Do arahants have thoughts?

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
riceandcashews
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by riceandcashews »

Ceisiwr wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 9:26 pm You are still thinking of it ontologically rather than epistemologically. The Arahant understands that everything we experience isn't a substance. If there is a substance behind it all is a meaningless question, according to the Buddha, because all we can know is our sense experience (SN 35.23). The Arahant understands that our experience is one of dependently originated things, not independent substances. On such an understanding they then understand (another word for "see") how our experience is empty of atta, empty of anything worth holding onto and empty signs. They still have experiences, but ultimately, they can't say if these are real or not. All they can know is conventional. That is the ultimate understanding IMO. They understand the concepts we apply to experience, and so are no longer deluded by them. Using concepts is fine. Giving life to them due to our ignorance, craving and views is the problem.
So, in essence, you are saying that arahants still have thoughts, and that cessation of papanca/fabrications is a cessation of a type of thinking/relationship to thinking, and not a total cessation of thinking.

However, I don't think that you've really dealt in this paragraph with the problem of signlessness for your view. You say that arahants can still use signs, just without ignorance. But then, what remains unaddressed is (a) why is signlessness a central characteristic of nirvana? And (b) why is signlessness/cessation given such a massively significant (no pun intended) role in the suttas at the end or near the end of the path, and possibly as a route to bypass typical mindfulness?
riceandcashews
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by riceandcashews »

santa100 wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 4:16 pm
riceandcashews wrote:Regarding your general view that arahants continue to have thoughts, how do you interpret the cessation of papanca and fabrications?
But why do you assume that all thoughts are automatically equated with papanca? Does the simple act of sanna to tell the difference between a flower and a pile of crap sound like papanca to you? Are you saying that by the time one's attained arahantship, s/he all of a sudden loses that ability to tell the difference?
Thoughts are not the same as the tendency for a being to respond to different objects in different ways. Thoughts are linguistic signs that arise in the imagination, in the internal sensory sphere. A dog recognizes the difference between food and excrement, and yet the dog isn't wandering around thinking "This is food, this is excrement. Food makes me feel satiated, while excrement tastes and smells revolting. I shall eat the food to satiate my hunger, and avoid the excrement to avoid unpleasant tastes and smells."
santa100
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by santa100 »

riceandcashews wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 4:47 pm Thoughts are not the same as the tendency for a being to respond to different objects in different ways. Thoughts are linguistic signs that arise in the imagination, in the internal sensory sphere. A dog recognizes the difference between food and excrement, and yet the dog isn't wandering around thinking "This is food, this is excrement. Food makes me feel satiated, while excrement tastes and smells revolting. I shall eat the food to satiate my hunger, and avoid the excrement to avoid unpleasant tastes and smells."
So in other words, are you saying that "thought" is something completely outside of the Five Aggregates? If that's the case, please define exactly what "thought" is?
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Coëmgenu
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by Coëmgenu »

"Objects of the manas" is far too passé. We need fancier business in this thread.

:shrug:
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
riceandcashews
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by riceandcashews »

Pondera wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 8:36 am Pretty much. Even as I write this I have already drained my hippocampus of consciousness. I have been essentially thoughtless for the better part of the day. Don’t confuse my meaning. I am not claiming to be an Arahant. I am simply saying that achieving the peace of thoughtlessness, and being unadulterated by Mara is a simple process of draining the brain of consciousness.

Point being that I can articulate all of my *meaning* quite easily while remaining at peace. And I go about my livelihood in a very intelligent and coherent manner despite spending my alone time in a state of quietude.
Interesting. I waver between a couple views on this. I don't currently think arahants always have no thoughts, but I think that non-thinking has a much more significant role than is often understood. In the view that I'm sympathetic to that is closest to your view, I think arahants regularly abide in non-thinking without always being in non-thinking. I think arahants might think in preparation for speech in the same way that they might imagine how to navigate a building before navigating it - that is to say as a kind of imaginative rehearsal. The difference from this POV is that, unlike ordinary beings, arahants have entirely removed the view that the 'self-conception' has real existence beyond as a linguistic convention, and therefore has no actual agency or causal power, and hence they have fully realized this-that conditionality and dependent origination in a way that has dissolved the sense of self. So ordinary beings are constantly caught in thinking about their self and relating their self to experience and action, the arahant understands this as just a linguistic convention within the all/namarupa and gives no rise to obsessive thinking about a self and control etc. other than as a tool for communication on occasion. So if this view were correct, arahants would probably often but not always abide in thoughtlessness.
Jack19990101
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by Jack19990101 »

Re - "arahants would probably often but not always abide in thoughtlessness."

