Quote:
Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot  The tree isn't real.
If you can't accept the truth that it is 99.9999999% empty space and the rest of it is blinking in and out of existence .... you can instead look up the alternative Buddhist explanation of interdependent arising which leads to the conclusion of the illusory nature of reality. |
Listen to me now ALG, pleeeeeeease.....
I have accepted your proposition as stated above a million times already. As re-stated in a post to you a few days back, and again now - I fundamentally made this realisation around 30 years ago, and have been living with it in my memory banks and subsequent evaluations ever since, therefore I have long ago passed any need to question it. So please let's not again cover this ground, and let's move along honourably.
Now even though I'm not, never have been a Buddhist, I quite harmonise with some of their teachings, and on this basis, I'll now respond to ....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot From the Buddhist point of view, it's the misapprehension of the nature of reality that gives rise ultimately to all forms of suffering. For example, believing that the tree (or your Maserati, or your mother, or your house, or your youth) is real, is the only way you can experience grief, when the tree falls down, your mother dies, the house is foreclosed, you grow old etc. |
This again comes down to our two essential concomitant perceptions - Objective and Subjective.
So I accept, agree and embrace that we misapprehend reality, yet that reality regardless of our misapprehension and our definition according it, has it's own reality - again; no matter how you define this term as deployed or relate to it either way.
What I mean is - Even if it (the tree, your car, my leg, your favorite cucumber sandwich) is .... 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999% empty space; and this as such will be our mutually adopted definition to the term 'real' or it's 'reality', then let us shake hands, have a cold drink together and advance with this under reciprocal acceptance re. our terms of eternal friendship.