Nonexistance

[Ham-milton]

I'm a little confused on the whole Buddhist concept of nonexistance (or is that non-nonexistance?), and the idea that everything we experience is just an illusion.

If nothing really exists and all, and everything is an illusion, how are we able to perceive this illusion?

I mean, I don't get how something that doesn't exist is capable of perceiving or being confused by illusions.

 

[Slay]

your mind makes it real

 

[Ham-milton]

Sure, but if we don't exist, our minds don't exist.

Thus my confusion

how does something that doesn't exist perceive something else that doesn't exist?

 

[Slay]

oh sorry i guess i misread your post dude

your right, if we wouldnt exist then we couldnt perceive anything
so we must exist:D

i'm muslim though so i know i do exist

 

[Dextro 2C]

This whole theory doesn't seem to thought out. Define illusion. How is what we experience an illusion? Am i missing something?

 

[shotgunsinthehall]

I get it. It's true, to me, but I'm not buddhist. Basically we don't exist. The same thing that created everything is the same thing you are and the same thing I am. Imagine if you will, the big bang. So far we understand that everything was tightly condensed and then the resistive force won for a second, scattering and exploding everything outwards. You are the resistive force, so to speak. The reason that there's so many of us is because of the big bang, but nothing exists. We're all the same entity and we just create everything we sense because that's our nature as a resistive force.

Makes perfect sense to me, but maybe you'd have to be insane to get it.

 

[Jamshyd]

I am confused too - not because I have any problem with the concept (on contrary), but because many people say that it is Buddhist. I find most Buddhists to be very existence-affirming. It seems to me that the idea is a more Hindu one (and Gnostic, and Sufi), but not Buddhist...

If anyone cares to enlighten (heh) me as to how it works in a Buddhist framework, I'd be most appreciative.

As for your specific question, an illusion can only be an illusion if it can be percieved, no?

EDIT: Actually, I may have misunderstood your question on first read. Let's try again: talking about non-existence is inherently futile (since by talking about it you perpetuate the illusion of existence), and is merely done in faith between the speakers about a deeper, inutterable understanding.

Perhaps a better way of phrasing it is that existence is a metaphor for something (or non-thing) else, and is therefore illusory at face-value. Does that make more sense?

Or better yet, your existence as such is illusory?

 

[Ham-milton]

I get it. It's true, to me, but I'm not buddhist. Basically we don't exist. The same thing that created everything is the same thing you are and the same thing I am. Imagine if you will, the big bang. So far we understand that everything was tightly condensed and then the resistive force won for a second, scattering and exploding everything outwards. You are the resistive force, so to speak. The reason that there's so many of us is because of the big bang, but nothing exists. We're all the same entity and we just create everything we sense because that's our nature as a resistive force.

Makes perfect sense to me, but maybe you'd have to be insane to get it.

I don't know about insane, but you'd definitely have to accept logical inconsistancies in order to "get it."

If nothing exists, then none of what you wrote makes sense-

You are the resistive force

We're all the same entity

we just create everything we sense because that's our nature as a resistive force.

he same thing that created everything is the same thing you are and the same thing I am

Everything you've written here is about things existing, not things not existing or not-not-existing

It's a confusing, and complicated, difficult to comprehend concept. That centence hac a lot of ceee'c.



The Big-Bang does figure into my conception of "Nirvana" though. It's hard to imagine nonexistance, but prior to the big bang, everything surrounding the singularity we were to burst from was this non-space/non-existant/non-time area. I believe that same area "exists" beyond the point that the universe has expanded to, correct? I should ask about this in the Science forum.

 

[shotgunsinthehall]

I should ask about this in the Science forum.

No, not neccesarily. The problem with this non-existance idea is not that things exist, it's that they don't. Only we exist, but we don't exist as something. We are an illusion of ourselves, just as things are an illusion to us. We create what we perceive and thus we create existance, but it's not there until we perceive it and even then it's not really there because it is perceived in us and we don't really exist, we just think we do and that thought in itself is a perception. Non-existance makes sense because it perpetuates a paradox of loops that perpetuate each other infinitely and after all the essence of existance is perpetuality, so to me non-existance is our core.

