/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14177852]

Have you ever noticed that any attempt to affirm the reality of change and multiplicity occurs within the ever-present and unchanging continuum of the Now?

[Anonymous No.14177871]

For there to be change, something would have to be persistent in order to recognize that change, right?
I think I agree, but I do not see why it is critical to recognize. Could I not also view everything as being a multiplicity and change, and any persistence as being a sufficiently minor change allowing me to recognize it as such?
Such prioritization can lead to vastly different ideas of how one should live life, and yet I see no way to assert one as superior to the other.

[Anonymous No.14177872]

Yes.

[Anonymous No.14177875]

Parmenides and Heraclitus just need to quit playing and date

[Anonymous No.14177884]

>>14177852
Every one of my attempts to refute this statement results in an inevitable and irreconcilable aporia. It is almost as if the truth of the statement is an immutable fact of existence, and is directly blocking my attempts to refute it, retroactively from the perspective of its original articulation.

[Anonymous No.14177949]

>>14177852
>NOOOOOOOOO!!! PLEASE NOOOO!!!! AHHHH!!!! NOOOOOOOOO!!!

[Anonymous No.14178063]

>>14177852
>like dude change isn't real bro
>AAAAAH HELP MY BODY IS DECAYING HOW CAN IT BE I THOUGHT CHANGE WASN'T REAL

[Anonymous No.14178076]

>>14178063
>yfw the Awareness observing that decaying body is itself unchanging and devoid of attributes

[Anonymous No.14178097]

>>14178076
>yfw that still refutes Pamesana's claim that change isn't real

[Anonymous No.14178110]

>>14178097
If you believe that it's because you don't realize Parmenides is only saying that change is not absolutely real and consequently make the mistake of thinking Parmenides said that change is not empirically real

[Anonymous No.14178122]

>>14178097
Whiteheadians can't into ontological priority apparently

[Anonymous No.14178160]

>>14177852
>speaking like a tool
how is OP consistently the biggest faggot in every single thread?

[Anonymous No.14178342]

>>14178076
But clearly the awareness does change with emotions, with age and cultural resources available (memories, language, beliefs) and what remains is perception, which changes as well as the body ages.

[Anonymous No.14178496]

>>14178342
What's undergoing the change though?

[Anonymous No.14178508]

>change is real! no, change isn't real!

so what? What answers would this provide if one were true, or the other were?

[Anonymous No.14179557]

>>14177852
bump

[Anonymous No.14180352]

>>14177852
>>14177884
>>14178076

Indeed, think of the Temporal vistas as conglomerations of mirrors, each one only reflecting only one aspect of you and your Phenomenal, the past and future also mirroring each other like two actual mirrors, such that each aspect appears to recapitulate itself indefinitely until disappearing into itself, seeming fantastic enough to allude to you being preceded by the past and outlasted by the future merely because of their, not your, incomprehension. The Eternal Self in the Eternal Present is, in fact, an exercise in radical sobriety.

[Anonymous No.14180421]

CHEESED

[Anonymous No.14180495]

>>14177852
Didn't Nagarjuna already destroy this guy?

[Anonymous No.14180622]

>>14180495
pretty much but there’s still people who think there can be the notion of a subject without a separate object, equivalent to thinking you can have up without down
>inb4 “no because the Self is one and it is bliss because it is pure awareness because it is pure Self-knowledge

[Anonymous No.14180755]

>>14180622

I don't see how it would be relevant one way or the other, (bad) Phenomenology being the last place I would look to answer such questions, but you can have up without down. If one would start ascending and reach the apex of up and find one's self looking up at the one's initial position, but look down and see nothing, and upon descending from the same initial position find nothing still, then one would have to assume that up is and down is not. That is, not as a thought experiment about naming conventions otherwise parallel to a the Phenomenal, which would ironically probably prove the Buddhist right by disregarding the Phenomenal, but in the most literal sense of a man ascending from the Earth, ironically acquiescing to the Buddhist Phenomenal fetish,

[Anonymous No.14180773]

>>14180495
>>14180622

I don't see how it would be relevant one way or the other, (bad) Phenomenology being the last place I would look to answer such questions, but you can have up without down. If one would start ascending and reach the apex of up and find one's self looking up at the one's initial position, but look down and see nothing, and upon descending from the same initial position find nothing still, then one would have to assume that up is and down is not. That is, not as a thought experiment about naming conventions otherwise parallel to the Phenomenal, which would ironically probably prove the Buddhist right by disregarding the Phenomenal, but in the most literal sense of a man ascending from the Earth, ironically acquiescing to the Buddhist Phenomenal fetish,

[Anonymous No.14180866]

>>14180622
That's an example of how Buddhist logic is circular insofar as it has to depend upon other Buddhist axioms to remain consistent. You can have a subject or self without an object because in order for the concept to be applicable it only has to have an existing awareness that it can be relevant for. If God is non-dual awareness or Self there is no reason why he would need to always have an object. That it is possible is demonstrable in deep states of samadhi reachable through meditation and other spiritual practices where one just abides in awareness without any subject--object distinctions involving thoughts, perceptions etc. Even though the Buddhist may dislike calling it 'self', because there is an awarenesa that remains here in this state it provides a subject for whom the notion of self is relevent
>>14180495
Nagarjuna failed to destroy anyone, read Richard Robinson's article masterfully deconstructing the flawed logic Nagarjuna uses in the MMK if you want to know why.

