An arahant without dhamma knowledge?

[Pison]

Thank you friend @abhinava . I appreciate.

It seems that Patisena story appears in Sahassa vagga of Dhammapada. But which sutta, I can’t say.

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I am going to be honnest with brother @Mat.
I don’t consider him as a friend, because we might have some principles in common (all beings do); but I see myself applying them differently.

For instance, I would not have answered to my remark on inappropriateness of his, by trying to make Lord Buddha “possible” candidate to dementia.
Why ?
Because short view on Dhamma makes some people confound mano and citta.

Ahrahants dwell in liberated citta.
Mano is kama loka ayatana. If arahat dwells beyond kama loka, arahat is invisible from maras.
Body (kaya) decay is another matter.

[Viveka]

@Pison

I am going to be honnest with brother @Mat.
I don’t consider him as a friend, because we might have some principles in common (all beings do); but I see myself applying them differently.

@Pison

MN139 & MA169 examine what types of speech should better not be employed. They agree that:

• untrue and unbeneficial words should under all circumstances be avoided,
• true but unbeneficial worlds are also better not spoken,
• true and beneficial words can be spoken at the right time.

And a great lesson I just had was

@Sujith

I think that the way in which a point is put forward needs to be along a median. From MN139 :

And how is there neither flattering nor rebuking, and just teaching Dhamma? You don’t say: ‘Pleasure linked to sensuality is low, crude, ordinary, ignoble, and pointless. All those who indulge in such happiness are beset by pain, harm, stress, and fever, and they are practicing the wrong way.’ Rather, by saying this you just teach Dhamma: ‘The indulgence is a principle beset by pain, harm, stress, and fever, and it is the wrong way.’

You don’t say: ‘Pleasure linked to sensuality is low, crude, ordinary, ignoble, and pointless. All those who have broken off such indulgence are free of pain, harm, stress, and fever, and they are practicing the right way.’ Rather, by saying this you just teach Dhamma: ‘Breaking off the indulgence is a principle free of pain, harm, stress, and fever, and it is the right way.’

[Pison]

@Viveka
Might MN 139 & MA 169 be exact parallels for this extract, this should be proper reading of MN 139:

‘Anuyogo ca kho sadukkho eso dhammo saupaghāto saupāyāso sapariḷāho;
micchāpaṭipadā’ti.
Indeed, to (anu-yogo) yoke after (external ?) is a painful, hurtful, despairful, and feverish experience.

Dhamma is just mere experience. And kaya, vedana and citta are constituents of that experience.

Thing (purposeful artifact) derives from principle - dhamma (experience of a dependently originated event,) derives from thing.

If principle is origin of ignorance, so to speak; dhamma is coming of existence of ignorance, through paṭiccasamupāda (dependent origination,) and paṭiccasamuppana (dependently arisen [phenoma]).
Dhamma is what one experiences.
Dhamma is not just experience of principle. It is experience of thorough dependently originated event.

And I pretty much agree with Ajahn Sujato and Dr. Brahm.

[Mat]

@Pison

Ahrahants dwell in liberated citta.
Mano is kama loka ayatana. If arahat dwells beyond kama loka, arahat is invisible from maras.

We must admit now that the brain has to play a part in our experiencing of stimuli- chemicals can affect perception of the world. Image + eye gives rise to eye consciousness etc. etc. so the physical is the cause for a mental experiencing. Dementia is not to be seen any differently from diarrhoea -it’s suffers shouldn’t be stigmatized and it is not their fault. No Buddha is perfect, though pure in being arahanths - all of them leave their wives and children despite our desire for everything in the Dhamma to be pure perfection, it is merely the sukha aspect of, ignorance.

Dhamma(ta)- phenomena (experience)
Dhamma- mental object (object of mano)
Dhamma- teachings -about phenomena (so called conventional and ultimate), and what can be inferred, through pattern recognition (tilakkhana, causality), summarization (Four noble truths), and pondering on causation (paticcasamuppada; as well as the method of removing craving, aversion, delusion as well as the Path out of all phenomena (Nibbana, as lived meditative experience).

To fully understand the paticcasamuppada is not only to experience it, but also to ‘collapse’ it- vijja (wisdom) does away with delusion (avijja), into cessation (nirodha).

[Pison]

@Mat
I have a hard time dealing with you Sir, because we are on two very different levels.
You are of this old school speaking still about conventional and ultimateTeaching; of which no serious people still pay any attention nowadays (was their any such concept in EBT anyway).
Or about dhamma as “mental-object”, without precising that it is external ayatana. Which is field of sensory experience. Very special “object” indeed, that seems to be a bit tabooed.
(I take opportunity to tell @DKervick that external ayatana is not “OUR external sense”?!? - to who you haven’t made any remark to, when you quoted his extract.
Did I just say taboo ? ).

