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@person said:
Sorry to have you dragged into this Vastmind I was just feeling a little ornery, I didn't intend for there to be any collateral damage. There's an observation lounge with safety glass behind you, my own skin is starting to itch I may have to head there soon myself.
You've known me long enough to know I couldn't be dragged anywhere. hahaha
The second is called "emptiness in the context of Buddha Nature," which sees emptiness as endowed with qualities of awakened mind like wisdom, bliss, compassion, clarity, and courage. Ultimate reality is the union of both emptinesses."
Nobody has mentioned emptiness in the context of Buddha nature and it's being endowed with the qualities of awakened mind such as wisdom, bliss, compassion, clarity, and courage.
@person said:
Yeah, its what I've been taught [what reality is]. Did anyone really think that I was trying to pawn emptiness off as my own idea?
The relevant point is that this is what you've been taught. Significantly, you did not discover this yourself.
I can see that you clicked lol just before you posted? Anyway you said you were joking too and I didn't get the humor.
And you apparently don't get the humor in my clicking the lol button just before the post I made about laughing at your jokes. I think it's hilarious myself.
No comprende, maybe you could restate this bit?
The question was: How can there be isolation or no isolation without identifying the condition?
I can't think of a way to put it any simpler so I'll answer the question for you. If non-isolation inherently existed, then it could exist without identifying the condition. Or, if someone simply believed in non-isolation religiously, they wouldn't need to put any further thought into it, cuz it provided some essential meaning for them, and that's all they need.
There is a philosophical thought that says we can't really ever know anything. So are you really sure its ok not to know? How do you know that?
You mean nihilism of course, but I didn't write anything about not knowing anything. I wrote about not knowing the "fundamental way reality exists," to use your exact phrasing.
The question was: How can there be isolation or no isolation without identifying the condition?
I can't think of a way to put it any simpler so I'll answer the question for you. If non-isolation inherently existed, then it could exist without identifying the condition. Or, if someone simply believed in non-isolation religiously, they wouldn't need to put any further thought into it, cuz it provided some essential meaning for them, and that's all they need.
I like to think I am smart @Nevermind, I mean I have a masters in chemistry, but I cannot understand. I understand 'isolation'. I understand 'non-isolation'. But I don't understand the modifier 'without identifying the condition'. Totally cannot figure it out. Thanks and I would like to understand more accurately.
@robot said:
Just keep in mind that his [the nevermind in his awesomeness] interest is not in discussing Buddhism.
So when we've discussed it wasn't about Buddhism? I find that I cannot disagree.
Personally, I won't engage him unless I think I have a chance of beating him at his game, which is rare. He is brighter and more educated than me.
I was in special ed for most of grade school and didn't go to college. I'm pretty much a retard, actually.
I have to admit that I enjoyed seeing him get his butt kicked in the memes thread.
The point is not to win, Robot. My point was simply that the "Dharma meme" is not an anti-meme. Citta admitted that he was, and I quote, "bending language." Why did he chose to "bend language" in this way? I won't speculate. But I think it's safe to say that y'all have been played like a cheep violin. Even those that did not participate in the discussion, apparently. That is impressive, I must say.
@Jeffrey said:
I like to think I am smart Nevermind, I mean I have a masters in chemistry, but I cannot understand. I understand 'isolation'. I understand 'non-isolation'. But I don't understand the modifier 'without identifying the condition'. Totally cannot figure it out. Thanks and I would like to understand more accurately.
You may be familiar with the philosophical question, if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?
So are you saying there is no indication of a reason to believe that phenomena is or isn't isolated? Just as the tree in the forest gives no indication to anyone of it's fate.
@Nevermind
Since your stated aim is to correct people, I am going to go ahead and assume that failing to do that would be considered a loss for you.
Now, having sat in on the entire meme thread and understood almost none of it, I will take the fact that you were unable to get the last word, and at no time successfully bettered @citta, as a failure and a loss for you. My condolences.
I am a primary school graduate, so, while not technically retarded, consider myself to be far dumber than you. So there!
Nobody has mentioned emptiness in the context of Buddha nature and it's being endowed with the qualities of awakened mind such as wisdom, bliss, compassion, clarity, and courage.
