Buddhism's idea of reality.

Joshua

I was wondering what stance any school of Buddhism from orthodox to esoteric takes on the nature of reality? By that I am literally asking why the physical world exists. Is there any scriptural or commentarial opinion? Does Buddhism not have an answer on account that it only deals with what it can ascertain, that matter exists and we project impossible ways of existing onto it? Or is matter itself a projection of our mind with fundamental reality being literally non-dual as, I believe, a Yogacarin might say? Thank you.

ShiftPlusOne

I think that would fall under speculation.

Cloud

The only nature of reality proposed by Buddhism is Anicca-Dukkha-Anatta.

PietroPumokin

i dont know,.,,... all i know is that ..... it just .... is.. .... he he he he he. . .. ... it's an isness that has pants on some times..... and some times it doesnt ....... he he he he he.. . ........ ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!! ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!

Sabre

Well, according to modern Physics there's matter and energy, which are exchangeable. Also there appears to be something called anti-matter and perhaps negative energy. Maybe if you combine everything into one it would sum up to zero, meaning nothing really exist?.. which is a Buddhist way of looking at it.

But I don't think it is the right path to think about these things too much (if it isn't your job ) and neither did the Buddha. Why physical things are here isn't important.

Cloud

"Nothing really exists" isn't exactly how Buddhism presents it.
Rather, nothing exists independently (as a self), or permanently.
Anatta and Anicca. "Emptiness", but not "nothing".

Joshua

Buddhism isn't actually non-dual? That is an idea that I see heavily solicited in book and internet. When I refer to dualism I'm referring to a distinguishment between mind and matter, therefore non-dualism implies that there is either only matter or mind. I know Buddhism tries to always take a middle path, but in this case it seems unlikely. The best compromise I can see is a Schrödinger's cat situation where awareness exists because it perceives the reality which exists only because the mind perceives it.

Cloud, it seems that esoteric Buddhism seems to proclaim knowledge about the duration of the universe. I won't get into it unless you'd like because it's not important, but I figure if someone seems to know the exact length of the universe and that it's an infinite flux of quasi-big bangs and crunches then maybe some Buddhist schools do have opinions on the nature of reality?

Cloud

Huh? Are you sure you're replying to a post of mine? I never said anything like that...

PietroPumokin

i would say that everything is Mind but that's only because that is how i lean
so matter isn't something foreign to mind and constantly interacting with it, it's just the more physical aspect of mind at large. the human universe is spirit, not matter, because matter never was foreign to spirit in the first place they were always one. I DUNNO

Cloud

Mind and form are both emptiness, born of emptiness. The only duality is in not understanding there's no duality. So yes nature is non-dual; just as anicca and anatta imply each other. If all things change, there can't be a self. If there's no self in any thing, all things must change. Dukkha is in not fully understanding your own nature.

Roger

We humans make it all up. Science, math, art, culture, religion. Based on sense perceptions, incontrovertibly connected to the senses the thinking mind goes in all directions.

The one false direction is to think we're getting a view of something "beyond" us.

More correctly: we are getting a view of what we think is beyond us.

OTOH, Strictly separate the mind from the human body - THEN we're getting somewhere! LOL



BTW, in my college days we'd have a great time defying people to define "reality." Be careful when you use that word!

Do not assume the other person knows what you are referring to when the term is put into use and vice versa.

Joshua

Cloud, I didn't say nothing existed. I'm not sure that we're following each other.

Roger, my question is about the origin of matter, I hope that's better explicated. I thought I did a decent job with the OP? Could you supply some advice? Thanks.

Cloud

I apologize, I was replying to the post immediately above mine, about the "nothing really exists" thing.

