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Understanding Anatta
Bodhivaka
Veteran
I've heard it said that the only way to come to a true understanding of anatta is through meditation; nevertheless, I'd really like it if someone would be able to explain it to me from an intellectual basis, if that's possible.
If our true self does not include our thoughts, impulses, forms, consciousness, etc as the Buddha said, then what is our true self? Is there any self at all? If not, what is reborn when we go through rebirth? How do we continue to be "us" after rebirth if we don't possess some form of foundational force or essence that makes us, us?
I've found other Buddhist concepts so easy to grasp, but this one just continues to elude me.
If our true self does not include our thoughts, impulses, forms, consciousness, etc as the Buddha said, then what is our true self? Is there any self at all? If not, what is reborn when we go through rebirth? How do we continue to be "us" after rebirth if we don't possess some form of foundational force or essence that makes us, us?
I've found other Buddhist concepts so easy to grasp, but this one just continues to elude me.
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Comments
the house is neither the same as the collection of bricks, cement, doors, windows , nor it is different from this collection of bricks, cement, doors, windows.
Now, coming to the concept of 'I'. conventionally speaking, 'I' exists. but in actuality, 'I' is just a label put to the collection of matter, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness - but neither matter is self, nor any of the above is self. So anatta says that matter, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness are not-self. So there is no 'I' existing as an entity - but just process arising and falling based on their conditions.
since everything is empty of any entity, so there is emptiness everywhere. So conventionally speaking, things exist. But ultimate reality is there is nothingness everywhere.
my answer is : Buddha did not answered the question whether there is any Self existing different from the body. This question does not help in reducing suffering, so Buddha did not answer this question.
As far as your question regarding: what is reborn when we go through rebirth?
my answer is: we are taking rebirth every moment. just think about it - are you at your birth and you currently are same or different? current you is neither same nor different to you when you were born. so we are getting rebirth every moment. it is just process arising based on previous conditions and these process become conditions for arising of future process, as explained in dependent origination and this/that conditionality. so it is flux only - but there is no entity which is in flux. So process arises based on the arising of their conditions and process falls based on the falling of their conditions.
Non-duality.
Ok there's black squares and white squares. But really there's just one checkerboard. We point out individual squares in the context of a larger whole.
But you can only say it's one checkerboard because you see it in the context of a field of vision with other things in it, the computer, the room etc.
Your field of vision itself is defined in the context of all your other senses. Seeing is just one sense.
But all the senses together, plus mind consciousness... everything in this moment you are experiencing... there's no other. There's no 'over there' from everything. This is all there is.
And if there's no 'over there', there's no 'over here'. No context for 'here' to be defined within. If there's no other, there's no self.
The concept of being collapses. And you are free, because selfishness no longer makes any sense, and selfishness is the cause of suffering.
I think you're still seeing it in spacial terms. You're seeing a spacial universe, with your body as a part, and a spirit in the body which leaves and goes somewhere else when the body dies. The concept of 'is', as in 'there is a true self', is spacial, and here means 'there is a true self in the spacial universe'. But that's not so much incorrect as beside the point entirely.
The purpose of meditation is to see that the views we tend to impose upon our experience are not only incorrect but framed in terms which do not apply. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.015.wlsh.html
As genkaku says, practice will resolve your questions, though I wouldn't separate questions of this kind from practice. I myself tried hard not to ask questions and just sit, but it never worked, so in the end I let the questioning be.
All skhandas are empty. No permanent perception, feeling, objects/form, mental construct, no consciousness.
Instead there is:
form > ethics (ungraspable)
feeling (good, bad, don't care) > concentration (ungraspable)
perception > wisdom ()
constructs > dispassion/release ( )
consciousness > wisdom of release
Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness by Khenpo Rinpoche describes other views on emptiness which are I am afraid hard for me to understand. Most of them do have to do with meditation/awareness. For example try to find that thought or object that would once and for all totally fill you. Can you be filled by the universe? No you can always take more impermanent six senses, including mind.
