Concepts and Ultimate truth
Phenomena are ever only phenomena, words and concepts are ever only words and concepts. But if we possess a word or concept, which has for us a significant relation to a certain phenomenon, we may be able to gain a certain amount of power over that named phenomenon.
If a person only knows the 5 sensory world and has no conception of anything higher,…the 5 sensory world may be said to be ultimate truth for that person…
If that person hears about ideas like nāma and rūpa and nibbana, he has acquired a concept of something higher than 5 sensory things. If he starts getting experiences that relate to those concepts and thinks about them, they cease to be mere concepts for him. Yet, only when the realisation of those concepts start ultimately affecting that person, they may be said to have become ultimate truth for that person.
Meditation means making higher concepts a reality after having reduced the reality of the 5 sensory world.
Phenomena are ever only phenomena, words and concepts are ever only words and concepts. But if we possess a word or concept, which has for us a significant relation to a certain phenomenon, we may be able to gain a certain amount of power over that named phenomenon.
Spiritual Systems and Reality
We make experiments, to realise the subjectiveness of our experience of the world…as well as to realise the freedom that could come if we live in accordance with that realisation…Spiritual systems are there to help us communicate that shift in our experience of the world with others.
Peace and Ultimate Reality
If a person can remain always (or at least mostly) unentangled by thoughts of anger arising within him (and also without) …by clearly seeing it as anger, non-self, danger etc. (not by pushing it aside and engaging the mind in other things)…we can say he has penetrated through the illusory nature of thought (and perhaps realised a certain ultimate value (perhaps we can say ultimate truth) regarding the peace that comes from pacifying unwholesome emotions)…yet we can not really say, that he has because of that seen any ultimate truth regarding mind or matter, which requires high levels of sustained concentration on an analytical subject
Considerations based on the law of Dependent Origination
Viññana paccaya Nama-Rupa ➙ to proclaim a Nama or a Rupa that exists in some ultimate sense or that has some ultimate mode of existence independent from the perceiving consciousness is not in accordance with the fundamental teachings of the Buddha¹ (it is only a supramundane or at least a very superior consciousness…(perhaps a philosophical consciousness to use western terminology), that can perceive things of an ultimate nature*)…hence the key to seeing ultimate truth lies in the changing of consciousness
¹ This is only for saying, that a person might be using a totally different system, with totally different terms, while yet still being equally right
*…and that will perceive that world (i.e. nāma-rūpa) in accordance with its chosen path
Only by extracting the essence of many experiences can a person attain to an abstract truth (ultimate truth)
If one just adopts it from without, it will be just a (more or less) meaningless symbol
Other Considerations
For a business man to know some mathematics, may prove to be of value on the physical plane …
For a teacher, (if he is a maths teacher) to know some mathematics may be useful on the physical, emotional and mental plane..(emotional, because teaching something being a wholesome deed, of and on unselfish emotions associated with giving may arise ….and mentally, because his mind may of and on be filled with thoughts of a non-worldly type)
But,… only for a mathematician will knowledge of mathematics be useful up to the level of consciousness, and thus of ultimate relevance …which means, that it will really touch his life…
..in the very same manner…to consider about ultimate truth…for some person may only bring about material benefits (which especially for a monk will not be a very good thing)…for another emotional and perhaps mental,…but only for a Yogi who has reached that stage will it be of ultimate relevance.
Thus, we are trying to realise ultimate truth, in order to transcend the impermanent, suffering and non-self/non-meaning* nature that is inherent in ordinary existence (conventional truth and conventional reality).
* (atta-attha formerly only orally transmitted…thus, considering one word one may have to consider about words with a similar spelling… attha…has various meanings, one being ‘meaning’, ‘essence’, atta is translated as ‘self’, but sometime also as ‘something that is taken up’…from the suttas, it is quiet clear, that the Buddha possesed quiet a bit of humour and many times made a pun of established ideas in order to show a hidden meaning in words of established meaning, that in most cases was more applicable.
What is true, depends on ones own level of development…If you live in a world of appearances and you can know nothing more than the appearance of things…then it will be better for you to consider the world a flat disk around which sun and moon revolve, because that is the world that presents itself to you…and looking at it in this manner, you can learn many things, and many connections become clear to you, which otherwise would be obscure for you and difficult to make sense of.
Learning in this way, turning your sense perceptions into knowledge…with time, you will find you will require less and less ‘sparks’ of sense perception from without. Slowly a fire gets kindled within, that keeps going by itself without easily dying out. You require less and less a sun that daily raises on your horizon…as you yourself become more and more sun-like… Now the light that is within, starts illuminating the worldly forms without. And more and more it is the earth, that starts revolving around you, a true sun. As the fire of that knowledge becomes more and more refined,..it becomes ever more capable of embracing infinity itself.
Higher Mind Art - Abhidhamma Explorations 