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So you believe, like me, with certainty that this is your only life and once you are dead that's it in all senses?
You are still clinging. Clinging to "self" and to views. This belief is considered Wrong View, but this is not to suggest that we go up to Heaven and live there forever after death, or that we're literally reborn into another body after death.
What does anatta mean to you? I agree with Fivebells:
...you seem to have found some formula to build yourself up ("I am utterly happy, even with the problems in my lifely happy, even with the problems in my life...") Spiritual practice ideally leads to an end to self-cherishing.
An Awakened being fully realizes D.O. beyond this intellectual level. To an Awakened ("enlightened") one, there is no "self" to die. Anatta is difficult to put into words, and why meditation is so important.
When we die in the way you're describing, the conditions for consciousness to arise are no longer present. But we are not our consciousness, either. We aren't our minds. This seems to be what you're suggesting. You are equating "self" with these things.
Once we are dead, our body will return to the earth, which will feed the grass, which will feed the animals that feed the people which will lead to new life...
Before you were born, those exact same things eventually led to your birth (someone's body returned to the earth, which fed the grass, which fed the animals that fed your parents...).
Now, it's easy to look at those things, and say "those aren't ME, those aren't 'self.'" Now you have carry that understanding into the elements that form your overall self-concept in THIS life, including consciousness and the mind... there is ultimately no difference between those things, and what you call "self" now; those things are "you" and "not you" just as much as anything in what you call "my life." Carry the understanding of "'you' are dead in all senses" into this very moment.
When clinging to the self-concepts cease (when ignorance ceases), dukkha ceases, as the Nidanas accurately illustrate. You can experience this truth yourself. The full realization of this is called Nibbana or Enlightenment.
Well, with the possible exception of NamelessRiver, with whom I haven't discussed this issue, everybody in this thread accepts the rebirth-in-this-life metaphor.
I am just watching mostly, but I will give my 2 cents:
The question here is whether or not the Buddha identified the brain (or body) with the source of the mind. If he didn't (which is the more likely approach) nothing would stop the mind from going on after the body passed away, since it is not made of whatever it is this body is made of.
Seriously I don't think 2500 years ago they have even the means to suggest the mind was "inside" the brain. It was all philosophy. Descartes himself, thousands of years later than the Buddha, was still assuming that mind and body were separate.
Oddly enough, this discussion still continues even today, with the duality defenders being a minority when compared to the materialists. The table turns on a dime though, there was a time when the world was flat, and the atom was the smallest particle, and so on and so forth. It is not that science is wrong, is just that it is forever incomplete, so who knows.
>>>Roughly speaking, the position Dhatu, Mundus and I hold is that the Buddha's principal contribution was to teach a practice which ends suffering.
We can agree there, Magga is the way. I have no issues with that. But I would like to know, why is Magga the way?
And the reason I believe is because of the way sentient systems in finite possibility spaces (In this case humans on earth, but I belive it wuld be true of all possible systems) will inevitable be confronted by dukka because of tahna.
We could not have evolved as species or individuals without Tanha, and yet Tanha causes dukka. This is part what the Buddha saw, I believe. Its the great dilemma of all experience and it can only be solved by irradicating tanha.
>>>The sutras are the main pointer to how that practice works.
I simply cannot accept their authority over the self-evident truths of Dharma.
We cannot POSSIBLY know what the Buddha thought or taught about this things other than the fragments and memories and shared testemony of 500 monks, then 700 a hundred years later, then a thousands three hundred years later. Can you not see that?
This is why I believe we must forget the sutras except as vague parables and ask, "What possibly could the Buddha have discovered?"
And the answer there is self-evident, demonstrable, consistent, compatible with science and psychology and WONDERFUL!
>>>What's making this conversation difficult is that we're a community of practice, and you're pushing a reinterpretation of a key model we use to talk about our experiences with that practice.
Yes, because I believe the model that has evolved to "Buddhism" is contrary to Dharma.
>>>It's fine to deny all scriptural authority. Roughly speaking, I agree with you on that. But you're not going to get very far just by claiming your interpretation is more logically consistent, especially since you don't really have the tools or data to demonstrate it.
I think I have demonstrated it, the problem for you is that the reality is just not as "deep" as what Buddhism claims.
Do you see what I am trying to do to show how Annica, Anatama Dukka must necessarily emerge from the conditionality of all things/events? I suspect you don't, if not please tell me where you are not seeing things clearly:)
>>>The contradictions you highlighted are probably a result of translation mismatches, for instance. Have you gone back to the primary sources, and verified that you can find the contradictions there, too?
A primary source would be written by the Buddha. There is no such thing, the closest we have is 250 years after his death, at least. This is the "elephant in the room" of Buddhism, isnt it?
>>>What that means, practically speaking, is that if you want to convince us that your interpretation is superior, you need to demonstrate the impact it has on the practice of Buddhism, and demonstrate that that impact is desirable.
Not at all, we can agree on greatness of Magga and Dharma Pracitice:)
I cannot fault that, but not because I blindly accept it because somone once said it but because I can see how Magga must emerge from Dukka, just as the Buddha is said to have described:)
>>>The question here is whether or not the Buddha identified the brain (or body) with the source of the mind.
The Buddha clearly described what the mind is, it is the Five aggregates, nothing more. All the rest of the "majic" kama as majic, ataman as this "candle lighting another candle" came much later:)
For me, of course the Buddish wasnt a dualist.
>>>Seriously I don't think 2500 years ago they have even the means to suggest the mind was "inside" the brain.
Wow. You underestimate the profound power of mediation, insight and contemplation very much with this statement.
>>>Descartes himself, thousands of years later than the Buddha, was still assuming that mind and body were separate.
The buddha was completely anticartesian. He denied the cogito explcitly in the realsiation of the Skandhas.
>>>Oddly enough, this discussion still continues even today, with the duality defenders being a minority when compared to the materialists.
It doesn't continue between reasonable people, just those who belive in god and soul and majic etc
>>>The table turns on a dime though, there was a time when the world was flat, and the atom was the smallest particle, and so on and so forth. It is not that science is wrong, is just that it is forever incomplete, so who knows.
The Buddha knew;) I know. Most scientists and psychologists know and anyone who wishes to apply reason to their experience can know too!
Dharma isnt rocket science, though rockets are subject to Dharma:)
>>>Roughly speaking, the position Dhatu, Mundus and I hold is that the Buddha's principal contribution was to teach a practice which ends suffering.
We can agree there, Magga is the way.
So you agree that the Buddha's teachings were meant to lead one to the quenching of dukkha. And you also agree that your relabeling of Conditionality as "Dependent Origination" fails to illustrate how this can be accomplished?
We cannot POSSIBLY know what the Buddha thought or taught about this things other than the fragments and memories and shared testemony of 500 monks, then 700 a hundred years later, then a thousands three hundred years later. Can you not see that?
This is poor reading comprehension. No one is claiming the Buddha himself wrote the suttas. But if you properly comprehend the suttas, and not assume a Brahman's poor interpretation of them hundreds of years later accurately explains what the suttas taught, then you will see that the suttas are the road map to the quenching of dukkha.
I think I have demonstrated it, the problem for you is that the reality is just not as "deep" as what Buddhism claims.
Our understanding has lead to experience firsthand how dukkha can be cut off at its source, which is what we agree the Buddha's teachings are aimed at. Yours does not. How is it superior?
I cannot fault that, but not because I blindly accept it because somone once said it
No one else you've been speaking to in this Thread has blindly accepted anything, either. You might notice that our understanding goes against the common interpretation of the Nidanas. You are completely shut off to the idea, and therefore failing to interpret them in the way Dhamma has illustrated, which has nothing to do with "mysticism" or the like. You have blindly accepted Buddhaghosa's interpretation of the 12 Nidanas is an accurate interpretation of the suttas, have you not?
A primary source would be written by the Buddha.
The primary source we have at our disposal is the original Pali of the Tipitaka. Have you gone back to the Pali versions? Or are you basing your opinions on poor translations and commentary that turns the 12 Nidanas into a teaching of scoreboard kamma and literal rebirth....
The Buddha clearly described what the mind is, it is the Five aggregates, nothing more. All the rest of the "majic" kama as majic, ataman as this "candle lighting another candle" came much later:)
If everything was body why did he divide it into aggregates? What is up with nama rupa duality? I am not saying you are either wrong or right, but it seems to me that whether or not the Buddha was materialistic or dualistic is something that deserves more consideration.
>>>So he came to the conclusion that "life is suffering and there's no escape" and that's it?
Not at all. He clearly found the escape, it is The Noble Eightfold Path.
>>>The purpose of Dependent Origination is SOLELY to illustrate how dukkha arises. It has no other purpose.
I disagree. I think it shows how it all arises, including The Three Marks and all they entail.
>>>The Buddha stated that he taught only one thing, and that is the quenching of dukkha.
1) We cannot know what the buddha stated
2) One cannot quench dukka without understanding the why and the how of Dukka! That's the whole point:)
>>>Your very essay is written with sutta citations. You have just switched the name of Conditionality to Dependent Origination, said there's no escape from dukkha, and called it a day.
You may have read my essay with a "sutra sniper" attitude, but from your comment I dont think you have thought about it, else you wouldnt have said that.
>>>If the suttas aren't good enough, then what are you basing your opinions on?
I base it on the self evident truth of all of Dharma. Maybe you should abandon the suttras for a while and see what you can work out about Dharma all on your own, like The Buddha did, like I have. It is very simple when you remove the pollutants:)
>>>How can you say you know what the Buddha said?
Here is an example that may illustrate. Imagine the Buddha discovered relativity and taught it during his lifetime. Butafter his death for countless reasons it become distorted into being E=MC3. And here we are today studying his teachings and we find something amiss.
E=MC3 doesn't make sense, it seems wrong, it seems to allow things that are inconsistent and falsifiably and so on. And so we look and realise that he must have meant E=MC2! I think that is analogous.
To strech the analogy and make it fit with history, we can say, without question, that ideas like E=MC3 were around for millenia before the buddhas time.
Dharma, like relativity, was around before the earth was formed. If the Buddha discovered Dharma, then to see what he discovered, we need only look to reality and see...
see?
>>>How can you say he even existed?
It doesn't matter to me if he existed or not. But some great mind discovered Dharma, that much none of us can disagree with:)
>>>And where precisely did you get the "first principles" from if not the suttas...?
Well, for the last 5 years I have been thinking about Dharma using what I call zero point universes. These are thought experimmnets of systems that can be used to look at reality.
For example, imagine a universe that consists of 1 point. Does it have change or size or duration, no, it has, at best mere existance.
But a 2 point universe, that must have at lease properties such as connection. And so on.
When you add change to the zeropoint universe it follows that if thereis any change, then there can only be all change, or else one ends up with a contradiction. This leads into annica.
It also follows that if all points are connected, which necessarily they are in a single universe, then there can be no point which is distinct from the change of the other points. This in part leads to anataman because it prevents the possibility of there being isolated points.
When you add change you must either have random change or causal change, nothing else. So it follows from causation that all change is necessarily both effect and cause, this combined with interconectivity is the other part that leads to anataman.
