Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

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Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

One life model
0
No votes
One life model and moment to moment
6
13%
Two lives model
0
No votes
Three lives model
4
9%
Three lives model and moment to moment
10
22%
Multiple lives model
3
7%
Multiple lives model & moment-to-moment
7
16%
Moment to moment only
1
2%
Timeless/Atemporal/Structural
10
22%
Simultaneous, non-linear
4
9%
 
Total votes: 45

Spiny Norman
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by Spiny Norman »

DNS wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 7:12 pm And the Abhidhamma discusses momentary mental events in detail, which makes sense from our own analysis of thoughts and their fleeting nature.
I think there is reference to mind moments, but not to a moment-to-moment interpretation of DO.
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by Spiny Norman »

Could we please add "multiple lives model" to the poll? As previously explained, I believe this is what the nidana "definitions" of becoming and birth actually support.
Last edited by Spiny Norman on Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by Spiny Norman »

Circle5 wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 11:05 pm For example claiming that "birth" or "aging and death" should be understood in a momentary sense.
“And what, bhikkhus, is aging-and-death? The aging of the various beings in the various orders of beings, their growing old, brokenness of teeth, greyness of hair, wrinkling of skin, decline of vitality, degeneration of the faculties: this is called aging. The passing away of the various beings from the various orders of beings, their perishing, breakup, disappearance, mortality, death, completion of time, the breakup of the aggregates, the laying down of the carcass: this is called death.2 Thus this aging and this death are together called aging-and-death.

“And what, bhikkhus, is birth? The birth of the various beings into the various orders of beings, their being born, descent [into the womb], production, the manifestation of the aggregates, the obtaining of the sense bases. This is called birth.3
Besides this problem of not even reading the sutta following the first one, there is also the problem of this sutta being a super small part of the explanation regarding how a living being works. It's just one page out of 1500. Even if one understands this one, there are still 1499 pages to go.
I'm not aware of any support in the suttas or commentaries for the idea that birth, aging and death here are intended metaphorically, or "psychologically". A psychological meaning could have easily been conveyed here by reference to the rise and fall of the aggregates, or something similar - but it wasn't.

Note that SN12 is the main treatment of DO in the suttas, and SN12.2 provides the nidana "definitions", including those for birth, aging and death.
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Circle5
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by Circle5 »

Dinsdale wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:10 am I'm not aware of any support in the suttas or commentaries for the idea that birth, aging and death here are intended metaphorically, or "psychologically". A psychological meaning could have easily been conveyed here by reference to the rise and fall of the aggregates, or something similar - but it wasn't.

Note that SN12 is the main treatment of DO in the suttas, and SN12.2 provides the nidana "definitions", including those for birth, aging and death.
That's exactly what I was trying to say. They refer to physical birth and physical aging and death. Yet, few people bother to read SN 12.2 (the sutta following DO).
Agreed, which is why I asked Circle5...

What do you think it is that arises?
What do you think it is that the arisen is dependent upon?

He did answer one question I put to him, but not these two.

Metta,
Paul.
1) That which arises are the 5 aggregates. Forms, consciousness, feelings, volitions, perceptions.

2) The arisen is dependent upon:
consciousness on name and form
form on volitional formations
feelings, volitions, perception are dependent on contact

Nothing except the 5 aggregates arises. What was the point of the question ?
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by binocular »

DNS wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:54 amThat would be most closest to the 'moment-to-moment only' option . . . or perhaps momentarianism
Doesn't the moment-to-moment-only teaching try to circumvent the old problems about rebirth and "what is it that gets reborn"?
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by binocular »

