how empty is our reality?

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Alastair
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how empty is our reality?

Post by Alastair »

I have a question about emptiness:

Is our world, wich we perceive as real, just as illusionary as a dream or an imagination?
Or is material somehow more than an imagination?


(Just to mention: I am 22 years old and buddhist since 15 years. That means: I've learned a few things about Buddhism as a child, but I only remember them vaguely. I am also no native english speaker.)
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

A tiger in the jungle
A tiger in a dream

Both are “empty” which means there is no essential thing that is “tiger” either in the jungle tiger or the dream tiger.

In that way, they are the same.

The dream tiger only arises from your imagination.

The jungle tiger arises from a variety of causes including material causes such as water, not being hunted, and so on.

In that way they are different.

However, on another level,
Even our experience of the material world is a project of the imagination.

This doesn’t not mean that carbon or water don’t exist anywhere until you think about it.

It means that how we experience the material world is limited by our perceptions.

For example, everything that occurs in your body happens at the microscopic level. You may think that you are “one thing” a person four or five or six feet tall, because that’s what you see in the mirror. But that’s only how you see things. In fact, we are a group of millions of cells.

Likewise, we do not perceive the tiger as just a collection of cells. We cannot. It is impossible for beings in the human realm to do that just with our eyes.

So, in that way, we can say that reality is created by our imagination.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
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Alastair
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by Alastair »

But the cells are real, just the way we see them as an object is illusional?
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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Alastair wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 5:09 am But the cells are real, just the way we see them as an object is illusional?
How are they real? Where is the realness found?
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared

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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Alastair wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 5:09 am But the cells are real, just the way we see them as an object is illusional?
“Real” and “exist” in the Buddhist context means possessing of some intrinsic self-arising reality, and not being composed of smaller parts, and not arising due to other causes.

Cells are made of molecules, molecules of atoms, and atoms are just energy. In fact, there is more space between atoms than there is space occupied by atoms. So, even cells are empty of any self-arising essence.

The term “illusion” has to be used carefully. Be careful not to start with “this thing really exists —but it only an illusion” because that’s obviously a contradiction and in trying to figure that out, you will lose a lot of sleep for no reason!

The situation isn’t that all the different things that we see are illusions. What we see is there, just as dreams are really dreamed. So, it’s not that individual objects are illusions, like a mirage of water in the desert.

Rather, it’s that our entire experience of perception itself, what makes everything “seem real” is a mental creation, just as a dream is.

Or, you could say it’s like a movie. Like a Godzilla movie.Everything in the movie may be real within the context of the movie. Godzilla is stepping on buildings and eating trains.

But the movie itself is not real. It’s is only our perception through which we lose ourselves in the movie and forget that we are even watching a movie. So, it is in that sense that it can be said everything is illusion. The emphasis is on “everything” …all at once. Not this thing here and that thing over there.

(What’s more, the movie itself isn’t even moving. It’s a series of still pictures shown so rapidly that the images only appear to move. Likewise with our everyday experience of things being continuous. But that’s another topic).
EMPTIFUL.
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by White Sakura »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 11:56 am
Or, you could say it’s like a movie. Like a Godzilla movie.Everything in the movie may be real within the context of the movie. Godzilla is stepping on buildings and eating trains.

But the movie itself is not real. It’s is only our perception through which we lose ourselves in the movie and forget that we are even watching a movie. So, it is in that sense that it can be said everything is illusion. The emphasis is on “everything” …all at once. Not this thing here and that thing over there.
:thumbsup:
that is a good explanation for a beginner of Buddhist philosophy. The magical illusion of the classic texts.
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by White Sakura »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 11:40 pm

This doesn’t not mean that carbon or water don’t exist anywhere until you think about it.

It means that how we experience the material world is limited by our perceptions.
I think this is not correct. It sounds as if you regard carbon as a real existing thing.
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by White Sakura »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 11:40 pm
For example, everything that occurs in your body happens at the microscopic level. You may think that you are “one thing” a person four or five or six feet tall, because that’s what you see in the mirror. But that’s only how you see things. In fact, we are a group of millions of cells.
also not correct according to Buddhism. See Jonnys question.

But maybe it is a good way to explain to a beginner in a non classic way. Then you can continue, the cells are composed of the cell organs. The cell organs of atoms. The atoms, according to modern findings, are composed of smaller particles. If the smallest particles are investigated, it shows that actually only light wave exist. And this light is same as the light of mind.

There is a small chapter in Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoches "mind beyond death" that has the headline : emptiness appearance. There he guides the modern reader in that way to an understanding of emptiness.
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by Malcolm »

Alastair wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 5:09 am But the cells are real, just the way we see them as an object is illusional?
Cells are also composed of parts, there is nothing in the universe that is not composed of parts. So when those things are examined, they are found to empty. Empty does not mean "unreal," per se. It means empty of independent, aka inherent, existence. But things are also empty of dependent existence as well, since that is merely another form of inherent existence. Things are dependently originated, and thus they are empty and dependently designated. This is the middle way.
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by White Sakura »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:15 pm Empty does not mean "unreal," per se.
then why did the Buddha give the example of moon reflected in water or mirage? The water in the mirage is really unreal. There is also no moon in the water.
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by Malcolm »

White Sakura wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:40 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:15 pm Empty does not mean "unreal," per se.
then why did the Buddha give the example of moon reflected in water or mirage? The water in the mirage is really unreal. There is also no moon in the water.
Is a mirage a real mirage or not? Does it arise from its own causes and conditions or not? Is the reflection a real reflection or not?
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

White Sakura wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:01 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 11:40 pm
This doesn’t not mean that carbon or water don’t exist anywhere until you think about it.

