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What do people mean when they say they're searching for 'ultimate truth' ..In regards to what???
zenmyste
Veteran
Ive never understood what 'ultimate truth' means..
People say Buddhism helps them find and learn the meaning of ultimate truth?
But in regards to what??
Do they mean truth in why we suffer???
If so, then that isnt ULTIMATE TRUTH, thats just truth about suffering (and even some non buddhist might disagree about why we suffer) therefore its not ultimate truth is it??
What does ULTIMATE TRUTH mean?
People say Buddhism helps them find and learn the meaning of ultimate truth?
But in regards to what??
Do they mean truth in why we suffer???
If so, then that isnt ULTIMATE TRUTH, thats just truth about suffering (and even some non buddhist might disagree about why we suffer) therefore its not ultimate truth is it??
What does ULTIMATE TRUTH mean?
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Comments
I guess for most people it's something along the lines of a simple concept that explains why the universe exists (science can tell us how, but still not why) and why we're alive i.e. what our purpose is. God ties this up in a neat little package as the concept explains why the universe exists (God did it) and why we exist (God made us). The problem with that is there is absolutely no evidence for God's existence, nor an explanation for why God should exist in the first place. It just replaces one set of questions with another.
For Buddhists, again the ultimate truth will vary between traditions, but it'll be a variation on the theme of Nirvana opening our eyes to the true nature of existence, at which point questions like why are we here? and why does the universe exist? are simultaneously answered and rendered meaningless. Again, unless you reach enlightenment that "ultimate truth" is as distant and non-cognisant to us as the concept of God. However, the method laid out by the Buddha does supply benefits to pre-enlightenment practitioners and allows for glimpses at the ultimate nature of reality (voidness, impermanence, clinging etc).
Thats why i ask; "what does ultimate truth mean? Why are some people searching for the ultimate truth when it is impossible to find it! We can even go so far in space , so how are we going to 'find' ultimate truth... (We can all come up with ideas as to why we are here etc.. But even then we would never know if we were right) unless GOD told us himself (even then , to those who dont believe in what , there ultimate truth would be different to those who do believe, so again, we will never know ULTIMATE TRUTH!
:buck:
Being in a 'State of Grace' (or in my case - disgrace) is Attunement with the Ultimate Truth.
I have the T-shirt.
In Buddhist terms it is entering the stream of Buddha Mind, or a kensho - awakening.
Sadly it is not something directly explainable but rather something we allude to:
This is what it says on my T-shirt:
'You are wearing the Ultimate Truth.
Strange but True.'
'Knowing the ancient origin is the essense of Tao', says Lao Tsu, and I don't see why Buddhists shouldn't know this as well. So that would be one 'ultimate truth'. All metaphysical truths are ultimate truths and I believe that we can know them all. 'The unknown is not the unknowable', say the Upanishads. Perhaps the fact that nothing really exists would also be an example of an ultimate truth that can be known.
It is notable that the Sufi sage Al-Halaj is crucified not for saying that he knows truth, but that he is truth. and this would be a complication. Ultimate truths are known by identity, by becoming, not by interpretation and intellection, and in the last resort there would be no knower and no known. Perhaps this is even the final ultimate truth that we can know.
Briefly, I believe that there is nothing that can be known which we cannot know, and that the answers to most and possibly all questions that we can formulate can be known. Thus we can speak sensibly of the Buddha's omniscience.
The very notion of "ultimate truth" is based on many epistemological assumptions, all rooted in dualism. How can an eyeball see itself? At best, it should be investigated only in order to deconstruct it (ala Nagarjuna) as one step of letting go of "ultimate truth." So the aim is aimlessless, non-abiding-- which is a paradoxical trust of each moment as it arises at this moment.
Dualism at root for me is a deeply rooted distrust, and separation-- "ontological fragmentation." The notion of an "ultimate truth" (or an "ultimate falsehood") is yet another expression of distrust. Buddhism provides a helpful way to unlearn this lack of trust which arises out of the mind.
I presume you'd agree that when the Buddha tells us that there is a path to the cessation of suffering he is speaking from a knowledge of absolute truth. Not an intellectual knowledge, but something more like what Kant calls 'non-intuitive immediate knowledge'.
Hmm. Not feeling very literate this morning, but maybe you'll see what I'm getting at.
Maybe the 'ultimate truth' question has two opposing answers, conventional and ultimate, and this is why we seem to slightly disagree.
(I believe grass is green but how do we know it is for sure? God could come down one day and say, "grass is actually red" you are all wrong!
We will NEVER EVER KNOW! But i still like listening to others debates!
