The ‘world’ in the Kaccānagotta Sutta

[Vaddha]

@stephen

It wouldn’t be a problem for the insister, since for that person there is a cup as part of their experience.

But the insister isn’t claiming “there is a dependently arisen experience of a cup.” They are claiming “this cup exists independently of me beyond sheer experience.” Refuting that claim is not the same as saying that the cup does not exist. It’s simply negating that it does, in order to remove the ontological view.

If I follow your logic, then someone claiming they have a permanent self is not wrong, because it is an experience for them. But they are not actually experiencing a permanent attā. Just like we can’t actually experience a substantial cup. So it’s adding something to what is not there.

[Sunyo]

@Vaddha

Do you see how if someone insisted that there is a cup and that we can know, that would be problematic? How it would by definition be positing an external world inhabited by either a monistic or pluralistic entities, and it would therefore include self-view?

Would like to rephrase it as “there is a cup and it can be known”. Does that still work for you?

[stephen]

What ‘we’ can know/experience is that there is someone insisting on an attā. And ‘we’ can evaluate that (our) experience.
(We can’t evaluate their experience)

[Vaddha]

@Sunyo

Would like to rephrase it as “there is a cup and it can be known”. Does that still work for you?

Yes, but specifically “There is a cup beyond sense experience and this/it can be known.” Not just that the sense experience of a cup can be known, which it obviously can be.

The problem is the assertion of an ontological view. Grasping to views like this is a fetter. It also by definition will result in an assumed self, even if the person does not think so. If I insist that there is something external to my perspective, then I am assuming my perspective is a real, independent entity in that world. This is called a self. The problem is that many people who insist on this do not notice that they are also assuming their own perspective as an independent entity. Which means they do not know that they are automatically holding the view of a self. But they will all be either annihilationists or eternalists, which they probably will know.

[Sunyo]

@Vaddha

Yes, but specifically “There is a cup beyond sense experience and this can be known.” Not just that the sense experience of a cup can be known, which it obviously can be.

OK. Because otherwise I would just have said, it’s the ‘we’ that’s the problem.

Im having difficulty relating to this, because I can’t imagine how I would hold this view. I mean, I could theorize about it but feeling wise it’s hard.

So to ask a question in return: What is the importance of the “it can be known” part? Why does your assumption need that? Isn’t the problem (you see) with “there is a cup” itself?

I’m enjoying this by the way

[Dogen]

@Sunyo

More importantly, I would say that it doesn’t matter if there is a cup or not.

Does it matter if there’s dukkha or not?

@Vaddha

But you’re saying that this way of applying the Kaccānagotta Sutta to particular objects or things in the world is an overinterpretation beyond what was originally intended in the sutta.

I would say, using the argument [that existence/non-existence is a wrong approach] implies nibbāna = saṁsara, is an overinterpretation. Because Buddha also explains that there’s arising and cessation of dukkha in the same sutta.

So, dukkha can cease (without remainder). To say that “This implies non-existence of dukkha” is an overreach.

Non-existence is an imaginary state belonging to an imaginary object we assumed to exist. Since these are all imaginary, they’re not real.

Cessation is the end of sense-base contact. There’s a difference between said cessation and the experience of waking hour, even if the experiences are empty in substance.

[Vaddha]

@Sunyo

Im having difficulty relating to this, because I can’t imagine how I would hold this view. I mean, I could theorize about it but feeling wise it’s hard.

Looks like you won’t be switching to the Sarvāstivāda on us, venerable!

@Sunyo

What is the importance of the “it can be known” part?

Because it is the assertion that one side of sense-contact (the object side) is real and independent. If they don’t assert that this is the case, then they cannot assert that the cup is real. Does that make sense?

Basically, they have to believe that their perception of the cup is an actual, real cup independent of/beyond that perception. If they don’t think that, they can’t actually claim that there is a real, independent cup there.

Now, once they assert (or assume—as most people do) that the object of sense-contact is substantial, real, independent, etc. That means that the subject (by this I mean the senses–the eye, ear, nose, etc.; the knower) is also independent of those objects. Because it encounters different objects in the world. So it means it is independently roaming around in space and time. The “subject” becomes one of the “objects” in an existent external world. And the objects are assumed to be independent entities, or substantial things.

If the subject is an independent entity, it is either permanent (eternal) or impermanent (annihilated). If they think that the substance making up reality is matter-energy (modern physicalists), then they think that the subject (the senses, the knower) will be annihilated. If the person thinks that the substance making up reality is some kind of Idealist Mind, they will probably be an eternalist, because the substance of the senses/knower will also be made of that eternal substance. The belief in substance alone is enough for annihilationism/eternalism. They do not need to form a specific belief in a “self,” and some of them may even deny that there is a self. But by positing substantial entities, it is the same thing as a self.

This is the assumption Rohitassa made, BTW. The dependent arising of contact resolves this issue. At which point, the arising/ceasing of contact itself can be the area of focus. Not selves or substances.

Dependent arising does not make a new assertion about the cup. It simply refutes the assertion of substantial objects. By refuting the substance of objects, “subjects” (the senses) too cannot be reified into independently existing entities. Which means they cannot be eternal or annihilated.

@Sunyo

I’m enjoying this by the way

Yay!

[stephen]

@Dogen

Does it matter if there’s dukkha or not

What matters is if there is dukkha for us in our present experience. Everything else is speculation.

[Dharma]

The Buddha went beyond mental speculation.

[Sunyo]

@Vaddha

Because it is the assertion that one side of sense-contact (the object side) is real and independent. If they don’t assert that this is the case, then they cannot assert that the cup is real. Does that make sense?

