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Question
Bunks
Australia Veteran
What are we (beyond the conceptual) and why are we here?
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Form = cause and effect. I guess we can agree on that. At a gross level a combination of daddy’s sperm and mum’s eggs. Plus all the food we’ve eaten and liquid drink.
What about feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness? From where have these manifested?
Are they just products of form or is form a product of them?
Thich Nhat Hanh says in No Death, No Fear that we are conditioned arising — we manifest when the conditions are right for us to do so. Of course we have our ancestors, and if you think about your childhood compared to how you are now, you’ll notice a difference in how you relate to thoughts and emotions. We are evolving beings, your whole body refreshes its cells every few years.
Part of the answer is in the aggregates.
http://buddhismteacher.com/five_aggregates.php
Buddhism does not require ‘god done it and knows best' displacement.
In the spirit of your question I would suggest 'life meaning' is absent. It is an arising without a plan for an immortal soul. However we are not reduced to nihilism. Quite the contrary.
We can make the very best existence for ourselves and others. That is a high calling and purpose:
We can know and experience our emptiness. We can increase in emptiness, decrease in clinging to being, becoming and the machinations of samsara ... In this sense we are here to befriend ...
IMO its best to say we don't totally know. We understand the physical body/brain fairly well. I don't think we understand the experiential mind much at all, even to the point where people argue that experience is just an illusion. I'm not necessarily saying the mind and brain are made up of different stuff (substance dualism), it may be that the experience of mind is completely a product of the brain, but currently we have no explanation for how or why it arises. It often isn't even a question neuroscience considers.
https://samharris.org/the-mystery-of-consciousness/
https://samharris.org/the-mystery-of-consciousness-ii/
I don't know if there really is a reason in the cosmic sense, but we are here, so it up to us to make the most of it. There are better and worse ways of being and there are many ways to be beneficial, to be on the whole a more positive force in the world rather than a negative one. The exact details of what that is and how to do it has been the focus and effort of generations of wise and virtuous people. Many aspects of the world and people are situational and change over time so the needs and solutions change along with them and many aspects are more universal and stable.
The question of what we are goes back some ways. Sri Ramana Maharshi said that inquiring within about that question was ‘the most direct way to enlightenment’. You could say you are the watcher, although Ramana wasn’t satisfied with that.
Why we are here is another one that people have been breaking their heads over for a while, there are whole branches of philosophy dedicated to it. Psychologists have been known to say there is no meaning, except what we give it.
In the world of Fullmetal Alchemist, humans are:
And they are also irreplaceable. I think this is a reasonably accurate paradox.
Perhaps the body gives rise to the mind. Perhaps there is also a soul, but no one knows. The Buddha teaches that identifying with things is the way to suffering, but he doesn’t rule out a soul—it’s just best to proceed as if there isn’t one.
Some of you might find this respectful conversation interesting. Between a physicalist Michael Shermer and an idealist Deepak Chopra.
Neurons firing for consciousness's pleasure/entertainment
Sub atomic particles floating about in consciousness soup...where we stick together for a while before drifting apart...
We ( like all matter) are just the ingredients that makes up the soup...( I guess we are the meaty grisly parts)
Or
Nothing special...No particular reason....
They are dependently co-arisen phenomena. Without consciousness, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Likewise without the body or form (a combination of daddy’s sperm and mum’s eggs. Plus all the food we’ve eaten and liquid drink.) Unless there is a disembodied person participating.
The Buddha did not answer the question "Why are we here?" because it does not lead to liberation.
So when we ask "why are we here?"
Who is asking whom?
Isn't it possible that 'you' are beyond thought?
I'll give it a go....
Perhaps consciousness just 'is' ( without it would the other components exist? ) the phenomena of feeling, perception & volitional formation arise up in & from consciousness and depart back into consciousness...
Where consciousness (AKA awareness) interacts with the neurons as they fire, forming the pathways which form the concepts of thought, feeling, perception & mental formation...the concept of "I am"....Karma, being the sticky substance that holds it all together...
...and going back to your original question
A tool what consciousness uses to explore itself...