Apech

smells like teen spirit

The two truths doctrine is a fudge to cover inconsistency in Buddhist thinking.

That's not what Mark is saying I don't think.

I think the art of translation must be one of the greatest human skills to acquire.

That makes a great deal of sense! Marvellous thank you.

Welcome - look forward to hearing from you.

Maybe I was taught in a non-standard way ... or maybe not. But certainly the skandhas were applied to phenomena to 'show' emptiness and then the same process applied to oneself. I think the issue may be that Buddhism doesn't really use ontological proofs at all. Unlike other systems. But this may be yet another of my unpopular opinions

Oh no --- two tsks ... are you an elephant? The quote came from Dalrymples Empire podcast which I posted above - which might like to listen to if you have time. Otherwise the artwork at Sanchi might be a start. or look here https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/tree-and-serpent/exhibition-objects Yes the Mahayana/Vajrayana style of Buddhism became prominent during the Indian Medieval period which is about 600 - 1300 AD after which Buddhism (more or less) died out in India itself. This was the period of the mahasiddhas - this is a good book on the subject: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008D30MMW/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title

Hi yes I did that interview years ago - I’m not sure what info you can’t acces though. Damo does post regular vids on YouTube so there’s plenty of ways of getting info plus his books of course. welcome to the forum - hope you enjoy it here!

With the greatest respect because I’ve been there - but I feel madyamika just leads to this kind of formulation which is ultimately meaningless.

‘Hey I saw you from across the room and couldn’t help notice the copper wire sticking out your backside. Your place or mine?’

Most Daobums are solo because they can't get a girlfriend.

Deep in the caverns of mount Doom, Sauron toiled over his anvil, clang, clang clang echoed the sound of his hammer. "What doest thou, master?" asked the slave orc, his humble attendant. "I am forging rings, o miserable and unimportant mutant life form", answered the evil one. "Rings?" replied the orc. "Yes, three for the Elven kings, Seven for the Dwarf Lords under the mountain and nine for the kings of men." "What about the rest of us, do we get rings too?" "Oh yes, you can have fruit loops, help yourself they're in the bowl on the table." "Oh thank you, thank you master ...."

I think that fruit loops may be the most unreal food in existence.

why can’t you walk through the wall in your dream- do you have repressed wall traumas?

I do believe in miracles. Which may be a very unpopular opinion. Only if the tree is real does it make it a miracle to walk through it.

i actually agree about miracles and I wasn’t trying to use them as a basis for anything. In fact my point was that even if one were to accept them as real it makes no difference to the real / unreal question. I agree that integration is key - although I am not quite clear what ‘beyond parts of self’ means. Although I do view a human being as a collection of entities- but I doubt if this is what you meant.

I'm looking for a solution to a problem posed by the 'unreal' position in Buddhism, where we are often encouraged to view the world as like a dream or a magic display etc. I find this unsatisfactory although I understand the basis for it. In my view the tree is a real tree as distinct to an imaginary tree - this distinction is perhaps magnified by the modern tendency towards 'fantasy' and the the like and the preference for the imaginary digital world over the substantial 'real' existence - even though the latter may at time be dull and uninspirational. I appreciate that perception is far from the simple camera lens analogy which we sometimes use. Much of what we call perception is interpretation by our brains using a world model built from both our indivaidual experience and encoded experience from millions of years of evolution. In that sense we carry a world in our heads which forms the basis for each actual incidence of seeing. But that doesn't remove the question of whether the observed is real - is the tree real and what distinguishes from an unreal tree. I am not sure about the 'bicameral mind' which I believe has received some criticism in recent years. But I am sure that early man was much more open to what Blake would call imaginative vision. Angels in trees and wotnot. We used to have an access to reality which surpassed what our narrow minds will now let us see. I am sure of this. Well there are plenty of stories of people doing exactly that kind of thing. Miracles as they are called in the Bible or, for example yogis putting their foot and hand prints in solid rock. If a great mystic came and wolked through my tree I don't think this would make it any less real. I just think that this would tell us something about the fundamental nature of the real - something we previously did not understand.

This I don’t accept. I may in some sense participate in the making of the real - as in the concept of co- creation but even this is not a conscious thing. I think it more accurate to say that the Dao makes things real. From heaven they gain their image and from Earth their substance. To translate that into medieval European metaphysics it is the will of God which makes things real. (suck that up you Buddhists 😂).

Tree now looks like this - it has grown through your attention.

I suppose another way of asking my question is why do we see this world and not another? (It may be a different question)

This my back yard ... and that is the tree.

Me in the first instance but ultimately observing consciousness.

you linked to a wiki article which appears to contradict the point you are making.

So it’s substantiality makes it real?