I think that Madhyamaka is a raft that can help carry a certain type of person to _________ = the other shore?Anonymous X wrote:Do you think that Madhyamaka is the epitome of this awakening?
(There are lotsa rafts.)
I think that Madhyamaka is a raft that can help carry a certain type of person to _________ = the other shore?Anonymous X wrote:Do you think that Madhyamaka is the epitome of this awakening?
Ok, so let me make sure I get this. The answer is that it is a self-concept, but it's the conventional self. And the Two Truths doctrine explains why there is a conventional self. Correct?Johnny Dangerous wrote:For the life of me, I don't understand how this question trips people up the way it does.What is the the answer to the charge that "individual mindstream" is just a semantic ploy intended to allow a self-concept back into the Dharma?
Can you watch a movie and understand it's being performed by actors, and that the narrative is not real? If so, this concept is not so difficult, certainly there is an ex[experience of a conventional self.
Lazy_eye wrote: For example, in this sutta, the Buddha explicitly rejects the view that "the one who acts is the one who experiences."
Okay, Lewis Carroll is DEFINITELY a reincarnation of Nagarjuna:Malcolm wrote:This is because, in the logic of dependent origination, causes and effects are neither the same nor different.
Thanks for that dzogchungpa. Based on my experience with academics, particularly those connected with religious studies, that's probably an unequivocal "yes"dzogchungpa wrote:He was asked about this here, but it seems that he did not respond.aflatun wrote:Is Professor Garfield a practitioner? Not that it matters either way, I just imagined he wasn't. In the article I got a more 'committed' vibe than in his academic writing.
Staying with the Two Truths doctrine, you only get part of the Totality. Now, for the Three Truths:Lazy_eye wrote:Ok, so let me make sure I get this. The answer is that it is a self-concept, but it's the conventional self. And the Two Truths doctrine explains why there is a conventional self. Correct?Johnny Dangerous wrote:For the life of me, I don't understand how this question trips people up the way it does.What is the the answer to the charge that "individual mindstream" is just a semantic ploy intended to allow a self-concept back into the Dharma?
Can you watch a movie and understand it's being performed by actors, and that the narrative is not real? If so, this concept is not so difficult, certainly there is an ex[experience of a conventional self.
As to how the question trips people up the way it does, I obviously can't speak for everyone who has stumbled over it. But it's well known (I think) that Buddhists across the traditions have grappled with some ambiguities and apparent contradictions between different things said in different scriptures, going all the way back to the early texts.
For example, in this sutta, the Buddha explicitly rejects the view that "the one who acts is the one who experiences."
On the other hand, according to this one, "I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator." The statements in these two suttas don't quite align with each other.
It's not always clear how to resolve the seeming contradiction. I understand that a great deal of later Abhidharma and Mayahana doctrinal elaboration, including the Two Truths as well as alaya-vijnana, grew precisely out of the effort to explain this.
Of course I can watch a movie, but I have a functioning memory that allows me to follow the narrative and believe that the same experiencer is sitting in the movie theater from beginning to end. Transmigration across lifetimes is more like watching a movie and having your memory erased halfway through, so you don't remember anything that came before or who you were when you entered the theater.
Maybe he'd lose academic cred if his philosophy peers thought he'd "gone native?"dzogchungpa wrote:... would it actually be detrimental to his career or standing to admit that he practiced some kind of Buddhist meditation? In this day and age I would find that surprising given the mindfulness craze etc.
Of course you are correct. And well exemplified by the number of dualistic, self centered, and territory-based comments on this thread.rachmiel wrote:Jay Garfield, in What Does Buddhism Require:
"The project of full awakening is a collective, not an individual, venture."
I think it's really important to keep this in mind during the journey. And sometimes easy to forget ... for me at least.
Interestingly, as Mark Szpakowski mentions here, in 1968 CTR gave a talk in which he said that Maitreya, the buddha of the future, would not be an individual, but society.rachmiel wrote:Jay Garfield, in What Does Buddhism Require:
"The project of full awakening is a collective, not an individual, venture."
There is no two truths, three truths, and so on. There is delusion and nondelusion. That's all.Anonymous X wrote:Staying with the Two Truths doctrine, you only get part of the Totality. Now, for the Three Truths:Lazy_eye wrote:Ok, so let me make sure I get this. The answer is that it is a self-concept, but it's the conventional self. And the Two Truths doctrine explains why there is a conventional self. Correct?Johnny Dangerous wrote:
For the life of me, I don't understand how this question trips people up the way it does.
