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Lucas will help me out.

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Many meditation practices focus on peace and happiness, but I am interested in it to understand my existence, if there is any.

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Enlightenment, the rest, is a byproduct in my view.

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What do you think suggests?

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Who wants to start?

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I'll try to understand this question exactly.

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Okay, let me start.

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You look at it for a while, I'll start.

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This is something I think Clemente brought up yesterday about something quite similar, actually.

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That the most important... In his...

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point of view, was knowledge.

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And that's basically what he's saying.

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I'm interested to understand my existence.

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So I would go two ways here.

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I would say it can go two ways here.

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On the one hand, what you're saying could be very much the attainment of peace, happiness, and freedom from suffering, because it gives you a certain contentment.

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I think contentment is a very good word.

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to understand your existence, because if you actually do understand reality that brings and is brought about, I would say, I would argue, by a desire for peace, for happiness, for freedom from suffering.

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you can't want something without thinking that it's going to bring you some form of what we call happiness or something positive.

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If you think of knowledge or understanding as positive, then you're already defining it as bringing something that must be of the sort of being peace, happiness and freedom from suffering.

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If knowledge, if understanding brought you suffering,

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or brought you what was undesirable, would you go for it?

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And I mean intrinsically.

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I don't mean that, well, maybe it hurts for a while, but in the end it's all for the best.

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Well, if it's all for the best, then it brings happiness.

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And that's what's great about understanding, is that intrinsically it can't help but bring you peace, happiness, and freedom from suffering.

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I don't think that there's much different.

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The other thing I wanted to say before I... I'll just say everything before anyone else gets a chance.

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is that you have to be careful because what do you mean by understanding your existence?

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Existence could be infinite and it can be very easy in that sense to get caught up and get hung up on knowledge and understanding.

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How much understanding do you want?

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And what sort of understanding do you want?

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If it's beyond what actually brings you peace, happiness and freedom from suffering, what good is it?

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It can be addictive.

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And it can lead you to want more.

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Anyway.

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Anyone else?

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Go for it.

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Yeah, I just want to relay quickly.

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That person seems to ask himself a question.

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Who am I?

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About my existence?

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What I'm doing here?

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What's my destiny?

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Who I'm supposed to be in life?

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So on, so on.

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It says like

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Many meditation practices focus on peace and happiness as well.

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How about the Vipassana meditation?

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When you just observe rising and falling of all phenomena.

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There is no... To understand my existence, he says, it's very... There is not such a... You can't... From my own experience...

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I don't try to understand myself as a person anymore.

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The person is not, there's no such a thing as you really, because you don't own your personality.

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Your parents gave you your personality.

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If you were born in Poland, you would be probably a Roman Catholic.

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If you were born

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my computer froze up.

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No, it's alright.

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Okay, for instance, let's take knowledge.

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Knowledge is not wisdom.

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For instance, you have dirty dishes in a sink.

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You know they're dirty.

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Doesn't mean they're going to get cleaned.

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Wisdom is not even thinking about the dishes.

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It's just cleaning them.

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And right view

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is understanding the distinction between the fact that you have dirty dishes and the fact that not having them is a source of happiness.

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So these three distinct terms, people can often confuse as if they're all the same thing.

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But knowledge is not wisdom.

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You can have knowledge on how to

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commit mass murder, but does that mean it's wisdom?

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And we can have great wisdom and not utilize it.

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Does that make you knowledgeable?

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You know, you could have a lot of knowledge but not apply the wisdom to it.

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And again, you know, you can be living in the world and maybe not have a big resource of academic knowledge,

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but have a very, very clear view of the way nature really is and cause and effect.

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And this, we really need to make a distinction between the three.

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That's interesting that you point that out.

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Go ahead.

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Because often it seems like the understanding of the truth and being an expert in describing

81
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Yeah, the person goes on to say, the asker goes on to say, based on what we've said, this is why I say a byproduct and is good.

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However, I might be unhappy after knowing insignificance of humans.

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But I would still like to know even if it makes me unhappy, though I hope it doesn't.

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I would still like to know but I but I hope even if I see so the knowledge is more important

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than whether it makes you happy.

