Greetings,
In other topics I've mentioned that whether nama-rupa is understood as "mind and matter/body" or "name and form" seems to have profound implications on how nama-rupa is regarded and perceived with insight.
If regarded and investigated as "name and form", dissolution as it pertains to "matter" becomes a non-issue, since rupa is taken as "form" rather than "matter" or "body", and with that, any potential base for explicit or implicit philosophical views of atomic realism are short-circuited, thereby side-stepping many of the quotations posted in the original post which were deemed problematic.
Furthermore, if it is recognised that all "nama" are "sankharas", then the bifurcation between "observation" and "observed" dissolves (since both are just sankharas in the realm of sentience).
If there really was atomic "momentariness" of dhammas, it would have to apply just as equally to the "observation" side (nama-rupa) as it would to the "observed" (vinnana), so how could some atomic moment of "observational" momentariness last independently long enough to see the full rise/exist/fall of a similarly momentary "observed dhamma"?
To imagine that some
thing can observe the full rise/exist/fall of an observed dhamma is to neglect that this very same
thing itself is not constant (atta) either, and must be subject to the same principles as that which it observes. Thus, if one is committed to affirming the observation of a fixed momentariness in the rise, existence and fall of observed dhammas, they are stuck with the dilemma of accounting for how the "observation dhamma" which is "doing the vipassana" outlasts the "observed dhamma" in order to see its rising, existing and passing away.
Different degrees of atomic momentariness for different kinds of mental dhammas? Hornet's nest. Run.
However, that all becomes unnecessary...
...if it is recognised that all "nama" are "sankharas", then the bifurcation between "observation" and "observed" dissolves (since both are just sankharas in the realm of sentience).
Momentariness (or any need for it) is then side-stepped too, regardless of whether it's to be found anywhere on the ground amongst the fallen leaves in the Simsapa Forest.
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."