As per the card deck example in my essay, all change reduces the possibility space. So when you have emergent self aware, valuing systems that must have survival as an attractor (else they wouldn't have emerged) it follows that there will be the awareness of the restricted and impermanent possibility space. This is the seed of dukka, if you like it is a proto dukka. It becomes dukka in the suffering sense only when there is the property of a to be aware of its own internal states (like we humans).
I believe the Buddha came to similar conclusions by his own contemplation and meditation.
I disagree. I think it shows how it all arises, including The Three Marks and all they entail.
DO contains all of the other teachings, yes. But for the sake of simplicity: DO = arising of dukkha and thus the cessation of dukkha. The first Nidana, ignorance, refers to the 4NT/dukkha/anicca/anatta...
1) We cannot know what the buddha stated
2) One cannot quench dukka without understanding the why and the how of Dukka! That's the whole point
1) If you do not agree that the main point of his teachings is the quenching of dukkha, then what do you believe they are, and on what do you base this? Surely, you started with the suttas....
2) So you DO agree that that was the main thing he taught...? Yes, I agree, and understanding the why and how of dukkha is what the Nidanas teach, as Dhamma clearly illustrated.
I base it on the self evident truth of all of Dharma.
My point is that you too started with the suttas. Your essay is full of concepts that you consider vital to the Dhamma that originated in the suttas.
Maybe you should abandon the suttras for a while and see what you can work out about Dharma all on your own, like The Buddha did, like I have. It is very simple when you remove the pollutants:)
You aren't listening. Just as they pointed the way for you, they point the way for me and others in this Thread. I don't blindly believe anything I read in the suttas, and even if I did, believing in those things wouldn't get me anywhere. It's practice that yeilds results.
Let's keep this simple:
1. Is the purpose of his teachings to quench dukkha?
2. Do you disagree with Dhamma's explanation of how the 12 Nidanas illustrate how dukkha arises, in the post I linked to above?
I would need to go back to the Magadhi version to get the word of the Buddha, but they have never existed
Hi, Mat. You aren't reading us carefully. It's a little inconsiderate, and tiring.
The point was, you note contradictions between different English translations of different sections of the Tipitaka, and this could simply be a matter of mismatches between the translations. The only way to make a start on verifying these contradictions would be to go back to the primary source, the original Pali. Of course, that wouldn't be entirely convincing, either, because the Pali itself is a translation, but it would be a start, and would be convincing to most people who accept the Pali canon as authoritative.
Anyway, it sounds like you've got a good thing going there at the moment, and I wish you well with it. I would be grateful if you would just keep this conversation in mind, if it ever seems like things aren't working out for you so well anymore.
>>>1) If you do not agree that the main point of his teachings is the quenching of dukkha, then what do you believe they are, and on what do you base this? Surely, you started with the suttas....
I believe that that is his core teaching, I am even happy to accept the 12 Niadanas as being a metaphorical exposition of the Four Noble truths. But the reasonings that lead him to the 4NT etc are what interests me here, because by seeing this we see dharma, from first principles.
>>>My point is that you too started with the suttas. Your essay is full of concepts that you consider vital to the Dhamma that originated in the suttas.
Clearly the suttras are connected with The Buddha! I am not saying they are not. i am saying they have been corrupted and it is us to us to find out whats Dharma and what is not. And the only way to do that is to go back to the first principle.
>>>It's practice that yeilds results.
I agree, and the key to that for me is Right View. I think you are mistaken in your view, you think I am:) You spout suttra, I deny the authority of sutra.
>>>1. Is the purpose of his teachings to quench dukkha?
Yes, by showing reality as it is and the emmergent truths that reality entails to do with the human condition.
>>>Do you disagree with Dhamma's explanation of how the 12 Nidanas illustrate how dukkha arises, in the post I linked to above?
I think they are based on a mistaken conflatation of various examples of DO "links" into the convoluted chain of 12. But yes, on paper they show DO in action, in reality they are a bloated later interpretation of the Second Noble truth.
In other words, they are not needed to understand Dharma and they add problems as discussed.
DO was around at the big bang. The 12 Nidanas were not:)
I believe that that is his core teaching. But the reasonings that lead him to the 4NT etc are what interests me here, because by seeing this we see dharma, from first principles.
So you do agree that his core teaching was the quenching of dukkha.
But you do not believe that the Buddha was free of dukkha or that it's possible to be free of dukkha... you do not believe he was able to quench dukkha...
You agree that the Highest Teaching is that of Dependent Origination. Dhamma's explanation explains perfectly how Dukkha arises and is based on the explanation provided in the suttas, that is, the 12 Nidanas. If this traditional teaching (the 12 Nidanas) accurately illustrates the arising of suffering, surely it illustrates too how suffering can be quenched. Therefore, it makes sense that this is the Highest Teaching.
Yet you would like to do away with the 12 Nidanas for some reason. You have relabelled Conditionality as "Dependent Origination." And you have admitted that this has no real use in the quenching of dukkha:
>>>How does it affect practice?
I'm not sure it does.
And that, despite supposedly being "enlightenend" and being the only one on the planet to truly understand DO, you still experience dukkha, which is what you agree the Buddha's teachings seek to end:
Yes I do [believe I'm fully enlightened].
...
Of course I experience Dukka
:eek2:
Clearly the suttras are connected with The Buddha! I am not saying they are not. i am saying they have been corrupted
And you have still failed to explain how the 12 Nidanas as taught in the suttas (NOT as explained hundreds of years later by a Brahman who could not get the idea of literal rebirth out of his head) are a "corruption."
DO was around at the big bang. The 12 Nidanas were not
Ah, so HERE is the problem. Yes, DO, in the broader sense, can refer to absolutely anything (as in, absolutely everything is conditioned). But for the sake of the Buddha's core teaching on the quenching of Dukkha, the 12 Nidanas are what DO refers to, as they illustrate how DUKKHA arises. Dukkha arises through self-identification, clinging, and ignorance. When ignorance (of the 4NT/dukkha/anatta/anicca) ceases, self-identification ceases, clinging ceases, and thus dukkha ceases. Understanding what conditioned the "beginning of the universe" is not relevent to my practice or to what we agree is the Buddha's core teaching. The Buddha taught only one thing: the quenching of dukkha.
Your explanation:
If I knock at your door, I am on your doorstep.
If I walk up to your door, I will be on your doorstep.
If I am never on your doorstep, I will never be knocking on your door.
If I stop being on your doorstep, I will stop knocking your door.
does not compare to how the 12 Nidanas illustrate the arising and quenching of dukkha.
Dhamma's example clearly shows the arising of dukkha in absolutely any situation. Yours illustrates something ("if I walk up to your door, I will be on your doorstep") a 1st grader already understands. Idappaccayata is important and relevent but not in the way you've explained.
None of you wish to try to forget the suttras and start again, why would you not? If Dharma is truth there must be countless ways to arrive at it?
We have "forgotten the suttas" just as much as you have. You took a teaching, relabelled it, and got... something out of it. We took another teaching, without relabelling it, and got a lot more out of it. We cannot show you the significance of the 12 Nidanas as taught in the suttas beyond what we've tried to already. You have to make the journey over to the meditation cusion.
>>>Ah, so HERE is the problem. Yes, DO, in the broader sense, can refer to absolutely anything (as in, absolutely everything is conditioned).
That is my point. that was the point of my essay. That has consistently been my point throughout this rather fractious debate:) DO is the fundamental principle of causal and counter-factual conditionals. We agree:)
>>>Understanding what conditioned the "beginning of the universe" is not relevent to my practice or to what we agree is the Buddha's core teaching.
I agree, nor have I said otherwise. My point mentinioning the big bang was about the anthropic element of the 12 nidyas.
>>>Dhamma's example clearly shows the arising of dukkha in absolutely any situation. Yours illustrates something ("if I walk up to your door, I will be on your doorstep") a 1st grader already understands. Idappaccayata is important and relevent but not in the way you've explained.
Of course, its not complex! Buddhism has made it complex and mysterious, when clearly it isn't, at least clearly to me:)
Good luck to you too, I think that whilst you set in stone that which clearly cannot be, we cant really get further here.
>>>Ah, so HERE is the problem. Yes, DO, in the broader sense, can refer to absolutely anything (as in, absolutely everything is conditioned).
That is my point. that was the point of my essay. That has consistently been my point throughout this rather fractious debate:) DO is the fundamental principle of causal and counter-factual conditionals. We agree
We do not agree. Please read the rest of my response which explains why this definition of D.O. is not relevent to the Buddha's core teaching of the quenching of dukkha.
My point mentinioning the big bang was about the anthropic element of the 12 nidyas.
The 12 Nidanas are the teaching of D.O. in relation to the Buddha's teachings; the 12 Nidanas illustrate the arising of dukkha. There is no anthropic element in the original presentation of the 12 Nidanas. Go to the source, and stop relying on hearsay. The problem can be found on your blog:
Over the last seven years I have been pretty deeply involved in thinking about Dharma - the teachings of the Buddha, and trying to make this fit in with my personal attempts at understanding life and reality.
You are trying to twist things to suit your purpose. That's fine, and if it helps you, great. But what makes your explanation superior to what we've been explaining of the 12 Nidanas? How does your explanation lead to understanding dukkha and how to end dukkha better than what we've been describing?
I think that whilst you set in stone that which clearly cannot be
We do on the "broader sense" unless you now wish to contradict what you said? Where we disagree is on the applicability of that Broad sense to Dharma and Dharma practice:)
>>>Please read the rest of my response which explains why this definition of D.O. is not relevent to the Buddha's core teaching of the quenching of dukkha.
I did read and as said, i disagree. I have also read the long essay on DO that's often cited here. It was interesting but I guess I miss the point you so clearly see.
Sure, you seem to ground your Dharma understanding in the Suttra's as if they are the word of some God. It doesn't seem that you try to test them, refute them, find errors in them or in any way be "scientific" about what they say or how they developed.
I see them as the product of thousands of normal, error prone humans who, if you accept the reasons for the first 3 councils, had conflicting agendas and squabbles. But this isnt relevant to you.
Nor it seems is the evident skeptcism that peeks out at us from the sutras.
I will not believe anything as certain unless it is certainly so, unless it stands to my attempts to refute.
You ignore the clear inconsistencies in the texts (eg as discussed about DO) and assume they are "translation errors". You cannot pick and choose if you want certainty.
You seem to push enlightemnet into the darkness of mysticism and ignore the fact that at the Buddha's time, if you accept the Sutras, people were being enlightened after just a few moments with the Buddha. How do you explain that? Did he cast a spell? Or did he explain something simple, true and profound?
You cant have it both ways and claim to be rational and reasonable.
Sure, you seem to ground your Dharma understanding in the Suttra's as if they are the word of some God.
Not quite.
I have experienced the truth of the arising of dukkha and cessation of dukkha as taught through the nidanas of D.O. firsthand. :eek2:
I will not believe anything as certain unless it is certainly so, unless it stands to my attempts to refute.
Same. You've yet to show how the nidanas do not accurately illustrate the arising of each instance of dukkha. :eek2:
You seem to push enlightemnet into the darkness of mysticism
How so? It's quite simple, really. When the mind is not clinging to a self-concept, when anatta/dukkha/anicca are fully comprehended on a deep, experiential level, dukkha is quenched, for that time. Have you ever experienced this in meditation?
