SuttaCentral
When the suttas state the Buddha has ‘pātubhāvo’ (AN 1.171) in the world for the benefit of many people, is ‘pātubhāvo’ referring to the physical birth of Siddhartha Gotama or, alternately, the enlightened ‘transformation’ of the aggregates (khandha) that become the Lord Buddha?
“Enough, Vakkali! What is there to see in this vile body? He who sees Dhamma, Vakkali, sees me; he who sees me sees Dhamma. Truly seeing Dhamma, one sees me; seeing me one sees Dhamma.”
Thanks for the Suttas, your links were really helpful.
You many prefer DN 15 but I refer MN 98/Snp 3.9 about the ‘various orders of beings’.
Well yes, trees and beetles and quadrupeds and people of different castes and moral purity are different groups of beings, one can be born among them. What’s your point?
First, let’s be precise and say that the aggregates didn’t become the Lord Buddha, for ‘the Tathagata cannot be found even in this world’ 
Second, of course it doesn’t refer to an arising of Siddartha Gotama, it refers to arising of a Tathagata. It meas just that: ‘arising, coming into being’. There was no Tathagata, the Tathagata came into being. Analagously, new khandhas of a being who used to be, say, a beetle, have arisen, and now it is a dog. How does it refute the theory of the physical birth/conception? How does it give support to the theory that we are talking about the sense of self?
Yes, it did, ‘paṭilābho’ means ‘acquisition’ so ‘āyatanānaṃ paṭilābho’ means ‘acquisition of sense bases’. Does it refute the physical birth/conception theory? How?
Possibly SN 5.10 and SN 23.2
Okay, how should we translate and understand ‘satta’ and ‘sattakayo’ and what influence do they have on our translation and understanding of the word ‘jati’?
These suttas refer to the ontological status of ‘beings’, how they come into existence and what they truly are. If we look at MN 12 describing the Ten Powers of the Buddha (fifth, sixth and tenth powers), we’ll see that the Buddha refers to beings as just that, ‘beings’: they can have different inclinations, they can be ugly and beautiful, fortunate and unfortunate, etc. Moreover, the sixth power says ‘different beings and different people’. That is in that Sutta that doesn’t say anything about the ultimate ontological status of a being, we see the word ‘satta’ meaning just the regular English ‘being’. So, the most reasonable way to translate ‘sattānaṃ jāti’ would be ‘birth of beings’ on the most straightforward sense possible. If you think this is not correct, please explain and provide an alterative interpretation for MN 12 and its widely used stock phrases with ‘beings’.
Finally, it would be nice if you could share your ideas about AN 3.61 ad the fragment of the DO used in discussing the embryonal development. Besides, it would be great if you could explain to me something I cannot wrap my mind around: why does jayanti refer to physical birth and jati allegedly doesn’t?
Posssibly read MN 98/Snp 3.9 again.
Okay, I’m done. Still don’t see your point. Would you care to explain?
Really? The Buddha had no aggregates that attained enlightenment? What was the ‘citta’ refered to that experienced the destruction of craving or experienced _citta vimutt_i? Not an aggregate? If there was/is no Buddha in this world, was the Buddha with Jesus with the heavenly father in heaven? You believe in reincarnation but don’t believe the Buddha was ever in the world? Strange to me. How can enlightenment occur without consciousness & sense objects for vipassana?
Discernment (panna) & consciousness are conjoined, friend, not disjoined. It’s not possible, having separated them one from the other, to delineate the difference between them. For what one discerns, that one cognizes. What one cognizes, that one discerns. MN 43
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Then, friend Yamaka, how would you answer if you are thus asked: A monk, a worthy one, with no more mental effluents: what is he on the break-up of the body, after death?"
“Thus asked, I would answer, 'Form is inconstant… Feeling… Perception… Fabrications… Consciousness is inconstant. That which is inconstant is unsatisfactory. That which is unsatisfactory has ceased and gone to its end.”
"Very good, my friend Yamaka. Very good. SN 22.85
What exactly acquired the sense bases? Are you saying the relinking consciousness was floating in space, looking for sense bases to acquire, such as a person may go shopping to acquire some designer spectacles or a high tech hearing aid?
This sutta may possibly be relevant : SN 35.101
When you buy a house under a contract of sale, is not that acquisition claimed to be “my house” an ayatana (sense object)? Isn’t everything taken possession of or appropriated (paṭilābho) as “I” & “mine” an ayatana (sense object of a sense sphere?)
“What do you think, friend Yamaka, do you regard form as the Tathagata?”—“No, friend.”—“Do you regard feeling … perception … volitional formations … consciousness as the Tathagata?”—“No, friend.”
“What do you think, friend Yamaka, do you regard the Tathagata as in form?”—“No, friend.”—“Do you regard the Tathagata as apart from form?”—“No, friend.”—“Do you regard the Tathagata as in feeling? As apart from feeling? As in perception? As apart from perception? As in volitional formations? As apart from volitional formations? As in consciousness? As apart from consciousness?”—“No, friend.”
“What do you think, friend Yamaka, do you regard form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness taken together as the Tathagata?”—“No, friend.”
“What do you think, friend Yamaka, do you regard the Tathagata as one who is without form, without feeling, without perception, without volitional formations, without consciousness?”—“No, friend.”
“But, friend, when the Tathagata is not apprehended by you as real and actual here in this very life, is it fitting for you to declare: ‘As I understand the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One, a bhikkhu whose taints are destroyed is annihilated and perishes with the breakup of the body and does not exist after death’?”
Aggregates before attaining Enlightenment were not the Buddha, they were referred to as Siddhartha Gotama. After attaining Enlightenment, see above.
Acquired sense bases are organs of sensations developing in an embryo. You could say it is the embryo that acquires them.
Are you saying the relinking consciousness was floating in space, looking for sense bases to acquire, such as a person may go shopping to acquire some designer spectacles or a high tech hearing aid?
You are setting up a strawman, just as above with Jesus. Please don’t do it.
In human bodies as they are,
such differences cannot be found:
the only human differences
are those in names alone.
By karma caused a farmer is,
one’s a craftsman karma-caused,
by karma caused a merchant is,
one’s a servant karma-caused.
By karma caused a robber is,
one’s a soldier karma-caused,
by karma caused a priest becomes,
one’s a ruler karma-caused.
Thus according as it is
people wise do karma see;
Seers of causal relatedness,
skilled in karma, its results.
Alternative translation:
In human bodies in themselves, nothing distinctive can be found. Distinction among human beings is purely verbal designation….For name & clan are assigned, originating in conventions…Whoever makes his living among men by agriculture is called a ‘farmer’…Whoever makes his living among men by merchandise is called a ‘merchant’…that is how the wise truly see…seers of dependent origination. MN 98
Also:
Why now do you assume ‘a being’? Mara, have you grasped a view? This is a heap of sheer constructions: Here no being is found. Just as, with an assemblage of parts, the word ‘chariot’ is used, so, when the aggregates are present, there’s the convention ‘a being.’ SN 5.10
How does an embryo exactly ‘acquire’ sense organs? One would think sense organs simply ‘grow’ out of the physical organism. Where do the suttas state “acquired sense bases are organs of sensations developing in an embryo”. I already posted AN 4.171, which refers to the ‘acquisition’ of ‘personality’ or ‘individuality’.
Ayatana are not only ‘sense organs’. ‘Ayatana’ are sense organs & sense objects. What sense objects does not embryo acquire? Where is embryo & womb even mention in the definition of ‘jati’ in SN 12.2?
Certainly, because people belong to one biological species and one sattanikaya. Their social standing is caused by karma and has nothing to do with what sattanikaya they belong to. By kamma, they can also be reborn in another sattanikaya, say, as a beetle. This is in no way different from what I assumed was pretty straightforward.
