Basic buddhist concepts analysed in a Christian website
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Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Subject and object may be spoken merely for convenience of communication, putting very gross labels is necessary for communication. It does not necessarily imply that there is a true inherent existence of subject or object. Anyway, we are not using laws of logic or dualistic concepts to reject dualistic concepts. We are just challenging, investigating, and pointing out at the fallacy of inherent and dualistic concepts that we have been employing in our perception and communication in day to day living. We do not create new concepts, we simply investigate and expose our existing concepts/views.
For example, we know there is no inherently, independently, unchangingly existing thing called a "weather" that can be pinned down as an entity.But for convenience we say "how is the weather like tomorrow"? "Weather" is simply a convenient label or convention for pragmatic purposes of communication. It does not correspond to a solid reality. 'Weather' is empty of any inherent core or essence that can be pinned down or located anywhere, it is merely a name imputed on an ever-changing process of clouds forming and parting, rain falling, wind blowing, lightning, snow, etc etc.
The same goes for 'car' and 'self'. Even though there is no inherently, solidly existing 'car', we speak of car for convenience. No inherently existing car can be pinned down or established, merely an aggregated appearance that functions interdependently as a gestalt.
See http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2009/03/conceptions-of-self-in-western-and.htmlIt is important to realize what is meant by the “self” rejected by the Buddha as illusory. Not only are human beings declared to lack a soul or self, but so is everything else: rivers, mountains, this paper, and your pencil, all lack a separate self. What this means is that they cannot have any existence except in terms of the interconnected net of causal conditions that made their existence possible. All things (including human beings) are composites, in other words, they are composed of parts, and have no real existence other than as temporary (impermanent) collections of parts. They are essentially patterns, configurations, or Gestalten rather than objectively existing separate entities. They possess no separate essence, self, or soul that could exist by itself, apart from the component parts and conditions.
Consider, for example, an automobile. Does it have an essence or a “soul” when separated from its component parts? Does it have any real existence apart from its parts? One could try the following mental exercise. Removing one of the tires of the car, one could ask oneself, is this the car? Successively taking away the windshield, a door, a piston, a bolt, the radiator cap, and continuing until the last piece of metal, plastic, glass, or rubber has been removed, one would never find the part which, if removed, transforms what remains into a non-car. Such part, if found, would have represented the essence or the “soul” of the car, and yet it was nowhere to be found. Now all we have is a pile of parts—where is the car? At which point did the car disappear? If we reflect carefully we are left with the realization that there never was a car there—all that was there was a conglomerate of parts temporarily connected in a certain way, so as to result in a particular mode of functioning, and “car” was just a convenient label to designate this working arrangement. The word “car” is nothing but a label for the gestalt formed by the constituent parts, and although it is true (as realized by Wertheimer and the other Gestaltists) that the whole is more than the sum of the parts (one cannot drive sitting on any of the separate parts, or on a random heap of them, but driving is possible when one puts them together in a certain way), it is equally true that a gestalt cannot continue to exist when separated from its parts. The gestalt, the “whole,” cannot exist by itself; it does not have a separate self or “soul.”
But what about a person? According to Buddhist psychology, what we call a “person” is the composite of five groups of elements or skandhas. The skandhas are form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. Just as an automobile is a temporary collection of car parts, a person is a temporary arrangement of these five aggregates or skandhas. There is no separate, independent self or soul that would be left if we removed form (which includes the body), feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. While these aggregates are together, the functioning gestalt we call a person exists; if they are removed, the gestalt ceases to be. For this reason, the self can be said to be “empty” of reality when separated from its component aggregates— a view of the self radically different from Western perspectives. But it is not only the self that is empty, and cannot exist by itself; the skandhas themselves are also empty.
The five skandhas, like everything else, are dependently arisen, and cannot exist by themselves. Take the form of one’s body, for example. What would remain of it, if one removed one’s perception of it, one’s feelings about it, one’s impulses to act on it or with it, and one’s conscious awareness of it? Form is empty of reality when separated from perceptions, feelings, impulses, and consciousness. And what about feelings? They also cannot exist by themselves. Feelings are feelings about something, about one’s body, one’s perceptions, one’s impulses, one’s state of consciousness. The same is true of the remaining skandhas—each one is composed of the other four. They are in a state of interdependent co-origination, they inter-are (Hanh, 1988).
The teaching of “dependent origination” is at the core of the Buddha’s teaching or Dharma. In its simplest expression, dependent origination is a law of causality that says “this is, because that is; this is not, because that is not; when this arises, that arises; when this ceases, that ceases.” Despite the apparent simplicity of this formulation, it is a farreaching principle, that leaves nothing untouched, and, in fact, causally connects everything in the universe, for it implies that all phenomena, whether they be external objective events or internal subjective experiences, come into existence depending on causes and conditions without which they could not be. These causes and conditions can themselves be either internal mental states or external events.
Borrowing an example from Hanh (1988), consider a piece of paper: it can be, because a tree was, since the tree had to be in order to be cut down to make the paper. This same piece of paper, is also because there was rain and sunshine, for without them the tree could not have grown. The same is true for the seed and the fertile soil, and for the logger who cut the tree down, for without them, the tree would not have been there for the paper to be. But for the logger to be, his parents had to be, and the food they consumed, and all the conditions that made their lives possible, and those lives upon which theirs in turn depended, and on, and on. There is no end to this causal interconnectedness. Everything in the universe is connected to this piece of paper through a web of causal conditions. If the component conditions are regarded as elements, we can say that this piece of paper is composed of non-paper elements, or, in other words, that conditions other than the paper itself are necessary for the paper to exist. Stated differently, the paper cannot exist by itself; it lacks a separate self, soul, or essence. The same is true for anything else in the universe, including a person. It is also true of cognitive or mental states, because for every emotion, for every perception, for every thought, there are necessary causal conditions without which they would not have come into being. Everything is dependently arisen, everything exists only if the necessary conditions are there. This means that nothing is ever truly independent or separate from everything else.
I agree that while it does not necessarily imply that there is a true inherent existence of subject or object, neither does it necessarily imply there is none. And the word in dispute would be "inherent" which I suspect could be subjected to equivocation.
The word "weather" is used to describe the conditions like raining, snowing, hot, cold etc etc. I have yet come across anyone who is of sound mind who thinks that weather is a thing, it is not. Since no one attributes such a notion to weather, why talk as if people do? But I have yet come across anyone who thinks that a car is not a car or does not exist when he has just driven it and parked it. And it surely doesn't work when your car gets clamped or you get a parking violation ticket.
I think I understand your point about dependent origination. But it is infinite regress and not an answer if you do not have a necessary being. Which is where God comes into the picture. A self-existent, independent being, eternal, spiritual being, who is the source of all that exists but who Himself is not dependent on any other. Instead of there being no-self or each one recognising himself as "I am", there is a God who exists eternally and who is known as "I AM", through whom an by whom all things are made, in heaven and on earth i.e. the universe.
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What's wrong with using you/me/I/yours? I believe it's already been said that we live in a world of conventions. It's my opinion that unless the person is actually trying to teach you something, people who avoid using conventional terms, insight or not, are trolls and too full of themselves.
Communication becomes horrible when you don't use labels like these words. The problem with these "truths" is that when we first hear of them we tend to roll our eyes. "DUH. You join a religion just to hear such simple logic?". But the fact is that we can go deeper and work with the nature of experience. The stresses of life is the result of our neurotic relationship with our experience, our fixation with giving experiences labels (nothing wrong) but then treating them as fixed in time, treating them to belong to someone, immune to interaction from their surrounding.
Oh and that statement? It's false. We're working with emptiness, not nothingness.
Interesting that you've written that invented truths are called lies. Because there's a person who's since retired his presence on the web who said "the self is a lie". You never actually experience a "self". Thoughts of it, yes. But that's it. A thought. But that takes quite a bit of effort to actually experience, assuming that a person is willing to do so to begin with.
I think we're trying to get to the point where we're equating the narrator in the blind men tale to be the christian god isn't it?
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Originally posted by Jui:
What's wrong with using you/me/I/yours? I believe it's already been said that we live in a world of conventions. It's my opinion that unless the person is actually trying to teach you something, people who avoid using conventional terms, insight or not, are trolls and too full of themselves.
Communication becomes horrible when you don't use labels like these words. The problem with these "truths" is that when we first hear of them we tend to roll our eyes. "DUH. You join a religion just to hear such simple logic?". But the fact is that we can go deeper and work with the nature of experience. The stresses of life is the result of our neurotic relationship with our experience, our fixation with giving experiences labels (nothing wrong) but then treating them as fixed in time, treating them to belong to someone, immune to interaction from their surrounding.
Oh and that statement? It's false. We're working with emptiness, not nothingness.
Interesting that you've written that invented truths are called lies. Because there's a person who's since retired his presence on the web who said "the self is a lie". You never actually experience a "self". Thoughts of it, yes. But that's it. A thought. But that takes quite a bit of effort to actually experience, assuming that a person is willing to do so to begin with.
I think we're trying to get to the point where we're equating the narrator in the blind men tale to be the christian god isn't it?
