On Tradition

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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SDC
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Re: On Tradition

Post by SDC »

Ceisiwr wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:19 pm
SDC wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:15 pm

In this case, the sign is what indicates a direction of thought. Giving attention to a certain aspect of experience leads to thoughts of an unwholesome kind. The perfect example is difference between beauty and ugly. Focusing on certain signs and features of beauty leads to lust. What is a sign exactly? Different for everyone. What is provocative of lust for you may not be for me. Point is, we have a general idea where following a certain direction of thought will take us. A sign, in this case, is what indicates the availability of that direction. How a person moves. How they smile. For an arahant it may just be a sign of beauty that is provocative of lust. For the ordinary person, could lead to full-blown lust.
The point being that you have to extrapolate a fair bit of this from the text.
No, the bit about beauty and ugly is from other suttas.
“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
santa100
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Re: On Tradition

Post by santa100 »

Ceisiwr wrote:Based on the suttas and sutras alone of course we really wouldn't know any of this at all.
Beside the spec. vs. implementation design feature of the Suttas as mentioned in my previous post, we'd also have to take into account the fact that the majority of the suttas were intended for the professional monastics audience, not lay folks. Hence, there'd be jargons being used with the assumption that the "pros" crowd should already knew about such basics. And we also see this in most other academic disciplines. For example:
PDE imposes relations between various partial derivatives of a multivariable function.
To Non-STEM folks, the questions naturally would be: what is PDE? what are partial derivatives? and what the heck is a multivariable function? But to a 4th-year electrical engineering student in college, it'd be an awful waste of space and time to define all those relevant terms being used to describe partial differential equation. He'd simply tell those poor folks to re-visit Calculus 1, 2, and 3 to get answers. And in no way are the Suttas, by themselves, come close in terms of being a systemic, comprehensive curriculum when compared to something like an electrical engineering curriculum. We're at the mercy of the oral tradition and Ven. Ananda's memory. Hence there's simply no way to guarantee that those Suttas we know of as of today totally cover 100% of all the words that'd ever come out of the Buddha's mouth. And since there's no guarantee that the "Calc 1, 2, and 3" were ever written down to provide the needed info before the PDE course, we'll just have try our best with what we've been given. This is where the Tipitaka and the Triple-Gem come into the picture. And I don't think ancient masters used those words just by accident. Why "Tipitaka", and why "Triple-Gem"? why "Three" instead of "One"? maybe we'll have to need all "Three" to cover for the Calc 1, 2, 3 that were missing.
Last edited by santa100 on Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ceisiwr
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Re: On Tradition

Post by Ceisiwr »

SDC wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:22 pm
Ceisiwr wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:19 pm
SDC wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:15 pm

In this case, the sign is what indicates a direction of thought. Giving attention to a certain aspect of experience leads to thoughts of an unwholesome kind. The perfect example is difference between beauty and ugly. Focusing on certain signs and features of beauty leads to lust. What is a sign exactly? Different for everyone. What is provocative of lust for you may not be for me. Point is, we have a general idea where following a certain direction of thought will take us. A sign, in this case, is what indicates the availability of that direction. How a person moves. How they smile. For an arahant it may just be a sign of beauty that is provocative of lust. For the ordinary person, could lead to full-blown lust.
The point being that you have to extrapolate a fair bit of this from the text.
No, the bit about beauty and ugly is from other suttas.
Yes it is. That signs which are the basis for lust are subjective interpretations of hand movements and facial expressions is not. Personally I think it is a good inference, and the commentaries would agree, but that we have to deduce this makes my point. The suttas also do not state what we should turn our attention to instead in order for there to only be the seen in relation to the seen.
“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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Ceisiwr
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Re: On Tradition

