"A burden indeed are the five aggregates, and the carrier of the burden is the person."

[SDC]

I really like this Sutta.

What’s even more intense is finding no evidence of an initial “picking up”, just that of a person immersed in the burden already.

Very intense indeed!

To add some dismay to the intensity, a person can very easily comprehend this on a theoretical level while simultaneously carrying - and even increasing - the weight of the burden. In fact, I see undoing this contradiction as the crux of the practice: aligning one's behavior with this theoretical knowledge until that knowledge can take root and actually protect one's behavior from further accumulation. As you already mentioned, this is why virtue must come first.

On one level, every person - even the most wild and unrestrained person - is acting under the weight of the burden. It's just that the unrestrained person, immersed in sensual gratification, has unknowingly nurtured the disastrous view that any burden is secondary - an anomaly even - to the endless availability of pleasure. This would be the fulfillment of the perversion, which the restrained person is giving himself a chance to undo through his restraint. Within that space of restraint, the burden should make itself (quite uncomfortably) known, at which point the strength developed on account of that initial restraint will be put to the test and hopefully strong enough to allow further endurance and development in regards to the weight he is carrying. This is how the contradiction can eventually be "cast off" and the craving uprooted. The person can then be understood.

Nice description!

That really is a troubling aspect to development. Not being able to tell the difference between being comfortable and accepting of an idea (while simultaneously working against it), and actually making the effort to uproot it. I was trying to think of a good simile the other day (though I’m sure there is a better one in the suttas, MN 75 comes close). Imagine a person is an expert on Mt Everest. They have a variety of different maps. Some that show temperature and weather; some that detail exposure; topographical maps that show different routes. They are an expert on the appropriate equipment to be used depending on the condition: tents, clothing, climbing gear, oxygen packs. Just every angle of climbing Everest, they know what is best. Yet…they themselves have never set foot on the slopes. Never even set foot in China or Nepal. In short, they have no experience actually applying their expertise.

That is one of the more dangerous scenarios when it comes to the Dhamma: that you can get very fulfilled just through learning about it, and not necessarily be applying it. But that lack of motion is a result the dwelling of personhood and self-view. And it seems to be an intensification within personhood that is mistaken for effort to surmount it, but that really is just doubling down on that onlooker’s position. You really have to put the person in check, put the mind in check, because yes, as you say, the behavior is protecting that person and keeping any Dhamma effort confined to a position that cannot affect the prominence of the person. That’s why the burden literally lands within the person.

[nirodh27]

What is the meaning of this sutta verse? It seems to indicate the person is separate from the aggregates.

In my opinion it is not a teaching about what is a being, but a teaching about non-acquisition of the aggregates as "I, Mine, myself" so that one can avoid that Dukkha and realize the well-being of the Buddhas, or at least an inferior one. A "suggestion" of what you have to do with the aggregates. As every suggestion, it has value only if you actually try to do what is suggested and if it removes your Dukkha, contributing to your long-term welfare and happiness.

[asahi]

It seems a misconception happens with the arisen of the sense of personhood where this sense of personhood tagging and establishing on the five aggregates which is a burden itself .

[justpractice]

That really is a troubling aspect to development. Not being able to tell the difference between being comfortable and accepting of an idea (while simultaneously working against it), and actually making the effort to uproot it. I was trying to think of a good simile the other day (though I’m sure there is a better one in the suttas, MN 75 comes close). Imagine a person is an expert on Mt Everest. They have a variety of different maps. Some that show temperature and weather; some that detail exposure; topographical maps that show different routes. They are an expert on the appropriate equipment to be used depending on the condition: tents, clothing, climbing gear, oxygen packs. Just every angle of climbing Everest, they know what is best. Yet…they themselves have never set foot on the slopes. Never even set foot in China or Nepal. In short, they have no experience actually applying their expertise.

That is one of the more dangerous scenarios when it comes to the Dhamma: that you can get very fulfilled just through learning about it, and not necessarily be applying it. But that lack of motion is a result the dwelling of personhood and self-view. And it seems to be an intensification within personhood that is mistaken for effort to surmount it, but that really is just doubling down on that onlooker’s position. You really have to put the person in check, put the mind in check, because yes, as you say, the behavior is protecting that person and keeping any Dhamma effort confined to a position that cannot affect the prominence of the person. That’s why the burden literally lands within the person.

Excellent stuff here, and gave me an opportunity for further reflection (and my first reading of MN 75, to boot). Regarding the Mt. Everest simile, I remember taking up painting many years ago and doing precisely that (gaining expertise without actually sitting down to paint). It's as if I wanted to make sure that I could create an acceptable painting before I made the commitment to actually paint. I think that's where many of us first approach the Dhamma - we want to ensure that the putting-down-of-the-burden is possible, we want to understand it, before we actually put in the effort to understand it. Impossible! And that's why taking up the practice is risky for the person, and why those with nothing else to lose will have a better shot at developing in regards to it as opposed to those who keep the inevitable existential disruptions at arm's length. A person needs to sit down and actually "paint" if they want to start developing knowledge of the skillful, of the essential, of the wholesome.

