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Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 8:53 pm
by tiltbillings
khaaan wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:The only "quality" that is not subject arising and passing away is that there is no longer any conditioning by greed, hatred, and delusion. Anything else we are entering the realm of Hinduism.
Tilt, I don't understand why you say "there is no longer..." (and the Suttas say "the destruction of ...", which seems to amount amount to the same thing.) Consider the transition fom wordling to ariya. As I understand it, nibbāna interrupts a stream of becoming, which beforehand we refer to as a wordling and afterwards as a stream-winner. So nibbāna is involved, and yet the stream-winner is still conditioned by greed, hatred, and delusion (since the permanent absence of those things is synonymous with the attainment of arahantship). What am I missing?
What you are missing is that I was very tired when I wrote the msg in question. I see, as I reread the msg, that the Venerable was referring to stream entry, but I was referring to full awakening. Thanks for the catch.

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 1:41 pm
by kirk5a
Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo wrote: When the qualities of virtue, concentration, and discernment are brought together in fully mature form, the mind is released from physical and mental phenomena through the power of discernment, in line with the teaching,

paññaya paribhavitam cittam
sammadeva asavehi vimuccati:
"When the mind has been matured through discernment, it gains complete release from all mental effluents." The mind is able to let go of physical and mental phenomena. Physical and mental phenomena are not the mind; the mind isn't physical and mental phenomena. The mind isn't virtue, concentration, and discernment.

sabbe dhamma anatta:

The mind doesn't identify any quality as itself, or itself as any of these qualities. It simply is — deathlessness. This is called disbanding because passion, aversion, and delusion have disbanded completely.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/lee/craft.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ajaan Fuang Jotiko wrote: If you want to gain the insight that will let go of all things in line with their original nature, there has to be a special realization that arises in the act of letting go. If there isn't this realization, your letting go is simply an ordinary, everyday label or perception. It's mundane discernment. But when this special realization arises in the act of letting go — the instant you let go, the result comes right back at you, verifying, certifying what's happened for what it really is: You know. You've let go. You then experience the purity within you.

This is called transcendent discernment. When the realization arises within you, verifying what you've seen and what you've done, that's called transcendent discernment. As long as this realization doesn't arise, your discernment is still mundane. So you keep working at your investigation into things until all the conditions are ripe. Then when they're ripe, there's nothing more you have to do, for transcendent discernment penetrates things completely the very instant it arises. It's not like mundane discernment at all.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai ... .html#real" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Upasika Kee Nanayon wrote: In what ways is emptiness empty? Does it mean that everything disappears or is annihilated? Actually, you should know that emptiness doesn’t mean that the mind is annihilated. All that’s annihilated is clinging and attachment. What you have to do is to see what emptiness is like as it actually appears and then not latch onto it. The nature of this emptiness is that it’s deathless within you - this emptiness of self - and yet the mind can still function, know, and read itself. Just don’t label it or latch onto it, that’s all.
http://www.tricycle.com/node/32021" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"It's amazing, lord. It's astounding. For truly, the Blessed One has declared to us the way to cross over the flood by going from one support to the next. But what is the noble liberation?"

"There is the case, Ananda, where a disciple of the noble ones considers this: 'Sensuality here & now; sensuality in lives to come; sensual perceptions here & now; sensual perceptions in lives to come; forms here & now; forms in lives to come; form-perceptions here & now; form-perceptions in lives to come; perceptions of the imperturbable; perceptions of the dimension of nothingness; perceptions of the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception: that is an identity, to the extent that there is an identity. This is deathless: the liberation of the mind through lack of clinging/sustenance.'
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

etaṃ amataṃ yadidaṃ anupādā cittassa vimokkho.
This/without death/namely/without clinging/mind/release

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 8:50 pm
by tiltbillings
kirk5a wrote:http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

etaṃ amataṃ yadidaṃ anupādā cittassa vimokkho.
This/without death/namely/without clinging/mind/release
And this makes my point.

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:47 pm
by kirk5a
tiltbillings wrote:
kirk5a wrote:http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

etaṃ amataṃ yadidaṃ anupādā cittassa vimokkho.
This/without death/namely/without clinging/mind/release
And this makes my point.
Does this also make your point?
"There is that dimension where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon. And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor stasis; neither passing away nor arising: without stance, without foundation, without support [mental object]. This, just this, is the end of stress."

