SuttaCentral
But OP asked if life/existence is suffering, if you’re unconscious how can you know what is suffering?
Sure, I didn’t say it was easy or simple.
That’s why I said clinging / craving is what causes suffering. No one clings to sickness or pain, unless they’re masochists.
Yes, this is why Supermundane right view does not replace mundane view, it is a layer above. It is a new, unique and different way of seeing things. One can see the car, but also the parts or mechanisms of a car.
I’m not sure if this was in response to my post. If it was, allow me to clarify: understanding the full scope of Dukkha (literally every instant of Samsaric existence) is the First Noble Truth. This generally gives rise to samvega.
One then needs to follow on with the second, third and fourth Noble Truths to find the Path out.
And yes, pursuing the Noble Eightfold Path is exactly the balanced approach necessary.
(If your reply was not intended for me, feel free to disregard:)
Hi,
But does the first noble truth say that every instant of samsaric existence is suffering? For example does it say that getting what one wants is suffering? Does it say that health is suffering? Does it say mind is all the time attached?
“Now this, monks, is the Noble Truth of dukkha: Birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair are dukkha; association with the unbeloved is dukkha; separation from the loved is dukkha; not getting what is wanted is dukkha. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are dukkha.”
Remember, the five-clinging aggregates refers to our Samsaric lives (i.e non-Arahants)
There are no sankharas that are not marked by dukkha.
It doesn’t mean that joy, pleasure and happiness don’t also arise but that these emotions too are fabricated. And anything fabricated bears the mark of Dukkha.
“There are these three forms of stressfulness, my friend: the stressfulness of pain, the stressfulness of fabrication, the stressfulness of change. These are the three forms of stressfulness.”
Perhaps re-reading the Fire Sermon might help show you the scope:
"Monks, the All is aflame. What All is aflame? The eye is aflame. Forms are aflame. Consciousness at the eye is aflame. Contact at the eye is aflame. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the eye — experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain — that too is aflame. Aflame with what? Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I tell you, with birth, aging & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.028.than.html
If there is no pleasure in life, people will not cling to it. However, because there are pleasures in life, people cling to life.
People cling to those pleasures because they do not know those pleasures as they actually are. They think those pleasures simply as pleasures. Otherwise, they will not cling to them.
Since they see those pleasures as pleasures, they are comfortable with them. They are not afraid of those pleasures. Since they have no fear of them, they want to be with those pleasures. They hang on to those pleasures. They take them as their refuge. What do they take as their refuge? They take their families as their refuge, they take their money as their refuge, they take their good jobs as their refuge, they take their possessions as their refuge, they take their comfortable lives as their refuge… This is what we called ignorance in Buddhism.
We hang on to those pleasures because that’s all we know about pleasure. We do not know any kind of pleasure beyond those pleasures. We cling to life because that’s all we know. We do not know what is beyond life. Buddhism shows us a new refuge that is Nibbana, Buddhism shows us what is beyond life that is the ending of birth and identity.
Buddhism can be seen as having pessimistic view about life. However, it does not have pessimistic view about happiness and freedom. It points us to the true happiness and true freedom while life only offers us temporary happiness and freedom. Moreover, these temporary happiness and freedom are short live and the sufferings behind them are much greater.
In Buddhism, these temporary happinesses are called the baits. Buddhism shows us the true happiness that is not the bait. If we understand Buddhism, we can see this. It is called Nibbana. It is the true happiness, true freedom and true refuge that Buddhism offers. Therefore, Buddhism is very positive about happiness and freedom. Since it found the true happiness and freedom, it rejected the fake ones that are the happiness and freedom that life offers. It sees them as sufferings in disguise.
Experience relies on feeling states whereas life depends on three qualities of which consciousness is one according to MN43.
“Friend, are vitality-fabrications[3] the same thing as feeling-states? Or are vitality-fabrications one thing, and feeling-states another?”
“Vitality-fabrications are not the same thing as feeling-states, friend. If vitality-fabrications were the same thing as feeling-states, the emergence of a monk from the attainment of the cessation of feeling & perception would not be discerned. It’s because vitality-fabrications are one thing and feeling-states another that the emergence of a monk from the attainment of the cessation of perception & feeling is discerned.”
“When this body lacks how many qualities does it lie discarded & forsaken, like a senseless log?”
“When this body lacks these three qualities — vitality, heat, & consciousness — it lies discarded & forsaken like a senseless log.”
