The Two Truths Doctrine

Discussion in 'Buddhism' started by Meagain, Jul 25, 2006.

  1. ShadeKensis

    ShadeKensis Member

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    What about Illusionary Truth??
     
  2. Plant_Head

    Plant_Head Banned

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    That would be the first one the OP mentioned. And....what about it?

    Also, tryna ta fegore oot ta ? of this ?.

    The components of the question are all components of the first truth...or the relative self. So why would an answer even exist in such emptiness, and it doesn't. Perhaps an LSD experience would feel it out for you. Or perhaps you should just shut the HELL up and feel a breeze, silly goose, because that's all your self can get off it.

    I will always prefer Zen buddhism, because the wholeness of the emptiness can only be experienced in full, in non experience, and thus enlightenment really can only be a flash, or a little point on the edge of your personal consciousness.
     
  3. Plant_Head

    Plant_Head Banned

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    It is manifested in the relative world, unfiltered, indescribable, yet not separate, your life's dharma to wake up one with it.

    .
    ...
    .....
    ...
    .


    ugh...long
     
  4. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    Illusionary truth was mentioned as a third type of truth in some Buddhist schools of thought.



    "In Buddhism there is another school of thought that defines three truths.
    In the relative realm of truth there can be real truth and illusionary truth. If you see a snake in the middle of the road you will react to the snake by being startled, jumping aside, etc. The snake is indeed real for you and has caused real reactions. However, your friend walking beside you sees the snake as a piece of rope and has no reaction to it.
    Now, in one case the object is an illusionary truth and the other it is a real truth.
    In neither case has Ultimate truth been "revealed"."


    Now, I'm sorry, but I forget where I read about this idea; but the debate as to two truths (Relative and Ultimate) verses three truths (Relative, Illusionary, and Ultimate), I believe arises because some would argue that all relative truth is illusionary, and some would argue that there is relative truth and illusionary truth. On the one hand the illusionary snake, although seen as real, can not bite and cause injury, it is only a rope. It is the rope that is relatively real. On the other hand as our senses will always distort the true nature of all phenomena, the "real" rope can never be know in it's true "original nature", and all is illusion.
    So all relative truth is in actuality, illusionary truth, (but referred to as relative truth which is not ultimate so illusionary).
     
  5. Kamran

    Kamran Member

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    Nothing can be understood so fully that you can label something as a true definition.

    If I say, for example, "This apple is red"

    What is red? You say red is red because that's what you were told it was. If I raised a child to think the colour (as we know it) red to be blue, are they right or wrong?

    If you understand shit, it just ain't shit.
     
  6. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    So wow, I've clicked on this thread like six times and was unable to settle in.

    So i bring the question Meagain,

    How the system be true if one part of it is not?

    patiently understanding that you may have other engagements on an indefinite basis
     
  7. guerillabedlam

    guerillabedlam _|=|-|=|_

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    No support or opposition necessarily but these ideas are not foreign to Western thought. On top of the Socratic dialogue you mentioned, Plato's theory of forms approximates these ideas. Plato asserted where the natural forms are the ones we can sense, they are approximations or shadows of ideal forms which exist in the way they really are.

    I think Arthur Schopenhauer even made assertions even closer to what you describe, in his ideas of the phenomological world and the Noumenon. I believe he may have been influenced by Eastern thought.
     
  8. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    Okay I'm not going to dissect here but start from scratch for comparison.
    First truth is not defined.
    Reality can be defined
    Reality is real, that which exists without qualification, not this not that..
    What is not real does not exist.
    We are real as we exist,
    therefor
    The only limitation on our subjective experience's approach to knowledge is the temptation to qualify.As opposed to strictly identify.

    In other words become familiar.
    Don't doubt that you are real
    the reason we are fucking up the planet is because we think we really aren't powerful enough to do it. Not knowing our power for distinction or purposeful action we debate things and vote on it.
    Know thyself.
     
  9. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    I was not aware of Arthur Schopenhauer's views.

    Sounds pretty good. The Noumena might correspond to Ultimate Truth and the Phe nomena Relative Truth.
     
  10. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    Ultimate Truth is not defined, Relative is.

    Ultimate Truth is an expression of Ultimate Reality, that is Reality before it is experienced by an experiencer.
    It is our senses that determine reality. If we can sense it, either directly or through our instruments of science, normal everyday reality is established.

    That would be Relative Reality or Truth.
     
