i want to compare two kinds of thinking.
one is "i am the owner of my actions."
and the other is about withdrawal.
for example, right now i am asking this question. any action based on self or confidence will do. and it will have an imprint on the world.
later i can (and probably will) withdraw, and though the "imprint" will not be removed from the world, i am still permitted to change or withdraw my attention from it.
i don't think i have a real question, it's just i am wondering about what previously i would have thought a contradiction, namely that at one moment one has interest in something, and the next moment one withdraws or backs away or is distracted from it and pursues something else.
withdrawal
Re: withdrawal
When one is hungry, one eats; and when one has eaten enough, one isn't hungry anymore and stops eating.
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
Re: withdrawal
...at one moment one has interest in something, and the next moment one withdraws or backs away or is distracted from it and pursues something else
Isn't that known as a "Butterfly mind," or "Monkey mind" ?
.
-
- Posts: 2602
- Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2016 12:38 pm
Re: withdrawal
When do we have to withdraw. We have to withdraw from habits detrimental to our mental development or cultivation of the mind. May I also say that we have to withdraw from addiction say drugs or addiction to over enjoyment of five senses ( kama tanha).
Sabbasava sutta explains the ways of withdrawing from unnecessary habits , say by vision, restraint ...........;
( Please refer to Sabbasava sutta as it is highly detailed)
However asavas are defilements which are fermenting in our mind , and Sabbasava sutta explains the way of eradicating these fermentations of klesha from our 5 senses.
Re: withdrawal
Vital information is missing, you have not indicated whether the things you are withdrawing from are wholesome or unwholesome. Experiencing a newfound freedom in the ability to withdraw due to recently acquired Buddhist knowledge is good, as renunciation is the primary attitude in Theravada. The western work ethic means that people are indoctrinated to push themselves, and achieving liberation from that affliction is a necessary step of emancipation for everybody on the Buddhist path. But once that skill has been consolidated through samatha, then attention must turn to identifying what exactly is being withdrawn from, as some things are profitable and should be cultivated. Right effort involves four endeavours: the effort to avoid unwholesome things not yet arisen; to overcome unwholesome things already arisen; to develop wholesome things not yet arisen; and to maintain wholesome things already arisen. So discrimination is necessary.
And right effort involves desire as motivation:
“It’s worth noting here the centrality of desire in right effort. As AN 10:58 observes, all phenomena are rooted in desire. This observation applies to skilful as well as unskillful phenomena. Without skilful desire, it would be impossible to develop the path (SN 51:15). This means that the path is not a truth available to passive observation. It’s a truth of the will: something that can become true only if you want it to happen. By applying the desire of right effort, the element of skilful purpose, to the act of remaining focused, ardency enables sati to be established as right sati.” —-“Right Mindfulness”, Thanissaro Bikkhu.
And right effort involves desire as motivation:
“It’s worth noting here the centrality of desire in right effort. As AN 10:58 observes, all phenomena are rooted in desire. This observation applies to skilful as well as unskillful phenomena. Without skilful desire, it would be impossible to develop the path (SN 51:15). This means that the path is not a truth available to passive observation. It’s a truth of the will: something that can become true only if you want it to happen. By applying the desire of right effort, the element of skilful purpose, to the act of remaining focused, ardency enables sati to be established as right sati.” —-“Right Mindfulness”, Thanissaro Bikkhu.
Re: withdrawal
It might be worth considering the difference between withdrawing from something because one has exhausted its potential and is bored and feels the need to move on to the next sense-object; and the withdrawal which is viveka, or seclusion, or detachment. One steps back from sense impressions and drops the urge to use them in order to fulfil one's desires. To "withdraw" in the first sense is bondage, but in the second sense is freedom.
Re: withdrawal
I think that the withdrawing is the same in both of your scenarios. I think that it is the path that one is on which makes the difference. If one is on a worldly path then the path will lead one to take up a new sense object after one withdraws from a previous sense object.....while a noble path will lead one to not take up a new sense object. I think that in both cases the sense object being held is seen to be inadequate so it is withdrawn from....the worldling responds by grasping another sense object while the noble one responds by relinquishing sense objects.Sam Vara wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2017 9:04 pm It might be worth considering the difference between withdrawing from something because one has exhausted its potential and is bored and feels the need to move on to the next sense-object; and the withdrawal which is viveka, or seclusion, or detachment. One steps back from sense impressions and drops the urge to use them in order to fulfil one's desires. To "withdraw" in the first sense is bondage, but in the second sense is freedom.
chownah
Re: withdrawal
Yes, you're right. You put it better than I did.chownah wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2017 2:01 amI think that the withdrawing is the same in both of your scenarios. I think that it is the path that one is on which makes the difference. If one is on a worldly path then the path will lead one to take up a new sense object after one withdraws from a previous sense object.....while a noble path will lead one to not take up a new sense object. I think that in both cases the sense object being held is seen to be inadequate so it is withdrawn from....the worldling responds by grasping another sense object while the noble one responds by relinquishing sense objects.Sam Vara wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2017 9:04 pm It might be worth considering the difference between withdrawing from something because one has exhausted its potential and is bored and feels the need to move on to the next sense-object; and the withdrawal which is viveka, or seclusion, or detachment. One steps back from sense impressions and drops the urge to use them in order to fulfil one's desires. To "withdraw" in the first sense is bondage, but in the second sense is freedom.
chownah
[Edit] I think the essential difference is that the latter does not grasp because s/he knows that the experience will be unsatisfactory; whereas the former stops grasping due to satiation, and thereby does not avoid the unsatisfacoriness.
