Does the Tathagata exist before death?

[stu]

@Green

If a farmer sows grass-seeds, and he does not look at it anymore, do you now believe that nothing happens without perceiving the sprouting and growth? Yes you do @stu . You are a realist.

Actually I’m not. Philosophical realism is not a position that I hold. I maybe had a dalliance with it as child, but I then swung towards idealism (particularly solipsism). Although I didn’t know those terms at the time. I was just living the view.

@Green

It is not like you believe that the mind does make those seeds germinate or that the perception creates the grass to exist and grow right?

Agreed. I am not (no longer) a solipsist, I’m a Buddhist now. I do concede that sometimes I do still get caught in a solipsistic point of view and I have been accused of being a solipsist a few times on this forum. The Buddha explicitly denies solipsism is right view.

@Green

You, like everybody, knows that this grass exist totally independend of your perception of it. Right?

Not everyone holds that view at all (see above).

And no, I don’t know that. And, my point is, neither do you, and further, my position is that you can never know that.

We do have the Buddhas teaching of this in the suttas. and it’s (unsurprisingly) not philosophically realist. I would argue that it is closer to a philosophically idealist approach, but not definitely not solipsism either.

In AN 10.58 we get the line:

“Mendicants, if wanderers who follow other paths were to ask: ‘Reverends, all things have what as their root? What produces them? What is their origin? What is their meeting place? What is their chief? What is their ruler? What is their overseer? What is their core? What is their culmination? What is their final end?’ You should answer them: ‘Reverends, all things are rooted in desire. Attention produces them. Contact is their origin. Feeling is their meeting place. Immersion is their chief. Mindfulness is their ruler. Wisdom is their overseer. Freedom is their core. They culminate in the deathless. And extinguishment is their final end.’ When questioned by wanderers who follow other paths, that’s how you should answer them.”

This is various translated as above, or: They come into being through attention [Bodhi] or They come into actual existence through attention [earlier Bodhi translation].

The thrust here is that things are brought into existence, not by some creator God or magic or the unknown, but things are brought into existence when attention is given to them.

@Green

I feel the Buddha is right that the object of ear-vinnana is sound and not soundwave

I’m having difficulty understanding you here.
What the Buddha says is:

Ear consciousness arises dependent on the ear and sounds. The meeting of the three is contact.

Where does the ear organ fit into this idea of yours? Is it that the ear and sound come together to form the object (maybe we would call that ‘ear-sound’?), or is it the ear and soundwave that come together to form the object (maybe we would call that ‘sound’)?

@Green

No sounds are on a cd, or lp. There are certainly riflings on an lp, but if we call those riflings sounds then we can call everything sounds!

If we look at the riflings they are called sights, if we run a finger over them they are called touches, etc…

@Green

There is only a soundwave the moment it hits the eardrum. There is no soundwave in the nerves, not in the brain, certainly not in the mind.

Agreed.

@Green

But not all that exist will trigger vinnana to arise, right?

I disagree.

@Green

There are very small particles called neutrino. Now, those do not lead vinnana to arise.

Yeah sure they do. We use detectors, just like we use a microphone and oscilloscope. Then we used eye consciousness to look at a screen. That’s how we know that they exist. We pay attention to the screen. It’s not substantially different from using a microscope or a telescope. There’s a change in modality from something we (as humans) can’t sense to something we can sense, that’s all.

From Wikipedia:

Various detection methods have been used. Super Kamiokande is a large volume of water surrounded by phototubes that watch for the Cherenkov radiation emitted when an incoming neutrino creates an electron or muon in the water. The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory is similar, but uses heavy water as the detecting medium. Other detectors have consisted of large volumes of chlorine or gallium which are periodically checked for excesses of argon or germanium, respectively, which are created by neutrinos interacting with the original substance. MINOS uses a solid plastic scintillator watched by phototubes; Borexino uses a liquid pseudocumene scintillator also watched by phototubes; and the NOνA detector uses a liquid scintillator watched by avalanche photodiodes.

@Green

And what is knowing in this case? I know that science learns there are planetory systems, black holes, stars i do not perceive. Can i say i know them?