The taste of Buddha Nature is exactly the appearance of life in front of you with the view of interdependent origination. First the immediate conditions that we can obviously see and then the greater whole. This brings an ending of the proliferation of self and other into interpenetration.
Here is a good quote from Steve Hagen that articulates it much easier:
"Here's another example of a foolish-sounding Zen question that is actually an expression of just seeing: What is the sound of one hand clapping? When we conceive of a hand, it's just a single, isolated hand, and we're puzzled at the question. To clap, we need two hands. But this is approaching the question in our ordinary way - that is, conceptually.
With naked perception however, we see that a hand is not a separate and distinct hand. Everything is included with it. One hand clapping is the sound of two hands clapping is the sound of ten hands clapping. It's the sound before and after two hands clap. It's also the sound before and after one hand claps.
Conceptually, we think that sound is sound and silence is silence. The two seem neatly separated and distinct - in fact, opposite of each other. But this is only how we think, how we conceptualize. This is not how Reality is perceived, before we put everything into neat, nicely labelled (but deceptive) little packages.
We think there only has to be sound for there to be sound. We overlook that there must also be silence for there to be sound. And because of sound, there is silence. Were there no sound, how could there be silence?
Before you strike a bell, a sound is already here. After you strike the bell, the sound is here. When the sound fades and dies away, the sound is still here. The sound is not just the sound but the silence, too, And the silence is the sound. This is what is actually perceived before we parse everything out into this and that, into "myself" and "what I hear."
The sound of the bell is inseparable from everything that came before and that will come after as well as from everything that appears now. This includes your eardrum, which vibrates in response to it. It includes the air, which pulses with varying waves of pressure in response to it.
It includes the stick that strikes the bell. It includes the metallurgists, past and present, and those who learned to extract metal from ore and those who fashioned the bell. And it includes that ancient furnace, that supernova obliterated long ago in which this metal formed.
Remove any of these - indeed, remove anything at all - and there can be no sound of the bell. The sound of the bell is thus not "the sound of the bell." It is the entire Universe..."
So @Jeffrey this is how buddha nature can be empty of inherent existence yet dynamically function.
@robot said:
Nevermind
Since your stated aim is to correct people, I am going to go ahead and assume that failing to do that would be considered a loss for you.
Now, having sat in on the entire meme thread and understood almost none of it, I will take the fact that you were unable to get the last word, and at no time successfully bettered citta, as a failure and a loss for you. My condolences.
Did you read my last post to you. Citta admitted to "bending language." And for the reasons explained there is no point in my participating in that topic any longer. The thread has been unlocked, in case you haven't noticed.
Love coming back to find that a thread about emptiness has essentially devolved to people arguing about who is dumber while at the same time trying to prove that the other person is wrong. Sinking, FYI.
@Citta said:
When I read the word ' Shunyata ' I don't translate it at all because I have internalised the meaning of the word by reading in in context over a period of time.
You have internalised a meaning based on current understanding, not the meaning. It's nothing like thinking in a foreign language.
@Jeffrey said:
Hi taiyaki. It was hard for me to see how Buddha nature relates to non-duality (of hands and so forth).
What you call your hands is a visual and tactile appearance. This appearance is exactly buddha nature. The colors and sensations are very clear and bright. Unavoidable and unceasing. But we examine the hand we can simply see that the hand depends on things other than hands. Such as a body, food, the whole world.
So the hand itself is the total exertion of the interdependent reality. Form is exactly emptiness and emptiness is exactly form.
Move your hand in a circular motion. In doing so you see a trace of a circle. But notice how it is always just the instant of the hand moving. And if you focus on just the hand there is no motion. Motion requires making the traces into something tangible. The very hand without motion is the dynamic functioning of indras net. Through the ability to abstract we've made this momentary appearance into a thing, a thing that endures.
There is no true thing going about change. Arising abiding and ceasing. There just the immediate perception of what we call a hand. And its so fresh and new that it doesn't have a chance to become something.
