No I’ll just leave you to go around telling people that anatman is not atman and see how that works for you. You’ve been told Buddha was doing critical philosophy and via negativa is not an appropriate method.
I have no interest in converting people to my understanding, I just put the reasons and resulting inferences out there, and would prefer to be countered with equally compelling reasons if any, as that would be the best way of advancing everyone’s understanding.
Whether you take my analysis or leave them is up to you. But I’d suggest you understand completely what I am saying and the primary textual basis that I am relying on before discarding them.
Better yet, I’d be pleased if you come up with a reasoned rebuttal (if you want to) rather than a statement of an (entrenched) belief or a mere conclusion.
Since you appear to be reading Sanskrit texts, let me share this with you. In the Sanskrit commentarial tradition, there are two types of anvaya (explanation) styles described. Some commentators use one style and others use the other style based on their preference.
The first style is called Khaṇḍa-anvaya which means analysing the source statement threadbare and explaining why/how each part of the the source text means what it is said to mean.
The second style is called Daṇḍa-anvaya which literally means “explaining with a cane in hand”, like a old-school teacher or authority-figure, meaning “this is my conclusion about its meaning and you dare not ask any questions or raise objections, take it on my word”.
So our approaches are different. I prefer the first approach, and that requires a knowledge of the source language the ability to analyze the grammar and extract appropriate sense out of it. I’d prefer to hear the nitty-gritties of how and why your suggestions are preferable rather than the mere statement of a conclusion.
Anatta-lakkhaṇa Sutta (an-ātma-lakṣaṇa-sūkta)
The characteristics of things that are not the ātman.
Evam-me sutaṁ, Ekaṁ samayaṁ Bhagavā Bārāṇasiyaṁ viharati isipatane migadāye.
Tatra kho Bhagavā pañca-vaggiye bhikkhū āmantesi.
I have heard that on one occasion Bhagavān was staying in Vārāṇasi (a city within the realm of the Kāśi kings) within the sanctuary of the ‘ṛśya’ deer (ṛśya-vṛjana mṛga-dāva). There he addressed the group of five (pañca-vargīya) bhikṣus:
“Rūpaṁ bhikkhave anattā.
Rūpañ-ca h’idaṁ bhikkhave attā abhavissa,
Nayidaṁ rūpaṁ ābādhāya saṁvatteyya,
Labbhetha ca rūpe,
Evaṁ me rūpaṁ hotu evaṁ me rūpaṁ mā ahosīti.
“Your physical form (rūpam), monks, is anātman ("not who you are). If your physical form were ātman (“who you are”), this physical form would not get afflicted with disease (i.e. it would not be beyond your complete control) - and it would be possible to effortlessly materialize your will with regard to your form, by saying - ‘Let my form (i.e. I myself) be thus. Let my form (i.e. I myself) not be thus.’ (i.e. your bodily form will totally be under your control and thus you could will away your aging and diseases).
So the ātman (i.e. you yourself) are not the physical body that you normally identify with, the body is anātman. What is anātman (i.e. what you are not) is also anitya (non-permanent), and whatever is anitya tends to give rise to duḥkha. The implicit idea here is that the ātman (you yourself) cannot be anitya or the source of duḥkha, for if you were, it would be impossible for you to accomplish or even perceive duḥkha-nirodha (cessation of duḥkha) as long as you exist (for your duḥkha would be an inseparable part of your core identity, which therefore you cannot get away from), and with you being impermanent and hence having your body annihilated at physical death would be your irredeemable end for all intents and purposes. No more rebirth would be possible and no buddhahood would be possible either. Therefore your body (which is anātman) is not you (ātman).
This is how via-negativa method is used by the Buddha to explain the ātman through the description of what is not the ātman.
One can see (passati) compounded phenomena, i.e. the five aggregates, whether within or beyond the five aggregates, are anatta ‘not-self’. One also can comprehend the five aggregates are anatta, according to SN/SA suttas:
Pages 55-60 from The Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism Choong Mun-keat 2000.pdf (447.3 KB)
You said “Duḥkha and duḥkhanirodha in early Buddhism are for seeing anātman”
I ignored what I perceived as an upside-down understanding of the means and the end, and simply responded by saying “One cannot “see” anātman, as one cannot see an adjective. One can only comprehend that a substantive noun has the properties described by the adjective.”
