Reality

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
User avatar
Pondera
Posts: 3071
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2011 10:02 pm

Re: Reality

Post by Pondera »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Jun 19, 2021 12:47 pm What is reality? Is every experience a mere concept, or not? Is there a reality behind some concepts and not others, or not? I have my own view, but I’m interested in hearing the position of other members?
What do you think the cessation of perception and feeling is?
Like the three marks of conditioned existence, this world in itself is filthy, hostile, and crowded
waryoffolly
Posts: 346
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 8:30 pm

Re: Reality

Post by waryoffolly »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Jun 19, 2021 12:47 pm What is reality? Is every experience a mere concept, or not? Is there a reality behind some concepts and not others, or not? I have my own view, but I’m interested in hearing the position of other members?
Hi Ceisiwr,

Questions of the exact nature of reality aren't important in my understanding. What matters is questions of how one constructs one's reality and one's views about that reality. When the process of construction of views about reality, including whether or not it is a 'mere concept', is fully understood, then views, the origin of views, the cessation of views, and the path leading to the cessation of views is understood. Then one strives to abandon the obession with clinging to views about reality altogether, and eventually even the right view which supports this abandonment itself is discarded.

Hopefully that is helpful.
User avatar
Pondera
Posts: 3071
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2011 10:02 pm

Re: Reality

Post by Pondera »

Pondera wrote: Sun Jun 20, 2021 2:50 am
Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Jun 19, 2021 12:47 pm What is reality? Is every experience a mere concept, or not? Is there a reality behind some concepts and not others, or not? I have my own view, but I’m interested in hearing the position of other members?
What do you think the cessation of perception and feeling is?
I don’t presume for a minute that you have an original answer to that question.

So, here it is - for your consideration :anjali:

The meditator is in a busy room with three snoring roommates. A large party is booming across the street in a high end high rise. A woman on the television is giving a lecture on some particular topic. The volume on the TV is cranked up. Despite this, the roommates are fast asleep.

The meditator understands that via dry insight he can reach Nirodha Samapatti by eliminating the consciousness aggregate from his being. Once that aggregate falls - the others will also fall.

So he gently breathes in and out - releasing consciousness from the centre of his mind on every in breath and every out breath.

He approaches cessation. However, before getting there he enters neither perception nor non perception. What he realizes in that state is that he can no longer register the meaning of the words flowing out of the TV. What he earlier identified as “party across the street” is now a constant flow of noise (indistinguishable from the snoring and the TV voice).

The part of him that no longer “registers” perception is the “neither perception” part. The part of him that is still able to recognize the steady flow of sound; and the existence of a four sided room around him (ie. forms, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile impressions) is the “nor non-perception” part of his attainment.

He is impressed by this state, but will not dwell there long because his efforts to eradicate the aggregate of consciousness have been successful. The last obstructive fermentations of consciousness in his field of mindfulness have flowed out and have ceased.

In a rush of events, he feels rapture from head to toe; and a very odd occurrence also happens within his skin and bones. There appears to be a level of existence where feeling coincides with matter. They are wound up tightly with each other. He sees that the bond between matter and feeling is like the bond between protons. But in the absence of the consciousness aggregate that relationship no longer holds.

All sensation of a body verges on extinction. In his mind he utters a profound remark.

“On this very night I will utterly destroy the spokes that bind me to the wheel of existence”.

Ie. something akin to the profound knowledge that “birth is ended. The burden is done…” etc.

With that extinction of feeling and perception comes the knowledge “liberated”. And he dwells mindfully in that dimension of infinite possibility for as long as he wishes. He extends his awareness beyond the limits of the earth; beyond the limits of the galaxy - his awareness extends into infinity. He exists as a singularity in a non-temporal, infinite energy field. He exercises his ability to create a mind made body. He exerts his power upon all things within his infinite range.

He exerts that same power upon what he once knew was his physical body. It is still there - but it has fallen out of his field of awareness. He chooses to leave the state and directs his infinite awareness to concentrate it a trillion times over on his body. With that choice comes a renewed influx of feelings and perceptions. In a few moments, the woman on the TV is now making sense. The party across the street is distinguishable from his snoring roommates.

He leaves his bedroom. A man outside the elevator is beside himself.

“The elevator cable snapped. I was just about to go in.”

Somehow the meditator knows that his experience was responsible for the snapping of the elevator cable. By extending his infinite power in all directions he caused this old, rusty elevator cable to become undone. He has almost killed a man in the process. He does not really care, shrugs and goes back to his room.

