The causal mechanism behind kamma?

[Sasha_A]

Venerable Nanavira also suffered from this. It’s seems not the case that he disagreed with the traditional view of dependent origination (traditional here meaning shared between all early traditions), but rather he doesn’t seem to have understood it.

You see, this is not the Super Bowl - it's not "our team against their team", it's truth against ignorance. It does not matter whether what ven. Nanavira said contradicts the views of some tradition or not, the only thing that really matters is whether a person knows for himself that certain views are true or not, whether these views are traditional or not. Until then, the only thing that can be said for certain is that "I don't know what is true and what is not." Any other answer will be nothing but the result of delusion and ignorance.

[User13866]

Let nobody say that i evade your questions

Can you give an example of a wholesome and unwholesome action by one's perceptions and feelings, breathig, and by thinking and pondering?

When a man gives attention perceiving the in & out breathing; mindful of the arising, persistence & cessation of thoughts, feelings & perceptions; that is wholesome kamma which is conducive to the undoing of existence and it is therefore an appropriate giving of attention.

When a man gives attention perceiving the in & out breathing; mindful of the arising, persistence & cessation of thoughts, feelings & perceptions, it is possible that various obsessions & perceptions tied to greed, aversion & delusion would assail that man. These perceptions are unwholesome, giving attention to these things is inappropriate and would be unwholesome kamma of bitter result.

[User13866]

I think that explaining things here is an incredibly burdensome process.

Seemingly nobody understands anything, and yet nobody says 'i do not understand' and even if they understand they just keep quiet.

It's like talking to a wall which has 'It is Impossible, It cannot happen!' written on it.

I only bothered to explain this stuff today because i wanted to polish my memorization of these texts.

[mjaviem]

...
Can you give an example of a wholesome and unwholesome action by one's perceptions and feelings, breathig, and by thinking and pondering?

I can try myself. Not to save [name redacted by admin] and his harsh, rude and adhammic ways of posting but because this is a fair question from people who don't agree that kamma and sankharas are intention.

The perception and unpleasant feeling of people attacking my views and saying that I'm wrong when I believe I'm not puts my mind in anger mode which is unwholesome, my mind gets conditioned by that perception and feeling growing into hate and cruelty. This conditioning process is simply intention.

Short and agitated breathing conditions my body and allows me to kill animals and take things not supposed to be taken by me. This conditioning process is driven by intention.

Intentional thinking and pondering conditions my speech and allows me to lie, slander and being harsh to the ears of others. There's intention here, of course.

[User13866]

...
Can you give an example of a wholesome and unwholesome action by one's perceptions and feelings, breathig, and by thinking and pondering?

I can try myself. Not to save [name redacted by admin] and his harsh, rude and adhammic ways of posting but because this is a fair question from people who don't agree that kamma and sankharas are intention.

The perception and unpleasant feeling of people attacking my views and saying that I'm wrong when I believe I'm not puts my mind in anger mode which is unwholesome, my mind gets conditioned by that perception and feeling growing into hate and cruelty. This conditioning process is simply intention.

Short and agitated breathing conditions my body and allows me to kill animals and take things not supposed to be taken by me. This conditioning process is driven by intention.

Intentional thinking and pondering conditions my speech and allows me to lie, slander and being harsh to the ears of others. There's intention here, of course.

*C

Anyway screw you guys. I'll go make a pleasant abiding and you do whatever it is you do.

[Sasha_A]

It is not the first time i hear things along the line 'One ought not criticize NV if you haven't read all of his work'.

What Nanavira offers is not just a set of assertions and views. It is above all a phenomenological approach to the analysis of personal experience in order to construct a coherent model designed to resolve the well-known contradictions in the interpretation of certain aspects of the Dhamma concerning DO. Unfortunately, the most typical error inherent even in the highly respected and well-read of his venerable critics is precisely that they take statements from Nanavira's model separately from his model and approach, and try to consider them within the framework of their own model. To understand what Nanavira has written, one must first study and accept his point of view, his model, and only then try to criticize and find flaws in that model. Otherwise, what you get is not criticism, but a comparison of theses in the form of "Nanavira is wrong here, because he writes like this, whereas in the Visuddhimagga it says like this".

I've even heard that to make sense of his writings one should read Heidegger & Sartre first..

