A Personal Reflection & an Existential Approach to the Dhamma

[ssasny]

It would seem to me that what is vastly more important that knowing if things 'in the world' are real or not is understanding this grasping ('taking up') and constant mine/not-mine/could-be-mine chatter that occurs in the mind.

Pondering the true nature of objects seems akin to Nanavira's complaint about one who tries to, "regard sakkāya from the outside and form ditthi about it or not"

[Ceisiwr]

It would seem to me that what is vastly more important that knowing if things 'in the world' are real or not is understanding this grasping ('taking up') and constant mine/not-mine chatter that occurs in the mind.

Rather than making emptiness as some ultimate, where everything is absolutely unreal, it’s about undoing the tendency towards seeing things in terms of real or unreal, existence and non-existence. When dependency is seen then real or unreal do not apply. Samsara and nibbana would also no longer apply either.

[Ceisiwr]

Pondering the true nature of objects seems akin to Nanavira's complaint about one who tries to, "regard sakkāya from the outside and form ditthi about it or not"

We are to ponder the nature of things in terms of the concepts of impermanent, dukkha and insubstantial.

[ssasny]

We are to ponder the nature of things in terms of the concepts of impermanent, dukkha and insubstantial.

Yes, I think so.

"that suffering has nothing to do with a tree's self-identity (or supposed lack of self-identity): what it does have to do with is my 'self' as subject (I, ego), which is quite another matter.." NV

Although the concept of 'insubstantial' might need to be qualified.
"anattā is purely concerned with "self" as subject'" NV

Since all things are 'for me', I need to understand them 'through me'.

[Ceisiwr]

We are to ponder the nature of things in terms of the concepts of impermanent, dukkha and insubstantial.

Yes, I think so.

"that suffering has nothing to do with a tree's self-identity (or supposed lack of self-identity): what it does have to do with is my 'self' as subject (I, ego), which is quite another matter.." NV

Although the concept of 'insubstantial' might need to be qualified.
"anattā is purely concerned with "self" as subject'" NV

Since all things are 'for me', I need to understand them 'through me'.

What is true of the atta is also true of the tree. If you think there really is a tree there then that’s the same tendency that makes one think there really is an atta. The tree arises dependently, relative to other dhammas. Like long or short, it can’t be established as real. Dependent, rather independent. Emptiness means no substance.

[ssasny]

Perhaps so.

But then we are in attā ca loko ca territory once again.

For the wordling, knowledge of the tree is entirely ‘in subjection, appropriated.’

The one ‘accomplished in view’ begins to see through this.

[Ceisiwr]

Perhaps so.

But then we are in attā ca loko ca territory once again.

That comes with thinking the self and the tree is real, yes.

[ssasny]

It comes from thinking the tree is ‘outside subjection’, available to me apart from my self-view.

But I cannot step outside this just by thinking about it.

The problem, as I see it, is not figuring out if the tree is real, or ‘empty’, but rather seeing the tree as something which is not myself.

[Ceisiwr]

It comes from thinking the tree is ‘outside subjection’, available to me apart from my self-view.

But I cannot step outside this just by thinking about it.

By thinking it is independent. Of course just thinking about it only gets you so far. Insight into dependent origination is needed.

[Ceisiwr]

The problem, as I see it, is not figuring out if the tree is real, or ‘empty’, but rather seeing the tree as something which is not myself.

We aren’t to see that trees etc are empty?

[ssasny]

I’m not really sure what the statement ‘trees are empty’ means, but I don’t think the dhamma is overly concerned with the ‘nature’ of trees.

[Ceisiwr]

I’m not really sure what the statement ‘trees are empty’ means, but I don’t think the dhamma is overly concerned with the ‘nature’ of trees.

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

Trees are insubstantial, empty.

[ssasny]

It seems at this point we are talking past one another.

I’ve never thought of a tree as having a ‘self’, but have heard of people who talk to trees, and read about playing music for plants, if this is what you mean.

[Ceisiwr]

It seems at this point we are talking past one another.

I’ve never thought of a tree as having a ‘self’, but have heard of people who talk to trees, and read about playing music for plants, if this is what you mean.

Giving the tree a substantial nature, independence, reality is to give it an atta. The tree then wouldn’t simply stand relative to something else. There would be something substantial and enduring to it. An essence that makes the tree a tree, independent from the concept of it. Thinking a tree is real, out there, comes from thinking the self is real. That the concept “I am” has something substantial to it, independence, reality. All of it is from the asava and the tendency to reify.

