GENIUS FORUMS

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

guest_of_logic wrote: I think you have a career in the circus as a contortionist.

It's interesting when I look up the topic on the Internet, the strong emotional reactions are fairly commonplace. Nobody peeps that much about common leash jerks though. But the amount of information is often not very accurate and people talk about different things and degree of usage mixed up. Look Laird, you're just barking up the wrong tree here (pardon the pun). It's just your reaction to someone who was obviously trying to do the best thing in a circumstance which you piss vinegar all over: now he's suddenly judged a prick, pathetic and his actions cruel and offensive. Pure hyperbole I might hope!

What I "really" think is that your defence of the electric shocking of young animals is ugly enough, but for you to then go on and paint those speaking out against it as *worse* is utterly contemptible. Utterly contemptible. I have no respect at all for your rationalisations and doublespeak.

Of course not, you don't like it when someone points out your own rotten core laced with pleasant niceties and fantasy concerns over the well being of some pups who are just surviving imperfectly like all of us. If you'd have sincerely disagreed on the method you'd have started a conversation about it but I think you cared more about venting some built up acid.

Love this exchange. It's about time (both) you people fly your colors.

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:You've here distinguished the bowl and the water.

The bowl and the water are part of the same canvas, they can't be separated and viewing them as two or split is error.

There can be no view which does not disintinguish. The only way to imagine wholeness is through abstract or perhaps by throwing both bowl and water into a black hole. The rest is a stubborn illusion, perhaps an overwhelming sense where the notion of self is drowning in. But that doesn't make it whole in terms of verification.

The appearance of mind, the bowl, is just as much of an appearance as the water, they are both just appearances, they are of the same kind, they don't differ, it is appearances that I consider real. A dream is an appearance, nothing more, can you see something, or can it appear, without it existing in some form? Appearances exist, nothing else.

And the drinking of the water is the appearance of drinking, the bug drifting on the surface is appearance of a bug. So they exist only as appearance but what does that change for you really? Do you stop drinking, do you swallow the bug? If you act like they are real, perhaps your ideas do not matter. Not for the observer.

.... there is only one witness, and it isn't "John" or the "awareness of John" which is just an appearance, there is only one awareness

That's how it can appear, sure.

That's not how it appears, it appears as if we have individual minds, individual ability of witnessing, but the fact that our experiences are so interconnected and that everything is of the same essence shows otherwise, it is the individuality that exists as nothing but an appearance, the oneness is the reality

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:That's not how it appears, it appears as if we have individual minds, individual ability of witnessing, but the fact that our experiences are so interconnected and that everything is of the same essence shows otherwise, it is the individuality that exists as nothing but an appearance, the oneness is the reality

But these facts of shared essence and oneness appear to you somehow okay? It's being "witnessed" like you prefer to call it. It's then still another appearance after all although a subtle one and not easy to get to. It needs a more careful look!

I don't know whether it's core or co-, but there is something in me that seeks to perpetuate the very attitudes and approaches I oppose. Anyhow, no worries, Diebert, harsh words were spoken on both sides, hopefully we can put it past us.

Not all knowledge is empty, so you saying that it's just an appearance which is empty doesn't mean anything

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:Not all knowledge is empty, so you saying that it's just an appearance which is empty doesn't mean anything

There can be no meaning in emptiness for sure. But it doesn't need any. The part of us dealing with meanings cannot reside within any emptiness. Where would it stay?

So where there's being also the meanings arise, the being exists through its meanings as it were. The means of existence. This is why knowledge is not empty and not all knowledge can be equal either. But a certain type of knowledge can rise up against knowledge which is itself and lead to the situation of not knowing anything while being very much alive and capable of thought.

Cat's!

Cat's!

Yep.
territorial.
always/already.
survival.

What you all seem to be saying is "I can't conceive of "God", any conception of this totality of "one mind" idea, is only a conception, therefore any conception of "god" is a false one, just an appearance, and so the concept of "god" has no real existence."

