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   Niggy Hardare (j@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:06 JST Niggy Hardare

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   • ?Hidden?
   @hidden Contradiction is definitely used as a rhetorical device in Buddhism in a similar way, especially in Zen, but it's ultimately not contradictory, it just has to be understood that everything being said is context dependent to the extreme.
   
   No matter how you describe the system or tell the story, it's mere convention. Constructs are, at best, useful illusions that point you toward a real thing.
   
   For example, it is both correct to say that the Buddha was Enlightened countless eons ago and came intentionally to a specific time to reintroduce dharma, but it's also true that the Buddha awakened at a specific point in time during his life after trial and error. Because every single object and concept is without essence, and defined entirely by their relationship to other things, both of these things are true. There is no change in state that happens, just a subjective flux in consciousness.
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     ?Hidden? (hidden@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:06 JST ?Hidden?

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     @J That makes sense. Daoism is the same where epistemologically it’s impossible to reduce the Dao to shareable knowledge so the texts are full of contradictions meant to point you towards personal realisation of the Dao.
     受不了包 likes this.
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     Niggy Hardare (j@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:07 JST Niggy Hardare

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     • ?Hidden?
     @hidden In Chinese Buddhism in particular, sunyatta throws a wrench in everything because everything you say conventionally is negated by the fluidity of its substance.
     
     For example, a Buddha does not enter Nirvana until hell is emptied, but also, all beings awakened at once when Shakyamuni did, but also Buddha Nature is omnipresent and we were already awakened, and this is possible because sentient beings are only conventionally separate, and placement in samsara is contingent on forgetting that from conventional, individual perspectives, so hell is already empty.
     
     Also Pure Lands are already outside of Samsara for the Buddha, but not necessarily for others born there, so in another way, you can't necessarily disentangle Samsara from Nirvana.
     
     Every category is fluid and can be multiple things at once, it makes understanding what's being said a nightmare.
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     ?Hidden? (hidden@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:07 JST ?Hidden?

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     @J Hahaha, sounds exactly like Daoism and Chinese folk religion. Countless contradictions, some important and some just artifacts of differing sources. And some are caused by the language itself I guess, since older Chinese requires an insane amount of context sensitivity that’s hard to translate.
     
     I hear Sanskrit has a vastly higher proportion of words to describe conscious experiences, which always makes me wonder how much depth is lost when those terms are translated into English.
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     Niggy Hardare (j@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:08 JST Niggy Hardare

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     @hidden It is frustrating to me to have built such an extensive knowledge of a tradition I no longer want to participate in. When people talk about Chinese religion, Buddhism or Confucianism or whatever, I'm so often lost. I'm not even trying to understand Daoist traditions yet. I have so much to catch up on.
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     ?Hidden? (hidden@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:08 JST ?Hidden?

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     @J You will catch up. If anyone in this world can consume a canon it’s you
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     Niggy Hardare (j@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:09 JST Niggy Hardare

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     • ?Hidden?
     @hidden >Tfw you're not a Christian anymore but you still have an autistic knowledge of Christian mysticism.
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     ?Hidden? (hidden@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:09 JST ?Hidden?

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     @J You always have an incredible and autistic breadth of knowledge about this stuff. It’s interesting how differently you approach it compared to me just trying to pattern match whatever little fancy appears in mine or lao tzu’s head
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     Niggy Hardare (j@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:10 JST Niggy Hardare

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     • ?Hidden?
     @hidden That's the medieval Christian model. God himself exists through the love between his persons (the Father and Son are always united in love, and bc of Simplicity, this love is in itself a 3rd person, the Holy Spirit)
     
     The world, then, is created from logoi, which are like Plato's forms, and those are contained within the one Logos; the Son.
     
     So the whole world is bound together by love in Christian cosmology.
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     Niggy Hardare (j@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:10 JST Niggy Hardare

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     • ?Hidden?

     @hidden This is mostly laid out in Augustine's De Trinitate and Maximus the Confessor's Ambigua

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     Niggy Hardare (j@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:11 JST Niggy Hardare

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     • ?Hidden?

     @hidden Now, what if love isn't just some thing that resists entropy? What if love is the default mode that binds things into relationships with one another, and entropy is just what happens when love is relaxed?

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     ?Hidden? (hidden@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:11 JST ?Hidden?

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     @J Hmm, I’m not sure! That would have big implications, but I can see it. What would be the cause of creation in that case?
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     Niggy Hardare (j@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:12 JST Niggy Hardare

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     • ?Hidden?

     @hidden You sound like a Christian

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     ?Hidden? (hidden@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:12 JST ?Hidden?

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     @J They had some good ideas I can’t deny it
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     ?Hidden? (hidden@cawfee.club)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Nov-2024 11:25:13 JST ?Hidden?
     Love is the one thing in the universe not bound by entropy. The endless spark of creation, present even in nothingness, the catalyst of creation from nothing. It is our most important essential duty in life, the spark that guides us home, the warmth in our core, the boundless wellspring we are always able to share.