From “A Comprehensive Manual of the Abhidhamma”
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Word games. Dhammas exist mind independently, arahants sense them directly. This is direct realism.
And hostile? No, Im interacting with you on your own terms.
Until you agree that you exist objectively, independent of my own mind, it would do you a disservice to take you seriously. It would be disrespecting your chosen identity as non existent.
The dhammas are mind independent in CT, but you are only ever aware of a mental representation of the dhammas (and concepts). What I think doesn’t matter, since here I discuss the CT position only.
Supernormal powers and senses do not fit into your western sense impression ideology, and they also go beyond the sense door experience of a worldling.
You only are here to subvert the CT with your own anti CT philosophy. You never actually agree with CT, except on practical, non philosophical matters. When it comes to CT ontology, you always seek to undermine it and sow doubt.
All that said, it doesn’t matter where you are posting or what: you don’t believe you exist objectively and independently of my mind, so you only show you don’t really believe that when you try to tell me to be nice to you. Think about it.
But, since you think you really believe it, and I want to support you, I should be respectful and treat you like you dont exist. Anything else would deny your beliefs.
In other words, if you dont exist you always dont exist. Its not that you just dont exist on dhammawheel, and then you exist on classicaltheravada lol!
That isn’t true at all. I’m here to discuss and learn more about CT, which I greatly admire and largely follow. I don’t want to get into discussions about me, since I’m not here to discuss my personal views.
All that said, it doesn’t matter where you are posting or what: you don’t believe you exist objectively and independently of my mind, so you only show you don’t really believe that when you try to tell me to be nice to you. Think about it.
Well you and I don’t really exist. We are concepts. Only mind, matter and mental states really exist in CT (and nibbana).
On the nimitta of realities see here:
for dhammas existing independently see here
Does anyone know where in the commentaries it is stated that dhammas exist "from their own side" (sarupato)?
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Hi Zan, good to see you posting again. 
I think in Dhamma people and objects like computer are only concepts. The Dhamma anaylses and breaks down the wholes, like chariot, lute, people so that what is truly existant can be known - and that is conditioned elements, nama and rupa. And these nama and rupa are real but they come into being for an instant and then cease- sunnata.
We have so much attachment to such concepts (like people and self) because we don’t really see this clearly yet.
Of course these concepts are necessary in our lives but we can understand them as being designations.
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Well said!
Thanks, it’s good to hear from you How was your trip to Sri Lanka? Did you end up posting pictures?
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When many quotes from authoritative sources, including the Buddha himself, clearly demonstrate that Theravada is realist, and that objects exist mind independently, and you come just to try to twist things into being only mind, you’ve given up any subterfuge that might trick me into thinking you’re just here to discuss CT from a perspective which respects our beliefs.
I point out that arahants have supernormal senses that allow them to see the objective paramttha dhammas beyond the subjective pannatti and your response is:
This is idealism/phenomenalism. That’s always consistent with you and you are fooling no one, especially because just above our conversation are the quotes mentioned from experts, and the Buddha making abundantly clear that objects exist independent of mind, which is the opposite of idealism. You shoe horn idealism into CT, that’s what you do and have always done. You fooled me a while ago into thinking you’d become legitimately CT, but then you went right back to arguing that CT is phenomenalism lol!
And you’re playing word games and making a false equivalency by claiming we don’t exist in CT just as in your Mahayana beliefs. We exist as ultimately existing paramattha dhammas in CT. In your Mahayana worldview, we ultimately don’t exist at all.
Further, since you believe that nothing exists, your arguments don’t exist. Why in the world do you persist on these points when your foundational position is completely in contradiction to them?
Such a bizarre flaw: nothing exists, BUT my argument is valid and these texts, which also don’t exist, support my position. Seriously, do some thinking and self reflection. This is incredibly irrational. Your position is nonsense.
As I’ve said, roughly, before elsewhere: Myself, I hold that things exist in some way, if nothing else for the sake of argument, because the very idea of having non-existent arguments about non-existent things with a non existent mind, non-existent senses, and a non-existent body is asinine.
