/lit/ - Literature

>>12043779
>uhh what? That's like the opposite of what Vedanta teaches, it's all about how there are no parts, they are not fundamental, there is only the whole.
So Brahman is ontologically fundamental as it is the only ultimate reality but not ontologically foundational in the sense that it does not serve as ground for establishing other real entities. Epistemically it is fundamental and foundational because there is knowledge both of the rope as rope and of the rope as snake - ignorance exists, we'd both agree. So in terms of reality-status there is no dependency of Brahman on anything else, but epistemically? Well the Ultimate can not be known by a discriminating "I" that takes it as its object. It can be apophatically hinted at, "it is not this, that, etc." but it is only actuated in a state of pure-conscious non-dual awareness through a process of destroying ignorance and eliminating false views. The part I want to parse is the language of reality which says Brahman is real and Maya is unreal. I think we'd both accept defining the real in terms of the eternal, pure, permanent, unadulterated, intrinsically existent and so on. So Brahman is these things and Maya is temporary, impure, impermanent, etc. How could what is real and intrinsically existent be obscured by what is ultimately unreal and nonexistent? What causal power could there be of what is unreal over the real? If Brahman were intrinsically existent and real it could not be contaminated, but we persist in ignorance so obviously it has. To say that it hasn't and it is just us and our false beliefs is fallacious because in your own system we do not exist only Brahman does. Do the false beliefs of what is unreal obscure what is real and true? That is untenable. Does what is real and true persist in unrealities and falsehoods? That is also untenable Reification even in the most well developed forms still leads to contradiction. So is it nihilism? No, because nihilism only obtains for those who have the ontology of real intrinsic existence and then fail to find anything that satisfies the criteria. The middle way between reification and nihilism is the path of the Buddha, who taught that dependent origination is emptiness, and emptiness itself is empty.

Anyone have any informed thoughts on prasangika-madhyamika philosophy?

>>11341499
>>11342432
keep fighting the good fight, anon