The Two Truths doctrine, as I understand it, provides a dialectical method to get beyond the notion of either "relative" or "ultimate" truth. That "getting beyond" is non-abiding-- there is nothing to hang onto, not even the notion of some sort of metaphysical truth.
I prefer not to say it this way, but this is just another way of saying that "ultimate truth" is not a concept, nor can it be conceptualised or formulated. The only thing necessary is to learn to drop drop drop delusion after delusion (resulting from dualism, or "ontological fragmentation"), including the delusion of an "ultimate truth" (just saying "ultimate truth" automatically invents a reified abstract concept).
In this way, the "ultimate truth" will take care of itself-- why chase after "it" when you are soaking in "it"-- you are "it"? But I think even that is saying too much. If we think "ultimate truth" is something to seek (whatever it might be), then we are just pulling harder on the Chinese finger trap.
Metaphysics is a mistake, but I think it is worth investigating only in order to move beyond it, and to let it go (like Wittgenstein's ladder).
The Zen teacher Ta Hui (1089-1163) once directly encouraged a student to "stop seeking for relief!"
"Ultimate Truth" sounds more wispy-wise and philosophically intricate and forgiving than get-me-outta-here!
Al-Halaj was executed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansur_Al-Hallaj
This is what Al-Halaj says about the Ultimate Truth:
Concealment does not veil Him
His pre-existence preceded time,
His being preceded not-being,
His eternity preceded limit.
He acts without contact,
instructs without meeting,
guides without pointing.
Desires do not conflict with Him,
thoughts do not mingle with Him:
His essence is without qualification (takyeef),
His action without effort (takleef).
"There is that dimension where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon. And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor stasis; neither passing away nor arising: without stance, without foundation, without support [mental object]. This, just this, is the end of stress."
The Buddha
The Dharma is the ultimate reality. It's seeing things from a different perspective, seeing the whole instead of the individual. This is what is also called 'right view'. Conventional truth is when people talk in terms of "I" and "you", beings, but right view sees that in reality there aren't really beings. To see this is to understand the four noble truths as well, because it is essentially the same thing put in other words. But those words are then again a form of conventional truth.
[blockquote]"And by mistakenly clinging to the appearance of things they lose the Way. If you know that everything comes from the mind, don’t become attached. Once attached, you’re unaware. But once you see your own nature, the entire Canon becomes so much prose. Its thousands of sutras and shastras only amount to a clear mind. Understanding comes in midsentence. What good are doctrines? The ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words.
They’re not the Way. The Way is wordless. Words are illusions. They’re no different from things that appear in your dreams at night, be they palaces or carriages, forested parks or lakeside ‘lions. Don’t conceive any delight for such things. They’re all cradles of rebirth. Keep this in mind when you approach death. Don’t cling to appearances, and you’ll break through all barriers. A moment’s hesitation and you’ll be under the spell of devils. Your real body is pure and impervious. But because of delusions you’re unaware of it. And because of this you suffer karma in vain. Wherever you find delight, you find bondage. But once you awaken to your original body and mind," you’re no longer bound by attachments."~Bodhidharma[/blockquote]
I think he is also talking about attachment to the words "ultimate truth" too!
One of my favorite paragraphs of his:
[blockquote]Those who don’t understand, don’t understand understanding. And those who understand, understand not understanding. People capable of true vision know that the mind is empty. They transcend both understanding and not understanding. The absence of both understanding and not understanding is true understanding. Seen with true vision, form isn’t simply form, because form depends on mind. And mind isn’t simply mind, because mind depends on form. Mind and form create and negate each other. That which exists exists in relation to that which doesn’t exist. And that which doesn’t exist doesn’t exist in relation to that which exists. This is true vision. By means of such vision nothing is seen and nothing is not seen. Such vision reaches throughout the ten directions without seeing: because nothing is seen; because not seeing is seen; because seeing isn’t seeing. What mortals see are delusions. True vision is detached from seeing. The mind and the world are opposites, and vision arises where they meet. When your mind doesn’t stir inside, the world doesn’t arise outside. When the world and the mind are both transparent, this is true vision. And such understanding is true understanding. ~Bodhidharma[/blockquote]
I think this is what people are talking about when they say "ultimate truth"! IMO.
He only saw how and why he was suffering!
"the ultimate truth" is just a weird term for saying things are always impermanent, a potential source of suffering (because they change), and not-self. This are called the 3 marks of existence, or "the truth on how conditionated phenomenas actually are".
In reference to what it is said?: The buddha taught that everything we experience is part of a process called dependent origination (phenomenas like the body, thoughts,feelings,perceptions and consciousness arise and cease all the time when the conditions are right for it, "u" actually dont have anything to do with it).
