'Consciousness without Surface': Not Eternalism?

[auto]

This sort of thing can go on ad infinitum. It's the bread and butter of those who want to twist the Buddha to agree with them. He doesn't not exist, and he doesn't exist either. All ātmavādas of those who wrongly call themselves Buddhists hinge upon this "doesn't not exist."

Yes, it's being in denial about the implications of "sabbe dhamma anatta".
Or trying to make Buddhism into another school of Hinduism.

you do realize that according to hinduism there is no atta in the material, cause and effect realm? and that the buddha taught explicitly only cause and effect realm?
yea they are different in a sense that you can study from vedic texts more than it is in suttas taught.

your disgust is obvious too, so maybe try fix that

[auto]

It's not just "interpretation"... it's the English language. What do you think the word "annihilate" means? Can you "annihilate" what doesn't exist?

Metta,
Paul.

i'm not cappucino, but you can annihilate something what doesn't exist, because you think self doesn't exist, but in reality self does exist. And you are making yourself subject to annihilation at the end of cycle. If you haven't realized the form what doesn't get annihilated at the end of the cycle.

[Coëmgenu]

From a Buddhist POV informed by the Buddha's suttas, the Hindu sages were all wrong. Not only do they have a wrong notion of how to go about achieving vimokṣa, but they have a wrong notion of what vimokṣa even is.

You can acknowledge this without hating or having disgust for Hinduism.

[auto]

From a Buddhist POV informed by the Buddha's suttas, the Hindu sages were all wrong. Not only do they have a wrong notion of how to go about achieving vimokṣa, but they have a wrong notion of what vimokṣa even is.

You can acknowledge this without hating or having disgust for Hinduism.

lol. You just bringing your opinion, that's why it is laughable. I need drop atta because someone in internet thinks it is what suttas teach..
Funniest thing i read(told by a novice monk) is that if you believe in self you can't become novice monk.

[Coëmgenu]

You are never going to drop your ātmavāda, Auto. Do you think I'm some kind of idiot? Obviously you do, since you say as much to me directly.

I've been reading your posts for about five years now. If the Buddha couldn't convince you to drop attā, I certainly can't.

Funniest thing i read(told by a novice monk) is that if you believe in self you can't become novice monk.

This is literally the truth, which you find "funny." Not anyone can become a novice monk. There is a vetting process. They'll examine you for wrong views that you utterly refuse to drop. You can't even become a postulant for the Tendai or Shingon bodhisattvasaṃgha priesthoods without being vetted, let alone a novice amongst the monastic śrāvakasaṃgha.

[auto]

You are never going to drop your ātmavāda, Auto.

what is atmavada? don't tell me you think i believe khandhas are self?

[Coëmgenu]

You know what ātmavāda is, Auto.



You won't drop attā (i.e. "ātma") because you're an ātmavādin.

[Ceisiwr]

So there are 'individuals'. What makes an individual not a 'self' in relation to another individual, given one individuals pain and pleasure is not another individuals pain and pleasure?

There is a 'provisional self' which can designate individual experience. There is 'my' kamma and pain and pleasure in relation to 'your' kamma and pain and pleasure.
But within the individual I cannot say it is truly 'mine' as it cannot be grasped and passes via impersonal laws.

All you need for there to be two individuals is for there to be two different forms, with two different likes and dislikes, intentions, conceptions and so on.

There is one protoconscious and kammic field that we all participate in, which is also infinitely individuated into separate locus of subjectivity. The nama-rupa dependently arise around each locus, and continue and are maintained by the kamma generated by each individual subjectivity locus and it actions over the course of its life. Ultimately though the individual locus cannot be identified as a self, as it is part of the broader protoconscious field that belongs to no one.

Each locus can however be liberated from involvement in any of the three planes of re-becoming and taking up of nama-rupa, and instead attain to the Supreme Unformed and Unending state as opposed to becoming involved in the conglomeration of shifting conditioned and transitory dhammas.

How can it be one and multiple at the same time?

I am still waiting for your response to the points raised about Bhikkhu Bodhi's refutation of the nihilist view also.

Didn't I answer that here? I'm also not a nihilist, according to the Buddha.

viewtopic.php?t=43795&start=150

Could you address my earlier questions and points to you?

"You have said that it is something. It is a citta. You have also said it is permanent, doesn't change etc. This means it is eternal. An eternal citta. If it is one singular "field" that is defiled then when the Buddha awakened we all did. We aren't all awakened however, so how is it just 1 background field? How did this unchanging field also become tainted with the āsavā, if all it does is simply "reflect"? If all it does is reflect, it isn't tainted at all. If it isn't tainted, then we are all already liberated. You just said though, you are not liberated. Others are not liberated either. If there are unliberated people, there are cittas tainted by the āsavā. If the citta is tainted, it doesn't simply "reflect" conditioned life. It partakes in it. If it partakes in it, then it is impermanent."

