Spinoff from SN as the earliest EBT

The Watercooler
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@Christie this actually looks like an interesting topic of analysis, i.e comparing khanda instances to DO instances and so on.

As for @josephzizys’ arguments, I’m still skeptic with attempts to find an earlier strata. But Khandas being quite out of place the rest of the teachings have always bugged me, for example when DO chains with Namarupa are explained to contain Cetana/intention, whereas with five aggregates, Sankhara is suddenly understood as Cetana.

And I have to say, I never realised how little DA/DN had khandas mentioned, so I find it’s a very valuable finding!

“There’s no self, there’s just DO” makes more buddhistic sense than “There’s no self, there’s just khandas”. DO does explain impersonal processes that are dependently originated and explain the self illusion; khandas are just another attempt to define (even if to refute) a self.

But then perhaps DO becomes a weird exposition to explain “Why doesn’t arahant evaporate once ignorance is uprooted?” so something simple like “khandas remain until death, which is gone afterwards.” Which is also kind of unsatisfying ultimately, because on arahant’s death, their form/appearance also remains in the earth even if inert. Oddities indeed.

Looking for namarupa, we get DN11, DN14, DN15, DN33, DN34. So it’s not much more exhaustive than khandas.

DN11 is especially interesting, because the monk looking for where elements cease without remainder, Buddha interjects and adds the question “Where does namarupa cease?” as well.

Anyway, with these kind of analyses I don’t want to jump to conclusion, other than the most obvious one that is “Parts of suttas seem to have developed at different times”. :person_shrugging:

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There looks like no DO operating for an arahant

Arahants attain the Deathless. Dhp 21

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Well, six-sense base for example is part of DO, and an arahant while alive still has six-sense base. That’s what I meant.

Conditions for rebirth is extinguished, of course, but other middle links in DO don’t just vanish. That is what I meant.

Sigh. I love these semantic discussions. They’re the lifeblood of buddhism.

Ud1.10 and similar stories talk about an arahant’s “jīvitā voropesi”, and “kālaṅkata”. First one meaning “(cow) taking his life”, and second “did his time”. Colloqually we refer to this event as death. Though if you want to make the distinction go ahead. :slight_smile:

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Reading SN 22.81, the DO sense bases read like those defiled by ignorance.

When an unlearned ordinary person is struck by feelings born of contact with ignorance, craving arises.

Avijjāsamphassajena, bhikkhave, vedayitena phuṭṭhassa assutavato puthujjanassa uppannā taṇhā;

Possibly, we can read suttas such as SN 12.44, MN 38 & MN 148 that refer to sense bases without ignorance.

In MN 9, i read all links cease.

We need to find stories about an arahant’s “marana”. Suggesting “marana” is the same as “kālaṅkata” sounds tenuous. “Marana” reads like “Mara”. SN 23.1

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I don’t know what distinction you’re trying to get to here. In parinibbāna, there’s no six sense base anyway, ignorant or not. And even arahants (buddhas even) experience dukkha as well. DO doesn’t evaporate, it just doesn’t restart after parinibbāna. There’s no seperate six sense fields that’s outside DO.

Okay, have fun.

If you want to be pedantic, alright: Ud4.9 talks about an arahant contemplating their maranaṁ. Happy?

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This sutta sounds fake. Can you find more?

Seeing the danger in grasping,
Upādāne bhayaṁ disvā,
the origin of birth and death,
jātimaraṇasambhave;

MN 130

When attachments exist old age and death come to be. And when attachments do not exist old age and death don’t come to be.’

SN 12.66

Heedfulness is the state free of death;
heedlessness is the state of death.
The heedful do not die,
while the heedless are like the dead.

Dhp 21

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Brilliant. No, I’m done with this discussion, it’s fruitless. :slight_smile:

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There is the Four Great References principle from DN 16. Suttas such as Dhp 21, MN 130 and SN 12.66 are ignored for the sake of one erroneous fake late sutta?

This does not read to be true.

And what is the ending of the world? Eye consciousness arises dependent on the eye and sights. The meeting of the three is contact. Contact is a condition for feeling. Feeling is a condition for craving. When that craving fades away and ceases with nothing left over, grasping ceases. When grasping ceases, continued existence ceases. … That is how this entire mass of suffering ceases. This is the ending of the world.

