The reality according to Theravada Buddhism

I don’t see the hatred here. Merely stating difference is an observation of facts, not expression of hatred. Do quote which sentence is expressing hate.

Merely stating which tradition one prefers is also not an expression of hate.

Why? So you can subject it to verification it and argue it away with your vast authority? later

I am struggling to follow this. How can there be “softness” & “hardness” but no earth element? What about “softness” & “hardness”? Do these also not exist? :saluting_face:

Sounds like solipsism & theism, i.e., random creationism.

But it seems clear the Buddha taught “substance theory”, for example, from AN 3.61:

What is the Dhamma that I’ve taught?
Katamo ca, bhikkhave, mayā dhammo desito

‘These are the six elements’: this is the Dhamma I’ve taught …
Imā cha dhātuyoti, bhikkhave, mayā dhammo desito

AN 3.61

The above sounds like Nagarjuna. In DN 11, if the causality of the four great elements could be clearly explained, it seems the Buddha could have answered the question: “Where do the four great elements cease without remainder”.

Regardless, of the four great elements, the hypothesis above seems to deem Nibbana (which is independent and permanent) to be the Atman. :face_with_spiral_eyes: :roll_eyes:

I understand commentaries to be a later stage of turning the teachings into a sect or philosophical treaties.

"A ‘position,’ Vaccha, is something that a Tathagata has done away with.

The suttas present us with interactive. Positions that entail ontology represent a regularity rather than substance.

“And what is dependent origination? Rebirth is a condition for old age and death. Whether Realized Ones arise or not, this law of nature persists, this regularity of natural principles, this invariance of natural principles, specific conditionality. A Realized One understands this and comprehends it, then he explains, teaches, asserts, establishes, clarifies, analyzes, and reveals it. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘Rebirth is a condition for old age and death.’

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Conciousness is external to name & form. Name is distinct from form and all 3 can be internal or external.

The suttas and sutras are full of the denial of the existence of substance. That is what anatta is, for all of the other non-Buddhist traditions always framed the atta in terms of a substance, because that is exactly is what it is. Of course, by the time of the developed Abhidhamma the philosophical and religious landscape had evolved. The substance metaphysicians of Jainism, Ājīvika, Vaiśeṣika, Nyāya and others had refined and developed further their arguments for substance, likely in response to Buddhism. The Theravādin position was possibly, likely even, a response in kind. The context was different. Atta was denied, so to try to build it up again substance of anything was pushed. In reply, we argued that nothing has a substance. A similar line of thought of course appeared in Mahāyāna. On raw experiences, in the sentence “I ate a red apple” there are two subjects present. There is the “I” and the “apple”. The “I” is the possessor of the verb “ate” whilst “red” is the adjective of the subject “apple”. If we take the sentence at face value we have an “I” that eats and a “red apple”. To this, a follower of Vaiśeṣika or Nyāya would reply “aha, you see, substances do exist for its in the very language we speak”. The Theravādin reply is that this is not so. In the actual experience there is only “red”, “sweet”, “motion”, “coolness” and so on. Apart from these raw experiences, no apple can be found. The same of course for the “I”. The sentence then is merely conventional. We fashion it out of raw experiences, which are the sabhāva-dhammas, but it has no reality to it. It is only the direct experience which is real, or that which can be known by inference from said experience.

It appears that, if the above qoute is representative of Theravada, that that school has taken the early sutta material and pressed it into the service of precicely a substance theory, where there are real existing things (sweetness, redness etc) that combine to form fictional, non existent things (apples etc). The fact that these substances are impermanent is irrelevant, the point is that they are allegeded to be real existants that bear the supossedly fictional phenomena, like apples, that we take as our everyday reality. There is nothing like this picture described in the early sutta material.

The problem with this is that the conditioned sabhāva-dhammas are not the bearer of characteristics. They then aren’t realities behind sense experience. They are sense experience, beyond which there is no other reality. Since they are sense experience, they are dependently originated. Being dependently originated, they have no independent existence. Not then being the bearer of characteristics, and not having independent existence behind our changing experience of the senses, they are, by definition, not substances. I see this as being in line with what the Blessed One taught.

Experience is always described in terms of the contact between object and sensativity giving rise to consciousness, there is never any implication that any of the factors of the analysis are more or less real or unreal, or any implication that they are “momentary”.

The Buddha said the 1st Noble Truth is true. The sabhāva-dhammas are part of the 1st Truth and so are real, not otherwise. On momentariness, when you remove substance from the world what are you left with? Momentary phenomenal characteristics. In other words, the sabhāva-dhammas. As I mentioned earlier, it was the likes of Nyāya who argued that there were things such as a “pot” which persists through time and undergoes change. It was the Buddhists who argued against this, via momentariness. Do you think Nyāya understood the Dhamma more than Buddhists themselves did?

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Amazing stuff @Ceisiwr ! Am on the road but will dive in to this amazing detailed reply when i get home!!

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As ever, I look forward to your reply.

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This is one of the best expositions I have read in a long, long time. Sadhu! Sadhu!! Sadhu!!! :heart: :heart: :heart:

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Why thank you for that :slightly_smiling_face:

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No, This is NOT in line with Buddha teaching. This is someone confused with philosophy and accept is as the true teaching.

Buddha teaching is 6 senses experience is real and cause of suffering. Hence, transcend from all senses with wisdom to be freed from the senses step by step. N8FP.

