I like this post a lot, and would welcome some advice from you phenomenological adepts on deepening my understanding. I'm happy with the process described here being "a mode of viewing and relating to the world, which enhances our understanding of the role we each play in constructing our own present moment experience". But how much of a role are we playing here? Are we to take this as meaning that we merely apply a label to something which is presented to us prior to the act of attention? Take, for example, the claim:retrofuturist wrote: ↑Fri May 15, 2020 4:56 am The Inner Workings of Attention
By teaching that “with the arising of attention is the arising of objects, and with the ceasing of attention is the going down of objects" , the Buddha espoused a mode of phenomenology that radically challenges the conventional worldly way of understanding and relating to objects.
The word phenomenology is derived from the Greek words phainómenon ("that which appears") and lógos ("study"). As such, it is the study of what appears subjectively to the consciousness of an individual, within the internal world of their experience. The phenomenological approach of the Buddha can be juxtaposed most clearly against the philosophy of naïve realism, which holds that objects are objectively real, independently of whether or not they are being observed.
To illustrate the distinction, imagine that you are standing in a location where you can see either a building or a tree. Wherever you cast your attention will determine what arises for you. If you attend to the tree, a tree will arise. If you were to then move attention to the building, from the perspective of your present moment experience, the tree will cease and the building will arise. Hence, “with the arising of attention is the arising of objects, and with the ceasing of attention is the going down of objects". What is being shown here is a mode of viewing and relating to the world, which enhances our understanding of the role we each play in constructing our own present moment experience.
It is important to understand that this mode of viewing does not involve making any ontological determinations about whether trees or buildings objectively exist (i.e. realism) or do not exist (i.e. idealism). The Buddha was quite insistent that implicit or explicit views pertaining to existence and non-existence should be deliberately set aside and released, lest they interfere with this correct mode of present-moment attention. The importance of this correct mode of viewing is detailed in the following discourse…
“Venerable Kaccayana Gotta approached the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down, sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One: "Lord, 'Right view, right view,' it is said. To what extent is there right view?"
"By and large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (i.e. takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence and non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.
"By and large, Kaccayana, this world is in bondage to attachments, clingings and biases. But one such as this does not get involved with or cling to these attachments, clingings, fixations of awareness, biases, or obsessions; nor is he resolved on 'my self.' He has no uncertainty or doubt that just stress, when arising, is arising; stress, when passing away, is passing away. In this, his knowledge is independent of others. It's to this extent, Kaccayana, that there is right view.
"'Everything exists': That is one extreme. 'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle.”
What the Buddha has done here, completely re-orientes how we typically view “the world”. Rather than taking it to be the Earth and its material contents, “the world” depicted here in the discourses is an internal world of subjective experience, comprising the realms of the five senses and the mind. For all the speculation that could be had debating the merits of external existence or non-existence all that can actually be known is that which is sensed by the individual…
"Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen and pay close attention. I will speak."
"As you say, lord," the monks responded.
The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye and forms, ear and sounds, nose and aromas, tongue and flavours, body and tactile sensations, intellect and ideas. This, monks, is called the All. Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range."
Nanananda clarifies the role of attention in manufacturing experience by explaining that “we see because we look. We hear because we listen. It is not the other way around”, and this advice certainly holds true in relation to our example of the tree and the building. In his discourses, the Buddha taught that “all things are rooted in interest, they originate with attention” , thereby showing us that the things we experience come to be through a conscious choice, rooted in interest, to shift attention to particular forms.
As Thanissaro Bhikkhu explains, “This is why what may appear to be a simple act of attention is anything but simple, and anything but bare. It’s shaped, consciously or not, by views and the intentional actions informed by those views. If those views are ignorant, the act of attention is conditioned to be inappropriate: applied to the wrong things, in the wrong framework, and for the wrong reasons, aggravating the problem of stress and suffering rather than alleviating it.”
A fuller understanding of mindfulness therefore includes awareness of the role that attention is playing in the creation of present moment experience. Through mindful observation of attention, and the way it is dragged around by interest and craving, we see how the present experience is concocted. The following lines of inquiry may be followed, if you wish to develop your own experiential understanding of what has been explained above.
Mindfulness of attention – developing insight and wisdom through direct observation
• What determines where attention is placed?
• What happens when we choose to fix attention on a specific object?
• Can attention be placed in multiple directions simultaneously?
• How does the mind feel when the factors that drive attention are calmed?
• Can we sustain the phenomenological mode of viewing that is independent of the polarity of existence and non-existence?
• Does viewing experience in this way change the way we relate to objects?
• What role do we play in the arising of things?
• What role do we play in the ceasing of things?
• Can we skilfully manage attention in order to prevent the fabrication of things?
If I attend to the tree, then the tree has already arisen in order for me to attend to it; if I then move my attention to the building, that is only possible because there is (in some sense) another arisen thing which can "catch" my attention. This might just be a quibble on my part as to what "arising" means, and I should be content that what "arises" is merely an overlay consisting of saññā - the label "tree" that we contribute by an act of apperception, the mental relating of the thing in the field of vision to a mental conception of what trees are. We can easily see this in action with regard to details; I perceive a tree, and my repeated acts of attention and volitional apperception then allow me to identify it as an oak, belonging to Farmer Giles, probably about 300 years old, etc. But what is the thing to which I attend, prior to, or outwith, the arising of attention?Wherever you cast your attention will determine what arises for you. If you attend to the tree, a tree will arise. If you were to then move attention to the building, from the perspective of your present moment experience, the tree will cease and the building will arise.
As per my earlier post in the Abhidhamma thread, this is not a question which relies upon ( ) naïve realism. What there is prior to my attending to it does not have to be a "real common sense tree" existing as a lump of matter independent of experience. But in terms of the Buddha's teaching:
what is it that we attend to? In terms of the Ñānananda quote:with the arising of attention is the arising of objects
What determines the direction of vision or the selection of sound, or, to put it another way, what do we look at in order to see, or listen to in order to hear? Which brings us to the first of the bullet points in Retro's post above. If attention gives rise to objects in the sense of objects of consciousness (i.e. anything whatsoever which can be known in any way whatsoever) then to what is it attending? Is the claim here that we create everything ab nihilo by means of attention, or the weaker claim that we contribute to that experience of everything?"we see because we look. We hear because we listen"
I suspect that one way out of this will be to suggest that consciousness and rupa arise simultaneously, but to confidently follow that line of enquiry I would probably need some more input from Robert on this specific issue (i.e. as opposed to the abstract...). I'm thinking of rupa as "the given" here. Meanwhile, I'll take refuge in Sue Hamilton's account of how transcendental idealism deals with this:
I might post on another bit soon, as there is lots more I like here......we only experience the world at all because Reality is actually there: what we are experiencing is our interpretation of a transcendentally existent reality.