I think that is a nice translation for vinnana.
Question for you @green: in this thread you’ve seemingly gone to great lengths to discriminate between vinnana and a ‘non-established awareness.’ This discrimination seems important to you and one in which you think others ought also to discriminate and ruminate about the differences between vinnana and a non-established awareness.
So my question for you: isn’t this discrimination that you are openly advocating for itself a vinnana and thus a defilement? Why do you advocate developing this specific vinnana and advocate focusing on it when, for you, these vinnana’s are themselves the problem?
Moreover, isn’t the supposition - the establishment of the conception of - ‘a non-established awareness’ - itself a form of vinnana? Don’t you have to use an established awareness to know and advocate for this non-established awareness? Why the continued focus/obsession with the discriminating and ruminating on the nature of the mind? Isn’t it contradictory, this pursuit?
I get that you wish to continue debating the ‘mere cessationists’ as that is very evident from your actions, but continued debating necessarily employs tons of vinnana and getting involved - ‘feeling’ - and established vinnana and so on. Can you not see the contradictions between your actions and your words? Couldn’t we rightly say, “physician heal thyself!”
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Have you ever been studying something and felt that was really useful, inspiring, helpful, clarifying? Have you also noticed that others have often no idea why and how it is for you inspiring, explorately etc?
I can explain you why this topic of vinnana is really important for me, and also helpful for others i believe, but i do not think you trust me. So, i am also not gonna do that.
I am also open about mere cessation Yeshe. I sincery feel that it is terrible that people see Dhamma as a means to finally cease and finally stop feeling, perceiving, knowing after a last death, because they see no other way to end suffering. They want to vanish like a flame gone out because they see no other way to end suffering. They believe that the end of rebirth cannot be something else then a mere cessation.
Ofcourse i also have investigated this for myself. What does really touch my heart with this mere cessation idea and goal? Well, it still comes down to: i really feel it is all so wrong. I cannot even help to feel it is tragic that people believe that such a Great Being as a Buddha comes in the world to show all beings a Path to mere cessation. Like a Buddha has the message…better not to exist then to exist.
A Great Being like a Buddha as the One that shows a Path that will finally make an end to the existence of all living beings, all lifestream, all what is conscious, aware and leave this world behind, mindless, empty, without awareness. Maybe only elements and matter remaining? Or not even that?
The Buddha as the huge Eraser. Like God is for Christias the Creator, Buddha is for the Buddhist the Great Ceaser? The one that finally makes an end to all? Only suffering get lost…so we must be happy? Really??
You do not care, I do.
I am sorry Yeshe you see no use in what i do and share and only think always negative about it.
Yes.
I think you’ve explained quite well why this is important to you. As for the part about me not trusting you, it seems you’ve taken my sincere question as an attack. That’s regrettable.
Yes, you’ve not been shy about expressing your opinion about the viewpoints of those who self-describe as “mere cessationists.”
Yes, again you have not been shy about expressing your deep feelings about this. I’m not at all unaware about how you feel about the idea of mere cessation nor about those who believe in it.
As you know, I don’t identify as a “mere cessationist.” In this, we are alike. I’ve also shared and expressed many times where I can my very limited understanding of how “mere cessationism” seems to get things wrong from what I can tell.
Where we seem to differ is in your need to seemingly continue arguing and debating with the “mere cessationists” and to regard it as a huge problem that needs to be solved. I don’t see it as a huge problem that I need to solve. I also acknowledge that I may be wrong and they may be right. As it stands, I have not achieved nibbana and do not actually know much of anything at all. Not knowing much and having achieved far less, I don’t see the point in arguing about something I don’t actually know but can only speculate.
But none of the above is actually related to my question.
This is not an accurate characterization of how I think about you or what you have shared on this forum. My question to you was sincere and I’m interested in your heartfelt and genuine response to answer it if you can. I fear you won’t be able to answer it for the feeling that I’m attacking you or defensiveness around the idea, but I’ll try once more…
My question isn’t about mere cessation. It isn’t about your continued debating on this forum with the mere cessationists. It really is just about the explicit topic in this thread: your focusing on distinguishing between vinnana as established awareness that discriminates versus unestablished awareness that does not discriminate or distinguish.
