/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19416295]

I am looking for a Buddhist book that responds to the arguments of the Advaita Vedanta

[Anonymous No.19416344]

>>19416295

search in the catalog, there's tons of threads where an advaitafag tries to defend the advaita position against buddhist and fails miserably

[Anonymous No.19416351]

Buddhists don't really care. The arguments made early in the religion against brahma or isvara or atman or the authority of the vedas largely cover anything the later Advaitans would argue. But if you are looking for actual responses in terms of scholastic philosophy probably the most accessible are Shataraksita's Tattvasangra or Mipham's commentary on the Madhyamakalankara, which was also written by Shantaraksita. Since Indians don't care about Buddhism both of these texts are sourced from Tibet, even the Sanskrit originals. Buddhists also developed their own non-Vedic version of what you might call pantheism similar to Advaita Vedanta but in relation to a doctrine of momentariness rather than permanence, c.p. Mahavairocana in Vajrayana or Shingon Buddhism.

[Anonymous No.19416367]

The arguments of Advaita are mostly misplaced metaphysical wranglings that only make sense within the frameworks of Advaita Vedanta, which are largely derived from Mahayana Buddhism and could be called a Buddhist heresy

Buddhists tend to be in substantial agreement with practicing Advaitins who have achieved nondual states, and in disagreement with internet Advaitins who think that Advaita is two pages of Parmenides summary but you also sit still sometimes and castes are based

[Anonymous No.19416370]

>>19416351
But I find Buddhist explanations of consciousness unconvincing

>Tattvasangra
A vedantin here has already answered it

>but in relation to a doctrine of momentariness rather than permanence
But Adi Shankara's arguments show how consciousness is precisely that permanence which perceives universal impermanence

[Anonymous No.19416381]

>>19416370
>consciousness is precisely that permanence which perceives universal impermanence
And that ultimately relies on "the vedas say so" which means nothing was proven permanent whatsoever. Sorry to inform you your guy was a hack

[Anonymous No.19416391]

>>19416367
>Buddhists tend to be in substantial agreement with practicing Advaitins who have achieved nondual states
Of course

"If two philosophers agree, one is not a philosopher.
If two saints disagree, one is not a saint."
- Tibetan saying

Nevertheless, the metaphysics of Advaita Vedanta is rationally more convincing

It's a pity because on everything else I agree more with Buddhism

Only Dolpopa agrees with my position, but he is in the minority and late.

[Anonymous No.19416394]

>>19416295
>that responds to the arguments of the Advaita Vedanta
They don’t, whatsoever. A few later Buddhists attempted to write a few critiques of Advaita that failed miserably because they couldn’t even get basic information correct about it and were just attacking strawmen of their own creation, in none of these Buddhist books do they actually respond to the written arguments of any Advaitins like Shankara etc.

>>19416351
>The arguments made early in the religion against brahma or isvara or atman or the authority of the vedas largely cover anything the later Advaitans would argue.
Not true, because the Isvara and Brahma the Buddhists argue against earlier is a very different conception than the Advaita understanding of Brahman. And the same is true of the Buddhist arguments against Atman, the earlier Atman of Mimansa, Nyaya, Vaisheshika etc that Buddhists argued against is also totally different than the Advaita teaching viz. Atman or consciousness. From Buddha onwards there are never any strong Buddhist arguments against the Upanishadic concept of Atman as self-revealing, unchanging, bliss etc

[Anonymous No.19416402]

>>19416381
>And that ultimately relies on "the vedas say so"
No, on logical arguments

[Anonymous No.19416406]

>>19416394
I would be careful about reading Advaita Vedanta interpretations such as Shankara's as a commentary to the Upanishads, they are extremely reliant on Buddhist philosophy (Shankara is called a "cryptobuddhist" by most Hindus, and most scholars agree). If you want to read the Upanishads, work through them with editions and commentaries that aren't sectarian, or at least read an interpretation that is closer to the original meaning of the Upanishads, rather than Shankara's 9th century AD quasi-buddhism.

[Anonymous No.19416409]

why did advaita steal so much from mahayana, even its favorite metaphors and analogies?

[Anonymous No.19416411]

>>19416394
>never any strong Buddhist arguments against the Upanishadic concept of Atman as self-revealing, unchanging, bliss etc
There are already arguments against those attributes, you grouping them under a term whose definition has shifted is not particularly groundbreaking. If a Buddhist says there is no permanent eternal creator and you go "if that's true how come I am non-dual with the permanent eternal creator," it's just a bad joke of scholasticism

[Anonymous No.19416413]

>>19416394
And yet, Brahman can only be empty
For every qualification is perceived
As the pupil of the eye is the void that allows the world to reveal itself
The Absolute is the emptiness that allows the totality
Apophatic nirvana is closer to the truth than Brahman and other positive onto-theologies

[Anonymous No.19416415]

>>19416402
Advaitans have admitted in previous threads that they cannot actually demonstrate permanence and only prove that it is in accordance with the Vedas. Since Buddhists reject the authority of the Vedas, it is a one-sided conversation.

[Anonymous No.19416421]

>>19416415
>Advaitans have admitted in previous threads that they cannot actually demonstrate permanence
Where ?

>Since Buddhists reject the authority of the Vedas, it is a one-sided conversation.
I also reject it, that's why I'm more of a Buddhist, but I still see consciousness as this primordiality that notices impermanence

[Anonymous No.19416425]

>>19416421
Some schools of Buddhism allow for consciousness to be what perceives all things but this is considered the limit of perception and to go past that is essentially a mystical experience, and what is past that is not identified as god.

[Anonymous No.19416428]

>>19416425
Please elaborate

[Anonymous No.19416444]

>>19416428
Yogacara is the the main "idealist" school with their notion of a matrix or storehouse consciousness alayavijñana but they are still mahayanists and take an ultimate view of emptiness or momentariness achieved through purification of consciousness as in the Lankavatara Sutra or more doctrinal texts like Mahayanasangraha, at such point the alaya ceases to operate and the nondualism of samsara and nirvana is reached

[Anonymous No.19416459]

>>19416444
Dolpopa is the closest to me

>emptiness or momentariness
How emptiness = momentariness?

The Buddha himself says that Nirvana escapes this:

"Then the Gracious One, having understood the significance of it, on that occasion uttered this exalted utterance:

“There is, monks, an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. If, monks there were not that unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, you could not know an escape here from the born, become, made, and conditioned. But because there is an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, therefore you do know an escape from the born, become, made, and conditioned.”

[Anonymous No.19416488]

>>19416459
One answer would be that this quote is for the purpose of teaching non-attachment and not regarding absolute reality, as it is a mere negation of birth, becoming etc., and a negation cannot actually "exist." I suppose whether that is convincing or not is up to you, but it is certainly a framework for interpreting a diverse body of text.

[Anonymous No.19416496]

>>19416488
"There is an unconditioned" anon... If there isn't, no escape is possible... The quote is clear.

The Buddha didn't teach annihilationism

[Anonymous No.19416547]

>>19416496
The idea, from a general mahayana pov, not necessarily just yogacara, would be that birth and non-birth are mere imputation. What is "annihilated" if anything are these relative or idiosyncratic distinctions, which had no ontological reality to be destroyed in the first place

[Anonymous No.19416561]

>>19416409
The rope-snake analogy is not of indubitably Buddhist origin as that image wrongly implies, it occurs in the Katharudra Upanishad of the Yajur Veda, and Shankara cites that Upanishad in his commentary on the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.
>If a Buddhist says there is no permanent eternal creator
The Buddhist arguments are all against a conditioned Isvara type figure bound up in causation, change, reaction, likes and dislikes, a figure which Advaita would reject as non-ultimate. The Buddhists have no argument for why an unchanging, unconditioned, eternal, partless, unthinking, supreme principle cannot exist.
>>19416413
>And yet, Brahman can only be empty
>For every qualification is perceived
What does that have to do with anything? That's not an argument that demonstrates that Brahman is empty of inherent nature. Advaita doesn't say that Brahman is delimited or communicated by verbal knowledge, It's realized non-discursively, words are pointers towards It and not identical with It.
>As the pupil of the eye is the void that allows the world to reveal itself
Without consciousness present there is no comprehension of or knowing of that visual knowledge, so there isn't simply emptiness there but something else underlying knowledge of sight beyond the mere physical eye
>The Absolute is the emptiness that allows the totality Apophatic nirvana is closer to the truth than Brahman and other positive onto-theologies
No, because the Absolute isn't a compete negation, Advaita combines apophatic and cataphatic theology to indicate Brahman's presence without objectifying it, this is a more clear understanding than pure apophatic denial which leaves important questions unanswered and which is liable to becoming transformed into extinctionism, nihilism etc,

[Anonymous No.19416608]

>>19416561
>no argument for why an unchanging, unconditioned, eternal, partless, unthinking, supreme principle
Again you are just combining already disputed terms and then giving them a label to present it as an "unrefuted" doctrine. Moreover your basis for doing so is the Vedas, which Buddhists do not care about as a source of authority.

[Anonymous No.19416667]

>>19416608
>Again you are just combining already disputed terms and then giving them a label to present it as an "unrefuted" doctrine.
Give an example of how you would dispute any of them then if you are too scared or obscurantist to attempt to dispute them in combination; and you'll find that nothing you can cite would harm the Advaitist position.

>b-b-but we don't find an unchanging or unconditioned object in the physical world so therefo-
That doesn't refute anything since Advaita is talking about a non-physical reality which underlies and is the basis of the physical world, so whatever is true of material objects isn't automatically true of Brahman

[Anonymous No.19416702]

>>19416667
What is Advaita Vedanta's position on universals? It must have one, and this is important because if universals are real, where are they? Are they ideas of the Demiurge (Ishvara) mind? In that case, Brahman does not really create the world.

Also, I'm waiting for your email :p

[Anonymous No.19416704]

>>19416667
>non-physical reality which underlies and is the basis of the physical world, so whatever is true of material objects isn't automatically true of Brahman
And your source for this is the mere assertion of the Vedas, correct? There is no reference to anything experienced except as metaphors?

[Anonymous No.19416787]

>>19416406
Any commentaries that you would recomend?
I was thinking of getting the Radhakrishnan one.

[Anonymous No.19416997]

>>19416702
They don't exist. The only thing that exists is Brahman's self-reflexive awareness.

>>19416421
Literally every thread. It just comes down to
>okay sure 99.99..................99% of things are impermanent, but there's this thing out there that isn't, but you can never interact with it.

[Anonymous No.19417054]

>>19416351
Why is it that Buddhism is more consequential outside of India, despite being formed out of India?

[Anonymous No.19417110]

>>19417054
Not him, but I'd argue that it's because the Brahmin caste was really good at holding onto power as a decentralized social institution, and the fact that they were deeply embedded in Indian life in ways that Buddhist monks weren't made it much easier for them to levy power against the Buddhist monks. Remember, Brahmins were a CONSTANT in Hindu life, and up until recently still were. Marriage? Brahmin. Birth? Brahmin. Birthday? Brahmin. One of the holy days that you have basically once a week? Brahmin. Bad dreams? Brahmin. Medical issues? Brahmin. Bad day at work? Brahmin. Good day at work? Brahmin. Want to talk to the Gods? Brahmin.

The general seclusion of Buddhist monks away from the populace, for the purposes of detachment, meant that Brahmins were just better at whispering in the ears of those around them. I don't mean to castigate the Brahmins or Hindus for this because if you're correct then it's obviously just and righteous to do just that, so it's just a matter of whether you think some given Hindu school (of where there are many) is right or not, not whether you think ear-whispering is moral or not.

Outside of India, there were no Brahmins, however, and Buddhism could act as intellectual centers and take up a Eunuch position for the powerful and elite. In East Asia in particular it is precisely because of syncreticism, rather than exclusivism, that Buddhism managed to take root. Buddhist monasteries were centers of learning for Confucianism and Taoism in China, and Buddhist monks were priests and caretakers of the Kami in Japan. They weren't so much competing for space with existing intellectual classes or castes as much as they were creating a new intellectual class (whereas in India, all possible niches were already taken up by Brahmins of SOME kind).

[Anonymous No.19417141]

>>19417110
>Brahmin? Brahmin

[Anonymous No.19417252]

>>19416394
>the earlier Atman of Mimansa, Nyaya, Vaisheshika etc that Buddhists argued against is also totally different than the Advaita teaching viz
Somebody needs a lesson on Indian religious history.

[Anonymous No.19417309]

>>19416295
respond to what? it's practically the same thing
read "Hinduism and Buddhism" by Ananda Coomaraswamy

[Anonymous No.19417327]

>>19417054
It is worth noting that both the region known for major developments in Buddhism and its transmission to central Asia and China (Gandhara), and the dynasty which had previously promoted it (Maurya) were from outside the pale of brahminical religious dominance. There were brahmins who converted to Buddhism but one has to imagine those that didn't became increasingly, well, brahminical owing to repeated refusal to switch religions. The fracturous nature of India geopolitically also made royal patronage a scattered and quilt-lile affair as one dynasty fell and another rose. As the centuries wore on, Hinduism started sounding more like Buddhism and the Buddhists got worse at playing chess. What finally secured India for the Hindus came at a terrible cost, the Islamic conquests, as the Muslims largely destroyed whatever remaining Buddhist or "shaved brahmin" sites fell into their hands, as they were well informed of the godlessness of the Buddhists.

[Anonymous No.19417341]

>>19417110
>They weren't so much competing for space with existing intellectual classes or castes as much as they were creating a new intellectual class
Please read a book. I recommend Ch'en for the history in China and Abé for Japan. In BOTH countries Buddhists had to compete with the existing Confucianist intelligentsia and Taoist mystics and in BOTH countries was invariably attacked as foreign or against tradition/the state

[Anonymous No.19417346]

>>19417110
Solid and realistic answer.

[Anonymous No.19417356]

>>19417341
So were Buddhists derided for their Indic origins? It seems like the terminology remained Indian, along with the concepts therein, but it doesn't appear as overtly foreign as, say, Islam would be if introduced into Korea.

[Anonymous No.19417367]

>>19417309
>Ananda Coomaraswamy
>Coomaraswamy
>Coom

[Anonymous No.19417379]

>>19417356
Buddhism had been in China as early as like 100 ad. It was still being attacked as foreign in the 700s. The Chinese are very particular. There probably were tiny numbers of Muslims in Korea given that it was often under Chinese or Mongol influence at times and both China and the Mongols had used Arab or other muslim mercenaries, received Muslim merchants into their ports etc.

[Anonymous No.19417498]

>>19416411

this pretty much sums up why advaita vedanta criticism of buddhist anatta is retarded

[Anonymous No.19417536]

>>19416295
the best response to advaita vedanta was given by the buddha himself
what proof can you give that an atman exist?
none, you can only speculate about possible tarscendet qualities, but can't give an asnwre without metaphysical speculation
in advaita's case, awarness as something that can trascend phenomena, which is retarded since only thanks to phenomen aawraness can manifets, so both phenomena and awarness are interdependent
and any notion of a form of awarness outside of phenomena is just metaphysical speculation, and Kant already proved how that type of speculation in general and advaita metaphysical specualtion in particular(see the tracsendetal principle of aperception) goes nowhere
also the idea of pratikiasamutpada generating a infinite regres sis also retartded since pratikiasamutpada is not a ontological system but a epistemologila one, but even at an ontological level shankara criticisim is wrong since, in order for inifnite regress to happen you have to take for granted that causality is objective, when in reality causlaity is subjective(see hume and his treatise of human nature)

[Anonymous No.19417569]

>>19417536
Your weird typos make your post read like Old English or something. I like it.

[Anonymous No.19417583]

>>19416704
>And your source for this is
The question of source is a totally separate question from the concept itself being logically consistent/coherent. Buddhists dont have any arguments that refute the concept itself as illogical.
>>19417252
>Somebody needs a lesson on Indian religious history.
The Buddhists never had any arguments against the Advaitic Atman, only the different Atman conceptions of non-Advaitins

[Anonymous No.19417643]

>>19417583
>The question of source is a totally separate question from the concept itself being logically consistent/coherent.
I don't care if Harry Potter is logically consistent because no one is trying to argue it is metaphysically true. Do you not see a distinction here?

[Anonymous No.19417654]

>>19417569
This is great, he's like some lost gymnosophist who washed up in York, perhaps brought as a slave from a Viking who had been to Baghdad

[Anonymous No.19417699]

>>19417654
A terrific novel could me made from this.

[Anonymous No.19417711]

>>19416295
Wrong question. You should be asking for Buddhist arguments that refute the upanishads. None do.

