The world beyond the mind is not infinite(i.e, everything) because there is something else that is not it(the brain.) Hence, it is finite.
I have proved that the brain has no definite form, hence anything beyond the mind is formless.
Inherent nonexistence means not existing inherently. It does not mean absolute nonexistence.
"Inherent nonexistence" = "Absolute nonexistence" = "Absolute non-being" = "Absolute nothingness".
"Not existing inherently" = "Non-inherent existence".
Look up the grammar rule I posted in the second last post. The problem lies in your trouble with language. For convenient, I will use 'Absolute' to imply 'inherent', and 'relative' to imply "non-inherent".
The All may be said to be absolute nonexistence, since no finite thing(s) is the All.
Since Nature is not a thing, it does not exist.
You insist on the view that Nature is Absolute Nothingness. Okay, keep your view. I am not arguing. I simply disagree.
We can be aware that any finite thing(like us) is a part of the All. Is that what you mean? However, we can neither be aware nor unaware of the All itself, since we are part of it.
This is what I mean by being aware of the All:
From Krishnamurti's Notebook: "On the first day, while I was in that state and more conscious of the things around me, I had the first most extraordinary experience. There was a man mending the road; that man was myself; the pickaxe he held was myself; the very stone which he was breaking up was a part of me; the tender blade of grass was my very being, and the tree beside the man was myself. I almost could feel and think like the roadmender, and I could feel the wind passing through the tree, and the little ant on the blade of grass I could feel. The buds, the dust, and the very noise were a part of me. Just then there was a car passing by at some distance; I was the driver, the engine, and the tyres; as the car went further away from me, I was going away from myself. I was in everything, or rather everything was in me, inanimate and animate, the mountains, the worm, and all breathing things. All day long I remained in this happy condition..."
Bernadette Roberts: "I was standing on their windy hillside looking down over the ocean when a seagull came into view, gliding, dipping, playing with wind. I watched it as I had never watched anything before in my life. I almost seemed to be mesmerized: it was as if I was watching myself flying, for there was not the usual division between us. Yet something more was there than just a lack of separateness, “something” truly beautiful and unknowable. Finally I turned my eyes to the pine-covered hills behind the monastery and still, there was no division, only something “there” that was flowing with and through every vista and particular object of vision. To see the Oneness of everything is like having special 3D glasses put before your eyes; I thought to myself: for sure, this is what they mean when they say “God is everywhere”... What I had [originally] taken as a trick of the mind was to become a permanent way of seeing and knowing" - (Roberts, 1984, p. 30).
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Malwida von Meysenburg: "I was alone upon the seashore as all these thoughts flowed over me, liberating and reconciling; and now again, as once before in distant says in the Alps of Dauphine, I was impelled to kneel down, this time before the illimitable ocean, symbol of the Infinite. I felt that I prayed as I had never prayed before, and knew now what prayer really is: to return from the solitude of individuation into the consciousness of unity with all that is, to kneel down as one that passes away, and to rise up as one imperishable. Earth, heaven, and sea resounded as in one vast world-encircling harmony. It was as if the chorus of all the great who has ever lived were about me. I felt myself one with them…" (von Meysenburg, 1900;).
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From Amiel's Journal Intime: "In that time the consciousness of God’s nearness came to me sometimes. I say God, to describe what is indescribable. A presence, I might say, yet that is too suggestive of personality, and the moments of which I speak did not hold consciousness of a personality, but something in myself made me feel myself a part of something bigger than I, that was controlling. I felt myself one with the glass, the trees, birds, insects, everything in Nature. I exulted in the mere fact of existence, of being a part of it all – the drizzling rain, the shadows of the clouds, the tree-trunks, and so on. In the years following, such moments continued to come, but I wanted them constantly. I knew so well the satisfaction of losing self in a perception of supreme power and love, that I was unhappy because that perception was not constant."
"He who has allowed the beauty of that world to penetrate his soul goes away no longer a mere observer. For the object perceived and the perceiving soul are no longer two things separated from one another, but the perceiving soul has [now] within itself the perceived object." (Plotinus, First Ennead, 8:1)
“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”
― Meister Eckhart
Forman: "This began in 1972. I had been practicing meditation for about three years, and had been on a meditation retreat for three and a half months... I was silent inside. I don’t mean I didn’t think, but rather that the feeling inside of me was as if I was entirely empty, a perfect vacuum. Since that time all of my thinking, my sensations, my emotions, etc., have seemed not quite connected to me inside. It was and is as if what was me, my consciousness itself, was (and is) now this emptiness. The silence was now me, and the thoughts that have gone on inside have not felt quite in contact with what is really ‘me,’ this empty awareness. ‘I’ was now silent inside. My thinking has been as if on the outside of this silence without quite contacting it: When I saw, felt or heard something, that perception or thought has been seen by this silent consciousness, but it has not been quite connected to this interior silence.
Over the years, this interior silence has slowly changed. Gradually, imperceptibly, this sense of who I am, this silence inside, has grown as if quasi-physically larger. In the beginning it just seemed like I was silent inside. Then this sense of quietness has, as it were expanded to permeate my whole body. Some years later, it came to seem no longer even limited to my own body, but even wider, larger than my body. It’s such a peculiar thing to describe! It’s as if who I am, my very consciousness itself, has become bigger, wider, less localized. By now it’s as if I extend some distance beyond my body, as if I’m many feet wide. What is me is now this expanse, this silence, that spreads out."
jupiviv wrote:
I know Sanskrit(I'm Indian.) There are many words for origination, and some of them(like mulya, nabhi, prakriti, prakriya, prabhitti etc.) also mean something like "essence" or "nature." He seems to be saying that things don't have an essential nature that is separate from the way in which they appear. This is the same as saying that a thing cannot be other than itself (A=A.) And really, it doesn't matter what the original meaning was, as long as we can interpret the words in a wise way.
No, he is saying that a thing lacks inherent existence/ a thing is empty of essence, because it doesn't exist apart from its part. A table doesn't exists apart from its parts. There is no part-bearer in the Table, no self resides in the table's parts.
To quote the Buddha:
"There is not a self residing in Name and Form,
but the co-operation of the conformations
produce what people call a man.
Just as the word 'chariot'
is but a mode of expression for axle, wheels, the chariot-body
and other constituents in their proper combinations,
so a living being is the appearance of the groups
with the four elements as they are joined in a unit.
There is no self in the carriage
and there is no self in man. "
(The Buddha's Gospel, compiled by Paul Carus.)
