By that I mean, an oak tree that doesn't have a sudden death from fire or being cut down or whatever, will for all intents and purposes live many years. Everyone who comes and visits the tree will see generally the same tree. Of course, the tree is never the "same" moment to moment, every atom is being swapped out and moving around, radiation is coming and going, branches and leaves fall off and regrow, etc.. But still, if I visit the tree today, and you visit it 1 year from now (in the middle of the tree's life), the tree is still "there" (even though it might be slightly different). Everyone who walks by will point "there is a tree over there". It's persistent across time and space, for some period. I understand that everything is technically an "illusion". We are all one unified flow of stuff, and the idea of a self or independence is an illusion in the grand scheme of things. But still, within the illusion, there are basically "natural physical laws of the universe" you could say. It's not like all of a sudden, "zap", the tree is an elephant when you visit. Then boom (magic wand), it is a car, then later it is a piece of cotton, or a sun, etc.. Or it magically jumps around in space. That is, there is some sort of structure somewhat independent of me that obeys some sort of rules to stay somewhat consistent in time and space. Even if my "mind" is projecting this experience or interpretation of such a tree illusion.... Everyone's mind is basically projecting a roughly similar illusion. I saw an example of a "river" from somewhere: > - A deva sees a river as a stream of gems. > - A human sees it as water. > - A hungry ghost sees it as a river of pus and blood. Sure, fine. But it's still at least perceived as a general "flow" by all. A continuous stream. It's not like it's a rock to some and an animal to others, and a river to everyone else. Or an explosion of rippling radiation or some other dispersed and hard to imagine network/system of many things.... It's still a flow, in time and space. Maybe to a fast-moving light-being, it is like a slow moving game of tetris, etc.. But it is still moving! If you account for the change in perspective, you have the same overall "flow" in the place. So my question is, at least in Yogācāra Buddhism (or other schools deeply analyzing consciousness to that degree), how do they account for this? My understanding so far is that, in Yogācāra, everything is mind. Everything is consciousness, from the base consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna). So then my question becomes "how do you account for physical form then"? To which they respond (it seems) with, "it's a mental projection". Okay, sure, MY experience of a form is a mental projection in my own mind, but that doesn't change the fact that the form is persistent in time and space (like the tree!). How does Yogācāra account for that? But then my reading/understanding of Yogācāra perspective is basically that: > All appearances, including persistent physical forms like trees, are manifestations of consciousness (vijñapti-mātra) arising from causal seeds (bīja) stored in the storehouse consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna). Basically, the tree is a co-constructed, stable illusion due to ongoing karmic resonance, not an independent material substance. Its form is projected within consciousness, but projected in accordance with karmic law, which behaves much like physical law. Something like that is very hard for me to comprehend, and feels circular in reasoning somehow. Is there a way to explain how physical forms seem to persist in time and space, from this sort of mind-only perspective here? _Looking further, it seems they would say "all sentient beings who perceive the tree are doing so because they have karmic seeds that generate similar experiences." But that doesn't make any sense to me, that the tree's reality is based on everyone else's reality. Or something like that. That everything is based on everything else, and if one thing changes all of a sudden, the entire universe could change it's fundamental laws. Doesn't seem to jive with me yet. Maybe I'm also reading it wrong._

Does the middle way -- **between annihilationism and eternalism** -- apply to objects? Like a mountain, will it either exist forever or be destroyed, or is it too the middle way? > The expression “middle way” refers to the Buddhist understanding of > practical life, avoiding the extremes of self-denial and > self-indulgence, as well as the view of reality that avoids the > ***extreme positions of eternalism and annihilationism***. That is one way of reading the meaning of 'middle way'. Do objects -- supposing they exist -- we have consciousness of have substance, according to any Mahayana Buddhists? That seems to ask the same question, I'm not sure.

What, exactly, is the notion of cause and effect at work in a causal series that includes the citta-santāna? I suppose the obvious answer is the 12 links of dependent origination, but I am confused ***how*** ignorance causes sankhara to arise. **Obviously, speculating where will be reborn is frowned upon, even if suggesting that rebirth may work even with some views (such as mind-brain identity) is not.** ---------- Suppose that it reduces to something physical, so that my *brain state* for my "death thought" must bring about a new brain state somewhere: is it very conceivable, in contemporary physics or biology, that the state of my brain right sufficiently for citta-santana with an existing (or just coming into existence) brain state that is not "my" brain?

My intuition is telling me that since the last level of hell is some kind of a mathematical limit of how stupid a person can get (or how annoying or how evil), there must be a parallel with Planck units, which are the minimum measurable amounts of physical quantities. (or equivalently, maximum, when considered how many you can fit in something else) The Planck time, in this context, to be precise. What is the statistically average duration of a birth in Naraka, the non-stop hell? We could consider that a sort of Planck-lifetime of a being, especially since to the outside observer, a hell lasting billions of years might look much shorter than for the being in hell. Therefore, the Planck-lifetime of a hell being during a single rebirth might actually be comparably short as the physical Planck-time when observed from the outside.

