Names And Forms

Tarun Pradhaan

*This article is an attempt to contemplate on the pointing that all there is, are names and forms, nothing is real, without going into the formal path of knowledge.*

If you ask someone - where do you live? The standard answer is the name of a city, village or place. This is absolutely normal, and this is considered real, until you try to investigate what a city or village actually is. It should be obvious that you need a direct experience of that place to find out what it is. And your experience, most probably, will be of houses, buildings, roads, people, cars, parks, factories, fields and so on. The city also has a form, a map, a shape on the earth, which is ever changing, expanding or reducing etc. However, you will not find a single experience which you can call a city. It is a collection of objects or experiences which are grouped under one name - city. In other words, there is no such real thing, a *city* is a name given to a collection of experiences.

Anyway, it is a good concept, very useful, and it is not really a mind blowing idea that it is not actually there, it exists as a name given to a collection of experiences in your mind. *City is in the mind* - when I say like this, perhaps this revelation is slightly more mind blowing. There was no city in the past, no form, at present it is a name given to a continuously changing form, in future it will not exist. It depends on the objects that make it up, it is not independently existing there. It has a dependent existence. What is it really? What is the reality of a city? Like everything else in the field of philosophy, it gets interesting when you dig deeper.

Usually the next question is - exactly where in that city do you live? And the person points to another place, this time the location of his house. Just like other houses in the city, this one also exists. One can say - probably the city is just a concept or a name, but the house is absolutely real, an objective thing. So let us investigate. Closer inspection shows that a house is made up of bricks or stones, iron or concrete slabs, and it also has some other characteristics, like windows or doors, a garden or parking space etc. So again, it is not a single experience. It is also a collection of objects or forms or experiences of various kinds. The house is a name too, and again it is in your mind only, not actually existing objectively or externally.

You do not actually live in a house - now that can be mind blowing. Just like a city, it has a form, probably more tangible or solid compared to a map on a paper. However, it keeps changing, although slowly enough to be called a real house. It was not there and will not be there, and presently it is just a name. A house depends on other forms/the objects it is made up of - bricks, doors etc. It is also not independently real.

But the bricks are real - someone can point out. No look closely, they are lumps of minerals, sand, clay, crystals. It is not one thing, again a collection of many things. What is the reality of a brick? Well, turns out, it is also a name, in your mind, just like before. Not only is your house unreal, the things that make it appear real are also unreal. All we get is names and forms.

But the matter that makes up bricks can be real, the atoms, molecules etc. The fundamental particles of physics. Now your scientific indoctrination is showing up. Which means you are repeating the words of someone else. Are these single experiences? Well, they cannot be experienced directly now, these are models, or logical concepts based on whatever can be observed directly in a precise and scientific way. They are theoretical. These theories and ideas keep changing as history of science shows. In more accurate words, like that of a true scientist, we can say - these are merely descriptions of what is observed. These are collections of data, information, gathered using instruments. Probably these atoms etc. are more unreal than the brick itself. They are names, but of what? This is a matter of personal opinion now. Do they have a form? Again all that you will find are just more descriptions, many models and many opinions.

However, they are still something. That something is energy. Isnt it? Well, I do not want to disappoint you, but the name energy is given to a quantity of change. It is a measure of change. There is no single experience called energy, it is again a name, a concept. Now it does not even have a form, no experience here actually. Looks like we are lost in the jungle of names and forms, while we kept calling it reality as we went in.

Look, but there is an idea, the idea is in the mind, and hence the idea has a reality. Sounds like idealism! Yes, it is there. Examine it. An idea is just a thought, a collection of shadows of experiences stored in the memory. These thoughts and ideas and memories are all names given to a collection of experiences. Only worse - they are formless, in the sense that they are not sensed via senses that are present on the body. It can be said that it has a mental form, and a name associated with it. Similarly are all other mental forms and names. They depend on other experiences, and cannot exist independently as a reality on its own.

Is there a memory then? No, it is also a name given to a bunch of experiences, and it is also not an experience, it is also an idea. Probably it is much more removed from the forms perceived via senses in terms of reality. Memory also depends on its contents, else it is not there. Mind is simply memory and its processes - sensory, thinking, emoting etc. Mind itself is a name in the mind.

But I exist, I am here - probably you are pointing to your body. Check it again - is it real? Or is it another name for changing collections of experiences? Imagine you are Neo and I am asking you this question in the voice of Morpheus. Just for fun, because how can it be serious? Can you take this *reality* seriously? The body depends on organs and systems, it is a name given to a collection. It is ever changing. Organs are a collection of cells etc. Just in case, if you think, I exist as a mind, we destroyed its reality in the previous paragraph. You get the idea. There is no you also. And hence, nothing is yours now. The body is food or energy converted into another form. The thought is energy or movements of the mind. This energy is from the sun, which shines in the sky. The you, which is not actually you, is not really independent, cannot exist independently of whatever makes it up, whatever it depends on for its existence. This person or individual is just a name, a concept or an idea, representing, rather conviniently, an isolated collection of experiences out of totality on which it depends. Ironically the word individual means - something which cannot be divided, but all that exists here is more divisions, more dependent collections, more names. There is no self, no myself, no yourself. Anyhow this momentary arising of two actors on the screen was fun, a movie, a play, highly entertaining.

Now everything is demolished here, nothing is meaningful. In the end all we can find are - changing experiences, collections of things with names given to them, where the individuals are also collections, and dependent things, none of these having any independent existence. It seems the *reality*, whatever it is, is nothing but names and forms. These are also not constant, they are always morphing, impermanent. Sometimes we call it an illusion. It means - there is something, but it is not what we think it is. Also called Maya. And is it obviously in the mind, so we say - *mind created illusion*, while fully knowing that there is no real thing called mind.

Another name for reality, which is now a self contradicting term, is illusory experiences, or simply Experience. An experience is that which appears. That's all it is. It is just names and forms. Is it true, is it false, it is a mix of both? It doesnt matter, because the answers again come out as even more names and forms. You can try investigating it further in your free but illusory time, but there is no substance or ground here. It is all Empty. There is an illusion of there being something in this vast potential of Emptiness. Understand that this line is also names and forms. Nothing more can be said. This is the bottom line.