DN11, Five Aggregates, Vinanna Anidassana

Essays
52

In SN22.76 it is also said that being an arahant is still a type of bhava.

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53

Bhava by itself is one of the asavas - the asavas are also known as ‘preparations’ because that is what they do: They ‘prepare’ the Five Aggregates by making them clingable - that is, by making them into something suitable as a landing place for consciousness - which also requires the presence of ignorance and grasping. This is why it is translated as ‘becoming’. And this is why I suggested to Jasudho to read AN3.77 - because it makes this relationship very clear:

deeds are the field, consciousness is the seed, and craving is the moisture.

The consciousness of sentient beings - shrouded by ignorance and fettered by craving—is established in 
 a realm. That’s how there is rebirth into a new state of existence in the future.

But the Arahat being freed from the asavas, freed from grasping, freed from ignorance - in this very life - their consciousness is incapable of landing there. To equate the presence of a physical body through which the Arahat experiences sights, sounds, etc. with the state of existence of a worldy person - it’s a really big stretch.

What the Buddha is saying here in SN22.76, in my view, is that the Arahat is the most subtle form of ‘existence’ possible and still function - walk, talk, etc. in the physical world. Existence in quotes because the Arahat cannot be located anywhere even in this life.

Oh! How happy are the perfected ones!
Craving is not found in them,
the conceit ‘I am’ is cut off,
and the net of delusion is shattered.

Bhava works together with ignorance and grasping to form a complex structure - which can then be called an existence. Another name for this complex structure is ‘name-and-form bound up with consciousness’.

Bhava isn’t just playing a role in creating rebirth. It is going on all the time generating (preparing) a landing spot for consciousness (of the worldly person). Do you have a sense of the future?, wondering about what will come to be? How will you deal with this or that? - this is bhava at work.

54

In this case Arahats and the Buddha would still be locatable. I would agree that a physical body exists in a particular realm due to prior ignorance, etc. But if the Arahat is freed from that, no longer subject to ‘I am’ - you can say there is a body but there is no one that identifies with it. And as I recall the Buddha somewhere states in regard to his body “There is this”.

Yes, this is what I am saying - bhava ceases with the cessation of DO. Bhava is one of the asavas - it is not a body. Bhava+ignorance+grasping = future rebirth. Bhava alone does not. This is my understanding.

55

While the awakened “mind” of an arahant can’t be pinned down, the aggregates still remain and can be located, no?
That’s why the suttas talk about people going to see the Buddha and Sariputta – existence/bhava and the aggregates were still present and active in the human realm.

True, grasping that creates and perpetuates bhava and rebirth have ended. But bhava, the senses, and the aggregates from previous kammic intentions and craving don’t cease until final nibbāna.
DO includes illness, old age and death and these still occur for an arahant, although there is of course no clinging or identification with these conditional processes.

The perpetuating and creating processes of DO (craving, clinging, ignorance) end with awakening, but the “inherited” features from prior kamma continue, including the existence/bhava of the aggregates in a particular realm, until the final death where it all ceases without rebirth.

Again, you may wish to refer to SN22.76 as Ven. Sunyo pointed out and to SN12.2.

:pray:

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56

I am not too sure what you meant by saying “It is here at this point that we diverge”. I have highlighted what I said and also what you said above, they are not that much different in the meaning. You have told me that you want to rephrase scenario 1, which is the scenario that brought up an unconditioned dhamma.

So, just to make sure I understand you correctly: while you accepted scenario 1, you still said above that “the citta of the Arahat is no longer conditioned by the asavas, ignorance, sankharas.”, therefore,

Did you mean that:

“Before the cessation of ignorance, the undefiled mind was conditioned dhamma. But, after the cessation of ignorance, the undefiled mind becomes unconditioned dhamma”?

OR, did you mean that

“The undefiled mind is unconditioned dhamma from the very beginning, it never changes from conditioned to unconditioned. What were changed instead are the clinging, the ignorance, asavas, sankharas.”? (Note that, this meaning is what we already agreed for scenario 1)

OR, did you mean that

“the undefiled mind is just another conditioned dhamma from beginning to end, like any other conditioned dhamma”? (Note that, this is scenario 2)

We need to clear the above misunderstanding first because what you said in the 2nd paragraph of your post seems that you misunderstood my questions (My questions for you in my previous last post are within scenario 1, not scenario 2).