Joshua

Aha, then the fault is also mine for clearly failing to be observant.

upalabhava

According to pages 100-101 here http://bit.ly/h229Yj

For the Vaisesika school of philosophy, which developed in India the atomist theory, the atom is an infinitely small particle of matter, indivisible, eternal, of spherical form. The union of atoms give rise to things and beings of the empirical reality. Several of these characteristics were adopted by the Buddhist atomic conception. In the oldest Buddhist texts, those included in the Pali Canon, no mention is found of the atomist theory as a theory adopted by Buddhism. Probably it was the Sarvastivada school or sect which introduced that theory into Buddhism. The Mahavibhasa, a canonical treatise of that school, is the first Buddhist text which has frequent references to atomism.

O. Rosenberg considers that the atomist theory is in Buddhism one of the most difficult, and points out that the speculations about the atoms are filled with contradictions and that this theory was for the Buddhists as source of polemics.

That continues for a bit actually. Anyone interested should read on to learn of Buddhism's subtly different take on "matter" -- that "stuff" we all intuitively know.



A summary of the Mahavibhasa can be found here http://bit.ly/hzxWZo

Skip to page 563 for the summary of the section dealing with atoms. I sure wish I could find a translation of the thing instead of just a summary. Volume 7 of this encyclopedia looks helpful http://bit.ly/egsGXm

Check your library and I'll keep looking.



I also recommend "On dhammas, atoms, substances and
the doctrine of momentariness" from Early Buddhist Metaphysics by Noa Ronkin.

Whatever disputes may have existed between the Sarvastivada-Vaibhasika and the Sautrantika on these ontological and phenomenological issues, they all agreed on the view that material reality (rupa-dharma) can be reduced to discrete momentary atoms, namely, the four primary elements. These momentary atoms, through their spatial arrangement and by their concatenation with prior and posterior atoms of the same type, create the illusion of persisting things as they appear in our everyday experience. Atomic reality is thus understood first and foremost as change, though not in the sense of a thing x transforming into y. That is, change itself is the very nature of atomic reality rather than its being made of enduring substances the qualities of which undergo change. Atoms that appear to endure are, in fact, a series of momentary events that ascend and fall in rapid succession and in accordance with causal relations. Unlike the atoms of the Vaisesika, the atoms of the Sarvastivada-Vaibhasika and the Sautrantika are not permanent: they come into being and cease from one moment to the next, going through a process of birth, continuance, decay and destruction. Yet the material compounds that consist of these atoms are real, if only in the minimal, phenomenological sense.

For our present purpose it is important to note that the Theravadins did not incorporate the Northern Buddhist atomistic theory as such into their system. As Karunadasa indicates, the Theravadin canonical texts do not mention the idea of a unitary atom or the term paramanu. Rather, the post-canonical texts employ the term kalapa (literally ‘package’), which corresponds to the collective atom of the Sarvastivada-Vaibhasika, that is, the smallest material unit that contains the eight elements. The idea first appears in the commentaries to the Dhammasaπgani and the Vibhaπga, as well as in the Visuddhimagga, using both the singular form and the plural form kalapa. Yet only in the period of the sub-commentaries and the medieval manuals did kalapa become the standard term for the collective atom. (57-56)

I found the following very interesting. As early as 1906 -- this is before the Rutherford and Bohr models of the atom, and before even the QM theory of the atom, no? -- people were taking notice of the relevance of the Buddhist atomic theory.

aHappyNihilist

isn't this the fourth imponderable? speculation about the first cause and generally the overall nature of the universe?

Joshua

thank you upala.

I seemed to have picked up this idea that material reality was a projection of mind, that consciousness on the most subtle level was the only thing to exist. I think my schrodinger's cat example, being loosely in accord with dependent origination, might be the most ascertainable case.

Oh, upala, my library has no good books. I live in redneckville. Besides any good books on buddhism I've already stolen.

upalabhava

I seemed to have picked up this idea that material reality was a projection of mind, that consciousness on the most subtle level was the only thing to exist.

That's not uncommon, I think, for those that first encounter Buddhism -- especially if you see things said like, "All things are mind-wrought" or "All is an illusion".

