Excellent old book:George Grimm, The doctrine of the Buddha

Textual analysis and comparative discussion on early Buddhist sects and scriptures.
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Kim OHara
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Re: Excellent old book

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ancientbuddhism wrote:George Grimm is not the only scholar to muddle the anattā doctrine of the Nikāyas with either vedic or Upaniṣadic ātman ontology or later Theosophy.
...
Also, comparison can be made between George Grimm, Steven Collins and Ṭhānissaro. All three reduced the anattā doctrine in the Nikāyas to a mere contemplative strategy.
I didn't know of Collins so I searched and came up with http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/ebdha326.htm which discusses his ideas and quotes him, especially in note [1].

It suggests to me that there might be two sets of reasons behind the inclination to claim that a Self of some kind does exist in spite of the anatta teachings. The older one (including Grimm) I have always seen as a simple inability amongst the early European scholars to fully accept the possibility of no-self because it is so strangely opposed to all they thought they knew.
The newer one (Collins and maybe others) flows instead from the re-categorisation of Buddhism from 'religion' to 'psychotherapy'. In this view, 'anatta' is what the mahayanists would call 'skillful means', a therapeutic strategy with no real truth value.
:?
Of course, I could be completely wrong ...

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Re: Excellent old book

Post by ancientbuddhism »

Kim O'Hara wrote:
ancientbuddhism wrote:George Grimm is not the only scholar to muddle the anattā doctrine of the Nikāyas with either vedic or Upaniṣadic ātman ontology or later Theosophy.
...
Also, comparison can be made between George Grimm, Steven Collins and Ṭhānissaro. All three reduced the anattā doctrine in the Nikāyas to a mere contemplative strategy.
I didn't know of Collins so I searched and came up with http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/ebdha326.htm which discusses his ideas and quotes him, especially in note [1].

It suggests to me that there might be two sets of reasons behind the inclination to claim that a Self of some kind does exist in spite of the anatta teachings. The older one (including Grimm) I have always seen as a simple inability amongst the early European scholars to fully accept the possibility of no-self because it is so strangely opposed to all they thought they knew.
The newer one (Collins and maybe others) flows instead from the re-categorisation of Buddhism from 'religion' to 'psychotherapy'. In this view, 'anatta' is what the mahayanists would call 'skillful means', a therapeutic strategy with no real truth value.
:?
Of course, I could be completely wrong ...

:namaste:
Kim
Collins's Selfless Persons is still a resource for me, his odd conclusions notwithstanding. He certainly considered the anattā doctrine as polemical to Brahmanism, but then falls short of understanding the necessity of a contemplative realisation of it.

As for anattā as a strategy, I have found it interesting that writers from such different periods and points-of-view can craft similar language around it.

For all of his meandering Ṭhānissaro’s ‘not-self strategy’ seems connected with his unique interpretation of a nibbānic consciousness that survives death, and a little eternalistic for a Theravādin bhikkhu.

Collins’s soterological strategy, as you say, may well have the age of psychotherapy as its support. Perhaps, in some way, Collins viewpoints have influenced the secular (or consensus) Buddhist trends we see now?

And then there is Grimm with his ‘anattā-method’. Would he, like the other earlier thinkers, have been influenced by theosophy perhaps?

Also, with reference to the footnote on Collins you mentioned, it discusses “allegiance to the doctrine of anattā” as a social orientation set apart from the Brahmanical. For what its worth Baily and Mabbett discuss this in The Sociology of Early Buddhism, as does Bronkhorst in Greater Magadha and Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism, although they may not share Collins’s other conclusions wrt anattā.
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Re: Excellent old book

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ancientbuddhism wrote:Collins’s soterological strategy, as you say, may well have the age of psychotherapy as its support. Perhaps, in some way, Collins viewpoints have influenced the secular (or consensus) Buddhist trends we see now?
I'm not sure which came first but Collins' anatta-as-skillful-means is certainly a natural fit with secular Buddhism.
ancientbuddhism wrote:And then there is Grimm with his ‘anattā-method’. Would he, like the other earlier thinkers, have been influenced by theosophy perhaps?
He may have been influenced by Theosophy or any of the other peculiarly 'New Age' movements which were swirling around Europe at the time (Gurdjieff, spiritualism, etc) but I see that generation of European scholars as being unable to escape the pervasive influence of Christianity. Christianity shaped the whole culture in a way that we have trouble imagining: everyone was Christian. Every philosopher, novelist, journalist and scientist of the previous couple of centuries was Christian, every religious building was Christian (apart from a few pagan ruins) ... and the whole business of Christianity was to give an eternal self a happy eternal life.
In that context, anatta is almost unthinkable - and if someone did manage think it, they would find it almost impossible to stop old habits reasserting themselves. Every time there was any doubt, some kind of eternal self would be the completely automatic fallback position.
I see it all the time in writing from that period, to the extent that I now find it unreadable. And it's not because I'm at all anti-Christian - as I've said elsewhere on DW, some of my best friends are Christian and I happily work in a Christian school. It's just that I think the dhamma works best best when not muddied by eternalist additions.

