Why do we need to talk about Concepts if it is Non-Existent?

[Eko Care]

This is from the thread Concepts don't exist and therefore cannot be Anicca or Dukkha that I found important to discuss.

What is the benefit of making such a distinction?

Why is it always addressed in Theravada?

Why do we needs to talk about concepts if it is non existence as though it has to do with the practice .

Good question. I'm not seeing the practical use of the technical distinction being made in this thread.

Practical benefit is identifying the "Person/Self" as non-real but a concept.

Otherwise, how can one eliminate Sakkayaditthi?

That is the main thing to do in Buddhism.

That is why it has become a major topic in Theravada.

[nirodh27]

Good question. My question is why the Buddha didn't feel the need to teach by himself the division between conventional and ultimate reality and what was real and what was not, speaking instead about acquisitions, associations, attachment etc.

Sakkayaditthi is when one is convinced that the aggregates are a form of self/me/mine/myself that are actually ourselves/our identity. It is said that we fail to see that this identity can be broken and abandoned, especially for mind since even wordlings can see that for the body, because for an entire life we have done this identification without knowing that caused misery. Sakkayaditthi is to break the spell, now detachment is possible even from what earlier we called our own self. If you think the aggregates are yours without an act of acquisition/attachment THE exercise of detachment (this is not me, not mine, not myself) is foolish, it cannot be done sincerely. Or it can be seen as a description of reality, which is not because it is actually an exercise of abandonment, dispassion, something that you can do. It requires wisdom, not reason and logic.

That next step is to actually abandon every form of conceit because you see that it is for your longterm welfare and happiness, the "I am" that is about craving and delight, to find fathomless freedom and be unchained from every craving of existence and non-existence. And to distinguish between concepts and reality will not help you, since this is not a problem of what is and what is not, of existence and non-existence, but a problem of acquisition and attachment that creates suffering now and in the future.

To see self as a concept (and so non-existent) might work in a sense, but it creates a lot of discussion (and maybe some problems too) that I think the suttas brilliantly avoid not because they are incomplete and need more explanations, but because they focus on what matters in the suttas: acquisition and dispassion. That is the distinction they do, not conventional and ultimate or concept/real.

[asahi]

No need to talk about it because simply serve no purpose .

[robertk]

No need to talk about it because simply serve no purpose .

Actually we worldlings are immersed in concepts all day long. Learning to distinguish concepts and realities is integral to the path I would say.

[Sasha_A]

Let's take a little baby as an example:
MN64:

For a little baby doesn’t even have a concept of ‘identity’, so how could identity view possibly arise in them? Yet the underlying tendency to identity view still lies within them.

So, here the questions:
Do that little baby without even a concept of sakkaya have the sense and the attitude to the things as of "my" and "for me"? And what about clinging and clinging aggregates? What about animals?

It is not "my" and "for me" because there is "myself", it is "myself" because there are "my" and "for me". "Myself" is the result of a later rationalization of these attitudes of "my" and "for me" in the form of some kind of a view. That's why to eliminate sakkayaditthi your have to find and understand the reason behind this underlying attitude of "my" and "for me" to the experience, to find and understand the root of any implied sakkaya in your attitude to the things. So, the implied sakkaya is never in the object of your attitude, but in the reason behind that attitude: it is not in what you are looking at, it is why you are looking at something as "my" and "for me" - why it is not "in the experience just the experience", but always "my experience" and "experience for me".

What is that "hidden" reason behind even the toddlers actions and attitudes? - For example, it is some currently present feeling on account an already present experience. By blindly acting out of feeling that baby by the fact of that action implicitly appropriates the aggregate of feelings as implied "myself", without any needs to create some concepts, without any kind of sakkayaditthi at all, but still totally ignorant, liable to dukkha right now and to the creation of sakkayaditthi in the future.

The ignorance is not about some concepts are not being real, it is about not knowing and not understanding the right concepts, and not sustaining mindfulness for the understanding of these right concepts enough for them to define any and all present attitudes to the experience.

See SAKKĀYA by Ven. Nanavira, with all the links and footnotes.

... Sakkāyaditthi (Majjhima v,4 <M.i,300>) is sometimes explained as the view or belief (often attributed to a purely verbal misunderstanding)[c] that in one or other of the khandhā there is a permanent entity, a 'self'. These rationalized accounts entirely miss the point, which is the distinction (Khandha Samy. v,6 <S.iii,47>) between pañc'upādānakkhandhā (which is sakkāya) and pañcakkhandhā (which is sakkāyanirodha). To have ditthi about sakkāya is not an optional matter (as if one could regard sakkāya from the outside and form ditthi about it or not, as one pleased): sakkāya contains sakkāyaditthi (in a latent form at least) as a necessary part of its structure.[d] If there is sakkāya there is sakkāyaditthi, and with the giving up of sakkāyaditthi there comes to be cessation of sakkāya. To give up sakkāyaditthi, sakkāya must be seen (i.e. as pañc'upādānakkhandhā), and this means that the puthujjana does not see pañc'upādānakkhandhā as such (i.e. he does not recognize them—see MAMA [a] and cf. Majjhima viii,5 <M.i,511>). A puthujjana (especially one who puts his trust in the Commentaries) sometimes comes to believe that he does see pañc'upādānakkhandhā as such, thereby blocking his own progress and meeting with frustration: he cannot see what further task is to be done, and yet remains a puthujjana.

