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William Kong
Yin Ling I’m still trying to avoid FB as much as possible 🙂
Made a note to come back to this, and rereading this, I have no idea why you would want my opinion 😅 You clearly have read more about emptiness than I have, and I have more to learn from you than vice versa 😂
I have not read the Vigrahavyāvartanī, so cannot comment on the text, only speak from my current understanding and experience.
But just looking at your notes, every point makes total sense. I especially like the note about referencing or labelling of a non-referent - since I had no words to describe that before.
Referring to point 1), my immediate intuitive grasp of the emptiness of cause-effect is that when inherent objects are seen through and known to be incoherent, then any causal powers assigned to those objects also become incoherent.
The “normal” way of seeing things of actual objects with causal attributes falls apart like other mental constructs. Objects are empty of causal powers, and the objects themselves are empty and non-arisen.
This is important, because cause-effect (of objects that are assumed to exist independently) is typically how we explain reality - especially in the sciences. But if we assume this to be the case, then it really seems like there are objects or persons that is causing us to behave this way or that and vice versa - there’s this push-pull against what-is. (In direct experience, thoughts of cause-effect are only experienced as thoughts, but until deconstructed, they seem “solid”.)
Emptiness does not invalidate the conventional way of perceiving reality, nor our conventional explanations for them (as they are conventionally useful). Simply that if we take reality as it appears conventionally, then upon analysis, it must be empty. Empty cars still appear, empty fuel still powers them, empty people still ride in them and so on.
So … vivid appearances continue to appear! Thoughts of causality continue to appear and so on! With no solidity whatsoever. It’s just seen to be all one intertwined, inter-connected empty flow dependently arising.
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Yin LingAdmin
William Kong
Thanks. I like this. The 6th paragraph in ur comment is excellent.
We push and pull thinking those things harm us or is good to us, when it is only conditions, many many conditions coming together putting on an illusory display. Who to push pull? What do we push or pull against?
Yet in the most wonderful illusory display, conditions mature according to the most precise law of karma, right on the mark, not random.
Hence we hold the highest view of emptiness to liberate us but not forgetting to adhere to the precepts , to cultivating virtues.
How wonderful 🙂
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Showing posts with label Madhyamaka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Madhyamaka. Show all posts
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krodha
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4 days ago
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edited 4 days ago
Emptiness means when you truly scrutinize an object or entity you cannot find that entity. It is a difficult principle to understand.
Even in this very thread when monkey_sage writes:
Example: A table disappears under analysis. There are four legs, a flat top, a purpose, a name (table), qualities of hardness, height, length, width, an apparent origin (when the table was "made"), an apparent end (when the table breaks or otherwise stops being able to be used as a table). If you were to spend any time looking for what makes the table a table, you will never find it. It has no inherent essence. It is only a table because of all these factors (and more) coming together in a particular way for a particular duration under a particular observation and cognitive apprehension.
This is a nice explanation but it is not entirely accurate. The idea that there is a table that comes together because of certain objective factors is not even true (Candrakīrti refutes this idea). The table is a complete inference, there is no table entity there at all. The basis of designation, which in its distilled form is more subtle than a table-top, four-legs and so on, is actually just sensory phenomena, shades of color, shapes (again colors bordering one another), tactile sensation, and so on. There is no entity behind the color or shape, no entity that possesses those colors and shapes as characteristics. There are in fact no characteristics anywhere in an ultimate sense. Phenomena are in an innate state of cessation, having never arisen at any point in time. We as sentient beings are afflicted by an error in cognition that causes us to objectify appearances and reify them as entities in a habitual way. This dharma is a means to cut through those fortifying factors so that we can see the way things really are, as unborn, unconditioned, pure and naturally perfected.
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truthseeker1990
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4 days ago
Does this mean we should strive to be like the table? i mean that line about Phenomenon being in a state of cessation always while as humans we are erroring out
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krodha
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4 days ago
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edited 4 days ago
We just have to strive to purify our minds of the species of ignorance which makes tables and so on appear to be real entities. The issue is in the mind, not in phenomena. Phenomena have always been unconditioned and pure from the very beginning, but we fail to recognize this. This teaching is the method to bring about that recognition so that truth can be fully integrated. When that recognition is completely integrated and brought to its full measure, that is buddhahood.
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truthseeker1990
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4 days ago
Thank you for your reply. Can I ask one more question. Is this something to do with the hierarchal nature of concepts? That they stack on top of one another. The idea that something isnt real because it can be broken down further into its parts strikes me as a bit odd. Table is made up of pieces of wood, it has certain characteristics, its the relationship between a flat surface and some cylindrical pieces acting as legs but so what? Why isnt the table real? Why cant we have understanding at different levels.
