It is not the case that, “There is an inherently existing cup”
The first could imply that there is an inherently “non-existing cup” or worse it could be taken to imply that cups “don’t exist at all.” The second does not imply anything other than that the assertion is refuted.
Or take:
Cups are real
We could refute like:
Cups are not real
It is not the case that, “Cups are real”
The first could imply that there are positively existing “unreal” cups floating around or that cups don’t exist at all while the second simply refutes the assertion.
All of these examples are informally trying to get to the heart of the Excluded Middle in much of our discussion and debate as sentient beings, but they are not rigorous examples. The Law of the Excluded Middle creeps up over and over in our thinking and it is really hard (or at least it is for me) to train yourself not to jump to positive assertions after hearing negative refutations.
What’s interesting about the Law of the Excluded Middle is it requires us to form a dichotomy for every possible assertion. Every negative assertion must be paired with some positive assertion. And different people often disagree about which pairs to form.
In some cases people really do intend on affirming negations. But it is an interesting exercise to re-read Nagarjuna’s MMK and go verse by verse and take for the sake of argument Chandrakirti’s assertion that Nagarjuna never intended an affirming negation in any of it. What you arrive at is a completely different understanding to my mind versus what you arrive at assuming his verses contain positive affirming negations.
Venerable, none of this to be clear is tackling what I consider to be the heart of your claim:
The Teacher simply didn’t care to refute belief in inherently existing cups
That is, if his disciples were walking around believing in inherently existing cups (or that cups have an essence at their core) the Teacher would not have bothered to refute them because such refutation is not necessary for achieving the soteriological goals he aimed for them to achieve. Do I have this right?
It seems to me this is your main contention and one on which we disagree and it would seem Venerable @Vaddha also disagrees. I will say that it is quite evident for me that Nagarjuna at least did think it important to refute inherently existing cups (or that cups have an essence at their core), but I tend to think Chandrakirti was right that Nagarjuna mostly stuck to non-affirming negations.
It is my hypothesis that both the Teacher and Nagarjuna eschewed the Law of the Excluded Middle and that this was intentional.
PS How we operationalize the Law of the Excluded Middle is something called double negation elimination and it in turn marks the difference between “proof by contradiction” and “refutation by contradiction” and is described here.
Yeah, I think this is why the tetralemma is so exasperating to people. The Law of the Excluded Middle is so deeply embedded in how must people think that it just doesn’t seem possible that a refutation could be intended not to imply some positive assertion in its wake.
Take this one:
It is not the case that, “There is not a Buddha after death”
Almost everyone is going to read that as saying that there is a Buddha after death! How could it not intend to imply this?? It just has to imply this, right? Right?
In practice we understand that ‘the king’ is a function and refers to a truly existing person who is or is not bold. In practice this is not ambiguous because we never investigate if the function King is bald, but the person who is pointed at. In this case i see no problem.
There are buddhist who believe that…this is not me, not mine, not my self …asserts knowledge of what is me, what is mine and what is my self’ …this is an affirming negation…if i understand you correct.
Thanks, things are clicking with respect to the logic. I phrased it as a double negation but with the quotation marks you introduced it becomes a negation of the statement as a whole. Thanks for that, both you and Vaddha. I learned something new.
But thanks even more for bringing us back to the actual heart of the matter. I lost track of it myself.
Who am I to say that I know what the Teacher would do?
But what I’m saying is, the Kaccanagotta Sutta is not about refuting people who had notions of inherently existing cups. Nor do I see any other early texts that do such a thing.
So then, if I am right about the early texts, and if you are right that “Nagarjuna at least did think it important to refute inherently existing cups”, then he is extending beyond the early texts.
Which is not a problem! Maybe he had good reasons. I think he was refuting some post-Buddha Abhidharmic views myself, which is of course a common assumption.
Then secondly, the way I’ve seen it explained by others (since I’m not wise enough to interpret MMK myself directly) is that Nāgārjuna took the Kaccānagotta Sutta and particularly its statements on atthi and natthi to be about things in general, including cups. (Would you agree with that interpretation?)
Which is also not a problem! Maybe Nāgārjuna was doing something dialectical for good reasons, using the sutta creatively or what not.
