'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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cappuccino
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Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by cappuccino »

Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:40 pm They say that Nibbāna is cessation. Cut, dried, and simple.
That is annihilationism


I asked if you are trying to achieve nirvana


You won’t try to achieve annihilation
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Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by cappuccino »

Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 3:38 pm Please desist in referring to Classical Theravāda as Ceisiwr's personal attachments, beliefs, and/or theories.
I do not think he understands yet
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Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Coëmgenu »

cappuccino wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 11:07 pm
Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:40 pm They say that Nibbāna is cessation. Cut, dried, and simple.
That is annihilationism
Brahmins, Vedāntists, Jains, Mahāyānists, Christians, and others have been saying what you've been saying for hundred and hundreds of years. Even the Bön shamans of Tibet think that Buddhism is nihilism and that it advocates annihilation, and they are interfacing with one of the most blatantly eternalistic Buddhisms on this earth. You are no different from them in this regard.

In short: you've a non-Buddhist (but very common) understanding of annihilation wherein annihilation is simply the permanent ending of thought. You could barely even admit or understand that it says "citta ceases" in the Pāli scriptures.
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: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by cappuccino »

Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 11:13 pm In short: you've a non-Buddhist (but very common) understanding of annihilation
Why do I quote the Ananda sutta?


Answer: Because no one has understood it
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Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Coëmgenu »

cappuccino wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 11:17 pm
Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 11:13 pm In short: you've a non-Buddhist (but very common) understanding of annihilation
Why do I quote the Ananda sutta?


Answer: Because no one has understood it
A wife once called her husband in a frenzy:

"MARK! There's some lunatic driving the wrong way on the highway!"

Mark said, "One?! EVERYONE'S doing it, Mary!"
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: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Tl21G3lVl »

cappuccino wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 11:20 pm
If only Vocchagotta had different questions. Both of those questions come from wrong views.
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Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Cause_and_Effect »

Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:40 pm
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:31 pm
Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:01 pm As to your request for my personal exegesis, my personal position is irrelevant here. Why?
Im not asking for your personal view, I'm asking for what you think the nikayas say about nibbana since that is the topic.
They don't say that "citta is forever" and they don't say "there is a universal proto-conscious (or karmic) field."
There are passges in the Pali Canon, pointed out to you many times, that imply some form of both. Not everything is spelled out.
Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:40 pm They say that Nibbāna is cessation. Cut, dried, and simple.
No, they say it is cessation of that which has arisen. Simple.
Be specific.
Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:40 pm The Pāli Canon says that what will arise will cease. Citta arose. Vijñāna arose. Manas arose. They will cease forever, never to re-arise again.
Indeed. And that which has never arisen will never cease. This is nibbana.
Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:40 pm
Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:01 pm This is a forum for Theravāda Buddhism. If you don't like it, you should probably stop posting here.
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:31 pmA typically petulant response from you.
And to clarify, yes this is a thread on Theravada. Not 'what I think is orthodox Theravada only'.
I'm here to discuss Theravāda, the EBTs, and Śrāvaka Buddhism in general. You're here to discuss the unconditioned citta, to advocate breaking the precepts in order to attain chemically-induced samādhis, and insult Theravāda. Reconsider who would be wise to leave and who doesn't understand what "Theravāda" actually is.
What a good boy you are. Your position "blind unquestionable obediance is the path" is not what written in the canon. Neither will highlighting judicous and meditative use of psychedelics make up for your rampant past recreational drug binges and hedonism. They are not the same.

Back to actual thread, like I said this is a forum for Thervada not 'orthodox interpretations only'. If you want that suggest a forum for it. If this discussion is too much, leave.
Don't pretent you understand what the suttas mean. There are interpretations.
Yes my interpretations may vary with orthodox Thervada. And they may still be correct or closer to what is.
"Therein monks, that Dimension should be known wherein the eye ceases and the perception of forms fades away...the ear... the nose...the tongue... the body ceases and the perception of touch fades away...

That Dimension should be known wherein mentality ceases and the perception of mind-objects fades away.
That Dimension should be known; that Dimension should be known."