Or again about Paṭiccasamuppāda as “pondering on causation” .
One ponders ON Paṭiccasamuppāda - However, Paṭiccasamuppāda is not “pondering on causation”.
prati-√i-ya-sam-ut-√pad - means literally “experiment of arising” .
Too much importance has been given by old school on causation, and not on experiment.
Getting rid of “this, that gives that”, comes after knowledge of experiment. Not before. And it is removing craving that removes causation; and not causation that removes craving (in good order of process).
You don’t really seem to understand that nuance.

Nibbana is stilling of co-actions or co-productions (stilling of all sankharas (sam-kr)) , through transcendence (samatikkamma) of all fields of experiences.
That is to say: External (ayatanani) >Internal (ayatanani) >Space>Consciousness>Nothingness> Perception>Feeling.
That is to say, on “macro” level, transcending in this order:
Kama loka>Rupa loka>Arupa loka.

Which is definitely not what is taught by old school, or somewhat secular new “buddhism”.

For instance, we are not here into putting space and consciousness into one thing. Making one things out of two. But instead about transcending from being into two things, to one thing only. That is to say from being confronted to both fields of experience, that are space and consciousness, and transcending them to consciousness alone - which is higher field of experience.

Buddhism is not about making one thing out of two.
It is about picking higher field of experience, out of two fields. One field being lower than the next.
Progressing from fields to fields.
And you have never been clear about that. Particularly about kama loka transcending process.

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And, no. Buddha could not have been subject to dementia. No mara could have tempered with his mano; and definitely not with his citta; which would have (eventually) overriden the former.

You know that very well.

Note:
I don’t really think that you understand me when you “like” my posts. Because, as I just said, we are on two very different levels.
Thanks anyway. I would not question your good intention.

[Viveka]

A reminder of the Sutta Central Guidelines.

@sujato

This is a friendly place for Dhamma discussion

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@sujato

Be agreeable, especially when you disagree

Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said. It’s fine if you do wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it: the Buddha said we should praise what should be praised, and criticize what should be criticized. But remember the advice of the Araṇavibhaṅga Sutta (MN 139): criticize ideas, not people .

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@sujato

In addition, before posting consider the five ways the Buddha advised us to speak to others:

I will speak at a right time, not at a wrong time; I will speak about what is true, not about what is not true; I will speak with gentleness, not with harshness; I will speak about what is meaningful, not about what is not meaningful; I will speak with a mind of loving-kindness, not with inner hatred.

(MN 21 & Kd 19.5.2)

Why is the Buddha’s speech so persuasive? It’s because he always spoke clearly, kindly, and rationally. If you do the same, you’ll find that people will be much more open to your ideas.

Accept admonition gracefully

If you write something that doesn’t abide by these guidelines, we’ll call you out on it. If you are moderated in any way, please take the opportunity to reflect and receive in good faith.

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With Metta

Viveka (on behalf of the moderators)

[Pison]

I think that @Mat should apologize now, for being very rude to arahants, and even to Lord Buddha.

“Buddha succumbed to disease”, says @Mat.
That is not excuse - nor is it good knowledge and respect about Dhamma.

I know lay people who die with all their mano. Let alone their citta.

I know no occurence of dementia in arahants in EBT.

No excuse, and very wrong and unkind remarks about arahants and Lord Buddha.

[DKervick]

As far as I know, the Sutta Central guidelines do not establish any requirements for adherence to some conception of religious orthodoxy. Opinions of many kinds about the correct interpretation of the suttas, and about the truth or falsity of the views the suttas articulate, so long as they are expressed in a polite way with due consideration of the feelings of others, may be posted and debated.

[Pison]

@DKervick

… so long as they are expressed in a polite way with due consideration of the feelings of others,…

Thank you.

This is exactly how, I felt.
Insulted.
When, through “gentle” agressiveness and ambiguity of that sort, someone insults arahants, and indirectly Lord Buddha, he is hurting deeply my feelings.

Knowing how much assaults of maras (and Mara) have been difficult for them to sustain, I find their efforts pretty offended.
Very much.

[Metaphor]

Back to the original question (can an Arahant achieve that state without Dhamma knowledge?), the more useful question for some people may be, how does an Arahant acquire Dhamma knowledge? Among the ways of acquiring Dhamma knowledge is to assiduously read the suttas. Another path is to listen to teachers talk about the Dhamma. For people who cannot read, can listening to Dhamma talks provide a sufficient means to becoming an Arahant? I know of several Dhamma teachers who have instructed their students to “put down the books and just practice.” Is practice a way to know the Dhamma? Is it sufficient absent reading the suttas? It seems to me that Dhamma knowledge can come through many forms, some of which may not necessarily be immediately apparent.

