Meaning of Atta

Discussion
21

Thanks, @Myspace . That is helpful :slight_smile:
Attending to the four noble truths includes attending to the 3 marks of existence. All dhammas are dukkha, anicca and anatta. So there is nothing we can pinpoint as “this is what I am, this is myself, etc.”.

What is baffling is that still, the Buddha talked about a self in some contexts. Of course, we all have a sense of self. It’s easy to understand what one means when one says “I don’t understand” or “I know this”, etc. But the teachings say that this sense of self is one of the roots of our problems. Personality view (sakkaya-dhitti) is a taint to be abandoned. And that is why I think it is important to reach an understanding of what the Buddha meant when he uses the word atta.
Your explanation of atta meaning “body and mind” makes sense, I think. The only problem is that in some other places the Buddha said that no dhamma (including body or mind) are atta. And also he said that body and mind are conditioned dhammas, so they can’t be their own lords. We can’t avoid those contradictions if we take those teachings together.
But if we don’t take those statements as trying to explain how things are, but rather as more loosely constructed practical exhortations, then maybe it makes more sense. The important thing here might be to understand what the Buddha meant when he exhorted us to self-mastery, to restrain the mind and eliminate the taints.

22

All things are impermanent. So indeed if the word “person” means “body and mind”, then indeed it is a different person at each moment.

Some Buddhist schools talk about a stream of consciousness. Although it is changing every single moment, it is connected moment by moment to its own continuum. So if I act now, the fruit ripens in the future for this very stream of consciousness, even tough in the future there are different thoughts, feelings, bodily parts, etc. (thus it’s a different person). Thus we can talk about responsibility and about kamma-vipaka even without affirming the permanence of the self or person.

23

Source: That’s the explanation given in the 9th chapter of Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakosha-basyam. This book is based on what was the most important Abhidharma tradition in northwest India for about a thousand years, the Sarvastivada Abhidharma.

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Your lack of understanding of the Dhamma is so huge that I need to urge you again to do your homework :sweat_smile:

Well, let’s explore the context that you put above about the husband who cheated on his wife.

  1. Is the husband the same husband who cheated his wife? No.
  2. Is the husband totally unrelated to the husband who cheated his wife? No.

Explain of #1: His physical, feeling, perception, formation and consciousness today is not the same as his physical, feeling, perception, formation and consciousness at the moment he cheated his wife.

Explain of #2: Without his physical, feeling, perception, formation and consciousness at the moment he cheated his wife, his physical, feeling, perception, formation and consciousness today will not exist.

B happens due to A.
If A not arises, B not arises.

From #2, the husband who cheated must take responsibility.
From #1, the husband can have a chance to take responsibility and improve himself.

Now look again, if you instead deny #1, this leads to:

  1. The husband can again cheat, because he is still the same and also because he has no worry that ANYTHING can ever affect his “true” self.
  2. There is no improvement or learning from mistake at all. His “true” self does not learn.
  3. There is no meaning in any punishment/prison/court. His “true” self is not affected.

#1 and #2 are not contradicting each other. As long as you don’t understand this, you have not understood what the Buddha has taught.

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25

Sorry Or…

Maybe you think it is very clever or wise or deep that when you cheated on your wive one week ago, to claim it was not you who cheated on her, because you are now a totally different person then a week ago, i think this is shameless, dishonest, not truthfull, self- and other deception. Nonsense.

When i would meet such a person i would know they are totally unreliable, immoral, shameless, not wise, not seriously involved in Truth. Such person can do anything because they are totally unreliable.
They are the most deluded persons in the world. They do not know anything about an honest truthfull live.

26

So, if you see an apple in your fruit bowl and you see it change in appearance, and becoming rotten, you think that tehere are in fact a biljon different apples in your fruit bowl?

27

Apple is a concept attributed to a gathering of parts. It is not a real thing. The parts that compose an apple are real, but not the apple. You can’t find the apple in the skin, the seeds, the flesh, or the core. If you remove the skin, is that skin an apple? Is the rest an apple? Up to which point when you remove the various parts is it still an apple? Each of these parts is changing all the time. Otherwise, it wouldn’t rot, as you said. It would just remain the same forever. So the idea that it is the same apple now and later is just that, an idea. It is superimposed onto real things that change all the time, that last a single moment. I think it is fine to talk as if there is an apple that lasts a long time as is the same all the time. But in reality, nothing lasts, everything is impermanent.
The same applies to the person, which is a concept superimposed onto real things that change all the time, like thoughts, feelings, perceptions, etc.

This interpretation is according to Dharmakirti. A veeeery interesting Buddhist master that I love a lot and recommend studying in case you’re interested. It is not EBT, but from the classical period of Buddhism during Gupta empire. I’m not sure if it is completely aligned with what is presented in EBTs, but I think so. The concept of momentariness was created some centuries after the Buddha, but nothing I found in the early suttas contradicts this notion.

