroy the Ego & Self" from the outset"

that is actually a major point of contention in the Buddhist schools.
It certainly wasnt the ego we use in daily life, otherwise how could we communicate, make a living and live our normal lives? So we still have to accept it to some degree.. Buddha clearly understood this.
Again his claim to fame is the middle path.. A two truths scenario. The real claim of 'no ego' is realising the psychological illusion... to try to destroy something is to cling to it, or to attack an illusion is to make it real.

"
@gurugeorge said
" all that was ever here, all along, was your Eternity."

Nothing about it is "yours.""

Yes, true, better to just say "It's Eternity", or just "Eternity"; on the other hand, bear in mind that there *is *a question of identity here. One starts off with the question "who am I?" or "what is this?" That question is ultimately answered, although not in the way one thought it would be. Calling it "your" is a nod to this journey's starting point.

Below the Abyss, plenty of instrumental difference betwen I, you, me, him, her, it. Above the Abyss, no difference: all terms ultimately refer to the same protean "thing".

"
this term, "Abyss". Is it a mere metaphor, indistinct and unverifiable? A Buddhist monk may know nothing about the A'A' grade system but he just keeps up his work his whole life. Are you saying he has to approach his personal Mara at some time or other? I don't recall any talk of "abyss" in my previous readings on buddhism"

Something to keep in mind:
In Buddhism, one attempts to "destroy the Ego & Self" from the outset
Where in Magick the two are used as tools, which must eventually be abandoned

So, you might say they never speak of "crossing the Abyss" in Buddhism as that is the entire process.
Whittling away the "Ego & Self" until one drifts across the Abyss with such ease it is as if it is not there.

" all that was ever here, all along, was your Eternity."

Nothing about it is "yours."

"
@gurugeorge said
"

Keep approaching that point where you panic. Eventually you get used to it. Then as you persist through the panic, there's a kind of inner vertigo or "existential dizziness", one might say, and then you're through!

Your identity will dissolve, or be seen through (perhaps more accurately) - it will be seen as something over there, very small. What you then feel yourself to be (only there is no "you" there - perhaps better to say "what then feels Itself to be") is the Universe (or God), awake and alive.

But don't worry! Your identity and personality will come back - there's nothing fundamentally *wrong *with it, after all! It was just temporarily in the way of you noticing something, because it clamoured for your attention so much.

But nothing will ever be the same again - you have known, you are an Initiate.

The Path up the Middle Pillar is just doing this regularly under various circumstances, as a result of various kinds of practice. The Pillar of Mercy and the Pillar of Severity practices ward the Middle Pillar.

Below the Abyss, you are a person having episodes of being God; above the Abyss, you are God having episodes of being a person."

I thank you for this reply.
I'm trying to get a better sense of the big picture.Does this ego dissolving experience have a technical name?
Is this called dhyana?"

Yes, when it's felt to be something that "happened to you", that lives in your memory.

There's a further switch to Samadhi when it's no longer felt as happening to you, as you normally think you are, but happening to the the Eternity (Aion) that you really are (i.e. your sense of identity, of who-you-are, is shifting to your Eternity).

Then there's a further switch where it's understood that nothing ever happened all along, because you don't exist as a real thing, strictly speaking - the you that you think you are is just a "dust devil", whipped up by circumstances, it never had any substance in and of itself, and that all that was ever here, all along, was your Eternity.

"But trying to map terms from one system to another is always sort of tricky and never terribly enlightening. As ever, the Work is more important than the language in which we dress it up."

Certainly..
The West were hampered by bad translations of the texts, which were basically translations of translations up until the turn of last century.
Siddhartha's claim to fame is the 'Middle Path' the rest of the commentary is politics, albeit subtle.. that rail against the Brahmins.
..there were guru's on every street corner in his day as well as there is today.
Yeah its in the work, not in all the picturesque guff that gets formed later over the centuries.

"To me there are many abysses throughout our linear way"

To me as well.

"this term, "Abyss". Is it a mere metaphor, indistinct and unverifiable?"

The term refers, primarily and most practically, to the "fog" through which the individual passes on the way to becoming an 8=3. It is felt in the disorientation that accompanies coming to terms with the understanding that, for instance, my body isn't "mine," that "self" is just a thought, that everything that we call "reality" is just a product of a thinking process which is itself a thought.

It's a completely different understanding of the world, and coming to terms with it involves throwing oneself into that sense of disorientation and (hopefully) coming out the other side. Of course, "you" don't come out of the other side, since there's no "you," but you can't really understand that without doing it.

Hard to explain in words.

Have people "crossed the abyss" before Thelema existed? Sure. It'd be silly to suppose that nobody could possibly do it before a Victorian freemason decided to sit down and make up a bunch of rules about "grades." But trying to map terms from one system to another is always sort of tricky and never terribly enlightening. As ever, the Work is more important than the language in which we dress it up.

"this term, "Abyss". Is it a mere metaphor, indistinct and unverifiable? "

I disagree. It's a distinct threshold of consciousness. What makes it seem vague and wooly is that the phenomena of the Abyss are, by definition, uncontainable with rational language. That makes talking about them more difficult.

