Kumara wrote: ↑Wed Jan 19, 2022 7:44 am
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Hi Kumara,
Luangpor: Yes. Sometimes we see the defilements are one thing and the mind is another,
disconnected from each other. The defilements don’t come out of thin air. There is contact
with a sense object, then thinking, and anger comes afterward. The anger comes from a cause.
We are not to prevent this. We just see the defilements come and go, without judging them.
Can you see these things aren’t under control?
Student 6: Yes, I see that.
Luangpor: You see non-self clearly. See this non-self, out of control quality often.
I think this shed light. Out of control is equated to Anatta. In a sense, it reminds me (it seems the same argument actually, probably one influenced the other) Sam Harris's book "Waking up" that have a similar undestanding of non-self that is linked to his argument of the lack of free-will.
What are you, really? Who is the “I” that you speak of? Most of us will assume that “I,” as in their sense of self, is a single entity that exists in the brain and which they identify with, which observes through the eyes and that is the originator of our thoughts.
However, this is simply not the case.
Firstly, we aren’t even the thinkers of our thoughts, and our sense of control over them is totally illusory.
Try this exercise: make yourself comfortable and try not to think any thoughts for an entire minute.
How did you fare? Of course, you couldn’t do it. You might have had thought-free moments between thoughts, but some thoughts nevertheless came to your mind. Indeed, we have little control over our thoughts. They simply appear in our minds uninvited.
Next, even the idea of the self as a single entity is an illusion. Indeed, the creator of our “selves,” the brain, is in fact composed of different hemispheres, the right and the left, each with its own personality.
But how can we know this? Doctors sometimes perform a medical procedure known as callosotomy, which splits the hemispheres in the brain. Interestingly, people who have undergone this surgery demonstrate widely different traits depending on which side of the brain is stimulated.
One famous example of this is from a study on a young split-brain patient who was asked what he wanted to become when he grew up. His left hemisphere replied, “a draftsman,” while his right side had replied, “a racing driver.”
Clearly, we overestimate our control over our thoughts, and as a result we lend them greater power than they deserve. But what can we do to overcome their power and gain perspective?
In fact, if you observe, thoughts and intentions just pop in your mind before you are aware of it and you "acquire" them as your own. When you intend to drink something, you discover your intention and you acquire that intention as yours after the intention itself that by himself have no quality of "mineness", it is just like a running narrative that happens after the facts. "I want to drink". That "I" is a construction of the mind and that intention is not "your" intention without the acquisition, it is just something that happened in your experience,
you couldn't will it differently. I think this have a great role in understanding "anatta", you have to acknowledge this to do the next step, get dispassion from consciousness, intentions and constructions. Else, you are imagining a "you" in yourself that is constant for an x amount of time and wills things, but the Anattalakkhana sutta is clear that you cannot say "intentions be like this" or "that".
Of course, that doesn't mean that we don't have to judge or develop, I think that the Buddha's teaching are agnostic/disinstered about the free will concept that is a western phisolophical problem. Can "we" observe and reason about our intentions? Yes, it is our built-in nature, so we can practice the Dhamma. I think that the Dhamma is about discrimination of skillfull and unskillful, so this kind of non-judgmemental attitude that is the crux of the Vipassana movement is not in-line with the suttas, that (as we see clearly in MN19-MN20) is all about judging thoughts and intentions and reason about their skillfulness and impact on our future well-being, just like in the parable of the cook of the SN.
That we are not the actual makers of our next thought or intention or impetus of anger doesn't mean that this judgemental ability is not present in us as well and will do his job.
This non-judgement attitude have a sense because, especially in the west, we tend to exercise control on our mental states judging US as bad, not able, unworthy and that causes Dukkha and stress. But the Buddha doesn't want that, it wants that we reason about our well-being and judge our intentions and thoughts in that light so that the mind naturally develops and incline towards peace. This is easily missed in the non-judgemental attitude.
Thanissaro have anatta as a value-judgement. I think that is the correct kind of attitude. Still, is important to note that there's no actual "me" that brings about anger so not to get caught in thoughts about existence of something that is D.O., but we still have to judge that anger based on the well-being and skillfullness of the anger and the mind will incline towards the non-arising. That I think is what the Buddha said and I think that it is a little lost in many form of Vipassana.
Of course, a debate about the role of Kamma and undestanding of it in Suttas and in Theravada here opens up, if we buy that intentions are not made by a "me" in any real sense, but from conditions that are not in our control (and that includes the intentions to practice the Dhamma) we are not really responsible for our actions, even if as beings we will certainly experience the results of them.