Not quite yet imo.
Arahants don't abide to anything or any spheres. They don't bind to thoughtless
they don't bind to actionless.
They don't bind to khandas, they don't bind to khandas-less.
Nibbana don't bind to nirodha, with reminder or without.

We should not equate nibbana as nirodha(of thoughts or of other sorts, or of all sorts) - one is stateless, one is stateful.

N8P would require us to enter nirodha state periodically. Nibbana no longer imposes any requirement - it has no idea what state it is in, no idea to need of change nor need to keep.
It no longer reflects - it doesn't land & feedback & echo.
riceandcashews
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by riceandcashews »

Jack19990101 wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 6:40 pm Re - "arahants would probably often but not always abide in thoughtlessness."

Not quite yet imo.
Arahants don't abide to anything or any spheres. They don't bind to thoughtless
they don't bind to actionless.
They don't bind to khandas, they don't bind to khandas-less.
Nibbana don't bind to nirodha, with reminder or without.

We should not equate nibbana as nirodha(of thoughts or of other sorts, or of all sorts) - one is stateless, one is stateful.

N8P would require us to enter nirodha state periodically. Nibbana no longer imposes any requirement - it has no idea what state it is in, no idea to need of change nor need to keep.
It no longer reflects - it doesn't land & feedback & echo.
I suspect what you are saying and what I am saying are identical. That's how it reads to me. I think you're taking my saying 'arahants abide in thoughtlessness' to have some greater meaning beyond my intent. I mean it in the same way we might say that an arahant might be in the state of consciousness of a tree appearance, they might also be in a state of consciousness of thoughtlessness. I'm just intending to describe a category of conscious experience here. "Abiding" maybe wasn't the best choice of word, but just meant 'often is in this state of conscious experience'.

If by arahant we mean the self-concept of the arahant, obviously that does not abide and has extinguished like a flame.
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mikenz66
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by mikenz66 »

riceandcashews wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 4:10 pm
mikenz66 wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 3:24 amWell, as I said, I am aware of these two main interpretations, and of course there is plenty of room for discussion. I personally find the "abiding permanently" interpretation problematical, in view of an arahant still experiencing feelings, thoughts, and so on, as discussed in this thread, so I tend to side with the interpretation of Ven Nanananda (among others) that the cessation and so on at awakening, or in the awakened samadhi that the arahant can return to, is temporary until the breakup of the body.
"Total ending" and "totally awakened" seem pretty final.
Yes, of course. It's irreversible. See, for example, MN140: https://suttacentral.net/mn140
I don't understand you here. Are you meaning to say that arahants do not abide in nirvana permanently? Or that arahants abide in nirvana permanently but that signlessness/no-thought is not equivalent to nirvana? I'm thinking you must be suggesting the latter. In that case, how do you interpret the cessation of papanca and fabrications for arahants? And why do you believe signlessness/cessation plays such a significant role in the suttas?
Sorry if I wasn't clear. In models such as Classical Theravada or Ven Nananada's Nibbana sermons, there is a cessation "experience" at nibbana, which frees the (now) arahant. This cessation can also be accessed at will.
After that, the arahant still has feelings, etc. until the breakup of the body.
Nibbana Sermon 18 wrote: With reference to Iti44: https://suttacentral.net/iti44
The standard phrase summing up the qualification of an arahant occurs in full
in the definition of the sa-upādisesā Nibbānadhātu. The distinctive feature of
this Nibbāna element is brought out in the statement that the arahant's five
sense faculties are still intact, owing to which he experiences likes and dislikes,
and pleasure and pain. However, to the extent that lust, hate and delusion are
extinct in him, it is called the Nibbāna element with residual clinging.
https://seeingthroughthenet.net/
[Other translations use "nothing left over", etc, rather than "residual clinging" for
saupādisesa https://suttacentral.net/define/saup%C4%81disesa]
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riceandcashews
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by riceandcashews »

