Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

General discussion of issues related to Theravada Meditation, e.g. meditation postures, developing a regular sitting practice, skillfully relating to difficulties and hindrances, etc.
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tiltbillings
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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by tiltbillings »

pt1 wrote:I agree, but I have a feeling here (apologies if I misunderstood) that you are equating dhammas to concepts.
I think this is the crux of the issue. Calling what we experience via a concentrated mindful mind dhammas is using a conceptual structure after the fact of the experience. When we are talking about dhammas, are we talking about actual, existing momentary and discrete units of experience? I do not think so.

It is a problem with language that no matter how hard we try not to, we tend to end up making whatever it is we are talking about solid and individual. I think the Pali Abhidhamma seems to have tried to resist this, even into the later commentaries, and it probably did better than some other Abhidharma systems, but there is an obvious reification going on in some of the more modern abhidhamma discussions that really does not seem warranted from the earlier Abhidhamma, particularly the Abhidhamma Pitaka, nor from the suttas.

If dhammas are “ultimate things,” what kind of "ultimate things" are they? Piatigorsky, in his essay on the Theravadin Abhidhamma Pitaka texts (THE BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY OF THOUGHT 1984, 181) points out dhammas are not substances; they are not individual 'things' in and of themselves. He states:

“We simply cannot say that 'a dharma is... (a predicate follows)', because a dharma, in fact, 'is' no thing, yet [it is] a term denoting (not being) a certain relation or type of relation to thought, consciousness or mind. That is, dharma is not a concept in the accepted terminological sense of the latter, but a purely relational notion.”
Nyanaponika in ABHIDHAMMA STUDIES @ page 41 BPS; page 42 Wisdom wrote: By arranging the mental factors in relational groups a subordinate synthetical element has been introduced into the mainly analytical Dhammasangani. By so doing, the danger inherent in purely analytical methods is avoided. This danger consists in erroneously taking for genuine separate entities the “parts” resulting from analysis, instead of restricting their use to sound practical method with the purpose of classifying and dissolving composite events wrongly conceived as unities. Up to the present time it has been a regular occurrence in the history of physics, metaphysics, and psychology that when the “whole” has been successfully dissolved by analysis, the resultant “parts” themselves come in turn to be regarded as little “wholes.”
Dhammas in the Theravada Abhidhamma Pitaka are "ultimate things" only as a way of talking about aspects of the relational flow of experience, but not in terms of describing discrete realities. In other words, dhammas are not actual momentary and individual units of 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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acinteyyo
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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by acinteyyo »

Kim O'Hara wrote: Thanks, Retro, Acinteyyo.
So 'honti' in this case is the verb?
And it's missing from "sabbe sankhara dukkha"?
Is the implied verb in such constructions always "is" (or "are")?
:coffee:
Kim
Hm.. I think so, but I'm not a 100% sure. The book I'm using for learning pali says that "hoti" (to be) usually isn't necessary in such a construction. But any other word would be needed to express a different meaning than "is" or "are".
So I tend to say, yes the implied verb in such a construction is always "is" (or "are").
Maybe there's somebody whose pali is better, than mine.
best wishes, acinteyyo
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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by pt1 »

Hi tilt,
tiltbillings wrote:
pt1 wrote:I agree, but I have a feeling here (apologies if I misunderstood) that you are equating dhammas to concepts.
I think this is the crux of the issue. Calling what we experience via a concentrated mindful mind dhammas is using a conceptual structure after the fact of the experience. When we are talking about dhammas, are we talking about actual, existing momentary and discrete units of experience? I do not think so.

It is a problem with language that no matter how hard we try not to, we tend to end up making whatever it is we are talking about solid and individual. I think the Pali Abhidhamma seems to have tried to resist this, even into the later commentaries, and it probably did better than some other Abhidharma systems, but there is an obvious reification going on in some of the more modern abhidhamma discussions that really does not seem warranted from the earlier Abhidhamma, particularly the Abhidhamma Pitaka, nor from the suttas.

