I saw your original post in the other thread, but what you are looking for is a translation of some statements that you are expecting to find in any sutta. In other words you are checking if the Buddha said any such thing as what you have mentioned above. You have already concluded you are not going to find these questions in the canon - and you are right, but not because the Buddha didnt want to say anything - he actually said lots of relevant things about the issue, but just not in the format you are expecting to find.
The questions are themselves misconceived, because you are assuming that those are the questions that one would probably find if the Buddha talked about that topic.
However, the Buddha already spoke about the ātman by saying a lot about the things that could be (and were) conceived as ātman by several groups of people - but which in reality (as per the Buddha) were not the ātman.
The buddha says X is not the ātman, Y is not the ātman, Z is not the ātman (replace these wildcards X, Y & Z with rūpaṃ, vedanā, viññāna etc etc). There you have a lot of statements of that sort scattered everywhere across the canon.
He also says “do not speculate/theorize anything about what the ātman is”, whether it exists, does not exist, or both exists (conditionally) and does not exist (conditionally), or neither exists or does not exist (conditionally). There you have the classical buddhist tetralemma.
The ātman is not theorizable, not describable, and getting a positive grasp of its nature is not likely to lead to the stilling of the mental fermentations and it was not conducive to the peace that the muni ought to seek.
Having an eternalistic theory, or an annihilationistic theory, or a quasi eternalistic theory were all theories about the ātman arising out of a positive ignorance of the ātman.
Therefore the Buddha’s approach is to not theorize (or form a positive conception - whether put into language or otherwise) about what the ātman might be - but simply say what it is not. It is easy to be certain about what is not the ātman, because the ātman is not matter or anything connected with or depending on matter (as matter is fungible, and changeable, and can be transformed into other types of matter) – so everything that is phenomenal (matter) is anātman (i.e. not the ātman), and their destruction can lead to dukkha if you identify them as ātman (i.e. as yourself). However the ātman being the noumenon is the one that cognizes itself and everything else, and that ātman is what remains when you have understood that nothing that is matter (and is tangible to the 5 senses) can possibly be it. This is the via-negativa approach - and hence by teaching you what the ātman is not, he leads you to the liberation which is the ultimate non-dual impersonal uncreated unborn unconditioned thing that he terms nirvāṇa).
This ties into early Sāṅkhya philosophy where everything that is here called anātman is called “nature/matter/phenomenon” (prakṛti) and the ātman is called puruṣa (the noumenon) - and all that we see in the world is the interaction between the prakṛti and puruṣa.
So to provide Pali translations for your questions above will not lead to anywhere meaningful if you are trying to seek those questions in the tripitaka.
No one has (or can have) a self because the self is not what you can have or lose, the self is who you are. You cannot try to be ‘not who you are’ - as that is a contradiction in terms, so there is no point trying to grasp a complete sense of yourself in yourself (it is futile, a wasted effort). It is therefore taken for granted that your self exists as you have a reflective capacity and can identify yourself from everything else, and you even misindentify yourself by thinking you are other things (such as your body and its mind and feelings and consciousness etc). You can only have a misconception about what the ātman is or is not. You cannot wish (or understand) yourself (your ātman) away by studying Buddhism because that will be a theory about the ātman that the Buddha warns you is a waste of effort.
Thank you for your long reply. I was expecting a Pali translation so I created a new separated topic but your reply is welcome too.
Sorry if I misunderstood you, from what you said above, it seems to me that you gave a positive definition of ātman while you also said that the ātman is not “theorizable” or “describable”.
Also, the Buddha could have simply said “The ātman exists but not describable and here is how you yourself can understand it, by following this practice like I did” OR “The ātman does NOT exist and not describable and here is how you yourself can understand it, by following this practice like I did”. It is simple, straightforward, no misunderstanding arises and easy. However, the Buddha didn’t say so, am I right?
Also, I can’t find in the Pali canon where there is any hint about “ātman is what remains when you have understood that nothing that is matter (and is tangible to the 5 senses) can possibly be it”. Maybe am I wrong here?