But then people (I’m not saying people here) read the Kaccanagotta Sutta and import these later ideas (or similar) into it, as if they were already present there. But still, ALSO not a problem!
But then people (I’m not saying people here) go and teach others that this is what the text is really about, that this is what the Buddha was teaching too. There I do have a problem. Because then we dilute the Teacher’s message as I see it.
Just to clarify:
I’m saying that the Kaccanagotta Sutta is all about rebirth of the being (“world”), that the views of atthi and natthi concern views of post-mortem survival and nonsurvival (eternalism & one-life annihilation) of that “world”, and that right view concerns insight into this (as well as other related things, whereby the multiple-life annihilationism is also understood to be false).
This is not a widespread interpretation of this sutta, I think you’ll agree. But it is mine. (And the Pāli tradition’s, as I see it.) With this perspective you’ll understand what kind of interpretations I’m arguing against. Even if not directly that of Nāgārjuna, many people are indirectly influenced by him. Or have similar-enough ideas that I think I’m opposed to them all in the same way.
And then lastly, I think these differences matter not just textually, but for our practice too. Because I think the original message of the sutta is much more helpful in telling people whether they have right view or not. Which is of course it’s ultimate point.
Welcome! May it serve to counter the times when I’ve caused your threads to get off track and as an apology for such!
Ah, but you are attempting to understand the Teacher’s intention which to my mind is exactly what you should be doing. I have only hypothesis as well and I think this is natural and wholesome. I also take your humility that it is a hypothesis and not a proof as completely wholesome and welcome. I too just have hypothesis and not proof. I’m just a lowly being who would be quite mistaken to assert I know the mind of the Teacher. Sometimes I don’t do a good enough job of couching my language as hypothesis and not proof and take this as a reminder to be more diligent. Thank you!
Yes, this seems like a valid logical outcome and one on which we seemingly disagree.
I do not agree with your proposed narrowing of the Kaccānagotta Sutta to be about personal existence or a particular idiosyncratic definition of ‘the world’ and that is what I’ve been trying to articulate as well as the reasons for this disagreement.
I do not regard myself as a Teacher, but I do have an alternative interpretation of the Kaccānagotta Sutta and I think our disagreement is over an important difference that has implications towards arriving at the the soteriological purpose of the path. I’ve tried to articulate those differences and why I believe them. I can’t claim to know the mind of Venerable @Vaddha, but what he says in this thread is generally inline with what I say or so it seems to my mind.
Believing in the inherent existence of cups and/or that cups have some kind of essence is a fetter. It must be abandoned to achieve the goal of the path. One cannot achieve the goal of the path while grasping this view. That is my hypothesis and it seems in tension with yours.
Yes, I think it is not a common interpretation and it is one I disagree with. I’ve tried to articulate why I disagree, but it may be that those reasons are either not understood fully or are not sufficient to dissuade you otherwise. If they are not fully understood, then no doubt my own lack of skill in articulation is a culprit.
As long as we grasp at views I agree there are fetters. So we don’t necessarily disagree on this. For purpose of this discussion, I’m just saying the inherent existence of cups is not what the Kaccanagotta Sutta is about.
But just to clarify, you do think it is and you do think that Nāgārjuna also thought so? (To serve as a final question)
I thought I answered this in this very thread, but I just went back and looked and could not find it. Maybe I answered it in another thread and got confused. Wouldn’t be the first or last time no doubt.
But to put it simply I don’t think the Teacher intended an idiosyncratic definition of ‘the world’ in the Kaccanagotta Sutta and in as much cups and their existence are in the world, yes, I would say that the sutta has implications for the view that there exist inherent cups or that cups have essence. I also think that Nagarjuna would have likely thought the same, but I can’t claim to know the mind of Ariya Nagarjuna nor of the Teacher. It is all hypothesis.
For sure I think the Pali canon includes suttas that give evidence to my interpretation that belief in inherent cups or essence in cups is problematic and not conducive to the goal of the Teacher.
To my mind what we’re discussing is the claim that the Pali canon includes teachings that refute the self of phenomena as well as the self of persons. It is a demarcation line that many Theravada practitioners (but far from all or even the majority?) have drawn in the past. That the Teacher never intended to refute the self of phenomena and was only ever focused on the self of persons.