If that self-concept is completely released in the way I describe in posts 51/52, dukkha is fully quenched, and this is Nibbana. This is very straight-forward and rational. This is not mystical at all. :eek2:
if you accept the Sutras, people were being enlightened after just a few moments with the Buddha. How do you explain that? Did he cast a spell? Or did he explain something simple, true and profound?
So you accept the suttas in this instance as well.
What Dhamma has been explaining to you is simple, true, and profound. What the suttas explain is simple, true, and profound.
Until you explain how the nidanas do not completely illustrate the arising of dukkha at any time (and thus the quenching of dukkha), and how they are not simple, true, and profound... :eek2:
Do you believe, in the time of The Buddha, that people became enlightened after just a short time talking with the Buddha?
I don't "believe" anything. How would I know? If they did, it wasn't because they understood it intellectually, it was because the words were so shocking, true, and profound, it shattered their reality, they understood it directly, they attained Nibbana and dukkha ceased. I don't see that in your words. You yourself do not see that in your words; you said this hasn't affected your practice at all and you still experience dukkha yet think you're "enlightened."
What does that have to do with anything? :wtf:
Please explain to me what the point of his teachings are. You say his teachings are aimed to quench dukkha. But you say quenching dukkha is not possible.
What, in your mind, causes dukkha? Please explain precisely. Not what you posted on your blog. A direct, straightforward answer. (Mine is: incomplete understanding of dukkha/anatta/anicca, which leads to clinging of everything that forms our self-concept; the death/impermanence of these things leads to dukkha because we think of them as "me" or "mine"; when something that is "me" or "mine" decays (such as a relationship, my car, whatever), I experience dukkha; when something that is not "me" or "mine" decays (such as someone else's relationship, someone else's car, etc.), I do not experience dukkha; thus, when I see these things for what they are, and not as "me" or "mine," dukkha ceases to arise).
And again:
Until you explain how the nidanas do not completely illustrate the arising of dukkha at any time (and thus the quenching of dukkha), and how they are not simple, true, and profound... :eek2:
Please explain what your blog post adds to the nidanas/how it is superior and leads to the quenching of dukkha whereas the nidanas do not. :eek2:
You see, you wont answer me:) Either people were enlightened by conversation with the Buddha (As some sutras say) or they were not.
It is a yes or no answer:)
>>>What does that have to do with anything? :wtf:
When you answer me, I will explain exactly what it has to do... with everything:) I will also answer your question! But you are avoiding lots of my points so please, be reasonable and answer me here:)
What, in your mind, causes dukkha? Please explain precisely. Not what you posted on your blog. A direct, straightforward answer.
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Please explain what your blog post adds to the nidanas/how it is superior and leads to the quenching of dukkha whereas the nidanas do not. :eek2:
OK, so you are denying these aspects of the Sutras but not others? on what authority do you do this? Do you see how you are being inconsistent here?
>>>What, in your mind, causes dukkha? Please explain precisely. Not what you posted on your blog. A direct, straightforward answer.
Dukka is caused by the inevitable negative aspects of reality. In the case of sufficiently complex systems such as humans it's prime causes is an attachment to the illusions of "objects" such as egos, possessions, achievenements, sensations and so on....
Ultimately it is caused by a the necessary conditionality of all possible system states (Dependent Origination).
Do you understand the concept of emmergence? I think you should look to that and you will better see where I come from.
>>>Until you explain how the nidanas do not completely illustrate the arising of dukkha at any time (and thus the quenching of dukkha), and how they are not simple, true, and profound...
They may be true! But they are not the root cause and they are not the first principle. I really get the impression you just dont listen:) For example, we can imagine a being that has no craving but still experiences Dukka due not to their attachment but due to their realisation of imperimance, in and off itself. The difference is subtle but profound.
Do you now see? Forget the sutras and focus on what I said please:)
OK, so you are denying these aspects of the Sutras but not others? on what authority do you do this? Do you see how you are being inconsistent here?
No. I do not believe it, but I don't deny it. I don't believe it because I wasn't there, and I haven't experienced this myself. This is irrelevent.........
.........because I have experienced the 12 Nidanas as the truth of D.O. that leads to the quenching of dukkha firsthand.
Again, I don't see your point. You are convinced I accept the suttas as fact with no proof, but I do not.
Dukka is caused by the inevitable negative aspects of reality.
"Negative" is subjective. Something is only dukkha when we attach ourselves to it. If my boyfriend left me, I would suffer, you would not. Why?
This is true of anything that causes dukkha.
Ultimately it is caused by a the necessary conditionality of all possible system states (Dependent Origination).
Thus you see no escape. If I did not cling to my boyfriend as "mine," as Dhamma explained earlier, as forming an aspect of my self-identification, would I still experience dukkha if he left me?
Forget the sutras and focus on what I said please
Please stop suggesting I am focusing on the suttas. You too have quoted the suttas in your blog post. I am focused on personal experience, which has validated the 12 Nidanas as they appear in the suttas.
No. I do not believe it, but I don't deny it. I don't believe it because I wasn't there, and I haven't experienced this myself. This is irrelevent.........
You have contradicted yourself three times in three posts now:) You cannot be reasonable, it seems:) I can only be reasonable.
>>>This is irrelevent.........
And you say its irrelevant, it completely isn't, its about the very nature of enlightenment: Is it esoteric or matter of fact. Was the Buddha mystic or a rationalist philosopher? Etc.
>>>Again, I don't see your point.
I see very clearly that you don't see my point, and suspect that you never will.
I am not sure how you can pissibly know that, other than the unfounded certainty you seem to have that you are 100% right and I am 100% wrong.
Hi Mat
Your reactions to the suttas and denial of the Buddha's here & now complete Nibbana show you have not tasted Nibbana. That is why I am 100% right. In fact, you yourself denied your penetration of Nibbana not I. If proclaim to the whole world I do not believe the world is round, it is an obvious conclusion I have never travelled around the world.
Regarding your "teenage" example, we can agree that that is an example of DO, and one I am happy to accept....
Cool. So why deny the suttas? The DO is the suttas is the same as my example and no other.
If one takes seriously the three lifetimes version, there is a birth (without birth) at consciousness and a death (without death) at attachment plus another death at suffering. In 12 links there are 3 births and 3 deaths (or something like that).
DO occurs in all phenommenon and possible systems, it cannot be any other way.
I mentioned already. Iddapaccayatta (conditionality) occurs to all systems but not paticcasummupada. Paticcasummupada is a subset or type of iddapaccayatta.
For example, the water cycle or the evolution of the physical universe are examples of iddapaccayatta but not paticcasummupada. This is because physical things do not experience suffering.
But the theories about the causes of World War II are paticcasummupada because they involve human ignorance that leads to suffering.
The problem comes when you see DO as being identical with the 12 Niddyas, because then you instantly obscure the profound metaphysical realisation of the Budda and end up missing the point of Dharma I may be very wrong here, but I remain to be shown
The Buddha had no "profound metaphysical realisation". There is nothing profound about the metaphysical. The profoundity of DO it is the discernment of dukkha but most importantly the opposite, namely, the end of dukkha.
I ask you to reread the last part if you think tyhat, and show me either where I am mistaken or what I have missed. With your very dogmatic certainty, that should be easy to do.
Your blog is merely some generalisations about various dhammas. It offers nothing to a learned Buddhist & practitioner.
It is best you learn from what some of us here are sharing with you rather than try to teach.
As the Zen Masters say: "Empty your teacup".
My recommendation is drop your ego and drop your blog.
I agree, they are incomprehensible because they are not the words ofr the Buddha but of at least 2000 months over hundreds of years. Can you show me wrong here? Can you show me how the suttras are the word of Buddha?
The suttas depict the reality of the human mind, ego creation, the arising of suffering and most of all the cessation of suffering. As the suttas describe these matter 100% correctly, they are the words of the Buddha or of a Buddha.
In brief, your argument is irrelevent because you are asserting views about history where my posts are about the reality of human suffering which has not changed since the dawn of history.
Your arguements are akin to saying we cannot prove Newton discovered the laws of gravity (whatever). As the laws of gravity were described correctly, it is irrelevent whether it was Newton or not who discovered them. What is relevent was they were discovered and describedcorrectly. However, because I myself have no knowledge of the laws of physics, I myself personally am not in a position to judge whether what Newton said is correct or not.
The same applies to you. You yourself personally are not in a position to judge the authenticity of the suttas because your mind is obviously unenlightened because you do not believe the Buddha fully extinguished his minds suffering, because you deny the 12 links and because you regard meta-physics as profound.
For practical, everyday use of the 12 Nidanas: ignorance (essentially, ignorance of the 4NT/anatta/anicca/dukkha) leads to craving/clinging/attachment ("I want" or "I don't want") to the things that form our overall self-concept (either directly, as in, "this is me," or indirectly, as in "this is mine")... "birth" and "death (impermanence)" refer to the overall self-view of "I-and-mine," NOT the day you popped out of a vagina. :eek:
When these things "die" (say, when your hair turns grey, when your car breaks down, when a belief is proven false, when a relationship ends etc.) it leads to the last nidana:
Soka-parideva-dukkha-<WBR>domanassupayasa sambhavan'ti
Sorrow, Lamentation, Pain, Grief and Despair. Evametassa kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassa samudayo hoti
Thus is the arising of this whole mass of suffering.
Your arrogance is quite astounding to me:) Were you once a far right Christian minister?
>>>Your reactions to the suttas and denial of the Buddha's here & now complete Nibbana show you have not tasted Nibbana. That is why I am 100% right.
LOL! outrageous!
I have tasted Nibanna, it tastes of truth, cold and hard and empty, but truth.
>>>Cool. So why deny the suttas?
I deny their foundational authority.
Do you agree that:
The Buddha didnt speak Palli?
None of the Buddha's teachings were written down at the time of his life?
None were written down for two hundred years at least until after his death?
They they were "passed on" verbally by many fallible normal monks?
Why would you assume that after this process those first words written on palm frongs would be the exact words of the Buddha?!
Its a total nonsense to assume that even the first sutras were exact and accurate representations of his lifetime teachings. What am I missing here?
>>>The DO is the suttas is the same as my example and no other.
I spent some time going over my library today and I can find many books that cite the contrary. most of the books are Sri lankan Therevadan texts and copies of suttras. I was reading when your mail came in Nyanatilooka's Dictionary on DO/ps, it cites: "Dependent origination is the doctrine of all psycial and psycological phenominon..." it then goes on to descibe the 12 Conditions as a "forumula" expressing the doctrine:)
>>>>I mentioned already. Iddapaccayatta (conditionality) occurs to all systems but not paticcasummupada. Paticcasummupada is a subset or type of iddapaccayatta.
Not the case, imho. Conditionality is the actual relationship, if p then q, not p not q etc. Dependent Origination is that relationship in all logically possible instances.
>>>The Buddha had no "profound metaphysical realisation".
i disagree:) I think its very clear he must have.
>>>Your blog is merely some generalisations about various dhammas. It offers nothing to a learned Buddhist & practitioner.
I think simply you dont understand what I was doing:) if you did you would be able to confirm or deny it internally, rather than just patronise the author:)
>>>Your blog is close to worthless so simply drop it.
If I drop it, it wont change the truth. By the way, I have had some great responses on it, including from a lamma in katmandu! maybe... just maybe... you are wrong?;)
>>>The suttas depict the realiyy of the human mind, ego creation, the arising of suffering and most of all the cessation of suffering. As the suttas describe these matter 100% correctly, they are the words of the Buddha or of a Buddha.
