Soh Wei Yu

Pretty impressed my old iphone 14 pro max can actually take clear night shots

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William Lim

Are the stars outside your body, or inside your mind? 😂

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Soh Wei Yu

William Lim

When mind radiance is realised to be none other than lucid self-knowing appearances, and mind and phenomena as substantial entities are seen through, can how such notions arise?

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William Lim

Lucid self-knowing appearances have no inside outside?

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Soh Wei Yu

William Lim yeah, in seeing just the seen, no seer, no seeing and nothing seen. So what is there to be inside and outside of?

Just vivid appearances as a spontaneous presenting/presencing that is primordially pure

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William Lim

But the appeerances are still "limited" or "localized" to the sight, sound, smell, touch and taste of a particular, namely Weiyu's, perspective yah? You're not smelling and tasting my laksa in Singapore aren't you? 😂

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Soh Wei Yu

William Lim appearances are not “localized” in the ultimate sense because they are empty and unlocatable.

Conventionally there are mindstreams but these are empty.

Kyle Dixon shared before:

Kyle Dixon wrote

krodha

15 points ·

2 months ago

· edited 2 months ago

Buddhism is just a different approach to liberation. A universal consciousness is deemed unnecessary, and impossible. I used to dabble in Advaita when I was first learning buddhadharma, and this disparity likewise led me to believe that the Buddhist view was somewhat more limited because it involved discrete mindstreams. It felt like Advaita was going further than Buddhism because the negation of discrete entities in its framework was quite simple to understand, and the Buddhist reification of the same conventional entities seemed shortsighted or immature.

Later when I had a better understanding of the philosophical and methodological underpinnings of the buddhadharma, I discovered that the Buddhist view, despite these features, is able to improve upon the Advaitan “singular consciousness” model, and evade the disadvantageous implications of fortifying an ontological principle of that nature.

Which is to say the Buddhist model is in no way limited by virtue of including discrete conventional mindstreams. At the time of the result in Advaita Vedanta the purusa stands alone as true and real, that is an ontological view. Buddhism only lends ontologies a provisional status, and then collapses them with epistemological insight that reveals they were false from the very beginning. Unlike Advaita however, there is no ultimate ontology, instead, the mind is freed from the burden of the misconception of all ontological natures by seeing or knowing the way things really are, as being empty.

This still establishes a non-dual realization and still ultimately negates all entities, but there is no ultimate nature established in the end, because for Buddhism, ultimate truth is nothing more than the lack of substantiality in that which appears to be relative. Thus Advaita reifies a reductive nondual nature via understanding phenomenology via ontology in positing a single overarching universal consciousness, whereas buddhadharma actualizes a non-reductive nondual insight via understanding phenomenology via epistemology in the realization of emptiness and non-arising.

Advaitans like Gaudapāda tried to adopt the Buddhist view of nonarising [anutpāda] in his Ajātivāda, but he still falls into an eternalist trap and fails to accurately actualize nonarising because he still reifies an ultimate purusa. Gaudapāda is saying nonarising is true. In buddhadharma, when nonarising is realized, not even nonarising is established

—-

Someone shared, “From page 118 of the book ‘Inborn Realization’ by Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal “There is not and will never be a single mind that is shared by everyone—there will always be limitless individual minds. Everyone, whether enlightened or not, has his or her own mind. Each individual mind can and does reflect everything and everybody. For these reasons, the teachings say that everyone is the sovereign ruler of his or her universe.”

Kyle replied:

Very nice.

This seems to bother some people, but if they understood that removing the two obscurations unbinds the mind and exhausts the bifurcation into an inner subjective experience versus an outer external world, and everything is then experienced as one’s own immaculate self-display, then perhaps they would not object to multiple conventional mindstreams.

It seems this issue always boils down to people struggling with how convention is understood and applied.

krodha's comment on "Did the Buddha explicitly reject the notion of universal consciousness?"

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krodha's comment on "Did the Buddha explicitly reject the notion of universal consciousness?"

krodha's comment on "Did the Buddha explicitly reject the notion of universal consciousness?"

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William Lim

So, there are different mindstreams, and different non-dual self-knowing appearances "appears" to the different mindstreams yah? For Weiyu, it's the stars in Australia. For William, it's the laksa in Singapore.

