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Truth
Is there one truth for all embodyment? Yes or no?
Is truth different for different forms? Yes or no?
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Is truth different for different forms? Yes or no?
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Comments
First define 'Truth'.....
Once Enlightenment is reached, even truth is irrelevant.....
From a personal and un-enlightened point of view, I always come back to the Kalama Sutra.... I look at the blinding clear Logic of the Four Noble Truths, and the Path to which they point.... The Eightfold Path....Then I remember a quotation I read in a book:
'Speak Your Truth. State it Like It IS. There is no need to do otherwise.'
Mine is a mind of Simplicity. I am not an adept, nor a Sage who has read and absorbed scriptures - of any faith - to any great depth, because there is little depth to me... it is not My Way. But What rings as clear as a fine new bell to me, is what I subsequently adopt as truth.
If I meet a Catholic, a Jew or a Muslim, and they have a clear Truth of their own to follow - hence it shines from them like a clear light - then they are following THEIR truth. I am inadquate and not in a position to contradict them. I merely try to do likewise. Harm No-one, would be my first Truth. if it is theirs also, then we follow the same Truth, for example, and this Truth in different forms, is for me, the One Truth for all Embodyment....
A like-minded person is not necessarily Buddhist....
First and foremost, we are all Human Beings....we all want the same things. To be Happy and free from any kind of Suffering.
So maybe there is A truth for all Embodyments.
Pick the bones out of this - and see what of it, is True for you......
How true those words still are!
I am grateful federica. this experience has helped me learn of Truth that she is not easily defined. Do you see how helpful this is, because it goes a long way towards answering my questions. How come? Well it's like this. It is far more likely that the parts embody characteristics from the whole than that the whole has all its characteristics from a part. That this part that I seem to represent is unable to define the whole meaningfully to the part that you call you is then supportive of the idea that one truth encompasses us both than it is of the idea she proceeds from either one of us alone.
This yes answer makes me more happy than a no one, because it means that what I am is not different or separate from you in truth.
Another thing that I remembered about truth is that while quite indefineable or even describable, she is nice to know and absolutely loveable.
What's your experience federica. Do you know of whom I speak? Will you give me your yes or no response to my questions, or shall you send me many words?
Thankyou for your communication
Hoy
A great king called before him all the wise ones of his kingdom and demanded that they investigate Truth until they could provide him with a single statement that would be true in all circumstances.
Years later, not one of the wise women and men had managed to find any statement that could not be disputed by refutation or circumstances.
The great king was deeply depressed by this failure and all the riches of his kingdom and the beauties of his harem were as ashes in his mouth.
One night, he dressed himself in a merchant's cloak and hat, and wandered, as was his wont, among his citizens. By the teeming docks, he came upon a beggar who was minus one leg, one arm and one eye. When he questioned the beggar the amputee cheerfully and with many a funny story related his exploits in the king's wars and the misfortunes that had befallen him.
"But how is it," asked the disguised king in astonishment, "that you remain so cheerful?"
"That's easy," said the beggar. "Once, I was hale and hearty. Now I am minus a few bits. But I am only sure of one thing: This, too, shall pass."
And the king dismissed his wise counsellors, setting up the beggar as his vizier because they now both knew the truth which is true anywhere in the ten thousand worlds, in the three times and in the seven directions: This, too, shall pass.
b) No.
c) Not Entirely.....
d) No.
These are my honest answers.
It doesn't really matter, in the end.....
Be unafraid, because I can learn but love from each honest response
Hoy.
Yes, thank you Hoy, very kind.....
Would you care to be less cryptic and a little bit more forthcoming, and reveal what on earth you're talking about? Because, to be honest, you're rapidly losing me here... Am I missing something? :-/
It doesn't matter.
If however you intuit a deeper meaning in anything that I have or will post, refer me to that and I will open it further.
It is unlikely that you are really missing anything. I may be though. Would you fill me in as to how a) to d) below relate as your experience of or response to the two questions that I asked.
These are my honest answers. ( I appreciate your honesty and the obvious respect that you have for the mind that you are.
a) Yes.
b) No.
c) Not Entirely.....
d) No.
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Another thing about truth is that it can not be hidden, only denied.
I will miss talking with you if you split this thread.
Hoy.
An interesting perspective, Hoy.
You ask about "truth", as if there were some fixed and eternal category that can be so described and then tell us that it is not definable or even describable. So, what is this "truth" about which you ask? It seems to me that you are equating it with some underlying unity, which, as a practitioner, I might call the Dharma but for which you may have different words.
