Right effort and anatta

Meditation
21

dear eko care
good that we keep discussing these points.
“Arranging relevant causes”. It sounds nice, but who can do that ? Remember there is no one there at all- just elements.
Take an example of cakkhu vinnana: many different moments of seeing and each moment
conditioned: >

"firstly the eye element is a condition in six ways –

namely, dissociation, prenascence, presence, non-disapearance,
support, and faculty for the eye-consciouness (cakkhu vinnana)
element. The visible object is a condition in four ways , namely,
prenascent, presence, non-disapearance, and object for the eye-
consciousness element…."visuddhimagga xv40

Then following that flash of seeing there are many mental processes
similarly conditioned by multiple factors, none of which are in the
control of anyone. And these conditioning factors are all likewise
conditioned by many conditions, and all arising and passing away instantly.
And this rule of multiple, conditioned factors apply to any element including sati.

“Therefore, just as a marionette is void, soulless and without curiousity, and while it works and stands merely through the combination of strings and wood yet it seems as if it had curiosity and interestedness, so too this materiality (rupa)- mentality (nama) is void, soulless and without curiosity, and while it walks and
stands merely through the combination of the two together, yet it
seems as if it had curiosity and interestedness.” Visuddhimagga
xviii31

Usually we think "I’m interested or bored or excited or calm, or sad
or happy or wise or confused or making effort or being negligent.
But there are only different elements performing different
functions - and they have no agenda:

“[The] uninterestedness becomes evident to him though seeing rise and
fall according to condition owing to his discovery of the inability
of states to have mastery exercised over them. Then he more
thoroughly abandons the self view” visuddhimagga xx102

The characteristic of not-self becomes evident to him through seeing
rise according to conditions owing to his discovery that states have
no curiosity and have their existence depending upon conditions" xx102

"All the formed bases(eye base, ear base, tongue base etc) should be
regarded as having no provenance and no destination. On the contrary,
before their rise they had no individual essence and after their fall
their individual essences are completely dissolved. And they occur
without mastery being exercisable over them since they exist in
dependence on conditions and in between the past and the future. "XV15

They often talk about dhatus (elements) in the suttas. What does it
mean – element? There are several definitions including
this:. "

Element is a term for what is soulesss, xv22

and

They are only mere sortings out of suffering because no mastery is exercisable
over them" visuddimagga xv20

Visuddhimagga XX84 "there is removal of false view in one who sees
thus: “If formations were self it would be right to take them as
self; but being not-self they are taken as self. **Therefore they are
not self in the sense of no power being exercisable over them; they
are impermanent in the sense of non-existence after having come to
be; they are painful in the sense of oppression by rise and fall”

3 Likes
22

Yes, absolutely.

On a related note in a few days I want to begin a thread about the Parami where we can invite members to add material.

2 Likes
23

Yes it needs additional supports including those listed.
However I am mainly thinking about the path of the dry insight worker where concentration is momentary.

[Visuddhimagga, Chapter I paragraph 6]

  1. In some instances this path of purification is taught by insight alone, [3] according
    as it is said:
    “Formations are all impermanent:
    When he sees thus with understanding
    And turns away from what is ill,
    That is the path to purity” (Dhp 277).
    [3] “The words ‘insight alone’ are meant to exclude not virtue, etc., but serenity [i.e. jhána], which is the opposite number in the pair, serenity and insight. This is for
    emphasis. But the word ‘alone’ actually excludes only that concentration with distinction
    [of jhána]; for concentration is classed as both access and absorption (see IV.32). Taking this stanza as the teaching for one whose vehicle is insight does not imply that there is no concentration; for no insight comes about without momentary concentration. And again, insight should be understood as the three contemplations of impermanence,
    pain, and not-self; not contemplation of impermanence alone” (Vism-mhþ 9–10)
1 Like
24

Hi Robert, nice to see you too.

Interesting to see this discussion again. About a decade ago I spent an afternoon with Robert and his like-minded friends at the Bangkok Peninsula where, in addition to enjoying a very nice High Tea, the arguments of this thread were repeatedly and forcefully pointed out to me. :rofl:

I think that what Robert says in this quote is an extremely good point. It’s obviously possible for practice to take people in the wrong direction. However, I’m puzzled by a couple of things:

  1. There are plenty of instructions in suttas, and of course the Visuddhimagga, about development of tranquillity and insight. At least, I read many of them as instructions. I do think, however, that there is a tendency in some quarters to misinterpret statements that are actually about outcomes as statements about method. I wrote a little about this over here: https://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?t=42877 as a counter to the rather tired arguments that everything is spelled out in the suttas, and therefore the commentaries are “deviating” from them whenever they say something that is not word-for-word in the suttas. A simple example is the suggestion in the Visuddhimagga that counting breaths can be helpful to developing concentration.

