How can we understand the fact that DN 11 speaks of a luminous consciousness beyond the world?

The Watercooler
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If you look at my introduction:

What kind of clouds are we talking about?

  1. cloud – simple enough
  2. cloud forest
  3. cloud storage
  4. cloud burst

All are types of clouds, right? Let’s just for now set aside the idea that vinanna anidassana is a kind of vinanna – maybe it is, but maybe it means ‘vinanna like but different’, or maybe it is something found in the presence of vinanna like ‘cloud forest’, or something entirely different.

You will see that I am referring to both parts - vinanna and anidassana. I am trying to show how when we combine one word like vinanna with another word - the meaning can change entirely. And as we both say, the anidassana is the part that we don’t have a clear definition for. That’s why in the example I started with I left the spelling of the second word as random characters - to show that this is the part that we don’t understand so we can’t say how the first term is being modified by it. It’s why I wrote:
"Let’s just for now set aside the idea that vinanna anidassana is a kind of vinanna "

Does that clear things up?

Yes, I have read it many times along with the comments.

Well, that can happen but the same thing can happen in the attainment of infinite consciousness and then - using the same reasoning - if such disturbances continued you could drop back into the fourth and have the same problem. - this is why I quoted the definition from AN 9.31:

If you want to argue with the Buddha be my guest.

[edit to clear up a confusing statement:]
I wasn’t referring to parinibbana - I am of the opinion that no one should really be speculating on that unless they are a dead Arahat.
I was referring to nibbana. We may differ on which suttas are describing parinibbana - I basically stick with ones that state so very clearly something like ‘with the death of this body …’

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Hi Sunyo, just wanted to correct my earlier response to you. I did read your essay some time ago but this time did not pay close attention and thought you were referring to the first article written by Ven. Sujatto on his site. My apologies. I just took a second look at yours and I think I have talked about all the points that you bulleted there. Obviously, we have some different views but if there is anything there that you want to discuss - go for it.

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Thank you. I cannot ignore that buddha’s teachings do not resonate in me as leading to a mere cessation. For me they resonate as finding Truth, finding home, protection, a refuge. And i feel that a mere cessation is an aburd idea of finding a Home and Protection and the end of suffering or bliss .

I cannot really ignore this. Ofcourse i see what choices others make, i investigate them, but i feel this is all also personal, subjective. In the end, i try to see in a mirror and ask myself…what do i really know? With this question i never mean, ‘what do i intellectually know’. Do you?

@Jasudho has more or less concluded and said to me that it is not oke to trust intuition and gut-feeling, but i see this differenty. This has been a long proces for me. I have always been someone who was more inclined to ignore the knowledge of gut-feeling, intuition, and relied on thinking, reasoning, conceiving. This was a mistake i have seen. There is nothing wrong with relying on a kind of knowledge that is not like a position or conclusion after a long intensive process of studying and reasoning.

The ulitmate goal is, i feel, to find home. That is what the Buddha searched for himself (Snp) when he felt very insecure, unprotected, unsafe. Seeing suffering in the world, conflict, violence and also realising that suffering was also his nature. He felt very much unsafe and unprotected. That is where i can relate to.

In short, he realised that the only Real Home is the mind that not makes anything her home (me, mine, my self). The mind without bhava. The mind without grasping. The pure mind. The Buddha discovered that this is Real Home.

All this grasping, here and now, lead to bhava, and also after death. It leads to new homes because grasping is like building up, constructing a personal existence. That constructed will always desintegrate. So, any home, any bhava, is unsafe, unreliable because it is a construction. I see this.

He saw the builder of the home and ended it. This is how he realised Real Home. Homelessess is the characteristic of the totally detached mind. This mind cannot be identitified as this or that. You cannot even say that this mind is human, or man or woman, buddhist or jewish, here or there. I have feeling for this. This is, i believe, the cessation of bhava. The pure mind has no bhava or rather is beyond it. It is more like the base for every bhava.

Buddha found this Real Home and that is why he felt he had done his task. This homeless home is, in my opinion, no mere cessation, but is more like the intelligent and unsupported ground of any bhava or any home. I do not exclude that all religion teach this, or in some way express knowledge of it. The Home of the Tathagata’s.