His experience of reality has now returned.
Like the three marks of conditioned existence, this world in itself is filthy, hostile, and crowded
User avatar
mikenz66
Posts: 19941
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 7:37 am
Location: Aotearoa, New Zealand

Re: Reality

Post by mikenz66 »

Dhammavamsa wrote: Sun Jun 20, 2021 2:26 am Buddha said "to see things as they are".

So I think the so-called reality here is the phenomenon of Anicca, Dukkha, and Anatta.
There's a tendency in these discussions and translation to make a "thingness", "staticness", and "reality" out of processes. This gives the impression that they are "components", which really doesn't work, when you start trying to "make" something "out of" feelings, consciousness, etc.
Nyana wrote: Thu Sep 22, 2011 2:24 pm At least a couple modern translators have suggested that a more accurate (less essentialist) translation of yathābhūtañāṇadassana would be something like "knowledge and vision of things as they have become." The point is to emphasize the the process of becoming and not some sort of static reality. In the suttas, yathābhūtañāṇadassana leads to disenchantment and dispassion.

All the best,

Geoff
However, Geoff still didn't manage to avoid using the word "things". A very colloquial expression, which is not trying to bee accurate, but to give some of the flavour is: "knowing how life works".

:heart:
Mike
chownah
Posts: 9336
Joined: Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:19 pm

Re: Reality

Post by chownah »

"Reality" is something that the buddha never reported to have mentioned....
chownah
Jack19990101
Posts: 714
Joined: Wed Jun 09, 2021 4:40 am

Re: Reality

Post by Jack19990101 »

All experiences are unreal, phenomenal. They are not necessarily all concepts though. It can be percept, feeling, emotions...

As to if any element is pre-phenomenal, I personally view that there are elements pre-phenomenal, that is the reason experiences are of varieties.
Buddha defines 'skilled in elements' as knowing the 18 elements.

But if there is any actual thing out of experience, i would say it is not. Elements require consciousness to form a thing.
User avatar
cappuccino
Posts: 12876
Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2016 1:45 am
Contact:

Re: Reality

Post by cappuccino »

reality
noun
1.
the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.
User avatar
Lucas Oliveira
Posts: 1890
Joined: Wed Jun 10, 2015 10:07 pm

Re: Reality

Post by Lucas Oliveira »

reality

Etymology
[circa 1540] From French réalité (“quality of being real”), from Middle French realité (“property, possession”), from Medieval Latin reālitās, from Late Latin reālis (“real”), equivalent to real +‎ -ity. Recorded since 1550 as a legal term in the sense of “fixed property” (compare real estate, realty); the sense “real existence” is attested from 1647.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reality

realis

Etymology
From the Classical rēs (“thing”) +‎ -ālis (suffix forming adjectives of relationship).

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/realis#Latin
exist

Etymology
From French exister, from Latin existō (“to stand forth, come forth, arise, be”), from ex (“out”) + sistere (“to set, place”), caus. of stare (“to stand”); see stand. Compare assist, consist, desist, insist, persist, resist.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/exist

existence (n.)

late 14c., "reality," from Old French existence, from Medieval Latin existentia/exsistentia, from existentem/exsistentem (nominative existens/exsistens) "existent," present participle of Latin existere/exsistere "stand forth, come out, emerge; appear, be visible, come to light; arise, be produced; turn into," and, as a secondary meaning, "exist, be;" from ex "forth" (see ex-) + sistere "cause to stand," from PIE *si-st-, reduplicated form of root *sta- "to stand, make or be firm."

https://www.etymonline.com/word/existence
One explanation for Nibbana is the Transcendence of Reality or Existence..
Bhagavad Gita Chapter 2 Verse 16

नासतो विद्यते भावो नाभावो विद्यते सत: |
उभयोरपि दृष्टोऽन्तस्त्वनयोस्तत्त्वदर्शिभि: || 16 ||

Those who are seers of the truth have concluded that of the nonexistent there is no endurance, and of the existent there is no cessation. This seers have concluded by studying the nature of both.

https://bhagavad-gita.org/Gita/verse-02-16.html
https://asitis.com/2/16.html
https://www.holy-bhagavad-gita.org/chapter/2/verse/16
:namaste:
Last edited by Lucas Oliveira on Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
I participate in this forum using Google Translator. http://translate.google.com.br

http://www.acessoaoinsight.net/
User avatar
Pondera
Posts: 3071
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2011 10:02 pm

Re: Reality

Post by Pondera »

Kasina means “totality”. https://www.philosophy-science-humaniti ... t=Totality

There are exactly ten of them. They exist independently of your observation. Before Buddhaghosa turned the word kasina into a “roundish kind of mixture of brown clay that you stare at until the image of it is burned into your retina - now run to your dorm and make it reappear … etc.” Totality was an unbounded “reality” of which the world was composed (if you care what the Buddha had to say about it).