I agree that we live in a world of conventions i.e. agreed or generally accepted norms and standards. But it still leaves the question open, where do you draw the line? All words are convention. If so, how can you talk about ultimate truth or reality without using conventions, and without begging the question or engaging in special pleading for your views?
If you experience a headache yesterday, what's wrong with identifying that you actually had a headache yesterday? There would be a cause, or causes, for why you had that headache but it would be incorrect to say that the headache did not happen. Yes, the headache is not an entity, but it is simply to describe the state of pain or the experience of pain you felt in your head.
You affirmed the statement I provided as example as false. So what does it mean to say that an object or subject is emptiness? And is it meaningful to talk about experiencing a self?
Lastly, I am not saying that in the blind men analogy the narrator is God. What I am trying to communicate is that objective truth exists, and that it is independent of our views about it.
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Originally posted by BroInChrist:
It is interesting the number of times the word "yourself" was used yet it's reality is denied. To me it's a worldview which is always inconsistent with itself. Think of the following statement
I AM TELLING YOU THAT THERE IS NO YOU OR ME
If the statement is true, it is self-refuting and is false.
Re the point about the sun and the car. I would say that the problem is in trying to deconstruct things or to engage in some kind of reductionism as a worldview. Yes, a car is the sum of it parts and taken apart I do not have a car. So I won't call the unassembled parts a car, any more than I would call a bagful of alphabet letters a novel. We should call things as they are and not deconstruct for the sake of deconstructing. The unassembled parts of a car in a workshop is just as real as a completed car in the carpark.
Even the three blind men and the elephant? Yes the blind men are wrong, but someone was right, the narrator! The elephant has an objective reality, we need to align ourselves to objective reality, not deny that it exists. This is why truth is discovered, not invented. I believe we have a word for invented truths, lies.
It is not contradictory because Jui is using 'self' in a conventional manner, he has never implied that there is a truly existing, independent self. He is only rejecting a view of self that has ultimate, inherent, unchanging, independent existence. We do not need to reject the usage of conventional self as a label for communication just like we do not need to reject the word/imputation 'weather' for convenience.
Re-read this:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/jootla/wheel414.htmlWould an arahant say "I" or "mine"?
Other devas had more sophisticated queries. One deva, for example, asked the Buddha if an arahant could use words that refer to a self:
"Consummate with taints destroyed,
One who bears his final body,
Would he still say 'I speak'?
And would he say 'They speak to me'?"This deva realized that arahantship means the end of rebirth and suffering by uprooting mental defilements; he knew that arahants have no belief in any self or soul. But he was puzzled to hear monks reputed to be arahants continuing to use such self-referential expressions.
The Buddha replied that an arahant might say "I" always aware of the merely pragmatic value of common terms:
"Skillful, knowing the world's parlance,
He uses such terms as mere expressions."The deva, trying to grasp the Buddha's meaning, asked whether an arahant would use such expressions because he is still prone to conceit. The Buddha made it clear that the arahant has no delusions about his true nature. He has uprooted all notions of self and removed all traces of pride and conceit:
"No knots exist for one with conceit cast off;
For him all knots of conceit are consumed.
When the wise one has transcended the conceived
He might still say 'I speak,'
And he might say 'They speak to me.'
Skillful, knowing the world's parlance,
He uses such terms as mere expressions." (KS I, 21-22; SN 1:25) -
Originally posted by BroInChrist:
I agree that while it does not necessarily imply that there is a true inherent existence of subject or object, neither does it necessarily imply there is none. And the word in dispute would be "inherent" which I suspect could be subjected to equivocation.
The word "weather" is used to describe the conditions like raining, snowing, hot, cold etc etc. I have yet come across anyone who is of sound mind who thinks that weather is a thing, it is not. Since no one attributes such a notion to weather, why talk as if people do? But I have yet come across anyone who thinks that a car is not a car or does not exist when he has just driven it and parked it. And it surely doesn't work when your car gets clamped or you get a parking violation ticket.
I think I understand your point about dependent origination. But it is infinite regress and not an answer if you do not have a necessary being. Which is where God comes into the picture. A self-existent, independent being, eternal, spiritual being, who is the source of all that exists but who Himself is not dependent on any other. Instead of there being no-self or each one recognising himself as "I am", there is a God who exists eternally and who is known as "I AM", through whom an by whom all things are made, in heaven and on earth i.e. the universe.
Why would being clamped etc imply an inherently existing essence? None of that implies an ultimate essence either. It does however prove that the law of inter-dependent origination works. Via inter-dependent origination, a conglomerate, a gestalt results in a function called 'driving', and such a functional conglomeration is being imputed as a 'car', and due to many necessary reasons, human laws are enacted upon the 'imputed car'.
What I'm saying is that 99.999% of the world population has not realized a fundamental truth, and they are living in a delusion, the delusion of an 'I' that is driving their suffering and cyclic existence. If they knew better they would never have thought that 'I' and 'things' have any thingness at all.
And this can be directly investigated and realized to have never been. It is just a false notion that can be exposed as a false belief, just like the notion that the sun revolves around the earth or that the earth is flat, or that santa claus is real, can be investigated and exposed.
I also understand your view about I AM and the ground of being, however I would add that Buddhism is unique among all other religions in that it accepts infinite regress of the stream of causality without an ultimate beginning, it teaches it, and it does not present itself as a problem in our teaching.
The Buddha:
"At Savatthi. There the Blessed One said: "From an inconstruable (sic) beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. What do you think, monks: Which is greater, the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — or the water in the four great oceans?"
"As we understand the Dhamma taught to us by the Blessed One, this is the greater: the tears we have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — not the water in the four great oceans."
"Excellent, monks. Excellent. It is excellent that you thus understand the Dhamma taught by me.
"This is the greater: the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — not the water in the four great oceans.
"Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a mother. The tears you have shed over the death of a mother while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — are greater than the water in the four great oceans.
"Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a father... the death of a brother... the death of a sister... the death of a son... the death of a daughter... loss with regard to relatives... loss with regard to wealth... loss with regard to disease. The tears you have shed over loss with regard to disease while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — are greater than the water in the four great oceans. "Why is that? From an inconstruable beginning. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. Long have you thus experienced stress, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries — enough to become disenchanted with all fabricated things, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be released." -
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
You are just using conventions to communicate your experience from top to bottom. It does not correspond to true, ultimate existence.
The reality we are rejecting is not conventional truths. It is ok to use conventions to describe your experience. We are simply rejecting that your notions of reality correspond to some objective and independent existence separate from all conditioned manifestation.
So just understand that we reject an unchanging, independent, separate, existence that can be established, pinned down, located, as some core essence of self and things.
We understand phenomena to be empty of self-essence but vividly manifesting in appearance just like river flowing, weather weathering, but empty of some fixed unchanging 'I' or 'core' anywhere. Instead everything is a gestalt that dependently originates. We are not denying experience (we are not nihilists), we are simply rejecting a solid view of core-essence in self and phenomena. This allows us to experience the world as fluid, dynamic, interdependently manifesting from moment to moment, which is the true nature of phenomena: ever-changing, empty of a self and dependently arisen. As Thusness puts it in 2005: "Viewing things as solid entities and categorizing them as 'this' or 'that' is due to the poverty of our thinking mechanism, it is not reality."
As I wrote before:
Emptiness is not a thing, but emptiness is also not a nothing. By saying 'emptiness is not ...' is simply to negate the false conceptions of what the Buddhist teachings on Emptiness is about.
Shunyata (Emptiness) means whatever appears are empty of independent or inherent existence, be it a sound, a form, or any other phenomena. This is because it is the 'interconnectedness' that give rise to the sound or experience (The person, the stick, the bell, hitting, air, ears, etc, i.e. the conditions).
Thus, whatever arises interdependently is vividly clear and luminous, but empty of any *independent* or *inherent* existence. This is not the same as nothing or nihilism.
Nagarjuna:
Whatever is dependently co-arisen,
That is explained to be emptiness.
That, being a dependent designation,
Is itself the middle way. (Treatise, 24.18)
Something that is not dependently arisen,
Such a thing does not exist.
Therefore a nonempty thing
Does not exist. (Treatise, 24.19)Words are convention. Convention does not correspond to ultimate reality. So when does words convey ultimate reality? Let's just be clear that I am not saying that words = reality. I am saying that words convey truths. If we don't use words, labels, conventions then we are not communicating. I think when we communicate we use the plain sense method. The laws of logic are applicable. When we talk about a dog, the law of identity says we are talking about a dog, not a cat, or a non-dog that has been deconstructed.
You said you reject an unchanging, independent, separate, existence that can be established, pinned down, located, as some core essence of self and things. But that depends on exactly what is the object or subject in question, isn't it? The God of the Bible is unchanging, independent, separate, whose existence that can be established but not pinned down or located since God is Spirit, and who is the source and origination of all things in the universe, seen and unseen.
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Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
It is not contradictory because Jui is using 'self' in a conventional manner, he has never implied that there is a truly existing, independent self. He is only rejecting a view of self that has ultimate, inherent, unchanging, independent existence. We do not need to reject the usage of conventional self as a label for communication just like we do not need to reject the word/imputation 'weather' for convenience.
Re-read this:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/jootla/wheel414.htmlWould an arahant say "I" or "mine"?
