Showing posts with label Dependent Origination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dependent Origination. Show all posts
Parts Without Inherency, the Purpose of the Chariot Analogy

 
[9/9/24, 11:52:52 PM] John Tan: Ask u, if in a world where everything is uniformly blue in color, can u see blue?
[9/9/24, 11:53:13 PM] Yin Ling: Ahh.. then u won’t call it blue?
[9/9/24, 11:53:28 PM] Yin Ling: Must need a contrast
[9/9/24, 11:54:09 PM] John Tan: Yes.  If everything is uniformly blue, then we r blind to "blueness"
[9/9/24, 11:54:18 PM] Yin Ling: Ya
[9/9/24, 11:54:32 PM] Yin Ling: U trying to say…?🤣
[9/9/24, 11:54:53 PM] John Tan: So now if a different color is introduced into this world say white, what happened?
[9/9/24, 11:55:17 PM] Yin Ling: Then there’s blue and white 🤣
[9/9/24, 11:55:26 PM] John Tan: Lol yes
[9/9/24, 11:55:28 PM] Yin Ling: If just blue.. it’s .. whatever
[9/9/24, 11:55:32 PM] Yin Ling: No one will care
[9/9/24, 11:56:22 PM] John Tan: So without interaction between two objects our experience can change so radically
[9/9/24, 11:56:34 PM] Yin Ling: Yes ah
[9/9/24, 11:56:48 PM] Yin Ling: Don’t know suffering won’t know bliss 🤣
[9/9/24, 11:57:21 PM] John Tan: So can u see dependent arising without the need for interaction
[9/9/24, 11:57:44 PM] Yin Ling: Interaction means?
[9/9/24, 11:57:52 PM] Yin Ling: Ya like dependent designation
[9/9/24, 11:57:57 PM] John Tan: Contact between two objects
[9/9/24, 11:58:11 PM] Yin Ling: Oh I see
[9/9/24, 11:58:42 PM] Yin Ling: Yes ah, Dalai Lama specifically named that kind of dependent arising
[9/9/24, 11:58:59 PM] Yin Ling: I think he named 4-5 kinds in detail
[9/9/24, 11:59:11 PM] John Tan: Now if two objects travel at 80km/hr were to move at same speed in the same direction, they appear stationary
[9/9/24, 11:59:13 PM] Yin Ling: Causal one is most gross
[9/9/24, 11:59:40 PM] Yin Ling: The designation. Long short white black etc. then mind and forms
[9/9/24, 11:59:43 PM] Yin Ling: Yes
[10/9/24, 12:00:21 AM] John Tan: Now if u introduce a stationary object, suddenly motion is experienced.
[10/9/24, 12:00:32 AM] Yin Ling: Yup
[10/9/24, 12:00:36 AM] John Tan: Not as concept but as lived experience
[10/9/24, 12:00:46 AM] Yin Ling: Yup
[10/9/24, 12:01:02 AM] John Tan: So can u tell which is moving?
[10/9/24, 12:01:26 AM] John Tan: Is the stationary object moving or the 80km object?
[10/9/24, 12:01:27 AM] Yin Ling: When two is moving sometimes its hard to tell unless one is rooted
[10/9/24, 12:01:44 AM] Yin Ling: Like sometimes u think the trees are moving on the road when you drive
[10/9/24, 12:01:53 AM] Yin Ling: As a kid
[10/9/24, 12:02:25 AM] Yin Ling: The 80km moving object is moving ?
[10/9/24, 12:02:40 AM] John Tan: U can't know
[10/9/24, 12:02:46 AM] John Tan: Motion is relative
[10/9/24, 12:03:01 AM] Yin Ling: Huh
[10/9/24, 12:03:06 AM] Yin Ling: Confused lol
[10/9/24, 12:03:30 AM] John Tan: U will not know which is moving although motion is experienced
[10/9/24, 12:03:53 AM] Yin Ling: Oh if u have nothing to compare
[10/9/24, 12:03:55 AM] John Tan: We often think we know things through its properties inherent in things, but it was never like that
[10/9/24, 12:04:26 AM] Yin Ling: Meaning if we move at 80km/h but there is nothing else that moves at a different speed we can’t tell motion?
[10/9/24, 12:04:28 AM] Yin Ling: Right
