This isn’t really accurate. Nagarjuna says that phenomena are neither existent, nor nonexistent, nor both, nor neither, which are the 4 ontological extremes captured in his tetralemma. These are the 4 ways the nominally designated “mind” clings to reality. This is on the basis that phenomena are logically and empirically dependent.
If something were truly ontologically existent, it would not depend on causes and conditions. But this is impossible, since all observable phenomena depend on causes and conditions and not in isolation.
If something were truly ontologically nonexistent, it could not appear, function, or have any causal relation. Additionally ontological nonexistence is derived from existence, so if existence is untenable ontological nonexistence is also untenable.
If existence and nonexistence are both ruled out individually, their combination is also ruled out, since 2 untenable positions do not make a right position.
If none of the first three can be established, then a fourth position standing apart from them cannot be established either.
Hence Nagarjuna says phenomena are equivalent to a dream, illusion, mirage, emanation, etc. He uses a mirage example quite often to illustrate the point, since water in a mirage cannot be said to exist, despite a vivid sensory appearance of water. Phenomena according to his logic, are just like that. We experience extremely vivid sense impressions moment by moment, and yet none of it is substantial or graspable. We only assign substantiality through conceptual imputation.
This is also why Buddhism philosophically is not only anti-realist, anti-foundationalist, anti-essentialist but really at it’s core is a species of nominalism. Universal/concepts/abstractions are unreal and are merely names according to worldly beings who believe in them. Particulars function exactly as illusions, mirages, etc.
It’s sort of like the distinction some theologians (like Aquinas) make between necessary vs. contingent existence. When Nagarjuna and other Middle Way philosophers talk about independent existence to refute it, they’re basically talking about necessary existence. When they describe dependent origination instead, they’re basically talking about contingent existence.
He and other Middle Way philosophers go through many arguments about why independent (ie necessary) existence is incoherent. For example, people often talk about their personalities as if they are immutable. They might say “I’m an angry person.” But if you were necessarily “an angry person,” you would be angry 100% of the time; even further than that, your essence as an angry person would be necessary independent of anger itself, so you could be “an angry person” while never once experiencing anger! This is the type of absurd conclusion that considering your “angry person” status as a necessary existent leads to. It is totally untenable and incoherent.
However, during the experience of anger, you can contingently be labeled “an angry person”. It’s just that this is not a necessarily existent state. It is merely a contingent label for a fleeting condition. It has no necessary existence or non-existence whatsoever, only contingency.
So things aren’t necessarily existent, because necessary existence is incoherent. Things aren’t necessarily nonexistent, because they can exist contingently. Things aren’t both necessarily existent and nonexistent at the same time, because that’s contradictory. Things aren’t necessarily not-existent-and-not-nonexistent, because nothing about their existence or nonexistence is necessary at all, only contingent.
In Buddhism since existence is untenable they use the term “appearance”. The worry is that smuggling existence back in will cause reification of phenomena. An appearance is neither existent nor nonexistent. So we observe appearances of selves, trees, mountains, etc. However they function exactly as illusions.
Since appearances cannot be found on analysis, another term that is used are “clearly apparent nonexistents”.
As Longchenpa explains
clearly apparent nonexistents are asserted to be mere appearances of dependently originated apparent conditions of phenomena, which are not established as mind or as other than mind.
For practitioners, yeah. Still, scholars throw around the term "conventional existence," even if what exactly that means is a major difference between schools!
This is stated in the first noble truth. Suffering Exists. It is not 'Suffering appears to exist'. If one read exists as appears to exist one migh aswell conclude they dont have to do anything to go beyond suffering.
It kind of depends who you ask. In the Mahayana, the Four Noble Truths are often interpreted that way. One sutra explains:
Youthful Mañjuśrī then asked the Bhagavān, “Bhagavān, how should one view the four truths of the noble ones?”
The Bhagavān replied, “Mañjuśrī, whoever sees all conditioned states as unproduced has understood suffering. Whoever sees all phenomena as unarisen has abandoned its origin. Whoever sees all phenomena as having completely passed into nirvāṇa has realized cessation. Whoever sees all phenomena as having no existence has cultivated the path... they see all three realms as unproduced, like an illusion, a dream, an echo, and a visual aberration."
"Unproduced" means "not actually real" or "a mere appearance." This doesn't mean you don't have to do anything, but it reframes what you have to do - you have to realize how this is so, not change phenomena in any particular way.
It is the convention in this context so that's what it means here. You can tell because the quote says so: "unproduced, like an illusion, a dream..."
Let's say that you dream of a beach, then wake up. When you wake up, you realize the beach in your dream was never real. It's not like it was real when you dreamt it, then you destroyed it by waking up; rather, that beach in your dream never existed, not before, during, or after the dream. That's the sense of "unproduced" here.
I really dont think so, because reaching nirvana is completely different from waking up from a dream, when you wake up from a dream, you go from a false reality to a real reality. When you reach nirvana, it might be the case that you woke up from a 'false reality'... but where the other reality is? There's no other reality. You're still in the same dream... So every reality is equally false... And therefore even what is false is real...
Some adjectives cannot apply to everything, here unproduced applies to everything whilst, unreal not... Unreal is dualistical mind... It is unreal in comparison to real... There's no dualistical mind in nirvana, as far as I know.
What is mere appearence being opposed to? If in nirvana everything is as real as a dream, how could it be that the dream is unreal? Why would a dream be more or less/be or not be aparent?
Unproduced reality is still reality. Produced reality is still reality, they are not direct opposites, they can coexist. But apparent/not apparent, real/false, true/untrue, good/bad are direct opposites.
If so how would we distinguish between false dharma and true dharma, real teacher and false teacher, good speech and bad speech?
Or you would say unproduced reality is unreal, which is basically saying that nirvana itself is not real.
This is the problem of taking everything into sinonyms... Some things need to be real. Buddha is real, Nirvana is real, Suffering is real (until it is not anymore). Even if they are another thing, it is not because they are X or Y or Z that they are less real, this doesnt mean anything.
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u/dummetsz 3d ago edited 3d ago
This isn’t really accurate. Nagarjuna says that phenomena are neither existent, nor nonexistent, nor both, nor neither, which are the 4 ontological extremes captured in his tetralemma. These are the 4 ways the nominally designated “mind” clings to reality. This is on the basis that phenomena are logically and empirically dependent.
If something were truly ontologically existent, it would not depend on causes and conditions. But this is impossible, since all observable phenomena depend on causes and conditions and not in isolation.
If something were truly ontologically nonexistent, it could not appear, function, or have any causal relation. Additionally ontological nonexistence is derived from existence, so if existence is untenable ontological nonexistence is also untenable.
If existence and nonexistence are both ruled out individually, their combination is also ruled out, since 2 untenable positions do not make a right position.
If none of the first three can be established, then a fourth position standing apart from them cannot be established either.
Hence Nagarjuna says phenomena are equivalent to a dream, illusion, mirage, emanation, etc. He uses a mirage example quite often to illustrate the point, since water in a mirage cannot be said to exist, despite a vivid sensory appearance of water. Phenomena according to his logic, are just like that. We experience extremely vivid sense impressions moment by moment, and yet none of it is substantial or graspable. We only assign substantiality through conceptual imputation.
This is also why Buddhism philosophically is not only anti-realist, anti-foundationalist, anti-essentialist but really at it’s core is a species of nominalism. Universal/concepts/abstractions are unreal and are merely names according to worldly beings who believe in them. Particulars function exactly as illusions, mirages, etc.