non-negative negation

[Thunder_Gooch]

Time to move on skydog.

 

Yeh I know cos your ignorant and proud of it.

 

Like a racist who is proud of being racist.

[skydog]

Don't be sorry, just move on, and find someone else to bother.

 

Im not even talking to you, Im denouncing your posts..

[skydog]

cos you dont exist, its all an illusion blaaaaaaaa

[Thunder_Gooch]

k

 

 

Im not even talking to you, Im denouncing your posts..

cos you dont exist, its all an illusion blaaaaaaaa

[konchog uma]

Buddha is considered completely new age compared to most shamanic practices such as the bushmen.

 

A chinese Qi medicine man who was reported to be very powerful went to visit the bushmen shamans, the gave him a transmissions thinking he was really powerful, but he couldnt handle it, now Im not saying shamanism is better but maybe it is. Its natural, Ancient Taoists were shamans. Chinese shamans. Pretending you dont exist all day is not natural

 

Shamans make fun and tease people who think about sitting still and forcing their mind to be empty all the time.

 

Another example is on the contributed articles section some people make posts about emptiness, then go on and say they know everything about emptiness and are enlightened and they fight furiously, and other users engage in battles saying how "no one exists" who knows about emptiness etc etc.

 

Or More Pie guy who wants me to never discuss or highlight stuff I disagree with in his posts (or stop interacting with him, in his own words) I reply, that I cant stop interacting with him, because I dont exist. This is the kind of childishness I am talking about.

 

Buddhism is older than 2500 years. Buddha is, at least, the 5th Buddha, according to Theravada. Bon recognizes 26 previous Buddhas and I was just reading Garchen Rinpoche (kagyu) where he said that the number of those who have attained buddhahood is innumerable, so many have achieved liberation.

 

Also, pretending that one doesn't exist is not the operation in Buddhism. That is a false view, a misunderstanding. Buddha never taught that he didn't exist. The Buddhadharma teaches that phenomena are empty of both existence and non-existence. The point is that reality is as it is and needs no conceptual elaboration, not that there is a stance to be taken regarding existence and so forth.

 

As Saraha said "those who think that reality exists are stupid as cows, and those who think that it doesn't are even stupider"

Edited August 29, 2013 by konchog uma

[skydog]

yeh, my apologies, I didnt mean to denounce buddhism, just my interpretation of what many people believe it is.

[konchog uma]

sorry didn't read the degeneration of the thread before i posted that... nevermind

 

"my dreamlike form came to dreamlike beings to show them the dreamlike path to dreamlike liberation" -Shakyamuni Buddha

[konchog uma]

yeh, my apologies, I didnt mean to denounce buddhism, just my interpretation of what many people believe it is.

 

no apologies necessary, there is a lot of misunderstanding out there

[steve]

It wasn't a misinterpretation.

I'll have to disagree on that point. I think you made it quite clear that you were taking a nihilist point of view, eg nothing exists, period. That is a misinterpretation of the diamond sutra.

 

 

A character in a video game is non-existent, yet it can be experienced even though it has no reality to it other than energy and information in a computer.

 

That's what I am getting it.

I think that non-existent is the wrong word. Video game characters certainly exist. Try to take a 3DO away from a teenager in the middle of a game. Video game characters occupy our kids' thoughts more than school work, sell more high fructose corn syrup than can possibly be imagined, and influence the lives of millions of people.

 

 

The same for a dream, it can be experienced but has no reality to it outside the confines of one's own mind.

And what is our daily experience other than a waking dream?

Your mind and it's particular set of sensory organs are what evoke your experience of reality from what would otherwise be an unrecognizable amalgam of energetic vibrations. It's not much different from dreaming.

 

 

As before when the analogy to a video game character it has reality and existence in the sense it can be experienced, yet however exists purely as energy and information inside a computer.

 

A dream has existence in the sense that it can be experienced, yet exists purely as energy and information inside the mind of the dreamer.

