Non Mormon, Christian POV on pre-existence

[_Dantana]

Hey Samantabhadra, thanks for the post. I can see I have much to learn and you have much to teach. If you get a chance, here are a couple of threads I started last year. As to your question of my oneness theory....
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20799
As to the substance of matter....
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20781

[_Samantabhadra]

tana,

Thanks for the links, now I see more clearly what you mean by "oneness theory." I could articulate and defend a Christian position, but it sounds like you're more interested in Buddhist ideas, which (in my estimation) are more developed--not necessarily better or worse, mind you, but treated more explicitly and in greater detail. Please keep in mind that I at least do not consider these contradictory with orthodox non-Mormon Christian teaching; your mileage, of course, may vary.

So. First of all I want to say that what I will be presenting is just one type of Buddhist philosophy, and furthermore it is strictly Great Vehicle philosophy, so a Buddhist from e.g. Sri Lanka or Thailand might well regard what I have to say as being heretical to a greater or lesser degree.

That said, I will present a brief version of the Yogic Practice ontology. In the Yogic Practice school, everything in the multiverse is comprehensively contained within the "Three Natures." These are:

I. The imagined or imputed nature. This is "duality," both ontological duality (i.e. existence/nonexistence) and phenomenological duality (i.e. subject/object intentionality). The imputed nature is strictly nonexistent; it appears to exist, which is to say that phenomena appear dualistically, but this apparent dualism is only due to a kind of cognitive error. In reality, there is no duality. However, owing to the fact that ordinary beings ordinarily experience the world dualistically, it is sometimes qualified as having a type of "imputed" or "imaginary" existence.

II. The dependent nature. This is usually glossed in one of two ways:

A. The sum total of all causal interactions in the universe, i.e. "dependent origination" (a very important word in Buddhism)

B. The "eight collections of consciousness." This is where the rubber hits the road in terms of ideas re: prior lives or pre-existence. Basically you can think of these eight collections in three categories:

1) The six sense-consciousnesses, seeing/hearing/touching/tasting/smelling together with the sixth "mental" consciousness.

2) The "afflicted mental consciousness," or the underlying defiled cognitive tendency to conceptualize experience in terms of one's self being the <0,0,0,0>-point of a four-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system.

3) The "all-ground" or "storehouse" consciousness. This is what accounts for the intersubjectivity of experience, and (together with the quintessentially Buddhist doctrine of the nonexistence of the individual self) prevents Yogic Practice ontology from lapsing into solipsism. Whenever an action is performed, it leaves an imprint in the form of a metaphorical "seed" that will later ripen as pleasure, pain, or neutral feeling, in accordance with the ethical character of the action. In basic terms, the storehouse consciousness is where these "seeds" of prior experience are stored, hence the name.

The dependent nature refers to the basic building-blocks of the universe, both in their individuality and in their causal combinations or interactions. As such it is frequently described as having "substantial" existence. But this "substantial" existence is still only "relative," as opposed to ultimate; the point is that there are phenomenal appearances, and that these phenomenal appearances are in some sense real, but they are not "as real" as Enlightenment.

III. The perfected nature is the lack of the imputed nature in the dependent nature. In other words, it is the fact that, although we seem to experience the world as if we were a phenomenological subject encountering phenomenological objects, this experience is deluded or deceptive. When we practice meditation, we can transcend or eliminate phenomenological duality (as well as its expression in ontologically-dualistic concepts of existence and nonexistence). Thus the perfected nature alone is said to be "ultimately" existent. Crucially, in keeping with the denial of ontological duality, this "ultimate" existence must be understood as not being "existent" in the same way that, say, a chair or a table (or an electron) is "existent." To whatever extent it makes sense to say that material phenomena "exist," their existence is "substantial" as per above; the defining quality of the perfected nature is the essential "emptiness" (or: being empty of self-nature) that qualifies all phenomena.


* * *

So what does this have to do with your initial question?

The most important thing to understand is that, in Buddhism, the self does not exist. There is no such thing as either being "one with" the universe or "apart from" the universe, because both of these require the existence of an individual subject or self. "What there is" instead is the non-dual flow of mental experiences, which is inauthentically construed in terms of phenomenological duality. The point is that we have, since beginningless lifetimes, interacted with the world as though "the world" existed independently of our observation of it.

This is already too long so I won't expand further, except to say that this also is where Tarski is completely wrong about atomic physics. (Full disclosure, I am an unabashed disciple of Niels Bohr and his Copenhagen School). The single most radical departure of QM from classical physics, particularly according to Bohr, is that it becomes impossible to account for "objective" atomic phenomena independently of the means by which atomic objects are observed. Essentially, QM necessitates a radical revision of our epistemological paradigm, such that the "matter" that composes midsize dry objects like boards and nails can no longer be considered, at an atomic level, to exist independently of its observation, where "observation" really means any kind of causal interaction (c.f. the "dependent nature," above).

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any further questions.

[_thews]

But if the soul can exist separate from the body, in say, purgatory, that would seem to indicate that they are separate things/identities. Right? What does the soul do when it is in stasis, waiting to be resurrected? How does it interact with its environment without a body to nest in?

Your perspective is a human one, so the answer to your question cannot be understood unless you're privy to the dimension which you don't know... no one does, including me. The entire concept of heaven and hell and being judged is taken from the literal words in the Bible. The caveat I believe most people miss is that a foundation for all souls being equal simply isn't true. If someone is born with a brain that knows no empathy and does horrible things, is it the fault of the person? If someone is born into wealth vs. poverty, then all perspectives change. This is why "judgement" is the Lord's, because there isn't a one-size-fits-all human all rules apply to equally.

in my opinion, one must step outside the box and take all variables into consideration. If God didn't want Buddhism it wouldn't exist. If God didn't want gay people they wouldn't exist. in my opinion (and I realize I'm in a vast minority when it comes to Christians) hell doesn't exist. The threat of it needs to exist, but it doesn't make sense. If you knew all the answers you wouldn't learn anything, so by questioning what happens after one dies is the purpose... the lesson. If you were told after you died there was no hell, everyone goes to heaven and life was just one step in the process of the maturation to the soul, would it shock you? The truth is what matters, as what isn't true (known to be false) is a given. What may or may not be true is not known, so it's not as important.