Steven > Recent Status Updates

According to Tsonkhapa, the efficient condition refers to the five aggregates, the objective condition refers to the perceptions of the six kinds of consciousness, the immediate condition refers to the cause that has just ceased, and the dominant condition refers to the six kinds of causes (facilitative cause, simultaneous cause, homogenous cause, psychological causes, ubiquitous causes, and ripening causes)

Before Tsongkhapa moves on to the next verse in the MMK, he mentions that "not arising from other" is not the same as arising from causes and conditions. This is because the Buddha taught the four conditions in abhidharma: The efficient condition, the objective condition, the immediate condition, and the dominant condition

Before moving on to his analysis of the next verse in the Mulamadhyamakakarika, Tsongkhapa mentions that ignorance exists only in conventional reality and not in the ultimate reality. This is to explain ignorance as the source of arising in the so-called 12 links of dependent arising as described in the Pali canon. The ultimate reality is both empty of ignorance and empty of emptiness.

I can already tell this novel is going to be devastating. It starts with the main character talking about how taking a shit with your comrades is the best part of war. I'm two chapters in and someone has already died. What fun!

He also asserts that a phenomenon arising from a cause not associated with its continuum (such as a creator God) would be a similarly ridiculous, because then anything could arise from anything else. A purple elephant could appear from a walnut under these circumstances, but conventionally speaking, everyone knows that it will never happen. All phenomena are products of a continuum of causes and effects.

Tsongkhapa establishes in these 10 pages that the notion of arising from an inherent substratum (as in Vedanta philosophy) is a ridiculous idea, because it leads to an infinite regress. If the substratum has already arisen, then it would be pointless for it to arise again, since it has already achieved its own status.

Gerry Adams is also a slimeball! Leave it to an authsoc to reject every loyalty he's ever had

Similarly to my last note, Tsongkhapa also says that just because emptiness can be established through analytical thought does not mean that it is truly existent. Just as to say that something is not black, does not imply that it is white, similarly, to say that an object is essenceless does not imply that essencelessness is some kind of substratum. Prasangika philosophy merely asserts an external negation of essence

Tsongkhapa makes another refutation in these three pages. He says that although emptiness must be arrived at via analytic thought, it is still an authoritative cognition rather than a mental elaboration. He says that just because a manifest phenomenon is occult doesn't mean that it isn't directly perceived. For example, time is manifest through direct cognition, but you can't see time itself as a tangible object

Tsongkhapa is making some VERY complicated arguments in this section. Basically, he's refuting people who say "if true existence is empty of essence, isn't emptiness also empty of essence--Therefore, essence exists?" He points out that this is a logical error because emptiness can only be arrived at through analytical thought, which is not inherently existent in and of itself. It's an improper instance of affirmation

Some of these ethnographic descriptions are snoozers that I don't think need to be in the book. There seems to be a lot of evidence for not a lot of payoff, and I think they could have edited some of the information out while still having the overall message of the book make sense.

The British government sucks! That's all I have to say. The ways they attempted to hold on to their colonies all around the world was completely deplorable, and ultimately, most of their attempts failed. Womp womp.

This is so well written. I'm trying to decide if the author is too sympathetic to small-L liberalism, but it's not overtly coming across that way so far. As a leftist, I reserve some of my harshest criticism for other leftists, and the IRA is no different. The RUC and the British Army should have been their main concern rather than nabbing random protestants. That kind of behavior among revolutionaries is a red flag.

I may just post my notes in status updates here since this text is so impenetrable (for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike)--Basically this entire section I just read was a takedown of both Vedanta and Shentong philosophy. Tsongkhapa is insisting that dependent arising would be impossible if phenomena were truly existent. Similarly, he says that emptiness is not the same as nihilism, as some Vedantins like to assert.

Everyone was reading this one a few years ago so now it's my turn! The Troubles as a subject is one of the topics I find most fascinating in world history, particularly as an anti-colonialist and anti-fascist. I think the IRA was certainly justified in its desire for an end to British rule, but how they went about their campaign for a united Ireland left a lot to be desired (and a lot of people dead).