(S. IV. 98) - The Dimension beyond the All
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Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Coëmgenu »

Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 4:59 am
Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:40 pm
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 7:31 pm
Im not asking for your personal view, I'm asking for what you think the nikayas say about nibbana since that is the topic.
They don't say that "citta is forever" and they don't say "there is a universal proto-conscious (or karmic) field."
There are passges in the Pali Canon, pointed out to you many times, that imply some form of both. Not everything is spelled out.
Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:40 pm They say that Nibbāna is cessation. Cut, dried, and simple.
No, they say it is cessation of that which has arisen. Simple.
Be specific.
Sure, that's fine. What arose will cease: citta, manas, vijñāna, this body derived of four elements, etc. That's what it says.
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 4:59 amWhat a good boy you are. Your position "blind unquestionable obediance is the path" is not what written in the canon. Neither will highlighting judicous and meditative use of psychedelics make up for your rampant past recreational drug binges and hedonism. They are not the same.
You are invited to stop making up lies about me. Thank you. I don't have a blind adherence to what is written in the Canon. That is something you've literally made up in your head in order to characterize me in a way you feel that I ought to be characterized: a doctrinaire intellectualizer. We're seeing quite the pattern with you.

So, telling lies isn't good. You second lie concerned this drugged-up past of "rampant binges" that you imagine I had. For someone who spends no time thinking about me, you've a lot of strange beliefs concerning my past. When did you cook these up? While not thinking about me?

I once admitted to you that I used to smoke far too much weed, copious amounts of weed, pretty much every day in university. I also experimented with psychedelic drugs. This was in the interest of showing that I've "been down that road" and it leads nowhere. Several other members in that ayahuasca thread shared other stories about this road to nowhere. You, instead, have decided that I was either an addict or a rampant binger. Your imagination is impressive; impressively misdirected toward inventing narratives concerning others.

Smoking weed every morning and trying large doses of psychedelics on the long weekend, that's a little bit different from "rampant binges." You've a deluded insistence that hard psychedelic substances have the possibility to aid in the achievement of the samādhis of the Āriyas, and that they can be a valuable tool for the meditator. Your want to defend and advocate for this foolishness leads you to attack me and others who identify the foolishness for what it is. It's very transparent. Because we don't agree with you concerning the value of psychedelics on the Buddhist path, we all must be binges-users, henodists, and other varieties of degenerates. If only we had used these "tools" dispassionately for the purposes of dhyānic psychonaut exploration.

:roll:

Please don't tell lies. It's not good for you.
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.
Cause_and_Effect
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Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:39 am

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Cause_and_Effect »

Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:13 pm
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 4:59 am
Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:40 pm They don't say that "citta is forever" and they don't say "there is a universal proto-conscious (or karmic) field."
There are passges in the Pali Canon, pointed out to you many times, that imply some form of both. Not everything is spelled out.
Coëmgenu wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:40 pm They say that Nibbāna is cessation. Cut, dried, and simple.
No, they say it is cessation of that which has arisen. Simple.
Be specific.
Sure, that's fine. What arose will cease: citta, manas, vijñāna, this body derived of four elements, etc. That's what it says.
All of which are separate from consciousness without sensory impingement, luminous, free from adventitious defilement, limitless, radiant, uncreated and deathless. All of which the Canon also describes as what remains with cessation of the asavas and laying down of the aggregates.

So you can stop trying to characterize me as some kind of 'eternalist' who has made up a view, a view that many prominent people including monastics hold to in this tradition, even if not the mainstream.
Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:13 pm
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 4:59 amWhat a good boy you are. Your position "blind unquestionable obediance is the path" is not what written in the canon.
I don't have a blind adherence to what is written in the Canon. That is something you've literally made up in your head in order to characterize me in a way you feel that I ought to be characterized: a doctrinaire intellectualizer. We're seeing quite the pattern with you.
You are quite the drama queen aren't you. Ok you're not an intellectual dogmatic, you just only like to see discussion of 'endorsed orthodox Thervada opinions', even though apparently you believe something else entirely yourself.
Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:13 pm
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 4:59 am Neither will highlighting judicous and meditative use of psychedelics make up for your rampant past recreational drug binges and hedonism. They are not the same.
Your second lie concerned this drugged-up past of "rampant binges" that you imagine I had....I once admitted to you that I used to smoke far too much weed, copious amounts of weed, pretty much every day in university. I also experimented with psychedelic drugs....
Smoking weed every morning and trying large doses of psychedelics on the long weekend, that's a little bit different from "rampant binges."
Sure bud. It's not 'rampant hedonistic drug binging' then. :thumbsup:
You do whatever you need to do and tell yourself to make your self feel fine.
Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:13 pm
You've a deluded insistence that hard psychedelic substances have the possibility to aid in the achievement of the samādhis of the Āriyas, and that they can be a valuable tool for the meditator. Your want to defend and advocate for this foolishness leads you to attack me and others who identify the foolishness for what it is. It's very transparent. Because we don't agree with you concerning the value of psychedelics on the Buddhist path, we all must be binges-users, henodists, and other varieties of degenerates. If only we had used these "tools" dispassionately for the purposes of dhyānic psychonaut exploration.
If you had noticed, I have not raised or mentioned them at all here. Only yourself and ceisiwr had raised the issue at all in an attempt to discredit what I was saying and I thus had to respond.