Post by Ceisiwr »

santa100 wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:24 pm
Ceisiwr wrote:Based on the suttas and sutras alone of course we really wouldn't know any of this at all.
Beside the spec. vs. implementation design feature of the Suttas as mentioned in my previous post, we'd also have to take into account the fact that the majority of the suttas were intended for the professional monastics audience, not lay folks. Hence, there'd be jargons being used with the assumption that the "pros" crowd should already knew about such basics. And we also see this in most other academic disciplines. For example:
I agree. We are quite removed historically and culturally from the environment the Buddha was teaching in. This is why commentaries are useful. They are closer in time to that culture, and they also tell us just what it was that masters were teaching their pupils regarding how to meditate and what it all means. By commentaries I'm speaking broadly here by including both northern and southern traditions. Of course, that doesn't mean they always get things right but IMO they should inform our practice and understanding in some way. That is to say, we should use them as a reference point.
“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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nirodh27
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Re: On Tradition

Post by nirodh27 »

SDC wrote: Sun Jan 16, 2022 10:30 pm I agree there is a lot missing in the suttas, but there is also a lot in the suttas that most people do not want to do, which would open up alot space that they have filled with gratification. They don't want to test out the eight precepts. They don't want to stop satisfying themselves with good food. Stop getting sexual gratification. They don't want to get away from entertainment. The want Dhamma while they stay in sensuality. What we do know about the context of ancient India is that there weren't endless ways to treat the body like a carnival the way we do in the modern world, and that is why Dhamma was much closer. We are soaked in sensuality, don't want to do the work to dry ourselves out, and then get frustrated that we aren't becoming the noble GIANTS we read about in the suttas. That is the part that is missing in my opinion. For the record, this is directed at everyone, even me.
Hi SDC,

This comment is truly outstanding and it pairs a reflection that I had with a friend days ago. I have also listened to a presentation of Buddhism without listening the word "renunciation" that really made me question how buddhism is felt and how the discussion proliferates nowadays. Forms of Vipassana that cares about the "letting go" of the suffering and not of the cause, the origination, Mindfulness, even some forms of one-pointed jhanas all forget the fact that abandonment of lay-life, at the very minimum in the heart, is the crux of the matter.

When this abandonment of lay-life is taken seriously, then the very careful instructions in the suttas really magically "appears" in MN19, MN20, in the parable of the cook and in many other places. But without the abandonment of lay-life (work, company, talk, praise: not simply making new "vipassana" friends in a cozy and beautiful sangha like the ones I've seen in Italy and U.S: a very different thing from finding admirable friends that can guide you into the path of renunciation out of compassion) as an option in the mind those instructions are not conductive to our well-being, stucking us in the middle of two concurrent and opposite paths, and they are mostly ignored. This is how far the Dhamma is demanding, but it is very well-spelled in the suttas both in instructions and in Buddha's life, abandoning family and staying weeks without moving and talking. This is even more difficult in the quasi deva-like world of modern rich countries where there's abundance of distractions and the risk of being prey to suffering is way more lower. If this is paired to responsabilities, moral reasoning and the suffering of others, that's even more problematic.

We can still take a lot from the Dhamma as laypeople, but not even serious mindfulness of the four Satipatthanas is possible without that abandonment because it starts with the sincere removal of all covetousness in the world, let alone to transform that into jhanic pleasure (renunciation pleasure). As you have quoted elsewhere:
Bhikkhus, without having abandoned six things, one is incapable of contemplating the body in the body. What six? Delight in work, delight in talk, delight in sleep, delight in company, not guarding the door of the sense faculties, and being immoderate in eating. Without having abandoned these six things, one is incapable of contemplating the body in the body.
(also feelings, mind, sankhara in the next sutta)