Of course, the signs can be used to get where you want. If nobody pointed the way, you would probably get lost. So intellectual understanding can be helpful in realizing, but you should know that it is really something totally different and quite incomparable to really understanding.
Someone who has no realization may say exactly the same thing as one who does, but their knowledge is not the same. It's just that words are always wrong here.
Metta!
All the best,
Todd.
One way to look at it is that a casual process can be self-sustaining, with causes creating effects, and effect acting as causes, creating feedback loops. And if you admit the possibility of immaterial causes and not just material ones (assuming that a clear distinction between the two can even be made), then the continuation of said process isn't limited by or to a single material body. And if you believe Bertrand Russell, the more we understand about matter (i.e., energy), the more the word itself becomes "no more than a conventional shorthand for stating causal laws concerning events" (An Outline of Philosophy).
Here, consciousness isn't seen as a static things going from life to life, but simply as one link or event in a complex causal chain, i.e., moments of consciousness arising and ceasing in rapid succession, with the last consciousness of a being at the time of death immediately conditioning the arising of a new consciousness due to the presence of craving (kind of like 'spooky action at a distance' where two entangled particles communicate with each other instantaneously, even over great distances). It's almost better to think of it as a transmission of information rather than the transmigration of some thing.
Thus, in Buddhism, there can theoretically be continuity between lives without having to posit some type of permanent, unchanging consciousness or soul that travels from life to life. That's why the Pali term vinnanasota or 'stream of consciousness' is often used to describe the flow of conscious events, even when presented within the context of rebirth. (Similarly with terms like bhavangasota (stream of becoming), found in Snp 3.12, and samvattanikamvinnanam (evolving consciousness), found in MN 106.)
Unfortunately, there are no suttas that give a detailed explanation of this process, and the detailed workings of this process are to be found in the Abhidhamma and Pali commentaries. While many people reject the Abhidhamma and commentaries as reliable sources of information regarding what the Buddha taught, I don't think the views of the Buddha and the ancient commentators such as Buddhaghosa are necessarily mutually exclusive.
(You can find more of my thoughts about anatta and rebirth here and here, if you're interested.)
Thank you again, everyone!
I mark threads with your input for further and future reference.
Quote:
The king asked: "When someone is reborn, Venerable Nagasena, is he the same as the one who just died, or is he another?"
The elder replied: "He is neither the same nor another."
"Give me an illustration!"
"What do you think, Great King? When you were a tiny infant, newly born and quite soft, were you then the same as the one who is now grown up?"
"No, that infant was one, I, now grown up, am another."
"If that is so, then, Great King, you have had no mother, no father, no reaching, no schooling! Do we then take it that there is one mother for the embryo in the first stage, another for the second stage, another for the third, another for the fourth, another for the baby, another for the grown-up man? Is the school-boy one person, and the one who has finished school another? Does one commit a crime, but the hands and feet of another are cut off?"
"Certainly not! But what would you say, Reverend Sir, to all that?"
The elder replied: "I was neither the tiny infant, newly born and quite soft, nor am I now the grown-up man; but all these are comprised in one unit depending on this very body."
http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebsut045.htm
In these discourses there is no explicit denial of attâ/atman. I hate to say this but many western Buddhists don't understand the discourses (sutta) which deal primarily with the five khandhas. Here is a good example which is from the Khandha-samyutta:
"Bhikkhus, form is impermanent ... Feeling is impermanent ... Perception is impermanent ...Volitional formations are impermanent ... Consciousness is impermanent. What is impermanent is suffering. What is suffering is not the self (yam dukkham tad an-attâ). What is not a self should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom thus: This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self (na me so attâ)" (S.iii.45).
