thuscomeone

I haven't been on this forum in a while, but I was thinking about something related to buddhism today and it struck me as odd. I just finished reading Moby Dick and it has changed my view on many things. Especially in regard to man's quest for ultimate knowledge. There is a passage in there that is so profound...when melville describes Queequeg's chest tattoos and says that even though his heart beat against them, he could not decipher what they meant. Just beautiful. Anyway, there is the idea of emptiness in Buddhism. The infinite void that is capable of infinite manifestation. Yet Buddhists claim basically a finite number of types of realms. The animal realm, the human realm, the deva realm, the hell realm. And these same types of realms seem to cycle eternally for Buddhists. This is what strikes me as strange. If the void is capable of infinite manifestation, why, according to buddhists, are there only basically six types of realms? If this infiniteness of the void were true, there should be realms that we cannot even imagine. If it were true, how would we ever really be able to limit it and say "I know for certain that I'm going to be reborn as only one of six types of things after I die." See the absurd logic? So Buddhists, how do you explain this apparent discrepancy? Not saying that I don't believe in some force which is capable of manifestation. I do. And I personally feel that whatever it is, it has allowed for man's evolution. But nowhere is it written that man will live on forever as an eternal manifestation of this void, as Buddhists seem to think. What comes after man we may not even be able to imagine.

Oh but it is important. Even saying that there are infinite "realms" supposes that there is something called a realm which is going to be exist eternally. Thus once again eliminating infinite possibility. Infinity is so mind-bogglingly immense that at some point realms will probably be replaced by something else which we cannot even imagine. The finite is the infinite in the sense that it is one of the forms of the infinite. But if the infinite persisted as that one form forever, it would not be infinite.

I respect your explanation, but I'm not sure it gets at what I'm saying yet. You're still limiting something which is supposedly infinite. You're saying that this void has seven planes. Well why wouldn't it have an infinite number of planes, most of them unimaginable to us? I think this results from an inability to really understand what the word "infinite" means -- the immensity of it. Can't you see the absurdity of saying that something which has infinite possibilities has basically, when it comes down to it, only three major planes? You're attaching the finite to the infinite in order to make some sort of sense and order out of it.

I am hesitant at this point to speak about what the Buddha taught or didn't teach. It's dangerous territory to depend for your truth on what the Buddha or anyone else may or may not have said. I only speak from my own experience. d.o. is a finger pointing to a truth which doesn't depend on d.o. You are desperately clinging to d.o. and can't see past it, even if you won't admit it. In a sense, you are more concerned with talking about d.o. than being, actually living as, what d.o. points to. If it were the latter, you would see that "d.o" has no bearing on what actually is and you wouldn't cling to it. You don't understand "emptiness is form." How can the eye see itself? You think you know the freedom of suchness, but you have no idea.

Not reifying anything. Not saying there is something or nothing. Saying that there is obvious presence, but that presence isn't a "thing." It can't be described. To truly see dependent arising is to see that dependent arising is just mere words. Not truth. That is what d.o. points to.

Emptiness does liberate. As skillful means. Never said it doesn't. But you don't really know what emptiness means/what it is pointing to.

Uh-uh. d.o. is not the answer.

You too are stuck on endlessly repeating emptiness and d.o., just like xabir, and never going beyond.

Not even an awareness of "emptiness." Just leaving things as they are.

It doesn't see any sort of "nature" and assign that nature to things at all. It doesn't see "unborn" or anything else. That's called ignorance. It just sees.

Emptiness is an intellectual view. It is not absolute truth. It is just words.

Xabir, to put it within terms you can understand, you haven't yet realized what rigpa is.

Yes it most definitely can be clung to. Otherwise, why would nagarjuna advocate not clinging to it? Well, you seem to think that anyone who isn't talking within your paradigm of emptiness is an eternalist.

And you still cling to emptiness and d.o. Congratulations. And you tell me I'm too focused on maps. You wrongly conflate non-conceptual presence with "I am."

I didn't say there was something or there was nothing. Again, the middle way. If you actually took the time to read my last post, you would see this. Careful, eckhart tolle may be much more enlightened than you and you might not even know it. I understand the implications of attachment to views as it relates to the four noble truths. Can't say the same for you.

Again, you don't understand. I'm not talking about cultivation of a thoughtless state. Far from it. This is your wrong assumption.

You don't even know what the seer/observer is, do you xabir? It's attachment to the content of thought. Not to replace one thought with another. Thought is what observes/interprets/distorts. If you try and accuse me of clinging, you're wrong. Like I've said, there isn't nothing because one can obviously see presence. But there isn't something because all "things" are created by thought and have no basis. It's a much more subtle version of the middle way.

You have not realized the meaning of emptiness. As is clear by your words. This is not clinging to a self. This is the fact of what is before the self -- and it isn't permanent, impermanent, empty, non-empty. It's a fact. It's just being. Now you are just coming across as nihilistic. Now you are saying that there is literally nothing here? No body, no mind?

My take on that particular story is that she was always only looking at the reflection of the moon (her thoughts) and never the actual moon (actual reality). Xabir, you are the girl in this story.

No I am not clinging at all. I am recognizing suchness, the undeniable fact of what is. Clinging is not in that suchness. Clinging is in defining that suchness. This is what you fail to understand. Don't flatter yourself, buddy. Even now you are desperately clinging to words.

Sure. But I'm pointing to something which is beyond words. You, like xabir, no offense, are just pointing toward more words.

Way too many words. Better to just demonstrate it.

Let me explain this to you in the context of suffering. When you are attempting to realize dependent arising or emptiness, you are trying to get somewhere. You are trying to get away from ignorance and towards knowledge. But ignorance and knowledge, aka dependent arising and independence, are just concepts. They don't exist in actuality. So when you want to go from ignorance to knowledge, or from pain to pleasure, that is the root of suffering. That gap which is created by attaching to concepts. In that gap is all fear, stress, etc. In that gap is also "rebirth." In that gap is also time. Without the gap there is no time. This is why it is so important to distinguish sems from rigpa in dzogchen. You are caught in sems (conceptual mind). This is much much deeper than what you think I mean by non-conceptuality.

But is this so only because things are empty and dependently arisen?

So is emptiness truth? Is dependent arising truth? Nope, wrong. It means that the state of rigpa is beyond concepts, including "emptiness" and "dependent arising."