The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

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Goofaholix
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by Goofaholix »

auto wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:26 pm why not try concentrate on the knower to achieve the union or non-separation by removing that what hinder the union - what doesn't allow to view reality from 0 point,
Observing the knower is a good practise, it's my primary practice these days. However union with what? there is nothing to unify with. Creating ideas about something else that one is somehow separated from and needs to unify with creates separation, creates dualism, creates suffering. Better to deal with direct experience and let go of these kinds of attachment.
auto wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:26 pm the disidentification is after one experiencing the permanent still awareness, before one just doesn't know about the impermanence or no selfness of self, hence the small self. That i think present what is experimental and what is different from watching or noting objects passing by or inferring 3 characteristics..
Awareness is relatively still, and feels permanent, but it is not permanent. It is subject to impermance just like everything else, where is awareness when you sleep, or daydream, or have dementure, or are in a coma, or are dead? It may be present to some degree in these circumstances but it has changed. As it is impermanent it is not self.
Pronouns (no self / not self)
“Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.”
― Ajahn Chah
Cause_and_Effect
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by Cause_and_Effect »

Goofaholix wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:09 pm
auto wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:26 pm Its quite interesting how the buddhist doctrine in forums is opposite to what i experience in practice. Thus, i can't buy into no-self other than i, me notions are regards to the greed, hate, delusion.
Nothing in Sutta suggest no-self as like there is no seer or knower.
It's common for practitioners when they become aware of the knower to feel it's so compelling that they identify with it and regard it as self. Buddhist practice would have us to see this as also impermenent, unsatisfactory, and not self. Rather than allowing ourselves to get attached to it and stall our progress we should continue to free ourselves from that attachment by examining and questioning its nature objectively.

FWIW In Advaita Vedanta one would also seek to free oneself from this identification with the knower, though here the idea is to replace it with the True Self aka God.
What is all this (underlined)?
It's clear that the Buddhist path isnt possible without using discernment and knowing applied to all aggregates and phenomena. Thus to place this faculty into the same level as the grass and trees as all simply the same 'not-self' is an ideology not a reality of the lived experience of the Buddhas teaching.
"Therein monks, that Dimension should be known wherein the eye ceases and the perception of forms fades away...the ear... the nose...the tongue... the body ceases and the perception of touch fades away...

That Dimension should be known wherein mentality ceases and the perception of mind-objects fades away.
That Dimension should be known; that Dimension should be known."


(S. IV. 98) - The Dimension beyond the All
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Goofaholix
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by Goofaholix »

Cause_and_Effect wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:35 am What is all this (underlined)?
This is language, we need phrases like these that refer to the provisional self (as per the OP) to make it clear which individual(s) we refer to.
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 2:35 am Thus to place this faculty into the same level as the grass and trees as all simply the same 'not-self' is an ideology not a reality of the lived experience of the Buddhas teaching.
Last I checked grass and trees had nothing to do with the 5 aggregates.

Working with the experience of phenomena / aggregates is a practise and progression on the path to understanding, not an idealogy. This is what Thanissaro suggests in the article you posted, he doesn't suggest an idealogy of self be retrofitted onto Buddhist or be entertained as something to cling to, unlike the Advaita Vedanta view.
Pronouns (no self / not self)
“Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.”
― Ajahn Chah
auto
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by auto »

Goofaholix wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:50 pm Observing the knower is a good practise, it's my primary practice these days. However union with what? there is nothing to unify with. Creating ideas about something else that one is somehow separated from and needs to unify with creates separation, creates dualism, creates suffering. Better to deal with direct experience and let go of these kinds of attachment.
Nice that you observe the knower.
Union with what? after experiencing a state where awareness is still, where the bodily awareness haven't arise yet. Its where you get the knowledge of deathless, eternal life and then can apply this knowledge during normal waking state.
The knowledge literally is lifeforce, it is substance and if it returns to its original cavity in heart it coagulates and it is what gives the awareness the luminous quality. Awareness itself is just an imprecise imputed term, you can reconcile with any doings what has to be done by having already knowledge about these things and could directly cultivate those.. you can't get mad about it if someone speaks about things what must be done.
Goofaholix wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:50 pm Awareness is relatively still, and feels permanent, but it is not permanent. It is subject to impermance just like everything else, where is awareness when you sleep, or daydream, or have dementure, or are in a coma, or are dead? It may be present to some degree in these circumstances but it has changed. As it is impermanent it is not self.
i repeat there is unmoving solid state, you click into it suddenly after applying strong concentration(making yourself more aware) upon the taste of that awareness. But it is one time thing, it won't happen after you have the personal experience knowledge of it acquired even tho one will start circle through these stages regularly.
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Goofaholix
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by Goofaholix »

