A Cold Case? The Missing Mystery of The Breath Nimitta

Yes, I’m familiar, and I’ve discussed it briefly with Mark.

One of the odd things about it is that the author clearly had a better knowledge of the Greek side. So that there are plenty of cases where he could have made a stronger argument but he just didn’t know the Pali. If you look at his sources, it seems he really only knew the Buddhist stuff from secondary texts. And that feeds into a wider problem in, dare I say it, American Buddhism, even the academic side. I remember noticing the same phenomenon years ago with Ken Wilber; he identified as a Buddhist, and had bibliographies a mile long, but seemed to have basically no real conception of the Pali at all.

One example, from my memory, is McEvilley’s discussion of the dhatu. IIRC he wants to show the similarities between the early Greek conception (circa 400BCE or something) then he compares it with something he got from a book on Sanskrit Abhidharma like a thousand years later. He’s not wrong, but it’s … right there in the Pali.

But as to the interplay between Greeak and Buddhist sources, Mark is more conservative as a scholar. One of the orthogonal issues he has discussed is the opposite problem: why is there so little interchange? The Milinda is a good example. So okay, one of them was Greek, maybe both, and maybe they used a Greek dialect (although maybe Gandhari is more likely?). Whatever. But they say nothing about Socrates, Aristotle, or anything even vaguely Greek. It’s purely a discussion among Buddhists about Buddhism. Mark, I think, would attribute this to social strata. People moved in different circles. After all, I’m down the road from a Greek orthodox church and round the corner from a Catholic seminary, and it really doesn’t play much of a role in my life.

But yeah, I found a lot that was persuasive in McEvilley’s approach. Was there anything specific that you were interested in?

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Yes, there were ringers when McEvilley was in Buddhist territory. But there are a few examples where he makes connections between Greek books circulating in India and ideas appearing in commentaries etc. I made notes of these things which I will dig into and offer the specifics. The major event must be the arrival of books, and with them writing and retention of ideas that are awkward for oral preservation. Some sense as well of the Greek paradoxes influencing Mahayana emptiness philosophy as well. The Abhidhamma itself may be primarily a result of the new medium of writing and its effect on the way we think. The Asokan pillars in Greek and Aramaic are for whom? Who could read them? Basically they are cultural imports from the Persian empire, where people could actually read, where edicts were set up to declare that the new rulers were tolerant of the local religions and were not here to extinguish anyone but to integrate with them, while making clear who was the real ruler. Anyway, there is much to unravel, if it is not lost completely. As you know even in modern times there are attributions to Asian buddhists which are actually western ideas coming through the back door. Ajahn Buddhasa is an example, as, of course, the organizing principles of the Thai sangha having hierarchical structures borrowed from the Catholics, (as you have pointed out). I will collect a few of the points and perhaps we can discuss them. I am looking more to bounce ideas and fragments around than to assert anything with great confidence. There may be many elements of ancient influence between cultures staring us in the face that we have simply not noticed.
The other most recent book I have that may pertain is “Who we are and how we got here, Ancient DNA and the new science of the Human Past” by David Reich. This covers Dna techniques that have not been available until about 6 years ago. It covers some of the population structures of India, and where they come from, including the “Aryan invasion” which previously had only been vague theories and is at present a deeply politically incorrect theory in India…reacting to recent colonial domination etc. However it appears that such an invasion did take place and it is only now that detailed genetic evidence can show this. This matters only in the influence of cosmology and cultural ideas which have been previously difficult to understand.
Anyway, this very correspondence we are having is rather a bizarre coincidence (or kamma of course). Since I had,only a few days ago been thinking “I wonder who might have a handle on some history ideas I have been playing around with? You know, Ajahn Sujato just might be the man for this. I should get in touch one of these days.” The next day a note arrives that my essay on the Breath nimitta has appeared with a commentary by Ajahn Sujato on Sutta Central. I look it up and realize, well “here is the moment”. All for now. Aj Sona

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Regarding the experiences of light, I can say that these are also quite common in other Buddhist traditions.

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Yes. You see them in the in the dhyāna sutras, for example in the "Chán fǎ yào jiě (Essential Explanation of The Method of Dhyāna) by Venerable Kumārajīva

When one attains the first dhyāna, its mark is that it continuously changes, increases, and excels [than before]. Because the four elements of the Desire Realm spread fully all over the body, which is soft, harmonious, gentle, and joyful signs, and the mind leaves bad desire and unwholesome deed, then the samādhi of single-minded thought can cause one having joy and happiness.183 Forms created in the Form Realm have the feature of bright light. Hence, the cultivator sees the wonderful and bright light emitting from the body internally and externally

We also see them occur in non-Buddhist sources too

“When yoga is being performed, the forms that come first, producing apparitions in Brahman, are those of misty smoke, sun, fire, wind, fire-flies, lightnings, and a crystal moon.”

Śvetāśvataropaniṣad

I think nimittas can take a diverse range of forms, be they visual or tactile. To me it seems likely that the nimittas are simply the mind’s way of trying to make sense of the very refined state of Jhāna. That sañña is trying to match the experience with something that was previously experienced during it, or when approaching it. We see a similar idea expressed in the Visuddhimagga

It [the nimitta] is born of perception, its source is perception, it is produced by perception. Therefore, it should be understood that when it appears differently it is because of difference in perception

CHAPTER VIII Other Recollections as Meditation Subjects

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Yes. I find it odd that we preserve no controversy about this. Surely there would have been discussions in the Sangha?

