abhidhammic perspective on delusion

Discussion of Abhidhamma and related Commentaries
Post Reply
User avatar
Coëmgenu
Posts: 8150
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:55 pm
Location: Whitby, Canada

abhidhammic perspective on delusion

Post by Coëmgenu »

What is the Abhidhammic perspective on the origination of ignorance and/or delusion in light of the absence or inviability of a self to be deluded?
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
User avatar
aflatun
Posts: 814
Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2016 2:40 pm
Location: Bay Area, CA

Re: abhidhammic perspective on delusion

Post by aflatun »

Coëmgenu wrote:What is the Abhidhammic perspective on the origination of ignorance and/or delusion in light of the absence or inviability of a self to be deluded?
I'm not able to answer your question, but I would like to understand it better :)

Do you mean something like, how does ignorance/delusion work without the presence of an ignorant/deluded "self"?
"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
User avatar
Coëmgenu
Posts: 8150
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:55 pm
Location: Whitby, Canada

Re: abhidhammic perspective on delusion

Post by Coëmgenu »

aflatun wrote:
Coëmgenu wrote:What is the Abhidhammic perspective on the origination of ignorance and/or delusion in light of the absence or inviability of a self to be deluded?
I'm not able to answer your question, but I would like to understand it better :)

Do you mean something like, how does ignorance/delusion work without the presence of an ignorant/deluded "self"?
Moreso how ignorance/delusion is originated (dependantly), than how it "works", once it's originated how it works becomes evident based on what it is and it's consequence (suffering).
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
User avatar
aflatun
Posts: 814
Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2016 2:40 pm
Location: Bay Area, CA

Re: abhidhammic perspective on delusion

Post by aflatun »

Coëmgenu wrote:
aflatun wrote:
Coëmgenu wrote:What is the Abhidhammic perspective on the origination of ignorance and/or delusion in light of the absence or inviability of a self to be deluded?
I'm not able to answer your question, but I would like to understand it better :)

Do you mean something like, how does ignorance/delusion work without the presence of an ignorant/deluded "self"?
Moreso how ignorance/delusion is originated (dependantly), than how it "works", once it's originated how it works becomes evident based on what it is and it's consequence (suffering).
Understood, thank you for the clarification!
"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
User avatar
cjmacie
Posts: 690
Joined: Wed Dec 26, 2012 4:49 am

Re: abhidhammic perspective on delusion

Post by cjmacie »

Coëmgenu wrote:What is the Abhidhammic perspective on the origination of ignorance and/or delusion in light of the absence or inviability of a self to be deluded?
Abhidhamma usage of lobha-dosa-moha (greed/attraction-hatred/aversion-ignorance/confusion) s/t has to do with the "roots" of specific "cittas" (individual mental "states"/processes). Six roots: akusala ones lobha-dosa-moha and the kusala opposites alobha-adosa-amoha. Individual citta-s can be rooted in any 1, 2 or all 3 of either form. Has to do, also, with kamma -- the progression of intention/action and the results.

The Abhidhamma deals with lists (and lists of lists -- matrixes / matika), explanations and combinations of all the various items, both vertically (space, if you will: the structure of individual citta-s), and horizontally (like time: how citta-s condition/"cause" and/or result from each other in temporal progression).

Very little there, as I recall it, along the lines of the self/non-/not-self etc. preoccupation, which rather more interests contemporary Westerners -- and proliferates (papanca?) on places like this forum.

(All this as interpretation from my over-view readings of the Dhammasangani and the Abhidhammamathasangaha.)
User avatar
cjmacie
Posts: 690
Joined: Wed Dec 26, 2012 4:49 am

Re: abhidhammic perspective on delusion

Post by cjmacie »

Coëmgenu wrote:What is the Abhidhammic perspective on the origination of ignorance and/or delusion in light of the absence or inviability of a self to be deluded?
More constructively...

Just ran across a passage in a post by V. Sujato (on SuttaCentral) -- "...Heck, there's even an entire book in the Pali Abhidhamma called "the concept of a person"..."

And looking at the list (at Wikipedia) of the 7 Canonical works of the Abhidhama, that must be:
"4. Puggalapannatti ('Descriptions of Individuals') - An enumeration of the qualities of certain different 'personality types'. These types were believed to be useful in formulating teachings to which an individual would respond positively."

