The awareness itself is the unconditioned

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
Post Reply
asahi
Posts: 2732
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2020 4:23 pm

The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by asahi »

It appears in this video , ajahn was referring to consciousness as an aspect of sensory experience being conscious of something that is on the exterior or surface . Whereas the awareness is the unconditioned underlying .

No bashing No gossiping
Cause_and_Effect
Posts: 1067
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:39 am

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by Cause_and_Effect »

This has been discussed before. There are Canon passages both in support of and seemingly against this position.

A good book on the topic from an academic scholarly perspective it here:

http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documen ... -2004r.pdf
"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
User avatar
confusedlayman
Posts: 6231
Joined: Fri Jun 21, 2019 12:16 am
Location: Human Realm (as of now)

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by confusedlayman »

Awareness is conditioned ...
I may be slow learner but im at least learning...
User avatar
Ceisiwr
Posts: 22383
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 2:36 am
Location: Wales

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by Ceisiwr »

This is just the Ātman but without the name.
“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.”
Cause_and_Effect
Posts: 1067
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:39 am

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by Cause_and_Effect »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 10:53 am This is just the Ātman but without the name.
And without the self
"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
User avatar
Ceisiwr
Posts: 22383
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 2:36 am
Location: Wales

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by Ceisiwr »

Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:15 am
Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 10:53 am This is just the Ātman but without the name.
And without the self
I don't see any difference between this eternal awareness and the Ātman of the Upanishads, bar the label. If it looks like a duck, quack likes a duck and leaves duck shit everywhere then it is a duck even if someone doesn't want to call it a duck. If you are dealing with permanent realities then the name can change but the substance does not. The Ātman is a permanent awareness that is beyond ego and the phenomenal world.
“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.”
Cause_and_Effect
Posts: 1067
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:39 am

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by Cause_and_Effect »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:18 am
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:15 am
Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 10:53 am This is just the Ātman but without the name.
And without the self
I don't see any difference between this eternal awareness and the Ātman of the Upanishads, bar the label. If it looks like a duck, quack likes a duck and leaves duck shit everywhere then it is a duck even if someone doesn't want to call it a duck. If you are dealing with permanent realities then the name can change but the substance does not. The Ātman is a permanent awareness that is beyond ego and the phenomenal world.
No, the experience he decribes is not self.
The abhidhamma attempt to describe Nibbana as an 'eternal object' comes closer to a permanent atman idea.
"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
User avatar
Ceisiwr
Posts: 22383
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 2:36 am
Location: Wales

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by Ceisiwr »

Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:21 am
Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:18 am
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:15 am

And without the self
I don't see any difference between this eternal awareness and the Ātman of the Upanishads, bar the label. If it looks like a duck, quack likes a duck and leaves duck shit everywhere then it is a duck even if someone doesn't want to call it a duck. If you are dealing with permanent realities then the name can change but the substance does not. The Ātman is a permanent awareness that is beyond ego and the phenomenal world.
No, the experience he decribes is not self.
The abhidhamma attempt to describe Nibbana as an 'eternal object' comes closer to a permanent atman idea.
You seem to be missing the point entirely. The Upanishadic Ātman and this eternal awareness have the exact same attributes, it's just the Upanishads call it a true Self whilst Ajahn Sumedho does not. That is just quibbling about names though. The exact same descriptions of the Ātman are also used by Sumedho. They both have the same "thing" in mind. An everlasting consciousness.
“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.”
User avatar
Sabbe_Dhamma_Anatta
Posts: 2175
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2019 5:06 pm

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by Sabbe_Dhamma_Anatta »

asahi wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 7:53 am It appears in this video , ajahn was referring to consciousness as an aspect of sensory experience being conscious of something that is on the exterior or surface . Whereas the awareness is the unconditioned underlying .


imo, It's exactly what Steve Vai the guitartst seems expounding in his video on meditation; also talked about the Universal Self. Even though undoubtedly an experienced practioner, he seems to have a mixture of "personally experienced" views from Hinduism, certain form of Secular Buddhism, & some New-ageism. viewtopic.php?f=16&t=41411

Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 11:23 am ... An everlasting consciousness.
Steve Vai also insists the awareness itself is unchanging, & not subjected to conditions.
𝓑𝓾𝓭𝓭𝓱𝓪 𝓗𝓪𝓭 𝓤𝓷𝓮𝓺𝓾𝓲𝓿𝓸𝓬𝓪𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓓𝓮𝓬𝓵𝓪𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓽
  • Iᴅᴇᴀ ᴏꜰ Sᴏᴜʟ ɪs Oᴜᴛᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴀɴ Uᴛᴛᴇʀʟʏ Fᴏᴏʟɪsʜ Vɪᴇᴡ
    V. Nanananda

𝓐𝓷𝓪𝓽𝓽ā 𝓜𝓮𝓪𝓷𝓼 𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓣𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮 𝓘𝓼
  • Nᴏ sᴜᴄʜ ᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴀs ᴀ Sᴇʟғ, Sᴏᴜʟ, Eɢᴏ, Sᴘɪʀɪᴛ, ᴏʀ Āᴛᴍᴀɴ
    V. Buddhādasa
Bundokji
Posts: 6494
Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2014 11:57 pm

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by Bundokji »

confusedlayman wrote: Sat Sep 25, 2021 10:51 am Awareness is conditioned ...
Indeed, by attention, which is conditioned by a stimuli.
And the Blessed One addressed the bhikkhus, saying: "Behold now, bhikkhus, I exhort you: All compounded things are subject to vanish. Strive with earnestness!"

