I'm not so sure about this. I think it's easily, and perhaps often, overstated. I see too much confusion as a result of this artificial delineation between "conventional reality" and "momentariness" (or perhaps I should say "abhidhammic reality"?). Reality just "is". We can't view reality as being momentary in such a way that we fail to see how the moments come together to create our conventional view reality. The disdain that some people place on the view of "conventional reality" is ludicrous.retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Sean,
I think it's important to be able to see things both in a conventional and momentary sense, and to be able to distinguish between the two. I think it is difficult to overstate this point.seanpdx wrote:The problem I have with "momentariness" (I can say nothing about Dogen, sorry) is that it seems to be taken too far, and people start losing sight of the forest for the trees. Not that there is anything inherently wrong in it per se.
The truth of reality is that it is momentary, so ignoring momentariness is a risk too.
Metta,
Retro.
All the quantum theory in the world doesn't negate the fact that there is a can of mtn dew on my desk. It's a really real can. With really real (and... umm... old =) mtn dew in it. We do not experience the world on a quantum level, so having an understanding of the quantum level only benefits us to a limited degree. Likewise, we do not experience the world on a "momentary" level, so having an understanding of momentariness only benefits us to a limited degree. When we fail to see the "real can", the "real person", or anything else that is made up of the continuous stream of moments, then we fail miserably in our attempts to both understand and experience real reality.