As said above, nonsense, they cannot possibly be the 100% the words of The Buddha.
Try to be nice if you reply, it undermines your arguments when you get so bitchy:)
Try to be nice if you reply, it undermines your arguments when you get so bitchy:) Mat
I prefer the term "edgy" rather than bitchy.
I am unconcerned with what you regard as "undermines".
I am not here to love you and give your mind another attachment.
The Buddha said:
"Therefore, Ananda, engage with me friends and not as opponents. That will be for your long-term well-being & happiness.
"I won't hover over you like a potter over damp, unbaked clay goods. Scolding again & again, I will speak. Urging you on again & again, I will speak. Whatever is of essential worth will remain."
I do not deny the concept you've presented. However, you must understand that main purpose of the Buddha's teachings is the quenching of dukkha.
As Dhamma has explained, iddappaccayatta (conditionality) is what you are discussing, and this concept too comes up in the suttas. As you yourself have said, this understanding, that everything is conditioned, has not added anything to your practice, and what you presented in your blog does not add anything to our practices, either. Clearly, then, this is not the "Highest Teaching of the Buddha," if the Buddha taught the quenching of dukkha, which you agreed he did.
As Dhamma has also explained, paticcasammupada (Dependent Origination which by definition includes the 12 Links) is a specific concept that illustrates the arising of mental suffering (dukkha) and thus how to end it... in other words, conditionality, but specifically of the arising of dukkha. The 12 Links as they appear in the suttas, as Dhamma has illustrated, has been of significant benefit to our practices. Therefore, why would we deny them, and instead replace them with another concept that already comes up in the suttas, that you yourself say has no effect on practice...
We are not asking you to accept the suttas as fact; one last time, the issue can be seen right here your blog post:
If you ask a learned Buddhist what Dependent Origination is, or read in the vast majority of texts concerning it
Instead of asking a "learned Buddhist," or reading "texts concerning it," go back to the original suttas that first describe this concept. As has been said, what you are claiming the 12 Links to be is as Buddhaghosa interpreted them later on. Read the 12 Links as they first appeared and consider them for yourself instead of dismissing them due to others' misunderstandings.
"This wheel has twelve stages that encompass rebirth, suffering, ignorance and is termed The Twelve Niddyas."
"Rebirth" does not appear in the 12 Links (go back to the Pali versions of the suttas and show me where it appears) because the 12 Links have nothing to do with rebirth. Likewise, "suffering" is not part of the 12 Links, but comes after the 12th.
So clearly you have not done proper research of the 12 Links as they first appeared in the suttas, and therefore have not tested to see if they are true yourself and what effect this would have on your practice.
You ask me to go back to the suttras,
But you deny the conversational enlightenment aspects of the sutras.
You are causing us to go in circles. You have validated the truth of the teaching of iddappaccayatta as it appears in the suttas, correct?
But you are denying the teaching of paticcasammupada as presented in the suttas without actually looking at what the suttas say. I am not asking you to blindly follow it; I am asking you to throw away your preconceived ideas that are based on other people's interpretations and read them 12 Nidanas as they were first presented. You have no credibility until you have done this. What you have done is equivalent to taking the Big Bang Theory as George Bush or a monkey or Buddhaghosa might explain it, and dismissing the actual Big Bang Theory as useless nonsense as a result. :eek2:
If you are uninterested in simply learning how the 12 Nidanas are were originally presented, then we can go no further. Just understand that if you expect to change people's minds about them, it would be wise to educate yourself and understand them in their original context.
And, I did not deny "conversational Enlightenment." I said I do not blindly believe what the suttas say, including the 12 Nidanas, which the people you are talking to have authenticated through practice. :eek2:
"Conversational Enlightenment" as you call it is not relevent to me, so I do not seek to prove it or disprove it. It simply doesn't matter.
>>>But you are denying the teaching of paticcasammupada as presented in the suttas without actually looking at what the suttas say.
I have an idea! Can you paste me one example of the early sutras where the 12 Nidanas are shown complete and clearly.
>>>What you have done is equivalent to taking the Big Bang Theory as George Bush or a monkey might explain it, and dismissing the actual Big Bang Theory as useless nonsense as a result.
LOL. Can you tell me which commentators you know I must be refering to here? And can you tell me why they are "monkey writing" but the sutras are not?
See?
>>>You have no credibility until you have done this.
I care not about credibility! Thats all about ego, this isnt a competition to me. I want to know the foundational truths the Buddha discovered that allowed him to show all of the manifold aspects of dharma.
>>>And, I did not deny "conversational Enlightenment."
Ummm... you did. but lets not nitpick
Anyways, I look forward to your provision of the 12 Nidanas from the early scriptures in the most complete and clear sense:)
Dhamma and I have been trying to provide you with sutta references this entire time, and Dhamma has directly quoted suttas to prove you do not understand how they were originally presented, but you seem to have completely overlooked them.
For practical, everyday use of the 12 Nidanas: ignorance (essentially, ignorance of the 4NT/anatta/anicca/dukkha) leads to craving/clinging/attachment ("I want" or "I don't want") to the things that form our overall self-concept (either directly, as in, "this is me," or indirectly, as in "this is mine")... "birth" and "death (impermanence)" refer to the overall self-view of "I-and-mine," NOT the day you popped out of a vagina. When these things "die" (say, when your hair turns grey, when your car breaks down, when a belief is proven false, when a relationship ends etc.) it leads to the last nidana:
Soka-parideva-dukkha-<WBR>domanassupayasa sambhavan'ti
Sorrow, Lamentation, Pain, Grief and Despair. Evametassa kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassa samudayo hoti
Thus is the arising of this whole mass of suffering.
They accurately illustrate the arising and cessation of dukkha, which is what they are meant to do. What you describe does not.
LOL. Can you tell me which commentators you know I must be refering to here? And can you tell me why they are "monkey writing" but the sutras are not?
See?
No, I do not see. You are demonstrating poor reading comprehension. I have already explained this numerous times, and so you cause us to go in circles again: Buddhaghosa, as he interpreted them in the Visuddhimagga long after the idea first appeared in the suttas, which is where the rebirth interpretation comes from. You are dismissing the idea of the 12 Nidanas based on someone else's interpretation of them.You have admitted to not reading the suttas and refering to the original Pali in order to understand what the theory actually refers to, and just assume it's talking about literal rebirth because of what you've read ABOUT the theory.
You even said yourself that you haven't bothered with the suttas and rely on commentary: "You ignore my statements about what other commentators have said,
And force your faux orthodoxy into my face, with arrogance and blindness."
If you read the suttas and then deem them to be "monkey writings," then ok. But you have not read the suttas and so dismissing the original theory is equivalent to what I described in my previous post. :crazy:
Ummm... you did.
Mat, I did not. It's called "not caring" and "not holding a view either way." You might equate this with agnosticism. I said I do not believe it. That doesn't mean I outright deny it. It means I just don't give a flying- :crazy:
Two disciples were arguing. One said, "The Master said that men have Buddha nature, but dogs and cats don't." The other disciple said, "That's impossible, the Master could not have said anything like that." They both went to see Chao-chou. One said, "Master, you couldn't possibly have said anything like that." And the Master said, "You're right." But the other disciple said, "I'm positive that is what you said." And the Master said, "You re right." A third person, an attendant said, "But Master, only one of them can be right." And the Master said, "You're right."
In Ch'an we say that training and practice will make our discriminations disappear. These thoughts and feelings of liking or disliking come from our experience. If you can go back to the state before you were born, then you arrive at the point where discriminations do not exist. It no longer matters whether something is black or white. What is important is that your mind is free from discrimination and conceptualization.
I am pretty sure I read that a few years ago. That site is very popular with Sri Lankan Therevadans. Anyways, I have reread and thought and here are my thoughts.
Let us assume that this is the explicit, actual words of Buddha (You know I don't believe that, but for the sake of arguments).
I see, as I have always seen, how all of the 12 states are entailed by their antecedents.
I see how they can, as they have been, be linked into this causal chain.
I see, as I have always said, how this is a mechanism (assuming rebirth is metaphor, not literal) that explains one particular path of suffering.
Issues and Questions
(1) How do the 12 Nidanas explain the distinction between the Dukka entailed by Annica and that entailed by Anataman?
(2) How do the 12 Nidanas explain why it is necessarily the case that all things (there is no distinction between thing and contingent thing in Dharmic reality, I believe) are impermanent, empty, interconnected and tending towards the inevitable negative?
(3) Why is ignorance not mentioned here, I tried to see in the pali (avijja?) but that doenst make sense. It is in most other descriptions of the 12 Nidanyas.
(4) I haven't read through the Majima Nikaya but in Sutra 79 verse 7 (translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi) it says this "I shall teach you the Dhamma: When this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this,that ceases." What do you say to this? It seems incompatible with your view?
(5) " 'Consciousness comes from name-and-form as its requisite condition.'" but elsewhere we are told that Conciousness is the mind and the body.
(6) What is bhavo in the English? Its in the Pali.
I come over as nitpicking here, but it is important, because to me what this is in this and other accounts, is a "recipie" made oout of DO and not DO itself.
I see this just as one possible causal chain relevant to human suffering, not as the foundational causal structure of all human suffering and certainly not as the foundational principle of Dharmic Reality or Suffering in other possible domains. As I said previously, we can imagine beings that are not subject to each of the 12 conditions but that still expericne Dukka.
All possible beings expeirnce Dukka in various ways.
You asked my to read the full sutra which I did, and I have more questions.
You say it is not about literal rebirth, and I assumed you meant that like me you do not belive in majic and the supernatural. Yet this sutra recalls numerous times to concepts such as:
"human beings, some devas, and some beings in the lower realms"
"transmigration"
"planes of deprivation"
"celestials"
"demons"
"sphere of discernment"
How can you have both? Again, you seem forced to cherry pick?
Do you believe in Devas and transmigration?
Do you believe, as I believe and I am sure the Buddha belived, that this is our only life, it is short and rare and special and empty and all we can do to maximise the happiness of ourselves and others by following and teaching Dharma?
Now compare the thicket I have described above with the wonderful beautiful simple truths of the Dharma, those that can be written on a postcard or told to a man in a Potting shed so that overnight he attained Nibbana.
You are victim to the dominating hegemony of religion, as much as Christians or any other religion.
Be your own light, forget the suttras and find Dharma for youself:)
How can you have both? Again, you seem forced to cherry pick?
Do you believe in Devas and transmigration?
No. The key passage, for this question, is at the end:
<small>"Now, when a monk attains these eight emancipations in forward order, in reverse order, in forward and reverse order, when he attains them and emerges from them wherever he wants, however he wants, and for as long as he wants, when through the ending of the mental fermentations he enters and remains in the fermentation-free release of awareness and release of discernment, having directly known it and realized it in the here and now, he is said to be a monk released in both ways. And as for another release in both ways, higher or more sublime than this, there is none."
</small> The implication here is that what the Buddha has been describing is phenomenological, not ontological. That is, it is a representation of the "internal" experience of the "monk" as it evolves during the practice. It is not an assertion about a model for the "external" world which we should all share. The "devas" refer to a projected world view: the god realm, in which you feel yourself to be above all of the suffering in the world. The "transmigration" refers to the evolution from one projected world-view to another: one moment, you're in the hell realm, the next, you're in the god realm, etc., etc.