  2. What Robert and his friends advocate is, to me, just as much a “method” as anything else. There is a choice to read and consider texts, a choice to apply that to their experience.

25

I think the suttas are like reading the ingredients of a Snickers Bar and expecting to make one. But a highly skilled chef who knows the mechanics of ingredients and their qualities and interactions can use those ingredients and actually make a Snickers Bar from them (with some trial and error). Neither is wrong, and both can say the recipe is on the wrapper. However, one who does not know how to cook on an expert level is a bit naive when they say the recipe is on the wrapper.

26

Magga Sacca.

“Upon hearing the first two lines, there arose in the wanderer Upatissa the dust-free, stainless vision of the Dhamma - the first glimpse of the Deathless, the path of Stream-entry - and to the ending of the last two lines he already listened as a stream-enterer”.

One develops one’s own path by listening the Dhamma, rather carefully and attentively. The listener of Dhamma should have attention, respect to the teacher and respect to the Dhamma (TiSarana). This is similar to Pariyatti.
When one meditates or trains in correct manner, one is walking on the path to reach Nibbana the goal.

2 Likes
27

This is a great example of immediate succession from path to fruition. I will take note for my writings.

2 Likes
28

A related topic:

1 Like
29

I liked the expression “no agenda”. Like to say, there is no destiny to go and get the fruits, they always awaits in the very moment.

I steal it :man_running: :slightly_smiling_face: :pray:

2 Likes
30

Anatta is one of those concepts that seems to really trip folks up.

So let’s get one thing out of the way: all there is is namarupa. There is nothing in experience that one can point to that isn’t namarupa. However, I think the Western mind has an easier way to approach this. Whereas the term namarupa divides the five khandhas into the first (form/rupa) and then last four (mental/nama), the Western mind, particularly trying to understand anatta, can better understand it by thinking in terms of “consciousness and its objects.” This is functionally the same as namarupa, but instead just puts the arbitrary dividing line in the five khandhas after sankhara, so you have “the objects of consciousness” which are rupa, vedana, sañña, and sankhara, and “consciousness” which is viññāṇa. Make sense? This is just an easier way to think about the khandhas in terms of everything being namarupa.

I can’t resist the opportunity to clear something up even though it’s a tangent here. Thinking in terms of “consciousness and its objects” lends to the opportunity perfectly. Westerners have a predominately materialist viewpoint, and many cultures have a predominantly idealist viewpoint. The materialist viewpoint is that objects precede consciousness, objects are independent of consciousness, the world of objects is the real and permanent one, and that consciousness is dependent on objects. Removing the last criteria makes the viewpoint one called “realism,” which is the belief that there is an objective world that precedes consciousness without necessarily believing that materiality is the cause of consciousness. The idealist viewpoint is that consciousness precedes objects, consciousness is independent of objects, that consciousness is the real and permanent thing, and that objects depend on consciousness. Advaita Vedanta is a great example of the latter view.

Both of these views are mistaken. Consciousness and its objects co-arise. You can’t have one without the other. They’re completely dependent on each other and the distinction between them is just an arbitrary mental artifact. Can you see this? Can you see how the sense of consciousness would not arise if there was no object for consciousness to direct itself toward? Can you see how there would be no object if there was no consciousness to experience it? Can you see how the division between them is arbitrary?

In the exact same way, the idea of self is an arbitrary mental artifact. It’s a kernel that recruits other ideas into its army. The main ideas that it collects are: (1) identification with consciousness (I am experiencing the world), (2) the objects of consciousness are then viewed as “mine,” (3) since objects are “mine” then this experience of consciousness is privileged/private, and (4) the sense of the will, that is, making choices and putting effort into changing the world according to one’s wishes.

Since your question is about Right Effort, let’s stick to #4, since that’s what’s relevant. The will (having desires for the world to be a certain way or not be a certain way) is just a process whereby a thought arises with the content that the world could be thus (mental phassa), vedana arises for that thought, and then consciousness contracts around that thought (taṇhā) until the thought proliferates into repeated, related thoughts (upādāna). I’m calling this part of the chain of dependent origination “the will.”

But the will is mechanical, as is this whole world. It’s a dead, lifeless, perhaps stochastic at best, process whose outcomes depend on the mind’s previous conditioning. Basically, there’s no “ghost in the machine,” the mind is just a machine that can direct and change itself. When Right Effort is made, it’s not “you” making an effort, it’s the parts of the mind that believe that the result of this action will be desirable are strong enough to override the parts of the mind that say otherwise. This process is completely mechanical. It’s just “your” mind directing and effecting itself. What makes it “Right” is that the mind’s belief in the result, whether that belief is through faith or wisdom, happens to be the right belief.

