Agent, agency, attention, intention, eating, digestion

Abhidhamma
1

Question: There seems to be the assumption there that the idea of being able to place attention is somehow mistaken. How would one know this? Attention moves. Are we moving it, or is something else moving it?

We can certainly place attention here or there. But as your questions indicate this needs to be analysed.
The Abhidhamma holds that there is absolutely no self, there are only conditioned and conditioning elements. “We”, “self”, “agent” are only concepts with no reality. There is of course nothing wrong with concepts.
The issue is that is that we instinctively hold these concepts as having characteristics that they don’t possess: We think they have actual existence. This wrong perception goes far deeper than language, culture or education - it is what drives samsara.
Thus when placing attention somewhere - or indeed doing any action- underlying the action is often the view that at some level believes “I am doing” so, or merely instinctive activity rooted in ignorance of the nature of actual reality.
In fact there are many different conditioned realities that are present when placing attention and the teachings are the necessary guide to help us understand this.

As an example the Satipatthana sutta commentary explains the action of looking:

Within, it is said, there certainly is no self or soul which looks straight on or looks away from the front. Still, at the arising of the thought ‘I shall look straight on,’ and
with that thought the process of oscillation (vayo dhatu) originating from mind, [citta samutthana] bringing into being bodily expression [viññatti] arises. Thus owing to the diffusion of the process of oscillation born of mental activity, the lower eyelid goes down and the upper eyelid goes up. Surely there is no one who opens with a contrivance.
Thereupon, eye-consciousness arises fulfilling the function of sight, it is said. Clear comprehension of this kind here is indeed called the clear comprehension of non-delusion. Further, clear comprehension of nondelusion should be also understood, here, through accurate knowledge of the root, through the casual state and through the temporary state

Visuddhimagga
The absence of interestedness on the part of ignorance, such as ‘Formations [sankhara ] must be made to occur by me, or on the part of formations, such as ‘vinnana
must be made to occur by us’. One who sees this rightly abandons self view by understanding the absence of a maker. xvii 312

Cariyapitaka atthakatthaa, translated by Bhikhu Bodhi (p. 271 ) in Net of Views.

…And: 'When there is patience, the mind becomes concentrated, all formations appear to reflection as impermanent and suffering; all dhammas as not-self, nibbana as unconditioned, deathless, peaceful, and sublime, and the Buddha-qualities as endowed with inconceivable and immeasurable potency. Then established in acquiescence in conformity, the groundlessness of all ‘I-making’ and ‘mine-making’ becomes evident to reflection thus: ‘Mere dhammas alone exist, devoid of self or of anything pertaining to a self. They arise and pass away in accordance with their conditions. They do not come from anywhere, they do not go anywhere, they are not established anywhere. There is no agency in anything whatsoever.’.

This understanding, while still only at the intellectual level, helps to dispel wrong view at the gross level and that is a prerequisite for deeper understanding, as I understand the way.

2

Question: The claim that agency is a mere concept with no reality puzzles me. Whereas other things known to be concepts do not change the world, agency is by definition something which effects a change in the world.

.

Question: “Process of oscillation” and “opens with a contrivance” are a bit beyond me, and probably need more background reading on my part. In general, they look as if they are making a metaphysical assertion. My “objection”, if such it is, is why we should jettison a common-sense notion in order to accommodate an assertion that we only aspire to know the truth of.

Robert: it becomes more than a mere assertion when we look closely at what is said there. The Patthana (7th book of the Abhidhamma) is extraordinarily detailed and gives the conditions for different realities. These really do pertain to life as it is - we get a clear handle on what the khandhas are.

**Guide to Conditional Relations (**Narada, Pali Text Society): If one considers the teaching of Abhidhamma starting with Dhammasangani, and ending with Patthana, it will be seen that aggregates, bases, elements and so on are expounded in them. This shows that the realities, with which Abhidhamma deals, consist of aggregates, bases and elements that behave according to their own natures and, therefore, are not dependent on one’s wishes. In other words, the realities behave according to the principle of anatta. (xii, Preface)

3

Agency is sometimes used in translations of the Commentaries. By saying there is no agency in the context used it means there is no self - anatta.
But there are certainly mental factors including intention and effort.

Question: One issue here that is probably irresolvable is exactly how that intention and effort differs from other causal factors which can give rise to identical events. If I formulate the intention and make an effort to sit down, for example, how does abhidhamma explain the difference between that and being made to sit against my will or just collapsing? I know that there are supposed to be these long and complicated chains of mental events in abhidhammic accounts. Where does intention fit it?

I think it’s not irresolvable, but it is complex.
Quoting again from the satipatthana sutta commentary:

Within, it is said, there certainly is no self or soul which looks straight on or looks away from the front. Still, at the arising of the thought “I shall look straight on,” and with that thought the process of oscillation (vayo dhatu) originating from mind, [citta samutthana] bringing into being bodily expression [viññatti] arises. Thus owing to the diffusion of the process of oscillation born of mental activity [cittakiriyavayodhatu vipphara], the lower eyelid goes down and the upper eyelid goes up.