If dhammas are “ultimate things,” what kind of "ultimate things" are they?
...
Dhammas in the Theravada Abhidhamma Pitaka are "ultimate things" only as a way of talking about aspects of the relational flow of experience, but not in terms of describing discrete realities. In other words, dhammas are not actual momentary and individual units of experience.
Thanks very much for your reply and quotes. I thought about this for a bit, and I agree about the difficulties of language in relating an experience of insight, as well as about the range of modern views on what exactly is a dhamma.

While I lean towards considering dhammas as much more discrete real-life things than you do, one thing I am still wondering about is whether our actual experiences of insight are actually as different as our approaches to describing it? E.g. returning to your previous example of experiencing a feeling and realizing that it is anatta, I'd say our experiences there would be identical (provided of course it's insight proper and not various conceptual processes mistaken for it).

Of course, I might then describe that experience as - "well, feeling is an individual characteristic, anatta is a general characteristic, so by definition that was an experience of a dhamma". (The definition being the commentarial point that dhamma is equivalent to its characteristics). Of course, you might describe it differently as "While the general characteristics of the conditions that gives what can be called a vedanā can be seen to persist for a period, but there is nothing about any of this, as experienced, that is staic or individual."

Still, I take it the above two would be descriptions of the same experience, since we have both seen the anatta nature of feeling. Of course, we might then argue about what's the more appropriate description of that experience, so I might say - Hey, wait a minute, so are you saying that vedana as a dhamma doesn't actually arise and fall? So does nothing then arises and falls? Are you advocating nihilism?, etc. And to that you might say that I'm reifying dhammas as little bits of existing things that pop in and out of existence, etc. But still, all of that would be more of an argument about appropriate descriptions of an experience of insight rather than an argument about an experience of insight itself, right? I mean, it's not like one has experienced feeling as anatta, while the other one has experienced feeling as divine providence. So I'd say there's agreement at lest on the experience level. Would you dis/agree?

Best wishes
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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings pt1,

Whilst I know your question was addressed to Tilt, I hope you don't me interjecting by saying that I think you're onto something there. It's the various modern definitions of 'dhamma' that obscure the basic agreement.

However, if someone really was "reifying dhammas as little bits of existing things that pop in and out of existence", their experience of a dhamma could be nothing other than conceptual and speculative given the supposed billion cittas per flash of lightning. Seeing that many rises and falls of individual cittas is, dare I say it, impossible and unnecessary.

Incidently, when trying to find that lightning quote, I stumbled across this old topic that may be of interest to you, which you may have since forgotten about...

Provenance of the notion of momentariness in the Theravada
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3838" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by tiltbillings »

pt1 wrote: So I'd say there's agreement at lest on the experience level. Would you dis/agree?
When you just sit, mindfully "seeing," without comment, and with a concentrated mind, the flow of one's experience where are the dhammas?
>> 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: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by pt1 »

Hi retro and tilt,
retrofuturist wrote:It's the various modern definitions of 'dhamma' that obscure the basic agreement.

Yes, I think that's a possibility in many cases when we loose sight of discussing experiences and drift away into upholding opinions/positions.
retrofuturist wrote: However, if someone really was "reifying dhammas as little bits of existing things that pop in and out of existence", their experience of a dhamma could be nothing other than conceptual and speculative given the supposed billion cittas per flash of lightning. Seeing that many rises and falls of individual cittas is, dare I say it, impossible and unnecessary.
Yes, it's possible that things are as you say. At the moment, I can't really tell one way or another about the speed from experience. More below.
retrofuturist wrote: Incidently, when trying to find that lightning quote, I stumbled across this old topic that may be of interest to you, which you may have since forgotten about... Provenance of the notion of momentariness in the Theravada
Sure I remember it, a heated thread that split from another even more heated thread :) Regarding the speed and discrete moments of experience, I think I mentioned this already - sometimes it happens to me that the flow of experience in fact looks like a sequence of very fast pulses, or discrete instances. E.g. an arising of a certain sensation is seen as a very long sequence of very fast distinct pulses. I have no idea what is this, most probably just a meditation artefact. Of course, initially I thought "Hey, maybe these are individual cittas!" but that's not very likely - I mean the speed I experience now is not greater than maximum a hundred pulses per second, and that's pretty far away from a billion cittas per a flash of lightning.

