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Puggalavada: A brief look.
Jason
God EmperorArrakis Moderator
<i>This revised version of something I wrote back in 2006 initially began as response to a members <a href="http://www.newbuddhist.com/forum/showthread.php?t=813">post</a>, which eventually evolved into a topic in its own right. This entry is simply an attempt to share some of the things that I found regarding the Puggalavadins, as well as my own thoughts on the subject.</i>
Be honest. How many times have you ever pondered the teachings on <a href="http://leavesinthehand.blogspot.com/2010/06/anatta_13.html">not-self</a> (<i>anatta</i>) in an effort to discover whether there's a hidden self (<i>atta</i>) lurking around in the shadows somewhere? I can admit that I was once interested in pinning down the exact meaning of 'self,' 'not-self,' and whatever was in-between, mainly in an attempt to discover the answer to the timeless question, Who am I?
The difficulties in understanding the Buddha's teachings on <a href="http://leavesinthehand.blogspot.com/2010/06/rebirth_12.html">rebirth</a> (<i>punabbhava</i>, literally 'again becoming') along with not-self have plagued practitioners since the very beginning of the Buddha's dispensation. Throughout the beginning of my own journey into Buddhism, I flirted with a version of the Puggalavadin view of self, which was helped along by the fact that I was previously a practicing Pagan with a fairly strong belief in the existence of a type of self or soul already. However, I quickly discovered a key problem: I was in no position to determine the exact nature of self from the Buddhist point of view when I'd yet to even grasp the basic tenets of Buddhism itself.
So in search of an answer, I turned to the discourses of the Buddha recorded in the Pali Canon, hungrily looking for something I could wrap my intellectual understanding around. At the beginning, I mistook the meaning of <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/samyutta/sn44-010.html">SN 44.10</a>, thinking that perhaps the Buddha was just being coy and hinting at something there that was so unlike what anybody <i>thought</i> was there that it couldn't simply be labelled as 'self.' But after spending some time with a monk from the Thai Forest tradition, and more time reading the Suttas, I began to realize that the Buddha wasn't hinting at a self or a lack thereof at all; he was simply avoiding the misunderstandings and <a href="http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/ebdha263.htm">spectrum of wrong views</a> the issue itself presents. At that point, I resigned myself to leave the question of self alone, deciding that that was what the Buddha himself recommended thanks to suttas such as <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.042.than.html">AN 4.42</a> and <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.002.than.html">MN 2</a>.
I could now clearly see that trying to affirm or even deny a self of any sort wouldn't lead me to the cessation of suffering, so what was the point? I realized that whatever the truth may be, it must be 'seen' for oneself. It's not something that can adequately be put into words without giving the wrong impression, and it's not something that can be understood solely through reason; it's something that must eventually be <i>experienced</i>. All of the teachings and techniques expounded by the Buddha are ultimately meant to lead to 'knowledge and vision of things as they are' (<i>yatha-bhuta-nana-dassana</i>), and subsequently, to awakening. "Ah, so it's like <i>this</i>."
As for the Puggalavadins, they went by the same collection of teachings (sans the Abhidhamma Pitaka) as the other accepted schools of Buddhism, and they weren't necessarily deemed 'heretical' at the time of their existence. It's reported that their sect covered much of India before the decline of Buddhism in that area, and the main difference between them and the other sects existent at the time was their interpretation of the Buddha's teaching on not-self. There was much debate at the time as to what the Buddha was really pointing at in regard to the existence or non-existence of self — that which is "permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change" (SN 24.3) — with sutta references presented as evidence by both sides. One of the most famous and contentious is <a href=" http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/samyutta/sn22-022.html">SN 22.22</a>, with its unique mention of the 'person' (<i>puggala</i>) as the "carrier of the burden." Beyond this debate, however, their methods of practice were, as far as we know, quite similar.
This brings me to my point. It seems that even today, certain teachers in the Theravada tradition have views and teachings that seem to mirror the ancient Puggalavadin's, long after the latter's disappearance. There are certain teachers in the Thai Forest tradition, for example, whose teachings regarding the purified mind (<i>citta</i>) bear a striking resemblance to the Puggalavadin's regarding the person. That's not to say that they believe in, or teach about, a 'self' as the Puggalavadins did, but that they teach in a way that does at least seem to leave the question open. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, for example, wrote a controversial essay called "<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/notself.html">The Not-self Strategy</a>," which <a href="http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=986&start=0#p12365">some criticize</a> as being an "eel-wriggling interpretation of anatta as a strategy." And then there are quotes like this from "<a href=" http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/khandha.html">Five Piles of Bricks</a>":
<blockquote>Other passages mention a consciousness in this freedom — "without feature or surface, without end, luminous all around" — lying outside of time and space, experienced when the six sense spheres stop functioning (MN 49). In this it differs from the consciousness-khandha, which depends on the six sense spheres and can be described in such terms as near or far, past, present, or future. Consciousness without feature is thus the awareness of Awakening. And the freedom of this awareness carries over even when the awakened person returns to ordinary consciousness.</blockquote>
But there are others who are even more suspect in the eyes of the 'orthodox' Theravadin community, such as Ajahn Maha Boowa, who some accuse of holding more blatantly 'eternalistic' views. For example, in the appendix to his <a href="http://www.luangta.com/English/site/book10_arahatta.html"><i>Arahattamagga Arahattaphala - The Path to Arahantship</i></a>, he says things like "the true power of the citta's own nature is that it knows and does not die" (99). The real question is, Are the Puggalavadin's views, albeit subtly, still around today?
To begin with, who exactly <i>were</i> the Puggalavadins? From what little we do know, they were a sect of Buddhism that arose in about 300 BCE. They broke off from the older Sthaviravadins (part of which eventually evolved into our modern day 'Theravada' tradition). Their sect was known as the 'Personalist' school because of their belief that, while there is no 'self,' there is a 'person,' which is neither the same as, nor different from, the <a href="http://leavesinthehand.blogspot.com/2010/10/five-aggregates.html">aggregates</a> (<i>khandhas</i>).
The Puggalavadins more or less accepted and used the same collection of discourses (Sutta Pitika) and shared the same the monastic rules (Vinaya Pitika) as the Sthaviravadins, but they didn't accept the Abhidhamma Pitika, a systematization of certain concepts and terms found throughout the Sutta Pitaka — with additional concepts and terms added in for logical consistency — which was possibly intended to act as a pedagogical tool, as well as an attempt to describe the ultimate nature of reality. (Many scholars also agree that the Abhidhamma Pitaka is a later addition to the original teachings that gradual developed over several centuries. This is not only evident from the fact that the Abhidhamma utilizes words that are found nowhere else in the Canon, but also from the fact that each school had their own version, and some, like the Sautrantika school, even rejecting it altogether.)
As with other sects, they did have different versions of certain suttas, but the majority of their canon was apparently close to that of the Sthaviravadins. This is significant because they had to have comparable texts and/or teachings to be able to debate their views with their Sthaviravadin counterparts without automatically being deemed heretical. Unfortunately, almost none of their personal texts have survived besides a few poorly translated Chinese versions, so who can say how close their respective canons actually were.
In any case, after time, the 'orthodox' sect of the Sthaviravadins that eventually evolved into what we call Theravada deemed the Puggalavadin's take on the 'person' to be a misinterpretation of what the Buddha taught — mistaking the Buddha's conventional usage of speech for something metaphysical — and saw their rejection of the Abhidhamma as unorthodox, therefore they were officially labeled as heretical. Perhaps this was done even earlier, but we know for sure that in the Theravada Abhidhamma (as well as other versions) there's a section dealing with the refutation of heretical views including the Puggalavadin's called the <i>Kathavatthu</i> or <i>Points of Controversy</i>. An example of such a refutation of from a Sarvastivadin viewpoint is found in Vasubandhu's <i><a href="http://www.fraughtwithperil.com/blogs/bholly/archives/2004_09.html">Abhidharmakosa</a></i>:
<blockquote><b>1. THE PERSONALIST CONTROVERSY</b>
Is final deliverance then possible outside this Dharma, and can it be won on the basis of non-Buddhist doctrines? -No, it cannot, for all other teachings are corrupted by false ideas about a 'self’'. Instead of taking it as a mere conventional term applied to a series of impersonal processes, they believe in a self which is a substance independent of the Skandhas. But the mere belief in such a self must of necessity generate defilements. Those who hold it will be forced to pursue life in the Samsaric world, and will be unable to free themselves completely from it
The Personalist thesis first part., But is it not true that a Buddhist school, the Personalists, speak of a Person who is neither identical with the Skandhas, nor different from them? And is not this Person a kind of self? And yet, as Buddhists they should be able to win deliverance I - We must ask ourselves whether this Person exists as a real entity, i.e. as one of the separate elements of existence, like the elementary sight-objects, sounds, and so on, which careful analysis reveals; or whether it has a merely nominal existence, which denotes a combination of simple elements, as 'milk' is a combination of sights, smells, tastes and touchables.
The Personalist. - Why should not either assumption be true?
Vasubandhu - If the Person is a real entity with a nature of its own; it must be different from the elementary data, just as these are different from one another. It must then be either produced by causes, or unconditioned. In the first case it is not eternal, as you maintain, and you must be able to state its conditions in detail. In the second case you adopt a clearly non-Buddhistic doctrine, and, in addition, your Person could not do anything, and would be a rather useless hypothesis. The Person is therefore unlikely to be a real entity. But if you regard it as a mere designation, then your view does not differ in the least from ours.
The Personalist: We claim that there is a Person; but we do not say that he is an entity. Nor do we believe that he exists merely as a designation for the Skandhas. What we say is that the word 'Person' denotes a kind of structural unity which is found in correlation with the Skandhas of one individual, i.e. with those elements which are actually present, internal to him, and appropriated by him.
The Personalist thesis, second part: The Personalist also teaches that the Person is 'ineffable', that his relation to the elements cannot be defined, that he, is neither identical not non-identical with them. He distinguishes five kinds of cognizable things the' first three are the conditioned dharmas, i.e. those past, future and present; the fourth is the Unconditioned; and the fifth is the 'ineffable', and refers to the Person. - But if the Person were quite ineffable, if nothing at all could be stated about it, then one could also not say of it either that it is the fifth category or that it is not!
The Personalist It is perfectly true that the Person is not an object of consciousness. –
Vasubandhu Very well, but then one can never be aware of it; if unaware of it, one cannot cognize it; if it cannot be an object of cognition, how can its existence ever be established? And if one cannot do that, your system falls to pieces.
[Vasubandhu then quotes a number of canonical texts, of which I give three here:]
The Bimbisarasutra says: The foolish ignorant common people, putting their trust in words, imagine that there is such a thing as a self. But there is neither "I" nor "mine". There are only dhammas, ill at case, future, present and past.' In the Kshudragama the Buddha says to the Brahmin Badari: 'Badari, one who has four holy, truths, he can free himself from all bonds: thought alone defiles, thought alone purifies. The self has, in fact not the nature of a self. To think that there is a self is a perverted view. There is nowhere here a living being, there is no self, dharmas alone together with their causes do exist. No person can be found in all the Skandhas when examined And, having seen that a person is inwardly empty, you must also see the outside world as empty. Even those who meditate on emptiness cannot be said to exist.' And another Sutra says: 'Five calamities result from a belief in a self: wrong opinions about the actual status of a self, in individual, a soul; nondistinction from non-Buddhists; one goes astray on a wrong road; thought does not leap forward into emptiness, finds no serenity in it, does not abide in it, does not resolve upon it; one will never be sufficiently purified to win the qualities of a Saint. '
The Personalist. These texts have no authority for us. They do not form part of our Scriptures.
Vasubandhu: What then is authority behind your system - your sect or the word of the Buddha? How can you claim the Buddha as your Teacher, how can you be Shakyumuni's sons, if you do not accept all the Buddha's words as binding on you?
The Personalist: The texts you have just quoted are not the Buddha's own words, and they are not in the Scriptures of our school.
Vasubandhu: That is not very convincing. For all the other .schools accept these texts, and they are not in conflict either with other Sutras, or with the Dharma. This is therefore sheer effrontery on your. part. And how then, incidentally, do you explain the Sutra which says: 'To mistake for a self that which is not a self, that is a perverted notion, a perverted idea, a perverted opinion.'
The Personalist. The Sutra only says that it is a perversion to mistake a not-self for a self; but it does not say that it is a perversion to recognize a self as a self. And also: According to your doctrines the Lord could not possibly be omniscient. You say that all thoughts and mental activities change incessantly, and that each mental act lasts only for one moment. How then can it know all the dharmas? Only an abiding Person can be omniscient.