[dicsoncandra]

Do you think you are real?

From the conversation that follows, it seems to me that you have taken the word ‘real’ to have a very particular technical significance that is inseparable from the idea of an independent entity or atta - and it is this that you are dismissing, which is missing the whole point of what I have attempted to elucidate. I shall expand below.

We can't say things are real, because that is absurd, but neither can we totally negate things since there is an experience. Neither real nor unreal, or anything in-between. When we experience an illusion in everyday life we say it is unreal, because it doesn't correspond to what we consider to be real, but there is no denying the experience itself. If we do away with notions of what is real, there is just an illusion that is neither real nor unreal. So from one perspective there is a letting go, but from another we can't establish a letting go at all. With emptiness we can have a path, views and letting go. When something is posited as being real, we can have none of that, for nothing would change. So, if you think these things are real then it is you who can't speak of letting go, everything or views. On the world, it is due to concepts there is a world because it is concepts which designates and orders things, relative to this or that. Without concepts, we couldn't speak of a world at all. There would be no experience of a world at all.

Time and again have I disagreed with your notion of ‘conventional vs ultimate’, which is now manifesting into this conversation about ‘real’. There being an experience which you have admitted I designate as ‘real’, and experience is there with its causes and conditions - here you can see how the notion of ‘real’ having to do with independence is manifestly in contradiction with your lived reality (that is real ‘as such’).

I said: “In what sense is Nibbāna beyond all words? Only in the sense that it is to be known individually by the wise - this is the context. Otherwise words do suffice to describe Nibbāna i.e. cessation of greed, aversion, delusion, etc. where Nibbāna is usually described in the negative.

The point of view that you exemplify is precisely the context and they are in each case true. There is no justification to dismiss it as false or not really true in its appropriate context.”

You said: “Words are formed. Nibbāna is beyond all conditioned things.

“There is that sphere, monks, where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no air, no sphere of infinite space, no sphere of infinite consciousness, no sphere of nothingness, no sphere of neither perception nor non-perception, no this world, no world beyond, neither Moon nor Sun. There, monks, I say there is surely no coming, no going, no persisting, no passing away, no rebirth It is quite without support, unmoving, without an object,—just this is the end of suffering.” - Ud 8.1

When you see dependent origination, you see the absence of substance in all things. You see that nothing can be established as real, because they arise and cease dependently, but nothing can be established as unreal because they arise and cease dependently. To see dependent origination then is to see nibbāna. To see arising and ceasing is to see no arising, no ceasing, no coming nor going. No earth, no fire, world and so on. Since dependent origination stands in relation to nibbāna, and nibbāna stands in relation to dependent origination, even those concepts cease to apply for the Arahant. Real doesn't apply. Unreal doesn't apply. Concepts do not apply.”

Try addressing this: “The point of view that you exemplify is precisely the context and they are in each case true. There is no justification to dismiss it as false or not really true in its appropriate context.” (emphasis added)

You can say transcend instead of abolish. I don't see it making a difference. Because dependent origination is a view it is formed, and so is too eventually let go of. This is to see neither a near shore nor a far shore. To set out though, we have the concept of a near and far shore even if, in the end, they do not apply.

You said: “To set out though, we have the concept of a near and far shore even if, in the end, they do not apply.” - isn’t this equivalent to saying that to set out it applies but when it’s accomplished i.e. transcended (and only on this condition or context) it ‘no longer applies’? Thus, how can you justify this statement: “This is to see neither a near shore nor a far shore.”

Worldly people perceive things as "me or mine" because of the āsavā, which is the tendency towards rarefication and sensual pleasure. I disagree with Samanera Bodhesako, as there are places where the self is denied. What is the self which is being denied? A truly existing self (sakkāya), a substantial self, an essence. What remains? A concept only, which is why the Buddha could still say things like "I am old".

We have disagreed on the definition of atta, which has implication on the understanding of sakkāya and what follows.

I said: “The ‘is’ of experience is the a priori for your very act of questioning.”

You said: “I don't deny experience, I just don't assent to any reality to it apart from it's convention. The emphasis you gave implies you think experience is real, substantial.”

Your assent of it as real or unreal is already dependent on experience being there enduring given its causes and conditions and independent of your opinion of it - experience is real ‘as such’. ‘Given its causes and conditions’ establishes experience ‘as such’ - otherwise, what would the words ‘causes’ and ‘conditions’ even mean?