Did the Buddha grasp the view when he saw ugly and beautiful, far and near beings arising and passing away from the world? Did he grasp a view when he recognised their different abilities? Once again, the discussion in SN 5.10 is about the ultimate ontological status of beings. In non-ontological contexts, as in MN 12 or the DO formula, the word ‘beings’ is used in a pretty much normal way.
They grow out of the organism, which is how it acquires them. That’s pretty much how objects acquire physical features and physical properties: would you criticize someone who uses this way of speaking? And yes, you posted about the ‘acquisition of personality’, we are, however, discussing ‘acquisition of sense bases’.
Is embryo a being belonging to an order of being? It is. There is no mention of womb in the definition of jati, that was a point I agree with you on.
Yes, true. But where is an explicit mention that the ayatana in the definition of birth encompass all sense bases?
A possible translation reflecting the views of Nanananda is as follows:
What is birth? The view or convention of ‘beings’ (I, me, you, etc) or different orders of beings (eg. mother, father, farmer, doctor, lawyer, soldier, man, woman, etc) based on the ‘appearance’ or ‘manifesting’ of the aggregates (breast feeding; using weapons, etc) & taking possession of the sense spheres (eg. my body, my mind, my house, my country, my religion, etc).
I’m done here.
The point is the views of Nanananda are views with some basis in the suttas. What we are debating is our own acquired (paṭilābho) interpretations (view and opinion).
Sure, that’s your right 
The above sounds like biology (bija niyama). The Nanananda-like-interpretation would be the suttas are primarily concerned with attachment & abandoning attachment and ‘paṭilābho’ sounds like a manifestation of attachment to me.
As I said, I’m done here.
‘A being,’ lord. ‘A being,’ it’s said. To what extent is one said to be ‘a being’? Any desire, passion, delight or craving for form, feeling, perception, mental formations &/or consciousness Radha: when one is caught up there, tied up there, one is said to be ‘a being’. SN 23.2
You asked for someone to explain Nanananda. I did my best to respond to your questions.
There are four acquisitions if individuality [including]…in that acquisition (paṭilābho) of individuality (attabhāva; self-becoming) in which one’s own volition (attasañcetanā) operates but not the volition of others (parasañcetanā), it is by reason of their own volition that beings (sattānaṃ) pass away (cuti; shift; vanish) from that group (kāyā). AN 4.171
Just conventional language.
[quote=“Vstakan, post:42, topic:2990”]
Finally, it would be nice if you could share your ideas about AN 3.61 ad the fragment of the DO used in discussing the embryonal development. Besides, it would be great if you could explain to me something I cannot wrap my mind around: why does jayanti refer to physical birth and jati allegedly doesn’t?[/quote]
My recollection is AN 3.61 is about how six elements form the development or entering of an embryo.
In relation to Nanananda-type-point-of-view, I would guess ‘jati’ is seen as used in the suttas to refer to both physical & self-social-identity birth. The Visuddhimagga had no issues with this. The Angulimala Sutta seems to have no issues with this where jati was used in two ways in one sentence. I would guess ancient languages derived terms originally from the physical.
With metta
“The craving that makes for further becoming — accompanied by passion & delight, relishing now here & now there — i.e., craving for sensual pleasure, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming: This, friend Visakha, is the origination of self-identification described by the Blessed One.” MN 44
Exactly. In the sutta describing an ontological status of beings and the sphere of application of this notion (‘to what extent is there a being?’) we find doctrinally precise terms: Satta is a conventional term for a phenomenal process characterized by clinging. Substituting the word with its definition in the jati definition: ‘These or those collections of clinging aggregates in these of those types of collections of clinging aggregates’, not ‘view or convention about clinging aggregates’, but rather the aggregates itself. Think about it: a table is a collection of atoms, ‘table’ is merely a convention used to denote it. However, when you say ‘We bought a table’ you don’t mean ‘we bought the conventional term denoting a collection of atoms’, you mean ‘we bought a collection of atoms’. Similarly ‘sattanam jati’ doesn’t refer to the emergence of the term / linguistic sign but rather to the emergence of its referent, as every other word does in every other context unless the opposite is explicitly stated by the speaker. Here, it is not explicitly stated.