The question is this: do you not see the contradiction involved in distinguishing and discriminating between so-called discriminating awareness and so-called non-discriminating awareness? The only way to be aware of a so-called non-discriminating awareness is through a discriminating awareness. Another way to say it, a so-called non-discriminating awareness can never be aware of itself; it cannot be sentient or reflexive.
The contradiction is amplified by the contention you make that it is only discriminating awareness that leads to suffering, but non-discriminating awareness does not. Moreover, you seem to contend that any discriminating awareness is inherently leading to suffering. If this were true, then it wouldn’t be appropriate to distinguish or discriminate between discriminating awareness and non-discriminating awareness, right? By becoming aware of non-discriminating awareness haven’t you increased suffering? Doesn’t the effort defeat itself??
According to MN140, as mentioned above, when viññāna ceases:
There remains only equanimity, pure, bright, pliable, workable, and radiant.
Also, in definition of fourth jhana, one gives up pleasure & pain - viññāna’s use is to discriminate between pleasure, pain, neutral - thus it is given up and what is left? Equanimity, pure sati, etc.
PS: sati is yet another troublesome word for translation, some also translate it as awareness and the dictionary states:
New Concise Pali English Dictionary
- memory; mindfulness
PTS Pali English Dictionary
- memory, recognition, consciousness, intentness of mind, wakefulness of mind, mindfulness alertness, lucidity of mind, self-possession, conscience self-consciousness
The dictionary has entry for “consciousness” for all three of viññāna, mana, and sati.
I’m not looking for sutta reference. @Green posits two types of awareness:
- established and discriminating awareness
- non-established and non-discriminating awareness
What I’m pointing out is that in order to be aware of these two types of awareness one needs to use the discriminating awareness. It is not possible to be aware of a non-discriminating awareness with a non-discriminating awareness. Why? Because the very act of saying ‘two types’ is a form of discrimination. It is cleaving the perceived into two. That is the very definition of discrimination. That’s the basis for the assertion of contradiction.
I saw that Yeshe. I feel mere cessationalist have certain assumptions which are for them like truths and i feel they are all wrong. I feel they are worth discussing and debating.
No, there can be a moment that there does not develop or arise anymore any inclination and direction anymore in awareness. At that moment mind becomes absorbed into her own empty knowing nature. That is the way awareness is described as known. It knows itself. I believe this is what is arrived at in sannavedayitanirodha. There is a direct taste of the empty, signless, desireless, undirected mind. And…vinnana is directed mind. That is also a way to distinguish the nature of mind and vinnana.
And when someone (there is ofcourse not really someone) comes out of this state of SVN, mind also remains having contact with emptiness, signless, undirected. This is just a way to describe one now abides in awareness without grasping, clinging, direction. Mind has now lost all tendecies to engage with senses.
By the way, also Abdhidhamma sees vinnana as the end stage of defiled mind, i have understood from a lay teacher. Engagement with senses is the result of avijja and sankhara.
When mind is in a feeling state, sensing something, engaged with the senses, that also means there is a mental contact, a mental touch, that is felt. That touch always represents a certain mental impression, like you touch someone skinn. Buddha saw this as a burden. So sensing something always represents a certain impression or load on the mind. So indeed, vinnana, as engaged awareness, comes with suffering.
Maha Boowa describes how the knowing essence is known in his book Arahatta Magga- Arahatta phala. But also tibetan teachers describe this. They call awareness, rigpa. This more or less refers to the essence of knowing or knowing in its most bare uncontrived pure form. Sometimes also called intelligence but no relation with IQ.
Maybe you can read books about this or teachings. I do not believe it is really helpful to use methods of reasoning or logic to understand all this.