Some basic knowledge of phenomenology will be very helpful to those trying to read through his work. For example: "Introduction to Phenomenology" by ROBERT SOKOLOWSKI.

[Ceisiwr]

Venerable Nanavira also suffered from this. It’s seems not the case that he disagreed with the traditional view of dependent origination (traditional here meaning shared between all early traditions), but rather he doesn’t seem to have understood it.

You see, this is not the Super Bowl - it's not "our team against their team", it's truth against ignorance. It does not matter whether what ven. Nanavira said contradicts the views of some tradition or not, the only thing that really matters is whether a person knows for himself that certain views are true or not, whether these views are traditional or not. Until then, the only thing that can be said for certain is that "I don't know what is true and what is not." Any other answer will be nothing but the result of delusion and ignorance.

I don’t think you understood what I said. I’m not criticising him for disagreeing with tradition. I’m saying he doesn’t seem to have understood the traditional view at all. If you don’t understand something, you can’t really say you disagree with it.

[Ceisiwr]

Some basic knowledge of phenomenology will be very helpful to those trying to read through his work. For example: "Introduction to Phenomenology" by ROBERT SOKOLOWSKI.

Why do you need Western phenomenology to understand Dhamma? Doesn’t Dhamma stand on its own?

[Ceisiwr]

It is not the first time i hear things along the line 'One ought not criticize NV if you haven't read all of his work'.

What Nanavira offers is not just a set of assertions and views. It is above all a phenomenological approach to the analysis of personal experience in order to construct a coherent model designed to resolve the well-known contradictions in the interpretation of certain aspects of the Dhamma concerning DO. Unfortunately, the most typical error inherent even in the highly respected and well-read of his venerable critics is precisely that they take statements from Nanavira's model separately from his model and approach, and try to consider them within the framework of their own model. To understand what Nanavira has written, one must first study and accept his point of view, his model, and only then try to criticize and find flaws in that model. Otherwise, what you get is not criticism, but a comparison of theses in the form of "Nanavira is wrong here, because he writes like this, whereas in the Visuddhimagga it says like this".

That cuts both ways, no?

[Sasha_A]

Can you give an example of a wholesome and unwholesome action by one's perceptions and feelings, breathig, and by thinking and pondering?

The perception and unpleasant feeling of people attacking my views and saying that I'm wrong when I believe I'm not puts my mind in anger mode which is unwholesome, my mind gets conditioned by that perception and feeling growing into hate and cruelty. This conditioning process is simply intention.

So unpleasant feelings and perceptions are the reason behind the wrong actions, but not the one's ignorance? And only behind one kind of actions – actions by mind?

Short and agitated breathing conditions my body and allows me to kill animals and take things not supposed to be taken by me. This conditioning process is driven by intention.

So every time the one experiences agitation and shortening of breathing, the one is going on the kill spree? And again, are agitation and shortening of breath only affects body, but not mind or speech?

Intentional thinking and pondering conditions my speech and allows me to lie, slander and being harsh to the ears of others. There's intention here, of course.

And such thinking only results in such actions by speech, and not by body or by mind?

Are actions by body, speech, and mind out of currently experienced feelings the same thing as acting by the very perceptions and feelings, by breathing, or by thinking and pondering?

And what about responsibility? Can one be responsible for the arising, changing and ceasing of perceptions and feelings? Or is one responsible only for one's actions by body, speech and mind on the account of perceptions and feelings that already are present and being experienced, but not for the very arising of those perceptions and feelings?

[User13866]

It is not the first time i hear things along the line 'One ought not criticize NV if you haven't read all of his work'.

What Nanavira offers is not just a set of assertions and views. It is above all a phenomenological approach to the analysis of personal experience in order to construct a coherent model designed to resolve the well-known contradictions in the interpretation of certain aspects of the Dhamma concerning DO. Unfortunately, the most typical error inherent even in the highly respected and well-read of his venerable critics is precisely that they take statements from Nanavira's model separately from his model and approach, and try to consider them within the framework of their own model. To understand what Nanavira has written, one must first study and accept his point of view, his model, and only then try to criticize and find flaws in that model. Otherwise, what you get is not criticism, but a comparison of theses in the form of "Nanavira is wrong here, because he writes like this, whereas in the Visuddhimagga it says like this".

I've even heard that to make sense of his writings one should read Heidegger & Sartre first..