Advaita is an extension, or a singular point of focus among the Upanishads, and so Buddhists could never refute it.

Ask any single Buddhist in this thread to refute Brahman, and if they think hard enough, they'll either become a Vedantin, or accept metaphysical absurdity, at which point the only logical course of action would be suicide.

[Anonymous No.19417733]

>>19417711
>if you don't accept my religion [...] kill yourself
Well put. Which branch of abrahamism did you hop over from?

[Anonymous No.19417802]

>>19417733
Hahaha gottem

[Anonymous No.19418196]

Bump

[Anonymous No.19418204]

>>19417536
>what proof can you give that an atman exist?
>none, you can only speculate about possible tarscendet qualities, but can't give an asnwre without metaphysical speculation
>in advaita's case, awarness as something that can trascend phenomena, which is retarded since only thanks to phenomen aawraness can manifets, so both phenomena and awarness are interdependent
/thread
Vedanta btfo
Awareness is always awareness of something -> teleological -> interdependant and conditioned

[Anonymous No.19418289]

>>19418204
Brahman is supposed to be the supreme consciousness but in Advaita he is blind and does not even perceive the world
This criticism is addressed to the classical God in the West but it is also valid for Brahman: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/window-dressing-or-is-the-god-of-thomistic-classical-theism-as-dumb-as-a-rock/ making him "as dumb as a rock"

[Anonymous No.19419320]

Bump

[Anonymous No.19419412]

>>19418204
Based

[Anonymous No.19419421]

>>19416295
Kaccayanagotta Sutta

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.015.than.html

[Anonymous No.19419440]

>>19417711
>refute Brahman
simple:
Is Brahman subject to time or not?
It's not? Then when can i describe, think of, connect with Brahman?
Is Brahman subject to change or not?
Then what happens between me describing Brahman and me talking about something else?
Is Brahman independent or dependent?
Independent? Then how can it belong to any causal/conditional chains that relate it to any other entities or phenomena?

[Anonymous No.19419450]

>>19419440
>>19417711
Is Brahman caused or uncaused:
Uncaused? Then why can't other phenomena be uncaused? This seems like crypto nihilism...

[Anonymous No.19419452]

>>19419440
>Is Brahman independent or dependent?
>Independent? Then how can it belong to any causal/conditional chains that relate it to any other entities or phenomena?
At the conditioned level Brahman with attributes is the creator of the world, at the absolute level Brahman without attributes exists alone

[Anonymous No.19419472]

>>19419452
so there are two Brahmans? and do they depend on each other?

Also don't try this trick with Nirvana. Nirvana is a negation not an assertion.

[Anonymous No.19419596]

>>19417583
Most of Buddhists' arguments for anatta come as a response to Samkhya's ontology, which is the source of Vedanta's entire metaphysics. Most criticisms that apply to Samkhya also apply to Vedanta.

[Anonymous No.19419887]

>>19419596
Like?

[Anonymous No.19419941]

>>19419887
Nagarjuna's Treatise on the Middle Way XVIII
>1. If the self were the aggregates, It would have arising and ceasing (as properties). If it were different from the aggregates, It would not have the characteristics of the aggregates.
The Atman of Advaitins falls under the same problem, it cannot at the same time be both aware of Maya and different from the aggregates that allow for the perception of Maya, that is wihout falling into contradictions, which are no problem for mystic schools, but are for Shankara who claims his philosophy to be sound and consistent.

[Anonymous No.19420037]

>>19419941
>it cannot at the same time be both aware of Maya and different from the aggregates that allow for the perception of Maya
Didn't understand
Vedantins reject the theory of aggregates especially for consciousness

[Anonymous No.19420076]

>>19420037
Them rejecting the truth means noting. The Self is not a philosophycally sound position.

[Anonymous No.19420085]

>>19419941
>>19420037
A bit of a poor choice of quote since Nagarjuna is dealing with rival buddhists (abhidharmikas) here, who in his view were reifying the skandhas. Not what the brahmins were doing, for them atman is this permanent "self" everyone has that comes from brahman, and Nagarjuna's audience are already in disagreement with that

[Anonymous No.19420115]

>>19420085
>permanent "self" everyone has that comes from brahman, and Nagarjuna's audience are already in disagreement with that
Wrong, puggalavadin Buddhists had reintroduced the self and they were in Naga's scope.

Anyway the argument hits anyone:
Where is the self? in the body? in the mind? These are in constant flux
Is it apart from the body and mind? then how is it related to them? (noting they are in constant flux and this implies a change in relationship to the supposedly immutable self)
>HURR SOME ASPECT OF BODY AND MIND DON'T CHANGE THE SELF RELATES TO THAT
infinite regress problem, you just moved the problem along, so how does the unchanging part of the mind say, manage to stay related to a perpetually related mind if it is immutable?

The entire argument is simple empirics. That's the Beauty of our Buddha's hallowed Dharma

[Anonymous No.19420124]

The idea of permanence is so obviously wrong, whether you mean self or anything.

Permanence means you cannot undergo change because you would trivially become a new thing, you'd cease and 'rearise'.
If you're incapable of undergoing change then you can't be real.
Time changes, the things related to you change - but since you're incapable of change you cannot change with respect to those things.

So we have lots of apparently real phenomena undergoing perpetual change right before us, easy to observe.
In our minds, we're making an error and imagining something 'permanence' without thinking through the implications and realising that could not possibly be

[Anonymous No.19420128]

>>19420115
Is the Sun affected by what it illuminates? In the same way, the consciousness of the self illuminates the mind

Does a crystal put in front of a painting get colored? Yet as soon as you remove it you see that it has always remained pure
In the same way, the Self remains pure, untouched by emotions

[Anonymous No.19420131]

>>19420128
>Is the Sun affected by what it illuminates?
It exists in relation to what it illuminates yes.

there is no sound of a tree falling in a forest without a hearer.
There is no sun without thing to be illuminated by it.
This is emptiness.

[Anonymous No.19420133]

>>19420124
>If you're incapable of undergoing change then you can't be real.
???

Permanence is precisely what allows change
If nothing remains in the object that changes to preserve its identity, there is no change, only a disappearance and replacement

[Anonymous No.19420137]

>>19420131
If I understand your point well, the supreme consciousness, the self, should necessarily be in relation with the world, therefore conditioned?

[Anonymous No.19420142]

>>19420128
>>19420131
sorry i didnt read the rest of your post but it is irrelevant, becuase i agreed with the thing you wanted me to disagree with.

As the Buddha told a sage who searched all over for the end of the universe, it beings and ends in the mind.
Dharmas (phenomena) do not exist outside of conventional experience:


Perception (the sight) does not exist separately from the Perceiver (the seeing eye) and the Perceived (the seen stone).

The Perceiver (the seeing eye) does not exist separately from the Perception (the sight) and the Perceived (the seen stone)

The Perceied (the seen stone) does not exist separately from the Perception (the sight) and the Perceiver (the seeing eye).

If there were perception without perceiver and perceived. It would be a perception of what? and by whom?

If there were a perceiver without perception and perceived. It simply would not be a perceiver. If the seeing eye could see without an object of vision - it would see itself - but doesn't.

If there were a perceived without perception and perceiver. It simply would not be a perceived thing. . If the seen stone could be seen without an subject viewer - it would be seen by itself - but it isn't.

Thus outside of these relationally derived imputations of perception...., there is nothing to be perceived, nothing to perceive and nothing which is perception.

the sight, eye and seen never meet:
if they were the same a thing cant touch itself
if they were different, that would entail a mutual relationship which is not possible if they are ontologically different. but you cant be ontologically different because you rely on the relationship to be different.

[Anonymous No.19420143]

>>19420131
>>19420137
How does being in relationship condition the world? Especially since it is an ontologically asymmetrical relationship: the Self always exists without the world, the world cannot exist without it

[Anonymous No.19420145]

>>19420085
Nagarjuna was in discussions with Samkhya school as well, it's obvious from the first Chapter when he attacks causality.

[Anonymous No.19420147]

>>19420137
>the supreme consciousness, the self, should necessarily be in relation with the world, therefore conditioned?

yes or else they do not exist
pro tip i'm leaning on the second possibility as a Buddhist

[Anonymous No.19420152]

>>19420142
I did not understand
Your message proves that we can't do without the self and the consciousness
This is the opposite of the theory of aggregates

[Anonymous No.19420160]

>>19420115
Probably one of the passages about chariots or parts is better suited is all I'm getting at. The presentation of the aggregates is fairly unique to buddhism, and but you could rather read it as Nagarjuna saying the self isn't part of experience but also not distinct from experience. Since the Vedantins take self to be what eternally does the experiencing they are saying it is not part of experience but remember, Nagarjuna's answer to the self not being part of experience is to refer back to the theory that the self was claimed to be the skandhas. So he is doing a gotcha against someone else. It is tricky to align the short verses of the karika with other than what they refer to. You can find other Buddhists who deal with an/atman more directly.

[Anonymous No.19420166]

>>19420160
>You can find other Buddhists who deal with an/atman more directly
Like?

[Anonymous No.19420168]

>>19420128
Actually it sounds like the self is an EMPTY substratum that doesn't actually "do" anything. Very based and bauddhapilled of you.

[Anonymous No.19420172]

>>19420143
both parties in a relationship are mutually dependent, this special exception for muh ooga booga upanishadic terms like self or supreme conscious do not hold up as soon as we think about words like:
relationship, condition, permanent, independent mean and entail.

the burden is on you to prove that there is a thing that can have a relationship with changing things while not undergoing change itself - pro tip you can't because it is trivially undergoing change by means of it's changing relationship.

To put it plainly:
If I marry one lady, then divorce and marry another - I am 2 different husbands conditioned by 2 different wives.

Similarly when my hairs fall out or grow, when my mind is flooded with new ideas or forgets older ones, when my body goes from feeling hot to cold - how is this self not undergoing change via it's changing relationship with these new states - just like the husband?

[Anonymous No.19420174]

>>19420145
Everyone shits on them in everything. But if Nagarjuna is talking about skandhas here he is criticizing other Buddhists

[Anonymous No.19420181]

>>19420168
How is it empty? It's pure consciousness, that's a positive thing
It's sat cit ananda
Being consciousness bliss

Even the buddhists admit that :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_(Dzogchen)#Three_aspects

[Anonymous No.19420186]

>>19420160
You don't need to be a Buddhist to believe in the Skandhas and what Naga is saying about the self's relationship to it

The same applies to body only
To mind only
To whatever conception you have of a human's constitution - you must admit change - so how can an unchanging self be attached to a changing human (skandas or whatever)

[Anonymous No.19420192]

>>19420174
He is criticising Sarvaastavadins (realists/essentialists), Sautrantriks (crypto atma believers + atomists iirc) and Pugalavadins (atma believers)

[Anonymous No.19420195]

>>19420172
Even if your argument was right, it would just prove that the relationship between consciousness and what it perceives changes
It doesn't make consciousness any less primordial
At best we arrive at the position of a Whiteheadian Buddhist friend, who sees the supreme consciousness of Buddha nature as a perfect and continuous flow
In flux, but eternal nonetheless
And supreme

[Anonymous No.19420197]

>>19420174
Upanishads themselves have skhanda-like theories that put an unchanging Atman at the centre of it all (Katha U. for example with the chariot metaphor, that is later adapted into multiple Vedanta texts). Nagarjuna's criticism applies to them too.

[Anonymous No.19420198]

>>19420152
>Your message proves that we can't do without the self and the consciousness
no it doesn't your reading what you want. my post demonstrates conditional depedence and emptiness.

Consciousness is nought without objects of consciousness. So consciousness depends on things to be conscious of (and they depend back on conscisouness)
Self is a meme.

[Anonymous No.19420205]

>>19420195
Sure, but this stability is again relative ... I agree it is difficult to understand that CONTINUITY of PERFECT movement is not the same as PERMANENCE. Wanting something "qui reste in fine" is a Greek preconceptions talking. The point is that there is in the interconnected sea of process NOT A SINGLE THING that remains the same. When Buddhists talk about "eternity" they don't refer to the "eternity" of some "stable" Platonic idea or substance, but of the ONGOINGNESS of the enlightened properties of the Buddha-mind. Because these are continuous and depend on one another, there is no isolated, independent permanent core inherently existing. So no, one does not needs a stable reference, except if this is again relative to something else. The same goes in quantum physics and relativity. There is no stable mass (but a transient resistance against the Higgs field generating Higgs bosons), no absolute time, no absolute space. The continuity of the absolute mind of a Buddha is not permanent, not stable, not substantial, not self-referential. The 'holomovement' (Guenther) of this mind is continuous, like an ongoing symmetry transformation, someone perfectly swimming, constantly moving, but with beauty and perfection. Not in some heaven after death, or by rejecting existence as mere illusion, but here and now. The absolute exists in the transient.

[Anonymous No.19420207]

>>19420195
see
>>19420198

Consciousness is no different to the sun, it does not exist without what it illuminates. It is not a-priori, it is mutually constituted by the objects of consciousness

Consciousness is as empty as my man Naga says as a Donkey's horn or the fantasies of dreams!
Neither are ultimately any more real or unreal, both exist only in experienced convention as conditionally dependent!
This is the teaching on emptiness.

[Anonymous No.19420211]

>>19420192
The Sravastivadins were the atomists (that's how they can argue for realism, although they aren't "essentialists" in the sense of "Platonic Universals"). The Sautrantikas held to anatman, the disagreement other schools had with them was their extreme momentariness. The Pudgalavadins are the closest there is to crypto-atman, and even then the pudgala is not an Atman, it's just vaguely similar.

[Anonymous No.19420216]

>>19420211
>Sautrantikas held to anatman, the disagreement other schools had with them was their extreme momentariness

Problem is they need a thing that persists across moment to explain causality - which violates nonself - I think that is why Naga fired shots at them.

Chapter 1 refutes Sarvastavadins
Chapter 2 refutes Sautrantriks

[Anonymous No.19420219]

>>19420195
>>19420205
There is a PROFOUND metaphysical difference : the Hindu substantializes nonduality (in nondual Shaiva ontology Shiva is called "emptiness", but this is a self-referential, self-existing "emptiness", i.e. one "empty" of the world, not "empty" of substance, as in Buddhism). Buddhism dereifies nonduality. The nondual in Buddhism is process-based. All the other systems are substance-based and so incorporate a fundamental contradiction. It may seem there is no real difference, but this is not the case. Some people call the Buddha a "protestant", but the difference with Luther could not be greater. The latter did not reject the bible, while the Buddha rejected the Vedas in toto. Why? Because no substantial existence, existence from its own side or inherent existence (Tsongkhapa) can be found, not in logic and not in experience. Despite this, awakening is possible, a feat difficult to understand for those minds immersed in substantial thinking like fish in water. The first adult he met after his awakening was a renunciant who rejected him because he rejected scripture ... This was just after his first 5 pupils perfectly understood him, for they were children.

[Anonymous No.19420242]

>>19420195
>>19420205
>>19420219
Existence cannot be explained by introducing substances, for they are isolated and there is nothing isolated in existence. Even material existence is interconnected, for all physical things emerged from the Big Bang and so entanglement is universal. Without radical nominalism paradox remains. This said, there are a lot of Buddhist schools that tried to "save" substance, probably because people are attached to their woe. The Svatantrika Madhyamakas for example thought that conventional objects cannot exist if they are not substantially "backed" ! It took centuries between Nagarjuna and Tsongkhapa to realize the contrary holds true. Existence cannot be explained when introducing substances, but only when all substances are removed. To think a substance is to think an impossible way to exist. All things, Buddhahood included, lack inherent existence.

A substance exists from its own side, and hence (as Leibniz said) has no "windows". It is self-contained, as Spinoza defined it. Given this ontological feature, one cannot consistently think such a substance to move outside itself and interact with anything other than itself. That's why in Spinoza's system there is only God, only Nature as sole substance. If a substance would interact, it would no longer be depending on itself alone and hence it would no longer be a substance. This we see the flawed version of interactionism as advanced by Descartes. How can a substantial brain (a res extensa) interact with a substantial mind (a res cogitans). As Geulincx (and also Nagarjuna) argue, given a substance, there is no movement, no production, no causality, no creativity. Hence, a substantial God cannot create.

If God is a substance, in casu the "substance of substances", then God is self-contained, and if so, there can be no creation of anything 'outside' such a substantial God. As existence (something outside this God) is an experiential fact of relativity, becoming, in short : not absolute, it follows it cannot be the outcome of the creative act of this substantial God for such a God, being substantial and closed-up, is unable to create anything. To posit such a God in light of the fact of existence is positing something that cannot exist to explain what apparently does exist.