Can you watch a movie and understand it's being performed by actors, and that the narrative is not real? If so, this concept is not so difficult, certainly there is an ex[experience of a conventional self.
As to how the question trips people up the way it does, I obviously can't speak for everyone who has stumbled over it. But it's well known (I think) that Buddhists across the traditions have grappled with some ambiguities and apparent contradictions between different things said in different scriptures, going all the way back to the early texts.
For example, in this sutta, the Buddha explicitly rejects the view that "the one who acts is the one who experiences."
On the other hand, according to this one, "I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator." The statements in these two suttas don't quite align with each other.
It's not always clear how to resolve the seeming contradiction. I understand that a great deal of later Abhidharma and Mayahana doctrinal elaboration, including the Two Truths as well as alaya-vijnana, grew precisely out of the effort to explain this.
Of course I can watch a movie, but I have a functioning memory that allows me to follow the narrative and believe that the same experiencer is sitting in the movie theater from beginning to end. Transmigration across lifetimes is more like watching a movie and having your memory erased halfway through, so you don't remember anything that came before or who you were when you entered the theater.
From Zongmi on Chan: “The nature axiom has three truths: nature (voidness); characteristics (origination by dependence); and self substance (true mind). The self substance is neither voidness nor form, etc.; it is the potentiality to be both. This corresponds to a mirror’s specific images, the voidness of those images, and the brightness or reflectivity of the mirror itself.
The difference between them concerning the two truths and the three truths. All scholars know that the voidness axiom says that all dharmas, both mundane and supramundane, do not go beyond the two truths. There is no need for quotations to elucidate this. The nature axiom, however, gathers up nature, characteristics, and the self substance [xing xiang ji ziti], and considers them together as the three truths. It takes all dharmas that originate by dependence, such as forms, etc., as the worldly truth and takes [the truth that] conditions lack a self nature and [hence] all dharmas are void as the real truth. (This much is no different in terms of principle from the two truths of the voidness axiom and the characteristics axiom.) That the one true mind substance is neither voidness nor form [but] has the potentiality to be void and the potentiality to be form is the truth of the highest meaning of the middle path.”
For me, without the inclusion of the Tathagatagarbha doctrine, Mahayana and Madhyamaka teachings don't point directly to the heart of the matter.
These are not contradictory in the slightest.Lazy_eye wrote:For example, in this sutta, the Buddha explicitly rejects the view that "the one who acts is the one who experiences."
On the other hand, according to this one, "I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator." The statements in these two suttas don't quite align with each other.
Isn't this just substituting one type of self-view for another? Instead of a static unchanging self, we get a continually fluctuating self. Is this really anātman, though?Grigoris wrote:These are not contradictory in the slightest.Lazy_eye wrote:For example, in this sutta, the Buddha explicitly rejects the view that "the one who acts is the one who experiences."
On the other hand, according to this one, "I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator." The statements in these two suttas don't quite align with each other.
He who acts is not exactly he who experiences because the "he" is in a constant state of flux. Even the "he" that experiences the outcome in this lifetime (let alone future lifetimes) is not the same "he" that executed the action. The Buddha is trying to contradict the idea of a static unchanging self essence (defined as "he") in this instance.
Ok, so this is the Two Truths again -- perhaps it's the best available answer.Conventionally speaking though, we do experience a continuity of a sense of self, an "I" and it is this that is the owner of the actions, it is this "I" which is spoken of in the second teaching.
The Buddha has already allowed the conventional designation of the aggregates as a self. After, all, how many times in the suttas does the Buddha refer to himself in the past tense when discussing his own previous lives?Lazy_eye wrote: Isn't this just substituting one type of self-view for another? Instead of a static unchanging self, we get a continually fluctuating self. Is this really anātman, though?
Many times. My point is that there's an apparent contradiction or ambiguity, and that much later doctrinal elaboration (alaya-vijnana, for example) seems to be designed to clear up the issue.Malcolm wrote:The Buddha has already allowed the conventional designation of the aggregates as a self. After, all, how many times in the suttas does the Buddha refer to himself in the past tense when discussing his own previous lives?Lazy_eye wrote: Isn't this just substituting one type of self-view for another? Instead of a static unchanging self, we get a continually fluctuating self. Is this really anātman, though?