57

Hiya, :slightly_smiling_face:

It seems you are much influenced by a particular interpretation of the suttas, and I think I can guess whose it is. That’s alright, of course. No problem. :+1: But for sake of discussion you may want to widen your reading a bit, because it isn’t a very standard interpretation afaik. And therefore, to simply post a sutta and say it’s all very clear, won’t achieve much, because people will generally interpret it in a different way. Anyway, here are some thoughts:

No, bhavāsava is the āsava, not bhava itself. This word is a compound where the relationship between bhava and āsava can be interpreted in various ways. It’s not likely to be a kammadharaya, which is a technical way of saying it doesn’t mean ‘bhava which is an āsava’. More likely it means ‘the āsava for/towards bhava’, ‘the defilement [aimed] towards existence’. On this, Sujato notes at MN4, “Bhavāsava is the defilement that craves to continue life in a new birth.” The continuance in a new birth is the bhava. Also:

This sutta too is generally interpreted differently. Ven. Bodhi notes at the similar AN3.76: “Bhava. What is meant is a concrete state of individual existence in one of the three realms.” And he notes that this sutta describes “the rebirth process”. That is also how Sujato interprets it, as you can see in the translation you quoted: “That’s how there is rebirth into a new state of existence in the future.”

The word for ‘new state of existence’ here is punabbhava, which means “a next bhava”, i.e., a new life. So this sutta doesn’t “make this relationship very clear”. It only does so when you start reading it with a certain interpretation already. To me it makes no sense to talk about “rebirth into a new becoming”.

The overall problem here is that bhava is never explicitly defined in the suttas. In that case we need to use context to determine it’s meaning. I haven’t seen any definite indications for it to mean some momentary becoming and many that indicate it to mean a life. The Ratana Sutta says, for example, that the stream winner will not have a eighth bhava. This clearly means an eighth life, not an eight “sense of the future” or eighth “wondering about what will be”.

Anyway, I’m not sure what this still has to do with this viññāáč‡a anidassana. Were you aware that Ven. Sujato just posted a short essay on this topic?

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58

As far as resources go. I tend to use Thanissaro’s site in order to identify which suttas might help me understand something. I do this because the site has a good search function and his consistency in translating terms makes it easy to find a number of suttas to look at. With each sutta he almost always has a list of other suttas that also discuss the same topic.

Once I have a list of suttas I then look them up at sutta central such that I have the line by line Pali/English. I compare Sujato’s version with Bikkhu Bodhi, and Thanissaro where possible and sometime look at parallels in the Agamas if things don’t seem clear to me (but that is not often). I make pretty regular use of the Pali dictionary on Sutta Central.

For understanding Pali terminology I use the Sutta Central dictionary as well as the Glossology at Buddha Dust - I suspect this is an underused resource but he has a list of most key Pali terms and for each term he has a table showing how that word is translated by a number of translators, along with the Pali Text Society meaning and often a list of suttas where the term is used.

I also find the Index of similes at accesstoInsight is very useful. Similes are one of the greatest ways of understanding terms in my view because for the most part the meaning is very clear even after translation and 2,500 years.

For deep stuff like ‘vinnana anidassana’ in this essay I look at Ven. Nananandas The Mind Stilled talks and see if and how he covers it. His discussions are the most extensive coverage as far as Pali terminology goes that I am aware of.

It [Bhava] needs to be understood as the āsava (the defilement) of desire for existence

Yes, this is how I understand it as well. One difference may be that I see it as ongoing (as long as ignorance is present) in the process of making a faculty of the mind (ex: seeing) as something clingable. And such an ongoing process is naturally also going to prepare some future landing place for consciousness when the present body dies.

This clearly means an eighth life, not an eight “sense of the future” or eighth “wondering about what will be”.