Vasubandhu. May I point out that then your Person would be eternal, and that contradicts your statements that we cannot say whether he is eternal or not. And this is how we account for the Buddha's omniscience: For us the word 'Buddha' is a term denoting a series of momentary events. We do not believe that in one single moment he just knows all the dharmas simultaneously. The unique feature of his series of momentary mental actions lies in the fact that, by the mere act of turning his mind on anything, there arises immediately a correct and unperverted knowledge of any object whatever, if there should be at the same time the desire to know it. That is the sense in which we speak of -omniscience'.
The Personalist: Why then, if the word 'person' means nothing but the five Skandhas which form the range of grasping did the Lord teach the 'Burden Sutra', which says: 'I will teach you the burden, its taking up, its laying down. and the bearer -of the burden. The five Skandhas, which am the range of grasping, are the burden. Craving takes up the burden The renunciation of craving lays it down. The bearer of the burden is the person: this venerable man, with such and such a name born so and so, of such and such a clan, who himself on this or that food, experiences these pleasures and pains, lives for just so long, says here for just so long, terminates his life-span in just this way.' For, if "person' were only another name for the Skandhas, if 'person' and Skandhas were actually identical then the burden would carry itself and that is absurd.
Vasubandhu: You have misunderstood the message of this Sutra- The Lord speaks of a 'person' here only in order to conform to the usage of the world. In fact this so-called 'personality' is nothing but a series of consecutive impersonal momentary events, all of them linked to suffering. But the processes which have taken place in the past cause in those which succeed them. The preceding Skandhas therefore called the 'burden', the subsequent ones Its 'bearer'.
The Personalist: Moreover. another Sutra says: 'One person, when he arises, when he is born in the world, is born for the weal of the many. Who is that one person? It is the Tathagata.'
Vasubandhu: Here again the Lord just conforms to the usage of the world. For that reason he treats here as a unit that which is in fact a complex; it is quite usual for people to speak of a 'word', although it is in fact a compound of syllables, or of a heap of rice, although it obviously comprises a multiplicity of grains. In addition, this Sutra says of the person that 'he arises', and that, contrary to your teaching, makes him into something conditioned.
The Personalist: The term ‘arises’ one meaning when applied to the dharmas another when applied to the Person. A dharma is said to 'arise' because it exists now after not having existed before. A person, however, is said to 'arise, or to 'be born' when, on rebirth in a certain form, he takes up, or acquires, certain constituents, which make him into 'this man', 'this animal','this ghost', and so on. It is quite usual to say of a man who has acquired a knowledge of grammar that 'a grammarian is born!, or 'a grammarian has arisen', but that does not mean that he has come from nothing. The person 'arises' in the sense that he acquires at a certain time a certain series of attributes, in the above quotation those of a Buddha.
Vasubandhu: This explanation has been expressly condemned by the Lord. For He has said:- 'There is action, and there is the retribution of action. But apart from the causally linked sequence of impersonal dharmas there is no one who acts, there is no one who gives up one set of Skandhas, and takes up others instead! In consequence there is no person who gives up his Skandhas at death and takes up others at rebirth.
The Personalist:. Nevertheless, the Person is real, for it has been said: 'To say that the self does not exist, in truth and in reality, is a wrong view.'
Vasubandhu: This is no proof, for it has also been said that to affirm the existence of a self is a wrong view. We Abbhidharmists believe that both the general affirmation and the general negation of a self are extremist views, in accordance with the well-known saying of the Vatsagotra-sutra: 'Those, Amanda, who affirm a self fall into the extreme of the belief in its eternal continuation; those who deny it fall into the extreme of the belief in its eventual annihilation!
The Personalist: If the Person does not exist, who then is it that wanders about in Samsara? It is difficult to see how the Samsara itself can wander about.
Vasubandhu: The correct explanation is, however, quite simple: When a flame burns a piece of wood, one says that it wanders along it; nevertheless there is nothing but a series of flame-moments. Likewise there is a continuous series of processes which incessantly renews itself, and which is falsely called a living being. Impelled by craving, this series is said to 'wander' in Samsara.
The Personalist: If the momentary processes alone exist, how can you explain these words of the Lord, when he said, on recalling one of his former lives: 'This sage Sunetra, who existed in the past, that Sunetra was I.' All the psycho-physical elements have changed, and it can therefore only be the 'person' that makes the Buddha and Sunetra identical.
Vasubandhu: What in fact is it that the Lord thinks of when he speaks here of 'I'? If, as you say, he means the 'person', then the past 'I' is identical with the present 'I', and your 'person! will be permanent, as against your intentions. For us, however, the Lord only meant to say that his actually present dharmas are parts of the same continuous series of dharmas as those of Sunetra. As one says: 'This fire has burned its way to here.' In any case, you assert the existence of a real self, which is of a nature so subtle and elusive, that the Tathagatas alone can see it. In that case, the Buddhas would become believers in 'I' and 'mine', with all its pernicious consequences for the spiritual life. They will form an attachment to that part of the universe which they come to consider as their own, and in that way they will be far removed from deliverance.
The Personalist: It is only when, as is the habit of nonBuddhists, something which-is not the true Self is mistaken for the true Self, that one will feel affection for that pretended self. If, however, one sees, as the Buddhas do, the Ineffable Person as the true self, then, because that actually is the true self, no affection for it is thereby engendered.</blockquote>
So back to the question: Are their views still around today? In my opinion, the answer is yes and no. While some teachers, like Thanissaro Bhikkhu, tend to be somewhat suspect and are often accused of holding quasi-eternalistic, Puggalavadin-type views by strict traditionalists, I believe that they're actually teaching wisely by using a variety of skillful means to burn away clinging (<i>upadana</i>) to all forms of self-view equally, from the idea of 'I have a self,' to the idea of 'I have no self,' and everything in between. And while some of Thanissaro's writings and talks did make me seriously question his approach at first, I've since come to the conclusion that his teachings aren't at odds with the Buddha, although <a href="http://leavesinthehand.blogspot.com/2010/07/vinnanam-anidassanam-thanissaro-vs.html">they do occasionally conflict</a> with what some consider to be Theravadin orthodoxy.
The way in which Thanissaro writes about not-self, while seeming to leave the question of self open, actually lays the question aside altogether. It may appear that he's hinting at a 'self' lurking around somewhere, but in reality, he's going by what the Suttas themselves actually say (e.g., <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/digha/dn-11-tb0.html">DN 11</a>, <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/majjhima/mn-002-tb0.html">MN 2</a>, <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/majjhima/mn-008-nt2.html">MN 8</a>, <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/majjhima/mn-022-tb0.html">MN 22</a>, <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/samyutta/sn22-085.html">SN 22.85</a>, <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/samyutta/sn44-010.html">SN 44.10</a>, etc.). On closer examination, it's clear (to me at least) that he tries to teach people in a way that discourages both attachment to a belief in a self <i>and</i> an attachment to not-self as a substitute. This might not sound like it makes very much sense, but it's actually quite ingenious. Many people simply attach to the idea of having no self instead of a self, which the Buddha also <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/majjhima/mn-002-tb0.html">warns against</a>:
<blockquote>This is how he attends inappropriately: 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?' Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?'
As he attends inappropriately in this way, one of six kinds of view arises in him: The view <i>I have a self arises in him as true & established, or the view I have no self... or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive self... or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive not-self... or the view It is precisely by means of not-self that I perceive self arises in him as true & established, or else he has a view like this: This very self of mine — the knower that is sensitive here & there to the ripening of good & bad actions — is the self of mine that is constant, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change, and will stay just as it is for eternity</i>. This is called a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person is not freed from birth, aging, & death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. He is not freed, I tell you, from suffering & stress.</blockquote>
In addition, Thanissaro, contrary to what some might think, never suggests that the teachings on not-self and <i>kamma</i> (literally 'action') don't work together, implying the need for a pseudo-self to have it all make sense. This is a horrendous but easily cleared up misunderstanding of what he says in his essay "<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/notself2.html">No-self or Not-self?</a>" Far from claiming that the teachings on not-self and kamma don't fit well together, he's simply explaining that this is a perception many people have (i.e., they don't <i>seem</i> to fit), especially Westerners with a Judeo-Christian background, when they learn about Buddhism and first encounter these teachings. More importantly, by laying aside the question of whether or not there's a self altogether, he's attempting to approach the subject in the same way the Buddha does in <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/samyutta/sn44-010.html">SN 44.10</a> since, in his words, "to hold either that there is a self or that there is no self is to fall into extreme forms of wrong view that make the path of Buddhist practice impossible."
However, there are some who've studied the Puggalavadin's doctrines and views and have actually come out in favour of them, and quite openly in fact. One such person is D. Amarasiri Weeraratne. In his article <a href="http://www.island.lk/2000/09/19/featur04.html">Puggalavada and Theravada Buddhist teachings</a>, he writes:
<blockquote>Upto the time of the 2nd Council 200 years after the Buddha, there were no sectarian divisions among Buddhist monks. The Buddha had permitted the Sangha to change minor rules after his demise, according to the wishes of the fraternity and by a majority decision. In pursuance of this concession, the monks of the Vajji country well known for its republican form of government called for the adoption of ten minor changes in the Vinaya rules.
The hard core orthodox and conservative monks headed by Revata and Sabbakami resisted these changes. Hence the conservative elders disallowed these changes. Consequently, the dissident monks broke away from the conservative elders (The Theras) and established the Mahasanghika Sect and held their own Sangha Council. Thus came about the first division in the Sangha. The Maha Sanghikas as their name implies constituted the majority of the Sangha. The Theras constituted a minority of hard core reactionaries who were opposed to an form of change.
Between the 2nd and 3rd Councils 236 years after the Buddha the Conservative Elders (The Theras) broke off into two sects, viz: Vibjjavadins and Sautrantikas. Almost simultaneously the Mahasangikas also broke off into a sect called Puggalavadin. (Believers in persons.) The Vibjjavadins broke off into three sects, one of which was the Theravada - the Buddhism we have in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos etc. Thus you will see that the Puggalavada Sect and the Theravada Sect were the earliest of the sectarian divisions in Buddhism.
<b>Controversy on Abhidhamma</b>
The chief characteristic of the Puggalavada Sect was their rejection of the Abhidharma Pitaka as a teaching of the Buddha. They maintained that Abhidharma is apocryphal scripture cooked up by the Theravada Elders between the 2nd and 3rd Councils and adopted at the 3rd Council. The Puggalavadins as well as Sautranitikas rejected the Abhidharma Pitaka and had only 2 Pitakas viz: Sutta and Vinaya Pitakas.
In the Suttas the Buddha speaks of a person who fares on in Sansara, performs good and bad deeds and receives reward or distribution for them. In fact the entire Sutta Pitaka is based on the assumption that there is a person (puggala) who is subject to the sufferings in Sansara. The purpose of the Buddha-Dhamma is to eliminate this suffering and help them to attain Nirvana.
<b>The Anatta concept</b>
The Abhidharma denies the existence of a person or an individual. It accepts only fleeting thought moments which arise and flash instantly. In this process there is no person or being. The Buddha taught the Suttas to men on earth, referring to a person. In the Abhidharma he is supposed to have preached to the gods in which he denies the existence of a person or an individual. In order to bridge the gulf of this inconsistency the Abhidharma scholars invented the theory of two truths. The Sutras are true in the conventional sense, and the Abhidharma is true in the ultimate sense which is the highest truth.
The Puggalavadins could not accept the theory that the Buddha had taught two kinds of truth. Nowhere had he done so. The Theravadins cannot quote from any part of the Sutras where he has taught that there are two truths called Sammuti and Paramartha. Thus they refuted this contention and asserted that the Abhidharma Pitaka is a fabrication and required another concoction to maintain its validity. It is with the help of this fabrication that Abhidharma scholars reconcile the inconsistency in the Sutra and Abhidharma teachings.
<b>The Southern School of Buddhism</b>
Theravada Buddhism is Abhidharma oriented. All its commentaries and ancillary literature are written in a way to accommodate the Abhidarma. Ven. Buddhagosha asserted that the Abhidharma Pitaka is a teaching of the Buddha. But he himself admitted in the Atthasalini Commentary that there were ancient Sinhala Elders at Anuradhapura who challenged the validity of the Abhidharma Pitaka.
They pointed out that the Buddha had taught in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra that we should not accept teachings presented to us in his name if they are inconsistent with the Sutra and the Vinaya teachings. They also asserted that in the Anagatabhaya Sutra the Buddha envisaged a time when monks will cook up doctrines and scriptures not taught by him and present them as the Buddha-word. He admonished his followers to carefully compare such teachings with the Sutras and the Vinaya and accept them only if they are compatible and consistent.
