Anatta ok - But - what makes us living?

misecmisc1

Hi All,

Anatta is ok - theoretically everything seems in place due to Dependent Origination, but there are some things which I am not able to figure it out.

See the fifth aggregate of 5 aggregates is consciousness, and this consciousness is basically of six types, based on six sense organs - so in a way this consciousness is the experience itself - that thing which we read as - in thought no thinker, in seeing no seer etc - this is ok.

Lets take visual consciousness as an example. DO says when there is eye sense-organ, then due to the presence of eye, object, light and attention, visual consciousness arises - so this experience is dependent on its conditions and so is impermanent, unsatisfactory and non-self. Till this thing, it is ok - no problems. Now in order for visual consciousness to arise, the eye sense organ should be a working or living eye - as in a blind man and dead man, visual consciousness do not arise as the eye is not working or dead. Now the thing which i am not able to figure it out is this - what makes the eye sense organ a living organ? in a way, what is that thing which gives us life or what makes us living? i am not good at biology, but still i think it is something like heart pumps the blood in vessels to all sense-organs, which has oxygen from lungs to give energy to the different sense organs, which makes them living - but how does the heart get its energy to pump? - is it something like a deadlock situation like A leads to B and B leads to A - but still there should be a starting point to this deadlock situation?

I think Buddha did not answered these questions, as they does not end suffering - but do you all think that these questions are worth ponderable or totally idiotic questions or may be someone of you has an answer to it, like Buddha gave the answer in some sutta but i am not aware of the answer, so can someone of you refer me that sutta?

so just leaving this open to all of you. please give your thoughts and also answer to the above questions. thanks in advance.

Sabre

Not sure if it answers your question, but basically it's food that provides the energy for the heart to pump and the lungs to breath. So there always is a dependency on food for life to exist. Even the smallest animals need it.

Jeffrey

Also oxygen. There is actually a molecule in the 'electron transport chain' where the molecule is acting as a sort of 'gears'.

I think you are also asking if consciousness is reducible to molecules and tissues and things. Reducible means that it can be explained by reducing. Like breathing can be reduced to hemoglobin in the blood getting oxygen in the lungs and then going back to the heart.

I don't know if consciousness is reducible to molecules though. I don't think anyone knows that.

Sabre

Do a google search on "the four nutriments in buddhism" or something like that. I don't really know a lot about it, but remember it being mentioned vaguely. I know it's about food and consciousness or something.. Maybe it answers your question.

But I indeed think it is not very important to answer this question.

Jeffrey

The heart gets energy from the oxygen in the blood from the coronary arteries. The heart is a big muscle and it gets blood from those coronary arteries. There is also glucose going into the muscle from the blood and the oxygen and glucose are involved in energy.

When you have a heart attack the coronary arteries get blocked and the heart is running out of oxygen.

taiyaki

Everything is the condition for everything. Causality is broad when viewed as such and narrow when we connect dots. Its all on context.

Interdependent origination is everything coming together in this instant. Now thats a fine intellectual theory and view but recognition of this in meditation is what liberates.

Then the non duality of appearance emptiness will be recognize to be this exact impermanent experience.

misecmisc1

But still the question remains - how does awareness comes in the matter, when a child is born? after all, initially i think it is combination of sperm cell and ovary cell , which starts building a mass of matter - so how does awareness comes into it? any ideas please.

pegembara

A close example of what you describe-

"Very good, venerable sir." And, delighting in and approving of Ven. Kamabhu's answer, Citta asked him a further question: "What is the difference between a monk who has died & passed away and a monk who has attained the cessation of perception & feeling?"

"In the case of a monk who has died & passed away, his bodily fabrication has ceased & subsided, verbal fabrication has ceased & subsided, mental fabrication has ceased & subsided, his life force is totally ended, his heat is dissipated, and his faculties are shut down. But in the case of a monk who has attained the cessation of perception & feeling, his bodily fabrication has ceased & subsided, verbal fabrication has ceased & subsided, mental fabrication has ceased & subsided, his life force is not ended, his heat is not dissipated, and his faculties are bright & clear. This is the difference between a monk who has died & passed away and a monk who has attained the cessation of perception & feeling."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn41/sn41.006.than.html

misecmisc1

@pegembara: so from where does the life force comes initially - means what gives life to the mass of matter inside the mother's womb? what i am trying to know is how does a material thing like human body gets life/life force/awareness initially inside the mother's womb? please suggest.

Cinorjer

First, understand that this remarkable metaphor of the skandhas or aggregates was invented long before science had figured out how the human body and brain developed or worked together. For instance, the brain itself was considered just another sense organ to them, not the seat and origin of our mind. As such, you are asking questions that it's not designed to answer. Even today, we struggle to come up with definitive answers to deceptively simple questions like "What is life?" and "What is consciousness?"

Having said that, what's remarkable is that only in the twentieth century did our science begin to come to the same conclusions that the Sutras did, in how best to understand the mind and what self-awareness actually is and how it works.

