Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

futerko wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:53 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:52 pm
futerko wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:46 pm

The priest who delivered the sermon at the funeral imputing eternalism and my aunt who on her own side imputed annihilationism - the two conceptual takes which predominate ordinary discourse on the nature of reality.
Yeah, that’s not the buddhist view.
Precisely - it is the "conventional" "unexamined" view. There are no such beings stuck in samsara in a Buddhist view.
Ultimately, it’s all like dream.
But relatively, beings are experiencing samsara and most beings don’t know how to not experience that, so they are stuck, until there are no more causes for their stuckiness.
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Aryjna
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by Aryjna »

Inedible wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 4:03 pm The way I understand this is that everyone who has ever taken a Bodhisattva Vow has promised to personally accomplish this without any help.
[...]
Until you know how to get yourself out of Samsara, it doesn't make sense to promise to save anyone else. Just this much has a near perfect failure rate.
This is not really the case. I suggest reading this https://studybuddhism.com/en/tibetan-bu ... a-behavior

It is one of the most important, if not the most important, Mahayana text as far as Tibetan schools are concerned.
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futerko
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 8:32 pm
futerko wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:53 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:52 pm

Yeah, that’s not the buddhist view.
Precisely - it is the "conventional" "unexamined" view. There are no such beings stuck in samsara in a Buddhist view.
Ultimately, it’s all like dream.
But relatively, beings are experiencing samsara and most beings don’t know how to not experience that, so they are stuck, until there are no more causes for their stuckiness.
well - If every being saw themselves that way but still viewed other beings in samsara then the problem would remain - if every being failed to see themselves that way but saw all other beings as not being in samsara then the problem would resolve itself - therefore it would have nothing to do with self-view and everything to do with how one conceived one's own experience of what is merely imputed to be "other beings". Ergo, there have never been any such things as "beings stuck in samsara" within the horizon of experience of any other putative being - any attribution of independence is negated by the fact of experiencing.
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by SkyFox »

futerko wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 9:15 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 8:32 pm
futerko wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 5:53 pm

Precisely - it is the "conventional" "unexamined" view. There are no such beings stuck in samsara in a Buddhist view.
Ultimately, it’s all like dream.
But relatively, beings are experiencing samsara and most beings don’t know how to not experience that, so they are stuck, until there are no more causes for their stuckiness.
well - If every being saw themselves that way but still viewed other beings in samsara then the problem would remain - if every being failed to see themselves that way but saw all other beings as not being in samsara then the problem would resolve itself - therefore it would have nothing to do with self-view and everything to do with how one conceived one's own experience of what is merely imputed to be "other beings". Ergo, there have never been any such things as "beings stuck in samsara" within the horizon of experience of any other putative being - any attribution of independence is negated by the fact of experiencing.
Why so unnecessarily complicated? The fact that you can't escape the rebirth cycle is because you are stuck in samsara; the fact that you suffer is because you are stuck in samsara; And the fact that we are even having this conversation is.... because you are, in a matter of fact, stuck in samsara. I also argue that over-complicating things would only cause confusion and create more attachment, nothing more.
Last edited by SkyFox on Fri Sep 23, 2022 10:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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futerko
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

SkyFox wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 9:57 pm
futerko wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 9:15 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 8:32 pm
Ultimately, it’s all like dream.
But relatively, beings are experiencing samsara and most beings don’t know how to not experience that, so they are stuck, until there are no more causes for their stuckiness.
well - If every being saw themselves that way but still viewed other beings in samsara then the problem would remain - if every being failed to see themselves that way but saw all other beings as not being in samsara then the problem would resolve itself - therefore it would have nothing to do with self-view and everything to do with how one conceived one's own experience of what is merely imputed to be "other beings". Ergo, there have never been any such things as "beings stuck in samsara" within the horizon of experience of any other putative being - any attribution of independence is negated by the fact of experiencing.
Why so unnecessarily complicated? The fact that you can't escape the rebirth cycle is because you are stuck in samsara; the fact that you suffer is because you are stuck in samsara; And the fact that we are even having this conversation is.... because you are, in a matter of fact, stuck in samsara. I also argue that over complicating things would only cause confusion, nothing more.
I think it is very simple. I know my cat is an example of a sentience independent of my own, but I also know that we have common perceptual objects regardless of the fact we experience them differently from the point of view of different mind streams. The complexity only comes when there are assertions made about dependence and independence which can only be imputations. In the actual experience itself it makes no sense to assert any independence of "being". I can make no assertions about any imputed "container universe" experienced by the other mind.
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