Therefore Abhidharma being incompatible with the Sutra and Vinaya teaching was rejected by the Puggalawadins. The Sautrantika teachers too rejected the Abhidharma on the same grounds. The very name Sautrantika Sect means those who take only the Sutras as authoritative.
<b>The controversy on Antarbhava</b>
They accepted Abhidharma only to the extent that it is found in seed form in the Sutras. Another important teaching of the Puggalavadins was the doctrine of Antarabhava. The interim spirit existence between one life and another. This was denied by the Therevadins who asserted that the acceptance of Antarabhava by the Puggalavadins was due to a misunderstanding of some passages of the Sutras. The Puggalavadins maintained their position and showed that the misinterpretation of key passages is the work of Abhidharma oriented Theravada teachers, who tried to cut and hack the Buddha-word to suit their Abhidharma-oriented views. Their teaching was that their was no person, or being, but a mere flux of fleeting thought moments which are impersonal. The Puggalavadins considered this a bovine folly.
Between the 2nd and 3rd Council, the Theravadins had compiled 7 Abhidharma books and asserted that except one other were the teachings of the Buddha preached in the Tavatismsa heaven to the gods. Not to be outdone the Sarvastivadin teachers also compiled 7 Abhidharma books and adopted them as their Abhidharma Pitaka. They were candid and frank enough to reveal the names of the authors of the books, unlike the Theravadins who took up the position that their 7 books contained preachings of the Buddha to the gods in the Tavatimsa heaven.
<b>The common denominator</b>
But an examination of the two Abhidharma Pitakas show too many discrepancies whereas their Sutra and Vinaya Pitakas are similar. This is clear proof that the Abhidharma Pitaka was composed after the monks broke off into sects. The Puggalavadins taught that a person or a pudgala who performs good and bad deeds reaps the results and fares on in Sansara until the attainment of Nirvana. The Bharahara Surta was the favourite text of the Pudgalavadins. Therein Buddha said" Bhara have Panchakkhando, Bharaharo Ca Puggalo." This means the five aggregates are a burden, the puggala or person is the burden bearer.
Here clearly the Buddha distinguishes between the five groups of aggregates (skandas) and the person who bears them. But according to the Theravada Abhidharma the burden carries itself. There is no burden-bearer. This is what Buddhaghosha meant when he said in the Visuddhi Magga - the standard text of the Theravada - that" there is mere suffering but no sufferer exists". "There is the Noble Eightfold Path but no one traverses it". Buddhaghosha copied the idea from a verse in Nagarjuna’s Mula Madhyama Karika - his magnum opus in which he ennunciates his Madhyamika philosophy with its central doctrine of Sunyata - the void. According to this, the whole world and all its phenomena are mirage, a dream, an illusion or" a castle in the air" as Nagarjuna put it. This is the Hindu doctrine of Maya dressed up in a Buddhist garb.
The Puggalavadins taught that to deny the existence of a person is to bring down the whole edifice of the Buddha-Dharma. It is absurd to say that the burden carries itself, that mere suffering exists and there is no sufferer, or that the Path exists without anyone to tread the path. This is not Buddhism, it is the Buddhaghosha brand of Abhidharma Buddhism.
<b>The self and no-self</b>
The Puggalavadins point out that if there are no beings, the practise of Metta would not be possible, Karma and Rebirth would be meaningless, without a person faring on in Sansara. Memories of previous lives, the preaching of the Satipattana Sutra for the purification of beings and overcoming their sufferings would be meaningless, if there is no person.
The Buddha said, "One person is born among men for the welfare and happiness of beings". Hundreds of such texts can be quoted from the Sutras. To deny a person in the ultimate sense (the highest truth) and accept him in a conventional sense is to talk with two tongues and dilute the truth of the Buddha-word. The Sutta Nipata says that "Buddhas have no two words." "Truth is one and not many". (Ekam hi saccam na dutiyamatthi). Two contrary truths is foreign to the Buddha’s teaching.
The chief difference between Puggalavada and Theravada comes with the acceptance and non-acceptance of the Abhidharma Pitaka as a teaching of the Buddha. Theravada is steeped in Abhidharma and is abhidharma oriented. The Puggala vadins have only two Pitakas namely Sutra and Vinaya Pitakas. The Puggalavadins took care not to use the word Atman or soul as is understood in Vedanta, i.e. an immutable self characterised by permanence, bliss and substance.
The Puggala of the Pudgalavadins is a self that is subject to impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and is not to be considered as the essence or core for those reasons. This appears to be a halfway house between the Vedantic soul and the no-soul doctrine of the Theravadins. The Buddha is neither an anatmavadi nor atmavadi.
The Puggalavadins teach that the puggala arises simultaneously with the five aggregates, is not within or outside them, but forms a structural unit with them.
It is the astral body, secondary body or bio-plasamabody of modern Para-psychological research. Its existence and verifiability has been vindicated by 150 years of Psychical Research in the West in which very eminent scientists have taken part. It is the mano-kaya or the Suttas.
If Buddhism is to be a practical religion of value to mankind, it must take into account and recognise the existence of persons or individuals - otherwise Buddhism falls flat and collapses like a pack of cards. When you deny a person, you have to deny the Buddha, his Dhamma and the Sangha. That reduces Buddhism to a force.</blockquote>
As for myself, I try to look at it from the perspective of, In the end, who really knows? If we were to conclude now what the answer may be, without the insights born of the practice itself, it'd be little more than speculation; there'd be no 'gnosis,' no knowledge of the truth. And we're never asked by the Buddha to speculate about what he meant, nor are we told that we'll be freed by our conceptual thoughts of such. All that does is lead to what the Buddha called "a thicket of view" and to the propagation of those views (a mental form of <i>samsara</i>, literally 'wandering on'). In fact, I think the Suttas are quite clear that, as important as having an intellectual understanding of the teachings is, people who are serious about ending suffering will eventually need to put these teachings into practice to see whether they really do lead to a true and lasting happiness. Simply clinging to views of self certainly won't do it.
<blockquote>And what is clinging/sustenance? These four are clingings: sensuality clinging, view clinging, precept & practice clinging, and doctrine of self clinging. This is called clinging. (<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.002.than.html">SN 12.2</a>)</blockquote>
And with clinging comes what?
<blockquote>From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications. From fabrications as a requisite condition comes consciousness. From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form. From name-&-form as a requisite condition come the six sense media. From the six sense media as a requisite condition comes contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging/sustenance. From clinging/sustenance as a requisite condition comes becoming. From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. Such is the origination of this entire mass of stress & suffering. (<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.002.than.html">SN 12.2</a>)</blockquote>
That's right, stress and suffering (<i>dukkha</i>) eventually arises due to the sustenance of clinging. That's the danger of clinging, even to the idea of 'self' if such a thing exists. And this is important because the Buddha himself said that he didn't "envision a clinging to a doctrine of self, clinging to which there would not arise sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair"(<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.022.nypo.html">MN 22</a>). And the Buddha only taught one thing:
<blockquote>Both formerly and now, monks, I declare only stress and the cessation of stress.</blockquote>
What this says to me is that, when we travel the path to put down all of our burdens, we must be careful not pick up more along the way. This includes the burden of self-view in any of its subtle forms. That's where the Puggalavadins seem to go wrong in one respect. Their views, whether right or wrong in the ultimate sense, are sustenance for clinging, especially if we see that the idea of a 'person' beyond the conventional sense is, for all intents and purposes, a doctrine of self. And while their interpretation of the teachings on not-self does offer a possible explanation of how kamma and rebirth work, they fail in keeping to the Buddha's overall teachings. In just <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.134.than.html">these three lines</a>, the Buddha leaves no ground for any type of self-view to gain a foothold:
<blockquote><i>Sabbe sankhara dukkha</i>. (All processes are stressful.)
<i>Sabbe sankhara anicca</i>. (All processes are inconstant.)
<i>Sabbe dhamma anatta</i>. (All phenomena are not-self.)</blockquote>
For us unawakened worldlings (<i>puthujjana</i>), it seems that the quest continues. We each undertake this journey with the hope of finding out these answers for ourselves, to find our own freedom from dukkha. There's not much certainty in this world, even in Buddhism it sometimes seems, but there's one thing that I think we can have confidence in—the <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/pathtopeace.html">noble eightfold path</a>.
I've come to the conclusion that the answer to the question, Who am I? isn't important. What's really important, however, is realizing that our attachment to views and doctrines of self keep us rooted in "perceptions and categories of objectification" that continually assail us and our mental well-being (<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.018.than.html">MN 18</a>). One must clear away all views, opinions and preconceived notions about self, and cut at the very roots of such attachments to gain release. It's through a combination of meditation and contemplation of the five aggregates that we can develop the insight into the teachings on not-self that's beyond mere speculation, and rests instead within the realm of direct experience. That kind of insight is the only kind that leads to real freedom, not simply repeating the formula, 'All things are not-self.'
Be honest. How many times have you ever pondered the teachings on <a href="http://leavesinthehand.blogspot.com/2010/06/anatta_13.html">not-self</a> (<i>anatta</i>) in an effort to discover whether there's a hidden self (<i>atta</i>) lurking around in the shadows somewhere? I can admit that I was once interested in pinning down the exact meaning of 'self,' 'not-self,' and whatever was in-between, mainly in an attempt to discover the answer to the timeless question, Who am I?
The difficulties in understanding the Buddha's teachings on <a href="http://leavesinthehand.blogspot.com/2010/06/rebirth_12.html">rebirth</a> (<i>punabbhava</i>, literally 'again becoming') along with not-self have plagued practitioners since the very beginning of the Buddha's dispensation. Throughout the beginning of my own journey into Buddhism, I flirted with a version of the Puggalavadin view of self, which was helped along by the fact that I was previously a practicing Pagan with a fairly strong belief in the existence of a type of self or soul already. However, I quickly discovered a key problem: I was in no position to determine the exact nature of self from the Buddhist point of view when I'd yet to even grasp the basic tenets of Buddhism itself.
So in search of an answer, I turned to the discourses of the Buddha recorded in the Pali Canon, hungrily looking for something I could wrap my intellectual understanding around. At the beginning, I mistook the meaning of <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/samyutta/sn44-010.html">SN 44.10</a>, thinking that perhaps the Buddha was just being coy and hinting at something there that was so unlike what anybody <i>thought</i> was there that it couldn't simply be labelled as 'self.' But after spending some time with a monk from the Thai Forest tradition, and more time reading the Suttas, I began to realize that the Buddha wasn't hinting at a self or a lack thereof at all; he was simply avoiding the misunderstandings and <a href="http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/ebdha263.htm">spectrum of wrong views</a> the issue itself presents. At that point, I resigned myself to leave the question of self alone, deciding that that was what the Buddha himself recommended thanks to suttas such as <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.042.than.html">AN 4.42</a> and <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.002.than.html">MN 2</a>.
I could now clearly see that trying to affirm or even deny a self of any sort wouldn't lead me to the cessation of suffering, so what was the point? I realized that whatever the truth may be, it must be 'seen' for oneself. It's not something that can adequately be put into words without giving the wrong impression, and it's not something that can be understood solely through reason; it's something that must eventually be <i>experienced</i>. All of the teachings and techniques expounded by the Buddha are ultimately meant to lead to 'knowledge and vision of things as they are' (<i>yatha-bhuta-nana-dassana</i>), and subsequently, to awakening. "Ah, so it's like <i>this</i>."
As for the Puggalavadins, they went by the same collection of teachings (sans the Abhidhamma Pitaka) as the other accepted schools of Buddhism, and they weren't necessarily deemed 'heretical' at the time of their existence. It's reported that their sect covered much of India before the decline of Buddhism in that area, and the main difference between them and the other sects existent at the time was their interpretation of the Buddha's teaching on not-self. There was much debate at the time as to what the Buddha was really pointing at in regard to the existence or non-existence of self — that which is "permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change" (SN 24.3) — with sutta references presented as evidence by both sides. One of the most famous and contentious is <a href=" http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/samyutta/sn22-022.html">SN 22.22</a>, with its unique mention of the 'person' (<i>puggala</i>) as the "carrier of the burden." Beyond this debate, however, their methods of practice were, as far as we know, quite similar.