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The suttas literally say “form is impermanent”. The suttas say: “‘A boil,’ monks, is another word for this body composed of the four elements, born of mother & father, fed on rice & porridge, subject to impermanence, rubbing & massaging, breaking-up & disintegrating.” Form is a sense experience. However, Nibbana is also a sense experience (Ud 8.1) however it is not impermanent. Therefore, it certainly seems form & the other aggregates (unlike the Nibbana element) are the bearers of characteristics.

The suttas in many places say dependent on sense organs and sense objects consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is sense experience. Here, it seems literally evident consciousness is dependent on the external realities rather than visa versa. It seems the Pali suttas are not “mind-only” solipsism.

I doubt the term “dependently originated (paṭiccasamuppanna)” can be found in the suttas in reference to mere sense experience. In other words, I doubt the arising of sense experience for an Arahant is “paṭiccasamuppanna” because SN 12.3 says paṭiccasamuppada is the “wrong path”. For example, MN 74 says:

Pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings are impermanent, conditioned, dependently originated, liable to end, vanish, fade away, and cease. Seeing this, a learned noble disciple grows disillusioned with pleasant, painful, and neutral feelings. Being disillusioned, desire fades away. When desire fades away they’re freed. When they’re freed, they know they’re freed.

Here, in MN 74, when the feelings are viewed as dependently originated, the noble disciple is not yet disillusioned; not yet free from desire.

Again, DN 15 says:

Pleasant feelings, painful feelings, and neutral feelings are all impermanent, conditioned, dependently originated, liable to end, vanish, fade away, and cease. When feeling a pleasant feeling they think: ‘This is my self.’

Here, in DN 15, the dependently originated feelings are regarded as “self”.

Again, SN 36.7 says:

But this body is impermanent, conditioned, dependently originated. So how could a pleasant feeling be permanent, since it has arisen dependent on a body that is impermanent, conditioned, and dependently originated?’ They meditate observing impermanence, vanishing, dispassion, cessation, and letting go in the body and pleasant feeling. As they do so, they give up the underlying tendency for greed for the body and pleasant feeling.

Here, in SN 36.7, when there are dependently originated feelings, the underlying tendency to greed still exists.

My impression is in Mahayana, the philosopher Nagarjuna is regarded as a type of “Blessed One”. But the teachings of the Blessed One of the Pali suttas I have quoted above. My impression of the teachings of the Blessed One is whatever is “dependently originated” is originated from ignorance. Therefore, when sense experience occurs for an Arahant via the meeting of sense organ, sense object & sense consciousness, this cause & effect is not called “dependently originated (paṭiccasamuppanna)”. :pray:t2:

I suggest to read AN 9.15, MN 62, MN 140, SN 22.79, SN 12.61 (called ‘The Unlearned’) for starters.

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Thank you for your answers, I find it hard to understand frankly. I can’t figure out if Theravada considers that there is a “solid non-substantial reality” outside our mind.

“Kaccāna, this world mostly relies on the dual notions of existence and non-existence.

But when you truly see the origin of the world with right understanding, you won’t have the notion of non-existence regarding the world. And when you truly see the cessation of the world with right understanding, you won’t have the notion of existence regarding the world."

There is arising and passing away. When you see arising you cant deny that they external world exists, but also you cant prove it exists because there is passing away. THis is as close as we can get to understanding whether the external world exists, or not, through the dhamma. :pray:

Thank you. So the external world exists, but it is impermanent, unstable, perishable?

So the external world exists, but it is impermanent, unstable, perishable?

No, more the position is that we cannot say for certain whether the external world exists or doesn’t exist. In our deepest insight of it, it is seen to rapidly arise and pass away. In a causally arisen manner (object + eye–>eye consciousness–>contact–>feelings, perception, fabrications). This is the paticcasamuppada. So the Buddha sees the world in dependently originated manner (not as ‘existing’ or ‘not existing’).

with metta

It should be noted that specifically that sutta is talking in terms of the atta, about the views of eternalism and annihilationism. That was it’s original intent. Of course, we could then make the same claims about objects too. For a follower of Madhyamaka not only do we stop thinking of the existence and destruction of a self, but also the existence and destruction of objects or dhammas because anything dependently originated is without substance. For the Theravādin dependent origination means we can’t say that an atta exist or is destroyed, and we can’t say that objects such as pots exist and are destroyed, because anything dependently originated is without substance but we can say the sabhāva-dhammas exist and then cease, such as “pain” or “blueness”, as these are our raw experiences.

Conventionally there is a world out there of matter, pots, stars, people. Conventionally there is a world of substances of which characteristics or attributes belong. Ultimately there are only phenomenal qualities arising and ceasing with great rapidity. Epistemologically this means that all that we can know are dependently originated qualities (redness, hotness etc) and so we never know substances (much to the dismay of the Brahmins and Jains etc). Ontologically it means that all that really exists are these qualities. There are no trees out there. There is only “hardness” “green” and so on.

Thank you.

So qualities really do exist outside the mind?

And what if I define “tree” as “qualitatively coherent set of the qualities hardness, green, etc.”? Does this imply that the “tree” exists, since it is only qualities?

An external world is acknowledged, but it’s not the everyday notion of it. If we take a tree, conventionally everyone agrees that a tree exists “out there” apart from us. In Theravāda, in ultimate terms, when we experience “a tree” all that we really experience are phenomenal qualities of “hardness” “green” and so on experienced by touch sensitivity, eye sensitivity, conciousness, feeling etc. There are then dhammas external to one’s mind, but all that we can ever know and experience are momentary qualities. Is there something beyond this, beyond the All? Are there really substances where bear the characterstics? The Buddha said it’s not worth speculating about.