But to say that mind is all that exists is the extreme of solipsism and it misrepresents the Chittamatra position. Sometimes this misrepresentation is done on purpose to win debates, etc. But it's not Buddhism.



"All things are mind-wrought" comes from the Dhammapada. The full quote:

Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief; they are all mind-wrought. If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts suffering follows him like the wheel that follows the foot of the ox.

In the first quote ("All things...") what is translated as 'things' is 'dhammā'. In the blockquote it is clear that "mental states" is what is being talked about. In this instance it is easy to see that Buddha is talking about mental things -- I mean, he says so explicitly. In fact dhammās are the objects apprehended by mind or consciousness, if we include it as the final sense awareness. It is not the objects themselves, or rather the qualities of the objects, that are apprehended by mind; the sense organs do that apprehending. The mind apprehends the messages passed along by the sense organs. Sometimes this is presented as 5 sense-consciousnesses apprehending sensory data, and the 6th (mind) would apprehend mental data.


So, it is not that mind precedes matter. At least, that is not what was said.

What the blockquote is talking about is that the succession of mind(s) relies on the state of the previous mind. This works moment to moment, and from life to life. The state of your mind now will condition the state of your mind in the next moment. The state of your mind at death will condition the subsequent becoming.



This brings to mind the creation of conceptual objects. Things are mind-wrought in that the mind creates the label, the name, the category of the "thing". A computer monitor exits in front of you at the moment, but it is not the actual thing itself that is mind-wrought, it is the label "monitor" and all the mental associations that accompany such a conception that is mind-wrought.

Mind creates the image of the thing. And the image of the thing is not outside, it is within your mind, so to speak.

Understanding this relationship between the object and the mental representation the an object leads to the next part.



As for "All things are an illusion" -- this too can be taken to an extreme. People can interpret it to mean that no thing exists. That no thing is real. But this is not what is meant.

An illusion exists but it is deceptive, its apparent nature is assumed to be its actual nature. If a magician through some means or another causes there to appear the likeness of an elephant, and all the children are delighted in thinking that suddenly there has appeared a real elephant! They have mistaken the appearance in their mind of the elephant as implying the existence of an actual elephant; the illusion has deceived them. The illusion exists, but the elephant does not.

The same thing is at play when any 'thing' is viewed from an unenlightened perspective. The appearance of a thing arises in the mind, and we can either recognize that this is just the appearance of a thing that has arisen, or we can misapprehend the appearance (the mental representation) for the thing itself.



As for consciousness and its relationship to matter: a la Berzin the two are inseparable. In the human state, mind is associated with the brain and nervous system; this is a gross (meaning not subtle) association. In one of the formless realms, he says, the mind is still associated with a material basis, but since we are talking about the formless realm, the material basis is matter in its most subtle form: energy.

This is not biological reductionism though: I am not saying the mind is the brain, but I am not saying it is other than the brain either. I like this one from my dad:

The body is a vessel carved of ice.
The mind is the liquid in the cup.

IOW, both are water.

Joshua

I actually said something similar but much less elaborate using the Dhammapada's first verse trying to figure out emptiness recently and ironically. Was it to Journey? I can't remember.

That elephant analogy and the ice/water/cup's of your father, I've heard them both before, it's so vague though, I can't remember where; the first was Berzin maybe? The second somewhere when I was going through a Yogacara consciousness-only kick? At any rate you are a clever database Upala.

..

I don't know anything about chittamatra yet, that's on my to-do list. From what I do know, using nothing other than my intuition, is that essentially Buddhism formally takes the stance that the absolute nature of physical reality cannot be known, but the idea of cause and effect goes pretty far, in fact, right into a circle? Which is precisely what it concerns itself with, right?

TheJourney

I believe we exist because life was, and because life was we wanted to learn about what life. By learning about life we create all different "realities" and "egos."