Can you quickly explain "everything is impermanent"? Is it metaphysical or ontological claim, that nothing that "exists" will exist forever? Or is it a claim that nothing can always be (meaning having that nature, rather than 'exist') anything? If not that latter, does Buddhism universally agree that there is no *awareness* of something being what it is, without existence? ---------- Can I be aware of, for example, a shape being red without existence and "permanently" in the standard way of using that word, even if "everything is impermanent"?

If my memory is correct, Lord Buddha did a sermon for the long-distance people. It is mentioned that Lord Budha can do a sermon even for someone in another solar system. How is it possible? Because to travel sound to long-distance takes time(possibly years). Can someone give me an answer with references from Tripitaka?

> When we speak of an individual having a property we nominalize the > predicate expressing the property we take to be constitutive and > ascribe the instantiating properties to the individual thus created. > There is, however, no deep ontological reason why we could not change > our view of what the constitutive and what the instantiating > properties are, and thereby describe the very same situation in terms > of different individuals and properties. But if we accept this picture > of ontology it is evident that we are not obliged to infer the > existence of a substratum or underlying individual from the existence > of a quality. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nagarjuna/ I take this to mean that the subject and predicate are reversible. So a round apple is both an apple that is round, and a round shape that is an apple. Does it mean then the relation of being "in" another thing is also symmetrical? If a patch of red is in my visual field, then my visual field is inside that red. 1. Surely an effect is in the action of a cause: then the action of a cause is in its effect. This sounds like 'no causation', and how I read Nagarjuna. 2. Whatever is essentially in the world can only end if the world does, because the world is also essentially in it. This seems to me to be the meaning of 'rebirth'. I *think* it's a mereological question, about parts and wholes: whether or not everything is - in reality - a part of everything else. > Concerning the antisymmetry postulate (18) [Two distinct things cannot be part of each other], the picture is even more complex. For one thing, some authors maintain that the relationship between an object and the stuff it is made of provides a perfectly ordinary counterexample of the antisymmetry of parthood... Sanford (1993: 222) refers to Borges's Aleph as a case in point: “I > saw the earth in the Aleph and in the earth the Aleph once more and > the earth in the Aleph …”. In this case, a plausible reply is simply > that fiction delivers no guidance to conceptual investigations: > conceivability may well be a guide to possibility, but literary > fantasy is by itself no evidence of conceivability (van Inwagen 1993: > 229). Perhaps the same could be said of Fazang's Jeweled Net of Indra, > in which each jewel has every other jewel as part (Jones 2012). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mereology/

I have been practicing seriously for a month now. I'm mindful a lot of the time but not 100% yet and whenever I'm not I start thinking about metaphysical questions or what could be after death or if it is nothing etc. How can I stop this? Or how to stop thinking about something in general when you don't want to? For some reason I can't be equanimous with metaphysical questions. They run through my head like there's no tomorrow and nothing more important than that. It's quite annoying. Would noting help?

So here is a quick "disclaimer": I know that the Buddha didn't answer metaphysical questions since it made no sense to him. He wanted to afaik limit/remove suffering as much as possible. Also I know that science isn't always right and is itself making up theories which more then often enough turn out to be false. Also I meditate a lot every day as in sitting meditation and all together mindfulness. Well now to my question: I somehow get scared of thinking how there was (according to science) a big bang and then I wonder what was before the big bang or where the space comes from that the universe takes up etc. I don't know why but especially these last days I'm drawn to think about it even though I know it doesn't help me in any way and even if I happen to know everything it won't change anything. Also another thing I think of is heat death. Which again I know is a story made up by science and then I ask myself is it really worth to do anything, live, help etc. anybody if in the ultimate end everything will be gone and does that maybe imply that all beings will reach paranirvana? And just like these questions seem metaphysical and paranormal I feel like the idea of rebirth and paranirvana is also somewhat scary to think about and is as well somewhat metaphysical. I wish I could give up all these unnecessary thoughts which cause suffering to me. Also I wish science wouldn't go as far as trying to explain everything. Do you have any thoughts on this?

What happens if no beings choose to act on one's bad karma? Does one then hallucinate one's bad karma? *( By this I mean i.e. is there experiencing of hallucinations (or illusions) alongside things such as real pain? ).* E.g. What would have happened to Moggallāna if no being chose to attack him?

If I have the idea of an "apple" or its taste, - is the idea as real as the apple itself? Specifically - do the objects of the 6th consciousness depend on anything except the 6th consciousness? In normal philosophical terms - does the idea depend on the mind having the idea, in order to exist? I think these are all equivalent questions, because causation is the conventional truth - ideas, the ultimate - no causation, and the middle - the buddha nature or mind-body.

Are there good apologetic resources (books, audios, sites, etc.) that give the buddhist answer to advaita vedanta and/or hinduism in general? To the substantial model of the atman-brahman or purusha/prakriti of Patanjali yoga. I understand that in the West, Whitehead's criticisms were quite close.

Can a physical theory be fundamentally probabilistic (such as the popular interpretations of quantum mechanics) without contradicting pratitya samutpada? **Clarification** Pratitya samutpada is about how all things arise in dependence on conditions. If there is such a thing as a probabilistic event, then I would say there is some part of that event which does _not_ depend on conditions, only on chance, whatever that might mean.