Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

On the cultivation of insight/wisdom
BrokenBones
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by BrokenBones »

Ceisiwr wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 10:12 pm
retrofuturist wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 10:05 pm Greetings,
Ceisiwr wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 9:03 pm His point seems to me more that it is directly discernible, but only for Buddhas.
It's a point that seems to be based on faith in Abhidhamma, rather than wisdom of what the Buddha taught.

Metta,
Paul. :)
You don't have to be an Ābhidhammika to accept that dhammas are momentary. Mahāyānists do too, and I think suttas like SN 22.37, SN 22.38, SN 22.97 and SN 35.93 require it. If there are no substances in the world, how can dhammas be anything but momentary?
They arise... they persist... they pass away. The rest is just projection.

Remember... it's not a science class... it's a Dhamma class.
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retrofuturist
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings BrokenBones,

Well said. This affirms aniccata... not momentariness.

Metta,
Paul. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
pegembara
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by pegembara »

Maybe flow or flux is better than saying million times per second.
Eg the river flows and changes constantly-therefore it is without inherent substance like a blowing wind.

Constantly changing rather than "momentarily existing".
And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter: This is called right speech.
BrokenBones
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by BrokenBones »

pegembara wrote: Fri Nov 04, 2022 5:48 am Maybe flow or flux is better than saying million times per second.
Eg the river flows and changes constantly-therefore it is without inherent substance like a blowing wind.

Constantly changing rather than "momentarily existing".
I've often wondered why dispassion or weariness should arise at seeing Bhanga. It's a buzz... a self induced one... like acid 😉

Dispassion is more likely to arise in contemplating... 'I was young... now I'm older... I'm soon gonna be dead just like that poor bugger they've just buried'.
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by Spiny Norman »

pegembara wrote: Fri Nov 04, 2022 5:48 am Maybe flow or flux is better than saying million times per second.
Eg the river flows and changes constantly-therefore it is without inherent substance like a blowing wind.

Constantly changing rather than "momentarily existing".
Yes, and it's change that we actually notice, over various time scales.
Buddha save me from new-agers!
pegembara
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by pegembara »

BrokenBones wrote: Fri Nov 04, 2022 7:56 am
pegembara wrote: Fri Nov 04, 2022 5:48 am Maybe flow or flux is better than saying million times per second.
Eg the river flows and changes constantly-therefore it is without inherent substance like a blowing wind.

Constantly changing rather than "momentarily existing".
I've often wondered why dispassion or weariness should arise at seeing Bhanga. It's a buzz... a self induced one... like acid 😉

Dispassion is more likely to arise in contemplating... 'I was young... now I'm older... I'm soon gonna be dead just like that poor bugger they've just buried'.
'I was young... now I'm older... I'm soon gonna be dead just like that poor bugger they've just buried'. This is too slow a contemplation. The degree of anicca perceived is too slow!

This leads to a sense of urgency rather than dispassion. The time interval is about one in or out-breath. In that time you will not have the luxury of thinking so much! It's more like everything is going, going, gone right now, and not that I am going to die sometime in the future.
"But whoever develops mindfulness of death, thinking, 'O, that I might live for the interval that it takes to swallow having chewed up one morsel of food... for the interval that it takes to breathe out after breathing in, or to breathe in after breathing out, that I might attend to the Blessed One's instructions. I would have accomplished a great deal' — they are said to dwell heedfully. They develop mindfulness of death acutely for the sake of ending the effluents.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html
The Pali word is nibbida.
"This general teaching about turning away from the “external” world, or about finally realizing that one will perpetually “not find” the nutrients we seek in the bleached bones of sensory objects, or about waking from the enchantment cast upon us by a primordial delusion, is not unique to the early Buddhist tradition. The same thought seems to be conveyed in that consummate Mahayana and Zen text, the Lankavatara Sutra. In the introduction to his translation of this text, D.T. Suzuki brings special attention to what he calls an important psychological event of “turning back” from the world: “Technically, it is a spiritual change or transformation which takes place in the mind, especially suddenly..."
If everything that you experience is always passing away and like sand slipping through your fingers. You experience emptiness and begin to turn away from the world.

The world is on fire. Seeing this leads to disenchantment.
And disenchantment leads to liberation.
"Seeing thus, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones grows disenchanted with the eye, disenchanted with forms, disenchanted with consciousness at the eye, disenchanted with contact at the eye. And whatever there is that arises in dependence on contact at the eye, experienced as pleasure, pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain: With that, too, he grows disenchanted.

Disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, he is fully released. With full release, there is the knowledge, 'Fully released.' He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'"

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html
And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter: This is called right speech.
BrokenBones
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by BrokenBones »

The key is... 'change happens'. The timescale is irrelevant.

The understanding that everything is impermanent is what leads to disenchantment & the realisation that it is suffering... it's not worth holding on to or becoming enamoured with anything... not the self induced perception of momentariness.

The Buddha mentioned somewhere the speed at which the mind changes. It was something like the speed of lightning... this is the contemplation to be undertaken... not trying to induce strange bodily phenomena that are characterised as atomic momentariness which leads to nibbana. Where's the wisdom? It's just physical sensations... the sort that a lot of psychedelic drugs will impart.

My personal belief is that tantra made deep inroads into certain traditions of Buddhism even if they didn't realise it.
Goenka himself talks about chakras and how the 'technique' lights up all the chakras... it really isn't what the Buddha taught.
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by Ceisiwr »

BrokenBones wrote: Fri Nov 04, 2022 11:20 am The key is... 'change happens'. The timescale is irrelevant.