  11. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    The problem with this is the truth. Truth relative, and ultimate truth an expression of ultimate reality when reality isn't defined. Because reality isn't defined there is a question about truth.
    You are operating on unrecognized assumptions.
    What would be relative reality or truth?..which is it relative reality or truth?
    Reality is the same whether you recognize it or not.
    Relative reality is not a definition of reality.
    Start with one thing, a standard metric that we have different takes on.
    Reality is. No variation in the state of reality. A thing is either real or it does not exist.
    It seems you are trying to firmly account for the subjective experience by saying it is less than real or relatively real.
    What is reality, information. Every informational bit of reality is every bit informed.
    We are relatively informed. which does not mean less than informed. It means we are informed through relationship and are increasingly informed as we expand our relationships. Never in any part of this are we less than informed, or information less.
    What is it to be informed, in the know. What is knowledge, being shared. to be bit by bit informed is perception.
    Truth is relative in that it requires comparison and true terms are, same, different, or purposeful. You are the arbiter of truth if you arbitrate on true terms. If truth is a qualification then no one qualifies.

    So you see the only exception that is made in this reasoned output is that of qualification.

    There is no restriction of the subjective perception to apprehend firmly real things save for the temptation to qualify as oppose to quantify.

    Of course if we are in fact less than real then that gives you something to write about.
     
  12. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    Ultimate Reality can not be defined. That is why it is Ultimate.

    To define is to cognize from Ultimate Reality.
    Ultimate Reality is. That is all. There are no independent things that can be labeled as true as the dichotomy between true and false is transcended.
    There can be no truth without a corresponding falsehood, in the human realm of cognition. Once we label something true we are extracting it from the constant flux of Ultimate Reality in which everything is interconnected with everything else. There are no independent things or truths as all are Ultimately one and the same, changing from this to that and that to this.

    It is both.
    At the Ultimate level there is no arising or dissolution as there are no boundaries to be crossed. "Things" have no inherent existence. They can not exist on their own but are everything else.

    A gun can not exist without everything else that allows it to be. It is only a part of the Ultimate Reality that encompasses everything. It needs all of its component parts, which need all of their elements, molecules, atoms, and quarks. Which need all of their causes and effects.
    It needs the science, technology, and craftsmen to assemble it. It needs the concept and understanding of its operation. It needs people who also need all of their elements, molecules, atoms, and quarks...and so on.
    You can not have a gun in isolation, it does not exist by itself independently.
    At the Ultimate level there is no independent gun. You will not find a gun laying around, as a separate thing if you enter the state of Ultimate Reality. In fact, you won't even find yourself. There will be no independent self to find an independent gun.

    At the Ultimate Level of Reality there is no gun.

    However, in the Ordinary state of human existence there certainly is.
    And it can kill you. It has Reality at the Ordinary level.

    And so, the two natures of Truth states that the gun, or all things, while they are certainly Real; they are also rely on Relatively at an Ultimate level.
     
    1 person likes this.
  13. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    I am not attempting to define ultimate reality, you are and that is a useless term when dealing with the term reality. I do not say anything about the character of reality only that there are some things that exist and some interpretations are without substantial relative comparisons. To say relatively real neither defines relative or real. it makes both terms less than meaningful. There is reality which we can describe in relative terms. Terms always stand in relation being had in comparison.
     
  14. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    As far as there being no gun ultimately, gun is a transient form of all that exists.
    No means does not exist.
     
  15. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    For those of you who want to provide a refined description of anything you have to start with an imperturbable base, a backstop for further solid reasoning.

    This system proposed is a jumble of relative terms.
     
  16. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    ultimate is a definition which doesn't account for the approximate. There is no ultimate knowledge only knowing and being deceived as a process of becoming.
     
  17. Monkey Boy

    Monkey Boy Senior Member

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    Thoughts, objects and senses are part of ultimate reality thus they are included in it. The difference between ultimate and relative reality is how the mind interprets what is being experienced. If the mind is free flowing and doesn't rest and attach itself to any concept then ultimate reality can be experienced. If the mind stops on a certain concept then it will experience in relative terms again.
     
  18. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    There are not two realities. We are informed as relatives, father and son to one another
     
  19. thedope

    thedope glad attention Lifetime Supporter

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    Give up the idea that subjective experience is flawed. it only makes you doubt what is real.
    Learn about the subjective experience, don't discount your fundamental equipment for apprehension. Standard measurement is a base from which to extrapolate further substantial meaning.
    Now you know that you are real.
     
  20. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    If you do not wish me to speak, I can remain silent, otherwise I must use words.

    Ultimate Reality can not be defined. That is why it is Ultimate.

    The term Ultimate Reality is not Ultimate Reality, I never said it was, but there is an Ultimate Reality.

    Also however, there is a Relative Reality in the human plane as well as an Ultimate Reality beyond the human plane.
    If you want, you can deny the Ordinary Relative Reality of the world, but you still must eat to stay alive.
     

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