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I wonder, why do you not distinguish consciousness and mind? Do you believe that someone is mindless when he is unconscious?

If the cessation of consciousness is really the goal, then you achieve the goal temporary while deep asleep, under narcosis? Is this what you believe?

If vinnana in fact ceases all the time, like Abhidhamma teaches, and may not be seen as something that is continues present, then we also realise to goal all the time in between those states that there is no vinnana?

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Hello Venerable, and thank you for your messages!

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perhaps the text uses the term “consciousness” with two different meanings (once to speak of nibbana, a second time to speak of a samsaric consciousness)

There is a real problem with the use of the word “consciousness” when trying to understand the meaning of the text being referred to herein. If we revert to using Vinnana, then the Thai forest teachers say that there are seven types, the Vinnana that arises from the six senses and the rebirth Vinnana. The Thai forest teachers would also say that NONE of the these are the “consciousness” that is without surface as Vinnana arises and passes away.

To try and get around the problem of language and interpretation, Luang Poo Tate refers to Vinnana as an expression of “Mano” (as in Manopubbaṅgamā dhammā). Vinnana is therefore not Mano but a Mano creation. When Vinnana ceases, through purifying the Citta, Mano is all that is left. Mano (the Origination Mind) is not born, will not die, has no signs. Mano is void, a singularity. Mano is beyond the control of anyone or any condition and so, it too, is Anatta. Sabbe Dhamma Anatta.

Other teachers in the Thai tradition use different words but, if one sees beyond the language, then one can see that there are no inconsistencies and no inconsistencies with the Suttas.

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Thanks for your post. Of course, we’re all free to practice and choose to believe as we wish.

I’d like to clarify what appears to be a misunderstanding here.

I never wrote, and do not believe, that intuition plays no part in the Dhamma.

It’s very clear that thinking and conceiving can only go so far on the Path. No one in the suttas became fully Awakened by sitting on a rock and thinking about it. So, yes there is something beyond logic and mere thinking that’s necessary – insight that transcends thoughts, beliefs, and opinions. Of course, this is not mere intuition.

However, intuition imo is an integral part of the Path. Here I align it (though it’s not exactly the same thing), with saddha, faith/confidence in the Teachings.
When I first encountered the Teachings, before I had any experience with them, I intuitively felt in my heart that they were true, beneficial, and incredible. It was a form of saddha.

Also, even as we cultivate and practice the Path, we still have an intuition about the validity of the teachings we haven’t yet directly seen into and experienced. Other aspects of the Teachings have been validated through our experience, so it’s more than just intuition. But imo some degree of this remains prior to our direct experience and knowledge of being free of all greed, anger, and ignorance. Again, what I’m calling intuition here is an aspect of saddha.

My point in the prior post was that over-reliance on intuition, belief, and gut-feelings without checking them against the teachings in the suttas can potentially lead to (fill in the blank).

I mean, people have an intuition and belief in a self. It comes as the default programming of being born as a human.
So do we say that our deep intuition and the ever-present gut-feeling of being a self, a something, is true according to the Dhamma? True because it feels true?
Why would we even question it if we weren’t familiar with the Buddha’s teachings in the suttas?

So, yes, there is knowing beyond thinking.
And yes, there are disagreements about some of the subtler aspects of the teachings amongst experienced and well-meaning practitioners.
But those disagreements, AFAIK, are based on different understandings and interpretations of the Buddha’s teachings in the suttas – and not only on gut-feelings.

With respect and best wishes :pray:

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May I ask how this differs from the Absolute as described in the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads?

Yājñavalkya taught “the unseen seer, the unheard hearer…the unknown knower.”
He also taught about an undying blissful formless radiance, etc.

Is this what the Buddha’s decades of teachings were about – expressing anicca and anatta as different than the Brahmanical teachings – but fundamentally pointing to an undying timeless mind and essentially the same outcome as the practices in the Upanishads?

