Aemilius wrote: ↑Thu Oct 18, 2018 8:47 am
"Samsara" is a word of human language, a concept in a human culture. Hence the word
"samsara" and the view that evolved it have some kind of a beginning. There is a time when they didn't exist. At least in the modern view of history, geology and astronomy that is so.
I love it when people use the word,
exist when discussing dharma,
because, of course,
sunyata. phenomena lack intrinsic existence.
Yes, the word "samsara" is merely a label for what is merely a conceptualization of the way that beings suffer.
But obviously there were beings who suffered long before there were humans around to invent labels for their suffering.
So, what you are saying is, there had to be a time in the universe before sentient beings existed.
We can certainly determine that there was a time on Earth before life existed.
As far as the known universe, that's hard to say.
"Materialists" maintain that atoms and molecules and combinations of chemical compounds can spontaneously generate conscious awareness, that, for example, salt and water and amino acids can "know" they exist. This is the view of people who assert that consciousness is produced by the physical brain.
It can also be argued that consciousness is what results purely as an interaction of awareness with any object of awareness, that awareness without an object
to be conscious of isn't consciousness
per se, it is potential consciousness.
If you ask, "how can there be awareness of it isn't consciousness?" , consider that If I enter a completely light-proof room, a room that is completely dark, even though I possess the potential ability, the optical apparatus needed to see objects, there is no consciousness of any objects in the room, because the
causes of being conscious of objects (light reflecting off objects and going to my retina) aren't there. Likewise, if there was nothing in the dark room, even though I have eyesight, no interaction will arise.
There may be some confusion due to the words being used. "consciousness" and "awareness" refer to different things. You may be used to using them in the opposite way I use them. People usually say, "I'm conscious ( as an existent state first), and secondly, being aware or not aware (of temporary events). Buddhist texts often refer to basic or fundamental awareness first, and consciousness second, meaning that consciousness only arises in relation to objects. Meditation is said to return one to the mind's basic awareness. Consciousness refers to an aspect of conceptualization.
So, by inference, it can likewise be asserted that awareness can thus exist prior to any encounter with phenomena, prior to becoming what we recognize and experience as consciousness. If this case, awareness can be beginningless.
And if awareness can be beginningless, then samsara can be beginningless, because samsara is, ultimately, confused or clouded awareness.
Another argument frequently made in reference to this (though usually in talking about rebirth) is that every thought is preceded by one before it. You cannot find when the first "moment" of awareness begins. Even sperm cells are attracted by the chemical surface of the egg. They have no brain, no sense organs, but, unlike, say, plant seeds that scatter randomly in the wind, sperm swim intentionally to the egg. Any "attraction" means that there is a very, very basic kind of awareness that an object (the egg) is there in its external environment. It doesn't "know" about the egg in any conceptual sense, perhaps. The sperm isn't thinking, "I have to go fertilize something", jyet neither is it drawn to the egg by gravity or magnetic polarity, or by some physical force such as condensation or suction.
When asked about the Big Bang theory, HH Dalai Lama replied something to the effect that if scientists are saying there was only one big bang, that this doesn't match the Buddhist view. However, if one suggests that the big bang that we can trace is just one in an endless chain of big bangs (energy expanding and contracting into black holes or whatever and then expanding again) then this model makes sense in the Buddhist view.
"Beginningless" is, as you say, just a concept. But so is the idea that the universe has to have a finite starting point.
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EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.