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Upekkha,
I would like to share my own experience of this.
“I noticed many thoughts THAT ARISE in my mind are irrelevant talk”
We can hardly help that. The task consists of stopping those thoughts after they have arisen. And yet, at the same time, we CAN help that – for the more we train the mind to dwell on Dhamma, the more will the mind be fully occupied there, and those unwelcome thoughts can find no way in. The door is blocked. I cannot maintain this state of ‘guarding’ mindfulness all of the time, not to say most of the time.
For example, watching the world news – the bush fires in Australia. Taken by the ‘spectacular’ burning forests, I may want to watch the full report. Then..’what if I or a loved one were caught there? Could it happen here? What to do in such a situation?’ All irrelevant vaci sankhara. Suffice instead to spare a thought of genuine compassion. That should lead to Karuna and on to Metta in a general, universal sense. Then it is no longer vaci sankhara. On the contrary, what in the beginning could have led to harmful vaci sankhara has been turned into meritorious Metta.
Same when the arammana is an inner one, a mental one, as in the case you take up. In most cases, these are just random thoughts with no bases of ‘potential good’ inherent in them. Just mental babble. They are to be discarded, but we may not even become aware of that until some time has elapsed. But we get back on the right track alright.
And further to what Christian is saying – it just so happens (!!) that my latest contribution in Meaning of Key Pali words forum (December 31, 2019 at 3:58 pm) sn35.244 (States that entail Suffering) addresses specifically this question, right at the very last chapter.
Thank you for the reference Sybe,
It lead me to the previous sutta sn35.244/en/bodhi (States that entail suffering). Compelling. I have a habit of doing this, reading also the previous and the following one or two suttas to the one referenced. More often than not the topics are related, though maybe not exactly one and the same.
I urge you too to reflect on it.
Welcome to the Site reddypapers.
As I take it, what you are doing or trying to do is concentration rather than mindfulness. …”breathing meditation/body scanning /chanting (with understanding of the meaning of the Pali words)” Wilfully ordering the body into a regime of one sort or another.
These are practices, rehearsed and tried out in the expectation of a result, a result expected in the body, in sensations in the body. While mindfulness is CONSTANTLY connecting anything you are doing or reflecting upon to a Dhamma concept or to Dhamma as Dhamma. You need not ‘DO’ anything. So for’extended periods of time’ read: at ALL times…and ANYwhere, and in ANY position.
I hope this and the replies of others help.
“For example, we have a “bug cup” and a piece of cardboard at home, ready to use. When we see an insect in the house, we put the cup over it and slide the cardboard under the cup SLOWLY. Then we lift the cardboard and the cup together so that the bug is trapped there. Then we take it outside and release it.”
That is my ‘standard equipment’ as well. But sometimes some other can be improvised to deal with particular situations as they arise. In summer I noticed a mosquito sitting on the fruit cover mesh on the kitchen table. I had already reached for my cup and lid…stopped..curved mesh surface, flat open cup base…aha, remove the mesh, wait for the insect to fly back in, now directly onto the fruit, then quickly cover the tray with the mesh, …remove the cover out the window.
As to meditation, I never even use the word, because that at once implies assuming practised postures, maybe coupled with memorised chants and so on. I therefore use the term ‘to reflect’. And to me that means taking time to ‘go into’ something as deep as I can, no matter whether I am sitting, standing, walking or lying down. No formalities, no regimes, no steps, simply natural ‘giving due consideration to’…contemplating is the more natural term, rather than meditation. I know I formerly equated formal meditation with silabbata paramasa outright. I now see it may be beneficial to those whose gati is in line with that.
Upekkha,
Try to see it like this. Tilakkhana starts with anicca. Any life anywhere, however enjoyable, in a human, deva or brahma realm will come to an end, will end in death. And there is no telling what will follow (unless one has set foot on the Path). And in the PS process, all the chain making for the abhisankhara that leads to that realm ends with old age and death..then bhava, jati all over again, and again, and again.
This is how ‘Tilakkhana and Paticca Samuppada are inter-related’. I sincerely hope this helps.
