No, the external world is an illusion, right?

[muni]

Yes, karma.

Not recognizing upcoming thoughts- feelings, grasp them, these are the paint and the brush to draw a personal world. This world is made by the drawing flow of them and one is representing him-her as the owner of these, or as being these thought- feelings. Then the so experienced solid actor is going to live in his solid story world and love solid things/ones there, or not. All start by grasping upcoming thought and identification with it. First thought is me and the following ones are others in our created world, a teaching says.

One way to see is remembering a last night dream, “we” are there real and the surounding images are so real during that dream but contemplating on it; nor “we”, neither the images around us were solid. Same now.

Thoughts are very helpful things as long as we are not the thoughts themselves but awareness is there told, recognized by the space between two thoughts. Like two clouds breaking and fading and the vast blue sky allows clouds to play.

Imagine mind is like vast sky and upcoming thoughts are like upcoming clouds free in it. Be the sky and not the clouds is a saying, which I have found so easy, so easy…to say!!! Sigh.
But then we have lots of fun or we become ill and lose beloved ones and we forget awareness and are suddenly victim of our own flow, helpless swept away in our solid story-world.
Some think we just neglect this world and voilà, case closed! This can be dangerous, is without the compassionate light, nihilism. Upcoming thoughts recognized before start painting-judging-commenting….

Relax, masters say, because by this calm abiding ( shamata/zhine) the painting-judging-commenting jobs fade and insight ( vipashyana/lhathong)) can be.

“Its’ all in your head, man!” Yeah yeah, easy said. EASY SAID!

I agree, this by blessing guidance, is definitely practice!!! Very good reminder. Thank you.

[antiquebuddhas]

So one of the things I like in Buddhism is that the external world of appearance is an illusion. When I say illusion, I don't mean impermanent, I mean literally not there. Make believe. Projected fake images of our mind. A big scam. Really fascinated with this teaching. But some of the stuff I'm reading on the internet just seems to be interpreting this teaching as (things are impermanent so that's what illusion means) which is of course really boring and I think part of a trend of teachings which I'm going to call (no fun Buddhism) where all the fun stuff that the Buddha taught is interpreted in a really dry logical way and packaged to your everyday chap because it's easier to understand or something. So to avoid the sifting through the hundreds of articles on google looking for the real thing I was wondering if someone could give me some references to websites or teachers that have some deep straightforward teachings on the non existence of the external world. The Maya that is more than just (impermanence).

The world is not a illusion but the way of people thinking, way of people living are illusion.
Pain, Suffering, and every belief that people believed are illusion.
Things you read in Internet aren't always true.
Because teachings of Buddha in Buddhism consists of text in Sanskrit language and when someone who is not capable translate it provides different meanings.

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

Reality isn't an illusion. The only way we could know what that meant is if we knew what real means. Which we don't, since nothing can be said to exist.

[Ayu]

I once found a definition of "real" in the Lamrim of Tsongkhapa.
Analogous: "That whose manner of appearance is similar to its way of existing is <real>".
So, since nothing exists exatly the way it appears, nothing is real.

(But not even Nothing is real, since it appears different than it exists. )

[Paul]

Our view of the world is an illusion, or perhaps more accurately stated a very partial view of the world.

The way it has been taught to me, there is no "actual world" of which we have a partial view. That itself is its emptiness. It sounds crazy, but as I learned it, this is precisely why Sakyamuni refused to teach it at first. Too profound, too subtle, too unbelievable.

At which point it really defies association with the word 'world' though IMO. So the question then is what is meant, and I'm not saying your wrong, but assume they'd then mean something along the lines of karmic stain's perhaps, for world?

'The world' is what appears to sentient beings who have healthy sense organs before any real analysis has gone on, so it's just a convention in the end. What is ultimately real is that which withstands logical analysis - and there's nothing that withstands analysis as being ultimately established/actually existing.

[Fortyeightvows]

What is ultimately real is that which withstands logical analysis - and there's nothing that withstands analysis as being ultimately established/actually existing.

Well said!

[frankc]

Our view of the world is an illusion, or perhaps more accurately stated a very partial view of the world.

The way it has been taught to me, there is no "actual world" of which we have a partial view. That itself is its emptiness. It sounds crazy, but as I learned it, this is precisely why Sakyamuni refused to teach it at first. Too profound, too subtle, too unbelievable.

OP, you might like the book "Seeing that Frees" by Rob Burbea. He's one of the few Western teachers I've found willing to take it all the way to the bottom.

Doesn't sound crazy to me. People that are color blind see images different than us. And imagine what visual pictures look like to bugs and animals. I imagine a lot different than what we see. Maybe they see purple as green and green as purple. Seems like depending on your karma the mind will just paint some pretty visual pictures and then I'm suppose to just buy into it? Please. Thanks for the book recommendation I found it on Scribd.

[tlee]

The world as it appears to us does not objectively exist.

The world as it typically appears to me can't exist because it's view of static self existent objects contradicts the qualities of objects changing due to circumstances.