I have no problem with what you are saying in general. I have no doubt that bhava plays a very key role in future rebirth. What I am trying to point out is that DO is a process - there are a number of different pieces to this and they are always working as a complex. This is why Bhava itself is not referring to a next life (IMO) because it is simply one part of the complex. Consider how consciousness is discussed where we speak of its jumping around landing here and then there. It isn’t doing this by itself. That’s obvious. It is understood to be one part of a process.

Anyway, I’m not sure what this still has to do with this viññāáč‡a anidassana. Were you aware that Ven. Sujato just posted a short essay on this topic?

Thanks, I just read it. It seems a restatement of his earlier line of thinking. I didn’t see anything there that would change what I have written here - the Suttas I referenced. I have no particular bias around the word ‘vinanna’ - it’s just a label and I don’t understand why it bothers him so much.

One thing I want to add - I have no idea if Ven. Sujato is awakened or not - so just speaking for myself: If I thought I was awakened but it seemed quite different from what the Thai Forest Ajahns seem in general agreement on - I would be there to hang out with them in a heart beat. What has happened to curiosity? Why are Ajahns dismissing each other so readily? It truly saddens me.

Thanks for being willing to discuss these things. We may not agree but I appreciate your views. Hopefully I don’t come across too much with the “I am right and you are wrong attitude” - it is a good way of shutting down dialog as well as being just generally kind of obnoxious. But its hard to know what other peoples views are and my assumption is that we tend to see things in a similar way - until I realize we don’t.

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59

If this analogy (simile - I get them confused) works for you with regard to the above then I think we are on the same page:
Lets imagine we live on a world where the sky is always completely covered by clouds - never a spot of blue to be seen. This has been going on since before we were born. We know nothing about the sun. It’s a very gray world. But it isn’t completely dark. We can see other people and things just like on a heavily overcast day anywhere else. We meet someone who tells us if we climb to the top of a certain mountain we will be amazed. So we do that - it takes a long time. But as we get up near the top, we see the blue sky with the Sun shining and can see for miles and miles. We realize that even though we had never experienced this before - this is why we could see everything down below. Because it was this sun that illuminated the clouds all along.

So if your scenario 1 is a good way of understanding this story - if that is how you could describe it - then I think we agree.

60

I am trying to focus on just this topic of vinnana anidassana. It takes a lot of time to put this together and I don’t have the time to follow up on this topic you are bringing up. We have kind of gotten off topic. Maybe we can visit it at some future time or if you want to post a topic where you go into more detail I would be happy to look at it. But can’t do it right now.

61

It’s a dangerous way of talking about consciousness which is constantly explained to be dependently arisen.

There are many instances of fire being lit in dependence on many things in the world, a log-fire here, there a grass-fire, over there an oil-lamp.

To speak of a consciousness jumping around is essential akin to speaking of a fire jumping from one place to another.

Suppose i light & put out a log-fire on a monday and i light a grass-fire on a tuesday. You wouldn’t say that the fire having landed on the logs jumped to the grass.

Why is that? Because clearly it is not the same fire!

The fire that was on monday had ceased by the time i light the grass-fire.

In exactly the same way it is taught that this or that consciousness originates due to conditions. You may discern eye-consciousness
and later discern ear-consciousness but no consciousness jumped from the eye to the ear.

The consciousness that arose in dependence on the ear ceased by the time that ear-consciousness arose. There is no jumping of a thing from one to another.

Suppose i use friction to light a small grass-fire, having lit a grass fire i would light a candle and with this lit candle i would light a grass-torch which would later be extinguished.

You wouldn’t say that i summoned a fiery monster by performing the ritual of rubbing a stick, a monster which then jumped from the grass and onto the candle before jumping onto a light-torch to feed on the grass.

In the same way you shouldn’t make a mental monster which roams around, jumping from here to there out of consciousness.

There are communicable conventions. For example suppose you light a small fire for cooking near a farmers corn field.

Then you would make mediocre effort to extinguish it half-heartedly and walk away, leaving hot coals.

Then a wind would blow and the fire would blaze up again due to your negligence in putting it out. Then somehow the fire would spread to light up the corn-field.

Now here are two ways of thinking about it.

