Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
How is this contradiction resolved?
Looking at two different suttas: Attakari Sutta: The Self Doer (1) and Pancavaggi Sutta: The Discourse of the not-self characteristic (2).
In (2) the Buddha states that the five aggregates are not-self. Although not specifically defined in this Sutta, it is quite clear to me that without a soul or whatnot, there can be nothing more to the human condition beyond the five aggregates (and I beleive this is unequivocally expressed in the Suttas). In (1)he affirms the existence of a self-doer. How can there be a self-doer if all of the aggregates are not-self?
I know this has probably been discussed umpteen times but not with me involved!so I'd appreciate your comments - do you generally feel that there is a self with not-self characteristics or do you feel that there is not a self, full stop.
Mods: I figured this is probably more advanced than beginners but please move if you feel otherwise.
Thanking you
In (2) the Buddha states that the five aggregates are not-self. Although not specifically defined in this Sutta, it is quite clear to me that without a soul or whatnot, there can be nothing more to the human condition beyond the five aggregates (and I beleive this is unequivocally expressed in the Suttas). In (1)he affirms the existence of a self-doer. How can there be a self-doer if all of the aggregates are not-self?
I know this has probably been discussed umpteen times but not with me involved!so I'd appreciate your comments - do you generally feel that there is a self with not-self characteristics or do you feel that there is not a self, full stop.
Mods: I figured this is probably more advanced than beginners but please move if you feel otherwise.
Thanking you
0
Comments
I think the physical characteristics of a self are pretty (hehe) self evident. You are a certain height, color and so forth. There is no risk that if you are a 30 year old men you wont wake up the next day and be a 12 year old girl.
If I am correct, the term no-self, not-self are just awful to describe this idea.
I have pressed this same question myself, that is, if there is nothing but the five aggregates and everything dissolves when the aggregates dissolve, what's the point? The "very subtle consciousness" of the Mahayana works for me, but it will be interesting to see what others have to say.
If it seems inconsistent then its probably mistake in the text, etc
eg There are one or two lines in the dhammapada that, in whatever translation I read, seem to be undharmic. I assume they are not what the buddha taught.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagarjuna
Hi Tristram, this is puzzling to me what you said...
1) buddha said the five aggregates are not-self
2) you say that without a soul there is nothing more to 'the human condition' than the five aggregates.
My vision of this is that 1 sounds (to me) contradictory to 2. I might reframe 1 and say that the self is not the aggregates. Would you agree Buddha is saying that the self is not the aggregates, which is the same thing as saying the aggregates are non-self or not a permanent non-compound self?
Ok so now you are saying that 'the human condition' is none other than the five aggregates? But what do you mean by 'the human condition'? Are you talking about your experience? And more importantly if buddha said that there is no self to the five aggregates then why would we say that the human condition WAS the five aggregates?
It seems you are saying that: form, feeling, perception, karmic formations - imaginings, and consciousness... you are saying that those 5 things are 'the human condition'. That makes sense but I think its important to be clear about what you mean by the human condition. Otherwise nothing changes about the view and you may be missing what buddha had meant. All of those aggregates are changing, correct? And many are just labled by the mind. For example I can say your post is: good, bad, or neutral. That isn't real. You could say it is my opinion, but I may change that opinion tomorrow so where did good, bad, and neutral go?
That is what I understand as the five aggregates as being non-self.
I am confused about 'the human condition'? For me my condition in samsara is that I think my opinions are real! I think that things are REALLY good bad and neutral. For example if I dropped a knife and it stuck in my foot I would think that was 'bad'. Its so convincing. Its almost like buddhas teaching is something that sounds good to study, but then when push comes to shove I end up believing that I am a self anyhow.
So to actually practice buddhas teaching... What is that like? Do I sometimes realize that in my own experience somehow? Have I (you, one) had experiences where
I let go of the idea that something is 'bad'.
For me feeling, form, imaginings are easy to see they are impermanent. It is very hard for me to see that perceptions are not self. Or consciousness....
Any thoughts?
One teaching is that they are transformed along the buddhist path:
form - morality
feeling - concentration
perception - wisdom
formations - liberation
consciousness - knowledge of liberation
So I think buddhas example in the sutras is outdated to modern view.