This is buddha nature or clarity expanse. Its the basis of all experience. So from the start the result is our life. We get glimpses and that becomes the basis of vajrayana or dzogchen.
This is also the practice of practice enlightenment in zen. With this realization one actualizes interpenetration in each moment.
Just this sound. The power and grandness total intersection of all causes and conditions.
Clear and crisp. Yet its non arisen. Its totally absent of any inherency, any essence or center or edge.
@taiyaki said:
There is no true thing going about change. Arising abiding and ceasing. There just the immediate perception of what we call a hand. And its so fresh and new that it doesn't have a chance to become something.
Can you expand on 'it doesn't have a chance to become something' further? Are you saying that perception ends in becoming, and then it's downhill metaphorically from there.
If you look really closely at 'now' there is never a particular moment that is not absolutely unique. This absolute uniqueness of every part of 'now' is very interesting. 'Always fresh' means that each part of 'now' has never arisen before and so each apparent arising is absolutely a unique, never before seen or tasted. Completely new. BUT look even closer at these unique moments and you see that they are so unique they never have time to come into being as 'unique things'. 'Now' is so fresh, so extremely fresh, that it never comes into being as something that is not new or unique and this uniqueness is so acute that 'things' can't get a duration unless we give them a duration. This absolute uniqueness without duration is what is called 'non-arising, unborn' and is also a glimpse at effortless self-liberation. It's also what 'appearing emptiness' is. Seeing this is also the basis of understanding natural non-fixation. This way of seeing is how we bring different meditation approaches of shamatha and vipashyana together. It's also an understanding of equality.
Found this on FB today by Soh Wei Yu (owner of awakentoreality):
Wrote in another group:
"pure experience itself is empty and non-arising." -- that means, the realization is not realizing that a conceptually imputed self is not arising, but rather the realization that pure experience itself never amounts to anything more than an appearance (just like a movie scene, or a dream scene, a mirage, a mirror reflection etc), never actually comes into existence, is unlocatable, etc.
I know you're saying that 'coming into existence', 'birth', and so on are concepts, and therefore by saying the experience is empty of arising I am therefore suggesting the emptiness of a concept. It's not wrong to say that arising/existence/etc are concepts, however, the insight here is not merely about the absence or non-arising of conceptual constructs (like a conceptual self, or santa claus, or rabbits' horn, or any other imagined non-existents etc) but that the very vivid undeniable experience never arises or ceases or forms/comes into existence as something truly existing. It's given that the notion that experience really arise, abide and cease is conceptual, nonetheless the insight is not merely about the non-existence or non-arising of imagined self and constructs divorced from direct experience, but it is directly realizing that the very direct experience of everything free of a background perceiver, that too never arise or comes into being (like reflections on a mirror). In other words in the firstfold emptiness of self, you see that there is no imagined perceiver or self apart from experience, so you can say that the imagined self is non-arising, and there is only the self-luminous DE (direct experience), but in the secondfold emptiness one is seeing that the direct experience is itself non-arising, never coming into existence, empty.
"It certainly doesn't make the indescribable experience labelled "pain" suddenly evaporate, or become "empty", or "illusory"."
Yes of course, indescribable experience does not 'evaporate' upon realizing its emptiness, it's simply seen to not actually arise/abide/cease and are merely non-producing appearances (that is appearances that never produce anything into existence, appearances itself is non-producing and non-arising) like a dream, reflection, movie, etc. Experience do not 'become empty or illusory or non-arising', they already are so, none of the appearances actually produce anything into existence even though for some the feeling that there is something arising/abiding/ceasing seems undeniable, just like for some a sense of a seer/thinker/self behind experience seems undeniable, etc.
"Just because you can "deconstruct" concepts, doesn't mean that you can deconstruct experience."
I'm not suggesting deconstruction of any kind with regards to direct experience. I am in fact suggesting that for emptiness, there is an alternative besides endless deconstruction, which is to realize that non-arising of DE.
"I see clearly that ""existence/birth/abiding/cessation" do not apply to DE, but I certainly don't make any leap of belief into "pure experience itself is empty and non-arising"."
