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emptiness creates illusion?
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just a deep acceptance of what is.
the buddha takes shits everywhere, but he chooses to take a shit in the toilet out of his/her compassion towards those he lives with.
I used to think a lot like that too. But with time comes an acceptance of the limits of knowledge.
The Buddha taught there is no cause (hetu) of ignorance.
The Buddha taught there is only ahara (food).
As long as the five hindrances remain (as food), ignorance remains.
When when the five hindrances cease, ignorance is only diminished but it still remains, until the final vipassana.
Forget the doctrine and try to identify for yourself the cause of ignorance.
You can't! It is just there (until it extinguished when replaced with insight).
It is a "conditioned thing" because it can be extinguished but its cause cannot be experienced.
There is no identifiable or experiencible cause (hetu) of ignorance.
Isn't any "first cause" argument redundant in Buddhism, considering the concept of beginningless time?
In our personal spiritual reality, the first cause of our sufferings is ignorance
When our mind's ignorance ends then all suffering ends in our mind
regards
So then i think you're both right
> First cause of the cosmos is nonexistant in Buddhism.
> But ignorance is our personal 'first cause' of suffering.
we think and then we create past, future, present. when we don't think where is time?
Quote:
"What lies on the other side of Unbinding?"
"You've gone too far, friend Visakha. You can't keep holding on up to the limit of questions. For the holy life gains a footing in Unbinding, culminates in Unbinding, has Unbinding as its final end. If you wish, go to the Blessed One and ask him the meaning of these things. Whatever he says, that's how you should remember it."
Culavedalla Sutta: The Shorter Set of Questions-and-Answers
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.044.than.html
Ignorance
64. Saying, "Good friend," the bhikkhus delighted and rejoiced in the Venerable Sariputta's words. Then they asked him a further question: "But, friend, might there be another way in which a noble disciple is one of right view... and has arrived at this true Dhamma?" — "There might be, friends.
65. "When, friends, a noble disciple understands ignorance, the origin of ignorance, the cessation of ignorance, and the way leading to the cessation of ignorance, in that way he is one of right view... and has arrived at this true Dhamma.
66. "And what is ignorance, what is the origin of ignorance, what is the cessation of ignorance, what is the way leading to the cessation of ignorance? Not knowing about suffering, not knowing about the origin of suffering, not knowing about the cessation of suffering, not knowing about the way leading to the cessation of suffering — this is called ignorance. With the arising of the taints there is the arising of ignorance. With the cessation of the taints there is the cessation of ignorance. The way leading to the cessation of ignorance is just this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view... right concentration.
67. "When a noble disciple has thus understood ignorance, the origin of ignorance, the cessation of ignorance, and the way leading to the cessation of ignorance... he here and now makes an end of suffering. In that way too a noble disciple is one of right view... and has arrived at this true Dhamma."
The first statement of the Buddha after getting up from under the bodhi tree is recorded to have been, "Mind is uncompounded and pure since beginning-less time." I think I paraphrase a bit there, but basically, that's it... so I've read.
Plenty of hope! Since it's all wide open infinitude! There is endless hope... or endless hopelessness if you want to go that route, it's up to you! You've been influenced by the Buddhadharma, take it to the hilt!
Quote:
"A first beginning of ignorance cannot be conceived (of which it can be said) 'Before that there was no ignorance and it came to be after that.' Though this is so monks yet a specific condition of ignorance can be conceived. Ignorance too has its nutriment I declare; and it is not without a nutriment. And what is the nutriment of ignorance? 'The five hindrances' should be the answer."
AN X.61
I think this actually explains my position as well... there is no first cause, there is no point at which "it all started".
Ignorance has no creator, it is interdependently arisen.
As a matter of fact I think he did state that nibbana is unconditioned dharma and samsara is conditioned...
What his point is, though, is that neither conditioned nor unconditioned dharma has intrinsic existence. (he points out that if conditioned dharma are not established, how can an un-conditioned dharma be established)
In one of his explanation of how Nirvana is beyond the four extremes of existence, non-existence, both and neither, he said, "13. How could nirvana be both a thing and nothing? Nirvana is unconditioned; things and nothings are conditioned."
