/lit/ - Literature

>>20428431
Counter point,

'Touch the cow'

And the follow up passage,

'Do it now'

I hope you can one day find true wisdom.

kek, Nagarjunafag trying to b8 Guenonfag episode #4853

Just read the Quran anon

In the name of God, the Gracious, the Merciful.

1. Alif, Lam, Meem.

2. This is the Book in which there is no doubt, a guide for the righteous.

3. Those who believe in the unseen, and perform the prayers, and give from what We have provided for them.

4. And those who believe in what was revealed to you, and in what was revealed before you, and are certain of the Hereafter.

5. These are upon guidance from their Lord. These are the successful.

>>20428431
Given that there is no alternative to existence, annihilationism is incoherent gibberish, therefore you may relax in the knowledge that our eternal ontological presence is quite secure.

>>20428431

>>20428566
You probably think so but you'd be wrong. Explain spirits then.

>>20428596
You can explain spirits for me. I only need to point out that you are affirming something, you are saying that it "is". For there is only one path of coherence - that it is and cannot not-be.

Basic metaphysics 101.

>>20428605
A door in my house slammed shut after reading this

>>20428615
Great, I have given you the broadest context of reality, you can now form a coherent understanding of all things (including door slamming spirits). Try to lift up your friends with Eleatic metaphysics, too; we're all in this together.

>>20428431
>Annihilation does not apply to what happens to a liberated person after death, because there has never been any entity to cease in the first place.
If nobody exists, neither does suffering

>>20428481
Why do you shitskins always invade these threads to shit them up with you desert demon worship?

>It’s another lot discusses annihilationism Chapter
Here we go again!

>>20430043
I await the summoning and then ritual slaughter of the Guenonfag.

>>20428431
Here's my current understanding of how I understand my 'Lived Experience' of existence in light of the limited Buddhist teachings I've received. I imagine that all the aspects of what might make "me" me are things like my personality, consciousness, body, history, memory, even possessions, etc. But none of those things could ever encapsulate "me" and all of those things change and yet the illusion of "me" persists. I imagine that all these different threads of "being" (obviously contention upon prior events) sort of tangle themselves into a knot and that "knot" which is really just a concept for many different things none of which actually "IS in and of itself." If that makes any sense. It "exists" and yet if you untangle to cords nothing has been created or destroyed yet the knot disappeared like a phantom. Am I on the right track?

>>20430913

>Am I on the right track?

Kinda. Yet you do not disentangle the knot ... you just take it for what it is. :)

>>20428737
Yeah, but that doesn't fully explain it either. What *isn't* still comes thru with unique identities, or at least humans differentiate spirits in the way they conceptualize them. Technically that means they do have their own identities, no?

>>20428431
This is similar to what Socrates says about death in Phaedo

>>20431866
You used the term "isn't" to refer to something. That means you are affirming a thing, identifying it as singular, you have perceived it, etc. You are saying it "is" (has ontological presence/status/weight), yet you contradict this with the label "is not". The result in incoherent gibberish.

It all "is", necessarily. Being is omnipresent and all-subsuming, it swallows up all the spirits and everything else you see; it swallows up you too.

Which, to go back to the original point, is why annihilationism is incoherent gibberish. There is no alternative to existence, this is the Whole and our existence is absolutely secure. Rejoice in our eternal life, even the gods cannot touch us - they are trapped in Being and must accept their place with us.

>>20428605
oh its between being and non-being. its definitely there...all consciousness exists within all things but CAN exist outside of objects. what goes on in the world when there is nothing around to be observe it? does consciousness just die, like "that"?

>>20432021
btw this is a rhetorical question

>>20432021
I don't have an issue with consciousness being outside spatial objects, that's fine. I'm talking about metaphysics - the broadest context. Notice that you say "it IS between being and non-being".

Basically you're just divvying up what-is into categories: being, non-being, and maybe a third category (or maybe there are things that are in both categories in some way).

I am point out that it is all subsumed by what-is. Once you appreciate that broadest principle of existence, that context by which all things are posited and relate, you will understand that annihilationism is fake and gay.