DE either arise, abide, cease, or it does not - in which case it is like a mirror reflection, a dream, a movie, appearing but never coming into existence, never amounting to anything more than appearances, and that is exactly what I mean by non-arising and emptiness. Non-arising of DE is not a belief, and not an inferential leap based on another deconstructive insight, it is a direct insight in and of itself - directly realizing that DE never arose. How can we realize this? This is not an inferential statement, it is not inferred based on another deconstructive insight into no-self or emptiness of constructs, but rather a direct insight into the emptiness of direct experience - that direct experience never arises, never amounts to anything more than appearance, never abides and never ceases - and this can be seen when one contemplates/investigates/looks into whether one's DE truly arises, where it is, etc.
So could you say since there is no self existent thing, @tayaki, that it is like one of those books that you can flip and make a movie? Like flip pages that themselves not a story, but they make a story when flipped by the mind. What then in my analogy is the Buddha nature? Is it change itself? Is it seeing through the movie and knowing that it is just a momentary configuration?
Buddha nature would be the whole appearance be it the vision of samsara or the vision of nirvana.
In the Dzogchen teachings the metaphor of a mirror is used. If we place say a red cloth on the mirror, the mirror reflects the secondary conditions. Regardless if its beautiful or ugly the mirror is unobstructed. The capacity to reflect is the nature of buddha-nature. Whereas the mirrors stainlessness or innate purity is the essence (emptiness) of buddha-nature.
If we think about this conceptually then it may appear that there is a mirror and there is an reflection. But they are actually non-dual. In that there is no mirror without reflections and no reflection without a mirror.
A person (conventionally used) either recognizes buddha nature or not. If there is no recognition the the open clarity becomes split into a self awareness (inner world) and phenomena (outer world). Or skandhas and elements.
If there is recognition then open clarity is not split into the subject and object. Then there is only the mandala of enlightenment, which is endowed with the full buddha qualities from the start. That means all afflictive emotions wouldn't have arisen and hence that energy becomes the different bodies and wisdoms of a buddha.
There are many ways we can go about this. But generally buddha nature is seen as seed within all sentient beings. Its a seed because it needs to be actualized through a path. It's not that one gains something but rather the afflictions of cognitive obscuration and emotional obscuration are worked through. Then the ground or base of buddhahood can be actualized to already be the case.
There are resultant paths as well where buddha nature is seen right from the start. This is dzogchen and mahamudra (essence). And the vajrayana. In this buddha nature is shown and the path is the same as above.
All fruits are basically the same, its just the methods and capacity are difference hence various vehicles take different amount of lifetimes to actualize buddhahood.
For instance in the Mahayana one attains buddhahood not in this lifetime but in post-human buddha fields or higher realms.
Or in Vajrayana it is said that it takes seven lifetimes if one is a serious practitioner.
In Dzogchen it is said that the fruit can be actualized in one lifetime.
Except in this case the fruit would be the elements dissolving into the pure lights which is the rainbow body. That would be the end of all physicality, and pretty much inconceivable.
Of course buddhahood and say the ending of suffering are quite different. But I am already on a tangent.
I hope this answers your questions. Either one is suffering or one is not. In the case of suffering one has not recognized buddha nature. In the case of non-suffering then one has glimpsed buddha nature as the state of affairs.
@Jeffrey said:
This was on my facebook feed:
This is how I heard it taught. It includes self empty conditioned phenomena and also the qualities of Buddha nature which are also considered empty.
Finally, since emptiness seems so difficult to understand, why did the Buddha teach it at all?
Actually in Nagarjuna's texts, he lists 18 emptinesses, and the subject in general is a huge topic of discussion in Mahayana and Tantrayana. The Buddha didn't spend that much time on it in the grand scheme of things, instead focusing on teaching a path of the hearers. It was actually Nagarjuna and others that wanted to walk the path of the Bodhisattva and become Buddhas that emphasized it. If you are merely seeking nirvana or arhatship, it is better to have no position on emptiness whatsoever, and instead merely realize the emptiness of self (that is, non-self) and that is all. If you are walking the path of mahayana and/or tantrayana then it is very important to understand emptiness. Basically there are three aspects of rejecting svabhava (which is emptiness, which is the emptiness of phenomena which necessarily includes the emptiness of self),
essence svabhava, which is basically that there is some essential property that if an object loses, then that object is no longer that very thing, secondly substance svabhava, which is that some object is substantially existing, beyond cause and effect, and third, absolute svabhava, which is some ultimate, true, or final nature of something.