“What is the difference between one who is dead, who has completed his time, and a monk who has attained the cessation of perception & feeling?”
“In the case of the one who is dead, who has completed his time, his bodily fabrications have ceased & subsided, his verbal fabrications … his mental fabrications have ceased & subsided, his vitality is exhausted, his heat subsided, & his faculties are scattered. But in the case of a monk who has attained the cessation of perception & feeling, his bodily fabrications have ceased & subsided, his verbal fabrications … his mental fabrications have ceased & subsided, his vitality is not exhausted, his heat has not subsided, & his faculties are exceptionally clear. This is the difference between one who is dead, who has completed his time, and a monk who has attained the cessation of perception & feeling.”
For me that is still theory. Oke, i can start to believe that any experience, any feeling, any sankhara, is suffering, but this is not my actual understanding, not how i experience it. And i feel it is not wise to constantly say to myself and others that any feeling and perception is suffering while i do not really feel nor experience it that way.
Maybe one day i will see it that way, but now i do not.
By the way this does not mean that i do not see that is not wise to feed the longings for experiencing this or that feeling, this or that state, or to perceive this or that.
I personally have never really understood that strange first noble truth. Especially the last sentence.
First it list all kinds of things we can recognise as suffering and than, according you it ends with… in short…any experience is suffering. That is a very strange jump.
There are also different interpretations on the clinging aggregates There is a interpretation this is only a small part of pancakhandha, meaning, not any sound, visual, smell, taste, tactile sensation, idea, leads instinctively to grasping and attachment, only certain ones that match with your personal collection of habitual patterns. In others words, a sound, a visual etc that does not trigger grasping also does not lead to suffering. This is only that part of pancakhandha, upadanapancakhandha, that triggers tanha.
I believe this sutta describes the difference between being death and being in sannavedayitanirodha.
I do not think that anyone will say that an unconscious person is death, or that one needs to be conscious to be alive.
I feel our lives consist of conscious and unconscious moments.
Yes, @Thito , while being unconscious there is no suffering. In that sense one can decide that our life is not only suffering. Isn’t that why we like to sleep? No burden at all?
@Thito , don’t you think we cling to suffering too?
According to SA/SN suttas, the Buddha does not teach “life is suffering”. He teaches not just the “four” truths, but “seven”; e.g., see:
Page 36 from The Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism Choong Mun-keat 2000.pdf (65.5 KB)
Life also has the flavour (assaada), which is the ease-and-joy (sukha.m somanassa.m).
All feeling is dukkha, which would include sukha and somanassa.
This is what disciplined practice under the guidance of a teacher is for.
The teachings say something very specific and it is up to us to discover it for ourselves.
"The mind is burning, ideas are burning, mind-consciousness is burning, mind-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact for its indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.
I have never, ever heard of your sui generis interpretation of the clinging aggregates. I would be interested in a citation from a monastic or commentary if you have it.
The sutta appears to make a criteria similar to the scientific one as to what life means. We are not conscious when we sleep or when we pass out, but we are not declared dead unless we lose vitality and heat.
It is unclear what the analogy of the iceberg would add to what life means? If higher attainments are unknown to the ordinary person, and if there is knowledge that does not depend on verbal, bodily and mental fabrications, then it still does not affect what life really means from an experiential point of view. The comparison with someone who ended his time seems relevant. Noble or not, vitality and heat fabrications remain necessary conditions for the continuity of life.
Yes, i agree, but i do not feel it is wise that while one does not really experience nor feel nor understand that any feeling, sankhara and perception is dukkha, to pretent one really knows this or experiences this. I also do not feel it is wise to constantly imprent this idea on the mind. Like you said, we have to discover it and that is something different than constantly reminding oneself and implanting that any feeling etc is dukkha.
However, it is a call to action.
What you wrote is sort of like when the teacher puts a tricky calculus problem on the blackboard and gives you the answer and asks you to produce the proof but you can’t yet. So the only thing to do is keep at it, review the materials and ask questions from the people that can reproduce it.
The Buddha was very, very clear on what the ‘right answer’ is. So our task is to to develop our discernment through proper practice of the Noble Eightfold Path until we can see it.
I believe Jung used it as a nice way to illustrate the mind and its processes (archetypes). Much stays hidden for us, beneath the surface of vinnana. Mind works in a for us hidden way.