Dependent upon consciousness, feeling, form and intentions there is perception. Perception applies the signs, which is to say conceptualising "a rock, a tree" or even "aggregates". Perception however stands in relation to consciousness, feeling, form and intention. It's relative to them, and so can't be established anymore than those dhammas can.
Conventionally sañña arises and labels, but as its dependently arisen ultimately it can't be established either.

How does “as its dependently arisen” equate to “ultimately it can’t be established either” (as what follows). It is precisely because it is dependently arisen that it gets established at all - it arises, disappears and endures along with its causes and conditions. The signs are discerned through perception, in the sphere of understanding that the Buddha calls paññā - this is coherent with the Sutta I have quoted and where the article on paññā written by Ven. Akiñcano is relevant.

Sañña and the other aggregates are terms we have learnt. Becoming Buddhists we apply them to experience but only as a means to let go, rather than making them into real things. Into what reality actually is.

There are irredeemable circularities and incoherencies in what you have written. Perception is a constituent of experience (that is real ‘as such’) - the ‘whole’ of experience is first ‘given’ and through (or ‘within’) perception the signs get discerned.

Māyā does predate Buddhism, being present in the Vedas, but there, from what I have read, it doesn't mean "illusion". It starts to take on that meaning in the Upanishads. By the time we get to Vedantins like Gauḍapāda and Ādi Śaṅkarācārya, the influence is of Buddhism on them. In fact Ādi Śaṅkarācārya was sometimes called a crypto-Buddhist by other Vedantins. In the suttas we are told there are aggregates, but we are also told that the world is unreal, that conditioned things are false and that nibbāna, the absence or arising etc, is the highest truth. Only by accepting the Two Truths can we make sense of this, IMO. The problem in arguing that the Buddha thought things were real is that it would have committed him to the same metaphysics as the Jains et al. Personally I think he was moving in the opposite direction, away from the philosophical theories in vogue at the time.

Emphasis added:
“Thought and lust are a man’s sensuality,
Not the various things in the world;
Thought and lust are a man’s sensuality,
The various things just stand there in the world;
But the wise get rid of desire therein.
(A.VI,63/iii,411)”

Indeed, and so the 4 great elements are part of nāma-rūpa thus making them dhammas. On the sutta passage you allude to, I have already said that I don't agree with your interpretation. I read that as being liberation via Infinite Space. The name & form there clearly refers to external sense objects, but name & form can also mean ones mentality and physical body. What it means depends on the context.

The lack of context does not justify the particular context that you are suggesting. If anything, it suggests generality. This is the case with the term “sankhāra” where in the particular context it refers to the three determinations (i.e. body, speech, mind) while without this particular context it is understood as ‘conditions’ in the general sense as what I have quoted from Ven. Bodhesako.

I don't deny a world of kamma, moral action and rebirth, I just deny its substantial nature. The materialist denies all three, because they accept the world has a substantial nature. In this case, matter is the only substance. Your charges of nihilism against me do not apply.

What do you mean by ‘its substantial nature’ and what are you implying by denying it?

There is an experience of a clock. If the clock is really there or not is to engage with speculative metaphysics. I'm refusing to do that, whilst you have gone down that rabbit hole. One which leads to absurdities, absurdities that come with claiming that things really exist.

Experience of a ‘what’? If a ‘what’ is really there or not? What is absurd is to deny what you have already accepted. Perhaps you can see a parallel here to better understand your own position:

229
Both theist and atheist accept the laws of common sense, now known as the laws of science, as certainly true, as not admitting of exceptions. The theist, however, admits that exceptions to these laws do occur, and he calls these exceptions ‘God’. God, thus, both does not exist, since exceptions to these laws cannot occur, and does exist, since exceptions to these laws do in fact occur. God is a logical contradiction. The atheist, on the other hand, will not admit that such exceptions occur, and asserts that God does not exist, that there is no God. It might be thought that he has resolved this logical contradiction by his denial of the attribute of existence to God. But no. Since, in fact, exceptions to these laws of common sense or science do occur, the atheist is in effect saying, ‘These laws do not admit of exceptions; but exceptions to them do occur, and this is God; but these exceptions that do occur do not occur, and God, who both does not exist and does exist, does not exist.’ The atheist, thus, accepts the theist’s God before denying him, and is even more deeply in contradiction than the theist.

230
The laws of common sense, however, are no more than probably true: the laws of science are laws of statistical probability, obtained by induction. That exceptions to them should occur is nothing wonderful, and far less an occasion for inventing God.