auto wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 3:08 pm Union with what? after experiencing a state where awareness is still, where the bodily awareness haven't arise yet. Its where you get the knowledge of deathless, eternal life and then can apply this knowledge during normal waking state.
The knowledge literally is lifeforce, it is substance and if it returns to its original cavity in heart it coagulates and it is what gives the awareness the luminous quality. Awareness itself is just an imprecise imputed term, you can reconcile with any doings what has to be done by having already knowledge about these things and could directly cultivate those.. you can't get mad about it if someone speaks about things what must be done.

i repeat there is unmoving solid state, you click into it suddenly after applying strong concentration(making yourself more aware) upon the taste of that awareness. But it is one time thing, it won't happen after you have the personal experience knowledge of it acquired even tho one will start circle through these stages regularly.
It sounds to me like good progress, but you didn't get this interpretation of your experience from the Buddha Dhamma.

The Buddhist approach to what you describe would be not to be content with the this but to challenge ones perception and attachment by continuing to reflect and apply the understanding of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and not self.
Pronouns (no self / not self)
“Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.”
― Ajahn Chah
auto
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by auto »

Goofaholix wrote: Wed Jan 19, 2022 6:48 pm It sounds to me like good progress, but you didn't get this interpretation of your experience from the Buddha Dhamma.

The Buddhist approach to what you describe would be not to be content with the this but to challenge ones perception and attachment by continuing to reflect and apply the understanding of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and not self.
well yes, considering all perceptions as impermanent and no use of following. These are the things who just starting out will contemplate on, it is pre- experimental, as of being able to relax the non-perception into reality and concentrate on that.
auto
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by auto »

Cause_and_Effect wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 10:11 pm Have you read 'the not-self strategy' by Thanissaro?

You may find it interesting

https://accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors ... rategy.pdf
Missed your post. No i haven't read it properly* i haven't read it.
pretty good
wrote:As the Buddha once said, the teaching he most frequently gave to his
students was this: All fabrications are inconstant; all phenomena are not-self
(anatta) (MN 35). Many people have interpreted this second statement as
meaning that there is no self. Others, however, have noticed statements in the
Pali Canon—our earliest extant record of the Buddha’s teachings—that refer to
the idea of self in a positive manner, as when the Buddha stated that the self is its
own mainstay (Dhp 160) or when he encouraged a group of young men—who
were searching for a woman who had stolen their belongings—to search for the
self instead (Mv.I.14.4). From these statements, these readers conclude that the
statement, “All phenomena are not-self,” is meant to clear away attachment to a
false view of self so that an experience of the true self can be attained.
..
A common way of trying to resolve this impasse has been to say that both
sides are right but on different levels of truth. One version of this resolution
states that there is a self on the conventional level of truth, but no self on the
ultimate level. An alternate version of the resolution, however, switches the
levels around: The conventional self does not exist, whereas a higher level of self
on the ultimate level of truth does. And so the impasse remains.
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by Cause_and_Effect »