Other devas had more sophisticated queries. One deva, for example, asked the Buddha if an arahant could use words that refer to a self:
This deva realized that arahantship means the end of rebirth and suffering by uprooting mental defilements; he knew that arahants have no belief in any self or soul. But he was puzzled to hear monks reputed to be arahants continuing to use such self-referential expressions.
The Buddha replied that an arahant might say "I" always aware of the merely pragmatic value of common terms:
The deva, trying to grasp the Buddha's meaning, asked whether an arahant would use such expressions because he is still prone to conceit. The Buddha made it clear that the arahant has no delusions about his true nature. He has uprooted all notions of self and removed all traces of pride and conceit:
But I think the point is that Buddhists need to show that that there is really no such thing as a truly existing, independent self. It would be perfectly fine to reject a view of self that has ultimate, inherent, unchanging, independent existence if we are talking about finite beings like us. But how does this applies to God who by definition does not fall into this category?
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Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Why would being clamped etc imply an inherently existing essence? None of that implies an ultimate essence either. It does however prove that the law of inter-dependent origination works. Via inter-dependent origination, a conglomerate, a gestalt results in a function called 'driving', and such a functional conglomeration is being imputed as a 'car', and due to many necessary reasons, human laws are enacted upon the 'imputed car'.
What I'm saying is that 99.999% of the world population has not realized a fundamental truth, and they are living in a delusion, the delusion of an 'I' that is driving their suffering and cyclic existence. If they knew better they would never have thought that 'I' and 'things' have any thingness at all.
And this can be directly investigated and realized to have never been. It is just a false notion that can be exposed as a false belief, just like the notion that the sun revolves around the earth or that the earth is flat, or that santa claus is real, can be investigated and exposed.
I also understand your view about I AM and the ground of being, however I would add that Buddhism is unique among all other religions in that it accepts infinite regress of the stream of causality without an ultimate beginning, it teaches it, and it does not present itself as a problem in our teaching.
The Buddha:
"At Savatthi. There the Blessed One said: "From an inconstruable (sic) beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. What do you think, monks: Which is greater, the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — or the water in the four great oceans?"
"As we understand the Dhamma taught to us by the Blessed One, this is the greater: the tears we have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — not the water in the four great oceans."
"Excellent, monks. Excellent. It is excellent that you thus understand the Dhamma taught by me.
"This is the greater: the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — not the water in the four great oceans.
"Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a mother. The tears you have shed over the death of a mother while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — are greater than the water in the four great oceans.
"Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a father... the death of a brother... the death of a sister... the death of a son... the death of a daughter... loss with regard to relatives... loss with regard to wealth... loss with regard to disease. The tears you have shed over loss with regard to disease while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — are greater than the water in the four great oceans. "Why is that? From an inconstruable beginning. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. Long have you thus experienced stress, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries — enough to become disenchanted with all fabricated things, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be released."People would not talk about the essence of a car or its inherent existence in normal conversation. Either the car exists or it does not. Why not see things as they really are instead of trying to deconstruct everything but yet living as though nothing is being deconstructed?
If 99.9999% are living in a delusion, then what would exclude that small percentage from being the exception? How does one even know that everyone is deluded except him? What is the evidence that virtually everyone is living in a delusion? False notions of the sun revolving around the earth or a flat earth can be proven simply because the truth can be discovered somehow. That the earth is round is not a mere conventional truth, it is objectively true that the earth is round. We can test this. But there is no test or evidence to show that everyone's self is a delusion.
The problem with an infinite regress is that it answers nothing and explains nothing. You can have a being who is infinite like God, but you cannot have an endless chain of cause and effects. Given that nothing in the universe is the cause of its own existence, the universe cannot be explained by an infinite regress of causation. If there were infinite regress then the series would not have gotten started in the first place. The universe is here, no one doubts that so there must either be a first cause for the universe that accounts for the chain of causation that we see everywhere in the world or the universe has eternally existed. But then we already know the universe did not always existed.
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The small percentage are those that have become enlightened. They exist and it is actually highly achievable if one practices with the aim of becoming enlightened.
99.999% means if 1 out of 100,000 in the world are enlightened, that would mean 70,000 people in the world are enlightened. That means if you really practice hard and have right understanding it is totally possible to gain enlightenment.
The question remains what about 99.999% others? First of all, only a small percentage, say less than 1% of the world population actually listens to the dharma. (maybe the percentage of Buddhists are greater, say 6%, but they merely claim to be Buddhists but aren't actually learning or practicing Buddhism)
Out of the 1%, who would actually be interested to put in effort in practice the dharma?
So even though getting enlightened is not more difficult than learning and mastering piano, few people get enlightened. But it is definitely very possible.To understand the self is a delusion you have to get enlightened and discover it is a delusion. If you have not gotten enlightenment then at least teachings like the Chandrakirti's sevenfold reasoning might help to at least give some theoretical understanding: http://nonduality.com/goode6.htm - even though this understanding is inferential, it can show you that the self we think we are is a delusion.
Lastly, Buddhism asserts that there is indeed a beginningless chain of cause and effects (however afflictive cause and effects can cease for those who are enlightened). Buddhist cosmology teaches that this universe albeit having a beginning and end is not the first and there were previous and other universes. We reject a first cause. But really Buddhism is not so much concerned with cosmology, but soteriology: suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the path that leads to the end of suffering. -
This site presents the Buddhist view pretty well: http://nichirenscoffeehouse.net/dharmajim/DharmaView.html
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Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
The small percentage are those that have become enlightened. They exist and it is actually highly achievable if one practices with the aim of becoming enlightened.
99.999% means if 1 out of 100,000 in the world are enlightened, that would mean 70,000 people in the world are enlightened. That means if you really practice hard and have right understanding it is totally possible to gain enlightenment.
The question remains what about 99.999% others? First of all, only a small percentage, say less than 1% of the world population actually listens to the dharma. (maybe the percentage of Buddhists are greater, say 6%, but they merely claim to be Buddhists but aren't actually learning or practicing Buddhism)
Out of the 1%, who would actually be interested to put in effort in practice the dharma?
So even though getting enlightened is not more difficult than learning and mastering piano, few people get enlightened. But it is definitely very possible.To understand the self is a delusion you have to get enlightened and discover it is a delusion. If you have not gotten enlightenment then at least teachings like the Chandrakirti's sevenfold reasoning might help to at least give some theoretical understanding: http://nonduality.com/goode6.htm - even though this understanding is inferential, it can show you that the self we think we are is a delusion.
Lastly, Buddhism asserts that there is indeed a beginningless chain of cause and effects (however afflictive cause and effects can cease for those who are enlightened). Buddhist cosmology teaches that this universe albeit having a beginning and end is not the first and there were previous and other universes. We reject a first cause. But really Buddhism is not so much concerned with cosmology, but soteriology: suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the path that leads to the end of suffering.1. Actually the point I was making was how does one show that self is indeed a delusion? How do you know that you are being enlightened instead of still being deluded?
2. It is one thing to assert that there are other universes besides the one we live in (which is entirely speculative), but quite anothr to assert that there is an endless chain of causes and effects. What is the justification for rejecting a first cause?
3. In Buddhism, would suffering be considered a conventional truth or an ultimate truth? If there is no "I", then "who" is suffering, and "who" needs to be delivered? "Who" needs to realise or has "his" ignorance dispelled?
-
Perhaps the issue is over the following:
1. Does anything exist?
2. Why does something exist instead of nothing?
3. Contingent vs necessary existence.
For #3 it seems to me that Buddhism is teaching that it is a misconception that things possess necessary existence i.e. inherent existence, where things exists independently apart from causes and conditions arising. That's why there is no inherent essence for car or cup. For Christian theism, only God is a necessary being, all others being contingent. So I would agree with you that all created beings/things have no independent or inherent existence by themselves, but this does not apply to God who is a necessary being. I may or may not exist, thus I am a contingent being. But God cannot not exist or else nothing would exist. But since something exists, contingency cannot go on forever. I don't consider myself an expert philosopher but I think this line of argument makes good sense.
You may also wish to see argument #7 from this link http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm
-
Originally posted by BroInChrist:
1. Actually the point I was making was how does one show that self is indeed a delusion? How do you know that you are being enlightened instead of still being deluded?
2. It is one thing to assert that there are other universes besides the one we live in (which is entirely speculative), but quite anothr to assert that there is an endless chain of causes and effects. What is the justification for rejecting a first cause?
3. In Buddhism, would suffering be considered a conventional truth or an ultimate truth? If there is no "I", then "who" is suffering, and "who" needs to be delivered? "Who" needs to realise or has "his" ignorance dispelled?
1. Either through direct realization in insight meditation [enlightenment], or through inferential analysis like Chandrakirti's sevenfold reasoning [a theoretical understanding]. You are enlightened when there is doubtless realization of what is always already the case, and a doubtless seeing through of a fundamental delusion of a self and agent that is realized to have no place place in reality, is realized to be a mere fabrication imputed on reality.
2. and 3.
Suffering is also conventional as suffering is a dependently arisen phenomena that is empty of any inherent existence. But we do not deny the experience of 'suffering' conventionally speaking, we simply deny suffering as having any unchanging, independent, substantial core. In the same way we do not deny car, weather etc but a substantialist view about them.
