Yeah, basically you have to realize that the fact you observe all of the normal brain noise is gone does not mean you are gone. You still observe. And most critically, you are not your brain noise, but something beyond that.
The beyond implies a spatial expanse in which one progresses. Becoming implies a temporal expanse in which one progresses. The cessation of these spatiotemporal limits is fundamental to that "state of being" (this phrase itself betrays that). In that sense memory itself creates that time-space substance, because it is through that, that it exists.
This is something that is very difficult to reconcile with, because this would also imply that cause and effect are non-objects. So then what is it that one "realizes"?
Cause and effect are no less real than, say, the sun. But the sensation of them and the conceptualization of them as we conceive them is a figment of the brain.
Brain itself can be wired in any way. All of our senses of external world are hallucinations inside our head driven by stimuli from sensory organs. All we can ever 'observe' is this hallucination. Yet it would be folly to believe that the external world would not exist. But! Our interpretation of the sensory experience can create lots of unreal things which are not true nor real.
I think the difficulty and key is separating the figments in our heads which reflect actual things from associations and fantasies made by our mind.
I think part of the issue is that the words/concepts really don't translate into modern english well at all. Another example is how frequently the first of the Four Noble Truths is misrepresented as "Life is suffering". We don't have good ways of saying or explaining shunyata or dukkha that preserve the nuance of the concepts.
Edit: Thich Nhat Hanh is always a solid recommendation. I'll have to find his commentary on the heart sutra.
Absolutely, translations are difficult and imprecise, having multiple meanings even in the original Sanskrit or Pāli. Even different lineages place concepts in different categories, like whether or not suffering is one of the three dharma seals or not. Vipassana as taught by the Theravada would say it is, whereas Mahayana and Vajrayana would sometimes say it’s not.
No wonder new meditators get confused when they try to start a practice with all these modern apps and books that avoid teaching any of the lineages!
"The word is commonly explained as a derivation from Aryan terminology for an axle hole, referring to an axle hole which is not in the center and leads to a bumpy, uncomfortable ride."
That being said you can have a non-nihilistic ego-death or medidate only until your more intrusive thoughts "go away" without you loosing your complete identity, that's kind of like a scientific fact. Of course if you get "addicted" to it or start chasing the "ego-death" experience it can be harmful.
There is a sutra that actually addresses nihilism, as it was a view that some schools of thought taught at the time of the Buddha. [1]
He considered it to be wrong view, a denial of the results of good or bad actions (karma) and rebirth. With the teachings on emptiness in the heart sutra it states all phenomena are marked by emptiness, “no birth no death, no being no nonbeing, no defilement no purity, no increasing no decreasing”. So nihilists would be led to cling to the view of nonbeing and not see everything else. For me at least that brought about a lot of aimless suffering.
[1] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.060.than.html
The idea that "life is meaningless" means that society cannot rely on you, because you'll do whatever strikes your fancy, whatever the consequences.
Worse, it is also a philosophy that contributes absolutely nothing to actually understanding the nature of the world, which is kind of the point of philosophy.
In short, nihilists are utterly useless, to themselves and the world. On the upside, they won't care.
How does "life is meaningless" imply "life is useless"? Also, why would nihilism entail radical individualism? The core of nihilism is that since the indifferent universe is without meaning humans have to give it meaning, quite the opposite of what you're implying.
I'm not that familiar with nihilism, but I'm rather surprised that "humans have to give it meaning" is part of the core. That's somewhat non-obvious to me; intuitively I would have expected nihilists to believe that meaning cannot exist.
Can you point me toward some sources that say nihilists actually believe that humans are capable of creating meaning?
That's a big part of existentialism (Sartre, Camus, etc), in which life has no inherent meaning, and it's rather empty existence, and it's up to the person to make any meaning for themselves.
- Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
what marks humans out from the rest of the meaningless universe that suddenly blesses them as meaning bearers? almost seems to imply some sort of religious idea that humans are not a part of the ubiverse
Just a good-enough-for-you meaning.
>almost seems to imply some sort of religious idea that humans are not a part of the ubiverse
Well, they're not like other parts, in that they have meta-cognition, and a lot of it.
Planets and black holes and ants don't wonder about meaning.
Now whether that those answers are accurate is a different question. But I think it's clear that humans crave meaning, and are happy to relegate meaning-making to third party institutions such as organized religion or the media.
Non-human subjective experiencers also imagine meaningful objects in their own minds. There's nothing special about humans other than their ability to communicate with other humans.
(Supposing they can understand us.)
For them, we are radical individualists with no regards for nothing but ourselves.
Life is finite and it will end, just like the nihilist faction proclaims. No reincarnation, no eternal life. The eternalist faction got it wrong.
Life is an infinitesimally small spark of light but lost in the infinite darkness.
And there lies its value. Life is unique, every single moment you are alive is the most valuable moment in time, and it is therefore priceless. Carpe Diem.
Also, people always care. Even for trivialities, they always care.
I love being alive and I appreciate every single moment of it. Because I know it will be over some day.
That's bad for society. Who said it's bad in itself or wrong?
That's hedonism.
This is very important to point out and I think is actually the big trap when approaching meditative practices. I fell into this nihilism trap when I was starting meditation in college and I abandoned my practice almost completely for the next 10 or so years.
It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self. The latter is an extreme view that leads to nihilism. At least in the Buddhist traditions I’m aware of, nihilism is a wrong view and the teachings are explicitly not nihilistic.
Yet it’s exceptionally easy to get confused and fall into it if you’re just meditating without any real notion of what the teachings are. All the corporate “meditate for productivity” that has invaded the dialogue in the west I find at least misguided, and at the worst actually harmful.
For anyone that is interested I’d suggest reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s translation and commentary on the heart sutra called “The Other Shore”. It clears up a lot of the teaching on emptiness and will help you not fall into the nihilism trap.
(It’s also useful to note that the modern vipassana movement that is so popular in the west comes from a tradition that doesn’t emphasize the teachings on emptiness, even though they are in fact there in the Pali cannon.)