Wayfarer wrote:This is the very point that generally causes me to stop posting at Dharmawheel. My understanding of it is that nihilism is a pitfall in the understanding of śūnyatā. Nihilism is the idea that nothing is real, or that nothing exists. I think 'conventionally existing things' really do exist, but their existence is not ultimate, i.e. from the perspective of the awakened, they are unreal or illusory. But unless and until that perspective is attained they are real, to deny their reality without attaining the perspective from which they're unreal tends towards nihilism.
That is why - and this is the precise point that came up last time - I think there has to be a conception of an hierarchy, things that are more or less real. Whereas the contention here seems to be, things are either real or they're not real, there are no 'degrees of reality'.
Exactly as per the quote given on the previous page: 'if these objects are unfindeable, does this mean that they do not exist at all? This is not the case. Of course they do exist. The question is not whether they exist but how they exist. They do exist, but not in the manner which we perceive them.' So we attribute significance to them they don't have, we read things into them that aren't there. But they're not merely or simply non-existent, to say so is nihilistic.
Much of this debate is caused by the fact that current English has no lexicon for degrees of reality or modes of existence; it has been 'flattened out'.
Maybe this is useful to not fall into nihilism:
Not to know the equality of appearance emptiness
And get attached to appearances alone is delusion
But to get attached to emptiness alone is delusion too
If you know the equality of appearance emptiness
There's no need to get caught up in or give up phenomena
Those appearances and emptiness
What you must do is to rest in the spaciousness
Of the equality of appearance emptiness
http://www.ktgrinpoche.org/quote/appear ... s-equality