Ah, by “it can be known” I thought you meant, it can be like epistemologically known, but by known you mean experienced?

Either way, I’m not following, to be honest. I don’t see the problem.

@Vaddha

If the subject is an independent entity, it is either permanent (eternal) or impermanent (annihilated).

Why would the subject need to be an independent entity? Couldn’t it be an independent non-entity?

(Last post for me for now.)

[NgXinZhao]

@Vaddha

subject is an independent entity,

subject depends on food to survive, so not independent.

@Vaddha

The “subject” becomes one of the “objects” in an existent external world. And the objects are assumed to be independent entities, or substantial things.

How to explain that I see the red apple, and I ask the thing I perceives as someone with good eye sight, “what do you see?” and they also reply, “red apple.”?

How to explain that Buddha ceases all sense contacts for him at parinibbāna, and yet we still perceive the world? The world, for other sentient beings, has not ended.

[Ceisiwr]

@Sunyo

EBT is the middle way between Madhyamaka and Abhidhamma, lol.

Really? I mostly see people reinventing the wheel, but it’s usually a wonky one. EBT folks also seem to think their exegesis is immune from the Perfection of Wisdom. Personally I’ve seen lots of evidence to the contrary.

I would say to that metaphysical views about the world can’t be proven, and many also can’t really be disproved.

Anatta is metaphysics. To the rest I will reply in time.

[Ceisiwr]

@stephen

Precisely Venerable, which is why the endless metaphysical speculations about things being ‘really real’ or not are beside the point.

The Buddha denied the reality of the atta substance.

[Ceisiwr]

@Sunyo

Anyway, unlike Kalupahana, most people do acknowledge many of Nagarjuna’s ideas are new

Master Nagarjuna’s exegesis is original Buddhism.

[Dogen]

@Ceisiwr

The Buddha denied the reality of the atta substance.

How do you explain this:

“And if, when I was asked by him, ‘Is there no self?’ I had answered, ‘There is no self,’ this would have been siding with those ascetics and brahmins who are annihilationists.” SN44.10

Buddha denied saying “There is a self” or “There is no self” from what I can see. From this, saying “Buddha denied the reality of Atta substance” is a stretch. If that can be arrived at this, then the opposite could be correct: That same argument can be used to say “Buddha asserts the reality of the atta substance.”

@Ceisiwr

Anatta is metaphysics. To the rest I will reply in time.

Phenomenology is anti-metaphysical insofar as it rejects every metaphysics concerned with the construction of purely formal hypotheses (Buddha’s attitude).

Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. That’s not the same as saying it’s metaphysics.

Monks, do you see anything which is permanent, stable, eternal, unchanging, and which will remain that way forever? MN22

It’s not an analysis of is there, it’s an analysis is do you experience.

At Sāvatthī. Seated to one side, Venerable Rādha said to the Buddha: “Sir, they speak of this thing called ‘not-self’. What is not-self?”

“Rādha, form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness are not-self."

“Sir, they speak of this thing called ‘impermanence’. What is impermanence?”

“Rādha, form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness are impermanent." SN23.17 SN23.13

[JuanPablo]

@Ceisiwr

Personally I’ve seen lots of evidence to the contrary.

Hi hi hi.

There can’t be, by definition, a “contrary” to “perfection”. The wise exhausts all possible logical and non logical spaces. Existences, absences, and beyond. It encompasses both the describable and the non describable. It drinks the entirety of all languages and then smashes them all. A being that relies on and embraces language and logic and the phenomenological events as “the world” is, volitionally, depriving itself of what lies beyond all these and beyond volition.

But the potential to “grasp” the “all”, is there. It’s not horrible. It’s not arrogance. It’s craziness.

What a medicine!

[Ceisiwr]

@Dogen

Phenomenology is anti-metaphysical insofar as it rejects every metaphysics concerned with the construction of purely formal hypotheses (Buddha’s attitude).

Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. That’s not the same as saying it’s metaphysics.

Phenomenology is a 20th century western philosophy. It’s as useful as examining the Dhamma through a Marxist or Feminist lens. If I were charitable I would say Phenomenological Buddhism is a modern person’s Abhidharma.

[Dogen]

@Ceisiwr

Phenomenology is a 20th century western philosophy. It’s as useful as examining the Dhamma through a Marxist or Feminist lens. If I were charitable I would say Phenomenological Buddhism is a modern person’s Abhidharma.

Well, I wish you good luck finding metaphysics in Pāli Canon.

[Ceisiwr]

@Dogen

Well, I wish you good luck finding metaphysics in Pāli Canon.

Denying the atta is a metaphysics. Claiming that all we can know is sense experience is a metaphysics.

[Vaddha]

@Ceisiwr

I mostly see people reinventing the wheel, but it’s usually a wonky one. EBT folks

By EBT, I assume Ven. Sunyo meant the Buddha’s statements in the early texts, not the various EBT-movements. Obviously those statements can be interpreted in various ways. But everyone would agree that both the Abhidhamma and MMK go significantly beyond them in what they say; that’s the point of commentaries and treatises. Whether the ideas are the same or not is a separate matter.

@Dogen

From this, saying “Buddha denied the reality of Atta substance” is a stretch.

As I mentioned in my comments on Madhyamaka emptiness, denying substance is not the same thing as making a positive proof for no substance. This kind of logic is found in the undeclared points as well. The Buddha can deny that something exists without affirming it does not exist. He can deny eternalism without affirming annihilationism. Those who deny this possibility will quite literally fail to grasp what “middle way” means. Because they think there are only two extremes and no middle. It’s exactly like the people who think you either have to believe in eternalism or be an annihilationist. Thinking these are the only two options leaves no room for escape.