I guess we all live in different worlds. My dog can hear soundwaves at a much higher frequency to me - frequencies that I need electronic instruments and eye-consciousness to detect, and he has a sense of smell that is more discerning than any electronic instrument yet invented by humans, and yet he (like my dad) can’t even tell the difference between red and green.

[Green]

@Thito

But the trait that makes you love your mother is her kindness, caringness and love, and that can be found everywhere

Some parents are really not that nice but it is like children stay loyal. Maybe it is the dependency, maybe a deep karmic bond. For me personally it just feel completely normal and natural to be loyal.

But the main issue is that i feel not comfortable with a totally detached perspective which, as it were, erases the perspective that i am also a son, i have a mother and father, were once born, I am also a unique living being.

[Thito]

I’ve had complete strangers care for me the same as my own parents would, and that destroys selfishness because how can I put my own parents above people who are equally kind or even moreso kind?

It’s not about loyalty, it’s about appreciation. I see actions for what they are.

It’s not the person’s body or association to me, that makes me like or dislike them, it’s their behaviour, their actions, which stems from the level of ignorance or wisdom they hold. Whether they are my family or strangers is irrelevant, good behaviour is likeable, and bad behaviour is unlikeable.

Is it good to be loyal to a person who does evil things?

[Saurabh]

@Green

I practice like this but i cannot admit this it some kind of direct seeing. I think that ‘seeing’ the arising and ceasing of formations , seeing there impermancence, is not really momentary but many moments of cognition after eachother which one experiences as momentary, as 1 moment.

We usually see in suttas, monks/lay-people, they mention that, impermanence is seen, 4 noble truths are seen,… I personally believe that seeing means, witnessing with our 6th sense, which is mind, when we see with mind that is called insight. Seeing must mean experiencing, contrary to understanding.

Experience is what gives real knowledge. Yes we can know many things based on others’ experiences, but that’s borrowed, and not true knowledge, it’s just knowledge. We just know that way, not experience. Hence I think seeing = experiencing.

@Green

I do not think that one can establish impermanence without active memory.

Yes sir memory is never shut off. It’s thinking which stops, then only real experience can be there, real seeing can be there. Offcourse memory is needed.

@Green

I think it is better to say that everything we perceive has those characteristics. Like you say…our subjective world.

Existence has those three marks. But it seems more correct to say that, what we perceive has those tilakkhana. It should be our existence, what we perceive. Then that 3 marks of existence makes more sense.
Like wherever we look, in whatever direction, there are these tilakkhanas(offcourse in our perception)(where we can perceive).

@Green

I do not see why a neutrino which we do not experience would have the characteristic of dukkha.

I think we can say, neutrino cannot have characteristic of dukkha, because it doesn’t have ‘self’ or identity view. What do you guys think? Can that be right?

Also dukkha would be the characteristic of neutrino(or any other thing like that) if it had, lobha(desire), dosha(ill will), moha(ignorance)…

One out of the topic thing I want to cite here.
It is said that, arhat is someone who has gotten rid of 3 poisons, namely
lobha(desire), dosha(ill will) and moha(ignorance) from his/her self. And
Lord buddha is someone who has gotten rid of 3 characteristics of existance(tilakkhana), namely,
Anitya(impermanence), dukkha(unsatisfactoriness) and anatma/anatta(soullessness).

So(based on this) I think it would be correct to say…
Existence = ‘whatever we can perceive’…instead of the ‘all existence regardless of our perceiving’.

And even if we don’t perceive and still seed is growing into plant, that just means(should mean), someone else is perceiving it. It can be even nature.

@Green

But the main issue is that i feel not comfortable with a totally detached perspective which, as it were, erases the perspective that i am also a son, i have a mother and father, were once born, I am also a unique living being.

I think it is not detached perspective, but it is(should be) unaffected perspective, instead of detached perspective. Well whatever you call that, I am also not comfortable with that. It seems non-existence to me if you call it detached perspective, So I call it unaffected perspective… (but I am not sure what it is exactly). Hence I prefer to give preference to compassion over wisdom.

[Green]

@stu

And no, I don’t know that. And, my point is, neither do you, and further, my position is that you can never know that.

