I think you are on the right track, RB.RonBucker wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 8:46 pmIt would be correct to say that all modern schools of Buddhism consider our world as a stream of constantly changing factors on an absolute level, but thanks to people, all these factors got their names and thus the conventional truth appeared?PadmaVonSamba wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 7:51 pmIn terms of physics, that’s true. But I’m not sure that the Buddhist meaning of conventional truth and absolute truth is about physics, although a scientist might interpret the two truths in that way for their own understanding.RonBucker wrote: ↑Sat Apr 17, 2021 6:47 pm
"Furthermore, one naturally asks how the things around them (other people, solid objects, sounds, etc) can only be occurring in their own mind. But you have to look beyond that: the very experience of “things” as static entities is a mistaken perception. In other words, you might argue, “that chair is not just a figment of my imagination!” However, the very fact that you perceive and experience “that chair” as an intrinsically existing object (rather thsn as a slowly occurring stream of continuously changing events) is itself purely the experience within your own mind. On that level, or in that regard, every”thing” is only happening in your own mind. The fact that this is a shared delusion is collective karma."
Can you please explain what this means?
As I understand it, it means that in our world everything consists of atoms. Chairs, other people are all collections of atoms that interact according to physical laws. But people gave names to these collections of atoms (chairs, pencils and everything else) and so the concept of a chair is only in humans minds, (conventional truth), and in fact it's just a bunch of atoms that obey the laws of physics (absolute truth)
Am I wrong?
Thank you
The point I was making is that even with atoms, nothing is ever really established for even a second as a “thing” or entity. Conventionally, objects function as though frozen in time, and ‘cause-and-effect’ operates on that, within that context. If a brick falls on my head, it hurts (even though the atoms themselves don’t hurt). Ultimately, all is just constant movement.
That is, when we tell each other our thoughts and emotions about recent events in our world, is it more convenient for us to describe it by the conventional truth than to use absolute truth and constantly refer to the time and place, cause and condition of an event?
Thank you!
It was in fact PvS who gave me the insight that many concepts in buddhism are easier to conceptualize if you think of them as verbs and not nouns or 'things', such as bodhicitta, nirvana (nibutti), karma, dependent origination, etc.