This is all worrying to me
I have never used the term “Dhammakaya”, and I have no idea how you are relating this to what I have written above. I am assuming that Burgs is a layperson and therefore not an Arahant. If that is the case, then he would not know what Nibbana was any more than any other non-Ariya.
It would be very easy to get confused again with this statement. Without having the author of the article to explain what is meant by “Jhanas are not Bhavanga” it is difficult to understand exactly what is meant.
Jhana is the Citta experiencing the state of Bhavanga. In Dhamma in Practice, Luang Poo Tate says, “Bhavanga occurs when the mind enters Jhana.” Or in The Flavour of Dhamma, “This is the same as when the Cittas’ of some meditators become collected, attain the
Bhavanga and are in Jhāna,”. At first, this could be seen to contradict your quote, however, I believe that your quote from Burgs refers to the Bhavanga being “arrested” in Jhana. In other words, the Citta Vitthi has been arrested and external sense impressions are temporarily suspended. If I am correct, then there is no contradiction.
I cannot “show” you what it looks like. It is something you have to experience yourself, and not everybody has the exactly the same experience. The experience is personal.
As Luang Dta Maha Boowa says, "If the Citta was already pure, then one could ask the question, “Why does it need to be purified.” It is luminous, but not pure.
Or, maybe you would prefer the words of Luang Poo Dtun, “Finally the life continuum (Bhavanga Citta) was abandoned and discontinued. This was the end of the “cycle of existence” Sankharavattha) at that moment and is called “Nibbana” and the complete cessation of all things (dhammas). Therefore neither bright lights nor jhana attainments or even the Bhavanga Citta should be clung to because they are all things that arise and cease, created and belonging to the world.”
Maybe you would prefer me to use the term “defiled” rather than impure?
He basically did claim attainments in his books. In a very humble way I might add, he said he made mistakes in his past lives so, don’t take him as so high a role model.
This is where the lack of proper Abhidhamma studies in Thai forest tradition might have done a lot of damage to their credibility in teaching about Abhidhammic terminologies.
In Abhidhamma they are not the same. There’s also a clear indication that when one falls into bhavaṅga in meditation, it’s basically just sleeping in meditation. It’s peaceful and calm, but not much awareness.
I have to elaborate more then. Arahants still have bhavaṅga mind, but are freed from defilements, impurities of greed, hatred, delusion. The most you can label bhavaṅga and the 5 unclung to aggregates of the arahants as is old kamma, not impure.
There is a book (I cannot remember the title) authored by a western monk. It describes, in detail, the process and experience of becoming the various stages of Ariya, including details of seeing and destroying Avijja. It is quite convincing. It is not until you get to the end of the book that the author confesses that the details were shown to him in a trance like state when he was delirious with fever. He then admits, after you’ve read all the book, that the described experiences were not his own. We have to be careful about accepting all that we read.
The Thai teachers are not comparing their teaching to Abhidhamma. They are comparing it to reality! This is the difference between meditating and studying.
@NgXinZhao Sorry, the issue of the term defiled or impure was in relation to @Green.
If Citta can really change, it is Not Citta.
It’s not easy to find ready image of the Jhāna mind process. The horizonal is time, the circle represents mind moment. So B is bhavaṅga, the life continuum. Jh there is the Jhāna mind.
This shows first entering into Jhāna only for a moment then got out of it.
When one masters the Jhānas to be able to enter and remain for a long time, the Jh are many trillions, whatever big number you can think of, for a long time, and then back to Bhavaṅga when got out of the Jhāna. So it indicates that the mind is only with the object, and cannot do I-making, my making, it’s non-dual, no subject object experience, no sense doors working, because no sense door cognitive process, the 5 physical senses are totally shut in absorption.
I am not gonna worry anymore about all these ideas about jhana, that really are all over the place, i feel.
Also not about parinibbana.
SN 12.61:
But that which is called ‘citta’ and also ‘mano’ and also ‘viññāṇa’ arises as one thing and ceases as another all day and all night. It’s like a monkey moving through the forest. It grabs hold of one branch, lets it go, and grabs another; then it lets that go and grabs yet another.
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We do not talk about the same concepts. Here the character of the grasping mind is clearly explained. Defiled mind. Literally monkey mind is explained there in SN12.61. This is a designation for mind that is untamed and drifts/jumps from sense domain to sense-domain. There is no seclusion in that mind. I think we can all understand what this monkey mind is: scattered, untamed, all over the place, ruled by inner drifts etc.
I understand buddhism this way that exactly such perception of mind, as monkey mind, exactly such
perceptions, such experiences of mind, such understanding based upon experience, lead to a wrong understanding of what mind really is.
If someone has such tendencies to drift along the sense-domains like a monkey that grabs branches, someone also really starts to see this as the true character of mind. But if this grasping would cease, also that wrong understanding of mind ceases. This person will now understand that mind does not arise and cease as diffferent things.
Buddha does this all the time. He teaches on the level of how people perceive things, and aligns with that, finds an entrence there, and he also teaches how things really are.
But people deal with such sutta’s as above as absolute truths which, i feel, is not wise. It clearly desribes a mind with grasping. It is not meant to teach about the true characteristics of mind!
Citta as used by Maha Boowa has nothing to do with monkey mind.
But also @HinMarkPeng must realise Citta cannot change. What can change is not Citta.
