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How's my understanding of the anatta concept?
The anatta concept applies to many things from what I understand and is difficult to summarize in any one way. I've been told that it's a challenge to understand even for those who have studied Buddhism for years.
I've also been told that there isn't really a way of conveying it in words and that it can only be understood through meditation.
Still, I'm hoping that maybe you guys will say something that helps me get it.
My understanding of "non-self" thus far is that it could, perhaps, be understood through metaphors like a pool or a mirror.
In the pool metaphor, everyone's presence produces waves which then touch everyone else and overlap with everyone else's waves -- which, in turn, produces its own results that touch everyone and overlaps with the waves they produce. And so on and so forth, in perpetuity.
From this view, the understanding I've gotten is that the totality of everything could be seen as a large pool of mutuality in which nothing exists in isolation.
The second metaphor relates more, I guess, to the idea of the individual. With the mirror -- or maybe you could look at it as the surface of the pool in the previous metaphor -- we have an object that is ever-changing, and, thus, capable of being anything and containing everything. However, at any one time, it's not going to contain everything and it won't be the same each time you look at it.
Are these metaphors sufficient to understanding these aspects of anatta? Is there more to anatta that isn't explained by them?
Thanks to everyone who reads this.
I've also been told that there isn't really a way of conveying it in words and that it can only be understood through meditation.
Still, I'm hoping that maybe you guys will say something that helps me get it.
My understanding of "non-self" thus far is that it could, perhaps, be understood through metaphors like a pool or a mirror.
In the pool metaphor, everyone's presence produces waves which then touch everyone else and overlap with everyone else's waves -- which, in turn, produces its own results that touch everyone and overlaps with the waves they produce. And so on and so forth, in perpetuity.
From this view, the understanding I've gotten is that the totality of everything could be seen as a large pool of mutuality in which nothing exists in isolation.
The second metaphor relates more, I guess, to the idea of the individual. With the mirror -- or maybe you could look at it as the surface of the pool in the previous metaphor -- we have an object that is ever-changing, and, thus, capable of being anything and containing everything. However, at any one time, it's not going to contain everything and it won't be the same each time you look at it.
Are these metaphors sufficient to understanding these aspects of anatta? Is there more to anatta that isn't explained by them?
Thanks to everyone who reads this.
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Comments
Ask yourself "What is experiencing this?" and just look at what you see, without casting about for an answer. Initially, you will see nothing, but a very short time after that, perhaps too short a time for you to even apprehend, you might make up an answer like "My mind is experiencing this." Keep coming back to this question, and eventually a capacity to rest in the non-seeing will develop. That capacity is the only apprehension of anatta which is of any use. The non-seeing is the direct experience of anatta.
I have to admit that it's difficult for me to try gaining a deeper understanding of something until I can fathom it in intellectual terms. For example, before going to driver's ed., I tried to gain an understanding of what I would be doing by reading about people describing driving.
All of that was useless to me, of course, once I actually got in the driver's seat -- and, in fact, my experience playing video games like "Twisted Metal" and "Gran Turismo" proved more useful.
I've been told to just "do it," but I guess I don't know where to begin.
Do you mean ask "what" instead of "who"? If so, is this is a way of gaining a deeper insight into the self by stepping outside conventional recognition of the self?
Does this mean that true understanding of the concept rests in a disregard for a need to understand it from a mechanical aspect?
More like, "What does it do?" than "How does it work?"
Meditation is the right place to begin.
Where is this "self" of which you speak? Try to point your self out to yourself.
"What" or "who" is a small thing, but "who" implies an identity.
The concept is immaterial, and often pernicious. The experience of it is the only development which counts.
Sorry, I don't understand this part.
From a Theravadin viewpoint, this sounds more like interconnectedness or iddappaccayatta rather than anatta.
However, from a Mahayana viewpoint, it sounds like their views on sunyata.
Kind regards
DDhatu
What's throwing me off, I think, is that I'm trying to establish a notion of where I need to get through meditation. Basically, what kind of understanding should it impart on this particular subject?
I know I shouldn't be meditating on a particular subject, but my intellectual hang-ups are such that I feel like I should know where it's supposed to lead.
I tried your question of asking myself "What is experiencing this?" with love for my girlfriend. The answer I found myself with is that sometimes I would say it's my mind and other times I might say it's what we would call my heart.
I think I'd say my mind at times because talking with her can be intellectually gratifying. I might say my heart, though, because of an emotional gratification or the satisfaction of a hug.
Are these sort of answers valuable? They still leave me using a term like "my," which -- from what I understand -- would obfuscate the real answer.
