The fake Anicca explanation of breaking up things into names. ( nihilistic Anicca )

Discussion
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Hi, I’m studying Dhamma for a while. In, Sri Lanka I see many persons explaining Dhamma in deep sense. Some actually do has that profound nature of dhamma to an extent. But, I’m seeing many over simplified versions popping out everywhere.

The case I felt to heart is something like this, I say a person take a flower as example and then start removing petals one by one, after 1 petal remains, he asks if this is a still a flower. Then he deduce that there were no flower only petals and stalk. He is fully convinced that there is no actual flower but petals and stalk is there, by joining them we seems to create the illusion of the flower. ( that’s not strong sense deduction in my point)

Is this same in all regions? Do people break things into name and explain nihilistic reduction thing or something similar. ( I do not know the correct work, bad eng ).

I had to think so hard before replying to that. I motivation was to give some direction for other seeing this YouTube video. If people truly start believing this, they may not see the truth of dhamma ever. I felt that to my heart, and need to do something about it, not aggressively but by intellect.

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Are you referring to anatta (not self) instead of anicca (not permanent)? I assume you mean anatta.

One of my favorites – Chapter 1 in The Five Aggregates by Mathieu Boisvert:

Buddhism differs from other religions in that no room is allotted for an ultimate reality corresponding to the concept of ‘self.’ Most Buddhist traditions view the entire universe (and the individual as well) as composed of different, irreducible phenomena (dhamma)…Most schools have elaborated numerous approaches for the purpose of analyzing reality. One of these consists of the division of these elements into two categories: conditioned (saṅkhata) and unconditioned (asaṅkhata)…The Aṅguttaranikāya describes the conditioned phenomena as possessing three characteristics: arising, passing away, and impermanence, while the unconditioned phenomena are referred to as causeless – this being defined as nibbāna…[The] conditioned group is further classified into five aggregates…

When I read Mathieu Boisvert, I don’t see nihilism. Rather, it’s a radical re-orientation on how we view reality. Then the Buddha’s liberating medicine is seeing the five aggregates in play and letting go of our tenacious grip – as if the khandas constitute a unified, permanent “thing” when, in fact, they don’t. (I like to say letting go of the “precious self.”)

This having a direct relationship on how we cultivate wholesome mental states – and stop cultivating unwholesome ones. For me, this is a path to happiness, not nihilism.

If people use the flower without its petals as an example of this profound teaching, I question whether they are worth listening to. That feels as awful as someone telling me they can take my pet cat apart limb by limb to a point where it’s no longer a cat. It’s an illusory cat!

Maybe these people consider themselves wise enough to use similes the way the Buddha does. Well, they are not the Buddha and I don’t think he taught similes in such harsh ways. He always taught to open people’s minds and hearts to liberation.

No.

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For my very tiny puny “not even two cents” (and this is way above my pay grade) but here is a thought…

If one was doing that, then one would be saying “may form be thus” or “may form not be thus” but the insight of the anattalaklhana sutta SN22.59 is it because we can’t do that it’s not fit to be considered as self.

“Bhikkhus, form is nonself. For if, bhikkhus, form were self, this form would not lead to affliction, and it would be possible to have it of form: ‘Let my form be thus; let my form not be thus.’ But because form is nonself, form leads to affliction, and it is not possible to have it of form: ‘Let my form be thus; let my form not be thus.’”

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If I’m reading the op correctly, this feels like the simile of chariot from SN 5.10 adjusted for a flower:

“Why do you believe there’s such a thing as a
‘sentient being’?
Māra, is this your theory?
This is just a pile of conditions,
you won’t find a sentient being here.

When the parts are assembled
we use the word ‘chariot’.
So too, when the aggregates are present
‘sentient being’ is the convention we use.

But it’s only suffering that comes to be,
lasts a while, then expires.
Naught but suffering comes to be,
naught but suffering ceases.”

Following the exposition of Yamaka Sutta in SN 22.85, for:

  • Tathāgata can not be explained with khandas.
  • Tathāgata can not be explained without khandas.

We could use this exposition for cat, for flower, for chariot likewise:

  • A cat can not be explained by the khandas, or without the khandas.
  • A flower can not be explained by its petals and stems, or without them.
  • A chariot can not be explained by its wheels and settings, or without them.