This brings me to my point. It seems that even today, certain teachers in the Theravada tradition have views and teachings that seem to mirror the ancient Puggalavadin's, long after the latter's disappearance. There are certain teachers in the Thai Forest tradition, for example, whose teachings regarding the purified mind (<i>citta</i>) bear a striking resemblance to the Puggalavadin's regarding the person. That's not to say that they believe in, or teach about, a 'self' as the Puggalavadins did, but that they teach in a way that does at least seem to leave the question open. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, for example, wrote a controversial essay called "<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/notself.html">The Not-self Strategy</a>," which <a href="http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=986&start=0#p12365">some criticize</a> as being an "eel-wriggling interpretation of anatta as a strategy." And then there are quotes like this from "<a href=" http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/khandha.html">Five Piles of Bricks</a>":
<blockquote>Other passages mention a consciousness in this freedom — "without feature or surface, without end, luminous all around" — lying outside of time and space, experienced when the six sense spheres stop functioning (MN 49). In this it differs from the consciousness-khandha, which depends on the six sense spheres and can be described in such terms as near or far, past, present, or future. Consciousness without feature is thus the awareness of Awakening. And the freedom of this awareness carries over even when the awakened person returns to ordinary consciousness.</blockquote>
But there are others who are even more suspect in the eyes of the 'orthodox' Theravadin community, such as Ajahn Maha Boowa, who some accuse of holding more blatantly 'eternalistic' views. For example, in the appendix to his <a href="http://www.luangta.com/English/site/book10_arahatta.html"><i>Arahattamagga Arahattaphala - The Path to Arahantship</i></a>, he says things like "the true power of the citta's own nature is that it knows and does not die" (99). The real question is, Are the Puggalavadin's views, albeit subtly, still around today?
To begin with, who exactly <i>were</i> the Puggalavadins? From what little we do know, they were a sect of Buddhism that arose in about 300 BCE. They broke off from the older Sthaviravadins (part of which eventually evolved into our modern day 'Theravada' tradition). Their sect was known as the 'Personalist' school because of their belief that, while there is no 'self,' there is a 'person,' which is neither the same as, nor different from, the <a href="http://leavesinthehand.blogspot.com/2010/10/five-aggregates.html">aggregates</a> (<i>khandhas</i>).
The Puggalavadins more or less accepted and used the same collection of discourses (Sutta Pitika) and shared the same the monastic rules (Vinaya Pitika) as the Sthaviravadins, but they didn't accept the Abhidhamma Pitika, a systematization of certain concepts and terms found throughout the Sutta Pitaka — with additional concepts and terms added in for logical consistency — which was possibly intended to act as a pedagogical tool, as well as an attempt to describe the ultimate nature of reality. (Many scholars also agree that the Abhidhamma Pitaka is a later addition to the original teachings that gradual developed over several centuries. This is not only evident from the fact that the Abhidhamma utilizes words that are found nowhere else in the Canon, but also from the fact that each school had their own version, and some, like the Sautrantika school, even rejecting it altogether.)
As with other sects, they did have different versions of certain suttas, but the majority of their canon was apparently close to that of the Sthaviravadins. This is significant because they had to have comparable texts and/or teachings to be able to debate their views with their Sthaviravadin counterparts without automatically being deemed heretical. Unfortunately, almost none of their personal texts have survived besides a few poorly translated Chinese versions, so who can say how close their respective canons actually were.
In any case, after time, the 'orthodox' sect of the Sthaviravadins that eventually evolved into what we call Theravada deemed the Puggalavadin's take on the 'person' to be a misinterpretation of what the Buddha taught — mistaking the Buddha's conventional usage of speech for something metaphysical — and saw their rejection of the Abhidhamma as unorthodox, therefore they were officially labeled as heretical. Perhaps this was done even earlier, but we know for sure that in the Theravada Abhidhamma (as well as other versions) there's a section dealing with the refutation of heretical views including the Puggalavadin's called the <i>Kathavatthu</i> or <i>Points of Controversy</i>. An example of such a refutation of from a Sarvastivadin viewpoint is found in Vasubandhu's <i><a href="http://www.fraughtwithperil.com/blogs/bholly/archives/2004_09.html">Abhidharmakosa</a></i>:
<blockquote><b>1. THE PERSONALIST CONTROVERSY</b>
Is final deliverance then possible outside this Dharma, and can it be won on the basis of non-Buddhist doctrines? -No, it cannot, for all other teachings are corrupted by false ideas about a 'self’'. Instead of taking it as a mere conventional term applied to a series of impersonal processes, they believe in a self which is a substance independent of the Skandhas. But the mere belief in such a self must of necessity generate defilements. Those who hold it will be forced to pursue life in the Samsaric world, and will be unable to free themselves completely from it
The Personalist thesis first part., But is it not true that a Buddhist school, the Personalists, speak of a Person who is neither identical with the Skandhas, nor different from them? And is not this Person a kind of self? And yet, as Buddhists they should be able to win deliverance I - We must ask ourselves whether this Person exists as a real entity, i.e. as one of the separate elements of existence, like the elementary sight-objects, sounds, and so on, which careful analysis reveals; or whether it has a merely nominal existence, which denotes a combination of simple elements, as 'milk' is a combination of sights, smells, tastes and touchables.
The Personalist. - Why should not either assumption be true?
Vasubandhu - If the Person is a real entity with a nature of its own; it must be different from the elementary data, just as these are different from one another. It must then be either produced by causes, or unconditioned. In the first case it is not eternal, as you maintain, and you must be able to state its conditions in detail. In the second case you adopt a clearly non-Buddhistic doctrine, and, in addition, your Person could not do anything, and would be a rather useless hypothesis. The Person is therefore unlikely to be a real entity. But if you regard it as a mere designation, then your view does not differ in the least from ours.
The Personalist: We claim that there is a Person; but we do not say that he is an entity. Nor do we believe that he exists merely as a designation for the Skandhas. What we say is that the word 'Person' denotes a kind of structural unity which is found in correlation with the Skandhas of one individual, i.e. with those elements which are actually present, internal to him, and appropriated by him.
The Personalist thesis, second part: The Personalist also teaches that the Person is 'ineffable', that his relation to the elements cannot be defined, that he, is neither identical not non-identical with them. He distinguishes five kinds of cognizable things the' first three are the conditioned dharmas, i.e. those past, future and present; the fourth is the Unconditioned; and the fifth is the 'ineffable', and refers to the Person. - But if the Person were quite ineffable, if nothing at all could be stated about it, then one could also not say of it either that it is the fifth category or that it is not!
The Personalist It is perfectly true that the Person is not an object of consciousness. –
Vasubandhu Very well, but then one can never be aware of it; if unaware of it, one cannot cognize it; if it cannot be an object of cognition, how can its existence ever be established? And if one cannot do that, your system falls to pieces.
[Vasubandhu then quotes a number of canonical texts, of which I give three here:]
The Bimbisarasutra says: The foolish ignorant common people, putting their trust in words, imagine that there is such a thing as a self. But there is neither "I" nor "mine". There are only dhammas, ill at case, future, present and past.' In the Kshudragama the Buddha says to the Brahmin Badari: 'Badari, one who has four holy, truths, he can free himself from all bonds: thought alone defiles, thought alone purifies. The self has, in fact not the nature of a self. To think that there is a self is a perverted view. There is nowhere here a living being, there is no self, dharmas alone together with their causes do exist. No person can be found in all the Skandhas when examined And, having seen that a person is inwardly empty, you must also see the outside world as empty. Even those who meditate on emptiness cannot be said to exist.' And another Sutra says: 'Five calamities result from a belief in a self: wrong opinions about the actual status of a self, in individual, a soul; nondistinction from non-Buddhists; one goes astray on a wrong road; thought does not leap forward into emptiness, finds no serenity in it, does not abide in it, does not resolve upon it; one will never be sufficiently purified to win the qualities of a Saint. '
The Personalist. These texts have no authority for us. They do not form part of our Scriptures.
Vasubandhu: What then is authority behind your system - your sect or the word of the Buddha? How can you claim the Buddha as your Teacher, how can you be Shakyumuni's sons, if you do not accept all the Buddha's words as binding on you?
The Personalist: The texts you have just quoted are not the Buddha's own words, and they are not in the Scriptures of our school.
Vasubandhu: That is not very convincing. For all the other .schools accept these texts, and they are not in conflict either with other Sutras, or with the Dharma. This is therefore sheer effrontery on your. part. And how then, incidentally, do you explain the Sutra which says: 'To mistake for a self that which is not a self, that is a perverted notion, a perverted idea, a perverted opinion.'
The Personalist. The Sutra only says that it is a perversion to mistake a not-self for a self; but it does not say that it is a perversion to recognize a self as a self. And also: According to your doctrines the Lord could not possibly be omniscient. You say that all thoughts and mental activities change incessantly, and that each mental act lasts only for one moment. How then can it know all the dharmas? Only an abiding Person can be omniscient.
Vasubandhu. May I point out that then your Person would be eternal, and that contradicts your statements that we cannot say whether he is eternal or not. And this is how we account for the Buddha's omniscience: For us the word 'Buddha' is a term denoting a series of momentary events. We do not believe that in one single moment he just knows all the dharmas simultaneously. The unique feature of his series of momentary mental actions lies in the fact that, by the mere act of turning his mind on anything, there arises immediately a correct and unperverted knowledge of any object whatever, if there should be at the same time the desire to know it. That is the sense in which we speak of -omniscience'.
The Personalist: Why then, if the word 'person' means nothing but the five Skandhas which form the range of grasping did the Lord teach the 'Burden Sutra', which says: 'I will teach you the burden, its taking up, its laying down. and the bearer -of the burden. The five Skandhas, which am the range of grasping, are the burden. Craving takes up the burden The renunciation of craving lays it down. The bearer of the burden is the person: this venerable man, with such and such a name born so and so, of such and such a clan, who himself on this or that food, experiences these pleasures and pains, lives for just so long, says here for just so long, terminates his life-span in just this way.' For, if "person' were only another name for the Skandhas, if 'person' and Skandhas were actually identical then the burden would carry itself and that is absurd.
Vasubandhu: You have misunderstood the message of this Sutra- The Lord speaks of a 'person' here only in order to conform to the usage of the world. In fact this so-called 'personality' is nothing but a series of consecutive impersonal momentary events, all of them linked to suffering. But the processes which have taken place in the past cause in those which succeed them. The preceding Skandhas therefore called the 'burden', the subsequent ones Its 'bearer'.
The Personalist: Moreover. another Sutra says: 'One person, when he arises, when he is born in the world, is born for the weal of the many. Who is that one person? It is the Tathagata.'
Vasubandhu: Here again the Lord just conforms to the usage of the world. For that reason he treats here as a unit that which is in fact a complex; it is quite usual for people to speak of a 'word', although it is in fact a compound of syllables, or of a heap of rice, although it obviously comprises a multiplicity of grains. In addition, this Sutra says of the person that 'he arises', and that, contrary to your teaching, makes him into something conditioned.
The Personalist: The term ‘arises’ one meaning when applied to the dharmas another when applied to the Person. A dharma is said to 'arise' because it exists now after not having existed before. A person, however, is said to 'arise, or to 'be born' when, on rebirth in a certain form, he takes up, or acquires, certain constituents, which make him into 'this man', 'this animal','this ghost', and so on. It is quite usual to say of a man who has acquired a knowledge of grammar that 'a grammarian is born!, or 'a grammarian has arisen', but that does not mean that he has come from nothing. The person 'arises' in the sense that he acquires at a certain time a certain series of attributes, in the above quotation those of a Buddha.
Vasubandhu: This explanation has been expressly condemned by the Lord. For He has said:- 'There is action, and there is the retribution of action. But apart from the causally linked sequence of impersonal dharmas there is no one who acts, there is no one who gives up one set of Skandhas, and takes up others instead! In consequence there is no person who gives up his Skandhas at death and takes up others at rebirth.
The Personalist:. Nevertheless, the Person is real, for it has been said: 'To say that the self does not exist, in truth and in reality, is a wrong view.'
Vasubandhu: This is no proof, for it has also been said that to affirm the existence of a self is a wrong view. We Abbhidharmists believe that both the general affirmation and the general negation of a self are extremist views, in accordance with the well-known saying of the Vatsagotra-sutra: 'Those, Amanda, who affirm a self fall into the extreme of the belief in its eternal continuation; those who deny it fall into the extreme of the belief in its eventual annihilation!
The Personalist: If the Person does not exist, who then is it that wanders about in Samsara? It is difficult to see how the Samsara itself can wander about.
Vasubandhu: The correct explanation is, however, quite simple: When a flame burns a piece of wood, one says that it wanders along it; nevertheless there is nothing but a series of flame-moments. Likewise there is a continuous series of processes which incessantly renews itself, and which is falsely called a living being. Impelled by craving, this series is said to 'wander' in Samsara.