The emptiness concerning Buddhanature is a topic that is debated, with some asserting that Buddhanature isn't empty of itself and thus has some sort of absolute svabhava, this is countered with that absolute svabhava applies to extant things, which Buddhanature is not. However the general consensus is that Buddhanature is totally empty, and its "qualities" are in the absence of characteristics.
Which means when we conceptualize emptiness we make a mistake in thinking that something totally empty is somehow neutral, when in fact when something is made totally empty it is instead a non-apprehendable total bliss, having the Buddha qualities. Which is the true meaning of "absence of characteristics like space".
Comments
You've known me long enough to know I couldn't be dragged anywhere. hahaha
I usually walk/strut right in. ...
...
Good night ...
...
Hilarious, right? I totally laughed out loud ... and now again.
I don't follow.
From the Original Post:
Nobody has mentioned emptiness in the context of Buddha nature and it's being endowed with the qualities of awakened mind such as wisdom, bliss, compassion, clarity, and courage.
The relevant point is that this is what you've been taught. Significantly, you did not discover this yourself.
And you apparently don't get the humor in my clicking the lol button just before the post I made about laughing at your jokes. I think it's hilarious myself.
The question was: How can there be isolation or no isolation without identifying the condition?
I can't think of a way to put it any simpler so I'll answer the question for you. If non-isolation inherently existed, then it could exist without identifying the condition. Or, if someone simply believed in non-isolation religiously, they wouldn't need to put any further thought into it, cuz it provided some essential meaning for them, and that's all they need.
You mean nihilism of course, but I didn't write anything about not knowing anything. I wrote about not knowing the "fundamental way reality exists," to use your exact phrasing.
I like to think I am smart @Nevermind, I mean I have a masters in chemistry, but I cannot understand. I understand 'isolation'. I understand 'non-isolation'. But I don't understand the modifier 'without identifying the condition'. Totally cannot figure it out. Thanks and I would like to understand more accurately.
So when we've discussed it wasn't about Buddhism? I find that I cannot disagree.
I was in special ed for most of grade school and didn't go to college. I'm pretty much a retard, actually.
The point is not to win, Robot. My point was simply that the "Dharma meme" is not an anti-meme. Citta admitted that he was, and I quote, "bending language." Why did he chose to "bend language" in this way? I won't speculate. But I think it's safe to say that y'all have been played like a cheep violin. Even those that did not participate in the discussion, apparently. That is impressive, I must say.
You may be familiar with the philosophical question, if a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?
So are you saying there is no indication of a reason to believe that phenomena is or isn't isolated? Just as the tree in the forest gives no indication to anyone of it's fate.
@Nevermind
Since your stated aim is to correct people, I am going to go ahead and assume that failing to do that would be considered a loss for you.
Now, having sat in on the entire meme thread and understood almost none of it, I will take the fact that you were unable to get the last word, and at no time successfully bettered @citta, as a failure and a loss for you. My condolences.
I am a primary school graduate, so, while not technically retarded, consider myself to be far dumber than you. So there!
Hi Jeffrey,
This may help you out:
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2012/06/emancipation-of-suchness.html
The taste of Buddha Nature is exactly the appearance of life in front of you with the view of interdependent origination. First the immediate conditions that we can obviously see and then the greater whole. This brings an ending of the proliferation of self and other into interpenetration.
Here is a good quote from Steve Hagen that articulates it much easier:
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2010/04/buddhism-is-not-what-you-think.html
"Here's another example of a foolish-sounding Zen question that is actually an expression of just seeing: What is the sound of one hand clapping? When we conceive of a hand, it's just a single, isolated hand, and we're puzzled at the question. To clap, we need two hands. But this is approaching the question in our ordinary way - that is, conceptually.
