On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
binocular
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

Post by binocular »

cooran wrote:Please show us all one Sutta, just one, where the Buddha clearly taught that there was a permanent Self or Soul.
False assumption. Nobody said that the Buddha taught there was a permanent self.

We're saying that "there is no self in the aggregates" is not the same as "there is no ontological self." That is all.

It's only if one proposes that all there is, are the aggregates, that "there is no self in the aggregates" is equivalent to "there is no self."

But if we are to believe that the aggregates are all there is, then nibbana either doesnt' exist, isn't real, cannot be attained, cannot serve as a goal, or is a mere aggregate.


Further, the quoted suttas are not in contradiction with some doctrines from other religions that do claim there is a self.
For example, in the Hare Krishna doctrine, they have a strict view that the soul exists, and they believe that form, feeling, perception, mental formations, consciousness - that that which is impermanent, unsatisfactory, subject to change, is not proper to regard as soul or self.
So it is possible to conceive of a view that there is a self, even as one holds that form, feeling, perception, mental formations, consciousness - that that which is impermanent, unsatisfactory, subject to change, are not the self.
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
binocular
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

Post by binocular »

danieLion wrote:I agree with the Buddha and William James about the self that even though the self isn't permanent or a soul it is nonetheless real.
I don't see how the Buddha is saying that.

And I'm not sure about William James either. Can you provide his reasoning that the soul is not permanent, but nevertheless real?
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
binocular
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

Post by binocular »

cooran wrote:Please show us all one Sutta, just one, where the Buddha clearly taught that there was a permanent Self or Soul.
Gaoxing wrote:Why do you say he doesn't say there is no self? How and where does he ever say there is a self?
It's not clear why you insist on this dichotomy: "Either the Buddha taught there is no ontological self, or he had to teach there is an ontological self" - as if those two would be the only two options in the matter.

Spiny Norman wrote:
cooran wrote:Please show us all one Sutta, just one, where the Buddha clearly taught that there was a permanent Self or Soul.
But is there a sutta where he clearly taught that there wasn't? In the Ananda Sutta he equates the no-self view with annihilationism, which is wrong view.
I think the Buddha's approach is sometimes the ex-negativo approach: he approaches a definition of something by definining what it is not; whereby it is not necessary to provide an exhaustive list of what it is not, but only those factors which one considers crucial for the contradistinction. With some things, it is simply more concise and simple to point out what they most certainly are not, than trying to establish what they are.
I think the teachings on not-self are a good example of this.


Examples:
Health is the state in which there are no diseases present.
A vegan dish is one like for vegetarians, except no animal products at all (ie. no dairy and no eggs) are used.
Claude Debussy didn't want his music to sound anything like Richard Wagner's.
Only those students are eligible for the competition who do not have any F's.
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
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Gaoxing
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

Post by Gaoxing »

Quoting Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu

Here, I'd like to go ahead to tell you that this nothingness or nihilism (natthikadiţţhi) is another meaning. Don't confuse the nihilistic teaching with the Buddha's teaching of suññatā (voidness). The correct word, voidness, still has existence, but nothing existing as a self. Everything is void of self. There is a big difference between nothingness and suññatā which holds that things exist void of selfhood. To mix up and confuse natthikadiţţhi with suññatā is to misunderstand Buddhism even more. Please distinguish the one group of views as natthikadiţţhi and keep it separate.

To remember easily: nothingness, no thing at all, is called " natthikadiţţhi "; existence or being without attā is called "suññatā." With natthikadiţţhi there is nothing. Suññatā exists but is void of self. natthikadiţţhi and suññatā are not the same thing. You must understand this properly.
Once again, don't confuse natthikadiţţhi with anattā or suññatā. Don't take nihilism to be anattā. These are totally different matters. Anattā, suññatā, and tathatā are, they exist, but their beings are not-self. They are anattā.

Now we come to the third question which they will ask: When there is no attā, then what is reborn? What or who is reborn? Forgive us for being forced to use crude language, but this question is absurd and crazy. In Buddhism, there is no point in asking such a thing. There is no place for it in Buddhism. If you ask what will be reborn next, that's the craziest, most insane question. If right here, right now, there is no soul, person, self, or attā, how could there be some "who" or "someone" that goes and gets reborn? So there is no way one can ask "who will be reborn?"Therefore, the rebirth of the same person does not occur. But the birth of different things is happening all the time. It happens often and continuously, but there is no rebirth. There is no such thing, in reality, as rebirth or reincarnation. That there is one person, one "I" or "you," getting reborn is what reincarnation is all about. If all is anattā, there is nothing to get reborn. There is birth, birth, birth, of course. This is obvious. There is birth happening all the time, but it is never the same person being born a second time. Every birth is new. So there is birth, endlessly, constantly, but we will not call it "rebirth" or "reincarnation."

While we have the chance, let's spill all the beans– there isn't much time left – there's no "person" or "being" (satva). What we call a person is merely a momentary grouping that does not last. It does not have any independent reality and is merely a stream or process of cause and effect, which is called the "dependent origination of `no person.'" Buddhism teaches dependent origination – this process of causes and effects, of things continuously arising out of causes, the causes being dependent on previous causes, the whole flow unfolding on and on. Thus, Buddhism is the teaching of "no man," the teaching of "no person." There's no person to live or to die or to be reborn. Now, there's no person. It's merely the grouping of body and mind, or of the five khandhas, or whatever you want to call it. But this grouping which temporarily appears according to causes and conditions is not a person. Would you please understand well that it is no person who makes kammas, who receives fruits of kammas, who is happy, who is dukkha, who dies, who gets reborn. These lives don't exist like that. There is no birth or incarnation of the same person.
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Gaoxing
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

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Binoc wrote:But if we are to believe that the aggregates are all there is, then nibbana either doesnt' exist, isn't real, cannot be attained, cannot serve as a goal, or is a mere aggregate.
Neither the aggregates nor Nibbana exist as independent entities and that is not a problem at all. Nibbana is not a place to go to and it is neither a goal. The only goal in the Buddhas teaching is the end of suffering. Samsara and Nibbana are not dualities. Samsara does not exist seperate from Nibbana but is conditioned phenomena, delusion of reality. Reality is Sunnata namely voidness, void of self or any entity, thusness.

Samsara contains discriminating thought. There is no objective difference between Samsara and Nibbana. The difference between the two is only a subjective difference, it's only in the mind. Samsara and Nibbana are the same but seen from two different viewpoints. From the view of ignorance reality appears as samsara and from the viewpoint of insubstansiality, relativity and voidness reality is nibbana and without suffering. Nibbana is uncondistioned and transcended relative concepts, beyond conceptions and expressions beyond mind and consciousness.
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

Post by tiltbillings »

daverupa wrote: Paul Carus' work The Gospel of the Buddha? I wonder what his source is... anyone?
His particular monistic philosophy.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Alex123
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

Post by Alex123 »

Gaoxing wrote:Nope its not twisting it. A has no B = A. It's like saying I have no bananas = I
There is no A for A = no A . The point is that "I have no self" is inappropriate reflection along with all other reflections that deal with "I" .

The Buddha refused to claim that "the self doesn't exist" even to venerable Ananda who could understand if misunderstanding of no self was the problem with Vaccha.
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Gaoxing
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

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Alex123 wrote:
Gaoxing wrote:Nope its not twisting it. A has no B = A. It's like saying I have no bananas = I
There is no A for A = no A . The point is that "I have no self" is inappropriate reflection along with all other reflections that deal with "I" .

The Buddha refused to claim that "the self doesn't exist" even to venerable Ananda who could understand if misunderstanding of no self was the problem with Vaccha.
Nope! The Buddha taught why no-self. no-self is not something that can be thought of conceptually, it's not an easy matter. It's first of all not a theoretical issue. The work needs to be done in a pragmatic way. Meditation works a lot but not all.

A has no B= A Thicket of views.