But what is it that realizes something? Is it an impermanent imagination? Is it matter? Is it a changing opinion? Is it a changing perception? Is it the field of consciousness?
What happens when we realize that the reason we had an emotion? What is that 'knowingness'? Clearly it is not permanent... But this is what I mean by a self. Without the sensitivity there would be no experience of knowing. It is not something you can freeze as "ok now I know the answer" just doesn't cut it. The knowing quality is alive and freezing it deadens it. Its not just a happy gas feeling in my opinion because it is like a cutting knife finding what is accurate and then diffusing never stuck to knowing, but always sensitive and open.
Thats what my experience of a self is and it is not an aggregate. It is not permanent. It is not compound.
Is your brain a machine?
That view seems depressing (to me). For the same reason that I don't like Calvinism.
my eyes are dead and cold, but my heart burns like fire
I am not a machine, nor is my brain. There is a self doer, but non of these experiences or things can be defined as me. If the dishes are need to be cleaned, I wash them. If the light turns red I stop my car. If there is someone in pain I attempt to reduce or alleviate their suffering.
"This sense of self is mentally fabricated, defined by outer conditions."
"I am not going to tell you one way or another; but if you are real, then where are you? And if the world is real, then where is it?"
Last quote attributed to the Buddha.
The quotes are from "Turning the Mind into an Ally" by Sakyong Mipham. p. 15-16.
The Attakari Sutta seems to be the logical argument, "I act, therefore I am." If decisions are being made and actions are being taken, then logically someone must be making the decisions and doing the actions.
The Pancavaggi Sutta seems to be, even by the title, laying out the case for No-Self. If all the skandhas are empty, and the Self is made up of the skandhas only, then isn't the Self also fundamentally empty?
But if there is No-self, then who or what is making the decisions?
It's a wonderful paradox.
I like Buddhas question. The first I think is hard to see. For example when we are in love with our spouse it doesn't seem that experience was caused by their status, their reproduction, their body etc. We just love them. This is hard for me to understand any other way.
At the same time, have you seen the movie 'Run Lola Run'? If you are into netflix this is kinda a buddhist movie. Lola has to get some money to save her boyfriend from the mob. She is running to go to the bank and bluff them etc. There are all kinds of chance things that pop up and parallel timelines where different things happen. The thought I had was that her whole life including her relationship with her boyfriend was all by chance. At the same time inside of her she loved her boyfriend and was risking everything to save him. Does that mean she had wrong view? Her arousal of her adrenaline might have helped her to run faster much like a 50 year old can lift a car off a kid. Kinda interesting.
The Buddha, as far as I know, never defined the self. He only pointed to that which is not self. I am gonna stick with the Buddha, for me it's almost an imponderable and quite frankly getting bound up in defining what is self is akin to biting your own teeth. You might as well try to define God. Lastly I don't see how knowing this would relieve suffering, which is the whole point isn't it? All we have is right now, right what's in front of us at this moment. Anything added to that is just made up. Through the Buddha's insight, he defined what is not self. As with all his teachings, one can directly experiece them, they are not imponderable or unknowable. Can you define any of the 5 aggregates as self? Giving some thought to the matter, I don't see how anyone could credibly define themselves by such things. As to how did you first become attracted to your spouse, did this spring from loving kindness and compassion or was the initial attraction based on your desire? Sense perception, feeling, craving....hello Ms.Right.
All my best
Todd
There is not-self; that which is not mine, that which I am not, that which is not me. But no-self? I live in a relative world, I have a body and mind and clearly I exist. What in this entire world can be said to be mine? My understanding of the Buddha's teaching is that we cling to conditions, concepts and ideas and ultimately fabric a self (or even many selves)I do this all the time, I attach to many things, even being a Buddhist, and when I don't live up to that concept of self, I suffer. I suffer from my mental frabrications and feelings. My understanding of right view would tell me this mental construct is not me, it never was. To quote Mipham again "It's our mind that is samsaric. Suffering is the state of mind that regards itself as real". "Turning the Mind into an Ally" by Sakyong Mipham. p.14
All the best,
Todd
Yes or no? Mahayanists? Theravadins? Yes or no?
