Greetings Acinteyyo,
acinteyyo wrote:I totally agree. As far as I can tell I don't know anything about "outside" of the aggregates or the senses.
It is the "outside world" that people infer from their experience. For example, I "see" something green and brown, I "feel" hardness, I "smell" a faint organic smell... I "hear" someone say that this is a tree. Whether I'm aware that this is what I'm doing, I'm inferring that "a tree exists", but that is just an inference. Consider the Buddha's instructions to Bahiya (Ud 1.10) which recommend stopping such inference, and stopping the formation of sankharas.
"Then, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bahiya, there is no you in terms of that. When there is no you in terms of that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress."
Just as gravity doesn't acknowledge "muggers", "goats" and so on... neither does the enlightened arahant. If the law of gravity (which if you think about it, is a 'law' that is actually inferred through sensory input experienced) doesn't acknowledge this things, why would the mind/experience of an enlightened arahant that is not partaking in such projections acknowledge them. If they are not acknowledged, the cannot impact, and as the Buddha says, "When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of dukkha". Note - not the end of new kamma, but just this, the end of dukkha. Note also - not more dukkha until paranibbana, but just this, the end of dukkha.
acinteyyo wrote:I mean just for example the experience to be hit by clods can be described as "hit by clods".
That would though be a projection of the type the Buddha warned against. It would be more precise, and certainly more applicable in a vipassana sense, to speak with regards to vedana and the four elements.
acinteyyo wrote:Of course the description "hit by clods" isn't the experience and therefore certainly can't be vipaka (I guess this is what you mean by "outside")
Yes.
acinteyyo wrote:but I don't understand why the actual experience itself couldn't be seen as being vipaka.
Because any explanation for what happened to Angulimala ventures away from "loka" into the "outside world"..... and most disturbingly in my mind, the inference that Angulimala's kamma was the proximite cause for the kamma of his attackers, thereby absolving them of responsibility for their own actions, introducing a 'ground hog day' scenario where in the future someone will have to punish them for throwing clods, and someone will have to punish them and so on. Within the context of the Dhamma there is no need to speculatively believe such things, and it's actually detrimental to the notions of personal accountability and responsibility for one's own (spiritual) development.
retrofuturist wrote:The example I would provide would of course be Angulimala again. Whatever he was experiencing, the Buddha told him it is the fruit of action he is experiencing in the here&now.
Since such an explanation involves reaching outside of loka/sabba, it is venturing into the realm of the "conventional" loka.... thus his explanation is a conventional one, rather than a precise one, framed in terms of aggregates, senses etc.
acinteyyo wrote:According to my understanding an experience is nāmarūpa and viññāna or the pañcakhandhā (in case of the arahant), which then IMHO have to comprise some kind of non-mental vipaka to some extent. Rūpa obviously isn't mental.
Yeah, don't get too hung up on the mental bit though. To be frank, I think that the further the mainstream Theravada tradition extrapolated from the Buddha's teachings (first to Abhidhamma, then to commentaries) and became self-referential, the further it lost the subtle nuances of the Buddha's teachings and became reliant upon its own scholastic interpretations. What ven. Nyantiloka and and the Kathavatthu are calling "mental", you might call "nama", and understand differently to them. Which raises an interesting question... if you acknowledge the ontological physicality of the body, how to do "experience" it other than via the sabba of the six consciousnesses?
Not sure if you saw the edit to the earlier post, but thank you for engaging in discussion!
Metta,
Retro.
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."