With naked perception however, we see that a hand is not a separate and distinct hand. Everything is included with it. One hand clapping is the sound of two hands clapping is the sound of ten hands clapping. It's the sound before and after two hands clap. It's also the sound before and after one hand claps.
Conceptually, we think that sound is sound and silence is silence. The two seem neatly separated and distinct - in fact, opposite of each other. But this is only how we think, how we conceptualize. This is not how Reality is perceived, before we put everything into neat, nicely labelled (but deceptive) little packages.
We think there only has to be sound for there to be sound. We overlook that there must also be silence for there to be sound. And because of sound, there is silence. Were there no sound, how could there be silence?
Before you strike a bell, a sound is already here. After you strike the bell, the sound is here. When the sound fades and dies away, the sound is still here. The sound is not just the sound but the silence, too, And the silence is the sound. This is what is actually perceived before we parse everything out into this and that, into "myself" and "what I hear."
The sound of the bell is inseparable from everything that came before and that will come after as well as from everything that appears now. This includes your eardrum, which vibrates in response to it. It includes the air, which pulses with varying waves of pressure in response to it.
It includes the stick that strikes the bell. It includes the metallurgists, past and present, and those who learned to extract metal from ore and those who fashioned the bell. And it includes that ancient furnace, that supernova obliterated long ago in which this metal formed.
Remove any of these - indeed, remove anything at all - and there can be no sound of the bell. The sound of the bell is thus not "the sound of the bell." It is the entire Universe..."
So @Jeffrey this is how buddha nature can be empty of inherent existence yet dynamically function.
Hi @taiyaki. It was hard for me to see how Buddha nature relates to non-duality (of hands and so forth).
Did you read my last post to you. Citta admitted to "bending language." And for the reasons explained there is no point in my participating in that topic any longer. The thread has been unlocked, in case you haven't noticed.
I did not 'admit' to bending language.
I rejoiced in bending language...
While pointing out your need to concretise the abstract.
Largely because your interest, apart from displacing your angst, is in forensic lingustic legalism.
Bending language is not lying.
It is acknowledging that modern languages like English are not in their raw state suitable for the expression of many Dharmic concepts.
Love coming back to find that a thread about emptiness has essentially devolved to people arguing about who is dumber while at the same time trying to prove that the other person is wrong. Sinking, FYI.
You have internalised a meaning based on current understanding, not the meaning. It's nothing like thinking in a foreign language.
It is acknowledging that modern languages like English are not in their raw state suitable for the expression of many Dharmic concepts.
No language is really.
What you call your hands is a visual and tactile appearance. This appearance is exactly buddha nature. The colors and sensations are very clear and bright. Unavoidable and unceasing. But we examine the hand we can simply see that the hand depends on things other than hands. Such as a body, food, the whole world.
So the hand itself is the total exertion of the interdependent reality. Form is exactly emptiness and emptiness is exactly form.
Move your hand in a circular motion. In doing so you see a trace of a circle. But notice how it is always just the instant of the hand moving. And if you focus on just the hand there is no motion. Motion requires making the traces into something tangible. The very hand without motion is the dynamic functioning of indras net. Through the ability to abstract we've made this momentary appearance into a thing, a thing that endures.
There is no true thing going about change. Arising abiding and ceasing. There just the immediate perception of what we call a hand. And its so fresh and new that it doesn't have a chance to become something.
This is buddha nature or clarity expanse. Its the basis of all experience. So from the start the result is our life. We get glimpses and that becomes the basis of vajrayana or dzogchen.
This is also the practice of practice enlightenment in zen. With this realization one actualizes interpenetration in each moment.
Just this sound. The power and grandness total intersection of all causes and conditions.
Clear and crisp. Yet its non arisen. Its totally absent of any inherency, any essence or center or edge.
A euphemism is often utilized in modern language when a word, in its raw state, might be too honest.
Can you expand on 'it doesn't have a chance to become something' further? Are you saying that perception ends in becoming, and then it's downhill metaphorically from there.