Thanks stu. I feel it is only reasonable. I see no reason at all to believe that grass does not grow and does stop to exist when i do not see it. Is it just a strange coincidence that the farmer every time again has the experience that grass has grown when he has not seen it for a while? Is this only because this grass answeres his expactation? How reasonable is it to argue that the grass stopped to exist while not seen, and the farmer minds creates now the growth of the grass? I do not know why this makes any sense? It is much more reasonable that the grass exist on it’s own conditions, grows, and ceases upon it’s own conditions which have nothing to do with me.

@stu

The thrust here is that things are brought into existence, not by some creator God or magic or the unknown, but things are brought into existence when attention is given to them.

I feel this explains our subjective world. If there is no movement at all in mind, and all cognition ceases, this is the end of the world-as-we -experience. For example, one does not experience a body anymore. But the body has not disappeared. The sensation of a body has. Other people see a body sitting.

@stu

Where does the ear organ fit into this idea of yours? Is it that the ear and sound come together to form the object (maybe we would call that ‘ear-sound’?), or is it the ear and soundwave that come together to form the object (maybe we would call that ‘sound’)?

I have learend the Buddha does not refer to the physical senses when he teaches about the faculty of the ear, eye etc. He does not talk about the eardrum which is contacted with soundwaves for example.
He sees all from the mind, so once that initial phyiscal contact has lead to an awareness of a sound.

@stu

Yeah sure they do. We use detectors, just like we use a microphone and oscilloscope. Then we used eye consciousness to look at a screen. That’s how we know that they exist.

I feel this is somehwat forced argumentation. It is not that a neutrino is really seen directly with eye-consciousness. But neutrino causes interaction with certain stuff which become detectable. Eye-vinnana still does not see neutrino’s.

And how did neutrino become visible for eye-vinnana without such advanced detection?
No, i think it is still save to say that neutrino does not lead vinnana to arise. Without very advanced scientific theories and detection it’s existence would be unknown to us.

[Green]

@Thito

Is it good to be loyal to a person who does evil things?

children are

but do you feel no trouble at all to erase the perspective that you are someones son, born, are a human now, are limited, are a unique person, no person is like you. Is that not true too? Can this just be erased as truth?

[stu]

@Green

I feel it is only reasonable. I see no reason at all to believe that grass does not grow and does stop to exist when i do not see it.

Well yes, of course. This is because we’re coming from two different view points of view, and from my point of view it is unreasonable to imagine something into existence that isn’t there. But maybe I haven’t got a very good imagination!

@Green

Is it just a strange coincidence that the farmer every time again has the experience that grass has grown when he has not seen it for a while?

Well sometimes the grass isn’t there is it, and then we make up some theory for why it isn’t there: someone has stolen it, the sun has burnt it away, goats have eaten it, etc… Really it is just levels of probability that the grass will be there and then the farmer gambles on a supposed outcome.

@Green

How reasonable is it to argue that the grass stopped to exist while not seen, and the farmer minds creates now the growth of the grass? I do not know why this makes any sense?

I prefer to see it as the grass having been reborn into our world. It’s just a different view. That’s all. I’m eternally surprised by things arising in my world

@Green

I feel this explains our subjective world.

Yeah. That’s my argument really. I can’t see another world. It’s beyond my perception. Indeed, it’s beyond everyone’s perception by definition.

@Green

Other people see a body sitting.

That’s a body in their consciousness, not a body in your consciousness. so two different things in my model of the world.

@Green

And how did neutrino become visible for eye-vinnana without such advanced detection?

Well exactly. Neutrinos were not a ‘thing’ before that. They were only a ‘thing’ theoretically (i.e. in someone’s imagination) before the detectors were built. Now that detectors have arisen in the world, neutrinos are a ‘thing’.

Anyway. Good to talk @Green I’m pleased that you are often reborn in my world

[Green]

@stu

Anyway. Good to talk @Green I’m pleased that you are often reborn in my world

That is good to hear. Ofcourse, as realist, you are always present in my mind

I believe mind certaintly constructs what we see, hear, feel etc. but i believe this does not mean that we hallucinate all. I think mind constructs colour, probably also shape, but i feel this does not mean that the shapes we see are pure hallucinations. There is really a material structure which reflects sunlight before we even see that shape.

It is like 6 beings experiencing water in very different ways; deva’s as nectar, hell being as burning acid, peta as pus, fish as a comfortable living place, humans as thirst lessing. All have different experiences , but the water is objectively the same, H2O, for all.