As for the groups of beings, I don’t see how you can juxtapose ‘mother, father, merchant’ to ‘gods of neither-perception-nor-non-perception’ or ‘beetles’, i.e. practically species of beings, and say this is the same thing. People are a sattanikaya, ‘mother and father’ are not. I earlier used ‘sattakaya’ instead of ‘sattanikaya’, my apologies, that was a typo. Notice how the word ‘nikaya’ is never used in AN 4.171, instead it is speaking of ‘kayo’, bodies, the difference can be checked by looking into pretty much every Pali dictionary out there.
Namely thus: six elements → namarupa (which is defined in the DO formula as four great elements and their derivatives) → six sense bases → contact → feeling, which is literally a fragment of the DO chain. How should we interpret it?
Some new publications of Ven. Nananada’s talks are found here. Of particular interest to this thread are the books on Dependent Origination.
When suffering & its causes arise according to DO, this dependent genesis appears to be occurring to a body & mind, as described in MN 149 for example:
For him — uninfatuated, unattached, unconfused, remaining focused on their drawbacks — attachment to the five aggregates heads ttoward future accumulation. The craving that makes for further becoming — accompanied by passion & delight, relishing now this & now that — grows within him. His bodily disturbances & mental disturbances grow. His bodily torments & mental torments grow. His bodily distresses & mental distresses grow. He is sensitive both to bodily stress & mental stress.
Just because the six elements combine to make up a human life does not necessarily mean DO is describing the creation of life or biology.
For example, when SN 22.53 describes the state of liberation, it does not state consciousness disappears. Instead, it only describes consciousness ceasing to be polluted/tainted by ignorance & craving:
If a monk abandons passion for the property of consciousness, then owing to the abandonment of passion, the support is cut off, and there is no landing of consciousness. Consciousness, thus not having landed, not increasing, not concocting, is released. Owing to its release, it is steady. Owing to its steadiness, it is contented. Owing to its contentment, it is not agitated. Not agitated, he (the monk) is totally unbound right within.
[quote=“Vstakan, post:56, topic:2990”]
In the sutta describing an ontological status of beings and the sphere of application of this notion (‘to what extent is there a being?’) we find doctrinally precise terms: Satta is a conventional term for a phenomenal process characterized by clinging. [/quote]
‘Convention’ is not necessarily truth. Convention appears to be the language of worldly-suffering-wrought-ignorance. Any process characterized by clinging is obviously more deeply characterized by ignorance & delusion.
Aggregates sound like just aggregates. If the mind perceived only aggregates, I imagine it would not perceive ‘man’, woman’, ‘monk’, ‘deva’, ‘doctor’, ‘lawyer’, ‘hungry ghost’, ‘animal’, etc, that is, the various orders or groups of ‘beings’; or more essentially: “my mother, my father, my daughter, my teacher, my guru, my god, my nation, my clan, the gods I fear, the gods I honor, etc”.
I heard when Ajahn Chah would use a drinking glass, he regarded it as already broken or smashed into ‘atoms’.; for him there was no drinking glass; only atoms. I imagine the unenlightened mind sees a ‘table’ & not ‘atoms’. Perceiving a ‘table’ & particularly ‘my table’; manufacturing the idea of the ‘table owner’; is what Nanananda would regard to be ‘birth’.
I suppose Nanananda would argue the ‘referent’ arises at sense contact & the consolidation or solidification of the personality view in relation to the referent arises at jati, similar to the description in SN 12.12.
[quote=“Vstakan, post:56, topic:2990”]
As for the groups of beings, I don’t see how you can juxtapose ‘mother, father, merchant’ to ‘gods of neither-perception-nor-non-perception’ or ‘beetles’, i.e. practically species of beings, and say this is the same thing. People are a sattanikaya, ‘mother and father’ are not. I earlier used ‘sattakaya’ instead of ‘sattanikaya’, my apologies, that was a typo. Notice how the word ‘nikaya’ is never used in AN 4.171, instead it is speaking of ‘kayo’, bodies, the difference can be checked by looking into pretty much every Pali dictionary out there.[/quote]
Sattanikaya could refer to groups of beings such as hungry ghosts, devas, etc, where as mother & father could simply be sattanam.
