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This was not a matter of mind-reading. It was a matter of reading what you wrote about why the venerable's essays ought to influence how one understands his sutta translation.Macavity wrote:Your mind-reading powers are failing you.
Here's what you wrote: Those other essays have led you to draw conclusions about Ven. Thanissaro's intention, and to interpret this sutta translation in light of your assumptions about his intention.Jechbi wrote:This was not a matter of mind-reading. It was a matter of reading what you wrote about why the venerable's essays ought to influence how one understands his sutta translation.Macavity wrote:Your mind-reading powers are failing you.
As I said earlier, this is not at all the case. Here's what you wrote in this thread:Macavity wrote:You'll need to work a little harder at cetopariya-ñāṇa.
This was your own explanation for why the sutta translation ought to be regarded as suspect. So my comments were based on what you wrote, not on any kind of "mind-reading." At this stage, it's plain that our discussion no longer is about the sutta translation. If you wish to continue to discuss whether you think I'm engaged in "mind-reading," please PM me, although that seems really far-fetched.Macavity wrote:If Thanissaro had accepted Nyanaponika's translation of this sutta, then his two essays The Not-self Strategy and No self or not self?, which dismiss the classical Theravada understanding of anatta as a speculative view, would never have been written. Nyanaponika's translation unambiguously supports the view that there is no self. Thanissaro's doesn't.
No if's...it is what it is...Macavity wrote:Sure. If all dhammas are not self, and if nothing exists but dhammas...
Yes, this is a good idea. However, for unravelling some of the technicalities the translation, and whether or not one accepts the commentaries, is a crucial issue. Venerable Thanissaro states quite clearly in several places where he differs from the Commentaries, so it is hardly a criticism to point out that his translations do not always agree with the Classical Theravada. What one does with that information is up to the individual. Personally, I find it helpful to see well-reasoned argumentation of the pros and cons of the particular translations (but not so helpful to see endless discussion of the pros and cons of the different approaches to the Tipitika).jcsuperstar wrote:can we please use this to discuss the sutta at hand and not as a platform for Thanissaro bashing?
Contrary to your representation here, the translation does not use the term "can't be pinned down." I have the impression that you're seeing ambiguity in this sutta translation where there is in fact clarity.Macavity wrote:So what? "Can't be pinned down" still leaves open the possibility of a self that is indescribable, but not eternal (much like the puggala posited by the personalist schools).For me, any way, I did not find it so thoroughly ambiguous. After all, his translation clearly states that the idea of an eternal self is a "fool's teaching."
I think I understand to this level: the aggregates are processes that are dependently arisen based on causes and conditions. The aggregates are what we falsely take to be our “self” and then cling to causing the whole round of samsara and the 6 wrong views listed in this sutta.13.Annihilationism is one of the two extremes of wrong view criticized most heavily by the Buddha (the other is eternalism, as represented by the sixth of the six view-positions). Some interpreters, citing this passage, have tried to limit the meaning of annihilationism simply to the idea of the annihilation of an existing being. The teaching that there is no self, they then argue, does not count as annihilationism because there is no self to be annihilated. This interpretation ignores SN 44.10, which counts the statement "there is no self" as siding with annihilationism.
As for the term, "existing being": SN 22.36 and SN 23.2 state that a being is defined by his/her/its objects of clinging. SN 5.10 indicates that one of the ways of overcoming clinging is to focus on how the concept of "being" arises, without assuming the truth of the concept. And as MN 72, SN 22.85, and SN 22.86 maintain, when clinging is gone, one is called not a being but a tathagata — who, freed from clinging, cannot be classified as or identified with anything at all.