"A Buddhist monk may know nothing about the A'A' grade system but he just keeps up his work his whole life. Are you saying he has to approach his personal Mara at some time or other?I don't recall any talk of "abyss" in my previous readings on buddhism"

It wasn't a relevant issue until the Ruach matured as a well-developed function over, say, the last thousand years (meaning, a millennium and a half post-Buddha).

And (since you specifically used the term mara), the mara phenomena are far lower on the Tree than the Abyss. Those Gautama confronted are all characteristic of the level of Malkuth, Tav, and maybe Yesod.

Denning & Phillps have a pretty good discussion - I think it was in their volume 4? - of the emergence of the Abyss term in various forms and degrees of differentiation across time.

"
@gurugeorge said
"
Below the Abyss, you are a person having episodes of being God; above the Abyss, you are God having episodes of being a person."

this term, "Abyss". Is it a mere metaphor, indistinct and unverifiable? A Buddhist monk may know nothing about the A'A' grade system but he just keeps up his work his whole life. Are you saying he has to approach his personal Mara at some time or other? I don't recall any talk of "abyss" in my previous readings on buddhism"

The term "Abyss" has a provenance and etymology that relates back to classical thought.

Yes, I'd say that Mara is analogous to Choronzon (more strictly, Daath per se).

I think it depends on the type of Buddhism. The "sudden" schools, like Can, Zen, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, etc., which are related to Jnana (as opposed to Yoga) schools in Hinduism, don't talk about this in this way. But for "gradual" paths, like Theravada, like Yoga, like Lam Rim, generally the idea is to build up your forces to a decisive moment (a "moment" could mean a few seconds, a day, a few weeks) where you beat the devil once and for all. Jnana/sudden schools take a different approach of just "getting used to" insight. So you start with whatever native insight you have, and just gradually (! ) get used to it. (In reality the distinction between "sudden" and "gradual" isn't as clear cut - they're more like magnetic poles of practice than mutually exclusive.)

An image I like is to build a solid pyramid and destroy it in a lightning-flash. It's a perfect human being who must be snuffed out, and that perfect human being has to be "built" first (actually just the smoothing out of folds - knots, complexes - in the Khu).

"

Keep approaching that point where you panic. Eventually you get used to it. Then as you persist through the panic, there's a kind of inner vertigo or "existential dizziness", one might say, and then you're through!

Your identity will dissolve, or be seen through (perhaps more accurately) - it will be seen as something over there, very small. What you then feel yourself to be (only there is no "you" there - perhaps better to say "what then feels Itself to be") is the Universe (or God), awake and alive.

But don't worry! Your identity and personality will come back - there's nothing fundamentally *wrong *with it, after all! It was just temporarily in the way of you noticing something, because it clamoured for your attention so much.

But nothing will ever be the same again - you have known, you are an Initiate.

The Path up the Middle Pillar is just doing this regularly under various circumstances, as a result of various kinds of practice. The Pillar of Mercy and the Pillar of Severity practices ward the Middle Pillar.

Below the Abyss, you are a person having episodes of being God; above the Abyss, you are God having episodes of being a person."

I thank you for this reply.
I'm trying to get a better sense of the big picture.Does this ego dissolving experience have a technical name?
Is this called dhyana?

"During meditation there have been a few times where I felt my identity was dissolving.When this happens I start to panic and my focus is destroyed.

For those of you who have gone beyond this point,what happens on the other side?
Do you still know your'e in a room meditating?
Is there the same panic regaining your identity as there was losing it?
Is this a major step on the path or is this just the beginning?
Does the fear subside with practice?"

Keep approaching that point where you panic. Eventually you get used to it. Then as you persist through the panic, there's a kind of inner vertigo or "existential dizziness", one might say, and then you're through!

Your identity will dissolve, or be seen through (perhaps more accurately) - it will be seen as something over there, very small. What you then feel yourself to be (only there is no "you" there - perhaps better to say "what then feels Itself to be") is the Universe (or God), awake and alive.

But don't worry! Your identity and personality will come back - there's nothing fundamentally *wrong *with it, after all! It was just temporarily in the way of you noticing something, because it clamoured for your attention so much.

But nothing will ever be the same again - you have known, you are an Initiate.

The Path up the Middle Pillar is just doing this regularly under various circumstances, as a result of various kinds of practice. The Pillar of Mercy and the Pillar of Severity practices ward the Middle Pillar.

Below the Abyss, you are a person having episodes of being God; above the Abyss, you are God having episodes of being a person.

"What level of breath counts are you onto?"

I just watch the breath as taught in LIBER RV.

@Uni_Verse said

"Let thy self dissolve!

With experience, you shall grow accustomed to what occurs upon dissolution
Until it troubles you no longer"

Once dissolution occurs,then what?Is that the goal of the practice or is that just the beginning?
Is dissolution what they call dhyana or is that the next step?

With experience, you shall grow accustomed to what occurs upon dissolution
Until it troubles you no longer