[Anonymous No.19420246]

>>19420195
>>19420205
>>19420219
>>19420242
So again, the necessary presence of a witness, a subject, an observer does not contradict anatman, quite on the contrary. Only when a non-substantial self is posited can the act of observation be understood, for a substance has no "windows" and so cannot observe at all. This is also the main problem in Patanjali. There is a contradiction in saying that the atman witnesses anything, for just as the purusa of Samkhya, the atman is removed from the world, transcending it, in no way related to nature, i.e, prakriti and the gunas constituting the body and the mind (indeed, for the Indian the mind -manas-) is part of the workings of Nature. You say that anatman is contradictory, quite the difference is true. The atman is contradictory, for how can one witness anything if locked up in a dark room without windows ? Observation is interaction, relation, being in touch. The atman can't do any of those things. Like the substantial God of Abrahamism, the atman cannot generate, create, interact, exchange, etc. He exists on another plane of existence (Platonism) and so cannot really observe Nature at all ...

Who observes that all is impermanent and without substantial self (which is not the same as saying, as you do, without any self) you ask ? Reason and the direct experience of our Buddha-nature, fully awake and the true, sole observer of anything. This Buddha-nature is not substantial and so is able to interact and observe, contrary to the atman who is closed-up and unable to do so.

[Anonymous No.19420261]

>>19420246
>Who observes that all is impermanent and without substantial self (which is not the same as saying, as you do, without any self) you ask ? Reason and the direct experience of our Buddha-nature, fully awake and the true, sole observer of anything. This Buddha-nature is not substantial and so is able to interact and observe, contrary to the atman who is closed-up and unable to do so.
Pro tip Nagarjuna didn't say this nor is it supported in the Pali Canon.

>Who observes that all is impermanent and without substantial self (which is not the same as saying, as you do, without any self) you ask ?
The answer would simply be that conditioned observer arises in dependence on observation and the observed (and they arise in dependence on her)

That's the middle way.

[Anonymous No.19420279]

>>19420261
>Pro tip Nagarjuna didn't say this nor is it supported in the Pali Canon
I didn't say that. I am closer to Tibetan Buddhism, I don't stop at the Pali Canon and Nagarjuna (even though I think the same thing can be demonstrated from these sources).

I just don't reject subjectivity or the presence of a witness. The Buddha
Within, the sole observer and witness, is not a substance and so able
to interact. It is a perfect symmetry transformation, a totality of
enlightened properties. And because the Buddha Within is not a
substance, we can attain Buddhahood. If substantial, we would have to
make the confused, wrong and sordid distinction (as all essentialist
theologians make) between God's essence and God's existence.

[Anonymous No.19420285]

>>19420205
>>19420219
>>19420242
>>19420246
H O L Y

B
A
S
E
D

[Anonymous No.19420288]

>>19420261
>The answer would simply be that conditioned observer arises in dependence on observation and the observed (and they arise in dependence on her)
>That's the middle way.

Literally what he said:

>>19420205
>The point is that there is in the interconnected sea of process NOT A SINGLE THING that remains the same. When Buddhists talk about "eternity" they don't refer to the "eternity" of some "stable" Platonic idea or substance, but of the ONGOINGNESS of the enlightened properties of the Buddha-mind. Because these are continuous and depend on one another, there is no isolated, independent permanent core inherently existing.

[Anonymous No.19420293]

>>19420285
The source of these texts, if you want to dig:
http://bodhi.sofiatopia.org/table.htm
http://bodhi.sofiatopia.org/index.htm (books on the subject)

[Anonymous No.19420300]

>>19420279
>Tibetan Buddhism
i gathered
>e Buddha
Within, the sole observer and witness, is not a substance and so able
to interact.
sounds like something with Svabhav bro... we gotta be careful to not reify stuff bro...

I don't mind stopping at the circular reasoning of Naga:
hearer depends on hearing and the heard
heard depends on hearing and hearer
hearing depends on heard and hearer
none are a-priori. this emptiness and explains all conventional phenomna. so why suffer?
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.095.than.html

The Buddha himself said don't over think it:
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.063.than.html
>"So, Malunkyaputta, remember what is undeclared by me as undeclared, and what is declared by me as declared. And what is undeclared by me? 'The cosmos is eternal,' is undeclared by me. 'The cosmos is not eternal,' is undeclared by me. 'The cosmos is finite'... 'The cosmos is infinite'... 'The soul & the body are the same'... 'The soul is one thing and the body another'... 'After death a Tathagata exists'... 'After death a Tathagata does not exist'... 'After death a Tathagata both exists & does not exist'... 'After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist,' is undeclared by me.

>"So, Malunkyaputta, remember what is undeclared by me as undeclared, and what is declared by me as declared."

[Anonymous No.19420307]

>>19420288
yes we're both Buddhists by the looks of it.

[Anonymous No.19420310]

>>19420300
I agree with the texts that you oppose me.

[Anonymous No.19420312]

>>19420279
>The Buddha
>Within, the sole observer and witness
This seems like a cope trying to reclaim a sort of absolute. Buddhism limits itself to the realisation that all subjects are dependent on objects, and what lies beyond that is inaccessible to unilluminated minds, therefore impossible to be expressed in concepts, the closest possible being "emptiness".

[Anonymous No.19420319]

>>19420312
yea i'm arguing with him
Buddha nature never rested easy with me - yes we are capable of enlightenment sure.

But this isn't an essential nature or an agent or something. It's just a tendency.

[Anonymous No.19420358]

>>19420312
I don't want to justify myself here, I refer you to the Buddhist thought about the Buddha-nature. But yes, even this "absolute" is non-substantial and conditioned, relational.

The absolute exists relatively. This means the unconditional is found in the conditional without turning it conditional. That is the real miracle over everyday existence, not some transcendent superbeing ruling us.

This ongoingness is the sea of process of dependent origination. The latter permits existence, its ongoing change, even the perfect continuity of the Buddha-mind. This is then called "uncontaminated" dependent origination, a "form" if you like devoid of reification.

Tsongkhapa said that relative and absolute are merely two properties of one object, the first isolated by conventional reason, the second by yogic perceivers of emptiness, the absolute property of existence.

Again, the Atman exists from its own side, self-powered, permanent, independent, isolated from the world, etc. Buddha-nature does not exist from its own side, is other-powered, impermanent but continuous, depending on the factors of enlightenment, and not ontologically divided from the world. Buddha desubstantalized the atman. This makes it a process, not a substance. A crucial but subtle distinction, no doubt. Most do not understand it properly and then compare Buddhism with Nondual Vedanta, a grave error of eternalism. On the opposite side, the rejection of existence per se, is also flawed. The Buddha's position is the Middle Way between the concept affirming substance (eternalism) and the concept rejecting existing has some structure (nihilism, not in the Nietzschean sense of course). This means things exist, but not in a substantial, nor in an existence-rejecting sense. They exist as interconnected processes (pratitya samutpada).

[Anonymous No.19420437]

>>19420166
Commentaries on Nagarjuna are a good place to start. Or some of the longer Mahayana texts (not karikas)
>>19420186
I don't disagree, but that's a broader reading and one could locate more direct sources to confirm.
>>19420192
Yes the three butt monkeys of early mahayana

[Anonymous No.19420449]

>>19416295

there's nothing to respond, advaita and buddhism are literally the same thing. read more. the self the buddha denies is only the temporal finite self, which advaita also ultimately denies. there is no difference in absolute being and non-being, they both collapse into one.

[Anonymous No.19420471]

>>19420449
Perhaps to Sankara and Gaudapada's credit they made this compatible with the Vedas, thus securing Buddhism a more permanent home in theophoric India

[Anonymous No.19420485]

>>19420449
>>19420471
>hurr madhyamaka and atma-brahma are the same
peak brainlet.

[Anonymous No.19420498]

>>19420485
They're not, but it's guaranteed replies since Buddhism lives rent-free in Indian philosophy

[Anonymous No.19420503]

>>19420471
yeah definitely they did but i also don't think buddhist notions of anatman came out of nowhere to begin with. the upanishads themselves have this strain of thought, it just wasn't the dominant view (the dominant early upanishadic view was something like bhedabheda and a real world soul that transforms into the world while maintaining its distinctiveness or something more panentheistic like vishishtadvaita).

buddha denied the temporal self, nagarjuna chandrakirti etc codified and expanded on these views giving them a coherent logical framework. advaita took this framework and expanded it to make it compatible with the religiosity of the upper caste elite.

[Anonymous No.19420506]

>>19420498
problem is hindus claim:
buddhism is hinduism
buddha was a hindu
buddha never intended to start new religion
etc

[Anonymous No.19420521]

>>19420485

t. non-brahmin westerner who reads english translations and secondary sources.

read the mulamadhyamakarika with chandrakirti's commentary closely, especially chapter 18. if you think they're anything different you're just as much of an e-convert as i expected.

[Anonymous No.19420530]

>>19420521
>chandrakirti's commentary closely
NGMI

read Kumarajiva
then come back to me.

[Anonymous No.19420643]

>>19420506
Why do some of them do this? To preempt being slandered as crypto-Buddhists by other Hindus who consider it nastika? If it was Hinduism all along then it is acceptable to borrow its doctrines. Either way, the rent is not being paid.

[Anonymous No.19420663]

>>19416444
>Yogacara is the the main "idealist" school with their notion of a matrix or storehouse consciousness alayavijñana
Yogacharins still hold the alayavijnana to be momentary which means it cannot sufficiently account for the continuous unity of one’s witnessing presence throughout time
>>19416702
>What is Advaita Vedanta's position on universals?
They are not mentioned by Shankara, Madhusudana Saraswati accepts them conditionally as part of what orders maya but he doesn’t make them as absolutely real as Brahman.
>Also, I'm waiting for your email :p
I promise that I will eventually get to it but Ive been busy

[Anonymous No.19420667]

>>19417536
>the best response to advaita vedanta was given by the buddha himself
>what proof can you give that an atman exist?
Asking for proof is not a refutation of anything though, there are plenty of things Buddha asserts but doesn’t provide proof for (rebirth, hellish realms, parinirvana, claims of remembering past lives etc)
>in advaita's case, awarness as something that can trascend phenomena, which is retarded since only thanks to phenomen aawraness can manifets, so both phenomena and awarness are interdependent
There is no logical basis whatsoever for claiming that its only because of phenomena that awareness manifests, awareness is never found to be absent, its absence is impossible to experience or confirm and when its impossible to confirm its absence it’s consequently impossible to confirm that it arises on the basis of something else instead of being invariably present, because being arisen would require its prior absence when is impossible to confirm. Hence its impossible to confirm they are interdependent. Experiencing them as seemingly in association while embodied isn’t the same as proving interdependence, because an independent thing can temporarily be associated with something else without its independence being affected.
>and any notion of a form of awarness outside of phenomena is just metaphysical speculation,
so is Buddhist rebirth, parinirvana etc
>and Kant already proved how that type of speculation in general and advaita metaphysical specualtion in particular(see the tracsendetal principle of aperception) goes nowhere
Lol, no he didn’t
>also the idea of pratikiasamutpada generating a infinite regres sis also retartded since pratikiasamutpada is not a ontological system but a epistemologila one
Its epistemological until people point out that Buddhists cannot explain why samsara, delusion etc exists and then the Buddhists default to citing pratityasamputpada as the source, making it ontological, they try to have it both ways and switch based on the criticism being leveled at them.
>but even at an ontological level shankara criticisim is wrong since, in order for inifnite regress to happen you have to take for granted that causality is objective, when in reality causlaity is subjective(see hume and his treatise of human nature)
If its subjective then it cant account for samsara and the taking-place of the aggregates and so Buddhists have no idea whats causing anything and why here is samsara at all (and hence their claim of supernatural insight into how to escape it should be treated with suspicion)

[Anonymous No.19420676]

>>19417643
>Do you not see a distinction here?
A theoretical concept can be shown to not violate any known laws or principles of logic without providing positive proof of it being true. In any case I dont know why you would consider this an important line of attack when Buddhists themselves dont have any single master argument that proves sunyata to be true and they instead try to indirectly argue for it by attacking opposing theories. If Buddhists really wanted to refute Advaita they’d have to point out how any of its teachings violate any known principles or laws of logic, but they’re unable to do so because it doesn’t.

[Anonymous No.19420679]

>>19417054
>Why is it that Christianity is more consequential outside of the Levant, despite being formed out of the Levant?
shit happens

[Anonymous No.19420681]

>>19420643
>Why do some of them do this?
Hindutva politics
also they are different Hindus doing it to the ones calling Shankara a crypto buddhists - this is actual Hindu debate.
"Buddha is a Hindu" is partially doctrine (it's a cope in the Purans) and partially Hindutva (political Hinduism as a form of Indian nationalism that actually ignores Indian philosophy and relies on an atheist guy a lot).

[Anonymous No.19420690]

>>19416295
Look into namamoli thera

'hillside hermitage" on youtube

His interpretation of buddha dhamma is radically different from the contemporary modern approach and is much more internally consistent in my opinion. Most advaita critiques are of misconstrued, mistranslated, misinterpreted Buddhism. In my opinion.

Nanamoli simply sidesteps all of the advaita critiques on Anatta, etc, by his phenomenological and pragmatic approach to dhamma

[Anonymous No.19420695]

>>19418204
>Awareness is always awareness of something -> teleological -> interdependant and conditioned
Just because there is X (awareness) and the object (A, B, C, D etc) doesn’t prove awareness isn’t independent. An independent X can seemingly be associated with other things so it appears as XA, XB, XC, XD etc while remaining an independent X the whole time and remaining as that X when the objects cease to be present like X is. The light of the appears differently when shining through clouds, stained windows etc but the sun is unchanging by and independent of all this variation.

[Anonymous No.19420713]

>>19418289
>Brahman is supposed to be the supreme consciousness but in Advaita he is blind and does not even perceive the world
This is not an argument concerning logical principles being supposedly violated but is just empty rhetoric. Brahman’s awareness is eternally self-revealing, and Brahman does not perceive the universe because Brahman is forever immersed in uninterrupted non-dual bliss, His awareness is not tainted or tricked by anything so it is not concerned with or involved in the falsity of maya.

[Anonymous No.19420733]

>refuted Advaita in like 5 seconds
>they're still banging on about ultimate consciousness and independent awareness

*yawns sarcasmically*

[Anonymous No.19420751]

>>19419440
>>refute Brahman
>simple
OH NO NO NO NO
>Is Brahman subject to time or not?
Brahman isn’t subject to time
>It's not? Then when can i describe, think of, connect with Brahman?
You can think of Brahman but the mental image of Brahman isn’t the same as Brahman, Brahman isn’t grasped or objectified by thought, it’s experienced and realized non-discursively as the reality that is one’s own foundational consciousness, the one that reveals thoughts for what they are, which has infallible and immediate access to one’s own thoughts. There is no connection or non-connection with oneself, one’s own nature. Identity =/= connection. A *is* A, it doesn’t connect with it.
>Is Brahman subject to change or not?
No, Brahman is not subject to change
>Then what happens between me describing Brahman and me talking about something else?
When the mind acts and talks and thinks, Brahman is completely unchanged by this because Brahman isn’t the mind, it’s the light that reveals the mind, the sun is distinct from the objects which it illumines, the sun is not changed by movement among the various earth-objects illuminated by that sun
>Is Brahman independent or dependent?
Brahman is independent
>Independent? Then how can it belong to any causal/conditional chains that relate it to any other entities or phenomena?
Brahman is outside/beyond causality so it doesn’t belong to causal chains, It’s the transcendent basis of causality along with time, space, matter/energy etc

[Anonymous No.19420772]

>>19420751
>Brahman isn’t subject to time
so when are you speaking of it?
>it’s experienced
when ?
>Brahman is not subject to change
you said it is the foundation of my consciousess. my consciousness undergoes change. so how does it's foundation not also go through change by association?
>it’s the light that reveals the mind
fine but said light must surely change as the mind changes.
it was at first the light that shone on the happy mind.
now on the sad mind.
this is a change in its indentity.
>basis of causality
but you said it is beyond causality.

brahman is literally riddled with contradictions.
nice concept bro.

[Anonymous No.19420795]

>>19420133
>Permanence is precisely what allows change
permanent means you can't change. If something changes it is impermanent
>only a disappearance and replacement
yes
>preserve its identity
ex-post imputation.