The Personalist: If the momentary processes alone exist, how can you explain these words of the Lord, when he said, on recalling one of his former lives: 'This sage Sunetra, who existed in the past, that Sunetra was I.' All the psycho-physical elements have changed, and it can therefore only be the 'person' that makes the Buddha and Sunetra identical.
Vasubandhu: What in fact is it that the Lord thinks of when he speaks here of 'I'? If, as you say, he means the 'person', then the past 'I' is identical with the present 'I', and your 'person! will be permanent, as against your intentions. For us, however, the Lord only meant to say that his actually present dharmas are parts of the same continuous series of dharmas as those of Sunetra. As one says: 'This fire has burned its way to here.' In any case, you assert the existence of a real self, which is of a nature so subtle and elusive, that the Tathagatas alone can see it. In that case, the Buddhas would become believers in 'I' and 'mine', with all its pernicious consequences for the spiritual life. They will form an attachment to that part of the universe which they come to consider as their own, and in that way they will be far removed from deliverance.
The Personalist: It is only when, as is the habit of nonBuddhists, something which-is not the true Self is mistaken for the true Self, that one will feel affection for that pretended self. If, however, one sees, as the Buddhas do, the Ineffable Person as the true self, then, because that actually is the true self, no affection for it is thereby engendered.</blockquote>
So back to the question: Are their views still around today? In my opinion, the answer is yes and no. While some teachers, like Thanissaro Bhikkhu, tend to be somewhat suspect and are often accused of holding quasi-eternalistic, Puggalavadin-type views by strict traditionalists, I believe that they're actually teaching wisely by using a variety of skillful means to burn away clinging (<i>upadana</i>) to all forms of self-view equally, from the idea of 'I have a self,' to the idea of 'I have no self,' and everything in between. And while some of Thanissaro's writings and talks did make me seriously question his approach at first, I've since come to the conclusion that his teachings aren't at odds with the Buddha, although <a href="http://leavesinthehand.blogspot.com/2010/07/vinnanam-anidassanam-thanissaro-vs.html">they do occasionally conflict</a> with what some consider to be Theravadin orthodoxy.
The way in which Thanissaro writes about not-self, while seeming to leave the question of self open, actually lays the question aside altogether. It may appear that he's hinting at a 'self' lurking around somewhere, but in reality, he's going by what the Suttas themselves actually say (e.g., <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/digha/dn-11-tb0.html">DN 11</a>, <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/majjhima/mn-002-tb0.html">MN 2</a>, <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/majjhima/mn-008-nt2.html">MN 8</a>, <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/majjhima/mn-022-tb0.html">MN 22</a>, <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/samyutta/sn22-085.html">SN 22.85</a>, <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/samyutta/sn44-010.html">SN 44.10</a>, etc.). On closer examination, it's clear (to me at least) that he tries to teach people in a way that discourages both attachment to a belief in a self <i>and</i> an attachment to not-self as a substitute. This might not sound like it makes very much sense, but it's actually quite ingenious. Many people simply attach to the idea of having no self instead of a self, which the Buddha also <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/majjhima/mn-002-tb0.html">warns against</a>:
<blockquote>This is how he attends inappropriately: 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?' Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?'
As he attends inappropriately in this way, one of six kinds of view arises in him: The view <i>I have a self arises in him as true & established, or the view I have no self... or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive self... or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive not-self... or the view It is precisely by means of not-self that I perceive self arises in him as true & established, or else he has a view like this: This very self of mine — the knower that is sensitive here & there to the ripening of good & bad actions — is the self of mine that is constant, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change, and will stay just as it is for eternity</i>. This is called a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person is not freed from birth, aging, & death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. He is not freed, I tell you, from suffering & stress.</blockquote>
In addition, Thanissaro, contrary to what some might think, never suggests that the teachings on not-self and <i>kamma</i> (literally 'action') don't work together, implying the need for a pseudo-self to have it all make sense. This is a horrendous but easily cleared up misunderstanding of what he says in his essay "<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/notself2.html">No-self or Not-self?</a>" Far from claiming that the teachings on not-self and kamma don't fit well together, he's simply explaining that this is a perception many people have (i.e., they don't <i>seem</i> to fit), especially Westerners with a Judeo-Christian background, when they learn about Buddhism and first encounter these teachings. More importantly, by laying aside the question of whether or not there's a self altogether, he's attempting to approach the subject in the same way the Buddha does in <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/samyutta/sn44-010.html">SN 44.10</a> since, in his words, "to hold either that there is a self or that there is no self is to fall into extreme forms of wrong view that make the path of Buddhist practice impossible."
However, there are some who've studied the Puggalavadin's doctrines and views and have actually come out in favour of them, and quite openly in fact. One such person is D. Amarasiri Weeraratne. In his article <a href="http://www.island.lk/2000/09/19/featur04.html">Puggalavada and Theravada Buddhist teachings</a>, he writes:
<blockquote>Upto the time of the 2nd Council 200 years after the Buddha, there were no sectarian divisions among Buddhist monks. The Buddha had permitted the Sangha to change minor rules after his demise, according to the wishes of the fraternity and by a majority decision. In pursuance of this concession, the monks of the Vajji country well known for its republican form of government called for the adoption of ten minor changes in the Vinaya rules.
The hard core orthodox and conservative monks headed by Revata and Sabbakami resisted these changes. Hence the conservative elders disallowed these changes. Consequently, the dissident monks broke away from the conservative elders (The Theras) and established the Mahasanghika Sect and held their own Sangha Council. Thus came about the first division in the Sangha. The Maha Sanghikas as their name implies constituted the majority of the Sangha. The Theras constituted a minority of hard core reactionaries who were opposed to an form of change.
Between the 2nd and 3rd Councils 236 years after the Buddha the Conservative Elders (The Theras) broke off into two sects, viz: Vibjjavadins and Sautrantikas. Almost simultaneously the Mahasangikas also broke off into a sect called Puggalavadin. (Believers in persons.) The Vibjjavadins broke off into three sects, one of which was the Theravada - the Buddhism we have in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos etc. Thus you will see that the Puggalavada Sect and the Theravada Sect were the earliest of the sectarian divisions in Buddhism.
<b>Controversy on Abhidhamma</b>
The chief characteristic of the Puggalavada Sect was their rejection of the Abhidharma Pitaka as a teaching of the Buddha. They maintained that Abhidharma is apocryphal scripture cooked up by the Theravada Elders between the 2nd and 3rd Councils and adopted at the 3rd Council. The Puggalavadins as well as Sautranitikas rejected the Abhidharma Pitaka and had only 2 Pitakas viz: Sutta and Vinaya Pitakas.
In the Suttas the Buddha speaks of a person who fares on in Sansara, performs good and bad deeds and receives reward or distribution for them. In fact the entire Sutta Pitaka is based on the assumption that there is a person (puggala) who is subject to the sufferings in Sansara. The purpose of the Buddha-Dhamma is to eliminate this suffering and help them to attain Nirvana.
<b>The Anatta concept</b>
The Abhidharma denies the existence of a person or an individual. It accepts only fleeting thought moments which arise and flash instantly. In this process there is no person or being. The Buddha taught the Suttas to men on earth, referring to a person. In the Abhidharma he is supposed to have preached to the gods in which he denies the existence of a person or an individual. In order to bridge the gulf of this inconsistency the Abhidharma scholars invented the theory of two truths. The Sutras are true in the conventional sense, and the Abhidharma is true in the ultimate sense which is the highest truth.
The Puggalavadins could not accept the theory that the Buddha had taught two kinds of truth. Nowhere had he done so. The Theravadins cannot quote from any part of the Sutras where he has taught that there are two truths called Sammuti and Paramartha. Thus they refuted this contention and asserted that the Abhidharma Pitaka is a fabrication and required another concoction to maintain its validity. It is with the help of this fabrication that Abhidharma scholars reconcile the inconsistency in the Sutra and Abhidharma teachings.
<b>The Southern School of Buddhism</b>
Theravada Buddhism is Abhidharma oriented. All its commentaries and ancillary literature are written in a way to accommodate the Abhidarma. Ven. Buddhagosha asserted that the Abhidharma Pitaka is a teaching of the Buddha. But he himself admitted in the Atthasalini Commentary that there were ancient Sinhala Elders at Anuradhapura who challenged the validity of the Abhidharma Pitaka.
They pointed out that the Buddha had taught in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra that we should not accept teachings presented to us in his name if they are inconsistent with the Sutra and the Vinaya teachings. They also asserted that in the Anagatabhaya Sutra the Buddha envisaged a time when monks will cook up doctrines and scriptures not taught by him and present them as the Buddha-word. He admonished his followers to carefully compare such teachings with the Sutras and the Vinaya and accept them only if they are compatible and consistent.
Therefore Abhidharma being incompatible with the Sutra and Vinaya teaching was rejected by the Puggalawadins. The Sautrantika teachers too rejected the Abhidharma on the same grounds. The very name Sautrantika Sect means those who take only the Sutras as authoritative.
<b>The controversy on Antarbhava</b>
They accepted Abhidharma only to the extent that it is found in seed form in the Sutras. Another important teaching of the Puggalavadins was the doctrine of Antarabhava. The interim spirit existence between one life and another. This was denied by the Therevadins who asserted that the acceptance of Antarabhava by the Puggalavadins was due to a misunderstanding of some passages of the Sutras. The Puggalavadins maintained their position and showed that the misinterpretation of key passages is the work of Abhidharma oriented Theravada teachers, who tried to cut and hack the Buddha-word to suit their Abhidharma-oriented views. Their teaching was that their was no person, or being, but a mere flux of fleeting thought moments which are impersonal. The Puggalavadins considered this a bovine folly.
Between the 2nd and 3rd Council, the Theravadins had compiled 7 Abhidharma books and asserted that except one other were the teachings of the Buddha preached in the Tavatismsa heaven to the gods. Not to be outdone the Sarvastivadin teachers also compiled 7 Abhidharma books and adopted them as their Abhidharma Pitaka. They were candid and frank enough to reveal the names of the authors of the books, unlike the Theravadins who took up the position that their 7 books contained preachings of the Buddha to the gods in the Tavatimsa heaven.
<b>The common denominator</b>
But an examination of the two Abhidharma Pitakas show too many discrepancies whereas their Sutra and Vinaya Pitakas are similar. This is clear proof that the Abhidharma Pitaka was composed after the monks broke off into sects. The Puggalavadins taught that a person or a pudgala who performs good and bad deeds reaps the results and fares on in Sansara until the attainment of Nirvana. The Bharahara Surta was the favourite text of the Pudgalavadins. Therein Buddha said" Bhara have Panchakkhando, Bharaharo Ca Puggalo." This means the five aggregates are a burden, the puggala or person is the burden bearer.
Here clearly the Buddha distinguishes between the five groups of aggregates (skandas) and the person who bears them. But according to the Theravada Abhidharma the burden carries itself. There is no burden-bearer. This is what Buddhaghosha meant when he said in the Visuddhi Magga - the standard text of the Theravada - that" there is mere suffering but no sufferer exists". "There is the Noble Eightfold Path but no one traverses it". Buddhaghosha copied the idea from a verse in Nagarjuna’s Mula Madhyama Karika - his magnum opus in which he ennunciates his Madhyamika philosophy with its central doctrine of Sunyata - the void. According to this, the whole world and all its phenomena are mirage, a dream, an illusion or" a castle in the air" as Nagarjuna put it. This is the Hindu doctrine of Maya dressed up in a Buddhist garb.
The Puggalavadins taught that to deny the existence of a person is to bring down the whole edifice of the Buddha-Dharma. It is absurd to say that the burden carries itself, that mere suffering exists and there is no sufferer, or that the Path exists without anyone to tread the path. This is not Buddhism, it is the Buddhaghosha brand of Abhidharma Buddhism.
<b>The self and no-self</b>
The Puggalavadins point out that if there are no beings, the practise of Metta would not be possible, Karma and Rebirth would be meaningless, without a person faring on in Sansara. Memories of previous lives, the preaching of the Satipattana Sutra for the purification of beings and overcoming their sufferings would be meaningless, if there is no person.
The Buddha said, "One person is born among men for the welfare and happiness of beings". Hundreds of such texts can be quoted from the Sutras. To deny a person in the ultimate sense (the highest truth) and accept him in a conventional sense is to talk with two tongues and dilute the truth of the Buddha-word. The Sutta Nipata says that "Buddhas have no two words." "Truth is one and not many". (Ekam hi saccam na dutiyamatthi). Two contrary truths is foreign to the Buddha’s teaching.
