[MD] What is SOM?

[MarshaV]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "david buchanan" <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com>
To: <moq_discuss at moqtalk.org>
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 4:36 PM
Subject: Re: [MD] What is SOM?


>
> Marsha said:
> Mahayana Buddhism rejects that things have an essence.  I have written 
> that the concept of Emptiness is the lack of independent existence, 
> inherent existence, or the essence of things.  Emptiness IS being empty of 
> essence. Nagarjuna argues that phenomena are 'fabricated by virtue of 
> acquiring their identity as particulars through conceptual imputation.' 
> This is anti-essentialism, is it not?   This would be the same as the MOQ 
> saying that it's all analogy.  And RMP stating in the Copleston paper, 
> 'The MOQ is not opposed to materialism as long is it is understood that 
> materialism is a set of ideas."   Right?
>
> dmb says:
> Yes, I think that's right.
>
> But I'm still having trouble with "essence" in terms of "independent 
> existence" or "inherent existence". Whenever I saw those phrases I could 
> only wonder what they meant. I mean, even from the perspective of an 
> SOM-type essentialist, in what sense is anything "independent"? And how is 
> "inherent existence" different from regular existence? In this case, the 
> unknown "essence" is described in terms of two other unknowns. And if 
> Emptiness is the lack of an "essence", I'm left wonder what Emptiness 
> doesn't have. And even now that I see how these relate to concepts I am 
> familiar with, the idea of an essence strikes me as quite bizzare and 
> impossible. Its so goofy that it hardly seems worthy of rejection. It 
> amounts to the claim that the truest and most real thing can never be 
> known in experience, which is exactly the opposite of what seems most 
> true.
>
> So anyway, don't blame yourself. These same type of explanations didn't 
> work for me when Paul tried either and everybody knows he's a rock star. 
> But thanks all the same.


Hi dmb,

Emptiness is also empty of independent existence, inherent existence or an 
essence.  But that's for another day.  Thanks for considering what I wrote. 
I will probably at some future date try another explanation.  I apologize in 
advance.

Marsha