Re: The One True Dhamma?
Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 10:10 am
I think it may be worth distinguishing (again!) saying "there is one true Dhamma" and saying "I have one true Dhamma". After all we are on a path and have not reached the destination.
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I appreciate your personal preference for more hands-off, detached discussion and will keep it in mind.mikenz66 wrote:Let's just put Nanavira up against Buddhaghosa and be done with it.
Seriously, if you could explain why, I would be incredibly grateful for the feedback. I'm not here to be on the end of that which is 'palatable' - I'm here to learn. There is nothing wrong with "According to ME, RETRO is mistaken" - I would appreciate the directness and forthrightness, regardless of whether or not I agree with your analysis. What "self" is there to defend? There is nothing wrong with two people not agreeing on something. We don't all have to find the same conclusions and finish with a big group hug. We just need to challenge opinions and views with respect and hopefully find something useful out of some meaningful dialogue.mikenz66 wrote:"According to ME, RETRO is mistaken".
It took me quite a lot of time this morning to research and write on the other thread the rather small amount that I did on how I view some of the Visuddhimagga explanations.retrofuturist wrote: I've never heard someone put hand on heart and say what benefit they've gotten out of the Mahavihara approach to dependent origination. I'd be fascinated to know. ...
Well it was greatly appreciated. That answer about how DO to be known with respect to the past and future and the role of inference was an important one for me, because it helps show me the level of "how much do you need to see directly for yourself experientially versus via inference?" is treated from a classical standpoint. Obviously we want to know what we need to know, but sometimes precisely what 'know' means is a bit of an open-ended question. See it? Think it? Believe it? Suppose it? Accept it? Infer it? A combination of the above?... many shades, a lot of scope by which to miss the point.mikenz66 wrote:It took me quite a lot of time this morning to research and write on the other thread the rather small amount that I did on how I view some of the Visuddhimagga explanations.
The "than you would like" aspect is irrelevant, because it's not what we like that will lead us to the cessation of suffering. It's more that Nanavira, Nanananda, Buddhadasa, Patrick Kearney, Ajahn Sumedho, various Dhamma Wheel members, many others and myself all seem to believe the suttas (generally, and also with respect to dependent origination) are pointing towards something to be experienced and verified personally, here-and-now (rather than just inferred, or even more remote from that... an intellectual, philosophical or metaphysical explanation) and that there's apparent contradictions that get introduced unnecessarily through the three-life partitioning. But no need for us to rehash it here, there's other more relevant topics in which that can be pursued, if the appetite should even be there for such discussion. I'm happy to not discuss it with you, if you don't want to hear it. You seem like a nice guy and I don't want to cause you any consternation on account of our different paradigms. In my mind, it is enough to know simply that we are both sincere about the Dhamma.mikenz66 wrote:It seems to me that your/Nanavira's objection to the commentarial interpretation revolves around an argument to do with statements about past and future being less phenomenological than you would like.
My apologies if i appeared to say that Mike.mikenz66 wrote:Hi Peter,I agree. However, as I said in my last post, it's probably not very helpful to say something like:PeterB wrote:Thats the whole point it seems to me. There is an assumption that to hold the view that there is is one true Dhamma is in and of itself negative.
I think that begs many questions. I think its actually a positive statement.
As I said what interests me is what that response puts aside..i.e. the need to think that there is not one true Dhamma.
I dont think it needs an over literal mind to see that the Buddha himself said that there was.
"Member X is completely confused about the Dhamma and if only he'd listen to me things would be OK."
Mike
What's the difference between my statement about "what you would like" and your statement that "x, y, z seem to believe"? From my perspective you keep injecting what I see as completely spurious statements about how "intellectual and philosophical" certain things are. I'll ignore those for now.retrofuturist wrote:The "than you would like" aspect is irrelevant, because it's not what we like that will lead us to the cessation of suffering. It's more that Nanavira, Nanananda, Buddhadasa, Patrick Kearney, Ajahn Sumedho, various Dhamma Wheel members, many others and myself all seem to believe the suttas (generally, and also with respect to dependent origination) are pointing towards something to be experienced and verified personally, here-and-now (rather than just inferred, or even more remote from that... an intellectual, philosophical or metaphysical explanation) ...mikenz66 wrote:It seems to me that your/Nanavira's objection to the commentarial interpretation revolves around an argument to do with statements about past and future being less phenomenological than you would like.