[Anonymous No.19420822]

>>19420663
>cannot sufficiently account for the continuous unity of one’s witnessing presence throughout time
You cannot account for this either since permanence is not demonstrable and is only vouchsafed by citing the Vedas as proof
>>19420676
>known laws or principles of logic
Also ultimately backed by the Vedas. Are you so naive as to suggest only one logic is "true" and then submit that your beliefs are correct because you have that correct logic? You are just moving goalposts here. Now it's s belief in your "logic" instead of dogma. But really, what's the difference? If your dogma is immanent to your logic they are the same thing. If I am criticizing some notion x or y that you have, calling it "logical" is scarcely better than "the vedas say so."

[Anonymous No.19420857]

>>19420695
Problem is nobody ever experiences pure X, it's always XA, XB etc. So there is no reason to imagine that X can ever exist independently. Kant also discussed this, just because we associate every experience with an "I" doesn't mean that such an "I" exists independently. It's just an artifact of our thinking mechanism and only because it is so closely associated with our subjectivity as individuals that we become so emotionally defensive of it, hence the entire grasping for existence and suffering that Buddha described.

[Anonymous No.19420883]

>>19419596
>Buddhists' arguments for anatta come as a response to Samkhya's ontology … the source of Vedanta's metaphysics.
Samkhya isn’t the source of Vedanta metaphysics, the source of both Samkhya and Vedanta are the Upanishads, all the shared terminology used by both also occurs in the Upanishads and predates Samkhya. Advaita criticizes Samkhya heavily and Shankara takes it as the main opponent in his works to be refuted.
>Most criticisms that apply to Samkhya also apply to Vedanta.
No, not really

>>19419941
>1. If the self were the aggregates, It would have arising and ceasing (as properties).
The Self isn’t any of the aggregates, it’s not the Buddhist aggregate of consciousness since Buddha describes this as consisting of eye-conciousness, ear-consciousness, mental consciousness, the Self isn’t any of these but Its the luminous presence which reveals those things for what they are, which allows us to have knowledge of them. And it cannot be shown that the Self as that luminous presence arises or ceases, because arising requires a prior absence and the absence of awareness is impossible to confirm (as you cannot confirm something without being aware of it, hence awareness would still be present and not absent, not arising).
>If it were different from the aggregates, It would not have the characteristics of the aggregates.
Which isn’t a problem since the aggregates as described by Buddhists has little to do with how Advaitins conceive of the Self. Your quote failed to refute anything or point out any issue for Advaita
>The Atman of Advaitins falls under the same problem, it cannot at the same time be both aware of Maya and different from the aggregates that allow for the perception of Maya, that is wihout falling into contradictions.
There is no contradiction as the Atman is only conditionally the witness of maya, but this is a false imputation/understanding by the mind, the Atman is absolute reality isn’t aware of maya. The Atman present in each moment really just knows itself and the mind construes it as a witness:

> Śaṅkara analyzes consciousness (cit or caitanyam) through both perspectives of his two orders of reality. From the provisional empirical order, consciousness is a witnessing presence (sākṣin) by which all mental cognition is revealed as known. The absolute perspective strips consciousness of all relational properties, including intentionality and its status as a witness, leaving only the intrinsic self-illuminating nature of consciousness remaining. He identifies this pure non-intentional consciousness as numerically identical with nondual existence, which is brahman.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/shankara/#WitnCons

>”Now, for instance, the Self, while remaining immutable, is, by reason of His not being distinguished from intellectual states, imagined, through ignorance, to be the percipient of objects, such as sound, (which is really) perceived by the intellect.
- Shankara, Gita-bhasya 2.21

[Anonymous No.19420911]

>>19420883
>Samkhya and Vedanta are the Upanishads
The upanishads are built upon Samkhya. It's a historical fact accepted by Vedantins as well (check Lord Krishna's assertion in Bhavavad Gita).
>There is no contradiction as the Atman is only conditionally the witness of maya, but this is a false imputation/understanding by the mind, the Atman is absolute reality isn’t aware of maya. The Atman present in each moment really just knows itself and the mind construes it as a witness.
So if the Atman is only aware of itself, then Maya is an independent ontology, therefore they have no realtion with one another, therefore Advaita is dualistic. If the Atman is both aware of itself and "contitionally" of Maya, you have split it into 2 aggregates, one aware of itself and one aware of Maya, and you have to explain the connection between them.

[Anonymous No.19420917]

>>19420667
>There is no logical basis whatsoever for claiming that its only because of phenomena that awareness manifests, awareness is never found to be absent, its absence is impossible to experience
Of course the absence of consciousness is impossible to observe because the observation presupposes a consciousness, but this proves nothing except if you want to make a solipsistic jump and identify your reality with the total reality

>>19420695
>Just because there is X (awareness) and the object (A, B, C, D etc) doesn’t prove awareness isn’t independent. An independent X
Awareness is always awareness of something
The basic definition of consciousness is to perceive
If it doesn't perceive anything, what is it aware of? (If you say of itself it remains a directionality and a relation)
A consciousness that does not perceive anything is a contradiction in terms

>>19420695
>The light of the appears differently when shining through clouds, stained windows etc but the sun is unchanging by and independent of all this variation.
The causal relationship of the sun changes

[Anonymous No.19420930]

Anyway the vedantins pretend to use reason when it suits them hiding the fact that in the end their metaphysics becomes irrational, so all their arguments fall with
For example: Brahman is said to be infinite in a strict sense
Without any limit even logical or metaphysical
It is therefore both infinite and finite
Existing and non-existing
Etc
Totally indeterminate
Two remarks 1) a potentiality without any determination... It is the emptiness
2) this contradicts the principle of non-contradiction, the basis of logic. Here, the vedantin will say "yes and then? the Indian logic refuses this principle"... Except that he uses it all the time against Buddhists lol
So the vedantin reject reason

[Anonymous No.19420950]

>>19420205
>>19420219
>>19420242
>>19420246
Vedanta btfo...

[Anonymous No.19421299]

Buddhists bro I don't feel so good...

[Anonymous No.19421350]

>>19421299
Rent free. The brahmins can't meme

[Anonymous No.19421472]

>>19421350
Yeah, so, what is the answer to those arguments'

[Anonymous No.19421707]

>>19416295
what a fantastic picture OP. no recs but salutations on your aesthetics

[Anonymous No.19421736]

>>19421472
What you mean your scholastic babble about the self needing to be permanent for consciousness to experience reflexive awareness? What is that even based on? You think you've been conscious for all eternity or something? How did you establish that? It's nonsense. Keep seething

[Anonymous No.19421812]

>>19421707
Thanks anon

[Anonymous No.19422097]

>>19420076
>Them rejecting the truth means noting.
the aggregates are not the truth
>The Self is not a philosophycally sound position.
It is

>>19420115
>Where is the self? in the body? in the mind? These are in constant flux
>Is it apart from the body and mind? then how is it related to them?
The Self reveals the body and mind. Saying that the minds thoughts are self-knowing is philosophically and logically untenable
>(noting they are in constant flux and this implies a change in relationship to the supposedly immutable self)
When awareness is A, and the things in flux are B, C, D, etc; there is never any flux in A when there is always AB, AC, AD etc
>infinite regress problem, you just moved the problem along, so how does the unchanging part of the mind say, manage to stay related to a perpetually related mind if it is immutable?
Shankara already BTFO this garbage argument, because the foundational awareness is self-disclosing, self-revealing, it needs no other awareness for it to be aware, to be revealed, and the other charge of regress via what reveals the object to awareness is also untenable, because we have examples in the world of things being directly reveal to each other like light being revealed to an eye, so there is no grounds to say a regress would result regarding the means that reveals the revealed object to awareness, because experience shows things can be directly revealed without a 3rd term linking them; so either way there is no grounds for a regress.

[Anonymous No.19422125]

>>19420124
>The idea of permanence is so obviously wrong, whether you mean self or anything.
No it’s not
>Permanence means you cannot undergo change because you would trivially become a new thing, you'd cease and 'rearise'.
That’s why the Self is permanent, ever the same and immutable
>If you're incapable of undergoing change then you can't be real.
That’s not true, something can be real and unchanging, the definition of the word “real” has nothing to do with change.
>Time changes, the things related to you change - but since you're incapable of change you cannot change with respect to those things.
So? You, aka the Atman, aka foundational partless awareness, can remain unchanging while everything else changes, this is indeed what it does.
>we're making an error and imagining something 'permanence' without thinking through the implications and realising that could not possibly be
You never provided any arguments that would show that but just made completely unsustained assertions like “something unchanging cant be real because I say so”

[Anonymous No.19422151]

>>19422097
>It is
Nice argument. Too bad the Self can't be proven to exist and you have to ultimately resort to "it's in the Vedas".

[Anonymous No.19422156]

>>19420131
>It exists in relation to what it illuminates yes.
That we seem to experience something as related to something else is not the same as it actually existing as dependent upon that thing. A fire needs space to exist so it can burn objects inhabiting that same space, but that space is unburnt and otherwise unaffected by that fire, not dependent upon it in any way.

[Anonymous No.19422168]

>>19422156
>fire has no impact on the space it's in
Ever been in a burning building? Is this the best defense of eternalists, to claim fire just exists in a vacuum?

[Anonymous No.19422195]

>>19420142
>If there were perception without perceiver and perceived. It would be a perception of what? and by whom?
Perception implies duality, the Atman isnt a perception of something else but is undivided, partless, undifferentiated, spotless awareness that reflexively reveals Itself as Itself, basking eternally in the bliss that is Itself. When you abandon all mental notions of subject and object, perceiver and perceived, the pure unconditioned light of simple consciousness remains without discursive imputations characterizing it. What you are doing is foolishly trying to describe non-duality in dualistic terms and then pointing to your own failure as proof there can’t be non-duality.

[Anonymous No.19422219]

>>19422195
>is undivided, partless, undifferentiated, spotless awareness that reflexively reveals Itself as Itself, basking eternally in the bliss that is Itself
In this case there should be no maya

[Anonymous No.19422230]

>>19420172
>both parties in a relationship are mutually dependent
They aren’t though
>this special exception for muh ooga booga upanishadic terms like self or supreme conscious do not hold up as soon as we think about words like:
>relationship, condition, permanent, independent mean and entail.
and why is that?
>the burden is on you to prove that there is a thing that can have a relationship with changing things while not undergoing change itself
Wrong, it’s not necessary to provide positive proof of a theory being true in order to show that such a theory violates no accepted laws or principles of logic. In any case, let us take a circle, the different points around the perimeter change viz. being in different positions and they all exist in relation to the center of the circle, but that center to which they are related is unchanging and remains what it is despite variations in the locations of points around the circumference.
>pro tip you can't because it is trivially undergoing change by means of it's changing relationship.
It remains unchanging while the things related to it change
>To put it plainly:
>If I marry one lady, then divorce and marry another - I am 2 different husbands conditioned by 2 different wives.
Yet you are the same man who has done both
>Similarly when my hairs fall out or grow, when my mind is flooded with new ideas or forgets older ones, when my body goes from feeling hot to cold - how is this self not undergoing change via it's changing relationship with these new states - just like the husband?
Because the Self remains simple spotless partless awareness despite variations in everything else and this fact is never changed by anything, nothing that is associated with the Self ever makes It cease to be self-disclosing partless simple foundational-awareness.

[Anonymous No.19422238]

>>19420186
>To whatever conception you have of a human's constitution - you must admit change - so how can an unchanging self be attached to a changing human (skandas or whatever)
It’s unchanging and seemingly associated
with them by being the constant light that always reveals them without itself ever changing or failing

[Anonymous No.19422240]

>>19422230
Answer
>>19420950

[Anonymous No.19422250]

>>19420197
>Upanishads themselves have skhanda-like theories that put an unchanging Atman at the centre of it all
So they’re not the aggregates then! The whole point of the aggregates is there is no Atman or center in any of them
> Nagarjuna's criticism applies to them too.
Except it doesn’t because he fails to refute there being a luminous Atman which reveals the body and mind.

[Anonymous No.19422255]

>>19420198
>Consciousness is nought without objects of consciousness
source: my ass
>So consciousness depends on things to be conscious of
source: my ass
>Self is a meme.
source: my ass

[Anonymous No.19422273]

>>19422250
>So they’re not the aggregates then!
You can play with words as much as you want, but it makes no difference on the truth. Nagarjuna showed that no matter how much you analyse phenomena you can never find any Atman behind them and the only way to assert such an existence is on the basis of scripture.

[Anonymous No.19422279]

>>19420205
>The point is that there is in the interconnected sea of process NOT A SINGLE THING that remains the same.
Awareness is always the same

>>19420207
>Consciousness is no different to the sun, it does not exist without what it illuminates.
That consciousness seemingly exists in association with objects during samsaric embodiment does nothing to prove that it cannot exist without them in disembodied liberation.
>It is not a-priori, it is mutually constituted by the objects of consciousness
Consciousness isn’t constituted by objects, its what reveals objects and what objects presuppose
>Consciousness is as empty as my man Naga says as a Donkey's horn or the fantasies of dreams!
Except that its continuously experienced as a self-evident fullness of presence
>Neither are ultimately any more real or unreal, both exist only in experienced convention as conditionally dependent!
Consciousness is undeniably real, if it was unreal we wouldn’t have the experience of being conscious
>This is the teaching on emptiness.
*the sophistry on emptiness

[Anonymous No.19422294]

>>19420219
>All the other systems are substance-based and so incorporate a fundamental contradictio
There is no contradiction in Advaita
>(Tsongkhapa)
BTFO by countless other Tibetan thinkers, to the point that the Gelugs had to suppress other schools and burn other schools writings as damage control. Also, his position that there is just objects and nothing aware of them is illogical nonsense.

[Anonymous No.19422315]

>>19422279
>Except that its continuously experienced as a self-evident fullness of presence
Counsciousness is only experienced as counsciousness of something. Stop pulling shit out of your ass.

[Anonymous No.19422354]

>>19420242
>Existence cannot be explained by introducing substances, for they are isolated and there is nothing isolated in existence.
Brahman isn’t a material substance, but the substantial foundational reality that exists independently and not in reliance upon anything. That things within the samsaric phenomenal world are not isolated does nothing to disprove that the reality underlying samsara isn’t undivided and existing independently.
>Even material existence is interconnected, for all physical things emerged from the Big Bang and so entanglement is universal.
That physical existence is interconnected doesn’t disprove that the reality underlying physicality is independent
>Without radical nominalism paradox remains.
such as?
>. Existence cannot be explained when introducing substances,
Why not?
>To think a substance is to think an impossible way to exist.
Why?
>All things, Buddhahood included, lack inherent existence.
Awareness has inherent existence and is an unfailing immutable light
>A substance exists from its own side, and hence (as Leibniz said) has no "windows". It is self-contained, as Spinoza defined it. Given this ontological feature, one cannot consistently think such a substance to move outside itself and interact with anything other than itself.
Awareness remains immutable and never interacts with anything, the meaning of interaction is “mutual change” but awareness remains unchanged when it reveals something, hence as the foundational reality it’s immutable and never interacts with anything.
>As Geulincx (and also Nagarjuna) argue, given a substance, there is no movement, no production, no causality, no creativity. Hence, a substantial God cannot create.
In Advaita, Brahman never does anything but just exists immutably without causation, without creation etc while Brahman’s inherent nature effortlessly projects maya which gives rise to the illusion of change, causality etc without there ever being any real causation, change, causality, time etc
>If God is a substance, in casu the "substance of substances", then God is self-contained, and if so, there can be no creation of anything 'outside' such a substantial God.
There is no real creation in Advaita
>To posit such a God in light of the fact of existence is positing something that cannot exist to explain what apparently does exist.
The non-Advaita God runs into some troubles but the Advaita model of Brahman and maya has no trouble accounting for anything

[Anonymous No.19422355]

>>19422097
>The Self reveals the body and mind.
the self must undergo change because it's revealing a new body and a new mind constantly. so there must not be a unitary self but instead a series of them.
>thoughts are self-knowing is philosophically and logically untenable
"self knowledge" is rooted in ignorance as are all mental formations, first link of conditional dependence.
>When awareness is A, and the things in flux are B, C, D, etc;
awareness exists in dependence on what it is aware of. awareness of one thing is not the same as awareness of another thing. C
thing changes to D thing, X awareness changes to Y awarenss.
>foundational awareness
>muh exceptional case!!!
sorry bud, no exceptions, if foundational awareness does not depend on conditions, how would arise in relation to conditions? If it is self-caused (or disclosing or revealing or whatever), this is an error, because it would need to precede itself to give rise to itself which is a conundrum.
>That’s why the Self is permanent, ever the same and immutable
then it cannot change in step with the ever changing body or mind or world around us and so it must exist independently of the world and body and mind. in fact it could never be spoken of, or thought of. it would be even less real than a number that divides by zero!
>can remain unchanging while everything else changes, this is indeed what it does.
see point above.
>provided any arguments that would show that but just made completely unsustained assertions
you just ignored my argument.
it's very simple:
all phenomena and entities in experience are undergoing change and are impermanent and dependent.
any independent, immutable and permanent phenomenon/entity by definition cannot relate to these changing entities or phenomena, lest it is not independent but also dependently arisen, it is not immutable (in that it's changing relationship with new phenomena is an aspect of it subject to change) and it is therefore not permanent!

