Virgo wrote:'Rocks' are not dukkha. But the components that make up the concept 'rock' are all dukkha. Such as color, hardness, and so on.
retrofuturist wrote:Would you consider "color, hardness, and so on" to be dukkha even if there was no sentience in the universe capable of making contact with these qualities?
If you'd stopped after the section I've bolded, your position might have been consistent, even though I would not have agreed with it personally.Virgo wrote:Hi Retro. Yes. I think all paramattha dhammas - save one - have these characteristics no matter there is a mind present to perceive them or not. The reason is that a purified mind (with panna) sees these characterstics about dhammas and that is the cause for the unwholesome tendencies such as self-view, hatred, and aversion, and so on to be removed. Panna will never see these paramatha dhammas as happy. That is why, even if there is no one present to observe these dhammas, they are still said to be that way. Why? Because as soon as conditions arise for a mind with panna to see any one of these dhammas, the "dukhaness" will be apparent to it. So "dukkha" was taught to be an inherent characteristic of all conditioned dhammas by Buddha when he taught the Abhidhamma.
However, you then spend the rest of your paragraph talking about panna, which is obviously a product of sentience, and thereby proceed to not answer the question at all, in the sense that your later sentences seem to negate the bolded one.
Well, we'll be sure not to blanketly reject her perspective simply because she neither writes in Pali nor is over a thousand years old.Virgo wrote:Nina Van Gorkom... She is an authority on Abhidhamma. So that should be sufficient.
Metta,
Retro.