And Buddhism takes it ones step further and subjects your waking, real experience to the same scrutiny and concludes that it is an energetic happening that does not exist separate from the mind of the dreamer. That is not the same as saying that it doesn't exist.

 

 

Had the Buddha been born in recent history I'd venture to guess he'd make use of such an analogy to explain the reality we live in.

 

Everything we can experience, vision, smell, taste, hearing, touch, memory, intuition, visualization, verbalization, emotion, dreams, the entire gamut and sum of our experience, is purely energy and information being exchanged in our neural nets.

And so is your neural net and so are you.

So are you absolutely sure that all of that is contained within our neural nets?

It certainly seems that way but even that must be carefully scrutinized.

 

 

 

So what you are seeing right now as a computer monitor isn't external to your mind, but rather you are viewing your own internal mental processes and believing such to be an external reality, which is about as silly as looking at a painting of a pipe and believing it is a pipe.

And one can also view all of reality in exactly the same manner.

Perhaps we agree on that point.

[RongzomFan]

Here are some quotations from 2 top books, Nagarjuna's Reason Sixty and Center of the Sunlit Sky:

 

Nagarjuna said "If I had any position, I thereby would be at fault. Since
I have no position, I am not at fault at all."

Aryadeva said "Against someone who has no thesis of “existence,
nonexistence, or [both] existence and nonexistence,” it is not possible to
level a charge, even if [this is tried] for a long time."

 

"I do not say that entities do not exist, because I say that they originate in dependence. “So are you a realist then?” I am not, because I am just a proponent of dependent origination. “What sort of nature is it then that you [propound]?” I propound dependent origination. “What is the meaning of dependent origination?” It has the meaning of the lack of a nature and the meaning of nonarising through a nature [of its own]. It has the meaning of the origination of results with a nature similar to that of illusions, mirages, reflections, cities of scent-eaters, magical creations, and dreams. It has the meaning of emptiness and identitylessness."
-Candrakirti

 

"Nagarjuna taught , "bereft of beginning, middle, and end," meaning that the world is free from creation, duration, and destruction."

-Candrakirti

 

"Once one asserts things, one will succumb to the view of seeing such by imagining their beginning, middle and end; hence that grasping at things is the cause of all views."
-Candrakirti

 

"the perfectly enlightened buddhas-proclaimed, "What is dependently created is uncreated."
-Candrakirti

"Likewise, here as well, the Lord Buddha’s pronouncement that "What is dependently created is objectively uncreated," is to counteract insistence on the objectivity of things."
-Candrakirti

"Since relativity is not objectively created, those who, through this reasoning, accept dependent things as resembling the moon in water and reflections in a mirror, understand them as neither objectively true nor false. Therefore, those who think thus regarding dependent things realize that what is dependently arisen cannot be substantially existent, since what is like a reflection is not real. If it were real, that would entail the absurdity that its transformation would be impossible. Yet neither is it unreal, since it manifests as real within the world."
-Candrakirti

 

Nagarjuna in Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 1.1. states:

"Not from themselves, not from something other,

Not from both, and not without a cause-

At any place and any time,

All entities lack arising."

 

Buddhapālita comments (using consequentalist arguments which ultimately snowballs into Tibetan prasangika vs. svatantrika):

"Entities do not arise from their own intrinsic nature, because their arising would be pointless and because they would arise endlessly. For entities that [already] exist as their own intrinsic nature, there is no need to arise again. If they were to arise despite existing [already], there would be no time when they do not arise; [but] that is also not asserted [by the Enumerators].

 

Candrakīrti, in ''Madhyamakāvatāra'' VI.14., comments:

"If something were to originate in dependence on something other than it,

Well, then utter darkness could spring from flames

And everything could arise from everything,

Because everything that does not produce [a specific result] is the same in being other [than it]."

 

Candrakīrti, in the ''Prasannapadā'', comments:

"Entities also do not arise from something other, because there is nothing other."

 

Nagarjuna in ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' 1.3cd. states:

"If an entity in itself does not exist,

An entity other [than it] does not exist either."

