Yes.retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Kevin,
There is no actor, but is there action?Virgo wrote:In the strictest sense I would say no, Retro, because for something to make a choice, there must always be a chooser
Metta,
Retro.
Kevin
Yes.retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Kevin,
There is no actor, but is there action?Virgo wrote:In the strictest sense I would say no, Retro, because for something to make a choice, there must always be a chooser
Metta,
Retro.
"Appears" to make "choices." Appears. So you are sayting, it would seem, there is no real choice, whatsoever, to be made. Is this what you are saying?Virgo wrote:It does answer the questions because as I explained the Buddha said "Bhikkhus, all determinations are not self". Citta, cetasika, and rupa arise and fall away. They are not a self, not permanent, and not happiness. It seems as if a being makes choices but the Buddha taught that all dhammas are not self. Dhammas not being a person, no being makes a choice, conditions simply arise. Moha, self-view, mana, and lobha are mostly what appear to make "choices".tiltbillings wrote: And, as has been pointed out to you, it really does not address the issue. Obviously, you cannot offer a cogent response to legitimate question raised by your postings.
jcsuperstar wrote:but who is this you/i that is impatient, or strives or remembers or any of those other things you suggest and how is this you/i different from the you/i that meditates, or strives for nibbana?Virgo wrote:You should strive for kusala and for understanding. And you should always try to understand clearly, constantly refining your view.jcsuperstar wrote:the problem in what you're saying is you make it out to just be an evolutionary process, so then there is no reason for anyone to do anything, but the buddha argued against such fatalist theories, so how can you reconcile that? how is a conditioned cetasika to be a conditioned unless through effort (right effort)?
When you are impatient, have energy, strive and say "I should be patient". When you do not understand dhamma, have energy and reflect on it, try to understand. When you have unwholesome thoughts time and again understand them to arise based on conditions and understand them to be thus anatta wether they are wholesome or unwholesome. Think, "It would be better if I refrained from harming others". Think, should you have the accumulations to, "Attachment and aversion are very harmful. All of these constant sense contacts enflare my not yet uprooted by wisdom afflictions. Should I touch the bliss of jhana, my mind would not be stirred by sense contacts and it would be clean and kusala. This is good because reacting in attached and averse ways to anatta, conditioned dhammas is unwholesome. I shall do this and remember that things are simply conditioned, just as calm will be conditioned by mind settling on it's object, that calm will not arise without that condition, and just as irritability increases in a man through the heat element being inflamed, it not being inflamed so much when factors disturbing a person of a heat constitution are not experienced by a person of strong heat constitution these conditioned dhammas are only anatta". [
Kevin
isnt the practice of meditation setting up the conditions for kusala citta to arise? or at the very least the outcome of causes and conditions that caused the citta that "wants" to meditation to arise?
when i'm reading my nina van gorkom books (and i have a few, and pretty much everything zolag has in print) how is how is this striving to develop right view through the understanding of the function of citta, nama rupa etc any different than say the striving to understand the same thing via anapanasati?
No I have not. That is simply a way of deflecting the difficult questions put to you.Virgo wrote:You have been poignantly rude since the beginning of this thread.Tilt wrote: You are responding to something that is not there, or at best you are responding to a bit of frustration at trying to get you to actually engage points put to you, which you studiously ignore.
Asking you to back up your statements is not unreasonable and it is an accepted part of dialogue and debate. You have, so far, given us no reason to take your word on these thing without giving us carefully considered support (not undigested cut and past of long passages), which you do not do well. This is about the Buddha's teachings, not your opinion, nor even your "logic," unless it is supported by the Buddha's teachings, which you are not very good at doing. Your assertions that you have presented "logical" arguments which are being ignored does not hold up and is a waste of time. Rather than playing the victim here, give us well-crafted arguments with carefully considered textual support and maybe we can have a debate/dialogue.You have pulled more than one trick as well such as ignoring my arguments and distracting from them by asking me to quote a specific passage from the Abhidhamma that mentions panna (completely irelevant to the thread and an attempt to sidetrack me and others from the fact that you can't debate my argument logically), repeatedly saying I haven't quoted a thing when I quoted and explained the quote originally quoted by Venerable P. which was pertinent to my argument, and using your ability to continually say "you have not quoted much" to ignore the points made, and so on. I have been around internet forums for a while Tilt. I have seen all these tricks before. It is rather hard to pull to wool over my eyes.
Kevin
And there is choice? I can choose to act badly or to act in accordance with the precepts just as I can choose to tell myself to be patient? To quote you: When you are impatient, have energy, strive and say "I should be patient".Virgo wrote:Yes.retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Kevin,
There is no actor, but is there action?Virgo wrote:In the strictest sense I would say no, Retro, because for something to make a choice, there must always be a chooser
Metta,
Retro.
Kevin
More of your crafty deflection Tilt. Even the Buddha referred to himself as "I" and other people as "he" and so on. He also taught anatta though.tiltbillings wrote: [Seems this msg by Kevin was deleted by Kevin while I was writing the following:] And there is choice? I can choose to act badly or to act in accordance with the precepts just as I can choose to tell myself to be patient? To quote you: When you are impatient, have energy, strive and say "I should be patient".