I also never posit there are two kinds of awareness or mind. I believe you can compare this with a whirlpool in water. Mind can become like that, as it were. A mental whirlpool, circling around the knandha’s, and while it does, strong impressions arise like: 'i am a seperated being. My mind is something personal. I am this body and mind. Here i am, there is the world. My mind is limited. With death all ceases for me".
But when that whirlpool would calm down and would not resist this, would not fear this (we do), it would meet a totally different reality and understanding . Suddenly she sees she was never really a whirlpool. Now she is one with the water. Now she really understand and sees how all arises, all delusion, all wrong views, fears, instincts. All what feeds that.
The amazing is, she now knows that even when whirlpools arise in the water, it really never leads to a real seperation,never to real differentation. That is only the perspective of whirling, of attachment. But it never really happens. There have never been biljons of minds but the whirlpool has that understanding.
So i see this too with us. Identification with khandha’s is like whirling mentally around and leads to all kind ideas as above. But if we have faith, are brave, do not resist, do not fear, we will see that we have never been a whirlpool. All instructions Buddha gives, are to let go, relinquish, to relax, to stop whirling to make us see what we do not yet see. The Oneness, awareness. The Tathagata. Unborn, Undying Dhamma.
Time to sleep. Thanks, and who knows till later,
whirlpool Green
Hi Yeshe, to come back on this issue, what you say here above might seem logically correct but is refuted by the experience of teachers, great meditation masters. Awareness can know itself it is said.
I do not know this experience! But when reading such things i believe you must not think that awareness knows itself as a sense object. But it can know itself when there is notthing to be sensed and felt. Nothing that stirrs the mind and causes habitual inclinations/tendencies to arise and vinnana’s to arise. Mind is now without any movement, completey empty and stilled. It now becomes absorbed into her own knowing nature. That moment it sees herself. That is more or less how words are given to the direct knowing of awareness, the citta. At least how it arrives in me.
So, the bliss when nothing is felt and perceived, is the bliss of awareness. I think this is much more likely, then the idea that when nothing is felt and perceived, that is the blisss of absence o unconsciousness. That makes no sense, i feel. It is absurd to talk about absence as bliss.
The citta, awareness, seems to know itself as a giant field of intelligence, spreading in all directions.
The following images arise in me: If vinnana would be described as the ability to know sense objects, awareness can be seen as the ability to detect something before it even becomes known in a conscious way as a sense object with this and that characteristics. Can this be correct? What teachers seem to say is that this very basic ability to detect, this aspect of clarity, is also all around us and not at all located in the brain, nor does it arise and cease.
Maybe that is not that bad because even in deep sleep or under narcosis this ability to detect, this element of clarity of mind, the fundamental receptivity of the mind ,does not get lost. In that sense, it is not that being unconscious is the same as being without awareness or being without any ability to detect. I do not know for sure the teachers would agree with how i describe it.
In short, in this perspective:
-awareness refers to minds receptivity, its fundamental ability to receive info and know, this does not cease while being unconscious
-vinnana does not refer to that. Vinnana refers to a conscious experience of something sensed. It is a much more developed stage of knowing but it fully relies on awareness.
I do not know if teachers would agree but i think it is good to see that something like minds receptivity exist and that this is not really a well differentiated kind of knowing as vinnana is. In this sense there is also really unconscious knowing and an awareness that is not yet that well developed and differentiated as vinnana is.
This state (the Heart) is first encountered by the practitioner when they reach Appana Samadhi. Luang Poo Tate describes this experience in a number of publications. He differentiates this state from Jhana because Jhana has a number of experiential variations whereas Appana is always the same. Experienced meditators can flick from one to the other with ease.
In Appana Samadhi there is no thought process. The Khandha are in abeyance. The Heart is a singularity. There is only a still, bare awareness. So, there is no “giant field of intelligence” feeling. One is not even able to contemplate the experience until after it has occurred.
When Kammic conditions change, Avijja causes this state to breakout and duality is returned along with the Khandha. (the Khandha [including Vinnana] being an expression or condition of this Originating Mind rather than the Originating Mind itself.) At this point, the whole of loka dhatu issues forth from this singularity. This what the text “Manopubbaṅgamā dhammā” really means, regardless of the narrow interpretation of the text that some have regarding “The Story of Thera Cakkhupala”.
