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Brucenkhamen

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Posts posted by Brucenkhamen

  1. A major principle of Buddhism, as I understand it, is that the mind is continually tricking us in all sorts of ways that we are often unaware of. I believe Science can confirm this is true.

    Here is the problem with your original hypotheses.

    Above you've stated "mind is continually tricking us in all sorts of ways" which to me is fine as a description of delusion, you'll notice you have two things going on there "the mind" which produces the illusion and "the trick" which is the illusion produced. You can't have an illusion without something that produces it, other producers of illusion would be magicians, cgi, audio visual etc.

    So if as you say the mind is an illusion, what produces it?

  2. Likewise it may have been worthwhile for "the Buddha" to promote a doctrine of "the mind" even if mind was/is an illusion.

    Yes, that would be my other point, even if there were a degree of truth in it depending on how you looked at it wouldn't be skilful means to define the mind in this way.

  3. Having gone though many sutra PDFs (looking for quotes) it does seem that Buddhism proposes a doctrine of mind.

    Thanks for taking the time to dig around.

    Obviously we can see that: There is material form.

    And according to Buddhism; There is Mind.

    Yes, and of course the Buddha would not have spent so much time defining, developing a psychology, and teaching how to train the mind if in fact it was/is an illusion.

  4. An illusion which does not exist is not an illusion. wink.png

    Thanks for cthe concise response.

    It exists as an illusion, it does not exist as a reality, that's the point.

    If I see a monster it exists as an illusion, it does not exist as a monster, that's the point of the word illusion.

    From vacabulary.com...

    An illusion is something that isn't real. It may look real, but it's actually fake just a crafty construction or fantasy. Like the old rabbit-out-of-the-hat trick practiced by magicians around the globe.

    An illusion is an act of deception. Some optical illusions are pretty cool to watch, but an illusion can also point to an erroneous belief or false perception of reality, which is where you start getting into hallucination territory seeing things that aren't there. You can give the illusion that youre fascinated by your professors lecture by chewing on your pencil, furrowing your brow, and making sure to nod enthusiastically every so often.

  5. Actually; there are a great number of sutras where it's stated that the mind is an illusion and does not exist. I will find some and quote if you'd like ?

    Yes please.

    It's good to see somebody else understands illusion = does not exist.

    • Like 1
  6. Whereas my understanding is that everything the brain/mind perceives is illusory to some degree. At one end of the 'illusion' spectrum we have the magician who is skilled in deliberately tricking our normal perceptions through the use of 'sleight of hand', for example, and at the other end of the spectrum we have scientifically rigorous observations using sophisticated tools which can translate all sorts of normally unobservable and undetectable phenomena into some form of recognizable reality, but still a distorted reality, such as X-ray images and brain scans.

    To some degree? Something is either an illusion or it is not, you can't have half a nightmare or half a magic trick or half a hologram. When something is not perceived correctly by the mind I'd call that delusion, corruption, misperception, misinterpretaion etc there are many words situations for when the mind experiences reality incorrectly.

    That does not make the mind itself an illusion.

    The fact that the mind experiences reality incorrectly is beside the point and should be obvious to all. So are you saying that because the everything the mind perceives is illusory to some degree that means the mind itself must be an illusion, or are you not? I don't need all this waffle just a straight answer.

  7. Part of the above quote explicitly states that in some Mahayana texts "the mind is assumed to be just thoughts, and since thoughts are impermanent, they are illusory - therefore the mind is an illusion", a position which sort of concurs with my own stance on this issue.

    That text wasn't part of the quote, it was part of Camerata's introduction, and yes there is nothing in the quote he posted below that supports the last part of that sentence. I don't agree that the mind is just thoughts, nor that impermanent = illusory. Camerata posted it as a Mahayana view not his own nor the Buddha's so doesn't need to defend it.

    However, in post #8 a while ago you wrote "My understanding is some Mahayana philosophies say only mind is real, everything else is illusion", which contradict the statement in the above quote, so I think once again we might have a problem with the definition and/or translation of words.[/font][/size]

    Yes, the above refers to a Mahayana view and may or may not be an accurate account of a Mahayana view, the quote that Camerata posted is a Theravada view.

    As far as I recall, I have never claimed that the mind doesn't exist. Perhaps part of the confusion here is due to an assumption on your part that illusions by definition do not exist, whereas as I consider that illusions do exist but are distortions of reality, or fictions.[/font][/size]

    "The mind is an illusion" = "The mind does not exist" I've never heard of an illusion that actually really exists. Now if you said the mind produces illusions I wouldn't have a problem with that as illusions are tricks of or by the mind, however you said the mind is an illusion which means the mind is not really there but produced as a trick or by imagination, but by what or by whom?

    I struggle to understand how you can't see the difference.

