Codependant origination and emptiness

[rossum]

We must never deny the presence of change in our lives. But it is our lives that are changing, not some delusion that we even exist!

You exist. You soul does not. Souls are one of the common delusions that need to be overcome.

rossum

 

[Charlemagne_III]

You exist. You soul does not. Souls are one of the common delusions that need to be overcome.

But I have only your authority that this is so, since you cannot prove that souls do not exist.

 

[Grym]

What obliges me to accept you as an authority over the Catholic Encyclopedia?

Yes I understand that you are confused.

Because you asked for a validation of that same text on this thread earlier. If you are not going to accept a review then why ask?

Otherwise I would suggest you accept my review due to common sense?
No? :angel1:

/Victor

 

[Grym]

Catholics do not claim that any religion but the Catholic faith is infallible. We don’t have to get together with other faiths to claim infallibility, and we do not teach a hundred contradictory doctrines.

Protestants do not even claim the same infallibility that Catholic claim. Collectively they obviously can’t because they all teach a hundred contradictory doctrines.

Lucky you.

Poor them.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Otherwise I would suggest you accept my review due to common sense?

Common sense tells me that since I don’t know who you are, I am safer relying on the scholarship of a scholar in the Catholic Encyclopedia than a drive-by assassin of Catholic scholarship.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Lucky you.

Poor them.

I like your feeble attempt at sarcasm. Keep it up!

 

[Grym]

Common sense tells me that since I don’t know who you are, I am safer relying on the scholarship of a scholar in the Catholic Encyclopedia than a drive-by assassin of Catholic scholarship.

Yes I have understood that you prefer to rely on authority rather than thinking for yourself. But in this case I am stupified as to how seriously you take it. Amazing.

I must respect that.

/Victor

 

[Grym]

I like your feeble attempt at sarcasm. Keep it up!

Aargh yep there you bested me pretty good with an overwhelming argument. Jikes.

I am sorry I barged into this discussion. I will leave this question to Rossums seemingly unending patience and withdraw in grace.

Cheers Dude…or Dudette.

/Victor

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The article referenced earlier about Buddhism in the *Catholic Encyclopedia *was written by Charles Francis Aiken. Here is a web site that references Aiken’s many accomplishments as a scholar of the history of religions and apologetics.

catholicresearch.net/data/ead/html/cua-Aiken.html

You will need to scroll down as the page seems blank at first.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Yes I have understood that you prefer to rely on authority rather than thinking for yourself. But in this case I am stupified as to how seriously you take it. Amazing.

I must respect that.

/Victor

Sooner or later we must all defer to authority, since we cannot all know everything by thinking everything on our own. But I don’t think I’ll be deferring to your authority too soon! :sad_bye:

 

[Grym]

Sooner or later we must all defer to authority, since we cannot all know everything by thinking everything on our own. But I don’t think I’ll be deferring to your authority too soon! :sad_bye:

You do not get it do you? Buddhism is about not deferring to authority but finding out the truth for yourself. Step by step.

I.e. Thinking for yourself. Using your own judgment. etc. etc.

Consider it a dare..

/Victor

 

[Grym]

The article referenced earlier about Buddhism in the *Catholic Encyclopedia *was written by Charles Francis Aiken. Here is a web site that references Aiken’s many accomplishments as a scholar of the history of religions and apologetics.

catholicresearch.net/data/ead/html/cua-Aiken.html

You will need to scroll down as the page seems blank at first.

Knowing so much he still knows so little usefull about buddhism.
Strange. Thanks for the link. Seems to be a pretty interesting fellow all the same.

/Victor

 

[Charlemagne_III]

You do not get it do you? Buddhism is about not deferring to authority but finding out the truth for yourself. Step by step.

But isn’t that because buddhism is fundamentally atheistic?

If there is no God, you would have to find out everything for yourself.

Yet I do believe buddhists defer to the authority of Gautama, or why would they call themselves buddhist?

 

[Grym]

But isn’t that because buddhism is fundamentally atheistic?

If there is no God, you would have to find out everything for yourself.

Yet I do believe buddhists defer to the authority of Gautama, or why would they call themselves buddhist?

Buddhist do believe there are gods. But the insight we seek can not be given to us by ay god nor man.

True that they can help on the path but in the end we have to do the job of awakening to reality all on our own.

But no the serious practitioner does not defer to Gautama even without critcally examining what is said… Because deferring does not help gain insight.But critical thinking does.

Gautama showed a series of practises that need to be perfected to reach the goal. But on the road there are “checkpoints” that when reached gives a gradually increasing insight into the nature of Nibbana and thereby the world and the Buddhist path.