When one can enter the state of Appana Samadhi frequently, one starts to understand what is the singularity and what not. This investigation develops Panna, which in turn rids the Heart the influence of Avijja. As Panna grows, the singularity is further refined, until it becomes Dhamma Dhatu, or Nibbana Dhatu. At this stage, the Khandha are, as Luang Dta Maha Boowa would say, “Like the severed tail of a lizard that wriggles as if it had life but is completely useless.”
I did not use those words intelligent field as a feeling, ofcourse. But Maha Boowa really describes the citta this way, as an all pervading awareness. Maha Boowa says:
"All that remained then was the citta’s profoundly subtle knowing nature, a pure and simple awareness, bright and clear. There was nothing concrete within that awareness to latch on to.
I realized then that nothing invades the mind’s sphere of awareness when consciousness—its knowing presence—reaches such a profound and subtle condition. I was left with only one choice: With the loss of buddho, I had to focus my attention on the essential sense of awareness and knowing that was all-present and prominent at that moment. That consciousness had not disappeared; on the contrary, it was all-pervasive.
So, this Thai teacher, Tibetans, Zen, Mahayana teachers too, teach that awareness can stand on its own. It is not that awareness must latch onto something to exist. This distinguishes it from sense vinnana’s and also patisandhi vinnana that must always latch on to something to come into existence.
This awareness is also not local and seen as being all-pervasive. I refered to this as…like an intelligent field. Anyway, i meant the same as all these teachers teach. In some traditions it is called buddhanature. This is the tradition i have most feelings for.
Oke, this means that mind is not pure yet. In a really purified mind avijja cannot return and no duality of perceiver and perceived can arise. Mind is also never really dual. But if there are still traces of grasping, clinging, left, the mind again connects with the khandha’s as me, mine, my self and still starts to develop a duality of perceiver and perceived. It is not possible that the singularity of awareness can really be broken.
You protest but i do no see why. Such things are really impossible.
The heart is any moment present and can never be absent. Duality is never real.
It is only an impression but never real.
The simile above about the whirlpool shows this. As long as the mind spinns around the khandha’s with an element of desire, longing, relishing, inclinations, it still keeps having the impression of ‘I experience, I know’. It is mere an impression.
Maybe from the perspective of samadhi one can break away from the singularity but i am quit sure this is merely an illusion.
Such things are mere words but do not really happen. Awareness is awareness and cannot be refined, nor can it be changed or influenced. Such things are impossible. That awareness is refined only means: with the progressive removal of taints it become more and more apparant. But awareness cannot change.
The heart is always, any moment Dhamma Dhatu, Nibbana Dhatu. There is something in us that is absolutely not sensitive for conditioning. Even if you murder 999 people, it would not become worse.
Even if you would donate the whole entire universe to a Buddha it does not become better. What?
The heart. Nibbana is fully for free. It does not have to be earned. It does not depend on merit too.
It is also not possible to not be the heart.
I hope you can tolerate my tone and still be open to investigate if what i say is really not in line with your tradition.
In the past, I’ve stated that I thought from your comments you supported the idea of a self-knower or reflexive knowing. This confirms this is the case. On this we differ.
Then you take the self-knower on faith. That is, you don’t actually know this yourself, but you trust the clear and unambiguous statements of others that this is the case. To be very clear, that is not a criticism. I too do not actually know much of anything at all.
You’ve mentioned that this is what you think rigpa is. A self-knowing mind and stated that this is how you understand great meditation teachers to have said about rigpa: that it is a self-knower. Can you offer some Mahayana sutta from the second turning of the wheel that clearly says this? I think the only suttas which declare a self-knower are from the third turning of the wheel which I do not hold as definitive nor do my teachers.
There are famous sutta where the Buddha teaches that the mind cannot know itself just as the sword cannot cut itself nor the finger touch itself. I think these are pretty definitive. BTW, these same arguments also lead to a refutation of a common “mere cessationist” view that the mind is capable of knowing its own destruction. This too would require a self-knower. The refutation of a self-knower is double edged. I tried to point this out here with @Clarity . 
