The Two Truths

seattlegal said:
Upon thinking about it, that just might work. :p

Let me add a couple of Niels Bohr quotes to the mix:
There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.
~Niels Bohr
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Another dualist !

In every falsehood or fabrication there is also a truth... just not the one that the author intended.
 
That's why I write in such convoluted English. I had a Bohrian brain transplant... actually I am just such a skeptic, but such a mystic that I know the truth that I cannot know (kinda like the dislexic insomniac who laid there all night wondering if there was a D!g).

Pax et amore omnia vincunt!
 
radarmark said:
That's why I write in such convoluted English. I had a Bohrian brain transplant... actually I am just such a skeptic, but such a mystic that I know the truth that I cannot know (kinda like the dislexic insomniac who laid there all night wondering if there was a D!g).

Pax et amore omnia vincunt!
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Try throwing hormones in on top of that! :eek:
 
Relative information is important to function in society, but it isn't really a truth... nothing relative is an absolute. That said, it is important to function in society, so while it isn't a truth it is still a necessity to use "common sense" in every day life. If we cannot function relatively, we may as well already be dead, we are throwing our lives away and are too much focused on spirituality...

In all things, a natural balance must be struck, although that Buddha differentiates these things is somewhat strange - I might go so far as to say it cannot have been uttered by Buddha, that it is a rationale brought by masters after his passing.
 
Thomas said:
I think St Paul touched on a big point when he spoke about 'scandalising' the community — Try telling people they should love something that cannot be known or imagined, that lies beyond our every concept, etc., is a tough message to absorb.
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This is exactly why Buddha does not talk about God... the culmination of Buddhist practice will allow you to experience God yourself, but creating an object to worship is not useful - according to Buddha.

He does mention "Dharmakaya" or "truth-body" though, which can be understood in light of God.

Thomas said:
Added to that, the idea that one should love one's neighbour, and serve one's neighbour, with no expectation of reward, and for no reason other than it's just the right thing to do ... not a very powerful incentive.
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Why is it necessary to have incentives? This is my problem with the whole concept of heaven, it is the ultimate reward - humans are treated as children, doing not because it is right but because they get something out of it. It is completely childish and selfish to need something in return for anything you do. This is why materialism prospers so much in Christian nations...
 
Funny, famous rabbis have thought anyone could be a Jew and a Buddhist because there was no concpt of G!d in Buddhism. Yet at the same time Sokei-an Roshi and Suzuki Roshi taught that the body of truth was G!d (though in a much closer to Process Theology way). Very good insight, Linitik!

Well, IMO, materialism prospers in China (the demand for shark fin soup) and Japan (the kogyaru or the toy car racers), maybe not deeply in their souls (but there are still a lot of communits in both) but in their habits and ideologies.

Unfortunately materialism is rampant everywhere.
 
radarmark said:
Well, IMO, materialism prospers in China (the demand for shark fin soup) and Japan (the kogyaru or the toy car racers), maybe not deeply in their souls (but there are still a lot of communits in both) but in their habits and ideologies.

Unfortunately materialism is rampant everywhere.
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You separate East and West in a geographic way, for me it is not so. East is predominantly spiritual, West is predominantly material - this is how I divide. It is so that in China and Japan, there is a great movement towards a stronger economy and individual wealth - especially in China where religion has been utterly outlawed as part of Communism. This has, of course, rubbed off on the Japanese because they are such close neighbors, they deal with each other a lot...

For me, these poles have to be brought together, a spiritual-materialism has to develop. Without the goal orientation of materialism, mankind cannot prosper - it will become utterly lazy - yet without the spiritualism we will go on making foolish decisions, we will go on studying atoms for knowledge and utilizing that knowledge to create bombs - later it will occur to us that we can use it for electricity as well, but first it occurs the power. There has to be a separation from ego, because it is ego that wants power. This is the real renunciation - renouncing ego. Down the ages people go on renouncing the world, but they simply move to another place in the world, it is idiotic. Both spiritual and material is partial, but mind wants to choose and then we go deeply into our decision.

