You already understand phenomena arises due to causes/conditions, pieces/parts as disclosed in your statement.
That all phenomena depends for existence.
Agree.
That no phenomena is self-established.
Agree and disagree.
That no phenomena exists independently.
Agree and disagree.
That's what emptiness means,
all phenomena lacks inherent existence.
there is a stunning absence of inherent existence in all phenomena.
Agree and disagree.
Why?
I'm a philosopher of the materialist bent, who understands concepts dualistically. By that I just mean there is an explanation for everything, and everything needs to be examined from more than one perspective.
These 3 true statements are also false….
That all phenomena depends for existence
That no phenomena is self-established
That no phenomena exists independently
…because of this latter statement you made, which is also true
(...and false, as no thing can truly be the same as any other, due to the occupation of space).
it has to be noticed all phenomena has an underlying sameness.
This is recognising that form has content. You are using dualistic reasoning acknowledging the other side of the coin.
So the content is all the same, yet not a particle, yet changes, and produces phenomena (I use the term differentiation, because something must happen to this underlying sameness to cause any form of differentiation. Phenomena I refer to as patterns of existence, as it doesn’t matter if they are observed or not)
My reasoning has lead me to name this sameness, I call it time.
(people must be so sick of me and this topic - well, I don't care)
Time, does depend on anything else for its existence [Time viewed as an expanding "space creating force"]
Time is self-established. [It cannot have a beginning or end, thus is not dependent on things, but precedes thingness]
Time exists independently. [It is the only thing that qualifies as being infinite, thus is independent by being all there is]
If phenomena existed independently, as 'thing-in-itself' there would be no change.
Phenomena would bang against each other.
It's not like that.
Agreed. I've discounted using logic the existence of an inherent universal particle. Such a particle would still have multiple properties and thus by necessity would be caused. Anything dimensional is an effect, that it is does not exist, in the same manner as you referred to in para 1.
Clearly,
change happens,
phenomena interacts subtly bringing changing forms.
If that's the case,
while noticing all phenomena as different,
it has to be noticed all phenomena has an underlying sameness.
not the same, not different.
Time is the same throughout, but to life that has the ability to combine differentiation into things, symbols, it differs by age. As Time expands, the preceding universe recedes into itself, it ages. The smaller a consistent type of form is, such as an atom, the older it is, the more it has receded from the present, where we things of consciousness dwell.
A thing like a galaxy is not being pulled in by a black hole, it is being pushed (into the past) by the expansion of time. Black holes are very old - they are in everything, on a different scale. In a whirlpool it is not the relative vacancy in the centre that draws water in, but the force of the water itself that pushes water down the path of least resistance. The relative vacancy, air, provides the freedom via lesser resistance, not the power.
With Time, its the other side of the coin, that freedom is on the outside of Now, and everything existing, the past, is on the inside doing the pushing. It is of little surprise that mass when released to a relative "freedom", transforms into energy - the need to push, to expand out.
Nothing can be infinite unless it "grows", it must constantly expand. In terms of the overall picture as a Totality, as if one were outside of it, it would have no where to expand to, so it instead has the effect of pushing within itself creating space (stretching the force of times expansion, spreading its power and in doing so creating dimensions) and then variations of space and mass (the complimentary concentration of times expansionary power that equalises the spatial expansion), as per E=Mc2. That singular fundamental process, causes a "expand-relative contraction" duality, that is the primary cause of causality, differentiation, forces.
therefore, the underlying condition is that everything exists as a web of relationship, interconnectivity, association.
therefore the underlying condition is that you are everything and everything is you.
There is no separate self.
It is of One expressing as many.
Agree and disagree.
Your self is your consciousness at any time (so maybe the trick really is to partly turn off consciousness, via turning off emotional and other forms of instinctual reaction, to seek Bruce Lee's "no way as way, having no limitation as limitation").
There is no way to reason out of this, however what causes both your consciousness and what you think during this consciousness, is caused by everything else existent at the time that lead to the moment of consciousness (causal infinity), and also something that is a continuum, Time. Everything existing must be pushed onward.
In being able to see across time, and each having our own mental universe, we are truly all little gods already.
Realising emptiness in this way produces,
an experience of not-self.
It is not fluffy.
This logic produces empathy/compassion.
How could itself harm itself unless deluded?
Unless deluded in the idea of separate self?
Agreed, apart from the not-self bit, other than in the sense of not being at all self-absorbed when reasoning. It is an experience of not-self rather than being of no self.
The most direct causal pattern that causes what you think during consciousness is your memory, your symbolic representation of your past. How that memory is assessed in terms of what thought packets are deemed worthy of sending to consciousness, is dependent on your learnt ego-program (your master "self" program) and the affects on the body of the present situation.
One can't escape this part of themselves, and even someone who views themselves as enlightened, will have synapses that cause the self, the ego program, to assert dominance at times.
You eschew the idea of 'enlightenment' as mystical and it looks like you equate that idea with 'psychological well-being' as a preference in terms. Fair enough.
Yes, I do. Enlightenment is the learning part that never stops. It is always about knowledge and self-examination. At least that is how it appears to me having never been to the other side - in the no-self manner in which some infer is possible - other than having gained an enhanced clarity of reasoning, relative to what mine was in the past (an affect of discussing these matters on forums in recent years).
Superior psychological well-being is the aim. It is this "desired outcome" that creates masculine empathy/compassion by freeing the mind from taught memes and ego based insecurity, and allowing one's own mind to reason relevant to the known circumstances.
Realising emptiness is 'beginner's mind',
psychological well-being.
emptiness is a state of mind,
clear, open.
A necessary background to push on deeper.
So they say. It still feels as if there is a baptism required. A delusion of some kind, though not a negative one.
I wonder what sort of little ego trip you get from writing in poetic form, for instance. Is it just entertainment, trying to be succinct or does it also make you, your-self, feel clever? (btw. personally, I like that form of writing.Taoish).