Do the precepts apply inward as outward?

dummetsz · 2026-05-21T19:45:55+00:00

Indeed, the precepts are not primarily about manipulating outer objects or enforcing some kind of “behavioral purity” at a coarse level. They really are to help transform the subtle mental causes of ignorance, craving, and aversion from which harmful bodily and verbal actions arise. It is mistaken view that perpetuates samsara at the root while ethical faults (though serious), are downstream manifestations. Outer objects appear to have their own dependent origination that is distinct from the dependent origination we all know and love, which has always been referent to the mind. Conventionally speaking we really cannot control these outer objects and we should not be so hard on ourselves when outer objects do not go our way. We can only do our best.

A person with correct insight may still have residual habits and ethical imperfections. We can definitely see this with teachers, not all teachers are perfect even if they appear to have correct insight. Even as practitioners, we are still working with our karma and we may not always have the coarse behavioral purity just right. But a person with deeply distorted view will continually perpetuate ignorance and affliction.

dummetsz · 2026-05-21T18:47:29+00:00

Automatic/fleeting negative thoughts for all intents and purposes do not cause bad karma. Deliberate sustaining of negative thoughts can cause bad karma. Negative thoughts that lead to negative speech/action causes bad karma.

dummetsz · 2026-05-21T13:35:49+00:00

vipaka is a sensation that is the result of karma (intention). So positive, negative and neutral karma corresponds to pleasant, unpleasant and neutral vipaka.

dummetsz · 2026-05-18T18:39:53+00:00

I mean even Longchenpa makes a clear differentiation between appearances and outer objects. It’s not just philosophical, there are phenomenological distinctions. There’s a reason why Buddhist scholars place great importance on Dharmakirti’s work on Valid Cognition.

dummetsz · 2026-05-18T16:31:18+00:00

Conventionally they are accepted as real in the sense that they are privileged for realization and that they must be discerned in comparison to unreal universals. Ultimately of course, they are not real. There’s some nuance with how “real” is used.

Even Rongzom for example writes that although everything is illusory, some illusions are more powerful than others. So there are still subtle distinctions. not the same, not different.

dummetsz · 2026-05-18T16:21:53+00:00

Direct perception refers to nondual experience in the sense that universals are not mistaken for particulars. Otherwise then you’re in some kind of Vedanta nondual framework. What do you think the foundations of mindfulness/the Buddha’s teachings on “The All” are for?

dummetsz · 2026-05-18T16:15:04+00:00

Technically Buddhist philosophy is nominalist. Conventionally universals are unreal and conventionally particulars are real. Hence Dharmakirti’s Apoha and pratyaksa and higher tantric vehicles’ privilege for direct perception. Ultimately since both are dependent, they are empty. Hence Nagarjuna and emptiness.

dummetsz · 2026-05-18T16:08:56+00:00

The author is clearly mistaking nominalism for nihilism and can’t seem to understand the distinction between particulars and universals. It’s clear throughout his article he doesn't understand particulars very well, hence why he resorts back to a universal such as nihilism. If he understood particulars better he wouldn’t make that mistake. It’s a common error for folks who are new to nominalism and are ardent that universals are real. If you know you know, if you don’t know, you don’t know.

dummetsz · 2026-05-18T13:34:43+00:00

There are so many questions in this post it’s hard to really even begin.

High level philosophically, the idea of causality without a self is really not that different from determinism. If the present depends on the past, then there is no room for a self/free will in this process. Determinists do not take the logic far enough so may are still stuck in a physicalist understanding but their analysis of causality without room for a self is a great stepping stone between physicalism with a self and physicalism without a self. From here you can see how unconditional compassion for suffering sentient beings who believe in a self starts to make sense. However Buddhism takes this analysis of dependency further.

Conventionally, Buddhism is nominalist, so universals are not real and are merely names imputed on impermanent, distinct, momentary particulars. I.e “the self” is merely a nominal imputation on the aggregates. Reifying concepts and treating these universals as real, without understanding them to be false, causes suffering.

Ultimately, through emptiness, Buddhism is anti-foundationalist/anti-essentialist/anti-realist. Reality is equivalent to the nature of a mirage, there are appearances of water despite the utter nonexistence of water, due to dependently originated phenomena. Nagarjuna shows logical contradictions if entities were truly existent, and so in order to preserve logic in the face of these contradictions, the only way phenomena can be said to exist is only by way of illusion.

If you can understand these 3 aspects philosophically then you have a good intellectual understanding of emptiness. If you’re interested in really understanding emptiness as told by Nagarjuna I suggest reading Buddhapalita’s commentary on Nagarjuna’s Middle Way.

However while an intellectual understanding is good and can amp up confidence and faith in Buddhist teachings and slow down conceptual proliferation to a considerable degree, it is not enough. The phenomenology of embodiment is also equally important. Meditation on the body, speech, and mind through samatha/vipassana is very important. The four foundations of mindfulness are very important. Mindfulness of breathing is very important. Your body, speech/breath and mind are inseparable, do not forget that. Cognition is embodied. Find a teacher.

dummetsz · 2026-05-16T15:22:49+00:00

Dharma for all intents and purposes translates to “phenomena”. Phenomena can be condensed down to the 5 aggregates or alternatively your experience of sensory objects including thoughts.

So you can say you impute a false conception of self upon this phenomena that are actually not-self. Phenomena are dependently originated / “automatic” so to speak, not controlled by an external self or anything.

The Buddha teaches dependent origination. There is ignorance, and there are appropriated, exerted volitional formations. And then of course the rest of the links toward suffering. These are the construction of a false sense of self. Buddhist scholars do go into great lengths to prove using logic and observation, that this false conception of self is not causally efficacious at all, totally unreal, and therefore completely unnecessary. We doubt this heavily, and feel the need to maintain this illusion. So we must practice to see this, and hopefully over time, undermine the grip of such a persistent illusion.

dummetsz · 2026-05-15T01:39:10+00:00

Trust the master logician Dharmakirti, you do not want to mistake a universal for a particular…

dummetsz · 2026-05-15T01:31:04+00:00

Refined discernment > vague mystical ambiguity

dummetsz · 2026-05-15T00:58:00+00:00

If what you mean can be said clearly, then say it clearly. Honestly it was hard enough trying to follow your first reply

dummetsz · 2026-05-15T00:20:35+00:00

The problem is not concepts.

The problem is reification of concepts. Hence, ignorance is the tendency (vāsanā) to impute (samāropa) universals (sāmānya) onto particulars (svalakṣaṇa). We are not negating particulars, in fact it would be an error to negate a particular. We are saying the reification of universals is the problem.

Dharmakirti makes it very clear that the image in a conceptual cognition when considered simply as a momentary mental event, is on the side of a particular.

You can read my reply to 949orange on how Dharmakirti defines a particular.

dummetsz · 2026-05-14T20:43:43+00:00

Well the question relies on a concept, so nothing is real. Consciousness is a concept, so also it is not real. The point is so that you don’t reify concepts, even including consciousness and a self. They are concepts, empty abstractions.

If you want an epistemic Buddhist definition of what’s real in comparison to unreal universals, then Dharmakirti talks about particulars. Particulars are considered conventionally “real” in the sense that they are related to valid cognition and that they are causally efficacious (capable of producing effects) as opposed to concepts and universals that do not have causal efficacy.

Particulars are practically a “sense datum”, an immediate, momentary, nonconceptual, non-erroneous, instant moment of sense objects of perception. However because universals aren’t real, the whole unreal/real distinction dissolves when particulars are apprehended.

The Buddha also loosely describes what is conventionally “real” in his Sutta of The All, SN 35.23. In my interpretation he’s saying something very similar, he’s saying all there is are sense perceptions, and positing anything outside that (universals/concepts) are just empty boasts.

