A question for Buddhists

[Grym]

What I understand is for example. Emptiness. Which they say is not really emptiness. It’s emptiness of inherent existence. All things are dependent on a preexisting condition. But all these things started from ignorance.
Sound correct?

Dhamma is about seeing things as they really are. All these words and concepts are just synapses firing in your brain. Cells communicating in a precise pattern. So is that reality?

From birth humans apply subjective filters to the world creating fabrications and assigning value all the time. Without that process there is no me.

That is the built world, the made world. That is the origin of the world.

Since we have sense organs. We become conscious of the world. Then our subjective filters assign value to the impressions. Attractive or aversive. depending on these feelings there arises a craving to have this thing or get away from it. On this craving we act.

That is the prime mover. This is in short and inadequately the explanation of how the self arises in every moment of our lives.

To see the world without this process of fabricating things to attach value to is to see the world as it really is. To see it at rest.

That is the emptiness without emptiness of which you speak.

It takes more than mere delibaration to see for yourself. But it is doable following the correct cultivation within this lifetime, within a year, month or even a week for some.

/Cheers
Victor

 

[notself]

I take it kind of empty of itself as a mover. There is the first mover that gets all “moving” maybe I’m looking at it wrong I don’t know. But emptiness meditation has brought me a lot of insight.

But I guess everything is because it’s “moved” by something else. Back to the prime mover.

Ok I see a lot of what you said is right.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C5%ABnyat%C4%81#Nagarjuna

Here is a poem from a book of the Theravada Abhidhamma. I find it lovely.

No doer of the deeds is found,
No one who ever reaps their fruits,
Empty phenomena roll on,
This view alone is right and true.

No god, no Brahma, may be called,
The maker of this wheel of life,
Empty phenomena roll on,
Dependent on conditions all."

• Visuddhimagga XIX

 

[Veedar]

Doesn’t your example make the intellectual concept of “table” into a substance when in reality it is a mental construct, just as any word for a general group of things is a construct? In reality there is no table just the things it is made of. Those things can be recycled into a “chair” by changing the structure of the materials, or a “table” can be sat upon thereby making it a “chair” and changing the concept of the “table”. There is no independent substance in the word table. “Table-ness” does not exist outside of our minds.

Comparing “table-ness” to Transubstantiation doesn’t really support the idea that the host is actual, real body of Christ.

Of course. That was my whole point. I was not saying that tables have substance. I was saying that this is how apologists usually explain the concepts of substance and appearance, and then they build on this to explain transubstantiation.

EDIT: This means that the philosophy that is the basis of the idea of transubstantiation (which is a way of explaining the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, not used for instance in eastern Churches) is at odds with sunyata.

 

[notself]

Of course. That was my whole point. I was not saying that tables have substance. I was saying that this is how apologists usually explain the concepts of substance and appearance, and then they build on this to explain transubstantiation.

EDIT: This means that the philosophy that is the basis of the idea of transubstantiation (which is a way of explaining the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, not used for instance in eastern Churches) is at odds with sunyata.

I missed that you were using the argument of an apologist. Sorry for the mix up. Do you agree with my comments that the argument from the apologists does not hold up?

I think that Transubstantiation must be taken on faith, i.e. belief without proof. It is something that apologists should refrain from trying to explain.

The Buddha occasionally declined to answer questions.

 

[billcu1]

Of course. That was my whole point. I was not saying that tables have substance. I was saying that this is how apologists usually explain the concepts of substance and appearance, and then they build on this to explain transubstantiation.

EDIT: This means that the philosophy that is the basis of the idea of transubstantiation (which is a way of explaining the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, not used for instance in eastern Churches) is at odds with sunyata.

In my present situation I would not want to question the buddha or the christ. I just take things as they come. If the apologists want to explain things through essentialism fine. If the easterners teach sunyata fine. I will except them both. They both make sense to me. The church is based on Greek philosophy anyway. Maybe that things are at odds is the way you see things and things really aren’t like that.

 

[billcu1]

I missed that you were using the argument of an apologist. Sorry for the mix up. Do you agree with my comments that the argument from the apologists does not hold up?

I think that Transubstantiation must be taken on faith, i.e. belief without proof. It is something that apologists should refrain from trying to explain.

The Buddha occasionally declined to answer questions.

He ran the Nagas away too when he was teaching us. He said what was for us wasn’t for them. Like Jesus he taught different people different things. What they needed to hear.