This is clearly not intended for an abandonment during meditation to take back the delight again, and, since that are opposite directions, staying in the middle is not optimal since there's no Jhana to sustain you and you will lack the full appreciation of the pleasures of the lay-life since the perception of impermanence and unreliability will be ingrained in your pleasures, "ruining" the experience of it, again, something desiderable only if there's a way out that you can/want pursue. This is why there's the risk to mistaken relaxation techinques for the actual renunciation techiniques that the Buddha actually teaches, misinterpreting the meaning of "letting go" that is about, apart from self views, actual and potential possessions, just like the octads teaches.
Fields, land, or bullion,
cattle and horses, slaves and servants,
women, relatives* — when a person greedily
longs for various sensual pleasures,
even the weak overpower him;
obstacles crush him.
Then suffering enters him
as water does a broken boat.
With this simple passage in mind, a lot of the instructions in the suttas makes way more sense, takes the right mind-framework and are choked full of detailed practical instructions to accomplish that. In many Vipassana retires I've listened to countless questions to Dhamma teachers, never once I've listened on how to abandon family and sons, friends, stop talking, avoiding find pleasure in work, how to better see the drawbacks of having a friend, a house, a woman, how to avoid company from friends, how to develop renunciation for those things and being happy from that actual renounce. This is clearly outside the instructions of almost all modern meditation teachers that teaches relaxation, pleasure and non-proliferation from one-pointedness etc. Fine and useful, part of the path. But the instructions of the Buddha are almost all about this very practical and substantial renunciation, as the MN20 "higher" instructions tells us.

P.S. I'm trying to use less the forums in those months, partly because I'm not propelled to some doubts about the Dhamma right now, but I'm always eager to read your study group and I truly want to see where you are going in those weeks with the overarching theme that you choosed, do not find my lack of time to comment as a sign of disinterest :namaste:
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SDC
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Re: On Tradition

Post by SDC »

Ceisiwr wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:32 pm
SDC wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:22 pm
Ceisiwr wrote: Mon Jan 17, 2022 11:19 pm

The point being that you have to extrapolate a fair bit of this from the text.
No, the bit about beauty and ugly is from other suttas.
Yes it is. That signs which are the basis for lust are subjective interpretations of hand movements and facial expressions is not. Personally I think it is a good inference, and the commentaries would agree, but that we have to deduce this makes my point. The suttas also do not state what we should turn our attention to instead in order for there to only be the seen in relation to the seen.
I don’t want to harp on it, but that “seen just the seen…” reflection seems only to be fully meaningful to someone close to arahantship. For Bāhiya especially…he was living super austere and the ground was fully prepared for that line to push through. I think it is exponentially less meaningful for those not strong in the eight precepts. Personally, I’ve left it off to the side, having only been able to take it so far. Every once in a while it shakes me up, but I know there is likely more to gather from it.

I can’t disagree about the missing portions that your eluding to - though I am a firm believer that more instructions aren’t necessarily the solution. With more information comes more gray areas to contend with, leaving the issue intact. What’s usually missing is “me”: the descriptions in the suttas exemplified through our own views and behaviors. That can fill in the blanks. Though in order to do that, “you” needs to be interrupted. I see it like a prism; only when the glass is introduced to the light will the colors be revealed. I think we all spend too much time fashioning the glass, and waiting to interrupt ourselves because we know how uncomfortable it is going to be to say no when everyday prompts toward gratification and complacency come our way. (To be honest, it’s probably more like the removal of a prism, but makes sense either way)

Not to repeat myself, but saying no and keeping to it is damn hard. Yet, in saying no, those prompts toward certain behaviors are left there to struggle for recognition. From the POV of the five senses, when you deny the senses they let you know it, and it is in the endurance of opposition that an opening starts to emerge. That is the ground we need, and as much of it as we can clear. In that space, the suttas read far differently then they did when that space was filled with comfort. In that respect, the space is induced - the possibility having first been deduced through a reasonable description from another. I don’t think it will provide every bit of the missing context that you’re eluding to, but it certainly provides a good of it.
“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
Pulsar
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Re: On Tradition

Post by Pulsar »

