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On Understanding Buddhist Metaphysics...
DaltheJigsaw
Mountain View Veteran
This excerpt comes from Marcus Boon's 'In Praise of Copying' (full version can be found here: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/features/boon/) I'm having difficulty parsing these statements, any help in understanding them would be appreciated!
Thus, difference and sameness are neither different nor the same; and what is—i.e., what has the ontological status of truly existing—is emptiness itself. Emptiness, then, has a double status of relative and absolute truth. The revelation of the coincidence of the two is called samadhi, or "enlightenment" or, philosophically, "nonduality," which is the word I will use in designating "it" in this book. Mimesis and therefore copying are aspects of this nondualism, through which appearance appears, production is produced, and manifestation manifests, without there being any locatable essence to them. (Boon 32-33)
And more generally, Boon on his Buddhist beliefs:
My own interest in Buddhism as a Westerner of course lays me open to charges of inauthenticity, and I think about this when I survey my sangha, a motley bunch of characters from just about anywhere in the world, few of whom can read Tibetan, let alone Pali, yet all of whom have committed themselves to a certain practice: repeating, translating, and imitating the words and actions of the Buddha. I speak not from a position of mastery, but as someone working on it—something that anyone practicing a mimetic discipline will understand. (Boon 7)
Thus, difference and sameness are neither different nor the same; and what is—i.e., what has the ontological status of truly existing—is emptiness itself. Emptiness, then, has a double status of relative and absolute truth. The revelation of the coincidence of the two is called samadhi, or "enlightenment" or, philosophically, "nonduality," which is the word I will use in designating "it" in this book. Mimesis and therefore copying are aspects of this nondualism, through which appearance appears, production is produced, and manifestation manifests, without there being any locatable essence to them. (Boon 32-33)
And more generally, Boon on his Buddhist beliefs:
My own interest in Buddhism as a Westerner of course lays me open to charges of inauthenticity, and I think about this when I survey my sangha, a motley bunch of characters from just about anywhere in the world, few of whom can read Tibetan, let alone Pali, yet all of whom have committed themselves to a certain practice: repeating, translating, and imitating the words and actions of the Buddha. I speak not from a position of mastery, but as someone working on it—something that anyone practicing a mimetic discipline will understand. (Boon 7)
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Comments
Emptiness, is the same as Dependent origination is the same as impermanence.
What he's saying is that everything you perceive - from yourself, outwards, is everything, yet nothing at all.
Relative truth is that you have one head, two arms, a trunk, two legs and so on.
Absolute truth is that progressively, over the years, these have all changed, shifted, altered, grown and have never stayed the same. Nonduality. Self/not-self.
You are here, yet you are not unchanging, so you're not here.
Simple, really.
uppheka vedana is different vom uppheka, as well as defuse/ignorant/netral feelings are different to equanimity.
But some like to make the wandering on only bearable, still craving to be or not to be.
*Smile*
Do some reading on The Two Truths; Conventional Truth and Ultimate Truth.
A conventional truth is that you have a body.
The Ultimate Truth is that you don't have a body. Your body is just an imputation on the aggregate of form and if you look for your body, using wisdom, you won't be to find it. You will find only Emptiness. If this sounds confusing, I can explain further.
And if you want a scholarly look at the Two Truths, have a look at Geshi Tashi Tsering's book, the Two Truths, available from Amazon for a few pennies. It covers the Two Truths from four different Tibetan schools, starting with the 'lowest view' (Vaibashika) and working it's way upto Madhyamaka Prasangika (the highest view), with each view building on the view 'below' it.
It's interesting stuff that I plan to revisit, because I wasn't a good student for this part of the course,