"Everything is subject to Maya, except the doctrine about Maya. When a person studies the doctrine about Maya, they are not subject to Maya." True or false?
False, the way can become an impediment to understanding, just like anything else. It is the last thing that must be abandoned.
I think Greenberg is essentially asking if your quote here is in Maya, and therefore useless, or outside it.
1) It is not a self contradiction statement. All the socks are blue, except for the red one. 2) A self-contradicting statement, often, cannot be labeled true or false. For example. "This is false." That sentence cannot easily be said to be false. Because if it is false, then it is true. But then that would mean, and so on.
allright than, its a self-contradicting statement. The statement itself is false because it is self-contradicting, not what it says.
It is also true. The doctrine of liberation is inseparable from liberation itself. The doctrine isn't something that can be written down.
Best way to understand is the Matrix movie...When you are inside the computer, everything is Maya. When you are outside, you understand it is Maya, that is where the doctrine lies. You can not differentiate the Maya and not-Maya while you are inside. However, if you are inside the Matrix full time, you will never know for sure it is Maya. Therefore, who ever said that could be just speculating. To be sure, you have to step out of this Universe. No observation from inside can produce that truth is this happens to be Maya. Which mean, the state of Maya is unknowable. It is your turn to see if you can logically conclude it is knowable. Is that what we are talking about here?
But it isn't self contradicting. It says all these things - Set A - have this quality in common, but this thing does not. How is that self-contradicting. If it said: All sentences are maya. This sentence is not Maya. You have a contradiction. And I am not sure what it means to say a statement is 'not what it says'.
So what you just said is not part of the doctrine and is Maya. Would it be best, then, not to listen to it?
That's an interesting aspect: If something is within Maya, is it therefore useless? I think normally, we'd say it indeed is useless. If we're stuck in Maya, what else have we got to work with - but Maya? If it's true that liberation from the Round is possible, this means that within Maya, it is possible to arrange things so, to act so as to get out of Maya. Which implies that Maya is made or functions by some principle, law. Hence notions of karma.
The doctrine of liberation as such cannot be written down. But the instructions on how to attain liberation can be written down. - This at least is the stance of Buddhist Right View, as I understand it.
It also implies that Maya distorts, perhaps, but does not completely eliminate accurate perception. Or to be more careful: useful perception. Even if that relates to noticing things are illusory.
Yes. And what might seem useful at one point, won't necessarily be useful at another one. However, I'm sensing we could here fall prey to the danger of consequent relativism, basically claiming "anything goes" and "whatever is, is" - stances which are useless.
I am not a big fan of the Maya hypothesis. Or to put my position a little more clearly, I do not think everything is illusory or an illusion. I think this can be partially true, and useful to notice and not be limited by what seems to be the case. But I also think what I experience is real. Also. Both. As contradictory as that may seem.
To be a fan of the Maya hypothesis, you'd have to be outside of Maya in the first place. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Lol. But you know, there is a serious side to what you just said. The other people who responded to you, at least some of them, made very 'knowing' comments about 'the journey' essentially, and Maya and the vehicle. I mean it's like they were finished.
On the otherhand if we define Maya to be a veil such that as you go deeper you see new meaning...then you can observe Maya. Perhaps that is what the rishis meant. For example, the rainbow is colorful, but the physics of rainbow provides that deeper knowledge of understanding...which can go even further to the quantum level... It is the superficial vs. string theory....
False Basically it is asserting that the platform of perfection is simply to have a negative mental concept of things. Kind of like this statement - If you understand how everything is nothing you will understand something. In short, perfected knowledge requires that one has positive information - simply to arrive at the point of "its not this, its not this etc etc" can perhaps be glorified as the best platform of knowledge a person can come to if they are in ignorance, but actual knowledge requires substance and quality. A person in actual knowledge can say "this is it". To say one's "conception of what isn't" is , merely regresses the issue, since it doesn't address why one person can have the (so-called) right conception and another person doesn't. IOW adopting the absolute as nameless/formless/etc leaves no scope for addressing the issue of variety.