Before neutrino detectors were build, and before theories gave rise to the idea that neutrino’s could exist, and no one yet thought about neutrino’s, do you really think that before that they did not exist?
I do not believe that. That is why i think that there exist many things we are clueless about this moment, and it is very well possible, we will always stay clueless about it. That’s why i do not think the All falls together with our subjective experience. I tend to believe that the All is always bigger.

[Green]

@Saurabh

I think it is not detached perspective, but it is(should be) unaffected perspective, instead of detached perspective. Well whatever you call that, I am also not comfortable with that. It seems non-existence to me if you call it detached perspective, So I call it unaffected perspective… (but I am not sure what it is exactly). Hence I prefer to give preference to compassion over wisdom.

Yes, that might be true, that it is non-existence. I am not sure. In the sutta’s Buddha seems to suggest that when one has an idea that one is distinct from the khnadha’s, that is not truthful too.

[Saurabh]

@Green

In the sutta’s Buddha seems to suggest that when one has an idea that one is distinct from the khnadha’s, that is not truthful too.

I prefer to call it unaffected perspective, but I personally believe that there is only existence, and all our problems are because of not understanding it and not being in tune with it. Non-existence seems created/fabricated reality to me. The same doctrine which was considered better than all doctrines outside dhamma… taught by Buddha’s past teachers before enlightenment. Simple logic for this is…Noone cannot not exist, you have to work very very hard…like those teachers of buddha b4 enlightenment…then you get the non-existence …and even then it is temporary not forever. So there is only existence, when you open your eyes, you see it and when you close your eyes, you don’t see it. Non-existence is like a hoax, that’s why it is called wrong view in the first place.

Don’t know if it’s truth…but It’s a comfortable conclusion.

[stu]

@Green

I believe mind certaintly constructs what we see, hear, feel etc. but i believe this does not mean that we hallucinate all

Agreed. It’s not hallucination.

@Green

Before neutrino detectors were build, and before theories gave rise to the idea that neutrino’s could exist, and no one yet thought about neutrino’s, do you really think that before that they did not exist?

Not just then, but right now they do not exist for me. Exist is one extreme. Not exist is another extreme. For me they arise and fall. I look at the detectors screen, and see them, they have arisen. I look away or the screen goes blank and they fall.

And, of course they aren’t always what you think they are anyway: when is a muon neutrino not a muon neutrino? - when it’s busy being a tauon neutrino.

[Green]

@stu

Not just then, but right now they do not exist for me. Exist is one extreme. Not exist is another extreme. For me they arise and fall. I look at the detectors screen, and see them, they have arisen. I look away or the screen goes blank and they fall.

I think in real life there is no one who accepts that, for example, your own child does not exist while you do not perceive him/her. Sorry, but i believe it is just some effete kind of philosophy that one can never for sure proove that what one does not perceive still exist. In real life there is no one who does embrace such ideas, because they lead to a world in chaos, madness, irresponsible behaviour, suffering.
It is just wrong view.

In other words, your perception of the child rises and falls, oke, but not the child ofcourse. There is no parent who assumes that and on good grounds too, because the child is not born nor created from your mind.

Personally i believe that everything that has a nature to arise also exist, although it can be for a very short while. I do not feel that things must exist permanently or in absolute sense to exist. Why?

[Green]

@Saurabh

I prefer to call it unaffected perspective,

Yes, i see. I think that we must investigate what detachment really means. Does one enter some domain apart from khandha’s? And is ones behaviour now not anymore based on formations?

For example AN10.81 says (Bodhi):

''Bahuna, it is because the Tathagata is released, detached, and emancipated from ten things that he dwells with a mind free from boundaries. What ten? (1) It is because the Tathagata is released, detached, and emancipated from form that he dwells with a mind free from boundaries. (2)-(5) It is because the Tathagata is released, detached, and emancipated from feeling . . . perception . … volitional activities . . . consciousness that he dwells with a mind free from boundaries"

What does it mean to be detached from khandha’s?

[faujidoc1]

The framework within which all ‘things’ exist is the field of our 6 sense experience - the Teacher has made this abundantly clear.

SN35.23
“Bhikkhus, I will teach you the all. Listen to that….