 

[Veedar]

I missed that you were using the argument of an apologist. Sorry for the mix up. Do you agree with my comments that the argument from the apologists does not hold up?

I think that Transubstantiation must be taken on faith, i.e. belief without proof. It is something that apologists should refrain from trying to explain.

The Buddha occasionally declined to answer questions.

Yes. I agree that the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist should be considered a mystery of faith. That mystery is separate from the attempt to explain it by means of substances and accidents. Such explanations fail because there are no substances to be found anywhere. At least I have not been able to discover any such substance, not even fundamental particles fit the description. Limited objects are mental imputations.

 

[billcu1]

Yes. I agree that the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist should be considered a mystery of faith. That mystery is separate from the attempt to explain it by means of substances and accidents. Such explanations fail because there are no substances to be found anywhere. At least I have not been able to discover any such substance, not even fundamental particles fit the description. Limited objects are mental imputations.

Does Aquinas teach that the substance of all is from God anyway? So there is only one substance? Emptiness is form and form is emptiness remember too. The kagyus teach that everything is some form of mind.

 

[Veedar]

Does Aquinas teach that the substance of all is from God anyway? So there is only one substance? Emptiness is form and form is emptiness remember too. The kagyus teach that everything is some form of mind.

Well, I think this is where Buddhism differs from a lot of other religions. In Advaita Vedanta, for example, the stuff that everything is made of is awareness. It knows itself, by itself. From a Buddhist point of view, even awareness is an abstraction. If I am aware of a blue box, then the box is certainly dependent on awareness for its existence as a blue box. The Advaitin would say that there is something called pure awareness (Brahman) that exists without any object, like the box. The Buddhist view would be that awareness is co-dependently arisen, and so it is as dependent on the object (in this case the blue box) as the object is on awareness. No objects, no awareness. In reality they are not two separate realities at all. So even that way of putting it is ultimately wrong (language has its limitations).

 

[billcu1]

Well, I think this is where Buddhism differs from a lot of other religions. In Advaita Vedanta, for example, the stuff that everything is made of is awareness. It knows itself, by itself. From a Buddhist point of view, even awareness is an abstraction. If I am aware of a blue box, then the box is certainly dependent on awareness for its existence as a blue box. The Advaitin would say that there is something called pure awareness (Brahman) that exists without any object, like the box. The Buddhist view would be that awareness is co-dependently arisen, and so it is as dependent on the object (in this case the blue box) as the object is on awareness. No objects, no awareness. In reality they are not two separate realities at all. So even that way of putting it is ultimately wrong (language has its limitations).

Here’s something from Chandrakiriti too. He explains better emptiness.

nonduality.com/goode6.htm#mistake

 

[Veedar]

Here’s something from Chandrakiriti too. He explains better emptiness.

nonduality.com/goode6.htm#mistake

Ah, the article is written by Greg Goode. I am familiar with his work. Yes, I think he explains emptiness well.

 

[billcu1]

Well, I think this is where Buddhism differs from a lot of other religions. In Advaita Vedanta, for example, the stuff that everything is made of is awareness. It knows itself, by itself. From a Buddhist point of view, even awareness is an abstraction. If I am aware of a blue box, then the box is certainly dependent on awareness for its existence as a blue box. The Advaitin would say that there is something called pure awareness (Brahman) that exists without any object, like the box. The Buddhist view would be that awareness is co-dependently arisen, and so it is as dependent on the object (in this case the blue box) as the object is on awareness. No objects, no awareness. In reality they are not two separate realities at all. So even that way of putting it is ultimately wrong (language has its limitations).

That’s what I like about buddhism. It’s opposite from western philosophy and works just as well. I’ve done a lot of work with emptiness and eliminated a lot of suffering too. People say things and it goes right through me and it would hurt before. The middle way brings together two extremes.

It’s also taught in Christianity that when the “creature nature” the I is disposed. Our substance will be the substance of all and we will be moved by nothing and become the prime mover. God wants nothing more than for us to be just like him.

 

[Veedar]

That’s what I like about buddhism. It’s opposite from western philosophy and works just as well. I’ve done a lot of work with emptiness and eliminated a lot of suffering too. People say things and it goes right through me and it would hurt before. The middle way brings together two extremes.

