A hypothesis about enlightenment

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Not Tao, modified 8 Years ago at 5/3/15 11:55 AM
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A hypothesis about enlightenment

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What do you guys think of the following statement:

All phenomena we can experience are inherently without stress or suffering.  It's simply a habit of rejecting some experiences and persuing others that cause specific phenomena to appear pleasant and other phenomena to appear unpleasant.  Enlightenment is the complete abandonment of persuit and rejection - all experience becomes equal.
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Ian And, modified 8 Years ago at 5/3/15 1:14 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 5/3/15 12:06 PM

RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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Not Tao:
What do you guys think of the following statement:

All phenomena we can experience are inherently without stress or suffering. It's simply a habit of rejecting some experiences and persuing others that cause specific phenomena to appear pleasant and other phenomena to appear unpleasant.

Enlightenment is the complete abandonment of persuit and rejection - all experience becomes equal.

A bit too simplistic and indistinct for my tastes. Especially for someone just becoming acquainted with the teaching. Even with the first two sentences which attempt to explain the last statement, there is ambiguity. What does "abandonment of pursuit and rejection" mean? For that matter, what does "all experience becomes equal" mean? Unadorned and unexplained without further detail, as the phrase just sits there exposed for anyone's conjecture, it could mean whatever the reader wants it to mean. (Just my opinion only. However, others may either agree or disagee as is their wont. To be fair, though, I understand what it is that you are attempting to convey. I just don't agree that it can be condensed in the way it has been and be understood by all.)

It doesn't even begin to help people understand the true nature of their delusive views about self and the nature of phenomena within the existential world.

What better description does one need than the original words of Gotama when he discovered the crown jewel of his search from the ravages of dukkha (suffering, dissatisfaction, unsatifactoriness):

The Historical Buddha, by Hans W. Schumann, 1982:
Finally, in the last watch of the night, when the horizon was already becoming visible in the east as a white line of light, Siddhattha broke through to the third knowledge, the understanding of suffering and the Four Noble Truths which form the framework of his doctrine:

"I directed my mind to the knowledge of the destruction of the influences (asava) and knew as it really is: 'This is suffering (dukkha), this is its cause, this is its cessation, and this is the path that leads to its cessation.' And as I recognized this, my mind was free from the influences of sense-desire, of becoming and of ignorance. And the knowledge arose in me: 'Rebirth (for me) is destroyed. I have completed the holy life, done is what had to be done, there is no more of being for me!' (MN 36.42-43)

And he uttered the cry of jubilation:

My emancipation is assured,
This is my last birth,
There will be no more re-becoming! (MN 26.30)

Note: Nikaya references are to the Wisdom Publication edition of the Majjhima Nikaya as translated by Bhikkhu Nanamoli and edited by Bhikkhu Bodhi, 1995.

Sometimes, it seems, the more people attempt to modernize the phrasing of the teaching, the more complicated or ambiguous it becomes and the less application it has to things that really matter. Like: "Who am I?"  And: "What is this?"  And: "How do I get out of here?" And: "Does any of this matter?" And to put a bit of modern humor in: "Scotty, will you please beam me up!"
Change A, modified 8 Years ago at 5/3/15 12:17 PM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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I like that.

Abandonment comes easily after one gains the insight that neither rejecting nor pursuit brings any respite from the suffering of life but rather abandonment of both.
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CJMacie, modified 8 Years ago at 5/5/15 9:27 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 5/5/15 9:18 AM

RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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re: Paweł K (5/3/15 1:45 PM as a reply to Not Tao)
"Phenomena itself are just some signals entering brain from some sense door or generated withing it. Experience is generated in brain too, visualized using those sensations and there is great potential there to make experience vastly better. You are wrong however in that somehow enlightenment is about having sensations the same as they entered. It is all just painting, reorganizing, making it comfortable and exactly how you like it. "

In considering Not Tao's initial statement, I noticed how difficult it is to distinguish (and to verbally express it) between the raw feeling-tone (vedana) that arises at sensory "contact" (phassa) – the 6th link of 'dependent origination/arising' – and the reactive fabrications (sankharas) that so easily ensue, such as "pursuit and rejection".