This is the schizophrenia I keep discussing, we pit our decision against what we decided against - it is like trying to pull two sides of an elastic band apart, eventually it will snap, and people do snap... just look at any psych ward. We have to learn how to enjoy the band, utilize both sides of the band, then freedom.
 
radarmark said:
Funny, famous rabbis have thought anyone could be a Jew and a Buddhist because there was no concpt of G!d in Buddhism. Yet at the same time Sokei-an Roshi and Suzuki Roshi taught that the body of truth was G!d (though in a much closer to Process Theology way). Very good insight, Linitik!
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I would like to speak on this as well...

You have congratulated this "insight" because you believe in God and now you think Buddha agrees with you about God. This is dangerous, you have no idea what God is - it an utter fabrication of your imagination based on what you have read.

The Jew should not go into Buddhism, it will confuse the Jew a lot and much knowledge from his religion will become a burden when looking at Buddha. For the Jew, there is Kaballah, it will achieve the same using his Jewish knowledge as a device instead of being against it.

Now, he can teach the next generation a religionless religion, now he will not burden his children with pointless junk that was his old tradition. In encountering the real all fallacy is dropped, so it is not possible that he will again point to the tradition. This is inevitable as the world continues to become smaller, when what is true becomes more familiar, but for now there is only a movement in the direction - it cannot happen yet because still too many cling to idiocies.
 
LOL . . . is there any reason we all love Lunitik so much?
A way with words perhaps?
 
Dream said:
Balance could be achieved if the practical were to become ideal, however in practice the ideal is not practical enough. Its corners are too sharp and its demands are too intense. Ideally then the ideal must differ from the practical, so a slight imbalance is the child of the ideal.
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Slight imbalance? Which is leveraging the other?
 
Yeah, he does go for the throat, doesn't he? Gotta love some of what he says though.

I was simply pointing out that Rab Kook and a couple of pretty danged important Roshis (who I have followed in my meditation) have come to a similar insight as he had.

Guess (a) he did not understand or (b) he changed his mind again.

Pax et amore omnia vincunt, Etu Malku
 
seattlegal said:
Important in Buddhism:
Two Truths

...but they weren't the only ones:

Egypt_dauingevekten.jpg


The ancient Egyptians also had the "Hall of the Two Truths," where the heart was weighed against the Feather of Maat.

Do you accept only one truth, or two truths, and why?
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Truth is what you believe, what you see, what is fact. But it is too loosely used.
Christian Fundamentalists say the truth i..s the salvation by Jesus Christ, the virgin birth of Jesus, the resurrection of a biologically dead Jesus.

I call them beliefs. The virgin birth of Jesus is unproven belief, as is his resurrection from biological death, and that salvation is something meaningful.

Facts are explanations that can be proven by direct observation or scientific method. Theories are the best explanations of some known phenomena. Beliefs are explanations that cannot be proven to be true. Truth in this case is subjective. Christians believe Jesus was virgin born, biologically resurrected from the dead, and that it brought salvation (whatever that is) if followers believed in it correctly.

Facts are knowledge. I know that I am an animal, member of the Ape order, a mammal that originated in the Jurassic Period. I know that Earth is a slightly flattened sphere about 4.5 billion years old. I know that continents move about collide and separate while carried on Earth's crustal plates propelled by Plate Tectonics. I know that all observed consciousness is a product of a biological structure called a brain.

Theories are the best explanations of the mechanism of gravity, the theories that an asteroid destroyed the Dinosaurs, the theories that vast volcanism in the Siberian Traps caused the great Permian Extinction 250 million years ago, and the theory that the Fact of Evolution is best explained by Natural Selection, adaptation to changing conditions, and catastrophes.

My beliefs are that I am not ugly or handsome but nice looking for an old Scottish Highlander. I believe that life must exist elsewhere in the Galaxy and Universe. I believe that Dark Energy makes the Galaxies move away from each other at accelerating speeds. I believe that the United States is a dying world empire that will crumble before the end of this century, if not next week.

