Not Seeing the Ultimate Nature of Phenomena

Before beginning our text, today, we shall, first, respectfully urge our readers [unless they happen to be Pali scholars] to remain open to the possibility of undergoing a total, mental ‘twist-of-mind’─ a paradigm shift ─or  in other words, to be prepared to see phenomena in the exact opposite way in which, we, as ‘so-called’ normal human beings, are commonly-accustomed to experiencing ‘so-called’ solid things in this ‘so-called’ world, ‘supposedly seen” around us.

Why Should We Experience Things differently?

To be more explicit, we should be prepared to realize that things and objects in-the-world, which we ‘believe’ we see as fixed-entities (right before our very eyes) arising and moving around us, (as we “perceive” them to be), are just based upon sets of conventional assumptions within men’s minds, dependent upon the result of common man’s limited-perceptual, mental-physical [and wholly-inadequate] mental capacity for full and real comprehension of the ultimate nature of phenomena.

“Seeing is believing.” is merely a colloquial expression.

“Seeing can be deceiving.” is another common colloquialism.

Many would agree that, “What we think we see is just a mental delusion.”

Many would say that “What you choose to believe depends on which way you are “leaning.”

If most of were honest, we would say, “Cognition is downright confusing.”

And if we keep observing the mental process in this way, sooner or later, we begin to feel uneasy about our previously-unquestioned and unqualified-confidence in the reality of what we had always commonly accepted as “conventional reality.”

Then, when and as the autonomous assumptions of our ‘belief system’ begin to shake, we naturally begin to quake, and, subsequently, we feel fear and trembling in the face of fear of ahihilation of everything we have ever believed in.

Luckily for us, the situation is not so serious.

We have become the butt of the human comedy, but all we need to do [to avoid playing the fool: the one who is not yet wise to the way of things] is lose our wrong view of the world.

For example, a quantum physicist would say that, despite all appearances, matter and all phenomena have no substantial realty, except at the levels of waves and energies.

Most of us know that already, so why do we insist upon our obdurate adherence to belief in external reality? Why do we want to hang onto it? Why don’t we want to let go of it? Why do we cling to our obvious ignorance concerning the difference between right and wrong view of phenomena?.

Despite evidence [from particle theory in physics], most common, mundane men still conventionally [and often tenaciously and even stubbornly] continue to see the world of appearances, and believe-in and conceive-of mind-objects, as consisting of concrete, solid matter ─ or being permanenent and abiding-entities ─ on commonly-understood levels. Is this due to obdurate ignorance or to the limitations of human perception?

Is it a being comfortable in one’s ignorance or is having a ‘fear of adapting to change’ to see with right view?

If we see the opposite of “wrong view,” we will come to see the ultimate and true nature of phenomena.

If we come to know, in terms of particle physics, that all phenomena might be better-understood as totally lacking in substance, the above-suggested “paradigm shift” would not be so hard to accept, especially if we were to consider that such an opposite to wrong view of the nature of phenomena would be more understandably true, and more easily adapted-to, for the establishment of mental security in in a world in which everything is always in a state of flux and changing. [See endnote number 1.]

Now we come to the mental crux of the whole exercise which we have been gradually leading up to.

The surprise which shakes the very foundations of Western Philosophy and Theory of Knowledge concerning ‘so called’ conventional truth is that, more than 2500 years ago, [long before quantum physics] what we may term a ‘Buddhist Analysis of Phenomena’ was used in original Pali Theravada observation and investigation of mind-objects [phenomena] to explicate the process of fleeting arising and ceasing of appearances in the realm of ultimate truths.

The complete essay (109 pages) can be downloaded as a PDF.

Tags: Anagarika Tevijjo