You’ve quoted "One can see (passati) compounded phenomena, i.e. the five aggregates, whether within or beyond the five aggregates, are anatta ‘not-self’ "
I wanted to say this isnt the seeing that you spoke about earlier - but I now rather choose to give up trying to respond to you in the interest of my own duḥkhanirodha.
The seeing of anatta, emptiness, dukkha is in the sense of “I see your argument” rather than actually seeing. No one actually sees anatta. Its a concept we apply to experience, based on understanding.
For Kaṇāda and Vaiśeṣika the atta is a substance. The same for Jainism too in their texts. From what little we know of Ājīvika, it was a material substance (this likely informed their views on fate). For the Upanishads the atta is also a substance, albeit a substance that is without any qualities. In whatever way its framed the idea is basically the same. There is something which exists, independently and behind sense experience, which grounds the “I am” as being real. In reply the Buddha said that all we experience is dependent rather than independent, and so this atta can not be found. Realising that emptiness in all things is nibbāna.
In any case, duḥkhanirodha is not for seeing or comprehending anātman.
Comprehending that all compounded things are anātman is rather the path to duḥkhanirodha - as suggested by the EBTs.
Therefore I said that he has an upside-down idea of the means and the end of Buddhism. There is no such thing as anātman, and it isnt possible to see or know anātman - you can only comprehend (or rightly understand) that all compounded things are anātman. Anātman is here an adjective and not the substantive to stand indepedently like an object.
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Anatta isn’t a “thing”, no. Its a concept. The same for the atta.
Anātman is here an adjective and not the substantive to stand indepedently like an object.
There are no independently substantive things in Buddhadhamma. Ultimately nouns can’t be said to exist.
Yes then, the concept of anātman relies on the concept of ātman to make sense. You cannot nullify ātman and hope that magically anātman still makes sense as a concept.
In order for something to be anātman, the concept of ātman first has to have referential integrity. Otherwise all that the Buddha was calling as anātman would have to be vacuous lies, and that would have an impact on the Buddha’s own integrity.
Of course. The Buddha was criticising an idea. Namely that there is an atta. The Buddha showed that all is empty, and in the end that too abolishes itself. This is why in the end all views, opinions, theories etc are let go of including Buddhadhamma itself. Ultimately nothing can be established or explained.
When atheists attack Theism, does that make God real?
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Does god have conditioned attributes? Is it positively describable? Does it exist in a time and place i.e. does it have spatial co-ordinates and temporal references - and does it act in time and space? Is it part of “the all”? Can one (or should one) comprehend god? Does god serve a positive purpose? Does it act or react to anything?
These are questions to ask in comparison with the unconditioned ātman to get the answers to your question.
This looks like a red herring. My point was that in order to criticise something you don’t have to assent to it being real.
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Excellent. @Ceisiwr I have a question, more like a favour to ask, since you are our resident Abhidhamma specialist. There is one called the Paṭṭhānappakarana, which its supposed to be tremendously difficult and very long. It guess it deals with the 24 paccayas. If you are familiar with it, could you start me off with what you may know about it. That’s a broad request, but it deals with causality, and I am interested in that.
Referential integrity does not work based on opinion or assent. It means if you use an adjective such as ‘non-God’ and use that adjective to describe something as a non-God, you have to necessarily have a conception of God to start with. When you thereafter nullify the referent, the use of the adjective that is based on the referent becomes a vacuous nonsense, and the description that uses such an adjective is reduced to pointlessness and falsehood.
Does one actually have a referent in place before one forms an adjective and use it in a sentence - just to ensure one isn’t deluding oneself by making vacuous descriptions which turn out to be lies on closer scrutiny?
The adjective and the description based on the adjective are only true if (and upto the point in time) the original referent is taken (and held) for granted a-priori. On this basis, I hold the Buddha took the ātman for granted when he formulated descriptions of conditioned things and qualified them with the adjective anātman.