>>20428431
Who gives a shit. Nagarjuna's interdependence was destroyed by the buddha and his dependent origination.

>>20432476
You have no idea what you are talking about.

>>20428431
Buddhism is inherently nihilistic but it also tries to have a moral framework for community building and this results in Buddhist intellectuals tying themselves into intellectual knots dancing around impossible positions.
>the self doesn't exist but you must watch your karma so your self doesn't get screwed by samsara
>things are impermanent but they don't exactly pass away but they're not eternal but they're not impermanent

>>20432659
>nooooo don't tell my delusions are impermanent you nihilist

>>20430846
>ritual slaughter
What happens in these threads is that people point out the logical flaws and mistakes that Nagarjuna makes, and then the Buddhists posters just mostly ignore this and instead just cope with non-sequitor answers

>>20428431
that's actually a really interesting take, thanks for the post OP

>>20432009
Yeah but what about the whole 'as above, so below' stuff? Humans have identities. Isn't it kind of foolish to assume spirits exist, we can differentiate them, but they have no ultimate identity in the void?

>>20429485
1. Alif, Lam, Meem.

2. Allah, there is no god but He, the Living, the Eternal.

3. He sent down to you the Book with the Truth, confirming what came before it; and He sent down the Torah and the Gospel.

4. Aforetime, as guidance for mankind; and He sent down the Criterion. Those who have rejected Allah’s signs will have a severe punishment. Allah is Mighty, Able to take revenge.

5. Nothing is hidden from Allah, on earth or in the heaven.

>>20428431
> because there has never been any entity to cease in the first place.
Except for the sentient experiencer. Even if you say this experiencing entity that experiences samsara is somehow less real, that still results in the annihilation of the less real sentience, of the less real experiencer. To say “but it wasn’t actually real in the first place” it just a cop-out answer that does nothing to change the fact that you are positing one’s consciousness being annihilated.

>>20432659
But neither of those statements are what Buddhists believe.

>>20433319
But there is no discrete unchanging internally non-composite experiencer.

>>20433333
>But there is no discrete unchanging internally non-composite experiencer.
do you have proof?

>>20433333
check'd

>>20433333
Also, it doesn’t matter if you say the experiencer is composite, non-permanent etc, you are still positing its annihilation either way

>>20433386
>you're a nihilist for ... [checks notes].... thinking that elements of our experience are temporary!
ok then

>>20433399
Pay closer attention before making further mistakes anon, Im not calling you a nihilist, although that’s one plausible interpretation of your position; what I’m saying is the Buddhist line that “Parnirvana isn’t an annihilation even though all your aggregates and the experiencer and consciousness etc all come to an end forever ISNT an annihilation because…. they are ‘not permanent’ or ‘not fully real’” is hogwash that doesn’t change that these people are still talking about our consciousness and everything else about us ceasing to exist forever, i.e. they are annihilated.

>>20433333
>But there is no discrete unchanging internally non-composite experiencer.
Then what do the gnostics and the occultists believe in?

>>20433333
>But there is no discrete unchanging internally non-composite experiencer.
Why does this matter?

>>20433589
Following up, many aspects of identity are fixed and only "change" at death, in which case the larger impermanence is basically irrelevant to day to day decisions.

Religious folks are fucking wild man. Even if some all-powerful being exists why would you willingly be subservient to them? I guess thats why hell is a thing, the all-powerful being has to force people to be bootlickers to him despite being all-powerful.

>>20433423
>our consciousness and everything else about us ceasing to exist forever, i.e. they are annihilated.
As opposed to what, you getting to live forever in BrahmāLand because the Vedas promise you have an eternal essence? (Feel free to substitute for Plato, Christ, etc.) The Buddha's entire point is that these speculations do not produce any liberation or lead to the absolute.

>>20433605
What are you on about schizo

>>20433252
He's here! Let the slaughter begin.

sometimes i'm amazed on how much nagarjuna's advanced philosophy realising that the difference between being and becoming is illusory, i think the only philosopher that articulated a similar notion in the classical period was aristotle, with his notion of a polimorphic ousia

Yes. This is what enlightenment is: escaping cycles of karmic rebirth. The being who has realised this ceases to participate in the world of consequences, for he knows it is an illusion.