Sorry to have to tease these things out.
hope this works:
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2013/07/non-arising.html
Andrew Campbell wrote in Dharma Connection:
If you look really closely at 'now' there is never a particular moment that is not absolutely unique. This absolute uniqueness of every part of 'now' is very interesting. 'Always fresh' means that each part of 'now' has never arisen before and so each apparent arising is absolutely a unique, never before seen or tasted. Completely new. BUT look even closer at these unique moments and you see that they are so unique they never have time to come into being as 'unique things'. 'Now' is so fresh, so extremely fresh, that it never comes into being as something that is not new or unique and this uniqueness is so acute that 'things' can't get a duration unless we give them a duration. This absolute uniqueness without duration is what is called 'non-arising, unborn' and is also a glimpse at effortless self-liberation. It's also what 'appearing emptiness' is. Seeing this is also the basis of understanding natural non-fixation. This way of seeing is how we bring different meditation approaches of shamatha and vipashyana together. It's also an understanding of equality.
True that.
@anataman
Found this on FB today by Soh Wei Yu (owner of awakentoreality):
Wrote in another group:
"pure experience itself is empty and non-arising." -- that means, the realization is not realizing that a conceptually imputed self is not arising, but rather the realization that pure experience itself never amounts to anything more than an appearance (just like a movie scene, or a dream scene, a mirage, a mirror reflection etc), never actually comes into existence, is unlocatable, etc.
I know you're saying that 'coming into existence', 'birth', and so on are concepts, and therefore by saying the experience is empty of arising I am therefore suggesting the emptiness of a concept. It's not wrong to say that arising/existence/etc are concepts, however, the insight here is not merely about the absence or non-arising of conceptual constructs (like a conceptual self, or santa claus, or rabbits' horn, or any other imagined non-existents etc) but that the very vivid undeniable experience never arises or ceases or forms/comes into existence as something truly existing. It's given that the notion that experience really arise, abide and cease is conceptual, nonetheless the insight is not merely about the non-existence or non-arising of imagined self and constructs divorced from direct experience, but it is directly realizing that the very direct experience of everything free of a background perceiver, that too never arise or comes into being (like reflections on a mirror). In other words in the firstfold emptiness of self, you see that there is no imagined perceiver or self apart from experience, so you can say that the imagined self is non-arising, and there is only the self-luminous DE (direct experience), but in the secondfold emptiness one is seeing that the direct experience is itself non-arising, never coming into existence, empty.
"It certainly doesn't make the indescribable experience labelled "pain" suddenly evaporate, or become "empty", or "illusory"."
Yes of course, indescribable experience does not 'evaporate' upon realizing its emptiness, it's simply seen to not actually arise/abide/cease and are merely non-producing appearances (that is appearances that never produce anything into existence, appearances itself is non-producing and non-arising) like a dream, reflection, movie, etc. Experience do not 'become empty or illusory or non-arising', they already are so, none of the appearances actually produce anything into existence even though for some the feeling that there is something arising/abiding/ceasing seems undeniable, just like for some a sense of a seer/thinker/self behind experience seems undeniable, etc.
"Just because you can "deconstruct" concepts, doesn't mean that you can deconstruct experience."
I'm not suggesting deconstruction of any kind with regards to direct experience. I am in fact suggesting that for emptiness, there is an alternative besides endless deconstruction, which is to realize that non-arising of DE.
"I see clearly that ""existence/birth/abiding/cessation" do not apply to DE, but I certainly don't make any leap of belief into "pure experience itself is empty and non-arising"."
DE either arise, abide, cease, or it does not - in which case it is like a mirror reflection, a dream, a movie, appearing but never coming into existence, never amounting to anything more than appearances, and that is exactly what I mean by non-arising and emptiness. Non-arising of DE is not a belief, and not an inferential leap based on another deconstructive insight, it is a direct insight in and of itself - directly realizing that DE never arose. How can we realize this? This is not an inferential statement, it is not inferred based on another deconstructive insight into no-self or emptiness of constructs, but rather a direct insight into the emptiness of direct experience - that direct experience never arises, never amounts to anything more than appearance, never abides and never ceases - and this can be seen when one contemplates/investigates/looks into whether one's DE truly arises, where it is, etc.