This is a concept that can't be explained, it has to be felt and only the few enlightened people can feel it. I've felt non-existance...It feels like making a choice that is not available to you, almost like cheating in order to sustain your life. Being clever. Finding what can't be located in order to create a vastness that reciprocates exponentially. Chaos.

 

[Jamshyd]

If nothing exists, then none of what you wrote makes sense-

That is true, and it applies to what I wrote as well, and it is perfectly fine that way

As I said before, anything anyone writes, says, or thinks about Nothing is a lie, and is only to be taken on faith of understanding.

 

[unsui]

sgith, i know exactly what your talking about...
it has to be experienced...

edit: it is beyond reason, beyond logic, infinite, yet one at the same time.

 

[socko]

I'm a little confused on the whole Buddhist concept of nonexistance (or is that non-nonexistance?), and the idea that everything we experience is just an illusion.

If nothing really exists and all, and everything is an illusion, how are we able to perceive this illusion?

I mean, I don't get how something that doesn't exist is capable of perceiving or being confused by illusions.

A Tibetan Buddhist monk that I know has suggested looking at non-existence by examining what you are. It's been a while since the conversation, but I'll try to remembver how he put it. And since I don't properly grasp the concept myself, this is goign to be the blind leading the blind. But try for example, to consider who Ham-milton is. Are you only your memories? Yuor experiences, your emotions? Only your thoughts? Only your body? Etc. What makes you you? I think the idea is that what you are is not any of these things in isolation. What you are, your existence, is more of an emergent property that your mind creates. The same goes for inanimate objects when broken down into their components. Tibetan Buddhism generally takes a middle ground on the existence/non-existence. It doesn't really deny the reality or existence of self and the physical world, but it doesn't say outright that it's the only and ultimate reality that a materialist perspective could take (that things ultimately exist).

 

[shotgunsinthehall]

Completely off topic, unsui, but you've just made me realize how closely my handle, when expressed in short(sgith)bears a similarity to my horoscope: Saggitarius-The philosopher sign.

Thanks for shortening my take on non-existance, well done. And double thanks for shedding some light as to why I chose such a handle. It's actually a Pink Floyd lyric..."and if you make it past the shotguns in the hall, dial the combination, open the priesthole, and if I'm in I'll tell you what's behind the wall." -The Final Cut

 

[Jamshyd]

Socko: But that still results in existence, albeit a reduced one, don't you think? (As soon as you use the verb to be in describing things, you are invoking existence). Again, my problem with Buddhist ideas on the issue... perhaps the problem is purely a linguistic one in translation to English, and that I shouldn't judge Buddhist thought until I've learnt Sanskrit/Pali?

If I were to have a say, I'd suggest looking into what you are not, but thats just me, YMMV...

 

[socko]

Yes, Jamshyd, he said someting about that too - about looking into what you are not. There's a lot of reduction going on in the thought process. You're not any of those single things in isolation. I took notes on what he said after we talked but I they are in a shipping crate because I've moved recently so unfortunately I can't consult them. The language barrier makes it difficult for him to explain these things. The Tibetan language has words to describe them and so does Sankrit. I don't know either of those languages.

 

[unsui]

pink floyd are genious...

but yes this concept is very difficult to grasp, as it is beyond human comprehension (defies logic and reasoning). it seems the more we talk about it, the further away we are in actually grasping it because of human language's barrier.

basically it is a paradox. and the symbol for a paradox is a circle. a circle is infinite (goes around and around and around, and so on), yet at the same time one. infinite, yet finite. up, yet down. pleasurable, yet painful. the yin, the yang. it is the unity underlying duality. duality is our everyday perceptions, but unity is what underlies each and every thing. it is both duality, and unity at the same time (a paradox).

 

[Cthulhu]

As I said before, anything anyone writes, says, or thinks about Nothing is a lie, and is only to be taken on faith of understanding.

Yeah, "Nothing" cannot be described because by its nature it is natureless - see the paradox? That's what happens when one tries to talk about Nothing. One cannot talk about Nothing, it can only be experienced, according to mystics.

But if you want to talk about it, a better way would be to talk about mutually entailing opposites, good and evil, happiness and suffering, wisdom and foolishness... we understand things only because of relationships on a pole. So if we understand "existence" and "being" and "things," then there has to be something that we can understand them in relation to, "nothing." A good analogy I've heard is that you only can perceive "objects" because of a "space" between them, like a chair is separate from a table, it is not completely continuous with it. That space is like a nothingness that enables a somethingness.