I see your reading of the Kaccanagotta Sutta as broadly inline with this thesis which is very very old and has been brought up and argued about for hundreds if not thousands of years by numbers of Buddhists long since passed. In that sense, I don’t think your interpretation is all that new or idiosyncratic, but yours is the first I think that explicitly makes the claim about the Kaccanagotta Sutta only being about the self of persons. Of course, I’m not as widely read as I should be so it might very well be that others have made the case before.
You don’t seem to insist upon inherent cups or that it is wrong of Nagarjuna or others to refute inherent cups or the essence of cups. You just seem to think it not particularly necessary. I’ve encountered many who strongly think it is wrong to so refute.
PS: The jargon I use above about “self of persons” and “self of phenomena” are widely used english language terms you can find in many modern Buddhist books. They are used as a demarcation line to relate a widely held dispute between early schools of Buddhism over this very point. I think you can find adherents of both sides of this demarcation line in all extant Buddhist traditions.
Yes, at least in as many words. I was just asking it again to round things up.
And this confirms for me that I won’t be setting up a straw man when I’ll discuss atthi and natthi in more detail in a later topic. (If it ever comes to that.…)
I just wanted to clarify it, because there does seem to me to be a difference between two views:
Nāgarjuna refuted the metaphysisical view that there are inherent cups (as I think @Vaddha is saying)
The last would not really be subject to my arguments.
I think that’s a good summary of my thoughts.
I also want to state again that I have much respect for Nāgārjuna’s MMK and use some of its reflections for my own meditation. (As I think I will in a moment.) Just not those on the inherent cups. But for example those of the Buddha after death, I do. And I didn’t miss the logic exclusion there because it is the same as I understand the position to be in the early text.
Thanks for the nice discussion and teaching me some things. This is exactly why I posted draft essays before a final version. You may not convince me of your position, but it does help nuance mine a bit. Or at least the way I would word it, so it has more respect for other positions. So it doesn’t turn it into a staw man.
My apologies in return if I derailed your arguments too, or if I didn’t invest myself enough into them to understand them properly. I have to admit that 200 replies (!) is a bit much and I couldn’t give them all as much attention as they deserve. Even with the amount of time I’ve spend here lately. Sorry if yours were among them that I should have looked at more closely.
No, I am of the same opinion as @Vaddha on this to my mind.
I’m sorry if I’ve been unclear, but for me Nāgarjuna refuted the metaphysical view that there are inherent cups. He did not intend any positive affirming view in the place of this. Do you see a difference between what I’m saying and what @Vaddha is saying?
I began drafting a reply before your more recent responses. I’m somewhat inclined to “giving up”, because it takes so much effort to type and try and explain in a coherent way, along with the misunderstandings we can have of what the other says. And the thing is I don’t think we really hold very separate views apart from some points which I don’t think you’d disagree with if I could explain them probably. I don’t like posting long, messy comments.
But I’ll go ahead and post my former draft along with some additions/edits to address some of your new points. I haven’t addressed all of them. So if there is anything you clarified or mentioned later which this conflicts, feel free to set it aside.
Hm… Not sure the distinction you’re making. Let me just rephrase the example.
Before I do, I want to clarify that I don’t think the Kaccānagotta is about cups or specific things. I think it is about our whole world, which includes cups and so on. And the ‘world’ is, for the Buddha, an experiential one with particular causes and conditions. We could define it as the five aggregates, the 18 elements, or whatever other scheme the Buddha gives—without turning those categories into a metaphysical theory about the real, ultimate, irreducible parts making up the world! Setting aside the foundations for metaphysical views that are beyond knowledge, and focusing instead on what the Buddha says we CAN know—which is where he transcends the skeptics.
(I do think that atthitā and natthitā are about eternalism or annihilationism in the context of rebirth. It’s just that I am proposing that the insubstantiality of ‘the world’ is what refutes these views of a self being destroyed or eternal. And I don’t think it’s as simple as one-life-annihilationism vs. eternalism.)
Take someone who insists that there is more to a cup than just sense experience, for whatever reason. They might have some thought-out theory, or they may just think that based off of what they assume from their experience. Whatever the specifics, someone who insists that the cup is more than sense experience, and is beyond it.
