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There are two concepts mentioned in this sutta: “Atta” as “self” AND “atta” as “opposite of anatta” as the Buddha meant in Tilakkhana.
In the first case, “anatta” is NEVER used as the opposite of “atta” in ANY sutta.
For example, in this sutta, Vaccagotta asks the Buddha: “kiṃ nu kho, bho gotama, atthattā”ti? Evaṃ vutte, bhagavā tuṇhī ahosi. “Kiṃ pana, bho gotama, natthattā”ti? Evaṃ vutte, bhagavā tuṇhī ahosi.”
Translated: “Master Gotama, is there a self? (atthattā”ti)”
When this was said, the Buddha was silent.
“Then, Master Gotama, is there no self? (natthattā”ti)”
Again the Blessed One was silent.”Here the Vaccagotta was asking whether there is a “self (atthattā”ti)” OR “no-self (natthattā”ti)”
Note that here the opposite is written as “natthattā”ti“, using the negation “na” and NOT “anatta“.
After Vaccagotta left (when the Buddha did not answer for the second and third time), Ven. Ananda asked the Buddha why he did not explain it to Vaccagotta. The Buddha said he did not answer because at that time Vaccagotta was incapable was grasping this difference, just as many even in Theravada are unable to grasp. He did not think Vaccagotta could understand “sabbe dhammā anattā” and could get confused, as mentioned at the end of the sutta.
This is the difference explained in the post: “Anatta – the Opposite of Which Atta?” and in “Atta Hi Attano Natho”.
This is the danger posed by those who translate these key suttas incorrectly. Of course they are not aware that they are doing a very serious damage. But the problem is that when we try to point out the problem (and explain at length), many of them do not even listen.
Now we are getting to these deeper issues in Buddha Dhamma that are critical to understand. I encourage everyone to ask questions if not clear.
“Anatta sanna leads to the uprooting of asmi mana?”
Yes. It is the comprehension of Tilakkhana that gets one to the Sotapanna stage through the Arahant stage.
All ten samyojana are removed via comprehension of anicca, dukkha, anatta.
One could have the anicca sanna or dukkha sanna and get there too.
When one has one of the three (at the four levels of Nibbana, so to speak), one will automatically have other two at those levels as well.
All these are just different ways of expressing the unfruitfulness of seeking long-term happiness in a world that is, by nature, will not be able to provide. In contrast, one will be subjected to much suffering when having that “false hope”.
Asubha means not auspicious. People get attached to sense pleasing things with the perception of them being auspicious, i.e.,they will be good and beneficial.
No matter how much money, fame, etc one gets in a lifetime, one will have to leave all that behind at death, AND it could come at any moment. One needs to have the “marana sanna“, in order to strive harder.
It is not a good a good idea to have cravings for food. One needs food to sustain oneself, but beyond that it is another craving, that will lead to suffering. When one is too greedy, one cultivates “greedy sankhara” and could become eligible to become a preta (hungry ghost).
The bottom line is that it is not a good idea to have cravings for anything in this world. Of course, one should not just abstain from things arbitrarily; that “sanna” comes via understanding, as one makes progress.
As for, “aniccasaññā, anicce dukkhasaññā, dukkhe anattasaññā” this is discussed in the key post, “Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta – Wrong Interpretations“. See #5.
pahānasaññā, virāgasaññā are along the same lines. Pahāna means to “get rid of based on their unfruitfulness AND danger”. Virāga is t lose rāga.
All these saññā are inter-related. Different people may be able to cultivate different types based on their gati.
Firewns: I just published a post: “Dhamma, Sankhara, Sankata, Rupa, Vinnana, Gati, Asava, Anusaya“.
Hopefully, this will answer some of the questions you may still have. Please don’t hesitate to ask further questions. It is important to get these fundamental, but complex, terms clarified. Many people do not really understand these terms, because these words have been badly translated to English.
I have also revised the post: “Difference Between Dhammā and Sankhāra“.
You are correct to say that mind and brain are two different things in Buddhism.
However, brain plays a critical role for the working of the mind, as explained in the post: “Brain – Interface between Mind and Body”
Therefore, when the brain function is weakened by schizophrenia, that will affect the mind in the same way that any damage to the brain will affect the mind. In fact, as we get old, brain function deteriorates and that affects the mind too. So, there is nothing special about schizophrenia in that sense.
All those, including schizophrenia, are kamma vipaka, just as cancer or any other ailment is due to kamma vipaka.
firewrns:
“What are those dhamma that have annica and dukkha nature?”None other than sankhara. Only sankhara have the anicca and dukkha nature. All sankhara eventually lead to dukkha and thus have the anatta nature too in the sense of becoming helpless. If you think there are, you can list them and we can discuss. Remember that anicca is a perception in the mind.
Everything else is dhamma and anatta in the sense they are also not fruitful in the end. But of course, we do need Buddha Dhamma to attain Nibbana. Once the Arahanthood is attained, there is no need of that either, and that also needs to be abandoned. This is why the Buddha said just like a raft enables one to cross a river, but no point in carrying it once the river is crossed. Some who get to the Anagami stage have a hard time attaining Arahanthood, because of their attachment to Buddha Dhamma.
Of course, there many other things that are included in “sabbe dhamma” category, including nama gotta (records of all sankhara that have come and gone to the past).
The key is that sankhara are CURRENT thoughts. As soon as those thoughts expire, they become nama gotta. This is something that most people do not understand. This needs some contemplation. But you are on the right track. I have explained this in detail in the post, “Pancakkhandha or Five Aggregates – A Misinterpreted Concept” and “Pancupādānakkhandha – It is All Mental“. I don’t think that many people have read those posts. They are not an easy read, but necessary to understand things better.
You may want to take a break for a couple of days and then go over things again. You may be putting too much effort into this in a short time.
firewrns said: “One more thing that I do not understand is that the bodies of Buddhas and Arahants are rupa too, and can impart suffering in the form of aches and pains. Surely they are then of dukkha nature too?”
Of course. Suffering for an Arahant completely ends only at the death of the physical body, i.e., Parinibbana. An Arahant is free only of sankhara dukkha until death.
You said in the earlier post: “I would like to respectfully point out a possible inconsistency.”
– What is the inconsistency?Yes. I did say, “A tree or a house (sankata) is not sankhara and do not lead to suffering.” Any sankata leads to suffering only when someone gets attached to it.
Sankhara are basically thoughts. Sankata are rupa. There is a huge difference between them. “sabbe sankhara anicca” basically means our hopes and dreams about future are in vain in the long run.
I am glad to hear that firwrns has understood the basic concept of vinnnana: “I now think this is a mistake. Vinnana, vedana and sanna are not rupa. Vedana, phassa and sanna are cetasika, while vinnana is the overall experience of the cittas and cetasikas we experience in any given moment.”
This is a critical understanding that lead to the knowledge of the “namarupa paricceda nana”, i.e, how vinnana give rise to rupa formation starting with just nama (citta,cetasika). Very few people understand this key idea.
Vinnana is the mindset (hopes/desires) that arises via in the “sankhara paccaya vinnana” step in paticca samuppada (PS). Here it is the javana power in (abhi)sankhara that creates kammic energy (kamma beeja) that gives rise to future rupa (namarupa) formation.
– That is the “vinnana paccaya namarupa” step in PS.Also see, “Kamma Viññāna – Link Between Mind and Matter” and the post referred to at the end of that post.
It takes an effort to understand such key ideas. But the result is fully worth the effort. As the Buddha explained (as quoted in the above post), vinnana does not belong truly in the nama or rupa categories. It is the “link between the two and is in the middle”.
Hi Johnny,
You said: “Assuming the Anāgāmi lived throughout his life span in the Pure Abodes. He would have a chance to see 2 or even more successive Sammāsambuddhas?”Yes. I don’t remember the suttas, but there are accounts of some of those brahmas, who had listened to desanas from several Buddhas.
@Johnny_Lim:
“A Deva-born-Sakadagami will attain Nibbana faster than a Brahma-born-Anāgāmi, right?”.There are few things that need to be taken into account in your whole analysis:
- A Sakadagami will not come back to the kama loka once born in the deva loka. But he MAY attain the Anagami stage, and be born in the brahma realm before attaining Nibbana.