>>20434576
Why is reality according to perception, and participating in a reality of cause and consequence illusory? I never understood what eastern philosophers mean by illusory. Do you mean illusory as in, not "real"? And that there's some "higher" plane of existence that cannot be perceived through perception,? Or do you mean illusory as in, like a migraine of an oasis or something, that it's not worth participating in?

>>20434599
yes, essentially all concept of things which 'exist' is a fabrication, a product of the mind's construction in the same way that an oasis appears to be a concrete body of water but is actually a coming together of a severely dehydrated subject, a desert environ, etc. It is empty of inherent substance: if you look at it closely, it disappears. The 'higher' plane if you will is the experience of looking at the oasis close up and realising that it was your mind, the desert heat, your thirst which brought it together, it did not exist in itself independently of those things. This is of course an analogy, since objects in the real world have a physical substance and can interact with other substances, unlike an oasis which is a very obvious fabrication of the mind. However, to look upon physical substances which can enact changes in other substances (basically cause and effect) as self-contained, and real in themselves is an error in buddhism, as when you look at things closely everything is dependently arisen to such an extent that eventually you cannot locate any inherent components of a table, say, since you can follow the chain of dependent co-arising far enough that the everything in existence can be seen as in some way linked to the table's being. It is everything and nothing.

Worth is a different matter, worth is a moral matter not a metaphysical one. If you have reached enlightenment, realising ultimate emptiness due to the illusory nature of things, you can still choose to participate in the karmic world. You have greater freedom and flexibility to act and think because you understand that everything is ultimately empty, thus you are not under any pretences and can pursue certain goals within the 'illusory' realm. Things still happen in the illusory realm, benevolence and charity matter to people, but only insofar as they are participating in the illusion of worth. Despite not being ultimately 'real', actions have consequences in the illusory realm, which is a phenomenological realm that the vast majority of beings occupy. Actions and consequences are therefore not irrelevant to everybody, but the enlightened being is untouched by them because his experience does not include the understanding of cause and effect as 'real', concrete, phenomena that hold up when looked at deeply.

>>20429244
Heart Sutra

https://dharmanet.org/coursesM/40/HSint7.htm

>>20428431
>>Something that exists by its intrinsic being,
>Since it cannot not exist, is permanent.
>To say that what once was is now no more
>Entails annihilation.'
Buddha says otherwise. Nagarjuna was a msitake

>>20433746
> he Buddha's entire point is that these speculations do not produce any liberation or lead to the absolute.
Having everything about yourself and your consciousness stop existing forever with nothing continuing doesn’t lead to the Absolute

>>20433280
That’s Hermetism

>>20433333
Checked.

>>20433605
>Anime poster
>The most stupid post in the whole board
Like clockwork.

>>20434986
>muh yourself
>muh counsciousness
>muh absolute
Buddha preached specifically to filter this kind of shit

>>20435300
> Buddha preached specifically
And what did he preach? That you can go to a special Buddhist absolute (Parinirvana) when your body dies? Oh wait… he actually said that none of the aggregates or anything else about us continues in Parinirvana, which means ipso facto that its the complete end of our sentience, life, everything.. i.e. it’s an annihilation. Thus, Buddha contradicts his own statement that he doesn’t teach an annihilation, and hence he shouldn’t be taken seriously because of his contradictory statements, unless you want to interpret him as teaching a secret Self or Soul that persists in Parinirvana.

>>20435366
Annihilation can only happen to a thing that once had the nature of being and then ceased to exist. But since the aggregates have no inner nature, they are just conventional concepts the sentient mind artificially isolates out of the causal flux and as such they can also not be subjected to annihilation. What happens in Nirvana is beyond what the language can convey, since words are limited to the very concepts the Buddha declared as insufficient, but you only other choice is to cling to these aggregates as if they had any real nature, which is the path of delusion.