[Anonymous No.14181455]

>>14178342
that's only the objects of awareness changing but not awareness itself

[Anonymous No.14181882]

>>14181455
so the awareness is separate from the changing objects?

[Anonymous No.14181947]

>>14177852
Which would mean that affirming reality is dependent on their place in time (not assuming it's linear)?

[Anonymous No.14182119]

>>14181882
yes

[Anonymous No.14182135]

>>14181455
How can you say that if awareness is without qualities, unchanging, and affects nothing that it exists? Why not just say that the contents of awareness are what exists?

[Anonymous No.14182147]

>neovedanta anon is back for another round of raging at buddhism

Anyone remember the recent thread where he got blown the fuck out, and repeatedly revealed himself as a Hindu nationalist who fanatically defends the caste system?

>>/lit/thread/S14161128

[Anonymous No.14182207]

>>14182147
Caste is pretty based though. Except in India because they should all be shudras.

[Anonymous No.14182301]

>>14182147
that Buddhists think the caste system is their ace-in-a-hole argument against Hinduism just goes to show how many western Buddhists are limp-wristed sissies without an ounce of testosterone

[Anonymous No.14182302]

>>14177852
Everything occurs in that continuum.

[Anonymous No.14182368]

>>14182119
how is that not duality lmao
there's the awareness which is the subject
and the separate changing objects which are the object for the subject
either you don't understand Advaita to its fullest extent, or Advaita is subtly dualistic

[Anonymous No.14182372]

>>14182301
the real aryans already imposed a caste system on you dravidians when they made you slaves of the raj. want to go back?

[Anonymous No.14182375]

>>14182301
the multiple-century long debates between advaita and buddhism were hardly centered around the caste system lol

[Anonymous No.14182446]

>>14182375
I'm talking about the debates here on /lit/ by the posters here, where I've noticed that's common, not the historical debates. In reality there wasn't much of a back-and-forth historically but rather Shankara extensively criticized Buddhist doctrines for being illogical and inconsistent and the Buddhists were unable to ever come up with any serious reply, it's completely one-sided.

[Anonymous No.14182475]

Non-Duality is a recursive function

[Anonymous No.14182479]

>>14182446
Buddhism was a living tradition for more than a thousand years before Shankara projected his "advaita" vedanta onto the Upanishads around 700AD, so it's only natural he would have plenty to criticize.

[Anonymous No.14182497]

>>14182479
Advaita Vedanta is the direct continuation of the Upanishadic tradition, from the time of the Upanishads down through the Dharma-Sastras, the Gita, Puranas, Brahma Sutras, etc all the texts from the time of the Upanishads down to Shankara talk about the Supreme Self and non-dualism. This Upanishadic tradition predated Buddha by several hundred years, who can himself be considered an offshoot of it.

[Anonymous No.14182498]

>>14182479
this

not too mention he plagiarized buddhist thought and warped it to his favor.

[Anonymous No.14182507]

>>14182497
>Advaita Vedanta is the direct continuation of the Upanishadic tradition
yet there was a centuries long gap between them and Shankara/Gaudapada that was somehow 'lost' to time.

[Anonymous No.14182509]

>>14182497
That's the neo-Vedanta interpretation common in India since the late 19th century, yes. But there is next to nothing known about any "Advaita" Vedanta between the Upanishads and Shankara. We don't even know the basic history of India for this period, we have to rely on things like archaeology and Chinese reports of the region. Only two texts survive pre-Shankara which could ambiguously be called "Advaitin."

The idea that the Upanishads are inherently Advaita is Shankara's, and Shankara lived 700. Nobody except Advaitins takes this at face value, because it's a religious precept of the Advaita movement, which is a Westernized form of neo-Vedanta stemming from the 19th century.

You are a religious person. That's okay. But don't pretend your religious tenets are accepted by anybody except you and your coreligious.

[Anonymous No.14182519]

reminder that Buddhism also asserts that change, time, space are all unreal fabrications of deluded mind
main difference is they are non-dualist without being monist

[Anonymous No.14182582]

reminder
https://youtu.be/x08vqAyfyrA

[Anonymous No.14182726]

>>14182507
Shankara's works, the Brahma Sutras and other thinkers of his era collectively cite the views of around 100 different pre-Shankara commentators and thinkers, some of them Advaitins.
>>14182509
>The idea that the Upanishads are inherently Advaita is Shankara's, and Shankara lived 700. Nobody except Advaitins takes this at face value
In fact it was fairly common for many of the early translators, orientalists and western scholars of the upanishads/vedanta like Thibaux, Deussen and others to take the position that Shankara's interpretation was the cloest to the meaning of the Upanishads, when you read these works by these early scholars they wil often candidly admit this. In a recent book the scholar Andrew Nicholson accuses many early Hinduism scholars of being 'monist-apologists" for this reason. It was only after critical theory began to influence every sector of academia that it suddenly became PC and popular to say "well uhh the neutral academic view is that EVERY interpretation is equally valid..."

