SuttaCentral
I wonder if many of the assumptions about my understanding is due to the confusion in terminology that Peter Harvey writes about:
I use:
I do not use Self with a capital S as that is already covered by ‘soul’ imo.
Hi @Brother_Joe
May I ask ,
Are you implying you only
accept the 4 nikaya ?
So , If you can’t find it in 4 nikaya
you won’t accept the Chinese Agama ?
( the 6 sense organ -
Eye Ear Nose Tongue Body Mind -
Is rupa khanda ) .
Well , referring to the Sutta ,
If the body is rupa ,
then the other 4 will be also rupa .
(Eye Ear Nose Tongue )
And
( mind = 地水火风 ）四大 last second line !
漢譯《雜阿含》, 見大正藏《雜阿含》306經
Sutta 306 :
( please take note at the last second line )
「眼、色緣，生眼識，三事和合觸，觸俱生受、想、思。此四無色陰，眼、色，此等法名為人 。於斯等法，作人想，眾生……。耳……。鼻……。舌……。身、觸緣，生身識，三事和合觸，觸俱生受、想、思。
此四是無色陰， <# 身根是色陰 #> ，
此名為人……。
緣意、法，生意識，三事和合觸，
觸俱生受、想、思。
( 此四無色陰、四大 ) ，
士夫所依，此等法名為人。如上廣說。」
-----------------———----------------------------------
&
雜阿含 298 經 , 定義了
名色 (name and form)
Sutta 298 :
云何名？
謂四無色陰——受陰、想陰、行陰、識陰。
云何色？
謂四大、四大所造色，是名為色。
ThanksWhat you remember is past lives, but the connection is maintained by habits or continuities. Once again, this is no different from the way memory works in this life.
Exactly how memory works, whether in this life or between lives, is controversial. There is nothing obvious in the EBTs to explain this, and I don’t think we should expect them to explain such things. The Buddha’s teachings tend to be pragmatic rather than philosophical: think of the handful of leaves that he taught (that is, the four noble truths) compared to all the leaves in the forest (what he actually knew)(SN 56.31).
So far as science is concerned, my understanding is that there is little consensus on the workings of memory. What little mainstream consensus there is, especially that memory is brain based, is in my opinion misguided. I recently read an article that suggested science was at least 100 years away from understanding memory.
We are left with little but speculation. It seems obvious, from an EBT point of view, that memory is somehow accessed through the stream of consciousness, the ever-changing flow of connected conscious events. Some, such as Ajahn Brahm, have suggested that it happens through action at a distance, in that there is nothing actually going across from the past to the present. This would perhaps be a bit like gravity, where it seems that physical forces are at work without any carriers of that force. (Although it could of course be that the carriers are still to be discovered.)
But in whatever way we access the past, it is not as if some permanent record of the past is carried across time. Memory research shows how unreliable is our recollection of past events. There is some truth to our recollections, but there is also much distortion. In other words, there is both change and continuity. Sounds familiar?
Hi Venerable, that definetly sounds familiar. Thanks very much for taking the time to reply, it is much appreciated as usual
Friend, thanks for taking time and making a big effort to compose such an elaborate post. It makes me feel obliged to reply and explain myself hopefully a bit better.
I only asked Bhante to expand a little bit on his refute to the previous post. In his short message, my understanding is, that Bhante stated there was no self (“no core”) and that only our habitual thinking about it strengthen the illusion that there was the self. So I wanted to know how this theory (Anatta) accounts for memory and creativity – which we all poses. We can further expand this list to include things like decision making, judging, imagining etc.
And the second point that I have raised was about how the same theory can be implemented in our daily lives. The Buddha gave this discourse (Anattalakkhana Sutta) to his ascetic friends, and at the end of it, it has been said, all of them were awakened - enlightened! Yet the Buddha never said the word about who within us we should direct our efforts to educate! All he said was that the 5 clinging aggregates were not controlled by the self, thus we should reject them as “not I, not mine, not myself”. His audience understood him perfectly, despite not saying the word about what or who is this entity? All I can speculate today is that there was some sort of a convention about this entity so that the Buddha didn’t have to explain and people would still get his point. This understanding has now been lost. So all I wanted to know who is this entity which perceives, feels, intends, thinks and is conscious? Who is it that knows they are all impermanent, empty and thus it should not cling to them?
With metta
I accept the First Four Collections of Suttas from any language source. I don’t accept everything in them, but believe the authentic teaching of the Buddha can be found in them.
yes, of course
Sorry, I still could not find those words.
Of course I can see where it talks of the Four Great Elements.