SC 2“And what, bhikkhus, is the all? The eye and forms, the ear and sounds, the nose and odours, the tongue and tastes, the body and tactile objects, the mind and mental phenomena. This is called the all.

SC 3“If anyone, bhikkhus, should speak thus: ‘Having rejected this all, I shall make known another all’—that would be a mere empty boast on his part.

SN35.116
Whatever in the world through which you perceive the world and conceive the world 8.6is called the world in the training of the Noble One.

SN2.26
For it is in this fathom-long carcass with its perception and mind that I describe the world, its origin, its cessation, and the practice that leads to its cessation.

Within the framework of our experience, things arise, change and cease. They carry the characteristic of dukkha, because of the tendencies that lie dormant within us (MN64). Though the characteristic of dukkha may not be immediately apparent, it will ultimately reveal itself unless we are Enlightened.

BTW, the 6 sense experience does not cease even if we are asleep - we dream, do we not?! So the World and its beings do not disappear simply by closing the eyes. Experience only ceases when one attains the cessation of perception and feeling. That is how one arrives at the end of the world (AN9.38).

The Buddha does not make any definitive statement about the Absolute Existence or Non Existence of phenomena because there is no way of describing any thing outside of the framework of our six sense experience. Within this framework, phenomena can be dissected down through layers of causality and found to be ultimately Empty of any permanent, unchanging essence.

The practical application of this philosophy is to get over ‘Me and Mine - making’. That is because

MN22
Mendicants, it would make sense to be possessive about something that’s permanent, everlasting, eternal, imperishable, and will last forever and ever. 22.2But do you see any such possession?”

22.3“No, sir.”

22.4“Good, mendicants! 22.5I also can’t see any such possession.

and unfortunately the truth is that

MN87
our loved ones are a source of sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress.

[stu]

@Green

I think in real life there is no one who accepts that, for example, your own child does not exist while you do not perceive him/her.

A recollection of the child can arise (mind-consciousness), and a desire to say ‘feed’ the child can also arise, and what would conventionally be called something like ‘a desire to seek out’ can arise, which causes one to move. Then the child once again arises in the eye-consciousness, then mind-consciousness. It’s obviously much more granular than that and there are many more steps, but hopefully you get the drift.

@Green

In real life there is no one who does embrace such ideas

Yeah. Sure there is.

@Green

because they lead to a world in chaos, madness, irresponsible behaviour, suffering.

Not if you attempt to treat everything that arises in your world with kindness and compassion. “Make Peace, Be Kind, Be Gentle” - This is my main practice to all that arises in my world.

[Green]

@faujidoc1

Experience only ceases when one attains the cessation of perception and feeling. That is how one arrives at the end of the world (AN9.38).

Is it not just a matter of what one defines as ‘the world’. Buddha defines that, i believe, in a subjective way. If one sees soundwaves as the world, molecules, neutrino’s, all kinds of radiation, these do not cease in the perception of cessation and feeling, i believe. What ceases is cognition, i.e. how those things are experienced within a human body and mind.

Soundwaves are experienced as sounds. Those sounds cease but soundwaves not. They keep being produced. Certain Molecules binding to receptors are experienced as certains smells and tastes. Those tastes and smells cease, but not the molecules. Why would they cease?

Still i think Buddha has found the nature of mind. How the mind is without any defilement. He has seen it as it is, egolessness nature. It is defilement which distorts our perception of ourselves and
others. Indeed, Buddha’s teachings have a practical implication, i.e. to discover and see this for ourseves too and end delusion.

[Green]

@stu

Not if you attempt to treat everything that arises in your world with kindness and compassion. “Make Peace, Be Kind, Be Gentle” - This is my main practice to all that arises in my world.

I think that the idea that what you do not perceive does not exist (anymore) leads to (or is) neglect, irresponsible behaviour, madness, enormous suffering, superior wrong view.

If you think like this about your own child (lets assume), and while not seeing her/him, thinking ‘it does not exist’…sorry that is just neglect and madness. There is really nothing wise about this stu.

Please…

[stu]

@Green

If you think like this about your own child (lets assume), and while not seeing her/him, thinking ‘it does not exist’…sorry that is just neglect and madness. There is really nothing wise about this stu.