 

Candrakīrti, in the ''Prasannapadā'', comments:

"Nor do entities arise from both [themselves and others], because this would entail [all] the flaws that were stated for both of these theses and because none of these [disproved possibilities] have the capacity to produce [entities]."

 

Nagarjuna, in ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' VII.17., states:

"If some nonarisen entity

Existed somewhere,

It might arise.

However, since such does not exist, what would arise?"

 

Nagarjuna, in ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'' VII.19cd., states:

"If something that lacks arising could arise,

Just about anything could arise in this way."

 

Candrakīrti, in ''Madhyamakāvatāra'' VI.151., comments:

"It is not asserted that a chariot is something other than its parts.

It is not something that is not other, nor does it possess them.

It does not exist in the parts, nor do the parts exist in it.

It is neither their mere collection nor the shape—thus is the analogy."

[Simple_Jack]

I don't know about you but I'm more or less tired of hearing quasi-Buddhist sayings on emptiness, non-existence and nihilistic like negativity being given out as wisdom, etc., - but I did find the Buddhist quote below to be more or less informative:

 

"...The Fourfold Negation and the Perfection of Wisdom instruct us to go beyond external fabricated natures, internal dependent natures, consciousness, and self-emptiness. Enlightenment is only realized by purifying and abandoning these wrong, limited views, until the ground of all, the Buddha Essence, spontaneously arises as the separated result, the Primordial Buddha: true purity, true self, true bliss, and true permanence..."

 

Cool, Tathagatagarbha teachings. Here's some excerpts from Asanga's Mahayanasutralamkara with commentary by Vasubhandu [translated by the AIBS team]:

 

Chapter 6 Thatness pgs. 49-51

 

A verse refuting the error of the view of self: 2. The self-notion itself does not have the identity of a self, nor does the (selfish being's) deforming habit; their natures are different. Apart from these two there is no other (self,) so it arises only as an error; liberation is therefore the termination of a mere error.

 

The self-notion itself does not have the nature of a (substantial) self, nor does the (selfish being's) deforming habit. Their nature differs from the (absolutist's) imaginatively constructed self. (The deforming habit) consists of the five appropriative bodymind systems, for it is produced from the mental addictions and negative instinctual conditionings. Nor is there (any self) found apart from those two (with the) nature of an (absolute) self. Therefore, there is no self, and the self-notion is born of error. Moreover, it should be understood that because there is no self, liberation is merely the termination of error, and there is no (substantial person) at all who has been liberated.

Two verses on the criticism of such error:

 

3. How is it that beings rely on what is merely an error and do not realize that the nature of suffering is constant? How is it they are unaware and aware, suffer and do not suffer, and are objective and not objective?

 

4. How is it that beings, directly aware of the relativistic origin of things, still resort to some other creator? What kind of darkness is this through which the existent goes unseen and the nonexistent is observed?

 

How is it that people rely on the view of a self which is nothing but an illusion and do not see that the nature of suffering is always connected to creations? They are not intellectually aware of this intrinsic suffering (although) they are experientially aware of suffering. They suffer because suffering has not been eliminated; but, because of the nonexistence of a self which possess that suffering, they do not (really) suffer. They are objective, since there is no self in persons; there are only objects. Yet again they are not objective, for there is objective selflessness.

 

When people directly perceive the relational occurrence of things, (in the form) "There occur such and such things in dependence upon such and such conditions," how is it then that they resort to the view that seeing and the like are created by some other creator and are not contingent occurrences? What kind of darkness is this which makes people not see the relationally occurrent which exists, and see the self which does not exist? Darkness could make it possible for the existent to be unseen, but not for the nonexistent to be seen!

 

Chapter 9 Enlightenment pgs. 82-83

 

23. In pure voidness buddhas achieve the supreme self of selflessness, and realize the spiritual greatness of the self by discovering the pure self.