In plain English, we are not to regard the five khandhas as our self (or Buddha-nature). Nor should we imagine, by implication, that our self suffers. It doesn't. Only the five khandhas suffer. As long as we cling to them we imagine we are suffering. Nirvana is release (vimutta) from these aggregates.
We are attached to debating all sorts of notions of existence or non-existence, but could the heart's doubt be behind the mind's pretense of not understanding or understanding?
I have had the problem of harsh cruel demeaning and reactive thoughts against my neighbors and some friends from highschool. It really blindsided me.
I can understand the idea of annata a little, but the concept makes me think I am just trying to get off the hook of my mean thoughts towards others. I hear their voices talking to me because I am schizophrenic. It's so painful, every day, day and night for 80 days now.
So how can I have animosity and then just cop out and say that my thoughts are not real?
if you lost all your memory, who would you be?
The difficult problem many western Buddhists face (as I once did) is they are looking at Buddhism through the rose colored spectacles of the five khandhas. They regard the khandhas as the sole judge and jury. Naturally, what transcends the khandhas they are terribly confused about such as Tathagatagarbha, Buddha-nature, Atman, Suchness, Shunyata, etc. I can understand their pain.
It seems to me that we are fudging a bit to speak of our future and past rebirths when there is no "us"; I don't see any way to justify the abuse of language except in the service of perpetuating our beliefs that the Buddha was being literal when he talked about rebirth. That he wasn't being literal is the reason why: The Buddha never explained how "we" are reborn in the future after the breakup of the body because he wasn't intending that we should believe that we do. When he speaks about rebirth he is making reference to what he is saying with dependent arising (DA), and in that lesson he uses the *structure* of beliefs about rebirth to make his point -- we mistake his references to DA for bald statements about rebirth.
If in our own examinations we cannot find anything that is lasting within this lifetime -- what we discover is that, that which we mistake for "a self" is actually "not that" (so it's "not self") -- how can there be anything of ours that experiences the result of this life's karma in the next? The Buddha says we can see his dharma -- he doesn't say we can only see it when fully enlightened. Prior to enlightenedment, there is a step when his disciples have "the dhamma eye opened" and they can see it, too. So I'd ask you: when you look at your own life (and even the lives of others), what do you see that is "of you" that will last beyond your death? I'm not proposing that you can see anything "eternal" (how would any of us know that something is eternal? we have yet to live an eternity) but is there anything of yours in this life that lasts beyond the grave?
Yes, I absolutely agree with this, it's the crux of 90percent of heated debates on buddhism. Because we are a scientific culture, we treat the Buddha's teachings on dependent origination as if they are a scientific theory of nature, which they're not. Dependent origination is a way of seeing that there's no room for a homunculus self in experience.
What happens next, after we see this, is more interesting. But system theory is not suchness. It's just a raft.
What is our "true self"? There's no easy answer to that and different schools will disagree whather Buddha-Nature exists from its own side or is just a positive label put on emptiness. It is ungraspable and can only be experienced. As emptiness is the nature of all phenomena, it is not "transcendent" and "beyond" the skandhas. Relative truth and ultimate are one.
snip Emptiness is another term some western Buddhists have difficulties with. Its definition depends upon the context in which it is used.
We have to bear in mind that the Buddha-nature - the ultimate - is not empty. Instead, "it is eternal, blissful, personal and pure" (Nirvana Sutra). According to the Buddha in the Nirvana Sutra he taught in the Prajnaparamita teachings that all phenomena are empty as regards a true nature. For example, the five skandhas are not our true nature. They are empty of any such nature. According to Nagarjuna all that arises dependently is like an illusion (mâyâ) and a mirage.
So it would seem your view is on the Shentong side. But according to Rangtong view, Buddha-nature is indeed empty:
From http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Rangtong
"Rangtong (Wyl. rang stong) literally means 'empty of self' - The followers of the Rangtong Madhyamika approach say that all phenomena, including the Buddha nature, are empty of their own essence. They therefore disagree with the Shentong approach, which, they say, falls into the extreme of eternalism.
