Saccato Thetato: Split from Problem of Temporal Action

The Watercooler
37

just on this bit, saccato thetato i s a pretty rare phrase in the canon, it occurs at MN2, MN22, SN22.85, SN22.86, SN44.2, and AN3.61 and a further 11 times in the Abhidhamma.

All the SN occurrences are the same sutta repeated.

When they apply the mind irrationally in this way, one of the following six views arises in them and is taken as a genuine fact.
Tassa evaṁ ayoniso manasikaroto channaṁ diṭṭhīnaṁ aññatarā diṭṭhi uppajjati.
The view: ‘My self survives.’
‘Atthi me attā’ti vā assa saccato thetato diṭṭhi uppajjati;
The view: ‘My self does not survive.’
‘natthi me attā’ti vā assa saccato thetato diṭṭhi uppajjati;
The view: ‘I perceive the self with the self.’
‘attanāva attānaṁ sañjānāmī’ti vā assa saccato thetato diṭṭhi uppajjati;
The view: ‘I perceive what is not-self with the self.’
‘attanāva anattānaṁ sañjānāmī’ti vā assa saccato thetato diṭṭhi uppajjati;
The view: ‘I perceive the self with what is not-self.’
‘anattanāva attānaṁ sañjānāmī’ti vā assa saccato thetato diṭṭhi uppajjati;
MN2

“But since a self and what belongs to a self are not actually found, is not the following a totally foolish teaching:
“Attani ca, bhikkhave, attaniye ca saccato thetato anupalabbhamāne, yampi taṁ diṭṭhiṭṭhānaṁ:
‘The cosmos and the self are one and the same. After death I will be permanent, everlasting, eternal, imperishable, and will last forever and ever’?”
‘so loko so attā, so pecca bhavissāmi nicco dhuvo sassato avipariṇāmadhammo, sassatisamaṁ tatheva ṭhassāmī’ti—
nanāyaṁ, bhikkhave, kevalo paripūro bāladhammo”ti?
MN22

“In that case, Reverend Yamaka, since you don’t actually find the Realized One in the present life, is it appropriate to declare:
“Ettha ca te, āvuso yamaka, diṭṭheva dhamme saccato thetato tathāgate anupalabbhiyamāne, kallaṁ nu te taṁ veyyākaraṇaṁ:
‘As I understand the Buddha’s teaching, a mendicant who has ended the defilements is annihilated and destroyed when their body breaks up, and doesn’t exist after death.’?”
‘tathāhaṁ bhagavatā dhammaṁ desitaṁ ājānāmi, yathā khīṇāsavo bhikkhu kāyassa bhedā ucchijjati vinassati, na hoti paraṁ maraṇā’”ti?
SN22.85 SN22.86 SN44.2

Those who believe that past deeds are the most important thing have no enthusiasm or effort, no idea that there are things that should and should not be done.
Pubbekataṁ kho pana, bhikkhave, sārato paccāgacchataṁ na hoti chando vā vāyāmo vā idaṁ vā karaṇīyaṁ idaṁ vā akaraṇīyanti.
Since they don’t actually find that there are things that should and should not be done, they’re unmindful and careless, and can’t rightly be called ascetics.
Iti karaṇīyākaraṇīye kho pana saccato thetato anupalabbhiyamāne muṭṭhassatīnaṁ anārakkhānaṁ viharataṁ na hoti paccattaṁ sahadhammiko samaṇavādo.
AN3.61

So that’s the complete translation context for saccato thetato.
It is also the complete translation context for theta.

whittling down to thet gives one more context;

‘The ascetic Gotama has given up lying. He speaks the truth and sticks to the truth. He’s honest and trustworthy, and doesn’t trick the world with his words.’
‘Musāvādaṁ pahāya musāvādā paṭivirato samaṇo gotamo saccavādī saccasandho theto paccayiko avisaṁvādako lokassā’ti—
Such is an ordinary person’s praise of the Realized One.
iti vā hi, bhikkhave, puthujjano tathāgatassa vaṇṇaṁ vadamāno vadeyya.
DN1 and thereafter.