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Ven. Ñāṇavīra:

ATAKKĀVACARA

Sometimes translated as ‘unattainable by reasoning’ or ‘not accessible to doubt’. But the Cartesian cogito ergo sum is also, in a sense, inaccessible to doubt; for I cannot doubt my existence without tacitly assuming it. This merely shows, however, that one cannot get beyond the cogito by doubting it. And the Dhamma is beyond the cogito. The cogito, then, can be reached by doubt—one doubts and doubts until one finds what one cannot doubt, what is inaccessible to doubt, namely the cogito. But the Dhamma cannot be reached in this way. Thus the Dhamma, though certainly inaccessible to doubt, is more than that; it is altogether beyond the sphere of doubt. The rationalist, however, does not even reach the inadequate cogito, or if he does reach it[a] he overshoots the mark (atidhāvati—Itivuttaka II,ii,12 <Iti. 43>); for he starts from the axiom that everything can be doubted (including, of course, the cogito). Cf. also Majjhima xi,2 <M.ii,232-3> & i,2 <M.i,8>. See NIBBĀNA.

Footnotes:

[a] When he is being professional, the rationalist will not allow that what is inaccessible to doubt is even intelligible, and he does not permit himself to consider the cogito; but in his unprofessional moments, when the personal problem becomes insistent, he exorcizes the cogito by supposing that it is a rational proposition, which enables him to doubt it, and then to deny it. ‘Les positivistes ne font qu’exorciser le spectre de l’Absolu, qui reparaît cependant toujours et vient les troubler dans leur repos.’ – - J. Grenier, op. cit., p. 44. (‘The positivists do nothing but exorcize the spectre of the Absolute, which however always reappears and comes to trouble them in their sleep.’) For Grenier, the Absolute is not (as with Bradley) the totality of experiences, but is to be reached at the very heart of personality by a thought transcending the relativity of all things, perceiving therein a void (pp. 100-1). Precisely—and what, ultimately, is this Absolute but avijjā, self-dependent and without first beginning? And what, therefore, does the Buddha teach but that this Absolute is not absolute, that it can be brought to an end? See A NOTE ON PATICCASAMUPPĀDA §§24 & 25.

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Thanks for this. I believe this is the case. Do you have any link to something that covers Luang Poo Tate’s interpretation in more detail?

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Thanks for sharing but this is no issue for me.

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Is this what the Buddha’s decades of teachings were about – expressing anicca and anatta as different than the Brahmanical teachings – but fundamentally pointing to an undying timeless mind and essentially the same outcome as the practices in the Upanishads?

It is not for me to comment on what is or is not part of the Upanishads, however, I will make the following points. The first is that although people use the same words to describe an experience it does not mean that they are experiencing the same thing, so drawing parallels is not really useful - in my opinion. The second point is that blissful and bright states that centre on one-pointedness can be achieved through strong concentration. These states provide a glimpse of Mano but they are a dead-end because the seed of ignorance cannot been uprooted by concentration alone. Instead the practitioner needs to backtrack and investigate the really unique Buddhist doctrine of Dependent Origination. When one understands this, then the seed of ignorance is removed and the driving force of Dependent Origination is extinguished.

Luang Poo Tate says this experience is beyond words, so how could anyone who has not experience this determine what are the right words and what are not?

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@Charlie There are several books available on-line that cover Luang Poo’s teachings. If you search for any combination of spellings such as Ajahn Tate, Ajahn Thate, Acharn Tate, Acharn Thate, Luang Poo Tate, etc then you should find what you are looking for. You may also like Ajahn Maha Boowa’s book Arahattamagga Arahattaphala.

Ajahn Char said the Buddha is the Dhamma and the Dhamma is the Buddha therefore the real Buddha (the Sacca Dhamma Buddha) still exists. It is the Kilesa that are extinguished, not the Dhamma.

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You probably won’t believe me when I say ’ I mean no disrespect’ , but I hope you do.

If any venerable has reached such a level of development/understanding, I would say such a venerable is not afraid of death but has not escaped rebirth.

I would say the right thing to say about such venerables is ‘ceto vasippatto’.

This is just my opinion, may be worthless may be not.

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I am not sure I understand what you are saying.
Vinnana includes the rebirth consciousness and so, if it ceases, by definition rebirth ceases. In Luang Poo’s case, I think ‘ceto-vimutti’ is more accurate a description.

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@Charlie

You may also be interested in this quote from Luang Poo Dune (believed to be Arahant).