What you guys aren't getting is that, YOU EXIST.

You are thinking. Whatever's thinking exists. "I think therefore I am"

Now answer: "What am I?"

There is only one correct and undeniable answer to the question "What am I?"

And it is, "you, him, her, them"

There has never been, at any time, inherent existence.
There is no thing that is independent or exists through its own power.
There is interdependent production which has no inherent existence but carries all suffering and kindness too as we know from experience.
All phenomena seem to exist in various appearances that interdependently originate, yet their nature remains that of being completely empty of inherent existence.
This way each known thing possesses 2 natures.
A superficial way of appearing (relative)
and a profound way of existing (ultimate)
Nagarjuna.

The conventional truth of the world.
The ultimate truth.

thinker/thought are not separate.

no duality between perceiver/perceived.

as Lao disclosed there's really no duality in duality.

emptiness isn't obvious, it's distinguished and experienced in the domain consciousness as a mode available in consciousness.

John, you seem to be giving consciousness the nominal existence 'God'.

consciousness itself is deemed to lack inherent existence,
therefore ineffable silence.

To conceptualize something that has no concept is distortion. Then we only have a distorted understanding. To not know.... frees you from distorted thinking & grasping. To not know....you are free from views, distorted conceptions, opinions, and open minded. When the mind is open and clear....the clouds disappear....

Dennis what your saying is that nothing, not any consciousness, in existence has its own side therefore there are no sides.

How far appearances exist isn't relevant to this,they do exist in some form, what we are talking about is from where do they come?

What I am saying is that you have consciousness, I have consciousness of the same kind, we are experiencing interconnected consciousness, previously people separated themselves from other people, but when you look at our experiences, our emotions, our thoughts, it becomes clearer and clearer that we have no individuality, that we are the same.

The eyes you are looking through are the same eyes I am looking through. Whatever you want to call our perception of reality, the fact is perception exists, and the ultimate fact is that all perception is of the same essence. The same existence, only "witnessing" different manifestations.

Two guys walk into the same dream but haven't yet figured out there is one dreamer and the two guys aren't two.

And don't quote Lao Tzu as if to use his words in your non-divine origin argument.

Lao Tzu was the campaigner of repeating

*There is one divine essence of all things*

"The originator of heaven and earth"

"The master carpenter"

"the Great Mother"

"The source"

So your saying there is no God and the sages support this argument, but if I were to change my word "god' and say:

Dennis, Kunga, don't you believe in the "great mother"? Don't you know there is a "master carpenter"?

Would you then argue with me? If you were you would be saying "Lao Tzu, you are completely wrong, this idea you have of a "mother of all things" is false".... so again, don't quote Lao Tzu in this argument, he was the campaigner of divine origin.

Kunga, to clear your mind of ideas and see your own experiences and existence akin to viewing an alien on a Discovery documentary, did that, saw the illusion of my self, first thing I realized was:

All these illusions are coming from somewhere, the same place.

"There is O monks, an Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unformed. Were there not, o monks, this Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unformed, there would be no escape from the world of the born, originated, created, formed. ~ Udana, 80-81"
[Khuddaka Nikaya ]
[Buddha]

There you go, there is the "unborn", "unoriginated", "uncreated", the source, the essence

infinite.

not a thing.
not finite.

not a subject for predicate.
ineffable silence.

Infinite, infinite possibilities, everything.

Yes Dennis, it's unnameable, can't be designated as a "thing" like you say, so instead we give it three letter names

But non the less, these amazing experiences of being you know, these thoughts you have, they are coming from "somewhere", the same somewhere, the void

Dennis the clearest understanding of what I mean comes from looking into this:

An appearance cannot be aware it is an appearance


There is a coalescence between "individual" experience, and the source of these appearances; divine mind, which is the reality of "self".