SDC wrote
My comments were in regards to context. I have no suspicions about the suttas being incomplete when it comes to right view guidance.
If one is guided by right view how can the context be misplaced? I agree that the influence of late abhidhamma, has misplaced the context. There is no doubt that the Vibajjavadin ideas crept into the sutta Piataka, hence we have suttas like DN 22/MN 10 (labelled fraudulent) and other suttas influenced by these suttas.
If we follow a fraudulent scheme, starting with physical body as the first establishment of Mindfulness, where will it lead us to?
What exactly is mindfulness of body in a soteriological sense?
  • What was Buddha intending to do with the 4 establishments of mindfulness?
To transform the consciousness.
The aggregates all refer to aspects of consciousness, this is all Buddha was concerned about.
  • First aggregate is not a physical thing.
  • The first aggregate is the rupa that appears in the mind.
it is not physical, it is intangible.
When we designate rupa (called naming), consciousness arises. This is the beginning of suffering.
  • The abhidhammikas by redefining this step interfered with Buddha Dhamma.
Now the meditator instead of paying attention to how the rupa arises in the mind (as explained in SN 47.42), using the teaching of 4 nutrients, is thinking of body parts. Many misinterpret Putramansa sutta.
If one is guided by Right view, as you say, it will not be misinterpreted.
Can paying attention to physical body parts help us prevent the arising of rupa in the mind?
You wrote
“seen just the seen…” reflection seems only to be fully meaningful to someone close to arahantship.
That is a wrong assumption. When Buddha says to Bahia this famous verse, all he is teaching is the First Establisment of minfulness. That was enough for Bahia.
If you stop paying attention to forms (seen) sounds (heard) sensed (smell, taste, touch) and perception of
those (cognition) suffering ends right there. This is what the first aggregate is about, or getting rid of it.
Mindfulness of the body when understood according to Right View, will not misguide the reader.
With love :candle:
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SDC
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Re: On Tradition

Post by SDC »

nirodh27 wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:57 am This is even more difficult in the quasi deva-like world of modern rich countries where there's abundance of distractions and the risk of being prey to suffering is way more lower. If this is paired to responsabilities, moral reasoning and the suffering of others, that's even more problematic.
And that “pairing” is the nexus. In one respect, you can insulate and make things super comfortable, but there is always going to be “interference” that must be regulated since it cannot be ignored. That is how most people live, and it can be done to such an extent that people can spend the majority of their lives maintaining that insulation/protection and avoid as much suffering as possible (let in only what they can’t hold back and are willing to handle). It is just too easy to stay satisfied in the modern world. So there has to be a very big push to simplify things and start to dry out. So much more so than what the ancients had to contend with. If we can start to rein things in, we give ourselves a better platform to work with and I think that gets us much closer to the context that was there in ancient India. And to the OP’s point, that can fill in some of what isn’t immediately evident about the people and experiences being described in the suttas.
“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
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Ceisiwr
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Re: On Tradition

Post by Ceisiwr »

SDC wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:17 pm I don’t want to harp on it, but that “seen just the seen…” reflection seems only to be fully meaningful to someone close to arahantship. For Bāhiya especially…he was living super austere and the ground was fully prepared for that line to push through. I think it is exponentially less meaningful for those not strong in the eight precepts. Personally, I’ve left it off to the side, having only been able to take it so far. Every once in a while it shakes me up, but I know there is likely more to gather from it.
I had in mind the Māluṅkyaputta sutta (SN 35.95) rather than Bāhiya, which i consider to likely be commentary. SN 35.95 equates sense restraint with "in the seen, only the seen".
“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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SDC
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Re: On Tradition

Post by SDC »

Ceisiwr wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:43 pm
SDC wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:17 pm I don’t want to harp on it, but that “seen just the seen…” reflection seems only to be fully meaningful to someone close to arahantship. For Bāhiya especially…he was living super austere and the ground was fully prepared for that line to push through. I think it is exponentially less meaningful for those not strong in the eight precepts. Personally, I’ve left it off to the side, having only been able to take it so far. Every once in a while it shakes me up, but I know there is likely more to gather from it.
I had in mind the Māluṅkyaputta sutta (SN 35.95) rather than Bāhiya, which i consider to likely be commentary. SN 35.95 equates sense restraint with "in the seen, only the seen".
The way I’m reading it, the Buddha is confirming that his restraint has been developed to the extent that there is essentially no lust to be found. I do not think it is a useful sutta about how to develop restraint since Māluṅkyaputta had all but perfected his by the time these events took place. Just how I read it.
“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
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Ceisiwr
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Re: On Tradition

Post by Ceisiwr »