SN 12.44

When they see a sight with their eyes, if it’s pleasant they don’t desire it, and if it’s unpleasant they don’t dislike it. They live with mindfulness of the body established and a limitless heart. And they truly understand the freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom where those arisen bad, unskillful qualities cease without anything left over. Having given up favoring and opposing, when they experience any kind of feeling—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—they don’t approve, welcome, or keep clinging to it. As a result, relishing of feelings ceases. When their relishing ceases, grasping ceases. When grasping ceases, continued existence ceases. When continued existence ceases, rebirth ceases. When rebirth ceases, old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress cease. That is how this entire mass of suffering ceases.

MN 38

Eye consciousness arises dependent on the eye and sights. The meeting of the three is contact. Contact is a condition for the arising of what is felt as pleasant, painful, or neutral. When you experience a pleasant feeling, if you don’t approve, welcome, and keep clinging to it, the underlying tendency to greed does not underlie that. When you experience a painful feeling, if you don’t sorrow or wail or lament, beating your breast and falling into confusion, the underlying tendency to repulsion does not underlie that. When you experience a neutral feeling, if you truly understand that feeling’s origin, ending, gratification, drawback, and escape, the underlying tendency to ignorance does not underlie that. Mendicants, after giving up the underlying tendency to greed for pleasant feeling, after dispelling the underlying tendency to repulsion towards painful feeling, after eradicating ignorance in the case of neutral feeling, after giving up ignorance and giving rise to knowledge, it’s quite possible to make an end of suffering in the present life.

MN 148

They understand: ‘This 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 related to the six sense fields dependent on this body and conditioned by life.’ And so they regard it as empty of what is not there, but as to what remains they understand that it is present. That’s how emptiness manifests in them—genuine, undistorted, pure, and supreme.

MN 121

Now at that time a mendicant called Yamaka had the following harmful misconception: “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.”

SN 22.85

Not the dukkha of grasping aggregates that arises from craving.

Now this is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering. It’s the fading away and cessation of that very same craving with nothing left over; giving it away, letting it go, releasing it, and not clinging to it.

SN 56.11

We can discern how the example of Ud 4.9 is a late sutta due to its contradiction of the basic principles of the SN & other suttas. It reads as though Ud 4.9 contains an utterance not found in any other sutta.

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In my personal oppinion, any sincere Buddhist today will have to make certain personal choices since there are many inconsistencies between the thousands of Suttas in the canon that cannot be philosophically reconciled.

Even if proven to be earliest, there possibly could have been major corruptions before that earliest strata of Suttas.

So IMO textual criticism is of secondary value, and more importantly one needs to make up one’s mind between at least one of the three to four major options of doctrinal interpretation.

Personally, my own practice is grounded on only 3 Suttas and adding more during the course of my ongoing studies.

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This is amazing! At the risk of sounding off-topic, I’ve been working on a personal library as well - Rosewood Leaves, so to speak. Mine are Metta Sutta (Sīla), Heart Sutra (as an exposition on nibbāna - Pañña), Fukanzazengi (Samādhi).

There’s quite a few others to my personal library (Kalama Sutta, Upaddha Sutta, Water-Snake Sutta, etc) that are dear to me as well.

This would be an interesting thread on its own. :slight_smile:

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Kalamasutta is one of mine as well :o)

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Thanks for mentioning me @Dogen and bringing this to my attention.

As you know, my focus is not necessarily on determining which sutta is early vs late, or even whether they are authentic or not. My focus is strictly on determining what the core teachings might be, and discarding those that are not consistent with what I am somewhat arbitrarily regarding as “core”

So I am inclined to accept the Heart Sutra for example as part of “core” but reject the refuges and the precepts.

I actually quite like @josephzizys thesis and find it plausible. It seems to me that it might be likely DN and MN represent what the Buddha may have taught, and SN/SA represent a later summarisation, systematisation and formalisation of those teachings.

As such, the khandhas may well be a late addition. Certainly the inclusion in the 4 truths is somewhat disjoint and abrupt. And the khandhas don’t seem to be fully congruent with the DO components.

But as I mentioned before, I would consider khandhas to be part of “core” but not the arupa jhanas for example.

Hope that helps.

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Hmm- here you go again!

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stop talking to me @stephen . this is two threads in a row now where you have not been involved in the discussion in any way and have joined with the sole purpose of attacking me. please stop it. I find it aggressive and unwanted and it has now happened repeatedly in threads with no other common factor than my presence, which is clear evidence of bullying. Stop bullying me. I don’t like it and it violates both the forum rules and the spirit of right speech. leave me alone.

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I’m sorry you feel that way.
I don’t enjoy being referred to as a religious fanatic.