Once they do that, they are like Rohitassa. They ignore that the cup can only be present due to the internal senses. Like trying to find the “end of the world,” not realizing that every time you travel further, your eyes are there travelling with you! They also ignore its impermanence. With impermanence, we have to assume a solid entity which is the same cup persisting despite the changes, but that is just a convenient concept. We can’t say there is actually a cup-substance which is changing. We abstract that.
It’s like someone who thinks that there is a real, actual person existing in a mirror because they see a reflection of a person there. They don’t realize that the person only appears in the mirror because there is the mirror, their eyes, and because they stand there and look.
They could also reify the opposite end of contact as well. If they reify the inner sense domains, they might think the outer sense domains are all a reflection of a kind of permanent consciousness which is the subject or self. It can go many ways.
So making some aspect of sense experience substantial forces a kind of reified “duality.” Not the natural duality of inner and outer sense domains, but rather transforming that normal duality into one of “subject (an independent self)” and “object (external independent entity).” Whichever side we start with, if we take one as substantial, the other one automatically becomes substantial too. Because each side of contact must go together. If we see both as interrelated, and neither side as primary, then both are empty and insubstantial and we do not need to insist on the “self and cosmos” which is eternal or annihilated.
Once we can make the leap to believe in something independent and substantial despite dependently arisen experience, then there is nothing stopping us from doing the same with an attā in our person. In fact, it will be inevitable. Like a permanent soul inside. Or, for materialists, they take the person to be a substantial entity made of matter. So once someone insists on some kind of independent substance, their own person will have to fit into that scheme somehow.
Another simple way of putting it is:
If someone is convinced that there is an attā in external objects, then there is nothing stopping them from thinking they have an attā. In fact, they will be forced to think so, because “they” are just another object or entity in the world of things that have an attā.
Depending on what they take the substance of the world to be — either all matter, or all eternal mind, or matter and soul, or whatever — they will be some kind of eternalist or annihilationist. Because independent entities are either eternal or temporary. This is instead of relating to existence as a kind of dependent arising and ceasing, not static entities, without any substantiality to be found.
Whatever the specifics, it is by taking some aspect of “the world,” i.e. dependently arisen sense experience, and turning it into some greater, more independent substance (mirroring the concept of an attā), or outer world, that there is eternalism/annihilationism. Negating this and pointing to dependent arising isn’t proposing a different speculation about the world. It’s setting that aside and focusing on the actual lived experience of beings!
I feel it’s really important to point out the difference between refuting a wrong view and taking an opposite stance. It is called reductio ad absurdum or a non-affirming negation. The Buddha did it all the time.
This provides a better way, IMO, to differentiate Buddhism from annihilationism as well. It’s not that annihilationists have the same view but feel a sense of self. It’s that they hold a substantialist view, which takes reality as independent in some way. It’s an ontological view, grasping. They can’t help but take a cessation to be a destruction and annihilation of a being, because they insist that the matter-substance of a being is ultimately real and independent, same as an “attā.”
The reason it’s not eternal is because they take the person to be a solid entity, and because they take consciousness or the sense faculties to be a product of matter that will be destroyed. So the person is the whole working assemblage of parts, and when those parts are disbanded in the world, they see it as annihilation. They fail to see how they participate in their experience of the world via the senses and mind.
It’s not a coincidence that materialist-annihilationists find it very challenging to accept that quantum mechanics means that the mind renders matter insubstantial. Because if they were to accept that view, they would have to accept that they can’t reduce mind to a sheer epiphenomenon of substantial matter, meaning there might be OTHER conditions for the arising of the mind and experience of the world, including matter. Such as dependent arising.
If someone holds that matter is insubstantial, they cannot be a materialist by definition. Because they can’t think that there is only matter. So they would have to hold an annihilationist view on the basis of a different substance. For example, thinking that “the external world is neither-matter-nor-mind, something else, but it certainly exists and I am just a temporary object within it.” They still ignore their mind and senses participation in “the world” and so do not look inward to find the conditions for its continuation.
We don’t need to check with quantum mechanics though. On that I agree. I don’t think the Buddha wanted us to do physics to understand anattā.