  1. You didn’t set the corn field on fire.
  2. You did set the corn field on fire.

Obviously the farmer would blame you saying that the fire you lit had spread to the field even if it’s obviously not the same fire and you had no intention of setting the field on fire.

Nothing therein actually jumped from one thing to another. The flame that you had put out was extinguished and another flame arose due to the wind’s blowing.

It’s not like you had summoned a fiery monster which hid from you in the coals before jumping out and onto the field.

It is not one and the same fire jumping from one thing to another.

Likewise there is no such thing as a single consciousness-entity roaming & jumping around. Past consciousness ‘was’, has been, and the future consciousness is not yet begotten, these are not the same thing.

62

I was providing a sample to Sunyo showing how consciousness within the context of DO is sometimes spoken of as constantly moving without mentioning that ignorance, grasping, and name-and-form all play a role in this process.

63

OK, yes I see that I was confusing those two:

Bhava: “becoming,” (form of) rebirth, (state of) existence, a “life.” There are 3 states of existence conventionally enumd as kāma-, rĆ«pa-, arĆ«pa- or sensual existence, deva-corporeal, and formless existence
 D II.57; III.216; S II.3; IV.258; A II.223; III.444
 - Another view is represented by the division of bhava into kamma- and upapatti- (uppatti-), or the active functioning of a life in relation to the fruitional, or resultant way of the next life
 - In the “causal chain” (Paáč­icca-samuppāda, q. v.) bhava is represented as condition of birth (jāti), or resultant force for new birth


Āsava: that which flows (out or on to) outflow and influx. 1. spirit, the intoxicating extract or secretion of a tree or flower, O. C. in Vin IV.110 (four kinds); B. on D III.182 (five kinds)
 - 2. discharge from a sore, A I.124, 127
 - 3. in psychology, t.t. for certain specified ideas which intoxicate the mind (bemuddle it, befoozle it, so that it cannot rise to higher things). Freedom from the “āsavas” constitutes Arahantship, and the fight for the extinction of these āsavas forms one of the main duties of man
 - The 4 āsavas are kām-, bhav-, diáč­áč­h-, avijj-, i. e. sensuality, rebirth (lust of life), speculation and ignorance. - They are mentioned as such at D II.81, 84, 91, 94, 98, 123, 126; A I.165 sq., 196; II.211; III.93, 414; IV.79
 - The set of 3, which is probably older (kāma-, bhava-, avijjā-) occurs at M I. 55; A I.165; III.414; S IV.256; V.56, 189


BTW, is there an easy way to translate these PTS references over to the current style used on Sutta Central and Dhammatalks?

Thanks for showing the difference though I still can’t see how Bhava can act alone as an existence without the support of the rest of DO - or maybe I was misunderstanding you?

64

Hellooo again, :slight_smile:

The “landing” of consciousness with connection to bhava many think refers to being reborn in a particular life. Ven. Bodhi for example notes at SN12.38: “When that kammic consciousness is established [or “landed”] [
] through its ability to precipitate rebirth, there is the production of future renewed existence, i.e., production consisting in renewed existence.” If you can read German, Rita Langer’s Das Bewusstsein als TrĂ€ger des Lebens is the best work I found on this particular topic.

The Thai Forest Ajahns (of the past) weren’t studying or translating suttas all that much, that’s at least one difference. And the whole issue here is how to translate and interpret said sutta. You can be enlightened and translate it wrongly, or be unenlightened and translate it rightly. I don’t think enlightened has much of a bearing on this, although it does of course rule out some wrong ideas.

Not all factors of DO cease at enlightenment right away. Many cease only at parinibbana, the death of an enlightened being. For example death: the Buddha still had to die one more time. Or the six senses, contact, feelings, consciousness: the Buddha still had all of them. Same with bhava.

65

Actually I was changing the subject on you. What I said was:

If I thought I was awakened but it seemed quite different from what the Thai Forest Ajahns seem in general agreement on - I would be there to hang out with them in a heart beat

It was just an add-on thought.
I never met them - I don’t know what they knew of the suttas - probably varies widely among them. I am pretty sure that what they did know was probably left in the raft. But that wasn’t my point: They are describing their experience in contemporary language. I have a rudimentary understanding of ordinary language - if what they describe seemed quite different from my own experience I would want to learn more from them. I would be quite interested rather than dismissing them.

