For the third “misinterpretation” that Thanissaro lists, I would like to see more of the thinking behind his statement.
One one hand, any interpretation of anatta cannot go so far as to invalidate dependent origination, rebirth or kamma. There are many examples in the suttas where the Buddha used his divine eye to see where the consciousness of a deceased disciple had become reestablished. Some kind of thread of continuity seems to be implied by these examples (perhaps a multi-life process or some type of chain of cause and effect). When Thanissaro says this is a misinterpretation, I’d just wonder how he is accounting for this.
On the other hand, this interpretation is actually not very different to that of a plain materialist who believes that the human self is but some biological/physical one-life process that dissolves at the death of the body. If one just changes “one-life” to “multi-life” and “dissolves at death” to “dissolves at the death of an enlightened being”, then we have moved from the standard materialist interpretation to this more Buddhist one. The raw end beliefs are not very different (though some of the assumptions about the universe differ a bit).
Anyway, I am not enlightened! I generally find this and related topics (the four-fold negatation etc.) quite mysterious and rather baffling! I assume the opening of the dhamma eye of the stream enterer must imply something rather more than coming to an intellectual belief or understanding. I think there’s a certain ambiguity/room for a spectrum of interpretations in the suttas. There seems to have been a range of ideas on this in the early schools (with the Personalists being at one extreme).
Why is dukkha a property of all things? Like a cloud, an orange, even of the body, or a tree? It makes no sense, i find. Does an orange have pain when you eat it? Then you must not eat it ofcourse. Is a cloud unsatisfied with its existence as a cloud that only exist for a while and changes all the time? How do you know? Is it reasonable?
For me, anicca, dukkha, anatta and asubha are perceptions who function (arise, exist a while and cease) in the mind like nicca, sukha, atta and subha. Buddha saw that ordinaire beings have the perception of nicca, sukha, atta, and subha which the mind projects as it were on the sense-objects.
When you develop the perception of anicca, dukkha and anatta and asubha you will not develop passion for what you perceive. It cures the perception of nicca, sukha, atta and subha which are connected to passion.
Regarding essence… i do not really doubt anymore your essence and my essence is the purified heart, Nibbana. It is the essence of a Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslim…even me!
In dirty water, the water is the essence. If we remove the non-essential things, the dirt, the essence of water becomes more and more visible. It is clean, purified, transparant. Your and mine essence is Nibbana in the same way. Non-essential things (anusaya, kilesa, asava, tanha’s) can disappear while it does not really has any effect on our essence, on us, besides that the usual burden disappears.
You can also see it this way: we have all kind of non-essential bagage with us from former lives. That bagage is not really our essence. Loosing more and more bagage we come more and more to our essence. I strongly belief the Dhamma is the Path to ourselves.
Yes, you’re right. Ven. Thanissaro explicitly says so. Here is a quotation from his book Good Heart, Good Mind:
Q: Is there still consciousness after parinibbāna?
A: Yes, but it’s a consciousness that’s not related to any of the six senses.
He explains more about it in First Things First:
Because unbinding is unfabricated, it doesn’t exist for the sake of anything. This is why it’s fully a place of refuge and rest (SN 43). The Buddha describes it as pleasure, but it’s not a pleasant feeling, and so it’s not an aggregate (SN 36:19). Similarly, he describes it as a type of consciousness, but one that’s not known in conjunction with the six senses (MN 49). In other words, it has no object (SN 12:64). Because it doesn’t fall under the consciousness-aggregate, it lies outside of past, present, and future. Outside of space, it has “neither coming nor going nor staying in place.” It’s a separate dimension entirely (Ud 8:1).
I completely agree with the first sentence: Ven. Thanissaro uses the few passages (two, I think) mentioning consciousness without feature to derive that nibanna is actually a form of consciousness. He also affirms the existence of something after the cessation of the aggregates in a way that directly contradicts the AN 4.174, which states that saying that there is or that there is not anything after the cessation of the six-senses are both wrong.