I also don’t understand your point here. Did you imply here that the Buddha also “taken for granted” or “assume” that self exists? On the other hand, if you imply that normal being “taken for granted” that self exists, then the Buddha will “not taken for granted” that self exists, am I right? Now it starts to look like to me also a theory about self.
If (a strong if here) a self can be found, why I still care about something else which is “impersonal”?
My objective is simply to explain how Buddhism works (as I understand it) and I am not trying to simultaneously follow the Buddha’s advice of not theorizing the untheorizable - so I see no catch-22 here.
I necessarily have to explain it in a way that I can make you understand (what I’m saying about the Buddha’s method) - and in doing so I don’t have to be following the Buddha’s method myself.
But I agree that the ātman is ultimately untheorizable (in that it would never be a completely accurate or rounded description - and also because the thing that you are trying to describe is apparently doing the description, to itself, about itself, in itself - so it is somewhat like being in a hall of mirrors* where each mirror is reflecting each other mirror and you lose sense of what is what) hence the via-negativa approach, such as what the Buddha used is probably the next best alternative to avoid getting muddled up about it.
*Speaking of the hall of mirrors - there is the very similar concept of Indra-jāla described in the Buddha-avataṃsaka mahāyāna sūtra thus:
“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each “eye” of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering “like” stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.” (Translation: Francis H. Cook).
This is perhaps one reason why we must not be trying to self-conceptualize the self-conceptualization. It is far easier to talk of the anātmatā of substances than to mentally grasp the ātmatva of the ātman.
That is all fine if the Buddha was making an ab-initio attempt to frame the ātman in any way he wanted. He was however dealing with multiple groups of people like himself and an accumulated corpus of texts and intellectualized discussions all claiming to know the ātman and its nature. If he were to make such statements as you’ve suggested, people would have compartmentalized him as being yet another ātmavādin who declared his own theories about the existence and nature of the ātman - and he would be perhaps one in a long line of such philosophers who did exactly the same thing. But he didn’t do that as he found making categorical statements was most likely to lead to (and result from) misapprehensions and mis-lead the seekers into yet another body of idealistic theory that had no experiential or practical value.
So you are right that the Buddha when asked about the ātman, remained silent. But he spoke voluminously about everything that was “not the ātman” (i.e. anāman).
I’ve said it, not the Buddha. That is my understanding based on the grammatical knowledge of how anātman is supposed to be interpreted as a nañ-bahuvrīhi compound in Pali & Sanskrit. Ātman is what isn’t anātman (the two are mutually exclusive - and this is the point of the nañ-bahuvrīhi) - this is simple grammar, the buddha doesnt teach grammar or synonms and antonyms. So he wouldn’t have said that ātman and anātman are mutually exclusive concepts, and therefore if you exclude one, you are left with the other - because to say that would have been to insult the intelligence of his audience by telling them what they knew as obvious.
It’s like saying humans & non-humans are mutually exclusiveconcepts. Would you expect or need the Buddha to teach you that? The Buddha takes it for granted that you know such things.
Everyone (including the Buddha) takes the ātman for granted - except those who openly denied its reality. The disagreement between the buddha and most others who took it for granted, really is about how we should approach the topic (and how the way we approach it is tied to our human condition and gives rise to dukkha or leads to its cessation). The Buddha’s approach to it is the path he is showing to his followers. So the Buddha is not arguing about the existence or non-existence of the ātman (or taking a contrarian stance to everything that the common people think about the ātman), that is not what his teaching is about.
I’ve already answered this, see my first sentence above (“My objective is simply to explain how Buddhism works…” etc).
There is no possibility of ‘finding’ a self as it is not a conditioned substance that you can search for by looking for its characteristics. Who else is going to find it, where else, and what else are they going to identify it as, and how would they cognize it if they found it?
About the impersonal : Persons (being made up of substances - which are termed anitya and anātman - are therefore not the ātman). So the ‘impersonal something else’ - is not really something else - but simply what is not personifiable (i.e. that which is not anātman).
The Buddha did say that the Tathāgata is deep, immeasurable, unfathomable. Why didn’t he say that the Tathāgata is the ātman? Because the Tathāgata is not the same as the ātman that has been understood and can be defined as “essence”, “imperishable”, “blissful”, ‘ultimate”… Since the ātman can be defined as such, it is identifiable while the Tathāgata is undefinable, unfathomable, unidentifiable. We cannot say anything about the Tathāgata.
