The two truths doctrine of Buddhism

[tariki]

You will not wander far within the quagmire of any Buddhist Forum before encountering the Two Truth's Doctrine. 

Absolute and relative - or various other opposites, until the mind reels away....... "conventional" and absolute is another one. Maybe we could even think in terms of "intuitive" and "as Einstein explains it"!

At the moment I'm participating on a Mahayana Buddhist forum. Lots of "screen" names there that are pretty pretentious, almost as bad as Tariki! Anyway, most ignore me. Which is possibly for the best.

A thread there was begun on the Two Truths doctrine and feeling fairly "tight" this morning with my mental health issues I headed for McDonalds, braced myself with a stiff coffee and waded in. I really do find the world around me more and more surreal, but find in this a bonus. I simply tend to lose all restraint on what I say.

Here is my post:-

I wouldn't really call it a doctrine. More just the almost necessary complications once we decide that surely this can't be "it". Then in comes a host of various ideas, concepts and explanations, satisfying to some, called into question by others.

The necessary simplicity will always be complex in attempts at explanation as words -and duality - capture us.

"A condition of complete simplicity (costing not less than everything)" as T. S.Eliot has it. But as he is not an eastern guru - or at least has assumed no pretentious name - many will pay no attention. Another from Mr Eliot is:-

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

Then we can have W. H. Auden:-

For the garden is the only place there is, but you will not find it
Until you have looked for it everywhere and found nowhere that is not a desert.
The miracle is the only thing that happens, but to you it will not be apparent
Until all events have been studied and nothing happens to you that you cannot explain.
Life is the destiny you are bound to refuse until you have consented to die.

In zen, the mountains are mountains, and rivers are rivers.......then we begin our search because this is not enough.......eventually they return as what they have always been, this if we have consented to die.

There are many forms of death between the mountains resuming their own paricularity. Samsara is nirvana, therefore there is no betrayal of this world for any imagined "other". Most "religion" is such a betrayal.

To be honest, I have no idea exactly where I am. The complexity confuses me. I tend to see that the journey itself is home and the seeing of this deepens, though as Dogen says:- "nothing is concealed". "Now" is the only moment. The "mystery" is ever before us, yet there is "a movement towards Buddha". I love his words and poetry.

My quotes are over. I can now safely be ignored.

May true Dharma continue.
No blame. Be kind. Love everything.

 

Well, that was it. Those familiar with my ramblings here will recognise some familiar quotes, and possibly be astounded that there are none from Thomas Merton. And so, as this is a Christian forum (progressive or not......🙂 ) I will end with a few of his words, drawn from his essay "A Study of Chuang Tzu"....

 

The way of Tao is to begin with the simple good with which one is endowed by the very fact of existence. Instead of self-conscious cultivation of this good (which vanishes when we look at it and becomes intangible when we try to grasp it), we grow quietly in the humility of a simple, ordinary life, and this way is analogous (at least psychologically) to the Christian “life of faith.” It is more a matter of believing the good than of seeing it as the fruit of one’s effort.

Yes, coming back to where we began and knowing it for the first time. 

Edited October 27, 2022 by tariki