[Anonymous No.14182733]

>>14182498
the allegations of plaigerism are unproven and extremely weak, it's used as a red herring to distract from the fact that he btfo a bunch of Buddhist schools and made them look like retards

[Anonymous No.14182753]

>>14182726
That's a half-truth or even quarter-truth. Many German idealist philosophers and people influenced by German idealism (so the entire 19th century) obviously took an interest in the idealist elements of the later, and extremely garbled and difficult to place historically, Advaita tradition, which has dominated India in one form or another since Shankara. This is not controversial. It's also part of the reason why Advaita Vedanta is so well-represented in India today, as I said, because these thinkers influenced the neo-Vedantists who were Western or Western-educated and who helped form the ideological core of revivalist Hinduism in the 20th century.

But even putting that aside, no major scholars thought that the Advaita position was trivially identifiable with the Upanishads. The standard opinion for nearly two centuries on the Upanishads, and the late Vedic period in general, has been that it was a period of diversity, not uniformity. Even the Brahmasutras, a very late commentarial layer probably only formalized a few centuries before Shankara himself, are not unanimously or simplistically Advaita. Also, there is overwhelming evidence that Buddhism was experimenting with idealist monism for centuries prior to Shankara and at the same time as the Brahmasutras were being formalized.

It's fine that you believe what you believe since it's your religion. But you should read more than heavily Advaita-sympathetic authors like your favored Olivelle. You are getting a skewed picture.

>>14182733
The evidence is much more in the opposite direction. If you personally, religiously think the arguments of Advaita knock down "Buddhist arguments" (which predate systematic Advaita for a thousand years, so it's not surprising that some are bad!), that's fine. I'm sure lots of Vishishtadvaitins think that they themselves effortlessly show that your Westernized perennialist neo-Vedanta version of Advaita Vedanta is stupid. In both cases, simply SAYING "yeah but I'm actually right tho" is meaningless.

[Anonymous No.14182935]

>>14182368
>how is that not duality lmao
You misunderstand the point of what I'm talking about, Advaita accepts dualism as having empirical validity and accepts that our everyday experience is characterized by apparent duality, it just denies that dualism is absolutely real. That awareness is separate from the objects it illuminates suggests a sort of dualism *at that specific level and frame of reference* but not that dualism in itself remains true at the level of ultimate truth or reality. That concept is just used to explain the phenomenology of how perception and superimposition works, the dualism involved gives way to non-dualism in spiritual realization and in moksha. When someone is still unenlightened, there appears to be a dualism of subject vs objects, when someone has reached enlightenment in the Vedantic sense they no longer perceive things as objects but instead have the experience of the non-dual Self or the transcendental Subject without objects.

[Anonymous No.14182957]

>>14182753
>I'm sure lots of Vishishtadvaitins think that they themselves effortlessly show that Advaita Vedanta is stupid.
The difference though is that advaitins have written many replies over the centuries to the attacks of the vishishtadvaitins debunking them and exposing their charges as being based on misunderstandings, faulty reasoning etc, the Buddhists have not replied back to Shankara's devastating critiques so it's not an exact equivalence.

[Anonymous No.14182981]

>>14182935
so the awareness is only separate from the objects in duality before enlightenment? And after enlightenment there is no such “pure unchanging awareness observing the changing phenomena which are separate from it”? Just pure undifferentiated awareness and nothing else?

[Anonymous No.14182998]

>>14182957
>Shankara's devastating critiques
Such as this?:
>The third type of Buddhist doctrine that states that everything is void is contradicted by all means of right knowledge and thus requires no special refutation. This apparent world, whose existence is guaranteed by all means of knowledge, cannot be denied unless someone should discover some new truth (based on which he could impugn its existence) – for a general principle is proved by the absence of contrary instances. (Sarirka-bhasya 2.2.31)
Here he shies away from going in depth in attack on Sunyavada. He ignores that Nirvana is the ‘new truth’ based on which one impugns the existence of samsara/deluded experience. It isn’t the case that “Buddhism was so devastated that they couldn’t reply.” He barely offered a critique of their foremost school at all, and in his brief dismissal, he misrepresented an essential part of the doctrine.

[Anonymous No.14183029]

>>14182981
Yes, more or less although I would also add that this Awareness = Bliss. Someone would still be able to interact with people, read, debate etc in this state but it would be done in a state of non-duality, intuitively sensing everything that one was interacting with as just being the Self, without attributing to anything the slightest notion of duality, difference, multiplicity etc. Also, to go a little deeper one would know that one was never actually "interacting with" or "doing" anything at all to begin with.

[Anonymous No.14183058]

>>14183029
is this pure awareness unlocatable, without qualities, inherently transcendent to concepts and thought, ineffable?

