I agree with this 100%. Objectivity. So, how does Buddhism teach when you find objective truth and what if your truth is different than another’s truth? Which one then is true?
Discussion
There is no disagreement absolute truth or what you may conceptualize as God is appearing as the relative, and the relative is the expression of the absolute. Anyone who has recognized an absolute truth has never disagreed. There's a saying a fisherman recognizes a fisherman.
When you look at the actuality of things the idea of creator and created come secondary to creating. Do you conceptualize God as a noun or a verb?
What is actual in a thing? What is not compounded through causes and conditions? For example a tree is made entirely of non- tree elements, is it not?
Maybe I’m missing the defining of terms. Relative truth is not objective truth. It’s perception and perceptions can be a faulty picture of absolute or objective truth.
A tree is a tree and it is composed of other things. The fact that a tree is composed of carbon and nitrogen and oxygen does not mean the tree ceases to be a tree.
Creator, created, and creating would still all be absolute truths.
Maybe I’m missing what you’re saying but it sounds like your saying relative truth is perception and objective truth is beyond that.
It also seems like you’re saying that all perceptions are false. But to do that you are claiming that one perception is true which is the narrators view that, in this case, the Buddhist has found. His perspective is the objective reality and ultimate truth. This is a logical contradiction and cannot be the case.
There is a point where they converge, in the non-conceptual reality. The paradox is resolved in seeing that absolute and relative are themselves ideas about it. What is the reality before one conceptualizes about it?
You may find that this is where God is revealed. But yes the tree is still a tree, it just has no permanence as a tree being made of non- tree elements.
This article will help you understand better what I'm saying about relative and absolute if you give it a read.
But basically yes relative truth is what we experience through the five senses and mind. Absolute is before the senses and mind. They are different but not separate. You might say the world is the manifestation of God's will. Yet if God is then how can God be anything but thusness?
Basically what I'm saying is absolute truth is what always is in the midst of coming and going of provisional truth.
One more thing I will add that may clarify what I mean is when Jesus said "I am the truth, the life, and the way, no one comes to the father except through me. " he was not talking about his self entity but the light of his that sees and experiences through him.
It's very much like a zen koan. In fact when I read the Bible it's full of koans. I grew up catholic so I've read the Bible quite a bit. Reading and copying revelations after getting in trouble for asking questions they couldn't answer in Sunday school when I was 11 was one of the first times a samadhi experience happened to me.
The way I see it all religion is pointing at the same non-conceptual reality but using concepts to do it. Concepts about God is where they disagree in my experience. But God is by definition not conceptual. God represents what is actual of the reality under the vestment.
And that is my problem with everything you’re saying. You are appealing to an objective reality but have no proof or logic to back it. The quotation you state about Christ IS reflecting His claims about his self entity. He claimed to forgive sin, claimed to be God which is why people wanted to have him killed for blasphemy.
I hear what you’re saying but it has no logical backing. It’s all based on feeling and I can’t get behind it personally.
Appreciate the discussion Bodhi! Thanks for actually having an awesome conversation about differences and being a respectful person. This is why I love Nostr.
Week the problem with objective reality is its still defined by the senses when the discovery of the electromagnetic spectrum showed that what the senses are capable of interpreting is less than 1 millionth of reality.
Appreciate the conversation as well. It's easy to be kind when one doesn't hold views and beliefs very tightly. Character comes through in every action of mind, speech, and body.
Logic can only take one to the threshold but reality is not a concept. Concepts are the expression of reality appearing through the human mind that tries to comprehend reality.
How do you know any of that to be true? You’ve used some version of your feelings, emotions, thoughts, reason, etc.
Of course we use logic to understand direct experiencing. But reality is here before our concepts about it is it not?
Basically what I'm saying is the same thing as when Jesus said "the son of man has nowhere to rest his head. " reality is appearing as thought, form, feeling, perception, and consciousness interpreted through the five senses. Yet there is no thought, form, perception, feeling, or consciousness that is not the expression of reality.
So relative truth can only be an appearance of absolute truth.
For example the thought "i am" is the expression of present awareness.
The question still remains. How do you know that to be true?
Direct experiencing before mind and sense perception make interpretations about it.
This is a very simple recognition.
How are you experiencing it without your mind and senses?
The mind and senses are what is being experienced, aren't they? Like in the example the mind and senses are the coloring that appears in the glass but when you take the orange juice away the clarity is still there.
Right now as you have a thought that thought is directly seen, isn't it?