The sense of feeling-tone, I think (and agreeing with Antonio Damasio's treatment of it as primal 'emotion'*), is that aspect of any organism's neural hard-wiring that colors any incoming sensation as potentially beneficial or harmful (or neither). The difficulty arises in that as soon as we use words like 'pleasant/unpleasant', 'attraction/repulsion', or 'pursuit/rejection', more complex levels of reaction and intention (sankharas) tend to subtly come into play. (Perception –sanna – always overlays the initial raw sensation with associations, labeling, 'meaning', etc.)

The neural networks (which all organisms have, tho many don't have brains, per se) definitely interpret stimuli with bias. Damasio's sense of 'emotion' is very basic: 'e(x)-motion', or a reflexive moving out of relative stasis, either towards or away from. This aspect of organic behavior is inescapable (hard-wired). Damasio also, s/w helpfully, distinguishes that from 'feeling', which he defines as the consciousness processing of 'emotion', that primal tendency to reactively move-out.

There's the critical point: to what degree, how deeply does (any particular) 'enlightenment' or 'awakening' actually cut the 7th link of dependentco-arising, where perceptual feeling-tone (vedana) becomes /conditions mental wanting (tanha)?

In one sense, the primal organic feeling-tone bias is 'stress', it is creating movement (Damasio's 'emotion'), i.e. organically it's not satisfactory (dukkha) to just sit still; there's a drive, a stressing, to respond to the stimulus. In another sense, if the mind doesn't 'move', doesn't 'feel' (in Damasio's sense) or elaborate upon the perception, then is it thereby free of 'suffering'? The equanimity of Not Tao's"…all experience becomes equal"?

btw: A related topic ("The truth of dukkha") has been running as the maiden-voyage thread in the newly reborn KDF forum (DhO thread "Kenneth Folk Dharma is back"), where Kenneth kicks it off with:
"As long as you draw breath, there is dukkha. It's not because you are doing it wrong. To misunderstand this is to misunderstand Buddhism. This is my opinion. What is yours?"
In fact, I may reshape this post to enter into that discussion -- if I can figure out how to work around his typically provocative assertion about understanding 'Buddhism'.

* As outlined in Damasio's book "Self Comes to Mind" (2011). A couple of decades prior he hadhypothesized that this sense of 'emotion' was in fact a crucial basisfor consciousness. At the time this hypothesis was roundly rejectedby the scientific establishment, but in the 1990's it turned out tobe experimentally validated.
Chuck Kasmire, modified 8 Years ago at 5/5/15 6:16 PM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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Chris J Macie:
A related topic ("The truth of dukkha") has been running as the maiden-voyage thread in the newly reborn KDF forum (DhO thread "Kenneth Folk Dharma is back"), where Kenneth kicks it off with:
"As long as you draw breath, there is dukkha. It's not because you are doing it wrong. To misunderstand this is to misunderstand Buddhism. This is my opinion. What is yours?"
In fact, I may reshape this post to enter into that discussion -- if I can figure out how to work around his typically provocative assertion about understanding 'Buddhism'.

So, running with the above quote, the following statement from SN 56.11: 'This noble truth of the cessation of stress is to be directly experienced'... 'This noble truth of the cessation of stress has been directly experienced.'

Proves that the Buddha did not understand Buddhism? Kind of a brain scrambler, like a snake feeding on its own corpse.

But later Kenneth writes “My observation is that tanha is an essential component of a living organism. We move toward things that tend toward individual and species survival, and away from things that tend toward individual death and species extinction.”

Kenneths mistake is to equate preferences (likes and dislikes) with tanha - a totally different animal. This accounts for the apparent oddness of his first statement. A number of posters in that thread tried to point out his error in various ways - didn’t read through the entire thread but they wern’t having much luck.

[Edit - added link to a totally different animal ]
Chuck Kasmire, modified 8 Years ago at 5/5/15 2:41 PM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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Not Tao:
What do you guys think of the following statement:

All phenomena we can experience are inherently without stress or suffering.  It's simply a habit of rejecting some experiences and persuing others that cause specific phenomena to appear pleasant and other phenomena to appear unpleasant.  Enlightenment is the complete abandonment of persuit and rejection - all experience becomes equal.

