My sincerest apologies for taking so long: I have quite a bit going on at the moment. A the same time, no post anywhere along this thread is something easily responded to. So, I can’t just send one off in between other tasks.
First, I really would like us to be able to consult Bhante @sujato 's post on why he refrains from interpreting EBT ontology through a subjective-objective paradigm. (Moderators! Anyone! Help, please!) I’m sorry. I know I’m guilty of having introduced my views in previous posts precisely with that paradigm, and that has only added to the confusion. I think it’s more appropriate to speak of internal-external: it maps onto subjective-objective quite nicely, without all the baggage of Western conceptions of objective reality. (I think this was Bhante’s point in his post.)
Of course, I’m going with the idea of internal-external in the EBTs as referring to dhammas pertaining to oneself and dhammas not pertaining directly to oneself, respectively. (See here for an excellent article on the subject.)
Without reference to subjective-objective, then, I’m saying that viññāṇa is internal and that nāmarūpa is wholly external, which is definitely not what the common interpretation of nāmarūpa. Nevertheless, I am having trouble reading DN 15 in any other way.
One could argue that perhaps the definition of nāmarūpa as the 4 elements + nāma factors could not be fully fleshed out in DN 15… I think it’s fair to say the definition isn’t necessarily comprehensive though…
Yes, and that’s the only conclusion to be had if we hold on to more traditional models of mind. But I wonder if that’s the case. I grant that it’s really hard to even conceptualize the mind model we’re considering, but that doesn’t mean it’s not accurate. Honestly, without performing a search, don’t most if not all of those definitions of nāmarūpa appear in so-called proto-abhidhammic texts? What might that say about their origins? What do the more narrative, anecdotal suttas say?
things like “signs/features” or little tokens by which we recognize and designate things could fall under the nāmakāya loosely.
I would say that they do, in fact: just as they also fall under the rūpakāya as well. Because they aren’t simply tokens by which we recognize things, they are simultaneously constitutive of those things–they are the make-up of those things; they inhere within them.
The sticking point is when we conceive of nāma as being located in our heads. The Vedas didn’t, and taking the text on face value we have no reason to assume DN 15 does either. The ākārā and so on represent a relationship obtaining between nāmakāya and rūpakāya, both of which (and, thus, the ākārā, too) are located within the object. Sorry, I said I wouldn’t use that word. Well, it’s all external.
The main difference I see between the Buddha’s concept of nāma and the Vedic concept is that the former demystified language and linguistic designations by saying that these named weren’t part of a holy language bequeathed to us by God when He created all Creation but were sāmaññanāma: designations held in common, determined by custom and tradition. For practical purposes dealing with daily use of names and the perceptive process, there is very little difference insofar as, from the perspective of a given speaker, the name came inherently with the object, in all likelihood long before the person’s birth. That is, it is not a product of the person’s head, but its origins lie without. The dynamic differs from the Vedic concept only in the demystification, no more.
Lastly on this point (because it is an important point you’ve brought up, one which had me tossing and turning for a while), we have to distinguish between the DN 15 model and the “tiṇṇaṁ saṅgati phasso” model of mind. They are not the same, though there’s much they hold in common. In tiṇṇaṁ saṅgati, indisputably internal mentation (viññāṇa) would seem directly constitutive of phassa; in DN 15, the gap between them is more explicit. That is, in the former model, it is easier to interpret the contact as being between internal and external worlds. In DN 15, however, I would argue that the contact is between nāma and rūpa, by way of the ākārā etc. Again, a dynamic wholly external to the person in question.
This is very similar to how Ven. Kaṭukurunde Ñāṇananda talks about it (i.e. using “vortex”). Do you have a link to Bhikkhu Bodhi mentioning this? I didn’t know he had talked about it and would be interested in seeing what he said.
BB uses it in the notes to his translation of DN 15. SO does Peter Harvey. Check Piya Tan (here), who, in addition to citing all three, uses it too himself.
So I would say that nāmarūpa seems to be referring to that aspect of the ‘extended mind’ as it is intrinsically bound up with the outside elements (rūpa) in a kind of symbiotic, dependent relationship.
Indeed, but it’s not only rūpa which represents the outside elements, it’s nāma too:
Anusaya Sutta (SN 18.21): imasmiñca saviññāṇake kāye bahiddhā ca sabbanimittesu
Apagata Sutta (SN 18.22): imasmiñca saviññāṇake kāye bahiddhā ca sabbanimittesu
Bālapaṇḍita Sutta (SN 12.19): ayañceva kāyo bahiddhā ca nāmarūpaṃ
These three are obviously parallels and have to be viewed as a whole, but the inescapable conclusion would seem to be that viññāṇa is internal, while both nāmarūpa (fully inclusive of both) is external.
The traditional assimilation of nāmarūpa to the five aggregates is what has us turned around.
To me, subject-object cognition is the nature of consciousness in that there is a duality, but this duality is seen as inherently inseparable and co-dependent in Buddhism, rendering it a sort of non-dual duality (or simply, a relationship of dependence). I’m starting to think that, like in Vedic cognitive models, the images of ‘food’ and ‘thirst’ (taṇhā) represent this drive for subject-object cognition where one eats and consumes other things to kind of absorb their identity, but that this process actually means repeated death. Escaping it is the goal in both systems, but the Buddha saw the escape as the cessation of that hunger (cessation of taṇhā) and, ultimately, cessation. Maybe this is along the same lines?
Again, I don’t think subject-object is useful or helpful when looking at EBTs: it only breeds confusion. I didn’t come to this on my own; again, this is Bhante @sujato’s. But it’s like the proverbial overturning of the candle or however it goes: he’s right. And the closest we can come to an isomorphic paradigm in the early texts, as far as I know, is internal-external which strictly speaking still isn’t really the same thing.
Personally, I too am really big on āhāra as a metaphor (and I really like how you roped taṇhā into it too). However, I must respectfully disagree with the idea of “subject-object cognition where one eats and consumes other things.” I’m nowhere near as familiar with the Vedas as you, but it sounds very Vedic to me and jibes with what little I know. But, as I see it, the Buddha’s strategy was to completely do away with the subject-object dyad, as seen in Saṁyutta Nikāya 12.12, the Moḷiya Phagguna Sutta:
Ko nu kho bhante viññāṇ’āhāraṁ āhāreti.
Āhāretî ti ahaṁ na vadāmi.
I’ve got a few of extended mind articles by David Chalmers and some others which make some statements which are surprisingly close (in my view, anyway) to what we see in DN 15. I didn’t want to upload so much potentially extraneous material if it wasn’t warranted. But I have it if anyone’s interested.
One last point I think we should keep in mind regarding how DN 15 relates to material from other suttas: as evidenced by the nid āna introducing the sutta, DN 15 is an unapologetic polemic directed at other (competing?) views on dependent origination (as well as competing views of liberation, as demonstrated in the final paragraph). This, coupled with the fact every single one of its seven sections (Paṭiccasamuppāda, Attapaññatti, Naattapaññatti, Attasamanupassanā, Nattasamanupassanā [present only in the Chinese versions], Sattaviññāṇaṭṭhiti, and Aṭṭhavimokkha) is either wholly unique to this sutta, or is somehow unique in its manner of presentation, tells me that its author(s) were intentionally seeking to set themselves apart from other interpretations of fundamental conceptions of dhamma.
Peace.