  8. I think the following extract presents the Theravada view of mind and illusion, i.e. that the thoughts created by the mind don't reflect reality. In some Mahayana texts, the mind is assumed to be just thoughts, and since thoughts are impermanent, they are illusory - therefore the mind is an illusion. To me, the mind is a function of the brain, not in itself an illusion.

    That quote is a good description. It talks in terms of illusions being mental events that arise and that cognizing the real nature of those mental events removes the black clouds that obscure the mind.

    This is whole point of the mental development integral to the Buddhist path, one couldn't do that if the mind itself were inherently an illusion also.

  9. In my opinion, the Buddha addressed these issues in his teachings, arriving at a conclusion that the 'self' and the 'ego' is an illusion or a fiction.

    The self/ego and the mind are two very different concepts.

    So I ask again what is the Buddhist source of the view you are presenting? or can I assume it's your own interprestation reached as a result of your own musings?

  10. Now I'm beginning to understand your confusion, ... Do you think you could manage to carry it? wink.png

    How is your question relevant to the Buddhist path?

    I have little interest a samsara of musings regarding your mind being an illusion, you'll recall my original point was that I didn't think the Buddha taught that the mind is an illusion and where you picked up such an idea?

    Are you ready to answer the question yet?

  11. Fair enough! We're all entitled to our opinions. However, if you are going to describe someone's opinion as nonsense, it would help to demonstrate why you think it is nonsense and provide some evidence and hard facts which make it clear how and why the other person's opinion is nonsense.

    Already done.

    Do you consider fiction to be real, Bruce? wink.png

    Fiction is real, go to any library and you'll see whole shelves devoted to it, it's not an illusion it's not my imagination it's real stories written by real people often on real paper or real bandwidth. However the storie(s) contained in the fiction did not happen, that's the definition of fiction, if the story did in fact happen it's called non-fiction.

    Fiction is a real concept with a real definition...

    Fiction is the classification for any creative informational workalmost always a narrativewhose creator does not claim responsibility for the work's faithfulness to reality; in other words, any informative account not guaranteed to present only actual people, factual descriptions, or historically accurate events.

    How is your question relevant to the Buddhist path?

  12. Okay! You've given some good examples which are worthy of discussion. First I'll point out that I do not dismiss something as being of no consequence because it's an illusion. This is an illusory assumption of yours, or a misinterpretation of what I've written.

    Clearly you and I have a different understanding of what it means to say something is an illusion.

    If I have a nightmare involving a monster I will understand that the monster is a creation of the mind and is therefore an illusion, this is synonymous with saying that the monster does not exist.

    I will not say that because the mind creates an illusory monster that the mind is an illusion, ie that the mind does not exist. It's just nonsense, and it's not Buddha Dhamma.

  13. That's a good point. Maybe I do tend to think like that. Can you give me some examples of things that do not have a physical existence and that are also not illusions or distortions of reality. I can't think of any, but presumably you can. I'm always willing to learn. wink.png

    A distortion of reality is not an illusion, it's something that is real but misperceived.

    So here are some examples things that do not have physical existence but are not an illusion;

    Love

    Warmth

    Family

    The Netherlands

    War

    Name

    Date of Birth

    Immigration

    Justice

    Marriage

    You'll notice they are all concepts. As concepts they cover a range of processes, causes, and conditions, some physical some not. Just as the mind is a concept and covers a range of processes, causes, and conditions, or Aggregates as the Buddha termed them.

    To suggest that something is an illusion is to dismiss it as being no consequence. I'll tell my daughter her nightmare was an illusion because I want her to dismiss it and go back to sleep, I won't tell her that her mind is an illusion. The Buddhas teaching does not dismiss the mind, rather it's to help us to to use the mind wisely, to understand it, to train it, to learn to see through the distortions and experience life with clear understanding.

  14. Everything that exists in the mind is a distortion of reality to some degree. Since the existence of the mind is dependent upon the existence of distorted perceptions of an illusory nature, it seems quite logical to me to decribe the mind as an illusion.

    It's quite illogical.

    It's like saying because the petrol is liquid the car is liquid

    or because the show is comedy the television is comedy.

    or because the magic trick is illusion the audience is illusion.

    Perhaps the problem is, you have some illusory impression that the mind has a physical existence, like a bowl that contains things, and if the bowl is empty you think that the bowl (ie. the mind) still exists. Is that true? wink.png

    Perhaps you have the illusory impression that everything that doesn't have a physical existence is illusion.

  15. Dear me! It seems you've misunderstood everything I've written. If you want to talk about cosmogony, that's a subject which provides some excellent examples of the illusory nature of the mind and how it is so easily tricked.

    If something is easily tricked that does not mean that that something is an illusion.