However I’m open to being wrong, and can admit, that, sure, maybe my mind and senses have zero access to anything real, nothing is real, or whatever, and I should just be an extreme skeptic and quit philosophy. This is because, unlike you and the Mahayana, and idealists/whatever bizarre philosophy followers in general, I understand that if mind and senses don’t actually get any real, direct data, and nothing is real, nothing exists, or other wild ideas, that is the destruction of all philosophy and authority it is not a foundation to build a philosophy upon, and it certainly wouldn’t allow me to lecture others about it. My credibility would be utterly destroyed, as would the credibility of everything else. The very word “credibility” would be meaningless lol!
If so, whoop dee freak’n doo! I’d find some other way to enjoy my time. As I’ve said before: about half the time I am an extreme skeptic anyway, so this wouldn’t be a big leap.
Point is, if you’re right, that’s the end of philosophy and discussion.
Nonetheless, that’s what you believe, so, again, until you recant and become a realist, or at least a skeptic about ALL positions (especially including your current positions), your positions, arguments, and general existence should not be acknowledged as even possibly being valid. Anything else disrespects your beliefs.
Or, if you can admit, at a minimum, that you may be entirely wrong in your positions, and that things might be completely real and existent, because humans are flawed and perhaps misunderstand things as being unreal, when they are utterly real in some sense that escapes us, then I would take you more seriously. Healthy skepticism, even about our own positions, and acknowledging that things might be other than we believe is a respectable, valid position. If you can admit this, then you also validate yourself and your arguments, at least to a degree of possibly being correct when they’re not self refuting ideas about nothing being real.
Until then, you should respect yourself enough to be consistent and live like your philosophy is correct. Nothing is real or whatever, so you have no position, by definition. Be consistent, and stop cherry picking where you treat things as if they’re real, at least implicitly, when it helps your argument, and tear down reality as unreal whenever it helps your argument.
Also, don’t pay your bills, and cancel any auto pay settings. No one who believes nothing is real would pay bills, as that would be completely absurd. There could not possibly be any consequences for not paying non-existent bills. Report back what happens.
And, no, fallacious logic about two truths where you have to pay bills conventionally, but the bills have absolutely zero existence ultimately is not a way out of your dilemma. See, again from elsewhere, Bhatta:
Mīmāṃsā refutation of Two Truths Doctrine
Chattopadhyaya notes that the eighth-century Mīmāṃsā philosopher Kumārila Bhaṭṭa rejected the Two Truths Doctrine in his Shlokavartika.[60] Bhaṭṭa was highly influential with his defence of the Vedic rituals against medieval Buddhist rejections of these rituals. Some believe that his influence contributed to the decline of Buddhism in India[61] since his lifetime coincides with the period in which Buddhism began to decline.[62] According to Kumarila, the two truths doctrine is an idealist doctrine, which conceals the fact that “the theory of the nothingness of the objective world” is absurd: Kumārila Bhaṭṭa:“The idealist talks of some ‘apparent truth’ or ‘provisional truth of practical life’, i.e. in his terminology, of samvriti satya. However, since in his own view, there is really no truth in this ‘apparent truth’, what is the sense of asking us to look at it as some special brand of truth as it were? If there is truth in it, why call it false at all? And, if it is really false, why call it a kind of truth? Truth and falsehood, being mutually exclusive, there cannot be any factor called ‘truth’ as belonging in common to both–no more than there can by any common factor called ‘treeness’ belonging to both the tree and the lion, which are mutually exclusive. On the idealist’s own assumption, this ‘apparent truth’ is nothing but a synonym for the ‘false’. Why, then, does he use this expression? Because it serves for him a very important purpose. It is the purpose of a verbal hoax. It means falsity, though with such a pedantic air about it as to suggest something apparently different, as it were. This is in fact a well known trick. Thus, to create a pedantic air, one can use the word vaktrasava [literally mouth-wine] instead of the simpler word lala, meaning saliva [vancanartha upanyaso lala-vaktrasavadivat]. But why is this pedantic air? Why, instead of simply talking of falsity, is the verbal hoax of an ‘apparent truth’ or samvriti? The purpose of conceiving this samvriti is only to conceal the absurdity of the theory of the nothingness of the objective world, so that it can somehow be explained why things are imagined as actually existing when they are not so. Instead of playing such verbal tricks, therefore, one should speak honestly. This means: one should admit that what does not exist, exists not; and what does exist, exists in the full sense. The latter alone is true, and the former false. But the idealist just cannot afford to do this. He is obliged instead to talk of ‘two truths’, senseless though this be.”
