Atthakavagga, Formless, Consciousness and Namarupa

[Pulsar]

Atthakavagga clarifies the original meaning of the word formless as the founder intended. A sutta which was studied by honest monks during Buddha's lifetime.

• What did Buddha mean by formless?

If we misinterpret the original meaning of what is in the canon (I can point out several instances of such) do these suttas still qualify?

• Niddesa misinterpreted "without form" in Sn 4.11 with endless negative repercussions.

Also the Pali canon states:

• There is no consciousness without namarupa, There is no namarupa without consciousness and consciousness is always consciousness of the 6 sense bases.

How do the good people on the forum understand this?
Does the Arahant have the consciousness of the 6 sense bases? If so, then the Arahant would be still subject to craving. This is an oxymoron.
In other words, does the awareness of the Arahant undergo Salayatana?
Does the Arahant's consciousness which is unlike the consciousness of the ordinary (puthujjana) still give rise to sorrow/discontent/death?
Does the deathless Arahant die? If so, what is the point of the teaching?
With love

[Ceisiwr]

Atthakavagga clarifies the original meaning of the word formless as the founder intended. A sutta which was studied by honest monks during Buddha's lifetime.

• What did Buddha mean by formless?

If we misinterpret the original meaning of what is in the canon (I can point out several instances of such) do these suttas still qualify?

• Niddesa misinterpreted "without form" in Sn 4.11 with endless negative repercussions.

Also the Pali canon states:

• There is no consciousness without namarupa, There is no namarupa without consciousness and consciousness is always consciousness of the 6 sense bases.

How do the good people on the forum understand this?
Does the Arahant have the consciousness of the 6 sense bases? If so, then the Arahant would be still subject to craving. This is an oxymoron.
In other words, does the awareness of the Arahant undergo Salayatana?
Does the Arahant's consciousness which is unlike the consciousness of the ordinary (puthujjana) still give rise to sorrow/discontent/death?
Does the deathless Arahant die? If so, what is the point of the teaching?
With love

In the suttas entry into the formless attainments is by way of not perceiving form, so within the attainment there is only name & consciousness. This then corresponds with the realm that said person enters into at death. A realm of purely immaterial dhammas. As such the formless realms aren't located anywhere, and there is no concept of time within them. From a certain point of view the Arahant still has sense experiences, but from another point of view there is no sense experience to speak of. An Arahant has perfect vision of these two aspects. So, Arahants do die but also there is no death nor Arahant to speak of.

[Pulsar]

Ceisiwr wrote

In the suttas entry into the formless attainments is by way of not perceiving form, so within the attainment there is only name & consciousness.

When you say "within the attainment" what attainment are you referring to? once form is done away with (no more), does name (i.e. identification) and consciousness (i.e. consciousness based on the 6 sense bases? still arise?
if you think the way you do, your thinking is muddled? You are trying to understand Dependent Origination in two different ways. i.e. according to Buddha and according to Abhidhamma classification, which does not treat form of nama-rupa as strictly mental, contradicting early suttas in Samyutta Nikaya. On another thread I asked you "How does consciousness grow?" you never replied that.
Let me repeat How does consciousness grow?
How do forms appear in the mind (forms due to 6 different consciousnesses)?
Without a fundamental understanding of the above, you toss in baseless claims, which muddle the good people on the forum.
Once you respond to the above, I will address the other stuff you raise, which appear to be nonsense, stuff such as

Arahant still has sense experiences,
but from another point of view there is no sense experience to speak of

It is clear here that you are clueless about Salayatana. You are saying Salayatana is true, but also not true. This is not Buddha's teaching.
You also wrote:

Arahants do die but also there is no death nor Arahant to speak of.

If there is no Arahant to speak of, meaning the Arahant is inconceivable to the puthujjana, how can the dull-witted puthujjana speculate about something inconceivable?
With love

[mjaviem]

In formless there's still mental-base viññana. In formless there's still vedana due to mind contacts.

