Only the Buddha's teach anatta.

Exploring the Dhamma, as understood from the perspective of the ancient Pali commentaries.
un8-
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Re: Only the Buddha's teach anatta.

Post by un8- »

mjaviem wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 4:37 pm
un8- wrote: Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:20 am Most people misunderstand anicca...
... which I would translate as something along the lines of dependent and unstable instead of "Impermanence"..
Do you mean the "... impermanent, conditioned, dependently arisen, subject to destruction, vanishing, fading away, and ceasing..." in MN 74 or you mean something else?
Many peoplee take that to mean flux, such as that everything is constantly changing, but that interpretation doesn't work with anatta. The interpretation of "Instability" does though, for example you have no say over the matter (anatta) if all of a sudden a headache or joint pain arises (anicca). Things are inherently unstable (anicca) and thus out of your control (anatta).

Here's a good essay that expands on the different interpretations
The sun courses daily across the sky; the seasons progress annually; and this in itself does not induce anxiety. Rather, I should be disconcerted and grieved if the sun were to stop transiting the sky, or if it were to remain always winter, or even always summer. This would be truly upsetting. Yet this is not so much a matter of change as of becoming otherwise, i.e. other than the way I want or expect things to be. The sun’s position has stopped changing “all the time;” the seasons have ceased their advancement. This is the sort of change I turn from and wish to deny. For even if matters were not arranged in their most perfect possible order they were at least arranged: day followed night, winter followed autumn. There was not the threatening anxiety of uncertainty: if this, what next?

But the doctrine of flux is a doctrine of certainty: everything is always changing. It is therefore a falsification of our manifest awareness of the world’s unreliability: things change when we expect (and wish) them not to. The need to hold to and proclaim this doctrine is thus revealed for what it is: not a coming to truth but a fleeing from it. In the face of the world’s insecurity the doctrine of flux is an attempt to retreat into a position of certainty.
Rather than perceive impermanence as the decay and decrepitude of old age, as the weakening of the faculties, the loss of control over the body, the gasping for air as life ebbs, the fearsome uncontrollable slide from light to darkness as our very identity — body, perception, consciousness, all — fades away and breaks up — rather than perceive impermanence as that, how much more comfortable to blandly assert that everything is always changing, and thereby to move from the threatening and vertiginous perceptual realm to the safely exorcised sphere of the conceptual, while at the same time concealing this entire movement by a dialectical dance of complacency. No, change is involved with suffering not because of change per se but because things do not remain the way we wish them to remain even when the way we wish them to be is “to be changing.”
https://pathpress.wordpress.com/bodhesako/change/
There is only one battle that could be won, and that is the battle against the 3 poisons. Any other battle is a guaranteed loss because you're going to die either way.
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mjaviem
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Re: Only the Buddha's teach anatta.

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un8- wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 9:26 am Many peoplee take that to mean flux, such as that everything is constantly changing, but that interpretation doesn't work with anatta. The interpretation of "Instability" does though...
Ok, I think we are in agreement. Anicca always involves impermanence not only change. If it were only change, it would involve an essence that endures and an outer shell that is changing for it but this is not the teaching, the teaching is that nothing is permanent and everything will cease. And with instability I think you mean that things are "subject to destruction, vanishing, fading away, and ceasing" and in this case I also agree with you because as far as I understand this subjection is the anicca characteristic of all conditioned things, they won't be there for ever.
Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammā Sambuddhassa
un8-
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Re: Only the Buddha's teach anatta.

Post by un8- »

mjaviem wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 12:24 pm
un8- wrote: Wed Oct 27, 2021 9:26 am Many peoplee take that to mean flux, such as that everything is constantly changing, but that interpretation doesn't work with anatta. The interpretation of "Instability" does though...
Ok, I think we are in agreement. Anicca always involves impermanence not only change. If it were only change, it would involve an essence that endures and an outer shell that is changing for it but this is not the teaching, the teaching is that nothing is permanent and everything will cease. And with instability I think you mean that things are "subject to destruction, vanishing, fading away, and ceasing" and in this case I also agree with you because as far as I understand this subjection is the anicca characteristic of all conditioned things, they won't be there for ever.
Yes and the perception ot Nicca (stability) is tied to identity view, desire and conceit. e.g. I would like to believe that I will always feel this way, but with aging bodily pain will increase, more problems will arise.

