What is dukkha?

[yeshe.tenley]

@Vaddha

I’d like to start by clarifying some common ground. Yes, by phrases like ‘substantial,’ ‘matter-substance,’ or spacetime ‘out there’ I am generally referring to a kind of metaphysical [scientific] realism. Of course, I don’t find the term ‘scientific’ very helpful, but it should be clear what it refers to in this context.

When I mention ‘matter-substance,’ I am referring to the idea of a kind of real stuff out there in independent space-time. We can include ‘energy-susbtance’ and so on in this same category. E=MC^2 and all that. I do not think that ‘rūpa’ means “matter-substance,” either in the psuedo-scientific Abhidhamma sense (atomic elements) or the modern scientific sense of matter.

I take ‘rūpa’ to be mainly phenomenological, as the word itself suggests. ‘Rūpa’ originally refers to something like ‘appearance,’ ‘image,’ ‘sight,’ or ‘form.’ Textually speaking, it also seems to include things like an “astral” body (‘manomayā kāya’), deva-bodies, and so on. Externally, it would be the corresponding ‘form’ or appearances with physical properties we experience. So if we have a human-form, we will generally experience sights, sounds, etc. corresponding to that. Things that have characteristics of extension, space, resistance, weight, abide by physical laws such as gravity, etc. But these things as they are experienced. Not as independent, external ‘stuff’ or ‘substances’ or ‘energy’ out there. Hopefully that distinction is clear and agreed upon.

Okay. To paraphrase, you’re saying that the Teacher did not intend to indicate ‘rūpa’ to be understood as “external stuff out there,” but rather he emphasized the experience. To some extent, I think I understand what you’re trying to emphasize, but no I don’t think I can totally agree.

The Teacher spoke in more or less plain language. He wasn’t trying to build up a new metaphysics for people to my mind. To the extent that others believed in “external stuff out there” I think he spoke in ways concordant in order to communicate with them using conventional language. It doesn’t mean he endorsed their implicit beliefs in essence. Numerous suttas attest the Teacher speaking in ways about ‘rūpa’ that I take as attestation of the conventional understanding of the day. An understanding that is analogous with what might have been the common belief in “independent, external ‘stuff’ out there.”

And what is the grasping aggregate of form? The four primary elements, and form derived from the four primary elements.

And what is the interior earth element? Anything hard, solid, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual. This includes: head hair, body hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, intestines, mesentery, undigested food, feces, or anything else hard, solid, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual.

…

And what is the interior water element? Anything that’s water, watery, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual. This includes: bile, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, saliva, snot, synovial fluid, urine, or anything else that’s water, watery, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual. This is called the interior water element.

…

And what is the interior fire element? Anything that’s fire, fiery, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual. This includes: that which warms, that which ages, that which heats you up when feverish, that which properly digests food and drink, or anything else that’s fire, fiery, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual. This is called the interior fire element.

…

And what is the interior air element? Anything that’s air, airy, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual. This includes: winds that go up or down, winds in the belly or the bowels, winds that flow through the limbs, in-breaths and out-breaths, or anything else that’s air, airy, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual.

MN 28

This seems like a pretty straightforward description of the physical body as it was understood by common convention of the time as composed of the four elements. It is not E=MC^2 and does not talk about matter or energy, but I think it is probably the equivalent in terms of the common speech of the day.

Just because the Teacher talked like this does not for me indicate he believed in essence or that this was anything other than conventional understanding that was skillful and useful and used to indicate the common understanding of the world at the time.

@Vaddha

So, to me, the distinction you have made here is actually an unfair one, for lack of a better term. By “unfair,” I mean that it creates what I perceive as a false dichotomy. Namely, ‘dream form arises dependent on the mind, but form outside of dreams arises dependent upon matter, etc.’ I don’t think any form can be spoken of as arising without dependence on the mind. Do you agree? If not, I would simply ask that you describe form to me without recourse to any mental knowledge or cognition of it.

Agreed.

@Vaddha

If you would agree, then I think you’ll see why I take issue with the distinction. Dream form is not unique in arising dependent on the mind, so it is somewhat misleading to form the distinction like this. I am not accusing you of trying to mislead or of bad-faith. Just how the sentence is worded. The distinction starts to lean towards that realism we mentioned.

“Form in dreams needs perception and cognition to be present, but form outside of dreams in the real world is just the interaction of matter and light and so on.” That is the type of sentiment I would disagree with.

It was meant as a conventional or conventient dichotomy and not meant as a fundamental dichotomy. Generally speaking, when people talk about dreams they tend to emphasize them as creations of the mind that occur while sleeping. That is the arena or conventional setting for most people when talking about dreams.