So there's a place one might start looking for an answer to the OP question... (I think I have an English translation of the book.)
befriend
Posts: 2284
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2011 11:39 am

Re: abhidhammic perspective on delusion

Post by befriend »

Out of the three personality types the delusional kind is someone who would walk into a room and not know what to do or say and not really know what's going on. Neutrality causes people to space out don't know if that's delusion I think it might be. I would look into reactions to neutral phenomena and what are the exaggerated forms of reactions to neutrality.
Take care of mindfulness and mindfulness will take care of you.
JiWe2
Posts: 58
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2016 11:31 am

Re: abhidhammic perspective on delusion

Post by JiWe2 »

Early Buddhist perspective on the origination of ignorance:
The Taints

70. In the section on the taints, with the arising of ignorance (avijjasamudaya): Here ignorance is a condition for the taint of sensual desire and the taint of being by way of decisive support, etc.; (it is a condition) for the taint of ignorance only by way of decisive support. And here the ignorance that arises subsequently should be understood as the taint of ignorance. The previously arisen ignorance itself becomes a decisive support condition for the subsequently arisen taint of ignorance. The rest by the aforesaid method.

This section is stated by way of showing the condition for the ignorance which heads the factors of dependent arising. Stated thus, the undiscoverability (anamataggata) of any beginning of samsara is established. How? Because with the arising of the taints there is the arising of ignorance, and with the arising of ignorance there is the arising of the taints. Thus the taints are a condition for ignorance, and ignorance is a condition for the taints. Having shown this, (it follows that) no first point of ignorance is manifest, and because none is manifest the undiscoverability of any beginning of samsara is proven.[59]

Note 59: Elsewhere the Buddha says: "A first point of ignorance cannot be discovered, of which it can be said: Before that there was no ignorance and it came to be after that" (A.10:61/v,113). In that sutta the Buddha cites the five hindrances as the condition for ignorance, but as these in turn presuppose ignorance, the vicious cycle is again established.

The Discourse on Right View, The Sammaditthi Sutta and its Commentary
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el377.html
One opinion on the Abhidhammic perspective:
The doctrine of conditionality of the Abhidhamma is an integral part of the dhamma-theory and therefore it assumes its significance within its framework. However, its purpose is not to explain the absolute origin of the series of mental and material dhammas into which our world of experience is analysed. This situation is fully consonant with the early Buddhist doctrine of causality whose purpose is not to explain the absolute origin and the ultimate direction of the world but to describe the uninterrupted continuity of the saṃsāric process. According to Buddhist teachings no temporal beginning of the universe is conceivable. Accordingly, the Abhidhamma doctrine of conditionality dissociates itself from all cosmological causal theories which seek to trace the absolute origin of the world-process from some kind of uncaused trans-empirical reality.

Y. Karunadasa, The Theravada Abhidhamma, p. 263
Samsara/ignorance is without discoverable beginning?
User avatar
Mkoll
Posts: 6594
Joined: Wed Dec 05, 2012 6:55 pm
Location: USA

Re: abhidhammic perspective on delusion

Post by Mkoll »

JiWe2 wrote:Samsara/ignorance is without discoverable beginning?
Indeed. The entire chapter 15 of SN (Anamataggasamyutta) is devoted to exactly that.
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato samma sambuddhassa
theY
Posts: 373
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:07 pm
Contact:

Re: abhidhammic perspective on delusion

Post by theY »

Avijjā=No knowledge about cause and effect.
Diṭṭhi=Wrong knowledge about cause and effect.

Although, someone stopped to take a drug. But they can desire and take a drug again anytime, if they don't have learned about drug's flaw.

Avijjā is a root of paṭiccasamuppāda because everyone "when someone enlighten (kill avijjā) 4 noble truth, that person will not desire (taṇhā-paṭiccasamuppāda) and will do not do (saṅkhāra-paṭiccasamuppāda) anything to let dukkha-noble-truth arise anymore".
Above message maybe out of date. Latest update will be in massage's link.
--------------------------------------------------
Tipitaka memorization is a rule of monks. It isn't just a choice. They must done it.
bahussuto nāma tividho hoti – nissayamuccanako, parisupaṭṭhāpako, bhikkhunovādakoti.
http://UnmixedTheravada.blogspot.com/20 ... monks.html
Post Reply