Sorry if this was too far off topic from the OP's post!

[Coëmgenu]

The translators note, as it hasn't migrated here yet:

This discourse parallels the teaching on the four noble truths, but with a twist. The “burden” is defined in the same terms as the first noble truth, the truth of suffering & stress. The taking on of the burden is defined in the same terms as the second noble truth, the origination of stress; and the casting off of the burden, in the same terms as the third noble truth, the cessation of stress. The fourth factor, however—the carrier of the burden—has no parallel in the four noble truths, and has proven to be one of the most controversial terms in the history of Buddhist philosophy. When defining this factor as the person (or individual, puggala), the Buddha drops the abstract form of the other factors, and uses the ordinary, everyday language of narrative: the person with such-and-such a name. And how would this person translate into more abstract factors? He doesn’t say. After his passing away, however, Buddhist scholastics attempted to provide an answer for him, and divided into two major camps over the issue. One camp refused to rank the concept of person as a truth on the ultimate level. This group inspired what eventually became the classic Theravāda position on this issue: that the “person” was simply a conventional designation for the five aggregates. However, the other camp—who developed into the Pudgalavādin (Personalist) school—said that the person was neither a ultimate truth nor a mere conventional designation, neither identical with nor totally separate from the five aggregates. This special meaning of person, they said, was required to account for three things: the cohesion of a person’s identity in this lifetime (one person’s memories, for instance, cannot become another person’s memories); the unitary nature of rebirth (one person cannot be reborn in several places at once); and the fact that, with the cessation of the khandhas at the death of an arahant, he/she is said to attain the Further Shore. However, after that moment, they said, nothing further could be said about the person, for that was as far as the concept’s descriptive powers could go.

As might be imagined, the first group accused the second group of denying the concept of anattā, or not-self; whereas the second group accused the first of being unable to account for the truths that they said their concept of person explained. Both groups, however, found that their positions entangled them in philosophical difficulties that have never been successfully resolved.

Perhaps the most useful lesson to draw from the history of this controversy is the one that accords with the Buddha’s statements in MN 72, where he refuses to get involved in questions of whether a person has a live essence separate from or identical to his/her body, or of whether after death there is something of an arahant that exists or not. In other words, the questions aren’t worth asking. Nothing is accomplished by assuming or denying an ultimate reality behind what we think of as a person. Instead, the strategy of the practice is to comprehend the burden that we each are carrying and to throw it off. As SN 22:36 points out, when one stops trying to define oneself in any way, one is free from all limitations, and that settles all questions.

Compare with Piya Tan:

2 Is there really a “person”?
2.1 PUDGALAVĀDA

2.1.1 Although mainstream Buddhism denies the reality of the eternal soul (atta; Skt ātman), various groups in early Indian Buddhism, such as the Vātsīputrīya and its subbranch, the Sāṃmitīya, felt the need to posit some kind of enduring entity to act as the basis for karma and rebirth. The notion of the puggala (Skt pudgala) evolved, and its proponents, generally known as the puggalavāda or “personalist” school, appealed to this passage as proof for the existence of the puggala:

And what, bhikshus, the carrier of the burden (bhārahāra)? It should be said: the person (puggala), this venerable one (āyasmā) of such a name, of such a clan. This, bhikshus, is called the carrier of the burden.

2.1.2 Lance Cousins proposes that the earliest source for the pudgalavāda controversy is the Kathāvatthu (3rd century BCE) (1994:22). According to this text, the pudgalavādins hold that the puggala or person is regarded as a real thing, neither identical to the aggregates nor different from them.

The pudgala (P puggala), they claim, is an irreducible datum or a primary existent (dharma), which persists through change, undergoes rebirth, and eventually attains nirvana.

2.1.3 The issue is complicated by the fact that the Sāṃmitīyanikāyaśāstra (the Treatise of the Sāṃmitīya Sect) asserts that the pudgala, while existing as a dharma, is actually a conventional conceptual construct or secondary existent (prajñapti).

