An interesting insight I just had into emptiness

B B, modified 11 Years ago at 8/11/13 9:22 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/11/13 9:22 AM

An interesting insight I just had into emptiness

Posts: 69 Join Date: 9/14/12 Recent Posts
Imagine that this reality is in fact a computer game. Imagine slitting your wrist and observing the blood flow from your veins. Is there anything inherent to the blood that is causing it to appear to flow/move? No, it is simply the code of the program, external to this "reality", that causes it to flow. These internal 'processes' that appear to result in pain or various chemicals being produced in the brain obey no internal laws of their own - not only are they physically unreal but their interactions with each other are unreal.

Similarly, is there anything inherent to this reality that causes one to appear to "see"? No, it is simply information reordered by outside processes that causes a sense of 'knowing' that some 'thing' is being seen, when in fact it is mere hallucination. The elementary particles/forces/etc. do not actually have any inherent function of their own.
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bernd the broter, modified 11 Years ago at 8/11/13 9:51 AM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/11/13 9:51 AM

RE: An interesting insight I just had into emptiness

Posts: 376 Join Date: 6/13/12 Recent Posts
I'm not convinced that equating an insight into emptiness with a new-found fascination for a variation of the age-old brain-in-a-vet idea is too helpful.

But if you are keen on playing with philosophy, I'll challenge you to clarify your use of the terms "reality", "unreal", "physically unreal", "inherent", "hallucination", "information", "sense". Be warned though - doing that long enough tends to lead to frustration and giving up this kind of questions emoticon
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Dream Walker, modified 11 Years ago at 8/11/13 1:36 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/11/13 1:36 PM

RE: An interesting insight I just had into emptiness

Posts: 1770 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
I would urge you to read "My Big Toe" by Thomas Campbell
He explores these ideas in detail and comes up with an amazing model of reality. It goes much further than Buddhist thought but also explains Buddhist thought. the trilogy is long though.
Good luck,
~D
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(D Z) Dhru Val, modified 11 Years ago at 8/11/13 1:38 PM
Created 11 Years ago at 8/11/13 1:38 PM

RE: An interesting insight I just had into emptiness

Posts: 346 Join Date: 9/18/11 Recent Posts
No, it is simply the code of the program, external to this "reality", that causes it to flow. These internal 'processes' that appear to result in pain or various chemicals being produced in the brain obey no internal laws of their own - not only are they physically unreal but their interactions with each other are unreal.


Per the madhyamaka reality is not real, nor unreal, nor neither real nor unreal, or both real and unreal etc.

Intellectually it is best understood in terms of dependent origination. But the process of dependent origination is also not something to be clung to as inherently true either.

That they are not inherently real means that they are dependent on many other things. And other things in turn are dependent on some other stuff else. And so on.

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