- In the case of Anagami, he may not need to spend the whole maximum possible lifetime for that realm before attaining Nibbana. He may attain Nibbana shortly after being born there; nothing to prevent that.
- Same kind of arguments for one who attains Sotapanna stage in the human realm. Those remaining seven bhava could be in any higher realms, depending on when he/she attains Sakadagami or Anagami stages.
Cubibobi said: “has anyone found a way to make cockroaches go away?”
And “When I see one in my home, I use a container to catch and release it. However, my gati of wanting to kill them is strong”.There are several aspects to this issue.
- Part of the answer to the first question is in the second statement. Even if you have not killed those cockroaches, you have the intention to kill them. So, you are constantly generating vaci sankhara (conscious thoughts about killing them), and more bad kamma vipaka for future. This is an important point that many people do not understand: “Correct Meaning of Vacī Sankhāra“.
- Nothing happens without one or more causes. Problems with cockroaches is not that different from problems due to ailments or getting injured. They have the causes in past kamma, and some of them (like getting cancer) are hard to avoid.
- Sometimes, if the situation has really gotten worse, one may need to take drastic one-time action to remove those bad conditions, because leaving them “as is” could lead to even more bad consequences. In this case, it could lead to bad health effects for the people who live in the house. Each person to needs to weigh out the consequences of possible actions and make decisions on how to handle the particular situation.
– So, you are aggravating the problem by not looking at the root causes for the problem.
– On the other hand, even if CAUSES are there, for something to happen, suitable CONDITIONS must be there too. Therefore, by understanding these causes (past kamma), and by not making the suitable conditions for them to bring their vipaka, one can avoid/get rid of some of these problems.
– For example, if one keeps the house not clean, that makes the environment suitable for insects to thrive. Just think about leaving the dishes unwashed in a sink for a couple of days. Things will start to grow, and you may even notice insects/flies starting to breed.
– The importance of suitable conditions to bring kamma vipaka is discussed at, “Annantara and Samanantara Paccaya“.– Once our Gotama Buddha, when he was a Bodhisattva, was a captain of a ship. While in the middle of the ocean, one crew member persuaded half of the crew to kill the captain and his half of the crew and to take over the ship. The Bodhisattva came to know about the plot. He thought through the consequences and killed the rebel leader. The rebellion stopped and the journey was completed without anymore incidents. If he had not done that many more lives would have been lost. Of course, the Bodhisattva accrued a strong bad kamma vipaka for the killing. But the alternative could have been for many more people to lose their lives.
Akvan, firewrns:
There are many suttas in the “Anamatagga Saṃyutta” that has the following verse describing the fact that there is no “discernible beginning”:
“Anamataggoyaṃ, bhikkhave, saṃsāro. Pubbā koṭi na paññāyati“.Translated: “There is no end to samsara (unless one attains Nibbana). I do not see a discernible beginning either“.
“Discernible beginning” means a Buddha can go back and look at past lives at a very high rate, but cannot see a “beginning”.
In a hetu-phala (cause and effect) process, logically there cannot be a “beginning”. Whatever the “beginning” status, it must have arisen due to a cause.
We can look at it this way too: avijja and tanha cannot arise in a vacuum. They are in the mind of a living being. The mind of a living being (i.e., thoughts or citta) arise in the hadaya vatthu.
– A hadaya vatthu itself cannot arise unless that living being had done kamma (abhisankhara) because of avijja and tanha.
– This is why there is no “beginning”.When one attains Nibbana, both avijja and tanha are removed from the mind. Then, at Parinibbana (death of the physical body), no new bhava can be grasped.
– That is the ONLY WAY to stop samsaric suffering.Rajitha said: “So one would get killed if the person murdered someone.”
- That does not hold most of the time, even though it could happen.
Rajitha said: “What form would a Vipaka from a Lobha and Moha Kamma take?”
In all three cases, lobha, dosa, moha rooted kamma will lead to kamma vipaka based on one’s intention (types of cetasika involved) and also the javana power in the citta.
This is a good topic to understand the fundamentals of Buddha Dhamma. How kamma lead to kamma vipaka is a mystery to most people. The following a general, simplified analysis of how kamma bring kamma vipaka, which can be very complex in actual details.
