Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

Textual analysis and comparative discussion on early Buddhist sects and scriptures.
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Noble Sangha
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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

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May all living beings be well,

I scanned through some of the posts in this topic. Just would like to confirm what I believe to be seeing, this is new to me and unexpected.

#1. The book being discussed in this topic, mentions or provides arguments that Right action comes first on the Noble 8 Fold Path, is this correct?

#2. It seems like there's teachers / Buddhist practitioners, even the forum participants on here that believes or have solid evidence that right action comes first in the Noble 8 Fold Path, is this the case?
I am a Buddhist that doesn't practice Buddhism. What I practice is nekkhamma, abyāpāda, avihiṁsā, viraga, nirodha or the Noble Eight Fold Path. The elimination / eradication / extermination of defilements, kilesa's, raga, dosa, moha and asava's.

Lineage: Buddha > Sthaviravada > Vibhajjavada > Theravada > Striving for Nibbana.
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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

Post by Coëmgenu »

Doesn't the view come first? Who is saying the action comes first?
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What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

Post by Coëmgenu »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Nov 12, 2022 5:18 pm
frank k wrote: Sat Nov 12, 2022 5:02 pm 1. verbal thought, mental talk in 1st jhāna
What about people who don't think in terms of words, but rather in images?
People who have cognitive deficits in visual and/or auditory, etc., imagination aside, is there such a person who only thinks in images and never in mentally-vocalized thought?

I think mental verbalization is one of the most common forms of discursive thought. I have no proof. It just "seems reasonable" to me. Am I wrong?
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

Post by Ceisiwr »

Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Nov 13, 2022 1:24 am
People who have cognitive deficits in visual and/or auditory, etc., imagination aside, is there such a person who only thinks in images and never in mentally-vocalized thought?

I think mental verbalization is one of the most common forms of discursive thought. I have no proof. It just "seems reasonable" to me. Am I wrong?
From what I’ve read the majority of people think with both verbal and mental images. For them if something is dear to them they tend to think it in terms of images. If it’s more abstract then it’s thought of with words. A smaller percentage of people think solely in terms of images, whilst those with Aphantasia can’t visualise at all and so think solely in terms of verbal thoughts.
“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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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

Post by Ceisiwr »

Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Nov 13, 2022 1:19 am Doesn't the view come first? Who is saying the action comes first?
Dr Bucknell. Also that the formless are later additions (I haven’t read the book myself).
“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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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

Post by frank k »

And when have you known material form to not be 'visible'?
Just because rūpa's two most common usages:
1. material form
2. object of the eye, as one of 6 salayatana

doesn't mean those two are mutally exclusive.
That is, just because the 2nd context works, doesn't exclude it from also being material form, as oppposed to just a visual nonmaterial form.
That is exactly the sophistry Vism. and Sujato use to try to murder the body kāya and rūpa from the 4 jhānas.
l_rivers wrote: Sat Nov 12, 2022 10:31 pm I don't know if this applies but I just stumbled into this distinction in another context JIABS 16.2, *
This ambiguity of rupa-sanha corresponds to an ambiguity in the word rupa: rupa is sometimes "visible form" (the object of visual perception) and sometimes "matter, materiality" (as when contrasted with noma or with ariipa).21
21. See Pali-English Dictionary 574-575, rupa, 1 and 2


* RODERICK S. BUCKNELL Reinterpreting the Jhānas 375
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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

Post by frank k »

Maybe there are unusual cases for deaf people (born deaf), but if you ever really study and practice how an oral tradition works, you will have no doubt about vitakka and vicāra being mental talk. It's not even V&V MAY be mental talk. It HAS to be mental talk. Because that's how an oral tradition works.
you memorize (sati) communicable speech (vāca).
you verbally recite or mentally verbalize (vāci sankhāra are the vitakka and vicāra) of the sati Dhamma you memorized.
If you don't mentally talk, then the dhamma teachings will fade from your memory.
If you don't mentally talk, you won't have the aiblity to verbally communicate with others.

