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.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.