|
This is a bit verbose, you can read the last question if you'd like but I wanted to put down some of my thought process. I've been struggling lately with the definition of consciousness. Consciousness that is it brought about as response to the stimuli of vision, sound, taste, smell and touch are fine, but the mind sense eludes me. I can create a memory in my mind and my body responds to it. But what is the 'flame' that generates a reaction in the mind? I read a bit on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manas-vijnana to see if it had a explanation of it, but it got me nowhere. quote:When an object is presented before the eye, it is perceived and judged as a red apple or a piece of white linen; the faculty of doing this is called eye-vijñāna. In the same way, there are ear-vijñāna for sound, nose-vijñāna for odour, tongue-vijñāna for taste, body-vijñāna for touch, and thought-vijñāna (manovijñāna) for ideas—altogether six forms of Vijñāna for distinguishing the various aspects of world external or internal. quote:Viññāṇa refers to awareness through a specific internal sense base, that is, through the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body or mind. Thus, there are six sense-specific types of Viññāṇa. It is also the basis for personal continuity within and across lives. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citta : quote:The complex causal nexus of volitions (or intentions) which one experiences continuously conditions one's thoughts,
|
#
¿
May 10, 2013 23:47
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 23:50 |
|
|
Buried alive posted:There was mention in the OP about psychology starting to discover things that lined up with the teachings of Buddhism. Can you go into more detail about what exactly those things are? I had some experience recently with cognitive therapy and on a whim did some reading on Buddhism and it was eerie seeing the correlation. I'll tell you the two big ones I'm aware of. I first learned of these from The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller http://www.psych.yorku.ca/eavitzur/documents/Dramaofthegiftedchild.pdf I'm going to reference a couple page numbers from that. The idea of the true and false self: beginning page 12. Trauma vs Dukkha : Beginning page 5. The expression needs and their connection to Trauma.
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2013 00:03
|
|
|
Quantumfate posted:By extension this means the main operant for most thought-generation is karma, actions in this or prior life that come to fruit with every thought, every perception, every experience being colored by prior experiences that can further trap you in an ego world. It is the main operant most of the time? What about the other times? Are there other driving forces? If I understand correctly, Karma is the manifestation of Cetana which is the manifestation of Citta?
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2013 02:57
|
|
|
Shnooks posted:Yeah, I never understand the scholarly stuff Sorry if I introduced that. I don't really know any of the sanskit stuff myself, I just look it up as needed to ask my questions :S It got me in trouble though because I was using a term completely wrong for what I thought it was.
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2013 19:44
|
|
. It just confuses me even more. I try to make it as simple as possible. Fortunately Zen has been kind to me that way.
|
Thank you for the explanation of volition and karma. It took a bit, but I feel I understand it much better now. Next question: I agree with the reasoning behind the 14 unanswerable questions. It states in one of the questions that life after death cannot be known. However, if your current state is defined as life and reincarnation is accepted as fact, how can the question of life after death then be unanswerable?
|
|
#
¿
May 13, 2013 19:18
|
|
|
I suppose my question is whether or not that last set of questions "if the Tathagata exists after his death, or not, or both, or neither" is referring to rebirth or not. I interpret the question existing after death to include the iterations of rebirth since, by its own definition, involves a continuation of something related in some way to your current existence (wording this is awkward as hell because there is no self?). The idea is that something persists(continues persisting) after the body dies in Buddhism. Now, the question of if the Buddha exists after death is fundamentally different from the other questions posed in the unanswerable questions in that none of the questions about the nature of the universe are taught in Buddhism, but the nature of life after death is. I'll stop there for now, I am heading somewhere with this, but I don't want to deviate too far and have to start over. Is there anything overtly incorrect from what I've said so far?
|
|
#
¿
May 13, 2013 22:57
|
|
|
Quantumfate posted:If the buddha is outside the wheel of rebirht and the cycle of suffering, what happens at death? Parinirvana- the final nirvana. Beyond that is not really worthwhile to pursue: see the unanswerables. quote:When the Aggregates arise, decay and die, O Bhikkhu, every moment you are born, decay and die.
|
|
#
¿
May 14, 2013 05:35
|
|
|
I appreciate you guys taking the time to answer my questions so thoroughly. Your explanations have helped tremendously. I think I will stop for now as it's become clear I'm trying to take counter positions to concepts that I do not fully understand. I am intrigued and would like to learn more, so I'm going to start with a general book first, I suppose. Will "Buddhism Plain and Simple" - Steve Hagen from the OP provide a good starting point? The amazon reviews look promising, but I want something that will give a good overall perspective particularly discussing all the varying subcategories within the two major schools of Buddhism (eg Madhyamaka, Yogacara, Tathagatagarbha). I'd like one that provides a good broad view before I start to cinch.
|
|
#
¿
May 14, 2013 17:57
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 23:50 |
|
|
for An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy by Paul Williams are you referring to this one by Stephen Laumakis? Additionally, do you have any suggestions that would cover some of the more recent sects?
|
|
#
¿
May 14, 2013 19:52
|
|