1 Like
31

In the following, conventional means

roughly what philosophers nowadays call common sense or
the folk theory of the world.
-Jay Garfield, Is Moonshadows Lunacy?

Obviously, part of common sense view of the world, is that when I see a rope, and think it’s a snake, there actually is a piece of rope under my false belief. The rope is not a snake, and this truth is independent of consciousness. I can then think for a second, and realize, I was mistaken; it’s just a rope. It then continues to be a rope, even after I walk away, and am no longer conscious of the rope. It lies there, being a rope.

"[l]f there were no place for conventional phenomena, the existence of which is established by the epistemic instruments, these phenomena would be like the snake - that is,
the rope grasped as a snake - of which no cause or effect is possible. . . .
[l]f one were forced to maintain that there is no place for bondage, liberation, etc in the
meaning of “conventional existence/’ and that these must be placed only in the erroneous perspective, that would be a great philosophical error.
Even worse, as long as convention is conceived [as entirely nonexistent], since there
would be no role for the epistemic instruments, neither the proposition maintained nor
the person who maintains it nor the proof - including scriptural sources and reasoning - could be established by epistemic instruments. So it would be ridiculous to maintain
that there are no genuine phenomena delivered by the epistemic instruments.” {Ocean
30-31 )15

Tsong khapa makes it plain here that conventional phenomena, unlike the snake
thought to be perceived when one sees a rope, have causes and effects, and are
actual. Moreover, he argues that the repudiation of the reality of the conventional
would undermine the possibility of epistemic authority, undermining even the abil-
ity to argue cogently that the conventional does not exist. Such a position would
be self-refuting.
-Jay Garfield, Taking Conventional Truth Seriously

In other words, if we must accept some bizarre position in which conventional reality is largely refuted, such as where objects do not exist without consciousness, and so on, we must also declare that very position of refutation of conventional reality invalid, as it self refutes.

Thankfully, Theravada is invulnerable to this fatal flaw, because it teaches that there are actual objects that exist in the form of rapidly arising and ceasing dhammas. They are not dependent on mind, in fact, quite the opposite:

It is the dhammas alone that possess ultimate reality: determinate existence “from their own side” (sarupato) independent of the minds conceptual processing of the data. Such a conception of the nature of the real seems to be already implicit in the Sutta Pitaka, particularly in the Buddha’s disquisitions on the aggregates, sense bases, elements, dependent arising, etc.,…
-Bhikkhu Bodhi, A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, p 26

“Snake,” in our example, is an error, “rope,” is the conventional truth that all can agree on, acknowledged as pannatti, in Theravada, and ultimately made of mind independent dhammas. The commonsense view that there is such a thing as “rope” is not quite accurate, but the commonsense view that there is something there, even when no one is aware of it, is ultimate reality: There are ultimately existing dhammas where we see “rope” even when no one is conscious of them.

What emerges from this Abhidhammic doctrine of dhammas
is a critical realism, one which (unlike idealism) recognises
the distinctness of the world from the experiencing subject
yet also distinguishes between those types of entities that
truly exist independently of the cognitive act and those that
owe their being to the act of cognition itself.
-Y. Karunadasa, The Dhamma Theory, page 38

Thus as fourfold the Tathagatas reveal the ultimate realities—
consciousness, mental factors, matter, and Nibbana.
-Bhikkhu Bodhi, Acariya Anuruddha, A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, p 235

32

This is just an error in cognition and does not signify the rope is independent of consciousness. It just means the mind has misidentified a stimulus.

Our entire discussion has been silly. All I’ve ever said is that objects, including forms, perceptions, vedana…all objects arise with consciousness. There is no object you can point to that arises independent of your consciousness. In the same way the Buddha goes through each of the five khandas in the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta and says, “Form is not self…vedana is not self…perceptions are not self…sankharas are not self…consciousness is not self” one by one, I’m doing the same here. "This object has arisen in consciousness, that object has arisen in consciousness, this object has fallen from consciousness and now the memory of that object has arisen in consciousness, that object has fallen from consciousness and now the memory of that object has arisen in consciousness. It’s actually closer to “with consciousness,” but you get the idea.

This is literally the case. I’m ending the conversation in this thread too and I will not respond because you’re simply not getting it.

33

3 posts were merged into an existing topic: Is the Theravada system one of direct realism?