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Thank you so much, Lal, for all your advice, help and answers. I really appreciate it! I will be sure to study those posts.
Lal:
Thank you once again for clarifying some of my doubts.
I think I finally understand why the Buddha said: Sabbe sankhara annica, Sabbe sankhara dukkha, Sabbe dhamma anatta, and not Sabbe dhamma annica, Sabbe dhamma dukkha, Sabbe dhamma anatta.
Sabbe/Sabba as I understand it is the Pali word for all (without exception). All sankhara (even those initiated just to maintain life or to compassionately help others) have annica, dukkha (especially sankhara dukkha) and anatta nature. All dhamma have anatta nature. I think some dhamma (but not all) have annica and dukka nature. Therefore the Buddha did not teach Sabbe dhamma annica, Sabbe dhamma dukkha.
What are those dhamma that have annica and dukkha nature?
(Here can I use dhamma to refer interchangeably to rupa above the suddhastaka level as well?) Those dhamma that have dukkha nature are our bodies. Even Buddhas and Arahants have bodies subject to dukkha. Dhamma that impinge on our mano indriya to impart dukha vedana (as a result of previous immoral actions) are also of dukkha nature.
Yet some dhamma that impinge on our mano indriya which happens when some stray thoughts come to our mind impart upekkha vedana. These dhamma do not have dukkha nature, I think.
Those dhamma that have annica nature are those that we react with clinging and longing to, I think. These same dhamma will inevitably have dukkha nature as well, when they fail to satisfy us. For example, we may recollect a satisfying meal we had for lunch, and immediately savour that moment in our memories for quite some time, only to be jolted from our reverie by pressing daily issues that demand our attention. Thus our disappointment at being interrupted may linger for a while, and we may brush it off as a normal state of affairs, failing to recognise its dukkha and annica nature.
Yet for other dhamma that impinge on our mano indriya, for example the sight of a familiar name triggering a memory of a distant relative one has neutral feelings for, one will not cling to the memory and it does not have annica nature for us.
By the way, you have mentioned that everything falls under four categories: 1) citta; 2) cetasika; 3) rupa (which includes dhamma which are basically just rupa below the suddhastaka stage); 4) Nibbana. Which of the four categories does sankhara belong to? Are they cetasikas?
Thank you very much in advance for your answers to my questions. I hope that I have not been rambling or bringing up old material repeatedly, and caused annoyance to anyone in the process. Please do tolerate this if it happens unintentionally.
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?
Thank you Lal for your further explanation.
Lal:
I would like to respectfully point out a possible inconsistency.
In What are rūpa? – Dhammā are rūpa too!, you wrote under #18: Any rūpa (including those kamma beeja) that one makes for oneself, cannot be maintained to one’s satisfaction.
Any type of rūpa with energy will eventually be destroyed or that energy will wear out. Furthermore, they can and will change unexpectedly while in existence too; that is the viparināma characteristic and is a root cause of suffering.And in Bhūta and Yathābhūta – What Do They Really Mean, you wrote under #19: Any rūpa that has existed or in existence now, has the “ghost-like transient nature”. That is the reason why they change unexpectedly (viparinama) and have the anicca nature.
In an earlier reply to my question in this thread, you wrote: •A tree or a house (sankata) is not sankhara and do not lead to suffering.
I understand it this way: Since a house is a rupa, it cannot be maintained to the owner’s satisfaction in the long run, and is of annica nature — but only when the owner thinks: This house is mine; I can derive much pleasure and comfort from it for as long as I want to. To those who are not owners of the house and do not desire it, it will not be of annica nature, since they have no desire to maintain it.
Hence when it undergoes decay and goes into a state of disrepair and eventual destruction, it brings despair and suffering to its owner who mistakenly thinks the house is of nicca nature (i.e. can be maintained to the owner’s satisfaction indefinitely), thus it also has dukkha nature embedded in it — only when the owner has a craving for it. To the others, the house will not bring them any dukkha.
The Buddha said: sabbe sankhara annica, sabbe sankhara dukkha, and not sabbe dhamma annica, sabbe dhamma dukkha. I think dhamma do not inherently have annica or dukkha nature, although they have anatta nature. The very act of coveting or desiring dhamma and rupa such as a house causes corresponding defiled mano sankhara, vaci sankhara and possibly kaya sankhara to arise, and it is these defiled sankhara that have the annica, dukkha and anatta nature.
Would this understanding be correct? Thank you very much in advance for your explanations.
Thanks Lal for your explanation.
In an earlier post, I wrote: I think both avijja and tanha also create or give rise to rupa below the suddhastaska level, i.e. sankhara, vinnana, vedana, etc.
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. See ‘Vinnana, Thoughts, and the Subconscious’
I apologize for any confusion arising from this mistake.
Hi Akvan,
Thanks for your explanation! You are able to explain things clearly in a simple manner, like how you explained about why a Buddha does not attain any stages of magga phala way earlier before Enlightenment to y not in another post.
This is what I think: I agree with you that to get out of this cycle, we have to eradicate avijja completely and without a trace. In order to do so, we cannot just focus on avijja, even though it is the formal starting point in paticca samuppada. PS is actually a cycle with no strict beginning or ending point, where each link is strengthened by other multiple links in forward or reverse order.
We must also focus on reducing tanha (which is related to asavas and anusayas) as well. In order to weaken one of the pair (avijja and tanha) significantly, we need to focus on weakening both simultaneously.
