Why even talk about this "crazy" teaching that couldn't possibly be (conventionally) true? Of course, "I" exist and "you," too! Just look at us! But, of course, what we see and think we see, that is not a real "self" -- not anything we produce, control, direct, own, or command. It's happening of its own; in an ultimate sense, it is impersonal -- even though it feels utterly personal. Because what am I if not this body, these feelings, these perceptions, these mental formations like will (motives, impulses, intentions), and this consciousness (which many sophisticated persons, particularly ancient Brahmins and modern Hindus, to say nothing of Christians, Muslims, Jains, and others) cling to that "thing" which we must really be when we figure out we are not this body or the other attendant mental phenomena. At least, at the core, I must be THE ONE WHO IS AWARE, the watcher, the knower, the decider, the doer. But this wrong view falls apart under careful, mindful, systematic attention with a cleansed and purified mind/heart. Otherwise, all that will be seen are the usual distortions and perversions of view. This Doctrine invites no one to blindly believe or parrot a Teaching, but to "come and see, investigate it."
How can contradictory truths (such as conventional vs. ultimate) both be true? - They can't. Only the ultimate one is ultimately true. Be we don't live in ultimate truth. We live mired by conventions of language and assumptions about reality that are all wrong. For example, there is a very easy comparison to be maid thanks to the widespread teachings of physics. Question: Is this desk right here mostly dense or mostly empty space?
Answer: Well, mostly dense, of course. That's why it serves as a desk.
Okay, now go ask your physics professor the same question and listen to her tell you all about atoms and particles, sub-particles, quarks, muons, and whatnots, finer and more subtle components of matter.
What can she say? I'll just beat my hand down on her desk during office hours to prove to that Egghead that, of course, a desk is solid!
Yes, sure, see where that gets you. Once we understand that an "atom" (an indivisible, uncuttable, irreducible unit of mass) contains more empty space than anything tangible, we'll suddenly see what she's talking about and what science teachers in schools and professors in universities teach.
So what, then what?
Then it will both be true that this desk seems dense and solid -- because our hand can't go through it like it can the empty air -- and yet is not actually true at all. It seems true. It is conventionally true (insofar as it is useful to speak this way to one another to distinguish things like air and desks), but it is not ultimately true. Only what is ultimately true was ever actually true -- even as we walk about like ignorant monkeys never giving it a second though. Desk solid, air empty. Solid things are only relatively solid to less dense things, and hands don't go through because of gravity and energy, not because a bunch of density is resisting. And air is not empty, having a bunch of gases and other molecules floating through it. But it's easier to talk this way in common parlance to understand each other and get things done. As science advances, more will know what it really is like, even if they do not particularly appreciate the distinction.
COMMENTARY
Wisdom Quarterly
Buddha, why are you always smiling? Freedom?
One could say that it is not "who" is aware, but WHAT is aware? Asked this way, it can be answered. The Five Aggregates (form; feelings, perceptions, formations, consciousnesses) clung to as self (which are all dependently originated) phenomena. Form forms, feelings feel, perceptions perceive, formations form, and [the six kinds of] consciousness are conscious. Each PROCESS is arising, performing a function, and passing away very quickly, billions and trillions of nearly identical but not actually identical "thought-moments" (cittas) after another. Note the semicolon after form. Why is it there? Form means "material form" (fine-material or rupa in superior planes of existence and tangible or kama in this sensual human world), the body, which is not singular but also fourfold, composed of the mahabhuta or dhatus (Four Great Elements, which are not things like "atoms" but rather kalapas, dense fine-material particles, characteristics of materiality not materiality itself). These eight (condensed to five) aggregates are not to be taken on faith or for the sake of philosophy. Through the path of purification, the heart/mind can be temporarily purified, intensified, and trained to directly perceive these eight streams or phenomena. And in seeing them -- seeing them for what they really are -- the mind/heart lets go. One awakens to freedom from all attachment, aversion, and delusion about them. Thus, in no longer clinging to wrong views about them, one lets go and abandons them, glimpses nirvana, and is free. One enters the first stage of enlightenment or stream-entry. The Buddha does not talk about "no-self" lightly nor before one is ready to hear and begin to understand it. But he cannot let it go unmentioned and untaught because it is the basis, the crucial determinant, of awakening. In other non-Buddhist teachings, at the time of the Buddha as now, this teaching does not exist. Therefore, the Buddha said there neither arise beings of the first stage, second, third, or fourth stage of enlightenment, nor are there to be seen individuals on the path to those realizations. Only when a supremely awakened buddha arises in the world does this teaching get taught and the way of realizing it for oneself. For unless one comes to know-and-see it directly, there is no liberation.