[10/9/24, 12:04:45 AM] Yin Ling: But when there’s a rooted object then there’s relative motion
[10/9/24, 12:04:53 AM] John Tan: The 80km/hr is never in the thing itself nor is the movement or stationary
[10/9/24, 12:05:04 AM] Yin Ling: Oh yes that is correct
[10/9/24, 12:05:33 AM] John Tan: It requires a relational or dependencies
[10/9/24, 12:05:52 AM] Yin Ling: Correct
[10/9/24, 12:06:07 AM] John Tan: Now is there such a thing call emptiness without dependent arising?
[10/9/24, 12:06:19 AM] Yin Ling: Ahahah no
[10/9/24, 12:06:33 AM] Yin Ling: It is empty coz it dependently arise
[10/9/24, 12:07:04 AM] John Tan: Ppl like to talk just about emptiness as one truth. But fluxing insubstantiality means dependency
[10/9/24, 12:07:39 AM] Yin Ling: Yeah emptiness essentially already means no one truth
[10/9/24, 12:07:52 AM] John Tan: When u see change even like the ethereal rainbow, it involves parts
[10/9/24, 12:08:11 AM] Yin Ling: Yeah
[10/9/24, 12:09:11 AM] John Tan: Like though sensations, smell, thoughts...etc.  u can pin it... insubstantial and flux...seemingly doesn't involve parts
[10/9/24, 12:09:21 AM] John Tan: But it involve parts
[10/9/24, 12:09:26 AM] Yin Ling: Yeah
[10/9/24, 12:09:34 AM] Yin Ling: Gravity
[10/9/24, 12:09:35 AM] John Tan: U can't pin down
[10/9/24, 12:09:57 AM] John Tan: I mean even if u can't pin down it involves parts
[10/9/24, 12:09:58 AM] Yin Ling: Yeah it seemingly doesn’t involve parts
[10/9/24, 12:10:16 AM] Yin Ling: Yeah
[10/9/24, 12:10:20 AM] Yin Ling: Makes sense
[10/9/24, 12:11:07 AM] John Tan: When we say where does sound arise, in the air, the stick, the bell or in the brain or in the insubstantial mind
[10/9/24, 12:11:54 AM] John Tan: We r dealing with dependent and relational parts
[10/9/24, 12:12:50 AM] Yin Ling: Yeah
[10/9/24, 12:14:27 AM] John Tan: In chandrakirti chariot analysis, the presentation of the chariot and their parts, is not to say chariot does not exist. [It is] To tell us that chariot dependencies with parts is like how the world is
[10/9/24, 12:15:15 AM] Yin Ling: Yeah
[10/9/24, 12:15:40 AM] John Tan: Bec we see inherently we can't understand how dependent relation works
[10/9/24, 12:16:14 AM] Yin Ling: Yeah makes sense
[10/9/24, 12:16:37 AM] John Tan: We kept looking for inherent parts...our mind kept thinking what [how] can there be parts if there is no inherentness
[10/9/24, 12:17:19 AM] John Tan: How can non-inherent appearances have causal efficacies
[10/9/24, 12:17:39 AM] Yin Ling: Yeah but it’s exactly opposite
[10/9/24, 12:17:42 AM] John Tan: But our actual experiences are all demonstrating that
[10/9/24, 12:17:49 AM] Yin Ling: Yup lol
[10/9/24, 12:18:05 AM] Yin Ling: Feels very inherent one
[10/9/24, 12:18:09 AM] John Tan: Yes
[10/9/24, 12:18:20 AM] John Tan: We touch something, we think it is there
[10/9/24, 12:18:31 AM] John Tan: Objectively there
[10/9/24, 12:18:42 AM] Yin Ling: Yup
[10/9/24, 12:18:53 AM] Yin Ling: We must always find a inherent cause
[10/9/24, 12:19:03 AM] John Tan: We think inherently
[10/9/24, 12:19:50 AM] Yin Ling: Would thinking non inherently reduce suffering ?
[10/9/24, 12:20:01 AM] John Tan: Definitely
[10/9/24, 12:20:23 AM] John Tan: The cause of suffering comes from that
[10/9/24, 12:20:28 AM] Yin Ling: Example?
[10/9/24, 12:20:46 AM] John Tan: The mind tendency to pin down is the cause of grasping