>>20435394
your only* other choice

>>20428481
it is fake they only made it after death of M-boy, had he truly been messenger of God with intent of passing holy book to future generations he would have learned how to write and wrote it down himself.

>>20433589
If it's not discrete, then it is continuous, and thus changes. If it is not unchanging, then it can change. If it is internally composite, then it is made up of parts, and can thus change.

Anon is arguing that Buddha's teachings are incorrect because the Ego is discrete, unchanging, and not internally composite. This is not correct. It is easily demonstrated as such. Rather, he is holding the existence of such a thing as an a priori. It HAS to exist, otherwise, he has to face mortality. He is scared of doing this. This is natural and normal, but it just leads to further delusion if you spin yourself up in webs of bullshit.

This post here >>20435366 demonstrates the precise problem: no one thing continues, but that does not mean that there is not a continuity. It is a Ship of Theseus continuity. No one thing is carried in Nirvana means that there is no one single thing that you can say "Ah, yes, HERE is the Ego, THIS means that I never have to face my own mortality and morality, THIS means that I get to live forever because I am ACKTHYUALLY THIS one single thing and nothing else". That is incorrect, and that is WHY anon HAS to misunderstand Nirvana, and indeed the Buddha's entire point about annihilation and eternity. If he allows for continuity into Nirvana, as the Buddha says that there is, AND allows for that continuity to not be caused by any one single thing remaining eternal, then he must allow for that continuity being one that is subject to change.

And if he allows that, then he must admit that he can change. And if he admits that, then he must admit that he can die. And he absolutely does not ever want to even humor that notion.

>>20435394
> Annihilation can only happen to a thing that once had the nature of being and then ceased to exist.
That’s not true, annihilation simply means ‘complete destruction’, things in the category of ‘becoming’ or ‘process’ can still undergo annihilation if they cease to exist forever as such.
>But since the aggregates have no inner nature, they are just conventional concepts the sentient mind artificially isolates out of the causal flux and as such they can also not be subjected to annihilation
Wrong, because you admit they still have existence, but of a changing dependent nature. But things with changing dependent natures can still be annihilated all the same, since annihilation just means ‘complete destruction’. Buddhists don’t deny that the aggregates exist, they just say they don’t have absolute or independent existence. Thus, what you are talking about still involves the annihilation (complete destruction) of our sentience, and the annihilation (complete destruction) of the aggregates with dependent etc natures.

> What happens in Nirvana is beyond what the language can convey
Okay, so your approach to resolving this evident contradiction is to have religious faith that its not an annihilation because the bald-head priest told you so, perhaps you’re not so different from the Christians and other theists whom you resent after all

>but you only other choice is to cling to these aggregates as if they had any real nature, which is the path of delusion.
There isn’t any good reason to think that one’s own consciousness is not real

>>20435454
> If it's not discrete, then it is continuous, and thus changes.
Incorrect, something can be continuous and unchanging by continuing throughout both time and space while remaining the same

>Anon is arguing that Buddha's teachings are incorrect because the Ego is discrete, unchanging, and not internally composite. This is not correct. It is easily demonstrated as such.
I never said the ego was, however, everyone’s foundational or basis/root-awareness (which isnt the ego) is impartite and unchanging, and this is irrefutable.

>This post here >>20435366 (You) # demonstrates the precise problem: no one thing continues, but that does not mean that there is not a continuity. It is a Ship of Theseus continuity.
A dishonest response that attempts but fails to resolve the contradiction by pretending that I was talking about Nirvana (while the body remains) and not Parinirvana (with no more body or embodied existence). There IS NO “ship of Theseus” continuity in Parinirvana because ALL THE AGGREGATES CEASE, and NOTHING CONTINUES, it’s a complete annihilation unless you hold to crypto-essentialist interpretations of Buddhism.

>If he allows for continuity into Nirvana, as the Buddha says that there is, AND allows for that continuity to not be caused by any one single thing remaining eternal
Why not just have it involve one thing remaining eternal (the self or soul)?