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your sorry I feel some way? Not sorry for your behaviors that gave rise to my feelings. Of course. Well I am sorry that you keep talking to me, rudely and aggressively, even when I ask you to stop, and now I am going to go and work out how to do something that I have never yet done on this forum, which is to actually mute/block someone. That someone is you @stephen you win the ribbon for driving me to the point of distraction, in an increasingly crowded field.

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I think the issue here is many believe in the 3 life time model for which I have read no real evidence for in the Early Buddhism. If the jati meant rebirth there must be a death prior to this rebirth. If bhava is a lifetime, the links would be bhava-marana-jati rather than bhava-jati-marana. I think the DO reads as explaining there is craving for life causing attachment, which is birth, and this also causes sorrow from craving not to death, something like this. I think birth might be a type of craving to be and death might be a type of craving not to be and these cause sorrow, grief, despair; something like this. I read in SN 12.2 the twelve links end with sorrow & grief. I think the sorrow & grief must comes from the idea a beloved person (self) has died (MN 87). I read this also in the SN 12.66 that reads sorrow comes from death and death comes from attachment. SN 12.66 does not mention the birth/rebirth.

Most of the twelve links (birth, death, bhava, attachment, craving) are found in the 1st teaching (SN 56.11) therefore if the twelve links was a late teaching this makes the four noble truths a late teaching. The five aggregates are also found in the 1st and 2nd teaching (SN 56.11 & SN 22.59). The six consciousness, sense bases, contacts and feelings and birth, death & sorrow are found in the 3rd teaching (SN 35.28 ). I think the 12 links cannot be later teachings. I remember SN 12.10 is about the Bodisatta discovering the 12 links. If the 12 links are later teachings all of what are considered to be the first three teachings must also be later teachings. This would turn all of Buddhism on its head upside. :upside_down_face: :face_with_spiral_eyes: SN 56.11, SN 22.59 & SN 35.28 are called the Three Cardinal Discourses, which places the SN as the earliest EBT. :slightly_smiling_face:

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These are good questions and hard to figure out.
As you probably know, in the suttas ‘jati’ is defined as an actual ‘birth’, as we typically think of it.
Similar for jara-marana.

Ir seems rather hard to imagine that things considered fundamental to the Buddha’s teaching, like the 4 Noble Truths and the 5 aggregates, were somehow systematically superimposed on earlier teachings at a later date.

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You believe that SN56.11 is the first teaching because your religious tradition says so. That’s fine. No one is here to deny you your right to your religious beliefs. However there is substantial scholarship to suggest that SN56.11 is not, in fact, the first teaching, at least not as it is preserved in SN.

This does not turn all of Buddhism on it’s head, it merely contradicts what certain conservative Theravada and related practitioners traditionally believe.

To qoute again from the previously linked thread:

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The Wikipedia quote does not read like “evidence”. In fact, I read no logic in the Wikipedia quote. Allow me to attempt to analyze the quote line by line.

The Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta [note 16] is regarded by the Buddhist tradition as the first discourse of the Buddha.[[99]]

Yes.

Scholars have noted some persistent problems with this view.

Which problems? Please list them?

Originally the text may only have pointed at “the middle way” as being the core of the Buddha’s teaching,[99] which pointed to the practice of dhyana .

This quote says “may have”. This is not evidence. How can dhyana alone leads to ending suffering?

[52] This basic term may have been extended with descriptions of the eightfold path,[52] itself a condensation of a longer sequence.[[101]]

This is not substantial evidence.

(Pre-sectarian Buddhism - Wikipedia) Some scholars believe that under pressure from developments in Indian religiosity, which began to see “liberating insight” as the essence of moksha ,[102] the four noble truths were then added as a description of the Buddha’s “liberating insight”.[[99]]

I have often read on this forum the claim the Upanishads, specifically Brihadaranyaka, pre-dated the Buddha. This claim sounds improbable because only the Vedas are mentioned in the Suttas. In the Suttas, the doctrines of the Brahmins read primitive & unsophisticated.

According to Tilmann Vetter, the description of the Buddhist path may initially have been as simple as the term “the middle way”.[[52]]

This statement is not substantial evidence.

(Pre-sectarian Buddhism - Wikipedia) In time, this short description [The Middle Way] was elaborated, resulting in the description of the eightfold path.[52] Vetter and Bucknell both note that longer descriptions of “the path” can be found, which can be condensed into the Noble Eightfold Path.[52][101]

This statement is unintelligible to me. First it says there is the shorter description lengthened into the 8 fold path. It later says longer descriptions were shorted into the 8 fold path.

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