I believe that personal identity is determined neither by the continued organization nor by the continued soul but rather by the continued consciousness. However, we have no inherent self-nature. From impermanence everything changes continuously, hence there is no nature. From composition everything can be seen as a temporary combination of components. The cause and effect has no nature because of the madhyamaka, a middle of two extremes. The effect preexists in the cause at the same time. If it does not preexist we could make cheese from clay or vice versa.
It is true to conclude that what we are aware of in reality is what we perceive therefore perception is separate from reality and consciousness works for physical reality, which is merely appearance.
The world definitely exists however it is not real. So like I said above if the effect preexists in the cause there is no real change. For example, you create a jar out of clay, however there was already a jar in that clay. So you could say change is merely an appearance.
But you may say that a jar has a certain form. However, form is not real because form is new and something can’t be made or come out of nothing, which is impossible. So form has no reality of its own and is simply an appearance, similar to the big bang theory. Likewise, time is our perception of change. So time exists however it is not real. Therefore consciousness contains all reality. Concentration, meditation and Samadhi can achieve this. Meditation without self-awareness; the awareness that you are meditating disappears. The object of concentration disappears and subsequently you reach pure consciousness.
Personally, I believe that true reality has no distinction among judgment, feeling, willing and perception.
Think of it this way. If we only had limited ways of distinguishing things, our perception of reality would be diminished. The world we perceive is an appearance. The word existence does not assume reality, only subjective reality that may or may not be part of the actual, real world.
"Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks within, awakens" ~ Carl Jung
"The dragon is in us" ~ Joseph Campbell
"Reality is wrong, Dreams are for real" ~ Tupac
"The kingdom of heaven is within you" ~ Jesus
"A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes" ~ Gandhi
"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them" ~ Albert Einstein
