Viññāṇa anidassana: the state of boundless consciousness

[Green]

@Sunyo

In short, I don’t think an arahant has got rid off one type of consciousness (whatever we call it, “built up” or “kamma”) and is left with another. Not per the suttas’ definitions, anyway. So to clarify my point in replying to Charlie: As I understand it, all consciousness is ‘build up’, that is to say, is created (sankhāra-ed) by ignorance and karma of the past life, including that of the arahant.

I think the sutta’s are very clear that the arahant has uprooted all anusaya, asava, tanha, kilesa, so the kinds of vinnana’s in which those were formerly incorporated do not arise anymore. In me such vinnana’s arise still, in which such emotions or passions are incorporated. In an arahant this does not happen.

So, even from the sutta’s, it is very clear that an arahant has a certain kind of vinnana, i.e. only the sensing-vinnana, , but has also lost the vinnana’s in which reactive forces are incorporated such as lobha and dosa (these are called kamma-vinnana’s in Abhidhamma).

Those vinnana’s with incorporated emotions are kammic seeds and those seeds build up in way that when one feeds those kinds of vinnana’s, for example, feeds the vinnana in which hate is incorporated, the kammic seeds of a vinnana loaded with the energy of hate, builds up and becomes stronger and stronger. Such strong kamma seeds can even lead to rebirth in lower realms. I have learned that only these kinds of vinnana play a role in rebirth and not sense-vinnana’s.

When one feeds a kamma-vinnana, for example, the vinnana loaded with hate, and make this vinnana very strong, then such a kamma-vinnana can suddenly come to mind, and at once one is full of anger.
There is immediately an explosive situation. That is what strong kamma seeds mean. The situation becomes intensely loaded.

I belief things often can be interpretated over many lives and in one live. For example, one can think of birth in this life and also over many lives. The same with death. I also belief this is the crux of Buddha-Dhamma. In this live we can, for example, mentally take birth often as an animal when we become quickly agressive. If this becomes a habit, a strong habit in our lives, (a strong kamma seed) it can even lead to birth as an animal after death.

This relationship between how we mentally take birth in our current lives here and now, and rebirth is what Paticca Samuppada descibes . This relationship was seen by the Buddha while awaking. For example he saw that when people embrace the practise of living like a cow or dog and develop all their habits and mentallities, then they are reborn as cow and dog. That is because they mentally live as human as a cow and dog. They take birth as cow and dog constantly in this live. (MN57)

If one takes mentally birth as a deva, i.e. when one in this body takes often and quickly birth in a loving and caring way, friendly, warm-hearted, then one has a strong kamma seed for birth in deva realm after death. Etc. This is what PS describes. It describes, in very short, that what we feed now, becomes our future. Feeding means building up. Building up hateful vinnana, building up loving vinnana, builing up greed vinnana etc.

So, how we live now, the choices we make now, the dominant habits we have now, what we develop now, the way we take mentally birth in this live now, that can be a designator for the kind of rebirth we can expact.

[Charlie]

@Green

So there is vinnana too for an arahant. When avijja stops that does not mean that vipaka vinnana stops. What stops is kamma-vinnana.

Thank you for your response. Seems like the Abhidhamma folks were also trying to clarify this.

@Sunyo

In short, I don’t think an arahant has got rid off one type of consciousness (whatever we call it, “built up” or “kamma”) and is left with another. Not per the suttas’ definitions, anyway. So to clarify my point in replying to Charlie: As I understand it, all consciousness is ‘build up’, that is to say, is created (sankhāra-ed) by ignorance and karma of the past life, including that of the arahant.

Maybe thinking of it as two forms of consciousness vs two types makes things clearer. Like water and steam. Water is just water but steam is dispersed within the air (or can be). In other words, liquid water and steam are both forms that water may take but they are not two types of water.

With regards to worldly consciousness, it differs from the consciousness aggregate in that it appears only with the presence of ignorance. When ignorance ceases, this built-up form ceases because without ignorance it has no support. What remains is the consciousness aggregate in and of itself along with the other four – also in and of themselves – that is to say abandoned and scattered. But just because something is abandoned and scattered does not mean that it ceases to exist.

How about this: I take hold of five rocks and hold them tightly in my hand with the sense of this is me, this is mine. Then I decide no, they aren’t, and toss them on the ground where they are left scattered and abandoned. None of them have ceased to exist yet my relationship with them is now totally different. Suffering is not caused by the aggregates but rather the grasping of them.

The suttas show that all five aggregates remain to be experienced by the arahant. We can’t have something cease to exist while at the same time continuing to exist.

