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If everyone reaches nirvana, will the world disappear?
@zen_world IDK maybe you're right. Everything I've read and been taught though says emptiness is also empty and everything lacks inherent existence.
Maybe the disagreement is that you're attributing 'thingness' to potentiality? If its a thing then its not potential anymore.
yeah I know...it is confusing....very subtle differences, and honestly they are no important for liberation...its just entertainment purposes:)
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
@Jeffrey you may be right about rangtong vs shentong. I only have a very superficial understanding of the difference atm. I think the view I've been taught, largly gelug, is the rangtong view. Shentong is more buddha nature, dzogchen and mahamudra?
I am dedicating my whole weekend to understanding the difference between the views and how one can reconcile both views. going to read a lot of commentaries.
@person, there are rangtong versions I guess of buddha nature, dzogchen, and mahamudra. And there are lam rim teachings leading to shentong understanding.
Thanks, Dakini. Nigelart. Hmmmm He has practiced for 30 years but he is contrary. He said it is arrogant for him to say he knows what in the Pali Canon could help his students. Which I learned from. I don't know its hard to put my finger on what is difficult about him. I think he did not give options as far as reading the Pali Canon. It was either you do that or face his scorn? What kind of thread topic is that?
"In his first Dharma talk, the Buddha cautioned his disciples not to be attached to either bhava or abhava, being or nonbeing, because bhava and abhava are just constructs of the mind. Reality is somewhere in between. When we present the Twelve Links in the usual way, if we say there is no attachment, it means there will be no being, that we are aspiring to abhava. But this is exactly what the Buddha did not want. If you say that the purpose of the practice is to destroy being in order to arrive at nonbeing, this is entirely incorrect. With nonattachment, we see both being and nonbeing as creations of our mind, and we ride the wave of birth and death. We don't mind birth. We don't mind death. If we have to be born again to continue the work of helping, that is okay. We know that nothing is born and nothing can die. We have the wisdom of no-birth and no-death. We know that there is birth, old age, and death, but we also know that these are only waves on which bodhisattvas ride. Birth is okay and death is okay, if we know that they are only concepts in our mind. Reality transcends both birth and death.
In the eleventh century in Vietnam, a monk asked his meditation master, "Where is the place beyond birth and death?" The master replied, "In the midst of birth and death." If you abandon birth and death in order to find nirvana, you will not find nirvana. Nirvana is in birth and death. Nirvana is birth and death. It depends on how you look at it. From one point of view, it is birth and death. From another, it is nirvana.
Let us not present the teachings of the Buddha as an attempt to escape from life and go to nothingness or nonbeing. Bodhisattvas vow to come back again and again to serve, not because of craving but because of their concern and willingness to help. The practice of mindful living develops the same kind of wisdom, concern, and loving kindness in us, so we can serve. "
-The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings by Thich Nhat Hahn
Comments
I am dedicating my whole weekend to understanding the difference between the views and how one can reconcile both views. going to read a lot of commentaries.
i have a feeling both are correct.
but thats just an intuitive feeling.
In the eleventh century in Vietnam, a monk asked his meditation master, "Where is the place beyond birth and death?" The master replied, "In the midst of birth and death." If you abandon birth and death in order to find nirvana, you will not find nirvana. Nirvana is in birth and death. Nirvana is birth and death. It depends on how you look at it. From one point of view, it is birth and death. From another, it is nirvana.
Let us not present the teachings of the Buddha as an attempt to escape from life and go to nothingness or nonbeing. Bodhisattvas vow to come back again and again to serve, not because of craving but because of their concern and willingness to help. The practice of mindful living develops the same kind of wisdom, concern, and loving kindness in us, so we can serve. "
-The Heart of the Buddha's Teachings by Thich Nhat Hahn