The fifth vajnana or skandha, consciousness, can in English probably be better translated now as Awareness. It is the final process that is required to make up an active, aware mind. In order for anything to affect us so it becomes part of our thinking--the process that is our mind at work moment to moment--we must be aware of it. That awareness is not automatic. An easy example is, if the focus of my awareness is on the words I am writing here, I might eventually look up to see my wife glaring at me, because I "didn't hear a word she just said". Did my ears pick up sounds? Of course. Did those sounds mean anything to me at the time? No, because my consciousness or awareness of what my ears delivered was missing.

That's all this skandha is trying to describe. Since to the old Monks the brain was just another sense organ, the awareness of ourselves (being conscious, not asleep or in a coma) was just another one of the elements of the conscious part of the heap.

Does this help?

Zero

misecmisc1 said:

So in a way this consciousness is the experience itself - that thing which we read as - in thought no thinker, in seeing no seer etc - this is ok.

...but how does the heart get its energy to pump? - is it something like a deadlock situation like A leads to B and B leads to A - but still there should be a starting point to this deadlock situation?

Do you all think that these questions are worth ponderable or totally idiotic questions or may be someone of you has an answer to it, like Buddha gave the answer in some sutta but i am not aware of the answer, so can someone of you refer me that sutta?

The first part when you say 'this is ok' - consider what you mean - do you mean for example, 'it is ok as a concept to begin examination' or 'it is a concept under examination that is so far ok', or 'it is ok in that there are no longer any conflicts within itself or with your wider view/impact'?

There are a variety of responses to the chicken and egg scenario - which one sits more comfortably with you is up to you I suppose.

No-one can tell you what is and what is not worth pondering - if you have to ask a question, it is probably not idiotic as that is the purpose of a question in the first place.

seeker242

misecmisc1 said:

so from where does the life force comes initially - means what gives life to the mass of matter inside the mother's womb? what i am trying to know is how does a material thing like human body gets life/life force/awareness initially inside the mother's womb? please suggest.

Asking that is like asking "what is your face before your parents were born". Or "Where do you come from". Or some other similar question. The value in the question is in the asking of it, not in the answering of it. AKA a Hua Tou question. "What animates this body?" is a very good HuaTou I think.

Jason

misecmisc1 said:

@pegembara: so from where does the life force comes initially - means what gives life to the mass of matter inside the mother's womb? what i am trying to know is how does a material thing like human body gets life/life force/awareness initially inside the mother's womb? please suggest.

Take a biology class?

Personally, I see Buddhism as dealing exclusively with mental stress and its cessation, not biology, physics, etc. If anything, it's more like phenomenological psychology than a natural science. There are general answers to your question, of course, insofar as they apply to our understanding of suffering and the way leading to its cessation (DN 15, SN 12.2, MN 38, etc.), but nothing specific as the Buddha wasn't an embryologist teasing out these sorts of answers.

pegembara

misecmisc1 said:

@pegembara: so from where does the life force comes initially - means what gives life to the mass of matter inside the mother's womb? what i am trying to know is how does a material thing like human body gets life/life force/awareness initially inside the mother's womb? please suggest.

I don't know if there is anywhere in the sutta where this question is satisfactorily answered. My guess is that the clinging to existence is what gives rise to life. Right from the inconceivable beginning there has been the struggle for continued existence, if not for the individual, then for the species, race, selfish gene etc. Seems to be that all unliberated beings has been under the same spell as it were.

At Savatthi. There the Blessed One said: "From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. What do you think, monks: Which is greater, the tears you have shed while transmigrating & wandering this long, long time — crying & weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing — or the water in the four great oceans?"

Long have you thus experienced stress, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries — enough to become disenchanted with all fabricated things, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be released."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn15/sn15.003.than.html

Jeffrey

Asking what created consciousness is very similar to asking what created the universe. Similar but distinct. I think certainly nobody knows with certainty what the answer is. If you build a computer how many connections in the chips does it have to have in order to be a consciousness? I think a computer would have to develop desire, wanting something, in order to be conscious.

taiyaki

misecmisc1 said:

But still the question remains - how does awareness comes in the matter, when a child is born? after all, initially i think it is combination of sperm cell and ovary cell , which starts building a mass of matter - so how does awareness comes into it? any ideas please.

Ignorance.

Ignorance of what? Ignorance of the appearance as ones natural state thus repulsion and attraction towards the five pure lights,
Which solidify them into this material world and our material life. It all stems from dualistic vision.

Then one could ask where does that come from? Previous karmic momentum. No soul, entity just causal continuance following the pattern of dependent origination.

We can see this as an obvious fact in the present and some can even see this in a further scope of time.

And this is further proved through unbinding or letting go. The material world fades into bliss and energy and even the energy fades into consciousness and then to nothing and then to no "thing".

But such an answer is utterly useless and its just words or colors on the screen. The question is asked because the issue of suffering has not been quenched. Thus your real question is why the hell am I suffering and what can I do. Because if that question was answered the original question would be moot as timelessness in one instant would be ceaselessly recognizes.