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But I'd say there's still two sides to that.

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You may be wrong.

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You may be wrong in thinking that because, well, people like heroin even though it makes them unhappy.

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That doesn't make it beneficial to them to take heroin.

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The point of the Buddha's teaching is that you can have desires that are to your detriment, that you can strive for things that are actually causing you harm, that are actually

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not giving the result that you desire.

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So even desiring more knowledge, just because you desire it doesn't make it right.

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Just because you want something doesn't make it beneficial to yourself.

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It doesn't mean that by striving after striving after it, you're going to actually feel better and you're going to actually think to yourself, wow, I've benefited from this.

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You know, with so many things in our lives, we think this will benefit me and we do it again and again and again.

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And 10 years later, we're still, we're maybe even worse, in a worse position than we were.

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But that's the point.

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He doesn't want to get a benefit.

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He or she wants to know the truth, simply.

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Not for their own benefit, but just because that's what they strive for.

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Right, but by doing that, it could be the truth that by doing that, you hurt yourself.

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Who's to say that it will actually... Yeah, you could destroy yourself, but at least you will know the truth.

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Well, okay.

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What is this all about, would be the question.

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Right.

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I mean, I'm all for it, but I'm for it because it brings peace, it brings happiness.

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I wouldn't be for it if it didn't.

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And I'm not for those sorts of knowledge that bring more suffering, more stress, and as you say, destroy yourself.

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To me, that's ridiculous.

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Great, you've destroyed yourself.

111
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Way to go, you get a medal.

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Maybe we're different.

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I'm all for ultimate knowledge.

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Sure, well, go for it.

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I mean, a Buddha has ultimate knowledge, but he also knows the things that can't be known, the things that shouldn't be thought about, and so on.

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And I think that includes some things like, is the universe infinite, is the universe finite, and so on.

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Which isn't possibly answered with that.

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Right.

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So, I mean, the point is that there are many kinds of knowledge that are useless.

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You know what I mean?

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Pi to the X digits, right?

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Okay, well, that's knowledge.

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Yeah, but we're not striving for complete knowledge, but for the ultimate truth.

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Okay, well, yes, that's fine.

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But I, you know, I don't know.

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To me, that's a...

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That's an illogical, I would say, reason for... Or it's a meaningless statement.

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I mean, I want knowledge for the sake of knowledge.

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If it's not for the purpose of some benefit... And so that's the thing.

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It's utilitarian versus...

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Yeah, I guess ultimately you will be happy if you have access to the ultimate truth, even if it hurts you because it doesn't fit with your preconceptions or whatever.

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So you might be suffering, but ultimately you're happy because you've reached your goal, which is... Well, and the wonderful thing is that it doesn't make you unhappy.

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Ultimate truth makes you perfectly happy.

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Clemente, you're static now.

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Yeah, you know, what's really interesting, if you do a reading of the Brahmajala Sutra, where the Tama literally lays down the 62 views of existence that most any human being is going to have, one of them, even to this day, about is the universe infinite, is it not, do we get reborn, do we not, you know, is there a creator, is there not, that ultimately knowledge

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and all this wisdom is useless.

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It doesn't lead to enlightenment whatsoever.

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And Gautama at least states over and over again that, you know, intellectual knowledge and intellectual pursuit, you know, we have the Abu Dham and it goes on and on and on with, you know, monads and dyads and triads.

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But really, knowledge does not equate to enlightenment.

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Sorry, Lou, can I interrupt you just for a second?

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Can I interrupt you just for a second?

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Lou?

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Clemente, you have to turn... Something's wrong with your mic.

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You're staticking.

145
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You've got heavy static there.

146
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I don't know what's wrong, but you're giving us great static.

147
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I think that might be you.

148
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Maybe.

149
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No, I can't pronounce your name.

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My fellow Canadian.

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Okay, sorry, Lou, continue.

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It's better now.

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Whatever it was, it's gone.

154
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Okay, you can hear me now?

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Yep.

156
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Oh, I was saying that, for instance, in the Brahmajala Sutra, where Gautama laid down the 62 views of existence,

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You know, the point that I was trying to make was that Gautama laid down every possible view that people can have about relative and ultimate existence, about the nature of the universe and all this.