[Anonymous No.14183100]

>>14182998
I picture Shankara like the schizo advaita poster in this board: autistically invested in winning 'debates', misrepresenting ideas, denying facts, playing word games, committing tons of fallacious arguments, hiring attendants to say 'he won bhai', etc

[Anonymous No.14183109]

>>14182998
>He ignores that Nirvana is the ‘new truth’ based on which one impugns the existence of samsara/deluded experience.
But I have seen many people strenuously deny that Nirvana in Sunyavada is an existent 'proof' or 'truth' that can be the counterpoint of or reality underlying the unreal. People will claim say that Nirvana in sunyavada is empty in the same manner as the phenomenal world. The Buddhist understanding of Nagarjuna seems to be very internally divided and there are various competing interpretations but there is a common view of him propagated by Buddhists which would take issue with how you present him and would say that the emptiness of Nirvana means it cannot be the "truth" that balances out, cancels, underlies or supercedes the untrue world but that all is equally empty, in this view Nirvana is not treated as having it's own unique ontological status that allows it to cancel out something that's unreal. You are sort of trying to have your cake and eat it too by claiming that the Nirvana of sunyavada can be the "truth" of something else or of samsara despite Nirvana being completely empty of inherent reality/existence itself as the Madhyamika claim, it's absolutism in denial that wants to claim the benefits of absolutism without admitting that they subscribe to it. Part of the reason why Shankara never criticizes the early Yogachara of Asanga and only attacks the late-yogachara of Dharmakirit etc is that the former is unironic absolutism that's hardly different from the Upanishads while the latter isn't. By choosing to attack the interpretation of sunayata that views it in the least absolutist sense possible he is sorta implying that if you want to say that Nirvana can an existent truth that negates the unreal world and hence fulfills the criteria that Shankara mentions than it's not totally empty but becomes a form of absolutism.

In any case given the wide range of interpretations that have risen within Buddhism over Nagarjuna it's hardly surprising that Shankara may have only interacted with certain representatives of it pushing their own idiosyncratic sect/take on it which could also be why he considered it nonsense not worth refuting. Anyways the logic of the MMK was debunked by Richard Robinson, if Shankara had examined it more closely, being the bright mind he was I'm sure he would have picked out the sams logical holes in it that Robinson did. It was absolutely the case that the Sarvāstivāda and the Yogachara were never able to provide a reply to Shankara's in-depth criticisms of them.

[Anonymous No.14183122]

>>14182957
This is, again, your religious outlook. A Buddhist would simply reply that you're full of shit and it's the other way around. This doesn't make the Buddhist right, does it? Then why would the reverse argument make YOU right?

>>14183109
>It was absolutely the case that the Sarvāstivāda and the Yogachara were never able to provide a reply to Shankara's in-depth criticisms of them.

Others disagree. How do you arbitrate in the case where two people disagree? Hint: It's not by saying "no but I'm actually right!!!"

[Anonymous No.14183124]

>>14183058
The Upanishads say yes but only for normal thought/experience, they clarify that in immediate spiritual realization the ineffable Awareness is attainable and realizable, in part because the normal boundaries and limitations caused by ignorance are no longer obscuring it.

[Anonymous No.14183142]

>>14183109
>Anyways the logic of the MMK was debunked by Richard Robinson
It wasn't

[Anonymous No.14183146]

>>14183124
But I mean when it is realized, is it unlocatable (not in space or time), undefinable, transcendent to though and concepts, without qualities?

[Anonymous No.14183168]

>>14182135
>How can you say that if awareness is without qualities, unchanging, and affects nothing that it exists?
How can you say that the eye exists even though the eye cannot see it's own qualities, cannot see itself change and cannnot affect that which it observes? Because we still see out of it. The same analogy extends to the inner awareness.
>Why not just say that the contents of awareness are what exists
Because that doesn't accord with the smooth continuity of our consious experience, it would result in a disjointed and interrupted thread of awareness which is not what we actually experience, for example each consious moment would arise and vanish on the backs of independent phenomena sensed at different moments with no way to synthesize those disparate fleeting sensations (due to the hypothetical lack of a changeless witness) into the coherent narrative/understanding that we experience.

[Anonymous No.14183191]

>>14183122
>Others disagree
Can you name the text where the Sarvāstivāda or the Yogachara thinker reply to or offer refutations of Shankara's attacks? Oh right you can't because it doesn't exist.
>>14183142
Can you back up your claim? Where do you think Robinson is wrong?

[Anonymous No.14183196]

>>14183168
>it would result in a disjointed and interrupted thread of awareness which is not what we actually experience
You say that we don't experience that, but what if we do and the apparent continuity at any given instant is just an illusion from how the brain or mind or whatever processes phenomena? Think like a Boltzmann brain that exists for but a moment yet in that moment feels like it has lived a full life up until then.

[Anonymous No.14183204]

>>14183191
>Can you back up your claim?

you are shifting the goalposts back and forth. sometimes you are claiming that no one has disagreed, then other times, when someone disagrees, you are challenging them to debate over their disagreement. but your initial claim, that nobody has disagreed, has been refuted. and because your second claim, namely that your system is correct because nobody has disagreed with it, is also refuted.

you are arguing very manipulatively as always guenonfag.

