Yellow Emperor's Scripture on the Hidden Talisman

[Cino]

Well said. For example, both of us look at a same apple, we both say its color is red, but are you sure the ‘red’ you see is same as the ‘red’ I see ?

OTOH, who can be sure "I" signifies the same experience to everyone, so what does this question how "I" see "red" even mean?

(Half joking. My take is, we can communicate quite a lot about our subjective experience, enough to have meaningful conversations. The unanswerable questions are pointers, not puzzles to be solved, IMO)

 

[powessy]

Well said. For example, both of us look at a same apple, we both say its color is red, but are you sure the ‘red’ you see is same as the ‘red’ I see ?

Neither the color or the name of the apple is relevant to figuring it out. I can simply show you this object and we can agree about its features allowing us to formulate a shared understanding of it. In the brain we categorize objects into groupings of similar properties, shapes and sizes more times then by colors, not all apples are red and not all red objects are apples.

As for how the brain categorizes thoughts is really what is in question. We can read the same paragraph of a story and get two completely different understandings of it depending on our own personal life experiences. The simple sentence “ The farmers cow was grazing in the field” there is nothing in this image that we will see the same as we try to relate it to our own understandings and experiences.

What I find most interesting is that for thousands of years, and millions upon millions of people that have been dissecting the literary works of any source relating to god all attempting to find any answers they can, just to validate their existence. The most interesting part of this is that the original sources of these thoughts were also trying to figure god out, so basically, all we get from any of this is thoughts about thoughts, your personal thoughts about their personal thoughts.

At the end of the day you still only have the same questions and same information you have chosen to understand left on the table.

powessy

 

[alphone]

I don't know the Chinese translation, if any. In the Pali texts, the word is "āsava". The three outflows are usually enumerated as "sensual pleasures", "existence", and "ignorance".

I was just struck by the similar-sounding translated word. I know very little about Taoism, beyond having read the Yijing and the Dao de Jing. Good to have you around!

Hi,

According to Pali-English dictionary, “āsava“ means “that which flows”, seems that an additional word is needed to mean “the three outflows” ?

 

[Cino]

Hi,

According to Pali-English dictionary, “āsava“ means “that which flows”, seems that an additional word is needed to mean “the three outflows” ?

The prefix "ā" has connotations of both "out-" and "in-", but scholars seem to agree that the "out" meaning is the correct one here.

Most Pali Suttas enumerate three asavas: sense pleasure, becoming, and ignorance.

Some texts enumerate four, adding "views".

So while there is no set phrase "three outflows" in the Pali Suttas, they are usually conceived of as a triple.