And then you make a wonderful (if strange) leap to telling us that this undefinable 'truth' is "nice to know and absolutely loveable". I should like to be able to understand how you get from the undescribable to the absolutely loveable.
Would you care to help me understand?
a) Yes..... I believe there is, but once we know it, debate and questions will be irrelevant and pointless....
b) No.... for the reasons stated above .....
c) Not entirely.... which is what leads me to believe that I'm missing the point, in its' entirety ... perhaps because it's too simple/complex.... I told you I wasn't deep.
No) I won't send many words, because I don't understand the point of all this....
Would that underlying unity be the identity which is prior to, or the universal substrate of, separate and bodily identities. This then would be the truth of what I am regardless of I how I choose to perceive myself in what I call time and space.
Following this track a little further, would it be consistent to parrallel the ideas. Only truth is true and only Dharma is real?
Now to the second questioning aspect of your post
"And then you make a wonderful (if strange) leap to telling us that this undefinable 'truth' is "nice to know and absolutely loveable". I should like to be able to understand how you get from the undescribable to the absolutely loveable.
Would you care to help me understand?"
With pleasure! I refer to truth in the femamine because she is the form or birthing forth of that being we are. loveless or lifeless she is barren, but knowing is neither loveless nor lifeless and truth as unity extends. In mistaken sparate identity it is possible to perceive truth lovelessly but this multiplies divisions rather than appreciating and extending unity.
Therefore I have said that truth that is true is nice to know. This because we have our function in and from what we are and completion of our function is our happiness.
I describe her as absolutely loveable because she represents an absolute or constant of our being/Dharma that is not loveless.
You are right that I did say that she is not describable, but the description immediately above refers to an aspect, not the whole.
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Hoy
You know, for my part, I'm a pretty uncomplicated type of gal.... I took refuge in the Triple Gem, read, absorbed, examinded, understood and accepted the Four Noble Truths, and am now pretty 'Hell-bent' on following the 8Fold Path as best I can..... I adhere to the Five Precepts, tripping up now and then (as one does) but pretty much I don't do so bad...
I've been a member of this forum for some time now, and can count most of the 'old friends of the site ' as my old friends too... hopefully, others here would be happy to say the same of me....
There is a Thread for New Members in which to introduce themselves.... your profile, however, bears no information for anyone to get to 'know you' better....
And I must say, your first posting here was somewhat - how shall I put it - ? In your face, for someone who's a complete stranger... To me - and this is just my opinion - it's like opening your front door to someone who hasn't even knocked, and being confronted with a question rather like, "Why are you living here? Do you think you'd be ok living somewhere else? Would someone else like your house?"
Which is why i'm having to stop and evaluate, briefly, and put the same question to you, again....
What's your point?
Nothing of truth ever was or ever can be lost. What you are has all power to deny all and deem it lost and you lost to it, but that changes what you are by exactly nothing. Yes, not only do you know it, but you have and are it.
I remain ever willing to reveal with you our truth, on this forum and directly.
Hoy
Well good, yes, thanks for coming back...
I suppose another reason for the delays and gaps in responses is that I don't know where you are, globally.... hence my encouraging you to 'share' a bit about yourself in my previous post ....
Time differences play quite a part in discussion sequence & "logic"... sometimes, by the time you come back to a thread, to add your txo penn'orth, several people have got in before you.... or as in this case.....silence...!!
While I know revealing seemingly unnecessary and unimportant details about ones' self isn't obligatory, and is, in light of our discussion, probably irrelevant (!!) it's just nice sometimes to "put a geographical face to the name"...! You might hail from Japan, or Cleethorpes, for all I know!!
I am an old guy, Grumpy as you might imagine. I look after my aging mother who has dementia and fabricates her world with wonerful abandon. Sheezz! I am learning more from her now than ever she taught me. We live near the port of Fremantle in Western Australia and have a very protected and comfortable existence.
For about twenty years I was a student of an experience called A Course in Miracles. I never completed the course to my satisfaction but I was awarded an honorary pass ( without distinction ) by my teacher.
I love truth and try to give it away( even in ya face (sorry)), that I may keep it.
Hoy
May I call you Erica for short?
I have never been called Erica in my life, before...! You can call me what ever you want I guess, I truly don't mind... the name 'Federica' is in fact my middle name, and a lot of folks call me 'Fede' for short.....
