Buddhist Dilemma?

Asherman:
You say....the Illusory World is the world with rules known to science and mathematics .These underlying rules are a reflection of the ultimate nature of things,of Ultimate Reality.
Will you please confirm in ordinary layman's lanquage that when you say a little later that the study of science,physics and mathematics are just another path to knowing Reality....you are in fact referring yo your previously mentioned Illusory World of Ultimate Reality....not just our ordinary Reality.
One more question, if I may?
Is this Illusory World of Ultimate Reality accessible
only to the "enlightened" (or "Awakened")?

Terribly difficult topic to be absolutely clear about, isn't it?

Ultimate Reality is indivisible, infinite, timeless and encompasses all possibilities. Our perceptual world is a projection of Ultimate Reality, but is empty and illusory. The perceptual world has structure, time, space and is filled with apparently many different "things". In the perceptual world there are me and thee; then, now, and hereafter; near and far, etc. In Ultimate Reality none of those have meaning for there is no serparatness, no individual egos, nothing that we can conceive of, though we can experience it.

The perceptual world(s), because there are probably many of them existing simultaneously (all possibilities are equal in infinity, and time being illusory must hold all times in a single instant), behave according to that perceptual world's underlying structural logic. Sorry, that sentence is a bear. The behavior of quarks, atoms, and all of the varied "forces" like gravity are consistent, at least within the perceptual world we "inhabit". Science and mathematics can pierce deeply into that structure, and should never result in a major contradiction to the the underlying nature of Ultimate Reality. Science and Mathematics can tell us how the perceptual world is constructed and behaves, but can never pierce to the underlying nature of Reality, the "Why" of things. Why is there any illusion at all arising from the Void? No one can say, and if they do they are probably slinging BS.

I'm afraid that I've been unclear about this, "your previously mentioned Illusory World of Ultimate Reality....not just our ordinary Reality".

Ultimate Reality is not illusory, nor is our ordinary reality (perceptual reality, the world of multiplicity) anything more than a projection of Ultimate Reality ... it is illusory, and without substance. We all have some sort of access to the perceptual (Illusory) world, through our senses (touch, smell, taste, hearing, and sight). We interact with that world as if it is real, and to us the Illusion is real. In this perceptual world suffering is everywhere. We experience sickness, disappointment, loss, old age and death. We want what we can not have, discount the value of what we do have, and mourn the loss of everything that must naturally fall away from us. In this perceptual world, our ego is the center of the universe as we constantly seek pure and endless happiness only to experience constant suffering. Our emotions trump our reason, and we form strong attachments to our egos, our separatenesss of being. We avoid death and hope to achieve some sort of immortality, even though we know that both notions are false ... and again, we suffer accordingly.

Buddhism identifies our disease, its causes and prescribes a treatment that will mitigate, and/or "cure the disease of suffering". Any sentient being can experience for themselves Ultimate Reality. The experience, here we've been calling it the Awakening experience, is subjective and can be frightening to the unprepared. One loses their ego, time and space dissolve into infinity, ordinary consciousness is suspended. There is no suffering, but for most the experience is by far the most moving possible ... far better than sex, or the best high from the best drugs. This is analogous to being returned to the bosom of the Abrahamic God, but that little tin-horn god is only himself a small projection of the Ultimate.

Any sentient being can have the Awakening experience, not just Buddhists. Practitioners of many religious disciplines report similar experiences, though they will all interpret the experience in their own cultural terms. Artists and poets, creative-type folks, seem to have this experience somewhat more often than most. Those at the bottom of the socio-economic-educational-mental potential cohorts may have the experience, while those at the other end of the same scales may never even come close. Though we haven't much anecdotal evidence for it, I believe a pretty good number of scientists and mathematicians have had the experience, but express it in ways that aren't recognizable to most folks. How many can read and understand the mathematics that describe the Quantum World, yet I see many parallels and I'm clearly not a proficient mathematician.

Alikimr, You asked for plain language and I'm sorry if this is still too abstract or constructed in ways that aren't completely clear. You show a target, and I shoot at it as best I can. I wish I were a better marksman, but must go with what I got. LOL.

I do not mean for this question to be contentuous or to be perceived as critical for that is not my intent in any way. With genuine curiosity, I am wondering, Asherman: if it is uncommon among Buddhists, would it be your opinion that the Abrahamic religions, or any belief systems apart from Buddhism, are so flawed that it is highly unlikely their proponents would be able to reach Nirvana?

I don't generally take any sincere question to be contentious. Ask away, and I'll do my best to answer to the best of my understanding.

It's sorta like the old is the glass half-full, or half-empty when we typify the awakening experience as being "common", or "un-common". Today, in 2004 there may be literally thousands of people alive who have had this experience, maybe even tens of thousands. I can't vouch for many beyond my own, but I'm reasonably certain that the number is pretty large. That sounds like a lot, but the world's population today is in the billions. Is .0001 (or something like that) "common", or "uncommon"?

