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Oh I tolerate. And I wouldn't respect you any less if you "were" trying to sell me mysticism btw. I think it's actually commendable for people to try to share with others what they think they know.
Rationality is not inherently "good" no. It's merely a tool. The reason why it's good is that it's the most impartial tool I'm aware of.
I can appreciate there is more to us than our intellect. But for me everything is interconnected. If I perform a conscious action routinely....it will eventually be my subconscious self urging me to perform it again as it becomes mechanic. And then there's the unconscious which we rarely get glimpses of...possibly in dreams. But one can see the correlations of both subconscious to unconscious to conscious, and intellect and intention are what gives us power over conscious so that we can reform the other two, too.
Because many mystics have dedicated a good deal of their life and strength into this search for the "Truth,” and used every tool available to them; their intellect, emotions, different practices and disciplines, and the words and thoughts of respected others, very often upon hearing about other people's heartfelt discoveries in this area, they can easily say, "Been there, done that."
So in this way it doesn't call on them to practice tolerance and compassion for others, so much as, ‘a knee jerk identification’ with, and a seeing themselves in others. "Ah, this was ‘me’ (or my plateau) last year." Or, “Ah, yes, this was ‘me’ (or my plateau) last week." Smile!
Perhaps it is in this way more difficult to be intolerant or even angry at their efforts.
So, I would put forth this as an idea, for your kind inspection. Mysticism doesn’t disregard rationalism. Mysticism is at least rational, and so much more. The rational is very often a jumping off point from which we are allowed to go beyond the rational and to transcend the mind.
In the Sunna sutta, the Buddha taught that the self is empty. All Buddhists apparently accept this as authentic. If the self is empty of existence and form is empty of existence, then what is there to be reborn? How can a non existent self die? How can non existence become non existence? I think that is what is meant by unborn. Something that does not exist is not born so it cannot die. In fact there is no 'something' that either is born or dies. Have I got this right?-P
I believe you are correct in associating "unborn" with emptiness. Yet you are incorrect to associate this with non-existence.
For instance, there is unlikely to be anything in your today that was there 10 years ago. Every single cell has likely been replaced. So the body that was called "you" 10 years ago is completely different to the body of today. Yet they are both referred to as "you". There is a continuity between that body and this body, however, the continuity is only valid from a conventional point of view, its really just a reference. The previous body and the current body are empty of anything called "your body". The same can be said about your mind, except mind changes much faster than matter, your mind 10 years ago was probably much different that today's mind. So if we assume (very simplistically) that your self = your body + your mind then the two elements of the self 10 years ago are completely different to the two elements today. In this simple case the self is empty of equality over time. In other words the self of the past is unequal to the self of today. The way that is stated is that the self is empty of "inherent" existence.
I suppose the same thing occurs from one lifetime to next lifetime, except there is a much more dramatic effect on the body, its completely traded in, I'm not so sure about the mind. Yet as the mind changes so quickly maybe the body is just catching up. It must be pretty dramatic otherwise more people would remember things from past lives.
One last thing, you are partially correct also. When you are referring to the non-existent self, you are not referring to your self, you are referring to a fabrication that has been overlaid onto your existence. You do truly exist "as you are" and emptiness does not refute this, in fact emptiness is a requirement for existence. Yet this fabrication of a self that we usually have, which is different to how we truly exist, is completely false and non-existent.
Many books on emptiness have something like this to say: work on shamatha, it is indispensable when it comes to investigating emptiness and is almost always a prior requirement for understanding.
Nirvana is beyond logic and rationality because it is non-duality, neither subject nor object, so in this way Buddhism is a mysticism, however it is not based on the whims of a God but rather it is a set of teachings that can be verified by the individual, meaning logic is used to understand the teachings, and the rest is left up to the individual.
F: Logic is used to understand the teachings, and the rest is left up to the individual.
S9: The words, actions, or concepts of Buddhism, whether they are a practice, speculative and/or logical, are in fact a conceptual map of one kind or another that is used to point directly at what is finite (aka transient). In this way also, through the use of elimination of what is merely finite, we can come quite handily to what is in fact Real, (AKA What not always merely coming and going like a dream of becoming.)
What is Real, (Buddha Nature) however, will not end up being the ultimate and best (mental) understanding of what ‘Is’, nor will it be an accumulation of facts like a jigsaw puzzle of Unity. Rather what “Is,” the very “Thusness” IS an “Ultimate Experience of Suchness” or “Isness.” This is neither captured within dualism, nor does it escape into monism.
As Nagarjuna said, “It is empty of emptiness.”
Emptiness, as we so often wrongfully perceive it, is nothing more than a mental formation that smacks of both of the two twins of monism and dualism. This is because monism is supported by dualism as its backdrop in order to support its understanding, as the mind conceives in this instance through the dualistic process of comparison of “one” over against “two,” or the one emptiness named nirvana, against the two-ness or dualism of multiplicity, both of these a mental place (aka a mental object). Name and mental forms (or places) are simple tools of the mind. Therefore the concept of emptiness is still bouncing around within the mind, or is a prisoner of our limited thought processes.
