Does a tree possess tree-ness?

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Urgyen Dorje
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Urgyen Dorje »

Rachmiel...

By your own admission, you understand the logical arguments of madhyamaka, and by your own admission you see that the tree is a dependent origination, a process, which makes and a dependent origination. Seeing that something is a dependent origination is the most direct and surest way to approach the emptiness of phenomena, so you have now proven that the tree has no self nature, its nature is shunyata.

I actually think you've hit the nail on the head, as you keep looking for a self nature even as you have inferentially proven that the self nature doesn't exist. Despite not having a self nature, a self essence, the tree still manifests and appears as if it does! It is a dependent origination with no core, it's clear that with any of the causes or conditions missing it would cease to exist, but it does exist. It's clear that there is no part where any of its qualities nest, be it the texture, scent, or the metaphysical essence one intuits, but those things manifest clearly.

The point of the madhyamaka analysis isn't to render the appearance of phenomena empty or nonexistent. It's to arrest the illlusion of a self-nature or self-essence. There's a fork in the road. You can go through madhyamaka logical analysis, find that the tree and everything else has no self essence, and then, upon seeing phenomenon manifest in all their clarity, go back and try to find the source of that clarity. That will just tire you out. Things manifest and appear precisely because they are empty. WIthout their being empty, they can't manifest.

The other fork in the road is to meditate on the madhyamaka analysis, conceptually find that there is no self essence, and simply abide in appearances as they are. This is what renders phenomenon unable to cause us suffering and trap us in samsara. It's not analyzing them away so that nothing manifests what soever, but rather allowing them to manifest without the imputed illusion of an inherently existent self.

Just my take.
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Rick
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Rick »

Iain wrote:If I chop down a tree and use it for firewood then what happens to that particular tree's tree-ness?
What happens to anything when its causes and conditions cease to exist?
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Rick
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Rick »

Urgyen, when you say the tree exists ... what exists? A perception that we name tree? An actual object or energy? Parts? Whole?
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by DGA »

rachmiel wrote:
Iain wrote:If I chop down a tree and use it for firewood then what happens to that particular tree's tree-ness?
What happens to anything when its causes and conditions cease to exist?
Its conventional existence comes to an end. If it's a temporary arrangement of appearances made coherent by the category "tree," then once that arrangement falls to pieces, then the category doesn't correspond.

Among other things.

In a sense, rachmiel has either answered his or her own question, or avoided the question put by Iain. What happens to "tree-ness" when the tree is well and truly gone? Either "tree-ness" also evaporates, in which case you have to ask what sort of thing it is if it is also impermanent, OR it never was to begin with, because categories like "tree" and "fish" and "person" do not inhere in things or really experience, they're just convenient labels that we use to live our samsaric lives--social fictions.

For myself, I don't affirm that there is such a thing as "tree-ness" or "yogapants-ness" or "mug-ness" or whatever.
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Urgyen Dorje »

Rachmiel...

That's the whole point of the madhyamaka investigation!

The trick of applying the madhyamaka analysis is being open to changing one's view if one faces a logical inconsistency. We analyze the tree and find that there is no innate "treeness" is any of it's parts. It's a process, a dependent origination-- yet at the same time, it appears like it is a thing from it's own side. Amazing! I'm left with having to accept that there is a tree-appearnace with no self-essence that appears falsely to have a self-essence.

Then we can apply this to our own selves. Where is the person who apprehends tree? We too an empty-appearance..
rachmiel wrote:Urgyen, when you say the tree exists ... what exists? A perception that we name tree? An actual object or energy? Parts? Whole?
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Karma Dondrup Tashi
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Karma Dondrup Tashi »

Sure tree-ness doesn't exist. That's why when you crash your nonexistent car into it you need to go to a nonexistent hospital.
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Rick »

Urgyen Dorje wrote:Rachmiel...