The Buddha used the term Tathāgata to point to the “ātman” that a Buddhist is looking for, and he called it “Tathāgata” instead of “ātman” since there is no easy way to refer to it. The word “Tathāgata “ is simply for communication purposes since it is unidentifiable. The ātman that can be identified and defined is not what a Buddhist is searching for.
Let me give you something from Evan Thompson. He’s a professor at UBC, a very eminent one, who specializes in Philosophy of Mind with a fascinating background that led him to being involved with Mind & Life Institute (Varela and the Dalai Lama).
He and Jay Garfield are kind of at the top of their fields, and this article is Professor Thompson’s critique of a book of Garfield’s that I found very useful, because it introduced me to a lot of things that considered a Buddhist perspective when I was having to deal with Deleuzian metaphysics for my MA with Laura Marks. Fortunately, she drew upon Thompson in some of her work, so he proved a happy solution to some heavy disputes between us.
Thanks for sharing it, I got a gist of the paper and its contents.
Basically Jay Garfield is stating the later Theravada understanding of the ātman (or rather about its lack). I dont see why he calls it Sellarsian Buddhism. Why not call it Theravāda Buddhism? How do the two differ?
However Prof. Evan Thompson is taking the self to be the body, i.e. he is stating the opposite of what Buddhism claims.
Canonical Buddhism claims that the body and its physical and psychological faculties are not the ātman, while Prof. Thompson says that they deserve to be considered the self in a realistic sense (rather than as an abstraction).
In my understanding both of them are not stating the Canonical position. The canon says that the body and its faculties are not the ātman, and other conditioned things are not the ātman, thus implying that the ātman isnt anything that is conditioned/objectifiable - and not that there is no ātman or that the ātman is mentally constructed or illusioned into ostensibly axiomatic existence. If that were so, the canon wouldnt call all conditioned things as anātman.
The Buddha doesn’t recognise a noumenon (see the Sabba Sutta). Since then everything experienced is always empty, there is no atta to speak of for him. Rationalists would of course disagree.
He also says “do not speculate/theorize anything about what the ātman is”
This would mean we can’t say that it’s a self cognising witness consciousness, or Sākṣī. The Buddha also denied that any type of consciousness is an atta.
I point him to the lion and I tell him: “Son, this is a lion, this is NOT an unicorn, this is NOT a whale, this is NOT a dinosaur, this is NOT an R2-D2. If you take this lion as the unicorn, the whale, the dinosaur, an R2-D2, you will be humiliated.”
Again, when we go to the elephant, I tell him: “Son, this is an elephant, this is NOT an unicorn, this is NOT a whale, this is NOT a dinosaur, this is NOT a R2-D2. If you take this elephant as the unicorn, the whale, the dinosaur, an R2-D2, you will be humiliated.”
Now, we go all over the animals, the insects, the fishes, the birds in the zoo. According to you, did I tell my son about whether “the unicorn, the whale, the dinosaur or an R2-D2 exist”? OR did I tell my son about whether “the unicorn, the whale, the dinosaur or an R2-D2 that they do NOT exist”?
Next, when my son somehow has the urge to ask “Papa, do the unicorn, the whale, the dinosaur or an R2-D2 exist or do they NOT exist?”, do I have to answer him when my goal is for him not to be humiliated?
Also, when my son somehow got an idea that "Oh so all those animals, fishes, insects, birds, etc. in the zoo. They are NOT an unicorn, a whale, a dinosaur or an R2-D2. Then, when all those animals, fishes, insects, birds, etc. in the zoo become cessation, what remains must be the so-called “the unicorn, the whale, the dinosaur or an R2-D2"”. According to you, will this kind of thinking lead my son to be humiliated?
Also, I did not tell my son what IS an unicorn, a whale, a dinosaur or an R2-D2. But my son’s friend tells him that "Your father only chose a method “via-negativa” approach and in fact, everyone taken for granted “a unicorn, a whale, a dinosaur or a R2-D2 does exist”. According to you, is my son’s friend obscuring what I was trying to tell my son?