[Anonymous No.19422366]

>>19422156
>but that space is unburnt and otherwise unaffected by that fire, not dependent upon it in any way.
um dumb argument. at one time there is a space with a fire in it. at another time there is a different space without a fire in it.
the space's apparent nature clearly depends on what happens in it.
a space with a fire in it, depends on there being a fire.
a space without a fire in it, depends on there not being a fire.
the two spaces are different, you're imputing a sameness on them and that is an error by you.

[Anonymous No.19422415]

>>19422195
>Perception implies duality
Ah ok i see our problem here, you're unaware of the two truth doctrines. Actually this is a point where we agree.
In convention, there seer, seeing and seen, in convention. Now in our philosophy, this is just a casual conventional explanation, that they all depend on each other within convention.
Ultimately they are all equally empty and seeing them as different parts of an explanation or all as one are equally unfruitful. instead there is an ineffable LACK of nature to them.

to make it clearer:
in describing what happened in my dream conventionally: i saw a cat.
in describing what ultimately happened: it is empty.

I'm sure vedanta has a similar way of dealing with 'maya' vs ultimate reality. I've probably garbled the explanation a little bit but it should be generally ok.

[Anonymous No.19422526]

>>19422354
>Awareness remains immutable and never interacts with anything
???

[Anonymous No.19422636]

>>19422355
>any independent, immutable and permanent phenomenon/entity by definition cannot relate to these changing entities or phenomena
Why?
Universals like numbers seems to do this

[Anonymous No.19422642]

Buddhism and Hinduism leads to transgenderism because it preaches disassociation of the soul from the physical body and transmigration into the opposite sex.
Thomistic philosophy correctly teaches that the soul is the form of the body.
The possibility of a male soul inhabiting a female body must be conceded in principle by Dharmic religions.
The same is not possible in principle in Christianity. Gender dysphoria must be (correctly) assigned to the psycho(patho)logical, not the ontological, realm, safe in the (not improbable) case of demonic possession.
Same with moral objectivity.

[Anonymous No.19422647]

>>19422642
>male soul
lol

[Anonymous No.19422653]

>>19420246
> So again, the necessary presence of a witness, a subject, an observer does not contradict anatman, quite on the contrary.
It depends on how you understand the “observer”, the Advaitin point that awareness is immutable and unconditioned certainly does
>Only when a non-substantial self is posited can the act of observation be understood
nonsense
>for a substance has no "windows" and so cannot observe at all.
the act of perceiving colors, sounds etc occurs in the intellect, the Advaitic Atman remains as immutable and unconditioned, and reveals the intellect by its presence, the Atman when it does this is not existing in a subject-object relation with that intellect and so that objection doesn’t apply, but the Atman is just abiding in Itself unchangingly and then the mind under the Atmans illumination proceeds (like the man proceeding in his activities helped by the light of the sun) under the understanding that the foundational reality of disclosing awareness is observing it when the Atman is beyond notions like observer and observed.
>This is also the main problem in Patanjali.
Patanjali is Sankhya-Yoga, the problems of Sankhya-Yoga are different from Advaita. In any case the problem is resolved by the position of Advaita wherein the Atman is just reflexively aware of itself without being an observer and the understanding of it as observer is only part of the minds mental framing of things for itself.
>There is a contradiction in saying that the atman witnesses anything, for just as the purusa of Samkhya, the atman is removed from the world, transcending it, in no way related to nature, i.e, prakriti
There would only be a contradiction if one did NOT do as Advaita did viz. admitting the nature of Atman as non-observer in absolute reality and admitting Atman as the observer as something that is valid conditionally within samsaric experience as a way that the mind frames its relation to underlying awareness. Because Advaita DOES do this though, there is no contradiction.
>You say that anatman is contradictory, quite the difference is true.
It is contradicted by us having a continuous, singular, unchanging center of awareness to which everything else is given

[Anonymous No.19422662]

>>19422642
>Thomistic philosophy correctly teaches that the soul is the form of the body
We all knew that christianity is just thinly veiled talmudic materialism, but thank you for pointing it once more.

[Anonymous No.19422679]

>>19420246
>The atman is contradictory, for how can one witness anything if locked up in a dark room without windows ?
The Atman doesn’t witness things in absolute reality, it abides as the self-knowing presence in every moment, and then the mind conceives of itself and its thoughts as observed by this awareness that is really just abiding in itself non-dualistically, forever, without observing things.
>Observation is interaction, relation, being in touch.
No, because interaction means mutual change and the awareness that reveals things isnt changed by other things being revealed so there is no interaction taking place. Moreover, distant objects aren’t changed by you looking at them, Pluto isnt changed when we look at it through a telesclope, so in the observation of Pluto no interaction is taking place.
>The atman can't do any of those things.
It doesn’t ever do anything but just abides as immutable, undifferentiated, spotless, self-revealing bliss etc
>Like the substantial God of Abrahamism, the atman cannot generate, create, interact, exchange, etc.
Advaita doesn’t claim that the Atman does any of these things to begin with you fool
>He exists on another plane of existence (Platonism) and so cannot really observe Nature at all ...
The notion that the Atman is the observer is only true conditionally and not ultimately

[Anonymous No.19422688]

>>19422662
That's basic aristotelian metaphysics you dumbfuck tranny

[Anonymous No.19422692]

>>19422679
>The Atman doesn’t witness things in absolute reality
Here we go
The supreme consciousness is blind
That's vedanta for you

[Anonymous No.19422693]

>>19422679
>the mind conceives of itself and its thoughts as observed by this awareness that is really just abiding in itself non-dualistically, forever, without observing things.
So we as individuals have no relation to Atman. It's just our minds wrongfully associating the Atman with the mental processes, meanwhile the Atman has no part in this. Therefore at final liberation, the mind dissolves and remains only the Atman, which was never part of the whole thing to begin with. How is this not nihilism?

[Anonymous No.19422697]

>>19422688
Greeks believed in transmigration of souls. Cope more.

[Anonymous No.19422717]

>>19422697
Not Aristotle you tranny

>If so, Aristotle in fact seems to be committed to the view that, contrary to the Platonic position, even human souls are not capable of existence and (perhaps as importantly) activity apart from the body (cf. De Anima1.1, 403a3-25, esp. 5-16).
>https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ancient-soul/#4

[Anonymous No.19422730]

>>19422693
Exactly.
Advaita Vedanta is the most failed mysticism.
In Advaita Vedanta, liberation is realizing that you are not your person (your ego) but your True Self.
Except that your True Self has always been God.
So there is never any mystical union or salvation: your True Self was always immortal, and your mortal person in search of salvation remains mortal and damned.
This is a mysticism that literally saves no one: God (the True Self) remains God, unites with nothing and no one, and suffering people in search of salvation remain mortal, nothing changes.
They can only console themselves by saying that deep down, a True Self, different from them, has always been saved while they were suffering.
Isn't it beautiful?

How can we not see the nihilism of this metaphysics? This is what happens when one denies any real (and not illusory) otherness between God and creatures: no union, no salvation, no love. God remains God, persons remain persons, nothing changes, nothing saves.

>But no, the atman stops its false identification with the ego and does not suffer anymore!

The atman perceives the false identification and the suffering, he does not suffer and does not identify himself. So the atman has always been the brahman, and the jiva will always remain the jiva. No one is saved.

[Anonymous No.19422748]

>>19420471
Shankara and Gaudapada both disagree with and criticize Buddhism
>let me from 1,000 years later in another language tell you what you actually meant when you wrote Buddhism was wrong about X

[Anonymous No.19422758]

>>19422748
>let me from 1,000 years later in another language tell you what you actually meant when you wrote Buddhism was wrong about X
Funny because that's exactly what the Hindus do

"B-b-b-but actually Buddha was an incarnation of Vishnu and was not against the Upanisadic Self I swear!"

[Anonymous No.19422759]

>>19422717
What you posted means that the soul can only act while embodied, we all agree on that. Transmigration was accepted by Aristotle. Your pseudery is showing.

[Anonymous No.19422778]

>>19422759
>Transmigration was accepted by Aristotle.

>human souls are not capable of existence and (perhaps as importantly) activity apart from the body

Do you know how to read you braindead?

[Anonymous No.19422797]

>>19422759
>Aristotle denies the existence of platonic Forms, and he also denies the reincarnation of the soul.
https://faculty.fordham.edu/klima/phru1000/Some%20more%20questions%20on%20Aristotle%20and%20Plato.htm

>Aristotle taught that the unity of the soul and the body was crucial and therefore, the soul cannot exist alone without the body. He argued that the soul’s main purpose is development and that this is only possible in association with the body.
https://ivypanda.com/essays/plato-and-aristotle-the-fate-of-the-human-soul-after-death/

[Anonymous No.19422798]

>>19422778
You're embarassing yourself kid. Go to sleep, before you become hilarious.

[Anonymous No.19422800]

>>19420503
>the dominant early upanishadic view
The early Upanishads like Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya propound non-dualism (Br 2.5.19) & (Ch 3.13.7) while condemning all difference and multiplicity as false and illusory (Br 4.4.19) & (Ch 6.1.4); this is not the view of Bhedebheda or Vishishtadvaita but its the view of Advaita. The later primary Upanishads are much the same way.

[Anonymous No.19422803]

>>19422798
Seethe. You will never be a woman.

[Anonymous No.19422815]

>>19420521
>read the mulamadhyamakarika with chandrakirti's commentary closely, especially chapter 18.
David Kalupuhana in his MMK translation accuses Chandrakirti of being a “crypto-Vedantist”, are you able to provide some insight on why?

[Anonymous No.19422829]

>>19420681
>it's a cope in the Purans
The actual Puranas say that Vishnu appeared as Buddha not to spread good teachings, but to spread false teachings in order to confuse and waylay some demons, making them powerless, its implied that Buddhism is a divine psyop and that atheists gravitate towards it because of their demonic/cthonic nature.

[Anonymous No.19422832]

>>19422803
Touch grass, now.

[Anonymous No.19422842]

>>19422815
Autistic weirdos pick bizarre pet causes for seemingly pointless reasons.

[Anonymous No.19422915]

>>19420772
>Brahman isn’t subject to time
>so when are you speaking of it?
When I choose to do so, speaking of Him doesn’t make Brahman subject to time because the word Brahman or the thought conjured up by the word are not identical to Brahman as It is in Itself
>it’s experienced
>when ?
Its the light constantly illuminating the minds grasping of anything, this light is always itself even when we fail to realize it, in non-dual realization we realize this light as ourselves
>Brahman is not subject to change
you said it is the foundation of my consciousess. my consciousness undergoes change. so how does it's foundation not also go through change by association?
Like how space isn’t changed or burnt by a fire taking place in it where there was no fire previously, it remains space all the same. The difference between space with no object and space with object lies only in the object, there is no change in space itself involved.
>it’s the light that reveals the mind
fine but said light must surely change as the mind changes.
It doesn’t, the only change is in the thing illumined, why would it need to change?
>it was at first the light that shone on the happy mind.now on the sad mind. this is a change in its indentity.
This is only a change in the thing illumined (the mind) and not a change in the light itself, the light remains what it is regardless
>basis of causality
>but you said it is beyond causality.
The transcendent basis of causality, on which causality is contingent, is itself beyond causal relations, hence there is no contradiction, are you really this unable to infer what people mean or are you just playing dumb?
>brahman is literally riddled with contradictions.
Only if you have no idea what you are talking about, as it is explained by Advaita there is no contradiction.
>nice concept bro
nice uninformed mistakes and sophistry bro

[Anonymous No.19422972]

>>19422642
>Thomistic philosophy correctly teaches that the soul is the form of the body.
That also teaches one person is three people. God as a they/them. Checkmate gay-theist. Now who's the LGBT religion?

[Anonymous No.19422976]

>>19420822
>You cannot account for this either since permanence is not demonstrable and is only vouchsafed by citing the Vedas as proof
I (really Advaita and not me) can account for it by giving a theoretical model of how it takes place which is not inconsistent with logic or our experience, this is exactly what Advaita does, the separate issue or positively proving it is a separate question of whether it aligns with logic and experience. We don’t ever experience or find our own center of awareness to be non-permanent. The Buddhist model on the other hand is directly contradicted by both logic and experience.
>>>19420676 (You) #
>>known laws or principles of logic
>Also ultimately backed by the Vedas. >Are you so naive as to suggest only one logic is "true" and then submit that your beliefs are correct because you have that correct logic?
No, I’m saying that if nobody can show that any Advaita teaching violates any principle of logic like the Law of Non-Contradiction or Law of Identity then there is no basis to say any logic is being violated by Advaita, this has nothing to do with the Vedas and if you stopped seething about the Vedas for a moment you’d realize this.

[Anonymous No.19423088]

>>19422829
Cope/10. Christers also call everything they don't like demons. Did this doctrine emerge after Hinduism came into contact with Islam?

[Anonymous No.19423120]

>>19420857
>Problem is nobody ever experiences pure X, it's always XA, XB etc.
This doesn’t refute or demonstrate any logical contradiction in the theoretical premise that in unembodied moksha there is just X alone.
>So there is no reason to imagine that X can ever exist independently.
Advaita doesn’t care whatsoever about convincing others like hylics, atheists, fools, men of dull minds etc, they just show that their teaching doesn’t contradict logic or experience. They dont care if you think there isnt a reason to imagine something, they are not harmed at all and the logical consistency of Advaita isnt harmed at all because you think so. Advaita has no thesis to prove to people, they just refute opposing schools and doctrines while offering an initiation into the teachings of the Sruti for people of the requisite qualifications who are interested
>Kant also discussed this, just because we associate every experience with an "I" doesn't mean that such an "I" exists independently.
Claiming this doesn’t refute anything, it’s just an empty and unsubstantiated statement of one’s opinion

[Anonymous No.19423163]

>>19423120
>Advaita has no thesis to prove to people, they just refute opposing schools and doctrines
Stealing bauddha's homework again are we?

[Anonymous No.19423204]

>>19423120
>they just show that their teaching doesn’t contradict logic or experience.
It contradicts both experience, by affirming a pure counsciousness that is never found in experience, and logic when it claims that Atman is at the same time both aware only of itself and of the jiva caught in maya.

[Anonymous No.19423553]

>>19422915
>Its the light constantly illuminating the minds
That's a temporal causal relationship

[Anonymous No.19423662]

>>19423204
pretty much this, advaita is built on metaphysical speculation, that's why they fail to provethe eixstence of an atman or a creator god, and always end up escaping with lame excuses like this:
>Advaita doesn’t care whatsoever about convincing others like hylics

[Anonymous No.19423679]

>>19422976
>I’m saying that if nobody can show that any Advaita teaching violates any principle of logic
they do, shankara argument for atman is a petitio principi fallacy; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question since it already takes for granted that awarness has a substance, in order to prove that awarness exist outside of phenomena, which ultiamte goal is to prove that awarness has a substance(atman)

[Anonymous No.19423698]

>>19420930
This

[Anonymous No.19423781]

I agree with vedantabro
But i don't belive in the vedas
Am i fucked?

[Anonymous No.19424138]

Anyone else kinda not care about the permanent oneness or godhead or whatever any more? I'm too fuckin stupid for this hardcore metaphysics shit. I just want to stop suffering.

[Anonymous No.19424498]

>>19421350
Nagarjuna was a Brahmin

[Anonymous No.19424518]

>>19422195
Unfathomably based.

[Anonymous No.19424526]

>>19424138
Yes, arguing over metaphysics probably not the point of these spiritual practices

[Anonymous No.19424593]

>>19422730
Take the Vishishtadvaita-pill.