>>20435653
>something can be continuous and unchanging by continuing throughout both time and space while remaining the same
Only if you believe in an eternal substance on the basis of faith or priestly authority or mystical experience, and ignore change or consider it to be fake such that the only "real" thing is something never experienced, which makes you a world denying nihilist

>>20428431
>Niggerjewna

I am currently reading a book by a Tibetan monk, and he says several times that awareness is deathless. Maybe a lot of the confusion surrounding anatta, is that consciousness as the Buddha uses the term does not mean awareness but rather the mind.

>>20436431
there were already terms for mind consciousness, etc. such as manas and vijñana; atman and anatman are in dialectic with Vedic/brahmanical religion and most generally refer to the metaphysical notion of a substance which endures or is eternal or permanent, such as a "soul" or an "ego-substance" less poetically. Buddha's point is that we can't locate or determine this anyway. Furthermore, if you identify it with consciousness or the mind, those are according to Buddhists merely transient and interdependent factors of experience, and not to be reified as permanent or enduring, as that gives rise to a subject grasping for objects which is not conducive to the soteriology, which is the paramount concern

>>20435216
Not an argument.

>>20436431
By the time it reached Tibet, Mayahana buddhism got so close to Adviata that some sects are basically indistinguishable.

>>20435617
>>20435653
This was already discussed, see >>20435454

>>20436688
Buddhism was in Tibet centuries before Shankara was born.

>>20436688
>some sects are basically indistinguishable
Hence why Shankara and Gaudapada are called "crypto-Buddhists"

How's your meditation practice going bros? I'm doing an hour a day trying to get to cessation of thoughts for at least 10 minutes (i.e. stable shine). I think my best is maybe 3 or 5 minutes.

>>20428431
BASED AND NAGAPILLED

>>20436788
He just refuted all of the claims in that post, which were mostly armchair psychologizing anyway and insubstantial.
>Only if you believe in an eternal substance
It's not belief, it's been proven countless times even in the West, for example by Aristotle. Without an eternal substance there would not even be any becoming to speak of. Becoming needs a substratum in order for things to become. Composite things cannot come from nothing, they need a substratum which is eternal and unchanging in order for them to persist and continue in their motions of change (which is more or less the same basic underlying principle, in different domains, of the law of conservation of energy). The main difference between the East and West is that the former posits that substratum as pure consciousness, which is both well-founded and perhaps even more defensible than the claims by Westerners, which are liable to subjectivist retorts about substance being "empirically unnecessary", and other vicissitudes.
>ignore change or consider it to be fake such that the only "real"
The presence of being, pure consciousness, is more directly present to you than change. It's a matter of which one you choose to focus on, or in the latter case, disperse yourself, because something which neither is nor is not cannot properly be focused upon, and therefore cannot be experienced as such, it can only be experienced in relation to being, or consciousness.

>>20439117
meant to reply to >>20435824

>>20435617
Dude, there cannot be "complete annihilation" of something that only exists as a concept in your head. It's like looking at clouds in the sky and saying they're being "born" and "destroyed" but it's just your mind isolating patches of atmosphere with a bit of higher density and then fixating on it. All the aggregates are the same, they have no reality outside of convention and hypotetically, an alien existence visiting Earth wouldn't even identify separate sentient beings but would only see molecules moving around the surface of the planet (the reverse of what happens in Solaris, for example).

>>20439117
>It's not belief, it's been proven countless times
No it hasn't; no "proof" has been given by anyone anywhere, just a shuffling around of terminology and premises to avoid the problem that you cannot demonstrate such a metaphysical claim at all. All evidence is to the contrary, and delusional are the claims otherwise. An unchanging substratum is the very "nothing" you are insisting things cannot come from, since it cannot have any efficacy owing to its straitjacketed pure beingness. That would require it change in order to sustain or not sustain, cause or uncause, and so forth. You only "need" this concept because your logic was written up for the sake of defending it. You can identify the eternal unchanging substance with consciousness if you wish, but I'd bet my right arm you'll be a lot less conscious a hundred years from now. Of course, I'll be gone too by then so we won't be able to judge whether your consciousness is the endless ambient noise of a sleeping god or not.