[Sunyo]

Cool, I think we all agree but just use different words. Non-built-up consciousness or vipaka-consciousness, or just the aggregate of consciousness: clearly something remains for the arahant, whatever we call it.

My main point here is that viññāṇa anidassana is not nibbāna.

[Green]

@Charlie

Suffering is not caused by the aggregates but rather the grasping of them.

This is a topic on her own. But, i feel this way too. But, i do not think this is the message of the early texts. Because even the re-arising of the khandha’s, i.e. re-birth, is seen as suffering. It seems like the early textst say that one cannot really seperate existence and suffering.

I am not so sure about all this. Is there, for example, really something like bodily suffering? Or is all suffering mental? I think different buddhist masters and school have different opinions about this.
I tend to the view that all suffering is mental, all suffering is mind-made. Bodily suffering is also mental. All we know about the body is mental. If we see the body it is mental. If we feel the body it is mental.
If we touch the body that is mental. If we experience the body that is mental. What does rupa mean?
Rupa is for us also something mental, right?

The 16th Karmapa became ill, but his doctors said that he did not seem to suffer in any way, not even from the intense pains he must have had. Is it truthful to say, in this case, illness and pain is suffering?

[sujato]

@Sunyo

I think we all agree but just use different words

Yes, I think the confusion here is that in the Abhidhamma, it speaks of viññāṇa or citta as Green uses it, where if a certain state of mind has, for example, hate in it, it is called a dosacitta.

The Suttas don’t really speak in this way. There’s “mind with hate” (sadosacitta) but not really “hate-mind” (dosacitta). A subtle difference, to be sure!

[stu]

This essay is now available in theMettāShelf Library (an ongoing prototype for an online Library for contemporary Buddhist Literature), with an new format A5 pdf version included in the download section.

Viññāṇa Anidassana by Bhikkhu Sunyo.

[Green]

@sujato

Yes, I think the confusion here is that in the Abhidhamma, it speaks of viññāṇa or citta as Green uses it, where if a certain state of mind has, for example, hate in it, it is called a dosacitta.

I have learned that Abhdihamma teaches that citta is different from vinnana, in this sense, that citta refers to an uncontamined cognitive moment and vinnana to the defiled stage of cognition.
The citta which is pure evolves to vinnana while it gets quickly contaminated.

This would happen in 9 stages. In the vinnana stage the thought-process (the ongoing cognition) is contamined (with greed hate etc) and removed from nana, from wisdom. The thought process or cognising of an arahant only develops to the first 3 stages and does not remove from wisdom.

I think it tries to describe that the pure citta is present but gets contamined very quickly and unwillingly by incoming defilements.

The pure citta has the 7 universal cetasika’s only, but vinnana has more cetasika’s incorporated. Vinnana, for us, is seldon only seeing, only hearing. There is much more going on. The vinnana is most of the time full of expactations, emotions, intentions, longings etc.

So, in this approach vinnana refers to the defiled stages of the cognitive proces which takes place very rapidly and beyond our control. Citta refers in this approach to the most purest form of cognition with only 7 universal cetasika yet.

I think also the sutta’s teach that defilements are not intrinsic, always present, but are arising, incoming and adventitious. While arising, wisdom weakens. This is very often described in the sutta’s…“these five hindrances, imperfections of the mind that weaken wisdom…”…(for example MN27). With the arising of hindrances wisdom weakens.

One can also see this in the fact that the suta’s (MN9, AN6.63) teach that ignorance has a cause, i.e. the asava’s and vice versa. While they arise avijja arises. One might say, when asava arise, it weakens the present wisdom of the pure citta. It defiles the pure citta to the stage of vinnana.

I belief there is wisdom in the pure citta but while for example sensual longings arise, the citta contaminates with this longing, it develops wrong view, it starts imaginating happiness, it develops a strong sense of ego. At this point the initial pure citta has become contaminated and the original present wisdom of the pure citta is weakened and is almost gone.

I think Buddha-Dhamma has those two faces of a wisdom one can develop, and a wisdom that is allready present in the first place. Like the fully undefiled mind has a wisdom on her own.

I think one can say that removing defilements does not really create the pure citta. The pure citta is not created or produces by our efforts, it is only freed from the defilements. There lies our effort. But we cannot create the pure citta. Maybe in this context the Buddha used words like ‘unmade, unbecome, unconditioned’ (in Udana 8).

Do you agree with this Bhante Sujato. Do you think this is all still in line with EBT?

[Charlie]

@Green

This is a topic on her own. But, i feel this way too. But, i do not think this is the message of the early texts. Because even the re-arising of the khandha’s, i.e. re-birth, is seen as suffering. It seems like the early textst say that one cannot really seperate existence and suffering.