[Tl21G3lVl]

No need to talk about it because simply serve no purpose .

Talking about our personal thoughts would indeed consume unnecessary time. However, talking about awareness of wholesome and unwholesome thoughts and how to handle them, now that is something entirely more meaningful and a worthy subject of discussion.

[Eko Care]

Good question. My question is why the Buddha didn't feel the need to teach by himself the division between conventional and ultimate reality and what was real and what was not, speaking instead about acquisitions, associations, attachment etc.

It has well-taught in Abhidhamma.

The Theravada tradition carried the whole Tipitaka and Atthakata as a package. So their way of explanation is the one that still gets more weight by all the means of wise inferences. The argument that Abhdhamma and Commentaries misrepresent the Original Buddhism, gets less priority.

[confusedlayman]

Concepts dont exist as things but they exist interms of arising and pass away is seen

[justpractice]

Let's take a little baby as an example:
MN64:

For a little baby doesn’t even have a concept of ‘identity’, so how could identity view possibly arise in them? Yet the underlying tendency to identity view still lies within them.

So, here the questions:
Do that little baby without even a concept of sakkaya have the sense and the attitude to the things as of "my" and "for me"? And what about clinging and clinging aggregates? What about animals?

It is not "my" and "for me" because there is "myself", it is "myself" because there are "my" and "for me". "Myself" is the result of a later rationalization of these attitudes of "my" and "for me" in the form of some kind of a view. That's why to eliminate sakkayaditthi your have to find and understand the reason behind this underlying attitude of "my" and "for me" to the experience, to find and understand the root of any implied sakkaya in your attitude to the things. So, the implied sakkaya is never in the object of your attitude, but in the reason behind that attitude: it is not in what you are looking at, it is why you are looking at something as "my" and "for me" - why it is not "in the experience just the experience", but always "my experience" and "experience for me".

What is that "hidden" reason behind even the toddlers actions and attitudes? - For example, it is some currently present feeling on account an already present experience. By blindly acting out of feeling that baby by the fact of that action implicitly appropriates the aggregate of feelings as implied "myself", without any needs to create some concepts, without any kind of sakkayaditthi at all, but still totally ignorant, liable to dukkha right now and to the creation of sakkayaditthi in the future.

The ignorance is not about some concepts are not being real, it is about not knowing and not understanding the right concepts, and not sustaining mindfulness for the understanding of these right concepts enough for them to define any and all present attitudes to the experience.

See SAKKĀYA by Ven. Nanavira, with all the links and footnotes.

... Sakkāyaditthi (Majjhima v,4 <M.i,300>) is sometimes explained as the view or belief (often attributed to a purely verbal misunderstanding)[c] that in one or other of the khandhā there is a permanent entity, a 'self'. These rationalized accounts entirely miss the point, which is the distinction (Khandha Samy. v,6 <S.iii,47>) between pañc'upādānakkhandhā (which is sakkāya) and pañcakkhandhā (which is sakkāyanirodha). To have ditthi about sakkāya is not an optional matter (as if one could regard sakkāya from the outside and form ditthi about it or not, as one pleased): sakkāya contains sakkāyaditthi (in a latent form at least) as a necessary part of its structure.[d] If there is sakkāya there is sakkāyaditthi, and with the giving up of sakkāyaditthi there comes to be cessation of sakkāya. To give up sakkāyaditthi, sakkāya must be seen (i.e. as pañc'upādānakkhandhā), and this means that the puthujjana does not see pañc'upādānakkhandhā as such (i.e. he does not recognize them—see MAMA [a] and cf. Majjhima viii,5 <M.i,511>). A puthujjana (especially one who puts his trust in the Commentaries) sometimes comes to believe that he does see pañc'upādānakkhandhā as such, thereby blocking his own progress and meeting with frustration: he cannot see what further task is to be done, and yet remains a puthujjana.

Well said!

All the effort to try and distinguish concepts in order to deny their pressuring aspects cannot be separated from the assumption of an accessible non-conceptual reality. It is an assumption rooted in ignoring the fact that a non-conceptual reality is itself a concept, and any effort on account of that ignoring simply perpetuates one's engagement with the pressuring concepts.

