Just use the word experience. That should be intuitive enough.
Experience is, no need for a self.
Just use the word experience. That should be intuitive enough.
Experience is, no need for a self.
Thinking āonly experience is real and the rest of the world notā sounds like a bang up recipe for grasping experience.
Venerable, Iām pretty sure that according to the Theravadin Abhidhamma the various types of matter/form (such as the four fundamental element atoms) are real, as well as the cittas and cetasikas of various beings, no? Iām not quite sure how space is a concept in that system given that matter is considered ultimate, but IIRC space is not listed as ultimate. Either way, this is a lot more than conditional appearance and designation.
We have to define real vs fake first. Or if youāre not using LEM, not real, not fake. It all becomes unreal when I donāt see the instrumental usage of using these terminologies. Itās much easier to talk without having to venture into these philosophical things.
They understand: āRebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is no return to any state of existence.ā
They understand: āHere there is no stress due to the defilements of sensuality, desire to be reborn, or ignorance. There is only this modicum of stress, namely that associated with the six sense fields dependent on this body and conditioned by life.ā They understand: āThis field of perception is empty of the perception of the defilements of sensuality, desire to be reborn, and ignorance. There is only this that is not emptiness, namely that associated with the six sense fields dependent on this body and conditioned by life.ā And so they regard it as empty of what is not there, but as to what remains they understand that it is present. Thatās how emptiness manifests in themāgenuine, undistorted, pure, and supreme.
MN121.
You asked for what is not concept. I would reply with the quote above. Direct experience can be free from concepts and is present.
If you want to read real, unreal, attachment or not into it, itās you who adds concepts into it.
They are real qualities. So with the earth element there is no earth substance, there is only the quality of āhardnessā. That is the Earth element. The Abhidhamma rightly acknowledges the emptiness of substance, but then it tries to argue the qualities exist by themselves. Does it make sense to say that qualities exist without substances? I donāt think so. Of course we do experience qualities (hard, hot, blue etc) but, since no substance can be found, you canāt establish them. They canāt be disassociated from mind.
I am not familiar with the 28 forms in abhidhamma. but I know physics. Itās all conditioned, changable and thus not self, including spacetime.
Without conceptualisation (sanna) you wouldnāt perceive anything. Itās by naming, labelling, conceptualising that we perceive this and that.
The matter is physics is not the matter of the Abhidhamma. In physics you are talking about a substance. In the Abhidhamma you are only talking about qualities.
In the Abhidhamma space is a concept, but the formation of that concept is real.
Letās say a person close eyes and try to walk across the room, then the knee banged on furniture in the middle of the room, pain results.
No visual perception, thereās tactile perception, and mental perception of pain.
No concept of furniture does not mean it doesnāt function.
We are going far off topic.
Can you relate any objections to my saying that no self doesnāt deny individuality? If not then case closed. You can open another discussion for MahÄyÄna emptiness, all is concept etc. I am not so interested in it for now.
We can define ārealā or āunrealā or āconceptā however you like. You said that to function was to be real. The Nile functions. It serves to drown some poor unfortunate souls. The Nile is also a concept. So you have a functional concept. A real concept if you will
The quote you listed is full of names and labels and so on as pointed out. Sounds like you believe ārebirthā is real and not a concept. The same goes for āthe personā that is reborn. Or the āendingā of that real cycle of rebirth of a real person that is really reborn from world to world.
The paradox is that for you to end this real person really being reborn you need to undermine your own notion of this real person and start doubting whether there really really is such a real person who really really is reborn in a real world. Only by undermining such beliefs and giving doubt to the deeply etched habit of really believing in really real persons and substances and so on do you have a chance of really ending the really real cycle of rebirth
I am afraid I havenāt said ārealā or āreallyā enough.
Youāre asking me a question and then imply it would be bad taste for me to reply, and that you arenāt interested anyway Bhante.
