SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

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alan
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by alan »

Thanks Retro, and thanks Mike for choosing this most excellent and interesting Sutta for discussion.
One of the reasons I have come to consider Nanananda as a brilliant teacher is his ability to cut through the "conceptual overlays" we inevitably place upon our experience, and point out in clear, precise language why doing so creates unneeded suffering.
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mikenz66
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by mikenz66 »

retrofuturist wrote:
mikenz66 wrote:And whether such analysis has any impact on how one approaches meditative practise is not completely clear to me. However, you analyse it, the meditative instructions, to see experientially beyond the illusion, appear to be the same.
Returning to the formula defined in the Phena Sutta...

"...a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any [khanda] that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near. To him — seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it — it would appear empty, void, without substance..."

The only thing a monk can observe is the khandas, they cannot experience anything outside of them. So the impact on meditative practice is that the monk correctly understands what they are experiencing is experience (i.e. the five khandas, loka) and should not inappropriately examine it as some kind of "objective reality" that lies outside the five khandas. That would be an erroneous, conceptual overlay, and would be a case of inappropriately examining what was being observed.
Sure, that's what I consider the normal meditation instructions. Nothing I've read from Bhikkhu Nananada changes that.

What I'm saying is that my impression is that any assertion that nothing in the khandhas is real would be completely misguided. It seems to me that the point is to get to the bottom of the illusion, not to try to use logical analysis to try to figure out what is or is not illusory before you actually see clearly.

At least, that's how I understand the "magic show" and other similes.

:anjali:
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by Nyana »

mikenz66 wrote:What I'm saying is that my impression is that any assertion that nothing in the khandhas is real would be completely misguided.
"Reality" is a relative notion, the value of which depends entirely upon the significance one ascribes to the objects, contents, or processes of perception.
mikenz66 wrote:It seems to me that the point is to get to the bottom of the illusion
I'd suggest that the point is to see the illusion clearly for what it is, and in this way proceed to abandon all infatuation and distress regarding its manifold colorful and dramatic representations.

All the best,

Geoff
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mikenz66
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by mikenz66 »

Ñāṇa wrote:
mikenz66 wrote:It seems to me that the point is to get to the bottom of the illusion
I'd suggest that the point is to see the illusion clearly for what it is, and in this way proceed to abandon all infatuation and distress regarding its manifold colorful and dramatic representations.
Yes, that's a great way to put it.

:anjali:
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alan
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by alan »

Sure, that's a nice way to put it, but I'm still left slightly unsatisfied.
Reality is a relative notion? Seems to contradict suttas that proclaim the Dhamma as timeless.
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by Nyana »

alan wrote:Sure, that's a nice way to put it, but I'm still left slightly unsatisfied.
Reality is a relative notion? Seems to contradict suttas that proclaim the Dhamma as timeless.
The dhamma is indeed timeless. There's no contradiction whatsoever. Let's take a look at what Ven. Ñāṇananda has to say about "reality." In The Magic of the Mind he offers the following insight:
  • The question of 'seeing what-is-shown', brings us to the relationship between sign and significance. Sense-perception at all levels relies largely on signs. This statement might even appear as a truism since the Pāli word saññā denotes perception as well as 'sign', 'symbol', 'mark' or 'token.' It is due to the processes of grasping and recognition implicit in sense-perception that the sign has come to play such an important part in it. Grasping -- be it physical or mental -- can at best be merely a symbolical affair. The actual point of contact is superficial and localized, but it somehow props up the conceit of grasping. Recognition too, is possible only within arbitrarily circumscribed limits. The law of impermanence is persistently undermining it, but still a conceit of recognition is maintained by progressively ignoring the fact of change....