If I absorb the appearances and dissolve them in meditation, the distinctions between objects, the names, the good/bad, the textures, sounds, tastes, visual appearance, and spacial orientation relative to "me" don't exist due to the lack of circumstances supporting them. So those things are definitely mind created and don't exist "out there".

I'm not sure if there are really self existent atoms and space and time. My current mental model on that is tentative and there are valid teachings from many points of view on this. Whether atoms exist is barely consequential when the list above is subjective only.

The mind has parts and requisite circumstances. As you fall asleep you might notice mental faculties turning off. Memories, spatial location, body boundaries, the usual way mental objects are connected breaks down and instead of being coherently ordered they're categorized into groups like a super ball throw into a kitchen, bouncing about arbitrarily. The idea of me is easily laid on the collection of mental factors, but if you systematically turned off each while the others remained you'd still have a sense of me. So it's like physical phenomenon where the identity is dependent on labeling rather than the parts.

It's not practical to try to realize emptiness without someone pointing out the inconsistencies with our predisposed view of objectiveness. There's too many places you can get caught in a loop, too many subjects to consider that don't bear anything worth noticing. It's not easier than mentally atrophying, but it's faster and more fulfilling to get philosophical texts and their commentaries on the emptiness subject.

[Derek]

If you want to read the primary sources, unaltered by later interpretations, a good place to start would be Seven Works of Vasubandhu.

[avisitor]

When the knowledge of the self (being created by the five skandhas) is truly seen, the self falls away
And, the world appears as an illusion

Before enlightenment, chop wood .. carry water
After enlightenment, chop wood .. carry water

This is the world one lives in
And this life is the best opportunity one has to see one's original nature

Note: Dependent arising .. this mind and this world appears
No mind and no world appears

[LastLegend]

So one of the things I like in Buddhism is that the external world of appearance is an illusion. When I say illusion, I don't mean impermanent, I mean literally not there. Make believe. Projected fake images of our mind. A big scam. Really fascinated with this teaching.

If you say appearance is illusion as in make believe, how did it appear in the first place? If nothing exists at all in the first, then how can it exist now? When mind is pure (free from arising attachment), there is not a thing mind cannot contain, just like the tranquil lake contains the whole sky, grass, tree, and mountain. Even the impossible such rabbit's horn and turtle's hair become possible.

[muni]

Illusions are believed to be truths and we live in these projections and for these truths many wars have been started, I even should say there would be no any war without.
I think we shouldn't forget the power of the honest simple practice “may all beings be happy /not suffer” instead of “may I be happy and not suffer”, since without illusion cannot be recognized.
Usually we are good in pointing others their illusions, which is our own illusion.
Okay, now I am lost in all these illusions…I think why should I be loving for sh.., and how this can cut through my illusions? But then there is the amazing kindness of those recognized... Primordial Knowledge, how it can be different from Primordial Goodness? Without Wisdoms’ Compassion, our illusion cannot be destroyed.
Destroying illusions is magic.

[muni]

When mind is pure (free from arising attachment)

"When the notions of real and unreal
Are absent from before the mind,
Then, there is no other possibility,
But to rest in total peace, beyond concepts." Khenpo Shenga.

The grasping and the grasped are what is binding in samsara.

[MalaBeads]

Im not sure illusion is the best translation for this phenomenon. Mostly because this is an insight that is unique to buddhism so what word could possibly be used?

I very much admire translators who i really think do the best they can with unfamiliar concepts that do not translate well into english.

Anyway, thats all i have to say.

[Schrödinger’s Yidam]

What is ultimately real is that which withstands logical analysis - and there's nothing that withstands analysis as being ultimately established/actually existing.

…in the Madhyamaka view.

'The world' is what appears to sentient beings who have healthy sense organs before any real analysis has gone on, so it's just a convention in the end.

I like this ordering of the statements better. The exact same things are said, but it is harder to interpret them with a nihilistic understanding, kinda Gelug-esque.

[Malcolm]

"When the notions of real and unreal
Are absent from before the mind,
Then, there is no other possibility,
But to rest in total peace, beyond concepts." Khenpo Shenga.

[/quote]

This verse is actually from the wisdom chapter of the Bodhicaryāvatāra.

[MalaBeads]

"When the notions of real and unreal
Are absent from before the mind,
Then, there is no other possibility,
But to rest in total peace, beyond concepts." Khenpo Shenga.

This verse is actually from the wisdom chapter of the Bodhicaryāvatāra.[/quote]

Thank you Malcom. Although it is n ot a single word, i think it perfectly describes the situation.

I have a question though for you. Is there a translation of the ninth chapter of this work available in english that you can recommend?

Thanks in advance.

[Malcolm]

I have a question though for you. Is there a translation of the ninth chapter of this work available in english that you can recommend?

Thanks in advance.

There are quite a few, the one by Kunpal is probably the best from a Nyingma POV.

[muni]

Whether or not the percieved external world and all its so and so beings are solid or not, depends on there is the experience of a solid self existence on itself and its solid world or not. Not?

Here Tsongkhapa: http://clarkescott.org/wp-content/uploa ... raft-2.pdf

[Kaccāni]

What is an external world?