Even though I also don’t agree with Venerable’s interpretation of nibbana, I still think his view on anatta is independent from that. The overall argument is this:
The thesis of that article (available in the essay collection Noble & True)—which I revised in 2013 both to tighten and to expand the presentation—was that the Buddha intended his teaching on not-self (anattā), not as an answer to the metaphysical/ontological question, “Is there a self?” but as a strategy for cutting through clinging to the five aggregates and so to put an end to suffering. The main argument I presented in support of this thesis in both versions of the article was that the one time the Buddha was asked point-blank, “Is there a self?”… “Is there no self?” he remained silent (SN 44:10). Similarly, in MN 2, he stated that such questions as “Do I exist?” “Do I not exist?” and “What am I?” are not worthy of attention because they lead to conclusions that fetter a person in a “thicket of views” and a “fetter of views,” including the views that “I have a self” and “I have no self.” In other words, any attempt to answer these questions constituted a side road away from the path of right practice.
The idea that there is no self also seems contradictory with passages where the Buddha tells people to have a positive view of the self, like “Your own self is your own mainstay” (Dhp 160). Some would object that what the Buddha is referring to is an impermanent view of the self (a stream of consciousness). However, the suttas describe views of impermanent selves, which are as bad as the permanent ones. As Ven. Thanissaro puts it in his essay Not-self revisited:
The first is that the Pāli Canon cites a wide variety of beliefs about the self current in the Buddha’s time, and many of them proposed a self that was finite—i.e., it comes to an end—and subject to change. DN 15 provides a framework for classifying the different possible views about self, starting with four types of self: possessed of form and finite, possessed of form and infinite, formless and finite, and formless and infinite. Further, beliefs about each of these four types state that the self is either already that way, or that it naturally becomes that way (for instance, at death or when falling asleep), or that it can be made to become that way (through practice of one sort or another). Combining these two lists gives altogether 12 types of self-doctrines, only two of which teach an unchanging self: the self already possessed of form and infinite, and the self already formless and infinite. In addition, DN 1 cites seven annihilationist views about the self—three defining the self as possessed of form, four defining it as formless—that perished at death.
Since the Buddha was not focusing only on the idea of a permanent self, what was he focusing on? If anatta were referring to absolutely any idea of self, then it would be totally contradictory with kamma and rebirth. The not-self strategy seems to approach this problem without bias towards the belief in a permanent self.
As I quoted above, Ven. Thanissaro’s point is that there are plenty of views of the self described in the suttas, not only permanent ones. The fact that things are impermanent, in fact, underlies anatta. However, that is because what is anicca is dukkha, and what is dukkha is anatta, i.e. dukkha is the intermediary step in the anatta’s argument:
“Mendicants, form is impermanent.
What’s impermanent is suffering.
What’s suffering is not-self.
And what’s not-self should be truly seen with right understanding like this: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’
Anicca Sutta
What I find odd about the “no-self” interpretation of anatta is that it takes the Buddha’s argument as if it meant that “impermanence implies no self,” which completely ignores the intermediary step. The idea that anatta is a value judgement, and that we have I-making in order to maximize pleasure, can make sense of the argument: since things are unreliable, inconstant, they cause us suffering, and, therefore, we should not take them as our selves.
First, let’s look at the first pair of statement below:
Statement 1: You can NOT find a self in the world.
Statement 2: You can NOT find a unicorn in the world.
Now, compare this to another pair of statement:
Statement 1a: I say: “There is no I in the world”.
Statement 2a: I say: “There is no unicorn in the world”.
You can see that statement 2 and statement 2a give the same meaning for communication purpose.
However, you can see immediately the self-contradictory of statement 1a. Only madman says such thing.
So, the Buddha didn’t use statement 1a and instead he used statement 1 in the sutta SN 35.85 I posted above to convey the similar meaning for communication purpose in statement 1a.
Did I manage to convey to you that: this sutta actually shows that the Buddha claimed very explicitly about not-self?
dukkha is a property of all conditioned things, because these ‘things’ only exist in the mind. without a sentient being to know the orange, it is just elements - matter, water, coolness. it’s a mind that puts this false thing-ness onto the object, and it’s the mind that ultimately suffers for it.
In dirty water, the water is the essence. If we remove the non-essential things, the dirt, the essence of water becomes more and more visible. It is clean, purified, transparant. Your and mine essence is Nibbana in the same way.
yes, i think you are correct, but i think this is like the orange without a mind to ‘orange-ify’ it. it just is, without any identity or essence - part of nature.
