Everything should not be and yet it is

[Guided]

Change is the biggest contradiction - it occurs even though it shouldn't. It does not make sense. How can it be? The mind cannot understand it. It is an infinite loop of creation and destruction. Every moment gives birth to the next moment, but any given moment cannot be a cause of itself, so another moment has to be created and the old discarded, dissolved. State of no-change, nirvana, cannot be attained, because there is no-one, no-essence, no-soul, anatta, to achieve it. It is the ultimate joke. How can something be true but false at the same time?

[lmfao]

I might have a slightly different train of thought, but its still a representation of my experience with time and change. 

I've often heard people say time is an illusion, and you can experience this. Something I wonder, is "flux" itself then supposed to be an illusion? Because if all we have is the present moment, then surely it should seem like reality is static (since time is the medium throughout which flux occurs). If time does not exist, then how does any sort of "event" exist? How is reality both simultaneously static and fluid? 

It's something very hard to put into words, the meditation experiences you've had.

On a random tangent, it reminds about how on any given line (let the line represent an interval of time) there are literally an infinite number of points. It doesn't matter how large or small the line is. There are an infinite number of points. And any line can be chopped into an infinite number of lines, with each line having an infinite number of points. This is related to the ideas of continuity and discontinuity in maths.

 

And as far as our first experience is concerned, all of this happening that is reality is coming from nothing and energy is somehow created from nothing. 

Edited March 17, 2019 by lmfao

[Guided]

13 minutes ago, lmfao said:

If time does not exist, then how does any sort of "event" exist? How is reality both simultaneously static and fluid? 

This is is it. This is exactly the blaring contradiction that occurs. How the hell can this happen? How can nothing change when there's nothing to change?

Funny you should mention maths, it was the philosophical error of infinite regress that made my mind go bonkers and arithmetic is one example of that error. 
 

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Peano’s axioms for arithmetic, e.g., yield an infinite regress. We are told that zero is a natural number, that every natural number has a natural number as a successor, that zero is not the successor of any natural number, and that if xx and yy are natural numbers with the same successor, then x=yx=y. This yields an infinite regress. Zero has a successor. It cannot be zero, since zero is not any natural number’s successor, so it must be a new natural number: one. One must have a successor. It cannot be zero, as before, nor can it be one itself, since then zero and one would have the same successor and hence be identical, and we have already said they must be distinct. So there must be a new natural number that is the successor of one: two. Two must have a successor: three. And so on … And this infinite regress entails that there are infinitely many things of a certain kind: natural numbers. But few have found this worrying. After all, there is no independent reason to think that the domain of natural numbers is finite—quite the opposite.

And taking this principle to change... we get this bad boy.

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By contrast, consider the following two principles: (i) Every event is preceded by another event that is its cause; (ii) The relation xx precedes yy is irreflexive (nothing precedes itself), asymmetric (if aaprecedes bb then bb does not precede aa) and transitive (if aa precedes bb and bb precedes cc then aaprecedes cc).

This yields an infinite regress, at least from the assumption that there is at least one event. If there is an event, E1E1, then it is preceded by its cause. That cause cannot be E1E1, as nothing precedes itself and causes precede what they cause. So the cause of E1E1 must be a new event, E2E2. This event is preceded by its cause. This cannot be E2E2 for the same reasons as before, and it cannot be E1E1because then each of E1E1 and E2E2 would precede the other in violation of asymmetry. So the cause of E2E2 must be a new event, E3E3. E3E3 is preceded by its cause. It cannot be E3E3 or E2E2 for reasons similar to before. And it cannot be E1E1, for then E1E1 would precede E3E3, but since E3E3 precedes E2E2 which precedes E1E1, transitivity entails that E3E3 precedes E1E1, and so E1E1 cannot precede E3E3 due to asymmetry. So the cause of E3E3 must be a new event, E4E4. And so on …

(here's a link to the article, it's a pretty interesting read https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/infinite-regress/)

Edited March 17, 2019 by Guided

[Shin]

You can try as much as you want to get it,

The answer will always be:

«Because it is»

 

?