As seen from the links above, the debate about whether a self-knower is possible is very old and you can see the debate has played out across every extent tradition. The debates can be found in the Theravada as well as the ancient schools that initially split up to modern day schools including all the various Tibetan schools where the debate is still controversial today: meaning it hasn’t been settled. IMHO, learning the ins-outs of this debate and the strongest possible reasons and logic of every side and tracing this debate as it has played out over the centuries would be much more beneficial than continuing to debate mere cessation versus eternalism. The former seems a far deeper debate perhaps completely engulfing the latter. But what do I know after all…
Sure, but i also have have feeling for this. I am quit sure that there is awareness, although i have not have a direct meeting with it, like Maha Boowa and many other teachers extremely skilled in meditation and stilling of the mind.
Like i said, i think it is not that bad to see awareness as the receptivitiy of the mind. This is something very subtle and certainly not absent while unconscious.
Receptivity can maybe seen like minds mental medium that can be stirred, and can receive things, like water can be stirred when something hits it. Suppose there is not such thing, how can the mind be stirred and attracted to the stirr? The mind is able to receive, it is receptive. How can this be without some form of substance? Anyway, only because of minds receptivity things can become aware. Without this basic ability to receive, sense vinnana’s cannot arise. I do not doubt that.
Even when this receptivity is personal and not at all all-pervading, i feel it is still important to see and understand that vinnana cannot arise without a basic receptivity of the mind that is certainly NOT the same as a sense-vinnana. Probably Buddha also refers to this as mind as forerunner of all phenomena (dhp1)
Ofcourse mind is not a stream of vinnana’s. That denies its much deeper and subtle nature of receptivity. Vinnana’s also arise in mind. But mind in its most rudimentairy or subtle aspect or nature. Something like that.
The more stilled mind is, the greater its receptivity. In fourth jhana it also becomes receptive for knowledge about kamma and rebirth and former lifes.
I made a lot of poems and also then i have felt that there is art, words, knowledge, that can be fabricated but also received. Those are very different things. The knowledge of former lives and kamma and rebirth is received and not intellectually hammered out. A buddha is also not possessor of such knowledge, but if he wishes he can receive it.
I very much like that idea of mind as receiver and also as something one can attune, direct.
That might be right Yeshe. That i do not know. I know that teachings on buddha nature really appeal to me.
I rather not discuss these turning of wheels. I have no clue about that.
Do you have the reference? What is here exactly called mind?
In general: There are so many things in the sutta’s that are not clear. The composers have not been able to avoid a lot of confusion. And i believe this also suggests that those who composed the sutta’s, probably already had different understanding of Dhamma.
Suppose nowadays great teachers of Buddhism from all kinds of traditions would compose a Canon…
well…how? Probably they need to come to some accord and like politicians give and take. Leading to some mix that easily gives rise to doubts because it represents a mix of understanding Dhamma. I think the fact that we can endlessly discuss the sutta’s and still not come to agreement, suggest that composers were not too.
Maybe, also those who really were knowledgable did not even want to partake in this project. I believe legend says that only arahants composed the sutta’s but i think this is unlikely.
Not by scholars but i do not doubt that this issue is really settled for the great meditation masters. They do not doubt at all.
I am never debating eternalism versus mere cessation Yeshe. Does the buddhist concept of asankhata really imply eternalism? I do not believe this is correct. Something that has not come into existence, cannot be said to exist. It also cannot be said not to exist. It is more like debating mere cessation versus something that was, is, and will always be beyond time, space, the world, samsara…the Heart.
My question is, if there’s such an unconditioned Heart, how is that not an eternal true self?
There’s quite a few schools of thoughts that specifically talk about this thing, this “Heart”. I don’t think Buddha is one of those people.
