Shashank Dixit:
Really Claudiu , this could be the thing that was missing..Once again I recommend reading that page word by word
Okay, I read it word for word, and I still think your interpretation is invalid, although I can see why you might interpret it that way. I will really ask you to read my reply word for word as well. I'm willing to go through this point-by-point with you as it is really important. Please consider what I wrote before replying with the first two or three things that come to you immediately after having read it. I'll summarize my understanding, then I'll address your latest two replies directly.
*
First of all, whenever he refers to objects' "actual mode of existence" or "objects in their nature", etc., he's referring to the fact that they don't inherently exist, rather, that they only exist by being labelled by the mind. That is, an objects' "actual mode of existence" is that it is only labelled by the mind. When he refers to objects being empty, he is referring to this same concept. I will put his use of the word "actual" in quotes as it has the opposite meaning as the way that word is used in actualism. Here is a quote demonstrating this:
Now meditate on emptiness, the actual nature of all phenomena. Think how your I, actions, objects, and in fact all phenomena — everything that is called "such and such" and "this and that" — are just names. Names have to come from the mind; they don't exist from their own side. Names are labels applied by the mind. However, it is not just that phenomena are labelled by the mind — they are merely labelled by the mind. In other words, all phenomena — I, action, object, everything — are merely labelled by the mind, in relation to their base.
Here he is saying that 'emptiness' is the "actual" nature of all phenomena. And what is that? He says that everything that is experiences is just a name, and that names only come from the mind, not from the object itself. Not only that, but this is the *only* existence objects have. Thus all phenomena are *merely* labelled by the mind, not inherently existing in-and-of-themselves.
What does he mean by "in relation to their base"? Here he has to do some hand-waving to explain away some of the obvious mistakes of this view of the world. He says:
For things to exist, mere labelling by mind is not enough. There has to be a valid base. Not just any base — a valid base.
What does he mean by "valid base"? This is the closest he comes to admitting that there are inherently existing objects in the universe. He says for an object to "actually" exist (that is, for it to exist *merely as a label in the mind* but for that label to not be a delusion), then the base has to have certain properties (e.g. for a thing labelled a "bell" by the mind to exist merely as a label in the mind and for it not to be a delusion, then the thing has to have a certain shape and it has to ring when you hit it). Further, other people and other enlightened people should also experience an object being labeled as a bell in their minds, otherwise if it's only in your mind but not in theirs then you are deluded. (In fact the experience of an enlightened person is one of the ultimate arbiters on whether an object has a valid base... which makes me wonder at the suttas that describe the Buddha talking to devas and such.) Further, the valid base has to not be invalidated by the "wisdom realizing emptiness", which he doesn't go into detail to explain so I won't mention that again.
I'll do a brief interlude into actualism here to compare the differences. With actualism, we start with the experience (a PCE) that there is an inherently-existing world - that an objects existence is *not* only in the minds of humans perceiving the objects, but that they exist in-and-of themselves. Now, most of the time, people cannot perceive these actual objects, because all sensory input is being filtered through their affective faculties, first. Thus there is no experience of the direct perception of objects that are inherently existing because normal people are once-removed from these objects. So, what Zopa is saying is true, up to this point - when we perceive an object with the affective faculty present, we don't perceive the object itself, but rather a distorted version of the object, and it is indeed incorrect to say that that (affectively distorted) object inherently exists, as we're not perceiving the inherently existing object. This is most obvious with feelings but all the senses are hindered as well.
However, here is where the two camps completely diverge. With actualism, one realizes - via one's own experience - that it is possible for the affective faculty to totally disappear! At first this is temporary, as in a PCE, but the end goal is its permanent disappearance, called actual freedom. The nub of it is that, far from people never being able to perceive an object itself - existence of the object coming from the side of the object itself, in Zopa's terms - when the affective faculty is gone, that is exactly what is experienced - the inherently-existing objects themselves! That is, you have the direct experience that objects actual natures are not that they only exist in your mind, not that they just exist as 'names', but that there is a physical universe that exists regardless of your perception of it and that there are objects in it that exist regardless of your perception of them.