Concepts are there. The concept that there is a non-conceptual reality is there. That's not the problem. The problem is that one is pressured by those concepts in the first place, and then proceeds to act out of that pressure. Meanwhile death continues its unrelenting advance (MN 63):

Suppose a man was struck by an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends and colleagues, relatives and kin would get a field surgeon to treat him. But the man would say: ‘I won’t pull out this arrow as long as I don’t know whether the man who wounded me was an aristocrat, a brahmin, a merchant, or a worker.’ He’d say: ‘I won’t pull out this arrow as long as I don’t know the following things about the man who wounded me: his name and clan; whether he’s tall, short, or medium; whether his skin is black, brown, or tawny; and what village, town, or city he comes from. I won’t pull out this arrow as long as I don’t know whether the bow that wounded me is made of wood or cane; whether the bow-string is made of swallow-wort fibre, sunn hemp fibre, sinew, sanseveria fibre, or spurge fibre; whether the shaft is made from a bush or a plantation tree; whether the shaft was fitted with feathers from a vulture, a heron, a hawk, a peacock, or a stork; whether the shaft was bound with sinews of a cow, a buffalo, a swamp deer, or a gibbon; and whether the arrowhead was spiked, razor-tipped, barbed, made of iron or a calf’s tooth, or lancet-shaped.’ That man would still not have learned these things, and meanwhile they’d die.

In the same way, suppose someone was to say: ‘I will not lead the spiritual life under the Buddha until the Buddha declares to me that the cosmos is eternal, or that the cosmos is not eternal … or that after death a Realized One neither exists nor doesn’t exist.’ That would still remain undeclared by the Realized One, and meanwhile that person would die.

[SteRo]

The "need to talk about concepts" arises from sakkayaditthi.

[Ceisiwr]

All the effort to try and distinguish concepts in order to deny their pressuring aspects cannot be separated from the assumption of an accessible non-conceptual reality.

Of course there is a non-conceptual reality.

It is an assumption rooted in ignoring the fact that a non-conceptual reality is itself a concept, and any effort on account of that ignoring simply perpetuates one's engagement with the pressuring concepts.

It’s a concept, yes. A concept that’s true.

[justpractice]

It is an assumption rooted in ignoring the fact that a non-conceptual reality is itself a concept, and any effort on account of that ignoring simply perpetuates one's engagement with the pressuring concepts.

It’s a concept, yes. A concept that’s true.

Concepts might arise as true or false, eternal or temporal. There are concepts that are clear and concepts that are vague. Some concepts are skillful and lead to the end of existence, while others are unskillful and lead to the accumulation of existence. All are concepts as such.

In the context of the arising and ceasing of suffering, it's imperative that one attends to and cultivates the skillful concepts that lead to dispassion and relinquishment. When assuming the concept of an accessible non-conceptual reality, one is essentially prioritizing the content of that concept (i.e. the notion that there is something out there external to the very concept that it is beholden to) over the more fundamental basis of its conceptuality. In other words, one conceives that content into existence and delights in it. One is entangled.

But then they identify with earth, they identify regarding earth, they identify as earth, they identify that ‘earth is mine’, they take pleasure in earth. Why is that? Because they haven’t completely understood it, I say. MN 1

[Alrac]

Practical benefit is identifying the "Person/Self" as non-real but a concept.

Otherwise, how can one eliminate Sakkayaditthi?

That is the main thing to do in Buddhism.

That is why it has become a major topic in Theravada.

The above shows concepts are not only existent but also the root of suffering.

It is only for the enlightened that concepts are "unreal". For puthujjana, such as those puthujjana practicing Idolatry of Books & Sects, concepts are very real. For these puthujjana, they believe things such as Abhidhamma, Visuddhimagga & Buddhaghosa are holy & sacred objects. They believe the concepts of Abhidhamma, Visuddhimagga & Buddhaghosa are real; lost in sīlabbata-parāmāsa.

[pegembara]

This is from the thread Concepts don't exist and therefore cannot be Anicca or Dukkha that I found important to discuss.

What is the benefit of making such a distinction?

Why is it always addressed in Theravada?

Why do we needs to talk about concepts if it is non existence as though it has to do with the practice .

Good question. I'm not seeing the practical use of the technical distinction being made in this thread.

Practical benefit is identifying the "Person/Self" as non-real but a concept.

Otherwise, how can one eliminate Sakkayaditthi?

That is the main thing to do in Buddhism.

That is why it has become a major topic in Theravada.

We can't be calling everyone, "Hey! You over there"
Ajahn Amaro called them useful fictions.

We can't throw away all that we learned at school like apple, ball, cat, dog, etc.
Electricity, atoms, viruses etc.
I, me, you, they, them, us, we, others ...

They have to be "real"at some level.
People go to work, have families, get sick and die in the "Matrix" don't they?

The "need to talk about concepts" arises from sakkayaditthi.

That is true. The sane person is insane in the company of crazies. They have to pretend to be crazy.
And the school system keeps on producing crazies.

[robertk]

this link has some information on this topic.

https://classicaltheravada.org/t/realit ... ncepts/135