Advice on MN1 please - being apart from water

[Thaniyo_Bhikkhu]

The ordinary person, perceives Nibbana, he conceives it, he does not discern it/ fully understand it.
It’s like he has the right idea but then conceives his idea as THAT Nibbana.
He has a concept (ion) of it, HE is pregnant with the HIS idea of Nibbana…but that is not that Nibbana because it is in regards to HIM one way or another. Although he is close to it, so to speak.

It seems that back in the day, those higher mind concepts, those background general perceptions, were more widely known, and so people could in fact develop there minds in jhana, or brahmaviharas , or overcome sensuality etc without the Buddhas teaching, without right view.
For those who had developed minds as such, it was pretty easy for the Buddha to teach, because there was but little dust in their eyes.
For us,however, we have come across the idea of more general background phenomena/ appamanas, through the Buddha’s teaching, which is right view, and so I would say it’s pretty much unlikely that someone nowadays, who is trying to develop jhana , brahmaviharas etc would not have the ideas of right view in mind also, anicca dukkha anatta etc, and thus there would unlikely be someone who has developed jhana etc without being one with right view.

We have all the right information, but we misperceive it; our minds are way more proliferated into the senses. We are at this time closer, in general, to the animal realm, than the god realm.
Or the human situation now, in general ,is more directed/ pulled towards the senses,like animals; as opposed to the opposite direction of the god( brahmaviharas) abides.

Go with the senses and maybe one day, one can be as ‘free’ as a bird.

[Martin]

@Khemarato.bhikkhu

And how, exactly, is the “internal water element” any different?

They are the same element, of course ( that’s the point of MN140 ), but external water is an object of the sense bases, whereas internal water is not ( except when it become external! ).
I specifically used an example of an external element ( water ) to explore why the sense of “being apart from water” isn’t a direct knowing of it. Given that external water is “out there”, rather than “in here”, so there is a subject-object duality going on.

@Thaniyo_Bhikkhu

In other words, you cannot have a PURE experience of water, you only have a perception of it through a sense

So does the Arahant have a “pure” experience of water? Is there such a thing? I don’t understand how can you can experience water if not through a sense-base. I’m still not convinced that perception is actually the problem in MN1. Perception ( sanna ) is just recognition, for example distinguishing water from earth. I suspect the problem we have is how we react, like and dislike, based on self-referential bias. So for example I like warm water but not cold water ( particularly when kayaking! ).

@Thaniyo_Bhikkhu

Notice also that All the different phenomena that are listed in the sutta, goes from general to even more general until the most generalist Nibbana.

Indeed. I thought it might be easier to work with a simple example like an element ( water ). I’m really trying to understand what directly knowing water involves, practically speaking.

[Martin]

@verajip

I think its about building up a sense of self and thinking there is an existence apart from water.
An arahant does not have this quality.

So the Arahant doesn’t have the sense of self v. other, or me v. non-me?

[Khemarato.bhikkhu]

@Martin

internal water is not

Are you claiming you can’t feel the water inside you? How do you know when to go to the toilet?! Of course “internal water” can also be an “object of the sense bases”

The point is to break down the assumption of a boundary between “internal” and “external” because, in fact, no such boundary exists. Your body and the ocean are both just hydrogen, oxygen, sodium, chlorine, etc, etc.

[Thaniyo_Bhikkhu]

@Martin

In other words, you cannot have a PURE experience of water, you only have a perception of it through a sense

So does the Arahant have a “pure” experience of water? Is there such a thing? I don’t understand how can you can experience water if not through a sense-base

No, he still has perception, he perceives with the senses, he has a ‘perception-of-water’, but he does not conceive that as THE water, he understands what the element of water is.
That the water element is ‘inaccessible’.

By PURE experience of water ,I mean , an experience where there is just one thing, and nothing else other than that thing i.e no perception perceiving a thing, no awareness aware of a thing…

@Martin

I suspect the problem we have is how we react, like and dislike, based on self-referential bias

I don’t think that the problem is your preferences, the problem lies before that. Example, one could give up all preferences…and that would be your preference; or choose things you don’t prefer…and that’s your preference and so on.

@Martin

I’m really trying to understand what directly knowing water involves, practically speaking.

Sure, trying to understand water can result in directly knowing it.
Directly knowing does not mean directly perceiving, or directly looking at water and attending to it directly with attention.
‘Directly’ as in clear understanding.
Abhijanati,I believe is the Pali word used there.

I think that the word ‘directly’ is not so good here, but ‘indirectly’ seems to fit more with what I’m saying.

