According to Classical Theravada, what is reborn?

[robertk]

for understanding time please see this page I took from nyanaponika

time.jpg (193.02 KiB) Viewed 5510 times

[robertk]

time 2

[Sam Vara]

It is because of continuity and because the different consciousness's have the same general nature that we take it as lasting and 'mine'. The Visuddhimagga(XV3)

Thanks again. I might be getting somewhere, but it still seems as if this takes an insuperable problem and moves it into a different frame of reference. What continues, and what is the general nature? If something is truly (i.e. unconditionally, unreservedly) different, then it appears to me that it can have no causal impact upon that which it is different from. If it has a "general nature", then in order for that general nature to exist - either objectively, or as a subjective judgement on the part of an observer - then that general nature must be something which is common to more than one instance. If those instances are sequential, then that which is common to them persists.

[robertk]

http://www.aimwell.org/milinda.html

re the mango tree and fruit

[rhinoceroshorn]

As far as I understood, yes. It's kamma that makes the I. It's not that kamma makes you you; it's that kamma makes you.
In "I am the owner of my kamma", I don't take this to mean that that "I" exists somehow separately from the kamma, or that it is "I" who makes kamma. It's the other way around.

Best response.
Thanks, binocular!
This is a very subtle teaching. It's easy to fall for nihilism or self doctrines.

[cappuccino]

karma is impersonal


otherwise you could control it


may my karma be such, may my karma not be such


you can't do this, because karma is not self

[Ceisiwr]

Empty dhammas rise and cease according to cause and conditions.

Becoming’s Wheel reveals no known beginning;
No maker, no experiencer there;
Void with a twelvefold voidness, and nowhere
It ever halts; forever it is spinning.


There is no doer of a deed
Or one who reaps the deed’s result;
Phenomena alone flow on—
No other view than this is right.


The mental and material are really here,
But here there is no human being to be found,
For it is void and merely fashioned like a doll—
Just suffering piled up like grass and sticks.


Mere suffering exists, no sufferer is found;
The deeds are, but no doer of the deeds is there;
Nibbāna is, but not the man that enters it;
The path is, but no traveler on it is seen.

Visuddhimagga

[DooDoot]

Mere suffering exists, no sufferer is found;

Since suffering appears rooted in self-view, how can suffering exist without self? Thanks

Becoming’s Wheel reveals no known beginning;
No maker, no experiencer there;
Void with a twelvefold voidness, and nowhere
It ever halts; forever it is spinning.

Since suttas such as MN 121 say there is no becoming (bhava) in voidness (sunnata), how a wheel of becoming be a twelvefold voidness? Thanks

There is no doer of a deed...
The deeds are, but no doer of the deeds is there

Sounds rather strange, like reciting the Bible without reflecting upon it. Is the above saying deeds have no cause? Thanks

Empty dhammas rise and cease according to cause and conditions.

Since suttas such as MN 121 & MN 43 say emptiness is empty of greed, hatred & delusion, how can there be empty dhammas leading to the arising (samudaya) of suffering? Thanks

[cappuccino]

Since suffering appears rooted in self-view, how can suffering exist without self?

suffering is not from self view


see Dependent Arising

[DooDoot]

see Dependent Arising

thanks. Dependent Arising is in MN 9:

There are these three fermentations: the fermentation of sensuality, the fermentation of becoming, the fermentation of ignorance. This is called fermentation. From the origination of ignorance comes the origination of fermentation.

There are these four clingings: sensuality clinging, view clinging, precept & practice clinging, and doctrine of self clinging. This is called clinging. From the origination of craving comes the origination of clinging.

Whatever birth, taking birth... of the various beings in this or that group of beings, that is called birth.

Dependent Arising is in SN 22.81:

There is the case where an uninstructed, run-of-the-mill person — who has no regard for noble ones, is not well-versed or disciplined in their Dhamma; who has no regard for men of integrity, is not well-versed or disciplined in their Dhamma — assumes form to be the self. That assumption is a fabrication. Now what is the cause, what is the origination, what is the birth, what is the coming-into-existence of that fabrication? To an uninstructed, run-of-the-mill person, touched by that which is felt born of contact with ignorance, craving arises. That fabrication is born of that. And that fabrication is inconstant, fabricated, dependently co-arisen. That craving... That feeling... That contact... That ignorance is inconstant, fabricated, dependently co-arisen.

[rhinoceroshorn]

karma is impersonal


otherwise you could control it


may my karma be such, may my karma not be such


you can't do this, because karma is not self

It's sad thinking we are just sepulchres of kamma. It feels like us but it's just moments of consciousness acting according to its conditionings.

[cappuccino]

see Dependent Arising

focus

craving, delight


that is why there is suffering

[cappuccino]

karma is not self

It's sad thinking we are just sepulchres of kamma.

I suggest … don't identify with karma

[rhinoceroshorn]

Empty dhammas rise and cease according to cause and conditions.

Becoming’s Wheel reveals no known beginning;
No maker, no experiencer there;
Void with a twelvefold voidness, and nowhere
It ever halts; forever it is spinning.


There is no doer of a deed
Or one who reaps the deed’s result;
Phenomena alone flow on—
No other view than this is right.


The mental and material are really here,
But here there is no human being to be found,
For it is void and merely fashioned like a doll—
Just suffering piled up like grass and sticks.


Mere suffering exists, no sufferer is found;
The deeds are, but no doer of the deeds is there;
Nibbāna is, but not the man that enters it;
The path is, but no traveler on it is seen.

Visuddhimagga

Things are real in the sense of being causally efficacious factors of existence existing only in the present moment of a dhamma-series.
The causal efficacy that is passed down in the series from moment to moment.
It's these causal efficacies which alone are real.

Adapted.

[cappuccino]

Mere suffering exists, no sufferer is found;

Visuddhimagga

sounds like Advaita