Absolutely not - the Buddha used not-self and an antidote, pointing out to people who saw “self” here and there that there was not “self” here or there. He was not saying that there WAS “Not-self” here and there.
If the bulk of people back then had been nihilist he would have had to go around pointing out that there was not “not-self” here and there.
People would have then started going round saying “ the Buddha teaches us that everything IS not-not-self!”
Well, so I take your reply as: You do not accept the statement I posted above:
The Buddha does not hold/have the view about a self.
The Buddha sees/views everything directly as not-self for everytime, everywhere.
You gave explanation as:
Well, I must say that I totally disagree with you on this matter.
However, I choose not to proceed further to convince you on this matter. Maybe and hopefully someone else in this forum will do that or maybe you can find plenty of suttas to convince yourself.
Yes @ORsEnTURVi I believe we are in disagreement, I also think that this is a controversy, perhaps even more so than the “jhana controvery” that has raged on Buddhist discussion forums for thousands of years and that my position, like yours, is an old one, defended by various proponents, again, for thousands of years, and so it is fairly unlikely (tho not I suppose impossible) that I will be convinced by any of the posters on this forum to defect to the other side. Sleep well.
I’ve posted on this before in one of the other threads, but let me approach it from a different perspective.
Seeing anatta purely as a strategical perception to lessen suffering does not work with how the word is used in the suttas. Very awkward would become the Anattalakkhana Sutta, for example, which says: “Because form is anatta, form leads to affliction.” (SN22.59) Since anatta leads to suffering, how could it be a strategy to reduce it?
Here is another example:
“An unlearned ordinary person […] does not understand form—which is impermanent—as it really is: to be impermanent. [Similar for the other aggregates.] He does not understand form—which is suffering—as it really is: to be suffering. […] He does not understand form—which is without a self (anatta)—as it really is: to be without a self.” (SN22.55)
With anatta as a perception the translation (or interpretation) would have to be something like: “He does not understand form—which is a perception of non-self—as it really is: as a perception of non-self.” This does not seem to work. Not only because form is not a perception, also because of the words ‘understand’ and ‘as it really is’. Moreover, anicca, dukkha, and anatta are treated in this passage in the exact same way, just like in many other places, and it doesn’t make sense for one of the three to be a strategy while the other two are not.
Another obvious case is AN4.49 which mentions the wrong view of “perceiving a self in what is non-self (anatta)”. How does anatta as a perception work here? Do you perceive a self in what you perceive as non-self?
And that’s just a few examples. Throughout the suttas the strategy idea just continually fails to work, both contextually and in translation.
Moreover, the claim that the Buddha never denied the existence of a self is just not true. Just because he refused to answer once when asked by Vacchagotta, doesn’t mean there are no other statements to the effect in the suttas. For example:
Dhp62: “There is no self (for him),” attā (hi attano) n’atthi.
MN22: “A self […] is not found to actually exist.” (In Pali “not found” means that it just doesn’t exist, similar to the French use of se trouve. See SN22.76 which says no craving is found (i.e. exists) in the arahants. Or AN5.167: “If I know that there is no such quality in me, I tell him: ‘It doesn’t exist. This quality isn’t found in me.’”)
SN35.85: “It is, Ananda, because it is empty of self and of what belongs to self that it is said, ‘Empty is the world.’”
Dhp229, SN44.10: “Everything is without a self,” sabbe dhammā anattā.
SN22.96: “Then the Blessed One took up a little lump of in his hand and said to that bhikkhu: “Bhikkhu, there is not even this much individual existence (literally “self-existence”, atta-bhava) that is permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, and that will remain the same just like eternity itself.”
And so on.
Also, I’ll wave my little red flag whenever one person essentially claims a whole tradition has misunderstood a certain central teaching for centuries.
hi @IndyJ , what do you exactly mean when you say that all conditioned things are dukkha?. I do not understand this from your reply and example. Take for example a cloud. It arises because of certain conditions, it exist and ends under certain conditions. Why is dukkha a property of this cloud. What does dukkha mean for you here?
If I may put it briefly: there is no cloud apart from the experience of a cloud, and it is this experience of a cloud (or any other ‘thing’) that is dukkha.
Yes, the argument in SN22.59 is: IF something is self THEN it is also under full and direct control of ones wishes. So, the notion of self implies full and direct control. If the body is self, it is also under direct control. That is the argument of the Buddha.
