Relying on Views

There are two kinds of right views taught: Mundane and supramundane right view. (MN117)

I believe supramundane right view is not that kind of view such as: ‘father and mother exist, there is this life and an afterlife, there is kamma and fruit of kamma. It is not about the view of materialism, view of an eternal soul, substantialism, insubstanstialism, idealism, eternalism, annihilationisms, scepticsm’ etc. (endless)

It is not at all intellectual or philosophical of nature. Supramundane right view is not like that. It is not connected with conceiving, with ideas, philosophy, reasoning, because it is based upon stilling of all formations, dispassion, purity. So, this has nothing to do with what we normally consider as view. It is not about regarding things in a certain way.

Supramundane right view is, i believe, the view that a wholehearted undivided pure non-judgemental heart naturally has. It is not trapped in a notion of me versus the other. Nor in a notion of me versus the world. It has no ideas about exist or not exist. Nor about substantialism and not-substantialism. It has no ideas about eternalism or annihilationism. It is not intellectual of character at all. It has no standpoints. It is free of all opinions and ideas.

It refers to that domain or that dimension free from all conceit and conceiving. This is an undivided dimension. And because it is, it has an unworldy , supramundane, right view. A correct understanding. In its not-fragmented nature it has a correct understanding.

Involved in conceit and conceiving the understanding becomes fragmented in a me here and the other there, or me here and the world there. But this fragmentation merely arises as a result of involvement in conceit and conceiving. See for yourself.
Where are boundaries when there is no involvement in conceit and conceiving?

Fragmentation is not reality, it is merely an impression of reality that is arising. Fragmentation seems real for a mind with a sense of me, mine and my self. This all remains worldly understanding, mundane.

The supramundane right views is the kind of understanding of an unfragmented mind and a pure heart.

Dhamma is also not about knowledge and vision but knowledge and vision is an important stage in arriving at Nibbana, oneness, peace, unlimited mind (AN10.80). No boundaries can be found. No fragmentation is present. Detachment.
This has naturally the right understanding.

The only goal of the Dhamma is this state of the definitive absence of all clinging and conceit (MN24). Knowledge and vision functions in Dhamma merely to arrive there. But if knowledge and vision only leads to becoming attached to knowledge and vision, then it does not serve its real purpose.

The unfragmented mind and pure heart has by nature the right understanding. That is its supramundane right view. It is not something one can or has to learn. It is our birthright. Purification removes all what fragments. And, in the end, especially the conceit ‘I am’ (asmi mana) functions as a fungus of division. All actions based upon this, are not based upon dispassion and not based upon supra mundane right view.
But they can still be meritorious.

I am afraid people might jduge this as mystics, esoteric buddhism, so be it. I feel it might be of help. I personally see this is what Buddha meant.

Mundane right views can be learned. One can abandon wrong mundane views and adopt right views. This is meritorious. But supramundane view cannot and does not have to be learned but to be arrived at.

It is an illusion, i feel, that mundane right views are not important. Because one can really have wrong views that lead to misery. And those must be abandoned for the sake of ones welbeing and that of others too.

Your post sounds similar to what the tathāgatagarbha literature says.

Good :blush: I once translated my favorite text: Uttara Tantra Shastra.

In general i feel that the difference between mundane path still based upon passion AND supramundane, based upon dispassion, is somehow ignored, resisted, denied. I do not understand that. It is so crucial to understand the teachings and EBT, i feel. But probably this is received as my pride, arrogance, foolishness, conceit. So be it.

But for myself i see that whatever is based upon conceit and conceiving, all actions, all speech, all thoughts, they are really not dispassionate and not free of avijja.

If you look into the suttas they also describe how right view can be still based upon conceit and conceiving, but it can also be based upon dispassion. If you look into the spiritual qualities the suttas describe, they are also based upon dispassion, not on conceit and conceiving.

Of course we can make good use of conceit and conceiving or make bad use of it (Buddha stimulaties making good use of it as long it governs our functioning) but it all remains karmically active and is mundane. In the end nothing of this is based upon purity and is noble. It has still an element of conceit ‘I am’ in it or otherwise a sense of mine and my self. Such is never pure. But it still can be meritorious.

Take for example giving. The portrayed Buddha says that giving is even meritorious if it is an impure form of giving. Giving as investment, with expactions that nice things come in return for oneself. But this giving is, of course not based upon purity, dispassion. In fact it is based upon conceiving and conceit and higly load with a sense of me, mine, and my self. And often our choices, speech, thinking, deeds are.
That is not based upon purity and dispassion.

But what i feel is great about Buddha, is that he does not judge this as evil, as immoral. I always tended to see it this way.
That made me too strict, to unforgiving to my self and others.

In the suttas i see a Buddha who just accepts we are passionate, conceited, egocentric and have egocentric goals too. I feel Buddha was very practical in dealing with this, although he must have seen this as failure in wisdom. But he had faith in the Path. That one day the Path will also remove this egocentrism and uproot all conceit.

In religion, i feel, is a more judgemental sphere about being egocentric. Also there is truth in it, but i think that is not really conducive to deal this way with our inclinations. I think for everybodies welbeing it is best to see at ego notions and egocentrims with eyes of love, understanding, compassion, empathie, not judgemental.

One day i become a preacher :innocent:

I find it helpful to clarify what exactly Right View is. Right view is a view that leads to Right Thoughts. Right Thoughts are thoughts that lead to Right Action. etc. Right Mindfulness(Sati) leads to Right Samadhi.

