Nihilism

[Karl]

Axioms are something that can't be proven.

 

That you agree there cannot be proof of proof is sufficient.

[FmAm]

That you agree there cannot be proof of proof is sufficient.

 

An axiom isn't proof. It's an assumption.

Edited October 6, 2015 by FmAm

[Karl]

An axiom isn't proof. It's an assumption.

 

Assume bored.

[FmAm]

Assume bored.

 

Boring as a feeling is something that doesn't have to be assumed. It's real. (Although it's probably a mixture of angry and sad.)

Edited October 6, 2015 by FmAm

[Karl]

Boring as a feeling is something that doesn't have to be assumed. It's real. (Although it's probably a mixture of angry and sad.)

 

No, just bored with your nihilist conversation.

[Marblehead]

Y'all keep this secret , Okay?  FmAm isn't really a nihilist.  He is just searching for meaning.  Of course, that's a waste of time too but there are many who think they have found the answer.

[Karl]

Y'all keep this secret , Okay?  FmAm isn't really a nihilist.  He is just searching for meaning.  Of course, that's a waste of time too but there are many who think they have found the answer.

 

I know, but eventually it's boring. Someone tefusing to get in the ring stands there saying how he is beating you to a pulp with virtual punches and invisible jabs. I want to tell him to start hitting for real. Sure he will get a few blows but it's not like it causes any real pain. It's colourful, exciting and self affirming.

[FmAm]

This is more or less what Descartres said. From the point of view of his "telling the story", there is only telling the story; including the story of "I am." 

It is a misreading of the text to say that the expression is an axiom regarding the absolute. He embarked on a circular argument to make the absolute necessary with the clear understanding that stopping with just that statement left him with just that statement.

Much as you are using the concept of the absolute to make it not necessary.

 

Actually Hume criticised Descartes for his notion about the self. So my view is humean (or nietzschean) on this particular issue.

 

I don't care about Nietzsche's solutions. Gautama's "letting go" is more honest standpoint.

Edited October 6, 2015 by FmAm

[Marblehead]

I don't care about Nietzsche's solutions. Gautama's "letting go" is more honest standpoint.

Actually, Nietzsche never presented a solution.  One of the main criticisms who like his work is that while he declared "God is dead" he didn't offer a replacement.

 

People, in the most part, need something greater than themselves to believe in.  Nietzsche got to the point of installing man in place of God but that didn't work.

[3bob]

karma doesn't give two cents about all of our beliefs and high sounding and well reasoned and opinions, it works flawlessly and relentlessly to kick our ass if that is what we have earned and returns kindness if that is what we've shared...

 

Om

Edited October 6, 2015 by 3bob

[seekingbuddha]

How could something exist? How could morality exist? How could free will exist?

 

Morality implies absolute judgement. It's impossible.

 

Free will implies... well, I can't even imagine how free will could be possible.

 

If there was something, what would it be?

 

What "exists" (maybe) is some kind of automatic, irrational, completely meaningless and impersonal happening. No one is in charge of anything, because there is no one. There's just happening without something happening. Absurd verbs without nouns.

 

Is this nihilism? Maybe. But nihilism does not necessarily imply darkness. It can be neutral.

 

I am curious about these words.  Are these your logical conclusion, intellectual deduction, result of contemplation (or reading)  OR   is this something that you experience every day as an experience, and the words stem from such a base ?

[Tibetan_Ice]

Isn't Nihilism for fools?

 

From The Practice of Dzogchen Longchen Rabjam’s Writings on the Great Perfection REVISED AND EXPANDED EDITION:

 

One should understand the meaning of no-self, voidness, and nonduality and so forth as follows. The Ārya-mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra says:

 

I teach you that the totally pure nature of the Buddha, the secret essence of the Thus-gone [tathāgata, i.e., the Buddha] is unchanging and inexhaustible (mi ’pho ba). But if I say that it does exist, it is not correct for learned and wise people to cling to it [its existence].

 

If I say that it does not exist, then I am not speaking the truth, and uncultivated people would propagate nihilism and would not know the secret essence of the Thus-gone [i.e., buddha-essence].

 

If I talk about suffering, they won’t know of the existence of the blissful nature of the body. Foolish people take the body to be like an unfired clay pot, thinking, “All bodies are impermanent.” Wise people make distinctions, and they do not say that all are impermanent by all means. Why? Because in one’s body is present the seed, the buddha nature. Foolish people apprehend that the attributes of the buddha are no-self. The view of wise people is that the term “no-self” is purely a conventional expression and that it is untrue. By understanding thus they won’t have any doubts [about the buddha-essence].

 

If I say that the buddha-essence is voidness (stong pa), when foolish people hear it, they will develop the view of nihilism or of nonexistence. Wise people will determine that the buddha-essence is unchanging and inexhaustible.