“Virtue means the normalcy of a mind that’s free of faults, the mind that has armored itself against doing evil of any kind. Concentration is the result that comes from maintaining that virtue, i.e. a mind with solidity, with stillness as the strength sending it on to the next step. Discernment — “what knows” — is a mind empty, light, and at ease, seeing things clearly, all the way through, for what they really are. Release is a mind that enters emptiness from that emptiness. In other words, it lets go of the ease, leaving a state where it is nothing and has nothing, with no thought remaining at all.”

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Hi, :slight_smile:

I saw that. But the word Ven Sujato translates as ‘infinite’ isn’t anidassana, is what I was trying to say. In your “part 4” you seem to think Ven Sujato’s ‘infinite’ renders the same word as V. Nanananda’s ‘non-manifestive’ and V. Thanissaro’s ‘without surface’, which is anidassana. But like me, Ven Sujato thinks the central adjective is ananta instead, and that is what he renders as ‘infinite’. This ‘infinite consciousness’ is actually mentioned all the time in the suttas. I think you can see why people assume this is what DN11 is about as well.

Therefore, to add to your cloud analogy, we don’t just have ‘cloud X’, but we have ‘thunder cloud X’, which makes it clear that whatever X is, it’s about a weather cloud and not a storage cloud. Likewise, a consciousness that is ananta and anidassana is about infinite consciousness, a state of meditation mentioned all over the suttas, regardless of what anidassana exactly means. That’s how I see it.

And it happens to make contextual sense as well.

“Cease without anything left over” is not the same as “find no footing”. That’s why the Buddha changes the question.

Also hi :slight_smile:

Well, if you don’t mind, I don’t want to start here again a whole debate about the nature of nibbana and prefer to stay closer to discussing the passage in question of DN11. Perhaps I was the first to drift, but all I was trying to say that there is nothing inherently deeper about your interpretation. And also, I don’t think we should accuse translations of being rational. What if Ven. Sujato’s footnotes would have said “I chose this translation because it is what feels intuitively right to me”? Would you have accepted that? Probably not. Because it’s not an argument. And in a sense I would even think it’d be disrespectful to the suttas and the readers of the translations.

I can say, though, that an eternal consciousness never has made sense to me on any level, intuitively, rationally, or meditatively. But I think that’s not something worth discussing, which is why I don’t tend to bring it up in these kinds of discussoins. I’m sure many people are in the a similar place.

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Unfortunately you do not give a direct answer to my question. Maybe you are willing to clarify in another post if you feel there is no difference at all between mind and consciousness?

Regarding vinnana anidassanam, I do not believe that there can be a jhana where the elements have no footing at all. Sujato makes a complex argument but i do not understand this.

Regarding translations, I do no believe in bad intentions, but i can see clearly there is more going on than Pali expertise. The choices one makes are also supported by how one understands Dhamma, i feel. I do not think one can prevent this.

In the case of understanding Dhamma, an intuitive approach is very well accepted in buddhism and seen as great and fine. There are schools that very much about learning, study but there are also school that are more intuitively focused. This does not have to be a problem at all. It cannot be compared to translating texts.

And what about an eternal intelligence?

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Yes, I understand what he did. But he basically grabbed the word following anidassana and used it to modify vinanna - but he doesn’t indicate that in the text:

“Infinite consciousness,
‘Viññāṇaṁ anidassanaṁ,

His note:
The adjective “infinite” (ananta) is the direct qualifier of “consciousness”, but in the Pali it is shifted to the next line to fit the meter. [Based on what evidence?] The dimension of infinite consciousness is one of the formless realms …

Are you telling me that as a translator I can just change words around - putting them where I like so it makes more sense to me? None of the other translators have done this with this sutta.
Shouldn’t that be kind of a red flag moment? It’s like I can’t do anything with non-manifestative consciousness but I can’t have vinanna there implying it relates to nibbana so I grab the next word and move it around and now I have a meaning that works for me?

Is that the job of a translator?

Yes, it is common but he changed the word order. he changed the meaning! Maybe that is why other people agree? How many suttas have been modified in this way?

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Thanks, I will take a look.

Yes, I know that one. Very good descriptions in there.

Is this from ‘Gifts he left Behind’? That is the only one I have seen of his.

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