[Thaniyo_Bhikkhu]

@Khemarato.bhikkhu

The point is to break down the assumption of a boundary between “internal” and “external” because, in fact, no such boundary exists. Your body and the ocean are both just hydrogen, oxygen, sodium, chlorine, etc, etc.

I must respectfully disagree.
The assumption of boundary is not a problem, the assumption in regard to things that appear is a problem.
If there were ‘no boundaries’ how can you designate a thing? How can you speak of different things i.e oxygen,ocean, body, hydrogen, etc
One perceives ‘boundaries’, but it’s not what is perceived, it’s ones assumption in regard to perception, what one conceives of it.

The idea that “there are no boundaries” is a conception,its an assumption.
One perceives water,and conceives that “there are no boundaries”.

No matter how small you try and break it down, you will get a thing which you will designate (nama-rupa); you cannot go beyond that i.e just Rupa, even in imagination.

There is eye perceiving, and there is the object of sight. There are boundaries. There is no unification i.e the eye is what is seen or the seen is the eye.

[verajip]

Well to my limited understanding a question like this arises in people like you and me because our mind formed an idea that it’s (not even just water but )the sea right? If we can question who did that distinguishing perhaps we can fathom out that it’s not you or me but the result of the production of the 5 khandas. The question however came about due to delusion (as a reaction to the production which told you there is you and that’s the sea) . So Maybe arahants are aware of this subtle production every moment so the question of how the arahant is apart from water doesn’t arise. I can picture an arahant just watching the water,feeling the breeze, smelling the fish, tasting the salty air, and knowing all that and just being, having freed the mind from lust, hate and delusion.

[DKervick]

Even if it is necessary that you conceive your body as separate from water, it only follows that you must conceive yourself apart from water if you are conceiving yourself as identical with your body. If you are not conceiving yourself as your body, or in your body, then nothing follows from the fact that you conceive that body as separate from the water.

[DKervick]

The passage describes four different possible conceptions one might have as to how one stands with respect to the water:

I am the water

I am in the water

I am something separate from the water

I am something that has or is in possession of water.

These four conceptions are are supposed to be erroneous from the fully awakened viewpoint, since one who has attained that viewpoint has no self-conception at all. The awakened person does not conceive himself as here, there, in between or elsewhere with respect to the water. The awakened person is no longer haunted by thoughts such as “What am I?”, “Where am I?” “What was I?”, “Where will I go?”, “What will I be?”

Water is just one example. It is just one object of perception. The same claim about the four possible unenlightened views can be made with whatever object one substitutes.

[Mat]

“Bhikkhus, the Tathāgata, too, accomplished and fully enlightened, directly knows water as water. Having directly known water as water, he does not conceive himself as water, he does not conceive himself in water, he does not conceive himself apart from water, he does not conceive water to be ‘mine,’ he does not delight in water. Why is that? Because he has understood that delight is the root of suffering, and that with being as condition there is birth…

You say…

I do conceive myself as being apart from water.

It’s not a problem to see your body is different from the environment. The issue lies is identifying it as Your body and differentiating it based on ownership as it isn’t yours to begin with (and no one else’s either).

What I don’t get is how I would not conceive myself as being apart from water, since my body and water are physically different things.

The general sense of ‘My’ physical location is an illusion - as there’s no ‘me’ to discoverable in any location. It’s possibly an Arahant who removes this false sense of location.

Or to put it another way, there is a subject ( me ) observing an external object ( water ). Any thoughts?

That’s an illusion, there is awareness of phenomena.

The ‘thinginess’ is rooted in ignorance as is ‘belonging’, ‘self’ and ‘soul’ (that survives after death). Just see experiences…

[Martin]

@Khemarato.bhikkhu

Are you claiming you can’t feel the water inside you? How do you know when to go to the toilet?! Of course “internal water” can also be an “object of the sense bases”

If you look closely there is a bodily sensation of pressure, so you’re not directly experiencing the “internal water”.

[quote=“Khemarato.bhikkhu, post:24, topic:11905”]The point is to break down the assumption of a boundary between “internal” and “external” because, in fact, no such boundary exists. Your body and the ocean are both just hydrogen, oxygen, sodium, chlorine, etc, etc.
[/quote]

MN140 does make the distinction between internal and external, though I agree it’s all the same stuff. And if we’re talking about our bodies, isn’t our skin the effective boundary between internal and external?

@Thaniyo_Bhikkhu

Directly knowing does not mean directly perceiving, or directly looking at water and attending to it directly with attention.

I’m still not clear what direct knowing does mean here. Could it be knowing without craving and aversion? Knowing with equanimity?

@Mat

That’s an illusion, there is awareness of phenomena.

Though without our bodily senses there could be no awareness of phenomena. And without ( individual ) bodies there would be no bodily senses.