I've come full circle here. The only assertion is that there is no such thing in the field of experience as "a sentient being in samsara" without the distortion of a false imputation from the beginning. The very idea rests upon a concept which does not square with actual experience.
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futerko
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

so the relevant quote for me here is, "Subhuti, it is just the same when the great bodhisattvas speak of delivering numberless sentient beings. If they have in mind any arbitrary conception of sentient beings or of definite numbers, they are unworthy of being called great bodhisattvas. And why, Subhuti? Because the very reason they are called great bodhisattvas is because they have abandoned all such arbitrary conceptions." from the Diamond Sutra
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by Gyurme Kundrol »

The problem is that this question ultimately touches upon the imponderable of speculation about the origins of reality. You'll just fall into the pit of infinite recursion if you attempt to seriously answer this question.
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

futerko wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 11:06 pm I've come full circle here. The only assertion is that there is no such thing in the field of experience as "a sentient being in samsara" without the distortion of a false imputation from the beginning. The very idea rests upon a concept which does not square with actual experience.
Are you saying that when Buddhism asserts that there are ‘beings’ in samsara, that this requires ‘beings’ to be inherently existent?

Because if you are saying that, it is incorrect.

It’s actually difficult to tell what point you are making.
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futerko
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 5:58 am
futerko wrote: Fri Sep 23, 2022 11:06 pm I've come full circle here. The only assertion is that there is no such thing in the field of experience as "a sentient being in samsara" without the distortion of a false imputation from the beginning. The very idea rests upon a concept which does not square with actual experience.
Are you saying that when Buddhism asserts that there are ‘beings’ in samsara, that this requires ‘beings’ to be inherently existent?

Because if you are saying that, it is incorrect.

It’s actually difficult to tell what point you are making.
No, the quote asserts that "beings in samsara is an arbitrary concept".

Firstly, it is a composite, it has aggregates. If I take the idea of non-self seriously then I must apply this not only to my self, but to the concept of any selves in general (...otherwise I will be in the position of working on seeing only my own aggregates as coming together to form composite objects while projecting outwards the idea that other beings are unified wholes).

Just as with any imputed objects, the experience of interacting with other beings is defined by the three marks. I do not experience a unified, unchanging, static object. I do not experience a concept in my actual experience, it is a construction after the fact rather than an object of experience. I know the cat is in pain by direct perception, there is no requirement to make an inference, if I tread on his tail then I do not then need to try to conceptually figure out if he enjoyed it or not.

Then arises the question as to whether my own perceptions of other beings are dependently originated or not. Am I directly interacting with an actual object or am I experiencing the relationship between two merely imputed objects which are not known as separately existing things within my experience? If there were any separation here then how there be any such experience? The very conditions for the possibility of experience occurring as it does is already revealing that the idea of "separate beings in samsara" is itself based upon arbitrary imputations which cannot be discovered in actual experience.
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

futerko wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 8:09 am Then arises the question as to whether my own perceptions of other beings are dependently originated or not.
If whatever is experienced as “you” is dependently arising, then your perceptions are too..
Am I directly interacting with an actual object or am I experiencing the relationship between two merely imputed objects which are not known as separately existing things within my experience?
So, there’s the experience of objects (objects of awareness, “external things”)
And, there’s the experience of an experiencer (the feeling of “I”)
But both of those are still objects of awareness.
If there were any separation here then how there be any such experience? The very conditions for the possibility of experience occurring as it does is already revealing that the idea of "separate beings in samsara" is itself based upon arbitrary imputations which cannot be discovered in actual experience.
I think your position has an issue in fluctuating between entities being empty of intrinsic existence and not being empty, their status changing as one way or another when positioned in relation to each other.
For example, when you ask, “Am I directly interacting with an actual object or am I experiencing the relationship between two merely imputed objects” you are simultaneously imputing the “I” who is asking the question. The “I” is asking as though it is, itself, not imputed.
It’s the “actual experience” which is discovered.

The Diamond Sutra is great. But it has to be regarded in terms of trust I’ve truth and ultimate truth. Mixing the two doesn’t work.
Last edited by PadmaVonSamba on Sat Sep 24, 2022 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 4:56 pm
And, there’s the experience of an experiencer (the feeling of “I”)
Sounds like some kind of "witness consciousness".

I think the implication here is clear. The view that there are "sentient beings in samsara" is itself merely the view of samsara, given that the definition of samsara is the perception of sentient beings. You may think you have discovered beings in samsara but that is merely due to your own view being stuck in endless cycling.
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

futerko wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 5:19 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 4:56 pm
And, there’s the experience of an experiencer (the feeling of “I”)
Sounds like some kind of "witness consciousness".

I think the implication here is clear. The view that there are "sentient beings in samsara" is itself merely the view of samsara, given that the definition of samsara is the perception of sentient beings. You may think you have discovered beings in samsara but that is merely due to your own view being stuck in endless cycling.
1. Awareness only occurs as a witness to objects of awareness.
2. What you say here is true. Samsara only occurs from the side of samsara.
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by Natan »

Samsara is known to be boundless. There's no end.
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 5:26 pm
futerko wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 5:19 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sat Sep 24, 2022 4:56 pm
And, there’s the experience of an experiencer (the feeling of “I”)
Sounds like some kind of "witness consciousness".