So could you say since there is no self existent thing, @tayaki, that it is like one of those books that you can flip and make a movie? Like flip pages that themselves not a story, but they make a story when flipped by the mind. What then in my analogy is the Buddha nature? Is it change itself? Is it seeing through the movie and knowing that it is just a momentary configuration?
@Jeffrey
Buddha nature would be the whole appearance be it the vision of samsara or the vision of nirvana.
In the Dzogchen teachings the metaphor of a mirror is used. If we place say a red cloth on the mirror, the mirror reflects the secondary conditions. Regardless if its beautiful or ugly the mirror is unobstructed. The capacity to reflect is the nature of buddha-nature. Whereas the mirrors stainlessness or innate purity is the essence (emptiness) of buddha-nature.
If we think about this conceptually then it may appear that there is a mirror and there is an reflection. But they are actually non-dual. In that there is no mirror without reflections and no reflection without a mirror.
A person (conventionally used) either recognizes buddha nature or not. If there is no recognition the the open clarity becomes split into a self awareness (inner world) and phenomena (outer world). Or skandhas and elements.
If there is recognition then open clarity is not split into the subject and object. Then there is only the mandala of enlightenment, which is endowed with the full buddha qualities from the start. That means all afflictive emotions wouldn't have arisen and hence that energy becomes the different bodies and wisdoms of a buddha.
There are many ways we can go about this. But generally buddha nature is seen as seed within all sentient beings. Its a seed because it needs to be actualized through a path. It's not that one gains something but rather the afflictions of cognitive obscuration and emotional obscuration are worked through. Then the ground or base of buddhahood can be actualized to already be the case.
There are resultant paths as well where buddha nature is seen right from the start. This is dzogchen and mahamudra (essence). And the vajrayana. In this buddha nature is shown and the path is the same as above.
All fruits are basically the same, its just the methods and capacity are difference hence various vehicles take different amount of lifetimes to actualize buddhahood.
For instance in the Mahayana one attains buddhahood not in this lifetime but in post-human buddha fields or higher realms.
Or in Vajrayana it is said that it takes seven lifetimes if one is a serious practitioner.
In Dzogchen it is said that the fruit can be actualized in one lifetime.
Except in this case the fruit would be the elements dissolving into the pure lights which is the rainbow body. That would be the end of all physicality, and pretty much inconceivable.
Of course buddhahood and say the ending of suffering are quite different. But I am already on a tangent.
I hope this answers your questions. Either one is suffering or one is not. In the case of suffering one has not recognized buddha nature. In the case of non-suffering then one has glimpsed buddha nature as the state of affairs.
Cheers.
Actually in Nagarjuna's texts, he lists 18 emptinesses, and the subject in general is a huge topic of discussion in Mahayana and Tantrayana. The Buddha didn't spend that much time on it in the grand scheme of things, instead focusing on teaching a path of the hearers. It was actually Nagarjuna and others that wanted to walk the path of the Bodhisattva and become Buddhas that emphasized it. If you are merely seeking nirvana or arhatship, it is better to have no position on emptiness whatsoever, and instead merely realize the emptiness of self (that is, non-self) and that is all. If you are walking the path of mahayana and/or tantrayana then it is very important to understand emptiness. Basically there are three aspects of rejecting svabhava (which is emptiness, which is the emptiness of phenomena which necessarily includes the emptiness of self),
essence svabhava, which is basically that there is some essential property that if an object loses, then that object is no longer that very thing, secondly substance svabhava, which is that some object is substantially existing, beyond cause and effect, and third, absolute svabhava, which is some ultimate, true, or final nature of something.
The emptiness concerning Buddhanature is a topic that is debated, with some asserting that Buddhanature isn't empty of itself and thus has some sort of absolute svabhava, this is countered with that absolute svabhava applies to extant things, which Buddhanature is not. However the general consensus is that Buddhanature is totally empty, and its "qualities" are in the absence of characteristics.
Which means when we conceptualize emptiness we make a mistake in thinking that something totally empty is somehow neutral, when in fact when something is made totally empty it is instead a non-apprehendable total bliss, having the Buddha qualities. Which is the true meaning of "absence of characteristics like space".