Anicca is not just impermanence, there are eight more to it

In that thread, you posted an absurd document that had this information on it:

How do you account for this very serious mistake of basic Pāli grammar? No one with a competent grasp of Pāli would produce this. “Attā” is not a plural for “atta”. What possessed you to write that it was?

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Just because dhamma can be pluralized to form dhammā, doesn’t mean you can arbitrarily rip the macron off of attā to produce a similar structure.

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You may be on to some thing. I found the following in one of the upanishads.

He who dwells in the seed, and within the seed, whom the seed does not know, whose body the seed is, and who pulls (rules) the seed within, he is thy Self, the puller (ruler) within, the immortal; unseen, but seeing; unheard, but hearing; unperceived, but perceiving; unknown, but knowing. There is no other seer but he, there is no other hearer but he, there is no other perceiver but he, there is no other knower but he. This is thy Self, the ruler within, the immortal. Everything else is of evil.’

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The seed is the kamma which follows the body (our so call self).

If we have full control over the body (self) and just know that what is seen, heard, smelt, tasted, touched, known as what the Buddha told Bāhiya, Nibbāna will be easily in sight.

“Bāhiya, when you see an object, be conscious of just the visible object; when you hear a sound, be conscious of just the sound; when you smell or taste or touch something, be conscious of just the smell, the taste or the touch; and when you think of anything, be conscious of just the mind-object.”

After hearing the above discourse, Bāhiya attained arahatship and he asked permission from the Buddha to join the Sangha. The Buddha told him to get the robes, the bowl and other requisites of a monk. On his way to get them, he was gored to death by a cow which was, in fact, a female evil spirit in the likeness of a cow. When the Buddha and the other monks came out after having had their meal, they found Bāhiya lying dead on a rubbish heap. As instructed by the Buddha, the monks cremated the body of Bāhiya and had his bones enshrined in a stūpa. Back at the Jētavana Monastery, the Buddha told the monks that Bāhiya had realized Nibbāna. He also told them that as far as speed was concerned in attaining Magga Insight (abhiññā) Bāhiya was the fastest, the best (ētadaggaṃ).

This sounds a little like “the one who knows”, as Ajahn Chah described it.:wink:

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I thought the same thing. :slight_smile:

And This is the buddha himself

"Wander, monks, in what is your proper range, your own ancestral territory. In one who wanders in what is his proper range, his own ancestral territory, Mara gains no opening, Mara gains no foothold. And what, for a monk, is his proper range, his own ancestral territory? The four frames of reference. Which four? There is the case where a monk remains focused on the body in & of itself — ardent, alert, & mindful — putting aside greed & distress with reference to the world. He remains focused on feelings in & of themselves… mind in & of itself… mental qualities in & of themselves — ardent, alert, & mindful — putting aside greed & distress with reference to the world. This, for a monk, is his proper range, his own ancestral territory.”—-SN 47:6

I wonder if there are different explanations for what is essentially the same experience?

For my self, I think this is the case. Take a look at this from the upanishads

“And when the memory (of the Highest Self) remains firm, then all the ties (which bind us to a belief in anything but the Self) are loosened”

Does it not sound like to you the establishment of sati sampajanna described by Ajahn chah.

“Your mindfulness will gain a higher frequency, like water poured from a kettle. If we tilt the kettle just a little, the water comes out in drops: glug… glug… glug. There are breaks in the flow. If we tilt the kettle a little bit more, the drops become more frequent: glug-glug-glug. If we tilt the kettle even further the glugs disappear and the water turns into a continuous stream. There are no more drops, but they didn’t go anywhere. They’re so frequent that they’ve turned into a continuous stream of water. They’ve become so frequent that they’re beyond frequency. They meld into one another in a stream of water.”

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But of course buddhism takes it much further.

Meditation is like men catching a lizard. You focus your mind on the breath, being mindful and careful to be aware. Whatever you’re doing, be alert to what you’re doing. The feeling that arises in the mind at that moment is that you’re alert to what you’re doing. That feeling is what makes you aware. - Ajahn chah

I think that depends on whether you interpret Nibbana as a transcendent reality, or just a state of mind. With the former interpretation we’d be comparing two transcendent realities, ie Nibbana and Atman/Brahman.

It occurred to me that there is also a “controlling” or shaping aspect to Buddhist practice, eg applying Right Effort, observing the precepts, “taming” the mind, guarding the senses, etc.

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yes this is whats makes it more appealing than other traditions. something we can do instead of hanging around for divine grace to descend on us.

All religious traditions have practices. Perhaps the appeal of Buddhist practice is that it is less dependent on belief structures?

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Its not clear to me what transcendent realty means. But what i was think was Dependant origination.

In this context it would mean something which transcends mundane conditioned experience, something which transcends the five aggregates or six sense-bases.

See here for example:
https://suttacentral.net/ud8.3/en/anandajoti

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I wouldn’t say it’s inconsistent with them either.

In the very common sequence in the suttas, it’s fairly obvious that because something is impermanent, it’s dukkha. The next step, though, is not so obvious, that because something is dukkha, then it must be anatta. Well, that’s if one assumes anatta simply means the non-existence of something (why would unsatisfactoriness imply the non-existence of anything).

Maybe it’s just saying that that something (maybe this dependent origination process/thread between lives) is not really what we think it is (that we don’t own it, have no control over it, it’s like a leaf being blown about in the wind, and it’s certainly not an atta or self or worthy to be called that, not necessarily that it doesn’t exist as such).

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Yes, could be, though arguably much of that is covered by anicca. I suggested earlier in the thread that the anatta teachings could be related to developing nibbida ( disillusionment ).

In any case, looking at the suttas I think anatta is challenging a view rather than the existence of something - specifically the view that the aggregates are “me” and “mine”. Lack of control would then be a consequence of lack of ownership.

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