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28

I would say it is a paradox rather than contradiction outright. The Dhamma is full of such things. For example, in SN51.15 Uṇṇābhabrāhmaṇasutta, Ananda was questioned that it is impossible to end desires by desire.

“This being the case, Master Ānanda, the path is endless, not finite. For it’s not possible to give up desire by means of desire.”

Similarly, the Buddha gave a simile of a Raft (noble eightfold path) and one who paddle diligently on it with his hands and feet to reach the far shore (nibbana). One take on ownership to end all ownerships. Isn’t it paradoxical?

That’s why Buddha cautioned his disciples to grasp the Dhamma snake properly. Take on desire and ownership properly in the beginning with the right view to relinquish them at the end. Hold onto the Raft when crossing but leave it behind when destination is reached.

Sn35.238 Āsīvisopamasutta

Then the man would collect grass, twigs, branches, and foliage, and bind them together into a raft, so that by means of that raft, making an effort with his hands and feet, he would get safely across to the far shore. Crossed over, gone beyond, the brahmin stands on high ground.

This is my own take on self-mastery with regards to Dhamma. When one wants self-mastery of a skill such as learning piano, one listens to a teacher, one practises, one evaluates the outcome by comparing the melody played with the teacher’s demonstration.

Similarly, when one wants self-mastery of Dhamma, one listens to sutta, one practises, one evaluates if greed and hatred have lessened, if Dukkha has ceased for oneself.

Dhamma is not merely about managing suffering, the symptoms of Dukkha. It uproots Dukkha so that it doesn’t arise. When one fully understands Dukkha for what it means to oneself, abandon the common cause to its arising, experiences its cessation, one establish a way to uproot Dukkha. A path is born within oneself, Dhamma eye is opened, personality view is abandoned, one is no longer perplexed and requires no teacher to reach the destination.

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29

Sabbe Sankhara Anicca
All determinations are impermanent.
Thus, all acts of ownership and creations of Self are impermanent. It follows that all the determined cannot be the eternal Self that one can satisfactorily seek safety in.

30

@Luis, i am familiar with your kind of reasoning but i do not agree with it. It think it is a trick. In fact, I find it not wise to establish that the whole does not exist and only parts exist. One cannot reduce the whole to parts because the parts do not have the same characteristics as the whole. One atom of iron, for example, is something completely different then a structure of many atoms of iron. A car is something different than its parts. And if one would cut me in pieces and turn me to meat there is nothing left of me as a person. Ofcourse I am not that meat. Why would only parts exist?

Furthermore, do you really think that when you would be part of the Buddha Sangha in his time and made a mistake, you did something wrong, the Buddha would accept the declaration that it was not you who made a mistake but another person, another you, someone related to you, your you yesterday?

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31

Luis, does this mean that if you kill someone, you only kill a concept? You do not really kill an existing person?

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Hi, @Green. Dharmakirti uses the following criteria: whatever is real must be singular and not extended in space or time. The whole is not real in the sense that there is no entity that really permeates all the parts. Some Vedic philosophers, the Nyayas, proposed that there was a real entity, a bit like a platonic idea, that was the whole, and that was extended along with all the parts and connected to them. Dharmakirti demonstrates logically that this is not true because the whole is not in a single part (apple is not skin) and because there is no whole which is other than the parts (otherwise you could remove the parts and the whole would still be there). I think that reasoning is quite good.

Nice. Something to be discussed is the notion of emergence, that did not exist in Dharmakirti’s time and about which we talk nowadays. Then the question is: does the whole do things that can’t be explained by the movements of the parts, and is it something extra different from the parts (i.e. is strong emergence real)? There is no agreement in that regard among contemporary scientists and philosophers. Personally, I think strong emergence isn’t real, that at the end all about the whole can be explained through observation of how the parts move and interact.
For example, all about an iron vase, such as its capacity to hold water, is explainable through the characteristics of the particles and their interactions.

Yes. According to the suttas you are not only meat. You are meat, feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness. The 5 aggregates. And there is nothing extra that is the real thing connected to all 5 aggregates. Or the 5 real thing that comes out of the junction of the 5 aggregates. There are just the 5 aggregates, their interactions, etc.

Right. I agree with you on that. For all practical purposes, we can talk as if there is a person that lasts more than a single instant. Not only does it last more than an instant, but it also lasts a whole lifetime. Not only a lifetime but many lifetimes, etc. But that is just a conventional expression for practical purposes. What is actually there is a continuum of singular parts (instants of the 5 aggregates) that are causally connected. Thus, there is a causal connection between the 5 aggregates at the moment of the crime and the 5 aggregates at the moment of being held responsible. For all practical purposes, you can say they are the same, instead of saying that they are causally connected in a continuum.
But in reality, the feelings are not the same, neither are the perceptions, mental formations, the meat or the consciousnesses. And there is nothing extra that remains the same while all 5 aggregates change, unless we affirm a sort of transcendental person that is neither of the aggregates (like the Sammityas and the Hindus did).