Note then, this would be an epistemic negation: Inability to explain phenomena using discreet concepts.

This exposition doesn’t necessarily mean “This cat / flower / chariot / person doesn’t actually exist”, but what doesn’t exist is the concept itself, which is useful as a convention, but ultimately futile. Thus, the concepts “cat, flower, chariot, tathāgata” would be absolutely illusory in this framework (without remarking anything about the underlying reality of the things they’re attempting to describe). :slight_smile:

“Tathagata is not apprehended by you as real and actual here in this very life.”

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It feels exactly like that! OK, let’s look at the context:

Vajirā appears to be an accomplished & experienced meditator. Māra tries to confuse her with circular reasoning.

Vajirā, after being knocked off her meditation seat in utter shock (presumably), responds with the chariot simile. So I assume this stark simile is reserved for a quite intense bout with doubt. I.e., it is not expressed lightly and certainly not with random people. The only other place I see with a similar simile :upside_down_face: is Mil3.1.1 . Again, a very specific audience who is primed to hear it.

My point is that I’ve seen people (wannabe teachers) take this simile or like-illustrations (petals and flowers?) to project onto unsuspecting listeners a subtle but utterly profound Buddhist teaching to no effect.

Because it takes a lot of priming for someone to contemplate this. Without the preparation, someone who genuinely wants to learn dhamma might walk away in utter befuddlement. Or, people primed with radars (my hand is raised!) identify the fakeness of the person spouting the simile.

Boisvert:

Before preaching his first sermon, the Buddha’s doctrine was unfathomable to people of that day and age. Yet he only briefly referred to the pañcakkhandhā in that discourse. This implies that their intricate connotations were already understood by those to whom the discourse was addressed.

Dogen, it’s always fun discussing dhamma with you and I hope Nirvana finds something useful here. I happened to see this, in handwriting on the last page of the Boisvert book:

Analysis into the parts can be a part of a strategy to overcome attachment, but it is neither necessary or sufficient. Some people can let go of attachments by contemplating the whole, seeing the course that their lives take. Others might see the parts and immediately let go. These are approaches that can be useful, but it is not the case that reducing wholes to ultimate constituents is an essential part of insight. Rather, breaking wholes down into smaller parts helps us see how each of the parts is impermanent, and how the whole is even less stable, being created out of many impermanent parts.
~Sujato

I don’t know when I wrote that or where I found it. But obviously it was meaningful for me.

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Ah, I see your point now, which is a fair one. :slight_smile: Thank you for the clarification and the gentle insight!

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I don’t think the flower is an illusion; it’s a real flower. Of course one can pick it apart into petals, leaves, a stalk, etc., but I think that takes the chariot simile too far.

I think that the chariot simile is to help one understand the nature of a self, a crucial knowledge needed to awaken. When we take emptiness out into everyday things like flowers, I don’t see how that helps us much on the N8FP, except maybe to help tease apart perception or to generate dispassion towards things like body parts.

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Like with Beth’s remark above, I think the “infinite descent” of no chariot, no wheel, etc; can be useful to a certain advanced student, who gets busy headed with lists, anxios with details and grasping at concepts, etc… to rugpull their perception as you’ve said (Which is arguably why it was emphasised in the Post-Abhidhamma literature) :slight_smile:

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Thanks, Dogen and Beth! I too think that it’s essential to contemplate emptiness. It’s been quite influential to me personally. The Buddha’s last words to his disciples were to contemplate impermanence, to truly understand the danger and drawbacks of investing into empty things. Seeing the contrast of investing into impermanent, empty worldly things and investing into cultivating inner qualities that move one out of samsara is a powerful force.

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Assuming that the anicca in your post is not a typo for anattā, then I would say no. I’ve never once heard of the flower (or the chariot) simile being used to illustrate impermanence.

Suppose it were to be pressed into service for this purpose, I think it would be a less than satisfactory image. A flower being gradually divested of its petals, stamens, sepals, carpels, etc., and thereby becoming less and less flower-like, yet nonetheless still recognizable as a flower, would illustrate only one facet of anicca, namely, the alteration in what persists (ṭhitassa aññathattaṁ). But it would leave out arising and vanishing.

