Greetings Tilt,
tiltbillings wrote:retrofuturist wrote:The "reality" aspect only matters to the extent that if you (explicitly or implicitly) put the either the "conditioning" or the rise-and-fall "out there" beyond loka, you similarly put any opportunity of observing and understanding the causality of conditioned experience "out there", where it remains beyond range.
Please clarify what '
(explicitly or implicitly) put the either the "conditioning" or the rise-and-fall "out there" beyond loka' means/looks like.
An example comes to mind.
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Let’s say someone dropped a bowling ball on your foot.
If viewed "out there"...
The rise-and-fall would be the crashing of the ball on your foot.
The rise-and-fall would be the foot being crushed under the weight of the ball.
The rise-and-fall would be the swelling of the foot.
The rise-and-fall would be the message sent through various nerves of the body in response to the above.
The foot was conditioned by the weight of the ball.
The body was conditioned to experience rigidity due to the pain of the foot.
The mind was conditioned to torment due to the experience of the painful foot.
If viewed "within loka"...
The rise-and-fall of various feelings (of pain, swelling, compression)
The rise-and-fall of various consciousness (of the six-senses)
The rise-and-fall of various perceptions (of recognition and apperception)
The rise-and-fall of various thought-formations (of anger, regret, frustration, aversion)
The rise-and-fall of various forms (etc.)
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Now, all those "rise and falls" and "conditionings" that take place in the "out there" example are given, and the poor bowler must naturally and
necessarily experience a series of events and experiences because someone dropped a ball on their foot. To a person who holds this perspective, there is nothing that can be done - suffering is a
fait accompli. This is the everyday view of the world in which liberation from suffering is not possible, because external events will occur to inflict it.
The "within loka" view is certainly a more refined one than the "out there" example. It can be used to observe the various rise-and-falls, and can see the three characteristics of them. Yet, if this is as far as it goes, and those aggregates are "believed", then it really hasn't achieved too much more than the "out there" example... because the aggregates are suffering, and the existence of aggregates is regarded as a
fait accompli (despite all that might be said of their impermanence and not-self characteristics). This is because sankhara (conditioning) is not properly understood.
What I'm talking about in this topic, is developing an awareness that aggregates don't have to be taken as a given - they are not
fait accompli. They are not taken up until they are taken up - so do not take them up... don't even form them in the first place! And if they are taken up, put them down! That is where methods like that depicted in SN 12.52: Upadana Sutta can bring an end to the "taking up" of aggregates. When nothing is taken up, there is nothing becoming, there is nothing born, and if nothing is born, nothing dies or suffers either (i.e. amata).
Hence, the aggregates are to be put down and the Buddha instructs us thus - that is the door to amata. If the aggregates are deemed to be a
fait accompli, it is
impossible to put them down. There needs to be way beyond "believing the aggregates", or there cannot be release. It may give rise to indignation in Sylvester, but it is how it is.
Metta,
Retro.