Practice and orientate your life so that you may realize the cause of suffering and then well get on with it.

misecmisc1

@taiyaki: thanks for your reply.

one more question raised in my mind just now - how does the karmic details(the information that these positive acts are done and these negative acts are done, so their results need to be output) gets transferred to from one life to next life - or say from one moment to next moment? any suggestions for this query. please suggest.

chela

I think that you are basically talking about the creation of "life-force". I don't think Buddha addresses this-- this is essentially asking, "is there a creator?" Some people believe in a creator (call it by whatever name you will), but I don't think Buddha speaks either for or against a creator. Maybe I'm not getting your point, but this seems to be what you're asking about.

My ideas about re-birth are more based on quantum science than the traditional sense of reincarnation. Energy never dies, it constantly changes. When a person dies, the matter is simply (or not so simply) manifested into other forms. The idea that energy is constantly changing is in line with what I believe to be at the core of Buddhist teaching-- that life as we know it is impermanent.

ZendoLord84

The reason we live.....
My tai chi teacher always said.
If you want to understand humans, look at animals.
So, food, reproduction. Survival on an animalistic level.
Nothing more, nothing less.

chela

iamthezenmaster said:

The reason we live.....
My tai chi teacher always said.
If you want to understand humans, look at animals.
So, food, reproduction. Survival on an animalistic level.
Nothing more, nothing less.

I agree. I don't believe there is an inherent "reason" in living-- I don't believe we were put here for any particular reason, just as one-celled organisms living in underwater volcanoes probably have no "reason". If you want purpose in your life, then you create your own purpose. If you live by a moral code, you may create the purpose as being compassion for others and make it a practice.

taiyaki

misecmisc1 said:

@taiyaki: thanks for your reply.

one more question raised in my mind just now - how does the karmic details(the information that these positive acts are done and these negative acts are done, so their results need to be output) gets transferred to from one life to next life - or say from one moment to next moment? any suggestions for this query. please suggest.

Here are some quotes from a fellow practitioner that I know of.

"The mind is the ground of all the karmic propensities,
And is the stain permeating sentient beings;
The mind, in it's dualistic apprehension of perceivable objects,
Is therefore the reality of cyclic existence.
When you are divested of this mind, you are expansively awakened into Buddhahood, and the stains of your ordinary embodiment are entirely purified away.
The transmigrating beings transmigrate via the mind,
And if the mind were absent, they would have no capacity to transmigrate; It is thus like the device or mechanism for transmigrating beings."
- Garland of Precious Pearls Tantra

The Senge Tsaldzog Tantra also says:
"In the treasury of the great source of phenomenon which is the Ground of All (the ālaya i.e. ignorance as mentioned above), vidyā's primordial wisdom is present as a sphere (of inner light).

In the treasury of the objective sphere devoid of any grasping at appearances (referring to the absence of the ālaya), vidyā's primordial wisdom is present as the expanse...."

Basically it is called the alaya or all ground, which collects the karmic imprints and thus propels ignorance moment to moment and consequently lifetime to lifetime. That is the short answer. The long answer is the twelve link chain of dependent origination.

Hope this helps.

footiam

misecmisc1 said:

Hi All,

Anatta is ok - theoretically everything seems in place due to Dependent Origination, but there are some things which I am not able to figure it out.

See the fifth aggregate of 5 aggregates is consciousness, and this consciousness is basically of six types, based on six sense organs - so in a way this consciousness is the experience itself - that thing which we read as - in thought no thinker, in seeing no seer etc - this is ok.

Lets take visual consciousness as an example. DO says when there is eye sense-organ, then due to the presence of eye, object, light and attention, visual consciousness arises - so this experience is dependent on its conditions and so is impermanent, unsatisfactory and non-self. Till this thing, it is ok - no problems. Now in order for visual consciousness to arise, the eye sense organ should be a working or living eye - as in a blind man and dead man, visual consciousness do not arise as the eye is not working or dead. Now the thing which i am not able to figure it out is this - what makes the eye sense organ a living organ? in a way, what is that thing which gives us life or what makes us living? i am not good at biology, but still i think it is something like heart pumps the blood in vessels to all sense-organs, which has oxygen from lungs to give energy to the different sense organs, which makes them living - but how does the heart get its energy to pump? - is it something like a deadlock situation like A leads to B and B leads to A - but still there should be a starting point to this deadlock situation?

I think Buddha did not answered these questions, as they does not end suffering - but do you all think that these questions are worth ponderable or totally idiotic questions or may be someone of you has an answer to it, like Buddha gave the answer in some sutta but i am not aware of the answer, so can someone of you refer me that sutta?

so just leaving this open to all of you. please give your thoughts and also answer to the above questions. thanks in advance.

You make me wonder about a car and how it works. When you turn the ignition key, it would not come alive if there is no fuel. I wish our body works that way but that is not the issue. Maybe, there is no connection at all between anatta and the living body just like there is no connection with a stationary car with fuel. Just that when the body is living, the five senses give rise to the illusion that there is an 'I' factor in our body.