And similar processes occur when sitting down. The thought "I will sit down’ (even if it is not expressed in a clear verbal way) occurs. And this thought has intention associated with it -and also viriya.

In the case of the other examples you give there must still be sense door and mind door processes. Intention (cetana) and effort (viriya) come in many degrees. So viriya may be very slight at times and stronger at others - it arises with both akusala and kusala. Cetana cetasika may not be obvious at all. While collapsing there wasn’t a thought “I will collapse now” but there might, for example, be very brief moments of ‘intention’ to try to fall in a way that minimizes pain.

4

Question: Here’s another way of considering what I am getting at. Let’s imagine a process like eating a burger and digesting it. The first part - reaching out and taking and eating the burger - involves a very complicated chain of causally-related events. Knowing virtually nothing about Abhidhamma, I’ll refrain from attempting the sequence, but I imagine it would involve sense-contact at the various sense doors, some kind of feeling like pleasurable anticipation, some kind of recognition of what the object is, and what it consists of, and some kind of effort, to extend the hand and chew, etc. The important bit in the context is that it would also involve intention, cetana. (Many would say that’s what makes burger-eating kamically significant). One would need to intend to reach out for it, chew, swallow, and even have the intention to enjoy the process. Otherwise there would be no meal, just the sensations of sitting there in front of it.

Now fast-forward ten minutes. (Five, if you’ve wolfed it down!). There are still some complicated causal chains going on. Enzymes are working, hormones are being secreted, peristalsis is working away, and the burger is turning into something less appetising were we to revisit it. But now, there is no intention. All those causal processes are automatic, involuntary. Your digestion of food is kamically neutral. If intention is anywhere, it has gone off to deal with credit cards and waiters or the next day-dream.

So is the difference here just the fact that intention is another “experience” that occurs at some points but not at others? There is a clear difference between eating and digesting in that when eating, intention makes things happen, whereas when digesting, things happen in its absence. It is a necessary condition for some things, but not for others.

So if there is just one great big inconceivably complicated process without any agency whatsoever (there’s no “me” doing it, or mysterious “attan” doing it, or God doing it) where does this extra factor come from? Is it present in every change - including digestion and purely physical processes - but we just don’t happen to notice it? Or if things can happen without it, why doesn’t everything happen without it?*

Robert: As you well explain there are differences between the processes involved in digestion and the act of eating a hamburger.
There is always cetana involved when we eat, and it is also conditioned by various other elements. Sometimes we able to resist the various pulls like “pleasurable anticipation” and other times not. But without the teaching of the Buddha it is assumed to be “me” who either succeeds in resisting or who gives into the desire.
The Bhikkhus are supposed to reflect that food is only a medicine to keep this body going.

Reflecting wisely, he uses almsfood neither for amusement nor for intoxication nor for the sake of physical beauty and attractiveness, but only for the endurance and continuance of this body, for ending discomfort, and for assisting the holy life, considering: ‘Thus I shall terminate old feelings without arousing new feelings and I shall be healthy and blameless and shall live in comfort. MN 2 Bodhi

Digestion on the other hand is about heat and is primarily due to kamma.

What, bhikkhu, is the fire element? The fire element may be either internal or external. What is the internal fire element? Whatever internally, belonging to oneself, is fire, fiery, and clung-to, that is, that by which one is warmed, ages, and is consumed, and that by which what is eaten, drunk, consumed, and tasted gets completely digested, or whatever else internally, belonging to oneself, is fire, fiery, and clung-to: this is called the internal fire element. Now both the internal fire element and the external fire element are simply fire element. Majjhima nikya 140

https://suttacentral.net/mn140/en/bodhi … ight=false
And it says :

and that should be seen as it actually is with proper wisdom thus: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.’ When one sees it thus as it actually is with proper wisdom, one becomes disenchanted with the fire element and makes the mind dispassionate towards the fire element.

Visuddhimagga XI 36. Fire (tejo) [is definable] as heating (tejana). The fiery (tejo-gata) is what is
gone (gata), in the way already described, among the kinds of fire (tejo). What is
that? It is what has the characteristic of heat. Whereby: by means of which the fire
element, when excited, this body is warmed, becomes heated by the state of oneday fever,23 and so on. Ages: whereby this body grows old, reaches the decline ofthe faculties, loss of strength, wrinkles, grayness, and so on. Burns up: whereby,
when excited, it causes this body to burn, and the person cries out, “I am burning,
I am burning!” and longs for ghee a hundred times washed and for gosìsa
sandalwood ointment, etc., and for the breeze of a fan. And whereby what is eaten,
drunk, chewed and tasted gets completely digested: whereby the boiled rice, etc., that
is eaten, or the beverage, etc., that is drunk, or the hard food consisting of flour
biscuits, etc., that is chewed, the mango fruit, honey, molasses, etc., that is tasted, gets
completely cooked; gets its juice, etc., extracted, is the meaning. And here the first
three kinds of fire element [that is to say, “is warmed,” “ages,” and “burns up”] are
of fourfold origination (XX.27ff.), while the last is only kamma-originated.