    Furthermore, as the Suttas often make it clear, all percepts as such are to be regarded as mere signs (saññā, nimitta). Hence while the worldling says that he perceives 'things' with the help of signs, the Tathāgata says that all we perceive are mere signs. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches and ideas are, all of them, signs which consciousness pursues. But still the question may be asked: "What do these signs signify?" "Things, of course" -- the Tathāgata would reply. 'Things', however, are not those that the worldling has in mind when he seeks an answer to this question. Lust, hatred and delusion are the 'things' which, according to the teaching of the Tathāgata, are signified by all sense-percepts. "Lust, friend, is a something; hatred is a something; delusion is a something." (M I 298, Mahāvedalla S.) "Lust, friends, is something significative, hatred is something significative, delusion is something significative" (ibid).
And then the part which deserves repeated consideration:
  • It is a fact often overlooked by the metaphysician that the reality attributed to sense-data is necessarily connected with their evocative power, that is, their ability to produce effects. The reality of a thing is usually registered in terms of its impact on the experiential side. This is the acid-test which an object is required to undergo to prove its existence in the Court of Reality. In the reference to materiality as 'manifestative and offering resistance' (D III 217, Sangiti S.) the validity of this test seems to have been hinted at. Now, the 'objects' of sense which we grasp and recognize as existing out-there, derive their object-status from their impact or evocative power. Their ability to produce effects in the form of sense-reaction is generally taken to be the criterion of their reality. Sense-objects are therefore signs which have become significant in themselves owing to our ignorance that their significance depends on the psychological mainsprings of lust, hatred and delusion. This, in other words, is a result of reasoning from the wrong end (ayoniso manasikāra) which leads both the philosopher and the scientist alike into a topsy-turvydom of endless theorising.
What most worldlings unquestioningly take to be "real," due to ascribing significance to the contents of deluded cognition, is nothing more than deluded cognition. Learners and arahants have understood deluded cognition to be false and have abandoned it (or are in the process of abandoning it in the case of learners). In this way they develop a "measureless mind." Seeing through the limitations of signs and symbols and language, they realize that there is no need -- and no possible way -- of trying to pin down this measureless freedom of absence by using signs and language. There is no point in attempting to construct and systematize a valid "reality." They've done what was needed to be done. The teachings they offer diagnose the problems of deluded cognition and point out the ways to unravel and eventually abandon passion, aggression, and delusion. And this path is as relevant today as it was 2500 years ago. It's quite amazing -- awe inspiring.

All the best,

Geoff
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kirk5a
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by kirk5a »

Ñāṇa wrote:What most worldlings unquestioningly take to be "real," due to ascribing significance to the contents of deluded cognition, is nothing more than deluded cognition.
I take X-Rays to be real. Are they nothing more than deluded cognition? They photographed my teeth today. What about oxygen? I take that to be real too. I'm not breathing deluded cognition in and out of my alveoli.
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by Nyana »

kirk5a wrote:I take X-Rays to be real. Are they nothing more than deluded cognition? They photographed my teeth today. What about oxygen? I take that to be real too. I'm not breathing deluded cognition in and out of my alveoli.
"I" and "my"....

Ven. Ñāṇananda, Seeing Through: A Guide to Insight Meditation:
  • Ānāpānasati : 'āna' means breathing in; 'apāna' means breathing out. Breathing in and breathing out. This is what we do everyday. We breath in and out. Between these two there is something rather imperceptible, something that is overlooked. But that is the very thing which perpetuates saṁsāra. Why do we breath in? We breathe in to maintain this existence. That is to maintain craving and ignorance -- to perpetuate this saṁsāra. We breathe in to preserve this body from destruction and death. There is grasping or 'upādāna' as an imperceptible gasping for breath. In short there is both 'gasping' as well as grasping. Beneath it lies craving and ignorance. There is supposed to be an 'I' behind this breathing -- a breather....

    It is after holding on to the breath that one sets about doing the work one has to do. Within this very grasping lies the ego -- 'my ability', 'my strength', 'I can do' and all that sort of thing.

    So, one takes in a breath and holds on to it, but he has to let go of it as well. This letting go happens out of sheer necessity -- per force. To let go of the breath that way, we call 'breathing out'. We breathe-in with some special purpose in mind -- to preserve our life. If it is possible to hold on to the breath for ever, for this purpose, so much the better, but we can't. Since we cannot do it, we have to let go of the breath after a while, whether we like it or not.

    So then here too we seem to have a case of 'adāna' and 'patinissaga' -- a taking up and a letting-go, at least on the face of it. There is a stage in 'ānāpānasati' at which this insight emerges. If we analyze the last four of the 16 steps in ānāpānasati meditation taught by the Buddha, we can understand to some extent the way of emergence of this insight.

