Bill!,
I'm with you.
One perspective is from delusion, and that is the perspective of Practice; the
other perspective is the numinous, or that from the Absolute (there's little we
can say about it! But see about Alan Watts, below).
Both these perspectives and experiences from there are real. But one of them
is the experience as seen or sensed from the state of attachment to a personal
self. The other as seen from the absolute is real, and of course is not
attached to a self, nor to anything.
I call both experiences "real", even though the first is illusion or from the
perspective of delusion. I do this so as not to minimize the importance of
Suffering, and the need to open to wisdom and compassion. Do you see? Even if
you do not agree.
If we lived in isolation, attachment to a self would be OK. But we live with
many beings, and in fact our lives DEPEND on many, so compassion must attain
and retain primary position and be held in the highest importance. This can be
done naturally by effective practice beginning in the illusory realm.
Originally, this was the Buddha's discovery! Luckily no Copyright, unlike
putative corporate claims on certain Human genes.
I think we're clear about this. You may not care for calling illusory
experience "real". Again, I term it/them so under the hypothetical that there
were *NO* other beings. This gives suffering its proper importance, as real,
and as devastating.
On a light and yet deep note: Remember old Alan Watts. I recall in one of his
taped talks what he called "...the Absolute":
"The 'which' than which there is no WHICHER".
I often remember this, with a smile. On Halloween I try to work it into a joke
somehow ...however I can; fortunately for hearers, Halloween comes around just
once a year.
--Joe
> "Bill!" <BillSmart@...> wrote:
>
> Joe,
>
> IMO...
>
> If you use the word 'sense' to mean 'experience' than there is only one
> 'sense' and that is Buddha Nature.
>
> Our discriminating mind does divide up our experiences into five categories.
> Thinking is not a sense because it is not an experience. It does give the
> illusion of experience, but it's not experience.
>
> ...Bill!
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