The understanding that everything is impermanent is what leads to disenchantment & the realisation that it is suffering... it's not worth holding on to or becoming enamoured with anything... not the self induced perception of momentariness.

The Buddha mentioned somewhere the speed at which the mind changes. It was something like the speed of lightning... this is the contemplation to be undertaken... not trying to induce strange bodily phenomena that are characterised as atomic momentariness which leads to nibbana. Where's the wisdom? It's just physical sensations... the sort that a lot of psychedelic drugs will impart.

My personal belief is that tantra made deep inroads into certain traditions of Buddhism even if they didn't realise it.
Goenka himself talks about chakras and how the 'technique' lights up all the chakras... it really isn't what the Buddha taught.
The wisdom is in seeing the absence of substance in sense experience. If there is no substance or substances, then everything is momentary.
“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: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by Spiny Norman »

BrokenBones wrote: Fri Nov 04, 2022 11:20 am The key is... 'change happens'. The timescale is irrelevant.
The timescale becomes relevant when people start making unfounded claims about billionths of a second, given that humans can only notice change over tenths of a second.
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by Spiny Norman »

Ceisiwr wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 10:12 pm
retrofuturist wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 10:05 pm Greetings,
Ceisiwr wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 9:03 pm His point seems to me more that it is directly discernible, but only for Buddhas.
It's a point that seems to be based on faith in Abhidhamma, rather than wisdom of what the Buddha taught.

Metta,
Paul. :)
You don't have to be an Ābhidhammika to accept that dhammas are momentary. Mahāyānists do too, and I think suttas like SN 22.37, SN 22.38, SN 22.97 and SN 35.93 require it. If there are no substances in the world, how can dhammas be anything but momentary?
Could you explain why lack of substance makes dhammas momentary?
Buddha save me from new-agers!
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by Ceisiwr »

Spiny Norman wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 9:58 am
Ceisiwr wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 10:12 pm
retrofuturist wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 10:05 pm Greetings,


It's a point that seems to be based on faith in Abhidhamma, rather than wisdom of what the Buddha taught.

Metta,
Paul. :)
You don't have to be an Ābhidhammika to accept that dhammas are momentary. Mahāyānists do too, and I think suttas like SN 22.37, SN 22.38, SN 22.97 and SN 35.93 require it. If there are no substances in the world, how can dhammas be anything but momentary?
Could you explain why lack of substance makes dhammas momentary?
If there is no substance then there is no permanence. If there is no substance then there are only characteristics, and characteristics are momentary.
“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.”
Spiny Norman
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by Spiny Norman »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:05 am
Spiny Norman wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 9:58 am
Ceisiwr wrote: Thu Nov 03, 2022 10:12 pm

You don't have to be an Ābhidhammika to accept that dhammas are momentary. Mahāyānists do too, and I think suttas like SN 22.37, SN 22.38, SN 22.97 and SN 35.93 require it. If there are no substances in the world, how can dhammas be anything but momentary?
Could you explain why lack of substance makes dhammas momentary?
If there is no substance then there is no permanence. If there is no substance then there are only characteristics, and characteristics are momentary.
To take a practical example, how is the redness of an apple momentary?
Buddha save me from new-agers!
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by Ceisiwr »

Spiny Norman wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:27 am
Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:05 am
Spiny Norman wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 9:58 am

Could you explain why lack of substance makes dhammas momentary?
If there is no substance then there is no permanence. If there is no substance then there are only characteristics, and characteristics are momentary.
To take a practical example, how is the redness of an apple momentary?
When you eat the apple “redness, hardness, sweetness” arise and cease in momentary flashes.
“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.”
Spiny Norman
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by Spiny Norman »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:28 am
Spiny Norman wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:27 am
Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:05 am

If there is no substance then there is no permanence. If there is no substance then there are only characteristics, and characteristics are momentary.
To take a practical example, how is the redness of an apple momentary?
When you eat the apple “redness, hardness, sweetness” arise and cease in momentary flashes.
What if I'm just looking at the apple, maybe prior to buying it? How is the redness momentary?
Buddha save me from new-agers!
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Ledi Sayadaw on Momentariness

Post by Ceisiwr »

Spiny Norman wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 11:00 am
Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:28 am
Spiny Norman wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 10:27 am

To take a practical example, how is the redness of an apple momentary?
When you eat the apple “redness, hardness, sweetness” arise and cease in momentary flashes.
What if I'm just looking at the apple, maybe prior to buying it? How is the redness momentary?
You would also be diverting attention to sounds, thoughts, bodily sensations. Each one being a new experience. How can a quality be sustained? There isn’t even a finger snap of permanence, according to the Buddha.

“Then the Blessed One took up a little bit of soil in his fingernail and said to that bhikkhu: “Bhikkhu, there is not even this much form that is permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, and that will remain the same just like eternity itself. If there was this much form that was permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, this living of the holy life for the complete destruction of suffering could not be discerned. But because there is not even this much form that is permanent, stable, eternal, not subject to change, this living of the holy life for the complete destruction of suffering is discerned.” - SN 22.97

“Monks, all compounded things are as an illusion, a flame, ceasing in an instant; being not real they come (arise) and go (cease).

“Therefore, monks, with regard to all empty compounded things you should know, rejoice in, and be mindful of (awake to) this:

“All empty compounded things are empty of any permanent, eternal, lasting, unchanging nature; they are empty of self and of belonging to self”
- SA 273
“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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