He is just saying in sn35.23 that “sarvam” (all) means cakṣus (vision) and rūpāḥ (forms), śrotas (hearing) and śabdāḥ (sounds), ghrāṇam (smelling) and gandhāḥ (smells), jihvā (tongue) and rasāḥ (tastes), kāyaḥ (the body) and the spraṣṭavyāḥ (tactile sensations), manas (mind) and dharmāḥ (concepts). He further says “idam ucyate sarvam” - i.e. this is called the “all”.
It doesnt mean that he is denying everything else apart from what those individual words mean from the definition of “all”. By saying that the faculties and their sensory objects (what you can see, what you can smell, hear, taste, touch, and think about are the only things that can be considered of sarvam “all”, and that there is no other type as sarvam that can be simultaneously conceived, he is rather defining “all” in an objective or phenomenal sense. In other words, he is not including the ātman as a countable/tangible/experiential substance and therefore not part of “sarvam”.
The noumenon (ātman), not being phenomenally conditioned - is not phenomenal reality - as you probably are aware. It is unconditioned and cannot be therefore included in sarvam.
But are you putting those words into my mouth? - I didnt say the Buddha was claiming the ātman was a witnessing consciousness, or that it was some other consciousness.
What I said was - in my understanding, the Buddha holds the ātman to be unconditioned, and rather than try to describe it positively (as a witness, consciousness or in any other way), he used the via-negativa (anātman) approach to describe conditioned things that could be qualified with the adjective anātman (not the ātman).
So if you are following this logic, the things he lists under “sarvam” would all be considered conditioned phenomenal reality, and therefore they are all anātman - i.e. they are not the ātman. This is via-negativa in practice.
Professor Thompson’s position is closer to what is found in the Pali suttas and I think he’s drawn out his ode to them in an elegant way. He does not identify himself as a Buddhist. Garfield identifies himself as madhyamika. So he is obviously not Theravada.
When you are talking to your son saying this animal before your eyes is a non-unicorn (i.e. not a unicorn), the son gets the conception “the unicorn is apparently something else other than this animal”. He may ask then “what is a unicorn then?” - and you may think “a unicorn cannot be described positively at all, so I better not try to describe to him what it is so that he may not misconceive it” - and you choose to continue to describe a lion as a non-unicorn, a tiger as a non-unicorn, a rabbit as a non-unicorn etc.
Then your son asks you - “how do you yourself know what a unicorn is - have you seen it in a picture or has someone explained it to you, and is it an animal?” - you either say the truth of how it appears in your mind (a single pointy-horned horse-type animal, mythical or not) or you pretend it doesnt have any describability and pretend that you are speaking about an “unconditioned unicorn”.
Either you would be fooling yourself or your son - but you wouldnt be doing an apt comparison by using via-negativa for a conditioned object that you’ve managed to yourself grasp in your mind positively (through prior sensory inputs), and which you are refusing to give any idea of to your son.
"At Savatthi. “Bhikkhus, I will teach you the all. Listen to that….
“And what, bhikkhus, is the all? The eye and forms, the ear and sounds, the nose and odours, the tongue and tastes, the body and tactile objects, the mind and mental phenomena. This is called the all.
“If anyone, bhikkhus, should speak thus: ‘Having rejected this all, I shall make known another all’—that would be a mere empty boast on his part. If he were questioned he would not be able to reply and, further, he would meet with vexation. For what reason? Because, bhikkhus, that would not be within his domain.”
There are two ways to read this. The first way is that the totality of what can be known is included within sense experience. If someone were to reject that and were to say he knows another “all” that would be nonsense. It would be nonsense because he would be talking about things that he had no knowledge of, and couldn’t have knowledge of. In other words the Buddha is rejecting Rationalism, and so things like substances or noumenon or pure witness conciousness, for all we can know is confined to the senses. The other way to read it is that the “All” here refers to Ātman/Brahman, as per Gonda. Here then the Buddha is saying that the Ātman is simply a concept born from clinging to sense experience. If someone were to say they know of an Ātman outside of sense experience, once again they would be talking nonsense. Either way, the Buddha here is rejecting knowledge of things beyond or behind (or as the ground of) sense experience. This would include ideas such as substances, noumenon and so Ātman as per the Brahmanic traditions or Jainism etc.