I have long believed that writing is the difference between Sarvastivada and Theravada notions of time. Think about it. When reciting, the past dhamma is gone, and the future dhamma is not yet, only the present dhamma is real. That’s Theravada. But in a book, the past and future dhammas exist just as do the ones I am reading now; but they are ineffective. Only the dhamma that I am actually reading is present and thus has causal power. And that is Sarvastivada.

Is that right? I don’t know much about his bio; how was he influenced by the west?

Indeed, yes. Mongkut thought the Catholics were so modern (!) He used to have Christian preachers in his Wat.

Indeed. I think it’s underappreciated how DNA is basically confirming a 200-year old hypothesis originally formed on the basis of purely linguistic extrapolation. The language of the genes and the language of the voice travel together.

Just googling for a date, I get all these articles about how “science” has “proven” the I-E migration theory wrong. I followed one through; it referenced an article that “proved” there was no such migration. But that article says, “the origin of the caste system is mainly rooted in male-mediated Indo-Aryan migration”.

I think it is, again, really under-estimated outside of India how far these anti-science theories have driven discourse in India, becoming a root tenet of Hindutva ideology, and undermining the very idea of science and reality. Sadly, the same thing is now happening in Sri Lanka, with multiple different cultish movements aggressively promoting delusionality as Dhamma, such as the “Buddha was born in Sri Lanka” crowd.

Haha isn’t it always?

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“Ajahn Buddhadasa is an example”. I think he was very independent from a formal training community. And he read a lot. He browsed widely…one of his favorite movies was “The Ten Commandments” with Charlton Heston which he liked to show sometimes. The basic idea is that an elderly asian monk is presumed to be either an original Buddhist thinker or expressing Sangha ideas. It is a projection often by Westerners and Thais as well, but it is a prejudice. Asians, like anybody else, take up ideas. Think of Mao! Think also of say, Thich Nhat Hanh. He did graduate studies at Columbia and Princeton.

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Always dangerous signs.

I can only imagine, showing this at Suan Mokkh.

Right. Buddhism from Asia has been in dialogue with the West for over 200 years, and we still think it’s something new.

Not to mention, Ajahn Chah used to recommend Buddhadasa.

For sure. One of the illusions people maintain is that “Theravada” is a unified thing, and only “westerners” are interested in early Buddhism. There are vibrant and iconoclastic “early Buddhism” movements all across Asia, we white folk are a minority there as in most things.

Anyway, in Australia we’re basically a generation beyond a time when “western” and “asian” were clear-cut things. So long as we keep thinking in these categories, we are talking to old people. Young people grew up in a very different world.

Who used to say, at his meetings, “what would Huineng do?”

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Another example of influence: Both Gandhi and Tolstoy were influenced by Thoreau’s essay “On Civil Disobedience”. And of course Thoreau was influenced by the Bhagavad Gita, in which he said he “bathed in the morning”…and Thoreau was one of the first to translate the Heart Sutra (from French to English). But how often do we hear Gandhi talk about Thoreau, though we often hear Thoreau talk of Eastern ideas.
I think there must have been much of the same stew pot going on from the Bronze age right through to now. However, there were interruptions as well. These interrupted periods often give the impression that there never was interaction and communication…which is a hasty conclusion.

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I think the strongest influence is E.J. Thomas whose books Buddhadāsa read during the year he spent in India researching his Buddha biography. Buddhadāsa’s notions about Buddhist history (especially textual history) seem to be largely derivative upon Thomas’s.

Life of Buddha as Legend and History

The History of Buddhist Thought

Early Buddhist Scriptures

Perfection of Wisdom (Selections From Mahayana Scriptures)

Jātaka Tales

Also, I vaguely recall that in his memoir of his stay in India Buddhadāsa recounts his meetings with one or two PTS scholars, but I can’t remember who they were now.

Lastly, his Thai translations of Ch’an texts were actually from English translations: Blofeld’s Huang Po and Wong Mou-lam’s Hui Neng.

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Venerable, you have so much really specific and interesting knowledge on these things. Thanks so much!

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Also, as a young monk, he read Freud and scribbled notes in his diary contrasting the Unconscious with the Buddhist theory of mind as he knew it then. I can’t remember the particulars, but it seems that Buddhism won the day.

I think Nietzsche may have been mentioned as well, and he was familiar with some Western philosophical terminology. For example, he would describe Nibbāna as ‘the noumenon’—to everyone’s puzzlement.

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The fact that when samadhi becomes deep can perception of light arise, there is no doubt about this. Quite a lot of sources that write about this. This includes Hindu meditation books such as the Patanjali Sutra, which considers the perception of light to be an important subject in deep meditation.

But the question is, even if the perception of light arises in deep meditation, is this perception of light really the nimitta that consciousness has to grasp?

In elemental meditation it will become clearer that the mindfulness will pay attention to the friction of the air (wind element). But if this element of friction becomes the focus of attention in breath meditation, it must be questioned whether we are still doing breath meditation or elemental meditation. Hence the Sutta states “know/be aware of when the breath is going in and going out”. We pay attention to the word “know/be aware”, this does not have to be interpreted as knowing through the friction of the air at the tip of the nose. Because at the samadhi stage it has been deeply awakened there comes a time when the friction on the tip of the nose disappears. But breath can still be realized through the concept of breath. That is the awareness of knowing the breath is going in and out perceptually and conceptually without feeling the friction. Therefore the awareness of the in-breath and out-breath is more conceptual than the friction of the air at the tip of the nose.

As for the advanced nimitta (uggaha-nimitta) precisely when awareness of the breath has become awareness of internal perception replaces external awareness in the form of air friction at the tip of the nose.