2.1.4 According to Xuanzang, the Chinese pilgrim who visited India during the 7th century, around a quarter of the monks in Indian then belonged to the Vātsīputrīya-Saṃmitīya lineage. However, as Gethin points out, it is well known amongst Buddhist practitioners that a particular ordination lineage need not have meant that he automatically subscribed to the doctrinal positions associated with the ordination lineage. Not all monks ordained as Saṃmitīya need have been pudgalavādins, just as not all Sarvāstivādins monks need necessarily have been sarvāstivādins. This last point is aptly illustrated by the fact that the contemporary Tibetan monks are ordained in the tradition of the Mūlasarvāstivādins (a sub-school of the ancient Sarvāstivāda), yet none would subscribe to the view that dharmas exist in the three times. (1998:223)

Piya Tan's study notes continue to shed light on the over-sinplification of the Pudgalavādin vs non-Pudgalavādin dispute on the part of the various heresiologists from which we know of this dispute. A handful of Pudgalavādin texts survive in Chinese, such as the aforementioned Sāṃmitīyanikāyaśāstra, and they state that the pudgala is a conventional designation, not an ultimate reality, contrary to the depiction of the heresiologists.

Piya Tan's notes are available here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... id-qqxCXWD

[Ceisiwr]

Piya Tan's study notes continue to shed light on the over-sinplification of the Pudgalavādin vs non-Pudgalavādin dispute on the part of the various heresiologists from which we know of this dispute. A handful of Pudgalavādin texts survive in Chinese, such as the aforementioned Sāṃmitīyanikāyaśāstra, and they state that the pudgala is a conventional designation, not an ultimate reality, contrary to the depiction of the heresiologists.

For them the “person” is a real concept, and this “person” exists in final nibbana. Of course to what would become Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda, a real concept is an oxymoron.

[cappuccino]

For them the “person” is a real concept, the person exists in final nibbana.

Most people know you are a person


It’s because of theory that you say otherwise

[Coëmgenu]

Piya Tan's study notes continue to shed light on the over-sinplification of the Pudgalavādin vs non-Pudgalavādin dispute on the part of the various heresiologists from which we know of this dispute. A handful of Pudgalavādin texts survive in Chinese, such as the aforementioned Sāṃmitīyanikāyaśāstra, and they state that the pudgala is a conventional designation, not an ultimate reality, contrary to the depiction of the heresiologists.

For them the “person” is a real concept, and this “person” exists in final nibbana. Of course to what would become Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda, a real concept is an oxymoron.

Extant Pudgalavādin Abhidharma treatises actually dispute this. This is a narrative from heresiologists like Ven Vasumitra and Ven Saṃghabhadra. The heresiologists could well be correct.

[Ceisiwr]

Piya Tan's study notes continue to shed light on the over-sinplification of the Pudgalavādin vs non-Pudgalavādin dispute on the part of the various heresiologists from which we know of this dispute. A handful of Pudgalavādin texts survive in Chinese, such as the aforementioned Sāṃmitīyanikāyaśāstra, and they state that the pudgala is a conventional designation, not an ultimate reality, contrary to the depiction of the heresiologists.

For them the “person” is a real concept, and this “person” exists in final nibbana. Of course to what would become Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda, a real concept is an oxymoron.

Extant Pudgalavādin Abhidharma treatises actually dispute this. This is a narrative from heresiologists like Ven Vasumitra and Ven Saṃghabhadra. The heresiologists could well be correct.

Which bit?

[Coëmgenu]

Honestly? The bit Piya Tan refers to in his notes to the Bhārasutta. I haven't yet read the texts themselves.

[SDC]

The translators note, as it hasn't migrated here yet:

This discourse parallels the teaching on the four noble truths, but with a twist. The “burden” is defined in the same terms as the first noble truth, the truth of suffering & stress. The taking on of the burden is defined in the same terms as the second noble truth, the origination of stress; and the casting off of the burden, in the same terms as the third noble truth, the cessation of stress. The fourth factor, however—the carrier of the burden—has no parallel in the four noble truths, and has proven to be one of the most controversial terms in the history of Buddhist philosophy.

I wish I had looked at the Pali prior to my earlier comments. It doesn’t change anything I’ve said, but I probably would’ve said a bit more. The attavādupādāna is that clinging to the belief/doctrine of self, which can be uprooted even though the conceit still remains. This aligns with the breaking of the the fetter of sakkāyadiṭṭhi. (The best evidence for the relationship between these two terms can be found in SN 38.15: “Pañcime, āvuso, upādānakkhandhā sakkāyo vutto bhagavatā Reverend, the Buddha said that these five grasping aggregates are identity.”) So, at face value, this puts the “person” (sakkāya) even further within the confines of “the burden”; within this: “In short, these five aggregates subject to clinging [upādāna] are suffering.”

As interesting as this all sounds, it is potentially inapplicable, but I’ll try to show otherwise.

The verse and the prose in SN 22.22 does not refer to the burden-carrier as a puthujjana, satta or sakkāya - which I just assumed it did when I glanced yesterday - but as puggala (individual/person):

Katamo ca, bhikkhave, bhārahāro? Puggalo tissa vacanīyaṁ. Yvāyaṁ āyasmā evaṁnāmo evaṅgotto; ayaṁ vuccati, bhikkhave, bhārahāro.

And what, bhikkhus, is the carrier of the burden? It should be said: the person, this venerable one of such a name and clan. This is called the carrier of the burden.