Criticism
From the Shentong perspective, the Rangtong view falls into the extreme of nihilism. The Shentongpas say that underlying everything there must be the uncompounded luminosity of the buddha nature, as the basis for samsara and nirvana and all the qualities of enlightenment."
For all practical purposes this is probably just an intellactual hair-splitting anyway.
Because it is empty the Dharmakaya radiates on all beings respecting neither high or low. And the five Buddha families mean that everyone has a relationship to the Dharmakaya.
And it is not empty of all that is most fine. Whereas there is no phenomena that has a good essence: chocolate tastes good but makes one fat, it has no essential goodness. The goodness of every phenomena is dependent on conditions. Buddha nature is good full stop. That is its essence.
I don't like, and the Buddha didn't like, however, talking about it as an 'it' too much, because as soon as we say 'it', we mean a phenomena. And that's where the debate gets bogged down.
Not only that, many different sutras have different interpretation of what Tathagatagarbha means, and each again considers itself as ultimate, non-provisional etc. Ultimately what one considers ultimate and provisional depends on your own experience. In Tibetan Buddhism for example, only Jonang school takes the tathagatagarbha teachings of Mahaparinirvana Sutra as ultimate and non-provisional in their theory of Shentong, whereas all other schools take Madhyamika as the ultimate view and others as provisional. In these other schools, Buddha-nature is taken to be the inseparability of luminosity and emptiness, in other words, Buddha-nature is also empty of self.
This is what the Buddha said in the pali suttas:
"What do you think, Anuradha: Do you regard the Tathagata as being in form?... Elsewhere than form?... In feeling?... Elsewhere than feeling?... In perception?... Elsewhere than perception?... In fabrications?... Elsewhere than fabrications?... In consciousness?... Elsewhere than consciousness?"
"No, lord."
"What do you think: Do you regard the Tathagata as form-feeling-perception-fabrications-consciousness?"
"No, lord."
"Do you regard the Tathagata as that which is without form, without feeling, without perception, without fabrications, without consciousness?"
"No, lord."
"And so, Anuradha — when you can't pin down the Tathagata as a truth or reality even in the present life — is it proper for you to declare, 'Friends, the Tathagata — the supreme man, the superlative man, attainer of the superlative attainment — being described, is described otherwise than with these four positions: The Tathagata exists after death, does not exist after death, both does & does not exist after death, neither exists nor does not exist after death'?"
Nothing about Tathagata as a true self.
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As I said:
Late textual developments of Mahayana, like the Tathagatagarbha teachings, may (not always the case) sound like a fully eternalist teaching indistinguishable from Hinduism, such as certain edition of the mahaparinirvana sutra.
Every mahayana text or vajrayana tantra (all of which are composed by multiple unknown authors showing textual development over a range of time) explains itself to be the ultimate teaching while putting others as provisional. The mahaparinirvana sutra will tell you that tathagata as self is a non-provisional ultimate teaching. Then the madhyamika and yogacara texts and other late texts including lankavatara sutra will try to explain the "tathagatagarbha as self" away as provisional teachings. Anyway, ultimately what one accepts as true or provisional depends on one's own experience.
I still prefer to follow pali suttas which we know is the closest to the original words of Buddha (while not denying there are incredibly clear ones in mahayana canon as well as some texts by mahayana teachers which I very much enjoy reading) because it speaks most closely to what I see and experience. (Which is very much similar to my teacher Thusness seven stages of enlightenment: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html )
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Ven Hui Feng wrote a nice piece on the textual developments of Mahayana which I posted on my thread on the origin of mahayana sutras http://sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/378306
Before explaining how the sukha-tathagatagarbhikas ( tongue.gif ) explain the "apparent conflict", and Chan too, let's take a few steps back.