Visudhimagga:
"Mere suffering is, not any sufferer is found
The deeds exist, but no performer of the deeds:
Nibbana is, but not the man that enters it,
The path is, but no wanderer is to be seen."
............
Visudhimagga:
Everywhere, in all the realms of existence, the noble disciple
sees only mental and corporeal phenomena kept going through the
concatenation of causes and effects. No producer of the
volitional act or kamma does he see apart from the kamma, no
recipient of the kamma-result apart from the result. And he is
well aware that wise men are using merely conventional language,
when, with regard to a kammical act, they speak of a doer, or
with regard to a kamma-result, they speak of the recipient of the
result.
No doer of the deeds is found,
No one who ever reaps their fruits;
Empty phenomena roll on:
This only is the correct view.
And while the deeds and their results
Roll on and on, conditioned all,
There is no first beginning found,
Just as it is with seed and tree. ...
No god, no Brahma, can be called
The maker of this wheel of life:
Empty phenomena roll on,
Dependent on conditions all.
.......2.8 Monotheism
This is the big one, the view that concerns most westerners. There is a long and venerable history of discussion between the monotheistic tradition and Buddhism. This dialogue between the two traditions often centers on whether or not at core these two traditions have a common understanding. The need for this dialogue appears because at a certain obvious level Buddhism simply does not have a supreme being, what the monotheistic tradition generally means by God.
I distinguish two components of ultimacy that are unique to the monotheistic tradition. Given that the monotheistic tradition believes in the existence of only one God, the monotheistic tradition conceives of God as the ultimate; furthermore God in this tradition is the creator of all existence and also bears moral responsibility for the activities which occur in this existence.
Both of these components are absent from the Buddhist tradition. The Buddhist tradition lacks a being who has created existence. Instead, from the perspective of Interdependent Transformation, Buddhism conceives of existence as always existing, without beginning and without end. Furthermore, from the perspective of Interdependent Transformation, there is no specific locus of creation, no specific being is responsible for bringing existence into existence. Rather, creativity is an aspect of all existing things and therefore the source of existence is the things of existence, spread out over all of existence, throughout all space, throughout all time.
John Reynolds, among western scholars I am familiar with, has written with clarity on this issue:
As for the existence of God, of the Creator of heaven and earth, this is the concept central to religion as we know it in the West. Was the Buddha an atheist or an agnostic in relation to the existence of a Supreme Being or God? ...
In the Suutras there is found a Buddhist account of Genesis. [This account appears in several sources both in the Mahayana and the Theravada Canons.] In reply to questions from His disciples, the Buddha explained that the humanity found on this planet earth once inhabited another planetary system. Ages ago when the sun of that world went nova and the planet was destroyed in the ensuing solar eruptions, the bulk of its inhabitants, as the result of their arduously practicing the Dharma for ten thousand years, were reborn on one of the higher planes of the Form World or Ruupedhaatu, a plane of existence known as Aabhaasvara or “clear light.” Here they enjoyed inconceivable bliss and felicity for countless aeons. Then, when their great store of past karma came onto maturity, our own solar system and planet earth began to evolve and some among their numbers were reborn on the lower planes of the Ruupadhaatu in the vicinity of the nascent earth. This plane of existence where they found themselves reborn is known as Brahmaaloka. The first of these beings to reawaken and be reborn, upon seeing the solar system evolving below him, exclaimed in his delight, “I am the Creator!” In this way, he came to believe that he was the actual creator of the universe which he saw about him, for he did not remember from whence he came and was born without any parents. But in actuality the manifestation of this universe was due to the collective karma of all in that company and his own individual manifestation, which was a case of apparitional birth, was due to his own great stock of meritorious karma coming into maturation at that time because the requisite secondary conditions were present.
( Self-Liberation Through Seeing With Naked Awareness, translated by John Myrdhin Reynolds, Snow Lion, Ithaca, NY, 2000, pages 97-99.)
The principle here, derived from the core insight of Interdependent Transformation, is that all things appear from a causal base. This understanding is extended to the existence of entire universes or world systems. The Dalai Lama makes this same point in his commentary on Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, the Ninth Chapter on Wisdom. Verse 124 speaks directly to this discussion:
124. ... [I]f Creation were dependent upon conditions, the complete collection of those causal circumstances would be the cause, and not Ishvara [Note: Ishvara was a common name for God in ancient India, similar to Yahweh.] If the complete conditions were assembled, Ishvara would be powerless not to create; and if they were absent, there would be no creation.
The Dalai Lama’s Comment:
If creation and destruction are dependent upon a collection of causal conditions, the totality of those conditions would be the cause, and not a God who is independent of and uninfluenced by events. If the causal conditions were assembled, Ishvara would be powerless not to create the resultant phenomena; and if they were not assembled, those phenomena would not be produced.
( Transcendent Wisdom, the Dalai Lama, translated by B. Alan Wallace, Snow Lion, Ithaca, New York, 1998, page 93.)
Both of the above quoted passages are rooted in the understanding of existence as a causal matrix, the view of Intedependent Transformation. It is somewhat astonishing to think of God as deluded, as Reynolds suggests. God thinks he has created this world system because, due to his karma, he was the first conscious being in this world system. Unaware of his past karma which created the conditions for his rebirth in this world system, and not observing any other conscious beings in this world system, God then concludes that he is the creator of this world system. Unaware that there are other world systems, incalculably numerous, God/Ishvara concludes that he is the creator of all of existence.
It takes some time to take in all the implications of such a world view. It is breathtaking in scope and rich in implications. One of the implications is that being reborn as God is not, from a Buddhist perspective, a fortunate rebirth. It is not a rebirth that will lead to liberation, to nirvana, and the cessation of all sorrow because such a rebirth re-enforces the idea that there is something that exists independently, and it is this very idea/belief/feeling that is the source of sorrow.
It might seem that this is the end of the story; Buddhism doesn’t believe in a creator Deity that bears moral responsibility for existence while the monotheistic tradition has this view at its core. The two traditions, therefore, diverge.
However, God has many names and many meanings and Interdependent Transformation has many facets. Though the view of Interdependent Transformation does lead to a view of existence that in some respects differs from that of the monotheistic tradition, we should not stop at this conclusion. I have previously mentioned in the discussion on the basic implications of Intedependent Transformation that this core view of the Buddha means that all things exist dependently. Because the monotheistic tradition regards God as the creator of all existing things and of existence itself, the monotheistic tradition views all things as existing dependently, as in a totally dependent state. From this perspective, the perspective of dependence, the Buddhist and Monotheistic tradition share a common insight into the transcendent nature of all existing things.
Or take the view that God is love. It is out of God’s love that existence emerges. Existence is an expression of the generosity and benign nature of God. In the Buddhist tradition it is the realization that all things exist interdependently that gives rise to the blossoming of the compassionate heart. Love and Compassion are always present, but they are covered over by ignorance, self-concern, and distraction. I think that these two insights are very close for they both proclaim that in some sense love and compassion are the true nature of existence, that love and compassion blossom when we comprehend the transcendental.
What I am suggesting is that even if I put aside the idea of a Creator Being, even if I put aside the idea of a Being who bears moral responsibility for existence, there are still significant, broad areas for dialogue between the two traditions because there is more to the idea of God than the idea of a Creator. From a Buddhist perspective, the most important aspects might lie outside of the Creator view.
How do we access this broader understanding that lies at the core of the monotheistic tradition? I would suggest using those traditions centered on positive theology. Positive theology is that theology which explores the Divine Names and Attributes of God. For example, Dionysius the Areopagite wrote a theological work called The Divine Names. I think it would be an excellent place to start making such a comparison. For example, Dionysius writes:
... Since it is the underpinning of goodness, and by merely being there is the cause of everything, to praise this divinely beneficent Providence you must turn to all of creation. It is there at the center of everything and everything has it for a destiny. It is therefore ‘before all things and in it all things hold together.’ Because it is there the world has come to be and exists. All things long for it. The intelligent and rational long for it by the way of knowledge ...
Realizing all this, the theologians praise it by every name ... they give it many names, such as “I am being,” “life,” “God,” the “truth.” These same wise writers, when praising the Cause of everything that is, use names drawn from all the things caused: good, beautiful, wise, beloved, God of gods, Lord of Lord, Holy of Holies, eternal, existent, Cause of the ages. They call him source of life, wisdom, mind, word, knower, possessor beforehand of all the treasures of knowledge, power, powerful, and king of Kings, ancient of days, the unaging and unchanging, salvation, righteousness and sanctification, redemption, greatest of all and yet the one in the still breeze. They say he is in our minds, in our soul, and in our bodies, in heaven and on earth, that while remaining ever within himself he is also in and around and above the world, that he is above heaven and above all being, that he is sun, star, and fire, water, wind, and dew, cloud, archetypal stone, and rock, that he is all, that he is no thing.
( Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works, translated by Colm Luibheid, “The Divine Names”, Paulist Press, Mahway, New Jersey, 1987, pages 54-56.)