 

[ebola?]

>>
If nothing really exists and all, and everything is an illusion, how are we able to perceive this illusion?
>>

My (layperson's) understanding:

The veil of Maya (illusion) really exists, but as illusion. It is non-existent by its own standards, yet it exists.

The goal of Nirvana entails a clear understanding of the universe "as such", along with merging of self and the rest of the universe. This point is beyond logic and beyond description. It is both pure existence and non-existence, yet it is also neither. This doesn't make sense because such a state lies out of the realm of intelligible description.

>>
The Big-Bang does figure into my conception of "Nirvana" though. It's hard to imagine nonexistance, but prior to the big bang, everything surrounding the singularity we were to burst from was this non-space/non-existant/non-time area.>>

Science can't really tell us about this. Our physical laws describe stuff only up to but not including the timeless, spaceless singularity at our universe's birth. "What came before" will remain a mystery, not that it's even appropriate to say "before" here.

>>I believe that same area "exists" beyond the point that the universe has expanded to, correct? I should ask about this in the Science forum.>>

On scientific terms, no. The singularity at the universe's origin contained all space. The only possible exteriorities are other universes (if we entertain these ideas).

>>
As I said before, anything anyone writes, says, or thinks about Nothing is a lie, and is only to be taken on faith of understanding.>>

But if you lie about "nothing" just so, you begin to point at it.

>>Socko: But that still results in existence, albeit a reduced one, don't you think? (As soon as you use the verb to be in describing things, you are invoking existence). Again, my problem with Buddhist ideas on the issue...>>

My take is that Buddhist writings under privilege non-being, but these words' point is to direct meditative practice toward non-being itself. Zen practice has the clearest emphasis on "nothing".

>>A good analogy I've heard is that you only can perceive "objects" because of a "space" between them, like a chair is separate from a table, it is not completely continuous with it. That space is like a nothingness that enables a somethingness>>

It is a good analogy, but I think it begins to break down if you try to think of "being" or "existence" as such in relief with a background of non-being. I think that the thought-experiment (well, the way my Western-thinking ass does it) sneaks content into "non-being", thus making my pondering inaccurate and useless.

ebola

 

[Hewhomustnotbenamed]

My understanding of buddhism's concept of emptiness, which is I imagine what you are referring to, runs as follows. It's not that nothing exists, it's that nothing possesses any inherent nature. Everything is empty, not in the sense that it is physically hollow (duh), but in the sense that it is constantly changing.

If nothing has an inherent stable nature, but is instead constantly changing due to conditions, then nothing really exists.

Think about it this way. If something exists, assumptions can be made about it, but since everything, including the observer, is in constant flux, no assumptions can be made because nothing is static and fixed. There is no fixed entity or object to assume things about, and no fixed subject to do the assuming. Language, with its grammatical relationships (subject-object) and labels (i.e. nouns), deludes you into believing that reality is solid, but it isn't.

The ego demands closure, but reality fails to deliver.

 

[ebola?]

>> My understanding of buddhism's concept of emptiness, which is I imagine what you are referring to, runs as follows. It's not that nothing exists, it's that nothing possesses any inherent nature. Everything is empty, not in the sense that it is physically hollow (duh), but in the sense that it is constantly changing.

If nothing has an inherent stable nature, but is instead constantly changing due to conditions, then nothing really exists.

Think about it this way. If something exists, assumptions can be made about it, but since everything, including the observer, is in constant flux, no assumptions can be made because nothing is static and fixed. There is no fixed entity or object to assume things about, and no fixed subject to do the assuming. Language, with its grammatical relationships (subject-object) and labels (i.e. nouns), deludes you into believing that reality is solid, but it isn't.

The ego demands closure, but reality fails to deliver.>>

mmm...I would say though that the argument you've put forth (not necessarily all Buddhism) speaks to epistemology but not ontology. If all is flux, yes, then truth is nothingness. However, the universe "as such" might have things with properties...but they change all the time. Thus, our ontology points to a something, not a nothing.

That said, I don't believe this view.

ebola