The ground of empty appearances

[norman]

Sherab,

Phenomenally there are only effects, and these we call appearances. The functioning implied in the apperance of these effects, of Everything, is in itself nothing. The world is a functioning of an imaginary movement (i.e., nothing in itself), that is experienced only subjectively.

The fact that we are writing to each other now is an appearance dependent on having the notion of ”writing to each other”, in the first place. The act is nothing, no thing. It is only apparant in the act of conceiving of such act. Other than the act of conceiving, the functioning, there is no act, no appearance, nor any functioning.

Even the question of asking what causes the initial functioning to manifest such act, is in itself a functioning of the very act that causes it to appear.

”You” are an effect, an aspect of ”everything”. Your asking is part of the script, some karmic effect, an apperance.

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Quoting Red Pine's Bodhidharma:

”Basically, seeing, hearing, and knowing are completely empty (...) It’s the mind that moves. Language and behavior, perception and conception are all functions of the moving mind. All motion is the mind’s motion. Motion is its function. Apart from motion there’s no mind, and apart from the mind there’s no motion.”

No thing that we recognize as anything is not as that very thing. All functioning, the sun rising, the birds flying, some super nova exploding, all of these are percepts inherent in the perceiving. Other than the perceiving, they are not. ”That” is an effect of a movement perceived conceptually.

”But motion isn’t the mind. And the mind isn’t motion. Motion is basically mindless. And the mind is basically motionless. But motion doesn’t exist without the mind. And the mind doesn’t exist without motion. Theres no mind for motion to exist apart from, and no motion for mind to exist apart from. Motion is the mind’s function, and its function is its motion. Even so, the mind neither moves nor functions, the essence of its functioning is emptiness and emptiness is essentially motionless. Motion is the same as the mind. And the mind is essentially motionless.”

There is nothing there, but a functioning that we recognize as the effects which are this world. All questions about it are void, because in itself (.e., other than our concept of such "thing" to begin with) it is simply not. Our deductions are elaborate mind games. Mind and motion (functioning) are interdependent in the sense that the one requires the other, but neither IS, as such. There is only non-being.

[Astus]

As there is no mind without function and mind is eternal emptiness it's all easier to say there is dependent existence from which comes neither being nor non-being. Dependent existence itself doesn't rule out the relative reality of phenomena. Or let's just say that Buddhism is not for substituting philosophy and science because that simply results in inconsistencies and nonsense.