retrofuturist wrote: ↑Fri Feb 08, 2019 8:38 pm
Greetings Circle5,
Circle5 wrote: ↑Fri Feb 08, 2019 1:42 pm
Also, don't you find it amusing to use "is" or "are" instead of "exist" but by that, mean exactly what everybody else means by "exist"? What point does changing "things exist" into "things are" has?
The Dhamma is about "appearance" (aka arising) and "disappearance" (aka falling), not "existence" and "non-existence".
"With the arising of attentiveness there is the arising of dhammas. With the cessation of attentiveness there is the cessation of dhammas" (SN 47.42).
Metta,
Paul.
The dhamma includes all discourses that Buddha has left behind, one of them being this one where the Buddha directly addreses the problem:
At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, I don’t argue with the world; it’s the world that argues with me. When your speech is in line with the teaching you don’t argue with anyone in the world. What the astute agree on as not existing, I too say does not exist. What the astute agree on as existing, I too say exists.
And what do the astute agree on as not existing, which I too say does not exist? Form that is permanent, everlasting, eternal, and imperishable. Feeling … Perception … Choices … Consciousness that is permanent, everlasting, eternal, and imperishable. This is what the astute agree on as not existing, which I too say does not exist.
And what do the astute agree on as existing, which I too say exists? Form that is impermanent, suffering, and perishable. Feeling … Perception … Choices … Consciousness that is impermanent, suffering, and perishable. This is what the astute agree on as existing, which I too say exists.
There is a temporal phenomenon in the world that the Realized One understands and comprehends. Then he explains, teaches, asserts, establishes, clarifies, analyzes, and reveals it.
And what is that temporal phenomenon in the world? Form is a temporal phenomenon in the world that the Realized One understands and comprehends. Then he explains, teaches, asserts, establishes, clarifies, analyzes, and reveals it.
This being so, what can I do about a foolish ordinary person, blind and sightless, who does not know or see? Feeling … Perception … Choices … Consciousness is a temporal phenomenon in the world that the Realized One understands and comprehends. Then he explains, teaches, asserts, establishes, clarifies, analyzes, and reveals it.
This being so, what can I do about a foolish ordinary person, blind and sightless, who does not know or see?
Suppose there was a blue water lily, or a pink or white lotus. Though it sprouted and grew in the water, it would rise up above the water and stand with no water clinging to it. In the same way, though I was born and grew up in the world, I live having mastered the world, and the world does not cling to me.”
https://suttacentral.net/sn22.94/en/sujato
The fact that the 5 aggregates exist is taken for granted. What Buddhism is preocupied with is how these aggregates work and interact with each other, how do things work at the technical level and what conclusions are we to draw from that.
Please note that this is also a non-sensical position to have. There are feelings, perceptions, material form, etc. that we can observe - if there are such things and everybody can see their arising - this means they exist. That is the very definition of existing. That is what 99.99% of people understand by existing.
The computer in front of you exists. The pink elefant standing beside it does not.
What you are trying to do is use a very different deffinition of existing, one that means something like "this computer in front of me will exist forever" or "this computer has a fundamental existence substance that will exist forever". But the 99.99% of people mentioned above do not use the word exist in this manner. They do not think that the computer that exists in front of you right now has some fundamental substance that will exist forever. Nor do they think that the pink elephant standing besides your computer has some non-existence substance or anything of that sort. In standard postmodern fashion, you are using totally different definitions of words than 99.99% of the people.