Is it a category mistake to ask “How many odd numbers are there in a set that doesn’t contain odd numbers?”
I think whether such a question is silly or a mistake is only after the fact, and it doesn’t really say much. There are legit questions that just have very anti-climatic answers.
Hence, I don’t think Pj’s question was a category mistake or silly. I just think it just has a very anti-climatic answer that is blank. You could program this or “Sound of a tree’s colours” to a computer, and the program wouldn’t turn you away saying “Don’t be silly!” it would just give a blank answer.
Interesting. This is reminiscent of those ascetics who aim at a non-percepient self, or those who identify the self as being not equivalent to feeling, but able to feel in DN 15.
But one that wasn’t aware of sounds, either, would sound like the Buddha’s description of surfaceless consciousness. It would be Deathless, unfabricated and non-fabricating. Totally independent, unwavering, released from all suffering and stress.
Most of the attributes you mentioned seem to refer to formless consciousness, which the Buddha teaches is samsaric and can be extinguished.
2.1. It’s important to strip away the poetic aspects and focus on the core meaning.
Personally, I don’t see much difference between “formless consciousness” and a “deep sleep state”.
Where does the Buddha mention a “totally independent” consciousness in the suttas?
Hi @PjYuktavadin This doesn’t directly answer the question in your post. But I hope it is of some use to yourself and the readers of the thread.
The Brahmajāla Sutta (DN 1) points out a series of different views, sixty-two to be precise, that come in many different flavors. The sutta rejects all of those, including for example the view that the mind is eternal.
But one thing that often goes unnoticed in the Brahmajāla Sutta is that it does not go through each view and refute it in detail. There are some explanations and such. But the main point of the discourse is actually to examine the grounds or reasons why people hold the views they hold. Rather than focus too much on the content of the views, it analyzes the why of the people who hold them.
This is a fundamental aspect of how Buddhism looks at views. Views are not merely intellectual content; they are a form of desire, an attachment and a longing to fill the emptiness. They are messy, knotted tangles that slowly but surely take over our senses. But they are paradoxically very slippery! They are able to adapt and survive inside of us even when challenged with counter-examples or contrary evidence. It is not just that people hold onto views; views hold onto people.
We are not purely rational or intellectual creatures. We are emotional and sentimental. We have preferences and interests and fears and, well, lots of emotions! And so the way we interpret our experience is not solely through intellectual analysis. Not only is experience filtered, we could even say our experience is in many ways fundamentally shaped and given to us in a way that is distorted.
Many people who believe in an eternal mind do so, both consciously and unconsciously, because of how it feels to them. What feels right. What they like. What they dislike. What inspires faith and joy, and removes their sadness or despair at this chaotic, challenging thing we call life. And the same is true of people who hold any other kind of view. Sometimes, people who hold views different than the Buddhist ones cultivate marvelous, beautiful qualities of heart! And that’s amazing.
The Buddha praised ancient Brahmins and ascetics who cultivated a loving heart and taught others how to do the same. He might have had plenty of bones to pick with their theological commitments. But when the context was right, he lauded and praised the beautiful, wholesome qualities they had developed! Because while sure, they weren’t perfect, loving kindness sure is good! And the path to right view is paved with love. It need not be a dry, desolate desert. It is generosity, virtue, love that build a wholesome ground or basis in the mind.
Our response to these things, then, and our growth through them, has to be gradual and multi-dimensional. We have to look not just at the content of our views, but most importantly the grounds and bases for our views. Where are they coming from? What are they rooted in? And likewise our response to others who hold different views will only be of benefit if we apply our mind, our attention, in a wise way directed towards understanding the conditions in our and others’ hearts which go grabbing in the dark, looking for safety.
The Buddha said yoniso manasikāra, the application of mind looking deeply at our experience, is the most important internal factor for spiritual development. The external factor is spiritual friendship. Friends and teachers who know not just what to say, but when and how.
If the heart had a pure ground to start from, then it could more radically apply attention to the more distorted and selfish bases that it derives views from. Just as views hold people, the Dhamma guides those who practice in line with it, and who open themselves up to the frightening idea of the unknown after preparing themselves with the gradual training. If the time isn’t right, then there’s plenty of other wonderful practice to be done in the meantime!
It seems that desires and views mutually reinforce each other. Or to use Buddhist terminology: craving and ignorance. We have craving for things and, through ignorance, come up with views that help us get them. And it is through ignorance of the true nature of things (that they’re anicca, dukkha, anatta) that we crave for them in the first place. So we develop calm and peace to abandon craving and develop insight and wisdom to abandon ignorance. These wholesome dhammas are also mutually reinforcing. Vicious cycles, virtuous cycles.
