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There are Two Truths in Mahayana Buddhism Conventional and Ultimate. I can't understand how it works. For example: Two Mahayana Buddhists have realized the absolute truth: and one Buddhist tells the other that he has a headache. But how does another Buddhist perceive it according to absolute truth?

Arny
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Someone who has realized the Absolute (or Ultimate) Truth will not see headache as something "wrong" that can be "fixed" with two pills of ibuprofen.

Realizing Absolute Truth means we don't look at things naively at the surface level anymore, instead we see how they are interconnected and interdependent.

In this example, looking at headache from the perspective of the Absolute Truth, we will see that pain by itself is not bad, it's not a problem - it's just a signal, a piece of information that comes from some source.

Headache is a sign that something we did to ourselves is not quite right. It's a symptom of an underlying condition that should be identified and dealt with at its root, instead of suppressing the symptoms.

When we understand Absolute Truth we see that everything is the way it should have been. We see that in some sense everything is perfect, because everything happens for a reason, everything has its place and its season. At the same time, once we know Absolute Truth we don't doubt the law of karma. If you drink too much alcohol - you will hangover because your body is poisoned, and taking ibuprofen won't fix that.

Absolute Truth is the ultimate big picture view. When you look from afar, some things that seemed important because they were so close up - turn out to be unimportant, while other things that were too abstract and too subtle become obvious.

Andriy Volkov
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The first thing to resolving your confusion is to understand what Madhyamakas mean when they start talking about "absolute truth" vs regular ordinary truth. And in these contexts Madhyamakas regard "absolute truth" as that which is arrived at when you go looking for the absolute i.e., when you start analyzing with logic and reason what is the absolute nature of things. It doesn't matter if the things you are looking for are persons, chariots, chairs, headaches, etc. If you take any of these things and then ask the questions, "What is the absolute nature of these things? How do these things exist? How do they arise? How do they cease?" and try to find answers by analyzing using logic and reason, whatever conclusion you come to about these questions after thorough analysis, that is what is regarded as the absolute truth. Absolute truth and Ultimate truth here refer to the same thing.

This is the procedure that Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti and the Madhyamaka sages layout in their famous treatises and commentaries. They begin with a thing and ask how does it arise? How does it come into being? How does it cease? And then the claim is made (using logic and reason) that if these things truly arise, then they must arise in one of four ways:

  1. They could arise from self
  2. They could arise from other
  3. They could arise from self+other
  4. They could arise from neither

Those four exhaust all the possible ways in which something could truly arise. Then they look at each of these four ways and ponder if any of them are sufficient and make logical sense. When analyzing thoroughly with logic and reason it is found that NONE of those four work out. They all lead to some logical fallacy, inconsistency, circular reasoning or absurdity. The result of looking for the absolute truth in how these things truly arise is nothing. They do not arise in any of those four ways, yet those four ways exhaust the ways in which things can truly arise. When you analyze thoroughly how things arise you come up empty.

It is this very fact, that you come up empty when trying to analyze how things truly exist with logic and reason, that is then labeled: "the absolute truth."

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Now, some people grow very upset with this. They look at the above and say, "if that is true then nothing exists!" which is nihilism. It simply isn't true that nothing exists. But that truth, that things exist, is a conventional one and not an absolute one. When you go looking for the absolute truth about how things exist you find nothing.

  1. There is conventional truth. Which is not based on logic and reason analyzing how things exist and trying to uncover the absolute nature of things.
  2. There is the absolute/ultimate truth. This is what you arrive at when using logic and reason analyzing how things exist and trying to uncover the absolute nature of things. And the result is empty. None of the four ways in which things might truly exist can be found.

These are the two truths.

Let me know if this helps! If you wish I can provide references and citations from Sutra, Nagarjuna's treatise and the commentaries. Let me know if you want any of these things or if they would be helpful.

"Two Mahayana Buddhists have realized the "absolute truth: and one Buddhist tells the other that he has a headache. But how does another Buddhist perceive it according to absolute truth?"