But in order for re-birth to occur, would not ignorance already be present. Could re-birth occur in the absence of ignorance? I don’t think so. It depends on how one defines existence I suppose. My sense of it is that as long as there is a sense of ‘I am’ then there is the sense of existence. And for there to be that sense of ‘I am’, there must be ignorance.

@Green

Is there, for example, really something like bodily suffering? Or is all suffering mental?

I see the aggregates as a conceptual tool that Buddha came up with in order to help us reflect and observe our worldly existence. Similar to how we created the six biological kingdoms (Plants, animals, fungi, etc) in order to be able to talk about and investigate the various forms of life. The one ‘super kingdom’ - the life force which underlies all of them– we really don’t understand at all.

Consciousness/awareness (in its general English usage) is fundamental to our experience for without it there would be no experience whatsoever. Yet, like the life force, we don’t understand anything about it because it has no qualities in and of itself. It is not a thing but rather the experience of the appearance of things. There are several suttas that refer to the fundamental role of the consciousness aggregate with relation to the others. Buddha certainly suffered great pain during his life – even as an Arahant. But I think, as he used the term, it (suffering) is dependent on ignorance. And this is because the aggregates in their built-up form create the sense of a separate self that is bound-up with that pain – be it bodily or mental pain – there is no escape.

But the imperturbable awareness of the Arahant is not bound-up with that pain. It is clear that this awareness remains un-entangled with any of the other aggregates (that is to say, they are not built-up, not compounded). Still, it probably really hurts like hell, so I get what you are saying – this is just how I look at it. If you include consciousness (again, in its everyday meaning) as an aspect of mind, then without mind, I don’t see how there would be discernible pain.

Just to go entirely off-topic for a moment: We now have literally thousands of well-documented NDE’s where people describe separating from their physical bodies at the time of horrific injuries and feeling no pain while they observe from a distance their body and what is taking place while experiencing no pain and no sense of the body at all. And the senses of sight, hearing, and thinking continue to operate. So this whole mind-body thing is pretty strange. And they describe that as they ‘re-enter’ their body, the pain appears. Life is interesting.

@Green

The 16th Karmapa became ill, but his doctors said that he did not seem to suffer in any way, not even from the intense pains he must have had

There are a number of similar accounts from the Thai Forest Tradition as well.

@Sunyo

My main point here is that viññāṇa anidassana is not nibbāna.

Is there anyone out there describing it as that? I have always seen it described as the nature of the awareness of the Arahant (with the exception of Ven.’s Sujato and Analayo?). And in my initial post here, this is what I was proposing as well: That this term is describing the awareness or consciousness of the Arahant as opposed to the feature-rich consciousness of a worldly person. I think when we look broadly at the suttas, this is the most likely meaning. Perhaps I will summarize this in some future post titled YAPOVA (Yet Another Post On Vinnana Anidassana)

[Green]

@Charlie

But the imperturbable awareness of the Arahant is not bound-up with that pain. It is clear that this awareness remains un-entangled with any of the other aggregates (that is to say, they are not built-up, not compounded).

Can you give more explanation?

[stu]

@Green

Can you give more explanation?

I presumed @Charlie was talking about the sort of thing that we get in SN36.6

[Charlie]

@Green

Can you give more explanation?

Did you look at SN 22.079 that I mentioned in my first post? The aggregates as built-up vs scattered and abandoned?
Worldly consciousness is defined as being bound with a sense organ and it’s object - so ear consciousness + the ear + plus a sound. Sort of like an inch-worm, it is always grasping one thing or another. So worldly consciousness isn’t just the consciousness aggregate - it is always bound-up with an object. We have idioms like “it grabbed my attention” or “it caught my eye” (though usually it is ‘he’ or ‘she’ and not ‘it’) that give the sense of how this consciousness leaps about this way and that from one object to another. This is what is meant by built-up. And this building-up is said to be driven by passion and delight. And then we further complicate things by building up built-up aggregates - for example: Someone across the street catches my eye (build-up 1) and the thought ‘she is my soulmate’ pops into my mind (build-up 2) and then I take 2 and project it onto 1 (build-up 3) and it all goes down hill from there.

But if you have the experience of in seeing there is just the seen, in thinking just thoughts, then no build-up can ever happen. It’s just a flow of experience. This is my take on it anyway.