Now, turn to the Buddhist tradition and uncover the names that the Buddha in the Discourses uses for nirvana. He uses such terms as the “cessation of suffering”, “the non-clinging”, “peace”, “serenity”, “the lovely”, “the unconditioned”, “love”, “the unborn”, “the deathless”, etc.. Just as the core view of the monotheistic tradition is multi-faceted, so also the ultimate goal and core notion of the Buddhist tradition has many facets and many names. Once I move away from a fixation on the idea of God as a creator of existence, I am actually able to find a lot of similarity between these core views, many overlaps. It is useful to compare these two because how they arrive at these core understandings, such as dependence, differs, but often the core understandings themselves are amazingly similar. Thus, both traditions are mutually enriched by broadening their understanding.
This is not the place to go into a systematic treatment of these two core views. It would require a book in and of itself. I believe what would be required is to compare and contrast the facets of ultimacy that each tradition has lived with down through the centuries. In addition to comparing and contrasting, I would also suggest comprehending how each tradition arrives at this understanding.
I believe the result of such a project would produce a mosaic of overlapping and divergent understandings. From the perspective of a particular facet X, the two traditions have a shared view. From the perspective of facet Y, the two traditions diverge. From the persective of how they arrive at the same view X, there will also appear similarities and contrasts. When engaging in this project it is also important to keep in mind that monotheism is not a uniform tradition; it is actually more accurate to say “monotheisms”, and the same applies to Buddhism. The personalism of Christianity, for example, is something not shared by Judaism or Islam. Similarly, the view of the ontological status of suffering is quite different in different Buddhist traditions. Though this complicates the task, I do not consider it an insurmountable obstacle as long as one maintains a broad focus.
This may seem like a lot of work, but I believe the results of such a project would be an ability to speak clearly to each other, from the views that each tradition holds, and come to a genuine and deep mutual understanding and appreciation. A good way to start such a project would be to compare two specific core texts, such as The Divine Names with something like the Udana in the Buddhist tradition. This may seem to narrow the focus from the broad focus I just suggested. However, the virtue of taking two specific works and comparing them is that it grounds the investigation in a specific work and tradition so that it reduces mere speculation.
The dialogue between monotheism and Buddhism has been going on for a long time. I believe such an exchange can prove fruitful for both traditions. I would hope that such an exchange of views could be expanded to include other traditions as well, such as the western philosophical tradition, the secular humanist tradition, and the many spiritual traditions in the world today. With a good heart, mutual respect, and the capacity to perceive all people as equal, such an endeavor will help all concerned.
............
(Buddha:)
If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Why does he order such misfortune
If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Why prevail deceit, lies and ignorance
And he such inequity and injustice create?
If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Then an evil master is he, (O Aritta)
Knowing what's right did let wrong prevail!
-
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
1. Either through direct realization in insight meditation [enlightenment], or through inferential analysis like Chandrakirti's sevenfold reasoning [a theoretical understanding]. You are enlightened when there is doubtless realization of what is always already the case, and a doubtless seeing through of a fundamental delusion of a self and agent that is realized to have no place place in reality, is realized to be a mere fabrication imputed on reality.
2. and 3.
Visudhimagga:
............
Visudhimagga:
Everywhere, in all the realms of existence, the noble disciple
sees only mental and corporeal phenomena kept going through the
concatenation of causes and effects. No producer of the
volitional act or kamma does he see apart from the kamma, no
recipient of the kamma-result apart from the result. And he is
well aware that wise men are using merely conventional language,
when, with regard to a kammical act, they speak of a doer, or
with regard to a kamma-result, they speak of the recipient of the
result.
No doer of the deeds is found,
No one who ever reaps their fruits;
Empty phenomena roll on:
This only is the correct view.
And while the deeds and their results
Roll on and on, conditioned all,
There is no first beginning found,
Just as it is with seed and tree. ...
No god, no Brahma, can be called
The maker of this wheel of life:
Empty phenomena roll on,
Dependent on conditions all.
.......2.8 Monotheism
This is the big one, the view that concerns most westerners. There is a long and venerable history of discussion between the monotheistic tradition and Buddhism. This dialogue between the two traditions often centers on whether or not at core these two traditions have a common understanding. The need for this dialogue appears because at a certain obvious level Buddhism simply does not have a supreme being, what the monotheistic tradition generally means by God.
I distinguish two components of ultimacy that are unique to the monotheistic tradition. Given that the monotheistic tradition believes in the existence of only one God, the monotheistic tradition conceives of God as the ultimate; furthermore God in this tradition is the creator of all existence and also bears moral responsibility for the activities which occur in this existence.
Both of these components are absent from the Buddhist tradition. The Buddhist tradition lacks a being who has created existence. Instead, from the perspective of Interdependent Transformation, Buddhism conceives of existence as always existing, without beginning and without end. Furthermore, from the perspective of Interdependent Transformation, there is no specific locus of creation, no specific being is responsible for bringing existence into existence. Rather, creativity is an aspect of all existing things and therefore the source of existence is the things of existence, spread out over all of existence, throughout all space, throughout all time.
John Reynolds, among western scholars I am familiar with, has written with clarity on this issue:
The principle here, derived from the core insight of Interdependent Transformation, is that all things appear from a causal base. This understanding is extended to the existence of entire universes or world systems. The Dalai Lama makes this same point in his commentary on Shantideva’s Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, the Ninth Chapter on Wisdom. Verse 124 speaks directly to this discussion:
Both of the above quoted passages are rooted in the understanding of existence as a causal matrix, the view of Intedependent Transformation. It is somewhat astonishing to think of God as deluded, as Reynolds suggests. God thinks he has created this world system because, due to his karma, he was the first conscious being in this world system. Unaware of his past karma which created the conditions for his rebirth in this world system, and not observing any other conscious beings in this world system, God then concludes that he is the creator of this world system. Unaware that there are other world systems, incalculably numerous, God/Ishvara concludes that he is the creator of all of existence.
It takes some time to take in all the implications of such a world view. It is breathtaking in scope and rich in implications. One of the implications is that being reborn as God is not, from a Buddhist perspective, a fortunate rebirth. It is not a rebirth that will lead to liberation, to nirvana, and the cessation of all sorrow because such a rebirth re-enforces the idea that there is something that exists independently, and it is this very idea/belief/feeling that is the source of sorrow.
It might seem that this is the end of the story; Buddhism doesn’t believe in a creator Deity that bears moral responsibility for existence while the monotheistic tradition has this view at its core. The two traditions, therefore, diverge.
However, God has many names and many meanings and Interdependent Transformation has many facets. Though the view of Interdependent Transformation does lead to a view of existence that in some respects differs from that of the monotheistic tradition, we should not stop at this conclusion. I have previously mentioned in the discussion on the basic implications of Intedependent Transformation that this core view of the Buddha means that all things exist dependently. Because the monotheistic tradition regards God as the creator of all existing things and of existence itself, the monotheistic tradition views all things as existing dependently, as in a totally dependent state. From this perspective, the perspective of dependence, the Buddhist and Monotheistic tradition share a common insight into the transcendent nature of all existing things.
Or take the view that God is love. It is out of God’s love that existence emerges. Existence is an expression of the generosity and benign nature of God. In the Buddhist tradition it is the realization that all things exist interdependently that gives rise to the blossoming of the compassionate heart. Love and Compassion are always present, but they are covered over by ignorance, self-concern, and distraction. I think that these two insights are very close for they both proclaim that in some sense love and compassion are the true nature of existence, that love and compassion blossom when we comprehend the transcendental.
What I am suggesting is that even if I put aside the idea of a Creator Being, even if I put aside the idea of a Being who bears moral responsibility for existence, there are still significant, broad areas for dialogue between the two traditions because there is more to the idea of God than the idea of a Creator. From a Buddhist perspective, the most important aspects might lie outside of the Creator view.
How do we access this broader understanding that lies at the core of the monotheistic tradition? I would suggest using those traditions centered on positive theology. Positive theology is that theology which explores the Divine Names and Attributes of God. For example, Dionysius the Areopagite wrote a theological work called The Divine Names. I think it would be an excellent place to start making such a comparison. For example, Dionysius writes:
Now, turn to the Buddhist tradition and uncover the names that the Buddha in the Discourses uses for nirvana. He uses such terms as the “cessation of suffering”, “the non-clinging”, “peace”, “serenity”, “the lovely”, “the unconditioned”, “love”, “the unborn”, “the deathless”, etc.. Just as the core view of the monotheistic tradition is multi-faceted, so also the ultimate goal and core notion of the Buddhist tradition has many facets and many names. Once I move away from a fixation on the idea of God as a creator of existence, I am actually able to find a lot of similarity between these core views, many overlaps. It is useful to compare these two because how they arrive at these core understandings, such as dependence, differs, but often the core understandings themselves are amazingly similar. Thus, both traditions are mutually enriched by broadening their understanding.
This is not the place to go into a systematic treatment of these two core views. It would require a book in and of itself. I believe what would be required is to compare and contrast the facets of ultimacy that each tradition has lived with down through the centuries. In addition to comparing and contrasting, I would also suggest comprehending how each tradition arrives at this understanding.