I am not 'openly advocating' them simply saying I personally have found them of benefit.
The only people bothered by meditative and occasional use of psychedelics like LSD on the path, would be;

- People who have a dogmatic adherence to whatever they think is scripture, who try to simplistically subsume all substances whatever the effects on consciousness as 'intoxcants like alcoholic'.

Or

- People who have engaged in rampant drug fueled hedonism and misused these substances or didn't penetrate to their true purpose, and now rather than admitting their errors, want to stand on a soap box as a 'reformed, teetotal Buddhist' who can lecture about the dangers of their prior disinhibited sensory drug use.

I know psychedelics used rightly can be of benefit for some. You opinions on it are worthless to me. Discussing the subject with you is likewise a waste of time.
"Therein monks, that Dimension should be known wherein the eye ceases and the perception of forms fades away...the ear... the nose...the tongue... the body ceases and the perception of touch fades away...

That Dimension should be known wherein mentality ceases and the perception of mind-objects fades away.
That Dimension should be known; that Dimension should be known."


(S. IV. 98) - The Dimension beyond the All
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Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by cappuccino »

Tl21G3lVl wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 4:23 am If only Vacchagotta had different questions.
Questions are fine


Few understand the replies
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Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by auto »

Cause_and_Effect wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 9:59 pm Since Nibbana is identityless infinite eternal 'consciousness' or 'protoconsciousness' that has been liberated from the rebecoming process of taking up of materiality and mentality in any of the realms, it is Eternal yet cannot be described as 'eternalism'.

People overcomplicate things. It is clear that the Buddha's teachings are describing this, and that it is separate from transitory sensory consciousness which rises and falls with the sense bases. It is liberated and transformed in Nibbana.

It is the fundamental consciousness element which is part of the very fabric of reality itself and which we are all participating in and part of, which is liberated from rebecoming in any identity and thus our particular 'locus' is freed and becomes of the Nibbana element.
you mean this,
https://suttacentral.net/mn43/en/sujato?layout=sidebyside&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin wrote: “What can be known by purified mind consciousness released from the five senses?”
“Nissaṭṭhena hāvuso, pañcahi indriyehi parisuddhena manoviññāṇena kiṁ neyyan”ti?
running parisuddhena manoviññāṇena in search,
1st result,
https://suttacentral.net/mil7.6.8/en/tw_rhysdavids?reference=none&highlight=false wrote:For it was said, O king, by Anuruddha, the Elder:

“With heart made pure, in meditation firm,
Drink deep of freedom’s never-failing draught.”’

Bhāsitampetaṁ, mahārāja, therena anuruddhena—

‘Parisuddhena cittena,
Ārammaṇe patiṭṭhāya;
Tena cittena pātabbaṁ,
Vimuttirasamasecanan’”ti.
I would say you are on point. Not sure if it is nibbana(no exact word) but it is something to latch onto like a leech as the milindapanha text says.
ah also this uses the word citta instead of manovinnana. But if to read the text entirely then there is mentioned ambrosia of emancipation.
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Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by auto »

Ceisiwr wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 10:14 pm Whilst it must have been a wonderful experience, it's just another natural phenomenon to let go of. I wouldn't get stuck on the mind, or conciousness.
Ceiswir you are rejecting the ambrosia of emancipation.
Look up the previous post: viewtopic.php?p=696855#p696855
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Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Ceisiwr »

auto wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:31 pm
Ceisiwr wrote: Tue Sep 27, 2022 10:14 pm Whilst it must have been a wonderful experience, it's just another natural phenomenon to let go of. I wouldn't get stuck on the mind, or conciousness.
Ceiswir you are rejecting the ambrosia of emancipation.
Look up the previous post: viewtopic.php?p=696855#p696855
Sorry, I don't follow?
“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: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Coëmgenu »

Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:12 pm
Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:13 pm
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 4:59 am There are passges in the Pali Canon, pointed out to you many times, that imply some form of both. Not everything is spelled out.