@stu

I presumed @Charlie was talking about the sort of thing that we get in SN36.6

Yes, this is a good example. If we look broadly at the suttas there are many teachings that revolve around this general idea. For example, in SN 12.64 (Than.) we have

In the same way, where there is no passion for the nutriment of physical food… contact… intellectual intention… consciousness, where there is no delight, no craving, then consciousness does not land there or increase. Where consciousness does not land or increase, there is no alighting of name-&-form. Where there is no alighting of name-&-form, there is no growth of fabrications. Where there is no growth of fabrications, there is no production of renewed becoming in the future.

This describes the same sort of awareness of the Arahant - just from a different angle. Consciousness is not absent but rather it does not land or increase.

Compare that with this from SN36.6

If he feels a pleasant feeling, he feels it detached. If he feels a painful feeling, he feels it detached. If he feels a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, he feels it detached. This, bhikkhus, is called a noble disciple who is detached from birth, aging, and death

And apparently the 16th karmapa is describing the same kind of thing. And not to keep harping on this but just to keep harping on this - this is also what I am saying vinnana anidassana is referring to. Formless concentration states are not featureless - their feature is in their name. This is why they are considered temporary forms of release but with a sequel.

[Ceisiwr]

@Charlie

But if you have the experience of in seeing there is just the seen, in thinking just thoughts, then no build-up can ever happen. It’s just a flow of experience. This is my take on it anyway.

Based on SN 35.95 it looks like that practice is simply the perfecting of sense restraint. That is of course no small thing, but I suspect you think of it in a different way.

[Charlie]

@Ceisiwr

Based on SN 35.95 it looks like that practice is simply the perfecting of sense restraint. That is of course no small thing, but I suspect you think of it in a different way.

Yes and no. I agree that it can and is used to develop sense restraint. But like other Buddhist practices it is also a deeper teaching on the nature of the awakened state. The Bahiya sutta gives the same teaching and continues (my emphasis)

When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress.

So yes, it describes a practice and at the same time is describing some quality of the awakened state. Look at the similarity with the others already mentioned:

If he feels a pleasant feeling, he feels it detached. If he feels a painful feeling, he feels it detached. If he feels a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, he feels it detached – SN 36.6

In the same way, where there is no passion for the nutriment of physical food… contact… intellectual intention… consciousness, where there is no delight, no craving, then consciousness does not land there or increase. -SN 12.64

Or we can talk about the aggregates being built-up or abandoned and scattered. All pointing at the same experience - just from different angles.

[Green]

@Charlie

. So worldly consciousness isn’t just the consciousness aggregate - it is always bound-up with an object.

Hi @Charlie, thanks for explaining. This sentence got my vinnana-attention

I think the sutta’s teach that any kind of vinnana does always arise together with an aramanna, an object. I think also the vinnana of the arahant. Vinnana is always in connection with a sense-object because that’s why the vinnana arises in the first place.

I belief that for an arahant the situation is like this that sense consciousness arises but it is not instinctively connected via anusaya with the heart or mind.

I like to speak of the heart or heart base. For me the heart gets liberated but not vinnana gets liberated. The heart is oppressed, not vinnana. If the heart is liberated it is, as it were, not glued anymore to arising vinnana and they just come and go. That also means, not glued to sanna, sankhara, vedana, because those are aspects of vinnana. There is no from vinnana seperate sanna, vedana or sankhara.

I also see this difference in meditation. In the head one can be very calm, empty, still the heart is full, closed, restricted and not liberated at all. And the otherway around can happen to. The mental consciousness is very active (many thoughts, ideas etc) but the heart is very calm, liberated.
Liberation is not of our heads. We do not have to get empty headed but empty hearthed. There is a load on our hearts.

What are your thought?

[Charlie]

@Green

Vinnana is always in connection with a sense-object because that’s why the vinnana arises in the first place.

Could be. Clearly there is a difference between how a worldly person experiences phenomena and an Arahant. There is a sutta (can’t remember the number) where the Buddha says that upon his awakening, the world disappears (while the Loka Sutta defines what he means by the world). As I recall, one definition is the five strings of sensuality. So something about the power of objects to pull us in – something vanishes. Mind, awareness seems to break free or something falls away. Consciousness is a mysterious thing. Perhaps consciousness and what consciousness is aware of are not two things but two aspects of the same thing.

@Green

For me the heart gets liberated but not vinnana gets liberated. The heart is oppressed, not vinnana. If the heart is liberated it is, as it were, not glued anymore to arising vinnana and they just come and go

It is certainly possible. I think the Buddha looks at this from a number of different angles. And I think that modern Arahants each have their own way of talking about this. The general consensus seems to be that the experience is not describable - though they do go on to describe. I just hope we get a Buddha that is a native English speaker soon. That could clear things up a bit. Though I do think they would probably get blocked from most forums in short order.