As you’ve already been told, we can all sit around and speak about God, atman and unicorns without believing God, atman or unicorns exist. They’re part of the socio-symbolic. Haven’t you ever heard of structural linguistics. Holy.
There are plenty of discussions between Buddhist technicians and technicians from the darśana in the areas in which you are having a problem. Go do your research.
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You have to have a conception of God to be an Atheist, yes. Likewise the Buddha had to have a conception of the atta in order to negate it. None of this proves that the atta exists. If it does, then by the same logic Allah, Zeus, Amun, the Aten and Santa Claus all exist.
Fair point. Your claim is that ātman as a word exists and it has a conventional meaning (something that is assumed a-priori by convention), and on that basis, it is possible to form the exclusionary adjective (‘anātman’) using that assumed referent and to use that adjective in descriptions of conditioned phenomena. The ātman therefore is an assumed (but really an illusory) concept. Well and good.
Now that we know that ātman is actually illusory, like a Santa-claus, like a unicorn, like a pie in the sky, etc (don’t want to suffer Charlie Hebdo’s fate by giving other interesting examples).
So if we call someone a non-SantaClaus, if we call some animal a non-unicorn, if we call an object a non-pie-in-the-sky - we mean it, we really mean it. We are not lying when we say that our parent is a non-SantaClaus.
But this statement of ours holds true only as long as the possibility of our parent being a SantaClaus is conditionally real. If some conditions are satisfied, our parent should have the real possibility of being described accurately and truly as a SantaClaus. If some magic happens and our parent is transformed into a SantaClaus, then we can say that (subject to a magic or miracle happening they will be a SantaClaus), as long as it doesnt happen, our parents are not SantaClauses. But if those conditions are satisfied and the magic or miracle happens/works - we should then call our parent a SantaClaus if they are thus transformed into one.
So the statement we make about our parent not being a SantaClaus is a conditional truth. If the conditions are falsified, the truth becomes a lie. This is called conditional reality or conditioned existence. If you are absolutely denying SantaClaus (and not simply conditionally declaring its absence) i.e. you refuse to entertain any idea of the SantaClaus’s conditional reality - then you really need to banish the statement “our parent is a non-SantaClaus” from your mind as there is no way it can be falsified, you are making an absolutist claim there, and it is absolutely vacuous and false. Why is it absolutely false now? Because the SantaClaus is an absolute falsehood with no possibility of it being true, and an assertion made in good faith about an absolute falsehood is also an absolute falsehood.
By saying that your parent is a non-SantaClaus you were earlier excluding Santa Claus from the range of possibilities that your parent could be identified as. Now that you claim that SantaClaus is an absolute vacuous illusion, you are no longer excluding your parents from anything, and therefore the statement that your parent is a non-SantaClaus becomes a vacuous hollow lie.
Do you believe the Buddha was therefore uttering similarly vacuous hollow lies when he claimed that all unconditioned things are anātman - by nullifying the referential integrity to ātman that he had formerly taken for granted?
I say - the Buddha took the ātman for granted in a genuine sense, and not to play mind games with his followers, not to mislead them, and not to utter vacuous falsehoods.
Once again, are you asking foolish questions. He’s not Santa Claus means, he’s not Santa Claus. Even if he shows up with Reindeer, he’s still not Santa Claus. This is not complicated stuff, why are you having such a problem with this.
Pragmatic use: Someone refuses to give their child a surprise, anonymous gift under the tree at Xmas, because he doesn’t believe in Christian traditions that are pagan anyway. “Oh, he’s a non-Santa Clause.” Obviously to say such a thing is referential. But it doesn’t mean to imply that Santa Claus is a substance out there in which this non-believer doesn’t share an attribute.
Santa Claus is an absolute falsehood, yes. As far as the guy who lives with elves at the north pole and makes things for children all year long in his workshop, and puts charcoal in your socks if they’re bad, yes. That doesn’t mean there isn’t power in the false. If a child got a piece of charcoal in his sock, he’d know exactly what that meant. And that would be a terrible thing to do to a child.