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Re: Excellent old book

Post by nibbuti »

ancientbuddhism wrote:Also, comparison can be made between George Grimm, Steven Collins and Ṭhānissaro. All three reduced the anattā doctrine in the Nikāyas to a mere contemplative strategy.
If it is indeed so and not otherwise, this would suggest putthujjanahood of named fellows, since the suttas state many times that all things are anatta (except when spoken by a putthujjana).

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Re: Excellent old book

Post by Assaji »

Hi nibbuti,
nibbuti wrote:
ancientbuddhism wrote:Also, comparison can be made between George Grimm, Steven Collins and Ṭhānissaro. All three reduced the anattā doctrine in the Nikāyas to a mere contemplative strategy.
If it is indeed so and not otherwise, this would suggest putthujjanahood of named fellows, since the suttas state many times that all things are anatta (except when spoken by a putthujjana).
Would you please give a single example of sutta that states "all things are anatta"?
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Re: Excellent old book

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Dmytro wrote:Hi nibbuti,
nibbuti wrote:
ancientbuddhism wrote:Also, comparison can be made between George Grimm, Steven Collins and Ṭhānissaro. All three reduced the anattā doctrine in the Nikāyas to a mere contemplative strategy.
If it is indeed so and not otherwise, this would suggest putthujjanahood of named fellows, since the suttas state many times that all things are anatta (except when spoken by a putthujjana).
Would you please give a single example of sutta that states "all things are anatta"?
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... ml#dhp-277

I would translate it as such:

All sankharas are anicca' —
When one sees this with discernment
And grows disenchanted with dukkha,
This is the path to purity.

'All sankharas are dukkha' —
When one sees with discernment
And grows disenchanted with dukkha,
This is the path to purity.

'All dhammas are anatta' —
When one sees with discernment
And grows disenchanted with dukkha,
This is the path to purity.

The whole purpose of the Buddha's teachings is to gain a personal knowledge that there is no ownership or 'me' 'mine' 'myself' in ones experience. That is done by seeing the dependence of this thing on that. Dependence is anicca, what is anicca is dukkha, what is dukkha is not self. Since nothing can exist independently, all things by their nature exist in dependence of something else, and thus they are anicca, and thus all things are unsatisfactory - Dukkha.

If all things are by their nature dukkha, then all things must be, in virtue of their structural nature - anatta. :)
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

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Re: Excellent old book

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BlackBird wrote:'All dhammas are anatta' —
When one sees with discernment
And grows disenchanted with dukkha,
This is the path to purity.
Yes, not a single sutta states that "all things are anatta".

Dhammapada explains that seeing with discernment all dhammas as impersonal, one arrives to disenchantment and purity.

In other words, this is a selective recognition of impersonality, "anatta-saññā", which is an essential part of wisdom development.

In Mahaparinibbana sutta Buddha urged to develop seven kinds of 'saññā'

"Yāvakīvañca, bhikkhave, bhikkhū aniccasañña.m bhāvessanti ...pe... anattasañña.m bhāvessanti... asubhasañña.m bhāvessanti... ādīnavasañña.m bhāvessanti... pahānasañña.m bhāvessanti... virāgasañña.m bhāvessanti... nirodhasañña.m bhāvessanti, vuddhiyeva, bhikkhave, bhikkhūna.m pā.tika'nkhā, no parihāni.

In Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation:

1.10. 'I will tell you another seven things ... As long as monks develop the perception of impermanence, of non-self, of impurity, of danger, of overcoming, of dispassion, of cessation, ... they may be expected to prosper and not decline.'

