empty skhandas and self control

Jeffrey

One of the ways to show the skhandas are empty is to show they are beyond our control. For example we get sick and we cannot will the body to be well.

But what of the small control we do have?

We can take medicine when the body is ill.
We can use meditation and other relaxation when feeling is ill.
(I'm going through the skhandas)
We can set up conditions for clear perceptions.
We can mindfully 'let be' unskillful moods/volitions.
We can be in the present for the stream of senses.

So it seems we do have some control. Why does that happen that way? Is a part of the skhandas the citta and that we can control??

lobster

Is a part of the skhandas the citta and that we can control?

We have to extend goodwill to the demons, bless their little asbestos booties . . .
Hard?
You bet your next hundred lives or more . . .

Get out your hundred dollar prayer mat/wheel/cushion and practice
as I was bribed to say . . .

OM MANI PEME HUM
(if you don't know the tune just HUM along)

Hamsaka

I am dreadfully uneducated but have basic grasp of skandhas and citta.

It seems to be that citta, after some cultivation, gets 'strengthened' and becomes a tool we can wield deliberately, which would be 'control'. Control of WHAT, now that is a good question.

Citta is how one can recognize the existence of skandhas in the first place, and their essential emptiness. Citta creates awareness of the skandhas, right?

The list of 'citta activities' you list up there are non-specific; ie, they are wise actions and intentions to carry out whenever, whatever, regardless. Is carrying them out a kind of control? I guess so, in a Wise Action/Wise Intention sort of way.

I haven't had the urge (yet?) to pursue these meat and bones parts, so I may be shouting out of my you-know-what :dunce:

Gassho

lobster

Never go beyond your capacity, too much. One step, kind of dipping ones tootsies in, is OK. Part of the reason for having a mammoth mandala of means is for times like skhanda arisings . . .
visit shrine, burn incense, turn diamond prayer wheelies, chant your socks off, prostrate till you drop . . . that sort of thing.

Everything is fine. Hell, what else could it possibly be . . . :wave:

Jeffrey

lobster said:

Is a part of the skhandas the citta and that we can control?

We have to extend goodwill to the demons, bless their little asbestos booties . . .
Hard?
You bet your next hundred lives or more . . .

Get out your hundred dollar prayer mat/wheel/cushion and practice
as I was bribed to say . . .

OM MANI PEME HUM
(if you don't know the tune just HUM along)


Off to work on the Mr Coffee er Cushion, right?

Dennis1

Hi Jeffrey: Why don't you read the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra? Emptiness is not about control. Empty is about existence which is separate from the world around us. The body and control, the illness and the cure , all rise in dependence on the world.
The question is, what does not rise dependently? Not form. Not self. Those are empty of inherent existence. What is inherent? That means is originally part of. Inherent means, is part of the natural constituents. So emptiness states, all of those things and you, are empty of inherent existence. In other words there is no you that doesn't rise in dependence on the world. Your parents or the Earth or Sun for instance. So awareness of an object is grasping after a non existent. Awareness is not dependent on an object. When awareness depends on an object you have the gross mental factors-normal mind. Awareness without an object is the dawning of Pristine Cognition.

It is the secret gate. Now Buddha taught this so you could Know-even though you are dependently risen-that there is something which is not dependent. Something that does not rise and does not fall. He told us this so we could become enlightened by entering through that gate. I am not saying all of these dependent things don't exist. I'm saying they don't exist independently so they are empty of inherent existence.
May the good be yours

Jeffrey

I'll think about that Dennis1, thanks.

Dennis1

lobster said:

Never go beyond your capacity, too much. One step, kind of dipping ones tootsies in, is OK. Part of the reason for having a mammoth mandala of means is for times like skhanda arisings . . .
visit shrine, burn incense, turn diamond prayer wheelies, chant your socks off, prostrate till you drop . . . that sort of thing.
Everything is fine. Hell, what else could it possibly be . . . :wave:

Hello Lobster: What the Buddha taught should not be withheld. A teacher may take a student through a set plan or way. Good. If a teacher can get their students through that way that is great. But If a student with true aspiration asks questions, it is my opinion that knowledge, enlightening knowledge, should not be kept from them.
I have quoted the Buddha for many years and have yet to see any person crunch under the light of the Buddha's truth. There are techniques and capacities which shouldn't be spelled out. Teaching the perfection of wisdom is not like that. One shouldn't teach what one doesn't understand. I don't. I hope I am not stepping on any ones enlightening aspirations. Namaste

lobster

But If a student with true aspiration asks questions, it is my opinion that knowledge, enlightening knowledge, should not be kept from them

It never was. It never will be. It never can be.
As for those with true aspirations, I have it on good authority and personal experience, they don't 'exist'.
When that happens, Nothing holds them back (so to speak) . . .

Now back to the Restraining Order issued by Manjushri . . . :wave:

Jeffrey

So you are holding out on us, @lobster? You know enlightenment but holding out on us? :P

lobster

If it can be said. It has been.
I am sure I read that in a Christmas cracker . . .

What can not be said, is never 'held back', however it is not wise to 'know enlightenment', I think that is in another cracker . . . but I got the wrong end . . . :wave: