Existence is imperfect and unsatisfactory

Discussion in 'Eastern Philosophy' started by S.A.M., Mar 13, 2008.

  1. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    The same thing could be said about a clock. Something can be more than the sum of its parts.

    I still don't see anything that would describe an "essence of being."
     
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  3. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    Obviously not. What you call your essence is an epiphenomenon of your existence. Take yourself apart, no you, no essence.
     
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  5. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    The untrained, I imagine, are those who have not bought sufficiently into Buddhism. It's interesting how fond people are of initiation cermonies. Freemasons, witches covens. the Rosicrucians and all the other crackpots out there.I'm using the word initiaon loosely ,to include indoctrination in stages. You are ready for stage two when you have bought stage one. Why not give Scientology a go ? It must be right because Tom Cruise believes it.

    I'm constantly amazed at the number of people who regard nonsense as a profound truth, if it is wrapped up in pseudo-philosophical language and paradox.

    As for emptiness, don't overlook the plenum void.
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2008
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  7. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    But if you take a clock apart, you'd still be able to show what is what.

    Thats not the same as a sense of self. You cannot exchange parts to make a new self. Except the parts of yourself that you change and yet still consider all as one self, in a sort of continuum.
     
  8. (Q) Encephaloid Martini Valued Senior Member

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    *sigh*

    And, if you take a human apart, you'd still be able to show what is what.

    What purpose does the liver function? What purpose do the eyes function? What purpose does the heart function? Etc.?
     
  9. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    That's purely theoretical. If you could take yourself apart your brain would be irreperably damaged inside half an hour. Re-assembling you would only yield a corpse. That is not true of a clock The parts can be put together so that they will collectively function a a clock. Is that so difficult to understanfd ?

    Essence, soul or whatever is nothing more than an epiphenomonen; it cannot exist independently of a living body.
     
  10. Yorda Registered Senior Member

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    The existence, universe, is a small fraction of the nothingness (primordial chaos) that is everything. Some people who have trained their eyes can see more of this life spectrum (spirits, souls). When you become enlightened, you can see everything, so you see nothing, and you are the nothing that is everything.
     
  11. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Which one of those makes "me" different from "you"?
     
  12. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    I know that you don't want me to tell you but it's your life experience and memory, just like I have already said. No ned to make things more complicated than they are
     
  13. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    I've read the responses from Q and Myles to SAMs questions and I wonder if you two actually agree with each other.

    Do you, Q, believe that there is a self that continues through time?
    Given that all the matter is replaced in the body after x months and the arrangements and chemical make up of the body changes and that each memory is actually the record of a CHANGE in the brain, is the 5 years me the same me as at 25. Isn't the self continuing through time an illusion?

    I ask you this because it seems possible that you agree and then, I believe, you are in disagreement with Myles.

    If so a discussion between you two would be interesting.
     
  14. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Perfect is just a concept. Just as good and evil, and peace. All exist only in the minds of men, not as actual properties of the world.
     
  15. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    But that still leaves it open as a valid question. Can it come to be that one experiences the world as satisfactory and perfect?
     
  16. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Sure, why not, perfect includes satisfactory.
     
  17. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    Sure, though the emphasis for me is a little different in each. I can appraise something and find it perfect and while this appraisal is subjective, of course, it can be experienced as, for example, a more detached aesthetic or as qualities that relate to internal harmony in the object - however much I realize these are my impressions - whereas satifactory directly addresses, for me at least, things like my physical enjoyment of is, and all those portions of my subjective experience that seem closer to me, more intimate.
     
  18. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    In the end it's all bullshit any way - the concepts. You can philosophize about what it means to be "perfect" and how it feels and differs from "satisfactory" till the end of your life, but those philosophical thoughts don't mean shit when you're experiencing something "perfect", or when you are "satisfied", those are just empty words, it's the experience that matters, not how you see it from distance. And, if you are seeing it from distance, you're not experiencing it any way.
     
  19. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    Now I get your point. Glad you blurted it so clearly. I took the other post as concerned that value judgements were being projected and seen as qualities of objects, but you were concerned with them being concepts per se and as such distractions or bullshit.
     
  20. Yorda Registered Senior Member

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    don't say bad things about witches and the rosicrucians. they were cool people. and people didn't like them because they were better than others.
     
  21. genep Guest

    Existence in EVERY realm is utterly perfect

    "Existence in any realm is inherently imperfect and unsatisfactory"

    Existence in EVERY realm is utterly perfect ... to the limits of infinite Bliss -- it is called SELF-Realization. (SELF=Infinite Bliss)

    -- Sri Sri Sri Bhagavan Vishnu Fukkamee Swami
     
  22. sowhatifit'sdark Valued Senior Member

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    How does such an assertion become of use to a person?
    What does it do for you, Mr. Fukkamee?
    I find such abstract, nice sounding sentences a bit like fog that almost become drizzle. Pleasant while it lasts, but I don't even need to dry myself off at home, it just evaporates. Certainly a hungry farmer gets little from it.
     
  23. genep Guest

    Hallucination of SELF

    Yes -- your "reality" is exactly like your "fog"; to some it appears "real" exactly like a movie appears "real" ... and to the few who are Awake "reality" is not even a fog but thoughts, fiction, not so much like a dream but a hallucination of SELF.

    - Sri Sri Sri Bhagavan Vishnu Fukkamee Swami
     

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