All the best,

Geoff
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kirk5a
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by kirk5a »

Ñāṇa wrote:
kirk5a wrote:I take X-Rays to be real. Are they nothing more than deluded cognition? They photographed my teeth today. What about oxygen? I take that to be real too. I'm not breathing deluded cognition in and out of my alveoli.
"I" and "my"....

All the best,

Geoff
X-Rays have nothing whatsoever to do with whether there is clinging to "I" and "my" present or not. The body will die from an over exposure without the slightest clinging present. In fact, there could be no awareness the exposure was even occurring.
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
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Who am I?

Post by pegembara »

And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

All the world's a stage (from As You Like It )

William Shakespeare
And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter: This is called right speech.
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by Nyana »

kirk5a wrote:X-Rays have nothing whatsoever to do with whether there is clinging to "I" and "my" present or not.
From the perspective of practicing dhamma, functional things can be functional things without any need for metaphysical assumptions or ontological theories, all of which are endlessly debatable and are "a result of reasoning from the wrong end." As Ven. Ñāṇananda has quite clearly and insightfully indicated:
  • Sense-objects are therefore signs which have become significant in themselves owing to our ignorance that their significance depends on the psychological mainsprings of lust, hatred and delusion. This, in other words, is a result of reasoning from the wrong end (ayoniso manasikāra) which leads both the philosopher and the scientist alike into a topsy-turvydom of endless theorising.
All the best,

Geoff
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kirk5a
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by kirk5a »

Ñāṇa wrote:
kirk5a wrote:X-Rays have nothing whatsoever to do with whether there is clinging to "I" and "my" present or not.
From the perspective of practicing dhamma, functional things can be functional things without any need for metaphysical assumptions or ontological theories
Ok then there is no need for the ontological theory that everything taken to be real is nothing more than deluded conception.
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Kirk,

SN 12.15: Kaccayanagotta Sutta
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Dwelling at Savatthi... Then Ven. Kaccayana Gotta approached the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down, sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One: "Lord, 'Right view, right view,' it is said. To what extent is there right view?"

"By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.

"By & large, Kaccayana, this world is in bondage to attachments, clingings (sustenances), & biases. But one such as this does not get involved with or cling to these attachments, clingings, fixations of awareness, biases, or obsessions; nor is he resolved on 'my self.' He has no uncertainty or doubt that just stress, when arising, is arising; stress, when passing away, is passing away. In this, his knowledge is independent of others. It's to this extent, Kaccayana, that there is right view.

"'Everything exists': That is one extreme. 'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle: From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications.
From fabrications as a requisite condition comes consciousness. From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form. From name-&-form as a requisite condition come the six sense media. From the six sense media as a requisite condition comes contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging/sustenance. From clinging/sustenance as a requisite condition comes becoming. From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. Such is the origination of this entire mass of stress & suffering.

"Now from the remainderless fading & cessation of that very ignorance comes the cessation of fabrications. From the cessation of fabrications comes the cessation of consciousness. From the cessation of consciousness comes the cessation of name-&-form. From the cessation of name-&-form comes the cessation of the six sense media. From the cessation of the six sense media comes the cessation of contact. From the cessation of contact comes the cessation of feeling. From the cessation of feeling comes the cessation of craving. From the cessation of craving comes the cessation of clinging/sustenance. From the cessation of clinging/sustenance comes the cessation of becoming. From the cessation of becoming comes the cessation of birth. From the cessation of birth, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair all cease. Such is the cessation of this entire mass of stress & suffering."
Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by Nyana »

kirk5a wrote:Ok then there is no need for the ontological theory that everything taken to be real is nothing more than deluded conception.
The statement was in reference to phenomenological experience, not ontological theories.

All the best,

Geoff
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kirk5a
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Re: SN 22.95: Phena Sutta — Foam

Post by kirk5a »

Ñāṇa wrote:
kirk5a wrote:Ok then there is no need for the ontological theory that everything taken to be real is nothing more than deluded conception.
The statement was in reference to phenomenological experience, not ontological theories.

All the best,

Geoff
Alright then, the beating of my heart. That's a phenomenological experience. Is that nothing more than deluded conception?
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
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