Reply To: Bhava: Seed of Consciousness

#38040
Dipobhasadhamma
Participant

I have downloaded your entire website in the compiled book form and am about half way through reading it. I add PDF pages wherever I must do additional research, and interject notes. At times my study of your posts is slow going because there is no way that I can ascertain how it is that you concluded the meaning of certain Pali words when other sources contain a completely different rendering**. While you provide the most excellent explanation of certain Pali words, there is no indication of how or why you arrived at a certain meaning. For persons such as myself who seek a deeper understanding, but have limited knowledge of Pali, I must try and determine that how & why on my own. Your entire site (in the book format) contains a massive amount of information, so it will take me time. Now, with regard to my understanding of various types of vinnana: I have read the following many times:

Viññāṇa – What It Really Means

My caveat is that I appreciate that merely reading something, ingesting the words, does not guarantee understanding. Therefore, I repeat a reading of something like Viññāṇa – What It Really Means several times; making note of words or concepts I do not fully grasp. When I want to fully grasp a concept/meaning, I contemplate on the subject I have read silently, which is probably similar to Vipassana contemplation. I find that when contemplating, I discover my own cultural biases and am able to put such aside. Buddha Dhamma to me is a discovery process, like the way Newton discovered gravity. I do not think or believe that the Buddha Dhamma has much intellectual (academic) value by itself (outside of its obvious ethics and philosophy). However, the true intrinsic value and purpose of the Buddha Dhamma is truly only known through individual discovery of personal applicability…a realization. If that makes any sense.

** “Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare and to happiness’ — then you should enter and remain in them.”