One other thing. Why do you not claim that this eternal proto-conciousness field/citta is a self? Why is a permanent and eternal thing not self?

[auto]

You know what ātmavāda is, Auto.



You won't drop attā (i.e. "ātma") because you're an ātmavādin.

i have reasons. For example you can't open the psychic center in the middle of the head without using sense of self. Also you can't beat sexual desires without creating a being. Atta is created.

[Coëmgenu]

Dàoist internal alchemy, traditional and also modernist Hindusims, and reading the buddhavacana through those lenses seem to be a significant factor in your refusal to "drop attā."

Thinking these diverse systems are, in fact, one system that teaches the same and arrives at the same is an example of perennialist thinking.

[Cause_and_Effect]

Also, as a side note, please stop misrepresenting Theravāda as "nihilism" and implying that only Ceisiwr believes in Theravāda

Kindly elaborate which council it was universally declared that 'Orthodox Theravada holds the nihilist position'

Ie. Where and who agreed:

- the human being is simply the rolling on of the 5 aggregates
(something the Budda explicitly denied when he called the human being the bearer of the 5 aggregates).
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN22_22.html


- Nibbana is simply the end of the aggregates and the end of all experience. Nibbana is simply the label for this final end of all subjective experience, essentially non-existence relative to the previously conscious being.

- This end of all experience is paradoxically called 'the supreme Dhamma', referring to a reality.

[auto]

Dàoist internal alchemy, traditional and also modernist Hindusims, and reading the buddhavacana through those lenses seem to be a significant factor in your refusal to "drop attā."

by the way vedic knowledge in vedic texts is imputed to what that time philosophers were thinking already. Namely the structure of universe we know from vedic texts isn't how universe is if there would be other kind of already existing known structure.

[auto]

Thinking these diverse systems are, in fact, one system that teaches the same and arrives at the same is an example of perennialist thinking.

when you read suttas then its imperative to use same its one system kind of thinking. But nah there are people dissecting early ebt and later ebt and fake ebt and less fake ebt..

[Ceisiwr]

We each bring assumptions to our readings of the Suttas. It's unavoidable. You for example bring your nihilist beliefs to bear and try to fit the canon into that interpretation .

Of course we all have biases. I quite like the ideas of Advaita Vedānta. I quite like Christianity too, but I just can't accept either. That's all they are to me. Pleasing ideas, and we are to have restraint over thoughts and ideas as much as the eye or body. There is a part of me that dislikes the idea that all of existence is suffering, that the goal is total cessation. I maintain equanimity though in relation to that idea, and through that equanimity you can better see if an idea is true or not. If I were to allow the underlying tendencies to bubble up in relation to the ideas of Advaita Vedānta or Christianity, that would simply be me lusting for existence. If I allowed them to bubble up in relation to the 4NT, that would be giving into aversion because of my lust for existence. Without restraint over the mind base, I would likely also get lost in all kinds of philosophical speculations.

Your statement 'its better to read the texts and see what what they say' is thus naive and meaningless.
The Buddha's teachings point us to our experience.

My points of reference are my experience, my reading of the texts, and learning about experience of monastics in traditions I respect such as TFT.

As I see resonance between all three I am more confident to look deeper.

The fact others on a Buddhist forum have a different view and belief is not of particular concern to me when the above mentioned sources are aligned.

I don't think its naive or meaningless to read the early texts on their own terms. Before accepting Buddhadhamma, you have to actually know what the Buddha taught. Only when you understand what the Buddha taught can you compare your experience against it, to see if the Dhamma holds up. That is the difference between seeing what the Buddha had to say vs having the Buddha say what you want him to say. A lot of people tend to do the latter. Not as many do the former, in my experience.

[Coëmgenu]

Kindly elaborate which council it was universally declared that 'Orthodox Theravada holds the nihilist position'

Ignoring your nasty invective concerning "nihilism," I've already told you which two principle reformations you should be researching as well as which King Rama was behind the most recent. Both the so-called "Forest Tradition" (i.e. those far enough from major urban centres to be effected) and so-called "Tantric Theravāda" are survivals of what was otherwise stamped out in these reformations. But it goes back much further than either the 1800s or the 1700s. Look up also the repression and destruction of Abhayagirivihāra and the ascendancy of the Mahāvihāra during a period of intense sectarian geopolitical turmoil in Sri Lanka that happened much before either of these Thai reforms. "Mahāvihāravāsin" means "dwellers in the great monastery," the great monastery being the Mahāvihāra.

The Wat Phra Dhammakāya cult is also, in part, a survival of pre-reformation Southeast Asian Esoteric Buddhism, but it is too intermixed with the extravagant personal theories of Phra Monkolthepmuni to be a reliable survival. I also posted one of the texts expunged during these reformations from the Pāli literature here but I very embarrassingly mistook which King Rama I was talking about there. No one noticed, as is typical, because a knowledge of Buddhist history is rather rare on this forum.