[LayDhammaFollower]

Can someone clarify what is to be understood through this sutta?

What is meant by this sutta?

What buddha intends to communicate?

Link to sutta:
SN 22.95: Pheṇapiṇḍūpamasutta

[Lal]

It describes the fickle/unstable nature of things in this world.
The sutta compares:
– “rupa” to foam (bubbles that appear in a river and break quickly),
– feeling (vedana) also foam (bubbles that appear when it rains and break quickly),
– perception (sanna) to a mirage, and
– vinnana to the trunk of a banana tree (which has no “hardcore” or essence); one becomes tired at the end.

Feel free to ask questions if the translation in the link is not clear.

[TripleGemStudent]

Lal: “vinnana to the trunk of a banana tree (which has no “hardcore” or essence); one becomes tired at the end.”

– At my current understanding, “harāyati” means something similar. Are interpretations and explanations like; no essence / essenceless, no intrinsic value, worthless, meaningless and others is the right concepts used to explain the meaning of harāyati? There seems to be a connection to anatta as well?

[Lal]

Yes. You are right.

See #1 of “Anicca – The Incessant Distress (“Pīḷana”)” for an explanation of ” aṭṭīyati harāyati jigucchati.”

[LayDhammaFollower]

Friends, I got bit of insight about this sutta;

#1 It says that saññā/perception is like mirage in desert. Only now, I start to realise the meaning and importance of it;

Due to vipreetha/distorted saññā, we perceive something which is not there; like mirage in desert;

Example of Cow;

Like cow seeing dry grass as green grass due to wearing green glasses and then eating it under this wrong perception!

Another example illustrating mirage like nature of saññā;

Perceiving someone as friend or foe; While, There is nothing such as friend or enemy in reality;

Is there any inherent property in anybody which makes them your ally or enemy? Why one person can be worst enemy of someone while someone else think of that same person as their best friend?

We basically hold onto something done/said by that person and we perceive that person based onto that part. (p.s. holding onto something is converting PañcakKhanda into PañcaUpādānakKhanda.)

For example, holding onto someone’s good behaviour might make us think of them as friend and holding onto someone’s bad behaviour or something negative makes us think of them as enemy.

Now, in mundane sense there can be friend or foe.

But, in ultimate reality there is no such thing as friend or foe more then there is mirage in desert.

So, we behave like donkey pulling cart (bearing painful PañcakKhanda), except not only carrot is not reachable but carrot in not there in first place! our perceived carrot (which is not only unattainable but is not there to begin with) is long term happiness; which is perceived as such due to three kinds of vipallāsa!

@Lal, Can you verify this insight? Is this correct way to understand mirage like nature of saññā?

===

#2 Also, Now I am bit curious; just as there is excellent reason behind comparison of saññā to mirage in desert …

Why RūpakKhanda is specifically compared to water foam and VedanāKkhanda to water bubble?

My guess on why vedanā is compared to water bubble;

Maybe it is because vedanā comes through “phassa paccayā vedanā” dependent on six senses, just like bubble all type of vedanā come and go very fast, like bubble on water.

Is this correct?

You said above in this thread;

– feeling (vedana) also foam (bubbles that appear when it rains and break quickly),

– vinnana to the trunk of a banana tree (which has no “hardcore” or essence); one becomes tired at the end.

While in sutta itself,

Rūpa is compared to water foam;

Vedanā is compared to water bubble;

Saññā is compared to mirage in desert;

Saṅkhāra are compared to wood of banana tree; empty and hollow without heart wood;

Viññāṇa is compared to magician’s trick;

===

#3 My guess on why viññāṇa is compared magician’s trick;

It is maybe because, kamma viññāṇa creates whole world (PañcakKhanda). Once we see the mechanism of formation of Kamma viññāṇa and how it brings result i.e. creates nāmarūpa, we are no longer fascinated by existence/sensory experience; so it is basically due to understanding nāmarūpa paricceda ñāṇa.

Is this correct?

===

#4 why saṅkhāra are compared to banana tree wood specifically?

1 user thanked author for this post.

Jorg

[Lal]

LayDhammaFollower wrote: “So, we behave like donkey pulling cart (bearing painful PañcakKhanda), except not only carrot is not reachable but carrot in not there in the first place! “

1. That is true in a more profound sense. We have what is called “ghana saññā” or “perception of dense matter.” Here, “ghana” means “thick/solid/dense,” not to be confused with “ghāna,” meaning the “ghāna pasāda rupa” responsible for smelling.

• I just tried to look for a sutta on “ghana saññā” at Sutta Central, but nothing shows up. But “ghana saññā” is another form of “wrong perception” we have about material objects. 
• We think our physical bodies are dense and that steel is highly dense.