I believe things are often misunderstood. For example Maha Boowa teaches the deathless citta. But to think he teaches here an eternal mind-consciousness is totally wrong. And to think about this citta as if one would be in state of personally and eternally witnessing emptiness or peace is also not oke, i believe.
I think that great practioners and teachers like Maha Boowa and others, try to express that there is a dimension that is not of this world, transcendent, the end of all suffering. It is not a khandha. This dimension is also never absent.
There are also many suttas that illustrate that Buddha knew this dimension of which the teachers also testify.
For example iti43:
The Buddha spoke this matter. On this it is said:
“What’s reborn, produced, and arisen,made, conditioned, not lasting,wrapped in old age and death,frail, a nest of disease, generated by food and the conduit to rebirth:that’s not fit to delight in. The escape from that is peaceful,beyond the scope of logic, everlasting, where nothing is reborn or arisen, the sorrowless, stainless state, the cessation of all painful things,the blissful stilling of conditions.”
Or:
“There is, mendicants, that which is free of rebirth, free of what has been produced, made, and conditioned. If there were nothing free of rebirth, free of what has been produced, made, and conditioned, then you would find no escape here from rebirth, from what has been produced, made, and conditioned. But since there is that which is free of rebirth, free of what has been produced, made, and conditioned, an escape is found from rebirth, from what has been produced, made, and conditioned.”
(ud8.3)
Or,
“Mendicants, I will teach you the undefiled …the truth …the far shore … the subtle …the very hard to see …the freedom from old age …the constant … the not falling apart …that in which nothing appears …the unproliferated … the peaceful …the freedom from death …the sublime …the state of grace … the sanctuary …the ending of craving …the incredible …the amazing … the untroubled …the not liable to trouble …Nibbana …the unafflicted … dispassion …purity …freedom …not clinging …the island …the protection … the shelter …the refuge …” (SN43.14.43)
The consistent message of the suttas is that seeking refuge in the conditioned is not wise. It is what we have always done. In a passionate and blinded way seeking refuge, safetey, protection from suffering. But what liable is to arise, is also liable to cease. So how must this provide lasting safety, a real refuge? This cannot work.
So, all beings have a legitimate heartwish to be safe, be protected, meet the reliable and be free of suffering. But the way we seek it, it is not wise. It is deluded, blinded. Buddha teaches us how we can realise it and really fulfill our heartwish. He did, he went that Path. His heartwish was fullfilled, and that is the only way to be totally dispassionate.
It is not wrong that the heart wishes safety, protection, a refuge, the reliable, pure.
But what is the Path to fulfill it? It is clearly not the case that the Buddha does not leave us any alternative but to totally cease, and vanish like a flame gone out. He does never teach that there is only the unreliable conditioned. No he really teaches somethin reliable. A dimension unmade, not falling apart etc. And it is clearly Buddhas aim to make us see this, right? To set us on the Path to the truth, to protection, the haven,the refuge, the amazing etc. Untill also our heartwish is fulfilled.
Well, great teachers also testify of this dimension that does not fall apart. It is at the same time empty and also with an element of clarity or clear light (knowing). Sometimes it is called Nibbana dhatu, sometimes asankhata dhatu, sometimes buddha nature, sometimes citta, sometimes dharmakaya, sometimes God, Father, sometimes the nature of mind, sometimes …It fulfills our heartwish.
It is not that our situation is hopeless. What the heart sincerly wishes, being safe, protected, a refuge, can become true. That is the life of the Buddha for me and i know also many others.
Oke, the heart may crave for the end of existence, oke, that can happen, but that is vibhava tanha. That is not the hearts-wish.
Which means they were alive when they expressed this. So this isn’t necessarily so after the final death.
On the other hand, cessation of all experience and existence is attested to in the suttas.
Vibhava taṇhā may be present before awakening, driven by avijjā and self-view. It’s not the same as practicing the N8FP for freedom from all dukkha.
Did the Buddha have vibhava taṇhā when he sought release from dukkha and sat under the Bodhi Tree?
From Ud1.3:
"When continued existence ceases, rebirth ceases. bhavanirodhā jātinirodho,
When rebirth ceases, old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress cease. jātinirodhā jarāmaraṇaṁ sokaparidevadukkhadomanassupāyāsā nirujjhanti.
That is how this entire mass of suffering ceases.” Evametassa kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassa nirodho hotī”ti.
What many buddhist teachers share is that this socalled final death is nothing but the aggregates ceasing. And this can be known to happen in this very life too.
