I Do Not Exist

FairyFeller

I'm relatively new to Buddhism so I thought I'd start my focus on something light like the concept of reality.

I was thinking along nicely and then I found myself thinking that if we're all made from atoms and it's true that atoms are actually 99.99999% space then I truly do not really exist. The atoms that I'm not made from come from all over the universe and after I've died the atoms that are spinning around the illusion that is me will eventually migrate to other parts of the universe.

I just thought I'd share this thought but it's probably been had many times.

Jeffrey

Yes that is part of the analysis in my view. Of course when you see a newborn kitten you don't think of atoms. So there must be more to it I think. I studied chemistry though and another way of thinking of atoms is waves of particles. The particles are likely to be in certain parts, they have more density. If you shoot a beam of X-rays the light rays do a little dance with the atoms say in a crystal and from the diffraction pattern you can see where the atoms are! So they appear to have some structure other than chaos. Why do you think there is a predictable structure? Why this way instead of say just like things appearing in the middle of the air like you just walk out of your house next thing the house vanishes and rays of light start shooting out of the sky. You know something just bizarre like in a dream. I don't have an answer of course, just brainstorming.

TheEccentric

That sounds like the Buddhist teaching on empitness

FairyFeller

I do like the thought that some of my atoms will have been other life forms at some point, some of me will have been light and that I will go on to be other things.

Well I I say me but that is a task for another day, to find out where I actually am in here.

I also like the kitten analogy, I'm sitting here next to my 19 year old cat who's life I saved on the day he was born, he used to have a habit of jumping on me whenever I used to try and meditate.

RebeccaS

Well, the space exists so that kind of cancels out that theory

Space is still a thing.

FairyFeller

The space only exists in the same way that space exists everywhere but there just happens to be a collection of atoms spinning around where I sometimes think that I am. Where I actually might or might not be in this space is yet for me to discover.

Jeffrey

Would space be there if there was not a thing? I do agree that a concept of space is a thing. And there is nothing other than experience so there must be space because we experience space; that is space, our experience of space.

RebeccaS

Isn't like 99.99% of the universe space? Something crazy like that. Bananas.

seeker242

If you don't exist then how can you be typing on a computer in a legible language? Can atoms learn how to speak English? Do atoms get angry when you call them a jerk or insult their mother? These are good questions I think.

Tosh

RebeccaS said:

Well, the space exists so that kind of cancels out that theory

Space is still a thing.

Isn't space the absence of things?

Jeffrey

Dust in the Wind
by Kansas

I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind
Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind, All we are is dust in the wind

Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away, all your money won't another minute buy

Dust in the wind, All we are is dust in the wind

Tosh

FairyFeller said:

I
I was thinking along nicely and then I found myself thinking that if we're all made from atoms and it's true that atoms are actually 99.99999% space then I truly do not really exist. The atoms that I'm not made from come from all over the universe and after I've died the atoms that are spinning around the illusion that is me will eventually migrate to other parts of the universe.

I just thought I'd share this thought but it's probably been had many times.

I'm no Madhyamaka scholar, but I suspect this view would be classed as nihilistic and an extreme view, therefore a 'wrong view'.

The other extreme view is that we are inherently existing; also a wrong view.

Buddhism is also known as the middle path and the truth is somewhere in the middle.

But normally what happens when someone starts saying they (or others) don't exist, someone will ask, "So who are all these beings that Buddhists try to develop compassion for?", because if they didn't exist, what would be the point in that?

I think it's great that you're opening your mind; Buddhist philosophy is very good; I love it.

If you wish to find out what is real and what's not real, take a look at the Buddhist doctrine of the Two Truths; it takes some effort though - I only understand the gist.

RebeccaS

Tosh said:

RebeccaS said:

Well, the space exists so that kind of cancels out that theory

Space is still a thing.

Isn't space the absence of things?

Yeah. The absence of things that aren't space lol

Jeffrey

We are space. That is why grasping at things is samsara.

BhanteLucky

May I point out that your logic is faulty? See...

FairyFeller said:

...if we're all made from atoms
...and it's true that atoms are actually 99.99999% space
...then I truly do not really exist.

No. The first two lines do not lead to your conclusion.
Think about it.

This is how your idea actually goes, when you use logic.

...if we're all made from atoms
...and it's true that atoms are actually 99.99999% space
...then I exist and am made from atoms which are 99.99999% space."

Which is interesting. But very very different from the conclusion you had.
Not disrespectin, just pointing it out.
:thumbsup:

karasti

The idea that there is so much space is crazy to me. I don't have a very science minded brain to begin with, but that we can shoot things hundreds of miles through solid rock in the earth's crust and catch them at the other end just still blows my mind, lol.

Jeffrey

@karasti, I'm not familiar :skeptic: We can shoot things through the earth's crust???

Tosh

Maybe Karasti is talking about Neutrinos?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino

They have hardly any mass and can pass straight through the Earth.

driedleaf

In a way, we are eternal.

