'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
User avatar
Ceisiwr
Posts: 22398
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 2:36 am
Location: Wales

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Ceisiwr »

Cause_and_Effect wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:43 pm
It's amazing how attached you are and how fervently you argue for your annihilationist and exterminationist beliefs, and how much you identify with the aggregates.
It's a compulsive desire you have for non-existance. It's not healthy, not to speak of misrepresentation of the goal. You want nibbana to be 'the great and final everlasting death' instead of 'the deathless'.

Nibbana is an ayatana - a sphere or plane. There is no freedom in nothingness.

The Island, the shelter, the base that arahants merge into. All synonyms of that reality.
I'm afraid you are using "annihilationist" in a way that isn't used in Theravāda nor early Buddhism. According to Buddhadhamma, nowhere have I proposed annihilationism. I haven't proposed nihilism either. In fact, I recently made a post regarding moral realism, which I am as of yet to defend in depth. You can of course label what I am saying as annihilationism or nihilism, but your own idiosyncratic and non-Dhamma use of those terms doesn't much interest me. People have been calling the Dhamma "nihilist" or "annihilationist" since the Buddha was alive. As to the rest, I will respond a bit later in the day. Nibbāna of course being a very important topic to discuss.
“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.”
auto
Posts: 4583
Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2017 12:02 pm

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by auto »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:39 pm
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:43 pm
It's amazing how attached you are and how fervently you argue for your annihilationist and exterminationist beliefs, and how much you identify with the aggregates.
It's a compulsive desire you have for non-existance. It's not healthy, not to speak of misrepresentation of the goal. You want nibbana to be 'the great and final everlasting death' instead of 'the deathless'.
I'm afraid you are using "annihilationist" in a way that isn't used in Theravāda nor early Buddhism. According to Buddhadhamma, nowhere have I proposed annihilationism.
interrupting this convo for a sec, i might see it wrongly, but it truly seem like it that,
Ceiswir you are getting lost from the first line what user Cause and effect posted and just carrying on with your usual narrative.
What said to you is:
You think nibbana is annihilation. Therefore you are an annihilationist.
User avatar
Ceisiwr
Posts: 22398
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 2:36 am
Location: Wales

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Ceisiwr »

auto wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:58 pm
Ceisiwr wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:39 pm
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:43 pm
It's amazing how attached you are and how fervently you argue for your annihilationist and exterminationist beliefs, and how much you identify with the aggregates.
It's a compulsive desire you have for non-existance. It's not healthy, not to speak of misrepresentation of the goal. You want nibbana to be 'the great and final everlasting death' instead of 'the deathless'.
I'm afraid you are using "annihilationist" in a way that isn't used in Theravāda nor early Buddhism. According to Buddhadhamma, nowhere have I proposed annihilationism.
interrupting this convo for a sec, i might see it wrongly, but it truly seem like it that,
Ceiswir you are getting lost from the first line what user Cause and effect posted and just carrying on with your usual narrative.
What said to you is:
You think nibbana is annihilation. Therefore you are an annihilationist.
I don’t think it’s annihilation, because annihilationism is the view that a self is destroyed in Buddhadhamma.
“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.”
auto
Posts: 4583
Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2017 12:02 pm

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by auto »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 3:01 pm I don’t think it’s annihilation, because annihilationism is the view that a self is destroyed in Buddhadhamma.
Yes, in your opinion you can't annihilate the self because you think there is no self to begin with. Whereas there are plenty of others who think the same and then say self is the aggregates. And i think in this thread you claimed aggregates are annihilated.
User avatar
cappuccino
Posts: 12879
Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2016 1:45 am
Contact:

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by cappuccino »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 3:01 pm I don’t think it’s annihilation, because annihilationism is the view that a self is destroyed
That’s not how Buddha defines annihilation


He says no self leads to thinking of annihilation
User avatar
Coëmgenu
Posts: 8150
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:55 pm
Location: Whitby, Canada

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Coëmgenu »

No, he teaches that if the yogin fails at the stage of the arūpyas, particularly the arūpya of nothingness, he will be born in the formless heavens. The vipāka of such a failure is called "asaññasatta."
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.
User avatar
cappuccino
Posts: 12879
Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2016 1:45 am
Contact:

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by cappuccino »

Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 3:13 pm No, he teaches …
Are you trying to achieve nirvana?
User avatar
Coëmgenu
Posts: 8150
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:55 pm
Location: Whitby, Canada

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Coëmgenu »

cappuccino wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 3:14 pm
Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 3:13 pm No, he teaches …
Are you trying to achieve nirvana?
We've discussed this before, referring to your misunderstanding of the pericope involving the formless attainments. Just as in the instance of "citta ceases," you have been either refusing or unable to understand this material since.