The chief difference between Puggalavada and Theravada comes with the acceptance and non-acceptance of the Abhidharma Pitaka as a teaching of the Buddha. Theravada is steeped in Abhidharma and is abhidharma oriented. The Puggala vadins have only two Pitakas namely Sutra and Vinaya Pitakas. The Puggalavadins took care not to use the word Atman or soul as is understood in Vedanta, i.e. an immutable self characterised by permanence, bliss and substance.
The Puggala of the Pudgalavadins is a self that is subject to impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and is not to be considered as the essence or core for those reasons. This appears to be a halfway house between the Vedantic soul and the no-soul doctrine of the Theravadins. The Buddha is neither an anatmavadi nor atmavadi.
The Puggalavadins teach that the puggala arises simultaneously with the five aggregates, is not within or outside them, but forms a structural unit with them.
It is the astral body, secondary body or bio-plasamabody of modern Para-psychological research. Its existence and verifiability has been vindicated by 150 years of Psychical Research in the West in which very eminent scientists have taken part. It is the mano-kaya or the Suttas.
If Buddhism is to be a practical religion of value to mankind, it must take into account and recognise the existence of persons or individuals - otherwise Buddhism falls flat and collapses like a pack of cards. When you deny a person, you have to deny the Buddha, his Dhamma and the Sangha. That reduces Buddhism to a force.</blockquote>
As for myself, I try to look at it from the perspective of, In the end, who really knows? If we were to conclude now what the answer may be, without the insights born of the practice itself, it'd be little more than speculation; there'd be no 'gnosis,' no knowledge of the truth. And we're never asked by the Buddha to speculate about what he meant, nor are we told that we'll be freed by our conceptual thoughts of such. All that does is lead to what the Buddha called "a thicket of view" and to the propagation of those views (a mental form of <i>samsara</i>, literally 'wandering on'). In fact, I think the Suttas are quite clear that, as important as having an intellectual understanding of the teachings is, people who are serious about ending suffering will eventually need to put these teachings into practice to see whether they really do lead to a true and lasting happiness. Simply clinging to views of self certainly won't do it.
<blockquote>And what is clinging/sustenance? These four are clingings: sensuality clinging, view clinging, precept & practice clinging, and doctrine of self clinging. This is called clinging. (<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.002.than.html">SN 12.2</a>)</blockquote>
And with clinging comes what?
<blockquote>From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications. From fabrications as a requisite condition comes consciousness. From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form. From name-&-form as a requisite condition come the six sense media. From the six sense media as a requisite condition comes contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging/sustenance. From clinging/sustenance as a requisite condition comes becoming. From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. Such is the origination of this entire mass of stress & suffering. (<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.002.than.html">SN 12.2</a>)</blockquote>
That's right, stress and suffering (<i>dukkha</i>) eventually arises due to the sustenance of clinging. That's the danger of clinging, even to the idea of 'self' if such a thing exists. And this is important because the Buddha himself said that he didn't "envision a clinging to a doctrine of self, clinging to which there would not arise sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair"(<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.022.nypo.html">MN 22</a>). And the Buddha only taught one thing:
<blockquote>Both formerly and now, monks, I declare only stress and the cessation of stress.</blockquote>
What this says to me is that, when we travel the path to put down all of our burdens, we must be careful not pick up more along the way. This includes the burden of self-view in any of its subtle forms. That's where the Puggalavadins seem to go wrong in one respect. Their views, whether right or wrong in the ultimate sense, are sustenance for clinging, especially if we see that the idea of a 'person' beyond the conventional sense is, for all intents and purposes, a doctrine of self. And while their interpretation of the teachings on not-self does offer a possible explanation of how kamma and rebirth work, they fail in keeping to the Buddha's overall teachings. In just <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.134.than.html">these three lines</a>, the Buddha leaves no ground for any type of self-view to gain a foothold:
<blockquote><i>Sabbe sankhara dukkha</i>. (All processes are stressful.)
<i>Sabbe sankhara anicca</i>. (All processes are inconstant.)
<i>Sabbe dhamma anatta</i>. (All phenomena are not-self.)</blockquote>
For us unawakened worldlings (<i>puthujjana</i>), it seems that the quest continues. We each undertake this journey with the hope of finding out these answers for ourselves, to find our own freedom from dukkha. There's not much certainty in this world, even in Buddhism it sometimes seems, but there's one thing that I think we can have confidence in—the <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/pathtopeace.html">noble eightfold path</a>.
I've come to the conclusion that the answer to the question, Who am I? isn't important. What's really important, however, is realizing that our attachment to views and doctrines of self keep us rooted in "perceptions and categories of objectification" that continually assail us and our mental well-being (<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.018.than.html">MN 18</a>). One must clear away all views, opinions and preconceived notions about self, and cut at the very roots of such attachments to gain release. It's through a combination of meditation and contemplation of the five aggregates that we can develop the insight into the teachings on not-self that's beyond mere speculation, and rests instead within the realm of direct experience. That kind of insight is the only kind that leads to real freedom, not simply repeating the formula, 'All things are not-self.'
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Comments
It took Effort on my part to read, digest and try to understand this contribution. And I doubtless will need to come back more than once to peruse it, to re-examine it and make sure I either haven't missed something, or to just reinforce what I believe I've understood.
And it will take (for me) more than one 'hit' to start absorbing the message it carries....
But it's an excellent post. Well worth that Effort, and instructive even after the first examination....
Elohim, please tell me whether in my limited capacity, I have understood what it teaches in the regard that:
Self - is all the baggage we cling to: the Conditioning of the Human Being with all the attachments to all the 'bricks' and the thought processes and emotions included....
Non-Self - The ability to perceive, to understand, to Master and eventually lay aside the attachment to all of the above.... The comprehension of their collective impermanence, and the futility of remaining stuck to the idea that ultimately, they matter at all....
And that agreeing or diasgreeing with another person's views of a subject, for example - is in itself a form of attachment (to one's own transitory, evolving, ever-changing, shifting opinion) and that ultimately, "The Truth awaits for eyes unclouded by longing".....?
Elohim, thank you so much for further input.
If I am mistaken, in your view, I trust you will guide me. You know so much more than I on detailed analysis and study of the Sutras.... and it's high time I feel, that an expansion of my basic knowledge would be appropriate...!
Thank you for taking the time to read it.
That is an interesting understanding of 'self' and 'not-self'. While that is not how I use these terms, it would be incorrect to say that you are wrong in using them as such. In a way, that description can help to visualize our perceptions of 'self' and 'not-self'. I think that it is an excellent way of easing the mind into becoming more open to experiencing life without all its fire-walls and pop-up blockers. What we perceive and experience is only a fraction of what is happening at any given moment.
Our brain acts as a filter to separate what it wants, want it likes, and what it is conditioned to grasp from what it doesn't like, doesn't want, and conditioned to reject. In this process the 'Truth' is left out because the brain is born to be biased. It centers around itself. It attaches to itself as "me" and its thoughts as "mine". With a "me" there is always dukkha (suffering) because there is always grasping, clinging, and thirst for "mine". As Ajahn Sumedho once said, "Everytime I think of Myself, I suffer". It is an incomplete picture that we have, hence our avijja (not knowing). With avijja we have ...[insert dependent origination here]...
In my usage I use 'self' as referring to any permanent, unchanging entity that can be labeled as "me", or "mine", and 'not-self' as the absence of any such permanent, unchanging entity that can be labeled as "me", or "mine". The views and attachments to these ideas themselves are a completely separate matter. It is my understanding, and mere interpretation, that the Buddha was more worried about our views and attachments to such ideas than the truth of such ideas. Now, this does not mean that what he taught about anatta isn't important, but that the key problem lies in 'seeing' it clearly. With any sort of attachment or view to a 'self', or confusion over a lack of 'self', how is one to 'see' this truth for oneself? To be open to the Unconditioned you must strip away the conditioned view of reality that you currently have. Only when you are complete free and open can you 'just be' and dwell within the 'thusness' of existence. Without this lack of discrimination you will never abide in sunnata (emptiness), you will never directly experience the bliss of the Unconditioned. Our birth as a human being is our worst curse and greatest salvation all at the same time. We are cursed by the overwhelming obscurations of our defilements [leading us further into birth, sickness, ageing, and death], but we are saved by our ability to practice and remove these very same defilements [leading us to the Deathless].
So, the Buddha in his great wisdom tries to teach his followers how to remove these attachments, views, prejudices, and replace avijja (not knowing) with vijja/panna (knowing/wisdom). He gives us practices, meditations, and teachings to contemplate to help open up our 'inner eyes' - to 'see' our experience clearly for the first time. We grasp too much at the external world and neglect to explore the internal world. I believe that if one practices intently, with a strong desire (dhamma-chanda "desire as part of the path") and determined effort, they will eventually experience the Truth and leave all speculative doubt behind.
I am confident that the Buddha gave no footing for a 'self' in his teachings because there isn't one, but we must remember that it is up to us to look for ourselves and not just take his word for it, or confuse his teachings as slyly pointing to a hidden "me".
I hope that this makes my position a bit clearer.
Jason
:wtf: :banghead: :crazy:
You know, just as you think you're getting your poor little simple mind round something.....!
No actually, I think I'm beginning to get it.... there's a tiny chink of light juuuuuust beginning to show....
Which probably means I don't get it at all......
and that it really doesn't matter anyway....! :bigclap:
Softly softly calm the Monkey....!
Thanks Jason.....
(* First line from "I am the Walrus". 1967. Lennon
Quotation: "The only serious part of the lyrics, apparently, was the opening line with its vision of the unity behind all things.")
My head hurts.
-bf
I am me.
I have changed since that last sentence, but in every instance of this reality, I am me.
The conscience that I have is what allows me to reason... to be me. To even identify with the teachings of Buddha. If there is no self, no me, then what is it absorbing these teachings? What is it that is trying to change, be more mindful, recognize that there may be alternate realities or realms out there that I am interacting with or may interact with in the future?
In my mind's eye - I can see the stripping away of attachments, labels, desires, cravings, etc. that will remove the clutter that has attached itself to the thing that makes me "me". There has to be something at the core of each of us - something that was reincarnated, that went through a rebirth or that just came into existance that is the core of us. Life experiences and the things that have molded us into what we are today - are the things that either allow us to have happiness or have become something that causes us to suffer.
I guess at this point, I can only think that by removing the attachments and all the things that cause me to suffer - I'm freeing up that inner core to do what it is meant to do.
And at this point - I have no idea what it's meant to do.
-bf
There does?
That, my friend, is why you have experienced dukkha in the past, experience it in the present, and will experience it in the future. It is the very same reason that we all have experienced dukkha in the past, experience it in the present, and will experience it in the future. If we have patience, practice, and contemplate these teachings given to us by the Buddha, then in time, understanding based upon direct experience will arise and there will be no need to rely on anything else. The Unconditioned is beyond mere thoughts, languages, and sensory inputs. If you believe in the teachings that we have all traveled this conditioned realm many, many times, then have patience in undoing the countless lifetimes of clinging to such a 'self'.
That is simply how this "I" sees anyway.
Jason
Have you ever read the Yamaka Sutta?
And also the Alagaddupama Sutta?
Perhaps they may help.
Jason
Sure, if you believe in rebirth or reincarnation. Because something was reborn or reincarnated.
If you don't - then, "No", I guess there doesn't have to be something at the core of us. It's just some freak of nature that we function, think, feel, emote, etc. and when we die - that is it.
-bf
Boy... they sure like to repeat the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
So, I think I understand the gist of the Sutta.
But does that still mean there isn't something that the core of us that either comes back? Is Reborn? Experiences another realm?
I'm not trying to make it sound like our 'id' is so important. I'm saying it could be like a ... gall bladder. It's there, it's doing exactly what its supposed to do. But, do we give it some bloated sense of importance or recognition? Nope. It's just a gall bladder doing what gall bladders do.
It popped into this shell exactly when it was supposed to and will leave exactly when it is supposed to. The shell just got to use it for awhile.
-bf
And when I say 'sense', I mean it physically as well as mentally.
There are times when I appear to exist, at a level that is beyond personality, an essence. At other times, 'I' disappears like pixels blown across the page.
And it seems to me that it is this mystery of "I/Not-I" that the Heart Sutra and the Buddha's remarks about the Tathagata being and not being are hinting at this paradox.
I think that's my problem!
Simon, you have no idea what a 'Bling-ahaaaah!' moment that was....!
It's just become incredibly apparent that this is exactly how I feel!
And someone else does too!!
I'm not the only "Confused of Dulwich" in the pack then - !!
:rockon: :bigclap: :ukflag:
What a sodding great big relief - !!