That what transcends the aggregates and has remained unseen in endless lives, does not cease at that moment. It is also not arisen.
I feel, pPeople try to ridiculize these teachings or sow distrust, or try to condemn these teachings by all means. Reading pre Indian texts and trying to condemn these teachings as Brahmanism, Advaita or condemn them as eternalism…
Buddhist teachers with good reputation are slandered this way, without any reserve and worry. This worries me. I trust these teachers. I also see it being expressed in the suttas.
We have had this discussions endlessly Jasudho. If you want to believe that a Buddha guides people to a mere cessation, to a definitive death, to vanishing, like a flame gone out, oke, do. I and miljons of other buddhist see a very different goal expressed in the suttas. And i am not gonna repeat this endlessly or try to convince you anymore.
I do not doubt that Buddha has brought rebirth to an end.
You seem to believe that there is no world transcendent aspect in the teachings. Nothing supramundane. Something that is not of any world, is not bhava, is bhava-nirodha, and can and must be known too.
You insist there are only aggregates and temporary states. This is called ‘the world’ in the teachings. The world is all that disintegrates. You do not believe there is anything not-disintegrating, unwordly, something beyond the word, supramundane.
I do. I see it as the living heart of Dhamma.
There may be a longing to being born in a heaven after death. I think in the time of the Buddha and maybe even now, this was very common. It is not that people delight here in rebirth or continuing existence, because if they would believe they were born in hell, they certaintly would not delight in continuing existence. This is never the point. In every tanha the point is that one envisions something nice in the future, an escape from the current misery and suffering. For many christians or muslims and buddhist that is probably some form of happiness in a heaven. I believe Buddha wanted to share with people that this also does not last. They can end up in hell again.
And he also wanted to share that people who see the escape of suffering not in the happiness of heavens after death, but in the end of their existence, delightig in the prospect to finally not experience anything anymore (not even happiness), have vibhava tanha. And that same striving will lead to their misery and not end suffering
Vibhava tanha, i believe, is really nothing but deligting in the prospect that finally all experiences stop at a definitive death. I think it leads to a mindless state because that is in fact what this heart wants. It desires mindlessness.
One must not strive to become mindless i believe nor see awareness as the cause of suffering. But sense vinnanas (an discriminating landing awareness, landing and in touch with a sense domain, an engaged form of awareness) is a problem.
The problem is not minds basic naked awareness, but the defilements. And when sense vinnanas manifest, mind is already functioning in a defiled way.
In the end the legitimate wish to end suffering is nothing but the wish and calling for purity, the wish to end all defilements, all unwillingly engagement, attachment.
But if one start to wish the end of ones existence or wishes to end all experiences, that is really something very different. It is really a different striving because at that moment the defilements are not seen as the cause of sufferin but mind. Probably you, again, think this comes down to the same. I do not agree. The drive is very different.
The experiences of them can temporarily cease, as in saññāvedayitanirodha. However, they have not truly ceased since the being remains alive (ayusankhāra) and their faculties remain clear, as in MN49.
Perhaps consider that some people see things differently and are not ridiculing but are rather discussing.
Thanks.
We see this differently and rather than being on a mission to convince you or anyone else, it’s about discussing the Dhamma for the sake of exchanges and clarity.
For example, I used to be in the non-cessation camp and no longer adhere to this view, based in part on prior Dhamma exchanges with others. For which I’m grateful.
Not true. But we’ve been over this before.
Except, being based on self-view and ignorance, vibhava taṇhā actually perpetuates rebirth and the problem of dukhha, I think we agree.
We agree that the irreversible ending of the defilements is nibbāna while alive. We differ on the matter of final cessation (of all dukkha) after the final death.
Oke, i feel this is a mistake @Jasudho . Yes, i am honest about this. You have changed your mind, oke, but i feel it is a mistake. Does this mean i do not respect you? I do not believe so. If i would not respect you i would not care at all.
But i am not gonna lie that i feel you made not a right choice. But i have no trouble with you and we can have a good meeting, i believe.
I also would not feel offended if you feel i make a wrong choice. You may always be honest to me. I appreciate such.
There are also great masters in the theravada thai forest tradition who do not teach mere cessation. I cannot understand this. How can the teachings in a lineage change so radically from…mere cessation is delusional and cannot even happen for one who knows.…to …mere cessation is the one and only true goal of Dhamma?
What is going on here? Can you explain this? I have said this before, but i feel such also must be resolved.
Brahmali accuses people that are not mere cessationalist. He believes they are more defiled and have a strong sense of self and fear the great death…tja…It is presented to the world as just an objective statement. It is not. I find it heartbreaking that the buddhist sangha can be so divided in camps. And there is no one who even seems to care.