Amergin
 
Amergin said:
Beliefs are explanations that cannot be proven to be true...I believe that life must exist elsewhere in the Galaxy and Universe.
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I would suggest a modifier here: beliefs are explanations that cannot be proven to be true with existing data.

Your "belief" in life elsewhere in the universe could theoretically be proven with a future Mars mission or a mission to another planet. Then it would be fact by direct observation.

Why do you think your "belief" that life exists elsewhere in the universe, which you admit cannot be currently proven to be true, is a better position than an agnostic view that we can't prove it and therefore we don't know for sure if life exists elsewhere?

i.e. why "believe" anything which cannot be "proven" to be true by direct observation or scientific method?


Amergin said:
Truth in this case is subjective
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Do you think there exists any objective, universal truth(s)? Or is all truth subjective?
 
radarmark said:
Dzogchen has the upper hand here, IMHO. Two truths (both virtually unknowable) is less preferable than one big virtually unknowable truth. Both the "commonsense" (nītattha) and "absolute" (neyyattha) truths can be looked at as sub-species of what western philosophy just calls truth (if we accept the Greek tradition and include ideas in the mind).

In the High Holy Days of Newton and Einstein, the "absolute" was lost (as idealism or metaphysics or beyond scientific method). Well now "commonsense" is lost (if quantum theory is true) as well, leaving us with only nītattha minus scientific truth which is pretty much truth-for-the-unwahed-and-uneducated, called post-modernism. So neither is very useful (both much too vague for what most people want and kinda antiquated for those who see the neyyattha as perfectly acceptable).

Did that make sense at all?
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Not really. I have just watched some videos about Einstein's biography as he declared in one of them that he could never believe in the quantum theory. And about being the "absolute" lost as idealism or metaphysics or beyond the scientific method, he said also that all his life was to catch God at His work of creation. At least, he seemed to have identified God as the absolute Creator, although he did declare in another video that he never could think of God as a personal divine Being. But he made it very clear that, contrary to public opinion, he was not a pantheist or attheist for that matter.
Ben
 
Ben Masada said:
At least, he seemed to have identified God as the absolute Creator, although he did declare in another video that he never could think of God as a personal divine Being. But he made it very clear that, contrary to public opinion, he was not a pantheist or attheist for that matter.Ben
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He definitely wasn't atheist, he felt atheists "miss the wonder of the world". But his idea of "God" is very different than the personal God of Christianity. Here are some of my favorite quotes of his dealing with this issue:

“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God.”

“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man.... In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is indeed quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.”

“I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.”

“The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive.... My feeling is insofar religious as I am imbued with the consciousness of the insuffiency of the human mind to understand deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as "laws of nature."

[URL="http://einsteinandreligion.com/"][URL]http://einsteinandreligion.com/[/URL][/URL]
 
You two are quite correct, and I stand corrected of verbal hyperbole. At the most, IMO he thought of G!d as a creator deity (like the deists or the Marcionites thought about the G!d of the OT). Beyond that, IMHO he only had faith in the physics (discovering the "mind of G!d" or "why G!d created the universe in the first place).

What I referring to with my "In the High Holy Days of Newton and Einstein" comment was that the traditional literal (flat earth, sun stopped circling the sun, a young Earth and all associated such ideological-driven) beliefs were displaced by the "G!d of Science and Technology" (scientism and materialism). Sorry for the verbosity.

Pax et amore omnia vincunt!
 
The two truths, yet... still only one truth, in fact. There's Ultimate Truth, and then there's the other truth, an "almost truth", the "not-truth, but as good as you're ever gonna get close to" version of truth. Gravity appears true now, but in five hundred years' time, everyone will be laughing at that little theory like we do now at "flat-earthers". Truth, and truisms. Relative truths, and Ultimate Truth. Relative truths can be disputed, can change, will vary. Ultimate truth IS.
 
Every Jew has two souls but Adam only one (how poor ! )"living soul " adam was material not spiritual . Matter and spirit each have one soul ,two of them good gods but which one is superior ? No one know except for practical man .
 
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