OAT
Where is the TAO?
Btw, the syllogistic error made by NGP is called illicit minor.
Illicit minor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Illicit minor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Why do we exist?
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citizenzen
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Which I must say, you've picked apart magnificently.
But you still haven't answered the question I posed (a very similar question also posed by path_of_one).
Assuming that everything is illusion, how does it change the way you live your life? If you got fired from your job yesterday, even though that was an illusion, you're still unemployed today.
Or as path_of_one asked in the thread God is???...
But if reality is unknowable, then existence, illusory though it may be, is all we are left with anyway. And then I wonder what is the use of pondering the question about any of it? (Except for mental stimulation?)
OAT
Where is the TAO?
As long as I am still subjected to the delusion (ie. not enlightened), the illusion will still be seen as real by me. Knowing so, it means that I need to get on a path that will take me out of the illusion.
path_of_one
Embracing the Mystery
But then, does it follow that once you (or I, or anyone) is enlightened and "out of the illusion," we then experience non-duality ontologically? Or are we ever stuck in our cognition, in which case enlightenment is only meaningful as a shift in perspective, but not in any actual knowledge of true reality?
Does all that make any sense? I'm trying to say... if one is deluded, but it is possible to move beyond delusion and into enlightenment, then reality is knowable... at least by someone sufficiently awake.
OAT
Where is the TAO?
Buddhism does not teach ontological non-duality. It merely says that the real reality that one "experiences" as a completely enlightened being is something that has no referent and therefore cannot be spoken of. Words like dual and non-dual, real and unreal, existing and non-existing, etc cannot be used to describe that reality.
Nick the Pilot
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CZ,
You asked,
"Assuming that everything is illusion, how does it change the way you live your life? If you got fired from your job yesterday, even though that was an illusion, you're still unemployed today."
--> That is an important question. We must still live our lives, and take care of our responsibilities. This world of illusion 'exists' for a purpose, and we must continue to interact with everything in this world in a way that allows us to make progress toward that purpose and goal.
Simply stated, we must take care of our responsibilities in this world, but try to be emotionally unattached to those very responsibilites at the same time. The day will come when we leave this world, and the more we are emotionally attached to this world, the more likely we come right back here again (when our true goal is to move up to the next level).
You asked,
"Assuming that everything is illusion, how does it change the way you live your life? If you got fired from your job yesterday, even though that was an illusion, you're still unemployed today."
--> That is an important question. We must still live our lives, and take care of our responsibilities. This world of illusion 'exists' for a purpose, and we must continue to interact with everything in this world in a way that allows us to make progress toward that purpose and goal.
Simply stated, we must take care of our responsibilities in this world, but try to be emotionally unattached to those very responsibilites at the same time. The day will come when we leave this world, and the more we are emotionally attached to this world, the more likely we come right back here again (when our true goal is to move up to the next level).
citizenzen
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But it's not the world, or existence that changes when you lose your delusion... only your understanding of it.
Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters.
~ Ch'uan Teng Lu, (The Way of Zen)
~ Ch'uan Teng Lu, (The Way of Zen)
Instead of saying "existence is an illusion" it would be more accurate to say "I experience existence as an illusion."
citizenzen
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Your goal is to move up levels?
My goal is to live in the one I find myself in.
Nick the Pilot
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My goal is definitely to move up levels. And the way to do that is to live on this level to the best of our abilities.
Bhaktajan II
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The Soul is "active" by nature.
The soul was originally in the presence of God in Heaven ---when one time we thought to ourselves, "I'd like to be lord of all I survey" ---thus, we fell from the (internal) spriritual realm of 'Sat-Chit-Ananda' [Eternity-Knowledge-Bliss] where time does not exist; and entered the exterior Material energy [cyclical Created-Mantained-Destroyed].
The first birth in the material world is a the "Brahma", the first progenitor & engineer that is the head Demigod of each universerse, such as ours is.
At the end of Brahma's Life time, he attains emancipation/liberation ---or enters into the cycle of births and death [known as, samsara] ---and that is how we all took our first birth in this material world where time exists.
The soul was originally in the presence of God in Heaven ---when one time we thought to ourselves, "I'd like to be lord of all I survey" ---thus, we fell from the (internal) spriritual realm of 'Sat-Chit-Ananda' [Eternity-Knowledge-Bliss] where time does not exist; and entered the exterior Material energy [cyclical Created-Mantained-Destroyed].
The first birth in the material world is a the "Brahma", the first progenitor & engineer that is the head Demigod of each universerse, such as ours is.
At the end of Brahma's Life time, he attains emancipation/liberation ---or enters into the cycle of births and death [known as, samsara] ---and that is how we all took our first birth in this material world where time exists.
shawn
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Here's a thought:
Truth frightens man.