There are ten kasinas:

Earth
Water
Fire
Wind
Red
Blue
White
Yellow
Space
Consciousness

This is “reality” as defined by the Buddha. Form is “made” of the first four and because it “emits” the next four it can be perceived and felt (over the length of the seventh with the help of the eighth).

The rest is black and white and somewhere in between.
Like the three marks of conditioned existence, this world in itself is filthy, hostile, and crowded
User avatar
Sam Vara
Site Admin
Posts: 13482
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2011 5:42 pm
Location: Portsmouth, U.K.

Re: Reality

Post by Sam Vara »

Pondera wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 6:59 am Kasina means “totality”. https://www.philosophy-science-humaniti ... t=Totality

There are exactly ten of them. They exist independently of your observation. Before Buddhaghosa turned the word kasina into a “roundish kind of mixture of brown clay that you stare at until the image of it is burned into your retina - now run to your dorm and make it reappear … etc.” Totality was an unbounded “reality” of which the world was composed (if you care what the Buddha had to say about it).

There are ten kasinas:

Earth
Water
Fire
Wind
Red
Blue
White
Yellow
Space
Consciousness

This is “reality” as defined by the Buddha. Form is “made” of the first four and because it “emits” the next four it can be perceived and felt (over the length of the seventh with the help of the eighth).

The rest is black and white and somewhere in between.
What about time? Isn't that as real as space?
User avatar
Pondera
Posts: 3071
Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2011 10:02 pm

Re: Reality

Post by Pondera »

Sam Vara wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 7:12 am
Pondera wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 6:59 am Kasina means “totality”. https://www.philosophy-science-humaniti ... t=Totality

There are exactly ten of them. They exist independently of your observation. Before Buddhaghosa turned the word kasina into a “roundish kind of mixture of brown clay that you stare at until the image of it is burned into your retina - now run to your dorm and make it reappear … etc.” Totality was an unbounded “reality” of which the world was composed (if you care what the Buddha had to say about it).

There are ten kasinas:

Earth
Water
Fire
Wind
Red
Blue
White
Yellow
Space
Consciousness

This is “reality” as defined by the Buddha. Form is “made” of the first four and because it “emits” the next four it can be perceived and felt (over the length of the seventh with the help of the eighth).

The rest is black and white and somewhere in between.
What about time? Isn't that as real as space?
I’m honestly not the right person to ask about “space-time” or relativity.

But, From my sutta understanding, time is a construct of the self.

“What am I now? What was I in the past? What will I be in the future?”

These are - AFAIK - the ways in which the Buddha refers to time. But not just these.

Of course, there are kalpas - eons - and great lapses of time where the universe expands and contracts endlessly.

Of course, the Buddha had reference to 40 thousand eons of past lives - the coming and goings of people into future lives according to their kamma - and (in the present moment) the ending of the effluents.

But with Nibbana comes the deathless. Time is (ultimately) a construct that ends with the ending of perception and feeling - or with the destruction of ignorance, desire for being, and lust.

The rise and fall of the kasinas go on without interruption when the observer has left the scene.

The difference between rise, fall, alteration, persistence - it is all only a question when there is an observer (of those things). The “awareness” in Unbinding is a non-temporal spatial singularity of no dimension.

Outside Unbinding, time is a construct of a supposed appearance and disappearance of the above mentioned kasinas.
Like the three marks of conditioned existence, this world in itself is filthy, hostile, and crowded
sphairos
Posts: 966
Joined: Mon Jun 21, 2010 4:37 am
Location: Munich, Germany

Re: Reality

Post by sphairos »

I wrote something about reality here:

viewtopic.php?p=605998#p605998
How good and wonderful are your days,
How true are your ways?
User avatar
Sam Vara
Site Admin
Posts: 13482
Joined: Sun Jun 05, 2011 5:42 pm
Location: Portsmouth, U.K.

Re: Reality

Post by Sam Vara »

Pondera wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 7:59 am
Sam Vara wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 7:12 am
Pondera wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 6:59 am Kasina means “totality”. https://www.philosophy-science-humaniti ... t=Totality

There are exactly ten of them. They exist independently of your observation. Before Buddhaghosa turned the word kasina into a “roundish kind of mixture of brown clay that you stare at until the image of it is burned into your retina - now run to your dorm and make it reappear … etc.” Totality was an unbounded “reality” of which the world was composed (if you care what the Buddha had to say about it).