This kind of selective recognition has to be cultivated:

(AN iv.14) 8. Anattānupassīsuttaṃ

‘‘Sattime, bhikkhave, puggalā āhuneyyā pāhuneyyā dakkhiṇeyyā añjalikaraṇīyā anuttaraṃ puññakkhettaṃ lokassa. Katame satta? Idha, bhikkhave, ekacco puggalo sabbasaṅkhāresu anattānupassī viharati, anattasaññī, anattapaṭisaṃvedī satataṃ samitaṃ abbokiṇṇaṃ cetasā adhimuccamāno paññāya pariyogāhamāno. So āsavānaṃ khayā anāsavaṃ cetovimuttiṃ paññāvimuttiṃ diṭṭheva dhamme sayaṃ abhiññā sacchikatvā upasampajja viharati. Ayaṃ, bhikkhave, paṭhamo puggalo āhuneyyo pāhuneyyo dakkhiṇeyyo añjalikaraṇīyo anuttaraṃ puññakkhettaṃ lokassa.


18 Non-Self (translation by Bhikkhu Bodhi)

"Bhikkhus, there are these seven kinds of persons who are worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of reverential salutation, an unsurpassed field of merit for the world. What seven?
(1) "Here, bhikkhus, some person dwells contemplating non-self in all phenomena, perceiving non-self, experiencing, constantly, and uninterruptedly focusing on it with the mind, fathoming it with wisdom. With the destruction of taints, he has realized for himself with direct knowledge, in this very life, the taintless liberation of mind, liberation by wisdom, and having entered upon it, he dwells in it. This is the first kind of person worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of reverential salutation, an unsurpassed field of merit for the world. ..."

Instructions to Mettagu in Sutta-nipata:

‘‘Yaṃ kiñci sampajānāsi, (mettagūti bhagavā)
Uddhaṃ adho tiriyañcāpi majjhe;
Etesu nandiñca nivesanañca, panujja viññāṇaṃ bhave na tiṭṭhe.

‘‘Evaṃvihārī sato appamatto, bhikkhu caraṃ hitvā mamāyitāni;
Jātiṃ jaraṃ sokapariddavañca, idheva vidvā pajaheyya dukkhaṃ’’.

Whatever you're alert to,
above, below,
across, in between:
dispelling any delight,
any laying claim
to those things,
consciousness should not take a stance
in becoming.
The monk who dwells thus
— mindful, heedful —
letting go of his sense of mine,
knowing right here would abandon
birth & aging,
lamentation & sorrow,
stress & suffering.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
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Re: Excellent old book

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No I'm sorry, but if you're intent on believing the the Buddha endorsed the idea that there are things in existence that are atta, then you'd be better of practicing Vedanta :)

If that was not your meaning then I have no clue what point you're trying to make :?

It would seem that you do not choose to translate 'dhammas' as 'things' whereas I do, in line with the tradition I follow, and I have found this translation most profitable.

metta
Jack
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

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Re: Excellent old book

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BlackBird wrote: The whole purpose of the Buddha's teachings is to gain a personal knowledge that there is no ownership or 'me' 'mine' 'myself' in ones experience. That is done by seeing the dependence of this thing on that. Dependence is anicca, what is anicca is dukkha, what is dukkha is not self. Since nothing can exist independently, all things by their nature exist in dependence of something else, and thus they are anicca, and thus all things are unsatisfactory - Dukkha.
If all things are by their nature dukkha, then all things must be, in virtue of their structural nature - anatta. :)
I think there are different ways to look at this. You could say the whole purpose of the Buddha's teachings is to eliminate craving for experience, and the "unsatisfactory so not fit to be regarded as self" approach is one of the strategies to bring this about.
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Re: Excellent old book

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Spiny Norman wrote:
BlackBird wrote: The whole purpose of the Buddha's teachings is to gain a personal knowledge that there is no ownership or 'me' 'mine' 'myself' in ones experience. That is done by seeing the dependence of this thing on that. Dependence is anicca, what is anicca is dukkha, what is dukkha is not self. Since nothing can exist independently, all things by their nature exist in dependence of something else, and thus they are anicca, and thus all things are unsatisfactory - Dukkha.
If all things are by their nature dukkha, then all things must be, in virtue of their structural nature - anatta. :)
I think there are different ways to look at this. You could say the whole purpose of the Buddha's teachings is to eliminate craving for experience, and the "unsatisfactory so not fit to be regarded as self" approach is one of the strategies to bring this about.
Craving is what dukkha exists dependent upon, and it is certainly by recognising it's impermanence that we come to put an end to dukkha.
But if dukkha were not a factor - If dukkha were not a mark of existence, why would craving be a problem?

