[Buddha-l] Acting on emptiness

[Dee]

Ultimate truth is that things have no intrinsic nature. Conventional truth is that things appear due to causes and conditions. Both truths describe the same phenomena. A lack of intrinsic nature (emptiness) is not a thing and so cannot be conceived of separately from the appearance of things. Delusion is the belief that things do have intrinsic natures and is thus the source of the conventional world in which we live. That seems to be standard Buddhist philosophy. 
The precise relationship between the two truths has been the subject of debate for centuries, not just amongst modern scholars. To say ‘there is not even the slightest difference between nirvana and samsara’ is true from the perspective of ultimate truth. It would therefore seem to set a precedent for saying that ‘conventional truth just is ultimate truth.’ This has also been said by many Tibetan scholars, notably none of which has belonged to the Gelugpa tradition. 
For Richard’s other point about the statement ‘there is no way of telling by what a person says whether or not she grasps the ultimate truth,’ we would first have to define what is meant by the term ‘grasps.’ If we mean an intellectual or conceptual understanding, then words are the only way such an understanding can be communicated and a definitive linguistic expression would probably not be impossible to recognise. If we take grasp to refer to a ‘realization’ of ultimate truth – usually defined as a direct, unmediated, nonconceptual recognition that is transformative in import – then linguistic skills would no longer be very important. 
A person with such a mind would no longer be bound by internal conventional restrictions, although they may choose to observe them for the sake of others comfort levels. As many of the stories of the Indian mahasiddhas demonstrate, people have even wanted to murder such individuals because of their unconventional behaviour. Many ‘modern scholars’ have wanted to discount these stories as representative of an inferior form of Buddhism, but perhaps that is because they are attached to the idea that logic and rationality are definitive when it comes to understanding reality and are thus resistant to the idea of something more expansive than a subjectively imposed objectivity to explain how we have come to be. 
Just a few thoughts, but you all seem to agree with each other too often, so I thought I would throw that in there.Dee

--- On Mon, 10/20/08, Richard P. Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu> wrote:

From: Richard P. Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu>
Subject: [Buddha-l] Acting on emptiness
To: "Buddhist discussion forum" <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
Date: Monday, October 20, 2008, 11:14 PM

Denizens of buddha-l,