You don’t define whose version of enlightenment you are referring to - so assuming the Big Guy himself, your hypothesis needs to account for cases where he demonstrates clear preferences. For example, when suffering lots of back pain he asks Ananda I think - to stand in for him while he goes and lies down. Or in another place he says he doesn’t give a rats ass about honor - in that same sutta he says he is most at ease when he is on the road with no one else around. In a number of places he tells Arahats to continue to practice jhana for a calm abiding in the here and now.

I think the hypothesis needs to cover the why of rejecting and pursuing. How is it that likes and dislikes (essentially observations) lead to rejecting and pursuing and when does all this ‘become’ suffering/stress.
Eva Nie, modified 8 Years ago at 5/5/15 10:36 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 5/5/15 10:36 PM

RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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Not Tao:
What do you guys think of the following statement:

All phenomena we can experience are inherently without stress or suffering.  It's simply a habit of rejecting some experiences and persuing others that cause specific phenomena to appear pleasant and other phenomena to appear unpleasant.  Enlightenment is the complete abandonment of persuit and rejection - all experience becomes equal.
Generally, I like it, sounds like barking up the right general tree.  So does that mean I must totally abandon my liking to become enlightened?  ;-P  Perhaps if it was me, I'd would make it sound less extreme.  As others have noted, even the enlightened ones ocasionally show preferences for various things, maybe it's more like a huge lessoning of pursuit and rejection?  But they still seem to care about some things, skilled vs unskilled actions, avoidance of pain, personal preferences, etc,  it seems just  that there is way less of that.  And I think you get a much better understanding of the good that is in the bad, but you still walk around bramble patches instead of stomping right through and getting cut up! 
-Eva  
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CJMacie, modified 8 Years ago at 5/6/15 8:08 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 5/6/15 8:03 AM

RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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re: Paweł K (5/5/153:46 PM as a reply to Chris J Macie.)
"There are multiple assumptions which could be made to guess what Kenneth was thinking writing this. Assuming he is not an idiot I would go with the version in which he is saying it is impossible to not suffer as long as you do stuff, thus trying to not suffer but remaining the same person is useless. There is no such practice which could make it true, no such rising. Source of Dukkha have to be put out, like a candle."

I find the problem less pressing when considered from a viewpoint Than-Geof (Thanissao Bhikkhu) presents: He was answering correspondence for his mentor, Ajahn Fuang, and someone wrote about practicing noting how the '3 characteristics' permeate reality. Fuang told him to write back:  not to blame it on 'reality' out there. The ti-lakkhana*, though routinely attributed to 'existence', are perceptual phenomena, qualities of the perceiving mind. The definition (in footnote) uses "existence", but qualified as "signata", the idea of nimitta, or 'signing' which is the mind's practice of marking sensations as having this or that value or relevance, i.e.to the orientation of itself, a self, as the central focus of what's happening. The 'charactistics', as in the quotation (A.III,134 in footnote) are attributed to 'formations', sanhkara fabricated by the mind.

By this method, mental perception is the "Source of Dukkha". What goes on 'out there' is an impersonal flux of conditions.

Accordingly, the mind can function deeply recognizing that impersonal flux of conditions, without the mind being extinguished, "like a candle". The mind experiencing with 'aperspectivity', not narrowing all phenomena to the perspective of a self (origin POV that creates perspective), is still "doing" ('functionally', in Abdhidhamma terms), but not doing self-"stuff".

For native Western mind, so deeply conditioned by 'individualism' and set on renouncing renunciation, to grasp this is well-nigh impossible. Very few 'modernist' practitioners get over this hurdle, if even recognizing it's presence. Despite whatever (technically conceptualized) 'attainments', KF's mix of views, IMO, illustrates this problem.

* from BPS Dictionary:
ti-lakkhana -- the '3 charactcristies of existence', or signata, are impermanency (anicca, q.v.), suffcring or misery (dukkha, q.v.; s. sacca, dukkhatā), not-self (anattā, q.v.).
"Whether Perfect Ones appear in the world, or whether Perfect Ones do not appear in the world, it still remains a firm condition, an immutable fact and fixed law: that all formations are impermanent, that all formations are subject to suffering, that everything is without a self'' (A. III, 134)…
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Not Tao, modified 8 Years ago at 5/13/15 10:16 AM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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This thread has some great stuff!  The sutta that Chuck posted is the gist of what I was trying to say.  To me, it's like this: if an enlightened person is hungry, they will go get some food and eat, but this does not mean they were persuing food until they had it.  If they step on a thorn, they will feel stabbing sensations in their foot, and they will take the thorn out, but they aren't rejecting the feelings or the thorn.  Rejection and persuit requires something very specific which seems to be at the heart of anatta.  When persuing anything, the thing that is persuing is, itself, a tension.  Same with rejecting.  The thing that is rejecting is a tension.  This tension is what goes away through the process of enlightenment.  So there may be physical pain when stepping on a thorn, but this pain has no tension around it.  The tension is the rejection.