[Anonymous No.19424596]

>>19422758
Buddha himself claimed to be Vishnu and Rama in the Buddhist Jataka tales,

[Anonymous No.19425212]

>>19424596
>in the Buddhist Jataka tales

[Anonymous No.19425380]

>>19424596
Corrupted texts obviously

[Anonymous No.19425545]

>>19422636
>Universals like numbers seems to do this
I deny the existence of universals and it's relatively easy to show you why:
Is it the case that a bundle of sticks and a single stick both inhere of the universal 'oneness'
OR
is it just that the 'one' we're using to describe both a singular bundle of sticks (a faggot if you will) and single stick is a convention we impute on two different sets of phenomena, that is not a universal but dependently originated on its user, the phenomena they seek to describe and description itself.

[Anonymous No.19425559]

>>19422636
>>19425545
also you asked why even though i answered in the later part of what you quoted.
Let me apply why numbers cannot be permanent, immutable and independent.

Firstly numbers exist in dependence to each other and to the phenomena they describe. In a void universe, there would be no concept of one or two, because there would genuinely be no countable things.
secondly if numbers were immutable, then how could anything to which numbers pertain ever change numerrically? if i had a 1 metre tall horse, that grew to 2 metres are you saying that one did not undergo change of having inhered in the horse and now no longer inhering therein?

[Anonymous No.19426148]

>>19425545
1

[Anonymous No.19426152]

>>19425545
2

[Anonymous No.19426160]

>>19425545
3

[Anonymous No.19427105]

Bump

[Anonymous No.19428201]

>>19426148
>>19426152
>>19426160
tldr

now what?

[Anonymous No.19428254]

>>19428201
So your position on universals does not hold

[Anonymous No.19428329]

>>19428254
why? say in your own words. scanning a book is a cowards way out

[Anonymous No.19428362]

>>19428201
tl;dr 1+2=3 therefore numbers can change, meaning that they aren't universals, because if they were unable to change they wouldn't be able to interact, meaning addition would be impossible. To further demonstrate, 3-2=1.

[Anonymous No.19428384]

>>19428329
Because nominalism of universals don't hold
If you say that universals are only names that we give to many particulars
these names are themselves universals
And the similarity that makes us put these things under one name and not others is a universal as well
So we come back to a realism of universals

[Anonymous No.19428388]

>>19428362
>tl;dr 1+2=3 therefore numbers can change
Where do the numbers change in your equation?
It is because they do not change that it remains true (1+2 do not become 3, or the equation would be false)

[Anonymous No.19428426]

>>19428388
Find me 1 and 2 and 3 separate from anything, then. A bucket can hold seven oranges, and this seven cannot be separated from the oranges, nor can it be separated from the mind. If you imagine seven oranges, or do mental math, then the seven cannot be separate from the mind.

[Anonymous No.19428442]

>>19428426
It's simple. To take a geometrical example: triangularity does not cease to exist if I destroy all the triangles in the world, it can always be actualized again. The Pythagorean theorem is not less true if no triangle exists in the world anymore.

You give the example of 7 oranges. We can see that the 7 of these oranges is not reducible to these particulars, because it is also found in 7 apples, 7 shoes ... We can see that it exists even without any physical correlate, as in the equations of mathematicians.

[Anonymous No.19428451]

>>19428426
>nor can it be separated from the mind.
2+2=4 was true before a mind thought of it and would still be true if all living beings disappeared.

[Anonymous No.19428496]

>>19428442
>>19428451
All you're doing is demonstrating a pattern between things, not the existence of a discrete internally uniform unchanging entity of "7" with no relation to anything else. This is the point of >>19428362. You have to demonstrate no relation to anything else, including other numbers. 1+2=3 demonstrates some relationship between 1, 2, and 3. 1, 2, and 3 are thus, in some way, related. If the numbers weren't related, how could you do math?

You could say that this is dumb because this isn't the definition of "Universal" that Westerners use, and that's true, but we're talking about Buddhism and its notions of Atman. A lot of things that Westerners believe are eternal are actually not Atmans (Christian conceptions of the Soul are actually not Atmans and as such are not, on their face, invalid, unless you take the nominally heretical stance that souls are uncreated and pre-exist their embodiment in a person).

[Anonymous No.19428608]

>>19428496
>You have to demonstrate no relation to anything else, including other numbers. 1+2=3 demonstrates some relationship between 1, 2, and 3. 1, 2, and 3 are thus, in some way, related. If the numbers weren't related, how could you do math?
But where is the problem? Yes, universals are related

[Anonymous No.19428616]

>>19428608
If something is related to something else than that relationship means that it can change. If it can change, it isn't an Atman. Additionally, it makes that things existence contingent upon the other thing, meaning that in order to keep existing, that relationship must be maintained. By definition, this entity is thus not an Atman.

[Anonymous No.19428742]

>>19428616
>If something is related to something else than that relationship means that it can change
No
The relations between universals are logical links that do not change

[Anonymous No.19429229]

>>19428742
that doesn't make it an atman
having a logical existence is not the same as having a trascendent existence
also in for the links to be made change is needed
in order for universals to exist logically, particualars must exist empirically, thus making logical universals interdependent with change itself, only thanks to change unversals can exist, even plato had to recognized this

[Anonymous No.19429766]

>SIR DO NOT REDEEM THE ATMAN DO NOT REDEEEEEEM

[Anonymous No.19430439]

>>19428384
>If you say that universals are only names that we give to many particulars
>these names are themselves universals
This is why sunyata isn't quite nominalism.
I'm not saying that universals are name only. I'm saying that universals like numbers, the objects from dreams and the apparent phenomena before you are all empty (they exist in conditional dependence on other things and do not exist in and of themselves).
>So we come back to a realism of universals
see:
>>19425559
as to why reifying universals is wrong.
>>19428742
>logical links that do not change
but they do change depending on what they pertain to.
the concept of pythagoras theorem in my mind is not the same as the concept of pythagoras theorem in your mind, because they have arisen and will cease upon different conditions.

[Anonymous No.19430462]

>>19424138
then you are ready for buddhism, start with sila.

[Anonymous No.19430463]

>>19430439
>the concept of pythagoras theorem in my mind is not the same as the concept of pythagoras theorem in your mind, because they have arisen and will cease upon different conditions

[Anonymous No.19430465]

>>19430439
>>19430463

[Anonymous No.19430468]

>>19430439
>>19430463
>>19430465

[Anonymous No.19430471]

>>19430439
>>19430463
>>19430465
>>19430468

[Anonymous No.19430478]

>>19430463
your screencap has a claim in it. it doesn't have a reason to accept that claim.
if you want to see my reason for denyign your claim of existent universals. look at chapter 2o f the Mulamadhyamakarika where he shows the problem with asserting the existence of a universal of motion.

Let me apply it to pythagoras theorem:
if pythagoras theorem exists independently of minds, or specific triangles. then how can it arise in dependence on those? if something exists independently, then it is already arisen and does not arise in dependence on conditions. So given a specific maths student, and a specific triangle - how could the notion of pythagoras' theorem arise?

[Anonymous No.19430481]

>>19430463
>>19430465
>>19430468
>>19430471
please don't screencap arguments, just say what you want to say.

chapter 2 of the MMK will tear this argument to shreds but i have the courtesy to write my own replies.

[Anonymous No.19430533]

>>19430478
>So given a specific maths student, and a specific triangle - how could the notion of pythagoras' theorem arise?
I'm not sure I understand the objection, but it is the particulars that appear, not the universals

[Anonymous No.19430539]

>>19430481
>chapter 2 of the MMK will tear this argument to shreds
MMK has already been teared to shreds http://thelogician.net/BUDDHIST-ILLOGIC/Abstract.htm

[Anonymous No.19430541]

>>19430533
so there is a particular pythagoras theorem and a universal one?
The universal one is immutable, independent of other phenomena and permanent

but the particular one is obvious dependent on its usage, is changeable (ie you get rid of the triangle or the student and suddenly it ceases to exist) and is therefore not permanent?

are you saying this universal lofty theorem, incarnates as a mortal particular?

[Anonymous No.19430546]

>>19430539
ahh the author of logic in the talmud and torah is saying that the MMK is illogical
interesitng.

[Anonymous No.19430549]

>>19430541
There is the universal and its particular instantiations

Example : the triangularity, and the particular triangles

The Pythagorean theorem, and its particular instantiations

A particular triangle does not cover all particular triangles, the triangularity does

In the same way, the Pythagorean theorem applied to a triangle does not give the same result as that of another triangle, but the universal covers them all

[Anonymous No.19430555]

>>19430546
>ad hominem
Kek great job

[Anonymous No.19430565]

>>19430549
so there are two triangularities? feels like there is an infinite regress in here some where. Like as though you require the triangularity of triangularity (and the triangularity of that intermediate triangularity)

how does the universal, which exists independnetly of minds and triangles, inhere as a particular dependent on a mind and a triangle, without falling into the cycle i've describe above.

you have have the (particular) triangularity of the triangle, but you also have the (universal) traingularity of the (particular) triangularity, that the triangle has.

[Anonymous No.19430597]

What is Nagarjuna critique of the atman in a nutshell?
I thought I understood that he saw the consciousness as a flow of atoms of perceptions, if this is the case I find it very unconvincing and it raises a lot of problems

[Anonymous No.19430605]

Although Buddhism is generally regarded as "atheist" or "non-theist", this merely points to the absence of an inherently existing Supreme Being or Beings, not to the rejection of the Divine. God as an eternalized supersubstance is rejected, not the existence of a Supreme Being. For Mahâyâna, all Buddhas are Supreme Beings and they all share a common ground Buddhist Tantra allows us to identify with God (giving the Vajrayâna a "monotheist" streak). Indeed, the God of Process Philosophy and Vajrayâna's Âdi-Buddha share core features. Both represent a class of exceptional, unique & dynamic phenomena. God being the sole abstract actual entity, whereas the Âdi-Buddha is the only Buddha to represents the experiential content of the "Dharmakâya", the realm of awakened suchness. This primordial Buddha is also called "Samantabhadra", "He Who Is All-Pervadingly Good", "He Whose Beneficence is Everywhere" or "Vajradhara", "the Dharma-Holder". This ultimate Buddha of Buddhas represents the wisdom of suchness taught & directly experienced by all Buddhas, i.e. the universal living insight into the unity of sameness & difference, the experiential unity of ultimate (genuine) truth (reality) and conventional (apparent) truth (reality).

The God of process is another way to present the three Bodies of the Âdi-Buddha.

The Truth Body of the Âdi-Buddha, the "Dharmakâya" is a formless, undifferentiated, nondual field of creativity, out of which all possibilities may arise. But in itself this Body is unmoved and has no motivational factors to allow the Form Bodies to arise. The latter are "spontaneous" emergences. Likewise, the creative field and God are not causally related. God does not create this field, nor is this field defined by what God wants. Since beginningless time, the Truth Body is given, just as the unlimited field of creativity.

The Form Bodies, in particular the Enjoyment Body ("Sambhogakâya") are ideal forms emerging out of the Truth Body for the sake of compassionate activity. God makes certain definite forms possible by valuating the endless field of creativity using the key of unity & beauty. In Process Philosophy, compassion is subsumed under beauty, for how can ugliness and disorder be compassionate ? The Form Bodies are the two ways the Âdi-Buddha relates to ordinary, apparent events ("samsâra") : the Enjoyment Body is the ideal "form" with which the endless possibilities are given definiteness (God as primordial), while the Emanation Body is the ideal "event" bringing this form down to the plane of physicality and concrete, "luring" Divine consciousness (God as consequent).

It goes without saying differences between both concepts remain. They do belong to entirely different semantic fields. But these correspondences are mentioned to make clear the fundamental conflict between Buddhism and monotheism is not the presence of a Supreme Being, but Divine essentialism, i.e. turning God into an unmoved Mover, a "Substance of substances"

[Anonymous No.19430613]

Ontologically, Buddha-nature points to the extraordinary existence of a Buddha, not a substance, but a process, not a fixed self-powered entity, but a dynamic other-powered set of relationships, not a dependent-arising like the others, but an uncontaminated, pure, unspoiled, untained, pristine, original, etc. dependent-arising.

For the yogis, this Buddha-nature is present in every mindstream. It is a holomovement (Guenther, 1989) endowed with extraordinary properties, a perfect form-on-the-move. On the basis of this, sudden awakening is possible.
------> http://www.sofiatopia.org/bodhi/buddha_nature.htm

[Anonymous No.19430615]

>>19430597
Anyway the argument hits anyone:
Where is the self? in the body? in the mind? These are in constant flux
Is it apart from the body and mind? then how is it related to them? (noting they are in constant flux and this implies a change in relationship to the supposedly immutable self)
>HURR SOME ASPECT OF BODY AND MIND DON'T CHANGE THE SELF RELATES TO THAT
infinite regress problem, you just moved the problem along, so how does the unchanging part of the mind say, manage to stay related to a perpetually related mind if it is immutable?

[Anonymous No.19430623]

>>19430615
>(noting they are in constant flux and this implies a change in relationship to the supposedly immutable self)
I feel like the crux of the problem lies here
You seem to start from the postulate that a substance is also responsible for its relations
So that the atman cannot be eternal and have transient relationships
The problem is that I believe that the vedantin (and not only, I think it is also the classical position of theists in the West, the Thomists for example) maintains that the relation you are talking about is totally asymmetrical
The world is in vital relation with this substance, but this substance is not in vital relation with it
So it is as if untouched by this relation
I don't know if I am clear

I quote:

>That is to say, both Aquinas and Samkara attribute the same ontological status to the world; for both of them the world enjoys a relative reality and is entirely dependent on its transcendent source. Their description of the world in either more negative or more positive terms is due to their center of reference and chosen emphasis.

>The relation of the world to its source for both Samkara and Aquinas may best be described, according to Sara Grant, a student and colleague of De Smet, as a "non-reciprocal dependence relation." [64] In this understanding, the creature's very existence is constituted by its relation to or dependence on its source, whereas God or brahman -- the cause of the creature's existence -- remains unchanged in its own perfect Being even while creating. [65] De Smet drew on Aquinas's theory of relation when he summarized this by saying that the relation "is real on the side of the creature but merely logical on the side of the Creator." [66] Samkara, he said, "does not deny the universal causality, lordship, etc. of brahman -- for they are logically entailed by the true fact of the world's ontological dependence upon it -- but only that they affect the simplicity of its essence." [67] The relations of brahman to the world as cause, Lord, and so forth "cannot be ontological but logical only. They are not intrinsic attr ibutes (visesana) but extrinsic denominators (upadhi)." [68] The relation between creator and creation, then, is true; it is in no sense an illusion. However, this relation in no way defines the ontological status of the Absolute. This is what Samkara appears to have meant when he stated, "Names and forms (that is, the world's multiplicity), in all their states have their atman in brahman alone, but brahman has not its atman in them." [69]
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/ADVAITA+VEDANTA+AND+CHRISTIAN+FAITH.-a066241175

[Anonymous No.19430648]

>>19430623
yes i understand what you're saying:
you're saying that there is some special property of self or other substances, which means that they magically do not fall trap to the critiques Nagarjuna is putting forth.

For example:
The self is the stable unchanging substrate underlying the ever changing body and mind.
the problem is that there is no reasonable explanation for this exception and secondly it is illogical.

a plate with fish on it at 3:30pm is not the same plate as the plate with chicken on it at 4:40pm.
It's a bit of a theseus' boat problem. You might say 'yeah but it's physically the same plate' and our response would be that, this is just a convention, when you actually analyse all the conditions that give rise to the plate, it is actually a new plate - because it exists at a different time, in a different place, and depends on differet things.

[Anonymous No.19430650]

>>19430623
Indeed. For Thomas Aquinas, and probably Shankara too, the relation between God and the world is a ‘relatio rationis,’ not a mutual bond. This scholastic notion can be explained by taking the example of a subject apprehending an object. From the side of the object only a logical, rational relationship persists. The object is not affected by the subject apprehending it. From the side of the subject however, a real relationship is at hand, for the subject is really affected by the perception of the object. There is an intention, an interest, or intention towards the object.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43251694

[Anonymous No.19430657]

>>19430648
>yes i understand what you're saying:
>you're saying that there is some special property of self or other substances, which means that they magically do not fall trap to the critiques Nagarjuna is putting forth.
That's not what I'm telling you at all.... I'm telling you that you are assuming that a substance is affected by its relations, whereas these thinkers reject the idea that there is a real relation on God's side

[Anonymous No.19430689]

>>19430657
>assuming that a substance is affected by its relations
this is not an assumption this is an empirical truth.
if a substance was not affected by its relationships to changing things, how could it pertain to those things?