There's no viññana of any kind nor arising of viññana of any kind for the arahant. Only Nibbana for the Arahant. Cessation of viññana. No suffering nor arising of suffering. Death is ended, vanished, swept by the wind, solved, trascended, escaped, not possible. There are no sense nor mental experiences for the Arahant. There's no arising experience of any kind for them. That's the whole point of Arahantship. Extinguishment.

[Ceisiwr]

When you say "within the attainment" what attainment are you referring to? once form is done away with (no more), does name (i.e. identification) and consciousness (i.e. consciousness based on the 6 sense bases? still arise?

The attainments of Infinite Space etc. There a conciousness arises, but it does so without form.

if you think the way you do, your thinking is muddled? You are trying to understand Dependent Origination in two different ways. i.e. according to Buddha and according to Abhidhamma classification, which does not treat form of nama-rupa as strictly mental, contradicting early suttas in Samyutta Nikaya. On another thread I asked you "How does consciousness grow?" you never replied that.
Let me repeat How does consciousness grow?

Via craving.

How do forms appear in the mind (forms due to 6 different consciousnesses)?
Without a fundamental understanding of the above, you toss in baseless claims, which muddle the good people on the forum.

Via conceptualising (sañjānāti)

It is clear here that you are clueless about Salayatana. You are saying Salayatana is true, but also not true. This is not Buddha's teaching.
You also wrote:

From a certain point of view the Buddha walked around, ate food and taught Dhamma. From another point of view we can't speak of a Buddha at all, as a Buddha can't be pinned down. The same with the aggregates, sense-spheres and elements.

Just as the Victors say "I"
And "mine" for a useful purpose,
So they speak of "skandhas "āyatanas"
And "dhātus" for a useful purpose."

- Yuktiṣaṣṭikā

If there is no Arahant to speak of, meaning the Arahant is inconceivable to the puthujjana, how can the dull-witted puthujjana speculate about something inconceivable?

In the same way you speculate about the nature of the Arahant and nibbāna. We are both speculating here, unless you wish to declare a level of awakening?

[Pulsar]

Ceisiwr wrote

The attainments of Infinite Space etc. There a conciousness arises, but it does so without form.

These are later teachings associated with Arupa samapatthis
which prevailed in India before the Buddha awakened. Unfortunately some sutta compilers of later schools, who could not understand Buddha's awakening, imported these non-buddhist taechings into the canon. And so much of this understanding crept into the Scholastics of Vibajjavadins, based on which many later suttas were written.
Your claim says

a conciousness arises, but it does so without form.

This makes a farce of the statement

Also the Pali canon states:
There is no consciousness without namarupa, There is no namarupa without consciousness and consciousness is always consciousness of the 6 sense bases.

How can Sense consiosnesss arise without a form? based on Buddha's teaching? Can you explain? If it did, it would make a mockery of a majority of very early suttas, written by the diligent monks before the Vibajjavadin split? It would make all the teachings of Salayatana Samyutta nonsense, plus the many suttas in Ditthi Samyutta, Nidana Samyutta, and Khanda Samyutta.
With love

[mjaviem]

I think an arupa existence has the mind base only. There's still contact between mind base and mind objects cognizable by the mind. Only that rupa here has a mental aspect only. An eye wouldn't catch visible form, an ear wouldn't catch audible form, hands wouldn't catch palpable form, a nose wouldn't catch it smell, nor the tongue its flavor. But the mind does catch the mental form. There's still viññana of the mental kind, born of mental contact. There's still vedana born of mental contact. There's still nama-rupa. An arupa existence means not having a body nor material possesions. But there must still be forms cognizable by the mind while not by the other five senses.

What do you think?

[mjaviem]

But if so, this would imply this mental forms are seen correctly and not subject to clinging. It's cessation must be discerned. Those devas must be disenchanted with form and must have understood form if not the other agregates.