Even in the early sutras, there is the idea of certain teachings as being "fully drawn out" (nitartha), and others as "yet to be drawn out" (neyartha). We could say, "explicit" and "implicit". However, at first, which were which was not stated.
So, there were some "apparent conflicts" quite early on. The biggest by far was that of the "pudgala", which was kind of a synonym for "atman". In some sutras the Buddha says things like "the pudgala does this and that", "the pudgala is reborn in some place", and so forth; and in other sutras, the Buddha states that "there is no atman, no pudgala, no sattva..." and so forth.
Now, one school, the Pudgalavadins, tried to come up with a theory that kept all teachings on a similar "truth" level. They ended up with an "expressible pudgala", which was rather dubious. Still, they tended to fall towards the extreme of eternalism, rather than annihilism. So, although neither are correct, the former is better than the latter (see my signature).
The other schools, notably the Abhidharma groups, came up with the "dharma theory", which broke everything down into irreducible parts, each of which was impermanent, dissatisfactory and not self (and empty too). Now, based on a group of these irreducible dharmas, one could have a designation, but these desigations / names, etc. were not real per se. Classic example: The five aggregates are real, the "person" is a designation based on the aggregates.
They then used this theory to explain the apparent contradiction, ie. that teachings that spoke of a "pudgala", "atman", etc. were actually just "conventional designations" and thus "implicit" and "to be fully drawn out", whereas thos that taught in terms of "dharmas", were "ultimate teachings" and "already fully drawn out". (I've an essay in my Blog, see signature, on this one if you want more details.)
To seal this, the Abhidharma literature which is slightly later than the sutras almost always tries to use the "dharma" / "ultimate" terminology. Therefore, a bunch of later explanatory literature wins the day.
But, there were still some problems with this Abhidharma dharma-theory. In particular, the tendency towards explaining these irreducible dharmas as somehow substantial. In fact, even up to the point of the Sarvastivada considering dharmas as themselves little atman, etc. (Remember, the Sarvastivada is from a school closely related to the Pudgalavadins.) Again, a slight leaning towards eternalism.
Now, another body of literature starts to appear, ie. the Mahayana sutras. Once again, they have the advantage of being the latest texts, so they can make arguments against all the earlier material, and consolidate a complete systematic view. The emphasis is on the fact that even these so-called Dharmas are empty too, not just empty of an atman / pudgala, but empty of any sort of substantiality, eternality, and so forth.
But, again, this has the tendency towards nihilism in the eyes of some. So, yet another body of literature starts to appear. Well, two, actually. These are the Yogacara literature, stemming from the Sarvastivadins. And, the Tathagatagarbha literature.
Because they are now the newest stuff, they can explicity within the text themselves say things like "Oh, the XXX sutra is just a provisional teaching, this sutra that you are reading now is the real, true and ultimate teaching!!" And, of course, the XXX sutra doesn't say anything to the contrary - because this new Tathagatagarbha sutra didn't even exist at the time to be refuted!!
Every new batch of literature that came out stated that it (and usually, only it), was the "explicit" and ultimate teaching, etc. etc. and that everything that had come before was merely provisional.
In India, this was nitartha versus neyartha. But in China, slightly different. The Chinese for a start received a lot of their Buddhism "all at once", or, at least in a quite different order at first to the Indians. ie. they got Abhidharma stuff first, then some Mahayana stuff, and then the Agama sutras, and then mostly Mahayana stuff with some later commentaries of Abhidharma and Mahayana.
So, mainly starting from Tiantai Zhiyi, they started to make "doxographies", and try to put the various sutras in order - of time, and importance. Of course, they considered (almost) every text that had "Thus have I heard..." to be all taught during the Buddha's time. However, because the later texts claimed to be more ultimate, etc. they ended up being put later in the Buddha's career.
eg. whereas modern scholars would say that the range of sutras, early and Mahayana, took place over about 8 centuries, Zhiyi crammed them all within the life time of Sakyamuni. First, the Avatamsaka, then the Agamas, then the Prajnaparamita, then the Vaipulyas (other Mahayana sutras), then the Lotus Sutra and finally the Mahayana Parinirvana Sutra.