How does an unchanging self have any relationship with a bunch of changing bodies and minds?
if it doesn't, then what is a self?
if it does, then it by definition must be undergoing change with respect to body and minds - at one point in time it was the self related to a child at another time it was the self related to a man. these are two different selves (conditioned by different points in time and relations to two different entities). If they are the same self, then you're just playing theseus' boat games.

[Anonymous No.19430838]

>>19420930
>Brahmanism is logically coherent
>ok so we don't need Vedic mumbo jumbo then?
>no, the Vedas affirm Brahman, we need to abide by it
>right, then we don't need logical coherency since 'god did it' correct?
>no, god did it but it is also logically coherent that god did it
>wtf?
There is really no point arguing with disingenuous dogmatists. Any time someone points out a hole in their system, they either scramble for an explanation (to no avail most of the time), or 'Brahman just works in mysterious ways'.

[Anonymous No.19430857]

yet another guenonfag schizo thread

[Anonymous No.19430916]

>>19430838
yeah i'm getting the same feeling:
keep saying that atman must undergo change if rupa and manas undergo change and atman relates to them
>no atma is special it doesn't undergo change
then how does it relate to rupa and manas?
>it uh it just does ok?

[Anonymous No.19430924]

>>19430689
>if it does, then it by definition must be undergoing change with respect to body and minds - at one point in time it was the self related to a child at another time it was the self related to a man. these are two different selves (conditioned by different points in time and relations to two different entities). If they are the same self, then you're just playing theseus' boat games.
Already answered

>>19422230
>Yet you are the same man who has done both

[Anonymous No.19430931]

>>19416406
Is this pasta?

[Anonymous No.19430933]

>>19430924
ok so it's a theseus' boat game.

here is you, you're a joke:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAh8HryVaeY

[Anonymous No.19430940]

>>19430933
>>19430924
https://youtu.be/LAh8HryVaeY?t=53
>i've maintained my broom for 20 years
>this old broom has had 17 new heads
>and 14 new handles
so how the hell can it be the same bloody broom?
>well here's a picture of it what more proof do you need

this is your ATMA. it's an post-hoc imputation, to make sense of ever changing phenomena.

[Anonymous No.19430955]

>>19430933
>ok so it's a theseus' boat game
What are you talking about? It is precisely the Buddhist view that is a game of Theseus' boat, since you see the self as composed of ever-changing parts.

The Hindu view says that there is a heart that does not change. Nothing to do with Theseus' boat.

>here is you, you're a joke:
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAh8HryVaeY
The absolute level of buddhist argumentation

[Anonymous No.19430964]

>>19430940
Your example is bogus
In your story all the parts of the broom have changed
Hindus say that the atman does not change

A closest example would be that what makes the broom does not change
But everything around it changes: its paint, its decoration, etc.

[Anonymous No.19430971]

Only the things which appear within and through the lenses of consciousness can be characterized as impermanent, ever changing and interdependent. Consciousness is ever the same, constant and independent, and this is shown by how no matter what we are aware of, we are aware of it in the same way. That is to say, whether we are talking about thoughts or sensory perceptions being known, they are always known to a presence who preceded that moment when that thought etc was known by awareness, who witnesses it, and also witnesses the transition of it leaving or being replaced by another. Even the differences of dream, deep sleep, and waking life are just different configurations of the intellect that is appearing within and to the constant consciousness that illuminates all three. At every moment, there is there pure formless light of awareness and the particular content that coincides with it and is known by it, the former is constant and unchanging and the latter are changing and conditioned. If the Unconditioned and eternal freedom were not already at the very core of one's being there would be no way to attain them.

Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti and Tsongkhapa all reject reflexive relations so if you accept Madhyamaka Prasangika as true then you no longer have any basis to claim that consciousness is conditioned and unchanging, because the consequence of this position is that consciousness cannot perceive its own conditioned and changing nature, just like how a fire cannot burn itself and like how the edge of a sword cannot cut itself.

[Anonymous No.19430975]

The Absolute, the Paramātman is unconditioned. It has no real causal relation with the world but transcends the web of causality, it is the wielder of maya and the basis upon which samsara is imposed through avidya, but the real and the unreal have no real relationship except through one's deluded presuppositions. " The presuppositions of the severely deluded can never affect the underlying reality, just as the great torrent of a mirage flood cannot wet a desert land. Like space, I am beyond contamination. Like the sun, I am distinct from the things illuminated" - Shankara, Vivekachudamani.

[Anonymous No.19430978]

>>19430964
atma is the identity of a broom.
nama and rupa are the body and mind or in this case the handle and the brush.

we Buddhists say that a broom is no more than its handle and its brush. there is no identity beyond this to a broom, and any identity is an imputation.

you hindus are saying: there is this magical quality about the broom that doesn't change even as the handle and the brushes are being replaced.
>>19430955
>since you see the self as composed of ever-changing parts.
we see NON-SELF, we deny a self.
We are saying that in reality, there is no theseus' boat. There are a series of Theseus' boatS that are conditionally dependent on the conditions that give their arising.

[Anonymous No.19430980]

Advaita has a coherent explanation of consciousness which aligns with how we experience it, Madhyamaka doesn’t and is rendered incoherent by its denial of the self.

Advaita understands that illusions and contingent existences cannot cause themselves, they do not arise without something acting as their substratum or impeller. Madhyamaka doesn’t understand this and gives the non-answer Homunculus argument of dependent-origination, which is refuted by Kalams cosmological argument, among others

Shankara’s works are extremely lucid and detailed, and Advaita is unified in their understanding of him, mostly differing on a few matters of semantics and minor details. Nagarjuna’s works are vague and all of Mahayana and Vajrayana disagree with eachother on what he actually meant. Almost every commentary written by Buddhists on the MMK says it means completely different thing

Advaita says that the subject cannot reflexively know itself as its own object, and rightfully says that because of this any argument which tries to show that sentience/consciousness is conditioned fails because of this. Madhyamaka admits that reflexive relationships are untenable, but then contradicts itself by attempting to reflexively analyze and break down consciousness into its constituents, despite Madhyamaka simultaneously holding that such reflexive relationships are impossible, i.e. Madhyamaka contains internal contradictions

[Anonymous No.19430988]

>>19430980
>Advaita says that the subject cannot reflexively know itself as its own object


>>19416997
>The only thing that exists is Brahman's self-reflexive awareness

???

[Anonymous No.19430989]

>>19430971
>>19430980
Naga btfos of these types of arguments in the Vigrahavyavartani btw.
he destroys Hindu epistemology.

[Anonymous No.19430992]

>>19430989
Nice statement, we are waiting for the arguments.

[Anonymous No.19431003]

>>19430992
distil your copied and pasted book excerpts into a paragraph or two and i'll stand and deliver Bhante Naga's refutation.

[Anonymous No.19431006]

The real redpill is that Hindus cannot understand Brahman's self-knowledge without the Christian Trinity, that is, the existence of three internal relationships within the simple (non-dual) Absolute.

Brahman as knower is the Father, Being, Sat.
As known he is the Son, Word (Logos-Om), Self-Consciousness, Cit.
As he loves himself he is the Holy Spirit, Bliss, Ananda.

[Anonymous No.19431199]

>>19430988
Reflexive (self-disclosing) undifferentiated awareness =/= awareness engaged in a subject-object relationship with itself where awareness is both subject and object. Advaita accepts the former while attacking the latter as logically untenable, while they may appear superficially similar they are actually two very different conceptions with very different implications that follow from them.

[Anonymous No.19431210]

>>19431199
I don't see the difference
That's a reflexive relation
Buddhist could say the same and use the former

[Anonymous No.19431225]

Seems like Advaita suffers from the problem all philosophical religion does: how to explain the generation of imperfect multiplicity (the world) from perfect unity (the divine)? There is no solution.

Buddhism seems to answer it by biting the bullet and accepting atheism, without realising that such an admission also undermines Buddhism's own metaphysical claims (why believe in karma or rebirth at all?).

[Anonymous No.19431384]

>>19431006
>The real redpill is that Hindus cannot understand Brahman's self-knowledge without the Christian Trinity, that is, the existence of three internal relationships within the simple (non-dual) Absolute.
The Taittiriya Upanishad defines Brahman as satyam (truth), jnanam (knowledge) and anantam (infinite), and also says elsewhere in the same Upanishad that Brahman is bliss. Any textual occurrences of sat cit ananda occurs in much later texts than this Upanishad. And Advaita interprets and understands these terms not as three internal relationships, but as three signifiers that contribute to forming an understanding of Brahman by negating what It is not, truth negates the notion that Its false, knowledge negates the notion that Its insentient, infinite negates the notion that Its finite; there just remains one undivided Entity without parts or internal relationships though even while trinaries are used to help convey correct knowledge of It.

[Anonymous No.19431439]

>>19428742
It's not just about the change "within a relationship", it's about being contingent upon it. If the relationship were not, then both parties would change.

Again, see >>19428496. "Atman" is something very, very specific, and it has a lot going on for it that is just simply not of concern in Western thought. An Atman is a discrete compositionally uniform thing that does not change and is not related to anything else, being totally self-sufficient for its own existence. Numbers are not Atmans.

>>19430597
Nagarjuna applies two basic techniques, the Tetralemma and the Argument of Three Times. Both are found in the Pali Canon, he's just distilling them.
Tetralemma
>Not X
>Not not-X
>Not both
>Not neither

Argument of Three Times
>Something doesn't exist before it exists
>Something isn't needed to make it exist after it exists
>If there's ever a time when something does and does not exist simultaneously then it does not Ultimately (see: Two Truths doctrine) exist

His basic technique is to knock down anything that someone posits as an Atman. It's a purely offensive rhetorical technique because Nagarjuna is taking the stance that all things are Empty AKA Sunyata AKA Dependently Originated. Thus, he never has to defend the claim "all things are Empty" because to argue against that would involve demonstrating a non-Empty thing. Most of the text itself is actually about advancing the Madhyamaka position rather than arguing with Hindus, as he finishes off an explicit defense of Atman as a general class pretty early. He then moves on to "yes, Dharma is Empty too", among other things.

Like a man desiring silence, he says "shhh".

[Anonymous No.19431442]

>>19431225
>Seems like Advaita suffers from the problem all philosophical religion does: how to explain the generation of imperfect multiplicity (the world) from perfect unity (the divine)? There is no solution.
that's true, and all religious people have no solution to the problem of evil too.

>>19431225
>>Buddhism seems to answer it by biting the bullet and accepting atheism, without realising that such an admission also undermines Buddhism's own metaphysical claims (why believe in karma or rebirth at all?).
buddhism does not care about multiplicity. the only goal of buddhism is to end dukkha and multiplicity is not part of the solution.

[Anonymous No.19431453]

>>19431225
>how to explain the generation of imperfect multiplicity (the world) from perfect unity (the divine)?
It explains this easily: everything that isn't Atman which is Brahman's perfect reflexive self awareness that illuminates itself because it is translucent and thus is the knife that cuts itself is in fact nothing and as such doesn't exist. It's an illusion. Nothing except Brahman which is Atman exists.

It's a trivial solution to the Buddha's point that if an Atman DID exist, nothing could interact with it. Shankara agrees with this, by arguing that there is nothing except Atman, and everything that isn't Atman (which is everything; remember, this isn't Vishishadvaita, we are NOT talking about monism here) doesn't exist.

This is why people laugh at Guenonfag's schizophrenic attachment to "consciousness", because he's not only completely ignorant of what Buddhism's actual epistemology is, but also of Shankara's as Shankara completely rejects the idea of consciousness having any relationship to Atman which is Brahman that isn't also that shared by everything else. That is to say, the fact that 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999% of what we say is "consciousness" is in fact not real, and only that 0.00000000000000000000000000001% of reality, that you can never catch because it's actually just 0.0000000000000000000000001% of that, repeated ad infinitum, is actually Atman.

[Anonymous No.19431467]

>>19431442
>buddhism does not care about multiplicity. the only goal of buddhism is to end dukkha and multiplicity is not part of the solution.
I know. But as I said, if you bite the bullet and accept there is no unified divine grounding to your religious philosophy as Buddhists do, why believe in its doctrines of karma and rebirth? And then once you throw away that, whither Buddhism's solution to suffering? It becomes no superior to Epicureanism or Stoicism or garden variety secular hedonism.

[Anonymous No.19431470]

>>19431210
>I don't see the difference
In the first view (Advaita), there is no subject-object relationship or parts involved and awareness by its very nature has its own presence *as* awareness disclosed to itself by the fact of it existing *as* awareness, no other thing or relationship is required for this disclosure. Existing *as* awareness inevitably involves this disclosure and cannot occur without it; awareness and its disclosure are the same thing, not two things in a relationship, not a thing and its action.

In the latter view, awareness takes awareness as an object, and a difference of subject/object exists between the first awareness and the second. Advaita criticizes as illogical, for reasons like awareness is partless and hence one part cannot take another as the object. And if both were really just awareness left then there would be no meaningful difference or relationship left between them to speak but just awareness, there would be nothing separating them, no gap where one could say “this is the subject awareness” and “this is the object awareness”. Moreover, subject and object are defined in distinction to one another and so its a contradiction to affirm both about the same thing at once like calling something alive and dead.

The point is that Madhyamaka contradicts itself by attacking reflexive relations are untenable but then at the same time trying to analyze awareness into constituents to show that nothing is impartite and unconditioned; this is a contradiction because the rejection of reflexivity leaves them no epistemological avenue or pramana to have knowledge of awareness and describe its nature as conditioned etc; by their own admission its logically impossible that they could directly perceive awareness as changing, dependent etc.

The logical problems that arise from rejecting the fact of awareness being reflexive are exactly what led the Nyingma philosopher Mipham to break with earlier Madhyamaka and posit that awareness is *conditionally* reflexive, but that its reflexivity is not *ultimately* true; and he argues this is the intent of Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti, contrary to Tsongkhapa’s understanding. His arguments for why awareness cannot be reflexively true *absolutely* are not very good though and he never refutes the Advaita conception of awareness, he only critiques the Buddhist sahopalambha (in which there is a subject and object aspect in awareness) reflexive awareness, but this is totally different from the Advaita position on reflexive awareness which involves the rejection of sahopalambha. Nevertheless, he offers an interesting look at an intra-buddhist critique of the Madhyamaka rejection of reflexivity, which shows how the mainstream Madhyamaka conception of consciousness is philosophically untenable and contradicted by our experience.

>That's a reflexive relation
>Buddhist could say the same and use the former
They could but the latter is illogical for reasons such as those cited above.

[Anonymous No.19431491]

>>19431470
>They could but the latter is illogical for reasons such as those cited above.
So if Nagarjuna use the former his view of consciousness is no longer incoherent?

[Anonymous No.19431503]

>>19431442
The problem of evil is a silly problem. Of course God is the root of everything, and the invention of the devil is a way to explain away his terrifying majesty and power.

[Anonymous No.19431536]

Very fascinating discussion. Where would you recommend someone who has very little knowledge of Buddhist or Hindu theology start? Is it even possible for a westerner to understand it?

[Anonymous No.19431543]

>>19431536
Guenon is the meme answer. I personally prefer Yogananda, especially if you have a biblical background. His guru, Sri Yukteswar, was a biblical scholar.

[Anonymous No.19431558]

>>19431536
Start with What the Buddha Taught, then read the Heart Sutra.

Also, remember that What the Buddha Taught is for Westerners who have literally no understanding of Buddhism. It is, by its own admission, an entry-level text, and you are not supposed to stop there. If you have a triple digit IQ, you will end up asking questions that the book doesn't answer, because it's at the "what is meditation" level.

[Anonymous No.19431589]

>>19431491
>So if Nagarjuna use the former his view of consciousness is no longer incoherent?
No, because its still logically incoherent to say that awareness takes itself as its own object in a subject-object relationship for reasons already explained in that post. There *is* no interpretation of Nagarjuna whereby he has a logically coherent understanding of consciousness, unless you assume he was a secret Advaitin trolling everyone, or maybe also Dolpopa’s interpretation which is almost the same thing as this.

[Anonymous No.19431745]

>>19431225
>such an admission also undermines Buddhism's own metaphysical claims
Theism is the ultimate undermining of any metaphysical claim because you have no means of demonstrating god. You're just saying the absolute cause of conjecture B is conjecture A. It does nothing to "solve" any problem at all. Now we need to ask how you know about A, and you don't know about A except from fairy tales. Karma and rebirth are just explanatory means of working out momentariness/impermanence and the appearance of causation. Why would you need a permanent unchanging creator to guarantee such impermanence, something he is wholly unlike and not contacted with?