But that's also why I'm not ready to dismiss the billion cittas thing. I mean, if I can experience near hundred pulses per second with my infant-level insight, then I wonder what would be the case for an arahat. So, at the moment I can't really comment with certainty on speed. Though, of course, it might be that seeing things at such high speeds is not necessary in the first place, i.e. it might be just one of those abilities that might develop with meditation, but are not crucial for liberation, just like the mundane abhinas which aren't necessary and which people who don't have them are more likely to dismiss as impossible, etc.
tiltbillings wrote:When you just sit, mindfully "seeing," without comment, and with a concentrated mind, the flow of one's experience where are the dhammas?
Usually, what I take for the flow of experience is just me imagining (without realising it of course) that I'm seeing the flow with mindfulness and awareness, but sometimes on rare occasions, usually in just a flash (more rarely in the form of a sequence of flashes/pulses), there happens an understanding that whatever arose (like a sensation of hardness) was a conditioned occurrence independent of my input so to speak (what I believe is in fact an experience of seeing anatta), and then this would be followed by a conceptual process making sense of what just happened.

That flash of experiencing a sensation and seeing anatta nature of it, that's what I'd call a dhamma with individual and general characteristics. Of course, objectively, it cannot be said that it arose alone, or independent of other dhammas in what you'd call the flow of experience, but that's what was cognised at the time when an instance of insight occurred, and that's why I tend to consider that a "dhamma", as an experiential equivalent of understanding the individual and general characteristic of an experienced instance, is the closest possible description of a moment of insight. But I don't think it really matter how we call it, as long as it truly happens and it's not just imagining that it happened.

Best wishes
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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by mikenz66 »

Hi PT,
pt1 wrote:Regarding the speed and discrete moments of experience, I think I mentioned this already - sometimes it happens to me that the flow of experience in fact looks like a sequence of very fast pulses, or discrete instances. E.g. an arising of a certain sensation is seen as a very long sequence of very fast distinct pulses. I have no idea what is this, most probably just a meditation artefact.
As far as I can tell, it's a normal experience that my teachers have encouraged me to observe. It's in the manuals, such as Mahasi Sayadaw's books...

Mike
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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by pt1 »

Hi Mike,
mikenz66 wrote:
pt1 wrote:Regarding the speed and discrete moments of experience, I think I mentioned this already - sometimes it happens to me that the flow of experience in fact looks like a sequence of very fast pulses, or discrete instances. E.g. an arising of a certain sensation is seen as a very long sequence of very fast distinct pulses. I have no idea what is this, most probably just a meditation artefact.
As far as I can tell, it's a normal experience that my teachers have encouraged me to observe. It's in the manuals, such as Mahasi Sayadaw's books...
Thanks Mike, it's good to hear that.

Best wishes
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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings pt1,

Just a thought for consideration...

In the Buddha's teachings, events are usually depicted in relation to other events, rather than as against a notion of time. Time is merely a conceptual corrolary of aniccata (impermanence) - in other words, the reality of change is observed experientially and we use this abstract notion of 'time' as a measuring stick for change. Time is therefore a concept, not a reality... should you wish to revert to Abhidhamma-speak.

Therefore, if you attempt to 'timebox' dhammas (which you consider to be ultimate and real) into time (which is a conceptual notion only), can these timeboxed dhammas truly be called 'real'? If you are truly observing "the flow of experience in fact looks like a sequence of very fast pulses, or discrete instances", are these observed relative to time, or relative to the previous dhamma? Which is the correct way of seeing? Does reality care about time? Do dhammas adhere to our conceptual notions of time?

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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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by mikenz66 »

Hi Retro,
retrofuturist wrote:If you are truly observing "the flow of experience in fact looks like a sequence of very fast pulses, or discrete instances", are these observed relative to time, or relative to the previous dhamma? Which is the correct way of seeing? Does reality care about time? Do dhammas adhere to our conceptual notions of time?
I don't understand what relevance these rather abstract questions about how time works have to the observation of actual experiences...

Mike
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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Mike,

Really?

Oh well... I'm sure pt1 knows why I'm asking.

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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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by mikenz66 »

Hi Retro,
retrofuturist wrote: Really?