Personally neither particularly resonates with me. What does resonate is the Buddha saying that there is one true Dhamma..Dan74 wrote:I think it may be worth distinguishing (again!) saying "there is one true Dhamma" and saying "I have one true Dhamma". After all we are on a path and have not reached the destination.
"What you would like" suggests a distortion based upon personal preferences. In other words, I would like for something to be a certain way, so I will interpret it thus according to my preferences, regardless of whether or not that is how it is. As mentioned elsewhere, I intend to fit to the Dhamma, not for the Dhamma to fit to me.mikenz66 wrote:What's the difference between my statement about "what you would like" and your statement that "x, y, z seem to believe"?
You may ignore what you like of course, but even just this morning (i.e. after writing the post you responded to), I read the following in "Theravada Nyana" by Ven. Hegoda Khemananda, whom did not seem to find it so spurious...mikenz66 wrote:From my perspective you keep injecting what I see as completely spurious statements about how "intellectual and philosophical" certain things are. I'll ignore those for now.
"The act of realization constitutes its knowledge.
To perceive is to 'make it in one's eye'. It is to know through one's own faculties. Methodically and logically derived knowledge is inference [5]. The dhamma (noble truth) cannot be known by logic. Hence it is called 'beyond the scope of logic' (atakkavacara). The commentators have described those who draw conclusions based on logic as 'view-addicts' [6].
The transition points between these 'three lives' constitute the major problem. Sankhara gets stripped down to cetana, and consciousness becomes reliant on re-birth linking consciousness which is not found in the suttas. How to observe or infer the 'when this arises, that comes to be. when this ceases, that ceases to be' relationship there, other than as a "view"? Do you believe it can be inferred from past and present experience (setting aside recall of past lives)? At the other lifetime-delineation, how to observe the relationship between bhava and jati (mistranslated as "re-birth"), other than as a "view"? Do you believe it can be inferred from past and present experience (setting aside recall of past lives)? In relation to those two "life-crossings", have you directly experienced them? Do you have any idea how you intended to experience them, short of crossing lives? How did the arahants know that "jati is ended"? For that matter, how can dependent origination in its cessation (nirodha) mode be known? Must one be dead to know it?mikenz66 wrote:Let's stick to the issue. There is a past, there is a present, there is a future. What we experience now is the present. What we know about the past is what we remember (which is experience) or infer (which is based on experience). What we know about the future is what we infer (based on experience). Nothing philosophical there.
That depends precisely what shade of "philosophical" you're taking. It's not "speculative", if that's what you mean, and its a wise reflection for promoting dispassion.mikenz66 wrote:Is it philosophical to reflect on death? Plenty of that in the Suttas. Do you have a "present moment" way of interpreting that?
The answer to this may lie in how you answer my question above in relation to the life-spanning nidana crossings.mikenz66 wrote:Where did I, or the Commentaries, or the Visuddhimagga, say that the Dhamma was not to be experienced for oneself in the present moment? The whole point of the exercise is to know whatever can be known in the present moment. The Visuddhimagga is a guide on how to get to that point.
Again, you presume to think my views are how I wish for things to be. I've told you repeatedly that's not how I approach the Dhamma, yet you presist to represent my views as an arrogant distortion of the Dhamma, established to suit my own proclivities. In essence, this repeated assertion is no less than accusing me of arrogance and inventing my own Dhamma.mikenz66 wrote:What I see in your statement above is some kind of philosophical or wishful-thinking argument ("I believe everything should be knowable in the present moment"). In my opinion that argument is the one that is bogged down in an intellectual-philosophical approach.
Well, firstly I'd like to think that it wasn't fighting...alan wrote:Fight all you want but let's have some idea of what you are disputing...please?
It relates to how people approach the Dhamma, and in turn, how people approach discussion on the Dhamma.alan wrote:Seriously--this is over my head. Maybe one of you can clarify?
We are directed to know:retrofuturist wrote:Obviously we want to know what we need to know...
Retro.
Yes, and anything that does is a blessing.nathan wrote:I hope this cuts through the complications a little.