In this context one also immediately sees that mind is not the same as vinnana. While vinnana refers to conscious moments, mind can also refer to what is not conscious, not active, hidden, dormantly present and going on. For example, it is said kaya sankhara’s arise in the mind to regulate the breath, but they are not consciously experienced.
Other unconscious aspect are there too such as anusaya which are not yet triggered, not active, but are still present in a dormant way in the mind. Not in vinnana.
There is much hidden in us all the time. There is very much going on beneath the surface of vinnana. We only touch a very small part of reality with vinnana.
The All cannot be defined by vinnana,i feel. It must be defined by wisdom. Conscious moments are a small part of our lives, but in our self-views and self-experience a very big part.
I read neurologist also postulate that a certain neurological treshold must be get over before something becomes conscious. Also decisions are not made that consciously, because, before we experience a decision or choice, it is allready made. It must only get over the neurological treshold to experience it. We might think that we made that decision but that is always the strange point of view of vinnana.
Also things like falling in love, experiencing revulsion or attraction to people, or Dhamma, or whatever one starts to feel and sense with people and in situations, is not at all consciously controlled. It is just a result of what is unconsciously going on and gets over the treshold.
It may look like we are very self-aware, in controll, very reasonable conscious beings, making our own choices in life, but that is, i believe, a vinnana illusion. I believe vinnana is the great magician in the sense that it creates an deceptive world in which we are in controll, in which we make decisions, we are free, in which there is an entity that instigates feeling, emotions, wisdom, love, compassion etc. and is owner of all this.
I think it can be useful to see at the mind or life as a iceberg in which there is very much going on beneath the surface but which we do not identify with, and do not see as our life, and the small part that is above the surface, vinnana, dominates our ideas of what and who we are and life is.
I tend to believe that Buddha gives the right direction. A direction towards dispassion, well-being, refuge, protection, liberation. But his teachings are, i believe, above all, skillful means connected to the goal.
Of course. And by following the map, one can arrive at the end of Dukkha.
If you ignore the Buddha’s directions, make up your own definitions and follow the ideas of a deluded mind, you simply won’t.
That’s the point.
I beg to differ. Sabba sutta seems to indicate that “the all” can only be defined through the senses and their objects. We could talk about “the all” in endless ways, but that will always be in reference to the senses.
Back to the point i was trying to make: the cessation of vitality and heat fabrications seems to mark the beginning of the disintegration of the body, hence an essential criteria to declaring life as ended. Adherents of Abrahamic religions might be more in agreement with the idea of the subconscious. They bury their dead under the ground, or back to the perceived source.
I think science has shown our senses are limited. They detect in a limited or selective way what is present around us. Limited in detecting present EM-waves, soundwaves, all kinds of radiation etc.
Science has developed all kind of very advanced technologies which can be seen as a kind of expansion of our senses. By this we know of dna, rna, virusses, etc. Things we would never know to exist probably without these techniques.
By means of this knowledge we also know more about suffering and its causes.
As you also know, in buddhism death does not mean the end of life or what we assume as our life.
The sutta only explains the difference between a death person and someone abiding in sannavedayitanirodha. It is not about the end of life.
Science depends on the senses. To see a friend with a naked eye or a far away object using a binocular does not mean that you came up with a new sabba that differs from the one described in SN35.23 .
And i did not know that in Buddhism death does not mean the end of life!
Fully worn out is this body, a nest of disease, and fragile. This foul mass breaks up, for death is the end of life.
Dhp 148
- And the Venerable Ananda spoke to the Venerable Anuruddha, saying: “Venerable Anuruddha, the Blessed One has passed away.”
“No, friend Ananda, the Blessed One has not passed away. He has entered the state of the cessation of perception and feeling.”[59]
- Then the Blessed One, rising from the cessation of perception and feeling, entered the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception. Rising from the attainment of the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, he entered the sphere of nothingness. Rising from the attainment of the sphere of nothingness, he entered the sphere of infinite consciousness. Rising from the attainment of the sphere of infinite consciousness, he entered the sphere of infinite space. Rising from the attainment of the sphere of infinite space, he entered the fourth jhana. Rising from the fourth jhana, he entered the third jhana. Rising from the third jhana, he entered the second jhana. Rising from the second jhana, he entered the first jhana.
Rising from the first jhana, he entered the second jhana. Rising from the second jhana, he entered the third jhana. Rising from the third jhana, he entered the fourth jhana. And, rising from the fourth jhana, the Blessed One immediately passed away.
DN16