I'm not interested in going down a roller coaster of off-topic Cappuccino prapañca concerning whether or not I'm trying to attain Nirvāṇa. Thank you for respecting this.
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.
User avatar
cappuccino
Posts: 12879
Joined: Thu Feb 11, 2016 1:45 am
Contact:

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by cappuccino »

As I expected


You can’t try to achieve annihilation
User avatar
Coëmgenu
Posts: 8150
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:55 pm
Location: Whitby, Canada

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Coëmgenu »

:focus:

Please spend more time interfacing with the OP and less time speculating concerning whether or not people are trying to "achieve annihilation."
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
Posts: 1067
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 2:38 pm
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 2:12 pm
Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:13 pm 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.

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.
Your opinion that nihilism and the annihilation of consciousness or protoconsciousness is the Buddhas teaching on nibbana is just that, an unsupported opinion. I'm not interested if it's considered 'orthodox' by many Theravadins. As I said, an unorthodox position is fine by me. Theravada was one of 18 early schools that took the nikayas as their core texts and there was plenty of disagreement and scope for differing view.

As for the 'many jatis per bhava';
You;
-falsly attribute the idea to me, when it was well known that Lal came up with it and I thought it worthy of discussion
-falsly claimed I was endorsing it, when I was rather saying all along I was open to it as an interpretation

Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:13 pm As for consciousness without sensory impingement, this isn't a thing in the Pali Canon. It's just not.
Sujatoisms like 'Nibbana isn't consciousness. It just isn't' don't add to your argument.
Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:13 pm 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.
Here you are making bogus claims about the nature of light, and unsubstantiated conjecture and speculation about nibbana.

I'll tell you what I am doing, you don't need to try to explain what you think.

What I am doing is connecting experiential knowledge which informs my reading of the suttas, specific sutta verses and analogies from the Pali Canon that lend themselves to this views, expositions by monks like Thanissaro Bhikku and also Bhikkhu Bodhi and the TFT tradition, some support from other Theravadin contemporary schools, more tangential support from Mahayana views which I see as having an early basis, modern theories from quantum physics, all of which lead me in this direction and bolster it.

It's far more convincing than screaming "that's not orthodoxy in Theravada" (which you apparently don't personally don't believe in anyway). Sorry. Like I said if you don't like it, leave the thread. You have contributed little to the core discussion. What you think of any of this is again irrelevant to me. If you don't agree fine, be on your merry way.
Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:13 pm 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.
Stop conjecturing.
Read Thannissaro's Mind Like Fire Unbound will be a start and Peter Harveys The Selfless Mind.
Coëmgenu wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 12:13 pm 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.
Yes it is beyond any known sense base experience or concept. Beyond feeling and disctiminative consciousness. It's not nothingness, which is anyway an impossibility.
You really should heed the Buddha's advice not to conjecture about what the unconditioned is beyond Samsara. I limit it to saying protoconsciousness to affirm it isn't annihilation or nothingness, beyond that it's not possible to speculate.
Last edited by retrofuturist on Sun Oct 02, 2022 9:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Gratuitous insult removed
"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
User avatar
Coëmgenu
Posts: 8150
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:55 pm
Location: Whitby, Canada

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Coëmgenu »

Your attempt to shift blame to Lal is bizarre, given that he did not support your ideas in said thread. Anyways, you've used up your time with me and used up your privilege of civil communication with me through repeated reiteration of lies concerning my person.
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 6:18 pmYour opinion that nihilism and the annihilation of consciousness or protoconsciousness is the Buddhas teaching on nibbana is just that, an unsupported opinion.
:roll: Not my opinion.

Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 6:18 pmStop conjecturing.
Read Thannissaro's Mind Like Fire Unbound ...
:roll: Already done. Have a nice day. There's no point in educating you further. You are sorely in need of vital contextualization, but that's not my responsibility.

You are instructed to immediately stop speaking to me and about me. You will not continue to spread lies that I am a "reformed junkie." Anymore lies about me will be reported to moderation. Should you disregard this and respond to me or spread more childish nasty lies concerning me, I will invoke TOS 2j, which requires prior notice that you are to disengage with me immediately.

Stop lying. Stop it.
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.
User avatar
Ceisiwr
Posts: 22398
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 2:36 am
Location: Wales

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Ceisiwr »

Cause_and_Effect wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:43 pm
It's amazing how attached you are and how fervently you argue for your annihilationist and exterminationist beliefs, and how much you identify with the aggregates.
It's a compulsive desire you have for non-existance. It's not healthy, not to speak of misrepresentation of the goal. You want nibbana to be 'the great and final everlasting death' instead of 'the deathless'.

