Are the meaning of sankhara in dependent origination and five aggregates the same?

Q & A
21

I do not believe such language is used in EBT. The EBt use such wordings like: one pure in heart (Mn7, AN10.26,), the hearts attainment (SN2.2), cool of heart (SN7.15), comprehending the thoughts of the heart (ud4.1), a permanent sphere beyond all conjecture (Iti43), touching liberation with the heart (Iti63), touching stilling, the stilling of all formation (Iti72), abiding and remaining in the perfection of wisdom (DN9).

And abiding and remaining in the perfection of wisdom cannot be understood as abiding in the head, in a cinematic world. For me that makes sense.

I do not know anymore where the sutta’s talk about our own territory. At this moment i cannot find them. But ofcourse the mano-vinnana, the stream of thoughts/imagines/conceivings is considered as an illness in the sutta’s , but often that is our terrority right? This cinematic world of thoughts, images in the head, conceiving ourselves, others and the world to be like this and that and very much experiencing that as true knowledge, as reality, as truth.

Being caught up in this stream of thought and images is, ofcourse, due to grasping and clinging to the mano-vinnana’s. I can understand this as
being not in our own territory.
When we our not in our own territory, but in the head, it is very common to think reality is a story. Conceptual of nature.

The sense of I am is due to grasping (SN22.83) and i feel this act of clinging always comes down to 
making the head our home and leaving are own territory, the full and empty openess of heart. Total openess.

The heart has its own understanding of things .But this natural wisdom is also very easily weakened and hindered when 5 hindrances arise.

Buddha describes with terms like anusaya, fetters, samyojana, asava, kilesa, avijja, lobha, dosa what hinders this openess. Grasping and clinging is loss of openess. The notion ‘I am’ is an obstruction for openess. And that obstructs wisdom. Openess has no sense of self nor of possessing wisdom, love, compassion. Only ego has. Detachment means openess, and that is, i believe, the same as abiding in the perfection of wisdom. The absence of all clinging that is realised by the skillful means the Buddha teaches.

2 Likes
22

Thanks Green. 100% agree on everything you have written. That is my understanding of it too.

23

I think that is because the Karma is still there. Hence those two extremes are wrong views.

24

Deeper Jhāna would essentially mean no object of the mind either. Correct?

25

Rumi the poet, has a similar metaphor:

A (healthy) pencil that no longer writes.

Did you form that notion of hearrt and mind territory solely based on the suttas? I ask that because it just occured to me that in Sufi poems like Rumi, Hafez, Attar etc
 in all of them, there is a duality and as it were, a war of mind and heart. In thosse poems, mind (rationality) is constantly blamed and undermined, whereas something called love is praised, and this notion of trancsedental love seems different from gods like Allah or Brahman.
This love seems impossible to reach using mind faculty. As far as I understand the poems, we cannot reach it, instead it is that love that reaches us.
This love might be equal to the notion of Tathāgatagarbha.

Now it seems I am beginning to understand why the Buddha said that even wanting and reaching for Nirvana is a paradox, because it is still a concept that arises in the mind.
It feels like a deadend, as long as there is the slightest trace of mind.

It is also probably why the story of the Buddha “becoming” actually the Buddha, is a story of extreme ascetism that led to no enlightenment.

I now wonder the significance of that woman Sujātā who talked to the Buddha and fed him before the enlightenment, after all that fruitless ascetism.

1 Like
26

Only at the cessation of perception and feeling. But it’s not commonly called a Jhāna. Because in that state, no mind. When there’s a mind, there’s a mind object.

1 Like
27

I also feel it this way. It is not only based upon the sutta’s. I also really feel that what is going on in the head, this endless stream of mental proliferation, thoughts, images, conceivings is all a passionate mess. And it is also addictive. I think the kama raga on the level of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body is quit innocent compared to the kama raga on the level of thinking, reasoning, conceiving.
Even for 1 minute not being absorbed by thoughts is rare. And we also feel it is satisfying to think, reason, conceive.

People might believe that these thought process are so neutral, so objective, so clear and transparant but in fact it is all confusion. The moment we are aborbed in this cinematic world that is not per choice.
I think that not many practice sense-restraint on this level.

But i believe Buddha was a teacher that was very practical. If we still tend to become absorbed in conceivings, although that is delusional, he probably thought
‘well, lets make use of it’.
The same with ego. As long there is ego-conceit, lets make use of it.

What do you think, do we humans have a natural understanding of what is pure and impure, regardless of how we are raised and what we believe? Do you believe this is universal?

28

This essay by Ven. Sujato might clear up some things for you:

In that essay’s discussion:

29

I read something in Abhidharma that said the mind consiousness (Manoyatana) has many many more dhammas compared to other senses. I don’t remember the number right now, but it confirms the cruciality of Manoyatana in reaching Nirvana.

You’ve not lost anything, don’t seek anything.
Whatever you say is not it, don’t say anything.

From a Sufi poem.

1 Like
30

I know the topic is being detailed but I just wanted to share this thought. It might have been brought up before though.

One day, I was thinking of Karma as the electricity current in a circuit. The two poles have to have potential difference in order for the current to be there. Hence there must be duality, positive and negative. And there must be some sort of impedence as well on the circuit, so as to prevent short-circuit, to keep it on. A short-circuit derains the battery in an instant and the circuit would turn off, or extinguish. It’s as if one pole becomes essentially the other pole, hence no duality.
What is it that creates this extreme current in a short circuit that destroys duality in an instant and ends Karma? I’d like to think it is that transcendantal love that is so hard to reach, yet so powerful and without barriers or impedence, that connects oneself to oneself directly. Hence no concept of self, because no duality anymore.

“Hear the Ney when it sounds
Tales of separations it rhymes
”
-Rumi

1 Like