I don't really think choices are made, as I said. But I do think things (actions) occur.retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Kevin,
Is choice an action?
Metta,
Retro.
He did teach anatta; however, he talked about making choices, which is kamma, afterall. Notice here, you did not answer the question.Virgo wrote:More of your crafty deflection Tilt. Even the Buddha referred to himself as "I" and other people as "he" and so on. He also taught anatta though.tiltbillings wrote: [Seems this msg by Kevin was deleted by Kevin while I was writing the following:] And there is choice? I can choose to act badly or to act in accordance with the precepts just as I can choose to tell myself to be patient? To quote you: When you are impatient, have energy, strive and say "I should be patient".
I shall be waiting for reply, but if "one should develop understanding and understand that in reality there is no me or I...." Ah, so there are choices that I can make, such as mindfulness/vipassana meditation.I also said in that same thread "one should also constantly refine ones view". This means one should develop understanding and understand that in reality there is no me or I, but that there is only nama and rupa, ie. citta, cetasika, and rupa at work arising based on conditions. Anatta.
I will get to the other messages tomorrow. It is late.
Kevin
Which is to say, no kamma. And now you contradict yourself: This means one should develop understanding and understand that in reality there is no me or I, which certainly requires choice.Virgo wrote:I don't really think choices are made, as I said. But I do think things (actions) occur.retrofuturist wrote:Greetings Kevin,
Is choice an action?
Metta,
Retro.
Source: http://www.beyondthenet.net/dhamma/kamma.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;The word "kamma" means literally action, deed or doing. But in Buddhism it means specifically volitional action.
The Buddha says: "Monks it is volition that I call kamma. For having willed, one then acts by body, speech or mind".
What really lies behind all action, the essence of all action, is volition, the power of the will. It is this volition expressing itself as action of body, speech and mind that the Buddha calls kamma.
This means that unintentional action is not kamma. If we accidently step on some ants while walking down the street, that is not the kamma of taking life, for there was no intention to kill. If we speak some statement believing it to be true and it turns out to be false, this is not the kamma of lying, for there is no intention of deceiving.
As I tried to say in my earlier post, this is part of the question of what exactly cetana is, and how it works in the context of anatta.retrofuturist wrote: I'm having a lot of trouble trying to see how you can on one hand say there is no choosing, but that there is action.
Imo, this was very well said.meindzai wrote: With regards to Anatta, there's still a difference between "choice" and "my choice."
...
So surely we can have choice, without having to identify with it.
sammuti-kathā is not inferior to paramattha-kathā.Herein references to living beings, gods, Brahma, etc., are sammuti-kathā, whereas
references to impermanence, suffering, egolessness, the aggregates of the empiric
individuality, the spheres and elements of sense perception and mind-cognition, bases of
mindfulness, right effort, etc., are paramattha-kathā. One who is capable of understanding
and penetrating to the truth and hoisting the flag of Arahantship when the teaching is set out
in terms of generally accepted conventions, to him the Buddha preaches the doctrine based on
sammuti-kathā. One who is capable of understanding and penetrating to the truth and hoisting
the flag of Arahantship when the teaching is set out in terms of ultimate categories, to him the
Buddha preaches the doctrine based on paramattha-kathā. To one who is capable of
awakening to the truth through sammuti-kathā , the teaching is not presented on the basis of
paramattha-kathā, and conversely, to one who is capable of awakening to the truth through
paramattha-kathā, the teaching is not presented on the basis of sammuti-kathā. There is this
simile on this matter: Just as a teacher of the three Vedas who is capable of explaining their
meaning in different dialects might teach his pupils, adopting the particular dialect, which
each pupil understands, even so the Buddha preaches the doctrine adopting, according to the
suitability of the occasion, either the sammuti- or the paramattha-kathā. It is by taking into
consideration the ability of each individual to understand the Four Noble Truths, that the
Buddha presents his teaching, either by way of sammuti, or by way of paramattha, or by way
of both. Whatever the method adopted the purpose is the same, to show the way to
Immortality through the analysis of mental and physical phenomena. AA. Vol. I, pp.54-55
http://kr.buddhism.org/~skb/down/papers/094.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
This is a point that Prof Karunadasa often emphasizes. I think that it is a very good one.tiltbillings wrote:
sammuti-kathā is not inferior to paramattha-kathā.
It is a good article, showing that the Theravada position is rather sophisticated. Also, it has been years since I read Jayatilleke. It is good to go back and look at his book.Paññāsikhara wrote:This is a point that Prof Karunadasa often emphasizes. I think that it is a very good one.tiltbillings wrote:
sammuti-kathā is not inferior to paramattha-kathā.
It should also thus influence how we understand (eg. translate in English) the very word "paramattha". The "attha" in particular has many shades and valencies.
And also thus, too, the "sammuti", rather than late Skt renderings from "sam-vrt", the "covering", effectively making "samvrti" an obstruction to knowledge, rather than what is according to "convention" (sammuti).