For example, take a look at SN 24.1
The Buddha is saying that because of “grasping and insisting on” the aggregates, some certain metaphysical view arises which doesn’t anywhere mention a personal self. It says “stand firm like a pillar” which is elsewhere used to describe metaphysical substances. At SN 24.8 the Buddha says the substance theory of Pakudha Kaccāyana arises because of grasping and insisting on the aggregates.
At SN 24.10 simply the view “the cosmos is not eternal” is due to this. I’m not sure how you would call the view “the cosmos is not eternal” a psychological sense of self?
Or take SN 24.5, which says that the materialist-annihilationist view arises because of grasping and insisting on the aggregates. That’s precisely what I’m arguing for: that substance theories rely on grasping and insisting on the or some aggregates, and that this necessarily ties them up also in self-view.
But it seems like you’re leaning towards saying that the view doesn’t arise and cease because of that?
But why did the Buddha say that all the wrong views in the Brahmajāla Sutta were do to contact? Eternalism, partial eternalism, annihilationism, random arising, self after death, all of them. He says it’s all due to contact.
We also, of course, have to take into account the arising of contact in its more broad sense. It is not just the inner and outer sense domains plus consciousness. There is also the deeper root in the Buddha’s teaching—craving. The arising of contact for the Buddha referring to a new “world” of senses and sense contact in another life. Consciousness gaining a footing in a new state of existence from grasping and craving in a former state of existence.
So there’s no basis or grounding for positing a kind of substantial starting point to this samsāric tangle. Kind of like if we would keep jumping from dream to dream due to craving and grasping, with independent sense contacts occurring within the larger context of each dream-world—to reuse an example from another thread.
The “dream world” stands for a life with senses, and all the experiences in that world being sense contacts. Not to extend the analogy too far! But if we look at it, basically dreams and waking life function under the same experiential structure. It doesn’t matter whether the world is a dream or not. What matters is focusing on how these experiential “worlds” arise and cease, and the dependent structure of them which maintains them. “The world” just being our experience of it.
Without any solid substance or independent reality or fiction assumed, we are more free to ask how the ‘world’ (in the Buddha’s sense) arises, continues, and disappears. If someone does posit a substance, it will be an obstacle, because there would have to be some independent entity which is part of the process. They will be stuck speculating in the “external world.” Rather than life being a conditional continuum, so to speak, it turns into a solid being which exists independently. And so the idea of rebirth being a selfless process won’t make sense.
Please understand that there is a difference between a view of substance and the general tendency of the mind to reify things and people. It’s the exact same as the difference between the view of attā and the tendency of the mind to take things as attā; they’re related but not the same. Same with substance—which attā is just one example of a substance. The point being that if someone holds that there is a substance of ANY kind, that means the substance inside themselves — the most important substance to beings — will exist in some way.
I say that the Teacher did not hold the view:
The world is REAL.
The world is FAKE.
The world is BOTH (simulation in real computer?)
The world is NEITHER (random/something else)
Rather, I say that the Teacher’s view — which refutes all of the above views, is that.
What people call THE WORLD is dependently arisen
With certain conditions, there will be the experience of THE WORLD
Without those conditions, what people call THE WORLD will not manifest
There is a path for removing the conditions — there is a way to find the end of THE WORLD
If it’s independent, it’s not dependent. The Buddha teaches dependent arising. If there is something independent, it must be a substantial thing, an entity, rather than an empty, void, impersonal arising. Independent things have to either (1) exist forever and ever or (2) be annihilated at some point in time. Conditional appearances are not solid, so their dependent ceasing does not entail annihilation of a solid thing.
I’ll offer a mundane example, this time of rūpa instead of consciousness. A cup is a form. But it isn’t that there is some independent “cup-form-essence” I can point to there which is annihilated if the cup breaks. I can negate the idea that the cup has substance by pointing to the experience of contact, without trying to prove that the cup is unreal.
Because “form” is actually an impermanent, circumstantial experience which also depends on the mind to perceive and register. The cup may appear one way at one time, and it will be different at another time. It may also be perceived differently by different beings. The experience of the cup depends on the senses and other circumstances to be in place for me to have an impression of it. If the cup is broken, it is just a shift in experience. I can’t find an actual cup-essence which was broken. Just a temporary, changing string of conditional appearances.