[mjaviem]

But if understood correctly there wouldn't be viññana of this mental form.

I'm entering a loop of confusion and ignorance. I better leave it here

[Ceisiwr]

These are later teachings associated with Arupa samapatthis
which prevailed in India before the Buddha awakened. Unfortunately some sutta compilers of later schools, who could not understand Buddha's awakening, imported these non-buddhist taechings into the canon. And so much of this understanding crept into the Scholastics of Vibajjavadins, based on which many later suttas were written.

The formless attainments do pre-date the Buddha, yes. Everyone acknowledges that. The Jhānas also pre-date the Buddha. Within those attainments a consciousness arises without reference to physicality/matter. Based on mind and mind-objects, consciousness arises.

Your claim says:

"a conciousness arises, but it does so without form."

This makes a farce of the statement

How is it a farce? The consciousness that arises at the mind base arises not based on physical dhammas but mental ones only.

How can Sense consiosnesss arise without a form? based on Buddha's teaching? Can you explain? If it did, it would make a mockery of a majority of very early suttas, written by the diligent monks before the Vibajjavadin split? It would make all the teachings of Salayatana Samyutta nonsense, plus the many suttas in Ditthi Samyutta, Nidana Samyutta, and Khanda Samyutta.

Because the mind is its own sense organ in the Indian traditions, of which Buddhism is one. Over and over again the Buddha said that based on the mind and mind objects, a mental consciousness arises.

[Ceisiwr]

I think an arupa existence has the mind base only. There's still contact between mind base and mind objects cognizable by the mind. Only that rupa here has a mental aspect only. An eye wouldn't catch visible form, an ear wouldn't catch audible form, hands wouldn't catch palpable form, a nose wouldn't catch it smell, nor the tongue its flavor. But the mind does catch the mental form. There's still viññana of the mental kind, born of mental contact. There's still vedana born of mental contact. There's still nama-rupa. An arupa existence means not having a body nor material possesions. But there must still be forms cognizable by the mind while not by the other five senses.

What do you think?

In the formless realms themselves there is no nāmarūpa, only nāma. Forms aren't cognised there, mental or otherwise.

[mjaviem]

In the formless realms themselves there is no nāmarūpa, only nāma. Forms aren't cognised there, mental or otherwise.

Yet, the formulation of DO we find in the suttas always mentions nãma-rūpa. We know the formless existence is dukkha. So, it seems we lack a formulation of the arising of dukkha in the formless...

[Ceisiwr]

In the formless realms themselves there is no nāmarūpa, only nāma. Forms aren't cognised there, mental or otherwise.

Yet, the formulation of DO we find in the suttas always mentions nãma-rūpa. We know the formless existence is dukkha. So, it seems we lack a formulation of the arising of dukkha in the formless...

When the Buddha was teaching the 12-links he was teaching humans. Dukkha would be there in the formless because existence there is based on a condition, namely intention. Like the meditation on earth, it’s not sustainable forever.

[Pulsar]

Ceisiwr wrote

The Jhānas also pre-date the Buddha.

Do you mean the Samma Samadhi of the 8-fold path, which is also called jhanas.
Are you saying the 8-fold path predated the Buddha?
With love

[Ceisiwr]

Ceisiwr wrote

The Jhānas also pre-date the Buddha.

Do you mean the Samma Samadhi of the 8-fold path, which is also called jhanas.
Are you saying the 8-fold path predated the Buddha?
With love

No, but Jhāna did just like people were mindful or had energy to maintain wholesome states and abandon bad ones before the Buddha. Right Samādhi means it’s supported by the other aspects of the path, in this case particularly Right View. In other words what makes Jhāna right or wrong is not the experience but in how it’s used/seen. Wrong Samādhi is to take Jhāna as the goal, as being nibbāna or union with some Self or both. Right Samādhi is in not doing that, in seeing the dukkha and emptiness of Jhāna itself.