That's the whole point of the madhyamaka investigation!
Yes. I'm working with a teacher who demands that I go as deep as I can into this investigation. I've been assigned books to read and practical exercises to perform. This thread is one part of my investigation. :-)
The trick of applying the madhyamaka analysis is being open to changing one's view if one faces a logical inconsistency. We analyze the tree and find that there is no innate "treeness" is any of it's parts. It's a process, a dependent origination-- yet at the same time, it appears like it is a thing from it's own side. Amazing! I'm left with having to accept that there is a tree-appearnace with no self-essence that appears falsely to have a self-essence.
This is currently a sticking point for me, hence this thread. I totally get/see/feel that the tree has no independent nature free of causes/conditions. But I do intuit/feel the possibility of a kind of essence that arises and falls in dependency on causes and conditions ... the meta-consciousness thing I've been trying (not so successfully!) to describe.
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Rick
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Rick »

DGA wrote:What happens to "tree-ness" when the tree is well and truly gone? Either "tree-ness" also evaporates, in which case you have to ask what sort of thing it is if it is also impermanent,
What sort of thing is *any* thing that is impermanent and dependent on causes and conditions? Tree-ness arises and falls with the tree.
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Bakmoon »

rachmiel wrote:
Bakmoon wrote:Can you think of a good inferential argument to indicate that it exists?
I could probably boondoggle something together. But, to be honest, I really don't even want to try. It would be like asking me to present an argument to prove that the brass chorale in the middle of the third movement of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra is beautiful. I realize that may sound like a cop-out, but you'll have to trust me that it's not.
No, I understand what you mean. But with the case of a piece of beautiful music, the beauty isn't some kind of real quality that is somehow tucked inside the sound itself. If that were the case, then people could objectively agree on whether a particular piece of music is good or bad, and it wouldn't just be a matter of taste. For example, I think that Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is one of the greatest pieces of music of the early twentieth century, but for the people in the theater when it premiered, they hated it so much they started a riot.

The best way to be able to affirm that the music we like is beautiful while at the same time not treating beauty as something contained within the object itself is to say that it is a quality that is generated in the mind in response to a particular kind of object. It preserves our observation of qualities without engaging in illogical ascription.

Earlier you mentioned how singing in harmony in a group can produce a unified sound like another voice (I have some experience singing Barbershop quartet so I really like this analogy btw). But the question is, where is this fourth voice to be found? If you record the sound and break it down with a computer, you will find that the fourth voice isn't there. Why does it happen then? Because the human brain is trained to take different frequencies that are multiples of one another and combine them together. This is so that the harmonics of a single thing stay grouped together that way. But when you sing certain harmonies, the brain does this same combination to the individual voices, joining them together into a single unified whole.

This unified whole isn't physically observable, but is a product of how the brain processes sound, so it exists in the mind, not in the sound itself.
rachmiel wrote:Yes. And I'm definitely remaining open to that possibility. Or better: open to the possibility of the ultimate unknowability of this stuff.
The problem with that is if something is totally unknowable, what legitimate basis do we have for believing that it exists? If we can just accept the existence of unknowable things without justification, then that means that all sorts of people can legitimately claim the existence of lots of things.
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

rachmiel wrote:
Johnny Dangerous wrote:
rachmiel wrote:I can't detect it with the five physical senses.

>I intuit/feel that it exists. It also makes sense to me intellectually.
Can you explain why it makes sense?
Something like … an agglomeration of little consciousnesses produces a big consciousness that is larger and different than the sum of its little-consciousness parts. Think: humans (little) and World Wide Web (big). The web has an essential web-ness that is not reducible to its individual parts. The tree has tree-ness.
That is in contradiction to dependent origination, like I keep saying. It is essentially asserting something from nothing, or rather that new things can be "created" out of parts which do not produce them - it does not hold up.

It really seems like you want to have you cake and eat it too, on the one hand, you say this thing you assert is not knowable. On the other hand, you are asserting and trying to come up with some sort of explanation or argument for it's existence, which is in direct contradiction to reason and observation of phenomena.
I could probably boondoggle something together. But, to be honest, I really don't even want to try. It would be like asking me to present an argument to prove that the brass chorale in the middle of the third movement of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra is beautiful. I realize that may sound like a cop-out, but you'll have to trust me that it's not.
A big part of the problem with this whole argument is that you don't seem to understand that Madhyamaka analysis does not deny conventional existence of things at all. In your example above, the beauty of music exists conventionally as a result of the instruments, players, observer etc. It's the same with your feeling of "tree-ness" to some extent, the problem is, you are under the impression that somehow this gives trees a special type of ultimate reality.
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