“Waking Up’ is not, (in the end), freedom of the mind, but rather freedom from the mind.”
In Waking Up we dis-identify with the mind, and all of her children.
After all, mind is nothing more than the continuous cycle of finitude, or the transient circumstances of becoming.
Mysticism is a study and use of metaphysics in order to extricate our self from this dreaming mental world…or to Wake up!
Comments
Rationality is not inherently "good" no. It's merely a tool. The reason why it's good is that it's the most impartial tool I'm aware of.
I can appreciate there is more to us than our intellect. But for me everything is interconnected. If I perform a conscious action routinely....it will eventually be my subconscious self urging me to perform it again as it becomes mechanic. And then there's the unconscious which we rarely get glimpses of...possibly in dreams. But one can see the correlations of both subconscious to unconscious to conscious, and intellect and intention are what gives us power over conscious so that we can reform the other two, too.
Because many mystics have dedicated a good deal of their life and strength into this search for the "Truth,” and used every tool available to them; their intellect, emotions, different practices and disciplines, and the words and thoughts of respected others, very often upon hearing about other people's heartfelt discoveries in this area, they can easily say, "Been there, done that."
So in this way it doesn't call on them to practice tolerance and compassion for others, so much as, ‘a knee jerk identification’ with, and a seeing themselves in others. "Ah, this was ‘me’ (or my plateau) last year." Or, “Ah, yes, this was ‘me’ (or my plateau) last week." Smile!
Perhaps it is in this way more difficult to be intolerant or even angry at their efforts.
So, I would put forth this as an idea, for your kind inspection. Mysticism doesn’t disregard rationalism. Mysticism is at least rational, and so much more. The rational is very often a jumping off point from which we are allowed to go beyond the rational and to transcend the mind.
Peace and love,
S9/Leslie
I believe you are correct in associating "unborn" with emptiness. Yet you are incorrect to associate this with non-existence.
For instance, there is unlikely to be anything in your today that was there 10 years ago. Every single cell has likely been replaced. So the body that was called "you" 10 years ago is completely different to the body of today. Yet they are both referred to as "you". There is a continuity between that body and this body, however, the continuity is only valid from a conventional point of view, its really just a reference. The previous body and the current body are empty of anything called "your body". The same can be said about your mind, except mind changes much faster than matter, your mind 10 years ago was probably much different that today's mind. So if we assume (very simplistically) that your self = your body + your mind then the two elements of the self 10 years ago are completely different to the two elements today. In this simple case the self is empty of equality over time. In other words the self of the past is unequal to the self of today. The way that is stated is that the self is empty of "inherent" existence.
I suppose the same thing occurs from one lifetime to next lifetime, except there is a much more dramatic effect on the body, its completely traded in, I'm not so sure about the mind. Yet as the mind changes so quickly maybe the body is just catching up. It must be pretty dramatic otherwise more people would remember things from past lives.
One last thing, you are partially correct also. When you are referring to the non-existent self, you are not referring to your self, you are referring to a fabrication that has been overlaid onto your existence. You do truly exist "as you are" and emptiness does not refute this, in fact emptiness is a requirement for existence. Yet this fabrication of a self that we usually have, which is different to how we truly exist, is completely false and non-existent.
Many books on emptiness have something like this to say: work on shamatha, it is indispensable when it comes to investigating emptiness and is almost always a prior requirement for understanding.
Cheers, WK
F: Logic is used to understand the teachings, and the rest is left up to the individual.
S9: The words, actions, or concepts of Buddhism, whether they are a practice, speculative and/or logical, are in fact a conceptual map of one kind or another that is used to point directly at what is finite (aka transient). In this way also, through the use of elimination of what is merely finite, we can come quite handily to what is in fact Real, (AKA What not always merely coming and going like a dream of becoming.)
What is Real, (Buddha Nature) however, will not end up being the ultimate and best (mental) understanding of what ‘Is’, nor will it be an accumulation of facts like a jigsaw puzzle of Unity. Rather what “Is,” the very “Thusness” IS an “Ultimate Experience of Suchness” or “Isness.” This is neither captured within dualism, nor does it escape into monism.
As Nagarjuna said, “It is empty of emptiness.”
Emptiness, as we so often wrongfully perceive it, is nothing more than a mental formation that smacks of both of the two twins of monism and dualism. This is because monism is supported by dualism as its backdrop in order to support its understanding, as the mind conceives in this instance through the dualistic process of comparison of “one” over against “two,” or the one emptiness named nirvana, against the two-ness or dualism of multiplicity, both of these a mental place (aka a mental object). Name and mental forms (or places) are simple tools of the mind. Therefore the concept of emptiness is still bouncing around within the mind, or is a prisoner of our limited thought processes.
“Waking Up’ is not, (in the end), freedom of the mind, but rather freedom from the mind.”
In Waking Up we dis-identify with the mind, and all of her children.
After all, mind is nothing more than the continuous cycle of finitude, or the transient circumstances of becoming.
Mysticism is a study and use of metaphysics in order to extricate our self from this dreaming mental world…or to Wake up!
Peace and love,
S9/Leslie