I didn’t look at the other suttas yet.
The idea that memory depends in some way on brain activity seems to be an empirically well-established fact that does not depend on which high-level theoretical model of the brain’s activity one employs. The mere fact that memory loss is a common effect of brain injury and disease seems to be enough to make the case. Of course, that leaves open the possibility that there are other natural systems involved in memory as well.
The argument in the Epstein article is, I would suggest, very weak on the whole. It is based on a crude simplification of the concepts of information processing and information storage, and on what it means to say that a computer processes information. It also seems to be directed against various straw men, such as the idea that memories are stored “in a single neoron.” The mere fact that large portions of the brain are involved in the memory of a single event is not at all an argument against the hypothesis that information storage and processing are going on. Also, it is entirely possible that some skills and behaviors, such as the baseball catching example, can be explained without reference to information processing, but that other skills and behaviors require information processing models for their explanation.
In a rebirth model of the mind where there is no discoverable beginning to consciousness, the number of experiences we have had is virtually limitless. By accessing this massive storehouse of experiences, there is virtually no limit to creativity, in the form of combining past knowledge with present experience.
The five aggregates themselves.
I believe the brain/mind model put forward by Fredric Myers may be compatible with Buddhist ideas. His idea is that the brain is essentially a filter for the mind, which exists semi-independently of the brain. Memories and personality belong to the mind, but the brain acts as a filter through which the mind expresses itself. This theory combines the idea that memory is not brain-based with the reality that brain damage affects our ability to retrieve memories and indeed express our personality.
I can think of 3 texts.
MN 22 and its MA parallel invite one to infer that the self does not exist. The former uses 2 proofs, the latter only one. The one in common to both is actually a Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens transformation. Can you spot it?
An MA sutra describing Bimbisara’s stream entry is more straightforward. It has the Buddha flat out say that there is no self. I’ve posted it here before but need to get home to the hard copy.
Bhante, is the book you linked worth reading?
I think Irreducible Mind is one of the best books on the subject. It brings up a lot of interesting empirical evidence. At the same time it is reasonable and well argued. These guys are not flaky fanatics, but serious researchers. I haven’t really read much in the area of the mind/body problem, yet I suspect this is one of the very best reads.
So go for it and have fun!
Thanks!
@Brahmali
Bhante ,
What is your opinion on the
" mind " as One of the
6 sense organ ( base ) ,
does it equate To our " brain " ?!
If not , what would it be then ?
Thanks .
Thanks very much for your reply Bhante. Appreciated
Hi Venerable Brahmali,
I just finished reading some of those articles you recommended. I found the idea of the brain and mind being separated particularly interesting.
In ancient China, the mind and heart were one in the same character: 心. What’s interesting about this is for every other organ in the human body the characters contained a symbol for flesh: 月 (it also means the moon). For example, 脾 (spleen)，胃 (stomach)，肾(kidney)，胆 (gall bladder)，肝 (liver)，肺 (lungs)，肠 (intestines) etc. The character for brain 脑 ‘nao’ also had the flesh symbol. The mind was seen as nontangible. This idea of the nontangible mind permeated all Chinese thinking.
Within the heart/mind resided the 神 ‘shen’ - this is hard to translate, in its yin aspect (tangible aspect) it is seen as someone’s complexion, the yang aspect (intangible aspect) it can be loosely translated as someone’s aura. Not in the sense of glowing or being seen, but the feeling someone puts off. In Chinese Medicine, nearly all issues with the mind/shen are treated from the heart. A good example is insomnia. From a biological point of view, blood quality and its free flow play a vital role in mind health. Issues with the brain on the other hand are normally treated from the kidney or the body as a whole.
The heart is represented by fire, while the kidney is represented as water. In China, they are not elements though (different to India). They represent movements, fire is of course up and out. The earliest Daoist meditation (actually there were no Daoists or Daoism back in those days) was focusing on the breath in the abdomen. To do this one had to put the 意 - the minds intent into the abdomen. This meant that the heart fire was underneath kidney water which in turn makes steam. The character for qi is a symbol steam coming off rice. The abdomen was seen as the engine room of the body and was therefore called 气海 - sea of qi, the opposite spot on the back was called 命门 - life’s gate and was seen to store was we nowadays call DNA. By putting the mind in the abdomen it was believed that the energy room of the body would be tonified (this was all to do with the Daoist aim of longevity) and it was also done to anchor the mind or give the mind an anchor as one was focusing on the lowest part of the human body (it’s not the feet… where is the bottom of the Earth).