[Anonymous No.14183209]

>>14183191
>Can you back up your claim?
burden of proof is on you silly

[Anonymous No.14183211]

>>14183196
>from how the brain or mind or whatever processes phenomena
I should have just said "how the phenomena comes together as it would for any supposed individual" or something like that, but you get what I mean

[Anonymous No.14183248]

>>14183109
the common view is that nirvana lacks ontological status because to nagarjuna, assigning anything ontological status can only ever be convention, conceptual, assigned to the aggregates of logic, thought, the psychophysical, within the realm of objectification which requires delusion/samsara, and so to nagarjuna, assigning ontological status to anything means it is conditioned. For Nirvana as a concept to be empty does not mean its wisdom which the convention “Nirvana” points to, cannot be true. It is empty insofar as it is beyond convention, and therefore beyond ontological status.

[Anonymous No.14183291]

>>14183248
also
the truth that “nirvana” points to is still understood as more true than samsara because samsara involves passive objectification, which there is no awareness of. Samsaric beings are unknowingly objectifying entities. ‘Nirvana’ is said to be truer because the Nirvanic being knows objectification as objectification and is free from it, now aware of it, knowledgable of a truth that they were previously ignorant of. It is not because Nirvana is some alternative existing entity which beings reject samsara for, that it is true. It is because Nirvana is just knowing samsara as it is, knowing the objectifying which one was previously ignorant of, that it is called truth (ignorance has been lost). So Nirvana as a designation can still be empty, not referring to an existent entity or some “underlying hidden substance” in the conventional sense, and still be truer than samsara.

[Anonymous No.14184083]

>>14183196
>but what if we do and the apparent continuity at any given instant is just an illusion from how the brain or mind or whatever processes phenomena?
It could be true, but you could say that about anything else as well. That you have to admit that it it doesn't accord with our immediate experience but still might be true via that it just seems orherwise gives us less of a reason to consiser it as likely being true.

[Anonymous No.14184355]

>>14183109
Did Shankara actually debate Buddhist monks or did he just criticise Buddhism in writing? The only source I can dig up that mentions debates between these parties are quora comments from hardline Hindu nationalists who believe Shankara lived thousands of years before the Buddha.

[Anonymous No.14184432]

>>14183209
You can read most of the article by Robinson here or read the whole thing on sci-hub, it's very clear and he debunks some of Nagarjuna's main claims in the MMK point by point by showing how the underlying logic is faulty.

>>/lit/thread/S12384232#p12388084

>The nature of the Madhyamika trick is now quite clear. It consists of (a) reading into the opponent's views a few terms which one defines for him in a self-contradictory way, and (b) insisting on a small set of axioms which are at variance with common sense and not accepted in their entirety by any known philosophy.

If you have any examples of where you think Robinson is wrong I'd be very curious to see them, I have never seen anyone ever be able to explain how Nagarjuna's logic is still correct in light of the points that Robinson makes about it.

[Anonymous No.14184561]

>>14184355
>hardline Hindu nationalists who believe Shankara lived thousands of years before the Buddha.

Shankara along with Gaudapada basically just took centuries of Buddhist metaphysical thought, sprinkled a bit of superficial Brahmanism on it, called it Advaita, and claimed this "system" was always there in the Upanishads from the start. Only a Hindu nationalist could take a philosophy significantly derivative of Buddhism, that was formalized around 800AD, and say that it was set down in the Vedic period or earlier. Those people will believe anything they're told. It's sad.

Advaita Vedanta's philosophical "core" is the Buddhist idealist revival of the first millennium AD. There never would have been a Gaudapada or Shankara if not for Buddhism. The authentic Hinduism of that period was degenerate bhakti. Similar problems had crept into Buddhism, which was the reason for the Buddhist revival. Hinduism owes its own revival to this, just as it owes its metaphysics to the Buddhists of the period preceding Gaudapada.

A modern Hindu nationalist owes most of his ideas to Buddhists, and to westerners who later revitalized his own faith for him. That should be a great opportunity for dialog. Yet he's somehow the most narrow-minded jingoist nationalist imaginable.

[Anonymous No.14184621]

>>14184561
Lmao, imagine coping this hard because your precious Nagarjuna got utterly destroyed, everything you wrote is the fantasy of Buddhist partisan academics who felt compelled to advance that narrative to distract people from the fact that literally everything in Buddhism from the original core concepts to later non-origination and idealism all appear in the Upanishads long before Buddha and a millenium before later Buddhist thinkers. Sad! many such cases

[Anonymous No.14184639]

>Buddhist partisan academics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surendranath_Dasgupta

According to S.N. Dasgupta,
>Shankara and his followers borrowed much of their dialectic form of criticism from the Buddhists. His Brahman was very much like the sunya of Nagarjuna [...] The debts of Shankara to the self-luminosity of the Vijnanavada Buddhism can hardly be overestimated. There seems to be much truth in the accusations against Shankara by Vijnana Bhiksu and others that he was a hidden Buddhist himself. I am led to think that Shankara's philosophy is largely a compound of Vijnanavada and Sunyavada Buddhism with the Upanisad notion of the permanence of self superadded.

Accusations of Shankara being "crypto-Buddhist" are centuries old. Cry harder, neovedantist.