As far as the subverbal intentions that precede verbal mental talk, that happens in second jhāna and above, otherwise the vipassana done WHILE in jhana from MN 111 and AN 9.36 wouldn't be possible.
The buddha already has 3 terms to describe that, citta sankhara, mano sankhara, and vitakka sankhara
https://lucid24.org/tped/s/subverbal/index.html

And it doesn't require someone to be in jhāna to be able to do subverbal mental processing.
For example, inquire of yourself, 'are you 4 years old or not', you "know" that without having to mentally talk to ask that.
Or in high level competetive sports, this happens all the time.
You hear elite athletes all the time explain some amazing play they made, that they were just in a 'flow', or making a defensive play, they didn't even have time to (verbally) think, it was just muscle memory (sati) of what the proper action to do from recognizing citta sankhāra perceptions.




Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Nov 13, 2022 1:24 am
Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Nov 12, 2022 5:18 pm
frank k wrote: Sat Nov 12, 2022 5:02 pm 1. verbal thought, mental talk in 1st jhāna
What about people who don't think in terms of words, but rather in images?
People who have cognitive deficits in visual and/or auditory, etc., imagination aside, is there such a person who only thinks in images and never in mentally-vocalized thought?

I think mental verbalization is one of the most common forms of discursive thought. I have no proof. It just "seems reasonable" to me. Am I wrong?
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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

Post by frank k »

I just read the chapter on jhānas from Bucknell's book.
I haven't read anything else in there, besides the frees sample on amazon.

But if you're hoping to gain some insght on 4 jhānas, I can't recommend his book.
He's too equivocal. Even though he seems to have a correct interpretation of vitakka, vicāra, kāya, rūpa,
he's goes out of his way to acknowledge and describe LBT interpretations, and doesn't really take a stand on what EBT 4 jhānas is exactly.
Another really annoying thing, is rather than just cite Ab Vibhanga or some issue directly from sources, he'll reference the work of some other scholar who studied some aspect of jhāna that we haven't read and likely have no interest in reading. But all scholarly books seem to do this, so it must be part of the academia racket.

Keren Arbels book is much better, in terms of being clear what EBT jhāna is, what it isn't, and how it fits in to 7 awakening factors.
Bucknell seems too concerned about not angering Vism. supporters and just taking a stand saying where EBT and LBT differ.
It's also clear he never studied the Petakopadesa and its jhāna commentary, otherwise it would clear up much of his fuzziness on exactly what vitakka and vicāra are.

Again, I'm only talking chapter 8 concentration, and commenting on his analysis of the 4 jhānas, not judging the entire book, and not commenting on suitability for readers looking for other things besides jhāna accuracy.
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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

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frank k wrote: Sun Nov 13, 2022 10:29 pm
Keren Arbels book is much better, in terms of being clear what EBT jhāna is, what it isn't, and how it fits in to 7 awakening factors.
If I remember correctly Keren Arbel argued that V&V in Jhana is not normal verbal thinking. That’s the opposite of what you argue.
“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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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

Post by nirodh27 »

frank k wrote: Sun Nov 13, 2022 10:29 pm But if you're hoping to gain some insght on 4 jhānas, I can't recommend his book.
He's too equivocal. Even though he seems to have a correct interpretation of vitakka, vicāra, kāya, rūpa...
Keren Arbels book is much better, in terms of being clear what EBT jhāna is, what it isn't, and how it fits in to 7 awakening factors.
Yes, this book is not a study of the four Jhanas from which one can gain any particular insight, while Keren Arbel make the jhanas as the focus of the Book. Keren Arbel "got right" the kind of thoughts that mostly makes the first jhana (that are mostly a reverberation of the early work) but more verbal forms of reflections are included as well as seen in the Agamas since great insights and comprehensions could happen in a state that it is finally u-turned towards renunciation without effort or doubt. Bucknell instead is not very interest into defining the very little details of the nature of 1st jhana thought precisely because his main goal lies elsewhere.