Also, he said, "Because birth and remaining and perishing are not established, there is no conditioned. Because the conditioned is utterly unestablished, how can the unconditioned be established?"
http://www.stephenbatchelor.org/verses2.htm
This is of course a point that might not be agreed upon by all Theravadins I think.
Here... a good poem right about now!
It's a favorite of mine! It's really deep though. In my experience of reading it at least. It's not something to read quickly I think.
Nagarjuna's Mahamudra Vision
Homage to Manjusrikumarabhuta!
1. I bow down to the all-powerful Buddha
Whose mind is free of attachment,
Who in his compassion and wisdom
Has taught the inexpressible.
2. In truth there is no birth -
Then surely no cessation or liberation;
The Buddha is like the sky
And all beings have that nature.
3. Neither Samsara nor Nirvana exist,
But all is a complex continuum
With an intrinsic face of void,
The object of ultimate awareness.
4. The nature of all things
Appears like a reflection,
Pure and naturally quiescent,
With a non-dual identity of suchness.
5. The common mind imagines a self
Where there is nothing at all,
And it conceives of emotional states -
Happiness, suffering, and equanimity.
6. The six states of being in Samsara,
The happiness of heaven,
The suffering of hell,
Are all false creations, figments of mind.
7. Likewise the ideas of bad action causing suffering,
Old age, disease and death,
And the idea that virtue leads to happiness,
Are mere ideas, unreal notions.
8. Like an artist frightened
By the devil he paints,
The sufferer in Samsara
Is terrified by his own imagination.
9. Like a man caught in quicksands
Thrashing and struggling about,
So beings drown
In the mess of their own thoughts.
10. Mistaking fantasy for reality
Causes an experience of suffering;
Mind is poisoned by interpretation
Of consciousness of form.
11. Dissolving figment and fantasy
With a mind of compassionate insight,
Remain in perfect awareness
In order to help all beings.
12. So acquiring conventional virtue
Freed from the web of interpretive thought,
Insurpassable understanding is gained
As Buddha, friend to the world.
13. Knowing the relativity of all,
The ultimate truth is always seen;
Dismissing the idea of beginning, middle and end
The flow is seen as Emptiness.
14. So all samsara and nirvana is seen as it is -
Empty and insubstantial,
Naked and changeless,
Eternally quiescent and illumined.
15. As the figments of a dream
Dissolve upon waking,
So the confusion of Samsara
Fades away in enlightenment.
16. Idealising things of no substance
As eternal, substantial and satisfying,
Shrouding them in a fog of desire
The round of existence arises.
17. The nature of beings is unborn
Yet commonly beings are conceived to exist;
Both beings and their ideas
Are false beliefs.
18. It is nothing but an artifice of mind
This birth into an illusory becoming,
Into a world of good and evil action
With good or bad rebirth to follow.
19. When the wheel of mind ceases to turn
All things come to an end.
So there is nothing inherently substantial
And all things are utterly pure.
20. This great ocean of samsara,
Full of delusive thought,
Can be crossed in the boat Universal Approach.
Who can reach the other side without it?
Colophon
The Twenty Mahayana Verses, (in Sanskrit,
Mahayanavimsaka; in Tibetan: Theg pa chen po nyi
shu pa) were composed by the master Nagarjuna.
They were translated into Tibetan by the Kashmiri
Pandit Ananda and the Bhikshu translator Drakjor
Sherab (Grags 'byor shes rab). They have been
translated into English by the Anagarika
Kunzang Tenzin on the last day of the year 1973
in the hope that the karma of the year may be mitigated.
May all beings be happy!
This is in accord to what Buddha taught.
The Buddha has taught not once but more than once how there is no beginning to samsara and ignorance. He has also taught not once but more than once how there can be an end to samsara, ignorance and suffering.
So, there is no Nirvana other than in relation to what is already empty to begin with, thus the experience is freedom from extremes, even the concept of Nirvana!
Sorry that sounds cryptic.