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Johnny Dangerous wrote:That is in contradiction to dependent origination, like I keep telling you. It is essentially asserting something from nothing, or rather that new things can be "created" out of parts which do not produce them - it does not hold up.
I don't see it as contradicting dependent origination. Tree-ness arises and falls with, is caused/conditioned and dependent on ... the caused/conditioned stuff of the tree. If you don't see that, then I think we need to agree to disagree. :-)
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

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rachmiel wrote:
Johnny Dangerous wrote:That is in contradiction to dependent origination, like I keep telling you. It is essentially asserting something from nothing, or rather that new things can be "created" out of parts which do not produce them - it does not hold up.
I don't see it as contradicting dependent origination. Tree-ness arises and falls with, is caused/conditioned and dependent on ... the caused/conditioned stuff of the tree. If you don't see that, then I think we need to agree to disagree. :-)
Then the qualities tree ness are not unique from other phenomena, which was your original assertion. Your argument seems to be changing.
Tree-ness arises and falls with the tree.
Then trees do not differ from any other phenomena, in the way your original posts says they do, and have shunyata as their ultimate nature.
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by BrianG »

rachmiel wrote:
Johnny Dangerous wrote:That is in contradiction to dependent origination, like I keep telling you. It is essentially asserting something from nothing, or rather that new things can be "created" out of parts which do not produce them - it does not hold up.
I don't see it as contradicting dependent origination. Tree-ness arises and falls with, is caused/conditioned and dependent on ... the caused/conditioned stuff of the tree. If you don't see that, then I think we need to agree to disagree. :-)
You have a feeling of tree-ness that arises and falls. I do not have a feeling of tree-ness that arises and falls. Therefore, there is no tree-ness.

Again, it would be better if you would study the dharma.
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Rick
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Rick »

Bakmoon wrote:
rachmiel wrote:
Bakmoon wrote:Can you think of a good inferential argument to indicate that it exists?
I could probably boondoggle something together. But, to be honest, I really don't even want to try. It would be like asking me to present an argument to prove that the brass chorale in the middle of the third movement of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra is beautiful. I realize that may sound like a cop-out, but you'll have to trust me that it's not.
No, I understand what you mean. But with the case of a piece of beautiful music, the beauty isn't some kind of real quality that is somehow tucked inside the sound itself. If that were the case, then people could objectively agree on whether a particular piece of music is good or bad, and it wouldn't just be a matter of taste. For example, I think that Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring is one of the greatest pieces of music of the early twentieth century, but for the people in the theater when it premiered, they hated it so much they started a riot.
The Bartok example was, I now see, misleading. I wasn't equating beauty to tree-ness, I was saying that explaining why I find something beautiful makes as little sense to me as mounting an argument to prove "tree-ness." You either get what I'm talking about ... you intuit/feel a sense of tree-ness ... or you don't. With no judgement on my part, just like I wouldn't judge you for disliking the Bartok (though I might feel sorry for you for missing out on such a amazing experience).
Earlier you mentioned how singing in harmony in a group can produce a unified sound like another voice (I have some experience singing Barbershop quartet so I really like this analogy btw). But the question is, where is this fourth voice to be found? If you record the sound and break it down with a computer, you will find that the fourth voice isn't there. Why does it happen then? Because the human brain is trained to take different frequencies that are multiples of one another and combine them together. This is so that the harmonics of a single thing stay grouped together that way. But when you sing certain harmonies, the brain does this same combination to the individual voices, joining them together into a single unified whole.
I experienced this kind of joining and blending in the trio. But that's not what I mean by the fourth member. I mean more that meta- kind of thing, a sense of wholeness/identity that "floats above" the parts (three human members). I realize this must sound deluded, even perhaps heretical (!) in a Buddhist forum. And perhaps it *is* deluded, wishful/magical thinking on my part. But perhaps it's not.
Yes. And I'm definitely remaining open to that possibility. Or better: open to the possibility of the ultimate unknowability of this stuff.
The problem with that is if something is totally unknowable, what legitimate basis do we have for believing that it exists? If we can just accept the existence of unknowable things without justification, then that means that all sorts of people can legitimately claim the existence of lots of things.
Yes! It's like freedom of speech: It opens the floodgates to all manner of utterances, from exquisite to depraved with everything in-between. It's the price of freedom.
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Rick »