I think the implication here is clear. The view that there are "sentient beings in samsara" is itself merely the view of samsara, given that the definition of samsara is the perception of sentient beings. You may think you have discovered beings in samsara but that is merely due to your own view being stuck in endless cycling.
1. Awareness only occurs as a witness to objects of awareness.
2. What you say here is true. Samsara only occurs from the side of samsara.
1. my argument was that objects appearing to awareness cannot possibly be discrete self-contained entities or they would not be appearing to awareness. (but that is somewhat tangential to this discussion and another can of worms entirely! lol)

2. Is the main point I was clumsily trying to make. Glad we can agree on this. :D
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 9:51 am my argument was that objects appearing to awareness cannot possibly be discrete self-contained entities or they would not be appearing to awareness.
So, you are saying that, hypothetically, if some object suddenly appeared out of nowhere, some self-arisen, one-element bubble or whatever, that there could be no perception of it (it could not become an object of awareness) ?

Why not?
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 12:21 pm
futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 9:51 am my argument was that objects appearing to awareness cannot possibly be discrete self-contained entities or they would not be appearing to awareness.
So, you are saying that, hypothetically, if some object suddenly appeared out of nowhere, some self-arisen, one-element bubble or whatever, that there could be no perception of it (it could not become an object of awareness) ?

Why not?
because if it was perceived how could it then be "self-contained? if it possessed movement and was therefore perceptible it could not be in steady unchanging state. it's very "appearing" is itself dependent on conditions.

Thus the quotation from the Diamond Sutra is also entirely circular, there is no cause coming from without, the view of samsara is the same thing as the arbitrary conception of sentient beings and the view of the Bodhisattva is renouncing any such conceptual correspondence to what appears due to the dependently originated nature of its very appearing to us in the first place.
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

There is another quotation which says something about trying to draw on water with a stick. If there were any such state of non-movement which at the same time functioned as causal then it would be impossible to distinguish it as a state which was external and separate to the one we already experience. There is simply no possibility of an object arising from nowhere as this would conceptually impute a state defined by non-action which at the same time functioned as a cause.

which again is entirely circular and the same view we started with - that of the eternalist/annihilationist - where things come and go out of "existence" as opposed to a view of karma where there are no external interruptions of "causes".
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 12:28 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 12:21 pm
futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 9:51 am my argument was that objects appearing to awareness cannot possibly be discrete self-contained entities or they would not be appearing to awareness.
So, you are saying that, hypothetically, if some object suddenly appeared out of nowhere, some self-arisen, one-element bubble or whatever, that there could be no perception of it (it could not become an object of awareness) ?

Why not?
because if it was perceived how could it then be "self-contained? if it possessed movement and was therefore perceptible it could not be in steady unchanging state. it's very "appearing" is itself dependent on conditions.
But you are referring to “appearing” as coming from the object rather than arising from the perceiver.

Consider sound for example. The old tree falling in a forest thing. There’s just vibrating of air molecules and electricity in the brain. Therese no “sound” perceived except in the mind. Does the falling tree make a sound if nobody hears it? No.

If you talk about appearances, this all falls on the mind.
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Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 4:16 pm
futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 12:28 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 12:21 pm
So, you are saying that, hypothetically, if some object suddenly appeared out of nowhere, some self-arisen, one-element bubble or whatever, that there could be no perception of it (it could not become an object of awareness) ?

Why not?
because if it was perceived how could it then be "self-contained? if it possessed movement and was therefore perceptible it could not be in steady unchanging state. it's very "appearing" is itself dependent on conditions.
But you are referring to “appearing” as coming from the object rather than arising from the perceiver.

Consider sound for example. The old tree falling in a forest thing. There’s just vibrating of air molecules and electricity in the brain. Therese no “sound” perceived except in the mind. Does the falling tree make a sound if nobody hears it? No.

If you talk about appearances, this all falls on the mind.
It sounds like you are imputing some "other, state of non-mind" from a position called mind. Some kind of thing-in-itself like a Kantian noumena. For me that appears as a false imputation. That is exactly what I am saying here.

If it is not dependently originated, then it is not interacting with anything, it is outside of the casual network, then by definition it does not appear at all. I guarantee there is no "other scene" where there are unseen occurrences which do not happen but which nonetheless produce effects, there cannot possibly causes coming from elsewhere. If it is not dependently originated than it is not occurring at all - there is no hidden invisible region of independent causes.

There is no "salmon of dependent origination" which suddenly leaps into becoming out of a non-causal state. If it is "uncaused" then it cannot be said to have arisen in the first place.
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