[Anonymous No.14184730]

>>14184432
>he debunks some of Nagarjuna's main claims in the MMK point by point by showing how the underlying logic is faulty.
he doesn't do this, all he did was attempted to show a 'sophistry trick' by cherry picking some points and comparing it against 'widely accepted views' in order to prove that Nagarjunian logic isn't consistent which conventional western logic. You haven't read your own source have you? I feel like you just skimmed through it, pasted it and 'claimed victory' which is ironic since you presented a western scholar (one which you highly praise for 'defeating buddhism' .... despite him being a buddhist) as your source yet you usually have disdain for them like the last thread where you sperged out when someone cited Max Muller against you.

[Anonymous No.14184763]

>>14184639
this pic still gets me

[Anonymous No.14184799]

>>14177852
Fucking based.

[Anonymous No.14184826]

>>14177875
This is my OTP.

[Anonymous No.14185535]

>>14184639
>>14184763

It's been 24 hours and none of you ming-mongs have replied to this. All the more embarrassing considering YoU CaN't HaVe Up WiThOuT dOwN mY dUdEz loooooollzzlz lmafaooo :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!1!111! was intended to be the epic GOTCHA retort. Writhing animals.

>>14180773

[Anonymous No.14185549]

why does guenonfag always post like a boomer when he's freaking out

is it because he's ESL?

[Anonymous No.14185552]

>>14185535
so this... is the mind of an advaitin sage..... woah......

[Anonymous No.14185553]

>>14185535
Jesus dude.

[Anonymous No.14185792]

>>14185535
since you only argued against the “up without down” thing, here’s another better one than that poster’s example that might satisfy you
it’s like saying there can be a parent without a child, or a child without a parent. The status ‘child’ is defined as having been born to a parent, the status ‘parent’ is defined by having conceived a child. If there was never any child, there could never be a parent. If there was never any parents, there could never be a child.
What is subject defined by if not as a subject which perceives an object? What is object defined by if not as something perceived by a subject?
A quick google search of the definition for “self” brings up:
>a person's essential being that distinguishes them from others
What meaning does “self” have if there is no “other” to distinguish it as apart from?
This would all make a lot more sense if you conceded that you’re using the word “self” in a place where it doesn’t fit, or using it with a very unique and alternative definition implied, that it has no relation whatsoever to any normal meaning of the word “self,” that the use of the world “self” is in fact very arbitrary and is not in anyway indicative of the nature of the non-dual truth you’re getting at.

[Anonymous No.14186670]

>>14177852
based

[Anonymous No.14187189]

>>14177852
In sophistes he gets BTFO'd so hard that I cant look into his white marble eyes. Okay btfo is the wrong terminology but he got respectfully owned

[Anonymous No.14187219]

>>14184639
Yes, that's a perfect example of the incredibly shoddy scholarship that I'm talking about, thanks for proving my point
>Shankara and his followers borrowed much of their dialectic form of criticism from the Buddhists.
Nowhere is any evidence provided that his dialectic is indebted to Buddhism. The first known dialectic in Indian philosophy occurs in the Pre-Buddhist Brihadaranyaka Upanishad in the conversations of Yajnavalkya. Shankara's dialectic is totally different than Nagarjuna's, he uses different reasoning to support different metaphysical conclusions. Nagarjuna spends most of his dialectic trying to refute his opponenet via reductio ad absurdum. Shankara in his dialectics typically will explain how the opponents views don't accord with basic phenomenology or that they're logically inconsistent.
>His Brahman was very much like the sunya of Nagarjuna
No it's not, Brahamn in his view is the absolute and infinite reality which is the basis and substratum of all existence, Nagarjuna completely denies that such a thing exists and the whole of his sunya is that Nirvana is empty of any sort of inherent essence and is not any sort of ultimate reality
>The debts of Shankara to the self-luminosity of the Vijnanavada Buddhism can hardly be overestimated.
This is absurd, Shankara has no reason to be indebted to Vijnanavada since the pre-Buddhist Brihadaranyaka Upanishad describes Brahman as self-luminous in line (4.3.6.) - "When the sun has set, Yajnavalkya and the moon has set and the fire has gone out and speech has stopped, what serves as light for a man?" "The self, indeed, is his light, for with the self as light he sits, goes out, works and returns."
>There seems to be much truth in the accusations against Shankara by Vijnana Bhiksu and others that he was a hidden Buddhist himself.
No there really isn't, the stuff they accuse him that for is found in most of the Upanishads. Vijnanabikshu accused Shankara of being influenced by Dharmakirit which is ridiculous and completely discredits Vijnanabikshu as a retard as Shankara heavily criticizes Dharmakirti and spends a lot of time explaining how his owns views are totally different from Dharmakirti. Shankara is an ontological idealist and an epistemic realist whereas Dharmakirti is the complete opposite.

[Anonymous No.14187328]

>>14184730
That's not true, he completely destroys Nagarjuna's argument. Nagarjuna presumes to show that all views other than Madhyamika result in reductio ad absurdem paradoxes that render them false. In doing this Nagarjuna presents strawmen arguments to represent his opponents that his opponents wouldn't accept as representing their side of the argument. When the truth emerges that Nagarjuna was just debating strawmen opponents, than Madhyamika no longer has any pretensions to claim that it refuted all other views, and hence there is no longer any reason to take the metaphysics and claims of Nagarjuna seriously anymore. Logic is logic, if Nagarjuna's advances shitty logic in his arguments than it's shitty logic regardless of whether someone is commenting on this from the view western or eastern philosophy.