“Tīṇimāni, bhikkhave, saṅkhatassa saṅkhatalakkhaṇāni. Katamāni tīṇi? Uppādo paññāyati, vayo paññāyati, ṭhitassa aññathattaṁ paññāyati. Imāni kho, bhikkhave, tīṇi saṅkhatassa saṅkhatalakkhaṇānī”ti.

“Bhikkhus, there are these three characteristics that define the conditioned. What three? An arising is seen, a vanishing is seen, and its alteration while it persists is seen. These are the three characteristics that define the conditioned.”

AN3.47

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I think that the fundamental meaning of anicca or change is key to understanding mind, awareness, memory, and consciousness.

Awareness encompasses the range of active mental content inclusive of sense channels and memory responses to active mental content - the memory responses include all momentary aspects of thought and feelings. Whatever is in Awareness becomes interlinked into memory moment by moment.

The mind (brain) evolved through a 1/2 billion years to enable familiarity reflexes to guide movement of bodies in the world. Memory enables the familiarity reflex for what the body encounters, so that we can find our way, and in humans and other complex animals, familiarity also applies to thoughts as part of the terrain that the body encounters - memory responses (familiarity) includes body movement as well as ideas, words, names, general feelings and complex ideas and sequences of them.

When you see or smell something (i.e. become aware of it) you will reflexively think of something that you are familiar with which is attached to that appearance or smell leading to citta - citta - citta… that is the way of mind.

In Buddhism we cultivate awareness by scheduling and fulfilling meditation tasks, studies, and devotional activities. The more we practice the more familiar we become with this cultivated awareness practice (the cultivation of active mental content), and the more the cultivated mental content sustains our ability to find our way.

The mind also evolved to escape predation, or to notice sustenance (sometimes prey) in the environment. At a very basic level, below the function of awareness and memory formation and reactivation (familiarity), the mind will suppress active mental content moment to moment if that content is not changing thus enabling detection of what has moved or changed. What is left over in active mental contents after eliminating that which is static or unchanging becomes part of awareness and then memory.

We cannot control the highly evolved change detection that drives awareness and memory formation citta by citta: anicca is out of our field of influence, but by using practice we can cultivate awareness beneficially.

I believe that change or fluctuation is also a physical reality in all aspects of the world, but as regards mind and citta, change is a driving force to which we must adapt in our cultivation of awareness practice.

The relationship of annica to annata is that there is no self which adapts to change other than the practiced familiarity that was cultivated, or in the case of non-practitioners, there is no self other than individual familiarity that automatically forms with each mind moment (citta).

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Hi, Yeah. I kind of see what you mean. This is good tactic for letting go of things, but that’s not sufficient for us to discern the dependent originations or even the ascetic wisdom about Rupa, Arupa, etc.

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Hi, yeah you can say that as anatta, that seems to be the suitable way to put it.

The thing is, as people mentioned Bhikkhuni Vajira explains somewhat similar concept about chariot simile. But, that explanation is not adequate.

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Hi, yes we should consider that as anatta.

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dependent origination is about memory reflexes reactivating feelings and thoughts from active mental content.

form and emptiness are equal as they are active mental content. this is about mind not physics.

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Hello,

I appreciate your info and explanations. Do you have sutta reference to support this.

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@Nirvana;

although my statement about Pratītyasamutpāda is derived from my own observation and contemplative insights, the concept was explored prior to Buddhism and explored extensively - ripe for Buddhism to adopt and adapt:

Pratītyasamutpāda consists of two terms:

  • Pratītya: “having depended”.[26] The term appears in the Vedas and Upanishads[note 2] in the sense of “confirmation, dependence, acknowledge origin”.[27][28] The Sanskrit root of the word is prati* whose forms appear more extensively in the Vedic literature, and it means “to go towards, go back, come back, to approach” with the connotation of “observe, learn, convince oneself of the truth of anything, be certain of, believe, give credence, recognize”. In other contexts, a related term pratiti* means “going towards, approaching, insight into anything”.[28]

  • Samutpāda: “arising”,[26] “rise, production, origin”[29] In Vedic literature, it means “spring up together, arise, come to pass, occur, effect, form, produce, originate”.[30]

These terms relate to cognitive objects - basically mental contents - and the primary reactions being approach and avoid.