FWIW, there have been debates, discussions, and different understandings going on since shortly after the Buddha’s passing – and even during his lifetime, as in MN38.
So, nothing new here.
Also note the schism that took place around the time of Asoka 2250 years ago.
So no need for heartbreak and discontent. Imho, if we stay with our practice and keep the mind open, the possibility for new insights and experiences remains.
On we go…
See, IF there are some minor differences in doctrine, in interpretation, oke, that is not really problematic. But seeing the goal of Dhamma as mere cessation, OR seeing mere cessation as impossible for one who knows and sees, that is a huge issue.
These people think fundamentally different about the teachings and also about the goal. This is not a small issue anymore. This is horror. This is a shameless mess.
Buddha would immediately solve this mess in his time. It is impossible that both camps are right.
Anyway, i cannot understand that people who are sincerely involved in Dhamma and in all sincerity try to understand what the Buddha taught, meant, realised…do not care at all that there exist such an unbridgeable gap between people who believe to study and practice Buddha-Dhamma and think to understand him.
I think you also understand this is not some minor issue. This is about the fundamentals.
Hi Green, it sounds like you are greatly distressed and troubled that others have a mere cessationist understanding of Buddhadhamma. This distress and anxiety is often apparent in your communication on this issue.
As students of the Teacher we are taught to look at our stress and anxiety critically. To see what are the causes and conditions of our anxiety; to look for ways to dispel those causes and conditions. However, if we aren’t careful we might blame others as the source and cause of our own stress without taking responsibility for our own part.
I’d encourage you to look within for why this stress and anxiety arises so prominently and to be gentle with yourself and others as you do so. For my part, I do not identify with the mere cessation view point professed on this forum by my friend Jasudho, but it does not cause stress and anxiety the mere fact that he has a different understanding. To me it is an opportunity to discuss and share our differences respectfully while celebrating our similarities in mutual dhamma friendship and to keep an open mind with the hope that in doing so I might learn something new that could help me on the path.
One thing that might help in my case to prevent the anxiety and stress is to remember that I might be wrong as long as I have not realized the goal myself. Another is to acknowledge that there very well might be advantages to a cessationist understanding for certain people on certain parts of the path. The view from mere cessation might be a great preliminary understanding for those with strong infatuations with continued existence for instance.
A sage once said “Nibbāna isn’t having your desires met. Nibbāna is vanquishing your desires.”
In fact we’re all always discussing this topic, Green. It just doesn’t need to be a painful, nor a shameful thing.
I find that even discussing what happens after? a distraction on the whole. I’m not trying to reach anywhere, if anything, I’m trying to stop trying to reach anywhere. Whatever happens (or not) afterwards, it’ll be peaceful, and I don’t need to think about that. If I think it’s something or nothing, I can find reasons to be afraid of both, or cling to both.
There’s also always the possibility that all our conceptual designations might amount to the same thing in the end. You have in the past said you can’t understand how an eternal citta and mere cessation might mean the same thing - but I can.
People are going to have disagreements. People had disagreements over Dhamma in the day of Buddha, and they had access to him whenever they wanted, and they still didn’t understand, and they still argued. This doesn’t seem like it’s going to change.
How would you have this issue resolved? You’d think a council of 1000 arahants coming together and voting whether there was an eternal citta or cessation, and winner takes all? Or that everyone everywhere always thinking Buddha was promoting an eternal citta - would that ease your mind? What do you want? What would resolve this issue peacefully for you? How do you think this issue might be resolved when the very Buddha was unable to dispel it correctly for everyone everywhere and people still misunderstood him listening to him face to face, as told in the suttas?
There is nothing shameful, nothing disgraceful about honest people having opinions and discussing respectfully. Sometimes people will disagree as well. Sometimes it’ll be about the most fundamental topic. Buddha never said “Be outraged and get upset!” On the other hand, he recommends equanimity under all circumstances. Fruit for thought.
Why vote? There is simply no need for this, because the teaching itself denies the existence of such an eternal citta. If there were such a component of being that was eternal, it would be Atman, it would not fall under the denial of the self through impermanence/suffering/uncontrollability of the components of personality. And the Buddha taught that sabbe dhamma anatta. It is the understanding of the three characteristics and dependent arising/cessation that creates these 1000 arahants. If someone does not know and does not understand, then he is simply not an arahant. Only he who is completely devoid of craving and clinging can understand and accept cessation, because in cessation one gains nothing, but lets go of everything; there is no holding on to anything. The arahant is the best of those who could grasp the idea of cessation and he grasps it.