Of course I have a question. Is it not evident? My conclusion, the connection to anicca, that conclusion, is it the correct one? Or… the PS process, whether Akusala- or kusala- Mula, does not apply to an Arahant because he has seen the anicca nature perfectly. That was my conclusion. Can it be stated thus?
Thank you
“….a KEY CONCLUSION that arises out of a series of posts.” Presicely, Lal. That it what I tried to do. But instead of simplify, I perhaps over-simplified. The idea was to make of this maze of terms a clear idea of what in effect makes for an Arahant.
Please clarify what you mean by “There must be a step earlier than that you could not understand”. I have no idea what that step might be. Not that I claim to have understood ALL steps everywhere, in every post; in this connection, I mean, what might be the step I have not understood?
“kamma viññāna created via the Akusala-Mula PS process do not arise in an Arahant.” was not a question I asked. It was a statement of yours, Lal. I only saw from it that they (kamma vinnana) arise neither from the kusala-Mula PS process, taken as equivalent to (the perception of) nicca. So therefore the conclusion I came to was that an Arahant has seen anicca perfectly.
I see anicca as the determining factor in all of this.
It will perhaps be helpful to see the main idea that an Arahant will therefore not attach, even less draw closer, any of the khandhas, vinnana being their summation. So “kamma viññāna created via the Akusala-Mula PS process do not arise in an Arahant”; and so we may continue..’ even via the kusala-Mula PS process’ ?
I have never gone to any depth into this, nor have I now – I am contributing my bit only because Lal requests it.
My first impression is that the physical body is external rupa in the sense that it not under our control, or so only to a minimal extent.
That is, with pasada rupa, once arisen, say sight ,it is then up to us to welcome or to abandon it. But the functions inside the physical body, say those of the digestive system or breathing, to give two instances, work perfectly well without our being even conscious of them. In that sense the body may be said to be external rupa. Also, at death, we take with us ‘all that made us up’ in the non-material sense, but the physical body we leave behind as ‘external’ to our true being.
Aversion may not be ‘another manifestation of greed’.
If a person hates someone, it is not because he loves somebody else. There is only aversion – and, not wanting to do harm to that person, and not wanting to harm oneself by vaci and mano sankhara, the desire is just to keep away. But this is not greed.
However, ‘Because of the perception of ‘I am’ suffering, this person wishes for the non-existent of that unpleasant experience.’still holds.
Christian said:
“I can not explain how Nibbana can be just Nibbana without consciousness etc. but this is how it is.”
That was my whole point. It comes to that.
Thank you Christian.
Thank you Christian.
I realize I must be seeing things from a different standpoint. Still some way to go.
May YOU attain Nibbana in this life.
Evidently, Christian was quoting me.
Before I read Lal’s question to Christian, I was busy replying to Christian:
“One may not grasp it or make sense of it but after Nibbana there is only Nibbana. If you inquiry on it – it make really clear sense. In Nibbana there is only Nibbana”
If I say: ‘Life on an exoplanet orbiting that star is nothing like life on Earth. We have no parallels. Only thing we can say is that life there is what it is there.’ It really makes clear sense, granted; not knowing what it is, the only thing that makes clear sense is that nothing is known about it. ONLY A BEING LIVING ON THAT PLANET KNOWS.
So let us not play around with words and catch phrases. Starting with'”Nibbana is…” what follows should be a statement of what Nibbana is. Continuing “….Nibbana”, what are you stating about Nibbana? Nothing. It is what it is. Meaning, we do not know. Even if that statement were ‘Nibbana is nicca, sukkha , atta’, still all our experience has been of anicca, dukkha and anatta.
Now though, through aveccappasada in the Buddha I ACCEPT that there is such a state as Nibbana, which is nicca, sukkha and atta, because, leading to that, was the experience that life is the opposite – full of suffering, with the grave and IMMINENT danger of worse to come if nothing is done about it. Time after time and throughout, the suttas provide insights about the true nature of life, and time after time the answers are found in the suttas, and the answers make absolute sense. So aveccappasada results. (As a boy I used to observe: why is this one here born a snail, a fly, a dog ….and I a human?)