Ananda was shocked at the Buddha's silence.
Last edited by Gaoxing on Sat Jun 15, 2013 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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tiltbillings
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

Post by tiltbillings »

danieLion wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:Talking in terms of actual experience, the Buddha: . . .
No, "there is no self" claim here either; likewise, this topic would not exist without ourselves making it happen.
The claim that is being made in these texts -- and I would say the suttas as a whole -- is that the experienced self, however one might imagine it, is a derived construct of our experiential process. A sense of self is an experience we are stuck with until awakening. It is not an issue in these texts of some sort of ontologically self-existing entity. The suttas are really not doing that kind of philosophy. It is, rather, in dealing with the experiential process of what we are, we find no unchanging metaphysical self/thing within that experience.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

Post by Gaoxing »

tiltbillings wrote:
danieLion wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:Talking in terms of actual experience, the Buddha: . . .
No, "there is no self" claim here either; likewise, this topic would not exist without ourselves making it happen.
The claim that is being made in these texts -- and I would say the suttas as a whole -- is that the experienced self, however one might imagine it, is a derived construct of our experiential process. A sense of self is an experience we are stuck with until awakening. It is not an issue in these texts of some sort of ontologically self-existing entity. The suttas are really not doing that kind of philosophy. It is, rather, in dealing with the experiential process of what we are we find no unchanging metaphysical self/thing within that experience.
Fully agree. There are many philosophies around and in Buddhism but Buddhism is not a philosophy.
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

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Gaoxing wrote:Nope! The Buddha taught why no-self.
The Buddha taught anatta, and rejected natthatta when speaking to Ananda.
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,
Gaoxing wrote:Fully agree. There are many philosophies around and in Buddhism but Buddhism is not a philosophy.
Well I agree with Tilt too, but wonder how you resolve your "no self" position with that, given that what Tilt is saying is very much about "not self".

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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Gaoxing
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

Post by Gaoxing »

Alex123 wrote:
Gaoxing wrote:Nope! The Buddha taught why no-self.
The Buddha taught anatta, and rejected natthatta when speaking to Ananda.
I'll be honest. I don't have the original texts so I won't really know. I can only know what corresponds to my own experience, thus only taking as truth which agrees with my practical experience, that is mostly my meditation experience and a little practical people relations where I've seen anatta happen.

All I know is that the Buddha rejected sassatadiţţhi and natthikadiţţhi due to his teachings of sammādiţţhi. The Buddha rejected the extremes of sassatā and natthikā. To my understanding this (sassatadiţţhi and natthikadiţţhi) corresponds somewhat to the philosophical view of either an ontological self or not and a ontological existence and non-existence which the Buddha rejected.

The Buddha taught an atta of everething but it is not the same as the atta of the Brahmins and others at that time. It is also not the same as the Advaita 'consciousness is all' teaching and it's not the same as animistic attas. The Buddha new that his insight was not that kind of atta or attas but anatta. Thus the atta which the Buddha taught is anatta and best seen in sunnata. The Buddha taught dependent origination, cause and effect, and rejected any independent view of a separate entity or essence. It is therefore impossible to accept the modern word 'self' as being the same as both the atta that is not anatta and is also not the same as the atta which is anatta. IMO it's best to collect a list of all atta teachings from the time of the Buddha that was not Buddhist to fully understand the uniqueness of anatta. As far as I can see the Buddhas 'revelation' is very unique, even today.

"Anattā, suññatā, and tathatā are, they exist, but their beings are not-self. They are anattā."

The problem with atta or self is that there are as many attas and selves as there are people and differing opinions. Anatta is very precise compared to all the attas there are, beyond fabrications, formations and concepts.

As for natthatta, as far as I can see, would have been rejected by the Buddha as natthikadiţţhi.

The Buddha spoke of himself as the Tathagata (One who thus is and the one who has thus gone). Here the word 'thus' is important. It's something dynamic and real. Without attachment or clinging, without transmigration and carnation or reincarnation. Alive and ever changing awake-ness.
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

Post by Gaoxing »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings,
Gaoxing wrote:Fully agree. There are many philosophies around and in Buddhism but Buddhism is not a philosophy.
Well I agree with Tilt too, but wonder how you resolve your "no self" position with that, given that what Tilt is saying is very much about "not self".

Metta,
Retro. :)
If you read my post to Alex above you'll see that I actually reject both not-self and no-self and also self. :anjali:
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Re: On Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anatta teachings

Post by kirk5a »

Gaoxing wrote:The Buddha spoke of himself as the Tathagata (One who thus is and the one who has thus gone). Here the word 'thus' is important. It's something dynamic and real. Without attachment or clinging, without transmigration and carnation or reincarnation. Alive and ever changing awake-ness.
Whatever is inconstant is dukkha.
"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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