It is perfectly ok to have that view since you are certainly entitled to believe what you like, but just realize that that is not what the Buddha taught. It is my understanding that the Buddha said that there was nothing he could find that was permanent and unchanging that could be classified as "me" or "mine". This included anything in the material body, as well as the immaterial mind. It goes to reason that if whatever you may hold as being your 'self' does not remain unchanged it cannot be a 'self', it would simply be just another aggregate in the process of life.
'What' has to be reborn? 'What' moves from one life to another? In Buddhist thought there is no 'thing', but instead a process of conditionality. When one thing conditions another, what is there that remains unchanged in the process? What could be labeled as a 'self'? The Buddha certainly did not teach about a 'soul' that jumps from body to body like a parasite, or wanders around the universe like a ghost taking up residence in a free material body. He also did not teach about an eternal essence that is predestined to be born somewhere. He instead taught kamma, dependent origination, unsatisfactoriness, impermanence, not-self, etc. Life and the whole of existence is a conditioned process of arising an ceasing. As it is written in the Visuddhi-magga:
"Mere suffering exists, no sufferer is found;
The deeds are, but no doer of the deeds is there;
Nibbána is, but not the man that enters it;
The path is, but no traveler on it is seen."
Dukkha arises due to the four types of clinging. As long as we have that clinging, or sustenence, to fuel our existence then we will never be free from dukkha. That is all the Buddha was trying to teach. When you try to implant a 'self' in there somewhere you are conditioning your future existence, and hence continuing the cycle of rebirth. The Buddha's Path only leads to the ending of this conditioned process, the cessation of birth, sickness, ageing, death, and this whole mass of suffering. The only real paradox is that this Nibbana (Awakening, Release, Cessation, The Goal, The Unconditioned, The Deathless, etc.) is unconditioned, therefore no thoughts can conceive of it, no words can explain it, no ideas can impart its essence, it must simply be 'experienced'.
Any form of 'self' view is a form of Wrong View, and therefore inappropriate for contemplation:
"This is how he attends inappropriately: 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?' Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?'
"As he attends inappropriately in this way, one of six kinds of view arises in him: The view I have a self arises in him as true & established, or the view I have no self... or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive self... or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive not-self... or the view It is precisely by means of not-self that I perceive self arises in him as true & established, or else he has a view like this: This very self of mine — the knower that is sensitive here & there to the ripening of good & bad actions — is the self of mine that is constant, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change, and will stay just as it is for eternity. This is called a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person is not freed from birth, aging, & death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. He is not freed, I tell you, from suffering & stress.
"The well-instructed disciple of the noble ones — who has regard for noble ones, is well-versed & disciplined in their Dhamma; who has regard for men of integrity, is well-versed & disciplined in their Dhamma — discerns what ideas are fit for attention and what ideas are unfit for attention. This being so, he does not attend to ideas unfit for attention and attends [instead] to ideas fit for attention." - From the Sabbasava Sutta
To not understand this complex process of conditionality does not make one 'dull' by any means. It is a very difficult thing indeed. Many people have trouble in understanding the profound teaching of dependent arising (or dependent origination, etc.). As it is stated at the beginning of the Mahanidana Sutta:
This is how I heard it. Once the Blessed One was living in the Kuru country, at the market town of Kammàsadamma. Then Venerable Ananda approached, greeted him respectfully, sat down at one side and said, "How wonderful and marvellous it is, bhante! This dependent arising is profound (gambhãra), and it appears profound, and yet to me it’s as clear as clear can be!"
[The Buddha]
"Don’t say any such thing, Ananda! Don’t say any such thing! This dependent arising is profound, and it appears profound, and it’s because they do not understand or penetrate this dhamma that this generation is tangled up like a ball of twine, afflicted as with an inflammation and matted like reeds and grasses, unable to go beyond samsàra with its misery, unhappy destinies, and states of woe."
That is why practice is stressed so often in the Suttas. Many discourses dealing with these types of subjects included the Buddha giving some sort of meditation instructions. They almost always begin with the attainment of the jhanas (meditative absorption), and then follow with a detailed analysis of the topic of Dhamma. It is by such training that one can clearly 'see' what the Buddha was trying to teach to his disciples. Without such training there are a variety of views and speculations that can arise in one's mind, and these views condition yet more confusion and debate.
That is at least how I understand it from the words attributed to the Buddha.
Jason
I guess I can't wrap my mind around that right now, Elohim. I'm cool with saying that there is no "me" or "mine" or "self" or "I".
But what is this "spark" within in? What makes us reason or even be able to identify "self". Why are we not just dumb animals? I can even see stripping away everything that makes us identify with "self" or "me" and once all that is stripped away - there is something that ignites this lump of flesh to be "alive". Christian scripture refers to something as the "breath of Life" - it could be something like this that I'm talking about.
I didn't mean to infer that our spirits wander around the universe looking for a body to inhabit, because peopel that believe in Buddha's teachings, karma and reincarnation believe it's much or structured that just wandering spirits looking for a host.
-bf
First, let me ask you some question:
What is this "spark"?
Where is this "spark"?
Why does there have to be a "spark"?
What makes you think animals are dumb?
Aren't we animals as well?
Do you think that other animals don't also have minds?
Do you think that they don't also think?
Again from my own understanding, we think and reason because they are processes of the mind. The only ignition taught in Buddhism is avijja (ignorance). You have consciouness, perception, mental formations (thoughts), feeling (differentiating between pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral) - these are all just the aggregates of mind. (Animals have them as well, so I would have to disagree that they are 'dumb' in that sense.) There does not have to be a "spark" or "soul" to allow this to happen. It simply happens because there are conditions for it to happen. No conditions, no thoughts; no conditions, no perceptions; no conditions, no feeling, etc. It isn't really all that complicated. It is only our 'sense of self', our personality, that adds these complications. "What am "I"?" "Who am "I"?" "What am "I"?" etc. etc.
I found myself thinking the same thing when I first began my interest in the Dhamma. So many people get confused right off the bat in Buddhism because the whole time they are studying and practicing they identify themselves with their 'sense of self'. They imagine what will happen to their 'personality' when they die, how will it suffer, how will it be happy, etc. Many people take it for granted as being a "part" of them.
In reality, it is not some set thing that we are born with. It is used to interact with other people in the outside world, like a tool for survival. It is shaped by what we are taught and what we experience from the moment of our birth - it is conditioned. In time you even try to take control of it and mold it into how you want to be perceived. It is actually more like a Halloween costume than a 'self'.
That is why you must practice meditation. The Buddha knew that hardly anybody would be able to understand any of this unless they 'see' it, unless they had experienced it, unless they had the proof in the pudding as they say. You really can observe these things. You can experience the mind and its movements. You can look at the mind, the body, the world from this objective sphere of detachment. You can 'see' dukkha, anicca, and anatta. It is only here in this present moment, if you let go of all your conditioned thoughts, that these 'processes' can be seen.
It is like the story of the tadpole. The tadpole was born in the water and spent its whole life in the water. It couldn't actuall know what "water" was because it was always in the water. All it could experience was water and nothing else, so how could it compare it to anything else, or observe it objectively? It wasn't until that tadpole matured and left the water that it could then 'know' what "water" was. It could separate itself from that water and clearly see "water". "Aha! So that's what it is like!"
The same is true for us. All we know is our 'sense of self', conditionality, samsara, etc. Once you experience deep states of meditation, you remove yourself from these things and truly 'know' them. "Aha! So that's what it is like!" It simply goes beyond thinking about it, reading about it, or talking about it. It must be seen for oneself. Unfortunetly, it is not so easy as reading about it - and then Enlightenment! This knowledge doesn't happen on its own, you must also do the work. You must take the time to practice. Even small amounts like five or ten minutes here-and-there is a great start.
Buddhism is not just about thinking about these things, it is no mere philosophy in that respect. It is a practical path that can be used to experience the most profound possibility of life - Nibbana.
Jason
So I sit.... and every time Opinions become dominant, I make Effort to respond less and less.... Every time Prejudices become dominant, I make Effort to respond less and less.... every time Emotions become dominant, I make Effort to respond less and less..... every time Feelings become dominant, I make Effort to respond less and less.... every time Memories become dominant, I make Effort to respond less and less....every time Experiences dominate, I make Effort to respond less and less.....
And gradually, this chainmail of armour, that is within and around me, gradually releases it's choking influence.... what I once believed was in place to protect me, I now understand was actually hindering me.... and I find I can "step" outside of It.... I find I can stand to one side and look at it, bemused and amused, because I seem to understand....But this 'I' is not separate from 'It'.... 'They' the same but not OF one another..... and this "I" is perfect as it is.... but ephemeral and translucent.....It is everything that is needed, because it is nothing at all.....
If only I could let "I" be!
That's what I'm asking. What is this thing that keeps this mas of flesh and bone alive instead of just being a lump of flesh and bone. What does that? Why is it being discounted?
Realistically speaking - yes, we are animals. But we are different from all other animals. I do believe animals can think. I think that when someone returns home, their dog loves to see them. The dog recognizes this and responds. Even our closest relative (the chimp being about 95% like humans in DNA - that figure has dropped from 98.5%) doesn't have the range of love, feelings, emoting, expressing, creating, destroying - that we humans do.
But do animals (other than humans) write? Speak? What was the last civilization that was built by animals other than humans? Where are their artists? Where are their "Romes"? Where are their songs and stories and poems? Where is their reasoning? Where is their Buddha? Where are their gods?
I think you're taking the "we're just animals" argument just a little too far.
Jason - I'm not arguing with you. In fact, a lot of this makes sense - in some ways. I should print this off and hang it over my desk.
-bf
My friend, perhaps we should just leave the conversation as it is. I never once said you were argueing with me. In fact, not once have I been argueing with you. I have merely been doing my best to explain what I know and/or understand of the Buddha's teachings. It is only when you begin to practice, and combine that with your discernment, that you can really start to see this in another way.
As for taking anything 'too far', I do not believe so (from my own point of view). I merely said in one sentence that I disagreed that animals are 'dumb' in the respect that they don't have thoughts, or think in some way. In Buddhism animals are seen as having a mind and body just like we do. We may have a superior intellect, which gives us the necessary tools to practice Dhamma effectively, but that is no reason to think that only we as "humans" are 'special'. That is just speciesism, and I do not wish to partakes of that nonesense myself. Having large buildings, or a witten language, or anything that we might consider 'civilized' doesn't really mean that animals are 'dumb'. What does a beaver need a gold necklace for anyway?
Jason
Jason,
Some beavers do have necklaces, but they're not made of gold. That's all I'm gonna say otherwise Freddie is going to get out her Mom-stick and start whacking me.
I didn't mean to infer that you were arguing - but I didn't want you to think that I was arguing with you either.
I'm just trying to come to grips with the information you've been providing in GREAT, BIG HUGE CHUNKS instead of cutting it up into baby-bite sized portions for me.
Don't stop posting stuff like this - I'm just trying to catch up!
-bf
You're terrible.
You know, something inside of me said, "Don't use beavers as your example, you know BF..." But nooo, I didn't listen to my inner wisdom and look what happened!!!
Jason
I'm here just to help teach you Right Speech and Right Intention. Cuz you know I'm going to take everything you say and twist it into something different.
-bf
I have been contimplating and meditating on this very subject for a couple of weeks now.
Starting at the begining. Without "Greed, Hatred, and Delusion" we would not be born at all.
Why? because if we had done away with these in a past life we would not be reborn, as there would be no need. "Self" the biggest delusion of all. As i have personally come to understand "self" is a creation of the mind, and this illusion is sustained through outside influences and from contact with others and from the minds basic need to consider itself as infinate rather than finate. To demonstrate how the self is conditioned, consider the example of a baby. Hold a baby up to a mirror and it will giggle and try and reach out to the baby in the mirror. Why does the baby reach out to the other baby? Because it does not yet have a realization of itself, the baby does not see it"self" it sees another baby. Somewhere around or just before the age of 2 the baby will stop reaching for the other baby and start touching the "self" that it sees in the mirror (i have had 4 children) and have seen this first hand. Letting go of the "self" is very hard and confusing.
At this point i am not sure if i have all of what i am about to say totally figured out and maybe Elohim can help or correct if i am wrong.
What i percieve as "joseph" or my "self" is conditioned, by life, by contact and influence of others ie parents-teachers. it is my mind creating something that does not exist for the sole purpose of fooling me and therefore "it" into thinking that it is permanant rather than impermanant. the mind does not want to come to grips with the fact that it as well as i will eventually come to an end so it creates this grand illusion from the moment we are born. "I think therefore I am" should really Be "I think therfore i fool myself into thinking I am" . Now here is where it comes full circle and where i am having trouble i "think" ha ha.