Daozen

We exist as impermanent manifestations, arising when the conditions are right.

taiyaki

Just remember that there is a difference between having an intellectual view of emptiness and experientially experiencing the fading of perceptions in meditation.

If emptiness is apphrended then the construction of reality will be recognized. This is an insight and eventually a realization that will transform the individual.

In regards to the title of this post. When it comes to the Buddhist reality both the ideas of existence and non-existence do not express your real condition. That is why Buddhism is neither Nihilism nor Eternalism, Buddhism is the middle way.

And this middle way can only be explored via meditation.

Just some thoughts for you.

lobster

Just some thoughts for you.

I'm melting, I'm melting (wicked Witch, Wizard of Oz)
The interesting thing about mostly being physically empty, is it is not for me experiential. (I use the 'slap in the face with a haddock', test)

However . . . looking for 'I' has not produced any sense of being or residing.
'I' is empty of space, form or existence - it is always attached to something but does not inherently have substance. What is I? [shrug]
Which I find kinda more weird than the emptiness of physical nature . . . :scratch:

taiyaki

If the I has nothing to rest on then there is no I.

An I requires something.

"things" rest on "assumptions of things".

The "I" is empty. So are the elements/skandhas.

That doesn't deny function though.

pegembara

FairyFeller said:

I'm relatively new to Buddhism so I thought I'd start my focus on something light like the concept of reality.

I was thinking along nicely and then I found myself thinking that if we're all made from atoms and it's true that atoms are actually 99.99999% space then I truly do not really exist. The atoms that I'm not made from come from all over the universe and after I've died the atoms that are spinning around the illusion that is me will eventually migrate to other parts of the universe.

I just thought I'd share this thought but it's probably been had many times.

The body "exists". Man, woman or child "exist"- you can point directly to them.
But I, you, him, them does not. Just like the weather or university - you cannot point to them. Likewise John does not exist- you can point to the body but never to John.

You can point to things like ["my, your"] head, arms, legs or trunk but where is the "I". The me or I is only a concept, not reality.

A child when playing with snowballs can claim thus. "You may hit my arms, legs, face etc but they are not me! You cannot hit me!"

misecmisc1

My theoretical understanding of Buddha's teachings says -

In conventional reality - 'I' exists. But in ultimate reality - it is emptiness everywhere, process arising and ceasing due to the arising and ceasing of their conditions.

all the words are just labels - so conventional reality is a collection of labels to express things. But when we speak in external world, we need to speak in conventional reality, otherwise it will be very difficult to express things. For example, Tom gave an apple to Sam. What happened was one matter gave a second matter to a third matter - so how will someone understand what actually happened, if labels are removed.

the problem is not in the labels, but in how we relate to the labels. the problem is in the attachment towards 'I' and 'mine' , not in the labels 'I' and 'mine'.

'I' is just a label put to the aggregate of matter, feeling, perception, mental formation and consciousness. It is the craving and clinging to these 5 aggregates, which causes suffering, and not the aggregates themselves.

taiyaki

Relationships arising together with things.

When there is no more relationships. All interaction of subject and object pop like foam bubbles on the oceans surface.

zenff

The goal of thinking about is to sytematically remove the ground beneath our feet.
imho

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catuṣkoṭi
If we focus on the doctrinal agreement that exists between the Wisdom Sūtras[25] and the tracts of the Mādhyamika we note that both schools characteristically practice a didactic negation.
By setting up a series of self-contradictory oppositions, Nāgārjuna disproves all conceivable statements, which can be reduced to these four:

All things (dharmas) exist: affirmation of being, negation of nonbeing
All things (dharmas) do not exist: affirmation of nonbeing, negation of being
All things (dharmas) both exist and do not exist: both affirmation and negation
All things (dharmas) neither exist nor do not exist: neither affirmation nor negation

With the aid of these four alternatives (catuṣkoṭika: affirmation, negation, double affirmation, double negation), Nāgārjuna rejects all firm standpoints and traces a middle path between being and nonbeing. Most likely the eight negations, arranged in couplets in Chinese, can be traced back to Nāgārjuna: neither destruction nor production, neither annihilation nor permanence, neither unity nor difference, neither coming nor going.[

What Nagarjuna wishes to prove is the irrationality of Existence, or the falsehood of reasoning which is built upon the logical principle that A equals A..

karasti

@Jeffrey sorry yes, I missed this yesterday. Neutrinos. I live about 20 miles from a place that receives them and studies them, it's mind blowing and fascinating. They travel like 7 miles under the surface of the earth from Illinois to Soudan, MN, 400 some miles, and then some of them arrive here, because they travel all that way, between the spaces that exist. It's crazy. I wish my brain could wrap around more of it, I have to have my 15 year old son break it down for me, LOL.

lobster

There is a chance that you don't exist and may walk through walls
quantum tunneling

Somehow the odds can be changed by some Buddhists. Which is odd, improbable but possible.