I could be wrong, but I don't believe that the Awakening experience is evenly distributed across the human population. I think that Buddhists and Taoists probably more frequently have the experience than Christians or Muslims; after all more Buddhists and Taoists actively seek the experience than Jews, Christians, or Muslims. The doctrines most common within the Abrahamic religions seems antithetical and even hostile to the "Awakening" experience. Ecstatic experiences are commonly reported by some Jewish, Christian and Muslim sects, but may be "twisted" to conform with the doctrinal expectations of their parent religious grouping. From their perspective, of course, they are right and everyone else is wrong. We should resist the temptation to take the same position. They may be right, but I don't think so and my reason (faulty as it is) doesn't seem to stretch that far. The bottom-line is that at least some Jews, Christians and Muslims do genuinely have an Awakening experience quite similar to that described by Buddhists and others. Those Abrahamic followers who report the experience are often labeled "Mystics", or "heretics" and not infrequently are burned at the stake.

Let us say that the world's population is 1 billion. The Abrahamic religions claim something like 60+% of the total. If the .0001 frequency rate obtained, then something like 6,000 followers of Abraham alive today have experienced some degree of the experience. Now if the frequency of Buddhists having the experience is .01 in a population of 10,000,000 there may be 10,000 who have experienced to some degree of Awakening. Something tells me that I've screwed up my decimal points here, but I'm sure to be corrected and this is only done for illustrative purposes anyway.

Creative types and seekers probably have a greater frequency than factory workers. The variables between cohorts are too great for us to likely find a high degree of correlation for anything very subtle. There isn't any reliable means of testing the proposition.

Thanks Ash. That is helpful to me in some research I am currently doing and my education into the tenets of Buddhism is still in the kindergarten stage. Just as an observation, I rather think some fundamentalist Isalmic sects may still deal with heretics in an extreme manner, but I am unaware of any Christian or Jewish sects who still burn heretics at the stake.

I do appreciate your insights howeer and appreciate your sharing them.

Thanks Asherman for a wonderfull explanation.

Foxfire, simply read the news. Why bother burning heretics at the stake when you can machine gun them them from an aircraft? Technology marches on, whether for good or ill is not is not in this discussion. But the fact that the Abrahamics are still perfectly willing to persecute the subjects of other Gods is still with us:(

Fox,

Por nada. Stop by sometime, and we can let the conversation go where it will. Bring a swimsuit and we'll have frosty drinks poolside to ease the discussions.

considering that our dreams have no scientific laws to govern them, i dont see why the larger dream you speak of would have laws to govern it. however, you do make a valid point that it would be POSSIBLE to believe that scientific laws were laws within a dream universe.

however, i think that there is a big difference between "belief in science" and "belief in our current scientific information".

Belief in science means putting aside all opinions and predispositions, and ONLY believing what there is ample evidence for.

I personally believe in science, but I certainly do not believe in all of our scientific laws...I know that our laws are not perfect, not complete, and will change or be removed or added to etc as we collect more information.

So even though Buddhism may fit within our current laws of science...it is still a belief in something based on faith rather than evidence.

"Considering that our dreams have no scientific laws to govern them, i don't see WHY the larger dream you speak of would have laws to govern it. " Emphasis is mine.

As I said above, the "why" question is beyond our kin, it just is. Though we believe on the basis of a personal experience that the nature of perceptual reality is illusory, the world of multiplicity is never the less typified by rational structure. Structures, laws, and forces that can be discovered and understood. If the perceptual world was not governed by "rules" and "laws" governing how the physical universe operates, then all would be chaos. Magic and miracles that suspend the physical laws of the universe we inhabit don't occur. In a dream, flying carpets, 20 league boots, and having the sun stand still in the sky might work, but in the universe we inhabit, those things are impossible. Why? I don't know, but I'm sure that reason and rationality trump wishful thinking.

The scientific Method requires us to keep an open mind, and to value more highly those hypothesis that have the best available evidence in their support. Sometimes very contradictory conclusions exist at the same time. Newtonian Physics works pretty good at mid-scale, but Special and General Relativity are a far better model for Cosmic scales. At the Planck Scale, Einsteinian Physics just don't work and a whole different series of Laws seem to operate. Reconciliation of Einsteinian and Quantum Physics probably has to occur if we are ever to formulate a Unified Theory. At both the Cosmic and Planck Scales, our intuitive notion of how things work, or should work, falls apart. In both cases time and space concepts have little to do with our perception of what time/space. "The Universe is more like a Great Thought, than the Great Mechanism that Newton theorized".

In the end it is all "belief", for we can not clearly establish that anything, ourselves included, exists at all. We believe in Science based upon observation and reason, just as some of us believe in an Abrahamic God that defies reason, or in an Illusory projection of an indivisible Ultimate Reality without time or space.

If someone honestly believes in their religion solely based on unbiased evidence which has no contradictions no matter how small...then their belief in that religion is a scientific one. But can you honestly say that your belief isn't colored by the desire to believe in something greater?

edit - that picture of the 3 monks finally loaded...i must say, i do not see the expressions you described! the first two seem to be staring into the pot in an expressionless gaze, while the right one bears no human expression at all!

Honestly? No, our capacity for self-deception is almost limitless. I believe that my position is rational, does not contradict any scientific or mathematical laws, and that my subjective Awakening experience has some validity. However, we have to admit don't we that there is no way to really know. Perhaps the experience is totally bogus, the misfiring of a series of synapsis, or a "bit of poorly digested beef". I don't think so, and the experience seems to conform to those reported by many people over the last couple of thousand years in many different cultural sets. The insights that result from the experience seem to work, at least for me and other Buddhists. In the end, all any of us has is belief.