[10/9/24, 12:21:16 AM] John Tan: U know that if u don't hold, u can sleep
[10/9/24, 12:21:18 AM] John Tan: Lol
[10/9/24, 12:21:40 AM] John Tan: But fear inadvertently originates subconsciously
[10/9/24, 12:22:42 AM] John Tan: Is rejection a form of holding in disguised?
[10/9/24, 12:24:37 AM] John Tan: Inherentness is a form of pinning down

[10/9/24, 12:25:02 AM] John Tan: Rejection is also a form of pinning down

[10/9/24, 12:25:11 AM] John Tan: In an opposite direction

[10/9/24, 12:26:07 AM] John Tan: But it is a habit of reaction
[10/9/24, 12:26:42 AM] John Tan: It works on how u take and experience things

[10/9/24, 12:27:13 AM] John Tan: But it is a slow and gradual progress

[10/9/24, 12:28:15 AM] John Tan: Yes but also we must see that although we understand it is not deep enough proven by the fact that we still see things objectively and inherently

[10/9/24, 12:29:01 AM] John Tan: Like hearing an ambulance siren, by default we think it comes from the car
[10/9/24, 12:29:06 AM] John Tan: The ambulance

[10/9/24, 12:30:12 AM] John Tan: We never think of dependent arising esp [especially] it requires our mind
[10/9/24, 12:31:17 AM] John Tan: When u touch mind directly, everything is mind and become mind-like
[10/9/24, 12:31:47 AM] John Tan: Everything now is pervaded by clarity

[10/9/24, 12:32:22 AM] John Tan: Then u have to balance it with dependent origination
[10/9/24, 12:33:38 AM] John Tan: If we contemplate regularly, we will begin to see the rainbow like quality is a dependent arising

[10/9/24, 12:34:00 AM] John Tan: Then ur mind opens up to intimacy of everything
[10/9/24, 12:34:40 AM] John Tan: When u see non-inherentness, it must at the same open up to all its parts


Also related: My Favourite Sutra, Non-Arising and Dependent Origination of Sound

And

Rainbow

 


    John Tan

    snooSedtrh39f07a5lc8h1fu 
    Listening to someone tutoring about "rainbow",
    The teaching of science came to my mind.
    The raindrops, the sunshine;
    The light that enters and exits the droplets;
    The reflection, refraction and light dispersion;
    All these formed the rainbow.
    But they missed the most important factor,
    The radiance of our own mind.

    1 Comment


      Jayson MPaul
      Rainbows need to have eyes in correct position, water droplets, light, radiant mind, all like so for rainbow to appear. Move slightly and rainbow is gone. Never came from anywhere, stayed anywhere, or went anywhere. The rainbow was insubstantial, but vividly displayed. All phenomena are like this.


      Stian Gudmundsen Høiland
      Look ahead and you see the table and your phone. Need "all like so" (tatha). Look behind you and that is gone, but now a new like so and not otherwise.

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      • Dragan Milojević
      What radiance of mind? Where is it, science needs proofs and evidence. Mind is only a perceptor and analyzer.


      John Tan
      Dragan Milojević Science can prove the sad tears of a mother are H2O but can't prove the "sadness". As human, we need both.
      But I like ur question, Where is this radiance?
      Yes where is it? Even Buddha cannot know it's whereabout.

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Nagarjuna: For whom there is emptiness, there are all things

 

André A. Pais

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For whom there is emptiness, there are all things. For whom there is no emptiness there is nothing whatsoever.
For whom there is emptiness there are all natural and supernatural things. Why? For whom there is emptiness there is dependent origination. For whom there is dependent origination there are the four noble truths.
For whom there are the four noble truths there are the fruits of religious practice, and all the special attainments. For whom there are all the special attainments there are the three jewels, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.
For whom there is dependent origination there is righteousness, its cause, and its result, as well as unrighteousness, its cause, and its result. For whom there is the righteous and the unrighteous, their cause and their result there are the obscurations, their origin, and their bases.
For whom there is all this, the law of the fortunate and unfortunate states of rebirth, the attainment of the fortunate and unfortunate states of rebirth, the way of going toward the fortunate and unfortunate states of rebirth, the passing beyond the fortunate and unfortunate states of rebirth, the means for passing beyond the fortunate and unfortunate states of rebirth as well as all worldly conventions are established.
It is to be understood by each one for himself according to this instruction; only some of it can be taught verbally.
I venerate the one who taught emptiness, dependent origination, and the middle way as one thing, the incomparable Buddha.
~ Nagarjuna, in Dispeller of Disputes
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Nihilistic vs Non-Nihilistic Unreality and the Consequences of the Illusory

https://www.facebook.com/groups/AwakeningToReality/posts/26617720641176014/?__cft__[0]=AZVAghG1aFptaEyiU4mTx4VD8uaHLNNyP0O23WkZWWGWrBH65MlkZEUSJBE17WaprKPgmdBJvhH8-kNlq5TVUZleD-lIcO1x2_BE-lAdkItW4L1tBuy9Qi9Y1kVwSFUdAUsSu_RXHsKqMl0TM7_CoVJVeU3qce6yART0gjd88ZjcnQ&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R