-Wikipedia page on Two Truths Doctrine, Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya (2001). What is Living and What is Dead in Indian Philosophy 5th edition. pp. 370–1.
The two truths doctrine is a mere hoax to conceal the incoherence of the Mahayana over-extension and inappropriate application of dependent origination. The biggest indicator that their universal DO interpretation is incoherent is precisely that it necessitated inventing such a fallacious system as the two truths to explain it. Coherent systems don’t need such things. Self contradicting ones do.
As an aside, the Theravada two truths are very different. They reference human perception, pannatti, and ultimate entities beneath them. Since pannatti are ultimately dependent on ultimately existing paramattha dhammas, they are not wholly false. Hence, the two truths in this usage are not concealing any fallacy, they are merely a teaching tool to help understand the concepts we layer onto ultimate reality.
The two truths are a hoax in Mahayana, because they teach that there are no ultimate existents, which means the conventional doesn’t exist either, so it is nonsense. It is perfectly sound to say that matter ultimately exists, as does consciousness, which is Theravada truth number one, and truth number two is that our consciousnesses sees them as concepts. This is a conceptual truth on top of an ultimate truth, which is that things exist. The Mahayana is a conceptual truth on top of a non existent one, which is incoherent.
The Theravada DO still allows for mind independent dhammas, which means it avoids this incoherence.
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Sri Lanka was great and there is a photo there
And some comments
…
Thanks for asking.
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This all really depends on what you mean by Realism. In terms of realism meaning that things exist independent of mind, then CT is realist yes. Its not “things” though, by which I mean substances such as tables or chairs or chemicals which exist independently of mind. Its the sabhāva-dhammas, which are simply ephemeral qualities (hard, soft etc) and barely exist. If, further, by realism in terms of perception you mean Direct Realism then CT doesn’t agree, since with Direct Realism when you see a tree you are really seeing a tree as it is, which exists independently of mind. For CT this isn’t the case, because the “tree” is a concept which doesn’t really exist. What the person sees is a concept, and most people only operate in a conceptual and so ultimately false world. Instead what happens is as I described earlier. If we take the eye base a colour impinges upon the eye and a visual sense door consciousness arises. Immediately following this, after 17 mind moments, the colour ceases to exist. Within that time you get the, as I said, an eye-consciousness. This immediately passes away and a receiving consciousness arises which has a mental reflection of the image. Following that there are the cittas of investigating > determining > Javana > and finally two cittas of registration. Its only at the later stage that one recognises “red” and not before at the 5 sense consciousness stage, with this recognition occurring in the mind base. So, according to CT, you are only ever aware of a reflected image of the sabhāva-dhamma of red. CT then does not support the idea of Direct Realism.
I’m also not a follower of Mahāyāna, so please don’t persist in calling me one.
Well strictly speaking “we” don’t exist. You and I do not exist. Only the sabhāva-dhammas do in CT.
I only exist in your imagination. If it bothers you, that means you’re hurting your own feelings, and so you’ve got to figure it out yourself. That or admit I exist objectively, independent of your mind. Admit that, and all that goes along with (general realism), and I’ll stop treating you like I’m imaginary.
Double bonus, too, because admitting that would also mean renouncing your (crypto)Mahayana beliefs.
As to the rest of your post: confirmation bias, misinterpretation, and word salad.
We don’t really exist in CT.
Please read the section on the sense process in the Abhidhammattha-saṅgaha.
Says the Mahayanist.
I don’t follow or practice Mahayana. When I go on retreat it’s to a Theravadin monastery. If I were to ordain it would be in Theravada. Nothing I’ve said here is Mahayana. In CT you and I don’t really exist. You seem to think that because the sabhava-dhammas exist, you must exist. That’s just clinging to the dhammas.
You are right, and you are saying what I tried to say before. Just much better.
This needs to be emphasized. If I remember correctly, eye citta vitthi process does not see “tables or trees”. It is known by additional, multiple mental processes that determines that.
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Yes, this is correct. The eye-consciousness cognises colour only. This is then recreated as a mental image and “passed along” a series of cittas until the mind recognises it and then synthesises shape, which isn’t real in Theravada, and so the mind becomes aware of the concept.
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