Take for example Pau Auk Sayadaws teaching of "seeing the kalapa" (atom) in order to see anicca, but this doesn't change anything regarding desire or lead to relevant insight, it's just another form of the flux interpretation. I know my body is composed of smaller compounds, that doesn't change the fact that I don't get what I want. What I want is rooted in desire, identity view and conceit. I don't want to lose what I like and I don't want to gain what I don't like, the fact that I don't have a say over the matter has nothing to do with atomism (pau auk's kalapa teaching). So that's just one example of an interpretation of flux which imho misses the mark.
There is only one battle that could be won, and that is the battle against the 3 poisons. Any other battle is a guaranteed loss because you're going to die either way.
Ontheway
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Re: Only the Buddha's teach anatta.

Post by Ontheway »

Bhandatacariya Buddhaghosa Thera was correct.
Anattā is the last of the three characteristics (ti-lakkhaṇa) or general characteristics (sāmañña-lakkhaṇa). Like the teaching of the four Noble Truths, it is the “teaching peculiar to Buddhas” (buddhānaṃ sāmukkaṃsikā desanā: MN 56/M I 380).
- Ñāṇamoli Thera

The Three Basic Facts of Existence: Anatta - Collected Essays, Nyanapotika Thera (Ed.)
Hiriottappasampannā,
sukkadhammasamāhitā;
Santo sappurisā loke,
devadhammāti vuccare.

https://suttacentral.net/ja6/en/chalmer ... ight=false
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Gwi II
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Re: Only the Buddha's teach anatta.

Post by Gwi II »

robertk wrote: Thu Oct 07, 2021 12:46 pm the Sammohavinodani (Vol. I, pages. 58-60):

"The characteristics of impermanence and pain are made known with or without the arising of the Tathaagatas. The characteristic of no-self is not made known without the arising of the Enlightened Ones; it is made known only on the arising of the Enlightened Ones. For such wanderers and ascetics (taapasa) as the master Sarabha.nga are mighty and powerful and are able to express ‘the impermanent and the painful’: [but] they are unable to express ‘no-self’. For if they were able to express ‘no-self’ in a present assembly, there would be penetration of path and fruition in the present assembly. For the making known of the characteristic of no-self is not the province of anyone else; it is the province of the Fully Enlightened Ones only. Thus the characteristic of no-self is unobvious. That is why the Master, when teaching the characteristic of no-self, taught it by means of impermanence or by means of pain or by means of both impermanence and pain. But here it should be understood that he taught it by means of both impermanence and pain."
Of course!

MN 11:
"... There are some other ascetics and brahmins who claim to propound the complete understanding of all kinds of grasping, but they don’t really. They describe the complete understanding of grasping at sensual pleasures, views, and precepts and observances, but not theories of a self. Why is that? Because those gentlemen don’t truly understand this one thing. That’s why they claim to propound the complete understanding of all kinds of grasping, but they don’t really.

In such a teaching and training, confidence in the Teacher is said to be far from ideal. Likewise, confidence in the teaching, fulfillment of the precepts, and love and affection for those sharing the same path are said to be far from ideal. Why is that? It’s because that teaching and training is poorly explained and poorly propounded, not emancipating, not leading to peace, proclaimed by someone who is not a fully awakened Buddha.

The Realized One, the perfected one, the fully awakened Buddha claims to propound the complete understanding of all kinds of grasping. He describes the complete understanding of grasping at sensual pleasures, views, precepts and observances, and theories of a self."
Gwi: "There are only-two Sakaṽādins:
Theraṽādå&Ṽibhajjaṽādå, the rest are
nonsakaṽādins!"
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robertk
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Re: Only the Buddha's teach anatta.

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Gwi II wrote: Sat Apr 22, 2023 4:08 am
The Realized One, the perfected one, the fully awakened Buddha claims to propound the complete understanding of all kinds of grasping. He describes the complete understanding of grasping at sensual pleasures, views, precepts and observances, and theories of a self."
:anjali: :anjali: :anjali:
TRobinson465
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Re: Only the Buddha's teach anatta.

Post by TRobinson465 »

I think it's more like. Only the Buddha's teach anatta properly. Just as impermanence and suffering can be taught properly or improperly. Anatta can be taught improperly by other teachers but only properly taught by a fully awakened one.
"Do not have blind faith, but also no blind criticism" - the 14th Dalai Lama

"The Blessed One has set in motion the unexcelled Wheel of Dhamma that cannot be stopped by brahmins, devas, Maras, Brahmas or anyone in the cosmos." -Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta
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