Actually, the Mahayana Parinirvana Sutra (not to be confused with the early Parinirvana Sutra) was a genius idea! If they set the sutra at the parinirvana of the Buddha, then obviously it would have to be the Buddhas last (and thus ultimate) teaching! And yes, this was a Tathagatagarbha text.
All these were already translated, and the Tiantai doxography already in place, by the time that Chan came on the scene. So, the Mahayana sutras, especially the Tathagatagarbha sutras, were supreme. For Chan at first, the Lankavatara Sutra was extremely important, but also the Parinirvana, etc. Lotus, etc.
During the first few generations of Chan, they mainly used these Mahayana sutras as the basis of their practice. Bodhidharma cites them, so do Daoxin, Hongren and Huineng. It's called "based on the scripture, realize the mind / truth". This later came to be called "Ruali Chan", "rulai" being the translation of "tathagata", referring to the Tathagatagarbha sutras.
Later, in the late Tang and Song, etc. there was a move towards "patriarch Chan". Though the Sutra content was there, it was less obvious, and there was usage of techniques like "silent illlumination", "word/thought watching", etc. Still, most of these were based around later Mahayana thought, especially Tathagatagarbha. There were some exceptions, but they were minor.
It was in this later period that Chan goes to Japan and we have Zen. Also, a lot of Zen in Japan is Tendai influenced, so the notion of the importance of the Lotus Sutra and Parinirvana Sutra is perhaps even stronger than in China.
These Chan and Zen boys and girls were largely not scholars by this stage. Thus, where the Indian pandits were quickly putting Tathagatagarbha at the bottom end of their doctrinal scale of "which teaching is ultimate", subsuming it under a Madhyamaka (and Yogacara) over-system, the Chinese (and Japanese) did not. Nobody was really going around noting that "Hey, these buddhists are talking like the Vedantins or Brahmins!?", because there weren't (m)any Brahmins in China! Everything Indian got subsumed into the Buddhist fold.
Also, around the late Tang, the routes to India were not as open, and so the latest Indian explanations did not make it to China. Unlike in Tibet, which is the time when Buddhism started there. Their Tathagatagarbha and Yogacara was already largely the later, pre-packaged in Madhyamaka outfit version, and so it stayed.
rantoff.gif
(If only I could usually write a 1000 word essay so quickly! hahahahaha!)
Huifeng namaste.gif
The Nikayan Buddhists had no problem adding more to their canon, either. As the Nikayas reveal, it is easy to add to the canon since any idea, insofar as it is good, was considered to be Buddha's teaching! (This by the way, opens the way for Mahayana.)
"Even so, O King, whatsoever be well spoken, all that is the word of the Exalted One, Arahant, the Fully awakened One, wholly based thereon is both what we and others say"(Anguttara Nikaya, iv.163).
I have no problem with either the Nikayas or the Mahayana canon. They both agree that there is an unconditioned absolute which comes in many different names. I see it on almost every page. What I find astonishing is western Buddhists have decided to go down the road of nihilism; who insist the Buddha categorically denied the self, except to admit a provisional, temporal self while one is alive. Such nihilism boils down to a general denial of an unconditioned absolute.
If emptiness is essentially luminous, then it's not empty of essence, and thus isn't emptiness? i.e. emptiness is empty.
I really think emptiness outstays its usefulness at times. It's just another trick of the light.
As I mentioned on another thread, the teaching has two wings: via negativa gets pinned down as nihilism, whereas via positiva gets pinned down as eternalism. But living butterflies don't bear pins through their hearts. This is the middle way.
One could claim that a single conditional mind can establish it's own conditionality. I am not sure if that is true or not. I think that is a question for the meditation and
contemplation.