The puggala can be found describing either the puthujjana or the ariya, however, so any reference to development or lack there of, depends on context (we find suttas of the puggala being praised for wholesome up to the level of arahant and being blamed for lack of understanding of wholesome/unwholesome as a puthujjana). And I just have to say that I find the reference to the pañcakkhandhā in the verse fascinating. Why not just say pañcupādānakkhandhā? Well, verse is funny like that, but in designating pañcakkhandhā as a “burden” is to imply it is pañcupādānakkhandhā. Such a nitpick, I know, but I think it’s significant.

Nevertheless, both the ordinary person, and, to an extent, the noble disciple would bear the experience of the aggregates, but if it is being described in terms of burden, which it is in that verse, it is safe the say this verse describes a puggala not free from the fetter of sakkāyadiṭṭhi, i.e. an individual who is still with sakkāya. So, I think it is safe to say that the “burden-carrier” is right there, further within “the burden” that is the conclusion to the first noble truth.

[SDC]

Excellent stuff here, and gave me an opportunity for further reflection (and my first reading of MN 75, to boot). Regarding the Mt. Everest simile, I remember taking up painting many years ago and doing precisely that (gaining expertise without actually sitting down to paint). It's as if I wanted to make sure that I could create an acceptable painting before I made the commitment to actually paint. I think that's where many of us first approach the Dhamma - we want to ensure that the putting-down-of-the-burden is possible, we want to understand it, before we actually put in the effort to understand it. Impossible! And that's why taking up the practice is risky for the person, and why those with nothing else to lose will have a better shot at developing in regards to it as opposed to those who keep the inevitable existential disruptions at arm's length. A person needs to sit down and actually "paint" if they want to start developing knowledge of the skillful, of the essential, of the wholesome.

Sorry if this was too far off topic from the OP's post!

We are straying a bit, but just want to correct my hasty posting from earlier. While I’m glad you enjoyed MN 75, I meant to point to the simile of the man being shot by the arrow in MN 63 as something that came close to what I was trying to describe.

[pegembara]

What is the meaning of this sutta verse? It seems to indicate the person is separate from the aggregates.

"A burden indeed
are the five aggregates,
and the carrier of the burden
is the person.
Taking up the burden in the world
is stressful.
Casting off the burden
is bliss.
Having cast off the heavy burden
and not taking on another,
pulling up craving,
along with its root,
one is free from hunger,
totally unbound."

https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN22_22.html

Is the person liberated thus from the re-becoming of the 5 aggregates?

Being human is an unsatisfactory experience. Having being born, the person faces aging, sickness and death, separation from loved and coming into contact with the unloved. Having to deal with praise and blame, success and failure, pleasure and pain, and fame and disrepute. Afflicted with cold & heat & hunger & thirst, with the touch of flies, mosquitoes, wind, sun, & reptiles. Wars and climate change, pandemics.

What you see is what you get. If you see yourself as a person, that is what you are...a person with thoughts, feelings, perceptions, a body, and consciousness. Just another person living in an uncertain world.

"... a human being?"

"No, brahman, I am not a human being."

"When asked, 'Are you a deva?' you answer, 'No, brahman, I am not a deva.' When asked, 'Are you a gandhabba?' you answer, 'No, brahman, I am not a gandhabba.' When asked, 'Are you a yakkha?' you answer, 'No, brahman, I am not a yakkha.' When asked, 'Are you a human being?' you answer, 'No, brahman, I am not a human being.' Then what sort of being are you?"

"Brahman, the fermentations by which — if they were not abandoned — I would be a deva: Those are abandoned by me, their root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising. The fermentations by which — if they were not abandoned — I would be a gandhabba... a yakkha... a human being: Those are abandoned by me, their root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising.

"Just like a red, blue, or white lotus — born in the water, grown in the water, rising up above the water — stands unsmeared by the water, in the same way I — born in the world, grown in the world, having overcome the world — live unsmeared by the world. Remember me, brahman, as 'awakened.'

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html

[SteRo]

What is the meaning of this sutta verse?

The wording of the suttas often is inconsistent but sometimes that's only the effect of a translation. It isn't worth to spend time on these inconsistencies because if you do every time you encounter one you'll never get to the essence.

[confusedlayman]

What you say is interpretation.
Whereas the sutta says puggala/person.

person is illusional perception of thought. conventionally its ok to say but it is a thought after all.

Sutta says 'this person has'

“‘This person has six elements, six fields of contact, eighteen mental preoccupations, and four foundations.
“‘Cha dhāturo ayaṁ, bhikkhu, puriso cha phassāyatano aṭṭhārasa manopavicāro caturādhiṭṭhāno;

according to your interpretation it is the six elements has six elements, six fields of contact has six fields of contact.

Aggregates fooling agregates because conciousness is like magician