I'm intrigued that Zongmi mobilized the Three Truths approach that Zhiyi promoted. I have a copy of Broughton's book on Zongmi somewhere; I should actually read it sometime.Anonymous X wrote:Staying with the Two Truths doctrine, you only get part of the Totality. Now, for the Three Truths:Lazy_eye wrote:Ok, so let me make sure I get this. The answer is that it is a self-concept, but it's the conventional self. And the Two Truths doctrine explains why there is a conventional self. Correct?Johnny Dangerous wrote:
For the life of me, I don't understand how this question trips people up the way it does.
Can you watch a movie and understand it's being performed by actors, and that the narrative is not real? If so, this concept is not so difficult, certainly there is an ex[experience of a conventional self.
As to how the question trips people up the way it does, I obviously can't speak for everyone who has stumbled over it. But it's well known (I think) that Buddhists across the traditions have grappled with some ambiguities and apparent contradictions between different things said in different scriptures, going all the way back to the early texts.
For example, in this sutta, the Buddha explicitly rejects the view that "the one who acts is the one who experiences."
On the other hand, according to this one, "I am the owner of my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator." The statements in these two suttas don't quite align with each other.
It's not always clear how to resolve the seeming contradiction. I understand that a great deal of later Abhidharma and Mayahana doctrinal elaboration, including the Two Truths as well as alaya-vijnana, grew precisely out of the effort to explain this.
Of course I can watch a movie, but I have a functioning memory that allows me to follow the narrative and believe that the same experiencer is sitting in the movie theater from beginning to end. Transmigration across lifetimes is more like watching a movie and having your memory erased halfway through, so you don't remember anything that came before or who you were when you entered the theater.
From Zongmi on Chan: “The nature axiom has three truths: nature (voidness); characteristics (origination by dependence); and self substance (true mind). The self substance is neither voidness nor form, etc.; it is the potentiality to be both. This corresponds to a mirror’s specific images, the voidness of those images, and the brightness or reflectivity of the mirror itself.
The difference between them concerning the two truths and the three truths. All scholars know that the voidness axiom says that all dharmas, both mundane and supramundane, do not go beyond the two truths. There is no need for quotations to elucidate this. The nature axiom, however, gathers up nature, characteristics, and the self substance [xing xiang ji ziti], and considers them together as the three truths. It takes all dharmas that originate by dependence, such as forms, etc., as the worldly truth and takes [the truth that] conditions lack a self nature and [hence] all dharmas are void as the real truth. (This much is no different in terms of principle from the two truths of the voidness axiom and the characteristics axiom.) That the one true mind substance is neither voidness nor form [but] has the potentiality to be void and the potentiality to be form is the truth of the highest meaning of the middle path.”
For me, without the inclusion of the Tathagatagarbha doctrine, Mahayana and Madhyamaka teachings don't point directly to the heart of the matter.
Thanks for this Adamantine. And what you say about academics and accusations of non-objectivity is what I've observed as well, when I was more connected to such people. What I to noticed in my limited experience was that non practitioners were quite vocal about their lack of commitment, almost wearing it on their sleeve so to speak. Practitioners were generally evasive, but polite and humorous, when asked directly if they practiced. Once in a while you'd see someone very open about their religious commitment. It seems like this might be more acceptable in Theravada for whatever reason (Lance Cousins, Peter Harvey, etc). Hence my joke about evasion = probably yesAdamantine wrote:Re: Jay, when I knew him in the '90's he was guiding a student
exchange program with the Central Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies in Sarnath India. He wore his mala wrapped around his
wrist and made sure the students got the chance to pilgrimage to Bodhgaya, which doesn't correspond to a purely academic philosophical approach. What's more, he had adopted at least one Tibetan orphan. Some academics may risk being accused of non-objectivity if they are practicing religion and they are philosophy professors, or in general, so perhaps there's reasons not to advertise if one is practicing... along with more dharmic reasons. Maybe why he doesn't answer the question. But my personal impression was that he was practicing... to what degree I have no idea.
I wondered that too about Mr. Evansdzogchungpa wrote:I kind of wonder if he ignored the question because it was posed by someone going by the handle "BillF*ckinEvans".
In all seriousness, would it actually be detrimental to his career or standing to admit that he practiced some kind of Buddhist meditation? In this day and age I would find that surprising given the mindfulness craze etc.