This is why nearly all tranquilizing medicine in Chinese Medicine is either minerals, bones or shells (heavy substances). They were meant to anchor the hearts fire so it would meet with the kidney water. In other words, bring the fire make into the abdomen. The question is, whats make the heart fire pathogenic or not stay in the abdomen? The answer is anger, over excitement, overthinking, holding the breath (as in lifting weights), sleeping late, an excessive amount of physical movement, over sweating; in other words forms of external stimulants.
The examples of this separation between brain and mind go on and on. The three most well known ‘internal’ martial arts in China are, Tai Ji, Ba Gua and Xing Yi. Internal means the aim is to develop power which issues from the centre of the body outwards. External (like Karate) means power is issued from the hand, arm or shoulder. Xing yi which means ‘form intent’ was originally called ‘xin yi’ which means heart/mind intent. The entire martial art was based on how to use the intent of the mind to develop power.
I’m wondering if there is anything in the Buddhist Suttas where the mind and brain were separated…
Thanks a lot for this good example! Where in most cases it’s easy to see that the Buddha talks about a ditthi MN 22 is tougher to crack.
But when I read carefully and in the context of the sutta, I can’t help but understanding it as a ‘doctrine of self’ and a ‘perception of self’ - so again as a micca ditthi, not an ontological declaration. But a sentence like the following seems to be ontological
So evaṃ samanupassanto asati na paritassatī
Mainly because of the ‘asati’, i.e. ‘not-being’. Question is, what is asati here, the atta or the samanupassitvā of the atta? Or in other words: is the atta unreal, or the impression that I have perceived/sensed it?
From the context of the sutta, I tend to see the perception-conception aspect of it in the foreground. But I understand a different reading of course, namely understanding it as the denial of an existence of atta.
But in general, can you see my issue? It would be so easy to imagine a pericope saying “There is no atta, it doesn’t exist, it’s a mirage, a dream, a misconception. Whether you see it or not, whether you believe in it or not, it doesn’t exist. The only thing existing is a dependently arisen impression of atta. Apart from this dependently arisen impermanent conviction there is no atta”.
Quite the opposite there are a few instances where the Buddha denies this as the annihilism that he doesn’t want to be confounded with.
But even if I’m not inclined to trust singular suttas I’d be very interested in the MA sutta you mentioned where the Buddha simply says that there is no self. Can you name it, and maybe the other 2/3 you suggested?
Many thanks!
I thought the paragraph you wrote above the one I quoted was correct. However I don’t think that that was what the Buddha said was annahilationism. See below:
"By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, ‘non-existence’ with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, ‘existence’ with reference to the world does not occur to one. SN12.15
Causally arisen ‘perceptions’ ‘exist’, but the idea that nothing exists, everything is an illusion, is not the Buddha’s teaching.
With metta 
You may be interested in SA 45 (SN 22.47) where you find the phrase:
If any wanderer or priest considers there is a self, then they see the self in these five aggregates. (Chinese version)
“Bhikkhus, those ascetics and brahmins who regard anything as self in various ways all regard as self the five aggregates subject to clinging, or a certain one among them. What five? (Pali version)
Searching the thread it seems these suttas have not been mentioned yet, and I thought they might be useful for the discussion you are having now.
[quote=“Gabriel”]
But in general, can you see my issue? It would be so easy to imagine a pericope saying "There is no atta, it doesn’t exist, it’s a mirage, a dream, a misconception.
[/quote]“Clinging causes [the] notion [of] ‘This [is] me’. No me without clinging.” (生故計是我，非不生。) -SA 261
Ven Anālayo’s rendering: Clinging to bodily form one clings to it conceiving it as ‘I am this’, [one does] not [conceive this way] without clinging to it. [alterations in square brackets]
PS: Apologies to @Erika_ODonnell, I accidentally misquoted him initially.
Thanks Erik! But isn’t it again that the Buddha speaks here about the consideration of atta, not the existence of atta? There are probably 100s of suttas that say that: khandhas are not atta, sense perceptions are not atta, the world… etc, take the very clear MN 1 for example.
Similarly with the quote of @Coemgenu: Clinging causes notion ‘This me’
What seems to be in the center of the Buddha’s emphasis here (and in almost all other suttas I came across) is not if atta exists ‘in reality’ but if we consider atta to (not)exist, the notion of it.
Maybe it seems pedantic to others. For me the difference is that it shows that the Buddha is not a philosopher who deals with the reality of subject & object. Rather does he deal with the reality of the effect that concepts have on the path of liberation/samsara.
For me the consequence is not to look into the Buddha-dhamma to solve the question if atta exists.