The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

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Nyana
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by Nyana »

mikenz66 wrote:Such as implying that Ven Nananda has asserted that everything is unreal. I think Ven Nananda's interpretation is a bit more sophisticated than that.
Ven. Ñāṇananda is exposing the "myth of the given" and what he has referred to as the "relentless tyranny of the empirical consciousness" (Concept and Reality in Early Buddhist Thought, p. 32).

From Ven. Ñāṇananda's The Magic of the Mind, p. 63:
  • It would indeed appear strange to us that in Buddhist psychology even contact and feeling – with which we are so intimate – are treated as ‘designations’ (paññatti). We might feel that this is an intrusion of the ‘designation’ into the jealously guarded recesses of the psyche. Yet this is not the case, for, in the very act of apperception contacts and feelings are reckoned, evaluated, defined, and designated on the basis of one’s latencies (i.e. the aggregates). Thus there is hardly any justification for regarding them as ‘the given’, though we are accustomed to take them for granted. In other words, what we are wont to treat as ‘the given,’ turns out to be ‘synthetic’ and ‘composite’ (saṅkhata).
And from his Concept and Reality In Early Buddhist Thought, p. 87:
  • The primary significance of the formula of Dependent Arising lies here. Lists of phenomena, both mental and material, are linked together with the term "paccayā" or any of its equivalents, and the fact of their conditionality and non-substantiality is emphasized with the help of analysis and synthesis. Apart from serving the immediate purpose of their specific application, these formulas help us to attune our minds in order to gain paññā. Neither the words in these formulas, nor the formulas as such, are to be regarded as ultimate categories. We have to look not so much at them as through them. We must not miss the wood for the trees by dogmatically clinging to the words in the formulas as being ultimate categories. As concepts, they are merely the modes in which the flux of material and mental life has been arrested and split up in the realm of ideation....
Concept and Reality, pp. 55 - 56:
  • Concepts – be they material or spiritual, worldly or transcendental – are not worthy of being grasped dogmatically. They are not to be treated as ultimate categories and are to be discarded in the course of the spiritual endeavour.... That the emancipated sage (muni) no longer clings even to such concepts as "nibbāna" or "detachment" (virāga) is clearly indicated in the following verse of the Sutta Nipāta:

    "For the Brahmin (the Muni) who has transcended all bounds, there is nothing that is grasped by knowing or by seeing. He is neither attached to attachment nor is he attached to detachment. In this world, he has grasped nothing as the highest." [Sn 795]
All the best,

Geoff
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mikenz66
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by mikenz66 »

Yes, but in my reading of his texts he also very clear that it would be a mistake to see it all as illusion.

:anjali:
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Mike
alan
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by alan »

Agreed, Mike. I've taken another look, and again it just doesn't seem right. The voice presented as Nanananda's doesn't sound like his writings; his viewpoints seem tailored to an agenda.
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by Nyana »

alan wrote:Agreed, Mike. I've taken another look, and again it just doesn't seem right. The voice presented as Nanananda's doesn't sound like his writings; his viewpoints seem tailored to an agenda.
And what agenda would that be?
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by alan »

An agenda meant to diminish, obscure, and distort.
That is just an opinion, and you, Geoff, are much more educated in these matters. I'll rely on your opinion. Do you think it is real, and worth reading? If so, I'll give it another try.
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by Nyana »

alan wrote:I'll rely on your opinion. Do you think it is real, and worth reading? If so, I'll give it another try.
Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. It's been a while since I read it, but I didn't get any sense that it was fictitious or contrary to Ven. Ñāṇananda's known writings. That said, I don't know anything about Ven. Yogānanda. According to Adeh's post above, this interview has been included in the published book The Mind Stilled. So if it's a ruse it's a pretty well thought out and elaborate one.

All the best,

Geoff
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by alan »

"The mind stilled" seems to be a collection of essays similar to his Nibbana lectures. I have found no reference to this interview.
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by cooran »

Hello alan,

Yes, it's there. It is an appendix beginning on Page 679. ''The Heretic Sage'' - A Dhamma-Interview with Ven. Bhikkhu K. Nanananda by Ven. Bhikkhu Yogananda. Potgulgal Hermitage, Devalagama, Sri Lanka. 2009. ... there are Four Parts.

with metta
Chris
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by Prasadachitta »

mikenz66 wrote:Yes, but in my reading of his texts he also very clear that it would be a mistake to see it all as illusion.

:anjali:
Best Wishes,
Mike
Hi Mike,

I think it depends on what you mean by illusion. My dictionary says...
illusion |iˈloō zh ən|
noun
a false idea or belief : he had no illusions about the trouble she was in.
• a deceptive appearance or impression : the illusion of family togetherness | the tension between illusion and reality.
• a thing that is or is likely to be wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses : Zollner's illusion makes parallel lines seem to diverge by placing them on a zigzag-striped background.
Which does seem to me what Bhante Nanananda is saying. In the sense that our perception provides us with a view of the world which is a "deceptive appearance or impression" or "a thing that is likely to be wrongly perceived".

However I would use the adjective "illusory" rather than the noun "illusion" so that we do not negate the process of wrongly perceiving and being deceived.

Metta

Gabe
"Beautifully taught is the Lord's Dhamma, immediately apparent, timeless, of the nature of a personal invitation, progressive, to be attained by the wise, each for himself." Anguttara Nikaya V.332
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by Prasadachitta »

Ñāṇa wrote:
alan wrote:I'll rely on your opinion. Do you think it is real, and worth reading? If so, I'll give it another try.
Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion. It's been a while since I read it, but I didn't get any sense that it was fictitious or contrary to Ven. Ñāṇananda's known writings. That said, I don't know anything about Ven. Yogānanda. According to Adeh's post above, this interview has been included in the published book The Mind Stilled. So if it's a ruse it's a pretty well thought out and elaborate one.

All the best,

Geoff
The interview is included at the back of "Nibbana The Mind Stilled" which is a bound publication of the Nibanna Sermons. I have read at least a few chapters in the book and so far it seems just the same as the material I read online. Its worth reading a second time and I like having a book so I can put some space between me and my laptop.


Metta

Gabe
"Beautifully taught is the Lord's Dhamma, immediately apparent, timeless, of the nature of a personal invitation, progressive, to be attained by the wise, each for himself." Anguttara Nikaya V.332
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by adeh »

A wonderful book....
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by Dhammabodhi »

Thanks for the meaning, Mike.

:anjali:
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,

The Heretic Sage has now been published in PDF format here.

Metta,
Retro. :)
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Re: The Heretic Sage- Interview with Bhante Ñāṇananda

Post by rohana »

retrofuturist wrote:Greetings,

The Heretic Sage has now been published in PDF format here.

Metta,
Retro. :)
Excellent!
"Delighting in existence, O monks, are gods and men; they are attached to existence, they revel in existence. When the Dhamma for the cessation of existence is being preached to them, their minds do not leap towards it, do not get pleased with it, do not get settled in it, do not find confidence in it. That is how, monks, some lag behind."
- It. p 43
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