There is also mind vs. spirit. Maybe Buddha by teaching mind as not-self really tought spirit?
What’s your definition of spirit? A soul, a self?
Like a spark of Nibbana or Buddha-nature
Not saying this ia true, but I think would be a better argument for @green.
Isnt it clear that:
"But that which is called ‘citta’ and also ‘mano’ and also ‘viññāṇa’ arises as one thing and ceases as another all day and all night. It’s like a monkey moving through the forest. It grabs hold of one branch, lets it go, and grabs another; then it lets that go and grabs yet another. (SN12.61)
…describes a very defiled mind. It makes no sense to believe that the Buddha teaches here the true characteristic of mind. Or he must also have still such a grasping monkey mind, which i do not believe.
His only point is that mind is conditioned and not permanent. There is nothing more to mind than to an apple.if there is an “I”, it is not mind, that’s what it means …
According to Abhidhamma, the mind of arahants also changes, moment to moment. Just without greed, hatred, delusion, and is functional instead of kammically active. They can get into Jhānas which has stablilty of same mind for a long time and it’s described as happiness in the here and now for them. Thus, yes, even the mind changing for arahants is a form of dissatisfaction for them, but it doesn’t result in unplesant mental feelings.
If mind cannot change, the function of seeing, hearing etc, to the eye consciousness, ear consciousness cannot function. So even arahants have minds that changes and very fast like us, to be able to see, hear etc.
Venerable,
It seems that the Theravāda Abhidhamma considers the attainment of saññāvedayitanirodha to entail a temporary ending or non-arising of all cittas. Do you know how the Abhidhamma tradition handles the problem of cittas re-arising without prior cittas as condition? I.e. the problem of ex nihilo, something arising from nothing. I haven’t seen this theoretical problem addressed in any Abhidhamma materials, but I have barely studied any Abhidhamma.
But sir, how does someone emerge from the cessation of perception and feeling?”
“A mendicant who is emerging from such an attainment does not think: ‘I will emerge from the cessation of perception and feeling’ or ‘I am emerging from the cessation of perception and feeling’ or ‘I have emerged from the cessation of perception and feeling.’ Rather, their mind has been previously developed so as to lead to such a state.”
Sn41.6 above already gave the answer.
I also haven’t studied abhidhamma properly. From teachers I have asked in na uyana, it’s that the time from the point of view of mind is continuous, there’s no gap. Makes sense, when all experiences stop, no time gap is felt, only after emerging then one can see that oh time had passed. So the usual process of how each mind moment affects the next can also jump across this period of no mind in the cessation attainment.
Also, there’s the body which has the heart /mind base (which is a physical thing) still alive and that supports the rearising of the mind.
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If the view is that the continuation of the body (i.e. rūpa) is what explains the eventual re-arising, then it would seem contradictory to claim that
Why? Because if in Abhidhamma time is broken down into an ontology of moments, and rūpa is said to occur in time, then time has been passing external to the cittas. IIRC, the amount of cittas in one moment of rūpa is said to be greater (7? 17? total per 1 rūpa?). This means that from the POV of cittas, you could count a specific number depending on how many moments of rūpa passed. If, say, it was 100 (for the sake of ease), then it would be 1700 cittas, which is a countable amount of time passing that can be measured and compared. See below for a bit more on this.
I consider this a kind of non-answer, especially from the perspective of Abhidhamma where there is a specific project to systematize all of this. The fact that the mind was developed before has no bearing on the fact that the mind is said to cease. If it has ceased, then any prior conditions have no basis to operate. For example, let’s say that I have a bicycle, and I prepare the bicycle with special wheels, and gears, and handle bars, and paint, and I make it a bike special for doing extreme sport jumps. So there was a prior development of the bicycle for a sports jump. Then, the bicycle is broken down and destroyed into dust. Is the prior development of the bicycle in any way applicable to a sports jump if it is no longer present?
And the same can be said of the body as material basis. If the body is the material basis of mind consciousness, and mind consciousness ceases, then there is no explanation as to how it re-arises dependent on the base, let alone how we could explain it being the same physical basis. For example, why does it not re-arise in a new state of existence instantaneously? Or a new body? How is there continuity, from zero cittas, to a sudden re-arising at the same place of the prior cittas. And again, this is all resting on the idea that there is a persistence of rūpa in time external to the cittas, which as far as I can tell would discount any argument of there not being a gap.
These are just some theoretical speculations I have that would seem to raise issues with that kind of answer. Any thoughts? It seems that this is one of the ancient problems in Buddhist theory.
You better ask in the other forum specialing in classical Theravada, which we are not allowed to post a link here or to promote.
In physics, we already have the notion of coordinate time (external time frame) vs personal time (subjective experienced time) and special relativity can calculate the difference between the two based on relative speed one is moving.
There is no issue with personal time of the mind to be no gap. There’s no way for it to measure external time of the body because no mind. Other people can measure that external time.
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I don’t think @Vaddha’s question is about time. It is the supposition that the mind stops completely and then re-arises. The question is what is the condition upon which the mind re-arises, if it was a moment of mind, then it would seem that “mind stops” is figurative and not literal and thus in conflict with the Abhidhamma’s goal to explain some literal ontology of the mind.
Of course, if the mind is just a convention, empty of essence, not a substantive entity and one doesn’t engage in the Abhidhamma’s project, then the question doesn’t really arise. 