Some basic knowledge of phenomenology will be very helpful to those trying to read through his work. For example: "Introduction to Phenomenology" by ROBERT SOKOLOWSKI.

If you say it's context dependent then maybe don't quote him out of context?

I don't know what is phenomenology and i don't care, i don't have a minute to spare because i don't need this to understand the Dhamma.

There is simply no incentive for me to learn it because i do not consider his notes as something worth knowing & mastering.

Staying at Savatthi. "Monks, there once was a time when the Dasarahas had a large drum called 'Summoner.' Whenever Summoner was split, the Dasarahas inserted another peg in it, until the time came when Summoner's original wooden body had disappeared and only a conglomeration of pegs remained. [1]

"In the same way, in the course of the future there will be monks who won't listen when discourses that are words of the Tathagata — deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness — are being recited. They won't lend ear, won't set their hearts on knowing them, won't regard these teachings as worth grasping or mastering. But they will listen when discourses that are literary works — the works of poets, elegant in sound, elegant in rhetoric, the work of outsiders, words of disciples — are recited. They will lend ear and set their hearts on knowing them. They will regard these teachings as worth grasping & mastering.

"In this way the disappearance of the discourses that are words of the Tathagata — deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness — will come about.

"Thus you should train yourselves: 'We will listen when discourses that are words of the Tathagata — deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness — are being recited. We will lend ear, will set our hearts on knowing them, will regard these teachings as worth grasping & mastering.' That's how you should train yourselves."

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html

I don't care about whether he was or wasn't a sotapanna. It is entirely inconsequential to me.

When i learned the Dhamma i understood the doctrine pretty much immediately. I didn't need to read NV or have someone explain these controversies.

As i see it, apparently i had the perfect background to do so having i put in a lot of work. It's not like i came out of the womb like this...

[Sasha_A]

I don’t think you understood what I said. I’m not criticising him for disagreeing with tradition. I’m saying he doesn’t seem to have understood the traditional view at all. If you don’t understand something, you can’t really say you disagree with it.

Well, then you can just skip everything he says about tradition and focus only on his model itself. Because his explanations do not rely on a critique of tradition, but only on the suttas themselves. The mention of tradition is simply unavoidable, because most people begin their introduction to Buddhism with this or that traditional model, with its concepts and definitions, with dictionaries and translations based on the traditional interpretation, rather than with the Pali language as the mother tongue and the suttas in that language.

[Ceisiwr]

I don’t think you understood what I said. I’m not criticising him for disagreeing with tradition. I’m saying he doesn’t seem to have understood the traditional view at all. If you don’t understand something, you can’t really say you disagree with it.

Well, then you can just skip everything he says about tradition and focus only on his model itself. Because his explanations do not rely on a critique of tradition, but only on the suttas themselves. The mention of tradition is simply unavoidable, because most people begin their introduction to Buddhism with this or that traditional model, with its concepts and definitions, with dictionaries and translations based on the traditional interpretation, rather than with the Pali language as the mother tongue and the suttas in that language.

It’s not for me. I find some of what he writes to be interesting, but the salient points I find to be at variance with the suttas themselves. I don’t there is a translation issue either, since most translations are carried out by competent academics or those skilled in the language.

[User13866]

his harsh, rude and adhammic ways of posting

It may be tactless but it is also rightly explained which is a lot better than being politely wrong in my book.

One day i will eradicate these unwholesome tendencies and only Dhamma will remain but until then it is what it is...

I am not here to make friends or to impress you.

Most people in this conversation i wouldn't even get close to irl. As a matter of fact i would very much avoid these people because i think they might beat me up or worse.

It is straight dangerous and i only talk against them online because they can't physically harm me. I would just keep quiet irl.

[Sasha_A]

Why do you need Western phenomenology to understand Dhamma? Doesn’t Dhamma stand on its own?

Phenomenology as an approach to the study of experience cannot be Western or Eastern, the different kinds of classifications based on and within that approach, the set of terms and concepts, their names - yes, will differ according to culture, language and other local contexts, but not the approach itself.

Each of us already has a certain approach to the study of experience from childhood, and in the vast majority of cases it is some form of materialism.

Phenomenology or materialism are just names, labels.

So why do you think you can understand Dhamma by applying your modern Western materialism to it?