Bhavanga citta - fact or fiction?

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rowyourboat
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Bhavanga citta - fact or fiction?

Post by rowyourboat »

Is bhavanga citta a teaching of the Buddha or was it used ad a tool invented later to explain 'bits which were missing' from the Buddha's teachings?

I personally don't feel the need to use bhavanga citta to explain anything as the effect of a previous cause does not have to be immediate and does not have to arise as soon as the cause fades away. That is to say, the last conscious moment becomes the cause for the next conscious moment (it might be a dream or upon waking up).

Apparently the Buddha does not infer anything in the 'four fold emptiness': 'I do not imagine a self in the aggregates, any substance in the aggregates, any thing else beyond the aggregates..' and so on according to 'Concept and Reality' by Ven Katukurunde Nananda. Therefore I do not see a need (nor a place in the dhamma) for bhavanga citta. In fact I think it brings with it subtle hints of permanence suggesting the concept was created by someone who wasnt even a stream entrant.

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bodom
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Re: Bhavanga citta - fact or fiction?

Post by bodom »

I found the following snippets from an article by Nyanatiloka Thera helpful in understanding this commentarial concept...

This law of rebirth can be made comprehensible only by the subconscious life-stream (in Pali, bhavanga-sota), which is mentioned in the Abhidhamma Pitaka and further explained in the commentaries, especially the Visuddhimagga. The fundamental import of bhavanga-sota, or the subconscious life-stream, as a working hypothesis for the explanation of the various Buddhist doctrines, such as rebirth, kamma, remembrance of former births, etc., has up to now not yet sufficiently been recognized, or understood, by Western scholars. The term bhavanga-sota, is identical with what the modern psychologists, such as Jung, etc., call the soul, or the unconscious, thereby not meaning, of course, the eternal soul-entity of Christian teaching but an ever-changing subconscious process. This subconscious life-stream is the necessary condition of all life. In it, all impressions and experiences are stored up, or better said, appear as a multiple process of past images, or memory pictures, which however, as such, are hidden to full consciousness, but which, especially in dreams, cross the threshold of consciousness and make themselves fully conscious.......
The existence of the subconscious life-stream, or bhavanga-sota, is a necessary postulate of our thinking. If whatever we have seen, heard, felt, perceived, thought, experienced and done were not, without exception, registered somewhere and in some way, either in the extremely complex nervous system (comparable to a phonograph record or photographic plate) or in the subconscious or unconscious, we would not even be able to remember what we were thinking at the preceding moment; we would not know anything of the existence of other beings and things; we would not know our parents, teachers, friends, and so on; we would not even be able to think at all, as thinking is conditioned by the remembrance of former experiences; and our mind would be a complete tabula rasa and emptier than the actual mind of an infant just born, nay even of the embryo in the mother's womb.

Thus this subconscious life-stream, or bhavanga-sota, can be called the precipitate of all our former actions and experiences, which must have been going on since time immemorial and must continue for still immeasurable periods of time to come. Therefore what constitutes the true and innermost nature of man, or any other being, is this subconscious life-stream, of which we do not know whence it came and whither it will go. As Heraclitus says: "We never enter the same stream. We are identical with it, and we are not." Just so it is said in the Milindapañha: "na ca so, na ca añño; neither is it the same, nor is it another (that is reborn)." All life, be it corporeal, conscious or subconscious, is a flowing, a continual process of becoming, change and transformation. No persistent element is there to be discovered in this process. Hence there is no permanent ego, or personality, to be found, but merely these transitory phenomena........
Buddhism teaches that if in previous births the bodily, verbal and mental kamma, or volitional activities, have been evil and low and thus have unfavorably influenced the subconscious life-stream (bhavanga-sota), then also the results, manifested in the present life, must be disagreeable and evil; and so must be the character and the new actions induced or conditioned through the evil pictures and images of the subconscious life-stream. If the beings, however, have in former lives sown good seeds, then they will reap good fruits in the present life.......
What I chiefly wanted to make clear by this lecture is: that the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth has nothing to do with the transmigration of any soul or ego-entity, as in the ultimate sense there does not exist any such ego or I, but merely a continually changing process of psychic and corporeal phenomena. And further I wanted to point out that the kamma-process and rebirth-process may both be made comprehensible only by the assumption of a subconscious stream of life underlying everything in living nature.
See full article here:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el394.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:anjali:
Liberation is the inevitable fruit of the path and is bound to blossom forth when there is steady and persistent practice. The only requirements for reaching the final goal are two: to start and to continue. If these requirements are met there is no doubt the goal will be attained. This is the Dhamma, the undeviating law.