 

This shows the supreme self of the buddhas in the uncontaminated realm. Why? Because hers is the self of supreme selflessness. Supreme selflessness is completely pure suchness, and that is a buddha's "self," in the sense of "intrinsic reality." When this is completely pure, buddhas attain superior selflessness, a pure self, Therefore by attaining a pure self buddhas realize the spiritual greatness of self. Thus it is with this intention that buddhas are declared to have a supreme self in the uncontaminated realm.

 

24. That is why buddhahood is said neither to exist nor not to exist. When such inquiries are made about a buddha, the way of impredicability is preferred.

 

For that reason, buddhahood is not said to exist, for suchness is characterized by the (ultimate) nonexistence of persons and things. Since buddhahood has such a nature, it is also not said that it does not exist, for it exists in the nature of suchness. Therefore, when inquiries are made about the existence or nonexistence of a buddha, such as whether or not a transcendent lord exists after death impredicability is preferred.

 

25. Like the fading of heat in iron and of shadows in visions is (the fading of delusions) in the buddha's mind and intuition; it cannot be declared as either existent or nonexistent.

 

26. For buddhas, in the immaculate realm there is neither unity nor plurality, because they are incorporeal like space and yet still accord with their previous bodies.

[Simple_Jack]

Can any mods move this thread over to the Buddhist sub-forum, please?

[3bob]

Not so fast complex Jack, this string shows examples of how various Buddhists or their schools don't agree on everything, just as various other people, ways or schools also don't agree on everything - thus imo showing the vanity of trying to make such so...

 

Om

Edited August 30, 2013 by 3bob

[Thunder_Gooch]

As far as I can tell we agree on everything, when I say nothing exists I mean it in the sense of dreams and video game characters which are made of energy and information.

It exists in the sense it can be experienced, and in no other sense.

 

And what is our daily experience other than a waking dream?

 

The Mahayana Buddhists compare the mind to a mirror which reflects reality, and it is the mirror we observe and believe to be reality itself.

The sum of our total experience is purely energy and information inside our neural nets.

There is no observer of the experience, rather the observer itself IS the experience that is occurring.

A waking dream is a good analogy.

The experience that is occurring is of the same nature of a painting of a pipe (not a pipe itself), a map of the territory (but not the territory itself), or a mirror reflecting something else (yet the reflection is not the thing reflected)

We see only inside our own minds, not outside of them, so there really isn't much difference if any between waking life and and a dream.


The void for is very interesting as modern science (Lawrence Krauss, Hawking, etc.) are finding that empty space is actually filled to the brim with electron/positron pairs fused together as a whole. Empty space is as full as anything can be. Random quantum vacuum fluctuations can break apart empty space itself (as it is a sea of electron/positron pairs) and generate both matter and antimatter in equal amounts, and over time must do so on scales great enough to generate an entire universe from the void.

Hawking coined the term hawking radiation, at the edge of the event horizon of a singularity (black hole) the gravitational field is so strong that it breaks apart the electron/positron pairs of empty space, swallows the positron and in doing so negates the mass inside the black hole and converts it back to a electron/positron pair at the other side of the event horizon an electron is emitted causing the blackhole/singulairty over eons to evaporate.

 

P.S.

3DO and neogeo those were the days

I'll have to disagree on that point. I think you made it quite clear that you were taking a nihilist point of view, eg nothing exists, period. That is a misinterpretation of the diamond sutra.


I think that non-existent is the wrong word. Video game characters certainly exist. Try to take a 3DO away from a teenager in the middle of a game. Video game characters occupy our kids' thoughts more than school work, sell more high fructose corn syrup than can possibly be imagined, and influence the lives of millions of people.


And what is our daily experience other than a waking dream?
Your mind and it's particular set of sensory organs are what evoke your experience of reality from what would otherwise be an unrecognizable amalgam of energetic vibrations. It's not much different from dreaming.


And Buddhism takes it ones step further and subjects your waking, real experience to the same scrutiny and concludes that it is an energetic happening that does not exist separate from the mind of the dreamer. That is not the same as saying that it doesn't exist.