santa100 wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 5:29 pm
riceandcashews wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 4:47 pm Thoughts are not the same as the tendency for a being to respond to different objects in different ways. Thoughts are linguistic signs that arise in the imagination, in the internal sensory sphere. A dog recognizes the difference between food and excrement, and yet the dog isn't wandering around thinking "This is food, this is excrement. Food makes me feel satiated, while excrement tastes and smells revolting. I shall eat the food to satiate my hunger, and avoid the excrement to avoid unpleasant tastes and smells."
So in other words, are you saying that "thought" is something completely outside of the Five Aggregates? If that's the case, please define exactly what "thought" is?
One of the aggregates is consciousness, and all objects that are perceived are perceived within consciousness. Form and bodily/verbal fabrications are perceived within consciousness (of the 5 'bodily' consciousnesses if you'll allow the expression). And perceptions, feelings, consciousness, and mental fabrications are perceived within consciousness (the 'mental' consciousness). So 'thoughts' here within the context of the 5 aggregates would be perceptions, to some extent feelings, to some extent mental fabrications, and perceptions of all of those things. Again, in terms of the 6 spheres of consciousness, thoughts are a type of appearance arising within the mental sense sphere. Mostly they are perception, though.

Thoughts can be experienced in somewhat different ways by different people, but many experience them as what many in English conventionally call the 'stream of consciousness' if we sit in silence and pay attention to our own mental activity/fabrications. If you are someone who typically communicates in spoken language (as opposed to say sign language if you are deaf), then you will likely experience thinking in the form of 'your voice in your head'.
riceandcashews
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by riceandcashews »

Coëmgenu wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 5:29 pm "Objects of the manas" is far too passé. We need fancier business in this thread.

:shrug:
I think on its own that can be a bit unclear, at least in terms of my understanding of the sixth sense base, consciousness, and objects. I've often taken it to mean a kind of abstract intellect that comprehends abstract concepts/ideas. In which case thought in the sense that I am referring to would 'represent' the intellect and ideas in the same way that an appearance of a tree would represent the tree-object. I think one significant difference is that thoughts are imaginary/internal, while sense-experience is 'real'/external. I'm not sure where imagination/dream-experiences would typically be placed in the 6 spheres and 5 aggregates, but I've assumed a certain placement for them I realize. Anywho, I personally find using conventional English vocabulary to refer to the mind more effective and clear when speaking to English speakers, so long as we're clear in our meaning.

----

This actually brings to mind an alternative way of interpreting the signless beyond being 'thoughtless' in my sense of the expression. Signless could also be to signs as emptiness is to objects - that is, in emptiness the appearance of objects remains but they are not taken to have any kind of intrinsic reality/objecthood other than what is experienced, so perhaps in signlessness appearances of signs (thoughts/speech) still arise but they are not taken to have any intrinsic reality/signhood (representative/referring function) other than what is experienced. What would conventionally be regarded as an appearance of a sign with intrinsic meaning is understood to just be an appearance and 'signhood' is only something imputed to the appearance.

That's an alternative interpretation of signlessness. I'm not sure if that interpretation would apply to cessation of perception, or if that would make them then different things, or what the implication would be for whether arahants often have thoughts, or what role either of those have on the path. All of which are important questions on either interpretation.
riceandcashews
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by riceandcashews »

mikenz66 wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 9:49 pm Sorry if I wasn't clear. In models such as Classical Theravada or Ven Nananada's Nibbana sermons, there is a cessation "experience" at nibbana, which frees the (now) arahant. This cessation can also be accessed at will.
After that, the arahant still has feelings, etc. until the breakup of the body.
So, if in your view cessation/signlessness (do you take those to be the same?) is then not identical with nirvana, what is its function/purpose on the path? Is it necessary or optional? If optional, is it helpful? Whether necessary, or optionally helpful, how so?
Dhammapardon
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by Dhammapardon »

riceandcashews wrote: Thu Nov 24, 2022 7:10 pm Do arahants have thoughts? Whether you answer in the affirmative or negative, what then is the function of the state of signlessness/cessation of perception (a state I think I could correctly refer to as not-thinking)?
To have is to possess. To be in possession of. I think arahants do not possess. They utilize as needed. Likely including thoughts and thinking.