@Green

I also see this difference in meditation. In the head one can be very calm, empty, still the heart is full, closed, restricted and not liberated at all. And the otherway around can happen to

Yes, I can relate to what you are saying here.

[Green]

@Charlie

Clearly there is a difference between how a worldly person experiences phenomena and an Arahant.

Maybe. I think a worldly person is also not constant attached to sense-objects. For example, traveling by train many sense-objects come and go. One sees a lot. But one does not become attached or emotional involved in those sense-objects. Experiences just arise, exist a while and go. But than, one sees a nice house. And at once liking arises and all kind of thoughts about living in such a house etc.
The mind has becomes hooked to that specific vision of a nice house. That moment there is tanha and upadana. But this does not always arise with any sense-object, also not for a worldling, i belief.
The difference between an worldly person and an arahant is, i belief, that tanha and updana does never arise anymore with any sense-object.

The ending or cessation of the world refers, i think to a special state of mind called sannavedayitanirodha in which there is no cognition (citta vithi). The six sense domains are absent.
Still there seems to be a kind of knowing that all is ceased. So, it is not like being unconscious.

@Charlie

Perhaps consciousness and what consciousness is aware of are not two things but two aspects of the same thing

Yes, i have learned that the object of awareness is the rupa. So, a sound is rupa, a smell, a tactile feeling, a visual image, a taste. Ideas and memories which come to mind and which are the object of mental of mind-consciousness are called dhamma and they are taught to be a special kind of rupa’s too.

[Charlie]

@Green

For example, traveling by train many sense-objects come and go. One sees a lot. But one does not become attached or emotional involved in those sense-objects.

This is true but I think this is due to a neutral feeling toward such phenomena - which for a worldly person may change at any time due to conditions. For example, let’s say you have no real interest in a place - Tanzania. You really don’t ever think about it. Then you meet a person from there that you really are attracted to. Suddenly you are fascinated by all things Tanzanian. Why? Because you now associate a pleasant feeling with that country. I don’t think the mind of an Arahant would find itself tossed about like that due to changing conditions.

@Green

The ending or cessation of the world refers, i think to a special state of mind called sannavedayitanirodha in which there is no cognition (citta vithi).

Is this EBT or commentarial? My sense of that is that The World in this context depends fundamentally on ignorance. When that is gone, the world ceases, and it doesn’t come back.

[Charlie]

@Charlie

@Sunyo

My main point here is that viññāṇa anidassana is not nibbāna.

Is there anyone out there describing it as that?

My apologies. I was just reading Ven. Nanananda’s discussion of this topic (Vol 24 of The Mind Stilled) and he mentions that Ven. Buddhaghosa states a view that vinnana anidassana refers to nibbana. Is this what you were thinking of?

The commentator [ Ven Buddhaghosa ] begins his exposition with the word viññāṇaṃ itself. He comes out with a peculiar etymology: Viññāṇan’ti tattha viññātabbanti viññāṇaṃ nibbānassa nāmaṃ, which means that the word viññāṇa, or consciousness, is in this context a synonym for Nibbāna, in the sense that it is ‘to be known’, viññātabbaṃ. …

Next, he takes up the word anidassana, and makes the following comment: Tad etaṃ nidassanābhāvato anidassanaṃ, that Nibbāna is called anidassana because no illustration for it could be given.

[Green]

@Charlie

This is true but I think this is due to a neutral feeling toward such phenomena - which for a worldly person may change at any time due to conditions.

For me the example shows that mind it not attached all the time to every sense-object. Not all sense objects do tanha to arise and upadana. Only specific sense-objects do tanha and upadana arise.
The mind has not interest for all sense-objects and this is related to our character, habits, disposition.
Tanha does not arise when the mind has, in a unconscious way, no interest for the sense-object. Some people become really passionate by a car and can’t stop looking and another person has no interest. In him/her no tanha and upadana arises in relation to that car.

It is like seeing woman or man. Many visuals do not tanha and upadana to arise and then you see a man or woman and your mind hooks. Unconsciously there has something happened. Tanha has arisen.

@Charlie

Is this EBT or commentarial? My sense of that is that The World in this context depends fundamentally on ignorance. When that is gone, the world ceases, and it doesn’t come back

I do not think the Buddha saw avijja as a first cause or as something which actively causes rebirth or creates the world. The builder of the house is tanha. And avijja means that one does not see this and is not on the Path to make an end to building.

[Charlie]

@Green

I do not think the Buddha saw avijja as a first cause…

I think there is good discussion to be had on that but I think we have drifted way off the OP’s original topic. Would you care to start a new thread on that?