LastLegend wrote:Sönam wrote:LastLegend wrote:
Ok. A table is broken and found at the dumpster, and over time it will become rotten, it will no longer be the table is it?
It has never been a table ... it always have been just a name.
Sönam
Yes and the name is table. And apparently it is here because you are here.
It is here because you are here. The Buddha's essential exegesis of pratītyasamutpāda is; "this arises, that becomes". Because the "I"(subject) is conceived, immediately that which is not-I(object) arises. And from there the objective field is cut up and fragmented into all sorts of names, concepts and forms... one of them being a "table". However, in this timeless moment each "field" of sensory perception is unbroken and complete and that which you posit to be your "body" appears just the same as that which you label a "table", both arise in vision and are equal in that respect. It is only when conceptualization arises that we cut this field up and fragment it into the self/other dichotomy. If you take a step back and just witness each sensory field in it suchness there is no separation to be found, the experience itself suggests no edges, borders, location, dividing lines or anything of the sort... those designations are merely imputed upon seamless experience via conceptualization. The problem is that we habitually identify with a certain and very specific cluster of sensations within these unbroken sensory fields, and that certain cluster of sensation is labeled a "body" and that body belongs to "me".. the "I". From there, the "I" believes it spans time and is subject to all sorts of happenings both good and bad, but the concept "I" is itself only a presently arising thought or concept. Just another appearance in seamless experience, the thought "I" has nothing whatsoever to do with the "body". The concept and the appearance are not connected in any way. So the body is truly just a visual appearance which arises the same as any other color or shape in the field of vision. The body also has tactile and kinesthetic sensations attributed to it, but these sensations also just arise in experience and do not constitute a "body" (or belong to the thought "I"). Now we don't take the table to be "I", and if the table isn't "I" then the body also certainly isn't "I", because they both arise in exactly the same manner. So "I" can be detached from these sensory perceptions and seen for what it is(an arising thought/concept). However, since time is seen as empty, and it is understood that the "I" who would witness the thought "I" is the thought itself, and the moment that thought arises it self liberates... the duality collapses into a nondual and timeless non-arising perfection.
So the table isn't a table, it IS vision. In 'seeing' one doesn't see objects or appearances, what appears as objects or appearances is 'seeing' itself. The act of observing and what is observed are not two separate things, what is seen, is the act of 'seeing' itself. What appears in the field of vision, is vision itself. And this applies to every sensory perception. So no objects are experienced anywhere or at anytime.
Sönam is right, table is just a name, it's just a two syllable sound which arises which sounds like ta-ble. The sound "ta-ble" has nothing to do with the, (for example;) brownish color rectangular shape we associate it with. And further, there is no bordering line or separation between the shape/colors and vision itself, and since the "you" who would "see" this is merely a thought/concept(which is another non-witnessed expression of experience)... vision no longer needs to be imputed as a 'sensory perception' and objects which are seen are also absent... so experience is only the natural state, seamless, borderless, edgeless, nonlocal, complete, unobscured, oceanic, perfect.
As for the broken decaying table: in the timeless moment it appears as such, as a conventional appearance it has never appeared as anything(or any way) other than the condition it's presently in. There was no time prior to now, and will be no time following now... but then again there is no table to begin with, the table is hair on a tortoise, an abstraction which is a figment of imagination... only the natural state IS.