Coëmgenu wrote: ↑Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:26 pm
SDC wrote: ↑Wed Nov 24, 2021 2:30 pm
Coëmgenu wrote: ↑Wed Nov 24, 2021 1:39 pm
It doesn't refer to consciousness-based perception itself, but instead is "mandatory for" it.
Absolutely. But the whole “meeting of the three is contact” is, IMO, saying that those three things - being there - in a situation rooted in ignorance, is the distinct significance of contact. Those three things stand for the point where things come into contact with me. That’s the depth of the convergence, a depth that is ever present in the beginningless framework of ignorance.
If you agree and say "absolutely," because that's how I read that, then how do the Buddhas perceive sense objects according to you? You say, "Those three things stand for the point where things come into contact with me," but what if they merely come into contact with the sense fields because there is no you? It strikes me that you have a definition of "contact" where contact only happens to beings with self-view, because it has to "come into contact with
me." Is that a fair assessment? What if the three things come into contact generally with "no one?" It is just the three and only the three making contact, no fourth element present, no "the three" "with me." I understand "come into contact with me" as actually introducing a forth element, namely "me/you," into the threefold contact.
It is a fair assessment, but let me try and clarify. When there is a working eye and things come into range, there is sight, but we're not privy to that "process". If there are sights, we can know there are eyes. If eyes work, and they are open, there are sights - whether we want them to be or not.
If you want to talk about it from the POV of the "meeting of the three"...I don't read it as a description of those three things first being separate and then coming together, and that motion of coming together is called contact. Not at all how I read it. They are already together, and when they are meeting the togetherness of those three things is contact
for experience rooted in ignorance. (The ownership is already previously established though. "I am" is already there in the eye, ear...mind. So sights, sounds...thoughts are - by default - in contact with me. Is it a fourth thing? Sure. That is what DO is about. That mass of suffering - how it is layered. The five clinging aggregates. Self.)
As I said, that point of convergence remains for the arahant, there is still that meeting, but - as you've indicated - it takes a hit when self-view is surmounted and is completely abandoned when conceit is destroyed.
Also good to note that not only do the senses have their own scopes and ranges (meeting only in the mind), but the aggregates do as well SN 35.246.
Coëmgenu wrote: ↑Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:26 pm
So what then is the difference between the absence of the top of the tree and the cessation of the tree's top as far as this metaphor goes? The metaphor is "like cutting off the top of a palm tree" that you are thinking of, no? How does this relate to the difference being drawn between "absent" and "ceased?"
Coëmgenu wrote: ↑Wed Nov 24, 2021 8:26 pm
We can still recollect things that are absent. For instance, maybe a relative of yours is absent from the room, has "ceased" being in the room, but you can still recall him, no? In what sense do you mean "unavailable for recollection?"
That is not the absence I am referring to. If our parent dies, we can still recollect them. They aren't absent if they are recollected. They can be present in the experience even if they are dead. I think you agree with this. For a thing to be truly absent it has to be forgotten to whatever degree, either completely or at a given point (not recollected), but that is not what cessation is - cessation is when a thing can no longer grow, but that doesn't mean that an arahant cannot recollect what growth used to mean. So yes, further growth is absent but the fact that things used to grow can be known. That knowledge is bliss. The presence of that absence, emptiness. The knowledge that growth is now impossible.
Coëmgenu wrote: ↑Wed Nov 24, 2021 9:44 pm
So I've pinpointed why, although I don't disagree with this necessarily, I don't think this actually answers my inquiry for clarification. As I understand, you've given your understandings of "manasikārasambhavā," "mūlakā," and "samudayā." I was wondering how you differentiated "sambhavā," "mūlakā," and "samudayā" here.
In your defining of manasikāra(sambhava), you frame manasikāra as exclusively unwholesome, as I understand it. You say, "The flow towards the unwholesome signs and features is the flow out based on proliferated perception." I understood you to be making a universal statement about all manasikāra. Is this incorrect? Similarly, you've framed "mūlakā" as exclusively negative, i.e. based on desire.
On terms of samudayā meaning "necessary condition." This is the part that confuses me most. I know "paccaya" to function as this, loosely speaking. Also, your definition is a noun phrase, but it is defining a verb. Can you elaborate on what you meant here? There. Hopefully that is a less general and more manageable request for elaboration, better than "can you rephrase everything," which is rarely helpful!
I didn't realize you were asking me to simply define words I could easily use a PED to cut and paste. I figured you were asking about my understanding of the statements, and since the discourse would be given to wanderers of other sects it is clear to me that those first four questions would most definitely apply to the ordinary person, i.e. there isn't necessarily any concentration (
AN 10.58). But please let me qualify that:
- I framed
manasikāra as exclusively unwholesome because it was referring to bhava, but in MN 20 it is also wholesome. So, no I was not making such a universal statement.
- I did not say it was exclusively negative - desire can be wholesome also. Again, I chose to stay with a situation of ignorance, which I believe is the context (wanderers of other sects).
- "From what do they originate?" is the question. The answer is, "They originate from contact". The "what" is contact. Contact is the necessary condition - "all things" is what originates, is what is produced (samudayā) .
Again, I was giving my understanding of the statements in the context of the discourse. Does that clarify?
I know I don't always communicate effectively. Sharing my perspective requires a bit of extra work, and I don't always have the energy to set it up clearly each time. I appreciate you taking me to task and I hope you continue to do so.
“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