Theta (adj.) [Sk. from tiṭṭhita, Müller P. Gr. 7=sthātṛ] firm, reliable, trustworthy, true D i.4 (DA i.73: theto ti thiro; ṭhita – katho ti attho); M i.179; S iv.384 A ii.209=Pug 57; Nd2 623. – abl. thetato in truth S iii.112. – attheta J iv.57 (=athira).

Sacca (adj.) [cp. Sk. satya] real, true D i.182; M ii.169; iii.207; Dh 408; nt. saccaṃ truly, verily, certainly Miln 120; saccaṃ kira is it really true? D i.113; Vin i.45, 60 J i.107; saccato truly S iii.112. – (nt. as noun) saccaṃ the truth A ii.25, 115 (parama˚); Dh 393; also: a solemn asseveration Mhvs 25, 18. Sacce patiṭṭhāya keeping to fact, M i.376.

finally

Upalabhati [upa + labh] to receive, get, obtain to find, make out Miln 124 (kāraṇaṃ); usually in Pass. upalabbhati to be found or got, to be known; to exist M i.138 (an˚); S i.135; iv.384; Sn 858; Pv ii.111 (= paccanubhavīyati PvA 146); Kvu 1, 2; Miln 25; PvA 87.

words containing upalab occur very rarely in the 4 principle nikayas, and vastly more commonly in the late books.

People who defend the orthodox Theravadin sectarian commentarial interpretation of the ebt rely very, very heavily on a tiny number of suttas, a very disproportionate number of which contain these rare terms.

take it for what its worth.

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38

lol! I am not sure what you mean by “this type of analysis” @yeshe.tenley and I am not a complier for hire so to speak, so by all means check out https://www.digitalpalireader.online/ and start researching!

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39

We should get to the bottom of this.

As you proclaim that no thing can be pinned down as truth & reality. Answer this set

Is there a truth & reality?
Is there no truth & reality?
Is there both is & isn’t a truth & reality?
Is there neither is nor isn’t a truth & reality?

Does everything exist?
Does everything not exist?
Do some things exist and other things not exist?

Why does the Buddha tell us to contemplate the aggregates as impermanent but not to contemplate ‘self’ as impermanent, if neither is a truth & reality?’

Do you think it is proper to contemplate self as impermanent?

What is the difference between contemplating feeling as impermanent and contemplating self as impermanent?

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40

I fear we may be unable to at this time and in this context. Instead, I will work on building up enough merit so that in the future we might be able to. Have a good new year. :pray:

41

That’s ok, i can hash it out myself.

In the conversation with Anuradha, it followed that because one couldn’t pin Tathagata as truth & reality, then one couldn’t proclaim anything about the existence of such a thing.

In that case, Anurādha, since you don’t actually find the Realized One in the present life, is it appropriate to declare:
“Ettha ca te, anurādha, diṭṭheva dhamme saccato thetato tathāgate anupalabbhiyamāne kallaṁ nu te taṁ veyyākaraṇaṁ

After death, a Realized One still exists, or no longer exists, or both still exists and no longer exists, or neither still exists nor no longer exists’?”‘hoti tathāgato paraṁ maraṇā’ti vā …pe…‘neva hoti na na hoti tathāgato paraṁ maraṇā’ti vā”ti?

In short, one can’t talk about things existing or not if one can’t pin them as truth & reality.

In regards to feeling you will see that Buddha proclaims that they exist

Then it occurred to me:

Tassa mayhaṁ, bhikkhave, etadahosi:
‘When what doesn’t exist is there no rebirth? …
‘kimhi nu kho asati jāti na hoti …pe…
continued existence …
bhavo …
grasping …
upādānaṁ …
craving …
taṇhā …
feeling …
vedanā …
contact …
phasso …
the six sense fields …
saḷāyatanaṁ …
name and form …
nāmarūpaṁ …
consciousness …
viññāṇaṁ … - SN 12.10

The existence of feeling is regarded as self-evident because if there was no feeling then one couldn’t even ask the question.

It is the same epistemology for things like contact, if there is no contact then there is no feeling.

“When those recluses and brahmins who are speculators about the past, speculators about the future, speculators about the past and the future together, who hold settled views about the past and the future, assert on sixty-two grounds various conceptual theorems referring to the past and the future—that too is conditioned by contact. That they can experience that feeling without contact—such a case is impossible. SuttaCentral

Essentially that which is self-evident is the epistemological standard for what is considered truth & reality and the dependent origination of this truth & reality is fully explained by the Buddha.