Nibbana is an ayatana - a sphere or plane. There is no freedom in nothingness.

The Island, the shelter, the base that arahants merge into. All synonyms of that reality.
So, I would still like you to provide sutta based arguments as to how what I am saying is a form of annihilationism (ucchedavāda) or nihilism (akiriyavāda). If you can show that what I am saying is actually an expression of one of those views, then what I am arguing regarding nibbāna should be suspect. On desire for non-existence, whilst we are supposed to desire to be free from all dukkha we shouldn't delight in cessation. Such delight will be a form of clinging. Rather we are to recognise what has come to be (the aggregates) and practice for their cessation. On then nibbāna, just what is nibbāna exactly? I think we can get a sense of what it is by looking at how others used the word, when the Buddha was alive. Two places come to mind. The first is MN 75
Then at that point the Blessed One uttered this exclamation:

“The greatest of all gains is health,
Nibbāna is the greatest bliss,
The eightfold path is the best of paths
For it leads safely to the Deathless.”

When this was said, the wanderer Māgandiya said to the Blessed One: “It is wonderful, Master Gotama, it is marvellous how well that has been expressed by Master Gotama:

‘The greatest of all gains is health,
Nibbāna is the greatest bliss.’

We too have heard earlier wanderers who were teachers and teachers of teachers saying this, and it agrees, Master Gotama.”
“But, Māgandiya, when you heard earlier wanderers who were teachers and teachers of teachers saying this, what is that health, what is that Nibbāna?”

When this was said, the wanderer Māgandiya rubbed his own limbs with his hands and said: “This is that health, Master Gotama, this is that Nibbāna; for I am now healthy and happy and nothing afflicts me.”
Here Māgandiya equates good health, satisfaction and non-affliction with nibbāna. We see a similar idea presented in DN 1
“There are, bhikkhus, some recluses and brahmins who maintain a doctrine of Nibbāna here and now and who, on five grounds, proclaim Nibbāna here and now for an existent being. And owing to what, with reference to what, do these honourable recluses and brahmins proclaim their views?

“Herein, bhikkhus, a certain recluse or a brahmin asserts the following doctrine or view: ‘When this self, good sir, furnished and supplied with the five strands of sense pleasures, revels in them—at this point the self attains supreme Nibbāna here and now.’ In this way some proclaim supreme Nibbāna here and now for an existent being.
Venerable Buddhaghosa expands a bit in the Sammohavinodani
2494. As regards the kinds of assertions about nibbäna in this present existence, paficahi kämagunehi <379.8> ("with the five cords of sense desire*'): with the five portions or bonds of sense desire beginning with agreeable visible data. Samappito ("fully furnished with99): thoroughly furnished with, not lacking. SamaÄglbhüto ("endowed with99): possessed of. Paricäreti ("goes about99): makes the faculties frequent, and goes about amongst, leads hither and thither among those cords of sense desire as long as they are pleasurable. Or alternatively it sports, delights, plays.
2495. And here sense desires are of two kinds, human and divine. The human should be regarded as like the sense desires of Mandhätu, and the divine like the sense desires of the King of the Paranimmitavasavatti deities. They call one who has attained to such sense desires "one who has reached the supreme nibbäna in the present existence". Herein, paramaditthadhammanibbäna. ("supreme nibbäna in the present existence99) = paramam ditthadhammanibbanam; "superlative" is the meaning.

DN 1 then goes on to describe various ascetics who claim that the various Jhānas are in fact nibbāna.

“To him another says: ‘There is, good sir, such a self as you assert. That I do not deny. But it is not at that point that the self attains supreme Nibbāna here and now. What is the reason? Because, good sir, sense pleasures are impermanent, suffering, subject to change, and through their change and transformation there arise sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair. But when the self, quite secluded from sense pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, enters and abides in the first jhāna, which is accompanied by initial and sustained thought and contains the rapture and happiness born of seclusion—at this point, good sir, the self attains supreme Nibbāna here and now.’ In this way others proclaim supreme Nibbāna here and now for an existent being."