[Guided]

On another note, this reminds me of story about my friend. She once asked her meditation teacher on the nature of aniccha, the impermanence of things.

This is what she asked:

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If reality is impermanent, why is impermanence itself seemingly permanent?

The teacher said he needs time to think about it. 

The next day, he answered this:

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Even impermanence is impermanent. There is a point where reality comes to a complete stand still and no more change occurs.

Even though I do not completely resonate with his answer, it certainly is something to meditate upon.

[Guided]

9 minutes ago, Shin said:

You can try as much as you want to get it,

The answer will always be:

«Because it is»

 

?

Sounds like a great slogan for some big company. 

[lmfao]

@Guided The first sentence from that article you linked. 

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An infinite regress is a series of appropriately related elements with a first member but no last member, where each element leads to or generates the next in some sense.

Part of this talk about infinite regress leads to me thinking about the old fashioned problem of the "uncaused cause" that you hear in philosophy. Why is there something rather than nothing? 

On a tangent, when it comes to maths specifically and the example I stated, infinity as a word was used to say "more can be generated". No matter how numbers I write down on paper between x and y, the mathematical language is defined such that I can always generate a new number between x and y no matter how long my list is. Infinity in this sense is a property of the mathematical language. 

Doing 1 divided by 3 leads to another infinite regress of sorts. If you go through the process of computing it without a calculator and doing it manually, you find yourself writing "3" over and over again due a to a circular loop you have trapped yourself in with concepts.

 

This tangent I went on is besides the point of time. Reality is just inherently non-sensical, with there being something for no reason.

All that exists is the present. You are always a present moment experience which "you" did nothing to create. The experience just is. Realising the nature of time is one way to enter the non-dual state, as you see reality to be in a situation which you did nothing to create. 

Edited March 18, 2019 by lmfao

[lmfao]

@Guided

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Even impermanence is impermanent. There is a point where reality comes to a complete stand still and no more change occurs.

Perhaps the teacher is saying there comes a point where even the illusion of flux disappears as you enter the present, who knows. And maybe it's like your awareness is becoming closer and closer to some singularity, which is ultimately nothing in the end. I feel like everyone who's done meditation has at least a small glimpse of this. 

Edited March 18, 2019 by lmfao

[Nahm]

1 hour ago, Guided said:

Change is the biggest contradiction

“Change” is contradicting because it’s not actually happening. It appears to be. “Change” is a word for what you’re seeing, but that doesn’t make what you’re seeing “change”. You know the seeing itself, not any objects which are seen to be changing. 

- it occurs even though it shouldn't, it does not make sense

Shouldn’t is your preference, a projection onto what is. It won’t make sense otherwise.

How can it be?

It’s consciousness. You label it “separate objects changing” .     You’re conscious, right? Well, how can you be? Can you be, or have you always just been?      Have you ever not been?    Have you ever really changed?   If you are aware you’ve changed, what is that constant, what of you is unchanging, which is therefore aware of what appears to change?

The mind cannot understand it. It is an infinite loop of creation and destruction.

The loop is thinking, it is relative, and can be understood. Thinking is a ‘layer’ ‘you add to’ awareness, without it, you are Being; without the thought ‘understand it’ arising.

Every moment gives birth to the next moment,

That is on the assumption there are moments.

but any given moment cannot be a cause of itself,

That is on the assumption you are not the cause of yourself, and that a “cause” is needed for you to be, and that you are not ‘this moment’.

so another moment has to be created and the old discarded, dissolved. 

Only if there are moments.

State of no-change, nirvana, cannot be attained, because there is no-one, no-essence, no-soul, anatta, to achieve it. It is the ultimate joke. How can something be true but false at the same time?

How could some thing not be true and false at the same time?