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The 'I' isn't permanent
In Buddhism, the 'I' or the sense of self isn't a permanent entity as in Hinduism but something which keeps changing. This moment I am angry, so 'I' in this case is anger. Next moment I am sad, so the 'I' is sadness. And so on. So the I is one thing now, another thing later.
But wouldn't this pose a problem when it comes to practicing meditation? No permanent I ... so who's meditating?
But wouldn't this pose a problem when it comes to practicing meditation? No permanent I ... so who's meditating?
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Just for reference, Peter Harvey mentions this passage in The Selfless Mind (p. 22) and argues against Horner's translation, which Horner interprets as referring to an Upanishadic self but Harvey sees as more mundane and indicative that early Buddhists "regarded the empirical self as a definite quantity to be reckoned with."
The notion of a permanent self or 'I' is one of the most debated (not to mention interesting) topics in Buddhism.
I'm not too sure exactly where I stand with that because I am not so evolved where I can plunge the deepest depths to get at that which is regarded as the self in certain schools of thought.
I feel I lean towards the no self..
Anyhow it most definitely is very interesting.
Personal narratives are to be avoided in meditation- they are only thoughts. Thoughts come and go. I is just another thought. Eg. When you think "I am swallowing" - do you really think you are actually swallowing or is swallowing happening and I is an afterthought. The Mahasi method uses labelling- swallowing, walking, pain etc without self referencing to allow you to see the process clearer.
The Buddha was very explicit that any reference to the self would cause suffering.
Mostly the former. Also, if you check ATI's reference scheme (which for AN refers to nipata and sutta number using Woodward's translation as a guide), they also include a link to the original Pali utilizing the Pali Text Society's printed edition reference scheme, which corresponds to volume and starting page number. This one took me a minute because it was off by 2 ( A i 147 vs A i 149). The link you posted above to ATI explains much of this, actually.
For instance permanence in Buddhism is permanence in the lack of intrinsic existence of self and phenomena. This is posited as an adjective rather than a noun, thus not setting up an ontological stance. Already through ignorance thingness or inherency is given to phenomena and self. The negation is of this assertion, while not setting up a stance.
In regards to the doing. There is doing, but no doer. There is the process with no agent, just a causal process meeting a casual process. Then we can objectify the process or the movement and that would be incorrect as well because the process requires other processes.
In meditating there is only meditating, no meditator. That is a thought that assumes there to be a source or center, which is clung to. When we look for the meditating that too is not found other than the conventional label onto a grouping of whatever we deem as meditation.
What gives things their solidity? What builds them?
We are actively building everything in our experience. Actively the chain of ignorance in dependent origination is at work.
So some questions to investigate in meditation:
How does clinging (aversion/attachment) relate to the solidity of the object?
How does naming relate to the object of perception?
When we actively look for the emptiness of objects or self, what occurs?
If something disappears, what is happening?
How does attention, intention, and view correlate with experience?
Remember ignorance is not the lack of knowledge, it is the assumptions already set in place. They may not even be conceptual assumptions. The very way we perceive down to the fundamental level is ignorance and we do not examine this subtle ignorance.
If we do not see the emptiness of self and phenomena then we are probably solidifying/objectifying and clinging.
May your prajna grow and may you all find peace.
Pema Chodron says this is like covering the feet with shoes rather than try to cover the whole world.
Just some more words for ya.
I have read Peter Harvey's book. On the passage in question (page 22), Harvey is silent as to whom actually translated this passage. This does not match Horner's translation in the book which I earlier cited; nor does it match the passage in the PTS Anguttara Nikaya (A. i. 149) (trans. Woodward). Here is the PTS translation:
As far as I can see, Horner never translated that passage as Harvey wishes us to believe. Where Harvey came up with this passage attributed to Horner he does not actually say. Harvey, in fact, mis-cites Horner on page 279. Her article 'Attâ and Anattâ' in Studies in Comparative Religion is Vol. 7, #1, Winter 1973 — not 1971.
I followed her translation in Pali, and it's not bad. This is the pericope she uses in the journal article. I don't see much wrong with this if anything.
The self in thee (attā te) O man, knows what is true and what is false. (Attā te purisa jānāti, saccaṃ vā yadi vā musā)
Edit: I sent him an email notifying him of the possible attribution/citation errors. Will let you know if he responds.
if you can see the anatta, you have arrived my friend.
you are a long way from there, i presume.
As Chenresig (the empty and non existent) might say:
So, in emptiness, there is no body,
no feeling, no thought,
no will, no consciousness.
There are no eyes, no ears,
no nose, no tongue,
no body, no mind.
There is no seeing, no hearing,
no smelling, no tasting,
no touching, no imagining.
There is nothing seen, nor heard,
nor smelled, nor tasted,
nor touched, nor imagined.
Heart Suitor
Which is pretty cool if not read.
I also find that the condition towards I, not I, suchness and other interior experiences or their absence are impermanent . . .
Oh Buddhas :rolleyes:
From the Khandhavagga of the Samyutta Nikaya:
The term Atammayata.
"All Buddhist practitioners, regardless of tradition, are familiar with the three characteristics of existence—anicca, dukkha, anattaμ (impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, selflessness). These are “chapter one, page one” Buddhism. But the Theravadins also talk about another three characteristics of existence, at a more refined level: suññata, tathata, and atammayata. Suññata is emptiness. The term derives from saying “no” to the phenomenal world: “I’m not going to believe in this. This is not entirely real.” Tathataμ means suchness. It is a quality very similar to suññataμ but derives from saying “yes” to the universe. There is nothing, yet there is something. The quality of suchness is like the texture of ultimate reality. Suññata and tathata—emptiness and suchness—the teachings talk in these ways.
This third quality, atammayata, is not well known. In Theravada, atammayata has been referred to as the ultimate concept. It literally means “not made of that.” But atammayata can be rendered in many different ways, giving it a variety of subtle shades of meaning. Bhikkhu Bodhi and Bhikkhu Ñanamoli (in their translation of the Majjhima Nikaya render it as “non- identification”—picking up on the “subject” side of the equation. Other translators call it “nonfashioning” or “unconcoctability,” thus pointing more to the ”object” element of it. Either way, it refers primarily to the quality of awareness prior to or without a subject-object duality.
The ancient Indian origins of this term seem to lie in a theory of sense perception in which the grasping hand supplies the dominant analogy: the hand takes the shape of what it apprehends. The process of vision, for example, is explained as the eye send- ing out some kind of ray, which then takes the shape of what we see and comes back with it. Similarly with thought: mental energy conforms to its object (e.g., a thought) and then returns to the subject. This idea is encapsulated in the term “tan-mayata” “consisting of that.” The mental energy of the experiencer (subject) becomes consubstantial with the thing (object) being realized.
The opposite quality, atammayata, refers to a state in which the mind’s energy does not “go out” to the object and occupy it. It makes neither an objective “thing” nor a subjective “observer” knowing it. Hence, nonidentification refers to the subjective aspect and nonfabrication to the objective. The way emptiness is usually discussed in Dzogchen circles makes it very clear that it is a characteristic of ultimate reality. But in other usages of emptiness or suchness, there still can be a sense of an agent (a subject) which is a this looking at a that, and the that is empty. Or the that is such, thus. Atammayata is the realization that, in truth, there cannot be anything other than ultimate reality. There is no that. In letting go, in the complete abandonment of that, the whole relative subject-object world, even at its subtlest level, is broken apart and dissolved." Small Boat, Great Mountain - Theravadan Reflections On The Natural Great PerfectionBy Amaro Bhikkhu
http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2012/05/appreciation-atammayata.html
Ajahn Amaro for anyone who does not know, is very unusual in that he is a Theravadin monk who is a Dzogchen practitioner.
He is currently the abbot of Amaravati monastery in England.
England has a lot of really good monks and teachers!
According to the book Tracing Back the Radiance: Chinul’s Korean Way of Zen by Robert E. Buswell, “Hwadu, which means “head of speech,” can best be taken metaphorically as the “apex of speech” or the “point beyond which speech exhausts itself.” Buswell goes on to write, “In leading to the very limit of speech, or more accurately thought, the hwadu acts as a purification device which sweeps the mind free of all its conceptualizing activities and leaves it clear, attentive, and calm – the ideal meditative state.” http://sweepingzen.com/hwadu
Sweeping Zen missed the most important part of the hua-t'ou (K., hwadu) which is from the Blue Cliff Records:
In Charles Luk's book, Ch'an and Zen Teachings: First Series, he defines the hua-t'ou as follows: The real genius behind koans (sorry for the digression) is this: we really can't answer them without a huge breakthrough in fully comprehending what absolute Mind is. Anyone who believes otherwise doesn't really understand the main goal of Zen Buddhism.
However, I was doing abit of research and I stumbled on this site and this particular posting caught my eyes and I was reading it over and over again.
I am sure that most of you are aware of how a guitar works. When the strings are too tight, it snaps. When the strings are too loose, the sound coming out of the guitar will not be good. This simple analogy is about balance.
While many people debates on words left behind by the Buddha, do note that it is not the words that one should be reading but the meaning of it rather. Words get interpreted differently to different people, depending on the mind of the person and how the person chooses to understand it.
Nothing is of absolute and yet everything is of extreme. When there is life, there will be death. For where pureness exist, there will be evil. But it does not mean that you have to live in either ends for the truth is that, you need to walk right in the centre of it, to have a balance.
The entire " I " conversation is from a popular quote. I want Joy. I is Ego and Pride, Want it a desire and when you remove ego, pride and desire, you are left with joy. This is a very simple way of explaining the cause of sufferings to people. When the mind chooses to illustrate what the minds wants to see, it becomes reality. But it doesn't mean that it never existed.
The I and getting rid of the I is a teaching that we need to try to be selfless but in today's world, we can only try. For many people, whom have understand the word Emptiness is Form and Form is Emptiness, they can live in a world with no I because they have a greater compassion for the world and people around them. But for many people who just started Buddhism, remember this, words are simply words and your mind chooses to see what the words mean. This is why you guys have a great forum with many people supporting.
And sometimes, what you are looking for, is there, so there isn't a point looking at it. It is like a fish in water, looking for water, when water is surrounding him actually.
ओं मणिपद्मे हूं
The Radiant Citta Is Avijjà
Normally the citta is radiant and always ready to make contact with everything of every sort. Although all phenomena without exception fall under the laws of the three characteristics dukkha, anicca, and anatta - the true nature of the citta doesn't fall under these laws.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/89083185/11/The-Radiant-Citta-Is-Avijja