Buddha wasn’t shy with words, with verbose descriptions, with repetitive patterns to make his point obvious to the end. He would’ve talked about this Heart extensively (and some Mahayana schools kinda do), he would’ve praised it, he would’ve mentioned over and over again to a “mind that is not mind, a perception beyond perception” and such stuff. But, he didn’t.
He repeatedly talks about “The burden is laid down, the holy life complete, there’s no more renewed existence.”
The supramundane of our’s is called nibbāna, extinguishment.
Like, I have amazing respect for the Jains today. I probably respect an average Jain practitioner more than the average Buddhist even. But I’m not a Jain, and that’s fine. Perhaps you have a deep sense of love for Buddha and his teachings, but just not a Buddhist? I hope you don’t take it as an insult. But if Buddha believed in an unconditioned perception, he would’ve mentioned it, not just once, not just twice, probably like 50-60 times over the suttas, we would be sick and tired of reading the same phrase over and over again, such a notion would be burned intrinsically into every buddhist’s mind. The way it it, Buddha’s teachings are closer to annihilationism than eternalism, so much so that he had to argue against being called that, simply because he didn’t think the thing people accused him of positing as destroyed existed in the first place.
“Well then, Ānanda, you should also remember this as an incredible and amazing quality of the Realized One. It’s that the Realized One knows feelings as they arise, as they remain, and as they go away. He knows perceptions as they arise, as they remain, and as they go away. He knows thoughts as they arise, as they remain, and as they go away. This too you should remember as an incredible and amazing quality of the Realized One.”
“Sir, the Buddha knows feelings as they arise, as they remain, and as they go away. He knows perceptions as they arise, as they remain, and as they go away. He knows thoughts as they arise, as they remain, and as they go away. This too I remember as an incredible and amazing quality of the Buddha.”
That’s what Ānanda said, and the teacher approved. Satisfied, those mendicants approved what Venerable Ānanda said. MN123
This is just a random example. There’s hundreds of hundreds of passages like this, where Buddha had the chance to talk about this Heart, and just doesn’t.
If Buddha actually believed in this Heart, he wouldn’t let any chance to talk about it pass by. All of these passages, similar passages, would be full of references to the Heart being liberated:
Occam’s razor. If Buddha believed in a supramundane mind that was free of khandas, we’d have a library full of suttas about it, instead of stretching the imaginations of several suttas to fit our desires.
What’s a forest without any trees?
Yes, in your refutation of the mere cessationists it does seem to reveal a form of eternalism to my mind. I may be incorrect about this, but it is clear to me that the ideas and viewpoints you hold I’m not comfortable with and the ways in which I would subject them to criticism are similar to the ways in which the Buddha criticized eternalist views.
Nibbana is not mind and it is not heart. An unconstructed mind that is pure and unestablished - whether you call it mind or heart - as the objectification of asankhata is an error from what I can tell. We just disagree on this. I think a self-knower cannot be established. The positing of a self-knower leads to contradiction. As I mentioned before, this is double edged and it also leads to refutation of mere cessationism from what I can tell as well.
Nibbana is not extinguishment of life… but extinguishment of the three fires of lobha, dosa and moha. And it can also be directly known (MN1). So Nibbana is never used as a concept but as something that can really be attained (MN11) and be experienced by the wise…but also not easy to see (MN26).
Nibbana in the sutta’s refers to an undistorted awareness, cooled, not plagued anymore, peaceful, without any distortion in it, able to see things as they really are. Mirror-like. Without grasping and clinging, not following upon signs, not developing desires nor repulsed, without tendencies or inclinations towards what is seen by the mirror of the mind. But people cannot grasp how subtle this is, i believe. And they seem to have no feeling for the depth and amazing qualities of this.
There is literally no sutta that even suggests that the end of rebirth is a mere cessation. Really none. Absent. This is solely something that has developed into someones head. Interpretation.
Buddha constant talks about the unconditioned heart, asankhata…really why do you denie such things? The EBT even say that the Buddha teaches a Path to the unconditioned, stable, constant, not desintegrating (SN43). But you mere cessationalist do not even believe there is such…right?