I have to say that I fall completely of the view that there is no doer. When I mentioned the 'human condition' Jeff, I meant that being human is simply being the five aggregates, all of which are not-personal and impermanent. I simply can't see that there is anything beyond this such as a 'subtle consciousness'.
The issue for me is that of control. If we are nothing more than the five aggregates, and the five aggregates are not perosnal, then by implication, we have no control over our existence. As the Buddha says in the anatta sutta "if consciousness (etc) were self then I could say - let consciousness be thus". This to me is a statement about no control. If there is a doer then that necessarily implies that there is an element of control in our existence, something which is beyond cause and effect. But then the matter of control appears to be self evident as the Buddha explains in the self-doer sutta: "could one moving forward by himself say that there is no-doer". But how can this be? Where is the energy and motivation to move forward coming from? It is the product of a thought. Then if we analyse the thought, we can see that the circumstances which ultimately led to that thought being produced were not in the control of the doer, they were of the aggregates. The thought which arose at that time was contingent on an infinate number of conditions being met, and all of those conditions were beyond the doer's control.
I am writing these words and it may appear beyond question that I am chosing to do so rather than say, doing some work as I should be doing. But upon investigation, there is no room at all for me to actually be choosing to do this. I can see to some extent the mulptiple causes which have occurred in the last few moments, hours, days, months, years, which have led to this precise moment and which very simply dictate or determine what i am doing now. I would be really interested to hear an argument which somehow manufactures control into this moment??
It is often said that this sort of issue is over intellectualising matters and it is questioned above as to why it matters. For me it does matter, and it matters on many levels.
The flip side of coin for no-control/no-doer is the conclusion that we are all part of the same fabric of reality. There are no individuals or selves walking about making decisions, there is simply an enourmous web of consciousness which is conditionally arisen and which operates only by the law of cause and effect, and of which we are all a part. What happens to one part of the universe has an effect on the rest of the universe. Ergo, no one is apart from the universe and the universe is everyone and everything. For me, this is non-duality.
This view also brings out compassion. I realise that nobody is truly in control of their lives and therefore no matter how repulisive or disgusting I may find them on a personality level, I can fundamentally feel compassion for them.
I'll say again, I know this matter has been discussed previously, probably to the death, but I'd be really interested in people's comments, and I'd be very interested in the responses to Sherab's question.
Thanking you
Kamma is intention (cetana), and intention is a product of the aggregate of mental formations (sankharakhandha). Therefore, being a product or process within one of the aggregates, which themselves are types of processes and not-self (anatta), this type of internal decision maker or will-to-do, if you will, has its own requisite conditions and is also not-self, since whatever is conditioned and subject to change can't be said to have an unchanging essence or being.
In other words, SN 22.59 is refuting the idea of a permanent and unchanging self or soul (i.e., an agent free from conditionality, and consequently, aging, illness and death) within and controlling the aggregates, whereas AN 6.38 is refuting the idea that there's no volitional choice available to us whatsoever. They're two extremes which the Buddha rejects. As one erudite poster from Dhamma Wheel explains it: So I think this apparent contradiction can be easily resolved by taking the context of the two suttas into consideration, as well as understanding that the Buddha essentially took the position that we, as sentient beings, have functional choice via intention operating within a broader framework of causality that conditions the choices available to us at any given time—thus avoiding the extremes of an unchanging agent (eternalism) and no agency at all (nihilism).
I really do see what you are saying, particularly with respect to the fact that the no-doer view is extremist, but I still can't get away from this issue of control. If there is an element of volitional choice, then where does it end and where does involuntary action begin? And if it is impermanent and subject to change then how can it be volitional? The only way I see control possibly existing, is if there is an abstract and objective element of our being which is permanently unaffected by the constantly fluctuating activities of the aggregates, such as a soul. And this is not so.
(1) = mundane Dhamma, spoken to a Brahmin, not interested in enlightenment, rather than to a monk. the sutta ends with the Brahmin becoming a layfollower
(2) = supramundane Dhamma, spoken to a monk, interested in enlightenment. the sutta ends with enlightenment
regards