This can be explained a  bit differently in the emotional realm.  My original thoughts about enlightenment, after experiencing a taste of it and trying to reflect on what it was, was that it was a complete absece of emotional distress.  After some more experience now, though, I think the best way to frame it is a transformation of all emotional experience to be without tension.  Let's say someone insults me.  From an unenlightened perspective, I view my resulting reaction to the experience as something that needs to go away.  I might feel tense, angry, and start to trying to think of a good comeback.  From an enlightened perspective, I view the resulting reaction differently.  There are physical feelings of tension, thoughts and protests arise in the mind, but none of this is rejected and there is no persuit of future equilibrium.  A rock hits the surface of the lake, and the water turns to mist intsead of waves.  Because there is no rejection of the feelings that arise, the feelings are not read negatively and no tension forms around them.  The feelings themselves dissipate quickly and equilibrium restores itself without effort.  This greatly weakens the habitual tendancy that caused the reaction in the first place, so the next time it happens, there is even less reaction.  Eventually the rock just passes through the lake as if it wasn't there.  Maybe the lake just stays as mist (or a cloud of dharma, as the Tibetians say, haha).

Pleasant things lose their distict pleasantness in the same way.  They don't become unpleasant, they just fade into the background "one taste" of perception where everything is seen equally.  I think that, over time, this is likely to cause changes to how a person lives and what they value, but it doesn't make them a mindless zombie.  There are just less and less requirements for contentment to arise.  An Arahant, to me, is someone without any sense of requirement left.  There is nothing that can't come, and nothing that can't go - tension is equally absent from all experience.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 8 Years ago at 5/14/15 12:15 AM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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I like Chuck's points here.

The Buddha had back pain, headaches, annoyances, frustration with his monks, stuff like that. He died in terrible pain from some abdominal problem. Still, something in the relationship to that can be very much transformed, but the hard facts of a body being born into this world: those are part of the teachings of the Buddha.

D
Change A, modified 8 Years ago at 5/14/15 9:47 AM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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I'm not sure about Buddha's headaches. S. N. Goenka started meditating only because of his headaches for which he tried to get help from doctors the world over. Many people in the world would not be able to go to retreat had it not been for Goenka's headaches for which he found relief through meditation.
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 8 Years ago at 5/14/15 2:47 PM
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Why the Buddha Suffered, the headaches section, and the back aches section. Fun reading.
Change A, modified 8 Years ago at 5/14/15 3:21 PM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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Yes, I had read that the last time I asked you about the link to it. From the passage on headache, it seems he had a headache only once because of the karma of a past deed. It seems to be the same for the backache.
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Nicky, modified 8 Years ago at 5/14/15 4:03 PM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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Not Tao:
What do you guys think of the following statement:

All phenomena we can experience are inherently without stress or suffering.  It's simply a habit of rejecting some experiences and persuing others that cause specific phenomena to appear pleasant and other phenomena to appear unpleasant.  Enlightenment is the complete abandonment of persuit and rejection - all experience becomes equal.

The enlightened mind has wisdom. Using wisdom, the enlightened mind rejects certain things & pursues others. This process of rejecting & pursuing is completely impersonal. Being impersonal, the enlightened mind is free from stress & suffering. It is personality view (rather than rejecting & pursuing) that causes suffering & stress. 

