‘The self and the cosmos experience nothing but happiness.’ ittheke abhivadanti, ‘ekantasukhī attā ca loko ca, idameva saccaṁ moghamaññan’ti—
‘The self and the cosmos experience nothing but suffering.’ ittheke abhivadanti, ‘ekantadukkhī attā ca loko ca, idameva saccaṁ moghamaññan’ti—
‘The self and the cosmos experience both happiness and suffering.’ ittheke abhivadanti, ‘sukhadukkhī attā ca loko ca, idameva saccaṁ moghamaññan’ti—
‘The self and the cosmos experience neither happiness nor suffering.’ ittheke abhivadanti, ‘adukkhamasukhī attā ca loko ca, idameva saccaṁ moghamaññan’ti— ittheke abhivadanti.
Yes! it is very interesting, I have finally bitten the bullet and am now trying to learn Pali, having never managed to master even English so far because at a certain point in these discussions I find my limitations, for example, “that is real” seems a bit emphatic for most early Buddhism, so if anyone can help me parse the Pali it would be much appreciated (I am up to Warder chapter 2 so this is a long way beyond me)
‘tayidaṃ this thing saṅkhataṃ conditioned oḷārikaṃ coarse atthi is kho very pana but by contrast saṅkhārānaṃ nirodho the ceasing of conditions atthetan’ is found ’ti end qoute
so something like:
“these conditioned things are are very coarse, but there is also by contrast the ceasing of all conditions”
So I am wondering if “real” is really warranted? is it the kho applying to saṅkhārānaṃ nirodho rather than saṅkhataṃ?
I’m not sure, but I wonder if the phrase here is equivalent to the “stilling of all formations” used to describe Nibbana, eg in MN64?
Edit: does sankhara here refer to conditions generally, or just to the activity of the sankharas aggregate? The latter would include all the views mentioned in this sutta, so it might refer to the cessation of views?
I suspect that it is used in the more comprehensive sense, the sutta goes through a range of possible “views” that are said to be conditioned, before addressing meditative attainments, but the meditations use a framework more related to the jhanas than the aggregates.
I belief an important cause for dukkha, for being hungry, not peaceful, unrest, is that our lives become much to intellectual, conceptual, mental and it looses quality. A difficult thing but that is what feeds naturally.
This high-orientation on life , from the head, will never ever feed us. Hunger will never end. We are quickly bored, fed up, dissatisfied, disillusioned. This is not due the nature of the world, i belief, but due to our inability to really make contact with reality.
How we relate to life is very important, i feel. I think we live to much from our heads, lost in ideas, in concepts, names, labels.
I belief Buddha teaches this too. We are to much trapped in conceiving. To conceptual. Intellectual. We are not directly seeing things as they are but we see concepts, names, labels. If it is person, a bird, the surrounding, feelings, we tend to relate to it in a very conceptual way. All looks the same all the time.
For example: we see a bird, name/label it ‘woodpecker’ and we think we know all about this bird. “Seen it, been there, done that”. There is no sense of wonder anymore. No interest. Naming and conceptualising kills this. This intellectual mind is like a strangler. It will always think: Been there, seen that, done that. That is its nature. It relates only to concepts. It does not see things as they are.
Some people can look at a woodpecker for days, because they do not see the concept/name/label woodpecker and do not think…‘seen that, been there, done that…’ But relating to concepts, and not to reality as it is, one will always feel: “been there, seen that, done that”. Like this mind is bored all the time. But i think this is because there is no real contact with reality which is always anew, afresh.
Lost in concepts, in conceivings, names, labels, ideas, quality of life decreases.
This intellectual orientation might seem as richness, as wisdom , deep but in fact it is a kind of poverty, dullness, superficial, delusion. It squeezes the quality out of our lives and then we are lost. Then we start seeking because we are not fed.
One of Ven Punnaji’s students Bro. Billy Tan, if I’m remembering correctly, makes the same point as you and talks about the path being the return to insentience.
I just happen to be proof reading some text by Ajahn Brahm at the moment and I came across this snippet which I thought you would be interested in. I don’t know which definition is in line with the EBTs:
Consciousness is called viññāṇa in Pali because it discriminates. The prefix Vi implies it’s two, the same as the Latin word bi . It means ‘two things’: an object has to move both backwards and forwards for consciousness to know it . Consciousness needs something to compare with, and anything that is perfectly still eventually stops consciousness. That’s why consciousness can only know movement and change.
I have seen this idea too in a interpretation of Paticca Samuppada of Kalu Rinpoche.
He described in that interpretation that fundamental avijja happens after death. Then there is a kind of shock. There is a totally unconscious state for a certain period. There is no conscious activity in the mind at all. He refers to this state as fundamental avijja.
At a certain moment this period of unconciousness ends, like deep sleep that ends. In a subtle way sankhara’s, mental formations, start again. This becomes the base of a more well developed vinnana etc. Perceptions and vedana’s start to arise (again).