SDC wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:16 pm
Ceisiwr wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:43 pm
SDC wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 2:17 pm I don’t want to harp on it, but that “seen just the seen…” reflection seems only to be fully meaningful to someone close to arahantship. For Bāhiya especially…he was living super austere and the ground was fully prepared for that line to push through. I think it is exponentially less meaningful for those not strong in the eight precepts. Personally, I’ve left it off to the side, having only been able to take it so far. Every once in a while it shakes me up, but I know there is likely more to gather from it.
I had in mind the Māluṅkyaputta sutta (SN 35.95) rather than Bāhiya, which i consider to likely be commentary. SN 35.95 equates sense restraint with "in the seen, only the seen".
The way I’m reading it, the Buddha is confirming that his restraint has been developed to the extent that there is essentially no lust to be found. I do not think it is a useful sutta about how to develop restraint since Māluṅkyaputta had all but perfected his by the time these events took place. Just how I read it.
When anyone properly practices sense restraint lust does not arise, based on other suttas and this one. This sutta gives us a bit more detail as to how we actually practice sense restraint. Nowhere does it say that Māluṅkyaputta had all but perfected his sense restraint. The Buddha is encouraging him to develop sense restraint.
“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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mjaviem
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Re: On Tradition

Post by mjaviem »

Ceisiwr wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:43 pm ... Māluṅkyaputta sutta (SN 35.95)... "in the seen, only the seen".
Lovely sutta. Thanks for bringing it up. This part is wonderful:
...
“What do you think, Maluṅkyaputta, do you have any desire, lust, or affection for those forms cognizable by the eye that you have not seen and never saw before, that you do not see and would not think might be seen?"
...
Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammā Sambuddhassa
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Ceisiwr
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Re: On Tradition

Post by Ceisiwr »

mjaviem wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:30 pm
Ceisiwr wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 8:43 pm ... Māluṅkyaputta sutta (SN 35.95)... "in the seen, only the seen".
Lovely sutta. Thanks for bringing it up. This part is wonderful:
...
“What do you think, Maluṅkyaputta, do you have any desire, lust, or affection for those forms cognizable by the eye that you have not seen and never saw before, that you do not see and would not think might be seen?"
...
Why do you think it is wonderful?
“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.”
santa100
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Re: On Tradition

Post by santa100 »

Some interesting details in SN 35.95:
SN 35.95 wrote:“Here now, Maluṅkyaputta, what should I say to the young bhikkhus when a bhikkhu like you—old, aged, burdened with years, advanced in life, come to the last stage—asks me for an exhortation in brief?”
And Ven. Bodhi's citing the Comy. in "Connected Discourses":
Comy. wrote: Spk: The Blessed One speaks thus both to reproach him and to extol him. He reproaches him for putting off the work of an ascetic until old age, and extols him in order to set an example for the younger monks.
Also the detail in the Buddha's questions to him, which is on things cognizable by the senses that "have not seen and never saw before, that you do not see and would not think might be seen". So, would be interesting to know the Ven.'s answers if the questions were on things cognizable to the senses that are in the normal, usual sense..
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Ceisiwr
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Re: On Tradition

Post by Ceisiwr »

santa100 wrote: Tue Jan 18, 2022 9:36 pm

Also the detail in the Buddha's questions to him, which is on things cognizable by the senses that "have not seen and never saw before, that you do not see and would not think might be seen". So, would be interesting to know the Ven.'s answers if the questions were on things cognizable to the senses that are in the normal, usual sense..
It seems rather obvious to me that what is being said here

“What do you think, Māluṅkyaputta? Do you have any desire or greed or fondness for sights known by the eye that you haven’t seen, you’ve never seen before, you don’t see, and you don’t think would be seen?”

is that desire and greed arise dependent upon a sense object. That is all the Buddha is saying. If you have never seen something, you can't lust for it. Lust then arises dependent upon visual forms (in this case), therefore practice sense restraint via "in the seen, only the seen". That's the message. Do you have any desire or greed or fondness for sights known by the eye that you haven’t seen? Of course not, as I have never seen them.
“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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