SuttaCentral
I feel the definition of the All of the Buddha is not to describe All-that-exist. It is not meant to describe that all we perceive is all there is, i think. The world is much more than we can ever perceive through the senses. The senses are limited in detecting what is.
I do not really understand what the Buddha wants to express with his concept of the All. Do you?
End of this-life but not of your life. Buddha remembered many former lives.
If we agree that nirodha-samapatti is the highest meditative attainment, then we can acknowledge that existence and perception are interrelated, so a clear distinction between Sabba as All-that-exist and Sabba as all that perceived cannot be established. Keeping in mind that Dhamma is svākkhāta, and paying attention to the criteria set by SN 35.23, that is:
Anyone who would say, ‘Repudiating this All, I will describe another,’ if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range."
Then, any talking about what lies beyond what could be spoken is another facade. A repackaging of appearances that conveys depth that does not exist. It cannot be seen in the here and now, not timeless, does not invite one to come and see, does not lean inward, and cannot be understood by the wise by himself hence ill spoken. Such paradigm seems to be more interested in pathologizing rather than healing. It presents the expert who sees beyond appearances as a solution. It does not really lead to:
The rain saturates things that are covered up;
it doesn’t saturate things that are open.
Therefore you should open up a covered thing,
so the rain will not saturate it.
Other suttas points into the same direction such as AN4.45:
“I tell you, friend, that it is not possible by traveling to know or see or reach a far end of the cosmos where one does not take birth, age, die, pass away, or reappear. But at the same time, I tell you that there is no making an end of suffering & stress without reaching the end of the cosmos. Yet it is just within this fathom-long body, with its perception & intellect, that I declare that there is the cosmos, the origination of the cosmos, the cessation of the cosmos, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of the cosmos.”
Rohitassa sutta confirms that the lord Buddha remembered many former lives, of which:
Once I was a seer named Rohitassa, a student of Bhoja, a powerful sky-walker. My speed was as fast as that of a strong archer — well-trained, a practiced hand, a practiced sharp-shooter — shooting a light arrow across the shadow of a palm tree. My stride stretched as far as the east sea is from the west. To me, endowed with such speed, such a stride, there came the desire: ‘I will go traveling to the end of the cosmos.’ I — with a one-hundred year life, a one-hundred year span — spent one hundred years traveling — apart from the time spent on eating, drinking, chewing & tasting, urinating & defecating, and sleeping to fight off weariness — but without reaching the end of the cosmos I died along the way. So it is amazing, lord, and awesome, how well that has been said by the Blessed One: ‘I tell you, friend, that it is not possible by traveling to know or see or reach a far end of the cosmos where one does not take birth, age, die, pass away, or reappear.’"
DN1 indicates that remembering ones previous lives is not something special. It still depends on contact. It is āsavakkhaya that is the highest knowledge, which is linked to the cessation of avijjā.
Hi @Bundokji
I believe there is difference between what exist and what is perceived via the senses. What is perceived is just a very small part of what exist. Even regarding our own body, we perceive little.
Most of the bodily processes we are not aware of, atmost in a indirect way. But we do not doubt it exist. Dna exist, rna exist, liver activity exist, cell processes exist etc. So, why would we conclude that there is not a clear difference between all that exist and all that is perceived and vice versa.
It think it is also dependend on perspective. For example, if in deep meditation the awareness of the body disappears, this does not mean that the body of this person really disappears. Only the awareness of it disappears. If you look at that person you will see a body. The same with the world, i believe. The end of the world, i believe, only refers to the end of all what we experience, but not really the end of the world.
Range. Can’t we say the range of the senses is limited, but in a way the range of the senses is technologically expanded. And now we can make things visible such as all kind of molecular structures who would otherwise remain invisible for the eye etc. So, does the range not change?
It is like people who for the first time seeing bacteria with microscope. From that time on we know that all that exist is not the same as all that is perceived and vice versa.
Understanding reality is, i believe, always fruitful and misunderstanding reality not. Oke, this is not about escaping samsara, but it is still about suffering and causes for suffering there are in this very life.
What is svakkhata?
As i said in a previous reply, a clear distinction between what is perceived and what exists cannot be established. This is why, the Buddha’s model of Sabba includes six sense media rather than 5 or one. You could well argue that Sabba and mano are the same thing, solipsists do that. You could also argue that there is no mano and that experience is an interactive between the sense that gives the deluded impression that there is some kind of a unifying element behind them. The All as defined in Sabba sutta seems to make any claims about another All pointless. You can see bacteria using a microscope, but that would still be an eye and eye object. As to your example of the body disappearing in a deep absorption state, then the question arise: how did you know that it disappeared? people in deep sleep are not aware of the body, and they become aware of it upon waking up. Such statements appears to be conveying something of significance, but does not stand much scrutiny.
In the Buddha’s instructions to Bāhiya, he did not speak about what is beyond the immediacy of experience, be it through some technology or beneath the iceberg:
"Then, Bāhiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress.
Range is relevant to perception that is reliant on movement and the sense. For a voice to be audible, it has to be within range. As such, all experiences requires range. To claim that there is something beyond experience is to claim that there is something beyond range, and talking about it does not establish that its truly beyond range, but simply assumed so.