So he plants illusion in the debris of his mind to hide himself from the light she brings.
His arguments defeat her wisdom.
In his preconceptions and prejudices he dictates, in advance, what form she must take, what garments she must wear; and because of this he often does not recognize her when they meet.
His illusion drives her from him.
Yet man still yearns and seeks for truth.
Which is the inherent nature of man, the inherent nature of intellect, itself.
It seeks to know.
But man is still frightened of truth and so takes solace in the false light of misconception (or myth-conception).
A good example of this is in the myriad of religions which we have.
Certainly, the fact that we have different ways of looking at the same thing will produce different reports, but to have radically different, even opposing and contradictory reports of the same thing show that man is subject to illusion.
Truth frightens man.
So he plants illusion in the debris of his mind to hide himself from the light she brings.
His arguments defeat her wisdom.
In his preconceptions and prejudices he dictates, in advance, what form she must take, what garments she must wear; and because of this he often does not recognize her when they meet.
His illusion drives her from him.
Yet man still yearns and seeks for truth.
Which is the inherent nature of man, the inherent nature of intellect, itself.
It seeks to know.
But man is still frightened of truth and so takes solace in the false light of misconception (or myth-conception).
A good example of this is in the myriad of religions which we have.
Certainly, the fact that we have different ways of looking at the same thing will produce different reports, but to have radically different, even opposing and contradictory reports of the same thing show that man is subject to illusion.
shawn
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Another version of that story is that we were taken hostage so as to animate the genetic creations of the "alleged gods" which they weren't able to get working properly without "living souls" within.
Somehow this was done and we remain stuck in this realm, in this place, in the wheel of suffering. Destined to be reborn endlessly until we either escape or are released.
Bhaktajan II
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Madison Avenue Advertisment Copywrighters Industry brainwashes the dull lay-abouts ---not the National heros that fought:
OAT
Where is the TAO?
So the I that experience existence as an illusion is not an illusion?
To me it reflects the stages that Teng Lu went through. Namely, a deluded state followed by a state in which the emptiness of all things is realized, and finally a state in which the equivalence of samsara and nirvana, the inseparability of appearances and emptiness, the non-duality of the relative truth and ultimate truth is realized.
shawn
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I see a kiosk full of useless stuffMadison Avenue Advertisment Copywrighters Industry brainwashes the dull lay-abouts ---not the National heros that fought:
Excluding the maps, batteries and the magazine on interiors (which is sometimes interesting), but so what.....what's the point of the pic?
citizenzen
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The body that experiences existence is very real.
It's a tenuous, ever changing combination of physical and mental aspects that's only here for a brief period of time. But that doesn't make it an illusion. It just makes it transient. Delusion comes when we try to see this combination of cells, chemistry and mind as something more than that. But for this moment at least, while "I" still have some semblance of perception and cognition and physical presence, "I" am as real as anything else.
Former president Bill Clinton found himself in a bit of trouble when during the Monica Lewinsky scandal he asked what the definition of "is" was. I'll go one step further. Let's knock off the "s" and ask, what the definition of "I" is.
It may help us all understand this "illusion" a little better.
OAT
Where is the TAO?
citizenzen
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OAT
Where is the TAO?
"Arising and disintegration" refers to both coarse and subtle impermanance. What Nagarjuna was saying was that there is really no real arising and disintegration. Therefore to hold to the idea that phenomena or things are but an unending series of real causes and effects is also not tenable.
taijasi
Gnōthi seauton
Perhaps illusion is just another set of colored glasses through which we perceive and experience. This is what makes the most sense to me. There is also something about matter, and the time-space experience we're having, which seems to allure and enamor us ... even to the point of our own and others' detriment. It also leads us to damage the living environment which supports us and always has supported us. Worst of all, we un-learn what it means to live more in phase with the Source (in tune with the Verbum) - and with other beings more directly in touch with that Source. But then, in a sense much of this is just what it is like having spun this far out (by now) into the Western Spiral Arm.
Perhaps we should also remember that MAYA is the end result, if we sort of encapsulate, or attempt to bottle time - resulting in a very static, dull, almost altogether `frozen' version of what really has occurred `in the story thus far.'
No need to fight; the lid's coming off regardless. And thank God for that.
~~
My birthday was March 23rd, Nick. I feel ~pretty young still.
Perhaps we should also remember that MAYA is the end result, if we sort of encapsulate, or attempt to bottle time - resulting in a very static, dull, almost altogether `frozen' version of what really has occurred `in the story thus far.'
No need to fight; the lid's coming off regardless. And thank God for that.
~~
My birthday was March 23rd, Nick. I feel ~pretty young still.