A scholarly approach has been taken here at this site wherein the author argues “that the Buddha indeed had an understanding of the unconscious and that he encoded it in his concept of Dependent Origination”. In his footnotes he writes

The compulsive unconscious field (Pāli saṅkhāra, lit. ‘together-making’). The Pāli term describes what the primitive unconscious actually does, emphasizing its aspect of weaving an interconnected ‘field’. There is no isolated distinct information in the unconscious, everything is within a network of meaning and simultaneously refers to other regions in the field. We can experience this interwoven nature of the unconscious for example in dreams, trances, or psychedelic states. In these circumstances our regular distinct ‘I’ yields to a ‘floating’ experience where things apparently happen by themselves without the mediation of a controlling agent. At this early point of the Dependent Origination, however, saṅkhāra is still in a primitive nascent state, weaving the field via attraction and repulsion. The field moves because it presses to compensate for the fundamental lack which is inherent in the mind 3 . It is this compulsive movement that is addressed by any spiritual practice which involves non-reaction (as in modern vipassana), imperturbability 4 , or a deep stillness of the mind (samādhi or jhāna).

Admittedly I am not a student of the suttas, so I cannot point to any specific single translation of Buddhist discourse, but from the view of basic Buddhist contexts such as the 4 noble truths there should be no question that what is being shared with humanity in Buddhist insights is a way of understanding mind enabling helping and healing through that understanding.

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Hi @Zaidy3 :victory_hand::slightly_smiling_face:

DO is stricly buddhist as in only taught by the past Buddhas, the current Buddha and future Buddhas.

Sorry to say but non-buddhists do not have, and never will have, a single clue what DO actually entails.

Point being that without DO Sāti the fisherman would have no other option than to come to his conclusions. - MN 38

As a non-buddhist Sāti’s observations, based on his experiences of past lives and future lives, might be correct - but as a buddhist Sāti is wrong and only DO can explain and show why that is so.

We also have the following from DN 15:

“It’s incredible, sir, it’s amazing, in that this dependent origination is deep and appears deep, yet to me it seems as plain as can be.”

“Don’t say that, Ānanda, don’t say that! This dependent origination is deep and appears deep.

It is because of not understanding and not penetrating this teaching that this population has become tangled like string, knotted like a ball of thread, and matted like rushes and reeds, and it doesn’t escape the places of loss, the bad places, the underworld, transmigration.

Seeing a buddhism is the only teaching that puts an end to rebirth, and this is mainly thanks to DO, it is evident that DO is exclusive to buddhism.

On top of that there is also transcendental/reverse dependent origination. :smiling_face::folded_hands:

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@Dhabba

I think you have this all tangled up

“Sāti, what is that consciousness?”

“Sir, he is the one who speaks, the one who knows, who experiences the results of good and bad deeds in all the different realms.” See MN 2:8.8.

“Futile man, who on earth have you ever known me to teach in that way? Haven’t I said in many ways that consciousness is dependently originated, since consciousness does not arise without a cause? But still you misrepresent me by your wrong grasp, harm yourself, and brim with much wickedness. This will be for your lasting harm and suffering.”

When you use the logic of rebirth in the way that Sāti does you are following a futile comprehension of consciousness. Consciousness which is a progression of mental contents and events is Dependently Originated. This supports my point that DO is more about mind than it is about physics.
(and it certainly is not about lifetimes and rebirth in other bodies)

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All the beings in all the planes of existence are bound to follow a ”futile comprehension of consciousness”, be it eternalist, partial-eternalist or annihilationist - without DO and a Buddha teaching it! :wink:

So my point is actually that DO is exclusive to buddhism and without a Buddha teaching it no being would ever come to the conclusion that:

”Consciousness which is a progression of mental contents and events is Dependently Originated.”

  • Also this is exactly what the Buddha warns about in DN 15, imagining that one has figured it out since ”to me it seems as plain as can be.”

  • Yet ”This dependent origination is deep and appears deep.”

It is very much about rebirth and ending rebirth(!) :victory_hand::smiling_face:

It is because of not understanding and not penetrating this teaching that this population has become tangled like (a) string… :wink::folded_hands: