Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

[tiltbillings]

That's a good one tilt.

Let's get back to topic shall we...

Kevin

We can then take that as a "no" and that you still have something to learn from the wiser sutta-wallahs. All-righty then.

Back to the topic:

There vijjamanapannatti is translated as "a direct concept of the real".

And being concepts they are conditioned.

[Virgo]

I don't even want to talk about this topic. Just read this and learn all about concepts: http://www.abhidhamma.org/sujin3.htm

I am going to bed.

Good day,

Kevin

[tiltbillings]

I don't even want to talk about this topic. Just read this and learn all about concepts: http://www.abhidhamma.org/sujin3.htm

Interesting, but it still does not change the fact that if it is a concept, it is conditioned, but then dhammas are, indeed, conditioned.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

And being concepts they are conditioned.

(and in the absence of a response from Virgo...)

Concepts are sankhata (i.e. formed, fabricated, conditioned...)

Sabbe sankhara dukkha (i.e. all formations are dukkha)

"Self" is a formed concept too.

If we deliberately ignore and exclude concepts from our investigations, how will we ever know that... "All conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things are suffering. All dhammas (all things conditioned and unconditioned) are anatta"?

The answer is that we won't.

Concepts are if anything the most important things to investigate since that's where our false perception of "self" exists. It doesn't exist in rocks and colours. It exists in the prolific.

Metta,
Retro.

[Ben]

If we deliberately ignore and exclude concepts from our investigations, how will we ever know that... "All conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things are suffering. All dhammas (all things conditioned and unconditioned) are anatta"?

Very nicely said, Retro!

[Kim OHara]

Greetings, all,
I have an answer ... not a good one, perhaps, but it is *new* and it may be useful:
"Sabbe sankhara dukkha," is the complementary statement to, "Only nibbana can truly release us from suffering."

I'm serious, actually. It is the best I have been able to come up with since this thread started, even with the (often mixed and confusing ) help of everyone who has contributed. Every time I try to put "Sabbe sankhara dukkha" into English, I run into complexities, caveats, exceptions, double negatives and plain contradictions; pointing to its complement avoids them all.

Kim

[retrofuturist]

Greetings Kim,

Speaking of complements, nibbana is asankhata, which means unformed.

According to Nyanatiloka Thera, "The Unformed, Unoriginated, Unconditioned, Uncreated & Unconstructed is a name for Nibbana, the beyond of all becoming and conditionality." ( Source: http://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=Asankhata" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; )

It's precisely that which makes sankhara dukkha, which makes asankhata not-dukkha... namely, being formed or unformed

Metta,
Retro.

[acinteyyo]

I mean since the ultimately real things are in fact dukkha, shouldn't then an imagination, an individual "dreaming up" be dukkha a fortiori or do you want to say that a concept doesn't even have the characteristic of being dukkha?

Correct.

Kevin

Sorry, I do not understand. What is correct, the first part or the second.
1. Shouldn't an imagination, an idividual "dreaming up" be dukkha?
or
2. Do you want to say that a concept doesn't even have the characteristic of being dukkha?

[acinteyyo]

Greetings,

And being concepts they are conditioned.

(and in the absence of a response from Virgo...)

Concepts are sankhata (i.e. formed, fabricated, conditioned...)

Sabbe sankhara dukkha (i.e. all formations are dukkha)

"Self" is a formed concept too.

If we deliberately ignore and exclude concepts from our investigations, how will we ever know that... "All conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things are suffering. All dhammas (all things conditioned and unconditioned) are anatta"?

The answer is that we won't.

Concepts are if anything the most important things to investigate since that's where our false perception of "self" exists. It doesn't exist in rocks and colours. It exists in the prolific.

Metta,
Retro.

Hi retro,

very well said! This is exactly the reason why I say "rocks" are dukkha because a "rock" is nothing but a formed concept, a sankhata dhamma, which other things also depending on it which makes it also a sankhara.
Seeing the truth -in this case- means penetrating the concept, which is cessation of the concept, this is cessation of dukkha.
best wishes, acinteyyo

[tiltbillings]

Speaking of complements, nibbana is asankhata, which means unformed.

Nibbana is asankhata (unconditioned) because it is the no longer being conditioned by greed, hatred, and delusion in our experiences and actions.

That which is the destruction of greed, hatred and delusion is
nibbana. -- S.N. IV 251 and IV 321

And we see:

That which is the destruction of greed, hatred and delusion is
asankhata. -- S.N. IV 359 and S.N. 362

Clearly nibbana and asankhata are equivalent terms, synonyms. Nibbana is asankhata, “unconditioned,” because one's experience and actions are not conditioned by hatred, greed and ignorance.

According to Nyanatiloka Thera, "The Unformed, Unoriginated, Unconditioned, Uncreated & Unconstructed is a name for Nibbana, the beyond of all becoming and conditionality." ( Source: http://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=Asankhata" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; )

This is not quite correct. The first sentence in the Udana 80 - the "un" passage - reads in Pali: "Atthi [There is] ajatam [unborn], abhutam [unproduced], akatam, [unmade], asankhatam [unconditioned]." It is important to note that ajatam, abhutam, etc are adjectives, not nouns. The noun of this sentence is implied. So we can ask, There is _what_? What is the implied noun? Nibbana, the experiential "state" of being free from the conditioning of greed, hatred, and delusion in one's experience and actions.

To rewrite: It's precisely that which makes our experience liable dukkha, which makes our experience free of dukkha... namely, being conditioned by greed, hatred, and delusion or being free from greed, hatred, and delusion.

[Kim OHara]

Hello again, folks,
Retro, you said, "Speaking of complements, nibbana is asankhata, which means unformed. "
I actually knew that, thanks to this thread, and it was one of the sources of my complement. But I kept on thinking about it ...
Complementing my complement, I just got:
All compounded things are associated with suffering, or, if you prefer, 'All formations are associated with suffering.'
I could get to like that as a translation of 'Sabbe sankhara dukkha'.
I still can't accept, 'All formations are suffering.' The verb is wrong if you take the most obvious meaning of the sentence (because formations are a source of suffering if/when we cling to them, not suffering per se), so the sentence is, at best, misleading. (One could, at a stretch, grant the statement some kind of metaphorical truth, e.g. 'formations are suffering' in the same way 'ice-cream is bliss,' but a sentence which is going to be misinterpreted by 99.97% of its readers is a terrible teaching tool.)
And it's worth noting that there is no verb, as far as I can see, in the Pali statement. The connection between sankhara and dukkha is therefore unstated, as far as I can see.

Kim

[PeterB]

Pali does not parse in the same way that a European language does.
This alone gives rise to all sorts of problems in translation.
The need to force Pali and Sanskrit into English grammatical conventions distorts the meaning, sometimes grossly sometimes subtley.
Its one of the reasons why its a good idea to learn at least the major concepts in the Pali.

[Kim OHara]

Pali does not parse in the same way that a European language does.
This alone gives rise to all sorts of problems in translation.
The need to force Pali and Sanskrit into English grammatical conventions distorts the meaning, sometimes grossly sometimes subtley.
Its one of the reasons why its a good idea to learn at least the major concepts in the Pali.

Hi, Peter,
I can understand that position but can't totally agree with it.
One reason: Westerners will typically come to Buddhism through a Western language. If the very fundamentals of the teachings can't be expressed to them in their own language, they face a barrier which, as a teacher, I see as an extraneous impediment to their progress and I would therefore like to demolish.
Another: If we 'learn it in the Pali' we still have a translation difficulty: we may learn the meaning of an individual term but, as we are seeing now, still think in English grammatical formations. 'Learning it in the Pali' can only really work if we learn the whole language well enough to think in it - not a challenge many of us will meet.
Another: If people like us at DW, with more than a passing knowledge of the dhamma, can't communicate it accurately to each other, how sound is our knowledge?

I have a long-held belief that anyone who truly knows his/her subject can explain it clearly to anyone willing to listen - and 'clearly' doesn't include recourse to exotic technical words, whether Pali or technobabble.
The bottom line is that while I'm willing enough to learn some of the Pali terms for myself, I would still like to be able to have all the key concepts explained in straightforward English ... for the benefit of all.

Kim

[PeterB]

The fact is Kim O Hara Buddhadhamma is only renderable in the form of words as a last resort.
Even the Buddha hesitated because of the daunting task he foresaw in translating what he experienced in the form of words.
Buddhadhamma is a not a philosophy. Its something you do.

Concepts like dukkha can only be hinted at by language. The word is the rough hewn outer expression of an Insight that arises with the appropriate meditation practice. No amount of " demolishing " will alter that fact.

The Insight that arises as a result of Vipassana or by Samatha is both the meta language of Dhamma and the objective of it.

Buddhist philosophy only makes real sense in retrospect as the result of extensive practice.
Hence the need for Saddha..another Pali term....ususally translated as "faith" but that raises yet more problems because of its connotation with belief.
It actually is more to do with being willing to hold a provisional position poorly expressed in words, until meditation practice bears fruit.

[PeterB]

" How sound is our knowledge of it ? ".......very unsound. Even for those who are well aquainted with the concepts embodied in the Dhamma. Even for those with a thorough knowledge of Pali. And that will remain the case for most of us for some considerable time. Possibly lifetimes.