Hearing. was Re: Mahamudra in Theravada?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
pt1
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Joined: Thu Jan 22, 2009 2:30 am

Re: Hearing. was Re: Mahamudra in Theravada?

Post by pt1 »

Hi Freawaru,
Freawaru wrote:
pt1 wrote: Color as green, red, etc, on the other hand is a concept as you say and it gets recalled by sanna further along in the cognition process in one of the consequent mind-door processes. So, in my understanding, visual rupa stands for all the information processing that is done by physical organ(s) for seeing - it happens automatically simply because that's how the organs function.
Yeah, some kind of pre-processor ;)
I've been thinking about this one. I'm not sure what would be the correct answer - i.e. how a medical/scientific model of seeing could be mapped onto the abhidhamma model of nama-rupa interaction in sense-door and mind-door processess. In other words, while we can say with some certainty that light that collects at the eye is probably equivalent to visual rupa, I don't know at which point can it be considered to trigger eye consciousness and the whole nama-sequence of 17 mind-moments for the sense-door process according to abhidhamma? At the point when the light hits the back of the eye, or when the electrical signals start to travel up the optical nerve, or when they reach the brain, etc? I don't know. I'd tend to think it would start with the optical nerve signals.

BUT, all this is pure speculation, and that is not the goal of abhidhamma. Further, scientific explanations are also pure speculation, and thus, not the goal of abhidhamma either. I mean, my understanding is that the abhidhamma explanation basically serves the purpose of directing us towards direct insight into how this seeing process happens, so that such insight could lead to liberation eventually. Scientific explanations are not devised in that way, i.e. they rely on speculation/concepts, and thus, there probably isn't much use going down that road because it doesn't lead to direct insight.

Best wishes
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