You see everything in this life as liable to cease…that means you denie the reality of asankhata, which has not that characteristic to cease. So, lets turn it around…how can you be a buddhist denying what is the heart of Dhamma…asankhata and the Path to asankhata?
I am not gonna do these discussions over and over again. If you choice to believe that mere cessation and asankhata are the same, well, i will never respect that. It is irrational.
And if you believe that this:
“There is, mendicants, that dimension where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no wind; no dimension of infinite space, no dimension of infinite consciousness, no dimension of nothingness, no dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; no this world, no other world, no moon or sun. There, mendicants, I say there is no coming or going or remaining or passing away or reappearing. It is not established, does not proceed, and has no support. Just this is the end of suffering.” (Ud8.1)
…also is about mere cessation at a last death…also that is for me totally irrational.
The Buddha constant talks about the Heart and all his instructions are doors to enter the Heart, gateways to the Heart. That is what i see. Not doors to become finally non-existent after a last death.
But there seems to be great delight in people to finally become non-existent after a last death. And they seem to be very greatful they have found the teachings and Path that will help them to finally become non-existent as lifestream or stream of vinnana’s. Nothing seems to be able to change their minds. Not even the fact that we have never been a stream of vinnana’s.
I also believe there comes an end to rebirth. That is not the issue.
Asankhata is in the sutta’s described as the opposite of sankhata, right? It has the opposite characteristics. Not seen arising, not ceasing and changing in the meantime, unlike sankhata.
Where does this asankhata refer to, according you?
This concept is this the same as introducing eternalism?
I do not believe so. I believe the Buddha used the following logic. To say something exist, it must first arise due to conditions. it must first come into existence like in Paticca Samuppada. This gives rise to that.
Therefor something that is not even seen arising, cannot be said to exist. It also cannot be said not to exist. It escapes such ideas. So, i conclude, asankhata does not equate eternalism.
Such things as feeling, intentions , emotions, bodily sensations, thoughts, conceivings, ego conceit, sense objects that we experience etc, we clearly experience as things that arise and cease. But do we also see everything this way Yeshe? Is really everything you know and see, known as seen arising and ceasing., like such formation?
Please do not apply logic onto this but experience, direct knowledge. I think that is most useful.
Well, I think you also agree that Buddha does not teach that all this can be hammered out by logic, reasoning.
Maybe we can first take some time to focus on asankhata?
- "Their past (kamma) is spent, their new (kamma) no more arises, their mind to future becoming is unattached. Their germ (of rebirth-consciousness) has died, they have no more desire for re-living. Those wise men fade out (of existence) as the flame of this lamp (which has just faded away). This precious jewel is the Sangha. By this (asseveration of the) truth may there be happiness. Ratana Sutta
I’m just saying that, there’s literally hundreds upon hundreds of suttas where Buddha would’ve had the chance to explain something like your perspective, but somehow, just doesn’t. Each one of these passages would be about that Heart you mentioned, and it ain’t.
If Asankhata “survives”, how is that not an eternal, unbegotten, undestroyed Self?
How do you read this? Snp5.7
“One who has come to an end cannot be defined,”
“Atthaṅgatassa na pamāṇamatthi,
replied the Buddha.
(upasīvāti bhagavā)
“They have nothing by which others might describe them.
Yena naṁ vajjuṁ taṁ tassa natthi;
When all Dhamma have been eradicated,
Sabbesu dhammesu samohatesu,
eradicated, too, are all ways of speech.”
Samūhatā vādapathāpi sabbe”ti.
I think it’s clear that, whatever happens after parinibbāna, is beyond our speech and conventions. So it’s not a very fruitful endeavor.
Yes, that sutta clearly says parinibbana cannot be seen as mere cessation, because mere cessation can be defined as: ceased, stopped to exist, non existent anymore. A flame gone out does not become undefined…it just does not exist anymore. Point. A flame that extinguishes also does not become beyond this world or that world or some unestablised thing.
Again, there is no sutta that even suggests mere cessation, but many suggest that one must not think about parinibbana as a mere cessation.