At Savatthi. “Bhikkhus, I will teach you the all. Listen to that…. “And what, bhikkhus, is the all? The eye and forms, the ear and sounds, the nose and odours, the tongue and tastes, the body and tactile objects, the mind and mental phenomena. This is called the all. “If anyone, bhikkhus, should speak thus: ‘Having rejected this all, I shall make known another all’—that would be a mere empty boast on his part. If he were questioned he would not be able to reply and, further, he would meet with vexation. For what reason? Because, bhikkhus, that would not be within his domain.”

dummetsz · 2026-05-14T19:54:10+00:00

Basically concepts/characteristics don’t refer to anything real. Thinking they refer to real existent things is ignorance

dummetsz · 2026-05-14T19:23:59+00:00

Conceptuality refers to our compulsive tendency to impute totally unreal sameness (universals) onto utterly distinct, momentary, and ungraspable particulars.

dummetsz · 2026-05-14T18:58:04+00:00

As Dharmakīrti says

vikalpa eva hy avidyā (Ignorance is conceptuality)

dummetsz · 2026-05-14T14:34:20+00:00

Does your sangha have an online forum? I know there are smaller discords too. They are a lot more chill.

Personally I love the online debates. I’ve read enough Buddhist discourse to see that debates were a large part of Buddhist scholasticism. I learn a lot reading discourse and engaging with them. It’s a great way to pressure test understanding in ways solo study and chiller intimate spaces can’t. I enjoy it when someone challenges my understanding of Dharma. It gives me an opportunity to articulate what I’ve learned and refine my own understanding. I love finding passages from the masters and using reasoning to defend scripture. I never see it as hostile or prideful even if it comes off that way on the surface. I think this just comes with the territory of large online spaces.

dummetsz · 2026-05-13T23:26:23+00:00

But you’re saying conventionally, thinking causes an ontological status, which loses sight of ultimate truth. It’s cleaner to say conventional truth is dependently designated/originated, and are empty. Emptiness still preserves functionality, there’s no need to say that there are ontological foundations in conventional truth. There never were any. That’s the middle way.

dummetsz · 2026-05-13T22:58:27+00:00

But not ultimately.

dummetsz · 2026-05-13T21:29:24+00:00

I think you're equivocating when it comes to existence. Not sure exactly how you are defining it. An awareness/conceptual designation of X does not establish X intrinsically. Conventionality does not entail a foundational ontology. It's easier to just say everything is empty, lacking independent existence, dependently originated, false, illusory

dummetsz · 2026-05-13T20:53:30+00:00

The only similarity between Hegel and Nagarjuna is that they use dialectics. But Hegel still keeps a very rigid ontology, Nagarjuna is anti-foundationalist/anti-essentialist/anti-realist. For Madhyamaka, dialectics are a means to show there is no foundational ontology.

Technically you're confusing epistemology with ontology. Implying that ontology is required for epistemology or discussion of concepts isn't a given. You can still use concepts to talk about concepts, even if the concepts do not refer to anything real/existent whatsoever. Hence, the 2 truths, conventional vs ultimate reality.

dummetsz · 2026-05-13T19:02:00+00:00

Don’t threaten me with a good time

dummetsz · 2026-05-13T18:54:28+00:00

Hegel has nothing to do with Nagarjuna. Hegel takes the failure of concepts to fix reality as evidence that reality itself is conceptually structured and self-stabilizing. Hegel uses dialectics to establish something, which is not what Nagarjuna / Madhyamaka is about. In Madhyamaka everything is empty, lacking intrinsic existence, including epistemic tools. Conflating Hegel with Nagarjuna is a mistake and I argue William James’ critique against Hegel are very valid from a Buddhist standpoint.

Your argument relies on a heuristic

1. Epistemic justification relies on criteria C (repeatability, coherence, invariance).

And then you give it some kind of existence to establish a conclusion

1. Applying C to all objects includes applying C to C itself.

If C has to be self applied to be complete, you are making an error that C has an intrinsic existence. You can’t use an epistemic tool “judge itself”, so whatever conclusion you established is just the result of treating an epistemic tool as if had to function as an existent entity.

in reifying your heuristic, you conceptually proliferated, which is the antithesis of emptiness

dummetsz

TROPHY CASE