This is necessarily more complex than the this-that conditionality you have been describing, because it's describing a complex internal experience. But it's still potentially useful as a map. The relationship of your understanding of D.O. as this-that conditionality to ours as described in this sutra is like the relationship between on the one hand the understanding that a city is laid out on a grid, and on the other, a detailed street map.
>>>No. The key passage, for this question, is at the end...
No, the poster asked me to "please read the full sutra":) Hence why I picked up on those.
Doctrinal Buddhists have to cherry pick from their texts as much as Christians in order to remain consistent. That was and remains my point:)
>>>The implication here is that what the Buddha has been describing is phenomenological, not ontological.
Do you not see that phenomenon depend on Ontology? In the same was as eitiology depends on ontology?
>>>It is not an assertion about a model for the "external" world which we should all share.
There is no external world if you See Dharma, that's a big part of the whole point of the Buddha's teaching, as I see it. The world of phenomenon depend on the underlying reality (ontology). Now I agree that the Buddha doesnt describe WHAT this reality is at its foundational level, because we cannot possibly know, nor can he, nor can science.
but we can say what things must be true of this underlaying reality; this is what the three marks of existence are. And their truth sticks with all emergent things all the way up to my love of my mother or Saturn's rings.
If you do not agree with this you seem forced to choose between the Buddha being a mere bronze age psychologist or a mystical supernaturalist.
>>The "devas" refer to a projected world view: the god realm, in which you feel yourself to be above all of the suffering in the world.
Can you show me where in any text it says this? That is, where it says they are metapore rather than supposed supernatural beings.
Do you deny that many Buddhist do believe in Devas and Titans and magical realms as being actual things?
You simply cannot have it both ways. You cant have the truth of Dharma and the mumbo jumbo of Buddhism side by side, they are contradictory.
If you don't see the problem here, which is profound and real, please ask me where you need more clarification:)
>>>The "transmigration" refers to the evolution from one projected world-view to another: one moment, you're in the hell realm, the next, you're in the god realm.
Again, show me where it says its metaphore not literal.
>>>This is necessarily more complex than the this-that conditionality you have been describing
Its certainly more complex! But that doesn't mean its right:) Escpially when its inconsistent whereas core Dharma isn't. Do you believe in ockhams Razor and the Law of Noncontradiction?
Thank you for your time, I must say I am finding this very helpful and clarifying:) I hope you are:)
Comments
You are still clinging. Clinging to "self" and to views. This belief is considered Wrong View, but this is not to suggest that we go up to Heaven and live there forever after death, or that we're literally reborn into another body after death.
What does anatta mean to you? I agree with Fivebells:
An Awakened being fully realizes D.O. beyond this intellectual level. To an Awakened ("enlightened") one, there is no "self" to die. Anatta is difficult to put into words, and why meditation is so important.
When we die in the way you're describing, the conditions for consciousness to arise are no longer present. But we are not our consciousness, either. We aren't our minds. This seems to be what you're suggesting. You are equating "self" with these things.
Once we are dead, our body will return to the earth, which will feed the grass, which will feed the animals that feed the people which will lead to new life...
Before you were born, those exact same things eventually led to your birth (someone's body returned to the earth, which fed the grass, which fed the animals that fed your parents...).
Now, it's easy to look at those things, and say "those aren't ME, those aren't 'self.'" Now you have carry that understanding into the elements that form your overall self-concept in THIS life, including consciousness and the mind... there is ultimately no difference between those things, and what you call "self" now; those things are "you" and "not you" just as much as anything in what you call "my life." Carry the understanding of "'you' are dead in all senses" into this very moment.
When clinging to the self-concepts cease (when ignorance ceases), dukkha ceases, as the Nidanas accurately illustrate. You can experience this truth yourself. The full realization of this is called Nibbana or Enlightenment.
The question here is whether or not the Buddha identified the brain (or body) with the source of the mind. If he didn't (which is the more likely approach) nothing would stop the mind from going on after the body passed away, since it is not made of whatever it is this body is made of.
Seriously I don't think 2500 years ago they have even the means to suggest the mind was "inside" the brain. It was all philosophy. Descartes himself, thousands of years later than the Buddha, was still assuming that mind and body were separate.
Oddly enough, this discussion still continues even today, with the duality defenders being a minority when compared to the materialists. The table turns on a dime though, there was a time when the world was flat, and the atom was the smallest particle, and so on and so forth. It is not that science is wrong, is just that it is forever incomplete, so who knows.
>>>Not without your cooperation.
I am trying:)
>>>Roughly speaking, the position Dhatu, Mundus and I hold is that the Buddha's principal contribution was to teach a practice which ends suffering.
We can agree there, Magga is the way. I have no issues with that. But I would like to know, why is Magga the way?
And the reason I believe is because of the way sentient systems in finite possibility spaces (In this case humans on earth, but I belive it wuld be true of all possible systems) will inevitable be confronted by dukka because of tahna.
We could not have evolved as species or individuals without Tanha, and yet Tanha causes dukka. This is part what the Buddha saw, I believe. Its the great dilemma of all experience and it can only be solved by irradicating tanha.
>>>The sutras are the main pointer to how that practice works.
I simply cannot accept their authority over the self-evident truths of Dharma.
We cannot POSSIBLY know what the Buddha thought or taught about this things other than the fragments and memories and shared testemony of 500 monks, then 700 a hundred years later, then a thousands three hundred years later. Can you not see that?
This is why I believe we must forget the sutras except as vague parables and ask, "What possibly could the Buddha have discovered?"
And the answer there is self-evident, demonstrable, consistent, compatible with science and psychology and WONDERFUL!
>>>What's making this conversation difficult is that we're a community of practice, and you're pushing a reinterpretation of a key model we use to talk about our experiences with that practice.
Yes, because I believe the model that has evolved to "Buddhism" is contrary to Dharma.
>>>It's fine to deny all scriptural authority. Roughly speaking, I agree with you on that. But you're not going to get very far just by claiming your interpretation is more logically consistent, especially since you don't really have the tools or data to demonstrate it.
I think I have demonstrated it, the problem for you is that the reality is just not as "deep" as what Buddhism claims.
Do you see what I am trying to do to show how Annica, Anatama Dukka must necessarily emerge from the conditionality of all things/events? I suspect you don't, if not please tell me where you are not seeing things clearly:)
>>>The contradictions you highlighted are probably a result of translation mismatches, for instance. Have you gone back to the primary sources, and verified that you can find the contradictions there, too?
A primary source would be written by the Buddha. There is no such thing, the closest we have is 250 years after his death, at least. This is the "elephant in the room" of Buddhism, isnt it?
>>>What that means, practically speaking, is that if you want to convince us that your interpretation is superior, you need to demonstrate the impact it has on the practice of Buddhism, and demonstrate that that impact is desirable.
Not at all, we can agree on greatness of Magga and Dharma Pracitice:)
I cannot fault that, but not because I blindly accept it because somone once said it but because I can see how Magga must emerge from Dukka, just as the Buddha is said to have described:)
Mat
>>>The question here is whether or not the Buddha identified the brain (or body) with the source of the mind.
The Buddha clearly described what the mind is, it is the Five aggregates, nothing more. All the rest of the "majic" kama as majic, ataman as this "candle lighting another candle" came much later:)
For me, of course the Buddish wasnt a dualist.
>>>Seriously I don't think 2500 years ago they have even the means to suggest the mind was "inside" the brain.
Wow. You underestimate the profound power of mediation, insight and contemplation very much with this statement.
>>>Descartes himself, thousands of years later than the Buddha, was still assuming that mind and body were separate.
The buddha was completely anticartesian. He denied the cogito explcitly in the realsiation of the Skandhas.
>>>Oddly enough, this discussion still continues even today, with the duality defenders being a minority when compared to the materialists.
It doesn't continue between reasonable people, just those who belive in god and soul and majic etc
>>>The table turns on a dime though, there was a time when the world was flat, and the atom was the smallest particle, and so on and so forth. It is not that science is wrong, is just that it is forever incomplete, so who knows.
The Buddha knew;) I know. Most scientists and psychologists know and anyone who wishes to apply reason to their experience can know too!
Dharma isnt rocket science, though rockets are subject to Dharma:)
Mat
So you agree that the Buddha's teachings were meant to lead one to the quenching of dukkha. And you also agree that your relabeling of Conditionality as "Dependent Origination" fails to illustrate how this can be accomplished?
This is poor reading comprehension. No one is claiming the Buddha himself wrote the suttas. But if you properly comprehend the suttas, and not assume a Brahman's poor interpretation of them hundreds of years later accurately explains what the suttas taught, then you will see that the suttas are the road map to the quenching of dukkha.
Our understanding has lead to experience firsthand how dukkha can be cut off at its source, which is what we agree the Buddha's teachings are aimed at. Yours does not. How is it superior?
No one else you've been speaking to in this Thread has blindly accepted anything, either. You might notice that our understanding goes against the common interpretation of the Nidanas. You are completely shut off to the idea, and therefore failing to interpret them in the way Dhamma has illustrated, which has nothing to do with "mysticism" or the like. You have blindly accepted Buddhaghosa's interpretation of the 12 Nidanas is an accurate interpretation of the suttas, have you not?
The primary source we have at our disposal is the original Pali of the Tipitaka. Have you gone back to the Pali versions? Or are you basing your opinions on poor translations and commentary that turns the 12 Nidanas into a teaching of scoreboard kamma and literal rebirth....
If everything was body why did he divide it into aggregates? What is up with nama rupa duality? I am not saying you are either wrong or right, but it seems to me that whether or not the Buddha was materialistic or dualistic is something that deserves more consideration.
>>>So he came to the conclusion that "life is suffering and there's no escape" and that's it?
Not at all. He clearly found the escape, it is The Noble Eightfold Path.
>>>The purpose of Dependent Origination is SOLELY to illustrate how dukkha arises. It has no other purpose.
I disagree. I think it shows how it all arises, including The Three Marks and all they entail.
>>>The Buddha stated that he taught only one thing, and that is the quenching of dukkha.
1) We cannot know what the buddha stated
2) One cannot quench dukka without understanding the why and the how of Dukka! That's the whole point:)
>>>Your very essay is written with sutta citations. You have just switched the name of Conditionality to Dependent Origination, said there's no escape from dukkha, and called it a day.
You may have read my essay with a "sutra sniper" attitude, but from your comment I dont think you have thought about it, else you wouldnt have said that.
>>>If the suttas aren't good enough, then what are you basing your opinions on?
I base it on the self evident truth of all of Dharma. Maybe you should abandon the suttras for a while and see what you can work out about Dharma all on your own, like The Buddha did, like I have. It is very simple when you remove the pollutants:)
>>>How can you say you know what the Buddha said?
Here is an example that may illustrate. Imagine the Buddha discovered relativity and taught it during his lifetime. Butafter his death for countless reasons it become distorted into being E=MC3. And here we are today studying his teachings and we find something amiss.
E=MC3 doesn't make sense, it seems wrong, it seems to allow things that are inconsistent and falsifiably and so on. And so we look and realise that he must have meant E=MC2! I think that is analogous.