I know what you mean. I had a shift in my perception less than a year ago. I was meditating and the whole sense of a “me” within that is the thinker of thoughts and the feeler of feelings went away. Left was what had always been there. Thoughts, feelings, perceptions etc… Nothing had really changed, it was just that one thing dropped away, something that was never real to begin with. After this I have also been in situations where I normally would have been furious, angry, hurt, etc… and there has been no suffering. I would say my suffering in life is reduced by 95% Also seeing emptiness in things helps one see through social conventions, which are just constructs. Stories we tell each other. We tell each other that a certain kind of paper has a lot of value and we call it money. We tell each other stories about “mine” and “yours” and talk about property. It is all emptiness. It is not non-existent, but it has no inherent existence either. No reason to take it too seriously

 

[ericc]

It’s also taught in Christianity that when the “creature nature” the I is disposed. Our substance will be the substance of all and we will be moved by nothing and become the prime mover. God wants nothing more than for us to be just like him.

Where is this taught? Bible, Holy Tradition, Catechism? Please provide sources.

 

[Veedar]

Where is this taught? Bible, Holy Tradition, Catechism? Please provide sources.

First, there is a self-forgetfulness which is so complete that it really seems as though the soul no longer existed, because it is such that she has neither knowledge nor remembrance that there is either heaven or life or honour for her, so entirely is she employed in seeking the honour of God. It appears that the words which His Majesty addressed to her have produced their effect – namely, that she must take care of His business and He will take care of hers. And thus, happen what may, she does not mind in the least, but lives in so strange a state of forgetfulness that, as I say, she seems no longer to exist, and has no desire to exist – no, absolutely none – save when she realizes that she can do something to advance the glory and honour of God, for which she would gladly lay down her life.

• (Teresa of Avila, Interior Caste, chapter III/7)

Every man has plenty of cause for sorrow, but he alone understands the deep universal reason for sorrow who experiences that he is(…) And yet, in all this, never does he desire to not-be, for this is the devil’s madness and blasphemy against God(…) At the same time, he desires unceasingly to be freed from the knowing and feeling of his being(…)

[The lover] desires always and forever to be unclothed in full and final self-forgetting.

• (The cloud of unknowing, William Johnston [editor], page 93, 160).

 

[billcu1]

Where is this taught? Bible, Holy Tradition, Catechism? Please provide sources.

It’s the point of everything. Theologica Germanica is the source. An anonymous catholic text “rediscovered” by Martin Luther and “repopularized” by him.

 

[billcu1]

I know what you mean. I had a shift in my perception less than a year ago. I was meditating and the whole sense of a “me” within that is the thinker of thoughts and the feeler of feelings went away. Left was what had always been there. Thoughts, feelings, perceptions etc… Nothing had really changed, it was just that one thing dropped away, something that was never real to begin with. After this I have also been in situations where I normally would have been furious, angry, hurt, etc… and there has been no suffering. I would say my suffering in life is reduced by 95% Also seeing emptiness in things helps one see through social conventions, which are just constructs. Stories we tell each other. We tell each other that a certain kind of paper has a lot of value and we call it money. We tell each other stories about “mine” and “yours” and talk about property. It is all emptiness. It is not non-existent, but it has no inherent existence either. No reason to take it too seriously

It’s also taught in buddhism “There are no absolutes. Only very skillful meanings” none of this is worth fighting and killing and having wars over. Except by the ignorant.

Can’t remember who said that.

 

[Veedar]

It’s also taught in buddhism “There are no absolutes. Only very skillful meanings” none of this is worth fighting and killing and having wars over. Except by the ignorant.

Can’t remember who said that.

Is this it?

People kill and are killed because they cling too tightly to their own beliefs and ideologies. When we believe that ours is the only faith that contains the truth, violence and suffering will surely be the result.

• Thich Nhat Hanh.

 

[billcu1]

Is this it?

• Thich Nhat Hanh.

No but that’s a very good quote.

“Whatever joy there is in the world
Arises from wishing for others’ happiness.
Whatever suffering there is in the world
Arises from wishing for your own happiness.”

-Shantideva

There’s what people need to know.

 

[CrossofChrist]

It’s also taught in Christianity that when the “creature nature” the I is disposed.

Our “I” isn’t disposed of per se. We become more of ourselves, more human, more “I” when we become more united to God. Our “I” in effect becomes God, because we are fully incorporated into the Body of Christ and have “the mind of Christ” (per Paul).

Our substance will be the substance of all and we will be moved by nothing and become the prime mover. God wants nothing more than for us to be just like him.

I don’t know if that’s correct. Certainly those who receive the gift of eternal life will be divinized and become one with Christ, but we won’t become the essence of God.