Svākkhāta is translated as well proclaimed or well spoken. I understand it as Buddha’s instructions to those who are capable of understanding his teachings. It is said to lead to yoniso manasikara as with Bāhiya.
Oke, thanks, while writing a reply i noticed i only start repeating myself. Lets agree to disagree on some points.
Personally i always feel i fail to connect to the real goal of Buddha-Dhamma. I have a sick mother and i am sad, feel sorrow but i also do not really find that problematic. I do not think…“oh how do i suffer, i must end this sorrow!” Not at all. I do not at all strive to become unafflicted to be honest. For me it is oke to be like this. There is nothing wrong with being sad while mother is progressively ill. I also do not really feel that sadness or grief is suffering. Oke, sometimes i see people grief that much that i see it is suffering but than one very much holds on to it. One drowns in grief. That i do not mean.
I think i do not really care about becoming totally unafflicted. Often i am just glad that i can feel emotions like sadness, sorrow, and am glad i care . I know people who never shed any tear. I believe that is really suffering.
In my apartment, i have the Buddha statue and photos of my father and mother. Whatever we do, we cannot repay them. Another blessing in my life is to encounter other people who seek understanding, like your good self.
I view The All as method rather than ontology, ie encouraging us to focus on direct experience, rather than speculating about the nature or reality or whatever.
Yes. I think the Buddha might want to express that we always get attached and react upon something that we experience, and not something objective out there. It is like two layers. One layer is perception (hearing, seeing, smelling etc) and another layer is reaction. But both layers are the same subjective reality. They are not different. It is not that the first layer is objective and the second layer subjective. Both are subjective moments. Hearing, seeing etc, is also subjective experience.
It disappears from awareness, and that does not stay unnoticed.
I believe anusaya is a concept that is used to express something that exist beyond direct experience. For example, one might be in circumstances that no anger arises. So there is no direct experience of anger. But that does not mean one is free of the tendency to become angry. It just shows that the circumstances do not trigger the patigha-anusaya yet. That’s all. In different circumstances, such as a war, or someone threatening your child, you might become full of anger and become violent.
So,i believe things that are beyond direct experience, such as anusaya, are crucial in Buddha-Dhamma.
This also plays an important role in rebirth and how the mind keeps being fettered to samsara.
In a sense also purification is very much about what is beyond direct experience. Direct experience is used to change what is beyond direct experience. For example, by not following anger, not feeding it consciously (upadana) while it arises, changes happen in what is beyond direct experience. The patigha anusaya weakens. Is not strenghtened.
It is like the iceberg again. With the top, vinnana, we are able to make wise and bad choices which will in turn cause changes in what is below the surface. What is below the surface will in turn effect what is above the surface.
Or it simply expresses obsessions. You seem to be justifying the belief that there is something beyond experience by the inability to experience everything at once. Of course, in time, we do not experience everything at once, but whatever we experience and that can be spoke about has to be within the range of the All as described by Sabba sutta. The continuum of experience is discerned through dividing experience into different themes, of which ideas of something beyond can mean many different things, such as our ability to move. If you move from room A to room B, you can say that room A is an unconscious experience, or that room B is the tip of the iceberg.
I believe the Buddha wanted to secure the fact that the actual absence of anger, doubt, greed, conceit etc. in our real time experience, is no sign of purification. He secured this fact with the concept of anusaya. This means, there can be different reasons for the absence of, for example, anger:
With the concept of anusaya Buddha tries to express, i believe, that purification is not something incidental but structural.
Science also describes (i read this once) that for something to become conscious, it must get over a certain neurological treshold. Also Abhidhamma, i believe, says something like this. Not every sense object (aramanna) is strong and causes a sense-event. This does not mean, ofcourse, that those weak sense-objects are not there, they are not experienced.
I also have read and believe that in interacting with other humans, what we register consciously is very little compared to what really is going on, yes, also when we are mindful and thoughful. Some things we just do not notice. For example, it seems that by meeting people heartbeat can get synchronised.
Or people start to copy eachothers body language (for example yawning or how they sit) while they are not really aware of this happening. Or smells trigger pheromones. A lot goes on unconsciously. Bloodpressure changes, liver activity changes, blood composition changes etc etc.
Sure, we only notice a small fraction of incoming sense-data at any one time, and our attention continually flits from one sense object to another. It’s inherently unsatisfactory.
But this is what we have to work with. This is what we can directly examine, and hopefully understand.
I think it might be helpful to understand that when you see, for example, an atttractive woman, and like her, have sympathic feelings, this is all decided on a level that remains unaware. It is just the result of many unconscious processes that get over a neurological treshold and become aware.
Mental Vinnana will pick this up as something it decided, but i think it is more realistic to say that all kinds of unconsious processes decided this for vinnana to see the woman as attractive, to sympathisze with her etc.
The perspective of vinnana is deluded with this wrong understanding all the time. The wrong view that it decides, it makes choices, is in control, has some independend reality, it rules, is the owner of emotions, it likes and dislikes etc.