To strech the analogy and make it fit with history, we can say, without question, that ideas like E=MC3 were around for millenia before the buddhas time.
Dharma, like relativity, was around before the earth was formed. If the Buddha discovered Dharma, then to see what he discovered, we need only look to reality and see...
>>>How can you say he even existed?
It doesn't matter to me if he existed or not. But some great mind discovered Dharma, that much none of us can disagree with:)
>>>And where precisely did you get the "first principles" from if not the suttas...?
Well, for the last 5 years I have been thinking about Dharma using what I call zero point universes. These are thought experimmnets of systems that can be used to look at reality.
For example, imagine a universe that consists of 1 point. Does it have change or size or duration, no, it has, at best mere existance.
But a 2 point universe, that must have at lease properties such as connection. And so on.
When you add change to the zeropoint universe it follows that if thereis any change, then there can only be all change, or else one ends up with a contradiction. This leads into annica.
It also follows that if all points are connected, which necessarily they are in a single universe, then there can be no point which is distinct from the change of the other points. This in part leads to anataman because it prevents the possibility of there being isolated points.
When you add change you must either have random change or causal change, nothing else. So it follows from causation that all change is necessarily both effect and cause, this combined with interconectivity is the other part that leads to anataman.
As per the card deck example in my essay, all change reduces the possibility space. So when you have emergent self aware, valuing systems that must have survival as an attractor (else they wouldn't have emerged) it follows that there will be the awareness of the restricted and impermanent possibility space. This is the seed of dukka, if you like it is a proto dukka. It becomes dukka in the suffering sense only when there is the property of a to be aware of its own internal states (like we humans).
I believe the Buddha came to similar conclusions by his own contemplation and meditation.
Mat
You simply cannot call something written down nearly three hundreds years after its origination "primary."
>>>Have you gone back to the Pali versions?
I would need to go back to the Magadhi version to get the word of the Buddha, but they have never existed;)
Be more critical!:)
DO contains all of the other teachings, yes. But for the sake of simplicity: DO = arising of dukkha and thus the cessation of dukkha. The first Nidana, ignorance, refers to the 4NT/dukkha/anicca/anatta...
1) If you do not agree that the main point of his teachings is the quenching of dukkha, then what do you believe they are, and on what do you base this? Surely, you started with the suttas....
2) So you DO agree that that was the main thing he taught...? Yes, I agree, and understanding the why and how of dukkha is what the Nidanas teach, as Dhamma clearly illustrated.
My point is that you too started with the suttas. Your essay is full of concepts that you consider vital to the Dhamma that originated in the suttas.
You aren't listening. Just as they pointed the way for you, they point the way for me and others in this Thread. I don't blindly believe anything I read in the suttas, and even if I did, believing in those things wouldn't get me anywhere. It's practice that yeilds results.
Let's keep this simple:
1. Is the purpose of his teachings to quench dukkha?
2. Do you disagree with Dhamma's explanation of how the 12 Nidanas illustrate how dukkha arises, in the post I linked to above?
Hi, Mat. You aren't reading us carefully. It's a little inconsiderate, and tiring.
The point was, you note contradictions between different English translations of different sections of the Tipitaka, and this could simply be a matter of mismatches between the translations. The only way to make a start on verifying these contradictions would be to go back to the primary source, the original Pali. Of course, that wouldn't be entirely convincing, either, because the Pali itself is a translation, but it would be a start, and would be convincing to most people who accept the Pali canon as authoritative.
Anyway, it sounds like you've got a good thing going there at the moment, and I wish you well with it. I would be grateful if you would just keep this conversation in mind, if it ever seems like things aren't working out for you so well anymore.
>>>1) If you do not agree that the main point of his teachings is the quenching of dukkha, then what do you believe they are, and on what do you base this? Surely, you started with the suttas....
I believe that that is his core teaching, I am even happy to accept the 12 Niadanas as being a metaphorical exposition of the Four Noble truths. But the reasonings that lead him to the 4NT etc are what interests me here, because by seeing this we see dharma, from first principles.
>>>My point is that you too started with the suttas. Your essay is full of concepts that you consider vital to the Dhamma that originated in the suttas.
Clearly the suttras are connected with The Buddha! I am not saying they are not. i am saying they have been corrupted and it is us to us to find out whats Dharma and what is not. And the only way to do that is to go back to the first principle.
>>>It's practice that yeilds results.
I agree, and the key to that for me is Right View. I think you are mistaken in your view, you think I am:) You spout suttra, I deny the authority of sutra.
>>>1. Is the purpose of his teachings to quench dukkha?
Yes, by showing reality as it is and the emmergent truths that reality entails to do with the human condition.
>>>Do you disagree with Dhamma's explanation of how the 12 Nidanas illustrate how dukkha arises, in the post I linked to above?
I think they are based on a mistaken conflatation of various examples of DO "links" into the convoluted chain of 12. But yes, on paper they show DO in action, in reality they are a bloated later interpretation of the Second Noble truth.
In other words, they are not needed to understand Dharma and they add problems as discussed.
DO was around at the big bang. The 12 Nidanas were not:)
Mat
>>You aren't reading uscarefully. It's a little inconsiderate, and tiring too!:)
It is very much the same in reverser:)
None of you wish to try to forget the suttras and start again, why would you not? If Dharma is truth there must be countless ways to arrive at it?
>>>and would be convincing to most people who accept the Pali canon as authoritative.
That argument is exactly analogious with the Bible:)
Be more critical and be well:)
Mat
So you do agree that his core teaching was the quenching of dukkha.
But you do not believe that the Buddha was free of dukkha or that it's possible to be free of dukkha... you do not believe he was able to quench dukkha...
You agree that the Highest Teaching is that of Dependent Origination. Dhamma's explanation explains perfectly how Dukkha arises and is based on the explanation provided in the suttas, that is, the 12 Nidanas. If this traditional teaching (the 12 Nidanas) accurately illustrates the arising of suffering, surely it illustrates too how suffering can be quenched. Therefore, it makes sense that this is the Highest Teaching.
Yet you would like to do away with the 12 Nidanas for some reason. You have relabelled Conditionality as "Dependent Origination." And you have admitted that this has no real use in the quenching of dukkha:
And that, despite supposedly being "enlightenend" and being the only one on the planet to truly understand DO, you still experience dukkha, which is what you agree the Buddha's teachings seek to end:
:eek2:
And you have still failed to explain how the 12 Nidanas as taught in the suttas (NOT as explained hundreds of years later by a Brahman who could not get the idea of literal rebirth out of his head) are a "corruption."
Ah, so HERE is the problem. Yes, DO, in the broader sense, can refer to absolutely anything (as in, absolutely everything is conditioned). But for the sake of the Buddha's core teaching on the quenching of Dukkha, the 12 Nidanas are what DO refers to, as they illustrate how DUKKHA arises. Dukkha arises through self-identification, clinging, and ignorance. When ignorance (of the 4NT/dukkha/anatta/anicca) ceases, self-identification ceases, clinging ceases, and thus dukkha ceases. Understanding what conditioned the "beginning of the universe" is not relevent to my practice or to what we agree is the Buddha's core teaching. The Buddha taught only one thing: the quenching of dukkha.
Your explanation:
does not compare to how the 12 Nidanas illustrate the arising and quenching of dukkha.
Dhamma's example clearly shows the arising of dukkha in absolutely any situation. Yours illustrates something ("if I walk up to your door, I will be on your doorstep") a 1st grader already understands. Idappaccayata is important and relevent but not in the way you've explained.
We have "forgotten the suttas" just as much as you have. You took a teaching, relabelled it, and got... something out of it. We took another teaching, without relabelling it, and got a lot more out of it. We cannot show you the significance of the 12 Nidanas as taught in the suttas beyond what we've tried to already. You have to make the journey over to the meditation cusion.
Good luck.
That is my point. that was the point of my essay. That has consistently been my point throughout this rather fractious debate:) DO is the fundamental principle of causal and counter-factual conditionals. We agree:)
>>>Understanding what conditioned the "beginning of the universe" is not relevent to my practice or to what we agree is the Buddha's core teaching.
I agree, nor have I said otherwise. My point mentinioning the big bang was about the anthropic element of the 12 nidyas.
>>>Dhamma's example clearly shows the arising of dukkha in absolutely any situation. Yours illustrates something ("if I walk up to your door, I will be on your doorstep") a 1st grader already understands. Idappaccayata is important and relevent but not in the way you've explained.
Of course, its not complex! Buddhism has made it complex and mysterious, when clearly it isn't, at least clearly to me:)
Good luck to you too, I think that whilst you set in stone that which clearly cannot be, we cant really get further here.
best wishes
Mat
We do not agree. Please read the rest of my response which explains why this definition of D.O. is not relevent to the Buddha's core teaching of the quenching of dukkha.
The 12 Nidanas are the teaching of D.O. in relation to the Buddha's teachings; the 12 Nidanas illustrate the arising of dukkha. There is no anthropic element in the original presentation of the 12 Nidanas. Go to the source, and stop relying on hearsay. The problem can be found on your blog:
You are trying to twist things to suit your purpose. That's fine, and if it helps you, great. But what makes your explanation superior to what we've been explaining of the 12 Nidanas? How does your explanation lead to understanding dukkha and how to end dukkha better than what we've been describing?
...?
We do on the "broader sense" unless you now wish to contradict what you said? Where we disagree is on the applicability of that Broad sense to Dharma and Dharma practice:)
>>>Please read the rest of my response which explains why this definition of D.O. is not relevent to the Buddha's core teaching of the quenching of dukkha.
I did read and as said, i disagree. I have also read the long essay on DO that's often cited here. It was interesting but I guess I miss the point you so clearly see.
Peace
mat
Could you explain what this is about?
Sure, you seem to ground your Dharma understanding in the Suttra's as if they are the word of some God. It doesn't seem that you try to test them, refute them, find errors in them or in any way be "scientific" about what they say or how they developed.
I see them as the product of thousands of normal, error prone humans who, if you accept the reasons for the first 3 councils, had conflicting agendas and squabbles. But this isnt relevant to you.
Nor it seems is the evident skeptcism that peeks out at us from the sutras.
I will not believe anything as certain unless it is certainly so, unless it stands to my attempts to refute.
You ignore the clear inconsistencies in the texts (eg as discussed about DO) and assume they are "translation errors". You cannot pick and choose if you want certainty.
You seem to push enlightemnet into the darkness of mysticism and ignore the fact that at the Buddha's time, if you accept the Sutras, people were being enlightened after just a few moments with the Buddha. How do you explain that? Did he cast a spell? Or did he explain something simple, true and profound?
You cant have it both ways and claim to be rational and reasonable.
Thats what I mean:)
Mat
Not quite.
I have experienced the truth of the arising of dukkha and cessation of dukkha as taught through the nidanas of D.O. firsthand. :eek2:
Same. You've yet to show how the nidanas do not accurately illustrate the arising of each instance of dukkha. :eek2:
How so? It's quite simple, really. When the mind is not clinging to a self-concept, when anatta/dukkha/anicca are fully comprehended on a deep, experiential level, dukkha is quenched, for that time. Have you ever experienced this in meditation?
