I may be misunderstanding what you are saying, but my understanding of Buddhism suggests that the opposite of ‘death’ isn’t ‘life’, as it is in many philosophies (both Eastern and Western). In Buddhism, the opposite of ‘death’ is ‘birth’, both of which are contained within ‘life’. Is that your understanding too?
1 Like
That sutta just says that the world is empty of a self and what belongs to a self. That’s just another way of saying the world contains no selves or anything that belongs to a self, a basic and fundamental doctrine in the EBTs. Later Mahayana thought decided that “self” meant something far broader, like “essence” or “independent substance” or “thing possessing own-being”, and turned the Buddhist doctrine that there are no selves, and so the world is empty of selves, into the grander metaphysical doctrine that the whole world is empty of … well, sort of everything.
Also, I don’t think the EBTs really lend themselves to the interpretation of paticcasamuppada as a theory about the way everything is interconnected in some system of “interbeing”. Its a theory about the way suffering arises in the individual.
2 Likes
Seems to me that this was actually a response to Abhidhammic theory about svabhāva (own-being/essence of “things”/dhammas), and in many ways (not all) the early Prajñāpāramitā was a return to the EBT.
It’s a rejection of that theory, yes. But neither of them is an EBT doctrine, I would say. The Buddha just didn’t have that much to say about the epistemological and metaphysical questions that preoccupy systematic philosophers in all ages. The Buddha was interested in a limited range of phenomena open to the inward investigation and mindful attention of the suffering individual, and directly related to liberation from that suffering. The teaching is about how we make conscious contact with the sensual forms that pass before our outer and inner senses, and then conceptualize those forms, feel and respond emotionally to them, thirst after them, cling to them, build them into our anxious and fearful sense of self and possession, and as result shroud ourselves in the samsaric stream of birth and death, and become part of that stream of misery.
I don’t think the Buddha had the slightest interest in whether a piece of gold had an essence, or an own-nature, or whether the space in which the gold exists was the same or different from the matter of the gold itself, or whether the time comprising its existence was composed of atomic moments or was indefitely divisible, or whether all the gold in the universe is connected together in Indra’s net of mutually interdependent interbeing. These are all the later papanca of the tribe of philosophers and scholars, who always have problems understanding the meaning and purpose of spiritual guidance as opposed to bodies of intellectualizations.
All the Buddha cared about is whether or not a person suffers because they are attached to the gold and conceptualize it as “mine”. And that suffering depends on how they respond to the sight of the gold or thoughts about the gold - how they feel about the gold and how they think about their relationship to the gold, and what those thoughts and feelings then do to them. Liberation involved shutting down that engine of suffering, the bewildering phantasmagoria of contending feelings and theoretical constructions, not using it to build a better bunch of theories.
7 Likes
The Buddha called Nirvana the unborn. I’ve always found that fascinating.
3 Likes
Deathless means no death, but “death” cannot happen without “birth”…one must follow the other (under delusion)…a duality. Deathless therefore is beyond duality where there is no birth or death…a dimension also called the "unborn ".
Ud8.3:
There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, escape from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned.
and how that relates to self vs non-self
The “deathless” is considered to be unconditioned…hence beyond name and form.
what is it that experiences it?
In some text, it notes it as awareness. The Tathagata dwells with unrestricted awareness…so this is Nibbana without residue.
Therefore Nibbana with residue is that of an Arahat with restricted awareness.
3 Likes
Exactly. According to Rev. Walpola Rahula’s What The Buddha Taught, Nirvana is a state of perfect non-duality between ourselves and the Ultimate Truth:
Because Nirvana is thus expressed in negative terms, there are many who
have got a wrong notion that it is negative, and expresses self-annihilation. Nirvana
is definitely no annihilation of self, because there is no self to annihilate. If at all, it is
the annihilation of the illusion, of the false idea of self. It is incorrect to say that
Nirvana is negative or positive. The idea of ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ are relative, and
are within the realm of duality. These terms cannot be applied to Nirvana, Absolute
Truth, which is beyond duality and relativity.
https://sites.google.com/site/whatbuddhataught/chapter-4
1 Like
Yes, there is a broadening of scope from the personal to the universal - though I do see sunyata as a natural extension of anatta, even a logical conclusion.
What exactly do you mean by “Ultimate Truth” here?
How do you interpret “dimension” here?
NIBBANA
by Bhikkhu Bodhi
1 Like
This interesting remark has nonetheless scent of kama loka.
It circumscribes Buddhist experience to kama loka only.
Total liberation of citta (and beyond,) occurs outside kama loka.
This view has still scent of empiricist secular Buddhism.
According to Bhikkhu Bodhi, Nibbana is "not only the destruction of defilements and the end of
samsara but a reality transcendent to the entire world of mundane experience, a reality
transcendent to all the realms of phenomenal existence…an ‘ayatana’. This means realm, plane or sphere."
I’m still not clear what you mean by “Ultimate Truth” - if you mean Nibbana, then why not just say that?
In What The Buddha Taught, Rev. Rahula repeatedly referred to Nirvana as the Ultimate or Absolute Truth:
Fair enough. Though I think cliches like “Ultimate Truth” are so vague as to be meaningless. Each religion has it’s own ideas about “Truth”, and many of them are contradictory.
I strongly believe that Buddhism is either the truth religion or it’s a unique expression of the one Ultimate Truth that is common to Hinduism, Taoism, etc.
Under Ud8.1: refers to the unconditioned.
There is that dimension, monks…
Yet under normal conditions, it’s noted as “plane” of existence.
One can see that there is a shift from delusion (samsara) to non-delusion (Nibbana)…to signify an escape…transcends between the two.
I agree with your post here for the most part. I do think though, that although they were using the saecular (of the age/time) mode of communication, the in-fashion thing, to debate philosophical metaphysics; they were getting at the experience through the means . If you look at some of the themes they are at least using the language important in EBT Dhamma like suññatā whereas the Abhidhammists sabhāvas are just not doctinally important. So maybe I overstepped by saying they were “a return to” EBT, I think maybe it’s more accurate to say they were at least heading in that direction in some ways (obviously the bodhisatva stuff, etc. is just not) instead of away like the Abhidhammist theory-of-everything were.
The general impulse of that early Prajñāpāramitā literature seems to me to be deconstructive — towards the Abhidhammist ivory tower construction projects; and towards the entanglements of experience itself — and that is in line with the thrust of the MN suññatasuttas.
3 Likes
This song reminds me of Nirvana:
If there is no self, then we’re bigger than our bodies give us credit for. To experience Nirvana is to experience perfect non-duality with the Ultimate Truth.
When Buddhism says there is no self, it means that our notion of a separate, unchanging self is a delusion of the ego.
In our true nature, we are Nirvana itself.