REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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Viscid
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by Viscid »

m0rl0ck wrote:
LonesomeYogurt wrote: The concept that the impersonal stream of experience does not begin at birth or end at death, but continues in a cycle of arising and ceasing across multiple lifetimes as propelled by ignorance.
What i have never understood about this is whose experience? The idea of experience presupposes a perceiver.
Additionally, where does the experience end and begin? Does my "impersonal stream of experience" include my mother and father? my culture? my entire universe? And in the last case are "we" all experiencing the same universe or do we each get individual copies? Where are the boundaries between my "impersonal stream of experience" and anyone elses? And how can you know those boundaries if they exist, survive the death of the physical body?
What attracts me, personally, to the concept of rebirth is that it is an attempt to explain why I was born as the person I am as opposed to being born anyone else. I can see no other attempt at explaining the origin of my particular existence. We must assume that the quality which makes our stream of experience separate and unique was conditioned in some way. The traditional assumption is that who we were born as was a result of chance-- but when I look at nature, I do not see purely random events, I see conditions influencing other conditions causally, and it is intuitive to apply such causality to the particularity of my embodiment.

Now I will get crazy:

Accepting rebirth, there are problems-- especially when we accept the fact that there is no self. I interpret the fact that we have no self as indicating that identity relationships do not truly exist. So, if you were in deep jhana, and could recollect a past life, it would be improper to say that this past life was 'yours.' No! Wrong! You are having an experience of a life-- what it is you believe to be the connection between your life presently and the life you are recollecting is an act of reason, of imagination. The phenomenological experience of recollecting a past life, as is the phenomenological experience of recollecting a present life, must be imbued with a self of self-- the feeling that this experience is 'my' experience. This can mislead us into thinking that the recalled past life is ours, and is thus what conditioned the present life, but that is an unfair assumption. I do not believe you can make any claim that any past life was 'yours,' in a way which would imply there are past lives which are 'not yours.'
"What holds attention determines action." - William James
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LonesomeYogurt
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by LonesomeYogurt »

m0rl0ck wrote:What i have never understood about this is whose experience? The idea of experience presupposes a perceiver.
I disagree. What we call experience is consciousness interacting with the other mental formations of perception, feeling, and thought - and this is an impersonal process in which experience arises but no experiencer exists.

Here's a diagram I made to explain the interlocking, self-contained nature of the experiential process. It's based on a chart on Wikipedia that I can't find anymore, so I did it from memory. I think it's accurate, though (Abhidhamma scholars, help!):

Image

Consciousness arises dependent on form, at which point the other mental factors arise; they, in turn, condition consciousness. It's a completely natural, cause and effect cycle that doesn't require a "doer" or a "knower" in the center.


Additionally, where does the experience end and begin? Does my "impersonal stream of experience" include my mother and father? my culture? my entire universe?
Their experience comes through their eyes, ears, tongue, skin, nose, and mind, and thus is not known by your consciousness. Imagine if you had a thousand algae plates out for an experiment; if one plate developed a colony of bacteria, could it feed off the nutrients of the other, separate plates? No, because the bacteria arises based on the interaction of specific conditions unique to each individual sample.
And in the last case are "we" all experiencing the same universe or do we each get individual copies?
We each experience our individual sensory data, which in all probability is coming from observation of the same universe.

Where are the boundaries between my "impersonal stream of experience" and anyone elses? And how can you know those boundaries if they exist, survive the death of the physical body?
The boundaries are formed by the gulf between consciousnesses. When form hits the selfless, empty eye we refer to as 'mine,' consciousness of that form arises in the selfless, empty mind connected to that eye. The data that comes through the sense doors of my mother or father, for example, is off limits to me because those sense doors are linked to a specific mind that inhabits them (or, in our modern scientific models, a specific brain). Experience is a totally nature process, and like all natural processes, it is limited in time and space.
Viscid wrote:Accepting rebirth, there are problems-- especially when we accept the fact that there is no self. I interpret the fact that we have no self as indicating that identity relationships do not truly exist. So, if you were in deep jhana, and could recollect a past life, it would be improper to say that this past life was 'yours.' No! Wrong! You are having an experience of a life-- what it is you believe to be the connection between your life presently and the life you are recollecting is an act of reason, of imagination. The phenomenological experience of recollecting a past life, as is the phenomenological experience of recollecting a present life, must be imbued with a self of self-- the feeling that this experience is 'my' experience. This can mislead us into thinking that the recalled past life is ours, and is thus what conditioned the present life, but that is an unfair assumption. I do not believe you can make any claim that any past life was 'yours,' in a way which would imply there are past lives which are 'not yours.'
You're right - there is, in reality, no such thing as "my former life," as this life isn't even mine! Buddhadasa's talk on anatta and rebirth deals with this.
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.

Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta

Stuff I write about things.
daverupa
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by daverupa »

LonesomeYogurt wrote:It's based on a chart on Wikipedia...
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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LonesomeYogurt
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by LonesomeYogurt »

daverupa wrote:
LonesomeYogurt wrote:It's based on a chart on Wikipedia...
Maaan what page is that found on? I couldn't for the life of me track it down.
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.

Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta

Stuff I write about things.
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Viscid
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by Viscid »

LonesomeYogurt wrote:
Additionally, where does the experience end and begin? Does my "impersonal stream of experience" include my mother and father? my culture? my entire universe?
Their experience comes through their eyes, ears, tongue, skin, nose, and mind, and thus is not known by your consciousness.
It 'comes through' their eyes? So experience is actually present outside their body, and then leaps in through their eyes? What I think you mean by this is that their experience is private. You shouldn't even mention sense organs: people with Charles-Bonnet syndrome 'see' hallucinations while being blind. Sight is not always dependent on the eye.
LonesomeYogurt wrote:
m0rl0ck wrote:Where are the boundaries between my "impersonal stream of experience" and anyone elses? And how can you know those boundaries if they exist, survive the death of the physical body?
The boundaries are formed by the gulf between consciousnesses.
Consciousness (which I define as the ability for a thing to have experience, or to be 'like' something) is not necessarily reducible to physics. So far, we haven't been able to identify what makes one thing conscious and another thing not conscious. (I don't believe a robot will ever be equally conscious to a human, even though it may be able to imitate the behaviour of a human precisely.) If consciousness is not reducible to physical laws, it is improper to assume that it is physical space which places bounds upon it.
LonesomeYogurt wrote:
Viscid wrote:Accepting rebirth, there are problems [...] I do not believe you can make any claim that any past life was 'yours,' in a way which would imply there are past lives which are 'not yours.'
You're right - there is, in reality, no such thing as "my former life," as this life isn't even mine! Buddhadasa's talk on anatta and rebirth deals with this.
Buddhadasa doesn't really address the question.. he dismisses it entirely by saying the self does not exist, which is a cop-out, more a trick of language than anything substantial. The real question is why we are born as a particular individual as opposed to any other individual. Even if the 'self' is a delusion, we still have to explain the conditions which formed that delusion.
Last edited by Viscid on Thu Mar 07, 2013 12:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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daverupa
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by daverupa »

LonesomeYogurt wrote:
daverupa wrote:
LonesomeYogurt wrote:It's based on a chart on Wikipedia...
Maaan what page is that found on? I couldn't for the life of me track it down.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandha" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by LonesomeYogurt »

Viscid wrote:It 'comes through' their eyes? So experience is actually present outside their body, and then leaps in through their eyes? What I think you mean by this is that their experience is private. You shouldn't even mention sense organs: people with Charles-Bonnet syndrome 'see' hallucinations while being blind. Sight is not always dependent on the eye.
I mean that their experience arises from contact at their specific sense doors. And in that case, such sights would be mental formations instead of feeling or perception.
LonesomeYogurt wrote:Consciousness (which I define as the ability for a thing to have experience, or to be 'like' something) is not necessarily reducible to physics. So far, we haven't been able to identify what makes one thing conscious and another thing not conscious. (I don't believe a robot will ever be equally conscious to a human, even though it may be able to imitate the behaviour of a human precisely.) If consciousness is not reducible to physical laws, it is improper to assume that it is physical space which places bounds upon it.
It is not improper to assume, considering consciousness arises upon sense contact, and considering sense contact occurs in one physical place, that consciousness arises in relation to that place. Consciousness may not be "bound" by space but it certainly can be related to space.
LonesomeYogurt wrote:Buddhadasa doesn't really address the question.. he dismisses it entirely by saying the self does not exist, which is a cop-out, more a trick of language than anything substantial. The real question is why we are born as a particular individual as opposed to any other individual. Even if the 'self' is a delusion, we still have to explain the conditions which formed that delusion.
We aren't born a particular individual as opposed to any other particular individual. What we refer to as a "particular individual" is just the selfless cycle of contact, conscious perception, and mental proliferation chugging onwards with ignorance as its fuel. The condition that forms that delusion is the clinging mind, which comes from ignorance; in terms of evolutionary psychology, there is good reason to believe that "compacting" the bundle of mental conditions that make up a being into one discrete self is beneficial for survival. As for why we feel as though we are one individual instead of another, it is because the set of phenomena we have to cling to is generated from our specific bodies or the minds that arise in relation to them.
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.

Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta

Stuff I write about things.
danieLion
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by danieLion »

While I wouldn't say the last several posts are off topic, they are a little lopsided in terms of the OP (the focus seems to have narroed to Point Three of the OP). I'm not going to make a big deal of it if you don't want to do this, but could you (Viscid, LonesomeYogurt, daverupa) please relate what you've posted lately to the other Two Points of the OP (i.e.,why meditation is necessary and can we know if it's "original"?)?
Thanks
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by daverupa »

My contribution has been to supply a chart reference; but, let's see here...

The first point is the need for meditation; I saw this sentence as being, "need to in order to eliminate dukkha", rather than there being some inherent necessity. It's true to say this of all aspects of the eightfold path.

The second point relates to the meditation of the earliest Buddhists & is definitely worth trying to understand, but making unilateral claims is probably overstepping available evidence. Nevertheless, without making reference to people doing things rightly or wrongly, we can make reference to whether this or that method can plausibly be said to be an engagement with Samadhi (sammaviriya, -sati, -samadhi) or not; meditation methods are thick on the ground, but only some are efficacious with respect to Buddhist goals.

And rebirth has nothing to do with the practice, as Pāṭaliya was instructed. I don't even think Sariputta contacted rebirth-facts (?), and in any event contact with such information isn't required for awakening.

:heart:
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by beeblebrox »

Viscid wrote: Accepting rebirth, there are problems-- especially when we accept the fact that there is no self. I interpret the fact that we have no self as indicating that identity relationships do not truly exist. So, if you were in deep jhana, and could recollect a past life, it would be improper to say that this past life was 'yours.' No! Wrong! You are having an experience of a life-- what it is you believe to be the connection between your life presently and the life you are recollecting is an act of reason, of imagination. The phenomenological experience of recollecting a past life, as is the phenomenological experience of recollecting a present life, must be imbued with a self of self-- the feeling that this experience is 'my' experience. This can mislead us into thinking that the recalled past life is ours, and is thus what conditioned the present life, but that is an unfair assumption. I do not believe you can make any claim that any past life was 'yours,' in a way which would imply there are past lives which are 'not yours.'
I apologize for continuing this a bit off-topic, but I don't think the problems have to do with the fact that there is no self, as much as the fact that the "self" isn't the right way to view things.

This is a big difference. When you say that there is no self, or that all things are selfless, and then when that seems like it creates some problems for the idea of rebirth, then it means you're actually still working within the framework of self.

In my opinion, the anatta teaching of the Buddha is only a preparatory work for the actual practice of the eight-fold path, leading to the extinguishment of greed, hatred and confusion. It isn't the final goal...

:anjali:
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by Viscid »

danieLion wrote:but could you (Viscid, LonesomeYogurt, daverupa) please relate what you've posted lately to the other Two Points of the OP (i.e.,why meditation is necessary and can we know if it's "original"?)?
Thanks
I was mostly just venting, it was an off-topic egotistical exercise. All done. In compensation, I'll address the topic directly:

In this quote:
Pesala wrote:The kind of meditation practised today by most Buddhist is mere imitation of the real thing. Sitting for fifteen minutes, then changing your position, or just falling asleep on the meditation cushion will never reach the higher stages of insight in a million years.
What I think he's trying to address is the lack of earnestness in which the Buddhist endeavour is being taken up today. Flaky meditation is representative of this. The desperation with which the goal was striven toward was much greater in The Buddha's time: drought, famine, disease, war, death and social inequality were commonplace. Today, meditation and Buddhism has become a superficial luxury of people trying to add meaning into their lives while living in a convenient zombified capitalist culture, rather than it being a sincere, radical practice to end their suffering totally. If people aren't willing to endure the discomfort of meditating for hours a day, they aren't serious about it.

I can see an easy answer as to why Buddhists need to meditate: It's one arm of the Noble Eightfold Path, and in order to identify yourself as a Buddhist, you need to follow the Noble Eightfold Path. If you want to approach the need to meditate from a completely secular position, you can invert the question and ask 'Why is it wrong to not meditate?' Well, if our goal is to be rid of suffering, and we believe meditation is the only effective tool (or an integral part of a toolset) with which we can truly eliminate suffering, then it would be foolish of us not to utilize that tool.

Using the concept of rebirth exclusively to justify the variance of meditative capability isn't very convincing, I agree.
beeblebrox wrote:This is a big difference. When you say that there is no self, or that all things are selfless, and then when that seems like it creates some problems for the idea of rebirth, then it means you're actually still working within the framework of self.