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Soh Wei Yu

William Lim

Yes. Mindstreams are also conventional without inherent existence. It is merely a name for a causal rosary of discrete moments, just like the word “mala” is just a name imputed on 108 beads strung together, or the word “army” is a name for a collection of soldiers, or the word “weather” is a name for a plethora of various everchanging phenomena, etc, but no real entity or core or essence can be found whatsoever when sought. Ultimately individual minds are also mere imputations that cannot be found. But since it is functional, we say it is conventionally valid to name different minds/mindstreams as such, just as it is conventionally valid to call you “William” and I am “Soh”. But no self/Self can ultimately be found.

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Soh Wei Yu

Answering someone on whether it is the “same mindstream” that is reborn, Kyle Dixon explained,

“It is neither the same nor different, like a series of candle flames that light one another sequentially.

From the Pratītyasamutpādakarikavhyakhyana:

Therein, the aggregates are the aggregates of matter, sensation, ideation, formations and consciousness. Those, called ‘serially joined’, not having ceased, produce another produced from that cause; although not even the subtle atom of an existent has transmigrated from this world to the next.”

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William Lim

There is no self or inherent existence in a mala or an army, but there is still a kind of "difference" between one mala and another, or one army from another ya? For the appearances (and function) of Soh is "different" from the appearances of William

The designation aren't randomly and arbitrarily assigned ya? For we do not assign the body of Soh together with the chair he sits on as a unified designation. There must be "something" that makes one conventionally impute to a "Soh" or a 'William"... namely some form of congregation of appearances. "Something" differentiate one non-inherently existent cloud from another non-inherently existent cloud?

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Soh Wei Yu

William Lim

Designations depend on the basis of designation which are parts and conditions. These parts and conditions are also name only, and empty. So names all the way down.

Although it is not wrong to say our “appearances” are different, we should be careful not to reify appearances as an ultimate ground of conventions, which will make appearances the foundational or fundamental reality. Appearances also become falsely reified as a real ground when concepts are reified. Presence/appearance is ultimately groundless and illusory.

John Tan said something nice before,

“Not only that. Like anatta, where an agent is not needed to initiate actions, a hearer not needed to initate hearing of sounds; Tsongkhapa wants us to see:

Designation too does not require pure appearances or real aggregates as basis, then what designations r designated upon? It is designations upon designations and designations functions.

In other words, to Tsongkhapa, the inability to understand how nominal reality (existing as name only) can function is what makes us fall into the need of landing onto a real basis.

This does not mean that Tsongkhapa did not experience of taste radiance as appearances in anatta insight free from a background self without name constructs, but he has additional insight of about how "designations" works without relying on basis.”

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Soh Wei Yu

William Lim but you are right that designations are not random or arbitrarily assigned.

Acarya Malcolm:

"“Conventional” simply means “functional,” it does not mean arbitrary or subjective. For example, perceiving water as amṛta, pus, boiling metal, etc., is invalid in the human realm.

One can build many kinds of cars, but if they don’t function as cars, they are not cars, conventionally speaking."

"No, conventions are not subjective, they are conventions because one or more people have agreed to call a functional thing a given name. For example, a truck is called a lorry in England, but they both refer to a heavy vehicle that carries loads."

"Conventional truths are derived from observing functional appearances. Falsehoods are derived from observing nonfunctional appearances. Example, lake vs. mirage."

"No, it is not more correct to say consciousness arises or ceases than a labelled self, a since consciousness is also a conventional label, like the label "self." Prior to analysis there is both a self, akuppa, and a consciousness. After analysis one will find neither self nor consciousness, beyond the designations "akuppa" and "consciousness." For example, take a car as a metaphor for "self". A car cannot be found in any part, all of its parts, or separate from its parts. Likewise, as self cannot be found in any aggregates, all of the aggregates, or apart from the aggregates. Likewise, consciousness cannot be found in the sense organ nor the sense object, both, or separate from them. The mind is also made of parts, and cannot be found in one of them, all of them, or separate from them.

Functionally speaking, we can say there is a self, because when I say "akuppa go there!" You will respond to this directive by saying yes or no. This means that "self" is functional. It is efficient. Whatever is functional corresponds with relative truth. If I said to you, "Malcolm go there!" you would respond, "I am not Malcolm." So calling you "malcolm" is not functional and therefore cannot be considered to be relatively true. Consciousness is a relative truth, as long as it performs its functions, then we can say "there is a consciousness." But when we analyze consciousness, we cannot find it outside of the conventions we use for an appearance we label "mind.""

Continue reading at https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2024/03/some-quotes-by-acarya-malcolm-smith.html

Acarya Malcolm Smith on Conventional vs Ultimate Truth

AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM

Acarya Malcolm Smith on Conventional vs Ultimate Truth

Acarya Malcolm Smith on Conventional vs Ultimate Truth

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