If that self-concept is completely released in the way I describe in posts 51/52, dukkha is fully quenched, and this is Nibbana. This is very straight-forward and rational. This is not mystical at all. :eek2:
So you accept the suttas in this instance as well.
What Dhamma has been explaining to you is simple, true, and profound. What the suttas explain is simple, true, and profound.
Until you explain how the nidanas do not completely illustrate the arising of dukkha at any time (and thus the quenching of dukkha), and how they are not simple, true, and profound... :eek2:
You just do the "Ahh well unless you have experienced it through deep vissipana meditation you cannot come close," line, that is a cop-out, really.
Please simply answer this question:
Do you believe, in the time of The Buddha, that people became enlightened after just a short time talking with the Buddha?
Yes or No or lets stop:)
I don't "believe" anything. How would I know? If they did, it wasn't because they understood it intellectually, it was because the words were so shocking, true, and profound, it shattered their reality, they understood it directly, they attained Nibbana and dukkha ceased. I don't see that in your words. You yourself do not see that in your words; you said this hasn't affected your practice at all and you still experience dukkha yet think you're "enlightened."
What does that have to do with anything? :wtf:
Please explain to me what the point of his teachings are. You say his teachings are aimed to quench dukkha. But you say quenching dukkha is not possible.
What, in your mind, causes dukkha? Please explain precisely. Not what you posted on your blog. A direct, straightforward answer. (Mine is: incomplete understanding of dukkha/anatta/anicca, which leads to clinging of everything that forms our self-concept; the death/impermanence of these things leads to dukkha because we think of them as "me" or "mine"; when something that is "me" or "mine" decays (such as a relationship, my car, whatever), I experience dukkha; when something that is not "me" or "mine" decays (such as someone else's relationship, someone else's car, etc.), I do not experience dukkha; thus, when I see these things for what they are, and not as "me" or "mine," dukkha ceases to arise).
And again:
Please explain what your blog post adds to the nidanas/how it is superior and leads to the quenching of dukkha whereas the nidanas do not. :eek2:
You see, you wont answer me:) Either people were enlightened by conversation with the Buddha (As some sutras say) or they were not.
It is a yes or no answer:)
>>>What does that have to do with anything? :wtf:
When you answer me, I will explain exactly what it has to do... with everything:) I will also answer your question! But you are avoiding lots of my points so please, be reasonable and answer me here:)
Thanks
Mat
Can you please answer the following:
OK, so you are denying these aspects of the Sutras but not others? on what authority do you do this? Do you see how you are being inconsistent here?
>>>What, in your mind, causes dukkha? Please explain precisely. Not what you posted on your blog. A direct, straightforward answer.
Dukka is caused by the inevitable negative aspects of reality. In the case of sufficiently complex systems such as humans it's prime causes is an attachment to the illusions of "objects" such as egos, possessions, achievenements, sensations and so on....
Ultimately it is caused by a the necessary conditionality of all possible system states (Dependent Origination).
Do you understand the concept of emmergence? I think you should look to that and you will better see where I come from.
>>>Until you explain how the nidanas do not completely illustrate the arising of dukkha at any time (and thus the quenching of dukkha), and how they are not simple, true, and profound...
They may be true! But they are not the root cause and they are not the first principle. I really get the impression you just dont listen:) For example, we can imagine a being that has no craving but still experiences Dukka due not to their attachment but due to their realisation of imperimance, in and off itself. The difference is subtle but profound.
Do you now see? Forget the sutras and focus on what I said please:)
Mat
No. I do not believe it, but I don't deny it. I don't believe it because I wasn't there, and I haven't experienced this myself. This is irrelevent.........
.........because I have experienced the 12 Nidanas as the truth of D.O. that leads to the quenching of dukkha firsthand.
Again, I don't see your point. You are convinced I accept the suttas as fact with no proof, but I do not.
"Negative" is subjective. Something is only dukkha when we attach ourselves to it. If my boyfriend left me, I would suffer, you would not. Why?
This is true of anything that causes dukkha.
Thus you see no escape. If I did not cling to my boyfriend as "mine," as Dhamma explained earlier, as forming an aspect of my self-identification, would I still experience dukkha if he left me?
Please stop suggesting I am focusing on the suttas. You too have quoted the suttas in your blog post. I am focused on personal experience, which has validated the 12 Nidanas as they appear in the suttas.
You have contradicted yourself three times in three posts now:) You cannot be reasonable, it seems:) I can only be reasonable.
>>>This is irrelevent.........
And you say its irrelevant, it completely isn't, its about the very nature of enlightenment: Is it esoteric or matter of fact. Was the Buddha mystic or a rationalist philosopher? Etc.
>>>Again, I don't see your point.
I see very clearly that you don't see my point, and suspect that you never will.
We should stop now, I wish you the best:)
Its been draining!:)
Dharma blessings,
Mat
No,
Take
...
...
...
...:)
Your reactions to the suttas and denial of the Buddha's here & now complete Nibbana show you have not tasted Nibbana. That is why I am 100% right. In fact, you yourself denied your penetration of Nibbana not I. If proclaim to the whole world I do not believe the world is round, it is an obvious conclusion I have never travelled around the world. Cool. So why deny the suttas? The DO is the suttas is the same as my example and no other.
If one takes seriously the three lifetimes version, there is a birth (without birth) at consciousness and a death (without death) at attachment plus another death at suffering. In 12 links there are 3 births and 3 deaths (or something like that).
This is all DO is. The formula ends with the whole mass of suffering and ends with the cessation of the whole mass of suffering.
I mentioned already. Iddapaccayatta (conditionality) occurs to all systems but not paticcasummupada. Paticcasummupada is a subset or type of iddapaccayatta.
For example, the water cycle or the evolution of the physical universe are examples of iddapaccayatta but not paticcasummupada. This is because physical things do not experience suffering.
But the theories about the causes of World War II are paticcasummupada because they involve human ignorance that leads to suffering.
The Buddha had no "profound metaphysical realisation". There is nothing profound about the metaphysical. The profoundity of DO it is the discernment of dukkha but most importantly the opposite, namely, the end of dukkha.
Your blog is merely some generalisations about various dhammas. It offers nothing to a learned Buddhist & practitioner.
It is best you learn from what some of us here are sharing with you rather than try to teach.
As the Zen Masters say: "Empty your teacup".
My recommendation is drop your ego and drop your blog.
The suttas depict the reality of the human mind, ego creation, the arising of suffering and most of all the cessation of suffering. As the suttas describe these matter 100% correctly, they are the words of the Buddha or of a Buddha.
In brief, your argument is irrelevent because you are asserting views about history where my posts are about the reality of human suffering which has not changed since the dawn of history.
Your arguements are akin to saying we cannot prove Newton discovered the laws of gravity (whatever). As the laws of gravity were described correctly, it is irrelevent whether it was Newton or not who discovered them. What is relevent was they were discovered and described correctly. However, because I myself have no knowledge of the laws of physics, I myself personally am not in a position to judge whether what Newton said is correct or not.
The same applies to you. You yourself personally are not in a position to judge the authenticity of the suttas because your mind is obviously unenlightened because you do not believe the Buddha fully extinguished his minds suffering, because you deny the 12 links and because you regard meta-physics as profound.
Kind regards
Your arrogance is quite astounding to me:) Were you once a far right Christian minister?
>>>Your reactions to the suttas and denial of the Buddha's here & now complete Nibbana show you have not tasted Nibbana. That is why I am 100% right.
LOL! outrageous!
I have tasted Nibanna, it tastes of truth, cold and hard and empty, but truth.
>>>Cool. So why deny the suttas?
I deny their foundational authority.
Do you agree that:
The Buddha didnt speak Palli?
None of the Buddha's teachings were written down at the time of his life?
None were written down for two hundred years at least until after his death?
They they were "passed on" verbally by many fallible normal monks?
Why would you assume that after this process those first words written on palm frongs would be the exact words of the Buddha?!
Its a total nonsense to assume that even the first sutras were exact and accurate representations of his lifetime teachings. What am I missing here?
>>>The DO is the suttas is the same as my example and no other.
I spent some time going over my library today and I can find many books that cite the contrary. most of the books are Sri lankan Therevadan texts and copies of suttras. I was reading when your mail came in Nyanatilooka's Dictionary on DO/ps, it cites: "Dependent origination is the doctrine of all psycial and psycological phenominon..." it then goes on to descibe the 12 Conditions as a "forumula" expressing the doctrine:)
>>>>I mentioned already. Iddapaccayatta (conditionality) occurs to all systems but not paticcasummupada. Paticcasummupada is a subset or type of iddapaccayatta.
Not the case, imho. Conditionality is the actual relationship, if p then q, not p not q etc. Dependent Origination is that relationship in all logically possible instances.
>>>The Buddha had no "profound metaphysical realisation".
i disagree:) I think its very clear he must have.
>>>Your blog is merely some generalisations about various dhammas. It offers nothing to a learned Buddhist & practitioner.
I think simply you dont understand what I was doing:) if you did you would be able to confirm or deny it internally, rather than just patronise the author:)
>>>Your blog is close to worthless so simply drop it.
>>>The suttas depict the realiyy of the human mind, ego creation, the arising of suffering and most of all the cessation of suffering. As the suttas describe these matter 100% correctly, they are the words of the Buddha or of a Buddha.
As said above, nonsense, they cannot possibly be the 100% the words of The Buddha.
Try to be nice if you reply, it undermines your arguments when you get so bitchy:)
Mat
Paticcasammupada is a specific application for the Buddha's mission & priority, namely, the eradication of human suffering.
Buddha said: "In the past & now, all I teach is suffering & freedom from suffering".
But you are teaching about the origin of the universe & metaphysics.
You know, this debate already stinks of hell-realm mentality... Do we really need to Godwin it, too?
I am unconcerned with what you regard as "undermines".
I am not here to love you and give your mind another attachment.
The Buddha said:
God bless.
I have no time now and said most of what I could say.
Maybe at a later time.
Kind regards
DDhatu
I do not deny the concept you've presented. However, you must understand that main purpose of the Buddha's teachings is the quenching of dukkha.
As Dhamma has explained, iddappaccayatta (conditionality) is what you are discussing, and this concept too comes up in the suttas. As you yourself have said, this understanding, that everything is conditioned, has not added anything to your practice, and what you presented in your blog does not add anything to our practices, either.
As Dhamma has also explained, paticcasammupada (Dependent Origination which by definition includes the 12 Links) is a specific concept that illustrates the arising of mental suffering (dukkha) and thus how to end it... in other words, conditionality, but specifically of the arising of dukkha. The 12 Links as they appear in the suttas, as Dhamma has illustrated, has been of significant benefit to our practices. Therefore, why would we deny them, and instead replace them with another concept that already comes up in the suttas, that you yourself say has no effect on practice...
We are not asking you to accept the suttas as fact; one last time, the issue can be seen right here your blog post:
Instead of asking a "learned Buddhist," or reading "texts concerning it," go back to the original suttas that first describe this concept. As has been said, what you are claiming the 12 Links to be is as Buddhaghosa interpreted them later on. Read the 12 Links as they first appeared and consider them for yourself instead of dismissing them due to others' misunderstandings.
"Rebirth" does not appear in the 12 Links (go back to the Pali versions of the suttas and show me where it appears) because the 12 Links have nothing to do with rebirth. Likewise, "suffering" is not part of the 12 Links, but comes after the 12th.