In your example of two cup halves, we can’t find any cup-half-substance. We just experience an impermanent flow of states, none more real than another. So we can negate any belief in a substance or essence as a sheer concept we use in order to function in life, without speculating any further about the cup.
I don’t think the Buddha needed us to examine each object and try and trace its insubstantial nature through external speculation and so on. But he taught how we could generalize to all of the aggregates based off of dependent arising of them.
We apply this to all form, whether internal or external. This way, “form” is not a thing or substantial entity. It is a label for a string of similar conditional experiences that we conceptualize together into ‘things.’ We negate the idea of independent existence, but we don’t over-step and speculate beyond.
Now with the senses for example, we could also say they are dependent on consciousness. Not in terms of specific instances of sense consciousness at contact (link 6), but here it would be the viññāna link of dependent arising (link 3). Because if viññāna is not established in this life, the senses couldn’t manifest, function, operate, continue, or be known. Here, I’m taking the senses as more-or-less synonymous with nāmarūpa. So this is related to individual sense impressions, but is a slightly different type of dependency.
It’s not that we can’t talk about the senses as something separate. But we shouldn’t foster the belief that they are independent substantial things “out there.” We should let go of those views and shift focus to their conditional appearance and disappearance, right? To try and see if they are like a shadow or a flash of lightning: not solid, not a self, without a core, not an entity, not independent; temporary, changing, growing sick and old; without lasting happiness, but subjecting us to the suffering of samsāra.
To be clear, I just skimmed what Venerable @Vaddha has just said in his long response and I can’t find on first reading anything that I would necessarily dispute. The more I discuss with Venerable @Vaddha the more it seems to me at least that we share some semblance of a common understanding of the Middle Way or of Nagarjuna’s MMK. If others do have an appearance that what we’re meaning is different in some substantial way I’d certainly like to understand how
Yes. Believing in inherently existing cups is a metaphysical view and Nagarjuna thought it important to refute this metaphysical view for the reasons that @Vaddha has just articulated:
Once we can make the leap to believe in something independent and substantial despite dependently arisen experience, then there is nothing stopping us from doing the same with an attā in our person. In fact, it will be inevitable. Like a permanent soul inside. Or, for materialists, they take the person to be a substantial entity made of matter. So once someone insists on some kind of independent substance, their own person will have to fit into that scheme somehow.
Another simple way of putting it is:
If someone is convinced that there is an attā in external objects, then there is nothing stopping them from thinking they have an attā. In fact, they will be forced to think so, because “they” are just another object or entity in the world of things that have an attā.
If you believe in the metaphysical view of inherently existing cups, then you leave yourself prone to believing the metaphysical view of an inherently existing “I” and “mine.” If you believe the self of phenomena is possible, then you leave yourself prone to believing the self of persons is possible. I believe we are saying essentially (hah!) the same thing.
Hi Ven! Thanks so much for that effort. It means a lot!
But I know what you mean about taking time… every time I’m on SuttaCentral my parents make a lot of good karma for forcing that typing course on me many years ago!
Sorry if you have to explain yourself more than you’d like. I think you would have a much easier time with somebody who actually holds views of inherent cups than me, who first has to project that view and then also project your view onto that view… If you know what I’m saying.
So I’m still not convinced that assuming an external essence is necessarily an obstacle to the path, as long as we don’t take ourselves to be that essence or ourselves in relation to that essence. But I just explained why that may be the case, why I don’t understand.
I think your assumptions of modern day materialism are oversimplified, at least for certain strands of it. They wouldn’t have applied to me when I was one. The name “materialism” is perhaps a bit confusing. But let’s not go there because
Just to answer one direct question:
Your explanation are not wrong but again I think incomplete.
I would say “grasping and insisting” implies the sense of self in those verbs themselves. The sense of self is the force behind the grasping. I’ll only grasp at something if there is an I that think it needs something to grasp to. Without such I, why grasp and insist on anything?
So, many people psychologically need something to hold on to, even if it’s just a view as silly as “mothers don’t give birth”. Which in turn reinforces the sense of self if they do.
Maybe it’s easier to understand with craving. There’s no need to crave (or possibility to crave, even) if there is no ‘I’ to be satisfied with whatever is craved. Same with holding views.