Of course there are complexities and ahara , nutrition, plays its role as well.
If - due to desire - there is overeating then the digestion process won’t cope well. And there are differences between people - some due to kamma have better digestion than others- or eating the wrong kind of food.
From https://www.wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book … c2652.html

There are four origination factors, samuṭṭhāna, which cause the arising of rupas, namely: kamma, citta, temperature (utu) and nutrition (āhāra).
Rupas which originate from kamma are called kammaja rupas
Rupas which originate from citta are called cittaja rupas
Rupas which originate from temperature are called utuja rupas
Rupas which originate from nutrition are called āhāraja rupas

In the ultimate sense whether overeating, eating carefully, eating as the bhikkhus do only to keep the body going, with excellent digestion or not, it is anatta and has causes and conditions.

Note: it is important to understand that cetana as in the famous saying:“Intention (cetanā), I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, and mind.” refers to kamma made in the present .
But kamma that produces materiality is due to kamma made in the past. It is like the eyebase now - that is produced by kamma made in a past life.

5

Question: OK, you seem to be saying that there are complex causal chains which give rise to what there is in the present moment. And some of those chains are purely physical or chemical and “impersonal” in the ordinary sense of the term. Digestion, dust-storms on Mars, vegetation rotting in mangrove swamps, etc., etc. But a small sub-set of those causal chains involve human intention - cetana.

_________
Robert: Pretty much. Although it is worth noting that among the examples you give digestion, although not having the mental factor of cetana as it is a physical process, is nevertheless a process that has its source in past kamma.

Question: Now, you would doubtless argue that such chains are equally “impersonal”, in the sense that there is no attan or self which has aseity and which mysteriously causes these intentions without antecedent conditions. That’s fine. But isn’t there something special about such intentions which no other dhammas within any other causal chains partake of? Do they not present themselves to us in a radically different manner from the digestion, dust-storms, decay, etc. which explains everything else in the universe?

Robert: Yes indeed there are differences.
The doctrine of anatta doesn’t reduce humans to being the equivalent of a robot. Robots have no mentality, no cetana, no vedana, no consciousness - they are purely physical.
What we call a human is a complex continuity of the 5 khandhas. The khandhas arise and pass away but by conditions there is continual replacement of the khandhas. There is momentary death - khanika marana - and this is the death that is happening right now but that we are usually unaware of.
So there is continuity- it is not that this moment is unrelated to the preceding one. Like a movie- many frames that seem to join together- one alone makes little sense.

And at the same time it is continuity that deceives us into this idea we have of things that last: "When continuity is disrupted by discerning rise and fall, the
characteristic of impermanence becomes apparent in its true nature."
(Visuddhimagga xxi4)

Question: One way of seeing this is to ask by what means do we come to know those other dhammas. They can be known by the five senses. But when we intend something, the intention presents itself to us in a very different way. We know we are intending, but we don’t see the intention, or hear it, or smell it, taste it, or feel it as a tactile event. If it’s a mental property, it’s different from other mental properties, in that they are all memories of the other five sense-bases. It’s unique. One of the marks of its uniqueness is its importance within ethical discourse. Only intention can be skilful, and nothing else is kammically significant. So the question as formulated so far is:
Is there a satisfactory account of intentions which preserves their status as dhammas which arise and pass away, but which does justice to their uniqueness as (badly!) outlined above?

Robert: Yes as you note cetana is important. Understanding more about it is helpful.
In fact according to Abhidhamma cetana (usually translated as volition or intention) arises with all cittas but here we are only concerned with the cetana that becomes kammically significant.

It is obvious that when we drink alcohol or get angry, lust for some forbidden fruit the intention is unwholesome for example. In fact another way to understand cetana of the kind that is ‘kamma’ is that it arises with wholesome or unwholesome roots (lobha, dosa moha, alobha, adosa, amoha).
So when we consider cetana we need to understand the other mental factors that are present at that time. Even cetana that comes with the roots and that is strong enough to be kammically significant might not be clear without knowing more.
There is cetana when we are reflecting on Dhamma and life - the cittas then may be rooted in amoha (wisdom) or we might be reflecting wrongly - then it is rooted in moha (ignorance) and associated with wrong view.

Maybe today we are reflecting wrongly - and the cetanas that arises with the cittas is tainted by wrong view, but tomorrow more reflection occurs and the cittas with those cetanas are rooted in amoha (wisdom)

6