There are ten kasinas:

Earth
Water
Fire
Wind
Red
Blue
White
Yellow
Space
Consciousness

This is “reality” as defined by the Buddha. Form is “made” of the first four and because it “emits” the next four it can be perceived and felt (over the length of the seventh with the help of the eighth).

The rest is black and white and somewhere in between.
What about time? Isn't that as real as space?
I’m honestly not the right person to ask about “space-time” or relativity.

But, From my sutta understanding, time is a construct of the self.

“What am I now? What was I in the past? What will I be in the future?”

These are - AFAIK - the ways in which the Buddha refers to time. But not just these.

Of course, there are kalpas - eons - and great lapses of time where the universe expands and contracts endlessly.

Of course, the Buddha had reference to 40 thousand eons of past lives - the coming and goings of people into future lives according to their kamma - and (in the present moment) the ending of the effluents.

But with Nibbana comes the deathless. Time is (ultimately) a construct that ends with the ending of perception and feeling - or with the destruction of ignorance, desire for being, and lust.

The rise and fall of the kasinas go on without interruption when the observer has left the scene.

The difference between rise, fall, alteration, persistence - it is all only a question when there is an observer (of those things). The “awareness” in Unbinding is a non-temporal spatial singularity of no dimension.

Outside Unbinding, time is a construct of a supposed appearance and disappearance of the above mentioned kasinas.
I'm not the right person to ask, either! I suspect a complete understanding of time is beyond us in this life. I would have thought, though, that it is as fundamental to our experience as space is. Both seem to be preconditions of any kind of conscious experience, and if space exists independent of our perception of it, then so does time.
Spiny Norman
Posts: 10157
Joined: Fri Mar 05, 2010 10:32 am
Location: Andromeda looks nice

Re: Reality

Post by Spiny Norman »

Sam Vara wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 2:12 pm
Pondera wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 7:59 am
Sam Vara wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 7:12 am

What about time? Isn't that as real as space?
I’m honestly not the right person to ask about “space-time” or relativity.

But, From my sutta understanding, time is a construct of the self.

“What am I now? What was I in the past? What will I be in the future?”

These are - AFAIK - the ways in which the Buddha refers to time. But not just these.

Of course, there are kalpas - eons - and great lapses of time where the universe expands and contracts endlessly.

Of course, the Buddha had reference to 40 thousand eons of past lives - the coming and goings of people into future lives according to their kamma - and (in the present moment) the ending of the effluents.

But with Nibbana comes the deathless. Time is (ultimately) a construct that ends with the ending of perception and feeling - or with the destruction of ignorance, desire for being, and lust.

The rise and fall of the kasinas go on without interruption when the observer has left the scene.

The difference between rise, fall, alteration, persistence - it is all only a question when there is an observer (of those things). The “awareness” in Unbinding is a non-temporal spatial singularity of no dimension.

Outside Unbinding, time is a construct of a supposed appearance and disappearance of the above mentioned kasinas.
I'm not the right person to ask, either! I suspect a complete understanding of time is beyond us in this life. I would have thought, though, that it is as fundamental to our experience as space is. Both seem to be preconditions of any kind of conscious experience, and if space exists independent of our perception of it, then so does time.
I agree. Without a time dimension there would no change, and anicca wouldn't make sense.
Buddha save me from new-agers!
auto
Posts: 4582
Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2017 12:02 pm

Re: Reality

Post by auto »

Pondera wrote: Tue Jun 22, 2021 6:59 am Kasina means “totality”. https://www.philosophy-science-humaniti ... t=Totality

There are exactly ten of them. They exist independently of your observation. Before Buddhaghosa turned the word kasina into a “roundish kind of mixture of brown clay that you stare at until the image of it is burned into your retina - now run to your dorm and make it reappear … etc.” Totality was an unbounded “reality” of which the world was composed (if you care what the Buddha had to say about it).
It is the perception from what the sign appears with the development by apprehending mentally the sign what is apprehended by the eye. (being aware of the eye seeing an object)
And the sign is an appearance, meaning that it is without individual essence albeit exact same with the object, and you know it is mental.

About the "running to your dorm.." thing. The sign here is learning sign and what matters here is that you can make it appear. As the 'making it appear' becomes avail it is called learning sign.
Other words it is not about the object nor its image, it is not retina burn nor mental representation of an object, it is about using the function of the sign appears, it is much more difficult to do without the physical support in a sense it requires fundamental knowhow.

I get every time smarter about Vissudhimagga by reading it, i think it takes time to get used to with the Visuddhimagga terms and it is yet another alchemy book for me.
Post Reply