Dear Marsha --
It is my understanding that Buddhists accept that self exists by the power of conceptual and/or verbal designation. It exists conventionally.
What does it mean to exist "conventionally"? In another post (to Lord Arioch), you said that "Ham's self is a small self ... a conventional self." Does conventional mean "ordinary" or "usual" in this context, or something else?
Long before I came to his forum I understood the body to have six tools: sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste and mind. My reading of the Buddhist's point-of-view has strengthened my understanding.
What we call "mind" is more than a tool, Marsha. Think of it this way: Suppose an engineer builds an electro-mechanical robot that can receive visual images, respond to touch, and even detect flavors and aromas. Would you say that this humanoid is consciously aware of the stimuli that it detects? No, because electro-mechanical detection is not consciousness. The robot has no mind, and no amount of computer chip technology or data processing capability enables Science to create awareness.
Mind is a "sense" only in the sense that it is the sense of self. The mind is not a thing or an existent. As a being-aware it is the Knower of all things relating to its being.
Again, I apologize for my rudeness.
You owe me no apology... only the willingness to consider this premise. Essentially yours, Ham Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