>>20439466
>No it hasn't; no "proof" has been given by anyone anywhere, just a shuffling around of terminology and premises to avoid the problem that you cannot demonstrate such a metaphysical claim at all.
It's already been demonstrated, and you cannot and have not refuted it. You still have yet to show how there can be change, without a principle of change; how, for example, there can be a progression of time without there being a principle which allows time to even be manifest (not in the sense of before and after). What is time "passing" relative to? More to the point, how is time able to pass at all? If there is only change, how is there being at all, even the illusion of constancy or being?
>All evidence is to the contrary
You haven't given any evidence at all, except "change appears to occur", which everyone already agrees with. In fact the occurrence of change is necessary in order to understand the necessity of Being.
>An unchanging substratum is the very "nothing" you are insisting things cannot come from
An unchanging substratum is pure act and potency in one. It is all and nothing, and therefore neither. The distinction between Being and non-Being becomes contingent in absolute Unity, which you might already be acquainted with if you've read Shankara. There is the more contingent principle of Being, which is related to Aristotle's Unmoved Mover, in that it is the principle of motion and change, rather than the principle of all (unmanifest).
>since it cannot have any efficacy owing to its straitjacketed pure beingness.
What does this even mean? You are not stringing together logically coherent phrases here. An unmoved mover is that which is entirely unchanging and actual, yet absolutely potent in its causation of change (hence the common cryptic saying of act without act). It is a necessary presupposition for the actualization of motion (which is very similar to time), generation and destruction in the world. From Aristotle:
>"If there is a constant cyclic change, something must remain always active in the same way. If there is to be generation and destruction at all, there must be something else whose activity varies. This must act in one way per se, in another by virtue of something else - either of a third agent or of that which is always active in the same way. It must in fact be in virtue of the latter; otherwise this again would cause the motion both of the third agent and of that whose activity varies. It is correct then to recognize that whose activity varies as acting by virtue of something which is ever active in the same way. This latter is the cause of uniformity, the other the cause of variety, and both together are the cause of uniform variety."
>but I'd bet my right arm you'll be a lot less conscious a hundred years from now
My body will obviously lose all traces of consciousness when it loses its animating principle, yes. Is anyone here arguing otherwise?

>>20439466
There are so many formal proofs which already exist for substance in addition to the ones I've already provided, and they are not extremely difficult to understand, they are in fact very basic. If you want to reject all reason just to cope with the fact that you will be responsible for your actions in a future life, then by all means go ahead. Flat earthers deny the Earth's actual shape; and you deny your own responsibility for yourself beyond the borders of a dream world. In reality this entire debate has nothing to do with coping with death; if death really were "nothing", that might be good for some people who fear receiving the consequences for their actions, and bad for those who think about the future. Likewise if death is only a transformation, that might be bad for people who fear the consequences of their actions, and good for those who think about the future. In the end, the person who is "coping" depends entirely on their perspective. What matters is the truth, which from proper investigation seems to be that neither annihilation nor eternal salvation are probable possibilities for most people. Instead, as is the norm, things continue as they are, there are no absolute ends in time, only transformations. Death is an inconvenience and not an absolute problem, all it does is slow our progress, assuming we are making progress. It can also be a remedy in certain cases. It's neither intrinsically good nor bad, the same can be said about birth.

>>20437562
I don't really formally meditate anymore after the constant habitual focusing on thoughts
snapped off. Basically I'm now defaulted to cessation

Why is it always the nerdy dweebs that posit there is no self? Seems like a cope, life is a struggle and other people are busy tending to their garden. I'm sure meditation can be beneficial though.

>>20436674
> Buddha's point is that we can't locate or determine this anyway.
It’s found within as the constant self-disclosure of awareness to itself

>Furthermore, if you identify it with consciousness or the mind, those are according to Buddhists merely transient and interdependent factors of experience, and not to be reified as permanent or enduring, as that gives rise to a subject grasping for objects which is not conducive to the soteriology
To the contrary, if you fully realize that your Self is already complete, ever-fulfilled and free, then you just naturally abide as that pristine freedom without any grasping.