 

If I say that liberation is like an apparition [māyā] foolish people perceive liberation as the teachings of Mara [the devil]. The wise discern that among men, like a lion [among animals], the Thus-gone alone is eternal, present, changeless, and inexhaustible.

 

If I say that because of unenlightenment (ma rig pa) the compositional factors (’ du byed) arise, foolish people by hearing it distinguish a duality between enlightenment and unenlightenment. Wise and learned people realize the nonduality (gnyis med) [of enlightenment and unenlightenment]; and what is nondual, that is perfect. . . .

 

If I say that phenomenal existents have no self and even the buddha-essence has no self, foolish people perceive the duality [of self and no-self]. Wise and learned people realize that they are naturally nondual. Both self and no-self in their nature do not exist as dual. All the fully enlightened buddhas praised the meaning of the buddha-essence as inconceivable, inmmeasurable, and endless, and I also discoursed elaborately on its virtues in the sutras.

 

 

Edited October 7, 2015 by Tibetan_Ice

[FmAm]

I am curious about these words. Are these your logical conclusion, intellectual deduction, result of contemplation (or reading) OR is this something that you experience every day as an experience, and the words stem from such a base ?

Both. Morality and free will can't be experienced. Affection and compassion can instead. So it's just realising the experience.

 

This is a logical conclusion, too. And I've been searching literature that describes these conclusions.

[FmAm]

karma doesn't give two cents about all of our beliefs and high sounding and well reasoned and opinions, it works flawlessly and relentlessly to kick our ass if that is what we have earned and returns kindness if that is what we've shared...

 

My impression of karma is that of a pessimist. The world might return evil for good and good for evil. Or it might return nothing at all. Doing good and being compassionate is the last and only effort of the powerless. It's some kind of refusal and objection. And even the effort doesn't stem from "me". There's "good" and "evil" without real good and evil. There's doing and actions without doers or actors.

Edited October 7, 2015 by FmAm

[Marblehead]

Isn't Nihilism for fools?

 

 

Yes.

[seekingbuddha]

Both. Morality and free will can't be experienced. Affection and compassion can instead. So it's just realising the experience.

 

This is a logical conclusion, too. And I've been searching literature that describes these conclusions.

 

Please do not lie to yourself,  in an effort  to  keep up  the nonexistent "I/ego"....   Waking up this morning, i realized that this can't  be an everyday / every moment  experience for you.  Because your words do not carry the sense of  such a deep experience.   There are hidden clues  throughout this thread,  to this effect.  This is not an attempt  to bash you,  but an attempt  to clarify things.  I  give you  full credit  for  your studies,  your  intellectual prowess / knowledge  and I respect it  because  mere words / mere understanding of a concept,  is  commendable  in itself.   We need the base of words,  in order to move towards an experience and the wisdom that stems from it.

[steve]

My impression of karma is that of a pessimist. The world might return evil for good and good for evil. Or it might return nothing at all. Doing good and being compassionate is the last and only effort of the powerless. It's some kind of refusal and objection. And even the effort doesn't stem from "me". There's "good" and "evil" without real good and evil. There's doing and actions without doers or actors.

The Buddhists look at this from two parallel and integrated perspectives - the relative and the absolute.

At the relative level, there are doers - clearly you typed that post, I did not. I am typing this one.

At the absolute level, the wholeness of being does not divide itself. 

 

Karma acts at the relative level.

While the "law" is quite simple - our actions lead to other actions and results of those actions - the fruition is unimaginably complex. All things on the relatively level are interrelated in a complex web of relationship. The immense complexity of this relationship makes it so that, in the short term, results are completely unpredictable and often seem unrelated.

From a larger perspective all actions are interconnected in ways that make perfect sense and give rise to the observation, not the theory, of karma.

[FmAm]

Please do not lie to yourself,  in an effort  to  keep up  the nonexistent "I/ego"....   Waking up this morning, i realized that this can't  be an everyday / every moment  experience for you.  Because your words do not carry the sense of  such a deep experience.   There are hidden clues  throughout this thread,  to this effect.  This is not an attempt  to bash you,  but an attempt  to clarify things.  I  give you  full credit  for  your studies,  your  intellectual prowess / knowledge  and I respect it  because  mere words / mere understanding of a concept,  is  commendable  in itself.   We need the base of words,  in order to move towards an experience and the wisdom that stems from it.

 

Feel free to bash me. I'm not saying that I'm enlightened and without "I/ego" in a sense it is described in some religious texts. Not at all. I am an ordinary wanker with a very sensitive "ego".

 

What I'm trying to say is that the ego doesn't exist even in a normal, everyday experience of a sensitive retard like me. Experience of ego isn't there even when it is insisted that it is there. There is just thought (an inner story) and other impressions. No one can experience ego or self. No one can experience oneself. Because there isn't one.