This is essentially a complete & accurate map of that which one can think about. From it follows that only dukkha arises and only dukkha ceases and there is no such thing as a self on this map.

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42

I think your last two post have improved dramatically, I may delete this comment later for the sake of harmony, but well done!

I think it is because if the self where something impermanent, that is destroyed and annihilated, then there would be no escape from this world, only doom, as in MN63 (paraphrased);

When there is the view that the self is eternal or that the self is not eternal, there is rebirth, there is old age, there is death, and there is sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress.
‘Sassato atta’ti vā, mālukyaputta, diṭṭhiyā sati, ‘asassato atta’ti vā diṭṭhiyā sati attheva jāti, atthi jarā, atthi maraṇaṁ, santi sokaparidevadukkhadomanassupāyāsā;

Yes, obviously, the Sydney Opera House exists, Unicorns don’t exist.

You’ve gone off the rails again here tho @Notez , I can’t pin down a Unicorn in truth and reality, but I can still absolutely talk about them not existing.

but

“Well, Reverend Sāriputta, is feeling made by oneself? Or by another? Or by both oneself and another? Or does it arise by chance, not made by oneself or another?”
“Kiṁ nu kho, āvuso sāriputta, sayaṅkatā vedanā , paraṅkatā vedanā , sayaṅkatā ca paraṅkatā ca vedanā , udāhu asayaṅkārā aparaṅkārā adhiccasamuppannā vedanā ”ti?

“No, Reverend Koṭṭhita, feeling is not made by oneself, nor by another, nor by both oneself and another, nor does it arise by chance, not made by oneself or another.
“Na kho, āvuso koṭṭhika, sayaṅkatā vedanā , na paraṅkatā vedanā , na sayaṅkatā ca paraṅkatā ca vedanā , nāpi asayaṅkārā aparaṅkārā adhiccasamuppannā vedanā .
SN12.67

so it is wrong view to assert that feeling is made by not-self.

further;

by the same reasoning if there was no one, one couldn’t ask the question.

Again, this goes off the rails a bit, at no stage does the buddha claim that this is a complete map. only that it is a map of the arising and ceasing of suffering. see here;

“What do you think, mendicants?
“Taṁ kiṁ maññatha, bhikkhave,
Which is more:
katamaṁ nu kho bahutaraṁ—
the few leaves in my hand, or those in the forest above me?”
yāni vā mayā parittāni sīsapāpaṇṇāni pāṇinā gahitāni yadidaṁ upari sīsapāvane”ti?

“Sir, the few leaves in your hand are a tiny amount.
“Appamattakāni, bhante, bhagavatā parittāni sīsapāpaṇṇāni pāṇinā gahitāni;
There are far more leaves in the forest above.”
atha kho etāneva bahutarāni yadidaṁ upari sīsapāvane”ti.

“In the same way, there is much more that I have directly known but have not explained to you. What I have explained is a tiny amount.
“Evameva kho, bhikkhave, etadeva bahutaraṁ yaṁ vo mayā abhiññāya anakkhātaṁ.
And why haven’t I explained it?
Kasmā cetaṁ, bhikkhave, mayā anakkhātaṁ?
Because it’s not beneficial or relevant to the fundamentals of the spiritual life. It doesn’t lead to disillusionment, dispassion, cessation, peace, insight, awakening, and extinguishment.
Na hetaṁ, bhikkhave, atthasaṁhitaṁ nādibrahmacariyakaṁ na nibbidāya na virāgāya na nirodhāya na upasamāya na abhiññāya na sambodhāya na nibbānāya saṁvattati;
That’s why I haven’t explained it.
tasmā taṁ mayā anakkhātaṁ.

And what have I explained?
Kiñca, bhikkhave, mayā akkhātaṁ?
I have explained: ‘This is suffering’ … ‘This is the origin of suffering’ … ‘This is the cessation of suffering’ … ‘This is the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering’.
‘Idaṁ dukkhan’ti, bhikkhave, mayā akkhātaṁ, ‘ayaṁ dukkhasamudayo’ti mayā akkhātaṁ, ‘ayaṁ dukkhanirodho’ti mayā akkhātaṁ, ‘ayaṁ dukkhanirodhagāminī paṭipadā’ti mayā akkhātaṁ.