With the letting go of "self" and the relationship of reincarnation. There is no self so it is not what i percieve as me that is reborn. Joseph does not exist in the sence of joseph as a self, what some people believe is a "soul" or themselves. "If there is no self than who is it that is trying to reach enlightenment?" Is it something greater than my "self" that is using me or rather what i percieve as joseph in order to reach this goal? This is where it gets hard not to be nihilist, and an arguement that i have with myself about reincarnation. Is reincarnation just another form of the mind not being able to accept the fact that it is impermanant. As all of your major religions are based almost exclusively on this point or some variation of it and the teachings of Buddhism is the only one that teaches "no self."
Yet to keep the circle intact, or to go back to the begginning, without "greed,hatred and delusion" we would not be born at all, which supports reincarnation. This is the most confusing point for me and sometimes i have glimpses of what i think is the solution and than it changes. Elohim correct me if i am wrong but did the Buddha not say something to the effect of "even at the point of death and realization of no self it would change and be different" something to that effect, ie just when i think i have it figured out my mind finds another branch or solution to the problem therefore keeping me confused which is what it
(being the mind) wants in the first place. Sorry if this is fragmented and confusing but it is a very complicated subject that i am thinking and meditating on to try and figure out.
Peace and Blessings to All
joseph
Perhaps these Suttas will help you in your contemplation:
Non-Delineations of a Self
"To what extent, Ananda, does one not delineate when not delineating a self? Either not delineating a self possessed of form and finite, one does not delineate that 'My self is possessed of form and finite.' Or, not delineating a self possessed of form and infinite, one does not delineate that 'My self is possessed of form and infinite.' Or, not delineating a self formless and finite, one does not delineate that 'My self is formless and finite.' Or, not delineating a self formless and infinite, one does not delineate that 'My self is formless and infinite.'
"Now, the one who, when not delineating a self, does not delineate it as possessed of form and finite, does not delineate it as possessed of form and finite in the present, nor does he delineate it as of such a nature that it will [naturally] become possessed of form and finite [in the future/after death], nor does he believe that 'Although it is not yet that way, I will convert it into being that way.' This being the case, it is proper to say that a fixed view of a self possessed of form and finite does not obsess him.
"The one who, when not delineating a self, does not delineate it as possessed of form and infinite, does not delineate it as possessed of form and infinite in the present, nor does he delineate it as of such a nature that it will [naturally] become possessed of form and infinite [in the future/after death], nor does he believe that 'Although it is not yet that way, I will convert it into being that way.' This being the case, it is proper to say that a fixed view of a self possessed of form and infinite does not obsess him.
"The one who, when not delineating a self, does not delineate it as formless and finite, does not delineate it as formless and finite in the present, nor does he delineate it as of such a nature that it will [naturally] become formless and finite [in the future/after death], nor does he believe that 'Although it is not yet that way, I will convert it into being that way.' This being the case, it is proper to say that a fixed view of a self formless and finite does not obsess him.
"The one who, when not delineating a self, does not delineate it as formless and infinite, does not delineate it as formless and infinite in the present, nor does he delineate it as of such a nature that it will [naturally] become formless and infinite [in the future/after death], nor does he believe that 'Although it is not yet that way, I will convert it into being that way.' This being the case, it is proper to say that a fixed view of a self formless and infinite does not obsess him.
Assumptions of a Self
"To what extent, Ananda, does one assume when assuming a self? Assuming feeling to be the self, one assumes that 'Feeling is my self' [or] 'Feeling is not my self: My self is oblivious [to feeling]' [or] 'Neither is feeling my self, nor is my self oblivious to feeling, but rather my self feels, in that my self is subject to feeling.'
"Now, one who says, 'Feeling is my self,' should be addressed as follows: 'There are these three feelings, my friend — feelings of pleasure, feelings of pain, and feelings of neither pleasure nor pain. Which of these three feelings do you assume to be the self?' At a moment when a feeling of pleasure is sensed, no feeling of pain or of neither pleasure nor pain is sensed. Only a feeling of pleasure is sensed at that moment. At a moment when a feeling of pain is sensed, no feeling of pleasure or of neither pleasure nor pain is sensed. Only a feeling of pain is sensed at that moment. At a moment when a feeling of neither pleasure nor pain is sensed, no feeling of pleasure or of pain is sensed. Only a feeling of neither pleasure nor pain is sensed at that moment.
"Now, a feeling of pleasure is inconstant, fabricated, dependent on conditions, subject to passing away, dissolution, fading, and cessation. A feeling of pain is inconstant, fabricated, dependent on conditions, subject to passing away, dissolution, fading, and cessation. A feeling of neither pleasure nor pain is inconstant, fabricated, dependent on conditions, subject to passing away, dissolution, fading, and cessation. Having sensed a feeling of pleasure as 'my self,' then with the cessation of one's very own feeling of pleasure, 'my self' has perished. Having sensed a feeling of pain as 'my self,' then with the cessation of one's very own feeling of pain, 'my self' has perished. Having sensed a feeling of neither pleasure nor pain as 'my self,' then with the cessation of one's very own feeling of neither pleasure nor pain, 'my self' has perished.
"Thus he assumes, assuming in the immediate present a self inconstant, entangled in pleasure and pain, subject to arising and passing away, he who says, 'Feeling is my self.' Thus in this manner, Ananda, one does not see fit to assume feeling to be the self.
"As for the person who says, 'Feeling is not the self: My self is oblivious [to feeling],' he should be addressed as follows: 'My friend, where nothing whatsoever is sensed (experienced) at all, would there be the thought, "I am"?'"
"No, lord."
"Thus in this manner, Ananda, one does not see fit to assume that 'Feeling is not my self: My self is oblivious [to feeling].'
"As for the person who says, 'Neither is feeling my self, nor is my self oblivious [to feeling], but rather my self feels, in that my self is subject to feeling,' he should be addressed as follows: 'My friend, should feelings altogether and every way stop without remainder, then with feeling completely not existing, owing to the cessation of feeling, would there be the thought, "I am"?'"
"No, lord."
"Thus in this manner, Ananda, one does not see fit to assume that 'Neither is feeling my self, nor is my self oblivious [to feeling], but rather my self feels, in that my self is subject to feeling.'
"Now, Ananda, in as far as a monk does not assume feeling to be the self, nor the self as oblivious, nor that 'My self feels, in that my self is subject to feeling,' then, not assuming in this way, he is not sustained by anything (does not cling to anything) in the world. Unsustained, he is not agitated. Unagitated, he is totally unbound right within. He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'
"If anyone were to say with regard to a monk whose mind is thus released that 'The Tathagata exists after death,' is his view, that would be mistaken; that 'The Tathagata does not exist after death'... that 'The Tathagata both exists and does not exist after death'... that 'The Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist after death' is his view, that would be mistaken. Why? Having directly known the extent of designation and the extent of the objects of designation, the extent of expression and the extent of the objects of expression, the extent of description and the extent of the objects of description, the extent of discernment and the extent of the objects of discernment, the extent to which the cycle revolves: Having directly known that, the monk is released. [To say that,] 'The monk released, having directly known that, does not see, does not know is his opinion,' that would be mistaken.
- From the Maha-nidana Sutta: DN 15
"What do you think, Anuradha: Is form constant or inconstant?"
"Inconstant, lord."
"And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful?"
"Stressful, lord."
"And is it proper to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to change as: 'This is mine. This is my self. This is what I am'?"
"No, lord."
"Is feeling constant or inconstant?"
"Inconstant, lord."...
"Is perception constant or inconstant?"
"Inconstant, lord."...
"Are fabrications constant or inconstant?"
"Inconstant, lord."...
"Is consciousness constant or inconstant?
"Inconstant, lord."
"And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful?"
"Stressful, lord."
"And is it proper to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to change as: 'This is mine. This is my self. This is what I am'?"
"No, lord."
"What do you think, Anuradha: Do you regard form as the Tathagata?"
"No, lord."
"Do you regard feeling as the Tathagata?"
"No, lord."
"Do you regard perception as the Tathagata?"
"No, lord."
"Do you regard fabrications as the Tathagata?"
"No, lord."
"Do you regard consciousness as the Tathagata?"
"No, lord."
"What do you think, Anuradha: Do you regard the Tathagata as being in form?... Elsewhere than form?... In feeling?... Elsewhere than feeling?... In perception?... Elsewhere than perception?... In fabrications?... Elsewhere than fabrications?... In consciousness?... Elsewhere than consciousness?"
"No, lord."
"What do you think: Do you regard the Tathagata as form-feeling-perception-fabrications-consciousness?"
"No, lord."
"Do you regard the Tathagata as that which is without form, without feeling, without perception, without fabrications, without consciousness?"
"No, lord."
"And so, Anuradha — when you can't pin down the Tathagata as a truth or reality even in the present life — is it proper for you to declare, 'Friends, the Tathagata — the supreme man, the superlative man, attainer of the superlative attainment — being described, is described otherwise than with these four positions: The Tathagata exists after death, does not exist after death, both does & does not exist after death, neither exists nor does not exist after death'?"
"No, lord."
"Very good, Anuradha. Very good. Both formerly & now, it is only stress that I describe, and the cessation of stress."
- Anuradha Sutta: SN XXII.86
Thus I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Benares, in the Deer Park at Isipatana (the Resort of Seers). There he addressed the bhikkhus of the group of five: "Bhikkhus." — "Venerable sir," they replied. The Blessed One said this.
"Bhikkhus, form is not-self. Were form self, then this form would not lead to affliction, and one could have it of form: 'Let my form be thus, let my form be not thus.' And since form is not-self, so it leads to affliction, and none can have it of form: 'Let my form be thus, let my form be not thus.'
"Bhikkhus, feeling is not-self...
"Bhikkhus, perception is not-self...
"Bhikkhus, determinations are not-self...
"Bhikkhus, consciousness is not self. Were consciousness self, then this consciousness would not lead to affliction, and one could have it of consciousness: 'Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus.' And since consciousness is not-self, so it leads to affliction, and none can have it of consciousness: 'Let my consciousness be thus, let my consciousness be not thus.'
"Bhikkhus, how do you conceive it: is form permanent or impermanent?" — "Impermanent, venerable Sir." — "Now is what is impermanent painful or pleasant?" — "Painful, venerable Sir." — "Now is what is impermanent, what is painful since subject to change, fit to be regarded thus: 'This is mine, this is I, this is my self'"? — "No, venerable sir."
"Is feeling permanent or impermanent?...
"Is perception permanent or impermanent?...
"Are determinations permanent or impermanent?...
"Is consciousness permanent or impermanent?" — "Impermanent, venerable sir." — "Now is what is impermanent pleasant or painful?" — "Painful, venerable sir." — "Now is what is impermanent, what is painful since subject to change, fit to be regarded thus: 'This is mine, this is I, this is my self'"? — "No, venerable sir."
"So, bhikkhus any kind of form whatever, whether past, future or presently arisen, whether gross or subtle, whether in oneself or external, whether inferior or superior, whether far or near, must with right understanding how it is, be regarded thus: 'This is not mine, this is not I, this is not myself.'
"Any kind of feeling whatever...
"Any kind of perception whatever...
"Any kind of determination whatever...
"Any kind of consciousness whatever, whether past, future or presently arisen, whether gross or subtle, whether in oneself or external, whether inferior or superior, whether far or near must, with right understanding how it is, be regarded thus: 'This is not mine, this is not I, this is not my self.'
"Bhikkhus, when a noble follower who has heard (the truth) sees thus, he finds estrangement in form, he finds estrangement in feeling, he finds estrangement in perception, he finds estrangement in determinations, he finds estrangement in consciousness.
"When he finds estrangement, passion fades out. With the fading of passion, he is liberated. When liberated, there is knowledge that he is liberated. He understands: 'Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived out, what can be done is done, of this there is no more beyond.'"
That is what the Blessed One said. The bhikkhus were glad, and they approved his words.
Now during this utterance, the hearts of the bhikkhus of the group of five were liberated from taints through clinging no more.
- Anatta-lakkhana Sutta: SN XXII.59
For myself, I currently summarize the debate of the personalists and other schools as: The non-personalists run into the problem of the "two truths" when they want to explain the Bhara Sutta http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.022.than.html. The personalists were in the situation that they assumed something beyond reach, giving it a name and let this thing beyond reach carry the burden. It is like a person who recognizes everything else besides itself,or using a metaphor, is like someone who can see everything but his own eyes, until he finds a mirror. Such a mirror was not assumed to exists by the Puggalavadins from what I undestood and it gives this school a mystic touch imo. (some would maybe say irrational