2. However, the atoms that makeup everything in our external physical world are mostly empty space!

• The average atomic radius is about 100 picometers (pm), about 10^-10 meters. The size of the nucleus, on the other hand, is much smaller than the size of the atom. The average size of a nucleus is about 5 to 10 femtometers (fm), which is about 10^-15 meters. Thus, a nucleus is about five orders of magnitude smaller in “radius” and volume-wise unimaginably tiny compared to an atom.
• On the other hand, 99+% of the mass of an atom is in the nucleus!
• That is why an atom is almost “void of matter”!

3. Yet, we perceive our bodies and everything around us to be “solid” and “dense.” That is the wrong perception of “ghana saññā.” But I have not seen any discussion on that in any English texts. 

• So, LDF ‘s “hunch” is entirely accurate. 

4. To understand how “empty” an atom (or a physical object) is, we can ask the following question: “If all atoms on the earth are collapsed to the nuclear dimension what would be the earth’s radius?”

• The radius of the Earth is about 6,371 kilometers (km). If all the atoms making up the Earth collapsed to their nuclear dimension, the radius of the Earth would be only  64 meters! That is smaller than a city block!
• I asked the ChatGPT to do this calculation, and it got confused first; see  my chat on December 27, 2022, at 11:32 am: “Debunking the Great AI Lie – Video.”

5. The Buddha called the elementary unit of matter a “bhuta” or a ghost for that reason. At that level, it is impossible to detect, just as it is impossible to see a ghost. 

• I mentioned this briefly in the post “The Origin of Matter – Suddhāṭṭhaka“; see, especially #10.
• Scientists tried to pin down the “smallest unit of matter,” but it (Higgs boson) turned out to be a “packet of energy.” Per the Wikipedia article, “Higgs boson,”: “After a 40-year search, a subatomic particle with the expected properties was discovered in 2012 by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland.”
• Thus, science has again confirmed the worldview of the Buddha!

6. Therefore, all our mental impressions about rupa are “distorted.”  Viññāṇa (including vipāka viññāṇa) is a magician; it presents a “distorted version” of the world. Understanding that is “yathābhūta ñāna.” 

• See “Bhūta and Yathābhūta – What Do They Really Mean.”

2 users thanked author for this post.

Jorg, LayDhammaFollower

[LayDhammaFollower]

That was good explanation, Lal.

Thank you for explaining “Ghana saññā” and Pheṇapiṇḍūpamasutta in detail.

Now, viññāṇa and Rūpa, saññā is clear according to this sutta.

===

I was talking to another dhamma friend, He explained that “saṅkhāra are like banana tree wood because just as banana tree has no strong heart wood, all akusala saṅkhāra have no essence or value. They don’t lead to anything useful or fruitful.”

Is this correct?

[Lal]

“He explained that “saṅkhāra are like banana tree wood because just as banana tree has no strong heart wood, all akusala saṅkhāra have no essence or value. They don’t lead to anything useful or fruitful.”

Yes. That is easy to see.

• We do kamma with (abhi)saṅkhāra with high expectations because of avijjā: “avijjā paccayā saṅkhāra.”
• However, that leads only to “ jāti paccayā jarā, marana, soka-paridēva-dukkha-dōmanassupāyasā sambhavan’ti” or “only to eventual suffering.”
• In the process, we are subjected to three types of suffering:”saṅkhāra dukkha, dukkha dukkha, and viparināma dukkha. “Introduction -2 – The Three Categories of Suffering“

[LayDhammaFollower]

Okay. Understood Lal.

[LayDhammaFollower]

Lal, I have been reading more about Ghana saññā from your recommended posts. This time I have understood the concept of Yathābhūta ñāna better than before.

#1 However, It is still bit unclear that why Ghana saññā is such a critical concept?

#2 Also, What are consequences of having AND not having Ghana saññā?

#3 Why is it said that one understands the world properly only when all ten saṃyojana are removed i.e. with arhant phala?

#4 this is something I found on internet;

Why does a table also feel solid? Many websites will tell you that this is due to the repulsion – that two negatively charged things must repel each other. But this is wrong, and shows you should never trust some things on the internet. It feels solid because of the dancing electrons.

If you touch the table, then the electrons from atoms in your fingers become close to the electrons in the table’s atoms. As the electrons in one atom get close enough to the nucleus of the other, the patterns of their dances change. This is because, an electron in a low energy level around one nucleus can’t do the same around the other – that slot’s already taken by one of its own electrons. The newcomer must step into an unoccupied, more energetic role. That energy has to be supplied, not by light this time but by the force from your probing finger.

So pushing just two atoms close to each other takes energy, as all their electrons need to go into unoccupied high-energy states. Trying to push all the table-atoms and finger-atoms together demands an awful lot of energy – more than your muscles can supply. You feel that, as resistance to your finger, which is why and how the table feels solid to your touch.