Vinnana is, as it were, running behind the facts all the time, but feels it is on top of it. It feels like it is in controll while it is controlled. Vinnana has a strange idea of independency.
All you did is to explain phenomena through the senses, playing a language game to claim that there is something beyond the senses. Narrative can be repackaged endlessly to serve such purpose, to reveal what is hidden. I am not angry now, but anger is hidden somewhere, so let me look for it and uproot it once and for all. If anger is hidden somewhere, then it has an independent existence from the senses, so i need to establish contact to uproot it 
I do not really understand your resistance. It seems all so logic for me 
I also do not say that anger is hidden somewhere, but Buddha used the concept of anusaya to show that emotions can be absent but one can still become emotional (for example, angry) because the tendency to become angry is still there. Not the anger is hidden, the tendency is hidden. It is like potential energy. You do not see that.
In Anysaya sutta, the Buddha mentioned seven obsessions. If we compare the Buddha’s teaching of the “All” as per sabba sutta, and what you are introducing, it becomes obvious which one is rooted in suffering and which one is not:
"Monks, there are these seven obsessions. Which seven?
"(1) The obsession of sensual passion.
"(2) The obsession of resistance.
"(3) The obsession of views.
"(4) The obsession of uncertainty.
"(5) The obsession of conceit.
"(6) The obsession of passion for becoming.
"(7) The obsession of ignorance.
“These are the seven obsessions.”
In Ven. Thanissaro’s translation, he made sure to add a note about its meaning, as if he knew what kind of claims would come out of it:
This term — anusaya — is usually translated as “underlying tendency” or “latent tendency.” These translations are based on the etymology of the term, which literally means, “to lie down with.” However, in actual usage, the related verb (anuseti) means to be obsessed with something, for one’s thoughts to return and “lie down with it” over and over again.
Ven Thanissaro’s note 
Well, translators make different choices. I feel ‘obsession’ for anusaya is not good. That is my choice.
In MN translation Bodhi, note 651 (notes to MN64) it very well formulated (i.e. as i like it
"In the commentaries the defilements are distinguished as occurring a* three levels:** the anusaya level, where they remain as mere latent dispositions in the mind; the pariyutthana level, where they rise up to obsess and enslave the mind (referred to in §5 of this discourse); and the vitikkama*
level, where they motivate unwholesome bodily and verbal action. The point of the Buddha’s criticism is that the fetters, even when they do not come to active manifestation, continue to exist at the anusaya level so long as they have not been eradicated by the supramundane path"
No more needs to be said, right? The Buddha really teaches a level where defilement have not yet come to manifestation but still exist at the level of latent dispositions.
It is realistic too.
Anusaya is a very important concept in buddhism. One is not really safe or protected with anusaya even when one experiences no anger, no greed etc. at this moment or even during ones life. That is really the clue.
@Bundokji, sometimes, not always, but sometimes i say things that are not totally wrong
In the world, no one can be wholly praised or wholly blamed, the Buddha taught.
Using analogies and metaphors are designed to mimic our sensual experience to convey meaning that is potentially better understood poetically than literally. In causality, people can talk about primary and secondary causes, as with hierarchical structures. We can talk about a core, or a crux of the matter. We can also assign significance to certain parts of a construct when functionality is prioritized. One could argue that an engine is more central to a car than a mirror. One could talk about bark, sapwood and heartwood. All these are context sensitive, helpful to differentiate between the essential and non essential in a certain context, but non of these mean that there is another “all” beyond the one taught by the Buddha in Sabba sutta which you continue to claim.
Anusaya is taught as something to overcome, not something to clung to. You seem to be interested in confirming it.
By the way, Ven. Bodhi in his translation of MN 64 used underlying tendency along with obsession. And as if the word “underlying” or “latent” warrants your conclusion that there is another “all” apart from what the Buddha taught! 
I have said i do not really understand what that sutta means, SN35.23 about the All.
I do not think it means that all i experience is all that exist or all that exist is all i experience.
Probably it means: we only get attached to what we experience and whatever we see, hear, feel, think about etc, is part of this subjective experience. There is nothing objective about our experience.
It is not like we see, hear, smell, feel the world as it is, etc. Kant used to refer to this is as Ding-Fur-Mich. It is not like sunlight is white but we experience it this way. It is not like a woman is attractive…It is not like the sky is blue, it is not like a mountain is solid…it is not like the body or feaces is really foul, it is not like the smell of something burning is an sich alarming…but all this meaning, these signs have evolutionary developed and prooven useful for survival.
Would a neutrino have a mind it would feel we are very stupid to think a mountain is really solid. This is also why somebody who really starts to master body and mind can dive in mountains, fly, walk over water.
What do you think the sutta means?
hello, suffering might not be the kandas in and of themselves, but rather the way we go through them - the way we live them. If we manage not to cling /not to get attached during the experiencing then there will not be suffering ?
But isn’t seeing experience as impermanent, suffering and without self precisely what it means to not cling/not get attached to experience?
For example, say someone were sawing my leg off with no anesthetic and I was bleeding to death (knock on wood). How can I not suffer from that without having profoundly altered my view of what the experience of “bleeding to death from leg being sawed off” is?