Right. I mean one point to make is that while this may be the theoretical idea of the Abhidhamma under certain analyses and exegeses, I am doubtful that it is the view, approach, or tendency that many people who study the Abhidhamma have. I think most of them probably do take them as substantial, despite what the formal philosophy may say. But we can set that aside for now and address the formal philosophical take in its own merit.
Clearly, theyāre saying something. There is a meaningful distinction to be made. Similar to the idea of ultimate realities vs. concepts. Thereās something there to the idea that makes it seem reasonable and straightforward. But it still misses the mark, Iād say. Qualities are subjective. Different beings experience different types of qualities, and how we divide them up in language or conceptually even can affect us. Blue and green as separate colors rather than shades of the same color for instance. There would have to be infinite existent qualities to cover the possible visible colors. But that would still only be in, say, the human realm. And it may very even from person to person. We can also change how we perceive things which changes the qualities.
To speak of qualities which are āessentialā means they are the essence of something, no? Of what? It would have to be some undefined substance. Or perhaps that the qualities are irreducible and fundamental to reality, but on the basis of what is that conclusion drawn?
Bhante, I think the main objection is that, while we do experience individuality, when we try to analyse the situation, there really is no actual āindividualityā that we can really find.
Like, we canāt actually prove that X action causes or creates or generates Y result when we try to identify the fundamentals of the process. We can just observe patterns and make connections in the mind. But those connections arenāt reality. Theyāre just how we try to make sense of the situation. On an everyday level, we assume statistical independency and it works pretty well.
Another way of looking at it too is that when pain arises, we canāt really say it is āmy painā and not āyour pain.ā You might say you donāt experience it, but do āIā experience it? Who is that I? Normally we would say pain just arises with certain causes and conditions without recourse to a self. But that then means we canāt meaningfully say I experience it and you donāt beyond the conventional, right?
Just wait Venerable until it delights you and your heart is overjoyed when the utterly empty nature of all phenomena without remainder is pointed out
siren brrrrrr siren
Attention: someone has been reading up on Bellās theorem and/or superdeterminism.
siren brrrrrr siren
PS another good doozy is ācounterfactual definitenessā
Conventionally, itās the person who stepped on durian who experiences the pain no one else. At this level it is clear.
Abhidhamma level ultimately, itās contact with experience which is to be experienced as painful that painful feelings arises.
But another 5 aggregates is not affected directly by this causation of contact causes feelings.
Youāre saying itās not possible to distinguish this 5 aggregates vs that 5 aggregates in Theravada abhidhamma ultimate level analysis?
Anatta or no-Self implies that there is no substantial reality, all is Emptiness, Sunyata. According to theists, God is substantially real. I think that one may have something to learn from the theist. Finding oneself to not exist, to posses no soul or Self, to have completely Empty Skandhas, one may find hope in the Transcendental within God, applying oneās own identity to God after uprooting oneās own. I think such a thing is certainly a possibility for a Buddhist practitioner and can lead one to understand a meaning in purposeful individuality, even finding deeper meaning in such things through a Buddhist light.
We can speak more in āultimateā terms. Say under certain conditions, there is a dhamma X that arises. No matter where or when X arises, it is not a self, there are no beings, etc. So where is the individual here? If X arises at a certain place and time (0,0), and not at a different place and time (1,1), we can make that distinction. But where is the āindividualā here? In order to establish an individual, we have to have a series of events in a causally connected sequence, right? So say that various dhammas arise at a series of points in space-time. Thereās no soul or self or essence or person connecting all of those events in space time, and thereās no actual ācausal forceā in the world creating new dhammas from old ones. Thereās just a storm of dhammas arising at different points in space-time. How can we call any of that āindividualā without conceptually dividing it in our minds?
Thatās still not going beyond all self views. A stream winner would have gone beyond this trap already.
Identifying anything at all as self (or belonging to self or self as in it or it is in self), even God, Buddha nature, universe, the dhamma itself, NibbÄna, nothingness itself, even the individuality characteristics I mentioned above, doesnāt lead to enlightenment.