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The Truth
in Philosophy
Unconditioned consciousness ... that's our true nature.
Our present status ... conditioned by a million limitations. It is what Christians call 'fall from grace' - pure consciousness becoming conditioned. This is the meaning of the fall.
As long as we are in the body/mind/senses, we are going to be conditioned beings. And so fear, sorrow, anxiety etc. will persist. The only freedom is freedom from the body (and mind etc.). This is the truth. Anyone who believes in experiencing nibanna or some transcendental experience (while still in the body) is fooling themselves. Only mundane experiences are possible while in the body, since our consciousness is a prisoner of limiting adjuncts. You can't see infrared with your human eye. You can't experience transcendence with limited instruments like mind, intellect.
Hence, we have no option but to wait it out. This is the truth.
Our present status ... conditioned by a million limitations. It is what Christians call 'fall from grace' - pure consciousness becoming conditioned. This is the meaning of the fall.
As long as we are in the body/mind/senses, we are going to be conditioned beings. And so fear, sorrow, anxiety etc. will persist. The only freedom is freedom from the body (and mind etc.). This is the truth. Anyone who believes in experiencing nibanna or some transcendental experience (while still in the body) is fooling themselves. Only mundane experiences are possible while in the body, since our consciousness is a prisoner of limiting adjuncts. You can't see infrared with your human eye. You can't experience transcendence with limited instruments like mind, intellect.
Hence, we have no option but to wait it out. This is the truth.
0
Comments
What do you imagine that you will experience transendence with?
Don't fret and fumble and doubt.
Just practice.
And see what actually happens.
There is no "we" that fell from grace.
What you call "we" is just a formulation of the 5 skandha's.
Either this matrix of attachments is supported or it is let go.
"We" is no more cohesive or individually eternal beyond death than it was before birth.
Waiting for transcendence is like waiting to wake up when there was never a sleeper.
I can't help but notice a depressive tone throughout your OP's, music. Are you ok?
. . . is that true enough . . .
But what do you think Jesus and Mohammed meant when they said 'die before your death'? One thing they must have meant is don't wait until it's too late, as you advise us to do. The quote from JamestheGiant makes it clear that for Buddhists it is here and now we need to make progress, and that waiting would be the same as giving up.
As for the idea put forward above that if we think we find truth then we are fooling ourselves, this is only true if we have not actually found it. To say we cannot find it is to call ten thousand sages liars and cheats, and even some people here. What about Al-Halaj, who was crucified for claiming 'I am truth'. Another cheat and a liar? Or another person who reached the same place as everybody else who said the same?
Besides, even if a pessimistic view of truth is correct then there would be no way to show it is correct. Buddhism is a claim about what is true and what is not, and if it is not based on knowledge it is useless. 'The Unknown is not the Unknowable', say the Upanishads. It would be impossible to show that this is not true, so anyone who claims otherwise is clearly guessing. I see no point in guessing.