My girlfriend, by the way, says that when you said, "Initially, you will see nothing" before finding an "answer," that "nothing" was the important part of your message. Basically, that the real answer to be found is in the moment between asking the question and finding an "answer" like "My mind is experiencing this."
Is that right?
If so, what makes the "nothing" useful for us? In terms of the metaphors I was talking about in my opening post, I can grasp the use. But in this, I'm unsure and only confused.
So, the journey is what's important rather than the destination?
I was asking if what's really important is to "rest in the non-seeing" regardless of whether we understand how exactly anatta works in an academic sense. Like, what a TV does is more important than how it does it.
Thanks for your response as well.
So, now I'm really confused. XD
I thought that concepts of Interconnectedness/Interpenetration/Dependent Origination and sunyata/Emptiness/Voidness were supposed to be elements of anatta. The same way that braking and parking are aspects of the overall topic of driving.
Am I wrong about that?
Try this essay. You can turn it into a meditation exercise. Where's the becoming in the current experience? Where's the grasping? Where's the ignorance.
No, they're not. Try to look at the experience before you reach for such answers. Your girlfriend is exactly right. She sounds very smart, as you said.
If there's nothing, who is it useful for?
Yes. This is a practice, not a philosophy.
And, yes, I agree -- my girlfriend is very smart. Thank you for saying so.
She's been trying to explain some of this stuff to me, but I'm afraid I can have a hard time with things if I can't get a good bead on them academically. She suggested I try bringing my questions here to get other people's opinions in the hope that somebody could explain it in a way that would make better sense to me.
I feel like you've helped, and I appreciate it. I don't understand it yet, but I guess that's ultimately up to me. You've done what you can, and I'm grateful.
Have a great night.
As far as anatta go, there are many ways to convey it in words, just the same as the four noble truths or the eightfold path, experiencing it, or any other buddhist teaching for that matter, is a different story.
Think of a bridge over a river OK. The water under the bridge is constantly flowing. there is not a fixed body of water under there. That is how phenomena are: in constant flux (impermanence). Let's say I call this small part of the whole river EstudianteNuevo (which, you can notice by now, is an artificial division). I can certainly do that, but I have to notice that EstudianteNuevo is aways in flux, there is nothing permanent there, nothing to be called a Self, this is anatta. The fact that the river is aways flowing is impermanence. Impermanence is how things don't last with the passage of time. Anatta is how things don't last in a certain portion of space. It is THE SAME THING, spread over two different referentials: time and space.Applying this to practice is tricky of course, but it doesn't mean it can't be understood first. In fact, it has to.
All Buddhist teachings are meant to be experienced, that is something both Mahayana and Theravada have in common. It is not just seeing anatta (which is not voidness by any means) that takes time, realizing the noble eightfold path or having a deep understanding of the four noble truths is very hard indeed. That does NOT mean you can't have an intellectual understanding of it first.
The buddha could have called the noble eightfold path a sixfold path, he could have changed the order of dependent arising, he could have changed the contents of the four noble truth slightly and it would still lead to the same result. Don't grasp too hard on concepts. They are only valid as long as they steer you away from suffering. If they are not doing so try to focus on some that can.
What Is the Self, Does the Self Have a Beginning, Will It Have an End?
Anatta is more along the lines of, the conception of yourself as the person "EstudianteNuevo" is a conventional/deceptive truth and as such blocks and obscures your ultimate truth, anatta.
Where anatta means something like, you are not your body and mind, nor are you an entity separate of them, implying you're dependent. And that you aren't static and partless, implying that you're constantly changing. :buck:
I'll let you guys know my progress. It's likely I'll have more questions later, though. I always have more questions.
There is thinking, no thinker
There is hearing, no hearer
There is seeing, no seer
In thinking, just thoughts
In hearing, just sounds
In seeing, just forms, shapes and colors.
Or try this
Who am I before I was born?
Perhaps the brain?
The brain seems to hold all of the things that make up what most people consider to be their "self".
Ok, now what specifically is the "self" of which you speak? Pay close attentions to Fivebell's words:
"Ask yourself "What is experiencing this?" and just look at what you see, without casting about for an answer. Initially, you will see nothing, but a very short time after that, perhaps too short a time for you to even apprehend, you might make up an answer like "My mind is experiencing this." Keep coming back to this question"
Don't think about it too much. Just do it.
You will see nothing because if a self does exist, it exists within you. You can't see that by looking around.
I'm not sure how it's a made up answer, if we're talking about the brain. It can be tested and such and evidence can be found in support of it.
So if you took away everything except the brain, that would be you? Really? Would those things you described ("The brain seems to hold all of the things that make up what most people consider to be their "self"") still arise?