I believe the result of such a project would produce a mosaic of overlapping and divergent understandings. From the perspective of a particular facet X, the two traditions have a shared view. From the perspective of facet Y, the two traditions diverge. From the persective of how they arrive at the same view X, there will also appear similarities and contrasts. When engaging in this project it is also important to keep in mind that monotheism is not a uniform tradition; it is actually more accurate to say “monotheisms”, and the same applies to Buddhism. The personalism of Christianity, for example, is something not shared by Judaism or Islam. Similarly, the view of the ontological status of suffering is quite different in different Buddhist traditions. Though this complicates the task, I do not consider it an insurmountable obstacle as long as one maintains a broad focus.
This may seem like a lot of work, but I believe the results of such a project would be an ability to speak clearly to each other, from the views that each tradition holds, and come to a genuine and deep mutual understanding and appreciation. A good way to start such a project would be to compare two specific core texts, such as The Divine Names with something like the Udana in the Buddhist tradition. This may seem to narrow the focus from the broad focus I just suggested. However, the virtue of taking two specific works and comparing them is that it grounds the investigation in a specific work and tradition so that it reduces mere speculation.
The dialogue between monotheism and Buddhism has been going on for a long time. I believe such an exchange can prove fruitful for both traditions. I would hope that such an exchange of views could be expanded to include other traditions as well, such as the western philosophical tradition, the secular humanist tradition, and the many spiritual traditions in the world today. With a good heart, mutual respect, and the capacity to perceive all people as equal, such an endeavor will help all concerned.
............
(Buddha:)
If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Why does he order such misfortune
If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Why prevail deceit, lies and ignorance
And he such inequity and injustice create?
If the creator of the world entire
They call God, of every being be the Lord
Then an evil master is he, (O Aritta)
Knowing what's right did let wrong prevail!1. Something exists. I think that much we agree on! I can't think of anyone who would argue with that.
2 & 3 - Can you distil that into a more summarised answer for the benefit of myself and other readers? Short and sweet perhaps?
-
1. Exists is a mere conventional statement. Whatever arises, arises interdependently, and so an inherent independent existence or core cannot be established.
2. The visudhimagga portion would suffice. -
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
1. Exists is a mere conventional statement. Whatever arises, arises interdependently, and so an inherent independent existence or core cannot be established.
2. The visudhimagga portion would suffice.1. Conventional statement or not, you do not deny that something exists, right?
2. I see a new term, what do you mean by denying a substantialist car or suffering? In what way is a Honda Jazz not substantial? If there is no sufferer, then who is suffering? Can there be a painting without a painter? It seems to me too that calling things conventional tends to make any claim to truth rather slippery. Can anyone be wrong about anything if everything is a matter of conventional speaking?
-
actually, ‘suffering’ as in birth, old age, illness, and death, is in line with impermance and Impersonality. it's real and universal, and it's as ultimate as Impermanence and Impersonality.
Three Universal Characteristics 三法�
A characteristic is a fact which tells us something about the nature of a things. If a fact is sometimes connected with a things and sometimes not, then it is not a characteristic and will not help us very much to understand the nature of that thing. Heat, for example, is a fact. Heat is not characteristic of water, as water is not always hot. The heat of water depends upon other factors like sun or an electric stove. But heat is a characteristic of fire because fire is always hot and heat of fire does not depend on any other factors. Heat is always connected with fire and tells us something about the nature of fire. When the Buddha taught that there are three characteristics of facts of existence. They are generally found in all that exists and so they can tell us something about the nature of existence. The three characteristics of existence taught by the Buddha are Impermanence, Suffering and Impersonality.
http://web.singnet.com.sg/~alankhoo/Universal.htm
/\
-
Originally posted by BroInChrist:
I agree that we live in a world of conventions i.e. agreed or generally accepted norms and standards. But it still leaves the question open, where do you draw the line? All words are convention. If so, how can you talk about ultimate truth or reality without using conventions, and without begging the question or engaging in special pleading for your views?
If you experience a headache yesterday, what's wrong with identifying that you actually had a headache yesterday? There would be a cause, or causes, for why you had that headache but it would be incorrect to say that the headache did not happen. Yes, the headache is not an entity, but it is simply to describe the state of pain or the experience of pain you felt in your head.
You affirmed the statement I provided as example as false. So what does it mean to say that an object or subject is emptiness? And is it meaningful to talk about experiencing a self?
Lastly, I am not saying that in the blind men analogy the narrator is God. What I am trying to communicate is that objective truth exists, and that it is independent of our views about it.
I'm sorry but I don't understand why we were still on the topic of establishing whether things exist/existed here. I could've sworn that I've stated that things exist and given examples of them actually being able to cause and effect change. Actually, to me the very fact that we use words to describe something "ultimate" is already a problem, since it's already one step removed from "ultimate". Just to be sure we're even talking about the same thing, the "ultimate truth" here is used like this: "yeah that car exists but ultimately it's.....". But maybe the word "ultimate" used is actually not proper, or something.
Emptiness just means that an object, event or experience exists through causes. While nothingness is referred here as object, event or experience not even existing.
With regards to realising the "you" part of the topic, the precise problem that buddhism is trying to solve is that people act like they've experienced a self, which is considered a delusion. So it's definitely meaningful since we're talking about buddhism here.
Anyway, that's all I have to say about the matter, not sure if you've got anything useful from our exchange, but it seems like your problems are better replied by the senior members of the forum so I hope we are able to eventually establish some common ground. In fact it seems like we're doing that already.
If you don't mind though, can you help me by pointing out parts where I'm "engaging in special pleading for my views"? Unfortunately I don't quite understand that part. Thanks in advance.
-
Originally posted by BroInChrist:
1. Conventional statement or not, you do not deny that something exists, right?
2. I see a new term, what do you mean by denying a substantialist car or suffering? In what way is a Honda Jazz not substantial? If there is no sufferer, then who is suffering? Can there be a painting without a painter? It seems to me too that calling things conventional tends to make any claim to truth rather slippery. Can anyone be wrong about anything if everything is a matter of conventional speaking?
1. I cannot deny appearance and experience, i.e. a dream is appearing and undeniably experienced. But I reject that it has a substantial/inherent/independent existence or core.
If we were to observe a red flower that is so vivid, clear and right in front us, the “redness” only appears to “belong” to the flower, it is in actuality not so. Vision of red does not arise in all animal species (dogs cannot perceive colours) nor is the “redness” an inherent attribute of the mind. If given a “quantum eyesight” to look into the atomic structure, there is similarly no attribute “redness” anywhere found, only almost complete space/void with no perceivable shapes and forms. Whatever appearances are dependently arisen, and hence is empty of any inherent existence or fixed attributes, shapes, form, or “redness” -- merely luminous yet empty, mere appearances without inherent/objective existence.
That’s not to deny reality as we observe it, nor to say that there’s no reality outside the mind, but simply that no ‘reality in itself’ exists. Phenomena only exist in dependence on other phenomena.2. Car is not substantial in the sense that there is no core essence of car as described earlier. It does not reject appearance and conventional functionalities. On the level of convention there is of course truths and falsities.
There is just this interdependent, empty, non-substantial flux in direct gnosis. -
Originally posted by sinweiy:
actually, ‘suffering’ as in birth, old age, illness, and death, is in line with impermance and Impersonality. it's real and universal, and it's as ultimate as Impermanence and Impersonality.
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Agreeable with what you said to the extent that suffering is contingent. Only living and conscious beings suffer. So what does it mean when someone says "I am suffering" yet there is no "I" or self?
Again if the point is that you and I do not have independent existence, that I agree. We won't be alive if our parents did not meet and fell in love and got married and had sexual relations and then conceived us etc etc. Neither would we be alive if there is no air or food or water to sustain us. Our continued physical existence is dependent on many factors. This is not a matter of dispute as far as I am concerned. What I am saying is that even then it does not negate the existence of "self". Just because we are contingent beings does not make us any less real or that our self or existence is an illusion.
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Originally posted by sinweiy:
actually, ‘suffering’ as in birth, old age, illness, and death, is in line with impermance and Impersonality. it's real and universal, and it's as ultimate as Impermanence and Impersonality.
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Indeed. But Heart Sutra says 'no birth, no old age, no illness and no death'... however this does not deny birth, old age, illness or death. It is not a nihilistic denial. This is why Buddhism is still concerned with soteriology, with suffering and the release from suffering.
It may be true that in the dream there is no inherently existing tiger, yet the experience/appearance of suffering and fear in the dream, though illusory and empty, nonetheless cannot be denied. In short: although dreams and suffering are equally unreal, they appear due to karmic traces and propensities and this cannot be denied. -
Originally posted by Jui:
I'm sorry but I don't understand why we were still on the topic of establishing whether things exist/existed here. I could've sworn that I've stated that things exist and given examples of them actually being able to cause and effect change. Actually, to me the very fact that we use words to describe something "ultimate" is already a problem, since it's already one step removed from "ultimate". Just to be sure we're even talking about the same thing, the "ultimate truth" here is used like this: "yeah that car exists but ultimately it's.....". But maybe the word "ultimate" used is actually not proper, or something.
Emptiness just means that an object, event or experience exists through causes. While nothingness is referred here as object, event or experience not even existing.
With regards to realising the "you" part of the topic, the precise problem that buddhism is trying to solve is that people act like they've experienced a self, which is considered a delusion. So it's definitely meaningful since we're talking about buddhism here.
Anyway, that's all I have to say about the matter, not sure if you've got anything useful from our exchange, but it seems like your problems are better replied by the senior members of the forum so I hope we are able to eventually establish some common ground. In fact it seems like we're doing that already.
If you don't mind though, can you help me by pointing out parts where I'm "engaging in special pleading for my views"? Unfortunately I don't quite understand that part. Thanks in advance.
I guess the reason why I am not yet over the existence issue is because of the confounding use of "conventional" and "ultimate" in relation to truth or reality.
A car either exists or it does not. To speak of whether it conventionally or ultimately exists is to my mind a rather incoherent and illogical way of looking at it. Perhaps "emptiness" itself is not an appriopriate choice of word! Since it is meant to describe that things which exists are dependent on others, I would think the best choice of word is "contingent". Less confusing I think.
You said that self is a delusion, but have you thought that perhaps it is precisely because it is not a delusion that we speak in terms of self? Again I do not hold the delusion that I am independent of anything for my existence. I don't think people think like that. We see ourselves as individuals, you, me, him, her, etc but not people who are independent of any causes. If there is such a person then he is indeed deluded. All you need to wake this person up is to deprive him of food and water!
Special pleading basically means making exceptions for yourself, as in "what you are speaking is conventional truths but what I am speaking is ultimate truths" or that "99.999% of people is deluded but not me."
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Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
1. I cannot deny appearance and experience, i.e. a dream is appearing and undeniably experienced. But I reject that it has a substantial/inherent/independent existence or core.
If we were to observe a red flower that is so vivid, clear and right in front us, the “redness” only appears to “belong” to the flower, it is in actuality not so. Vision of red does not arise in all animal species (dogs cannot perceive colours) nor is the “redness” an inherent attribute of the mind. If given a “quantum eyesight” to look into the atomic structure, there is similarly no attribute “redness” anywhere found, only almost complete space/void with no perceivable shapes and forms. Whatever appearances are dependently arisen, and hence is empty of any inherent existence or fixed attributes, shapes, form, or “redness” -- merely luminous yet empty, mere appearances without inherent/objective existence.
That’s not to deny reality as we observe it, nor to say that there’s no reality outside the mind, but simply that no ‘reality in itself’ exists. Phenomena only exist in dependence on other phenomena.2. Car is not substantial in the sense that there is no core essence of car as described earlier. It does not reject appearance and conventional functionalities. On the level of convention there is of course truths and falsities.
There is just this interdependent, empty, non-substantial flux in direct gnosis.1. A dream has no tangible existence, if that's what you mean. The same with a thought or an experience. But they are real nonetheless, even if it can only be verified by you since no one can take your dream or thought to examine it and test it. Still, there is an "I" or self to have a dream or thought. Having flesh and bone is not a conventional truth, don't you agree? One can also say that life is like a dream or a box of chocolate, but that's different from saying that life IS a dream or that it is indeed a box of chocolate.
2. The law of identity applies when we talk about objects like red flower. Either the flower is red or it is not. It cannot be red and not-red in the same sense at the same time. Scientists will tell you that the rose is red because the other colours of light have been absorbed and only red is reflected into our eyes and provided we are not colour blind we will all experience the same thing. Animals cannot perceive colours is because that's how they were created. I can make a black/white TV or a coloured TV for differing purpose.
3. To say that there is no reality outside the mind, how does the mind knows that? You cannot get out of your mind to affirm that.
4. A car is a solid machine. It has existence. People involved in accidents can tell you that. We are not just dealing with appearances when we say that a red car exists. It exists in reality. But what you are doing is deconstructing the car in your mind to say that it has no real existence. That IMO is merely theorizing in abstract terms, but you would have to abandon that the moment you call a red Toyota Wish taxi and step into one. Of course if you dismantle a car you do not have a car. No sane person would call it a car, except to call it a dismantled car to be precise.
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1. The world is illusory in the sense that it is empty of inherent existence.
3. You need to re-read my statement:
That’s not to deny reality as we observe it, nor to say that there’s no reality outside the mind, but simply that no ‘reality in itself’ exists. Phenomena only exist in dependence on other phenomena.4. Being killed by a car is conventional efficacy of cause and effect. But it does not mean however that car has substantial core or existence ultimately. Everything being dependently originated is empty ultimately. Empty does not mean non-existing but empty of a substantial core, unchanging, independent existence.
2. Redness is an experience of vision in human kind. You cannot speak of redness apart from vision. Redness is a dependently originated phenomena, neither existing in mind nor in outer objects, for both mind and outer objects are conventions for dependently originated activities that are empty and cannot be pinned down as a substantial entity.
Anyway there is an interesting article by Kyle:http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2012/03/sun-that-never-sets.html
As a quick disclaimer: Faculties that are named and used in making the descriptions and examinations i'm writing about are only temporary and will be discarded at a later point. Something said at one point may be contradicted and negated later on in reference to titles such as, mind, sense-fields, awareness, consciousness, subject, object etc....
When the [ultimate] truth is explained as it is, the conventional is not obstructed; Independent of the conventional, no [ultimate] truth can be found. - Nagarjuna
Ok so throughout this I want to stick with what is sensible. By "sensible" I mean capable of being sensed or that which is perceived by the senses. So audible, visible, tangible, etc... and for this we'll go with what is immediately perceived. Not mediately (through the intervention of something else). For example; when reading a book what you immediately perceive is letters on the page, but mediately or by means of these, notions of truth, virtue, vice etc are suggested to the mind. So though notions such as truth, vice, virtue etc are suggested and signified to the mind by sensible marks with which they have an arbitrary connection with, it would be absurd to designate these(truth, virtue etc..) as sensible things. So 'sensible things' means only what is immediately perceived by the senses and sensible things that we investigate don't include such designations inherently. To add; in instances such as a situation where one sees both red and blue in the sky, and thus it is inferred that there must be a cause for the differences in colors, that cause cannot be said to be a sensible quality immediately perceived by eyesight. Likewise, when one hears a variety of sounds it cannot be said that you hear their causes, and when one touches something hot or feels something heavy; one cannot say with truth that you feel the cause of the heat or weight. Hopefully we can agree that the senses perceive only what is perceived immediately because they do not make inferences.
So immediate sensible qualities include:
Sight - light, colors, shapes.
Hearing - sounds.
The palate - tastes.
Smell - odors.
Touch - tangible qualities.
(And obviously combinations of these.)
The purpose for this is to obviously stay with the theme I mentioned in an earlier post which was based on the premise that experience suggests nothing about itself. Aside from our conceptualizations about experience, experience itself communicates nothing. So staying with what is immediately perceived allows us to remain objective (no pun intended) and allows a mutually shared middle ground (non-conceptual awareness) apart from our contrasting notions about that middle ground. So like I said we're empirically investigating the nature of experience itself, and the emptiness or non-emptiness of an objective field in relation to it's validity in being a substantiated attribute of experience.
The underlying inquiry consists of two contrasting notions which are; does the reality of sensible things consist of being perceived? Or do things in fact exist as inherent exterior objects independent of sensual perception, distinct from, and having no relation to being
perceived? And related notions of objectivity, subjectivity, physicality, etc. Inherent separate existence vs. Empty dependent origination.
You started with salt before so... beginning with salt; inquiring into salts characteristics and attributes we'll look into whether salt exists as an objective independent agent which inherently exists and posses these attributes or the contrary.
Salt as it's usually experienced is predominantly comprised of vision, tactile sensation and obviously taste. I suppose salt can, on occasion be heard and also undoubtably bears an aroma to match it's pungent taste but those senses are secondary. So I think approaching salt sense-by-sense will be appropriate so that we can ensure that each sensory field can be properly isolated and examined. The reason for this is that in my opinion the different sense fields are heterogeneous instead of how they are usually taken to be (homogeneous). So even though they seem to amalgamate and interact to create what appears to be an organized and coordinated experience of reality, they are in fact separate fields which only communicate with one another via inferential projection.
This issue was examined rather thoroughly in a philosophical thought-experiment called Molyneux's Problem which consisted of attempting to understand the level of sensorial coordination one would possess upon immediate recovery from blindness. Taken from wikipedia; The problem can be stated in brief, "if a man born blind can feel the differences between shapes such as spheres and cubes, could he similarly distinguish those objects by sight if given the ability to see?"
The question was originally posed to Locke by philosopher William Molyneux, whose wife was blind:
Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and taught by his touch to distinguish between a cube and a sphere of the same metal, and nighly of the same bigness, so as to tell, when he felt one and the other, which is the cube, which is the sphere. Suppose then the cube and the sphere placed on a table, and the blind man made to see: query, Whether by his sight, before he touched them, he could now distinguish and tell which is the globe, which the cube? To which the acute and judicious proposer answers: ‘Not. For though he has obtained the experience of how a globe, and how a cube, affects his touch; yet he has not yet attained the experience, that what affects his touch so or so, must affect his sight so or so…’
To which Locke responds in "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding":
I agree with this thinking gentleman, whom I am proud to call my friend, in his answer to this problem; and am of opinion that the blind man, at first sight, would not be able with certainty to say which was the globe, which the cube, whilst he only saw them; though he could unerringly name them by his touch, and certainly distinguish them by the difference of their figures felt.