Anyway, we’ve focused on this narrow point of “the world”, what it’s pragmatic implications exactly are. It’s quite a minutia in the grander scheme of things! We’ll see whether we disagree on the more substantial matters when (if!) I explain my understanding on the right view. I’d be surprised! I’ll take up your offer to check a draft for sure.
I’ll leave it at that, sorry if I didn’t reply to some of the finer points. But we’re both wanting to round this off.
I believe, like @Vaddha, that one does necessarily follow from the other, but I do not have faith that I’ll be able to articulate why any better than @Vaddha has already attempted so I’ll leave it at that.
I’ve spend wāāāāāāy to much time here lately. (That’s my Pāli keyboard program replacing ‘aa’ with ‘ā’…)
But why? Because you were so fun to engage with, and enlightening as well.
I haven’t fundamentally changed my position, but I also learned that we aren’t as fundamentally opposed as we often think we are at the start of a discussion. And perhaps that’s a more important thing to learn.
I think we found some common grounds between us, but also between what we call “traditions”. How so-called “Theravada” views and “Mahayana” views can be aligned. And how we can discuss in mutual respect, helping each other reach the goal.
It’s rains retreat in a few weaks. I won’t post here from now until the end of the rains + 1 month at least. So that’s almost a half year.
So with all that in mind, I want to pay respect to you all in traditional way that I used to do in the tradition where I first started: that of Thich Nhat Hahn.
How? By presenting you a cup of tea of course!
While you drink it, you can continue debating whether it is real or not or whether it matters or not.
I am probably a partypooper but who, in reality, cares about the inherent or not inherent existence of a woman/man, icecream, feeling, music, internetforum…etc. Like that makes any difference?
It is not because of its permanence or inherent existence that we are attracted to things, right? It is because things can be really experienced as pleasurable and gratifying. That is our experience and that is why we crave and want to be involved in things and engage (tanha).
Having someone to love is gratifying. Eating a nice meal. Having a clean house. Doing Good. Having a meaningful job. Having warm friendships. Seeing nice landscapes etc. But not because that they are seen as permanent or with a core or as substantially existing. But i believe this is just our human nature.
To be passionate about something, the only thing we have to know is that engaging with it, makes us happy for a while. We are passionate for what is gratifying, and for a moment makes us forget the truth of our suffering, such as debates about Dhamma, movies, books, loved ones etc.
In a sense, i feel, life is about escapism. We all escape what we really feel, misery, suffering, darkness, boredom, some stress etc. Without engaging in feeding activities that we experience as gratifying, we explode…that is the truth. Inner causes of suffering are so present withn us. So defiled are we. On fire like the Buddha says. It is true.
We are in an endless cycle of escapism involved. We never really face reality. The reality of our suffering. If we are faced with it, for example, boredom, we immediattely run in all directions, and seek for some escape by engaging in this and that activity.
Buddha had the courage to see this as it really is. We run in all direction because we are on fire. Oke I am Running in all direction to find some relief. And finding gratification in things, is that relief. But this has nothing to do with seeing things as inherent existent, i believe. Passion is not about that.
I feel it is amazing that Buddha stopped running in all direction. That is what i see as what all these great teachers of Dhamma did. Just sit and wait. See what happens…boredom, agression, stress, probably all will arise. And again one will run in all directions…But they did not. On the spot driving all this suffering away. Investigating it. Deeply looking into the origin. Face the demons.
Brave. Really brave.
Maybe he had good reasons. I think he was refuting some post-Buddha Abhidharmic views myself, which is of course a common assumption.
But it is mine. (And the Pāli tradition’s, as I see it.) With this perspective you’ll understand what kind of interpretations I’m arguing against. Even if not directly that of Nāgārjuna, many people are indirectly influenced by him. Or have similar-enough ideas that I think I’m opposed to them all in the same way.
But for example those of the Buddha after death, I do. And I didn’t miss the logic exclusion there because it is the same as I understand the position to be in the early text. 
Sorry if yours were among them that I should have looked at more closely.
I’ll take up your offer to check a draft for sure.
Running in all direction to find some relief. And finding gratification in things, is that relief. But this has nothing to do with seeing things as inherent existent, i believe. Passion is not about that.