It is a book that it is not aimed at giving key insights on the practice, but on the reconstruction of the early stepwise tranining. Still, it is very clear-cut on what he thinks about Jhanas and the Aruppas. The descriptions of the traditional interpretation are good, because he shows that he has done the work of understanding them and that is important to reconstruct the older meaning.
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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

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nirodh27 wrote: Sun Nov 13, 2022 11:14 pm ...
It is a book that it is not aimed at giving key insights on the practice, but on the reconstruction of the early stepwise tranining. Still, it is very clear-cut on what he thinks about Jhanas and the Aruppas. The descriptions of the traditional interpretation are good, because he shows that he has done the work of understanding them and that is important to reconstruct the older meaning.
No, it's not good becuase it shows he didn't understand the differences very well. If he did understand clearly, he wouldn't be hedging and trying to placate Theravadins with erroneous views on jhāna.
LBT Theravada redefinition of jhāna is a distinctly different practice.
The Buddha was not equivocal on the meanings of vitakka, kāya, rūpa, etc.
There are, maybe a large group of Theravadins out there, including famous scholars, who believe Vism., Abhidhamma, EBT all are describing the same 4 jhānas. It's a deluded fantasy from well meaning believers who can't cope with the reality that LBT had an agenda and redefined jhāna to suit it.
This ultimately does no one any good, especially damaging to EBT enthusiasts, who can't even get realiable instructions on 4 jhānas if they are going by the slippery lexicon from LBT revisionists.
And even LBT jhāna fans are going to be confused if they expect to get some insght about their [redefined] jhāna from reading suttas, so they give up on that and rely entirely on Vism.

Honesty is the best policy.
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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

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frank k wrote: Mon Nov 14, 2022 12:32 pm
I had a different reading than your own and "the preference" of the writer seemed very clear to me, maybe because I was already aware of the ideas of the writer from previous work (both of Bucknell and of Stuart-Fox). One goal of the Book is to define the "first-order" questions and a less conflicting stance on points that are not the focus of the book could help reception in the field (the book is already full of controversial, albeit documented, statements). You're totally entitled not to like this approach, but that's it.

Btw I can't think of being more clear than this, when the "implications" are spelled out for example in his paper of 1993:
It is now evident that Buddhaghosa's account is not, as generally supposed, merely a more detailed and precise formulation of the account
found throughout the Nikayas. Rather, it is a fundamentally dfferent version which is in serious conflict with the Nikaya account. By Buddhaghosa's day the jhana doctrine had been drastically modified.
One negative consequence of Buddhaghosa's complex account of jhana was that mastery of the higher jhanas was made to seem a superhuman attainment. With the entire series multiplied by itself, as it were, the total number of stages was greatly increased; and no genuine instructions were available for the attainment of any jhana beyond the supposed first one. This effect continues to the present day. To most Bud-dhist meditators, even "the second jhana" seems hardly a realistic goal, while ' arupa-jhanas" appear impossibly remote. The present re-vised understanding of the jhanas should, therefore, give encouragement to practicing meditators. The path of concentration practice is not nearly as long and arduous as Buddhaghosa made it seem.
I think that you can still find points of disagreement in the paper, but those are no small declarations. One very interesting read would be the paper about first jhana of 2019 of Bucknell, I was not able to find it without paying 100€ for the "Engaging Asia" book.
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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

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What is a good introduction and explaination of the development of the distinction between the path as presented in the EBTs and the LBTs?

Thank you.
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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

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l_rivers wrote: Mon Nov 14, 2022 6:19 pm What is a good introduction and explaination of the development of the distinction between the path as presented in the EBTs and the LBTs?

Thank you.
Sujato wrote about the differences between Theravada and Early Buddhism here: https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/ho ... list/23019

Personally I don’t agree with all of it. I think for example the EBT support momentariness, but it gives you some idea as to what differences some EBT folk see. Some people think there is a major difference in terms of meditation. Frank and nirodh27 above would be of that type. Sujato sees more overlap, although still with some differences (he agrees with Theravada that Jhana is an absorbed state, for example). Personally I don’t think there is much difference at all, since the Visuddhimagga describes Jhana in a way that non-absorbed EBT folks would approve of, as do the commentaries (which many here haven’t even read).
“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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Re: Dr Rod Bucknell's forthcoming new book: Reconstructing Early Buddhism

Post by l_rivers »

How Early Buddhism Differs from Theravada :
Order USD-1266009
Thank you Leo!
Thank you Ceisiwr

I'm thinking this subject is a minefield hidden in a fog covered ricepatty...

Leo :toast:
Last edited by l_rivers on Mon Nov 14, 2022 7:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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