Basically Samsara is beginningless and Nirvana is Endless.
Yourself and Xabir are both tied, bound, fettered, caught & stuck within the sphere of unverified superstition and this thread is about emptiness rather than about your unverifiable beliefs about a beginningless stream of samsaric mind.
In the suttas, the Buddha simply said: "A beginning point of this samsara of beings roaming & wandering hindered & fettered by ignorance & craving cannot be discerned".
That is all.
The Buddha here is not talking about a "beginningless beginning". The Buddha here is simply saying the beginning point of when ignorance & craving commenced in the universe cannot be discerned.
Further, the Buddha here is not talking about the beginning point of an individual stream of consciousness. As I said, the Buddha here is simply saying the beginning point of when ignorance & craving commenced in the universe cannot be discerned.
As I said, that Xabir & myself are both right and that you can adjudicate on this matter is impossible because the views of yourself and Xabir are tied, bound, fettered, caught & stuck within the sphere of unverified superstition.
Emptiness is something verifiable whereas your beliefs about beginningless beginnings are not.
Regards
DD:)
SN 15.3
PTS: S ii 179
CDB i 652
Assu Sutta: Tears
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
© 1997–2011
At Savatthi. There the Blessed One said: "From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. What do you think, monks: Which is greater, the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — or the water in the four great oceans?"
"As we understand the Dhamma taught to us by the Blessed One, this is the greater: the tears we have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — not the water in the four great oceans."
"Excellent, monks. Excellent. It is excellent that you thus understand the Dhamma taught by me.
"This is the greater: the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — not the water in the four great oceans.
"Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a mother. The tears you have shed over the death of a mother while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — are greater than the water in the four great oceans.
"Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a father... the death of a brother... the death of a sister... the death of a son... the death of a daughter... loss with regard to relatives... loss with regard to wealth... loss with regard to disease. The tears you have shed over loss with regard to disease while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — are greater than the water in the four great oceans.
"Why is that? From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. Long have you thus experienced stress, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries — enough to become disenchanted with all fabricated things, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be released."
See also: SN 15.13.
http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Rainbow_body
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_body
Your tainted views bound & fettered in a quagmire of different religious & superstitious beliefs do not accord with those of the peerless Lord Buddha.
This sutta simply states: "A first beginning of ignorance cannot be perceived (of which it can be said) 'Before that there was no ignorance and it came to be after that.'".
The Buddha has asserted no state can be perceived which was without ignorance and then ignorance arose after it.
However, the Buddha negates asserting ignorance is independent by explaining ignorance has ahara or nutriment supporting it (not causing it but supporting it).
It does not matter how much you twist the words of the matchless Lord Buddha, your tainted views bound & fettered in a quagmire of different religious & superstitious beliefs do not accord with those of the peerless Lord Buddha.
Kind regards, with metta
DD
Attachment to a view does have a tendency to negate progress in jhana.
You keep pasting suttas that I have already quoted.
What you have posted is a mistranslation. The Pali here means "running", like a horse runs. It does not mean "transmigration".
This matter has been clarified on this forum many times.
If you actually read this sutta, it is about suffering. It is about "crying & weeping" due to "loss".
Take care to not misrepresent the Lord Buddha.
:eek2:
You continue to paste suttas that I have already quoted & explained, which negate your views.
This sutta is not about hetu (cause) but about samudhaya, which means "complete arising". I have already sugggested you learn some Pali rather than make interpretations based on your obsessions with other religions.
I have already said the dhamma explained here is circular.
Ignorance fully arises based on the arising of the taints (asava).
The sutta continues (but you only posted a selected portion) that the taints arise from the arising of ignorance.
Also, one of the taints (asava) is ignorance.
So this last point of the Venerable Sariputta, who the Buddha declared is the one person (unlike yourself) that can match him in expounding Dhamma, doesn't not change the salient dhamma that ignorance is the first cause of suffering.
With metta
DD
And as I said, my definition of first cause means something uncaused, and out of which all things emerge - a creator God in other words.
Since ignorance is interdependently co-arisen, it is no such thing.