So if the body is sick and one wishes it to be healthy that would happen immeditately if body is self.
The idea of Self implies direct control. But the body is not under direct control , it is anatta, and that leads to suffering because one wishes it to be under control.
Seeing the lack of direct control over things , anatta, realistically, is a great strategy to cool down the mind when it wants direct control over things.
Body and mind and also external things are not under direct control, anatta, and longing that direct control is what we all do. This mismatch creates suffering.
Anatta is like seeing what is really helpful and realistic to do. Often we long for grip and control when things do not go like we want. That makes passion to arise, even panic can arise. Seeing what is not under control, anatta, is i feel a meaning of anatta. And very useful as a realistic strategy to cool down.
how can a cloud be dukkha? storms, hurricanes, rain, etc
how can a cloud be dukkha for you? we infer certain attributes of the cloud - the cloud has its “cloud-ness” essence. because we take the cloud to be a certain way, we suffer: “oh no, it’s getting a bit cloudy” / “it’s dark outside - i think it’s going to pour”
we take the cloud to be a certain way, and because of that liking and disliking arise, with suffering to follow.
in truth, the cloud has no intrinsic essence. for example, it doesn’t rain, despite our projections of cloud-like behaviour onto the aggregation of water molecules in the sky.
This would be a most non-sensical argument! And yet the naked emperor is lauded for his beautiful new clothes.
Who came up with the idea that if I had a self I’d be able to control it according to ‘my’ wishes?! If anything, the controller represents the self, not the controlled.
The point is simply, that in SN 22.59 anatta cannot be meant as ‘self’ as we understand it. Even in MN 35 this argument is weirdly disjointed.
I do not belief distant stars, which we do not see, do no arise and exist without us noticing their arising and existence and ceasing to exist. Our perception of them is not a condition for the arising, existing and ceasing. In the same way, seeing a tulip is not a condition for it to grow from a bulb. Conditions are sufficient water, light, warmth and not my perception. If all humans were to die tomorrow, my tylips would still grow, and next year again because my perception is no condition.
This is an unprovable metaphysical claim—but neither is the Dhamma claiming the opposite (that some ‘objective reality’ ‘out there’ is dependent on one’s perception for its existence).
The Dhamma is only concerned about the experiential realm—or more specifically, about the subjective experience of the existing individual—in which metaphysics has no role to play. The world and ‘the all’, according to the Dhamma, is defined based on sensorial experience (including the purely mental).
Thus defined, ‘things’ are essentially ‘things that are experienced’.
“Mendicants, form is not-self.
“Rūpaṁ, bhikkhave, anattā.
For if form were self, it wouldn’t lead to affliction. And you could compel form:
Rūpañca hidaṁ, bhikkhave, attā abhavissa, nayidaṁ rūpaṁ ābādhāya saṁvatteyya, labbhetha ca rūpe: ‘May my form be like this! May it not be like that!’
‘evaṁ me rūpaṁ hotu, evaṁ me rūpaṁ mā ahosī’ti.
But because form is not-self, it leads to affliction. And you can’t compel form:
Yasmā ca kho, bhikkhave, rūpaṁ anattā, tasmā rūpaṁ ābādhāya saṁvattati, na ca labbhati rūpe: ‘May my form be like this! May it not be like that!’
‘evaṁ me rūpaṁ hotu, evaṁ me rūpaṁ mā ahosī’ti.
So, the argument is: IF anything is self or just yourself, such as the body, it means, ofcourse, you are in control over it and can change our body as you wish. But body is not self so we donot have direct control over it.
Your claim is @prabhath . My claim is reasonable. Why would i have to see a tulip for it to develop out of bulb into a tulip? Do i have to see it for this process te happen? It makes no sense at all to declare that my perception of this proces is somehow a condition for this to take place. If this would be true the farmer must keep looking at his crops to develop. Non-sensical. Things really happen without us seeing things.
Yes, thats true. This does not at all mean that all we experience is all there is. A buddha, for example, sees much more beings than we do.
in his hand and said to that bhikkhu: “Bhikkhu, there is not even this much individual existence (literally “self-existence”, atta-bhava) that is permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, and that will remain the same just like eternity itself.”