This is the total opposite of what Zopa continues to say, namely that the "actual" existence of objects is that they *only* exist in your mind ("they are merely labelled by the mind"). He even states that it is a hallucination to say that objects exist outside of your mind, in-and-of themselves!
Second, the negative imprints left by previous concepts of inherent existence project the appearance of inherent existence that the object we're looking at now exists from its own side, that there's a real bell there — not a bell from our mind, but a bell from the side of the bell. This is a totally, totally wrong idea — a complete hallucination projected onto the bell.
That is, he's unequivocally stating that what I wrote in the above paragraph is a total hallucination that has no basis in facts.
He's not saying what is the case with actualism, that with regular experience you don't experience the bell itself but with the end goal (actual freedom) you do experience the bell itself. Rather, he's saying that with regular experience you believe yourself to be experiencing the bell, yet this is a delusion - you actually aren't, and with the end goal (enlightenment) you realize that you truly aren't.
In actualist terms, regular experience is an *illusion*, and it paves the way to the enlightened experience which is a *delusion*. This is because objects do inherently exist. With regular experience you don't perceive that directly, hence the *illusion*, yet with enlightenment you fully embrace the belief that objects don't inherently exist - hence it's a *delusion* borne of the initial *illusion*. It's the opposite direction! The enlightened experience is further removed from the fact that objects inherently exist than the regular experience is, as Zopa has so clearly demonstrated for us.
See the difference, yet?
*
That'll do for a summary, now let me address your replies directly with reference to the above.
Shashank Dixit:
He clearly acknowledges that sense input are coming from that "valid base" as he calls it :-
What's a valid mind? A mind that perceives things correctly, that is not under the influence of disease, drugs, mantras or hypnotic spells, which might cause it to see sense objects in an illusory way.
He does mention a valid base, as I said above, but that's only to draw the distinction between things you experience in your own mind that others experience in theirs vs. things you experience in your own mind that others don't. He doesn't consider a valid base as being an inherently existing thing in-and-of itself. Further, after talking about the valid base, he stresses that it is a hallucination to consider, when you see anything, that it exists anywhere outside of the names created by your own mind.
.
Shashank Dixit:
He is saying that there is an actual mode of existence of the bell :-
When you concentrate on this, you can see how its existence comes only from your mind. But the way the bell appears to us, the way we believe it exists, is slightly beyond its reality, slightly more than its actual mode of existence,
If you finish the quote:
But the way the bell appears to us, the way we believe it exists, is slightly beyond its reality, slightly more than its actual mode of existence, which is being merely labelled by the mind.
That is, when he says "actual mode of existence" he is referring to the fact that the bell only exists as being labelled by the mind.
.
Shashank Dixit:
He is talking about the hallucination imposed upon the actual world when he says that there is no bell... the bell that he says as not existing is that part which the mind takes as coming from the side of the actual bell.
Yet that is precisely what is needed to become actually free - to tap into that capacity of your brain to perceive inherently-existing objects, that is, existence "coming from the side of the actual bell"... in actualist terminology, apperception. In Zopa's world-view, that quality of apperception is hallucination, delusion, ignorance, and the cause of all suffering. Again, the end goal that he is describing (Enlightenment) is such that you fully realize you *aren't* experiencing a bell from the side of the bell - that it's all in your mind.
.
Shashank Dixit:
Here is more that proves that he is not denying the existance of sense objects but merely the way they appear :-
But as long as we don't develop the wisdom realizing emptiness, we'll never see sense objects in their nature, the way they exist. Instead, we cloak these merely labelled sense objects in the hallucination of existence from their own side and hang to that as true, allow our mind to believe in our own hallucination
Again, he is saying that "the way exist" is "being merely labelled by the mind". "Existence from [the objects] own side" is a "hallucination" - yet that is precisely what the experience of the actual world is like - existence from the objects own sides.
*
Again, please consider what I wrote above for a while before replying.
Regards,
- Claudiu