I may be wrong about what i think i have understood from yours and others comments here but it seems like the idea is that if we can break something down further suggests that its not real or true somehow? Is this right?
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krodha
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3 days ago
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edited 3 days ago
I may be wrong about what i think i have understood from yours and others comments here but it seems like the idea is that if we can break something down further suggests that its not real or true somehow? Is this right?
I think this idea is prevalent and I’m sure others may have asserted this in this thread, but that is not what I was saying. Breaking objects down into constituent pieces or parts is not what I was getting at. What I am saying is the intention in understanding emptiness should center around challenging the validity of the object that can possess parts and pieces from the very beginning.
A good example of this would be the “chariot” line of logical reasoning used most notably by Candrakīrti in his Madhyamakāvatāra in order to establish the lack of a fundamental, core identity (self) in phenomena. Candrakīrti argues that the identity of a given person, place, thing, etc., is merely an inferential, conventional designation that does not ultimately correlate to the basis of imputation that the alleged 'thing' itself is falsely predicated upon. Meaning: the alleged object that the designation infers (the existence of) cannot be found when sought due to the fact that the alleged object itself cannot bear keen analysis.
(i) There is no chariot which is other than its parts
(ii) There is no chariot which is the same as its parts
(iii) There is no chariot which possesses its parts
(iv) There is no chariot which depends on its parts
(v) There is no chariot upon which the parts depend
(vi) There is no chariot which is the collection of its parts
(vii) There is no chariot which is the shape of its parts
Here, Candrakīrti is calling into question the credibility of the entity in its entirety. Not even asserting that there is an entity which possesses characteristics such as wheels, axels, a wooden frame etc., that can be further broken down into parts and pieces. The point is not to break the object down to show it is unreal, but rather investigate the mistaken notion that it is possible to locate the object in the first place.
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The more I read Nargajuna’s Middle Way (MMK- mulamadhyamakakarika), the more I find the usual way of perceiving the world seem so weird and strange.
Concepts which are taken for granted to be true like :
Arising and dissolution
Cause and effect
Movement
Characteristics of things
Actions
.. Are only fictional. If one investigate just a lil bit, they don’t even make any sense, ludicrous even.
Nargajuna is truly masterful. For us modern ppl who didn’t go through the middle way school standard training, I find it slightly easier to read MMK after insight of anatta and some direct experience into emptiness, even with that it takes up a lot of brain juice. Not easy but easier with repeated reads.
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Jayson MPaul
Yes all those concepts yielded great results when continuously seen through in practice.
Arising seen through is non-arisen insight
Cause and effect can lead to conditionaly/DO
Movement deconstructs identity over space
Characteristics was instrumental in second-fold emptiness
Actions can lead to total exertion glimpses (at least so far)
Yin Ling
Jayson MPaul well said 
Sumit Kumar
What is second fold emptiness and total exertion?
Yin Ling
Sumit Kumar second fold emptiness is emptiness of all phenomenas (first fold is emptiness of the personal self)
And total exertion basically is
AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM
What is Total Exertion?
Sumit Kumar
That's wonderful
Total exertion very interesting.
I
tried to observe the conditions of the current experience, then I came
back to thinking. And it felt like "me" doing is stressful and the whole
experience supported by the conditions felt relaxing.
Though now I am not very sure
Sumit Kumar
But what Jayson meant when he said "Actions can lead to total exertion"…
See more
Jayson MPaul
Sumit Kumar
i meant the deconstruction of action after anatta can lead to total
exertion glimpses. MMK is great for working through all your cognitive
obscurations and blindspots
Sredharan Ramakrishna
When reading a book, how long the ideas stay in yr awareness?
Yin Ling
Sredharan Ramakrishna I don’t get what you mean? Sorry
Sredharan Ramakrishna
Yin Ling i used to read books thinking they provide answers, now my view is just books provide mind entertainment.
Yin Ling
Sredharan Ramakrishna depends on what you read. And how you read
Sumit Kumar
Isn't arising and dissolution, movement, cause and effect are experiential?
Isn't fictional only applies to conceptual understanding of above truths?
Yin Ling
Sumit Kumar hehe need to read MMK to understand
Mark Lackey
Hi Yin! Would you mind sharing which particular translation you are reading?
Yin Ling
Mark Lackey I use mark siderits
Mark Lackey
Thank you 