    If I say "the audience is easily tricked" that does not mean the audience is an illusion, anybody would realise that it's actually the magic trick that is an illusion.

    To suggest the mind is an illusion because it is easily tricked is nonsense. The mind is real, the tricks that fool the mind are usually distortions of reality.

    Talking round in circles to belabour a mismade point is not fooling anyone.

    • Like 1
  16. Goodness gracious me! Absolutely everything that anyone teaches, thinks, feels or says about any subject whatsoever, whether true or false, silly or serious, must involve the mind.

    You are absolutely correct! Which is why the statement that "the mind is an illusion" is nonsense.

    Since we are clearly now in agreement on that topic perhaps we can return to the subject of cosmogony.

  17. Well, I'm sorry you've misunderstood my use of ordinary words, Bruce. Of course Buddha didn't precisely teach that the mind is an illusion. The English word 'mind' didn't exist in his vocabulary. As far as I know, there is no specific word in either Pali or Sanskrit which exactly translates to our modern concept of the word 'mind', although I understand there are overlapping terms such as citta, nannas and vinnana which might in total approximate to the general English term 'mind'.

    Of course he was able to teach about the mind without the use of the English word mind, his entire teaching centres around the mind. I assume you are being facetious here as that's a lot of text just to avoid the point.

    What he didn't talk about was illusion.

    The nearest I know of is the Phena Sutta where he talks of form as being "like" foam and foam is not an illusion.

  18. Whatever the mythology, and the selected quotes from scriptures, the fundamental principle of Buddhism that clarifies the situation and (hopefully) enlightens one, is the concept that the mind is an illusion.

    If that's what you believe you may as well kill yourself now as it's all pointless.

    Luckily the Buddha didn't teach that.

    I'm curious where you picked up such an idea. My understanding is some Mahayana philosophies say only mind is real everything else is illusion, a quick google reveals quite a few references to mind being illusion-like for example "In Mahayana Buddhism, mind is illusion-like in the sense that it is empty of inherent existence. This does not mean it does not exist, it means that it exists in a manner that is counter to our ordinary way of misperceiving how phenomena exist, according to Buddhism."

    I find the word illusion quite misleading in this context.

  19. I found a reply on another forum which quotes the Pali Canon's Agganna Sutta on the subject of Devas (Angels in Buddhist cosmology?) and their devolution into human form.

    That could be a candidate.

    It's interesting it starts out talking in terms of it appening in the future. Looking at Wikipaedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agga%C3%B1%C3%B1a_Sutta it appears some scholars see it as being satirical take on the Brahmins claims regarding the divine nature of the caste system, otherwise you've got to wonder why an account on the evolution of the universe is buried inside a Sutta about the caste system. Another scholar sees it as consistent with big bang and evolution.

  20. The Buddha had nothing to say about how the Universe came about.

    I'm not really sure why other religions consider it their job, I think it's the job of science.

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  21. "The Buddha's reason for refusing three times the request of Mahapajapati Gotami, his maternal aunt and adoptive mother, to be ordained, should be pondered in depth," adds Phra Kru Suthammanath."

    There may be other reasons but the most obvious one is that it's a standard formula throughout scripture and the tradition when making a request to ask for something three times, I think it's supposed to be a demonstration of sincerity.

    So we take refuge 3 times, we ask for the precepts 3 times etc. etc.

    There may have been other dynamics in this particular situation with her being the Buddha's foster mother and in a leadership position over 500 women see http://www.academia.edu/9441592/Questions_about_Mah%C4%81paj%C4%81pat%C4%AB_Gotam%C4%AB_s_Ordination for more info.

    The main thing is that the Buddha confirmed there wasn't any suggestion women were not "spiritually" capable;

    Respectfully he questioned the Buddha, "Lord, are women capable of realising the various stages of sainthood as nuns?"

    "They are, Ananda," said the Buddha.

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  22. Does all this align with the Buddhas teachings?

    It doesn't, it aligns with cultural conditioning. If we lived 100 years ago we might have had the same cultural conditioning but ours has changed over that time.

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  23. would he not have had compassion for animals?

    I think he did. Its just that he was pragmatic and not really in the Thou shalt not business.

    If he were to tell his followers what they could and could not eat what would have been the affect of that? The farmers would have to open their gates and set their livestock free, some would lack the skills to live in the wild, some fall prey to predators, most would probably be rounded up by non-Buddhist farmers, so nothing would have been gained.

    Instead we have killing discouraged in the 5 precepts, basing ones livelihood on selling meat discouraged in the eightfold path, killing specifically for feeding monks discouraged. People then have the opportunity to look how they live their lives and where they can make adjustments.

    I agree with Vince that compassion is about how we treat animals when they are alive not about what we eat, looking at the affect we have on the world around us rather than upsetting the foodchain and the ecological balance.

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