My understanding of a state of not-thinking would be a sort of resting state of mind when no thinking takes place.
Just as a bird, wherever it goes, flies with its wings as its only burden; so too is he content with a set of robes to provide for his body and almsfood to provide for his hunger. Wherever he goes, he takes only his barest necessities along. This is how a monk is content.(DN11)
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mikenz66
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by mikenz66 »

riceandcashews wrote: Sat Dec 03, 2022 7:21 pm
mikenz66 wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 9:49 pm Sorry if I wasn't clear. In models such as Classical Theravada or Ven Nananada's Nibbana sermons, there is a cessation "experience" at nibbana, which frees the (now) arahant. This cessation can also be accessed at will.
After that, the arahant still has feelings, etc. until the breakup of the body.
So, if in your view cessation/signlessness (do you take those to be the same?) is then not identical with nirvana, what is its function/purpose on the path? Is it necessary or optional? If optional, is it helpful? Whether necessary, or optionally helpful, how so?
Cessation is what happens at nibbana. But after that liberating cessation, the arahant functions in the world, with aggregates, feelings, likes and dislikes, until the breakup of the body.

As Ven Nananada quotes at the start of each Nibbana Sermon:
"This is peaceful, this is excellent, namely the stilling of all preparations, the
relinquishment of all assets, the destruction of craving, detachment, cessation,
extinction".
Link to a sutta where this occurs:
This is peaceful; this is sublime—that is, the stilling of all activities, the letting go of all attachments, the ending of craving, cessation, extinguishment.’
‘etaṁ santaṁ etaṁ paṇītaṁ yadidaṁ sabbasaṅkhārasamatho sabbūpadhippaṭinissaggo taṇhākkhayo nirodho nibbānan’ti.
https://suttacentral.net/an10.60/en/suj ... ript=latin
I do agree it's tricky, as Ven Nananda says in Sermon 18:
The idea behind this riddle is that the influx-free arahant, the such-
like-one, gone to the farther shore, which is supramundane, does not come
back to the mundane. Nevertheless, he apparently comes back to the world
and is seen to experience likes and dislikes, pleasures and pains, through
the objects of the five senses. From the point of view of the worldling, the
arahant has come back to the world. This is the crux of the problem.
...
Here, then, we have an extremely subtle problem. When the arahant
comes back to the world and is seen experiencing the objects of the five
senses, one might of course conclude that he is actually `in the world'. This
problematic situation, namely the question how the influx-free arahant,
gone to the farther shore, comes back and takes in objects through the
senses, the Buddha resolves with the help of a simple simile, drawn from
nature. For instance, we read in the Jaràsutta of the Sutta Nipàta the
following scintillating lines.

"Like a drop of water on a lotus leaf,
Or water that taints not the lotus petal,
So the sage unattached remains,
In regard to what is seen, heard and sensed."

So the extremely deep problem concerning the relation between the
supramundane and the mundane levels of experience, is resolved by the
Buddha by bringing in the simile of the lotus petal and the lotus leaf.
...
So here we have the ideal of the emancipated mind. Generally, a person
unfamiliar with the nature of a lotus leaf or a lotus petal, on seeing a drop
of water on a lotus leaf or a lotus petal would think that the water drop
smears them.

Earlier we happened to mention that there is a wide gap between the
mundane and the supramundane. Some might think that this refers to a gap
in time or in space. In fact it is such a conception that often led to various
misinterpretations concerning Nibbàna. The supramundane seems so far
away from the mundane, so it must be something attainable after death in
point of time. Or else it should be far far away in outer space. Such is the
impression made in general.

But if we go by the simile of the drop of water on the lotus leaf, the
distance between the mundane and the supramundane is the same as that
between the lotus leaf and the drop of water on it.
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Mike
Pulsar
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by Pulsar »

Mikenz66 wrote
the arahant functions in the world, with aggregates, feelings, likes and dislikes, until the breakup of the body.
Are you implying the Arahant is still caught up in the cycle of Dependent Origination?
With love :candle:
Ontheway
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Re: Do arahants have thoughts?

Post by Ontheway »

Yes, Arahants have thoughts. But these thoughts are just functional and doesn't generate new Kamma.
Hiriottappasampannā,
sukkadhammasamāhitā;
Santo sappurisā loke,
devadhammāti vuccare.

https://suttacentral.net/ja6/en/chalmer ... ight=false
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