Of course, we could alternatively talk about the brain and the physical process behind dream formation just as we can talk about the dependence on mind for positing the designation of physical things. Either reference frame or paradigm can be chosen for discussion for either of these two phenomena; dreams can be talked about with recourse to physical law and physical objects can be talked about with recourse to their dependence upon mind to be merely designated.

@Vaddha

Again, you seem to make a dichotomy here between the nature of form in dreams and the nature of form in waking life. Not a substantialist one at first glance, but I am pointing out that to me the implications are subtly substantialist. Here is what I mean.

Has the subtly substantialist implication gone ‘poof’ with my clarification above? Again, I agree that dreams can be talked about as depending upon the brain and physical processes and the physical can be talked about as depending upon the mind.

@Vaddha

Dream Devin’s alleged corpse does not go ‘poof.’ It refers to the manifest experience of a corpse that persists after death. If the dreamer did not wake up, then how could you make the same distinction between a dream-corpse and a waking-life corpse? If the dream did not ever end, wouldn’t the corpse just be plainly manifest, be buried, and be assumed to persist in the ground and cycle through nature as matter does? If we assume the dream has analogous properties to the human realm, I think this is reasonable.

Sure! That is reasonable. If the dreamer doesn’t wake up and the dream has analogous properties to the human realm, then I suppose the dream corpse wouldn’t go ‘poof’ Moreover, it was a bit hasty for me to say that the dream corpse goes ‘poof’ upon waking up as the dream corpse has lingering effects; it does not just disappear without any causal trace on the brain or the mind.

Forget Dream Devin for a moment and consider Drawing Devin. Drawing Devin dies in a drawing (a two dimensional paper sketch) and is now Drawing Devin’s corpse. We can talk about Drawing Devin’s corpse as a figure of imagination of the mind and also as marks of pencil lead on paper. When a lighter is set to the paper it burns up, but Drawing Devin’s corpse does not go poof it transforms into smoke and soot and ash.

The same is true for a flame! Flames are chemical reactions that depend upon matter and heat and molecules and when a flame dies down embers form and then the embers cool and the energy radiates into the air as molecules heat up and fragments of what the chemical reaction feasted upon give off byproducts of soot and smoke that fill the air and are in turn ingested into the lungs of animals and so on. No flame ever went ‘poof’ and was fully extinguished in a substantialist way.

@Vaddha

At this point, I would ask what the word “Buddha” means etymologically. A common explanation is “Awakened One,” or “One Who Woke Up,” no? As in, from a slumber or dream (or maybe a nightmare).

Yes! This detour in our conversation is strikingly reminiscent for me of a now since passed time when I was studying Nagarjuna’s emptiness and happened upon the thought that perhaps I was in a lucid dream. Have you ever experienced a lucid dream? It is the experience of waking up in a dream to realize it is a dream, but without actually fully waking up out of the dream. I’ve had this exhilarating and profound experience once or twice. The vividness of consciousness was as phenomenal as in this waking world.

@Vaddha

What if the power of craving and ignorance kept beings locked in a cycle of dreams? We could suppose that the desire to escape would only create another dream at the end of the former, and attachment to the dream world perpetuates it. We could add in the fact that there is a relative stability in the variety of dream-realms within the larger dream-scape, and that the type of dream that follows the previous is affected by the choices, intentions, aims and actions there. Other beings are seen cycling through a similar process, ignorant and blind to it for eons. At a certain point in this thought experiment, the distinction between ‘dream world’ and ‘real world’ starts to melt away; the arising and lawful appearance of such a world in this way begins to melt notions of non-existence. Only when we can speak of a dream ending, the cessation of that world, can its existence be more readily reduced to mere conditional appearance.

So it would seem to be no surprise that waking-life matter seems endless and more substantial than dream matter, despite the conditional appearance of each being in many ways identical. It would require the waking-world to cease, like a dream ends, or someone to ‘wake up’ from it, for the same effect.

I would caution though between seeing a lucid dream as an analogy for what the process of awakening might be like and mistaking this phenomenal world as a literal dream which we need to wake from. The positing of a literal dream relies upon the notion of one who is asleep in a real world having a dream about an illusory world. We don’t wake from dreams into Nibbana - at least I haven’t yet - we wake from dreams into Samsara with our heads lifting off the conventional pillow.