LYRICS, DANGEROUS GIRL: He's my drugstore cowboy/ Italian alloy, classical American/ And I'm America's sweetheart/ Chic, delicious, sweet tart/ Sipping on my Diet Coke/ Singin' in the trailer park// He like my jeans tight (Yeah)/ He likes me mean, right? (Right)/ He like my long hair, corset, heels high/ We were born to kill, stripped for success/ I'm his sweet mess/ Do you love me?/ Yes, yes/ Hell yes!// Baby, I'm a four-alarm fire/ And I'm what you desire/ Like a siren in the night (Going Nero, Nero)/ Baby, you's a man on a wire/ Risking all that you got/ For the love of your life/ (You're my hero, hero)// CHORUS: Let me be your dangerous girl (4x)// He's the get-rich-quick type/ Mafioso-hit type/ Girl, I'm gonna marry him/ I'm the bad girl next door/ Baby's always wantin' more/ Buyin' diamond jewelry/ Take me to the Jersey Shore// He like my mink white (White)/ We go out all night (Night)/ We're living off the grid/ Shinin' in the crime light/ We were born to kill, best of the best/ The new Wild West/ Honey, put on that party dress/ Hell yes!// Me and my baby plannin' world domination/ Together, takin' over our fair nation/ 'Cause we're born to kill, keepin' it fresh/ Gold chain, white mesh/ Fame is the name of the game/ Yes, yes (Yes, yes, yes, yes) (Genius Lyrics)
"Music to Watch Boys To"
Am I pretty or am I actually suffering from body dysmorphia after being fat?
LYRICS, MUSIC TO WATCH BOYS TO: CHORUS: (I like you a lot)/ Putting on my music while I'm watching the boys/ (So I do what you want)/ Singing some rhymes just to suffer the noise/ (Where ribbons are knots)/ Play 'em like guitars only one of my toys/ ('Cause I like you a lot)/ No holes barred, I was sent to destroy, yeah// Pink flamingoes always fascinated me/ I know what only the girls know/ Hoes with lies akin to me/ Ah, I see you're going/ So I play my music, watch you leave// CHORUS// Velveteen and living single it never felt that right to me/ I know what only the girls to know/ Lies can buy eternity/ I, I see you leaving/ So I push record and watch you leave// CHORUS// I live to love you/ And I love to love you/ And I live to love you, boy/ I live to love you/ And I love to love you/ And I live to love you, boy// Nothing gold can stay/ Like love or lemonade/ Or sun or summer days/ It's all a game to me anyway// CHORUS// Putting on my music while I'm watching the boys/ Putting on my music while I'm watching the boys (Genius)
So what you're saying is that you're a Dangerous Girl?
Pretty much, because I actually believe it. I believe we can find satisfaction and ultimate fulfillment in romantic love relationships. But you know what? It's never worked! Never.
So you mean the Buddha was right?
Why, what did he say?
He said that all existence bears "Three Marks" or characteristics: All things are impermanent, unsatisfactory (disappointing), and impersonal.
Well, I don't about impersonal, but disappointing for sure. I take it very personally. But come to think of it, they are all impermanent, too, like not even lasting till death do us part.
LYRICS, HIGH BY THE BEACH: High, high/ High, high// Boy, look at you lookin' at me/ I know you know how I feel/ Lovin' you is hard, bein' here's harder/ You take the wheel/ I don't wanna do this anymore/ It's so surreal/ I can't survive/ If this is all that's real// CHORUS: All I wanna do is get high by the beach/ Get high by the beach, get high/ All I wanna do is get by by the beach/ Get by, baby, baby, bye-bye/ The truth is I never bought into your BS/ When you would pay tribute to me 'cause I know that/ All I wanted to do was get high by the beach/ Get high, baby, baby, bye-bye// Boy, look at you lookin' at me/ I know you don't understand/ You could be a bad motherfather/ But that don't make you a man/ Now you're just another one of my problems/ Because you got out of hand/ We won't survive/ We're sinkin' into the sand// CHORUS// Lights, camera, acción/ I'll do it on my own/ Don't need your money, money/ To get me what I want/ Lights, camera, acción/I'll do it on my own/ Don't need your money, money/ To get me what I want// CHORUS// High/ High/ High/ High// Anyone can start again/ Not through love, but through revenge/ Through the fire, we're born again/ Peace by vengeance brings the end
She's our summertime girl!
What about Taylor Swift, Lana?
As kids my sister and I appeared in an Abercrombie & Fitch ad w/ Lindsay Lohan
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