vinasp wrote:Hi Retro,
Here's how I see things:
1. The 'Three Characteristics' are a later teaching - not found in the nikayas.
Found in the Nikayas:
277. "All conditioned things are impermanent" — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.
278. "All conditioned things are unsatisfactory" — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification.
279. "All things are not-self" — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification. - Dhammapada
It is impossible, O monks, and it cannot be that a person possessed of right view should regard any formation as permanent." But it is possible for an uninstructed worldling to regard a formation as permanent.
It is impossible, O monks, and it cannot be that a person possessed of right view should regard any formation as a source of happiness. But it is possible for an uninstructed worldling to regard a formation as a source of happiness.
It is impossible, O monks, and it cannot be that a person possessed of right view should regard anything as a self.fn 20 But it is possible for an uninstructed worldling to regard something as a self.
(I, xv, 1-3) 37-8 Numerical Discourses of the Buddha Nynaponika and Bodhi
Anguttara Nikaya III 134 (i 286):
Whether Tathagatas arise in the world or not, it still remains a fact, firm
necessary condition of existence, that all formation are impermanent ...
that all formations are subject to suffering ... that all dhammas are
anatta
V wrote:2. They seem to be a mis-interpretation of certain nikaya passages.
So you claim, but so you do not show us.
V wrote:3. Nowhere does the Buddha instruct anyone to 'see no - self '.
The Buddha clearly talks about the perception of anatta.
the perception of impermanence should be cultivated for the removal of the conceit 'I am.' For when one perceives impermanence, Meghiya,
the perception of not-self is established. When
one perceives not-self one reaches the removal of the conceit 'I am,' which is called Nibbana here and now."[/b]
Ud 37 (4.1)
V wrote:4. The Buddha teaches that certain things should be 'regarded' as not-self. The term 'regarded' is used in connection with views and means 'thinking' or 'understanding'. One already has a self - a mentally constructed self. This has been built-up over many years by regarding certain things as 'my self'. It is these things which should now be regarded as not-self, in order to de-construct this 'self'. So not-self is something you train yourself to think, and apply to all those things which you previously regarded as my self. It removes the mentally constructed self.
The perception of anatta is not an intellectual/conceptual process.
V wrote:So not-self is something you think, not something you should see.
When ignorance has been got rid of and knowledge has arisen, one does not grasp after sense pleasure, speculative views, rites and customs, the theory of self. - MN I 67.
Thinking "no self" is a speculative, which is not what the Buddha is asking us to do.
Bhikkhus, form (feeling... perception ,,, voltional formations ... consciousness) is impermanent. What is impermanent is suffering. What is suffering is nonself. What is nonself should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom thus: 'This not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.' When one sees this as it really is with correct wisdom, the mind becomes dispassionate and is liberated from the taints by non-clinging.
If. bhikkhus, a bhikhu's mind [citta.m] has become dispassionate towards the form element (the feeling element ... the perception element ... the volitional formations element ... the consciousness element), it is liberated by nonclinging.
By being liberated, it is steady; by being steady, it is content; by being content, he is not agitated. Being unagitated, he personally attains nibbaana. He understands: 'Destroyed is birth, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more for this state of being.' SN III 45