So clearly you have not done proper research of the 12 Links as they first appeared in the suttas, and therefore have not tested to see if they are true yourself and what effect this would have on your practice.
You ask me to go back to the suttras,
But you deny the conversational enlightenment aspects of the sutras.
You want depths but not the shallows.
I think Dharmna starts shallow, you will no tread there.
You think I do not see Dharma, when I am sure I see it.
You think I do not understand Dharma, when I see it aright.
You ignore my statements about what other commentators have said,
And force your faux orthodoxy into my face, with arrogance and blindness.
You think because I see the 12 conditions as mere instance, not foundation,
My entire practice is worthless.
You refuse to try to start again, to relinquish doctrine and try insight and contemplation.
You ignore the history of Buddhism as if it is irrelevant.
You cherry pick from the tree,
But dare not look at the roots.
See.
See?
You are causing us to go in circles. You have validated the truth of the teaching of iddappaccayatta as it appears in the suttas, correct?
But you are denying the teaching of paticcasammupada as presented in the suttas without actually looking at what the suttas say. I am not asking you to blindly follow it; I am asking you to throw away your preconceived ideas that are based on other people's interpretations and read them 12 Nidanas as they were first presented. You have no credibility until you have done this. What you have done is equivalent to taking the Big Bang Theory as George Bush or a monkey or Buddhaghosa might explain it, and dismissing the actual Big Bang Theory as useless nonsense as a result. :eek2:
If you are uninterested in simply learning how the 12 Nidanas are were originally presented, then we can go no further. Just understand that if you expect to change people's minds about them, it would be wise to educate yourself and understand them in their original context.
And, I did not deny "conversational Enlightenment." I said I do not blindly believe what the suttas say, including the 12 Nidanas, which the people you are talking to have authenticated through practice. :eek2:
"Conversational Enlightenment" as you call it is not relevent to me, so I do not seek to prove it or disprove it. It simply doesn't matter.
The irony amuses me.
I have an idea!
>>>What you have done is equivalent to taking the Big Bang Theory as George Bush or a monkey might explain it, and dismissing the actual Big Bang Theory as useless nonsense as a result.
LOL. Can you tell me which commentators you know I must be refering to here? And can you tell me why they are "monkey writing" but the sutras are not?
See?
>>>You have no credibility until you have done this.
I care not about credibility! Thats all about ego, this isnt a competition to me. I want to know the foundational truths the Buddha discovered that allowed him to show all of the manifold aspects of dharma.
>>>And, I did not deny "conversational Enlightenment."
Ummm... you did. but lets not nitpick
Anyways, I look forward to your provision of the 12 Nidanas from the early scriptures in the most complete and clear sense:)
Thanks
Mat
For your reference: http://www.metta.lk/tipitaka/
Dhamma and I have been trying to provide you with sutta references this entire time, and Dhamma has directly quoted suttas to prove you do not understand how they were originally presented, but you seem to have completely overlooked them.
As I said, please refer to DN 15: http://www.metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/1Digha-Nikaya/Digha2/15-mahanidana-p.html (original Pali)
AN English translation (it is up to you to look up the Pali words in actual dictionaries (not "Buddhist dictionaries"), to make sure the translations are accurate, and to look for other English translations): http://www.metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/1Digha-Nikaya/Digha2/15-mahanidana-e2.html
As you can see, no "rebirth."
Please read the entire sutta carefully.
Then, go back to Dhamma's earlier post for an example of this sequence playing out: http://newbuddhist.com/forum/showpost.php?p=71576&postcount=48
The 12 Nidanas illustrate the following:
They accurately illustrate the arising and cessation of dukkha, which is what they are meant to do. What you describe does not.
No, I do not see. You are demonstrating poor reading comprehension. I have already explained this numerous times, and so you cause us to go in circles again: Buddhaghosa, as he interpreted them in the Visuddhimagga long after the idea first appeared in the suttas, which is where the rebirth interpretation comes from. You are dismissing the idea of the 12 Nidanas based on someone else's interpretation of them. You have admitted to not reading the suttas and refering to the original Pali in order to understand what the theory actually refers to, and just assume it's talking about literal rebirth because of what you've read ABOUT the theory.
You even said yourself that you haven't bothered with the suttas and rely on commentary: "You ignore my statements about what other commentators have said,
And force your faux orthodoxy into my face, with arrogance and blindness."
If you read the suttas and then deem them to be "monkey writings," then ok. But you have not read the suttas and so dismissing the original theory is equivalent to what I described in my previous post. :crazy:
Mat, I did not. It's called "not caring" and "not holding a view either way." You might equate this with agnosticism. I said I do not believe it. That doesn't mean I outright deny it. It means I just don't give a flying- :crazy:
Edit-
Fivebells, I don't know why you deleted your post, because it linked to an excellent example..: http://www.metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-Pitaka/2Majjhima-Nikaya/Majjhima1/038-mahatanhasankhaya-sutta-e1.html
Two disciples were arguing. One said, "The Master said that men have Buddha nature, but dogs and cats don't." The other disciple said, "That's impossible, the Master could not have said anything like that." They both went to see Chao-chou. One said, "Master, you couldn't possibly have said anything like that." And the Master said, "You're right." But the other disciple said, "I'm positive that is what you said." And the Master said, "You re right." A third person, an attendant said, "But Master, only one of them can be right." And the Master said, "You're right."
In Ch'an we say that training and practice will make our discriminations disappear. These thoughts and feelings of liking or disliking come from our experience. If you can go back to the state before you were born, then you arrive at the point where discriminations do not exist. It no longer matters whether something is black or white. What is important is that your mind is free from discrimination and conceptualization.
I am pretty sure I read that a few years ago. That site is very popular with Sri Lankan Therevadans. Anyways, I have reread and thought and here are my thoughts.
Let us assume that this is the explicit, actual words of Buddha (You know I don't believe that, but for the sake of arguments).
I see, as I have always seen, how all of the 12 states are entailed by their antecedents.
I see how they can, as they have been, be linked into this causal chain.
I see, as I have always said, how this is a mechanism (assuming rebirth is metaphor, not literal) that explains one particular path of suffering.
Issues and Questions
(1) How do the 12 Nidanas explain the distinction between the Dukka entailed by Annica and that entailed by Anataman?
(2) How do the 12 Nidanas explain why it is necessarily the case that all things (there is no distinction between thing and contingent thing in Dharmic reality, I believe) are impermanent, empty, interconnected and tending towards the inevitable negative?
(3) Why is ignorance not mentioned here, I tried to see in the pali (avijja?) but that doenst make sense. It is in most other descriptions of the 12 Nidanyas.
(4) I haven't read through the Majima Nikaya but in Sutra 79 verse 7 (translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi) it says this "I shall teach you the Dhamma: When this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this,that ceases." What do you say to this? It seems incompatible with your view?
(5) " 'Consciousness comes from name-and-form as its requisite condition.'" but elsewhere we are told that Conciousness is the mind and the body.
(6) What is bhavo in the English? Its in the Pali.
I come over as nitpicking here, but it is important, because to me what this is in this and other accounts, is a "recipie" made oout of DO and not DO itself.
I see this just as one possible causal chain relevant to human suffering, not as the foundational causal structure of all human suffering and certainly not as the foundational principle of Dharmic Reality or Suffering in other possible domains. As I said previously, we can imagine beings that are not subject to each of the 12 conditions but that still expericne Dukka.
All possible beings expeirnce Dukka in various ways.
You asked my to read the full sutra which I did, and I have more questions.
You say it is not about literal rebirth, and I assumed you meant that like me you do not belive in majic and the supernatural. Yet this sutra recalls numerous times to concepts such as:
"human beings, some devas, and some beings in the lower realms"
"transmigration"
"planes of deprivation"
"celestials"
"demons"
"sphere of discernment"
How can you have both? Again, you seem forced to cherry pick?
Do you believe in Devas and transmigration?
Do you believe, as I believe and I am sure the Buddha belived, that this is our only life, it is short and rare and special and empty and all we can do to maximise the happiness of ourselves and others by following and teaching Dharma?
Now compare the thicket I have described above with the wonderful beautiful simple truths of the Dharma, those that can be written on a postcard or told to a man in a Potting shed so that overnight he attained Nibbana.
You are victim to the dominating hegemony of religion, as much as Christians or any other religion.
Be your own light, forget the suttras and find Dharma for youself:)
Peace
Mat
I just didn't want to risk potentially further muddying waters already muddied by selective attention. Thank you for the feedback.
No. The key passage, for this question, is at the end: </small> The implication here is that what the Buddha has been describing is phenomenological, not ontological. That is, it is a representation of the "internal" experience of the "monk" as it evolves during the practice. It is not an assertion about a model for the "external" world which we should all share. The "devas" refer to a projected world view: the god realm, in which you feel yourself to be above all of the suffering in the world. The "transmigration" refers to the evolution from one projected world-view to another: one moment, you're in the hell realm, the next, you're in the god realm, etc., etc.
This is necessarily more complex than the this-that conditionality you have been describing, because it's describing a complex internal experience. But it's still potentially useful as a map. The relationship of your understanding of D.O. as this-that conditionality to ours as described in this sutra is like the relationship between on the one hand the understanding that a city is laid out on a grid, and on the other, a detailed street map.
>>>No. The key passage, for this question, is at the end...
No, the poster asked me to "please read the full sutra":) Hence why I picked up on those.
Doctrinal Buddhists have to cherry pick from their texts as much as Christians in order to remain consistent. That was and remains my point:)
>>>The implication here is that what the Buddha has been describing is phenomenological, not ontological.
Do you not see that phenomenon depend on Ontology? In the same was as eitiology depends on ontology?
>>>It is not an assertion about a model for the "external" world which we should all share.
There is no external world if you See Dharma, that's a big part of the whole point of the Buddha's teaching, as I see it. The world of phenomenon depend on the underlying reality (ontology). Now I agree that the Buddha doesnt describe WHAT this reality is at its foundational level, because we cannot possibly know, nor can he, nor can science.
but we can say what things must be true of this underlaying reality; this is what the three marks of existence are. And their truth sticks with all emergent things all the way up to my love of my mother or Saturn's rings.
If you do not agree with this you seem forced to choose between the Buddha being a mere bronze age psychologist or a mystical supernaturalist.
>>The "devas" refer to a projected world view: the god realm, in which you feel yourself to be above all of the suffering in the world.
Can you show me where in any text it says this? That is, where it says they are metapore rather than supposed supernatural beings.
Do you deny that many Buddhist do believe in Devas and Titans and magical realms as being actual things?
You simply cannot have it both ways. You cant have the truth of Dharma and the mumbo jumbo of Buddhism side by side, they are contradictory.
If you don't see the problem here, which is profound and real, please ask me where you need more clarification:)
>>>The "transmigration" refers to the evolution from one projected world-view to another: one moment, you're in the hell realm, the next, you're in the god realm.
Again, show me where it says its metaphore not literal.
>>>This is necessarily more complex than the this-that conditionality you have been describing
Its certainly more complex! But that doesn't mean its right:) Escpially when its inconsistent whereas core Dharma isn't. Do you believe in ockhams Razor and the Law of Noncontradiction?
Thank you for your time, I must say I am finding this very helpful and clarifying:) I hope you are:)
Mar