If we only talk in terms of conventional expression, then there is a lasting person that is the same person throughout their whole life and who can be killed by someone. In reality, there is a flow of ever-changing 5 aggregates that we call person conventionally. This reality (of 5 aggregates instead of real person) does not change the gravity of the suffering involved in death. Neither does it change the painfulness of pain. Suffering is real, feelings and perceptions are real (etc. the 5 aggregates). The concept"person" is superimposed onto a gathering of real things. Also the concepts “killing” and “death” are superimposed onto real things that involve a lot of suffering. So, even though the person might be just a concept, killing is a horrible thing.

Now, I’m just trying to analyze it in a way similar to what Dharmakirti exposed. I think it is all very logical if you think about it. But of course there are different possible ways of exploring those issues.

One way is the Vedic way, to say that there is an eternal Self, that is not the same as the changing parts.
Another way is like the Sammityas, who similarly said that there is a real Self that is neither of the aggregates. I don’t know if their notion of self is something eternal or impermanent, and how is it different from the Vedic notion of self.

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33

Please do not put words into my mouth and do not bark at the wrong tree.
I never say such thing as “totally different”. I said: “not the same but related”.
I already explained the meaning when I said “not the same but related”.
I also already told you the criticisms you will receive when you keep insisting on “the same”. Read carefully again what I wrote.

That checklist is too advanced for a person who doesn’t do his homework.

See this checklist below instead:

  1. Is there a car? My answer given to you: Yes.
  2. Is that car eternal? My answer given to you: No.
  3. BEFORE that car is assembled from the parts, where is that car?
    Is there a car at that moment?
  4. AFTER that car is disassembled from the parts, where is that car?
    Is there a car at that moment?
  5. That car hit another car some time ago so it lost its entirely front:
    If it is still the same car, no damage happened, why bother apologizing and paying damage?
    If is it a totally different car, no damage can be proven to have happened, why bother apologizing and paying damage?
    Now, look: When it is not the same car but causally related to that car, damage happened and damage can be proven. So, apologizing and paying damage needs to be done.
  6. Now that car got repaired its entirely front, is it still the same car?
    If it is still the same car, no restoration can be done, why bother repair it?
    If is it a totally different car, no restoration needs to be done, why bother repair it?
    Now, look: When it is not the same car but causally related to that car, restoration can be done and needs to be done. So, reparation needs to be done and can be done.

Now, please go and do your homework first. :pray:

1 Like
34

Thanks Luis for sharing all this great info. I can follow the logic behind what you share. Still, for me it feels a little bit artificial on account of logic or reasoning too demonstrate that I and other living beings do not really exist, only rupa, vedana etc. It’s like saying there are only atoms in the world and not houses, not mountains, not cars, no Earth, not rivers, no trees. I will leave this to rest for now.

I do not understand why people say that we are the khandha’s while Buddha surely says we are not the khandha’s. In many sutta’s it is said: see it like it actually is, with wisdom, rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara and vinnana is not Me, not who I am, not mine, not my self.

It seems the Buddha means that this is not only a skillful means to see it this way. But he says “as it actually is”…So, I belief Buddha’s message and discovery is that we actually are not rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara and vinnana. That’s what we have to see for ourselves. It is due to defilements we do not see and experience it this way.

So the perspective that we, or i am rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara and vinnana is the perspective of a deluded mind. I am not the meat, i am not the feelings etc.

So what are we?

Can you agree with this?

35

@ORsEnTURVi , again: if you were part of Buddha’s Sangha in his time, and you were reprimanded because of some violation, do you think the Buddha would accept your ‘excuse’ or reasoning that it was not you who violated but another version of you, some former version of you?

36

Please do your homework first, I already gave you the checklist with the car. If you have properly done your homework, you would not have ask such questions.

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@ORsEnTURVi @Green

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38

Hi, @Green. This is exactly what I’ve been questioning since I started the post. I think that your interpretation is similar to the Sammityas’. I’ve only had contact with this interpretation through their critics, so my view might be biased to see it otherwise (both the Sarvastivadins and Theravadins criticized the Sammityas, aka Puggalavadins).
I think there are some problems with this interpretation, though. For example: if the person exists but is neither of the aggregates, then does this person feel anything? If it feels, how is it related to the aggregate of feeling? If it doesn’t feel and is unrelated to any of the aggregates, what this person has to do with all matters for us, such as suffering and freedom from suffering?

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If i stole some belonging of you, and you find out, I do not start a discussion with you of what you mean by Me who stole, or if there is literally a Doer, or if i am now a different person than the moment i stole, or if there is a self, or if i am the khandha’s or not, or that my true self does not steal, etc.

I just admit…yes I stole. For me that is enough wisdom.

40

I would not do such thing either.

I would do the same.

For me, that’s not enough wisdom. Wisdom requires you at least understand:

  1. Why did you steal?
  2. Why other people steal?
  3. Why stealing is bad?
  4. Does punishment prevent stealing?
  5. Is there a way to prevent stealing from ever happen again?