Please…

Perhaps that’s why mendicants don’t procreate?

But seriously, I think that you might’ve missed (or misunderstood) the bit above that? Here it is again …

@stu

A recollection of the child can arise (mind-consciousness), and a desire to say ‘feed’ the child can also arise, and what would conventionally be called something like ‘a desire to seek out’ can arise, which causes one to move. Then the child once again arises in the eye-consciousness, then mind-consciousness. It’s obviously much more granular than that and there are many more steps, but hopefully you get the drift.

While there is desire for that child to be reborn into our consciousness there will be no neglect. People go to extraordinary lengths due to their desire to be with, hold, feed, train and generally look after children (well those that they assume are theirs or should be theirs).

And of course from the perspective of the child they are still maintained. In the same way that (your version of) you is maintained in your stream of consciousness while (my version of) you falls away from my stream of consciousness.

@Green

There is really nothing wise about this stu.

It affords you the opportunity to pay attention to what is arising in your consciousness in the present moment instead of fantasising about the past and future. This is the basis of (Buddhist) meditation imho.

[Green]

@stu

It affords you the opportunity to pay attention to what is arising in your consciousness in the present moment instead of fantasising about the past and future. This is the basis of (Buddhist) meditation imho.

I do not think that the EBT support your ideas that a child is born in of from your mind, and has no independend existence from your mind or perception. Nor your idea that the child is reborn in your mind when you again perceive it.

I do not really understand why other particpants, more respected participants then me, do not correct your ideas. but i rest my case. I cannot do more than i have done.

Maybe you embrace for practical reasons the view that what you do not perceive does not exist: To stop worrying, to focus on what is immediately at hand, oke, that i accept. For the same reasons one can for practical reasons embrace the idea that the body is ugly or repellent, or food, or even me . Those are not really facts but one can embrace them for good reasons.

[suaimhneas]

@Green

@Sunyo

In SN22.86 the point is rather that there is no Tathagata (i.e. no Self) before death so the four phrases on the Tathagata after death also don’t apply.

It is just a side-issue in this discussion but what does it mean that there is no Tathagata before death? Is he non-existent? Who teaches Dhamma, a non -existent Tathagata? Isn’t is clear that when i talk about Sunyo i refer to that specific body and mind that is ones born, that speaks, thinks and acts? Why is this different with Tathagata and is he not even visible before death?

Just a short general comment on this topic. I’ve mostly just laid aside this whole fourfold negation question with respect to the status of an arahant. At this point, it just seems too mysterious and confusing to me.

That said, I don’t find the explanation sometimes given that the Tathagatha doesn’t really exist before death and therefore the question of their status is inapplicable after death also, entirely satisfactory. Firstly, ruling out the four cases: exists/not exists/both exists and not exists/neither exists nor not exists, is, as far as I can recollect, only ever applied in the suttas to an arahant or the Tathagatha himself. It’s not applied to earlier path stages or ordinary followers, i.e., there are no statements such as you don’t really exist now and therefore existence isn’t really applicable in the future either. Secondly, it is clear that this four case inapplicability is valid for the living arahant or Tathagatha. This is consistent with statements in various places about the untraceability of such beings even in this life.

I think that whatever this fourfold inapplicability/negation is referring to likely is special and particular and holds only for beings after full enlightenment (something has fundamentally changed when alive, which leads on to this inapplicability after death, and this untraceability when living).

As it says in the Khema sutta:

“No, ma’am. Why is that? Because the ocean is deep, immeasurable, and hard to fathom.”

“In the same way, great king, any form by which a Realized One might be described has been cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, obliterated, and unable to arise in the future. A Realized One is freed from reckoning in terms of form. They’re deep, immeasurable, and hard to fathom, like the ocean. To say that after death, a Realized One exists, or doesn’t exist, or both exists and doesn’t exist, or neither exists nor doesn’t exist: none of these apply.

Any feeling … perception … choices … consciousness by which a Realized One might be described has been cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, obliterated, and unable to arise in the future. A Realized One is freed from reckoning in terms of consciousness. They’re deep, immeasurable, and hard to fathom, like the ocean. To say that after death, a Realized One exists, or doesn’t exist, or both exists and doesn’t exist, or neither exists nor doesn’t exist: none of these apply.”