Specious existence ?

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Rick
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Specious existence ?

Post by Rick »

Papa Nagarjuna has shown us that nothing exists = possesses svabhava. Yet things appear to exist, appear to be real/unchanging. In some cases, the duration in which X appears real is very short: A lightning strike. In others it is very long: A mountain.

The specious present is the duration of time one perceives as the present, now. It is typically less than a second long. Within it, the past bleeds into the present, and the present bleeds into the future. So it’s like a ‘thick’ (and bloody!) present moment.

What I’m wondering is if it might be useful, phenomenologically, to posit a specious existence? Like the specious present, specious existence would be the duration of time over which an object appears to exist, to be real and substantial.

???????

Are there Buddhist terms that mean more or less the same as specious existence?

Merci!
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Queequeg
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Re: Specious existence ?

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Rick wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 2:45 pm Papa Nagarjuna has shown us that nothing exists = possesses svabhava. Yet things appear to exist, appear to be real/unchanging. In some cases, the duration in which X appears real is very short: A lightning strike. In others it is very long: A mountain.

The specious present is the duration of time one perceives as the present, now. It is typically less than a second long. Within it, the past bleeds into the present, and the present bleeds into the future. So it’s like a ‘thick’ (and bloody!) present moment.

What I’m wondering is if it might be useful, phenomenologically, to posit a specious existence? Like the specious present, specious existence would be the duration of time over which an object appears to exist, to be real and substantial.

???????

Are there Buddhist terms that mean more or less the same as specious existence?

Merci!
Conventional existence?
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Rick
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Re: Specious existence ?

Post by Rick »

Definitely in the same ballpark, afaiu, but does conventional existence assign a 'duration of apparent existence' to an object?
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Queequeg
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Re: Specious existence ?

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Rick wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 3:11 pm Definitely in the same ballpark, afaiu, but does conventional existence assign a 'duration of apparent existence' to an object?
I suppose a dharma conventionally has whatever duration we chose to assign to it. We can either do this knowingly, in which case we are sort of practicing upaya, or we do this unknowingly, in which case we're perpetuating samsara.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Specious existence ?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

No, any strech of time you can identify can always be cut in half.
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Re: Specious existence ?

Post by Virgo »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 5:50 pm No, any strech of time you can identify can always be cut in half.
Well for small units we generally use seconds and then divisions of seconds for even smaller units based on TAI. These are natural units based on observations, which is how we derive them, and which is what gives them meaning to us. If you use any division of a second then you are just dividing a natural unit, not something real aside from the meaning we ascribe to it as a handy tool we can use to measure since it is based on a repeatable event which in this case is based on the frequency of the radiation of atoms.

You also reach a point where the differences between units becomes functionally indistinguishable.

Generally, the smallest unit of time is Planck time, which is derived from Planck length, and there seems to be some debate about whether or not Planck length truly is the smallest measure of length or not.

A Planck time (tP) is the time required for light to travel a distance of one Planck length in a vacuum.

In any event, this is probably not helpful.

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Re: Specious existence ?

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Rick wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 3:11 pm Definitely in the same ballpark, afaiu, but does conventional existence assign a 'duration of apparent existence' to an object?
Any apparent sense of existence is also subjective and conditional. A musical recital might be over way too soon or seem to last way too long. Likewise with any fragment of “now” within that.
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Re: Specious existence ?

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PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 11:51 pm
Rick wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 3:11 pm Definitely in the same ballpark, afaiu, but does conventional existence assign a 'duration of apparent existence' to an object?
Any apparent sense of existence is also subjective and conditional.
Yes. So, rephrased: Does Buddhist philosophy address (speak of, analyze, care about) the duration of a specious existent? In, say, the Abhidharma? Usually when I have an Aha! about something, it turns out those crazy Buddhist monks have been talking about it (in great detail) for millennia!
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Re: Specious existence ?

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Queequeg wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 4:13 pm
Rick wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 3:11 pm Definitely in the same ballpark, afaiu, but does conventional existence assign a 'duration of apparent existence' to an object?
I suppose a dharma conventionally has whatever duration we chose to assign to it. We can either do this knowingly, in which case we are sort of practicing upaya, or we do this unknowingly, in which case we're perpetuating samsara.
Let's say I live in a village with a big mountain visible 24/7. The mountain seems to me to have existed in its current state (i.e. to have truly existed) my entire life. It might be lit by the sun differently at different times, covered in snow or rain or fog, closer or further away, but these are cosmetic differences, to me it remains: our mountain. The duration of the specious existence of the mountain (subjectively, for me) would be: unlimited, always, unbeginning and unending. Would this 'span of time' be considered a dharma?
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Re: Specious existence ?

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Rick wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 2:00 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 11:51 pm
Rick wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 3:11 pm Definitely in the same ballpark, afaiu, but does conventional existence assign a 'duration of apparent existence' to an object?
Any apparent sense of existence is also subjective and conditional.
Yes. So, rephrased: Does Buddhist philosophy address (speak of, analyze, care about) the duration of a specious existent? In, say, the Abhidharma? Usually when I have an Aha! about something, it turns out those crazy Buddhist monks have been talking about it (in great detail) for millennia!
Yep.