[Anonymous No.14187491]

>>14187219
>Nagarjuna completely denies that such a thing exists and the whole of his sunya is that Nirvana is empty of any sort of inherent essence and is not any sort of ultimate reality
think of the “unreality” of sunya as applying to what you would call the “manifold objects of maya”
“Nirvana” is called sunya because it’s just a conventional designation and the truth it points to is beyond any designations.
Nagarjuna doesn’t deny that the truth “Nirvana” points to is the ultimate truth, though. He just doesn’t assign it essence, because the kind of essence denied in sunyata is comparable to that of the perceived reality of multiplicity when there is ignorance. Nagarjuna says that svabhava is inherently a conventional idea, limited to the logical conditioned mind, and cannot apply to the ultimate

[Anonymous No.14187528]

>>14187328
>strawmen arguments to represent his opponents that his opponents wouldn't accept as representing their side of the argument. When the truth emerges that Nagarjuna was just debating strawmen opponents
Except for some other Buddhist atomists, Nagarjuna was not trying to debate anyone, but was pointing out innate misconceptions of the samsaric mind, pointing out the absurdity of basic assumptions worldlings have about reality.

[Anonymous No.14187604]

>>14187219
>dishonest neovedanta talking points in response to an actual scholar

typical hindu nationalist as always. do you feel good typing long posts convincing nobody, again and again and again, when basically everybody sees you as a blavatskyite? you've convinced nobody, ever. not once.

[Anonymous No.14188002]

>>14183146
The Awareness in question is only truly and completely realized in Moksha, during which the knower becomes this Awareness, or rather the illusion that the knower wasn't It all along vanishes. The answer to your question is that those descriptions and attributes only refer to something from one side of the looking glass, through the limiting adjunct of the mind, during moksha the Atma is directly experienced as It is in Itself, and hence there is no longer any question of 'locating it' and so on.
>>14182519
Advaita is not really monism, as monism can just refer to an abstract oneness but doesn't necessarily eliminate multiplicity, differentiation, duality etc. Advaita means One alone without a second.
>>14187491
I've told other people on /lit/ what you just said before and been told in response that I was reading a crypto-vedantist/absolutist view into Nagarjuna that he didn't actually agree with. No matter which interpretation of him I try to describe him with, someone who holds the other one replies and says that it's the other one, it's a little annoying but also amusing. I'm not sure why there seems to be so many competing interpretations of him among Buddhists, just about every Tibetian school says he actually agrees with them and not the others.
>>14187528
So does the meme repeated by a subset of Buddhists that he intended to and successfully did refute all non-Madhyamaka views become invented by later Buddhists and wasn't claimed by him, even implicitly? Even in this thread we are only talking about him because a presumably Buddhist poster went into a Parmenides thread and claimed Nagarjuna refuted him
>>14187604
I wrote a detailed answer fully explaining my reasoning and cited specific texts and the views of various thinkers in support of my argument and the best you could do was to make an appeal to authority and accuse me of being a neovedantist and a blavatskyite. For someone who is as obsessed with me as you are, the least you could do is try to make higher-quality posts.

[Anonymous No.14188058]

>>14188002
>I've told other people on /lit/ what you just said before and been told in response that I was reading a crypto-vedantist/absolutist view into Nagarjuna
the distinction I think is that Nirvana isn’t considered the cause for existence, and doesn’t have the same implications of infinite potential or anything like that

[Anonymous No.14188095]

>>14177852
good
expand that thought
where do you see this text?

[Anonymous No.14188115]

>>14177852
No, I'm not sure how to notice that.

[Anonymous No.14188262]

>>14177852

[Anonymous No.14188275]

>>14188058
Have you ever considered the notion that samsara may in some way (even if it defies all rational comprehension), emerge from Nirvana, is an appearence of Nirvana, is a byproduct of Nirvana or is a consequence that follows from the truth of Nirvana and that this the only possible explanation for how the universe/samara could appear to us, that is as somehow indirectly derived from or based on Nirvana, and that Buddha and/or Nagarjuna knew and understood this but refused to state as much because they thought it would create too many misconceptions in the mind of spirital aspirants, monks and other people seeking liberation? The refusal to accept any cause of or reason for samsara (which in practice makes it independently existing) has the odor of dualism.

[Anonymous No.14188416]

>>14187219
>n-no Mr. SN Dasgupta, you are wrong! I, a schizophrenic shitposter know more than you, you stupid benchod.