When I say the purpose of the Buddhas teachings is to realise anatta, I meant the other two marks to be implicit, as they cannot be separated, they are three sides of the same coin so to speak, it is merely that one first realises anicca, then dukkha becomes apparent as a result, one ceases to crave for that which one realises is not pleasant and from that anatta is realised. Craving for self has been reliniquished as part of such a process, and thus the dukkha bound up with it has been eliminated. There is still craving yet to be eliminated at such a stage, as we are all too aware there are four stages of nobility, with subtler forms of craving still to be eliminated beyond the abandonment of attavada.

metta
Jack
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

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Re: Excellent old book:George Grimm, The doctrine of the Bud

Post by ancientbuddhism »

Kim O'Hara wrote:He may have been influenced by Theosophy or any of the other peculiarly 'New Age' movements which were swirling around Europe at the time (Gurdjieff, spiritualism, etc) but I see that generation of European scholars as being unable to escape the pervasive influence of Christianity. Christianity shaped the whole culture in a way that we have trouble imagining: everyone was Christian. Every philosopher, novelist, journalist and scientist of the previous couple of centuries was Christian, every religious building was Christian (apart from a few pagan ruins) ... and the whole business of Christianity was to give an eternal self a happy eternal life.
And this may be the dynamic from which attempts to reach out to movements such as Theosophy etc. came. I see this struggle with Buddhist seekers of Christian origin today with their syncretistic attempts to meld the two. A newbie will easily digest this. I was reading Alan Watts as a new Zen practitioner, books which now are mildly amusing. Another modern and popular attempt at this kind of syncretism is the Thích Nhất Hạnh movement.
Kim O'Hara wrote:In that context, anatta is almost unthinkable - and if someone did manage think it, they would find it almost impossible to stop old habits reasserting themselves. Every time there was any doubt, some kind of eternal self would be the completely automatic fallback position.
Which should find good company with those Dhamma seekers who were struggling with eternalist doctrines in the Nikāyas. What puzzles me is that every time we read of some paribbajati or brāhmaṇa being converted by the Tathāgata, the accolade is always some boilerplate of acquiescence, rather than giving nuance of what convinced them. But then, conversion is not the same as the liberation that may follow.
Kim O'Hara wrote:I see it all the time in writing from that period, to the extent that I now find it unreadable. …
I have had to rummage around some of these old books to refute some claim cited from them today. It is excruciating.
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Re: Excellent old book

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BlackBird wrote:....it is merely that one first realises anicca, then dukkha becomes apparent as a result, one ceases to crave for that which one realises is not pleasant, and from that anatta is realised.
I'm following your reasoning here, but could you elaborate on the last phrase: "and from that anatta is realised"? To take a trivial example, if I cease to crave for ice cream ( or the experience of eating ice-cream ) because I realise it's impermanent and therefore unsatisfatory, how does a realisation of anatta follow?
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Re: Excellent old book:George Grimm, The doctrine of the Bud

Post by ancientbuddhism »

nibbuti, BlackBird et al,

This is probably tangential to the OP, but when we read “all things are not-self” (sabbe dhammā anattā), this all things is with reference to the “thoughts and intentions” (saṅkappavittakkā) which are based in ‘recognition of forms (objects)’ (nāmarūpa) of the elements of cognition.

See AN.8.2.4.3 (8.83) and AN.9.1.2.4. (9.14) & AN. 10.2.1.8 (10.58).

These are the all things that the puthujjana takes as his attā.
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Re: Excellent old book

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Spiny Norman wrote:
BlackBird wrote:....it is merely that one first realises anicca, then dukkha becomes apparent as a result, one ceases to crave for that which one realises is not pleasant, and from that anatta is realised.
I'm following your reasoning here, but could you elaborate on the last phrase: "and from that anatta is realised"? To take a trivial example, if I cease to crave for ice cream ( or the experience of eating ice-cream ) because I realise it's impermanent and therefore unsatisfatory, how does a realisation of anatta follow?
I'm about to go to bed so I will give a better explanation in the morning but for now. But I will do my best to give a short elaboration. There is so much I could say, but I fear that if I get into too much detail I will spark some controversy or rock the boat and I am not at all intent on stepping on anyone's toes. So that said:

The case that I am most familiar with is the most fundamental and important one: attavada, so you will have to forgive me for the substitution of that from ice cream (despite my endearment to such creamy dairy products). When the person first sees that what attavada depends upon (craving) is anicca, the game is up - The craving for self relies upon feeling, in this case pleasure, so with pleasure as condition one will continue to crave. But as soon as dukkha is seen to be pervasive throughout experience (as all sankharas are anicca) one no longer craves for experience, in fact it becomes quite obvious (as the Buddha so rightly said) that the only purpose in existence is to put an end to it. Thus when he reviews the khandas and the elements that constitute his experience, he does not find one that he wishes to associate with. It is clear and obvious that the sum of these constituent elements is just what it is, but it is not a 'me.' - They all exist in dependence upon something else, and that something is impermanent, and so it runs that the constituent element is also impermanent by it's very structure, and because of that it is dukkha, and so the idea of association or ownership is absurd. That is anatta. The sotapanna does not look upon his icecream and go: "This icecream is devoid of self." - It is merely an object, and anatta is concerned with the subject.

There is, at the level in question still residual ego, naturally conceit is not abandoned until arahantship. But for all intents and purposes - self view is dead in it's tracks. There is common parlance for the purposes of making his way in the world and achieving the days tasks, and so he may still think: "Well I need to get up, or I need to brush my teeth" - but he does not think "This is me. This is who I am" when self referencing. If he does incorporate the word "I" into his thoughts he does so in full knowledge that it is merely a term to describe the existence that is being experienced whereas before, it was this controller, an eternal self to which objects related. It is clear that although he still does not fully understand what's what, he knows that the question of "what am I" is invalid on the basis that "I" is invalid. It also completely changes the way he views others. Between himself and worldlings, the only difference is their wrong view and lack of personal knowledge of Dhamma. They too are devoid of eternal self. He sees a sameness, that he formerly did not, and so he finds it very easy to foster the brahma-viharas towards such beings, much easier than before his big change, for before he viewed other beings as other eternal selfs.

Sorry I'm starting to ramble a bit and that probably raises more questions than it answers. But I'm off to bed for now and I will attempt to respond more aptly tomorrow after a good rest and hopefully a sit.

much metta
Jack
"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:
'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

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Re: Excellent old book:George Grimm, The doctrine of the Bud

Post by Kim OHara »

ancientbuddhism wrote:
Kim O'Hara wrote:He may have been influenced by Theosophy or any of the other peculiarly 'New Age' movements which were swirling around Europe at the time (Gurdjieff, spiritualism, etc) but I see that generation of European scholars as being unable to escape the pervasive influence of Christianity. Christianity shaped the whole culture in a way that we have trouble imagining: everyone was Christian. Every philosopher, novelist, journalist and scientist of the previous couple of centuries was Christian, every religious building was Christian (apart from a few pagan ruins) ... and the whole business of Christianity was to give an eternal self a happy eternal life.
And this may be the dynamic from which attempts to reach out to movements such as Theosophy etc. came. I see this struggle with Buddhist seekers of Christian origin today with their syncretistic attempts to meld the two. A newbie will easily digest this. I was reading Alan Watts as a new Zen practitioner, books which now are mildly amusing. Another modern and popular attempt at this kind of syncretism is the Thích Nhất Hạnh movement.
Kim O'Hara wrote:In that context, anatta is almost unthinkable - and if someone did manage think it, they would find it almost impossible to stop old habits reasserting themselves. Every time there was any doubt, some kind of eternal self would be the completely automatic fallback position.
Which should find good company with those Dhamma seekers who were struggling with eternalist doctrines in the Nikāyas.
That's all true, AB, but it isn't quite what I was trying to get at with "unthinkable".
Have you ever tried living in a country where they drive on the other side of the road? If you have, you may remember the difficulty of adjusting to it: every time you looked at a car with one person in it, they looked like a passenger because they were sitting in "the passenger's seat". Every time you went to cross the street, you looked the wrong way. Every time a car came round a corner towards you, it was on the "wrong" side of the road. And so on.
It wasn't that you were trying to deny the reality of the new way of doing things, but that every habit connected to the activity led back to the old mind-set. And when you started driving there, you had to watch yourself all the time or you would come out of an intersection on the wrong side of the road. :shock:
That's what constantly happened to these writers, I think. But they didn't crash, so they didn't notice.
:namaste:
Kim
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