So even if I cannot see how a sentient being remains sentient after going beyond the (anicca nature of) the pancakkhandhas , and yet is still able to experience the nicca, sukkha and atta that is Nibbana, still it MUST be so – for the opposite will not do, we have experience of THAT aplenty. Even though to me it makes no sense to say: ‘there is no sukkha vedana there, yet Nibbana is sukkha; there is no experiencer there, but there is (the experience of) sukkha’. Moreover, I have always had the certainty that ‘ultimate existence’ can only be one of happiness, however many the obstacles and however long it takes to get there. So that means the suttas are correct in stating that the ultimate state of being is one of happiness.
But there is the danger of taking any intermediate state of happiness to be the ultimate one.
sn55.54/en/sujato. Gilanasutta. (Sick):“Mahānāma, a wise lay follower should put at ease another wise lay follower who is SICK, SUFFERING, GRAVELY ILL with four consolations. ‘Be at ease, sir. You have experiential confidence in the Buddha..the teaching …the Saṅgha …And you have the ethical conduct loved by the noble ones … leading to immersion.’ “They should say: ‘Are you concerned for your mother and father?… are you concerned for your partners and children?’” To both questions the answer is ‘whether you are concerned or not, you will die anyway’..
“Are you concerned for the five kinds of human sensual stimulation?’ If they reply,‘I am,’ they should say: Good sir, heavenly sensual pleasures are better than human sensual pleasures. It would be good to turn your mind away from human sensual pleasures and fix it on the gods of the Four Great Kings” If they reply,’I have done so,’ they should say ‘‘Good sir, the gods of the Thirty Three are better than the gods of the Four Great Kings’… and so on to the Yama, the Tusita, the Nimminarati and the Nimittavasavatti devas…and “the Gods of the Brahmā realm are better than the Nimittavasavatti devas. It would be good to turn your mind away from the Nimittavasavatti devas and fix it on the Gods of the Brahmā realm.’ If they reply,‘I have done so,’ they should say:
“Good sir, the Brahmā realm is IMPERMANENT, NOT LASTING, (anicco addhuvo) and included within identity.It would be good to turn your mind away from the Brahmā realm and apply it to the cessation of identity(sakkāyapariyāpanno) .’If they reply,‘I have done so’,then there is no difference between a lay follower whose mind is freed in this way and a mendicant whose mind is freed from defilements; that is,between the freedom of one and the other.”
Tobias,
That is why not-self is in inverted commas: “not-self” – meaning that it is not what is TAKEN TO BE “Self”. That is what I make out.
Of more substance is Siebe’s (quoting Lal): ‘Lal said: “But unless one really understands that there is no “experiencer” involved, it is not possible to stop births even in the apayas”.’ (November 3, 2019 at 11:02 am above.)
If you ask me, this forum topic has come to appear more like a Mahāyāna inquiry into emptiness, nothingness, sunnyata: no experiencer? The same old questions about Nibbana come up. Who is it, apart from the pancakkhandhas, that experiences? The manomayakaya shorn of all that is positive and negative, with only what is neutral remaining. Lal: ‘The key here is to UNDERSTAND why getting absorbed in either sukha or dukkha vedana is harmful. The mind needs to “SEE” that there is no actual “experiencer.”
For all but Arahants that has no practical value whatsoever. And if there WERE an Arahant on the Forum, even then it has no practical value, for an Arahant has gone the distance, he does not need to be here.
I prefer not to go that way with this.
With sukkha vedana one is pleased, welcomes and embraces it. There is icca involved. With dukkha vedana, one is annoyed, at best, rejects it, and does one’s best to obliterate it. There is no icca here. The sequence that leads to Release is ANICCA, from which (the recognition of) dukkha follows (Tilakkhana), and from dukkha, the Four Noble Truths.
With dukkha vedana, I just apply anapanna and satipatthana on the spot, not contemplating the long-term (would-be) consequences. I do NOT always succeed, and when I do it is most often after quite some time.