Now to apply the above to your question. According to the absolute truth when one of these Mahayana Buddhists, who has realized the absolute nature of things, perceives the headache they understand that that headache does not truly exist. They realize this because they have gone looking, again and again, for a truly existing headache using logic and reason and have come up empty again and again. They have analyzed it to exhaustion looking for a truly existent headache and can not find one. It exists merely by convention and being labeled. There is no truly existing headache that can be found. Which isn't to say the headache does not exist. It exists conventionally. That is all.

  • Thank you! Two Mahayana Buddhists have realized the absolute truth: and one Buddhist tells the other that he has a headache, he really have a headache, but according to the absolute truth, the pain does not exist in itself, but is a consequence of causes and conditions. That's right? – Arny Apr 09 '21 at 20:38
  • You could say this yes. The headache is not an inherently existing headache. When you analyze the headache with logic and reason trying to find some true existence of the headache you come up short. The headache is a merely conventionally existing headache. –  Apr 09 '21 at 20:54
  • Thank you! Can I have one more question? That is, according to the absolute truth, a Buddhist's headache is just an inflammation of the nerves in his head that creates a feeling of pain? – Arny Apr 09 '21 at 21:08
  • No. That is also a conventional truth. The absolute truth is that when you analyze looking for the true existence of a headache you will fail. The true existence of a headache can not be found. –  Apr 09 '21 at 22:19
  • So, after you have analyzed and found that there is no true existence of the headache, does it then go away and your suffering is ended? How does this realization contribute to the ending of suffering? – ruben2020 Apr 11 '21 at 05:57
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    @ruben2020 Perhaps I asked that question here: What is the purpose of the Mahayana 'emptiness' doctrine? – ChrisW Apr 11 '21 at 07:14
  • @ruben2020 you can see this answer towards the end that addresses this https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/44555/13375 Let me know if you think it could/should be clarified or improved. –  Apr 11 '21 at 12:41
  • @YesheTenley Do I still feel and endure the headache after realizing its emptiness? – ruben2020 Apr 11 '21 at 12:46
  • If you’re a sentient being then yes of course you do. –  Apr 11 '21 at 15:08
  • Aren't there some in the Mahayana tradition who say that the "things" of conventional speech (like headaches) do exist in some sense, it's just that they only exist in relation to other things, with no intrinsic non-relational qualities (no self-nature)? Think of Indra's net which was especially discussed in Huayan Buddhism. – Hypnosifl May 05 '21 at 20:54
  • (cont.) This perspective can also be combined with a sort of 4-dimensional perspective where past things and future things are equally real so nothing ever comes into existence, or goes out. The Vaibhāṣika tradition in particular articulated a doctrine like this, basically similar to what Western philosophers call the eternalist position in philosophy of time (not to be confused with the notion of eternalism vs. nihilism about selves and objects in Buddhism) – Hypnosifl May 05 '21 at 20:59
  • Mahayana's do say that the "things" of conventional speech exist in some sense and this is what this answer says as well! Is this not clear? –  May 05 '21 at 22:09
  • Also, this answer is about Madhyamika Mahayana. The Vaibhāṣika tenet school was not Madhyamika and so no doubt they would not agree with this answer. –  May 05 '21 at 22:11
  • My point was just that this seems to be a diff. way things can "truly exist"--not coming into being or going out, not have any inherent self-nature, existing only as part of a network of relations like the jewels of Indra's net (some Huayan texts also use the analogy of the numbers in arithmetic, which can only be defined in relation to one another, and which are also 'timeless' in a sense). I didn't catch that you were restricting your comment to Madhyamika, but since the question was about Mahayana in general the OP might find this way of thinking about the issue to be of interest as well. – Hypnosifl May 06 '21 at 03:11
  • @Hypnosifl do you agree that a truly existing headache must arise in one of the four ways listed above? if so, then which of those four correspond to "like the jewels of Indra's net"? –  May 06 '21 at 06:12
  • The way I think of the Indra's net perspective (related to 'paratantra' in the Yogacara teachings of the three natures), the notion of entities 'arising' in the sense of coming into being (or going out of it) belongs only to the conventional perspective, in reality all things past, present and future have the same kind of being (purely as a part of a network of relations, with no intrinsic nature). Past things, like a headache experienced years ago, have not ceased to exist, and future things are not yet to exist. – Hypnosifl May 06 '21 at 14:38
  • So in this view you're saying that headaches are merely conventionally existent, but not truly existent... and that the only truly existent thing is this "Indra's net" which is a "network of relations with no intrinsic nature" which is also outside of time in some way? In this view you'd equate the two truths with 1) merely conventional existent truths 2) ultimate truth of indra's net? –  May 06 '21 at 15:06
  • This may just be a matter of language, but I would say headaches are truly existent, just not in the particular way we think of "things" in conventional thought (as having their own intrinsic or essential nature, capable of being conceptually severed from the rest of reality). – Hypnosifl May 06 '21 at 20:05
  • As for time, I'd say that temporal relations between momentary events or processes (like the headache) are real, but there is no need to posit that past things have ceased to exist or present things don't yet exist--as I mentioned, in western philos. this view is known as eternalism, as opposed to presentism, and some branches of the Sarvāstivāda school of Buddhism have advocated this way of thinking about time (I think it's also implicit in Huayan ideas about 'totality') – Hypnosifl May 06 '21 at 20:09
  • In Huayan Buddhism I think there would be a distinction between the notion of the network of phenomena (Indra's net) which exist in an entirely interdependent way, all empty of self-nature, and "The Absolute" which is more like the principle of emptiness itself. So maybe I'm wrong to equate Absolute Truth with Indra's net itself, but my understanding is that they're not saying that things "don't exist" from the Absolute perspective. See for ex. the quote from Cook on p. 59 of http://dharma-rain.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Hua_Yen_Buddhism_Emptiness_Identity_Inte.pdf – Hypnosifl May 06 '21 at 21:08
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Absolutely:

DN34:1.2.11: What one thing should be given up?
DN34:1.2.12: The conceit ‘I am’.

Having given up on identity, the second Buddhist might well respond by brewing a cup of tea with honey, saying, "here is some tea for that headache."

OyaMist
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absolute truth is any existing thing that when you look at it matches how it exists.

the only thing like that is the absence of impossible ways of existing ie. emptiness. emptiness is the only thing that matches the way it appears and how it exists.

bw tho
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  • Hello and welcome to the forum! I believe what you are describing is the definition of something being “real” rather than absolute truth. –  Jun 12 '21 at 13:30
  • a real thing is any validly perceivable thing. this is quite different to an object that appears equally with how it exists, which only emptiness can – bw tho Jun 13 '21 at 10:46
  • Hi bw tho, what branch of Tibetan Buddhism do you study? I am giving the account of the Gelug branch, but I suppose it is possible we might be using different terminology? –  Jun 13 '21 at 14:54
  • I take my definition of real from Tsongkhapa and Chandrakirti as explained here: https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/a/26061/13375 –  Jun 13 '21 at 15:12
  • Note: @Tenzin Dorje in the comments to that answer defines real according to the Gelug Prasangika and he is a monk who has studied under Geshe masters from Sera Je so I think his answer is in accord with the def. of “real” as taught by Sera Je monastery in Gelug branch of Tibetan Buddhism. –  Jun 13 '21 at 15:14
  • You’ll also find in that conversation the def. of absolute truth being that which is found by a mind analyzing the ultimate and this comes directly from Chandrakirti I believe and is affirmed by Tsongkhapa. I can find references if you like. –  Jun 13 '21 at 15:38
  • im gelug also. being found by analyzing the ultimate is a different way of saying the way something appears and the way it exists match and is therefore an ultimate truth since nothing is concealed – bw tho Jun 13 '21 at 20:59