And why have I explained this?
Kasmā cetaṁ, bhikkhave, mayā akkhātaṁ?
Because it’s beneficial and relevant to the fundamentals of the spiritual life. It leads to disillusionment, dispassion, cessation, peace, insight, awakening, and extinguishment.
Etañhi, bhikkhave, atthasaṁhitaṁ etaṁ ādibrahmacariyakaṁ etaṁ nibbidāya virāgāya nirodhāya upasamāya abhiññāya sambodhāya nibbānāya saṁvattati;
That’s why I’ve explained it.
tasmā taṁ mayā akkhātaṁ.
SN56.31

secondly it does NOT follow that only dukkha arises, the “map” itself says that existence arises, pleasure arises, consciousness arises, etc etc. to paraphrase SN12.67 again;

“Well, Reverend Sāriputta, is existence made by itself? Or by another? Or by both itself and another? Or does it arise by chance, not made by itself or another?”
“Kiṁ nu kho, āvuso sāriputta, sayaṅkatā bhavo, paraṅkatā bhavo, sayaṅkatā ca paraṅkatā ca bhavo, udāhu asayaṅkārā aparaṅkārā adhiccasamuppannā bhavo”ti?

“No, Reverend Koṭṭhita, existence is not made by itself, nor by another, nor by both itself and another, nor does it arise by chance, not made by itselfor another.
“Na kho, āvuso koṭṭhika, sayaṅkatā bhavo, na paraṅkatā bhavo, na sayaṅkatā ca paraṅkatā ca bhavo, nāpi asayaṅkārā aparaṅkārā adhiccasamuppannā bhavo.
SN12.67

that is quite right, nor is there such a thing as a “not-self” on this map, nor both, nor neither.

and also , the map is not the territory.

and also

Such a one does not take anything
Yaṁ kiñci diṭṭhaṁva sutaṁ mutaṁ vā,
seen, heard, or thought to be ultimately true or false.
Ajjhositaṁ saccamutaṁ paresaṁ;
But others get attached, thinking it’s the truth,
Na tesu tādī sayasaṁvutesu,
limited by their preconceptions.
Saccaṁ musā vāpi paraṁ daheyya.

Since they’ve seen this dart
Etañca sallaṁ paṭikacca disvā,
to which people are attached and cling,
Ajjhositā yattha pajā visattā;
saying, ‘I know, I see, that’s how it is’,
Jānāmi passāmi tatheva etaṁ,
the Realized Ones have no attachments.”
Ajjhositaṁ natthi tathāgatānan”ti.
AN4.24

Anyway, all this is simply to say that “there is no such thing as a self” and “there is such a thing as a self” are both wrong view, and the abyakata suttas make this very clear, all that can be said are that phenomena are not the self, or to quote you;

to infer form this that “there is no one” is to go beyond

Have we “gotten to the bottom” of this yet?

43

I meant that if i ask you what is a unicorn, you won’t be able to pin it down, and thetefor the question is meaningless as you can’t provide a referent for the thing you call unicorn.

I might as well say ‘Vccdvbff doesn’t exist’

You might only see me go off the rails in your dreams.

What does this have to do with any of what i am explaining?

The DO accounts for the dependent origination of The All/The World.

Keep dreaming.

What does this have to do with it?

If you are familiar with the work of Alfred Korzybski who coined this phrase. Then you should know that he never managed to prove the existence of the territory. But you can try if you want.

I don’t do this tho. I say that if you can’t pin it down then the question doesn’t apply because you have no referent.

I have, you haven’t

44

There is no future. There is only the present flow of nowness. One makes unhelpful choices out of ignorance and one makes helpful choices through wisdom.

Kamma in its core essence is in this example: when I put my hand (A) and wrap it around B (a can) and add lift (C) then I can consume the liquid in the can. If I place my hand on a hot kettle, it will burn.

Of course, the mental abstraction ‘I’ doesn’t do the moving. The act of conscious movement and the idea of such are two different matters. This was laid out to Mahakasyapa in the Flower Sermon. We have a habit of using ‘I’ to designate our own mind but the term isn’t the entirety of the mind in the same way the word hand isn’t :raised_hand:.