Yes, people really need to go back to the suttas
Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
"However, when Ven. Ananda then asked the Buddha why he didn’t answer the question, the Buddha gave four reasons—two for each of the two alternatives—as to why it would have been unskillful to respond to Vacchagotta’s question by saying either that the self exists or does not exist. (1) To state that there is a self would be to side with the wrong view of eternalism. (2) To state that there is no self would be to side with the wrong view of annihilationism. (3) To state that there is a self would not be in keeping with the arising of knowledge that all phenomena are not-self. (4) To tell Vacchagotta that there is no self would have left him even more bewildered than he already was."
So in the Vacchagotta sutta the Buddha makes clear that:

no-self is the annihilationist doctrine and is wrong view

and

people who hold a no-self view are generally bewildered

We find both these statements to be true when discussing with people who hold various no-self positions and try to argue this is Buddha dhamma instead of the correct approach which is to use the not-self teaching as a method.
"Therein monks, that Dimension should be known wherein the eye ceases and the perception of forms fades away...the ear... the nose...the tongue... the body ceases and the perception of touch fades away...

That Dimension should be known wherein mentality ceases and the perception of mind-objects fades away.
That Dimension should be known; that Dimension should be known."


(S. IV. 98) - The Dimension beyond the All
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Coëmgenu
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by Coëmgenu »

Fake news.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by cappuccino »

Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:04 amFake news.
Why call the teaching fake?
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by Coëmgenu »

I didn't.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by cappuccino »

Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 12:17 amI didn't.
:coffee:
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by Ceisiwr »

Cause_and_Effect wrote: Fri Jan 21, 2022 11:59 pm Yes, people really need to go back to the suttas
Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote:
"However, when Ven. Ananda then asked the Buddha why he didn’t answer the question, the Buddha gave four reasons—two for each of the two alternatives—as to why it would have been unskillful to respond to Vacchagotta’s question by saying either that the self exists or does not exist. (1) To state that there is a self would be to side with the wrong view of eternalism. (2) To state that there is no self would be to side with the wrong view of annihilationism. (3) To state that there is a self would not be in keeping with the arising of knowledge that all phenomena are not-self. (4) To tell Vacchagotta that there is no self would have left him even more bewildered than he already was."
So in the Vacchagotta sutta the Buddha makes clear that:

no-self is the annihilationist doctrine and is wrong view

and

people who hold a no-self view are generally bewildered

We find both these statements to be true when discussing with people who hold various no-self positions and try to argue this is Buddha dhamma instead of the correct approach which is to use the not-self teaching as a method.
The sutta makes it clear that the problem was in Vacchagotta interpreting emptiness in terms of "I have no self" or "I will be destroyed". The northern parallels to this sutta are even more clear on that, from what I've read.
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by Cause_and_Effect »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 2:40 am The sutta makes it clear that the problem was in Vacchagotta interpreting emptiness in terms of "I have no self"
Indeed.
The view 'there is no self' is a wrong view of annihilationism that the Buddha warned of.

The method he taught was to see phenomena as not-self to be liberated from clinging, not to form metaphysical speculations as you are doing on the ultimate nature of being or whether there is a self or not, which is clearly not the path.
"Therein monks, that Dimension should be known wherein the eye ceases and the perception of forms fades away...the ear... the nose...the tongue... the body ceases and the perception of touch fades away...

That Dimension should be known wherein mentality ceases and the perception of mind-objects fades away.
That Dimension should be known; that Dimension should be known."


(S. IV. 98) - The Dimension beyond the All
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Ceisiwr
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Re: The use of the provisional self or 'degrees of self'

Post by Ceisiwr »

Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 3:02 am
Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 2:40 am The sutta makes it clear that the problem was in Vacchagotta interpreting emptiness in terms of "I have no self"
Indeed.
The view 'there is no self' is a wrong view of annihilationism that the Buddha warned of.

The method he taught was to see phenomena as not-self to be liberated from clinging, not to form metaphysical speculations as you are doing on the ultimate nature of being or whether there is a self or not, which is clearly not the path.
The key being there that said person is still thinking in terms of a self, hence the problem. The Buddha summarises the position as "the self I formerly had does not exist now". The proper way to understand things is that the self can never really be said to exist at all. That it is merely a word, a convention, thus being empty. The Master's critique of atta then is the opposite of metaphysics, if we exclude epistemology from metaphysics here.
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
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