Thoughts are binary. Reality isn't.

[vonkrankenhaus]

53 minutes ago, MooNiNite said:

But can anything actually "be" a polarity?

 

Never wrote "be".

 

"Has". "Has" polarity, "has" a front, a back, an up, a down, a beginning, and end, etc.

 

Life has a polar opposite, Death.

 

Even if we do not see it.

 

We can infer the existence of it by YinYang discernment (polarity).

 

Whatever has a beginning, will have an end.

 

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[Boundlesscostfairy]

Well we see binary in wisdom, as the difference between making focused choices, vs the unfocused.. or other possible choices..

[MooNiNite]

“Relative and absolute, these the two truths (which) are declared to be. The absolute is not within the reach of the intellect, for the intellect is grounded in the relative.”

–Shantideva 9.2

 

 

[MooNiNite]

 

 

“Study,” he said, “is of no use in gaining true knowledge, it is rather an obstacle. All that we learn in that way is in vain. In fact, one only knows one’s own ideas and one’s own visions. As for the real causes, that have generated these ideas, they remain inaccessible to us. When we try to grasp them we only seize the ideas that we, ourselves, have elaborated about these causes.”

-Sakyong 

(David-Neel, 1971), pg. 55

 

 

In Indian philosophy, experiential wisdom is known as jnana: a cognitive event which is recognized when experienced. It is knowledge inseparable from the total experience of reality, especially a total or divine reality.

[9th]

WHO CARES

[MooNiNite]

i think im sensing some emotional energy  in your words too.

 

[9th]

 

[MooNiNite]

Because an idea can never be completely right or completely wrong...

 

 disagreeing completely with a person is falling prey to a form of illusion.

 

One that leads an individual to want to dislike or attack that person, which leads to self-harm.

 

Giving one's time towards trying to make another suffer is neither productive and leads the other to respond negatively...it is a double negative.

 

The ego is the root of illusion. It makes a person want to be binary... it is for attention. The ego also wants one to self-sacrifice for another to suffer. 

 

Falling prey to illusion only leads to time wasted on creating things which lead to harm. 

 

 

[9th]

 

[Michael Sternbach]

On 26.4.2018 at 7:34 PM, ilumairen said:

Not words.. wisdom. Naturally arising wisdom.. 

 

On 27.4.2018 at 2:53 AM, steve said:

Sorry, I should have been more explicit.

I'm speaking more along the lines of ilumairen's post.

I was specifically referring to the Bön and Buddhist definitions of wisdom, not sagely advice.

This definition of wisdom points directly at non-dual experience and is non-binary by definition.

This wisdom refers to the nature of reality and is independent of thoughts and concepts, precisely what the OP was referring to.

 

 

So I take it what you guys are talking about is prajna, indeed commonly translated as "wisdom", although it has a specialized significance, referring to intuitive insight into the nature of reality - more of a state of mind, actually. In this state, reality is indeed seen as essentially "non-dualistic", which, as an aside, literally translates into advaita in Sanskrit, a term central to Hindu philosophy.*

 

Coming back to Buddhism, nirvana itself could be defined as non-dualistic perception of reality (as opposed to Samsara), at least the way the term is understood in Zen (the one type of Buddhism that I am most familiar with).

 

Which brings to mind an interesting discussion some of us here had a while back which might be worth taking another look at in light of the current topic:

 

 

However, I was using "wisdom" in its common meaning when I mentioned it above, as conceptual insight into particular topics. As such it is bound to thought and viable only in specific contexts.

 

So all of us are right, after all. At once, this clarification of terminology by itself might shed some further light on the topic of this thread.

 

 

 

*Quoting from the Wikipedia article on Advaita Vedanta:

 

Stephen Phillips, a professor of philosophy and Asian studies, translates the Advaita containing verse excerpt in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, as follows:

सलिले एकस् द्रष्टा अद्वैतस् भवति एष ब्रह्मलोकस् सम्राट् ति ह एनम् उवाच अनुशशास याज्ञवल्क्यस् एषा अस्य परमा गतिस् एषास्य परमा सम्पद्,

An ocean, a single seer without duality becomes he whose world is Brahman, O King, Yajnavalkya instructed This is his supreme way. This is his supreme achievement.

[dawei]

What Ilum and Steve say, is my way of saying:  The subconscious is the true, inner seer and knower.   The human struggle, IMO, is that we rely more and more on conscious thinking at the decline of relying on subconscious thinking and knowing.  To me, this is the base Taoist message.  

 

While Laozi showed how to get there from a normal life point of view, Zhuangzi showed how to just be there.  

[wstein]

On 4/25/2018 at 11:58 PM, MooNiNite said:

Thoughts are binary, and if you disagree, you are being binary.

 

I disagree simultaneously to varying degrees.

Even if you can somehow reframe that into binary, agreeing/disagreeing is only one example of thought (for may brain anyway). It is entirely possible you are a computer simulation.

[9th]

17 hours ago, Michael Sternbach said:

 

 

So I take it what you guys are talking about is prajna, indeed commonly translated as "wisdom", although it has a specialized significance, referring to intuitive insight into the nature of reality - more of a state of mind, actually. In this state, reality is indeed seen as essentially "non-dualistic", which, as an aside, literally translates into advaita in Sanskrit, a term central to Hindu philosophy.*

 

*Quoting from the Wikipedia article on Advaita Vedanta:

 

Stephen Phillips, a professor of philosophy and Asian studies, translates the Advaita containing verse excerpt in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, as follows:

सलिले एकस् द्रष्टा अद्वैतस् भवति एष ब्रह्मलोकस् सम्राट् ति ह एनम् उवाच अनुशशास याज्ञवल्क्यस् एषा अस्य परमा गतिस् एषास्य परमा सम्पद्,

An ocean, a single seer without duality becomes he whose world is Brahman, O King, Yajnavalkya instructed This is his supreme way. This is his supreme achievement.