 

Chris Jones
Top contributor
Without knowing who the person is, I can’t say whether they’ve actually realized anatta or not, but based on that description it seems like maybe there are still some aspects for them to clarify. Anatta isn’t depersonalization/derealization at all, in my experience it improves your life in almost every aspect. I feel better day to day and my relationships have improved as well. There is not a day I regret it or think that I deluded myself somehow. Nor do people around me think that I’m detached, although I can seem unphased by things that would otherwise make someone very upset/angry/etc.
There are some symptoms of DP that sound familiar, like “feeling that people and your surroundings are not real, like you're living in a movie or a dream” or “[Surroundings] may seem like they only have two dimensions, so they're flat with no depth. Or you could be more aware of your surroundings, and they may appear clearer than usual”. But there is a caveat. I experience things as “not real” from one perspective, but from another I can also see how they are totally real in a conventional sense. Due to that, it doesn’t negatively impact my interactions and relationships at all.
It’s like how when you’re watching a movie, you can notice the screen and the screen is “flat” and 2-dimensional and the movie is simply light being projected from the screen. This isn’t a delusion, quite the opposite. Yet you can still continue to watch and enjoy the movie and things are still “real” within the context of the movie.
Thus nothing is lost from the experience, and one doesn’t distance themselves but rather is even more engaged with reality. All in all I wouldn’t worry too much about these things and would just suggest you to continue with your practice in an uncontrived way, without trying to fabricate any particular experience and see where it takes you.
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Soh Wei Yu
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Nice sharing.
Just a random thought for sharing..
Waking life and sleep dreams are both equally empty and illusory, but where dream objects are not conventionally valid with causal efficacy and functionality, waking life does.
For example if I borrowed money from someone in a dream and then I woke up, I do not need to return the money to the dream guy or lady because there is no functional purpose or causal efficacy to the dream money.
But in waking life, money, although a mere coventional imputation with no inherent reality to it, serves a function and has causal efficacy, this function and causal efficacy too is empty without real existence like a reflection but yet cannot be denied. In fact if you steal money from someone, it can cause suffering and death to a person, a family, or more.
This is why Buddhas and Bodhisattvas never enter cessation and endlessly return to help beings. Even though they understand there is no sentient beings to be saved, ultimately. Even if they attained Buddhahood or rainbow body, etc, they continue to help (illusory) beings, and their unending compassion and spontaneous actions to liberate sentient beings are never without consequences.
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Soh Wei Yu
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“The Danger of Refuting Too Much: Ethics and Emptiness
"Tsong- kha- pa was particularly concerned that most of the then prevailing Tibetan interpretations of Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka philosophy misidentified the object of negation. In his view, these widely promulgated misunderstandings of Madhyamaka subvert ethical commitments by treating them—and all other conventions—as provisional in the sense that their validity or legitimacy is obviated by the profound truth of emptiness. Tsong- kha- pa holds that profound emptiness must be understood as complementing and fulfilling, rather than canceling out, the principles of moral action. His writings aim to inspire and—as a matter of historical fact—did inspire vigorous striving in active virtue.
Tsong- kha- pa insists that rational analysis is an indispensable tool in the spiritual life. In order to make cogent the compatibility of emptiness and ethics, Tsong- kha- pa had to show that the two truths, ultimate and conventional, do not contradict, undermine, or supersede one another."
~ Introduction to Emptiness, Guy Newland”
“The birth of certainty ~ Lama Tsongkhapa
The knowledge that appearances arise unfailingly in dependence,
And the knowledge that they are empty and beyond all assertions—
As long as these two appear to you as separate,
There can be no realization of the Buddha’s wisdom.
Yet when they arise at once, not each in turn but both together,
Then through merely seeing unfailing dependent origination
Certainty is born, and all modes of misapprehension fall apart—
That is when discernment of the view has reached perfection.
– Lama Tsongkhapa
“EMPTINESS DEVIATING TO THE BASIC NATURE