What we label as "self" is ever-changing. Have you read up on Dependant Origination yet? You've almost entirely looked past the physical body as "self", but you're still grasping at certain things, namely, mental processes. These arise only when the conditions for them to arise are present. This is true even of consciousness.
The answer isn't "nothing." It's the direct understanding of that "nothing," of that emptiness. When we strip all of these processes away, what's left?
It is of course convenient and necessary to label certain things as "self." As Federica said in another Thread, there is a "self." There is a "not-self," too. These exist simultaneously and without conflict or contradiction. Anatta is a crucial concept to grasp directly, not intellectually, to truly benefit from the Dhamma.
http://video.google.de/videoplay?docid=-3529760254352711693#
^ Great video, even if you've been doing meditation for a while. He discusses some of these concepts directly and it becomes clear why they're beneficial, but also focuses on proper meditation so that you can see them for yourself.
Of course they arise in response to conditions. The entire world, or rather Universe, is all cause and effect. You could call it karma, in the most basic(yet complicated) sense.
It is the conditions combined with the personality traits of a person at the time of the conditions, that essentially make up what most define as self.
And yes, I agree that what we call self is fluid, changing.
It depends, if we take away only bodily processes, then there are a myriad of other processes and conditions in the Universe.
If we take away all processes...we'd only have non-changing conditions. And if no processes ever existed...I'm not sure there would be conditions. Perhaps there would be only the condition of nothingness if processes never existed.
I agree.
"Define" is the key word. Now what about anatta?
In the context of "anatta."
I'm not exactly knowledgeable on the anatta concept, or on much of Buddhism.
I've barely begun studying Buddhism yet.
Anatta is a concept that is opposed to the concept of soul. Soul is supposed to be a permanent thing; anatta just means the constituents of the being, whatever you call it[ the brain or etc] are always changing. It doesn't mean nothing exists. I surely can call myself "myself" and you "you". We just aren't eternal and unchanging, that's all. This is a concept common even to Theravada.
Now this part (my two cents, no expert here) is related to the Madhyamaka take on Shunyata, as seen by Nagarjuna, relevant to Mahayana, and not Theravada. First of all, Nagarjuna is a philosopher, if I ever saw one, and he does explain Shunyata or "emptiness" using words. The enphasys on direct experience, so characteristic of Zen, comes from Chinese culture at the time it absorbed Buddhism.
To arrive at a shunyata concept, he criticized causality, concepts and knowledge. Shall we begin? :buck: (1 post might not be enough)
I) CAUSALITY:
Nagarjuna criticized causality (relation between cause and effect) saying that there are four possibilities for the origination of phenomena:
(a) that the cause and effect are identical: this is unacceptable because it leads to absurdity, like saying that the father is the son.
(b) that the cause and effect are different: the mere difference doesn't offer good explanation for causality, because if that was true anything could originate from anything else, like rice originating from an apple seed (they are different);
(c) that the cause and effect are both identical and different: just as something cannot be blue and not blue at the same time, this one suffers from basic logical failure, plus the faults of (a) and (b) apply here as well;
(d) that phenomena arise without cause: this is obviously impossible: if I try to boil water I will need heat, it just wont boil out of thin air.
Hence, "No entity is produced at any time, anywhere, or in any manner from self, from other, from both, or without cause."
II) CONCEPTS:
Just as the idea of short and long are relative (A is short in relation to B and long in relation to C), the ideas of identity and difference, existence and nonexistence, and so forth are also relative. Without the idea of existence, nonexistence has no meaning, and without nonexistence, existence has none. The same applies to past, present and future.
III) KNOWLEDGE:
Suppose my knowledge of something comes from my perception of it, like my perception of a cup (I see it, so it has to be real). What, then, is it that proves the existence (or truth) of the perception itself?
For Nagarjuna, the subject and object of perception are interdependent.
Perception is therefore in no position to prove the existence of its object, and the object is in no position to prove the existence of perception, since they depend on each other. Thus knowledge – like causality (we discussed first) and concepts (we discussed on second part) – is interdependent. It lacks self-existence, and is therefore empty.
CONCLUSION (this is what I think Nagarjuna thinks, not me)
It is as a result of discriminating the ideas of cause and effect, identity and difference, existence and nonexistence, and so forth that we are imprisoned in samsara. Discriminating thought, which has
its seed in the mind, is the fundamental cause of suffering.
Samsara and nirvana are the same thing seen from two different points of view: from the point of view of ignorance, reality appears as samsara; from the point of view of insubstantiality, relativity, and emptiness, however, reality appears as nirvana.