Do the Nikayas of the Pali Sutta Pitaka present a solipsistic worldview?
Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 9:41 pm
Please note that this post is asking only about the Nikayas of the Pali Canon Sutta Pitaka (Digha, Majjhima, Samyutta, Anguttara and Khuddaka) and no other texts or schools of Buddhism whatsoever.
As always, please realize that my posts come from my own confusion and should only be read in the light of the fact that I am a beginner and have no idea what I am talking about. I post only to learn from people that do know what they're talking about and become less confused. As such, this post should be considered to be based on and presenting incorrect ideas or understandings due to my own ignorance. In short, the following is probably wrong. Total nonsense. If you're not an expert, just ignore it so you don't get confused with me lol
Do the Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka present the view that everything in existence is the product of the imagination of whomever is reading or hearing it?
If not, please explain how the suttas present positions that negate this idea. Or at any rate why the suttas do not support or present this idea.
If so, why practice? If one were helping build a stone wall under the authority and instruction of a respected figure in order to keep an enemy from getting into one's area and one realizes one is dreaming one may very well walk away from the task and the authority figure because they are imaginary and so there is no logical reason to assume that they actually have any authority or that the task is important. The enemy is not real, nor is the authority figure and so one is free to simply walk away. There is no real danger. The real authority, then, is the dreamer only. The dreamer has infinitely more power than the authority figure. They could wish away the enemy, whereas the authority figure would continue to suggest wall building and be restricted in the ways that it could deal with the enemy unless it was given more or less power by the dreamer.
Likewise, if the suttas teach that they themselves are, more or less, only the product of a dream that the reader is having, then why practice? There would be no more reason to practice a path leading to nibbana taught by an imaginary character than there would be to make up one's own religion on the spot or pick a religion out of a hat: they would all necessarily be the products of one's own imagination. There would actually be no reason to assume that there is any danger of falling into lower realms or suffering the effects of negative kamma as all of these things would be things that the dreamer simply imagined. One would be free to simply forget the whole thing and write it all off as fantasy. All knowledge would be equally useless and it would be totally illogical to practice the instructions of a specific imaginary figure that is just as imaginary as all other figures in one's world.
That's about it. The following is written for those who would say that the suttas are somewhere in between on this issue or do not say at all (no one else need read the following), simply to show what I am looking for and hopefully to make it so no one wastes their time by presenting views that will not answer my question. I could have not written the following but it would be uncaring of me to be more vague and let people post things that they think are answering my question but do not. I know how people answer questions and so was able to predict this grey area kind of answer that some will undoubtedly produce and that would not be relevant to my question. I know I do not like to write an answer only to have the asker say "Oh, sorry, I wasn't looking for that." So the following is long winded, but perhaps the only way to avoid confusion:
If you think that the suttas are somewhere in between on this issue then please consider that they probably lean in one direction or the other. Almost never is such a large volume of texts exactly 50/50 on such a topic. So please pick a side to show that the suttas support. Even if a teacher said that they would not pick a side, their teachings would still lean in and imply one side or the other being correct.
For example if a teacher said "All is imaginary." on page one of their texts and then the next ten thousand pages are all about how the imaginary world can be changed by the powers of one's mind alone but they still spoke here and there about how to prepare certain foods to avoid food borne illness then, despite the fact that food borne illness would not be an issue in an imaginary world and so this seems counter to the "All is imaginary" world view, we can say that the teacher leans toward the imaginary side.
Or if a teacher said "All is imaginary." But then the next ten thousand pages of their teachings are about very down to earth, practical matters that are dictated by physical laws which are out of control of any one individual and that make no mention of anything being imaginary other than two or three more lines found at random intervals, we can say that the teacher leans toward the idea that things are not all imaginary.
Or if a teacher said "I will not say if all is imaginary or not." on page one and then the next ten thousand pages are instructions on how the imaginary world can be changed by the powers of one's mind alone but they still spoke here and there about how to prepare certain foods to avoid food borne illness then we could say they lean toward the imaginary side.
Or if a teacher said "I will not say if all is imaginary or not." on page one and then the next ten thousand pages are practical matters dictated by physical laws that are out of control of any one individual except for two or three mentions of imagination here or there, we could say that the teacher leans toward the idea that things are not all imaginary.
Or if a teacher said "All is not imaginary." on page one of their texts and then the next ten thousand pages are all about how the imaginary world can be changed by the powers of one's mind alone but they still spoke here and there about how to prepare certain foods to avoid food borne illness then, despite the fact that food borne illness would not be an issue in an imaginary world and so this seems to agree with the "All is not imaginary" world view, we can say that the teacher leans toward the imaginary side.
Or if a teacher said "All is not imaginary." But then the next ten thousand pages of their teachings are about very down to earth, practical matters that are dictated by physical laws which are out of control of any one individual and that make no mention of anything being imaginary other than two or three more lines found at random intervals, we can say that the teacher leans toward the idea that things are not all imaginary.
Finally, if a teacher said nothing specific and definitive about the topic one way or another, then whether their texts lean toward changing the world with the mind alone or toward working with the physical laws that one cannot control would show which way they lean.
As always, please realize that my posts come from my own confusion and should only be read in the light of the fact that I am a beginner and have no idea what I am talking about. I post only to learn from people that do know what they're talking about and become less confused. As such, this post should be considered to be based on and presenting incorrect ideas or understandings due to my own ignorance. In short, the following is probably wrong. Total nonsense. If you're not an expert, just ignore it so you don't get confused with me lol
Do the Nikayas of the Sutta Pitaka present the view that everything in existence is the product of the imagination of whomever is reading or hearing it?
If not, please explain how the suttas present positions that negate this idea. Or at any rate why the suttas do not support or present this idea.
If so, why practice? If one were helping build a stone wall under the authority and instruction of a respected figure in order to keep an enemy from getting into one's area and one realizes one is dreaming one may very well walk away from the task and the authority figure because they are imaginary and so there is no logical reason to assume that they actually have any authority or that the task is important. The enemy is not real, nor is the authority figure and so one is free to simply walk away. There is no real danger. The real authority, then, is the dreamer only. The dreamer has infinitely more power than the authority figure. They could wish away the enemy, whereas the authority figure would continue to suggest wall building and be restricted in the ways that it could deal with the enemy unless it was given more or less power by the dreamer.
Likewise, if the suttas teach that they themselves are, more or less, only the product of a dream that the reader is having, then why practice? There would be no more reason to practice a path leading to nibbana taught by an imaginary character than there would be to make up one's own religion on the spot or pick a religion out of a hat: they would all necessarily be the products of one's own imagination. There would actually be no reason to assume that there is any danger of falling into lower realms or suffering the effects of negative kamma as all of these things would be things that the dreamer simply imagined. One would be free to simply forget the whole thing and write it all off as fantasy. All knowledge would be equally useless and it would be totally illogical to practice the instructions of a specific imaginary figure that is just as imaginary as all other figures in one's world.
That's about it. The following is written for those who would say that the suttas are somewhere in between on this issue or do not say at all (no one else need read the following), simply to show what I am looking for and hopefully to make it so no one wastes their time by presenting views that will not answer my question. I could have not written the following but it would be uncaring of me to be more vague and let people post things that they think are answering my question but do not. I know how people answer questions and so was able to predict this grey area kind of answer that some will undoubtedly produce and that would not be relevant to my question. I know I do not like to write an answer only to have the asker say "Oh, sorry, I wasn't looking for that." So the following is long winded, but perhaps the only way to avoid confusion:
If you think that the suttas are somewhere in between on this issue then please consider that they probably lean in one direction or the other. Almost never is such a large volume of texts exactly 50/50 on such a topic. So please pick a side to show that the suttas support. Even if a teacher said that they would not pick a side, their teachings would still lean in and imply one side or the other being correct.
For example if a teacher said "All is imaginary." on page one of their texts and then the next ten thousand pages are all about how the imaginary world can be changed by the powers of one's mind alone but they still spoke here and there about how to prepare certain foods to avoid food borne illness then, despite the fact that food borne illness would not be an issue in an imaginary world and so this seems counter to the "All is imaginary" world view, we can say that the teacher leans toward the imaginary side.
Or if a teacher said "All is imaginary." But then the next ten thousand pages of their teachings are about very down to earth, practical matters that are dictated by physical laws which are out of control of any one individual and that make no mention of anything being imaginary other than two or three more lines found at random intervals, we can say that the teacher leans toward the idea that things are not all imaginary.
Or if a teacher said "I will not say if all is imaginary or not." on page one and then the next ten thousand pages are instructions on how the imaginary world can be changed by the powers of one's mind alone but they still spoke here and there about how to prepare certain foods to avoid food borne illness then we could say they lean toward the imaginary side.
Or if a teacher said "I will not say if all is imaginary or not." on page one and then the next ten thousand pages are practical matters dictated by physical laws that are out of control of any one individual except for two or three mentions of imagination here or there, we could say that the teacher leans toward the idea that things are not all imaginary.
Or if a teacher said "All is not imaginary." on page one of their texts and then the next ten thousand pages are all about how the imaginary world can be changed by the powers of one's mind alone but they still spoke here and there about how to prepare certain foods to avoid food borne illness then, despite the fact that food borne illness would not be an issue in an imaginary world and so this seems to agree with the "All is not imaginary" world view, we can say that the teacher leans toward the imaginary side.
Or if a teacher said "All is not imaginary." But then the next ten thousand pages of their teachings are about very down to earth, practical matters that are dictated by physical laws which are out of control of any one individual and that make no mention of anything being imaginary other than two or three more lines found at random intervals, we can say that the teacher leans toward the idea that things are not all imaginary.
Finally, if a teacher said nothing specific and definitive about the topic one way or another, then whether their texts lean toward changing the world with the mind alone or toward working with the physical laws that one cannot control would show which way they lean.