Last edited by Sam Vara on Thu Nov 30, 2017 10:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: withdrawal
Aren't some sense objects part of the path? Isn't taking up "the Dhammapada" part of the noble path? But books are sense object, as are the words in them. The breath is a sense object used in meditation, so isn't that sense object part of the noble path? Reading the Dhammapada (one sense object) might lead you to take up another sense object (the breath). So doesn't the noble path sometimes lead one to take up another sense object?
- Mal
Re: withdrawal
Yeah, what is the proper definition of taking up?
I would think it means dispassion. For example, when one drink a sip of a sweet drink, he experience pleasure, he is aware n mindful of the feeling. He do not take it as i or mine or i am. He does not engage in mental poliferation.
I would think it means dispassion. For example, when one drink a sip of a sweet drink, he experience pleasure, he is aware n mindful of the feeling. He do not take it as i or mine or i am. He does not engage in mental poliferation.
Re: withdrawal
I was not considering a book to be a sense object. I was using 'sense object' to mean the sense objects which are associated with the six sense doors namely the eye, the ear, the nose, the togue, the body, and the mind.mal4mac wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2017 10:22 amAren't some sense objects part of the path? Isn't taking up "the Dhammapada" part of the noble path? But books are sense object, as are the words in them. The breath is a sense object used in meditation, so isn't that sense object part of the noble path? Reading the Dhammapada (one sense object) might lead you to take up another sense object (the breath). So doesn't the noble path sometimes lead one to take up another sense object?
I guess that everything is on the path so that would mean the sense objects are on the path...and books and things too I guess. It depends on what kind of ideas one has about "the path" I guess. The difference I was trying to show is that some people grasp at sense objects as being "their" sense object...and they go from sense object to sense object (like in a stream of consciousness I guess) and think that this is what their self is..namely they think that the stream of consciouness which they experience is their self.....they identify a self with that stream of consciousness. Some people, on the other hand, when they grasp a sense object they see it rightly as not being mine, not being me, not being what I am. So perhaps what I said before was not quite right. Maybe I should have said that those who see a sense object as not being mine, my self, what I am, might grasp another sense object but they might grasp it more loosely and gradually get to the point that when a sense object arises they do not grasp it at all.
Maybe I should have said that some people, when a sense object arises, they grasp it as being "mine, my self, what I am"......while other people, when a sense object arises they do not grasp it a being "mine, my self, what I am". The first person is the worldling, the second person is the arahant......I guess.....don't know for sure.
chownah
Last edited by chownah on Thu Nov 30, 2017 11:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: withdrawal
I think that is an important distinction which surely is a factor many times but I'm not sure if it always is in play.Sam Vara wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2017 6:30 amYes, you're right. You put it better than I did.chownah wrote: ↑Thu Nov 30, 2017 2:01 amI think that the withdrawing is the same in both of your scenarios. I think that it is the path that one is on which makes the difference. If one is on a worldly path then the path will lead one to take up a new sense object after one withdraws from a previous sense object.....while a noble path will lead one to not take up a new sense object. I think that in both cases the sense object being held is seen to be inadequate so it is withdrawn from....the worldling responds by grasping another sense object while the noble one responds by relinquishing sense objects.Sam Vara wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2017 9:04 pm It might be worth considering the difference between withdrawing from something because one has exhausted its potential and is bored and feels the need to move on to the next sense-object; and the withdrawal which is viveka, or seclusion, or detachment. One steps back from sense impressions and drops the urge to use them in order to fulfil one's desires. To "withdraw" in the first sense is bondage, but in the second sense is freedom.
chownah
[Edit] I think the essential difference is that the latter does not grasp because s/he knows that the experience will be unsatisfactory; whereas the former stops grasping due to satiation, and thereby does not avoid the unsatisfacoriness.
This idea of "withdrawal" does not quite sit right with my thinking. I can't put my finger on just what it is. Right now I'm just trying to go with how it is being used here and perhaps in a while something will become clear to me one way or the other.
chownah
Re: withdrawal
What else could it be? Maybe the idea of the raft is useful here? The Dhammapada might be part of the raft? Most sense objects are icebergs, alligators, etc.,... but others may be part of the raft, to be grasped for now?
- Mal
Re: withdrawal
The Sabba Sutta:
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html
In its entirety:
In this sutta the sense objects are forms, sounds, aromas, flavors, tactile sensations, and ideas. The sense objects are the things which stimulate the corresponding senses. There can be some confusion about "forms" being the sense object for the eye. The pali word which is translated as "form" has two meanings (maybe more I guess) one meaning being more or less the physical form of something and the other being the sense object which stimulates the eye. In modern thought we call the sense object which stimulates the eye "light". I hope you can see that in the way the eye functions it is light which is the stimulant."Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak."
"As you say, lord," the monks responded.
The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. [1] Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range."
Anyway....this is the meaning I was using for "sense object". It is a very very common way of using this term. You might want to define "sense object" differently but then there will almost assuredly be misunderstandings arising.
So, with respect to the book.....it is the light from the book which strikes the eye and stimulates it...not the book itself.
You might want to search some theravada buddhist sites for "sense objects" and see what you find.
chownah