In my opinion, the anatta teaching of the Buddha is only a preparatory work for the actual practice of the eight-fold path, leading to the extinguishment of greed, hatred and confusion. It isn't the final goal...
I am treating the 'self' as a phenomenological entity-- what it 'feels' to be a being separate from the world. This, I feel, when eliminated, leads to the complete extinction of greed, hatred and delusion. Your view sounds more like Thanissaro's 'not-self strategy,' which doesn't deny the existence of an ontological self, and stands opposed to the more mystical 'not-self revelation' which does. The 'not-self strategy' does seem more appealing in the face of the problems inherent in an outright denial of any self.

ALSO:
Pope Daniel wrote:Reason (I try not to reason in a traditonal philsopical sense but in terms of Korzybksi's General Semantics and Non-Artistotelian Logic or what Robert Anton Wilson--the guy in my avatar--called Maybe Logic, Zeteticism, and, of course, in terms of critical thinking, REBT, and CBT) and necessity factor into it, but it's ultimately a matter of faith/confidence and personal experience.
HOLY CRAP STOP NAME-DROPPING.
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danieLion
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by danieLion »

Thanks Viscid. That's a good tie-in to the whole OP.

Does "name-dropping" really bother you? If so, why?
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by danieLion »

...delete...
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by LonesomeYogurt »

danieLion wrote:Thank you for reminding me of this. The Pataliya Sutta is found in the Samyutta Nikaya 42.13, where the Buddha tells Pataliya the Headman not worry about rebirth becuase the law of karma is not always visible here and now. The Buddha instead instructs him to focus on "abandoning" which is comprised of cultivating sila and sati, and developing samadhi.
The Buddha doesn't say, "Don't worry about rebirth because the law of karma is not always visible." He says almost exactly the opposite! He affirms that the law of karma is necessary because it is not always visible in the here and now. Our wholesome and unwholesome actions have consequences that span multiple lifetimes, but without an understanding of rebirth, it appears as though they don't. The Buddha is simply correcting an overly-simplistic doctrine of kamma.

I'd also like to know how this sutta's status as an encourager of agnosticism regarding rebirth squares with its repeated claim that rebirth in a heavenly state comes to those who practice rightly.
danieLion wrote:All this highlights the fact it is not only "secular" Buddhists who are the only ones who see rebirth as an unnecessary teaching for ultimate liberation, and shows how strong of a fact it is because even one of the Buddha's greatest disciples was not interested in it. Surely, if the Buddha had disapproved, we would have a record of that.
I'm sorry, but it is absolutely unreasonable to claim that Sariputta's disinterest in developing abhiñña with regards to past lives implies that he saw rebirth as "an unnecessary teaching." To conflate the two is as absurd as to say that, because I don't study in depth the muscle groups I exercise when I go to the gym, I must believe that the existence of muscles is an "unnecessary teaching" when it comes to properly working out.

Sariputta discussed rebirth in many suttas, for example the Sama-citta Sutta (AN 2:36) or the Pathama Sukha Sutta, copied here:
"Now, what, friend Sāriputta, is the pleasant, and what is the painful?"

"Rebirth, friend, is painful; non-rebirth is pleasant. When, friend, there is rebirth, this pain is to be expected: cold and heat, hunger and thirst, excrement and urine, contact with fire, contact with punishment, contact with weapons, and anger caused by meeting and associating with relatives and friends. When, friend, there is rebirth, this pain is to be expected.

"When, friend, there is no rebirth, this pleasantness is to be expected: neither cold nor heat, neither hunger nor thirst, neither excrement nor urine, neither contact with fire, nor contact with punishment, nor contact with weapons, and no anger caused by meeting and associating with relatives and friends. When, friend, there is no rebirth, this pleasantness is to be expected."
Gain and loss, status and disgrace,
censure and praise, pleasure and pain:
these conditions among human beings are inconstant,
impermanent, subject to change.

Knowing this, the wise person, mindful,
ponders these changing conditions.
Desirable things don’t charm the mind,
undesirable ones bring no resistance.

His welcoming and rebelling are scattered,
gone to their end,
do not exist.
- Lokavipatti Sutta

Stuff I write about things.
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Re: REAL Meditation: The Originalist Thesis

Post by Viscid »

danieLion wrote:Does "name-dropping" really bother you? If so, why?
Well, on a forum such as this one we have to assume that the people we're speaking with haven't read the same material we have, especially when that material is obscure. If you're name-dropping, you're saying "you won't understand what I am trying to explain unless you are as familiar with these sources as I am" which excludes most people from the discussion. It also just looks like you're trying to impress others with how well-read you are.
"What holds attention determines action." - William James
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