06-04-2010, 12:00 AM
Ohhh Why am I HERE lol? Not why am I posting here, lol?
I no longer ask myself this question. It is no longer a mystery. Buddhism speaks of Skandhas or the five aggregates. There are four formless aggregates, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness and the fifth aggregate is form or matter. These aggregates are empty of any substantial inherent existence of their own. They mutually condition one another. Once it is seen how they mutually condition so that a sense of a subjective self emerges surrounded by external objects one knows why one is here and appears to exist independently. The subjective self is merely the product of this conditioning nothing more. The last thing we want to do is develop this sense of a subjective self in relation to a phenomenally perceived external existence that would only serve to affirm both subjective self and external existence as independently real. This would only obscure awareness further and add to the accumulations of beginningless time. I can no longer seek a purpose for this illusory idea of self. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandha
However how to proceed in light of this? A good place to start is by understanding the extreme exaggerations and claims of metaphysicians in their attachments to such notions of being and non-being, Eternalism and nihilism etc.
Buddha offered a way to navigate this. He called it the Middle Way. It is unfortunate that today many have heard of this Middle Way and yet insist on interpreting it in terms of a middle way life style that avoids the extreme of an ascetic life and the indulgence of a worldly life referring as they do to when Buddha gave up his extreme ascetic practices. (What a relief for them lol)
Instead the Middle Way offers us a way to avoid the four assertions and the entanglements they lead to. The four assertions when applied to any THING state;
It is
It is not
It is neither
It is both
These assertions only lead a person into indefensible positions of fantasy and imagination.
http://www.tibetanclassics.org/pdfs/SixtyStanzas.pdf
I no longer ask myself this question. It is no longer a mystery. Buddhism speaks of Skandhas or the five aggregates. There are four formless aggregates, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness and the fifth aggregate is form or matter. These aggregates are empty of any substantial inherent existence of their own. They mutually condition one another. Once it is seen how they mutually condition so that a sense of a subjective self emerges surrounded by external objects one knows why one is here and appears to exist independently. The subjective self is merely the product of this conditioning nothing more. The last thing we want to do is develop this sense of a subjective self in relation to a phenomenally perceived external existence that would only serve to affirm both subjective self and external existence as independently real. This would only obscure awareness further and add to the accumulations of beginningless time. I can no longer seek a purpose for this illusory idea of self. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandha
However how to proceed in light of this? A good place to start is by understanding the extreme exaggerations and claims of metaphysicians in their attachments to such notions of being and non-being, Eternalism and nihilism etc.
Buddha offered a way to navigate this. He called it the Middle Way. It is unfortunate that today many have heard of this Middle Way and yet insist on interpreting it in terms of a middle way life style that avoids the extreme of an ascetic life and the indulgence of a worldly life referring as they do to when Buddha gave up his extreme ascetic practices. (What a relief for them lol)
Instead the Middle Way offers us a way to avoid the four assertions and the entanglements they lead to. The four assertions when applied to any THING state;
It is
It is not
It is neither
It is both
These assertions only lead a person into indefensible positions of fantasy and imagination.
http://www.tibetanclassics.org/pdfs/SixtyStanzas.pdf