@Vaddha

[Buddha:] “Kaccāna, this world mostly relies on the dual notions of existence and non-existence.
But when you truly see the arising of the world with right understanding, you won’t have the notion of non-existence regarding the world.
And when you truly see the cessation of the world with right understanding, you won’t have the notion of existence regarding the world.”
SN 12.15

Ah, one of my favorites and a recent subject of discussion on this forum

@Vaddha

This is an important part of the discussion, to my mind. To summarize the story:

1. Human Devin passes away, and the remains of their body are manifest to other humans.
2. Devin is reborn with a subtle body
3. Both bodies (the former human one and the celestial one) present themselves to an onlooker.

So in this story, Devin never stopped experiencing form. And the old human form still exists independently of Devin. See how that phrase “still exists” can create lurking suspicion? It just needs further clarification. So:

This means that the human-form is experienced only from the perspective of other beings, including Devin. So it is now insentient or unconscious external form. It is like the moon. A meaningful detail though is that Devin’s new celestial form would be experienced internally from their perspective. So the human-form would be external to Devin now, and it could only be designated, known, labelled, or processed with two conditions:

1. Devin’s internal form offering a basis for obstructive contact with light, matter, etc., in this case the external human form.
2. Devin’s internal mental faculties offering the basis for cognizing that obstructive contact.

This dichotomy of the internal and external and its nature (fundamental or conventional) also came up in that thread on the interpretation of SN 12.15.

To believe this is a fundamental dichotomy relies upon finding and labeling Devin as some kind of substantial thing. I don’t think this is what you’re proposing. Rather, it seems to me you’re proposing a conventional dichotomy that might be useful or skillful. Do I have that right?

If I have it right, I’ll just briefly note that this isn’t the conventional dichotomy that the Teacher made where he described the living physical body as the internal form aggregate. I don’t know that he ever said the non-living physical body was the internal form aggregate, but I don’t see how the passing from living to non-living would alter labeling whether the same molecules were ‘external’ or ‘internal’ as per convention. What is skillful or useful in so altering?

On the other hand, if I’m wrong and you believe the dichotomy is fundamental, then you would have to explain how the passing from living to non-living would make the same molecules go from fundamentally internal to external.

@Vaddha

The break-up of the aggregates does not need to imply that all perceivers see them as going poof. It simply means the arrangement of those particular conditions ceases and the arising of new conditions appear accordingly, especially internally. As in when the dream-aggregates break up and the waking-life aggregates appear. Please refer also to the thought-experiment of the perpetual, seemingly-lawful dream worlds.

Have I missed something or failed to understand/consider something? When you say especially internally I wonder again if I have it right that you’re proposing a merely conventional dichotomy between internal and external rather than something more fundamental.

@Vaddha

@yeshe.tenley

I do not believe they can “truly cease” because that sounds like language implicitly assuming they “truly existed” prior to ceasing. If you did not intend that implicit meaning, then define “truly ceasing” please.

By ‘truly cease’ I believe I only meant to make the distinction between the appearance of external form via internal sense contact of beings, such as seeing a corpse, and the shift in conditional appearance/cessation internally in the form aggregate, such as Devin’s metaphorical transition from human-form to divine-form. This would entail more coarse ‘human form’ ceasing and ‘divine form’ arising.

Forget the corpse. As I said in that other thread devoted to the Kaccānagotta Sutta:

The Teacher also describes the internal and external form aggregate and the internal one includes the physical body. So we have at least one physical object in “the world” I guess?

Moreover, this internal form aggregate can act as a sense contact (read: external) for the internal six sense bases. At least I can experience my hand as an external sense contact even though it is the internal form aggregate.

It almost seems like what is internal and what is external is just a convention and that to believe there exists some fundamental dichotomy is an error that is predicated on the substantial view of the existence of a person in relation to the external world.

So in this current waking life we have what was described by the Teacher as the internal form aggregate being perceived by the internal sense bases as an external sense contact.

@Vaddha

@yeshe.tenley

What do you mean when you say the Teacher ended the form aggregate?

Has my response shed light on this for you? I hope it has provided more explanation and detail in what I was hoping to convey before.

I’m afraid I’m still not sure what you think. Can you confirm that I’m right in my hypothesis that you don’t intend a fundamental dichotomy about internal and external but rather a merely conventional one?

And if I’m right, then how again do you mean - by this merely conventional dichotomy - to show that the Teacher ended the form aggregate?

@Vaddha

I also would like to re-iterate that it doesn’t matter (pun?) whether we are talking about “form” or “hatred.” All of this would apply, minus the particular detail of e.g. matter/light which is specific to discussing characteristics that designate ‘form.’

As I said earlier, the consequences of hatred arise in the world long past the time when it ceases in the heart of an awakened one so in that sense I agree it does not go ‘poof’