, which is the paramount concern

>>20439265
> Dude, there cannot be "complete annihilation" of something that only exists as a concept in your head.
That’s missing the point that regardless of how you classify experience ontologically you are still positing an annihilation (complete end) of one’s experience and sentience either way in Parinirvana. An illusion still can end such that it no longer appears as an illusion any longer, this is an illusion being annihilated. In all dictionaries it doesn’t say that annihilation only applies to things with ‘real being’; illusions can still have beginnings and ends. Buddhists posit that both the delusion of selfhood and the aggregates (or the ‘head’ in your example) that are the basis of that delusion are both fully ended and dont continue in Parinirvana anyway, so that’s still a complete annihilation of oneself, of sentience, of consciousness, of the person who strives to be freed (but no annihilated)

And it doesn’t work to say both the delusion and the brain or subject that knows it are all just one big chain of false illusions because then it leads to an infinite regress and you end up talking about nothingness/unreality producing conscious experience ex nihilio which is absurd and irrational.

>>20440056
On the contrary I've read Buddhists posit that illusion neither arises nor ceases. It is instead closer to something that beings let 'fall away' from them. The illusion is not dissolved, life and death always *is*, but the being sees through it for what it is. Perhaps this is the source of misunderstanding?

>>20428431
Read any writing on dzogchen or atiyoga, "the great perfection" and you will see that it is consistent with advaita, many of the texts literally say things about the voidness of "ego," not self - as in Dharmakaya, the mind is empty in the sense of being nothing other than primordially non-existent (in the Relative sense, in the sense that it is something unborn and uncreated - something unborn in this way is devoid of that special type of existence) - the relative "mind" not the absolute buddha-nature, the text I was reading before even refutes your view that there is no reflective conciousness or witnessing conciousness as Nihilism because how are you meditating on this and coming to this conclusion, and then refutes the view that the "awareness" or "Primordial wisdom" is grounded in the nature of any shape or color making it free of "eternalism," free from both extremes, once you actually gain metaphysical insight depending upon your own intellectual capacity, you will realise that saying the "witnesser" which in these cases of the dzogchen text is pretty much purushottoma, or paramatma is void except in the (relative cases) of existence is the extreme of nihilism, what they say is non-existent is maya and the relative mind, as what is existent then and only existent is the unborn mind without beginning nor end, and that there is no difference between samsara and nirvana from the ultimate point of view.

>having gained Nirvana
No such thing.

Buddhism has a major pleb filter, read guénon and shankara to better inform your nihilistic state of metaphysical confusion.

>>20440730
I should add the texts even acknowledge again and again, that they're only giving out relative pointers, the metaphysics is all instructional advice for you to actually engage in realisation, not this sterile intellectualism and dogmatism, which is refuted by the texts, if you want to larp as an academician who has read in these profane texts of knowledge, this or that without actually experiencing "voidness" and following the proper yogic methods, then that is fine, but you're getting nowhere.

>>20440730
*Is not void except in

>>20439576
>hence the common cryptic saying of act without act
There, you admitted to the eternal substance being contradictory nonsense, a standard you use against the Buddhist position but not yours

>>20428566
What? No the alternative the existence is non-existence.

>>20439594
>There are so many formal proofs which already exist for substance in addition to the ones I've already provided
Why are there so many? You'd think, if this substance were so evident you wouldn't need to keep inventing arguments for it, but it would seem I am on to something in that priests of all stripes just keep rearranging terms and premises to produce "proof" of what isn't. It took Vedantists a thousand years to produce Shankara, someone who could argue for the substance by sounding like a Buddhist. Of course, you still need theology to make it work, even if it is that of a lifeless God like Spinoza's.

>>20440020
>It’s found within as the constant self-disclosure of awareness to itself
Why should that be eternal or unchanging? Because you read it in a book? You being aware of your own thoughts proves you are the supreme being of the universe?