In 1709, in “A New Theory of Vision,” George Berkeley also concluded that there was no necessary connection between a tactile world and a sight world—that a connection between them could be established only on the basis of experience. He speculated:
the objects to which he had hitherto used to apply the terms up and down, high and low, were such as only affected or were in some way perceived by touch; but the proper objects of vision make a new set of ideas, perfectly distinct and different from the former, and which can in no sort make themselves perceived by touch (sect. 95).
There have been events matching this predicament which actually verified these philosopher's educated speculations; one of them being the case of "a woman who gained sight at the age of 12 when she underwent surgery for dense bilateral congenital cataracts. They report that the subject could recognize family members by sight six months after surgery, but took up to a year to recognize most household objects purely by sight."
So starting with vision; I included a reference image we can both use to avoid conflicting imagery.
(image A)
Salt on a table is a fairly common affair (if one is making a mess) and is good because it entails fairly limited differences in color, which as it ends up is pretty much equivalent to the very sense of vision we're exploring.
My argument to start is going to be that color is exactly vision and vision is exactly color, they are synonymous in nature and manifestation. The common presupposition that the process of visually perceiving an object consists of 'seeing' a 'color' (which exists separately from said act of seeing) is a misnomer. Wherever there is color there is seeing and vice versa. The two go hand-in-hand and you cannot have one without the other. With color we also get 'shape' which is a result of colors bordering each other in various ways. So color also implies shape, and shape likewise will imply color. Ultimately the object of vision is color and therefore shape.
Vision standing alone as an isolated sense is much like Image A posted above. If we attend to the visual evidence in the image alone we get a circular patch of white surrounded by brown. There is no separating line between the colors and vision. And likewise there is no separating line between the colors and you, no evidence in the colors of being "out there" and no evidence of yourself being an observer "in here". The conclusion that the colors are external to us is based on the principle that these colors change over time. So we accept a story that the colors (object) is separate from us even though the basis for this conclusion is lacking in the visual evidence in-and-of-itself. This aligns with my previous statement that experience suggests nothing about itself. Experience instead receives projected conceptual overlay which over time serves to create habitually solidified subconscious presuppositions conveying a compelling sense of separation.
Separation in general is based on spatiality. We usually conceive of two opposite aspects existing on opposite sides of unbridgeable spatial gaps. In truth we never experience spatial externality or independence. These designations are based on the formation of a subtle reference point of a subjective self "here" as opposed to "there". The feeling of subjectivity is never anything more than a tendency to identify with certain clusters of sensation and project that the remainder is objective and "other". But by looking at experience very directly it can actually be ascertained that this "otherness" is never a part of our experience.
So back to the white salt on the brown table... this image that arises as vision is composed of these colors, we see a white circular expanse of color, and various shades of white within that circular shape. Bordering that we see a brown expanse of color which seems to surround the white, and if we could back up and see a larger image the colors would unfold as we went along.
These colors are all there is to vision. So to examine the 'objectivity' of vision let's examine the 'whiteness' in the image(and you can do this by putting salt on a table in front of you)... speaking specifically about the shades of the 'whiteness' and the particular value of the color. Can we say that the shade itself is salt? Can it be said that wherever you have that particular shade(white) you have salt - and wherever you have salt you have that particular shade(white)? Obviously not. So white itself isn't definitive of salt. Now would you say that there is salt on the far side of that color? Do you directly experience salt behind the white? Because we just established that we wouldn't take the shade of white itself to be salt one should naturally inquire as to whether there is salt behind the white. We'll find that there is in fact no salt to be found on the posterior side of the white. Now on the near side of the color, do we experience any separation between the seeing of the color and the color itself? Attending exclusively to vision and letting go of any arising concepts or beliefs, is there any distance experienced between the seeing of the white and the white itself? You can't see the 'seeing'... so there can't be any distance, the color simply arises. So there's no salt on the far side of the white, and no salt on the near side, and no distance or gap between the white and the seeing of the white itself. Wherever white appears, vision is occurring, there's no access to white without vision, so the objectivity of the salt should melt or fuse into vision itself. The color should disappear into vision, because at that point it makes no sense to say one is "seeing" a "color" in the first place... the two are inseparable. Vision itself means color is arising, they're one and the same. It's not as if you have independent access to colors where you can notice a color out of the visual field and then say now i'm seeing that color, there couldn't be a color unless vision was already there.
Now the idea that there is a bordering line between an internal aspect of the body and an external aspect apart from the body has to be taken into account as well. This 'bordering line' creating the dichotomy of internal/external is based on identification with 'the body'. But the body itself is not separate from vision either, there are other colors and shades which are identified as 'my body' but just like the colors which composed the salt, these colors appearing as a 'body' do not communicate a possessive nature. The colors simply arise no different than any other color in the field of vision. We only impute a notion of 'my body' over these colors. There are other faculties that seem to correlate with vision to give the appearance of a homogeneous cluster of sensations conventionally called the body and we can discuss those separately, but all are merely qualities appearing to awareness as awareness itself. So the notion of an 'subject inside' viewing an 'object outside' is not self-evident in vision. Vision simply appears and is completely non-discriminitive. Another thing which isn't self-evident in vision is the presence of 'eyes' doing the seeing, we never experience or see our own eyes at any time, even in the act of looking at a mirror we only are ever seeing colors and shapes arise that we identify with as 'me' and 'my eyes' but the eyes appear nowhere within vision itself, we again only accept a story about this.
About this Nagarjuna states: "Through this the eyes, visible forms and so forth, which are described as the elements, these should be known also as [the twelve] sense-fields, and as the objects and the subjects as well.
Neither atom of form exists nor is sense organ elsewhere; even more no sense organ as agent exists; so the producer and the produced are utterly unsuited for production." - Nagarjuna
"In terms of objects and subjects, whatever appears to the consciousness, apart from the cognitions themselves, no external objects exist anywhere.
So there are no external objects at all existing in the mode of entities. The very perceptions of the individual consciousnesses arise as appearances of the forms." - Nagarjuna
So vision is color. You can't even say they arise as mutually interdependent co-emergent qualities because the duality is lacking to begin with. The notion of the duality between observing and observed is a conceptual imputation. A story simply arises and say "i'm seeing white" and we accept this story, but the story is never evident in vision itself. The objectivity of color as an external quality isn't substantiated by experience. Now vision itself doesn't appear separate from awareness, or 'that' which 'knows' vision to be apparent. But that-which-knows is the appearance itself, there is no duality, even to say appearance implies something to which the appearance would appear-to, so what "is" escapes all such conceptualizations (aside from conventional descriptive concepts). So the objectivity of the salt collapses, the objectivity of color collapses, the objectivity of vision collapses as well. We can't say that vision is a 'thing' out there which is separate that we have access to sometimes and not at other times. Vision is awareness, there is no separation and there are no 'objects', all we have is awareness. And this same exercise is done for every sense modality. (Awareness itself must also be refuted as such.)
For the salty taste; my argument would be much like what has been proposed for vision, i saw that namdrol used the example of MSG in showing the appearance of 'saltiness' to not be unique to salt itself. So following the same examination done with vision and focusing on the palate alone one can successfully find taste to be empty as well. I would also add that with your argument being that saltiness is an innate quality with which salt itself is inherently endowed with; if one runs the gamut of taste congruent with other sensory appearances such as heat; it can be seen that an intense level of taste such as spiciness correlates with an intense heat in that at the highest volume of appearance both arise as pain. The pain that arises is in fact the taste. There are not two appearances such as taste and then also pain, they are one and the same. So to posit that an external objective thing like salt inherently contains it's taste would be akin to claiming it also contains the appearances of pain and pleasure. One also cannot attribute lesser volumes of the same spectrum such as a general mild taste to an object without naturally accrediting higher and lower volumes of that same spectrum. So salt cannot be said to contain it's taste. And taste cannot be said to be anything more than awareness itself and empty. This insight combined with the former which coincides with the experiment done in vision should hopefully annihilate this false designation(of inherent objective existence) apart from mere conventional usage.
Ultimately awareness itself is empty. Because for one to claim that this inquiry has successfully reached a foundation at 'awareness' implies a 'ground' of being of some type where none can be found. Yet conventionally awareness is a clear and proper concept to use in describing that-which-is, for such an awareness likewise cannot be denied.
The Buddha attempted to capture these realizations in The Heart Sutra when he stated:
There are no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. There is no seeing, no hearing, no smelling, no tasting, no touching, no imagining. There is nothing seen, nor heard, nor smelled, nor tasted, nor touched, nor imagined.
Devoid of all real entities;
Utterly discarding all objects and subjects,
Such as aggregates, elements and sense-fields;
Due to sameness of selflessness of all phenomena,
One's mind is primordially unborn;
It is in the nature of emptiness.
- Nagarjuna
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Originally posted by BroInChrist:
What I am saying is that even then it does not negate the existence of "self". Just because we are contingent beings does not make us any less real or that our self or existence is an illusion.
but do you agree that all the things in the universe, inculding u and me are made up of atoms, molecules, to mere energy by science? that's sort of Impersonality in Buddhism already in laymen term.
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