There's something paradoxical or even ironic about the concept of the conventional (saṃvṛti) being understood as a kind of "truth" (satya), since in some interpretations of the two truths the conventional is understood as false in contrast to the ultimate (paramārtha) which is alone true. Generally, according to these views, often associated with the Sakya …
Continue reading "Variations on the Two Truths: Distinct, Identical, or Coalescent"
Bodhi, (which is Sanskrit and Pāli for “awakening”) can be said to be the highest possible attainment for any being, but it cannot be said to be ultimate reality, which itself is categorically inexplicable. Paradoxically and figuratively speaking we can say that Bodhi is the mind who cognizes ultimate reality, and this cognition is a …
In contemporary Buddhist Studies (which refers to the mostly Western, semi-global academic study of Buddhism, and not the indigenous systems of actually existing Buddhadharma) the Madhyamaka is often rendered as a form of philosophical anti-foundationalism, which is opposed to totalizing, metaphysical forms of thought based on self-sufficient first principles or self-grounding foundations which pretend to, …
Consummate Buddhahood is like an alien intelligence from the future assembling itself entirely from the past and present afflictions of sentient beings, transforming this afflictive basis into remedial elements more conducive to the eventual and inexorable realization of this perfected body of wisdom and bliss. Cosmically speaking, humanity becomes known as being, and as having …
Continue reading "Buddhahood at the Terminus of a Thanatropic Humanity"
At absolute polar extremes of the radical left we have on the one hand, an anarchist primitivism which considers the erection of class society and the development of technical civilization as an unjustified contingency initially resulting in the death of freedom and the birth of domination, and on the other a communist prometheanism that considers …
The doctrine of the two truths is a principle tenet of the Madhyamaka path, serving not only to show the non-contradictory coherence of the Buddha's different teachings but also serving as a support for the practice of achieving liberating knowing. The doctrine distinguishes between the conventional truth of phenomena as interdependently originated and the ultimate …
True wealth is an expression of what “we do together” rather than what “I have myself.” For what “I have myself”, or what one has in possession, are inert things separated from the flow of life, susceptible to destruction by time or contingency, which is why this expression of wealth tends to be “stored” or …
On Identity: Generally today it is often felt that an affirmation of difference and plurality is preferable to an existence based on identity and universality, which is negatively evaluated as being characterized by excessive limitation. This is true, for definition by negation is the underlying basis of any sense of self-identity: what one is, is …
Continue reading "Similarity, or Beyond Identity and Difference"
______________________________________________ This Truth: Not not-one. Our Truth: The ancestrality of you and I, is a revelation of the eternity that is our living together. Forever dancing as we go, there's been fall at our wake yet with opportunity for blooming... For with sacred coordination, and through divine elevation, your moving never ceases to awe. A …
God does not exist. Nor has God ever existed, and nor will God ever fully come into existence. God is neither the efficient nor the final cause independent of the actual world. God can never be found and never will be found. God does not exist, but it can be said that God persists in action to …
Continue reading "Divine Persistence: Notes for a Post-Atheistic Conception of God"