Johnny Dangerous wrote:
rachmiel wrote:
Johnny Dangerous wrote:That is in contradiction to dependent origination, like I keep telling you. It is essentially asserting something from nothing, or rather that new things can be "created" out of parts which do not produce them - it does not hold up.
I don't see it as contradicting dependent origination. Tree-ness arises and falls with, is caused/conditioned and dependent on ... the caused/conditioned stuff of the tree. If you don't see that, then I think we need to agree to disagree. :-)
Then the qualities tree ness are not unique from other phenomena, which was your original assertion. Your argument seems to be changing.
Tree-ness arises and falls with the tree.
Then trees do not differ from any other phenomena, in the way your original posts says they do, and have shunyata as their ultimate nature.
Your reading of my posts is not my reading of my posts. Again: Agree to disagree. :-)
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Rick »

BrianG wrote:
rachmiel wrote:
Johnny Dangerous wrote:That is in contradiction to dependent origination, like I keep telling you. It is essentially asserting something from nothing, or rather that new things can be "created" out of parts which do not produce them - it does not hold up.
I don't see it as contradicting dependent origination. Tree-ness arises and falls with, is caused/conditioned and dependent on ... the caused/conditioned stuff of the tree. If you don't see that, then I think we need to agree to disagree. :-)
You have a feeling of tree-ness that arises and falls. I do not have a feeling of tree-ness that arises and falls. Therefore, there is no tree-ness.
You have a feeling of X that arises and falls. I have no feeling of X that arises and falls. Therefore there is no X.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa? ;-)
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by seeker242 »

rachmiel wrote:
It doesn't work this way for me for a lamp, which is clearly a collection of human-designed and manufactured parts.

Whatcha think?
A tree would contain Ch'i or qi, but not a lamp. A tree is actually alive but a lamp is not. Perhaps it's not some "essential-ness" but just the presence of Chi. :smile:
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Urgyen Dorje »

Well, let's suppose that the tree has some elan vital as Bergon would call it, or qi, or some bioenergetic field. That too must lack inherent existence or else it would fail to function. If something has inherent existence, it can be neither a cause nor an effect, so we could never know it.

It's the same with the tree having a consciousness or a soul. If that nonphysical component of being is permanent, as it would have to be if it were innate and causeless, then we would never know it-- because it wouldn't arise as a dependent origination.
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

rachmiel wrote: Your reading of my posts is not my reading of my posts. Again: Agree to disagree. :-)
Naw, I don't think that's adequate for this kind of discussion. You need qualify your statements, and not muddy the water when you are asked to clarify them.

Are you, or are you not saying that something "new" arises from the constituent parts of a tree as "tree ness" which has a unique form of existence in comparison to non-natural phenomena? Further, are you saying that this "meta consciousness" or whatever is more than the sum of it's parts, is it something altogether "new"?

To repeat an earlier question:

How does wholeness exist separate from its parts? If it doesn't exist separate from it's parts, then what is it?
Yes. I'm working with a teacher who demands that I go as deep as I can into this investigation. I've been assigned books to read and practical exercises to perform. This thread is one part of my investigation. :-)
I thought that not too long ago you posted that you were not currently interested in a teacher, and were fine doing your own investigations independently, has that changed?
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Rick
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Re: Does a tree possess tree-ness?

Post by Rick »

seeker242 wrote:
rachmiel wrote:
It doesn't work this way for me for a lamp, which is clearly a collection of human-designed and manufactured parts.

Whatcha think?
A tree would contain Ch'i or qi, but not a lamp. A tree is actually alive but a lamp is not. Perhaps it's not some "essential-ness" but just the presence of Chi. :smile:
Funny you should post this ... because I was just thinking that chi and prana both *point to* what I'm getting at with essential-ness. I'm not sure chi/prana = essential-ness, but my gut feeling is that they are closely related.

It would make sense that chi/prana were in the back of my mind when I formulated this meta-consciousness thing, since I studied Tradition Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda quite seriously some years ago, and developed an intimate feeling for both chi and prana.
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