Dinsdale wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2019 10:50 am
There must be some basis for sense-objects "out there", which in the suttas is explained as (external) form.
Do you mean along the lines of something like
visual perception theory?
The whole basis of things "out there" seems to undermine the impermanence of determinations, which of course applies to the experience as a whole. It is redundant because it is inseparable from the experience,
to begin with. So to take an additional step to explain that it is there, makes it two-fold (contributing to it being manifold). For instance, right now Dinsdale sits at the computer and speculates about objects out there. Dinsadale is inseparable from the experience, and the experience “out there” is present with you in the field of experience. That is as close as you can ever get to that notion. So to speculate further and say that it is there “out there”, you keep pushing it just past the fringe of the previous notion of “out there”. No matter how far you go, that entire hierarchy depends on the assumption that it is possible to
contact what is out there, all the while disregarding that “you” must have been contacted first in order for any of it to stand.
I know you rely heavily on the “coming together of the three”, but in order for it to be the way you explain (with western psychology hovering), there would have to be some field (or space) for the three things to be “in” or “on” in order for the coming together to be an actual orchestration. In a sense, that means “three things come together in open space” (which makes it 4 things). That really does not seem to be what the Buddha is saying. If you look at it another way, with those three things together, there is contact. In that way, contact is the most general notion, not some big open space where the three things come from their respective corners and crash into each other, which in turn creates contact. I may be misunderstanding you, but the visual perception theory seems to be along those lines.
A few suttas to consider:
SN 12.44 wrote:And what, bhikkhus, is the origin of the world? In dependence on the eye and forms, eye-consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as a condition, feeling; with feeling as a conditon, craving; with craving as a condition, holding; with holding as a conditon, existence; with existence as a condition, birth; with birth as a condition, aging-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain displeasure and dispair. This, bhikkhus is the origin of the world.
MN 43 wrote:Friend, feeling and perception and consciousness - these things are associated, not dissociated. It is not possible to separate them and by separating them point out the difference between them. What one feels, that one perceives. What one perceives, that one cognizes. Therefore, these things are associated, not dissociated. It is not possible to separate them and by separating them point out the difference between them.
Also the two reeds in terms of DO:
SN 12.67 wrote:...Just as two sheaves of reeds might stand leaning against each other, so too, with name-and-form as a condition, conciousness.....Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering...
If, friend, one were to remove one of those sheaves of reeds, the other would fall, and if one were to remove the other sheaf, the first would fall.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3