That said, abandoning rejecting & pursuing is particularly useful for samadhi development and some preliminary insight into the 4NTs. emoticon 

Twelve 
The five colors blind the eye. 
The five tones deafen the ear. 
The five flavors dull the taste. 
Racing and hunting madden the mind. 
Precious things lead one astray. 
Therefore the sage is guided by what he feels and not by what he sees. 
He lets go of that and chooses this

Tao Te Ching
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Nicky, modified 8 Years ago at 5/14/15 4:44 PM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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Chris J Macie:

* from BPS Dictionary:
ti-lakkhana -- the '3 charactcristies of existence', or signata, are impermanency (anicca, q.v.), suffcring or misery (dukkha, q.v.; s. sacca, dukkhatā), not-self (anattā, q.v.).
"Whether Perfect Ones appear in the world, or whether Perfect Ones do not appear in the world, it still remains a firm condition, an immutable fact and fixed law: that all formations are impermanent, that all formations are subject to suffering, that everything is without a self'' (A. III, 134)…

The BPS Dictionary is obviously incorrect. The term 'formations' is a translation of 'sankhara'. 'Sankhara' here is each of the five aggregates, including matter/form. Matter being inanimate cannot suffer or experience misery. Further, each aggregate can operate without suffering. 

The 3 characteristics are characteristics of all conditioned/compounded phenomena (sankhara). The 2nd characteristic of 'dukkha' does not mean 'suffering'. Instead, it means 'unsatisfactory' or 'inability to bring lasting happiness'. The meaning of 'dukkha' in the 3Cs is different to the meaning of 'dukkha' in the 4NTs

Thus the Buddha taught that which is impermanent is unsatisfactory (cannot bring true happiness); that which is unsatisfactory is not-self. 

For example, the drug cocaine or a Mercedes Benz motor car do not have mind. The drug cocaine or a Mercedes Benz cannot suffer or be classed as 'misery'. Yet the 3 characteristics are inherently in the drug cocaine or a Mercedes Benz motor car, namely, they are impermanent, unsatisfactory & not-self. 

The word 'dukkha' does not always mean suffering, such as in 'dukkha vedana', namely, 'painful feeling'. 


Here a bhikkhu is an arahant, one whose taints are destroyed, the holy life fulfilled, who has done what had to be done, laid down the burden, attained the goal, destroyed the fetters of being, completely released through final knowledge. However, his five sense faculties remain unimpaired, by which he still experiences what is agreeable and disagreeable and feels pleasure and pain. It is the extinction of attachment, hate, and delusion in him that is called the Nibbana-element.



Here, ruler of gods, a bhikkhu has heard that nothing is worth adhering to. When a bhikkhu has heard that nothing is worth adhering to, he directly knows everything; having directly known everything, he fully understands everything; having directly known everything, he fully understood everything, whatever feeling he feels, whether pleasant or painful or neither pleasant or painful, he abides contemplating (observing) impermanence in those feelings, contemplating (observing) fading away, contemplating (observing) cessation, contemplating (observing) relinquishment (letting go). Contemplating (observing) thus, he does not cling (think about) to anything in the world. When he does not cling (think about), he is not agitated, he personally attains Nibbana. He understands: ‘Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, there is no more coming to any state of being.’ Briefly, it is in this way, ruler of gods, that a bhikkhu is liberated in the destruction of craving, one who has reached the ultimate end, the ultimate security from bondage, the ultimate holy life, the ultimate goal, one who is foremost among gods and humans.

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Nicky, modified 8 Years ago at 5/14/15 4:39 PM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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Chris J Macie:

There's the critical point: to what degree, how deeply does (any particular) 'enlightenment' or 'awakening' actually cut the 7th link of dependentco-arising, where perceptual feeling-tone (vedana) becomes /conditions mental wanting (tanha)?



The 7th link in D.O. is never cut. The scriptures make this clear (as quoted above). The liberation of the Buddha was the destruction of craving (8th link). emoticon
Change A, modified 8 Years ago at 5/15/15 12:19 AM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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If rejection and pursuit is the name of the game, then Buddhists don't go as far as Aghoris. Aghoris don't reject urine, rotten human flesh etc. and live in the cremation grounds, have sex with dead people.
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CJMacie, modified 8 Years ago at 5/16/15 2:22 AM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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Nicky:
Chris J Macie:

There's the critical point: to what degree, how deeply does (any particular) 'enlightenment' or 'awakening' actually cut the 7th link of dependentco-arising, where perceptual feeling-tone (vedana) becomes /conditions mental wanting (tanha)?



