boundless wrote: ↑Wed Apr 18, 2018 5:42 pm
Hi aflatun, dindale, DNS,
What is the difference between "multiple lives model" and "three/two lives model"?
I'm actually not sure! I embraced it because whether we're talking about 1 or 1 million lives the same principle applies, i.e. all my prior births and deaths are "my" prior births and deaths, until they're not.
boundless wrote: ↑Wed Apr 18, 2018 5:42 pm
BTW, I think that DO applies at various level. And in fact I am even open to the possibility that we can have a "multiple life", a "moment to moment" and a "structural" version of DO (well, maybe I am crazy
).
I don't think its crazy at all. Ven. Thanissaro for example advocates something like this, and you can find a similar approach in various Abidhammas.
As an example, with respect to Nagarjuna: After all the "outrageous" things he tells us in the MMK about PS and its deepest meaning, we find chapter 26 which consists in a rather straight forward articulation of the 3 life model. So we have an uncontroversial three life reading living side by side with a reading that effectively says when ignorance ceases, no arising or ceasing is perceived
here and now, and it is this that is Nirvana:
When true knowledge sees the appearance conditioned by ignorance, no arising or ceasing is perceived
This is nirvāṇa and the seeing of reality in this very life, what is to be done has been done
Yuktiṣaṣṭikākārikā 10-11ab
All that said, the "structural" reading that Ven. Nanavira articulates, which I have been insistent in this thread should not be rendered as, or lumped in with "moment to moment" readings, is somewhat unique.
But clearly, IMO, a "structural-only" interpretation of DO is rejected by SN 12.2 (because "birth" and "ageing and death" are, after all, (at least "also") meant physical/literal).*
In my understanding Ven. Nanavira's reading doesn't deny that birth, etc are what they are. What he denies is that
PS is an explanation of re-birth, asserting that it is rather, a description of the structure of appropriated birth:
The puthujjana takes what appears to be his 'self' at its face value; and so long as this goes on he continues to be a 'self', at least in his own eyes (and in those of others like him). This is bhava or 'being'. The puthujjana knows that people are born and die; and since he thinks 'my self exists' so he also thinks 'my self was born' and 'my self will die'. The puthujjana sees a 'self' to whom the words birth and death apply.[d] In contrast to the puthujjana, the arahat has altogether got rid of asmimāna (not to speak of attavāda—see MAMA), and does not even think 'I am'. This is bhavanirodha, cessation of being. And since he does not think 'I am' he also does not think 'I was born' or 'I shall die'. In other words, he sees no 'self' or even 'I' for the words birth and death to apply to. This is jātinirodha and jarāmarananirodha.
A NOTE ON PAṬICCASAMUPPĀDA para 10
Notice that Ven. Nanavira does not deny that tanha is the condition whereby there is re-birth,
'Re-birth' is punabbhavābhinibbatti, as in Majjhima v,3 <M.i,294> where it is said that future 'birth into renewed existence' comes of avijjā and tanhā; and it is clear that, here, two successive existences are involved. It is, no doubt, possible for a Buddha to see the re-birth that is at each moment awaiting a living individual who still has tanhā—the re-birth, that is to say, that is now awaiting the individual who now has tanhā. If this is so, then for a Buddha the dependence of re-birth upon tanhā is a matter of direct seeing, not involving time.
A NOTE ON PAṬICCASAMUPPĀDA para 9
but again, does not see this as specifically relevant to PS:
But this is by no means always possible (if, indeed, at all) for an ariyasāvaka, who, though he sees paticcasamuppāda for himself, and with certainty (it is aparapaccayā ñānam), may still need to accept re-birth on the Buddha's authority.[c] In other words, an ariyasāvaka sees birth with direct vision (since jāti is part of the paticcasamuppāda formulation), but does not necessarily see re-birth with direct vision.
A NOTE ON PAṬICCASAMUPPĀDA para 9
boundless wrote: ↑Wed Apr 18, 2018 5:42 pm
* Not only this, I think that, in fact, DO can apply also to material objects (e.g. to the arising and cessation of flames, bubbles, mountains, planets, stars etc). But here we are restricting ourselves to the 12 links, if I am not wrong.
As you know madhyamaka is comfortable with this. Ven. Nanavira as far as I can tell would reject this in principle, however.
Sorry for any mistakes, I fired this off too fast for my own health
"People often get too quick to say 'there's no self. There's no self...no self...no self.' There is self, there is focal point, its not yours. That's what not self is."
Ninoslav Ñāṇamoli
Senses and the Thought-1, 42:53
"Those who create constructs about the Buddha,
Who is beyond construction and without exhaustion,
Are thereby damaged by their constructs;
They fail to see the Thus-Gone.
That which is the nature of the Thus-Gone
Is also the nature of this world.
There is no nature of the Thus-Gone.
There is no nature of the world."
Nagarjuna
MMK XXII.15-16