Thus, there is no problem of future lifes. This belief that one is shackled to ones fate beyond ones control is not the teaching of the Noble One’s. The Noble One’s have shown the proximate cause of stress and its cessation. This is the goal. Unhelpful actions lead to unhelpful consequences and helpful ones lead to helpful happenings. The Buddhadhamma provides one with the tools to cut the root at generating unhelpful action and to learn to create an impertruable sense of calm in the body that is not able to be disrupted (eventually). Karma isn’t some ghost that follows you around but for as long as one engages in wrong conduct one will experience the wrong results.

Ones wellbeing depends on the actions one engages with in the present. Do that now and the future takes care of itself.

45

I am not even being snarky.

To your credit i could’ve worded it differently as to make it more comprehensible.

Something like “When you can’t pin things down as truth & reality then it is not appropriate to make a statement as to their existence because there can be no basis for such a declaration.”

Can you prove it?

You will want to say ‘Yes I can’ but hold your horses…

If you could prove the existence of such a thing the you could’ve proved the existence of a being.

If you want to go through the back & forth arriving at the fact that you can’t pin these things as a truth & reality before admitting that it wasn’t proper to declare the existence of these things, then let’s go…

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46

I unreservedly apologise for calling you names @Notez , in the heat of the moment i lost my temper. I wont bore you by responding to your claim that we can’t say unicorns arn’t real, as you say, it’s now abundantly clear that i am “pissing in the wind.”

Metta.

47

I appreciate the criticism. You did raise an interesting point which i’ve never had to explain before and i will try to explain it.

I was summarizing the sutta

In regards to this i said

In short, one can’t talk about things existing or not if one can’t pin them as truth & reality.

And it is correct, it follows that because Anuradha couldn’t pin Tathagata down as truth & reality no declaration about existence could be made.

One can say ‘unicorns don’t exist’ and ‘opera house does exist’ but one will not be able to pin either of these things down and so there is no basis for those claims. In the end one will assert that the words are mere conventions and equal in that.

Example of how it’d go
One would say ‘unicorn’ can’t be seen but ‘the opera’ can be seen, before admitting that the building materials are not the ‘opera’ and further being unable to pin the opera down.

Eventually one will admit that neither the unicorn nor the opera house, can be seen, touched, tasted, smelled, or heard, and that both can be thought of but not pinned down as truth & reality.

So what exactly is the difference warranting the varying declarations regarding the existence of these things which can’t be pinned down?

The difference is in the conceived referents of these statements.

The statement ‘unicorns don’t exist’ asserts how seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, cognizing, would turn out under certain circumstances. For example if i’d go looking for one in the forest.

And the statement ‘the opera house exists’ asserts how seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, cognizing, would turn out under certain circumstances. For example if i’d go looking for one in Sydney.

Therefore while ‘unicorn’ & ‘opera house’ can’t be pinned down as truth & reality, the statements about these conventions are descriptive of things that do exist and can be pinned down as truth & reality.

Basically one can say ‘unicorns don’t exists’ as long as one understands this not a statement about a truth & reality called ‘unicorns’ because unicorns can’t be pinned down.

Likewise one can say ‘the opera house exists’ as long as one understands that the statement is not about a truth & reality called ‘opera house’ because opera house can’t be pinned down.

Whether one would say that the unicorn exists or not depends on the context.

One could say ‘unicorns exist’ when talking about a video game or a cartoon wherein these things exist.

One could say ‘opera house in Sydney doesn’t exist’ if it were to be destroyed.

Both of these statements are descriptive of how seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, cognizing, would turn out under certain circumstances.

This is how i think about it.

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48

No worries @Notez , you give a very clear explanation of the way you think about it.

49

I do worry because it’s very difficult to explain something like this without contradicting myself, the texts or logic.

If i make even a small mistake it makes some people me very happy and i won’t hear the end of it.

It gives me lots of anxiety.

I don’t know if this is to be taken at face value but i tried to explain it as clearly as i can and without avoiding the difficult points.

Idk if we got to the bottom of this afterall but i think explaining it was good for me.

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50

This is absolutely meant at face value, and I also find it very valuable to try and explain my understanding clearly to people wo think about things differently to me.

Sometimes my frustration at not being able to clearly explain my position leads me to lash out as I did with you earlier, for which again, I apologize.

