Pulsar wrote: ↑Thu Dec 01, 2022 9:56 pm
C wrote
The six sense bases originate with ignorance as a condition
Are you implying Buddha still had ignorance after the awakening? How do you understand the six sense bases in Salayatana?
Is there any sutta that says Buddha was still ignorant after the Awakening? Not in the Buddhist canon that I read. An ignorant Sammasambuddha sounds like an oxymoron to me.
With love
I'm arguing that the 6 sense bases arise based on ignorance and, as your quote shows, the Arahants (whilst alive) still experience them. The last dying embers of dukkha. The remaining disturbance to the complete peace. The wages of past action.
You appear to think like Abhidhammikas do. How do the Abhidhamma followers get rid of suffering? Do they have to destroy physical bodies?
I first should say that I misread your initial post. Nāmarūpa is made up of two bodies. That of the nāmakāya and the rūpakāya. As for how Ābhidhammikas conceptualise awakening, it depends on your flavour of Abhidhamma/Abhidharma. I can only speak of the two schools that I am familiar with. For the Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika awakening occurs due to seeing the universal natures of the dravyasat sabhāva-dhammas, which occurs via insight into dependent origination. This is framed in a "decoupling" from the dravyasat sabhāva-dhammas since they, being eternal substances, always are in all times. For Theravāda awakening occurs via insight into the universal natures of the phenomenal sabhāva-dhammas, which occurs via insight into dependent origination. One is a thoroughgoing realist conception of the Dhamma and awakening. The other, a mix of realism and phenomenalism. Both are strongly dualist. This is an oversimplification, of course. Both vādas recognise that there are two different forms, for want of a better word, of nibbāna. One where the āsava are destroyed, but the mind & body (the result of past action) remains, and one at the end of life. This is where all conditioned dhammas cease forever never to arise again since the root has been cut. For both schools nibbāna is some kind of real existing thing, but it is one which is beyond all words. Since all conditioned dhammas have ceased, but nibbāna remains, total freedom and escape from saṃsāra is achieved.
Dependent Originated can be abolished by getting rid of rupa. If rupa in mind does not appear due to absence of craving, there is nothing to be identified with (No Nama). Problem is solved by getting rid of craving.
Well the root problem is ignorance. Ābhidhammikas would agree that the absence of nāmarūpa is liberation, but what that actually means is, as I've outlined above, very different to what you understand by it. I would argue, as the Ābhidhammikas and, indeed, the suttas would, that nāma itself is not identification. It is clinging which leads to identification, based on the suttas, not nāma itself.
But if rupa in Nama-rupa is physical, getting rid of craving will have no impact on getting rid of physical bodies surrounding us. Do you see my point?
I do understand why you are making this argument, but I depart because I think it is mistaken. It is mistaken because based on what the suttas outline, you are not fully taking into account the scope of dependent origination. What I mean by that is that dependent origination isn't a process that occurs and ceases in mind moments, or something similar. It can be useful to think of it in that way, but it's not the original formulation of it. Dependent origination is occurring right now, right here, but it has also occurred in the past for you and i. In the past, as right now, you and I are ignorant. Because of that ignorance there are conditions have arisen right now. If we were to awaken in this moment, right now, dependent origination would cease. No ignorance would be here in the mind, and with that cessation all of the other links can't arise again. That moment of awakening however doesn't erase the past. We were still ignorant before awakening and, because of that ignorance, there will be dukkha in our life because when there is ignorance dukkha will arise. This is the way of things, the universal law. The Buddha taught us, in his infinite wisdom, that all that which is impermanent is dukkha. In terms of our individual existences, he framed it that the root cause of this impermanence is ignorance itself. Because of our past ignorance this body and mind, which you and I are experiencing, has arisen. Because it is dependently arisen, it is dukkha itself. It can't be anything else, because it is dependent. It is tottering, teetering, changing and becoming other. Because of that past ignorance, because of this dependently arisen body and mind, there must be ageing, sickness, pain and death. This means, upon awakening, we all must die our final death to be finally free from all death and suffering, the deathless.
In order to solve the problem, one must comprehend Buddha's profound teaching, as he taught it.
Perhaps an ordinary mind is incapable of doing so? is not capable of that profound understanding?
Buddha was reluctant to teach, at the beginning, Sutta Pitaka writes.
He probably thought everyone will think like you do, that rupa in Nama-rupa is both physical and mental.
Yes, an ordinary mind can't comprehend the Buddha's profound teaching. This is why, increasingly, I think we should focus less on what the ultimate is and more on the path on how to get there. The ultimate is beyond words. Concepts, perceptions, ideas, arguments all of them will fail to grasp it. The path however we can put into concepts, perceptions, ideas and arguments. The path is that of the NEFP, that of mastery of the mind, that of seeing all of existence as being dukkha. Of seeing all that which is impermanent and dependently arisen as being dukkha. That the aggregates, in any form, anywhere, as being dukkha and that of rūpa in nāmarūpa as being one's physical form.