- BB
Akuma
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Re: Bhavanga citta - fact or fiction?

Post by Akuma »

rowyourboat wrote:Is bhavanga citta a teaching of the Buddha or was it used ad a tool invented later to explain 'bits which were missing' from the Buddha's teachings?

I personally don't feel the need to use bhavanga citta to explain anything as the effect of a previous cause does not have to be immediate and does not have to arise as soon as the cause fades away. That is to say, the last conscious moment becomes the cause for the next conscious moment (it might be a dream or upon waking up).
Afair in Esangha there was a monk who knew another monk who could perceive bhavanga directly. Doesnt necessarily mean that it was bhavanga he perceived or that its true but it might implicate that its not purely philosophical.
Concerning continuity - what you write is impossible tho from standard perspective, because the current moment is all there exists and therefore without a mechanism to save karma or to redirect karmic potential or to be a holder of personality etc. a akusala moment could f.e. never arise after a kusala moment because there would be no causes for it and only the existing moment could cause the next to arise. On the other hand side the bhavanga is a quick fix tho and was probably never meant as a deep and correct abhidhammic concept. Just like the idea of causation over longer timespans is a quickfix too, btw ^^
Apparently the Buddha does not infer anything in the 'four fold emptiness': 'I do not imagine a self in the aggregates, any substance in the aggregates, any thing else beyond the aggregates..' and so on according to 'Concept and Reality' by Ven Katukurunde Nananda. Therefore I do not see a need (nor a place in the dhamma) for bhavanga citta. In fact I think it brings with it subtle hints of permanence suggesting the concept was created by someone who wasnt even a stream entrant.
Bhavanga's type is determined by pathisandi and is conditioned dhamma that arises and falls away like all other dhammas, so it has the three marks like the other dhammas.
rowyourboat
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Re: Bhavanga citta - fact or fiction?

Post by rowyourboat »

"In the same way, monks, those things that I have known with direct knowledge but have not taught are far more numerous [than what I have taught]. And why haven't I taught them? Because they are not connected with the goal, do not relate to the rudiments of the holy life, and do not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding. That is why I have not taught them.

I dont think Bhavnga citta is in the suttas (correct me if I am wrong) and I wonder if that is because it does not lead to dispassion, cessation etc.

In vipassana it takes weeks/months of unbroken practice of seeing impermanence to cut through the delusions of permanence/self etc. So teachings like bhavanga citta, that cannot be perceived (and will apparently go undetected in vipassana), as simply impediments to progress IMO, because they carry with it a sense of continuity. Conversely we must be able to see destruction and ending of every moment (bhanga) to a degree which causes fear (bhaya). If we slip in bhavanga citta in there, the illusion of continuity will be maintained.

with metta

Matheesha
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Parth
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Re: Bhavanga citta - fact or fiction?

Post by Parth »

Few years back had interacted with a bhikkhu in one of the vipassana retreats, as per him any person nearing the sotapanna stage / all ariyas are able to percieve bhavanga. Though there does not seem to be anything in suttas on this.

Regards
Parth
Akuma
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Re: Bhavanga citta - fact or fiction?

Post by Akuma »

rowyourboat wrote: I dont think Bhavnga citta is in the suttas (correct me if I am wrong) and I wonder if that is because it does not lead to dispassion, cessation etc.

In vipassana it takes weeks/months of unbroken practice of seeing impermanence to cut through the delusions of permanence/self etc. So teachings like bhavanga citta, that cannot be perceived (and will apparently go undetected in vipassana), as simply impediments to progress IMO, because they carry with it a sense of continuity. Conversely we must be able to see destruction and ending of every moment (bhanga) to a degree which causes fear (bhaya). If we slip in bhavanga citta in there, the illusion of continuity will be maintained.
First I think it depends on your idea of progress. A believing person might very well follow you without much explanation. Quite an amount of doctrinal content from the later time (to which I would also count Theravada) has been put in as reactions to typical questions posed by either non-buddhists or other sects tho or for completing / rounding the overall image. Having an answer to a question, eventho it might not be of immediate practical use, might be a cause for the person to have more faith, understand more deeply and therefore become an indirect cause for later dispassion.
Secondly I cannot follow your idea, that bhavanga-citta would somehow give the illusion of continuity - at least not in any way other cittas would not?
Its true tho that the Buddha kept certain stuff for himself. I am unsure tho - at least from our perspective in 2011 - if this always was so good. Then on the other hand side looking into the future is not in the list of psychic powers :tongue:
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