This is where the Noble Eightfold Path and Mundane Eightfold Path come in. Right action, right speech, right livelihood, right effort, right concentration, right view, right thought and right mindfulness on the Mundane Path help us to control our asavas and anusayas to an extent, preventing or at least reducing their further strengthening, and to a much lesser extent weakening them. It is only on the Noble Eightfold Path, however, that they start to weaken significantly. Anapana sati and sathipatthana are also vitally important in subduing anusayas and asavas.
I think Lal has said that both avijja and tanha are needed to create suddhastaska. Hence the pair of avijja and tanha are deeply intertwined and (almost) inseparable. Looking at patticca samuppada, with the other links of sankhara,etc., I think both avijja and tanha also create or give rise to rupa below the suddhastaska level, i.e. sankhara, vinnana, vedana, etc.
In patticca samuppada, avijja paccaya tanha through the intervening sankhara, vinnana, namarupa, salayatana, phassa, and vedana. Yet tanha can also paccaya avijja in the reverse order, I think.
Of the two, a much more significant breakthrough would occur when avijja is dispelled, rather than trying to control tanha directly. However tanha must also be controlled to a certain degree via sila, or the mind would be agitated and would not be able to cultivate panna to dispel avijja.
y not,
greetings to you too.
you said: Is it not that living beings have ‘no discernible beginning’? … that is,that there was never a time when they were not? How is it that here it is said that they ‘come to be’, they being sankata arising from strong kamma beeja, these in turn having arisen from abhisankhara?
This is how I understand it: Living beings come to be due to the arising of the five skhandhas in a new bhava. These five skhandhas in a new bhava are merely the infinite different manifestations or existences of individual streams of kammic energy. These kammic streams of energy have no discernible beginnings. However each of these various existences linked to an individual kammic stream of energy has a beginning and an end, which depends on the strength of the kamma beeja that gave rise to it.
Hope I have not confused you even more with my explanation.
The deva realms also belong to the sphere of sensual desire (kama loka). It is only in the brahma realms that you have the sphere of fine materiality (rupa loka) and the sphere of non-materiality (arupa loka).
y not said: I was under the impression that, apart from those who attain a deva bhava solely due to merits, the others would be (ariyas) who had developed Sakadagami bhava in a human life immediately preceding that.
Meaning: are not Sotapannas and Sotapannas Anugani still attached to gross-material existence ? How is it that they can attain a deva realm (through magga phala) lower than that of a Sakadagami? They are freed of only the four lowest realms, not the human one.
This is how I understand it: Sotapannas and Sotapanna Anugami are indeed still attached to gross-material existence. Even if they attain a deva bhava, they may still go back to a human bhava at the end of the deva bhava, or attain nirvana in the deva realms. They are only free of the four apayas, not the human realm, but they can become devas too.
One more related question would be: Do all devas and brahmas have supernatural powers? If they all have divine eyes and divine ears and the ability to travel great distances in short periods of times, then these would aid them immensely in finding opportunities to listen to desanas by Ariyas.
Thank you very much in advance for your answers to my questions.
Cuiboiboi also stated: This technique takes physical sensations as meditation objects. We start from the top of the head (around a 2-in diameter circle), notice any sensations there; then we move attention down the body, in a certain order, part by part (each part around 2,3 inches).
When we notice a sensation in a part, we move on to the next part, and see what sensations manifest in this next part. On and on through the body, round after round.
The point is not to get “stuck” in a particular part of the body, not to linger there, even if it’s a pain. The next time around to that part, that pain may have changed in nature to something else.
When attention is moved in a sweeping manner from one part of the body to the next, can the mind really stay on one particular spot, on one particular sensation long enough to observe its arising, unexpected change and passing away? It seems to me that attention would be scattered in this way, and there would be no opportunity to observe a particular sensation continuously, before moving on to observe yet another sensation.
I hesitated to post this as I did not want to mislead anyone.
I was reading the post ‘Udayavaya Nana – Introduction’.
Lal, do you think Goenka’s body scan technique as mentioned by lucas.cambon leads to the cultivation of udayavaya nana of pancakkhandha, i.e. observation of the uppada, thithi and bhanga of sensations?
Yet I am wary of the technique, since cuiboiboi stated: At this stage, one realizes that there is no “I”, “mine”, “myself” behind these wavelets, and hence anattā (here meaning “egolessness”).
This is in contrast to the definition of anatta that you discuss — that of being devoid of substance and worth.
I would recommend that people investigate further before practising it.
To be more specific, I am referring to the part under #8: ‘Therefore, four basic units of patavi, āpo, thejo, vāyo arise due to avijjā, and the other four of varna, gandha, rasa, and oja arise due to tanhā….These eight can never be detected in isolation; thus they are called “avinibbhoga rupa“. They always rise together; all eight are there in any suddhāshtaka. The relative “amounts” of each component can vary and thus some suddhāshtaka can be dominated by one component, for example. Even then, all eight are present to some extent. This is tantamount to saying that wherever there is avijjā there is tanhā, and vice versa.’
Please also let me know if I should have posted this in another forum.
Thank you for your help.
Vince,
The intention of my response was not meant to throw the discussion off track or to show off. Indeed it was partly to highlight the limited extent of my knowledge.
I must admit that I am not wise or knowledgeable enough to answer your question. Still, I hoped to shed some light on this matter to help you arrive at a satisfactory conclusion by examining it in a more positive light, i.e. whether there would be any opportunity to create kusala kamma, as opposed to whether there would be any akusala kamma created.
I sincerely apologize if I have inadvertently created any frustration for you, and hope you have had your questions answered to some extent by the others.