So?: We have the false idea, that when a thought come up it is ours,we make it happen, or we get mad when a feelings changes from pleasant to unpleasant.
This view goes agaisnt reality, thats why it is said that we dont see "the ultimate truth", that is, again: Things are impermanent, potential cause of suffering, and not self. (all caused because of craving/ignorance).
Random and scattered, I know....
But to each person and group, the "ultimate truth" boils down to something that is the meaning of life or how life works...something in that sphere.
@zenmyste
Why is the grass green? We were born in an english speaking country and taught English so we label grass as grass and as green. It's just another concept. Does God speak English? I think ultimate truth is when we realize all thoughts are just concepts- the mind wants to think it can understand... But instead we have to stop listening to it:)!
Maybe that's why ultimate truth is universal- it's beyond our silly thinking minds:)
If I recall correctly, the Lotus Sutra was purposely given to the care of the Naga to hold in their world until humanity was ready to comprehend the truth of the Lotus Sutra. So there could be many things that humanity is still not ready to comprehend and perhaps some things the Buddha did not feel was necessary to reveal; perhaps it would only serve as a distraction or may be impossible to explain, one would have to experience it for themselves.
I believe in the two truths doctrine, and I believe there is such a thing as ultimate truth. Emptiness would be an example of ultimate truth.
Here's a thread discussing it.
http://www.newbuddhist.com/discussion/comment/234658
It is about realizing emptiness. It is wisdom. It's where letting go of attachment starts. The beginning of the end of suffering.
Once you have realized the two truths, the ultimate in the mundane, you cannot unrealized it. You can't put it down.
Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes not, but its always there.
Just my opinion. Pretty jargony for sure.
By imperfect analogy (and to show just how peculiar Buddhism is with these matters): God does not exist prior to existence, and he then creates the world. This would give God a special metaphysical precedence over existence. Well, that is a fairly standard way of understanding God as the ground of all being in the Abrahamic religions. But imagine that if this God instead were not independent of the world, but instead was interdependent with it, so that the world creates God just as equally as God creates the world at this very moment, so that they co-create one another-- THAT is the sort of thing the two truths points toward (something that would be regarded as heresy in Abrahamic religions, though you might find something similar to this in Whitehead's process theology).
This sort of hierarchical thinking is very common-- you don't have to be a philosopher or theologian to get caught up in such thinking. I call the two truths doctrine a fail safe device because it prevents a sort of escapism into emptiness or nihilism-- where everything, is fundamentally empty--FULL STOP. But that is NOT the full story, because this makes emptiness something unique and distinct from everything else. Emptiness too is empty. But "emptiness is empty" points to way of realising emptiness not as metaphysical information about the world, but as a method to realise emptiness as more than a mere intellectual concept. It is meant to help shove you out of concepts and is helpful in realising the Middle Way.
The two truths doctrine helps to deconstruct a metaphysical understanding of the world by using metaphysics, throwing oneself back HERE and NOW-- which is where you have always been in the first place. Nirvana is not "somewhere else" to escape to--you've been standing on "the other shore" all this time!
If we do not believe in the doctrine of two truths then we do not believe in the teachings of Buddhism, Taoism or advaita Vedanta, nor in the via negativa of the Christians and others, which is the other legitimate response to the unspeakableness of the truth. They are all aspects and outcomes of the same underlying ultimate truth, viz. nonduality. Think of quantum mechnics. Is an electron a wave or a particle? Or both or neither? The situation demands a language of two truths, which is the same language of complementary complementarity that is used in Buddhism. It might be better called the doctrine of two half-truths, or even of two falsities.
George Melhuish in 'The Paradoxical Universe' gives the only other possible response, (besides resorting to a non-ordinary language or shutting up completely), which is to say that the universe makes no sense. This turns into Priest and Routley's 'Dialethism', which is worth a look if you're into metaphysics. Dialethism accepts Nagarjuna's metaphysical result but interprets it differently, as a proof that there are true contradictions. For Buddhism there would be no true contradictions and the world would make complete sense.
The two truths are not opposed but two ways of talking or thinking, either conventionally or ultimately. When Lao Tsu says 'True words seem paradoxical' he was endorsing the doctrine of two truths. These two truths are not actually paradoxical but they may seem so for a dualistic mindset. For a nondualistic mindset they are two aspects of an underlying truth that cannot be expressed. Yin and Yang if you like, the two faces of the mountain, as well as which there is the mountain. The principle of nonduality is so profound that Lao Tsu need make no exceptions to his rule for words that are absolutely true. Absolute truths would have to be expressed by the use of contradiction and paradox. It's just how it is.
