How does the practice of anapanasati relate to paticca-samuppada?

[Coëmgenu]

according to you, all the suttas I mention on this forum, including my Jhana thread are fake suttas.

Please desist in telling lies about me. I've told you to stop many times before, yet you continue telling lies about me. Stop.

[Pulsar]

Rereading your quote, Dear Ceisiwr

As for this contact business in Theravada phassa is a mental dhamma, not a physical one.

I am confused...
Are you saying Phassa is a physical dhamma? We are discussing the suttas from sutta pitaka, proven to be old enough that are not late entries.
Buddha that I follow taught that all dhammas are mental.
Regards

[Coëmgenu]

How on earth does one fundamentally misread such a simple, plain, and straightforward sentence?

"... not physical ..."
"Do you mean it's physical?"

[Ceisiwr]

Rereading your quote, Dear Ceisiwr

As for this contact business in Theravada phassa is a mental dhamma, not a physical one.

I am confused...
Are you saying Phassa is a physical dhamma? We are discussing the suttas from sutta pitaka, proven to be old enough that are not late entries.
Buddha that I follow taught that all dhammas are mental.
Regards

Not really sure how you got there to be honest. Mjaviem said that contact is not a “physiological event”. I replied by saying that in Theravada contact is an immaterial dhamma, not a physical one. I believe this is also true in Sarvastivada and it’s offshoots. In other words, no one says it’s a “physiological event”.

[Pulsar]

Ceisiwir wrote

In other words, no one says it’s a “physiological event”.

Agreed,

everyone agrees also that contact/phassa is a mental event.

However neural transmission (mental events) do involve biochemical changes at synapses, but this is not a discussion in Neurochemistry. All we are looking for is A way out of suffering. Why add more suffering by engaging in senseless disputes?
A firm understanding of Paticca-samuppada, goes a long way in relief of suffering.
In the Arahant in whom there is no "Origination of suffering" (physical pain excluded), no contact/phassa occurs with the sensory world. Since if there was contact/phassa,
it would lead to Origination of suffering.
In the Parayanavagga therefore Arahant is called super being. Why? because he lives in the sensory world without making contact with it. Excerpt from Snp 1042

This is whom I call a super being, a man beyond the patchwork world of greed

Good Night

[Coëmgenu]

Once again, the reconstructionists demonstrate their lack of understanding concerning what "contact" is and what the term "sense base" means.



At this point, it's willing ignorance. Some would prefer that their theories be right to such a degree that they will utterly confound the basic terms used in the scripture they are interfacing with. Anything to be right. "Sense bases are not sense bases!" "Death is not death!" They'll commit to anything for the sake of saving this pet theory.

The Buddha as he is depicted in the EBTs does not have modern notions of cognition. He doesn't teach about "scientific" things like neurons and synapses, etc. Cognition, for Iron Age and medieval Indians, is a "contact-based" system that is much more like the "emission theory" of vision than anything that modern neuroscience is teaching.

I am understanding though. If these modernist reconstructionists actually admitted that the Buddha taught what he taught, they'd have no respect for these ancient-world paradigms and no respect for the Buddha who taught his audiences using them.

It's an instance of the fallacy of sunk costs. They've committed to being "Buddhist" already, so what they think needs to be Buddhism. It's very hard to admit that the Buddha taught things that moderns see as nonsense.

[mjaviem]

Once again, the reconstructionists demonstrate their lack of understanding concerning what "contact" is and what the term "sense base" means.



At this point, it's willing ignorance. Some would prefer that their theories be right to such a degree that they will utterly confound the basic terms used in the scripture they are interfacing with. Anything to be right. "Sense bases are not sense bases!" "Death is not death!" They'll commit to anything for the sake of saving this pet theory.

Sense bases are sense bases and death is death. But some people understand these like folk people. They cannot appreciate a good teaching when they hear it or read it from the Suttas.

[Coëmgenu]

So now we've gone from "Death isnt death!" to "Buddhist death isn't folksy death!"

Pray tell, what is the non-folksy death? I bet it's not going to be "Death!"

[mjaviem]

... Yā tesaṁ tesaṁ sattānaṁ tamhā tamhā sattanikāyā cuti cavanatā bhedo antaradhānaṁ maccu maraṇaṁ kālakiriyā khandhānaṁ bhedo kaḷevarassa nikkhepo, idaṁ vuccati maraṇaṁ. ...

...
The passing away of the various beings from the various orders of beings, their perishing, breakup, disappearance, mortality, death, completion of time, the breakup of the aggregates, the laying down of the carcass: this is called death.
...

That's death. I wonder in what of two ways you understand death.

[Coëmgenu]

You don't need to play "smoke and mirrors" with me, Mjaviem. We've discussed this many times before.

Death is death. Your undedstanding of death is "the concept of death."

You also profoundly misread that passage, unless you've significantly changed your views in the past year.

[mjaviem]

It's faith. It's trust in the Buddha and his teachings. He taught there's freedom from death. You believe that means to die to not die any more. I believe that means that it's possible to understand in order to not die. I know I gonna die. But you believe death must be gone through while I believe death must be understood.

[Coëmgenu]

Understood as a "mere concept," then, when the Arhat dies, because he's freed from the concept, freed from the conceptuality, it's not actually "death."

No? I'm willing to let you adjust the phrasing, but that's basically the Buddhism of those who believe that the Arhats do not "experience."

[Ceisiwr]

It's faith. It's trust in the Buddha and his teachings. He taught there's freedom from death. You believe that means to die to not die any more. I believe that means that it's possible to understand in order to not die. I know I gonna die. But you believe death must be gone through while I believe death must be understood.

The Buddha taught us certain ideas such as the 12 sense bases, 5 aggregates, 12-links of dependent origination, 4NT etc because he wanted us to think in those terms. By thinking in those terms, by thinking like a Buddha, we become liberated. When then you start changing the basic (and spelt out meaning) of words like "death" from literally dying to something more metaphorical, you are cutting yourself from thinking in terms of Buddhadhamma. The Buddha wanted us to think that based on clinging there would be a literal birth followed by dying. That is how we are to understand things, as a means to let go.

[mjaviem]

Understood as a "mere concept," then, when the Arhat dies, because he's freed from the concept, freed from the conceptuality, it's not actually "death."

No? I'm willing to let you adjust the phrasing, but that's basically the Buddhism of those who believe that the Arhats do not "experience."

I think it's you who perceives truth in what is delusion. I think you have your perception inverted. While not claiming the opposite, I do believe death is the wrong way as the Buddha explained, the path that delusion leads to.

[mjaviem]

The Buddha taught us certain ideas such as the 12 sense bases, 5 aggregates, 12-links of dependent origination, 4NT etc because he wanted us to think in those terms. By thinking in those terms, by thinking like a Buddha, we become liberated. When then you start changing the basic (and spelt out meaning) of words like "death" from literally dying to something more metaphorical, you are cutting yourself from thinking in terms of Buddhadhamma. The Buddha wanted us to think that based on clinging there would be a literal birth followed by dying. That is how we are to understand things, as a means to let go.

It's not only about ideas and thoughts, it's behaviour, it's wisdom. A whole path of eigth parts. I don't deny we must think that after our hearts stop there's gonna be rebirth. I'm saying there are people that understand better than folk people, they go beyond, to the point some of them can transcend all.