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Rick
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Re: Specious existence ?

Post by Rick »

Yep.

There probably aren't atonna 'new frontiers' in Buddhist thought. But there are gobssa different ways of putting what's already been put.
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Re: Specious existence ?

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First of all you have to differentiate between the existence of mind and matter.

Rūpa, or form, lasts longer than mind does.

Mind is broken down into mind moments and their accompanying mental factors.

These cognize things. For example, if rūpa arises such as sound, it impinges on the rūpa of the ear organ, where it can be cognized based on mind moments arising with mental factors that arise at the ear base and experience the sound. Then an image of the sound is cognized and reacted to by mind moments and mental factors arising at the mind base in the heart.

Billions of mind moments arise within the duration of a finger snap.

I am more familiar with the Theravada Abhidhamma having studied that, so I won't go into detail here as while there are many similarities to it and the Sarvāstivādan Abhidharma, they are not precisely the same.

From Bhikkhu Bodhi's tranlsation of the Abhidhammathasangaha:

"The life-span of a citta is termed, in the
Abhidhamma, a mind-moment (cittakkhana). This is a
temporal unit of such brief duration that, according
to the commentators, in the time that it takes for
lightning to flash or the eyes to blink, billions of
mind-moments can elapse. ....Within the
breadth of a mind-moment, a citta arises, performs its
momentary function, and then dissolves, conditioning
the next citta in immediate succession. Thus, through
the sequence of mind-moments, the flow of
consciousness continues uninterrupted like the waters
in a stream.” [page 156 of CMA]

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Re: Specious existence ?

Post by Virgo »

Rūpa too arises and falls away extremely quickly, lasting no longer than the duration of 17 mind moments.

When you see a mountain it appears as one solid thing, but there are rūpa of the same type arising again and again in succession which is what you perceive.

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Re: Specious existence ?

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And mind moments are separate but they arise in succession without gap like a string of pearls.

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Re: Specious existence ?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Virgo wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 3:06 pm And mind moments are separate but they arise in succession without gap like a string of pearls.

Virgo
Or like currents in a stream
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Re: Specious existence ?

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Rick wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 2:11 pm
Queequeg wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 4:13 pm
Rick wrote: Sun May 15, 2022 3:11 pm Definitely in the same ballpark, afaiu, but does conventional existence assign a 'duration of apparent existence' to an object?
I suppose a dharma conventionally has whatever duration we chose to assign to it. We can either do this knowingly, in which case we are sort of practicing upaya, or we do this unknowingly, in which case we're perpetuating samsara.
Let's say I live in a village with a big mountain visible 24/7. The mountain seems to me to have existed in its current state (i.e. to have truly existed) my entire life. It might be lit by the sun differently at different times, covered in snow or rain or fog, closer or further away, but these are cosmetic differences, to me it remains: our mountain. The duration of the specious existence of the mountain (subjectively, for me) would be: unlimited, always, unbeginning and unending. Would this 'span of time' be considered a dharma?
Yes, a compounded dharma. In other words, a construct dependent on the subject perceiving and conceptualizing the mountain. The mountain of subjectively unlimited duration arises in the interaction between subject and object. Outside of the subject-object interaction, there is nothing to speak of, not even non-existence; just complete unintelligibility (from our vantage). To think that there is something outside of the subject-object interaction is itself a delusion of the subject conceiving this extra subject-object thing.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Specious existence ?

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Virgo wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 2:58 pm Rūpa too arises and falls away extremely quickly, lasting no longer than the duration of 17 mind moments.

When you see a mountain it appears as one solid thing, but there are rūpa of the same type arising again and again in succession which is what you perceive.

Virgo
I think this is one of the points in Buddhist teachings that are very difficult to accept. It can lead to an extreme view that there is only mind in a vat, but this is also wrong view.

Rather, its critical to keep in mind dependent origination and carry that insight all the way through.

Whatever is dependently co-arisen,
That is explained to be emptiness.
That, being a dependent designation,
Is itself the Middle Way.

Something that is not dependently arisen,
Such a thing does not exist.
Therefore a nonempty thing
Does not exist.

MMK 24:18-19
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Specious existence ?

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Queequeg wrote: Mon May 16, 2022 3:20 pm To think that there is something outside of the subject-object interaction is itself a delusion of the subject conceiving this extra subject-object thing.
Just to back up a little bit here - the implication is that mind is primary in the Buddhist view.

In Western discourse, the prevailing materialist view is that consciousness is an emergent quality of matter. There are some in the West who posit that consciousness is fundamental to reality, but this position is not particularly detailed or decisive. They seem to be looking for consciousness in the intrinsic structure of matter itself, which I suppose still keeps them in the materialist camp. I think there are some outliers who propose that consciousness is primary, but I don't know the full argument of those views.

In Buddhism, there is no question that (unawakened) mind is primary and matter is emergent.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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