Sam Vara wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 9:12 pmGombrich makes the interesting observation (I'm not sure if it's true) that DO is unique in that there is an account of the Buddha saying that it is deep and extremely hard to understand.
The Buddha says such things about the Dhamma in general, for example:
"Then the thought occurred to me, 'This Dhamma that I have attained is deep, hard to see, hard to realize, peaceful, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise. [3] But this generation delights in attachment, is excited by attachment, enjoys attachment. For a generation delighting in attachment, excited by attachment, enjoying attachment, this/that conditionality & dependent co-arising are hard to see. This state, too, is hard to see: the resolution of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by Saengnapha »

binocular wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 11:03 am
DNS wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:54 amThat would be most closest to the 'moment-to-moment only' option . . . or perhaps momentarianism
Doesn't the moment-to-moment-only teaching try to circumvent the old problems about rebirth and "what is it that gets reborn"?
The moment to moment is not about trying to solve any problems.
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by Circle5 »

binocular wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 11:03 am
DNS wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:54 amThat would be most closest to the 'moment-to-moment only' option . . . or perhaps momentarianism
Doesn't the moment-to-moment-only teaching try to circumvent the old problems about rebirth and "what is it that gets reborn"?
The abbhidhabama idea did not try this. It was just an idea to say "let's put momentary dissappearence of one phenomenon instead of physical aging and death, and momentary appearence of another phenomenon instead of physical birth" since this went well with the idea of momentariness that was invented by the abbhidhabamist 300 years after Buddha died. But they didn't claim this is what Buddha meant, they just said that we can put these things in there if we want.

The idea that this is what the historical Buddha actually meant by "aging and death" and "birth" came from Secular Buddhist who have always been fighting to get rebirth out of buddism and to show that the historical Buddha did not believe in rebirth. Then this secular buddhist idea got adopted by postmodernist buddhist who were trying to make buddhist philosophy compatible with the phenomenology philosophy of some modern postmodernist.

The problem for them is that the historical Buddha did indeed mean physical death and physical birth, as shown in the very sutta following that one:
“And what, bhikkhus, is aging-and-death? The aging of the various beings in the various orders of beings, their growing old, brokenness of teeth, greyness of hair, wrinkling of skin, decline of vitality, degeneration of the faculties: this is called aging. The passing away of the various beings from the various orders of beings, their perishing, breakup, disappearance, mortality, death, completion of time, the breakup of the aggregates, the laying down of the carcass: this is called death.2 Thus this aging and this death are together called aging-and-death.

“And what, bhikkhus, is birth? The birth of the various beings into the various orders of beings, their being born, descent [into the womb], production, the manifestation of the aggregates, the obtaining of the sense bases. This is called birth.3
So the idea that Buddha meant momentary arising and death of phenomena instead of physical birth and physical death is pretty ridiculous to any informed buddhist
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by Sam Vara »

binocular wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 11:12 am
Sam Vara wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 9:12 pmGombrich makes the interesting observation (I'm not sure if it's true) that DO is unique in that there is an account of the Buddha saying that it is deep and extremely hard to understand.
The Buddha says such things about the Dhamma in general, for example:...
Thank you.
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by aflatun »

DNS wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:54 am

That would be most closest to the 'moment-to-moment only' option . . .
But this is precisely what the "structuralist" (Nanavira, etc) rejects. It's as far from the moment to moment option as others. As a simple example, all process models posit that we can 'find" instances of contact unfold throughout time at any given sense base. Structuralists entirely reject this: there is no such thing.

Also, despite Ven. Nanananda's differences from Ven. Nanavira, I don't think his reading is best thought of as moment to moment either. The momentary reading is really about the relationship of one psychological maneuver to another as played out horizontally in time: Mental behavior X leads to mental behavior Y etc. Effectively this is no different from Stoicism or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy plus a few metaphors about identity.

Ven. Nanananda's interpretation does however involve notional/conceptual and ontological (mereological) dependence much like we find in madhyamaka and yogacara, which is hardly surprising giving his regard for Ven. Nagarjuna. The terminal insight he describes in at least one passage (going on memory, apologies for any errors) amounts to the insight that "objects" of experience are conceptually constructed (cf. Nagarjuna on Vikalpa and Prapanca). Proximate to this we find the collapse of the subject-object polarity (There are differences, but note Nanavira's letter to Sister Vajira, para. 4 and Vasubandhu's Trimsika Verse 1, and 28-29). Unlike the CBT reading our task is to see the emptiness of all dhammas, here and now. That said I wouldn't know what to call this for purposes of a poll option :)

And not to foist too much onto the categories of a poll, but its important to note that neither Ven. Nanavira (nor Ven. Nanananda as far as I know) reject transmigration, kamma or any of the "supernatural" elements that "secular" Buddhists have trouble with. Hence for example we find the younger Nanavira actually formulating a sketch for a proof of rebirth which proceeds in a strictly phenomenological manner. I'm not aware of any other 20th century Buddhist thinker who tackled the issue on purely philosophical grounds. Yet another reason to not lump either in with secularists and California Bay Area buddhists...
"People often get too quick to say 'there's no self. There's no self...no self...no self.' There is self, there is focal point, its not yours. That's what not self is."