This was the last word of the Tathagata.
User avatar
robertk
Posts: 5613
Joined: Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:08 am

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by robertk »

Awareness is a conditioned reality.
asahi
Posts: 2732
Joined: Wed Oct 07, 2020 4:23 pm

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by asahi »

Let me re-phrase what he meant .

Ajahn was saying , the vinnana (not same as awareness) is the sankhara (which is a formation) that arises as sensory response due to stimulation that appear momentarily . The hard part is we may take what he said as unconditioned awareness and the vinnana as one and the same . It appear that to be one of the existing interpretation in sectarian school . Whether the unconditioned ie nibbana is permanent or
a kind of state is another matter .
However , to conflate the unconditioned awareness per ajahn sumedho ie nibbana with the atman are but buddhist wishful thinking .
No bashing No gossiping
rolling_boulder
Posts: 317
Joined: Tue Oct 15, 2013 4:01 am

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by rolling_boulder »

A particular, very senior scholar monk once replied to me when i asked him this question thus :

The “one who knows” or citta is really just the experience of knowing, there is no construct there. A verb and not a noun. It is only to be considered conditioned in that it is part of samsara.

It is not really possible to step outside of this, there would always be the question what is knowing the knowing. It is like a house of mirrors.

Craving arises due to unskilfulness at the moment of feeling pleasure or pain. It ceases when the mind is at peace with the current object and feeling.
The world is swept away. It does not endure...
The world is without shelter, without protector...
The world is without ownership. One has to pass on, leaving everything behind...
The world is insufficient, insatiable, a slave to craving.
pegembara
Posts: 3465
Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2009 8:39 am

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by pegembara »

:goodpost:

Knowing or "awarenessing" is a verb like seeing or hearing.
Knowing what? All that arises, passes. All phenomena are without self.

Sabbe sankhara anicca
Sabbe sankhara dukkha
Sabbe dhamma anatta
Investigating these five heaps*, aggregates or groups, you begin to see them. You can know them as objects because they're anatta, not-self. If they were what you are, then you wouldn't be able to see them. You'd only be able to be them. You'd have no way of witnessing them or detaching from them, you'd just be caught into them all the time without any ability to detach and observe them. But being men, women, monks, nuns, Italian, Danish, Swiss, English, American, Canadian, or whatever, is only relative truth, relative to certain situations.

https://www.wisdomlib.org/buddhism/essa ... e-khandhas
Now sabbe dhamma anatta: all things are not self, not a person, not a permanent soul, not a self of any sort. Thats very important to contemplate also, because sabbe dhamma includes all things, the conditioned phenomena of the sensory world and the Unconditioned, the Deathless.

Notice that Buddhists make no claim for Deathlessness as being a self either! I have an immortal soul, or God is my true nature! The Buddha avoided any statements of that nature at all. Any possible conceiving oneself as anything at all is an obstacle to enlightenment, because you attach to an idea again, to a concept of self as being part of something. Maybe you think theres a piece of you, a little soul, that joins the bigger one at death. That is a conception of the mind - isnt it? - that you can know. Were not saying its untrue, or false, but were just being the knowing, knowing what can be known. We dont feel compelled to grasp that as a belief, we see it as only something that comes out of the mind, a condition of the mind, so we let even that go.
In your practice, as you begin to understand and experience letting go, you begin to realise what Buddhas know: sabbe sankhara anicca, sabbe dhamma anatta. Its not just the words - even a parrot can say the words - but thats not an enlightened parrot, is it? Insight is different from conceptual knowledge. But now youre penetrating, going deep into this, breaking through the illusion of self as being anything at all; or nothing - if you believe that you dont have a self - thats another belief. I believe I dont have a self. We believe in no self. You see that the Buddha pointed to the way between those two extremes: of believing you have a self and believing that you dont have a self. You cannot find anything in the five khandhas which is a permanent self or soul: things arise out of the Unconditioned, they go back to the Unconditioned. Therefore it is through letting go rather than through adapting any other attitude, that we no longer seek to attach to mortal conditions.
What you become aware of including awareness isn't you!
And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter: This is called right speech.
User avatar
Crazy cloud
Posts: 930
Joined: Sun May 12, 2013 8:55 am

Re: The awareness itself is the unconditioned

Post by Crazy cloud »

Luang Por Sumedho is the only bhikkhu imo, that has penetrated the four noble truths deepest. There might be others, but I don't know who and where they can be found
And he doesn't seem to mind whatever others have to say about his take on doctrines or style of teaching, he just keeps on saying exactly the same he has for more than 50 years. In his time there has been tons of monastics for and against this teacher, but they seem to give up and take their opinions about what is the right view out of the sangha, and I guess some of them sell it to lay communities somewhere.

I consider Suemdho my main teacher, and like him, I don't care about personal opinions because I know it works.
If you didn't care
What happened to me
And I didn't care for you

We would zig-zag our way
Through the boredom and pain
Occasionally glancing up through the rain

Wondering which of the
Buggers to blame
And watching for pigs on the wing
- Roger Waters
Post Reply