>>20440848
To something without beginning and cessation, immutable, indestructible and indominatble, there is no changing between states of existence, so from the absolute point of view of realisation he is correct.
>>20440823
>"Eternal substance" contradictory,
The primordiality of buddha-nature is irrefutable, in what sense do you mean "substantial" principle, as prakriti and purusha? Purusha is essence and prakriti substance, purusha is unmanifest, prakriti is the unmanifest manifestator, in the case of Buddha-nature it can be transposed and called Purusha, or Purushottoma, or Paramattma, in what way is an "eternal substance" contradictory? Because of it being determined through concept? If that's the case we agree, but that which is not the eternal substance is the eternal substance all the same.

>>20430913
What about the continuous observer?

>>20440867
Because you can experience it through yoga. Unfortunately this is the missing link, when it comes to all /lit/ related topics like this which hylics will forever fail to grasp, those who have integrated the supra-individual perspective truly or even have a solar shruti like intution when it comes to these subjects are few.
When it comes this, a genius can be the least capable of this realisation, but someone who cannot speak or right can be the most realised initiate.

>>20440897
*write
>>20440867
The book is meaningless, the initiate is the whole impartite book, a place dedicated to reading books in such a critical fashion will have few people who can grasp this.

>>20440886
Meant for
>>20440833

>>20440897
>>20440905
Mystical experiences of nonduality can just as well "prove" the intuition of nairatmya. Not really useful to argue about what is non-discursive now is it? Are you perhaps a crypto-Madhyamika after all?

>>20440946
No, I don't know what you mean, never suggested "proof"all I alluded to was that the root of all this metaphysics is experiential, something ultimately supra-rational, not something necessarily discursive, communicable or intellectual, I am not interested in arguments, but I will acknowledge that the discussions of such things have merit insomuch as they may inform experience but they are of an entirely relative order. What I do agree with is the advaitin position intellectually, really once you start to agree with or believe some "metaphysical doctrine" it ceases being truly "metaphysical," reality can only be transposed to doctrine in a relative manner, insofar as the doctrine is bound by concept, and particular form, this doesn't invalidate it, in fact Madhyamika is as true as Advaita, all doctrines have their own particular function, which is to essentialy transcend themselves, once this is "achieved" the written and oral doctrine becomes a redundancy and you're left with universal ritual actions and direct "hearing," the more that doctrine is clung to the more of a hindrance it can become, if not totally subordinated as completely contingent, and inactive. Really there is no agreement, or disagreement with something, both of these things breed attachment so when I said before that I agree with the advaitin position it means nothing, I disagree with it completely, and I disagree with madhyamika too.

>>20428431
>'To say that things exist means grasping at their permanence
No. Certain things exists permanently, certain things don't, saying they exist doesn't qualify them, it only gives the minimum grounding necessary to further qualifications.
>To say they don’t exist implies the notion of annihilation.
No, negation and annihilation are different processes. Negation is a eidetic function available to us at any doxatic act. Annihilation is an empirically founded process based on subjective local perception and limits sets by the observer (an object is considered annihilated past a certain degree of destruction of its components at the local level, not necessarily at every level).
>Thus the wise should not remain
>In “this exists” or “this does not exist.”
Correct. Existence is not that particularly useful.
>Something that exists by its intrinsic being,
>Since it cannot not exist, is permanent.
Wrong. Autopoietic systems are prone to failure with time.
I guess higher idealities kinda "exists by its intrinsic being".
>Annihilation does not apply to what happens to a liberated person after death, because there has never been any entity to cease in the first place.
Non sequitur.

>>20435617
>There isn’t any good reason to think that one’s own consciousness is not real
It goes further than that. Belief in your own existence should logically be the strongest of your beliefs.
Lets take a bet.
I'll bet with you that you don't exist. Let's say you are a perfectly reasonable being and will bet on this according perfectly to the strength of your belief in your existence. How much should you be willing to bet that you do, in fact, exist?
The intuitively obvious answer is absolutely everything, because if you don't exist you owned nothing to start with and could not lose any bet you couldn't take from the start.
The Cogito is 100% valid.