You can keep muckin' about for a predicate calculus in that area, for identity,
An identity you can sell like dishwashing detergent but it won't wash.

we are like spiders in our intricate web of causes/conditions.
causality works because there are reasons for suffering.
in our web, peace is available if there's mindfulness of causes.

existence may be essentially hollow,
nevertheless,
being embodied, embedded, enacted, extended, affective in the circumstances,
has a ring of impactfulness.
of serious consequences.

Does existence have a folly;/?

THE WORDS OF THE WISE AND THEIR DARK SAYINGS-

As I recently saw moving always tried to describe, causality is an illusion as forms arise from imagination/seemingly nothing and return to seemingly nothing

*That's specifically in relation to the bigger picture question of existence, that is not to say it won't hurt if I put my leg under a car or that I can't use reasoning to avoid suffering

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:What you all seem to be saying is "I can't conceive of "God", any conception of this totality of "one mind" idea, is only a conception, therefore any conception of "god" is a false one, just an appearance, and so the concept of "god" has no real existence."

What you guys aren't getting is that, YOU EXIST.

Actually all the inherent existence someone dreams up stems from assuming ones inherent existence first. The object exists in relation to the observer. Both rise and fall as dream imaging.

You are thinking. Whatever's thinking exists. "I think therefore I am"

All possible sense invokes a subject and an object. First it perceives itself (self-awareness) and in that same way relates to something other (object). The world arises with the self. This is why emptiness is about no-existence while not being about "nothing whatsoever".

Anyway, point is, we both see the hollowness of the universe, what I want is to know best how to debate it philosophically? How to explain it to the lay man who has no clue, is still completely caught in manifestation, and is going to try and debate it the way pincho would? People get all defensive when you say the universe is a sensory illusion.

Diebert

Yes both rise and fall as dream imaging I agree, but thinking exists, "I think therefore I am" is perfectly fine, it just hasn't defined what "I" am, just that thinking exists.

Yes but that subject object distinction is only existing as an appearance, the self-awareness appearance is just as must of a impermanent appearance as the object appearance. That distinction is only perceived it's not a real distinction, but I guess everything is only perceived :p

And now what I want to be able to do, like you also would have benefited from if I had learnt earlier, is to learn to undeniably philosophically explain/debate the illusion to the average person who would refute the idea automatically. I can point it out to those who know what I mean but I can't explain it properly to satisfy those who don't

SeekerOfWisdom wrote:Anyway, point is, we both see the hollowness of the universe, what I want is to know best how to debate it philosophically?

What is happening often is that people erect barriers of an emotional nature to prevent this discussions or discovery to take place. The emotional has a base in desire for something to be real and actual, like a vampire craving for blood we people seem wired for things to persist, to be embodied, for the world to be fixed, etc. In most cases only when people have become extremely sick and tired of this and look for some other approach, a possibility lies there. As long as people are happy with their things, the thrills of mass consumption, the ideals of science, they have no reason to think otherwise. How can six billion people be wrong? How can ideology be wrong when it's persisting so well? Why improve at all when there's no obvious pain and struggle?

People get all defensive when you say the universe is a sensory illusion.

They are offended because it sounds like a 'way out', like a denial of your duties which is a denial of their own duties. Which are emotionally always very important!

And now what I want to be able to do, like you also would have benefited from if I had learnt earlier, is to learn to undeniably philosophically explain/debate the illusion to the average person who would refute the idea automatically. I can point it out to those who know what I mean but I can't explain it properly to satisfy those who don't

In my view these ideas are not transferred by language of any kind. At most you can have some sync, some bells ringing because the understanding is already there (and you could say it's always there in a way, just ignored). One way is to address attachments and distractions. Another way is to attract attention by a miracle, by generating the desire this understanding more than anything else. But you also don't want to create another dream image to chase after.

Perhaps it's interesting to find you why this would be desired at all, to explain/debate the illusion to the average person. What is the goal, do you benefit, are you being generous, a cup overflowing or what? It's possible we have our identity as teacher, as philosopher confirmed with each and every dialog. Perhaps we're always radiating what we believe and value, no matter what that is.