Now all of these ascetics are using nibbāna in a similar way, they just disagree on how it is obtained. To the hedonist, it is when the senses are satisfied. To the meditation practitioners, it is found in various states of deep meditation. The common idea though amongst all of them is that nibbāna is a state which is free from worry, stress, sadness etc. Free from disturbance. In other words, free from dukkha. Now there isn't any indication that the Buddha used nibbāna in a sense that was different from his peers. Nibbāna still meant freedom from worry, stress, from dukkha. What was different between him and the ascetics (and, as we have seen, amongst the ascetics themselves) is in how such a state is obtained. For the hedonist, in sensual gratification. For the meditators, in various samādhis. The problem with all of these it that they all rely upon the conditioned. Nibbāna can't be found in sensual gratification, because sensual pleasures are impermanent. It can't be found in deep meditative states either, because these conditions too do not last. Where is nibbāna found then, for the Buddha? It is when conditioned dhammas are made to cease that nibbāna is cognised. For the Buddha, only when all of conditioned dhammas have totally ceased can there be nibbāna. Now this leaves open the question for some as to just what nibbāna is then. Is it another realm? Is it an eternal conciousness? The Buddha never says it is any of those things. Rather nibbāna is the state (pada) of not being affected by anything. Why is it nibbāna? Because there isn't anything there to be affected or to cause an effect. It is totally empty. Nibbāna does exist, but there isn't any-thing inside it. Now you have brought up that nibbāna is said to be an āyatana. What you are referring to is Ud 8.1. It's an interesting sutta. In his commentary to this passage Venerable Dhammapāla takes "āyatanaṁ" here to mean "cause", because in the act of cognising nibbāna it causes the path knowledges to arise. This is in keeping with the Theravādin view of nibbāna as being an external dhamma which is cognised at the mind base. Ācariya Buddhaghosa also references how "āyatana" can mean cause, and references two suttas in support of this
5. Furthermore, “base, (áyatana) should be understood in the sense of place of abode, store (mine),3 meeting place, locality of birth, and cause. For accordingly in the world in such phrases as the lord’s sphere” (áyatana) and “Vásudeva’s sphere” (áyatana), it is a place of abode that is called “base”; and in such phrases as “the sphere of gold” and “the sphere of silver” it is a store (mine) that is called “base.” But in the Dispensation, in such passages as:

“And so in the delightful realm (áyatana)
Those flying in the air attend him” (A III 43)"

it is a meeting place; and in such phrases as “The southern land is the realm (áyatana) of cattle” (?) it is the locality of birth; and in such passages as “He acquires the ability to be a witness of it … whenever there is an occasion (áyatana) for it’” (M I 494; A I 258), it is a cause
Another way of reading this could be that at death rebirth is cut off through the nibbāna element, which is devoid of all conditioned realities, since the mind no longer seeks for anything. There is simply the absence of such, and that absence is nibbāna. Finally, on the deathless. Why is free from death? Because there is no birth. Not being born, how can there be death?

“Bhikkhu, ‘I am’ is a conceiving; ‘I am this’ is a conceiving; ‘I shall be’ is a conceiving; ‘I shall not be’ is a conceiving; ‘I shall be possessed of form’ is a conceiving; ‘I shall be formless’ is a conceiving; ‘I shall be percipient’ is a conceiving; ‘I shall be non-percipient’ is a conceiving; ‘I shall be neither-percipient-nor-non-percipient’ is a conceiving. Conceiving is a disease, conceiving is a tumour, conceiving is a dart. By overcoming all conceivings, bhikkhu, one is called a sage at peace. And the sage at peace is not born, does not age, does not die; he is not shaken and does not yearn. For there is nothing present in him by which he might be born. Not being born, how could he age? Not ageing, how could he die? Not dying, how could he be shaken? Not being shaken, why should he yearn?" - MN 140
Last edited by Ceisiwr on Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“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.”
User avatar
Ceisiwr
Posts: 22398
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 2:36 am
Location: Wales

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Ceisiwr »

Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 6:18 pm Stop conjecturing.
Read Thannissaro's Mind Like Fire Unbound will be a start and Peter Harveys The Selfless Mind.
The āsava are also said to be extinguished. Does that mean the āsava go to some dormant state, and so in a sense still exist?
“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.”
Cause_and_Effect
Posts: 1067
Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2021 7:39 am

Re: 'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

Post by Cause_and_Effect »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:02 pm
Cause_and_Effect wrote: Sun Oct 02, 2022 6:18 pm Stop conjecturing.
Read Thannissaro's Mind Like Fire Unbound will be a start and Peter Harveys The Selfless Mind.
The āsava are also said to be extinguished. Does that mean the āsava go to some dormant state, and so in a sense still exist?
The famous sutta says the mind is defiled by adventitious defilements, and can be freed from them. There is a separation.
"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
Post Reply