@Riverflow makes the point that that this doctrine prevents us from making metaphyscial mistakes, and I would add also from misinterpreting teachings that may seem to be incorrect from a ultimate viewpoint, as for the first turning of the wheel.
Just an example of the flaw in TT is the belief that when you are meditating it is emptiness and then you get up and it is relative. How did that happen? If emptiness is the greater truth what motive for not creating bad karma other than common sense? After all you can just see that everything is ok from ultimate truth.
You are going to die
You don't know when
Everything you get engaged in will fall apart eventually
If later Buddhas and Bodhisattvas cannot add to the truth then what is the point of them getting enlightened to help all beings? If it is not a real possibility to become enlightened then it's a moot point what Buddha taught. If it is possible to become enlightened then why not later enlightened teachers put a finer polish on the razor edge of the dharma? (I'm thinking of that analogy because I just started learning wood carving starting with sharpening the tools)
In Tibetan Buddhism there are teachings on the nature of reality, the truth. Then there are sutras that are provisional and are meant to inspire the student through curiousity and knowledge; it's fun to learn. And the third teaching is meditation which is set up to take the truths of reality deeply as your own nature unfolds.
But as for the 2 Truths doctrine as a teaching--different strokes for different folks, I guess. I think it's perfectly possible to study and practice Buddhism without it, lots of people do it. Isn't it a Mahayana thing, anyway? idk, I just find it's better to keep things simple. But again--that's just me. Fortunately, there are people like Stephen Batchelor who agree, and have a very commonsense approach to Buddhism, which I find helpful in some respects.
http://www.kagyu.org/kagyulineage/teachers/tea16.php - about the teacher
http://www.kagyu.org/kagyulineage/buddhism/cul/cul03.php
Templates are varied. Containers are varied. Religions are varied.
The Tao, the living waters, the Holy Spirit, Nirvana, the Ultimate Truth of 'life the universe and everything (42)', takes shape or expression in a surprising number of potty containments.
What is it that pours? In Buddhism we say . . . wait for it . . . actually . . . . that is what we do . . .
. . . Create a vessel to empty/fill and sit and wait for an 'empty filling' . . .
Emaho (how wonderful)
http://www.emaho.co.za/about-us/what-does-emaho-mean/index.html
Quite so. It was Nagarjuna who explained the philosophical ramifications of the Buddhas teachings. But to dismiss Taoism and advaita is to dismiss nondualism, and thus to dismiss Buddhism.
For example, from the conventional perspective, we agree that duality or multiplicity does exist. Therefore, Nibbana is a phenomenon because we are speaking as a subject on the other side of the object or matter. In other words, the subject is pondering on the object or matter - phenomenon arises. However, from the ultimate perspective, we would then agree that no duality or multiplicity arises. Therefore, Nibbana is not a phenomenon (also applies on all other things) because there is no subject to ponder on the object or matter. In other words, no phenomenon arises if we speak from the ultimate perspective.
Conventional truth is a subjective and a relative truth. This means the truth orientation is dependent on the observer (i.e. the subject’s mind) to provide with the description, definition, recognition, valuation, etc. on the other side of the object or matter. And the truth conclusion varies among different observers or minds.
Whereas, an ultimate truth is a reality that exists beyond mind and beyond concepts and words in the sense that it is beyond our usual ways of perceiving things. Language and conception only imply that things exist in distinct manners i.e. wise person, dumb person, saint, devil, etc. - in such well-defined and independent categories. Perceiving ultimate reality is seeing that things do not exist in these fantasised, impossible ways, in black and white categories.
The principle in effect: -
If one stays on with seeing conventional truth only, one would remain in Samsāra,
If one stays on with seeing both conventional truth and ultimate truth, one has the choice of remaining either in Samsāra or Nibbana,
If one stays on with seeing ultimate truth only, one would remain in Nibbana.
I'm not quite sure about your three divisions of the 'principle in effect', but time will tell.
Whats the meaning of this picture?
there is but one truth, but there are many roads/perspectives to get to this truth. "crossing" something to get there isnt necessary, though it is commonly viewed that it is necesarry.
at least thats MY take on it.
(Dont get me wrong, i like the picture (its very zen, and i owe alot to zen being in my life... I just dont think these 'koan' kind of story/pictures are appropriate sometimes.. (Especially if someone has got real problems and are trying to seek help to 'cross the other side'
Also, i personally dont agree with the snail.... The sun doesnt always shine on 'both' sides..
Again, thanks for your answer