The 7th link in D.O. is never cut. The scriptures make this clear (as quoted above). The liberation of the Buddha was the destruction of craving (8th link). emoticon
And the sources (and translators) for those quotations are?
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Not Tao, modified 8 Years ago at 5/16/15 11:55 AM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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Change A.:
If rejection and pursuit is the name of the game, then Buddhists don't go as far as Aghoris. Aghoris don't reject urine, rotten human flesh etc. and live in the cremation grounds, have sex with dead people.


I think this is an extreme misunderstanding. It isn't that all things have to be accepted, it's that all feelings, when accepted, no longer have tension. It isn't a good practice to focus on specific things that are being rejected because it isn't getting to the heart of the issue. Maybe they will overcome disgust for rotten human flesh, but then someone will insult their mother and they have to deal with that, and then someone will kill their friend and they'll have to deal with that. The problem is the relationship to persuit and rejection, specifically, and not the objects that are being persued or rejected. Once all persuit and rejection has ended, a person can navigate the world skillfully without any tension forming around preasant or unpleasant ideas, opinions, and judgements.

Fear without rejection is just an alarm signal, pleasure without persuit is just a resting period. Imperminance is only stressful so long as you try to control it.
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Psi, modified 8 Years ago at 5/16/15 3:41 PM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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Chris J Macie:
Nicky:
Chris J Macie:

There's the critical point: to what degree, how deeply does (any particular) 'enlightenment' or 'awakening' actually cut the 7th link of dependentco-arising, where perceptual feeling-tone (vedana) becomes /conditions mental wanting (tanha)?



The 7th link in D.O. is never cut. The scriptures make this clear (as quoted above). The liberation of the Buddha was the destruction of craving (8th link). emoticon
And the sources (and translators) for those quotations are?
I do not know about the sources, but...   There is definetly a wormhole between Vedana and Tanha.  Mind can stop Dependent Origination right after Vedana and just before Tanha.  After Tanha arises, there is still a second chance to stop Dependent Origination at Tanha.

This seems to be true from what I can see, I would almost be so bold as to state that it is a fact, if I had the guts, emoticon, and the cessation of craving is of utmost importance and is a crucial key to Buddhist Practice.

Also, this should probably be broken off and discussed in further detail and examination.  I think this has been tried before over the last couple of years , but there seems to be little response.  I am unsure as to why this is, exactly.  It is probably just because of different words and definitions.

Any thoughts? Anyone?  Nicky?  Chris?

Psi
Change A, modified 8 Years ago at 5/16/15 11:03 PM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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You think that if you accept the feeling of disgust at eating rotten human flesh, you won't have any tension when you eat it?

Practical exam is much more difficult than theoretical.

And what made you think that Aghoris don't accept all feelings and only do practical things like the ones that I mentioned?
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Nicky, modified 8 Years ago at 5/21/15 4:17 PM
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RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

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Psi?:
I do not know about the sources, but...   There is definetly a wormhole between Vedana and Tanha.  Mind can stop Dependent Origination right after Vedana and just before Tanha.  After Tanha arises, there is still a second chance to stop Dependent Origination at Tanha.

This seems to be true from what I can see, I would almost be so bold as to state that it is a fact, if I had the guts, emoticon, and the cessation of craving is of utmost importance and is a crucial key to Buddhist Practice.

Also, this should probably be broken off and discussed in further detail and examination.  I think this has been tried before over the last couple of years , but there seems to be little response.  I am unsure as to why this is, exactly.  It is probably just because of different words and definitions.

Any thoughts? Anyone?  Nicky?  Chris?

Psi

For the sources of those quotes, just google them.

Yes, PSI, I agree. There is still a chance to stop D.O. at craving because the 2nd noble truth defines the arising or origination (samudhaya) of suffering as 'craving that leads to new becoming'. If craving does not lead to new (ego/self) becoming then suffering does not occur. Craving all by itself does not lead to suffering.

For example, a mind that is not fully enightened but partially enlightened may be drawn to a very attractive sense object (which is craving) but quickly lets it go via wisdom and does not reach the stage of ego/self becoming. In other words, the mind has no 'self' thinking about the object, such as: "I like it; I wish...", etc.  

In MN 148, craving is included with sense organs, sense objects, sense consciousnesses, sense contacts & sense feelings as an object to be known without going further into dependent origination.