— Ud 8.1

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:52 pm
by tiltbillings
kirk5a wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:
kirk5a wrote:http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

etaṃ amataṃ yadidaṃ anupādā cittassa vimokkho.
This/without death/namely/without clinging/mind/release
And this makes my point.
Does this also make your point?
"There is that dimension where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon. And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor stasis; neither passing away nor arising: without stance, without foundation, without support [mental object]. This, just this, is the end of stress."

— Ud 8.1
Tell us, what is actually being described in that passage.

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:56 pm
by kirk5a
tiltbillings wrote:Tell us, what is actually being described in that passage.
"the end of stress" = nibbana.

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:02 pm
by tiltbillings
kirk5a wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:Tell us, what is actually being described in that passage.
"the end of stress" = nibbana.
Of course, but is this text talking about nibbana as some sort of thing that exist separately from the arahant, or is this text talking about a type of meditative experience?

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 11:33 pm
by kirk5a
tiltbillings wrote:
kirk5a wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:Tell us, what is actually being described in that passage.
"the end of stress" = nibbana.
Of course, but is this text talking about nibbana as some sort of thing that exist separately from the arahant, or is this text talking about a type of meditative experience?
You asked me what that passage describes. I said nibbana, you agree.

So getting back to my question to you, which is, does that passage about nibbana support your point, stated earlier?
tiltbillings wrote: The only "quality" that is not subject arising and passing away is that there is no longer any conditioning by greed, hatred, and delusion. Anything else we are entering the realm of Hinduism.

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 11:38 pm
by tiltbillings
kirk5a wrote: You asked me what that passage describes. I said nibbana, you agree.

So getting back to my question to you, which is, does that passage about nibbana support your point, stated earlier?
It does it no harm.

And now you can answer my question you: Of course, but is this [Udana 80] text talking about nibbana as some sort of thing that exist separately from the arahant, or is this text talking about a type of meditative experience?

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Tue Jul 10, 2012 11:57 pm
by kirk5a
tiltbillings wrote:It does it no harm.
So if it does it no harm, then you accept that there is "that dimension" (nibbana) where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind and so on, and that is not entering the domain of Hinduism. Yet you cannot abide that dimension, nibbana, being called, "the deathless."

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:13 am
by tiltbillings
kirk5a wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:It does it no harm.
So if it does it no harm, then you accept that there is "that dimension" (nibbana) where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind and so on, and that is not entering the domain of Hinduism. Yet you cannot abide that dimension, nibbana, being called, "the deathless."
What text are we talking about here?
The Udana 80 text you quoted? Then please answer my question.

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:29 am
by kirk5a
tiltbillings wrote: The Udana 80 text you quoted? Then please answer my question.
Yes Udana 80.

The first part of your question
"is this [Udana 80] text talking about nibbana as some sort of thing that exist separately from the arahant"
is simply a philosophical abstraction, makes no sense, nibbana is not described in that way, and so it's not worth getting hung up on.

The second part of your question
"is this text talking about a type of meditative experience?"
We already agreed it is talking about nibbana. If you have something you want to say about a type of meditative experience, go ahead.

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:57 am
by mikenz66
kirk5a wrote: We already agreed it is talking about nibbana. If you have something you want to say about a type of meditative experience, go ahead.
Some commentators, such as Bhikkhu Nananada, have written many pages arguing that that passage is about a particular meditative experience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katukurund ... anda_Thera" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.seeingthroughthenet.net/eng/home.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:anjali:
Mike

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:22 am
by tiltbillings
kirk5a wrote:
tiltbillings wrote: The Udana 80 text you quoted? Then please answer my question.
Yes Udana 80.

The first part of your question
"is this [Udana 80] text talking about nibbana as some sort of thing that exist separately from the arahant"
is simply a philosophical abstraction, makes no sense, nibbana is not described in that way, and so it's not worth getting hung up on.
It is not. It goes directly to your assertion:
the quality within one that isn't subject to arising or passing away.
Let me ask this in a different way: Judging from what you have said, nibbana exists some how as a quality within, but if there are no arahants, is there still nibbana somehow existing in some way?
The second part of your question
"is this text talking about a type of meditative experience?"
We already agreed it is talking about nibbana. If you have something you want to say about a type of meditative experience, go ahead.
I agreed to the ending of dukkha is nibbana. The question is, what is the nature of what is being described in the Udana 80 text in question.

Re: "The Deathless" (amata)

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 2:35 am
by Nyana
kirk5a wrote:"There is that dimension...."
BTW, "dimension" isn't a very good translation of āyatana, especially in this context. The English term "dimension" has spacial connotations which aren't applicable with regard to extinguishment.