So you do not need to trust or deferr to Gautamas word merely by faith but you will realize the path in steps and gradually gain first hand direct knowleadge of where you are heading. The Dhamma is more of a guideline not an absolute truth. There are and will be other paths just as good.

That is why I can be so sure Aiken is wrong about the nature of Nibbana. Not because I have read about in some book by some famous author nor because some buddhist authority has told me it is so and so but because through reading the old texts, discussing with peers, hearing teachings and finally meditating and pondering the Dhamma for more than 30 years now I have gained some insight and some direct experience into nature of the path and its goal.

Cheers
/Victor

 

[billcu1]

What obliges me to accept you as an authority over the Catholic Encyclopedia?

Well because he’s a Buddhist and having been not hearing things slanted and misconstrued for various purposes and agendas why would he lie. I statement such as above is very dangerous. The Catholic church does not want you to understand the truth about Buddhism nor would it understand it. When a religious or political institution teaches “I’m right and everyone else is wrong.” Your looking for trouble. And this is not only Christianity or Catholicism.

What would oblige a non-Nazi to believe in the Holocaust? The leader said it didn’t happen. Very simple, mass control.

 

[billcu1]

Well because he’s a Buddhist and having been not hearing things slanted and misconstrued for various purposes and agendas why would he lie. I statement such as above is very dangerous. The Catholic church does not want you to understand the truth about Buddhism nor would it understand it. When a religious or political institution teaches “I’m right and everyone else is wrong.” Your looking for trouble. And this is not only Christianity or Catholicism.

What would oblige a non-Nazi to believe in the Holocaust? The leader said it didn’t happen. Very simple, mass control. You need the church to think for you. You’re honestly really not up to this.

I’m saying you’re here to conquor Onward Christian soldier. I guess you would say “Evangelize” but the end is the same.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Well because he’s a Buddhist and having been not hearing things slanted and misconstrued for various purposes and agendas why would he lie.

Nobody said he lied. He just isn’t an authority.

I know Catholics who are not authorities on their own religion.

You don’t get to be an authority about something just because you believe it.

The priest who wrote that article I take to be an authority because the Catholic Church does not suffer fools to write articles for the Catholic Dictionary.

He hasn’t proven to me that he is the authority and the Catholic priest is a fool.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Buddhist do believe there are gods. But the insight we seek can not be given to us by ay god nor man.

That is just your belief. You have no way to prove it is so. Your gods are meaningless to me as my God apparently is meaningless to you. Your gods are not really gods. I don’t know what to call them, but the nearest metaphor in Christianity would be angels. So let’s not be conflating gods with God.

 

[tonyrey]

In your opinion what precisely does “ultimate truth” mean?

Your answer isn’t obvious at all! It is obscure…

If the only ultimate truth is there is no ultimate truth then there would be no definition of ultimate truth.

Gematria says love, truth, heaven, and hell all equal the number 22. “He speaks through numbers, letter , and communication…” We are taught. If you don’t know where to find this my answer to you will depend on your answer to me. Consider the number 22 and the words mentioned. All these things are the same thing.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds your answer obscure…

 

[tonyrey]

I have no problem with truth. It is the qualifier “ultimate” which has the problem. How do you know that the qualifier is correctly applied?

You seem to be contradicting your statement that “the ultimate truth is that there is no truth”.

Language is a convention between groups of people. One group decided that “elf” would mean a mythical humanoid, that group is called English speakers. A different group decided that “elf” would mean the number 11, that group is called German speakers. There is nothing intrinsic in the phoneme “elf” to attach it to one meaning or the other. The assignment of meaning to phoneme is arbitrary. It is merely a convention. A Russian speaker would use the phoneme Одиннадцать to represent 11.

Even though there is nothing intrinsic in phonemes it doesn’t follow that they are meaningless.

A mirage is not nothing. A mirage appears to be water, but it is not what it appears to be. Nothing does not appear to be water. Buddhism sees the world as a mirage. It is not nothing, but it is not what it appears to be either. Enlightenment allows you to see through the mirage.

In that case you cannot believe everything is an illusion. Both “you” and “enlightenment” are real.

There is no total extinction. All that is extinguished are illusions, mirages and our mistaken ideas. You cannot extinguish what never really existed in the first place. What is extinguished is your error in thinking that the illusion actually was real. Can you extinguish the water in a mirage? No, all you can do is to realise that it was never really water in the first place, just an illusion of water.

Illusions imply the existence of reality. Otherwise illusions are an illusion!