As for AN 4.171, I mentioned it as it refers to the ‘acquisition’ of ‘personality’ in various circumstances pertaining to both internal & external intention. In other words, AN 4.171 seems to possibly refer to the acquisition of an ‘idea’ rather than the acquisition of physical things.
In conclusion, I think Nanananda’s viewpoints do have some possible merits and cannot be simply written off.
Regards.
When Buddhism is introduced into a new space, people try to make it fit with their already established beliefs. That is how secular buddhism and postmodernist buddhist developed in the west. The way to refute Nanananda/Nanavira/Nanamoli postmodernism is very simple. There are inumerable ways to do it but the 2 questions that simply destroy it are these:
1) If DO happens in a structural not temporal way, then that means if a person attains arahanthip at 22:45, then at 22:45 he loses consciousness. We all know from the suttas that is not what happened with arahants. The 1 life interpretation is destroyed by this very simple fact. If ignorance ceases at 22:45, then consciousness also ceases at 22:45.
2) Solipsism. If you die tomorrow, will your family or other beings continue to exist ? The answer any illusionist/postmodernist should give is: NO - only my internal “phenomenological” world exists. All other beings are “philosophical zombies”.
Suttas that specifically destroy the interpretation are:
- SN 22.94 - explaining things do exist and that any “wise man in the world” agrees on that.
- SN 14.7 - explaining the diversity of perceptions depends on the diversity of elements. In Triple N’s view only diversity of perceptions exist and the diversity of elements is just an illusion created through the internal process of assumption
- other suttas: SN 24.1 , AN 6.41, DN 6, MN 28
These are specific suttas destroying the solipsist interpretation. But a good way to do it is simply read the pali canon to see for onself what Buddha had to say rather than read books of contemporary bhikkhus. When one reads a book, attachment to that book develops. If one read postmodernist he develops attachment to postmodernism. If one reads abbhidhamma he develops attachment to abbhidhamma. If one read the bible he develops attachment to the bible. The postmodernist interpretation of buddhism is much more dangerous because they tell you that you become a sotapanna by simply becoming a solipsist. And this brings even more mental conditioning. On top of this, it has the “jehova witness” factor because it claims such a few number of people have got the idea and they are the only sotapannas in the world and all others are stupid traditionalist so even more mental conditioning. I have been in this interpretation for half a year in the past before I started reading SN by myself to see what Buddha had to say about the problem.
Speaking of witch, postmodernist buddhist are not allowed to read the canon because their teachers (the triple N’s) claim it was monstruously mistranslated by traditionalist. The way I got out of this interpretation was by translating the first sutta of DO by myself witch took me 2 days. (there are pages about each word on wiki and pali dictionary). Their whole interpretation is based on twisting this single sutta from SN chapter 2. So what I suggest doing is translating that sutta by oneself to see who murdered it to make a case for his views. If one finds out they had murdered the DO sutta, then they lose all crediblity and the person can go on to read the canon by himself without been afraid it was destroyed by evil “traditionalist” B.Bodhi.
Another problem of postmodernism is simply making no sense, having an elementary logical mistake in every paragraph. This is how they got to the famous Sokall Affair. You just write things that make no sense but write in complicated language that looks smart - and if the person doesn’t get it, it means the person is too stupid to understand your genius. In postmodernist buddhism they simply call them “a paradox” and conclude that “buddha teachings are paradoxical”. Like any postmodernist, they argue against logic and reason and propose the element of “categorical intuition”. Since the person is now a sotapanna, he now poses the so called “categorial intuition” so no matter what evidence others might provide, that is no match for “categorical intuition” that overwrites any arguments based on logic. So even more mental conditioning.