 

This thread isn't about me.

Edited October 7, 2015 by FmAm

[Karl]

More rubbish.

You are you built upon all your life experiences. You derive all your values and beliefs from those experiences. Your entire Nihlist philosophy is built from those experiences.

Edited October 7, 2015 by Karl

[FmAm]

More rubbish.

You are you built upon all your life experiences. You derive all your values and beliefs from those experiences. Your entire Nihlist philosophy is built from those experiences.

 

Of course. Just like a mountain is formed by plates, the plates are formed by other factors etc. But what you call "me" is just a bunch of reactions (again, thoughts, feelings and other impressions) to environmental stimulation. And because of the infinite series of causes and effects, those reactions can't be separated from the environment.

[Karl]

Of course. Just like a mountain is formed by plates, the plates are formed by other factors etc. But what you call "me" is just a bunch of reactions (again, thoughts, feelings and other impressions) to environmental stimulation. And because of the infinite series of causes and effects, those reactions can't be separated from the environment.

 

You are stating the bleeding obvious and pretending to be a shadow. It's just another belief. I had a brother who was like you. Life eventually overtook his Nihlist protestations and he found himself in trouble.

 

You can act that way if you are psychopathic, but if you aren't then it's a poor shield and one which invariably holds back a tiny trickle whilst making the shield holder unable to cope with any floods. You are isolating yourself. It's the mental equivalent of heroine use.

[dawei]

without true self or the working in that direction in one way or another "all is the vanity of vanities" which is where I'd say some nihilistic prone Buddhists end up. 

 

This is not vanities but destinies...  Acceptance of this is chicken soup for the soul...

 

Dawei, apparently you misunderstood my Solomon quote or I misunderstood your reply?

 

I may of misunderstood your quote and I can only share what I am expressing.

 

Your comment was:

"without true self or the working in that direction in one way or another "all is the vanity of vanities"

 

IMO, this is religious dogma approach to spiritual journey... if you are not doing this then your going to hell... kind of thing.  It is making the spiritual journey a bit black and white for my taste.

 

Instead of judgement over the direction (or lack thereof), I view it as: Everyone is where they are meant to be... and journeying as they are meant to journey.... in this lifetime.   There are many more to effect something further.

 

So I take a destiny point of view rather than what one is working on or not as 'meaningless'.

[seekingbuddha]

Feel free to bash me. I'm not saying that I'm enlightened and without "I/ego" in a sense it is described in some religious texts. Not at all. I am an ordinary wanker with a very sensitive "ego".

 

Ok. It is nice to see that you are truthful.  I completely understand what you have said in your initial post and have reiterated in various ways.  Some thoughts that came while reading your posts here....

 

What I'm trying to say is that the ego doesn't exist even in a normal, everyday experience of a sensitive retard like me. Experience of ego isn't there even when it is insisted that it is there. There is just thought (an inner story) and other impressions. No one can experience ego or self. No one can experience oneself. Because there isn't one.

 

This thread isn't about me.

 

1. As all the smart people here have understood,  I/SELF/ME  does not exist. It is an illusion of the mind.  But because of EGO (part of the mind),   mind  clings  to the illusion of  I/SELF/ME.  Ego is so subtle, so powerful to such an extent that it is the very last thing that will be destroyed among the taints.   When you destroy mind completely (using mind itself),  that is the moment when EGO gets destroyed alongside.  The subtlety of Ego is such that,  you can  see traces of it  only  when you  completely remove yourself  from the world.  This is similar to the fact that we see subtlety of breathing or body energy only when mind withdraws from other distractions.
2. We can not deny other people's  experience  by saying  things like  "No one can experience ego or self"  OR  "Body and mind do not exist".  The illusion of these things  exist, and is being experienced by all of us. The illusion itself  is the experience.  When body and mind retreat / quiet-down / reach-subtlety,  arising of these parts of mind is experienced  even more distinctly.
3. When the mind expands to encompass the higher dimensions, it realizes NO-THINGness.  This process starts with mere words/reading/understanding, and from this base of words it arrives at the  direct experience itself.  But  mere intellectual understanding of this,  penetration of it -  that itself  is powerful enough to make us start dancing with ego.
4. So, let us always have high reverence for the Supremely Enlightened teachers that human history has produced. After all, they spent their entire life on this topic;  and centuries have not shaken up their foundation.

[Marblehead]

I may of misunderstood your quote and I can only share what I am expressing.

I "Liked" your post however, inserting destiny into the equation is an error, I think.  When we approach a "Y" on the road we have the free will to take either the left or the right.  But we cannot take both.

[Marblehead]

PS  Free will negates nihilism.