Searcher08 wrote:The Tibetan Buddhists have an interesting ideas that challenge the above
http://www.dharmafellowship.org/library ... -part3.htmVasubandhu resorts to an analogy. He says, let us consider a situation in which a magician, using certain spells (mantras) or tricks, was to cause, before a crowd of spectators, a log of wood to appear as an elephant. The fact that no elephant is there, but nevertheless is seen to be there by the audience, may be defined as the elephant's parikalpita-nature. In that sense the spectators imagine or project something that factually is not present.
The elephant is no more than a magician's illusion and yet the elephant is indeed seen. The hallucination (akrti), the illusion that is seen, of the elephant by the crowd may be defined as the situation's paratantra-nature. This means that the appearance of the illusion itself must be contingent on something else.
Finally, if we consider what the elephant really is in its self (i.e., a suggested image that isn't really there) then it's actual non-existence is its ultimately true or actual (parinishpanna) nature.
Vasubandhu then explains his analogy as follows: the All-ground Consciousness (alaya-vijnana) is the magic spell, with which cosmic ideation (visva-vikalpa), the Magician, magically produces the illusion of a Universe, and in which duality (dvaya) of subject and object becomes the result. The elephant is the Universe that appears to us as real. The original log of wood which has been misapprehended as the illusory elephant is the Tathata, the Absolute, that ever remains unchanged and pure from the beginning.
verrrrrry interesting.
See? There are cultures in which it is okay to explore these topics. I love it~!The question (which I am certain is probably explored in the philosophy, above) is whether or not the log or the elephant is the more 'real' ... which is 'reality?'
I'm really into the whole notion of truth, in case you can't tell. A couple of years ago it really dawned on me that while there certainly must be a true truth (a real, hard, factual, unalterable truth) that mostly in this life we are dealing more with accepted realities than truths themselves. I can really go off on that one.
For example..
If one begins the creative/organizational process not on a foundation of Real Truth but on one of Accepted Reality one can create entire systems around something that was never true in the first place. Does this mean that that system is moving further from Real Truth, or not? IOW, are the Accepted Realities bound to come head to head with Real Truth at some point? If so, how do we recognize it?
If one creates a system of Accepted Realities that are hinged to the original Accepted Reality what amount of force does it take - what amount of 'proof' does it take - to re-route the entire system? What type of resistance might one expect? Is it possible that it is better not to introduce the Real Truth at all but instead to gently introduce new branches off of the old Accepted Reality?