Oh well... I'm sure pt1 knows why I'm asking.
OK, perhaps it's buried in your past conversations, but I thought you were talking about experience, and I don't see how you'd tell the difference between your options experientially.

As PT says, there's commonly documented observations (from the Visuddhimagga onwards) of experience "breaking up" into discrete chunks. Now, whether what PT or I experience is particularly deep or not, if you are experiencing this sort of thing all you have is the "chunkiness", so whether the "clock" is the rising and falling of the chunks or whether there is some "external clock" doesn't appear to me to be knowable.

Mike
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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by Virgo »

Now the conversation is going somewhere... we are getting very minute, very detailed, very exact, very precise... he he he. We are going past concepts all the way to the dhamma that is arising right now. That is all that exists and it is anicca, anatta, and dukkha! As soon as it passes it is gone, just a memory, just a concept. It no longer exists as soon as the mind process starts to label it and it turn it into some object, some thing we recognize, some whole part. It no longer exists then. It is history, no longer real, no longer there. Just a shadow of it, a concept, exists. We are always caught up in conceptual proliferation. The concepts hide the characteristics of the realities that appear. They are too fast to control, they are anatta. Hopefully we will develop the wisdom -- we won't be caught up in past or in future, in trying to see or know, it thinking but just see the dhamma that is now, like really, really now-- the impermanent, anatta, and dukkha one.

Look at how much the proliferation creates!

Kevin
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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Mike,
mikenz66 wrote:As PT says, there's commonly documented observations (from the Visuddhimagga onwards) of experience "breaking up" into discrete chunks. Now, whether what PT or I experience is particularly deep or not, if you are experiencing this sort of thing all you have is the "chunkiness", so whether the "clock" is the rising and falling of the chunks or whether there is some "external clock" doesn't appear to me to be knowable.
You're right, it isn't knowable... or rather, it isn't experientially knowable, so what good is it?

So much then for the notion of more than a billion cittas (supposed ultimate realities) crammed into the time of the shortest possible flash of lightning (i.e. a discrete conceptual time period). Unless of course lightning strikes while doing this and you're awfully good as counting whilst you watch the rising and falling of over a billion consecutive cittas... doesn't seem very practical to me.

Thus, temporally delineated dhammas are at best, irrelevant - at worst, wrong and misleading.

In something purpotedly so infintesmal, how to experientially see it as dukkha (sabbe sankhara dukkha)? How to even see it, let alone see through it?! Funny though how the Buddha never mentioned any of this... I guess he didn't have to since he didn't speculate himself into corners. His Dhamma is founded on experience, not scholarship.

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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Re: Sabbe sankhara dukkha - how to observe this Dhamma?

Post by Virgo »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Mike,
mikenz66 wrote:As PT says, there's commonly documented observations (from the Visuddhimagga onwards) of experience "breaking up" into discrete chunks. Now, whether what PT or I experience is particularly deep or not, if you are experiencing this sort of thing all you have is the "chunkiness", so whether the "clock" is the rising and falling of the chunks or whether there is some "external clock" doesn't appear to me to be knowable.
You're right, it isn't knowable... or rather, it isn't experientially knowable, so what good is it?

So much then for the notion of more than a billion cittas (supposed ultimate realities) crammed into the time of the shortest possible flash of lightning (i.e. a discrete conceptual time period). Unless of course lightning strikes while doing this and you're awfully good as counting whilst you watch the rising and falling of over a billion consecutive cittas... doesn't seem very practical to me.

Thus, temporally delineated dhammas are at best, irrelevant - at worst, wrong and misleading.

In something purpotedly so infintesmal, how to experientially see it as dukkha (sabbe sankhara dukkha)? How to even see it, let alone see through it?! Funny though how the Buddha never mentioned any of this... I guess he didn't have to since he didn't speculate himself into corners. His Dhamma is founded on experience, not scholarship.

Metta,
Retro. :)
In accordance with Abhidhamma, when satipatthana occurs, panna arises at the same time as the dhamma which it knows. Panna is just a cetasika that arises. Having developed highly it can naturally arise. At that time, it can know the characteristic of the dhamma that it arises with.

Kevin
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