I was musing
 I like to muse

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66

Apologies. Didn’t wish to distract you.

I was responding to several posts regarding bhava, including:

All best

67

I am not sure about that - that the Arahat dies. In a sense, they are already dead. I doubt they relate to the death of the physical body in any way similar to how we see it. I doubt they have any sense of existence with regard to the body. If there is pain than that is felt - that seems clear in Buddha’s case - however much of the challenge associated with pain is the mental or second arrow type which I don’t think would be present.

Just from the perspective of here you have a guy (Buddha) that can create a mind made body and travel to different realms, know what his monks are thinking and psychically jump over to teach them, fly through space and such - is that mind really dependent on a physical body? We tend to think that the senses are physical - but we have plenty of evidence from near death experiences of people for example describing things that are going on in the operating room from the perspective of looking down at it while they are ‘dead’. They describe non-physical senses, non-physical communication, and thoughts - these are all described many times. And those are presumably non-awakened people. So what is the death of a body among Arahats? I don’t know.

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68

I guess what you meant in your analogy are below:

  • “the Sun” means: the undefiled mind that is always there and unconditioned, just like Nibbāna

  • “clouds” means: the ignorance, clinging, asavas, sankharas, etc.

  • “climbing mountain” means: clearing the cloud/cessation of ignorance

  • “Why we could see everything down below. Because it was this sun that illuminated the clouds all along.” means “before clearing the cloud, we could still see but we only saw with clinging consciousness. The reason we could still see is due to this undefiled mind, without this undefiled mind, we won’t be able to see at all”

Your analogy is very similar to scenario 1 that I presented in my post previously. However, there are still some subtle differences. I think these subtle differences are best to describe using totally new and different scenario to avoid confusion with scenario 1. We will call it as Scenario 3 below:

A person with pure, precious, brilliant diamond covered under many layers of clothes; he is inside a dark room. Due to the pure, precious, brilliant diamond, he can still see things inside that dark room with his good eyes. However, he almost always sees things incorrectly. By removing these many layers of clothes, with the pure, precious, brilliant diamond, he can see now everything inside that dark room correctly.

Below is the explanation of the terms in scenario 3:

  • The pure, precious, brilliant diamond means the undefiled mind. Due to its presence, that person can see. Without it, that person can NOT see anything even with good eyes. This is similar to your analogy of “the Sun”.

  • The characteristics of diamond such as pure, precious, brilliant and somewhat indestructible means to make a similarity with the inherent characteristics of the undefiled mind.

  • The removing of those many layers of clothes means cessation of ignorance.

  • Just as the pure, precious, brilliant diamond is not conditioned by the process of removing those many layers of clothes: The undefiled mind is not conditioned by the cessation of ignorance.

Note the differences between scenario 3 and scenario 1:

  • The ignorance does not cover this person’s good eyes as in scenario 1. It instead covers the undefiled mind.

  • This person’s good eyes are not required to be unconditioned as in scenario 1. Instead, that requirement now falls onto the diamond in scenario 3. By making a distance with the person (external object vs. eyes), the diamond in scenario 3 seems to has less sense of a personal “atta” than the person’s eyes in scenario 1.

Note the similarities between scenario 3 and scenario 1:

  • The overall result that this person sees things correctly (Nibbāna) is still the same as in scenario 1.

  • The undefiled mind and Nibbāna are two different dhamma. Same as in scenario 1, they are both unconditioned dhamma.

I hope that this scenario 3 fully reflects what you meant.

Until here, are we still on the same page?

69

Yes, I do believe so.

70

I didn’t notice this in my first response to you - not a big deal I think but just to be clear: I don’t see how we could say they are the same or different. I don’t think that kind of language can be applied here. I would say something more like:
There is unconditioned knowing. (vinanna anidassana)
There is unconditioned known. (Nibanna)
They cannot be said to be different nor can we say they are the same as such concepts no longer apply.

Sorry not to have caught that earlier.

71

How about feelings, contact, six senses, consciousness, etc after enlightenment? Don’t these exist anymore either?