Separate from what? Is there such a thing as independant existence? Confusion and fear is dependant on separate identities.

i am reading a lovely book at the moment and it discusses coemergent mind, coemergent thought, and coemergent appearance. It seems to me that the thought of a subject perceiving an object is just a thought anyway. Theres no thinker thinking that thought so actually theres no duality anyway, it just seems that way.

There were a certain class of questions that the Buddha refused to answer, that he said believing one way or another about them was not conducive to liberation, and from the Madhayamaka perspective to answer them would be to presume something in the asking of the question that is seen through in empiness. Still, the wondering itself, when the unanswerable question drops, seems like something valuable to me.

In Indra's net every pearl is a non-dual mindstream. So yes and not. They're connected, not separate but they're different pearls.

Nagarjuna says that the peaceful cessation of prapanca of Buddha’s teaching of pratityasamutpada is without cessation, without origination; without nihilism, without eternalism; without identity, without difference; without coming, without going.

I'd love to hear more about it...

This topic has been a thorny issue for me for quite some years. It was what triggered me out of Advaita and into Buddhism, since Buddhism postulates myriad mindstreams and thus resolves the issue of solipism, etc.

André A. Pais

In type of a Neti Neti way of analysis, what makes a mind different?

Hereditary + Different life experiences perhaps.

If we were all identical clones raised in identical circumstances and environments; our views, behaviors and modes of thinking most certainly would be a lot closer.

Sometimes it is said twins think and feel the same thing at the same moment.

If we broke through all the different sets of experiences that make up each individual to simple awareness of being would the experience there of be closer to being the same?

André A. Pais

and would this also be a close to both anatta and one mind of awareness?

Let's talk phenomenology here - from "first person" experience.

In non-duality there is no "my hand". There is just luminous appearances and sensations, being variedly labeled.

But the luminous appearances and sensations are exclusively Andre's experience (conventionally labelled or otherwise).

The idea that there is a cat with a pov is merely an idea. That "this experience" itself is arising from a certain pov too is an idea. In non-duality there are no pov's or perspectives. There is no space or distance.

"In non-duality, there are no point of views or perspectives"

Empirically speaking, "your pov" is a figment of imagination, so it's easily explained away. Logically speaking it's harder, because then solipsism is right there.

On one hand, non dual experience reveals that it's all simply luminous appearances and sensations - that are conventionally and mistaken labelled to or as a person.

Exclusivity and localization are notions. Empirically speaking, that's undeniable. That there is anything other than this is a thought, that there is only this is also a thought. This experience isn't happening anywhere, to no-one.

André A. Pais

Thanks for your comments. I greatly appreciate any takes that counteract solipsism in this topic.

I don't have answers for this, mind you. And I suspect there aren't answers for this. Reality isn't this way vs. that way. There is no "way" reality is. Ultimately, there is no "existence" or "reality" to be this or that way. There is no non-existence either.

All sensations only come about when the conditions are right. Eye + light + reflected off something. Except that something also is only there based on conditions, as is the light and the eye. Eventually this mind stream drops the habit of seeing inherentness of things. You see that each sensation is a whole, complete exertion of all conditions of all times and places. When you replace the world of things with the world of interrelatedness, the idea of a you who has access to only these sensations only conventionally makes sense . Yes certain sensations are only expressed in certain places, because the conditions are such that they are only expressed there. There is no connecting ground between moments that collects all the sensations that conventionally appear to you. Each one is gone, gone, gone, never again. Conditions come together for a process called human-ing who does memory-ing at this now-ing right here-ing. All of which disappears as soon as the conditions stop being so.

Jayson MPaul

Soh Wei Yu

Yep this is a pretty great description of it!

Myriad Objects

concerning solipsism, we could try to tackle it from ultimate and relative perspectives.

Jayson MPaul

in your comment you go into notions of different times and places, and into the notion of inter-relatedness. All these notions are refuted in Buddhist analysis searching for the ultimate nature. There is no process of inter-relatedness because there are no entities to be related. There is also no appearances appearing here and not there because here and there are relative notions devoid of true existence. Space is non-existent even conventionally, Buddhism tell us.

André A. Pais

Yes there are no entities to be inter-related. All there is is inter-relatedness. It is hard to see this before the deeply held view of inherentness of things is dropped. You are describing the A- emptiness analysis. There are no times and spaces in this analysis. There is also the A+ non-afflictive dependent origination, which links the conventional and the ultimate. In this conventional phenomena are not entities but actually just more conditions exerting as appearances.

“Pursuant to the middle view, Tson-kha-pa cites Nagarjuna's Yuk-tisastika and Candrakirti's Yuktisastika-vrtti.

How can there be inter-relatedness without inter-relata? For example, impermanence is explained to refute the view of permanence, but both are ultimately transcended. The same with the view of emptiness or dependent origination. They are antidotes to views, but cannot themselves become views.

André A. Pais

it is exactly that there is interelatedness without interelata. Cause and effect (and anything else you can imagine) depend on each other both ways. They originate together, which is to say they don't originate at all. There is no thing there but you can't find any dividing line between the 2 appearances. They go with each other in a way that if either stops they both stop. It's more like an oceanic whole of many expressions, which isn't part of the ocean or made up of the ocean. The ocean is the very expressions themselves.

If this still doesn't make sense then do some practice seeing how you can find the boundaries in direct experience. Can you find the dividing line in the experience of a bell tinnngss, for which part is the ear, the air, the bell? Also ponder how the sound doesn't arise unless all the conditions are there. Another good one is to see that characteristics of things in direct experience are not really in any of the conditions. That vivid redness of a flower isn't in the flower, the light, the eye, the brain. You actually need all the conditions to make it so. Then extend this apparent paradox of characteristics to thingness in general. Does the appleness of the apple reside in the brain, the apple itself, etc?

Well yes the whole problem is that you can’t have things whose *arising* is *co*-, or reciprocally, dependent. Think about it: When particularly *arising* is that which is reciprocally dependent, then just none of the relata get to come to arising. Which one comes first? The one who will arise after the other—relying on the other for its own arising—, or the other who will arise after the one—relying on the one for its own arising?

“Steve, Madhyamika interprets the "thingness" gestalt as a type conception, a way of reacting or conceptualizing words or concepts or sensations, as if there were existence involved. Maybe some words seem to invite this kind of reifying conceptualization more than others - we usually feel that more physical-sounding, more concrete words entail a more independent kind of existence. But Madhyamika would refute this kind of existence across the board.

William Lim

There is not any separate mindstream in which the play of thoughts as subject and object is happening.

If there is no separate mindstream, why is your mindstream not aware of William's question?

I think William is asking about different mindstreams in terms of duality and non duality. Not his or mine

I'm asking why you can't read my thoughts or feel my sensation despite no sense of object-subject and no seperation of you and the world and technically, no seperation of you and me.

William Lim

Oh then I misunderstood the question

Difference is refuted on the basis of refutation of identity. How can you have difference if you don't have identity? Which exactly would be different? When you say "why [can't you] read my thoughts or feel my sensation despite no sense of object-subject and no seperation of you and the world and technically, no seperation of you and me", the assumption is identity, which is reciprocally dependent on difference (and hence each lack establishment).

This seems parallel to saying, how can there be other minds if "this mind right here" can't itself be found?