Timeless Deviation to the Nature of Knowables The meditation of inseparable phenomena and emptiness is called “emptiness endowed with the supreme aspect.” Not knowing how emptiness and interdependence abide in nonduality, you decide that emptiness is a nothingness that has never existed and that is not influenced at all by qualities or defects. Then you underestimate the cause and effect of virtue and vice, or else lapse exclusively into the nature of all things being originally pure, primordially free, and so forth. Bearing such emptiness, the relative level of interdependence is not mastered. In this respect, this is what is known as mahamudra: one’s basic nature is unoriginated and, since it is neither existent nor nonexistent, eternal nor nil, true nor false, nor any other such aspects, it has no existence whatsoever. Nonetheless, its unceasing radiance arises as the relative level of all kinds of interdependence, so it is known as emptiness having the core of interdependence and interdependence having the nature of emptiness. Therefore, emptiness does not stray to the nature of knowables. In the Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way it is said: Anything that doesn’t arise dependently Is a phenomenon that has no existence. Therefore anything that is not empty Is a phenomenon that has no existence. And as said in the Commentary on Bodhichitta: It is taught that the relative plane is emptiness, And emptiness alone is the relative plane.” – The Royal Seal of Mahamudra, Volume 2, Khamtrul Rinpoche
The birth of certainty ~ Lama Tsongkhapa
JUSTDHARMA.COM
The birth of certainty ~ Lama Tsongkhapa
The birth of certainty ~ Lama Tsongkhapa
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Soh Wei Yu
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" Thorough knowledge of relative truth is ultimate truth; for this reason the two truths are mutually confirming and not in contradiction at all." – Acarya Malcolm, 2021
“A lot of talk on here lately about how lame relative reality is vs how awesome ultimate reality is.
Apparently an omniscient master is supposed to see how both the relative and the ultimate exist at the same time in a Union of Appearance and Emptiness.
It's because everything is dependently arisen that it can be seen as empty.
Not even the smallest speck exists by its own power.
Je Tsongkhapa said, "Since objects do not exist through their own nature, they are established as existing through the force of convention."
He was the biggest proponent of keeping vows and virtuous actions through all stages of sutra and tantra.
He also leveraged the relative by practicing millions of prostrations and offering mandalas.
He also practiced generation and completion stages of tantra while keeping his conduct spotless.
He held conduct in the highest regard in all of his texts on tantra such as his masterwork, A Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages.” - Jason Parker, 2019
---
Longchenpa on Nihilism
From Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind.
"Those who scorn the law of karmic cause and fruit
Are students of the nihilist view outside the Dharma.
They rely on the thought that all is void;
They fall in the extreme of nothingness
And go from higher to lower states.
They have embarked on an evil path
And from the evil destinies will have no freedom,
Casting happy states of being far away.
”The law of karmic cause and fruit,
Compassion and the gathering of merit -
All this is but provisional teaching fit for children:
Enlightenment will not be gained thereby.
Great yogis should remain without intentional action.
They should meditate upon reality that is like space.
Such is the definitive instruction.”
The view of those who speak like this
Of all views is the most nihilist:
They have embraced the lowest of all paths.
How strange is this!
They want a fruit but have annulled its cause.
If reality is but a space-like void,
What need is there to meditate?
And if it is not so, then even if one meditates
Such efforts are to no avail.
If meditation on mere voidness leads to liberation,
Even those with minds completely blank
Attain enlightenment!
But since those people have asserted meditation,
Cause and its result they thus establish!
Throw far away such faulty paths as these!
The true, authentic path asserts
The arising in dependence of both cause and fruit,
The natural union of skillful means and wisdom.
Through the causality of nonexistent but appearing acts,
Through meditation on the nonexistent but appearing path,
The fruit is gained, appearing and yet nonexistent;
And for the sake of nonexistent but appearing beings,
Enlightened acts, appearing and yet nonexistent, manifest.
Such is pure causality’s profound interdependence.
This is the essential pith
Of all the Sutra texts whose meaning is definitive
And indeed of all the tantras.
Through the joining of the two accumulations,
The generation and completion stages,
Perfect buddhahood is swiftly gained.
Thus all the causal processes
Whereby samsara is contrived should be abandoned,
And all acts that are the cause of liberation
Should be earnestly performed.
High position in samsara
And the final excellence of buddhahood
Will speedily be gained."
from Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind (Volume 1)
Also by Longchenpa:
"To reject practice by saying, ‘it is conceptual!’ is the path of fools. A tendency of the inexperienced and something to be avoided.”
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Soh Wei Yu
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“Cause and effort are conventional so they are of course illusory. But only in the eyes of (Soh: unawakened) sentient beings, illusory are unimportant and have no consequences.”
- John Tan
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Soh Wei Yu
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Therefore, those who fall into a sense of purposelessness is likely harboring a nihilist view (the worst kind of wrong view in buddhadharma) that asserts non existence and negates dependent arising, and is the complete opposite of the wisdom that realizes the union of dependent arising and emptiness
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