No, they say it is cessation of that which has arisen. Simple.
Be specific.
Sure, that's fine. What arose will cease: citta, manas, vijñāna, this body derived of four elements, etc. That's what it says.
All of which are separate from consciousness without sensory impingement, luminous, free from adventitious defilement, limitless, radiant, uncreated and deathless. All of which the Canon also describes as what remains with cessation of the asavas and laying down of the aggregates.

So you can stop trying to characterize me as some kind of 'eternalist' who has made up a view, a view that many prominent people including monastics hold to in this tradition, even if not the mainstream.
You've invented the supposed suttic disclosure, by way of it allegedly being a necessary underlying metaphysic, of the existence of a "proto-conscious (or karmic) field." You've also made up the supposed suttic disclosure of the principle that there are many births per particular bhava in another older thread. I never said you invented eternalism. Stick to what I say, not to what you imagine I say. Then, you will have a better time addressing what I say.

The proto-conscious field, the karmic field, and the many jatis per bhava are not views held by many prominent people or monastics in the setting of Buddhism and the Buddhadharma. I would suggest that you reflect upon this, but I don't think anything or anyone could possible make you seriously do so, short of some sort of personal meditative disaster.

As for consciousness without sensory impingement, this isn't a thing in the Pali Canon. It's just not. You're making wild assumptions about anidassana vinnana and connecting it with the metaphor about consciousness upon the object being like light upon a surface. Mixing these metaphors, you've decided that consciousness just "hangs out" on its own without an object, like the light supposedly existing in a room without interacting with any of the surfaces of the room. Light doesn't do that, and more importantly consciousness doesn't do that according to the Pali Canon.

What happens when desire, relishing, and craving do not fuel consciousness? Consciousness does not become established and does not grow (SN 12.64). What is unestablished consciousness? What is an unestablished anything? Why on earth would something that has not been established just hang out, as if established, as if existing, and as if being consciousness? It's unestablished. It hasn't consumed fuel (desire, relishing, and craving) and grown into what it is. Only in order to fit preconceived views of "latent proto-consciousness" and "fields of the like" would consciousness ever behave that way. The Buddha never says such a thing in the entirety of the Pali Canon. What it says is that, in Nibbana, nothing is felt. Feelings follow perceptions. If nothing is felt, nothing is perceived. Or do you deny that perception born of contact gives rise to feeling? It would be in-character for you to deny such a common and well-argued teaching that is exhaustively outlined in the Canon.
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 4:59 am
Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:13 pm
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 4:59 amWhat a good boy you are. Your position "blind unquestionable obediance is the path" is not what written in the canon.
I don't have a blind adherence to what is written in the Canon. That is something you've literally made up in your head in order to characterize me in a way you feel that I ought to be characterized: a doctrinaire intellectualizer. We're seeing quite the pattern with you.
You are quite the drama queen aren't you. Ok you're not an intellectual dogmatic, you just only like to see discussion of 'endorsed orthodox Thervada opinions', even though apparently you believe something else entirely yourself.
Yeah, I like this forum to be on-topic, and also not to be proliferated with incompetent slanders of the tradition the forum is dedicated to.

I really don't care if you think citta is forever. Don't literally insult, degrade, and demean the tradition this forum is dedicated to while you argue for "the forever citta." When most of your participation on the forum is literally just to bash Theravada, it really begs the question of what on earth you are doing here. Of course, you only really bash it because you don't have a clue what you are talking about. You likely see yourself as defending Theravada. Very foolish. You have no idea how much it is that you don't know. It's a classic case of Dunning-Kruger vainglory.
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 4:59 am
Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:13 pm
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 4:59 am Neither will highlighting judicous and meditative use of psychedelics make up for your rampant past recreational drug binges and hedonism. They are not the same.
Your second lie concerned this drugged-up past of "rampant binges" that you imagine I had....I once admitted to you that I used to smoke far too much weed, copious amounts of weed, pretty much every day in university. I also experimented with psychedelic drugs....
Smoking weed every morning and trying large doses of psychedelics on the long weekend, that's a little bit different from "rampant binges."
Sure bud. It's not 'rampant hedonistic drug binging' then. :thumbsup:
You do whatever you need to do and tell yourself to make your self feel fine.
:roll:

You dig your own grave. You don't need any help from me.
Last edited by Coëmgenu on Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:56 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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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