~~The Blessed One said: "The six internal media should be known. The six external media should be known. The six classes of consciousness should be known. The six classes of contact should be known. The six classes of feeling should be known. The six classes of craving should be known. MN 148




~~Who, O Lord, craves?
~~The question is not correct," said the Exalted One. "I do not say that 'he craves.' Had I said so, then the question 'Who craves?' would be appropriate. But since I did not speak thus, the correct way to ask the question will be 'What is the condition of craving?' And to that the correct reply is: 'Feeling is the condition of craving and craving is the condition of clinging.
~~Who, O Lord, clings?"
~~The question is not correct," said the Exalted One, "I do not say that 'he clings.' Had I said so, then the question 'Who clings?' would be appropriate. But since I did not speak thus, the correct way to ask the question will be 'What is the condition of clinging?' And to that the correct reply is: 'Craving is the condition of clinging; and clinging is the condition of the process of becoming.' Such is the origin of this entire mass of suffering. SN 12.12




The craving that leads to new becoming — accompanied by passion & delight, relishing now here & now there — i.e., craving for sensual pleasure, craving to be, craving not to be: This, friend Visakha, is the origination of self-identification described by the Blessed One. MN 44

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Psi, modified 8 Years ago at 5/21/15 11:47 PM
Created 8 Years ago at 5/21/15 11:47 PM

RE: A hypothesis about enlightenment

Posts: 1099 Join Date: 11/22/13 Recent Posts
Nicky:
Psi?:
I do not know about the sources, but...   There is definetly a wormhole between Vedana and Tanha.  Mind can stop Dependent Origination right after Vedana and just before Tanha.  After Tanha arises, there is still a second chance to stop Dependent Origination at Tanha.

This seems to be true from what I can see, I would almost be so bold as to state that it is a fact, if I had the guts, emoticon, and the cessation of craving is of utmost importance and is a crucial key to Buddhist Practice.

Also, this should probably be broken off and discussed in further detail and examination.  I think this has been tried before over the last couple of years , but there seems to be little response.  I am unsure as to why this is, exactly.  It is probably just because of different words and definitions.

Any thoughts? Anyone?  Nicky?  Chris?

Psi

For the sources of those quotes, just google them.

Yes, PSI, I agree. There is still a chance to stop D.O. at craving because the 2nd noble truth defines the arising or origination (samudhaya) of suffering as 'craving that leads to new becoming'. If craving does not lead to new (ego/self) becoming then suffering does not occur. Craving all by itself does not lead to suffering.

For example, a mind that is not fully enightened but partially enlightened may be drawn to a very attractive sense object (which is craving) but quickly lets it go via wisdom and does not reach the stage of ego/self becoming. In other words, the mind has no 'self' thinking about the object, such as: "I like it; I wish...", etc.  

In MN 148, craving is included with sense organs, sense objects, sense consciousnesses, sense contacts & sense feelings as an object to be known without going further into dependent origination.


~~The Blessed One said: "The six internal media should be known. The six external media should be known. The six classes of consciousness should be known. The six classes of contact should be known. The six classes of feeling should be known. The six classes of craving should be known. MN 148




~~Who, O Lord, craves?
~~The question is not correct," said the Exalted One. "I do not say that 'he craves.' Had I said so, then the question 'Who craves?' would be appropriate. But since I did not speak thus, the correct way to ask the question will be 'What is the condition of craving?' And to that the correct reply is: 'Feeling is the condition of craving and craving is the condition of clinging.
~~Who, O Lord, clings?"
~~The question is not correct," said the Exalted One, "I do not say that 'he clings.' Had I said so, then the question 'Who clings?' would be appropriate. But since I did not speak thus, the correct way to ask the question will be 'What is the condition of clinging?' And to that the correct reply is: 'Craving is the condition of clinging; and clinging is the condition of the process of becoming.' Such is the origin of this entire mass of suffering. SN 12.12




The craving that leads to new becoming — accompanied by passion & delight, relishing now here & now there — i.e., craving for sensual pleasure, craving to be, craving not to be: This, friend Visakha, is the origination of self-identification described by the Blessed One. MN 44

Nicky,  Thank you, this is most excellent!  And thanks again for taking the time to find this in the Suttas.

Psi 

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