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And his point is that knowledge does not lead to happiness.

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It doesn't even lead to the truth.

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Knowledge does not lead to the truth.

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And that all of that, all of your inquiries to the nature of the universe, okay, it's nice as an intellectual pursuit, but it does not alleviate suffering, which is his teaching.

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And, you know, this is really important in the Buddha Dharma, is that, you know, we're not, I mean, if the point of the Buddha Dharma was to be intellectual dilettantes,

163
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Well, then we don't need the Buddha Dharma.

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All we need is the university system.

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All we need to rely on is the worldly system as we already have it.

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Okay, but it's kind of a sophistic question of whether ultimate truth, ultimate understanding would be

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worthwhile even if it didn't bring happiness.

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Here's maybe how the question should be framed, which, you know, it's a bit sophistic because, sophist, sophistic?

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I'm thinking of sophism.

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I don't know how you say sophistic.

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I think sophistic.

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I know the joke related to that, but I don't know how you pronounce the word.

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Okay.

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Well, the point being, you know, kind of a useless question because it's moot point, I guess you could say it, because

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that would be such a messed up universe where understanding of things as they are didn't lead to happiness or didn't lead to peace.

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It's so intrinsic that they almost mean one and the same thing.

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Ultimate realization of the wisdom of things as they are is

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is by definition happiness.

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Well, let me correct myself if I... I didn't mean to imply that.

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What I meant was that taking a stand that you have the right view because you can elucidate facts and sort of prove your theories, that is the distinction from having genuine right view.

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No, I got you.

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I understood.

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I just wanted...

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Yeah, I wanted to make that distinction.

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Yeah.

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No, for sure that's... I mean, and that's really where the problem comes.

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How do you know... It's easy to say, I want ultimate truth, I want ultimate truth, but do you know what you're talking about, right?

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Until you...

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realize it and so the problem is that we can get caught up in um speculation which has not which is not to do with ultimate truth and we can get caught up in speculation about things thinking this is a this is an aspect of ultimate truth when in fact it's not you know like ideas of

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you know the universe being finite and infinite doesn't our hunt exist after death or does do they not exist after death and there's these ten questions that are considered to be fairly canonical questions that you just don't ask because you can't know because the more you investigate them the more naughty and and and complicated they become

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Look at physics, for example.

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It's kind of a joke.

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First we had the atom, and then we had subatomic particles.

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Now we don't even know what we've got.

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Strings, I guess.

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There's some interesting space between the strings and something else.

197
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Yeah, and it's like fractals.

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It's like watching a clown show, because it just gets more and more absurd.

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Eleven dimensions now we need.

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And that's not enough.

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Now we need the multiverse.

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Anyway, not to joke, because there's some serious things going on there, but it's potentially one question that is unanswerable.

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It may just keep going on for infinity.

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And we've come to the limit of human understanding.

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We can't go very much further, but reality could go a million times further.

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If all we can get to is strings and eleven dimensions, well, what if there's billions of iterations?

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or infinite iterations.

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Well, let's never get there.

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I mean, it may be that these sorts of things are unknowable by humankind.

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And I guess the point is that even if they were knowable, they have nothing to do with the core reality.

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And I guess another point that we could make is how much of ultimate reality?

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Do you need all of ultimate reality?

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Do you need to know the ultimate reality of every being?

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Do you need to know, for example, do you need to know the course of events for every human being?

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I mean, every being has their own course, right?

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Do you need to know whether they're going to attain Nibbana?

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Is this person going to?

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Is that person going to?

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Where are they going in their next life?

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Because all of that has to do with ultimate reality.

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Do you need to know all of that?

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No, but I think you're talking about knowledge there, and maybe the question was more about wisdom.

223
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Well, that's a good point.

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We don't strive to know everything, but to have wisdom to know the ultimate truth about reality.

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Okay, good point.

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And in that case, yeah, I would just go back to saying that they're equal.

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In my mind, it's intrinsically peace, happiness, and freedom from suffering.

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I don't know.

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I think that's the best I can do.

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Anybody else?

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Welcome Owen.