[Anonymous No.14188428]

>>14188275
>The refusal to accept any cause of or reason for samsara (which in practice makes it independently existing) has the odor of dualism
As I understand it, the very notions of causes, effects, substance, essence...etc are all limited to the realm of conceptual thought and therefore merely relative, only taken as essentially real or pertaining to reality beyond the relative due to avidya, and cannot possibly have any real relevance to the Ultimate. It is within the same limitations as questions like "did something come from nothing? Can something become nothing?" useless because ideas of "nothing" and "something" and x coming from y can only apply to that which is conceptual, relative. Even the Buddha's teachings were famously said to be a "raft," useful only as a method leading to the Ultimate, and not as some thorough logical description of metaphysical truth which you hold onto even after realization.
I cannot see any notions of causality as anything but perhaps skillful means leading to the ineffable, where any logic and concepts at all are transcended.
To say that causality, substance...etc can be ultimately true is (to me) essentially saying "the relative is ultimately true." "My concepts and rational thinking about causality and the origins of existence are ultimately true, and this logic and these concepts are somehow also transcendental to logic and concepts."
If it is the case that: the ineffability of the Ultimate is taken as the highest truth in all of the esoteric aspects of the theistic religions, that conceptual thinking is truly just relative and incapable of ever being ultimately true, and that all this talk of "first cause" and the "creative principle" in relation to the Ultimate is solely to appease the fetish that humans tend to have for these concepts and perceptions of "creation," causality, God...etc, then I can entertain the possibility that they are all pointing to the same thing as "Nirvana." But if these ideas of cause, creation, substance...etc are really taken as ultimately true/relevant and not known as relative even after full liberation, I cannot seriously consider that it is the same as Nirvana.

[Anonymous No.14188451]

all of this scholarly debate over doctrine without a hint of practical advice is hilarious

[Anonymous No.14188474]

>>14188451
I don't think this thread was intended for practical spiritual advice nor was it pretending to be that at any point

[Anonymous No.14189110]

>>14188428
>and cannot possibly have any real relevance to the Ultimate.
In themselves as signifiers sure, but it remains true that you recognize a difference between the Ultimate and the mundane, even if such difference is unreal and exists because of avidya etc; and that the inability to explain why there is a mundane at all if there is an Ultimate raises concerns, suggesting that at the very least it may be an incomplete understanding even if some parts of it are correct. It if teaches the way to the Ultimate without having an explanation for why samsara exists that doesn't mean that it is therefore impossible to also reach the Ultimate through other doctrines that teach that the mundane is dependent on the Ultimate in some way.
>To say that causality, substance...etc can be ultimately true is (to me) essentially saying "the relative is ultimately true." "My concepts and rational thinking about causality and the origins of existence are ultimately true, and this logic and these concepts are somehow also transcendental to logic and concepts."
There are multiple ways to link the mundane as being dependent upon or otherwise owing its apparent existence to the Ultimate, but which doesn't make causality, creation etc ultimately real . In Advaita Vedanta the effect viz. the universe of name and form is only an appearence of the underlying basis of the Ultimate, it's not a real creation or effect and it's not a real substance. Almost identical notions are expressed in the works of certain Sufi and Ismaili metaphysicians and poets.

The number of options is not limited to the two mutually exclusives of (A) samsara/universe being a real caused creation of the Ultimate and (B) there being no relation whatsoever between them, samsara "existing" independently and not dependent on the Ultimate in any way etc. Have you considered that to believe that those are the only two possible options is to make the exact mistake that you describe where someone assumes that the nature of the Ultimate conforms to their logic? If the Ultimate was the truth and was transcendental to thought, there is no reason why it wouldn't be able to inscrutably give rise to the dependent, in such a way that there was no real causation or creation but which still nonetheless still had the mundane dependent on the truth of the Ultimate in some enigmatic way for it's apparent existence.

[Anonymous No.14189278]

>>14189110
>If the Ultimate was the truth and was transcendental to thought, there is no reason why it wouldn't be able to inscrutably give rise to the dependent, in such a way that there was no real causation or creation but which still nonetheless still had the mundane dependent on the truth of the Ultimate in some enigmatic way for it's apparent existence
I’m not outright denying the possibility of such a conclusion being true, and I’m certainly not arguing that the two possibilities you listed are the only two logical possibilities regarding any causal relationship between the ultimate and samsara: what I am saying is that any sort of stance on this topic whatsoever can only ever be a total shot in the dark. It is inherently tied to logic, to thoughts. This includes my assertion that it would be a shot in the dark in the first place, I’d call that a shot in the dark too. And so on
>>14189110
>It if teaches the way to the Ultimate without having an explanation for why samsara exists that doesn't mean that it is therefore impossible to also reach the Ultimate through other doctrines that teach that the mundane is dependent on the Ultimate in some way.
I would be much more open to this possibility of these other doctrines were clear about the mundane nature of this theory of dependency. If you’re still convinced in the ultimate truth of concepts, that tells me you haven’t realized the ultimate (not saying that Advaita does this, just talking about any religion that might do this).

[Anonymous No.14190449]

>>14177852
The change and the experience of the now is just a creation of the brain. You can't say that the outside world exists the same without a leap of faith. Even then by saying that all change is in the now all your saying that all change is what is being changed currently. Change is chance, the now is change, the continuum is change. There is only the change and the space which differentiates the changing things. Space may also be a thing that's changing, who knows.

[Anonymous No.14190460]

>>14177852
The "now" is synthetic

[Anonymous No.14190475]

>>14178508
retard stop posting lurk more read theory

[Anonymous No.14190507]

>>14177852
Why yes I have friend

[Anonymous No.14190639]

>>14188095
on my computer screen