And so is your neural net and so are you.
So are you absolutely sure that all of that is contained within our neural nets?
It certainly seems that way but even that must be carefully scrutinized.



And one can also view all of reality in exactly the same manner.
Perhaps we agree on that point.

Edited August 30, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[Thunder_Gooch]

The void for is very interesting as modern science (Lawrence Krauss, Hawking, etc.) are finding that empty space is actually filled to the brim with electron/positron pairs fused together as a whole. Empty space is as full as anything can be. Random quantum vacuum fluctuations can break apart empty space itself (as it is a sea of electron/positron pairs) and generate both matter and antimatter in equal amounts, and over time must do so on scales great enough to generate an entire universe from the void.

Hawking coined the term hawking radiation, at the edge of the event horizon of a singularity (black hole) the gravitational field is so strong that it breaks apart the electron/positron pairs of empty space, swallows the positron and in doing so negates the mass inside the black hole and converts it back to a electron/positron pair at the other side of the event horizon an electron is emitted causing the blackhole/singulairty over eons to evaporate.

 

 

 

In 2005 I experienced all possible experiences for all possible observers occurring simultaneously, in essence all possible realities, all possible outcomes to all possible events, all being viewed by an infinite number of minds as real as my own.

 

In essence every thought that could occur existed prior to my observation of it, every book that could be written, every movie that could be made, everything, all at once.

 

They speak of the mindstream and I would say that was a good word for it, at each choice that presented itself all possible outcomes were occupied by minds just as real as my own who shared my same identity making each choice, as well as an infinite number of minds like my own ahead and behind of mine.

[Simple_Jack]

Not so fast complex Jack, this string shows examples of how various Buddhists or their schools don't agree on everything, just as various other people, ways or schools also don't agree on everything - thus imo showing the vanity of trying to make such so...

 

Om

 

There aren't really any contradictions between the 2nd and 3rd turnings (along with the schools or people in which each perspective has influenced) once the principles of the former are understood to be the foundation of the latter.

 

A Loppon trained under the Sakya school (i.e. Malcolm) summarizes the actual purpose of meditating on the fourfold refutation of the Prajnaparamita class of sutras and how zhentongpas and rangtongpas actually meditate on the same principles:

 

http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=9701&start=20

 

"Malcolm: The actual mode of meditation in rang stong and gzhan stong are not different at all. The difference lay primarily in how they conceptualize the view in post-meditation.....The basis in gzhan stong is still emptiness, albeit is an emptiness qualified by the presence of ultimate buddha qualities, where samsaric phenomena are considere extraneous. Why? Because these ultimate qualities are only held to appear to exist in post-equipoise, but their appearance of existence disappear when in equipoise.

 

The equipoise in both rang stong and gzhan stong is characterized as an equipoise free from extremes. In the case of commoners, this freedom from extremes is arrived through analysis that negate the four extremes in turn. This is necessary even in gshan stong because attachment to the luminosity described by the PP sutras will result in an extreme view, just as grasping to emptiness results in an extreme view.

 

As I said, the most salient difference between R and S is in their post-equipoise formulation. In terms of how adherents of the so called R and S views actually meditate, there is no ultimate difference.

 

The pitfall of both approaches is the same -- failure to eradicate all extremes results in the former grasping to non-existence as emptiness, and the latter grasping to existence as emptiness.

 

The purpose of Madhyamaka analysis is not to come to some imagined "correct" generic image of the ultimate, but rather to exhaust the mind's capacity to reify phenomena according to any extreme so that one's experience of conventional truth upon reaching the path of seeing in post-equipoise is that all phenomena are seen to be illusions, dreams and so on i.e. unreal and yet apparent due to the force of traces."

 

Then we have an excerpt from the Lankavatara Sutra (which belongs to the same class of sutras where the concept of tathagatagarbha originated from) revealing the purpose of why buddhas expound a tathagatagarbha to sentient beings:

 

"Similarly, that tathagatagarbha taught in the sutras spoken by the Bhagavan, since the completely pure luminous clear nature is completely pure from the beginning, possessing the thirty two marks, the Bhagavan said it exists inside of the bodies of sentient beings.