But are you putting those words into my mouth? - I didnt say the Buddha was claiming the ātman was a witnessing consciousness, or that it was some other consciousness.
You said the following
However the ātman being the noumenon is the one that cognizes itself and everything else, and that ātman is what remains when you have understood that nothing that is matter (and is tangible to the 5 senses) can possibly be it. This is the via-negativa approach - and hence by teaching you what the ātman is not, he leads you to the liberation which is the ultimate non-dual impersonal uncreated unborn unconditioned thing that he terms nirvāṇa).
So I’m hardly putting things in your mouth. If the Ātman is beyond all concepts, then you can’t say its a self cognising noumenon or, what I think is more apt, a Sākṣī
What I said was - in my understanding, the Buddha holds the ātman to be unconditioned, and rather than try to describe it positively (as a witness, consciousness or in any other way), he used the via-negativa (anātman) approach to describe conditioned things that could be qualified with the adjective anātman (not the ātman).
So if you are following this logic, the things he lists under “sarvam” would all be considered conditioned phenomenal reality, and therefore they are all anātman - i.e. they are not the ātman. This is via-negativa in practice.
This is assuming an Ātman at the outset. Based on my reading of the Buddha’s earliest teachings, he didn’t think there was an Ātman to begin with. Rather the notion of an Ātman was a fabrication. Something that people conceive in their minds and then apply to experience, whilst reifying it at the same time. I assume this is why Rationalism was rejected. Rather than discovering reality, its simply you fabricating reality. In other words the Ātman of the Brahmins or Jains or Ājīvika is simply a figment of their imagination, due to clinging. The highest truth, nibbāna, is the absence of atta in all things. Emptiness.
One last thing, in another conversation you rejected the Ātman as being a substance. Now you seem to affirm that position?
He may ask or he may not ask at all. It depends on his maturity.
No, when my son asks such question, I will ask him “How do you describe an unicorn?”. Then, depends on his answer, I will affirm or reject it. I clearly did NOT use the “via-negativa” approach to define an unicorn at all. My intention was not to define an unicorn.
My intention was to show him the truth and for him not getting humiliated. I achieved both goals when I point him to the lion and I tell him: “Son, this is a lion, this is NOT an unicorn, this is NOT a whale, this is NOT a dinosaur, this is NOT an R2-D2. If you take this lion as the unicorn, the whale, the dinosaur, an R2-D2, you will be humiliated.”
I didn’t even have to say anything about the “existence of an unicorn” or “non-existence of an unicorn”.
This scenario does not happen because as I explained above. I do not define an unicorn. I do not using the via-negativa approach to define an unicorn either.
Also, in the story, I put those 4 things. They have different meanings. Have you tried to apply your arguments with the other 3 things?
I don’t think your understanding has any support in the Pali canon. Beside nibbana, there is nothing else that can be considered as unconditioned. If I am wrong, please show me.
All those are things you have seen and have a mental image of (including the unicorn). The ātman is not capable of being mentally grasped in this way as it is not conditioned (or rather using via-negativa - I can rather say ‘nothing that is conditioned can be called the ātman’). So I don’t see a basis for comparison - which is what I was trying to point out.
You have the mental picture of a unicorn, you have conceptualized it as a positive object with the features of a horse-like animal with horns. If you deny the fact that you have this a-priori mental image (acquired through prior sensory inputs) either you will be deluding yourself or you will be fooling your son.
Saying it another way - if you can say a unicorn exists, or that it doesnt exist, or that it exists in one sense and doesnt exist in another sense, or that it neither exists nor doesnt exist in a specific sense - then you are talking about a conditioned thing.
Something that can be positively answered through answering one of the 4 questions in this tetralemma is a conditioned thing.
But let’s say you dont or cant answer any of these 4 questions about something, that something is probably the unconditioned (ātman).
Except the unconditioned can be known. It’s not an abstract postulate or concept or conceptualization. Otherwise, as you yourself have said, “how could you attain nibbana.”