The Buddha told the monks, “There are spirits of the four gross elements. What are the four? First is the earth spirit, second is the water spirit, third is the wind spirit, and fourth is the fire spirit.
“Once, the earth spirit had a bad view. She said, ‘There’s no water, fire, or wind in earth.’
“Knowing that the earth spirit had this thought, I went to her and said, ‘Did you have this thought, “There’s no water, fire, or wind in earth”?’
“The earth spirit replied, ‘There really is no water, fire, or wind in earth.’
“I then said, ‘Don’t have this thought that there’s no water, fire, or wind in earth. Why is that? There’s water, fire, and wind in earth. It’s only because there’s much more earth present that it’s called the earth element.’”

In this sutta(DA 30) Buddha teaches to deity(in charge of earth) that has the view “There is Earth elements existing alone”, that this view isn’t true - Earth element exists together with other 3 elements(Water,Air,Fire).

In Kalama sutta and other suttas Buddha said don’t take it on faith,on inference, on teacher, on lineage, on logic, etc … that rebirth(past and future lives) exists. A similar argument can be made for kamma and fruit of kamma.

So no : "father and mother exist, there is this life and an afterlife, there is kamma and fruit of kamma. " - These are not the mundane right views. If this is right view, all Buddhists & Hindus & other religions(Christians etc) will automatically have Right View.

Right View is right view because it leads to the growth of skillful qualities. If the view leads to conceit, arrogance(My view is Right, Others don’t have the right view etc) then it’s not a Right View. Right view should lead to Right Actions(actions to remove unskillful qualities) and lead to Right Mindfulness and Right Samadhi.
Any view(Even a view told by Buddha) has the capacity to lead to Wrong Actions(killing;stealing;quarreling;gossiping;etc).

Suppose we have the view: “Eating something is pleasurable”, then we have thoughts about eating & tasting, and we take actions to gather them and preserve them(cook etc). We will then eat them and achieve pleasure(Wrong Freedom). Why is it Wrong Freedom? Because this freedom is transient and dependent on other conditions.

Suppose we have the view:“My view is correct, all others are false”, then we have thoughts about our views and we take actions to guard them and defend them from others. We have ill-will,quarreling,arguing, etc. Then we achieve either a win(Pleasant feelings) or a lose(Unpleasant feelings) - Wrong Freedom.

More simply, right view lead to abandonment.

Agree.


I recall a Christian scripture, Proverbs 4.23:

Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life.

Made sense to me back in the day, and still does. I realized however that Right View is an even higher priority because it informs intention (which has a meaning near enough to ‘heart’ for me).

DN1 blows me away when it gets to The End Of The Round. All views, even the no-view view, are inevitably dependent on soft squishy stuff which is fully certain to disintegrate one way or 'tuther. After that we’re outside the limits of language. I am almost certain that I will not manage complicated theories on my death bed.


Something Ajahn @Brahmali said in a YT video a couple years back stuck with me. IIRC, it’s not that we have Right View or not - rather that there are degrees of it, and that our degree of right view varies over time. (tagging him solely in case I’ve misrepresented him)

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Thanks all.

I especially recognise how intentions, speech and deeds (actions) can arise as conditionings, habitual of nature, merely as tendencies, as inclinations. As part of my personal and humane make-up. As part of my bagage, personal and interpersonal.

In others words, they arise from a passionate base. All these deeds are somehow affected by the past. They carry the past within them. This passionate base, these conditionings, these habits shown, are the residue of choices in former lifes.
They have become conditionings. They are not based upon freedom, purity, dispassion, the unconditioned.

I see this in the suttas too. I recognise it this way too. It does not mean that such actions cannot be meritorious, but they are, like MN117 and others say, not based upon dispassion. They are not based upon the unconditioned but the conditioned.

So, in a sense, we are merely showing habitual behavior when our actions arise from a passionate base (habits, tendencies, inclinations, conditionings). The past rules.
That is also why the suttas say that they are karmically active. They have all an element of avijja in it too. Because it represents unfreedom, fettering. Certainly not detachment.

Actions that have the unconditioned as base, are different. They are not connected to our make up, they arise from a free, pure, dispassionate dimension, asankhata dhatu. Those deeds are not carrying the past into the present. They are not habitual of nature. They are based upon dispassion, purity. They have no karmic weight.
This dimension is refered to as signless, desireless, empty, uninclined in the suttas.

So, our actions can be based upon collected passion in former lifes and this life, i.e. conditionings we now have, OR not. Both is treated as right view in the suttas. But only those actions based upon dispassion are preceded by noble, supramundane right view. Never actions that are really merely conditionings, habits, tendencies.

Supramundane right view is not learned, not cultural, not buddhist. It is arrived at when conditionings do not govern ones actions. When we are not just like machines. When we are freed from this slavery. Mundane right views functions to arrive there.
If we do not abandon wrong views we do not arrive at the other shore of freedom, dispassion.

The mundane noble path is like the raft. It brings us at the other shore of freedom, peace, having broken all the inner fetters/chains, but it does not create the other shore. It is a vehicle. To get at the other shore we must make this vehicle strong in such a way that it does not sink or drift away to this shore again or come stuck in the middle on a sandbank or is destroyed by drifting logs. But the mundane path as vehicle does not create, make, produce the other shore .