"There is no spoon....' is a line from Matrix 1... Neo visits a person called 'The Oracle' where he meets a child, bald and dressed, I would say, like a Zen Monk, who is playing with/manipulating a spoon Yuri Geller style.... he explains that all this sleight of hand and manipulative intricate fingerwork is all illusory and immaterial (as is indeed, everything else we 'hold on to' as material and permanent....)....because, in reality,
'There IS no spoon'....
If ever I get so far 'up myself' that I begin to take Life too seriously, I merely remind myself of this.... rather like Simon's 'This too shall pass'...!
Our parents become our children, and we learn as much about ourselves as them, in this role reversal. My parents are both living, but ageing, and distant.... they live in Italy, but I daresay that at one moment or another, we might well eventually find ourselves living under the same roof...."What don't kill you makes you stronger" is a current and popular adage/cliché..... It's only when the brown and obnoxiously smelly stuff hits the rotating ventilation equipment that we know whether we can come out smelling sweet as roses.....;
Thanks for coming back, and "sharing".... Nice to meet you Hoy!!
what then is constant?
Neither jest nor insanity will protect you from the fact that you have made not what you are in truth. The constant of our creation is that we can only truly give as is given unto us. The very idea of inconsistency is a tantrum of a mind dreaming a separate identity and taking that foolishness seriously as a nightmare.
Again, I remain willing to awaken with you from this in the dis covering of all that we have in common with all by denying all else.
We leave not this world by death, but by truth and none come to this alone.
Hoy.
"All things are impermanent. Strive on with dilligence."
I sometimes think we can get so far up our own a**eholes with this constant search for Truth, Enlightenment, Teachings, Revelations and *Bling Bling! Ahaaaa!* moments, that we lose sight of what brought us to Buddhism in the first place.
What brought ME to Buddhism in the first place was the Simplicity. The fact that if there WERE no answers............. so what?
Just keep on keepin' on. Walk the Talk and Tread the Path. So what, if you occasionally trip up or take a short-cut - or even a breather - ? Just do your best. Love as you should and be happy. How complicated is that - ?
federica answered so much more colorfully than I could have. :smilec:
Mike
- Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
....And not being able to count.....:p
I don't get it. I've read this a couple of times and just don't get it. Now...
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man desiring suffering, confusion and nagging 24/7 three hundred and sixty five days out of the year, non-stop - must be in want of a wife."
Now THAT, I get.
Kin ah git an Amen?
-bf
lend me $50.00.... permanently.....
And I'm hoping Nick has figured this out too, by the way...
If you were a real woman, I would have been asked what I was thinking, then asked if those coveralls you had on made your butt look big, then I would have been asked why I spent so much time on the computer and never paid you any attention and then you would have stormed out, then come back with a plate that you threw at me, then cried, then slapped me, then cried some more because I was such a jerk for having such a hard face that hurts your hand when you hit me -
Then you would have just taken my $50.00 and my house and my car and left me with thousands of dollars of credit card debt.
But I'm not bitter. Oh no siree! Not me!
-bf
BF, dear heart,
The quotation is from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. If you haven't read her yet, may I recommend her work. She is among the sharpest and funniest observers of human frailty.
Sorry, I can NEVER resist reading Simonthepilgrim, God bless him!
Interesting thread. Thought I'd bump it.
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P.S. Simon's so right about Jane Austin. She changed everything for me when I was 17. She's one of only a handful of authors I can read her over and over again because her writing is such a deep pleasure. No matter how celebrated, to me she will always be underrated.
the Visiting Professor in Composition at the Welsh College of Music and Drama is the son of the late Sir Lennox Berkeley, Michael. Whilst I am not a great fan of his music, I was interested to learn that, having written an opera of Jane Eyre, he is now rumoured to be writing another - of Pride and Prejudice.
But, Pilgrim, what has that got to do with THE TRUTH, the subject of this thread?
One thing many of us know TO BE TRUE is that you are an erudite, kind-hearted man who imparts so much wisdom and balance to this NewBuddhist site, that we look forward eagerly to your helpful contributions.
"Simon, You are a Rock."
Fondly,
Nirvana
where have you been?
PM me when you can.
cheers
Xray
That's quite the koan, imo. There is no intellectual answer that really satisfies this one for me. The best I can get is that truth is the direct perception of the way things are. I think the Buddha laid this out about as well as can be done. But that's just my opinion.
metta
_/\_
For what it's worth, my take on truth is covered here.
Sincerely,
Jason
The truth is what you arrive at when you diagnose, dissect, examine and closely investigate what you first perceive, and find it fitting comfortably within your appraisal.
Truth is a dead bird?
wow! I think I either just solved my first koan or I'm a friggin nutbag.
Sounds good but leads to nihilism.