[Pison]

@Metaphor
Of course one needs knowledge of dhamma to be arahants.

But Lord Buddha said that Dhamma would be corrupted 1000 years after his death. And that people would rather listen to sweet talkers, than to his talks.
Put upon that, that many suttas have no parallels, and that translations, instead of trying to make words correct, become “interpretative”.

How good is Dhamma nowadays ?

Add on top of that, this neo secular global tendency of “buddhism”. What to expect ?

When I hear “ajhan” say that one should enjoy life, I wonder if Lord Buddha did not say instead that one should feel piti and sukha of body, abhippamodda of citta, and forget all that in third and fourth jhana, to enter neither pain, nor pleasure, and purity of mindfulness due to equanimity.

Teaching nowadays is gross, with no nuance. And most of the times, very oriented towards kama loka (Mara’s loka), which is appealing to the masses.

Buddhism is religion. Not philosophy anymore. And with this “teaching”, there can’t be no arahant.

Maybe that’s what they want.

[Viveka]

As far as right speech and the SC guidelines go, Right Speech requires that one is mindful and aware of conditioned responses, and that one restrains acting on them.
The thoughts and assumptions we make, and the feelings that are aroused in us as a result, are our own responsibility. It is how one has interpreted a point that someone has made, ie the reaction that one has to a point rather than the point itself, that requires attention

It is not the role of any participants to “correct” the views of others. Rather, if it is beneficial to do so, one can present Dhamma points to illustrate the issues, and keep personal views out of it.

Moderators also operate from a position of monitoring that behaviours are in line with the guidelines - not anything to do about judgement of individuals.

[akincana]

Dear @Apeiron,

.1) it is Culapanthaka, who could not memorize even a single verse, but immediately forgot whatever he had memorized. But that was BEFORE he became an Arahant.

.2) If a person has reached Awakening, he /she understands the Dhamma.
It is through understanding the nature of the NOBLE TRUTHS, that the Deathless (Nibbana) is reached.

But this is different from being able to explain the Dhamma to others.
He may say: “I do not know, how to explain it to you, I just did what the teacher told me to do.”

However, he will pass away with a clear mind, entering Nibbana at the end of his last life.
No dementia (or Alzheimer) for Arahants.
At the time of death he is just “waiting” for the Five Aggregates, that arose when he was born, to dissolve one last time.

[DKervick]

If I may say, it seems that you felt insulted because @Mat expressed views which don’t accord with some of your personal religious beliefs, beliefs that are very important to you. While all of should try to avoid creating unnecessary pain in others, if that means we must avoid all statements or questions that could possibly offend or contradict the religious sensibilities and beliefs of all other participants, then I’m afraid none of us will be able to say much of interest about anything.

[Pison]

@DKervick
That is exactly the point I am making with moderators.
Sound discussion requires some “pain” on both side.
Otherwise it is just “gentle” agressiveness of one view.

“Gentle” agressiveness is for instance, making illegal in Europe, to criticize twenty mandatory vaccines; when most of people agree for the four necessary ones. Implying that people that criticize are just backward morons.
This is kind of “gentle” agressiveness.

“Gentle” agressiveness could be to make you agressive, when you don’t agree with secular buddhism, for instance.

[DKervick]

If you don’t agree with something, just express the points on the which you don’t agree, and lay out the basis for your disagreement .

[DKervick]

The mere fact that someone holds and expresses views of which you don’t approve is not an aggression against you.

[Aminah]

Hello folks, please keep to the OP, avoid overly personal challenging exchange and just ignore posts that don’t constructively contribute to the conversation so as to prevent proliferation.

[Pison]

@DKervick

If you don’t agree with something, just express the points on the which you don’t agree, and lay out the basis for your disagreement .

No occurence of dementia in Arahants in EBTs, with parallels.
Very wrong. Very insulting.
(see above)

And I will add:
Very full of dangerous implications.

USSR showed how they dealt with their opponents.
When “their” reason could not prevail, they called on dementia.
Very dangerous.

You see rot I mean ?

[DKervick]

Actually, I do not see what you mean@pison. @mat did not say that all arahants have dementia. He did not suggest locking arahants away. He raised the possibility that some arahants might have dementia, in the same way that other people have dementia, and in the same way arahants and others are seen in the suttas to suffer from various other kinds of infirmities.

Now maybe this is right, and maybe this is wrong. Nevertheless, it is a view @mat, a long time participant here, should be able to feel free to express without being subject to a load of harsh, personal, intimidating intolerance.