2 Likes
51

Something like this has happened to me many times, but when I look back in retrospect with a calm mind I usually find I was just grasping at a view. Grasping and regarding it as “mine” out of conceit and pride. If that’s not bad enough, I then usually go on trying to explain my view not so much out of a genuine desire to help others, but rather to boost and satiate my own grasping ego. When I do this my teachers like to remind me it probably means that I don’t know &@%$# :joy:

:pray:

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52

Since you said it was beneficial for you to explain I’ll hazard another question. Please feel free to disregard or ignore it as I do not wish this to generate any more anxiety for you. You say, “descriptive of things that do exist and can be pinned down as truth & reality.” What things are you referring to here?

:pray:

53

The word ‘things’ therein is a designation for ‘all dhammas’ as it appears in the context of The All.

Then your question is ‘What dhammas are you referring to here?’

The answer is

The seen - eye & forms
The smelled - nose & aromas
The heard - ear & sounds
The tasted - tongue & tastes
The sensed - body & sensations
The cognized - mind & dhammas

As i understand it, you are not satisfied with this answer because what you rather want to know is something else entirely, you feel there is something not adding up, it’s difficult to explain but it has to do with the inherent emptiness of the designations. Is this correct?

54

For times like these, I have devised a form of notation (based on the suttas) that avoids us talking past each other. :pray: :star_struck:

I use ‘exists’ with a small ‘e’ to denote that which can be cognized by the senses and which is referred to in the normal course of conventional conversation.

I use ‘Exists’ with a capital ‘E’ to denote that which is Permanent, Eternal, Unchanging, Not dependent on anything else. That which has some ‘Essence’ which can be isolated apart from everything else. That which will Endure forever and ever.

A common example to explain the difference is the rainbow. Of course, rainbows ‘exist’. We have all seen one (or a photograph). But they do not ‘Exist’. A rainbow cannot be pinned down and isolated apart from the phenomena that make it happen.

Many disagreements occur on this forum because one person is referring to X ‘existing’ while another person is pointing out that X does not ‘Exist’. :rose: :rainbow: :grin:

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55

For fear of the danger that @faujidoc1 brought up I am going to try and once again define the terms I’m using. When you say “truth and reality” I take it to mean the same thing as “saccato thetato” which in turn I take to mean something that can be pinned down or found through analysis. So when you say, “descriptive of things that do exist and can be pinned down as truth & reality” I take that to mean you’ve found some thing that can be pinned down and found as saccato thetato.

Above you claimed that I had asserted that nothing can pinned down and found. If you go back and check I think you’ll find that I did not assert this, but if I did then I was in error. What I said was something to the extent that I have not been able to pin down anything whatsoever as saccato thetato and not for lack of trying. There is a big difference to my mind between saying “nothing can be pinned down or found” versus “I have not been able…” and if I asserted the former, then again that was a bad error. I’m just a lowly being who would be gravely mistaken to make such a bold statement. It seems that I’ve been searching my whole life for something that can be pinned down and found as saccato thetato, but so far that search has been in vain.

It isn’t that I’m unsatisfied. I do admit skepticism, but I cannot claim that I know you’ve been unable to pin something down as saccato thetato. Moreover, if you have actually been able to, then I would very much like to know how you did it so I can replicate. But pinning down and finding something that is saccato thetato is more to me than reciting suttas or an indirect proof that something must be saccato thetato because otherwise nothing would make any sense or we’d arrive at contradiction. To me ‘saccato thetato’ indicates direct knowledge. Every thing that I’ve ever believed might be saccato thetato has fallen apart for me when looked at with ever deeper analysis.

:pray:

56

Well in short.
We’d have to establish that something exists and from there infer the existant requisites for it’s existence.

I assume that you won’t want to take it for granted that something exists.

Therefore we would have to analyze the very instrument of our communication & analysis.

What are words? Can we explain words by using words?

When we have more or less hashed that out we can revisit the questions asking ‘what is saccato thetato’ and ‘whether something exists’.

When we figure out what words are and what they are not, then we can know what is the word ‘a thing’, whether a word can be pinned down as another word, and to what extent words be pinned down if at all possible.

This is the type of analysis required to get to the bottom of this.

I can’t explain these things in short because books have been written about it and it might take a person years to penetrate these subjects.