[Martin]

@verajip

I can picture an arahant just watching the water,feeling the breeze, smelling the fish, tasting the salty air, and knowing all that and just being, having freed the mind from lust, hate and delusion.

Yes, I think direct knowing results from cessation of the taints.

[Thaniyo_Bhikkhu]

@Martin

I’m still not clear what direct knowing does mean here. Could it be knowing without craving and aversion? Knowing with equanimity?

It is Understanding or reflective knowing. One knows what a thing actually is.
The knowing/understanding is not an attitude towards something, but it certainly will result in particular attitudes towards what you perceive.

How you understand a thing,will determine your attitude towards it i.e if its known as ‘not-mine’ then the equanimous regard for a thing is there.

Knowing without craving or aversion?
Unfortunately craving is the starting point, and then one tries to Understand,and hopefully Understands, but that Right knowledge ,even though it is RIGHT does not automatically destroy all craving,; therefore one has to keep that knowledge in mind, repeatedly remembering it.

That same knowledge which was partaking in craving, when it is used repeatedly, ends up being free from craving but still the same knowledge i.e the trainee/sekha and arahant knowledge are the same except for the craving.

What do you think it means to understand something?

abhijānāti

pr. 3 sg.

1. recognizes, knows; understands.
2. is aware of; acknowledges; remembers;
3. • acc, esp. ace. of pp:
4. • absol.;
5. • nom. of agent noun.

[Khemarato.bhikkhu]

@Martin

If you look closely there is a bodily sensation of pressure, so you’re not directly experiencing

So please tell me, have you ever seen water?

[freedom]

@Martin

but I do conceive myself as being apart from water. What I don’t get is how I would not conceive myself as being apart from water, since my body and water are physically different things. Or to put it another way, there is a subject ( me ) observing an external object ( water ). Any thoughts?

This is how I asked myself…

1. Internal or external water, they all are just water. Can I live without water?
2. Water is composed by electrons and protons and so do I. So, what is the different between me and water?
3. Water is impermanent and I am also impermanent. So, Am I different from water in this regard?
   …

[Mat]

@Martin

without ( individual ) bodies there would be no bodily senses.

Your consciousness is only conscious of a minuscule number of functions the body has put into operation. Consciousness serves to further what’s required for creating more bodies, under ‘natural’ circumstances and it doesn’t care whether there’s suffering in that process which is taking place. It’s impersonal and biological. In some experiments subjects think prostheses are part of the body which just shows how fickle it is. Some people even think they’re one with the universe .

[karl_lew]

@Mat

they’re one with the universe

That oddly describes the “warm bath immersion”. Warm baths and float tanks given one a sense of being one with the water and universe. Although really, the brain just ignores invariant stimuli, so what is really going on in that warm bath? In the warm bath touch is suppressed. I.e., we don’t feel anything.

[Mat]

I think some person would have to be the universe for such a recognition to be accurate.

[Martin]

@Khemarato.bhikkhu

So please tell me, have you ever seen water?

I walk by the sea every day and watch waves, so, yes, I see quite a lot of it.

I think I understand the point you’re making though, it’s around the distinction made in MN140, that between internal and external, or “in here” and “out there”. To me the difference is partly around how many sense bases are involved. So with internal water there is just a bodily sensation of pressure, but with external water like the sea there will be sights, sounds and smells - and if you go for a swim there will also be tastes ( salt ) and bodily sensations of pressure and temperature

@Thaniyo_Bhikkhu

How you understand a thing,will determine your attitude towards it i.e if its known as ‘not-mine’ then the equanimous regard for a thing is there.

Yes, good point. With self-referential bias removed, equanimity is possible.

[Sujith]

@karl_lew

Although the beauty of MN1 is its multiple consistent interpretations, the simplest interpretation is that the physical body (earth, water, fire and air) is not one’s self. The breakdown into each element is an answer by analysis for those who identify with the body or any physical thing (e.g., “As a sailor, my life is water”). Since you don’t identify with water, you pass on to the following verses that deal with other attachments such as thoughts, etc.

Where MN1 gets truly marvelous is that oneness and diversity and extinguishment are tossed in there as well. MN1 traverses the entirety of the conceit, “I am.”

This was exactly my reading too.

All the ways in which one’s mind gets trapped are laid out: I am the world, I am God, I am one with the world which was created by God, I am universal consciousness, I am empty, I am nothingness and the world is nothing too, I am the elements which form the world - water, air, fire etc., I am Brahma, the supreme principle governing all that exists, I am eternal…and so on.

The Buddha stands on the other side of this raging river and says: ‘I am’ is a form of conceit, a burden…