 

When the Bhagavan described that– like an extremely valuable jewel thoroughly wrapped in a soiled cloth, is thoroughly wrapped by cloth of the aggregates, ayatanas and elements, becoming impure thorough conceptuality suppressed by passion, anger and ignorance – as permanent, stable and eternal, how is the Bhagavan’s teaching this as the tathagatagarbha not similar with the assertion of a Self of the non-Buddhists?

 

Bhagavan, the non-Buddhists make assertion of a Self as “A permanent creator, without qualities, pervasive and imperishable”.

 

The Bhagavan replied:

 

“Mahamati, my teaching of tathaagatagarbha is not equivalent with the assertion of the Self of the non-Buddhists.

 

Mahamati, the Tathagata, Arhat, Samyak Sambuddha, having demonstrated the meaning of the words "emptiness, reality limit, nirvana, non-arisen, signless", etc. as tathagatagarbha for the purpose of the immature complete forsaking of the perishable abodes, demonstrate the experiential range of the non-appearing abode of complete non-conceptuality by demonstrating the door of tathagatagarbha.

 

Mahamati, a self should not be perceived as real by Bodhisattva Mahasattvas enlightened in the future or presently.

 

Mahamati, for example, a potter, makes one mass of atoms of clay into various kinds of containers from his hands, craft, a stick, thread and effort.

 

Mahamati, similarly, although Tathagatas avoid the nature of conceptual selflessness in dharmas, they also appropriately demonstrate tathagatagarbha or demonstrate emptiness by various kinds [of demonstrations] possessing prajña and skillful means; like a potter, they demonstrate with various enumerations of words and letters. As such, because of that,

 

Mahamati, the demonstration of Tathagatagarbha is not similar with the Self demonstrated by the non-Buddhists.

 

Mahamati, the Tathagatas as such, in order to guide those grasping to assertions of the Self of the Non-Buddhists, will demonstrate tathagatagarbha with the demonstration of tathagatagarbha. How else will the sentient beings who have fallen into a conceptual view of a True Self, possess the thought to abide in the three liberations and quickly attain the complete manifestation of Buddha in unsurpassed perfect, complete enlightenment?"

 

~ Lankavatara Sutra

[steve]

As far as I can tell we agree on everything, when I say nothing exists I mean it in the sense of dreams and video game characters which are made of energy and information.

 

 

It exists in the sense it can be experienced, and in no other sense.

 

 

The sum of our total experience is purely energy and information inside our neural nets.

 

So does the neural net exist?

If so, is it also simply energy and information?

[Jetsun]

To be or not to be, that is the question

[3bob]

yet Tao never asks that question

[Jetsun]

yet Tao never asks that question

Hehe yeah you are right, yet the mind can create some of the most fantastic dramas about that question.

[Thunder_Gooch]

You mean does the reality outside of the one we experience have real existence, or is it perhaps something like a computer simulation as well?

 

I guess if I knew for certain I'd be enlightened.

 

To be honest I don't know the answer, I lean towards it is a simulation of some sort and the entire universe/multiverse has no tangible reality to it either.

 

Seth Llyod of MIT wrote the book "programming the universe" in which he successfully argues that as particles interact and exchange energy and information, they are also computing. In this paradigm the entire universe itself can be accurately thought of as a quantum computer. The output of this quantum computer is experienced as what we call reality.

So does the neural net exist?

If so, is it also simply energy and information?

Edited August 30, 2013 by More_Pie_Guy

[steve]

You mean does the reality outside of the one we experience have real existence, or is it perhaps something like a computer simulation as well?

 

I guess I'm just responding to your earlier post.

If everything is simply an exchange of energy and information within my neural network, what is the nature of that neural network?

It's a rhetorical question really.

I was hoping perhaps that it might point to something that may be worthwhile, like the idea of pratityasamutpada.

From a Buddhist perspective, I think that the most important message is that the answer is not in the conceptual realm.