– Source

[Lal]

“#1 However, It is still bit unclear that why Ghana saññā is such a critical concept?”

I don’t think it is critical in the sense that one must comprehend that to make progress. It is one factor that can be helpful. Different people make a “breakthrough” with different approaches. This may help some.

• That should answer question #2.

“#3 Why is it said that one understands the world properly only when all ten saṃyojana are removed i.e. with arhant phala?“

• One would lose ALL attachments to this world only at the Arahant stage when one’s “yathabhuta nana” becomes complete. 
• One loses attachment in stages as one’s understanding becomes more and more precise.

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

LayDhammaFollower

[LayDhammaFollower]

Okay.

#1 Lal, can you mention a few pathways to develop “Yathābhūta ñāna” other than “Ghana saññā”?

My guess is those are PS cycles steps, Twelve āyatana.

#2 By developing “Yathābhūta ñāna”, the goal is to understand that “everything in this world is made up of infinite configuration of constantly evolving matter and energy, which in turn are created by the same mind-made fundamental building blocks“, right?

[Lal]

I think your questions have answers in the following. This is an excellent point to contemplate for all.

• In yathābhūta ñāna, “yathā” means “true nature,” and ñāna means wisdom. Thus, it means “wisdom about the true nature of this world made of four types of bhūta: pathavi, āpo, tējo, and vāyo.”
• Everything in this world (alive and inert) is made of bhūta. Bhuta is a Sinhala word as well as a Pāli word. It means a “ghost,” i.e., “not real.” That deeper meaning is associated with the four elemental “bhūta“: pathavi, āpo, tējo, and vāyo. 
• As discussed in “The Origin of Matter – Suddhāṭṭhaka” these bhūta have origins in mind, specifically in javana citta. In summary, that means we live in a world made up by our minds and suffer immensely. That suffering goes away when one fully understands that.

I just revised the post, “Bhūta and Yathābhūta – What Do They Really Mean.”

• It is further explained in that post.

1 user thanked author for this post.

LayDhammaFollower

[LayDhammaFollower]

Lal said,

As discussed in “The Origin of Matter – Suddhāṭṭhaka” these bhūta have origins in mind, specifically in javana citta. In summary, that means we live in a world made up by our minds and suffer immensely. That suffering goes away when one fully understands that.

Understood.

===

Everything in this world is just different configuration of constantly evolving matter and energy, which are created by just four mind-made fundamental building blocks.

Lal, Is this correct or not?

===

Another relevant question to this discussion;

#1 Until Arhant phala saññā is defiled.

Due to that, there is a PERCEPTION of things that do not really exist in reality more than a figment of the imagination of the mind, right?

#2 For example, All sounds are just different configurations of four maha bhuta, but some sounds are perceived as pleasant music, some sounds are perceived as praise, some are perceived as noise, some as an insult, etc. right?

The same goes for all sense inputs right? Including Dhamma (with long a).

#3 Beings with ignorance see some configurations (of matter+energy) as good and some as bad, unable to see that anything perceived as good cannot be had without their bad counterpart. Which is of course what Anicca is.

[Lal]

#1 and #2: It is not quite right to say “..things that do not really exist in reality more than a figment of the imagination of the mind”

• Things do exist in a sense, but they all have finite existences, i.e., death (destruction) is built-in with the birth of living or inert things. Furthermore, they undergo unexpected changes during their existence. 
• The correct interpretation is the following: It is incorrect to say things don’t exist, but it is also incorrect to say things don’t exist; things exist as long as the sustaining dhammas (with a long a) have not run out of energy.
• See “Kaccānagotta Sutta (SN 12.15)“

#3 is correct.

1 user thanked author for this post.

LayDhammaFollower

[LayDhammaFollower]

#1 Lal, There are no “friends”, “enemies”, “nice music”, “bad music”, “praise”, “insult” etc in ultimate reality, right?

That is what I meant by “figment of imagination“, as in they are just labeled as such by the mind but are not out there in reality.

#2 These “defiled perceptions” are responsible for arising of sōmanassa vedanā with “nice music” or with “praise” and are responsible for arising of “dōmanassa vedanā ” with “insult” or “bad music” for example, right?

There is just constantly evolving combinations of matter and energy.

[Lal]

Again, it is better not to say they don’t exist. 

• They exist until the (mental) energy that produces them is exhausted. Furthermore, they can only lead to further suffering.
• If things don’t exist, they cannot bring suffering!

It is one extreme to say things exist (which gives a sense of permanence/stability or “nicca nature”), but it is the other extreme to say things do not exist. 

• Vinnana is a “magician” because it presents a “nicca nature.”
• That second extreme is nihilism or uccheda ditthi. The first is sassata ditthi.
• “Discarding both extremes, the Tathagata teaches the middle way.”

[LayDhammaFollower]

Got it.

 

[Author]

Posts