First, in terms of paticca samuppada, one’s birth is according one’s gati, and one’s gati are formed according to one’s sankhara (more specifically abhisankhara): “avijja paccaya sankhara” and ‘sankhara paccaya vinnana” leads to a vinnana for a specific kamma, eventually leading to “upadana paccya bhava”, and “bhava paccaya jati”.
Suppose one is contemplating on killing another person in order to marry that person’s wife. He will be doing a lot of vaci sankhara (talking to himself) while planning the murder. That gives rise to an early stage of a kamma beeja that will grow as he keeps planning and keeps thinking about it. Those citta generate kammic energy that will feed that kamma beeja. But significantly higher energy will be added to that kamma beeja at the moment of killing.
Now, he is committing this akusala based on his desire to marry the wife of that person. Even though it is based on greed, the actual action (kamma) involved is killing and it is the dosa cetasika that arises in the killing act.
He has generated a “liking for that killing” and gets attached to that idea: that is the “pati” + “icca”. The vinnana generated is an “hateful vinnana” and the kamma is done with that “hateful vinnana”. Therefore, the bhava (or the kamma beeja) created is according to that, and when that kamma beeja brings vipaka in the future he will get a “matching bhava” and a “matching birth”, i.e., “sama” “uppada“. You can read details in the “Paticca Samuppada” section.
In another example, when one habitually kills animals, those abhisankhara keep contributing to kamma beeja that have “animal killing gati” or “gati for killing”. The actual energy feeding that gati is in the citta that arise while doing that kamma. Even though one may even enjoy killing animals, at the moment of killing, the dosa cetasika arise in the mind. The javana power involved in may be small in one act, but it builds up over repeated killings.
This is more clear when one is killing a human, where a lot more javana power arise in citta (thoughts or sankhara) while doing the killing. One needs to be really angry to kill a human. So, even killing one human may be enough to give rise to a strong kamma beeja to get a corresponding bhava in the future.
In general, kamma beeja generated via dosa citta (angry thoughts) lead to birth in the niraya (hell), where one will be in a “very angry environment” all the time, being subjected to repeated torture and killings.
It is also easy to visualize what kind of bhava can be expected for vaci and kaya sankhara generated with greedy (lobha) mindset. Such greedy gati match preta bhava, and those who have excessive greedy state of mind (and thus think, speak, and act accordingly) are likely to be born as preta (hungry ghost).
Moha character is a bit more complex. It is manifested in subtle ways: excess worrying, tendency to cry and spend hours and hours worrying about even a simple mishap are some. These gati arise because one does not realize that such mishaps are results of past kamma (kamma vipaka), and thus have their origins in the past. Some of them can be avoided, some can be managed to lessen their impact, but some cannot be avoided.
Animal bhava is associated with combinations, possibly of all three (lobha,dosa, moha). Pali and Sinhala word for animal is tirisan (or three “san”).
Anyway, this may be good topic for a future post. Let us discuss and may be I can get some more ideas from the discussion.
firewrns questions:
“For example, can we say that kamma beeja are sankata too, since they arise due to abhisankhara, and their kammic energy will fade after 91 aeons?”- Yes.
“Why didn’t The Buddha say Sabbe sankata anicca or Sabbe dhamma anicca?”
- Anicca is a perception, a state of mind. Based on the wrong state of mind of “nicca” (the opposite of anicca), we do abhisankhara (think, speak, and act or do mano, vaci, and kaya sankhara) to perpetuate this suffering-filled existence. But all those sankhara can NEVER lead to happiness in the long run. That is why it is said that “sabbe sankhara anicca“.
- A tree or a house (sankata) is not sankhara and do not lead to suffering. Also, Buddha Dhamma is not a sankhara, and does not lead to suffering.
- So, I hope the distinction is clear, as to why it is not said that sabbe sankata anicca or sabbe dhamma anicca.
“Can we say that kamma beeja (which is a dhamma) is dukkha?”
– Kamma beeja itself is not dukkha. But dukkha can arise due to a kamma beeja.
It is essential to understand key concepts/terms like sankhara:
“Mental Aggregates“.
