[MD] The other side of reified

[MarshaV]

"One of the chief causes of bondage is, not so much the faculty of conceptualization, but rather the propensity to grasp onto the products of that faculty. The rational nature, like the dispositions Nagarjuna discussed in section seven of the karika, has a value. Concepts are an important and necessary tool to be used in ordering one’s world and acting within it. The problem is that rational creatures, be they humans or Gods, tend to ascribe excessive validity to these concepts. This is done for two reasons. One is ignorance: the rational creature does not know or ignores the fact that his or her mental nature is only a tool and has limited applicability. The other, and perhaps foundational, reason that sentient creatures cling to the mental processes is desire. Desiring pleasure, the mind reifies the apparently pleasurable things in the hope of thereby possessing them and preventing them from ceasing. Fearing death, the individual reifies the apparent existence of life itself and thereby acts with excessive and unjustified selfishness. The Buddha taught that these two tendencies, desire and the faith in the results of mentation, are, indirectly, the cause of bondage. “Desire, know I thy root,” he is reported to have said. “From conception thou springest; No more shall I indulge in conception; I will have no desire any more.”"

     (Winters,  Jonah, 'Thinking in Buddhism: Nagarjuna’s Middle Way')


 
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