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Senses and the Thought-1, 42:53

"Those who create constructs about the Buddha,
Who is beyond construction and without exhaustion,
Are thereby damaged by their constructs;
They fail to see the Thus-Gone.

That which is the nature of the Thus-Gone
Is also the nature of this world.
There is no nature of the Thus-Gone.
There is no nature of the world."

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MMK XXII.15-16
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by justindesilva »

Sam Vara wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:28 pm
binocular wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 11:12 am
Sam Vara wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 9:12 pmGombrich makes the interesting observation (I'm not sure if it's true) that DO is unique in that there is an account of the Buddha saying that it is deep and extremely hard to understand.
The Buddha says such things about the Dhamma in general, for example:...
Thank you.
DO is the most profound and the most difficult to understand from the explanations of Lord Buddha. The reason is that DO is a psycho physico process of damma or nature which involve in exchange of universal and terrestrial energies. This process is also anicca dukka and anatma of the psycho physico combination. The process of DO involves the bslancing of universal energies as in a chemical and physical reaction where intrinsic changes are being unable to be folliwed up in a dynamic flux. This is why DO is not explained as such phenominal changes cannot be seen by anybody other than a budda best known as Loka Vidu ( one who sees the worlds).
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by DNS »

binocular wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 11:03 am
DNS wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 1:54 amThat would be most closest to the 'moment-to-moment only' option . . . or perhaps momentarianism
Doesn't the moment-to-moment-only teaching try to circumvent the old problems about rebirth and "what is it that gets reborn"?
Could be, especially among some modern-secular-types. I'm not an advocate of that position. By making DO one life model only or moment-to-moment only; an ulterior motive could be to circumvent rebirth teachings (not saying that all who hold that view do that).
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by DNS »

aflatun wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 2:08 pm Ven. Nanananda's interpretation does however involve notional/conceptual and ontological (mereological) dependence much like we find in madhyamaka and yogacara, which is hardly surprising giving his regard for Ven. Nagarjuna. The terminal insight he describes in at least one passage (going on memory, apologies for any errors) amounts to the insight that "objects" of experience are conceptually constructed (cf. Nagarjuna on Vikalpa and Prapanca). Proximate to this we find the collapse of the subject-object polarity (There are differences, but note Nanavira's letter to Sister Vajira, para. 4 and Vasubandhu's Trimsika Verse 1, and 28-29). Unlike the CBT reading our task is to see the emptiness of all dhammas, here and now. That said I wouldn't know what to call this for purposes of a poll option :)
Unlike the CBT reading our task is to see the emptiness of all dhammas, here and now.
In this moment. ;)
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by Bundokji »

DNS wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 2:48 pm Could be, especially among some modern-secular-types. I'm not an advocate of that position. By making DO one life model only or moment-to-moment only; an ulterior motive could be to circumvent rebirth teachings (not saying that all who hold that view do that).
I am one of those :tongue:
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.
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Re: Which view on DO resonates with you the most?

Post by DNS »

Dinsdale wrote: Tue Apr 17, 2018 8:06 am
DNS wrote: Mon Apr 16, 2018 7:12 pm And the Abhidhamma discusses momentary mental events in detail, which makes sense from our own analysis of thoughts and their fleeting nature.
I think there is reference to mind moments, but not to a moment-to-moment interpretation of DO.
I believe it is there in the Vibhanga or Patthana; not 100% sure though, it was several years, maybe decades ago that I read the entire Abhidhamma Pitaka (except Yamaka since there was no English translation). It was a multiple 3 lives model along with moment-to-moment interpretation, as in Thanissaro's view.
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