It means that how we experience the material world is limited by our perceptions.
I think this is not correct. It sounds as if you regard carbon as a real existing thing.
Please read again:
This doesn’t not mean that carbon or water don’t exist anywhere until you think about it.

There is a view that relatively speaking nothing occurs until it is conceived of. For example, that there is no food inside the refrigerator until you open the door and see the food.
This is easily disproven.

Phenomena, although composites, do arise as our experience. Since we are carbon-based life forms composed mainly of water, we can say that within the context of our experience, carbon and water are real. Or, perhaps more accurately, we aren’t any more real than the carbon and water (and a few other things) from which we are composed.

My point is, do not think that we are experiencing a “real” context in which the phenomena we are encountering within the “real” context are merely illusions.

It’s just the opposite. The whole samsaric context is the illusion. The phenomena we experience are real within that illusion just as a tiger in a dream is real within the context of the dream.
EMPTIFUL.
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by White Sakura »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:48 pm
White Sakura wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:40 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:15 pm Empty does not mean "unreal," per se.
then why did the Buddha give the example of moon reflected in water or mirage? The water in the mirage is really unreal. There is also no moon in the water.
Is a mirage a real mirage or not? Does it arise from its own causes and conditions or not? Is the reflection a real reflection or not?
it is a real mirage. It arises from causes and conditions. But the water perceived by the thirsty person in the desert is not real at all.

Transferred to the situation that I see a tree: There a real illusion that there is a tree and a self that perceives it. This illusion arises from causes and conditions. There is no tree and no self.
Last edited by White Sakura on Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:48 pm
White Sakura wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:40 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:15 pm Empty does not mean "unreal," per se.
then why did the Buddha give the example of moon reflected in water or mirage? The water in the mirage is really unreal. There is also no moon in the water.
Is a mirage a real mirage or not? Does it arise from its own causes and conditions or not? Is the reflection a real reflection or not?
The reflection of the moon is not regarded as real in the same sense that the actual moon is regarded as real.

But, the actual moon is not regarded as “real” meaning that it had no intrinsic “moon-ness”.
It is not a self-arising phenomenon.

The relative context has to be understood. This is a common misunderstanding.
It reminds me of this riddle:

Question:
“What is it: you throw away the outside to eat the inside, then you eat the outside and throw away the inside?”
Answer: an ear of corn. First you throw away the husk on the outside to get to the kernels on the inside. But now the kernels are on the outside (of the cob) so you eat the outside and throw away the cob, which is inside.

Likewise, compared with the object orbiting the Earth, that’s real, but the moon in the water is not real.
At the same time, what we humans see as the moon, a flat circle of light, is not really what the moon is. That’s not real.
Ultimately, there is nothing that can be called “moon” that isn’t a composite of other elements.

Finally, the whole concept of “moon” is simply imagined.
Last edited by PadmaVonSamba on Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:11 pm, edited 6 times in total.
EMPTIFUL.
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

White Sakura wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:03 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:48 pm
White Sakura wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:40 pm
then why did the Buddha give the example of moon reflected in water or mirage? The water in the mirage is really unreal. There is also no moon in the water.
Is a mirage a real mirage or not? Does it arise from its own causes and conditions or not? Is the reflection a real reflection or not?
it is a real mirage. It arises from causes and conditions. But the water perceived by the thirsty person in the desert is not real at all.

Transferred to the situation that I see a tree: There a real illusion that there is a tree and a self that perceives it. This illusion arises from causes and conditions. There is no tree and no self.
…and yet, real enough to be talked about and used as examples.
EMPTIFUL.
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by White Sakura »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:07 pm
…and yet, real enough to be talked about and used as examples.
likewise, two thirsty people talk about the water they see at the horizon in the desert.
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by Malcolm »

White Sakura wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:03 pm
it is a real mirage.
Case closed.
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by White Sakura »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:15 pm So when those things are examined, they are found to empty. Empty does not mean "unreal," per se.
Things are not unreal per se, because it is a real mirage /illusion, that causes their appearance.

:thinking:
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by Malcolm »

White Sakura wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 4:30 pm
Malcolm wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:15 pm So when those things are examined, they are found to empty. Empty does not mean "unreal," per se.
Things are not unreal per se, because it is a real mirage /illusion, that causes their appearance.

:thinking:
The appearance is not unreal, is it? The appearance is just empty.
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Re: how empty is our reality?

Post by White Sakura »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 7:12 pm
The appearance is not unreal, is it? The appearance is just empty.
You could not solve the problem that the water in the mirage is unreal. And the Buddha gave the example with the water in the mirage. And the comparisons are in Madhyamaka texts. And I asked you, how does this fit to your statement.

And now you just dropped the comparison.

:?
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