[Anonymous No.19431771]

>>19431543
Your answer is the meme.

[Anonymous No.19431777]

>>19431589
>No, because its still logically incoherent to say that awareness takes itself as its own object in a subject-object relationship for reasons already explained in that post.
I'm talkin about your other interpretation of reflexive awareness.

[Anonymous No.19431801]

>>19431536
>Is it even possible for a westerner to understand it?
Yes you don't have to be Chinese or Indian. You have to do the work of understanding it on its own terms though instead of translating everything into western religious concepts (which are strictly theological).

[Anonymous No.19431910]

>>19420911
>The upanishads are built upon Samkhya.
No, they’re not, Samkhya as a school arose after the primary Upanishads already existed, the same is true Buddhism. Kapila and Buddha are both several generations after the earliest Upanishads.
>It's a historical fact accepted by Vedantins as well (check Lord Krishna's assertion in Bhavavad Gita)
No it’s not, Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita uses Samkhya in one of the literal senses of the word as in “discrimination”. Krishna isnt asserting the darshana Samkhya is true, you’d have to be a moron to think this since Samkhya is an atheistic school so Krishna would be asserting the truth of a school which says Krishna doesn’t exist and isn’t required for the universe to exist.
> So if the Atman is only aware of itself, then Maya is an independent ontology,
No, because maya is contingent upon the Atman-Brahman, something that is contingent on something else isn’t independent
>therefore they have no realtion with one another, therefore Advaita is dualistic.
Maya is contingent upon Atman-Brahman and hence there are not two things with independent existence being posited. Advaita is not dualistic anyway since they affirm that maya is false and in truth Brahman alone exists, it’d only be dualism if maya was affirmed as also real but its not
>If the Atman is both aware of itself and "contitionally" of Maya, you have split it into 2 aggregates,
It’s not, Its just aware of itself, the intellect/mind is what perceives maya objects, the intellect is enabled by the Atmans presence to do this without the Atman engaging in a subject-object relation with maya

[Anonymous No.19431933]

>>19431910
>the intellect/mind is what perceives maya objects, the intellect is enabled by the Atmans presence to do this without the Atman engaging in a subject-object relation with maya
So literally everything you're aware of is an illusion except you being aware, and this awareness is God, and this is somehow an adequate explanation for things?

[Anonymous No.19431955]

>>19420917
>Of course the absence of consciousness is impossible to observe because the observation presupposes a consciousness, but this proves nothing
It proves that its impossible to acquire direct evidence or knowledge of consciousness ever arising from anything else (one of the main claims of Buddhists) because arising presupposes prior absence.
>>Just because there is X (awareness) and the object (A, B, C, D etc) doesn’t prove awareness isn’t independent. An independent X
>Awareness is always awareness of something
It is in embodied experience, which proves nothing about how and in what way unembodied awareness would exist.
>The basic definition of consciousness is to perceive
No, it’s to be aware, to be awareness, perceiving is an act but dictionaries list conscious as a quality that can be applied to things as their nature without consideration of actions
>If it doesn't perceive anything, what is it aware of? (If you say of itself it remains a directionality and a relation)
It consciousness is reflexively aware, that’s not a relation because there are not two things being related, just one thing with its own unique nature, neither is it directionality which is a kind of relation
>A consciousness that does not perceive anything is a contradiction in terms
No it’s not, only if you don’t know English well (you have already shown in countless threads that you’re ESL) and misunderstand “conscious” to be the same as “perception” even though the dictionary refutes this
>>The light of the appears differently when shining through clouds, stained windows etc but the sun is unchanging by and independent of all this variation.
>The causal relationship of the sun changes
The relationship doesn’t change the sun itself, the sun isn’t identical to the relation we say relates it to other things, no amount of relations and them changing involves a change in the sun (awareness) itself. If A is linked to B by C, changes in B and C doesn’t involve changes in A, you are confusing or conflating C with A, whence your basic logical error arises.

[Anonymous No.19431985]

>>19420930
>Anyway the vedantins pretend to use reason when it suits them hiding the fact that in the end their metaphysics becomes irrational,
No it’s not, nothing Advaita says violates any law of logic.
>so all their arguments fall with
>For example: Brahman is said to be infinite in a strict sense
>Without any limit even logical or metaphysical
>It is therefore both infinite and finite
No, Advaita does not say that Brahman is both infinite and finite, this is a complete strawman
>Existing and non-existing
Advaita doesn’t say this either, this is also a complete strawman
>Totally indeterminate
>Two remarks 1) a potentiality without any determination... It is the emptiness
Advaita doesn’t say that Brahman is a potentiality, this is another strawman

[Anonymous No.19431997]

>>19431910
>No, they’re not, Samkhya as a school arose after the primary Upanishads already existed
This is factually wrong and I will not debate historical facts.
>No it’s not, Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita uses Samkhya in one of the literal senses of the word as in “discrimination”
No, he refers to literal Samkhya who's entire system of tattvas Vedanta ripped off.
>Its just aware of itself, the intellect/mind is what perceives maya objects, the intellect is enabled by the Atmans presence to do this without the Atman engaging in a subject-object relation with maya
Aside from the Atman having in this case 2 substances, the one aware of itself and the other enabling the Intellect to perceive the Maya, which is dualism, in this ontology if the Atman doesn't engage subject-object with Maya, that is the world of the Jiva, then there is no salvation for the Jiva.
At Moksha the Jiva just dissolves into nothingness and Atman stays the way it has been this whole time - a blind idiot god. Advaita is self-refuting, since the Jiva is illusory and as such any salvation is also illusory. It is the deepest nihilism.

[Anonymous No.19432006]

just a reminder Buddhism is CryptoHinduism

[Anonymous No.19432014]

>>19422151
>Too bad the Self can't be proven to exist
Because Advaitins are not proto-redditor fags they don’t care about creating some positivist system where 100% of their doctrines are demonstrable to skeptics like a math equation; they instead give a account of metaphysics, consciousness, scripture etc which is logically consistent and which is in agreement with how we actually experience things, and which cannot be refuted; whether people decide to fully accept it may be based on their own spiritual realizations or insight and intuition. There are countless things about Buddhism which are not proven anyway like rebirth, hellish realms and parinirvana so it makes no sense for you to complain about this, moreover there is never any proof offered for sunyata being true so you are committing the fallacy of accusing your opponent of something which applies to your side equally.

[Anonymous No.19432041]

>>19422168
>>fire has no impact on the space it's in
>Ever been in a burning building? Is this the best defense of eternalists, to claim fire just exists in a vacuum?
Are you really this stupid? Fire only changes and affects other things that have mass, energy, form, it doesn’t change or affect the very formless expanse provided by space itself, it just affects other gross objects. If you say “fire produces smoke which affects space” that’s just something else (smoke) co-existing in the same spot as that formless expanse of space, there is no change in the actual formless expanse of space itself, the formless expanse is not changed or burnt. The smoke existing in that spot doesn’t make that expanse itself change in any way, only other things within that space.

[Anonymous No.19432043]

>>19431985
>Advaita does not say that Brahman is both infinite and finite
This is what Guenon, Deutsch, etc. say. It is literally the distinction between Nirguna Brahman and Ishvara.

[Anonymous No.19432050]

>>19422219
>In this case there should be no maya
No, because Brahman’s nature is to effortlessly project maya as falsity, without being aware of it as Brahman is instead forever basking in His own bliss, infinitude, eternal unembodied liberation etc

[Anonymous No.19432055]

>>19432050
>Brahman’s nature is to effortlessly project maya as falsity
Two things

[Anonymous No.19432062]

>>19432050
Literally saying that the nature of A is to project B
Then speaks afterwards of non-duality of A
But no, nothing illogical
Lol

[Anonymous No.19432064]

>>19432041
>the very formless expanse provided by space itself
No such thing exists. Space is defined exclusively by the objects inhabiting "it".

[Anonymous No.19432076]

>>19432014
>don’t care about creating some positivist system where 100% of their doctrines are demonstrable
>cannot be refuted
I agree, we can't refute Harry Potter as it exists in its author's imagination

[Anonymous No.19432089]

>>19422273
>You can play with words as much as you want, but it makes no difference on the truth.
It does, Nagarjuna refutes himself with his own contradictions, and he was refuted by Advaitins too
>Nagarjuna showed that no matter how much you analyse phenomena you can never find any Atman behind them
Because Awareness isn’t phenomena but what phenomena presupposes, what reveals phenomena, without a self of awareness there is nobody to whom phenomena are revealed; none of Nagarjuna’s arguments refuted a luminous self-disclosing awareness.
>and the only way to assert such an existence is on the basis of scripture.
It can be shown to be the natural and logical conclusion through logic and analysis of our experience

[Anonymous No.19432092]

>>19432041
There is no such thing as space by itself, it is created by the placement of perceived objects and the mind imagines a gap between things apprehended, which depends entirely on our faculties. Whatever we call empty space is quite full of things we are ignorant of.

[Anonymous No.19432098]

>>19432089
>through logic and analysis of our experience
You've only been aware for as long as you can infer or remember. But go ahead, tell people you're six billion years old.

[Anonymous No.19432107]

>>19432089
>Because Awareness isn’t phenomena but what phenomena presupposes, what reveals phenomena
If it's different from phenomena, no only it entails dualism, but it can't even interact with them to reveal them. Therefore if awareness exists (which Nagarjuna grees it does) it must be part of the phenomenal world, therefore dependently conditioned, therefore self-less.
Advaita refuted.

[Anonymous No.19432110]

>fire doesn't affect space

ok let me just walk into a bit of space that currently has a fire in it because that part of space isn't affected by the fire so by me walking in it i won't be affected by the fire either.

[Anonymous No.19432111]

>>19432092
>There is no such thing as space by itself

>it is created by the placement of

Pick one

[Anonymous No.19432129]

>>19422315
>Counsciousness is only experienced as counsciousness of something. Stop pulling shit out of your ass.
How many times does it need to be said, the point that consciousness occurs alongside objects during embodied experience doesn’t prove a single thing about how unembodied consciousness would theoretically exist, there is no way to reliably infer that latter question based on the former. You don’t understand basic logic if you think otherwise.

[Anonymous No.19432133]

>>19432111
If it depends on something else what's the issue in saying it cannot exist by itself?

[Anonymous No.19432136]

>>19431771
I've read Guenon. He's alright.

[Anonymous No.19432144]

>>19432133
I'm just saying that you can't deny space and talk about placement at the same time. Without space, everything overlaps. This is the principle of non-locality in quantum mechanics.

[Anonymous No.19432145]

>>19432129
>doesn’t prove a single thing about how unembodied consciousness would theoretically exist
A disembodied counsciousness could not be aware of anything that happens in the world. It would be counscious of nothing, nonexistent.

[Anonymous No.19432151]

>>19432144
>Without space, everything overlaps.
Ok, so space is a distortion introduced by imagination after all.

[Anonymous No.19432155]

>>19432136
Yes. And he, and all the Vedanta experts, say what I say here >>19420930
and he denies >>19431985 . Brahman is totally infinite in every sense of the word, therefore indeterminate. Both infinite (nirguna) and finite (ishvara/the world).

[Anonymous No.19432161]

>>19432151
Distortion of what? Again, a spatial concept. You make no sense.

[Anonymous No.19432186]

>>19432161
You are claiming everything discretely exists in separation without overlap? Maybe in quantum mechanics. But even then we are referring to things we don't even perceive without the aid of instruments, but if we are talking about phenomena which appear "in space" it remains to be proven these are as distinct from one another as particles are purported to

[Anonymous No.19432191]

>>19432186
I'm not asserting anything, I'm just telling you that denying the existence of space and then talking about placement is illogical.

[Anonymous No.19432213]

>>19432191
What I am saying is that space has no independent existence. Any time you assert there is empty space to place objects in you are just assuming its emptiness on the basis of what is not perceived there, but since you do not perceive all things you are only assuming space is there a priori and not just a reification of the perceived absense of phenomena relevent to you

[Anonymous No.19432310]

>>19432213
Space is not emptiness and you are contradicting science

[Anonymous No.19432359]

>>19432310
>you are contradicting science

[Anonymous No.19432435]

>>19432359
Okay? If you like to be in your bubble and feel edgy by denying reality, stay in your imagination

[Anonymous No.19432510]

Show must go on

[Anonymous No.19432560]

>>19432435
Everything DOES overlap. The science is NOT settled. Space is imaginary

[Anonymous No.19432886]

>>19432155
Yeah I'm thinking based

[Anonymous No.19432904]

>>19432886
Yeah maybe. But then my critique is right >>19420930

[Anonymous No.19433043]

>>19432904
Wouldn't an ultimate realty be impossible to realize from "inside the simulation", just as it's impossible for us to conceive of a tenth dimensional reality?

[Anonymous No.19433090]

I think we're getting off topic
Clearly, the whole debate is about whether or not a substance can change relationships without being altered
Buddhists say no, Hindus say yes
Please, what are your arguments on this precise subject

Buddhists say that a man who is married and then remarried changes with his change of relationship
And yet the Hindus are right it is the same man in both cases

[Anonymous No.19433194]

Bump

[Anonymous No.19433290]

>>19431955
>The relationship doesn’t change the sun itself, the sun isn’t identical to the relation we say relates it to other things, no amount of relations and them changing involves a change in the sun (awareness) itself.
But this is because there is no necessary relationship between the sun and the clouds, both are independent.
Now imagine that the sun's rays change.
How can it be conceived that the sun has not changed too.
Because of this relationship of the one that makes the other exist, the nature of the one is necessarily linked to that of the other. So I don't see how the change in one or the other does not affect anything.
It is Brahman's nature to create the world (maya), so the link is necessary, and I fail to see how a change in a necessary relationship (like the changes in the world) can leave the Atman-Brahman untouched, as a change in the sun's rays indicates that the sun has changed

[Anonymous No.19433390]

>>19433090
https://youtu.be/LAh8HryVaeY?t=54
^ it depends whether you think this broom is the same broom after he's replaced the brush and the handle or you think it's essentially a series of different brooms that he is just imputing a singular identtiy onto.

Hindus are in the first campe.
Buddhists are in the second.
>>19433290
the Hindus don't have an explanation for it.
The issue is that they are seeing things through the lense of identity rather than through the sense of relationships.

If i assent to the idea of me being an a-priori entity, then it doesn't matter who i am married to, i am the same man.

however if i only derive the idea of there being me out of a series of relationships/conditions - eg time, space, physical composition, mental composition, relationship with others, etc etc. then indeed i am two different men (most obvious in my identity as a husband) upon being married to two different women.

the implication of the Hindu argument, is that although Brahman or Atman relate to changing things, they themselves do not undergo change.
This is quite confusing, because semantically they do undergo change. Let's take the most basic example:
I have my "atman" here at 5:24pm.
Before I had my "atman" at 4:24pm.
My atman has undergone change, in terms of time. If it had not undergone change in terms of time, how could it have it at a different time.

[Anonymous No.19433414]

>>19433390
>The issue is that they are seeing things through the lense of identity rather than through the sense of relationships.
And why the relationship pov is better?
The identity one seems more appropriate for determining if there is a self
The relationship one presuppose that there isn't

[Anonymous No.19433477]

>>19433414
Buddhism teaches nonself because all the constituents of a human are impermanent and not actually unitary.

[Anonymous No.19433496]

>>19433477
U don't answer my question

[Anonymous No.19433551]

>>19433496
why is the relationship POV better? it is more evident. where is this underlying self like in physical space? how does it not undergo change in time?
if it undergoes change, then what sense does it make?

a relationally derived explanation for phenomena and entities is perfectly reasonable. all phenomena and entities can be explained through conditions that give their arising (from various different vantage points too - eg why the lights on can go from a scientific explanation of the way electricity works - to 'so that we can read').

but an independnet identity firstly isn't an empirically observed thing, and secondly comes with a lot of metaphysical baggage. for example if a thing is independnet of time and is immutable, how does that relate to all these ever changing phenomena and entitites we observe in experience?
Let's take God. God has to depend on time, for him to be conceived of, or to act, or to be spoken of, or to create, or to be the source of phenomena at different times.
If he does not depend on time, he cannot act, be spoken of, create etc at a point in time (without appealing to unexplained exceptions) - because you would not be able to say God was the source of what happened at this particular time, because of course that statement hinges on what the particular time is.