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If "everything is energy" then what does this mean?

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godnotgod

godnotgod

Thou art That
Rick O'Shez said:
Another way of describing this is dependent arising, in other words all phenomena arise in dependence on condition, and cease when those conditions cease. This applies equally to universes, planets, weather, human bodies, thoughts, feelings, whatever you like. This means that all phenomena are relative so there can be no absolutes - no God, no "cosmic consciousness", no "ultimate reality", none of that stuff. There are no essences, and nothing which exists independently.
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the ordinary mind sees things that have self nature; the buddha sees that there are no things which have self nature. the mind of the buddha is one beyond self-view, which is why he is able to see what the ordinary man fails to see. the opposite of self-view is universal view.
 
Rick O'Shez

Rick O'Shez

Irishman bouncing off walls
Runewolf1973 said:
Since matter is basically empty anyways, what independent "things" are there? There is only interaction/interconnectivity.
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Indeed, and that interaction is continually changing. Coming back to the OP, I think "everything is movement" might be a more meaningful alternative to "everything is energy". Perpetual change is what we observe at all scales.
 
godnotgod

godnotgod

Thou art That
Rick O'Shez said:
Indeed, and that interaction is continually changing. Coming back to the OP, I think "everything is movement" might be a more meaningful alternative to "everything is energy". Perpetual change is what we observe at all scales.
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which is what the buddha observed, and why he sought higher ground.
 
Runewolf1973

Runewolf1973

Materialism/Animism
godnotgod said:
no, it means form is emptiness; emptiness is form

the universe is everything; being everything, it has no other to which it can be compared. having no other to which it can be compared means it is the absolute
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The universe is simply the totality of all that exists. It doesn't mean that the universe cannot be interactive. How do you think all this "maya" makes itself known to us? Where did the concept of maya come from to begin with? It is the universe laughing...(interacting).
 
godnotgod

godnotgod

Thou art That
Runewolf1973 said:
The universe is simply the totality of all that exists. It doesn't mean that the universe cannot be interactive. How do you think all this "maya" makes itself known to us? Where did the concept of maya come from to begin with? It is the universe laughing...(interacting).
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if it is the totality, it means there is no relative other to which it can be compared. That is The Absolute. if there is not other, with what can it interact?
 
godnotgod

godnotgod

Thou art That
Rick O'Shez said:
Still meaningless rhetoric.
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READ:

repeat: the universe is everything; being everything, it has no other to which it can be compared. having no other to which it can be compared means it is the absolute

YOU ARE IN DENIAL WITH THE TRUTH RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU
 
Rick O'Shez

Rick O'Shez

Irishman bouncing off walls
Runewolf1973 said:
The universe is simply the totality of all that exists. It doesn't mean that the universe cannot be interactive. How do you think all this "maya" makes itself known to us? Where did the concept of maya come from to begin with? It is the universe laughing...(interacting).
Click to expand...

Maya is a Hindu belief with different levels of meaning, not particularly useful in the current discussion because it is likely to be misrepresented and confused with teachings from other traditions.

But yes, "universe" is just how we talk about everything there is, one huge interactive process you could say.
 
Rick O'Shez

Rick O'Shez

Irishman bouncing off walls
godnotgod said:
YOU ARE IN DENIAL WITH THE TRUTH RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU
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No, just bored with your random emission of cliched rhetoric. "Absolute" is meaningless here. There is just the universe, the totality of everything, one huge interactive process you could say.
It's like talking about "Absolute reality", a completely meaningless description.
 
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godnotgod

godnotgod

Thou art That
Rick O'Shez said:
Exactly. No things, only interactive processes.
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if there are no things, what is there to interact?

One day the Fifth Patriarch told his monks to express their wisdom in a poem. Whoever had true realization of his original nature (Buddha Nature) would be ordained the Sixth Patriarch. The head monk, Shen Hsiu, was the most learned, and wrote the following:

The body is the wisdom-tree,
The mind is a bright mirror in a stand;
Take care to wipe it all the time,
And allow no dust to cling.

The poem was praised, but The Fifth Patriarch knew that Shen Hsiu had not yet found his original nature, on the other hand, Hui Neng couldn't even write, so someone had to write down his poem, which read:

Fundamentally no wisdom-tree exists,
Nor the stand of a mirror bright.
Since all is empty from the beginning,
Where can the dust* alight?

http://sped2work.tripod.com/huineng.html

*dust in Buddhism is the suffering of the world, or Samsara. Real Buddhists (not pseudo 'Buddhishes') talk about 'no attachment to dust'.
 
Rick O'Shez

Rick O'Shez

Irishman bouncing off walls
godnotgod said:
The body is the wisdom-tree,
The mind is a bright mirror in a stand;
Take care to wipe it all the time,
And allow no dust to cling.

The poem was praised, but The Fifth Patriarch knew that Shen Hsiu had not yet found his original nature, on the other hand, Hui Neng couldn't even write, so someone had to write down his poem, which read:

Fundamentally no wisdom-tree exists,
Nor the stand of a mirror bright.
Since all is empty from the beginning,
Where can the dust* alight?

http://sped2work.tripod.com/huineng.html
Click to expand...

So could you explain the relevance of this to what we were just discussing? Or are you hiding behind Zen again?
 
Runewolf1973

Runewolf1973

Materialism/Animism
Rick O'Shez said:
If the multi-verse theory is true then our universe could be interacting with other universes or something. But that is another question.
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Agreed, but that also depends on how you percieve the universe. To me "universe" means the totality of everything that exists including all other possibly existing universes. So depending on how one percieves it, the universe can be seen as a sort of absolute because there is no other, but that doesn't mean it is not interactive or interconnected.
 
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