Buddhagosa

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
Element

Re: Buddhagosa

Post by Element »

Chris wrote:Hello Element,

What are you definitions of nihilism, annihilationism, eternalism?
Hello Chris,

If you wish to ask me a question or discuss a matter with me, please refer to the suttas.

Further, the topic has already been discussed elsewhere. You can find my views there. Try the search function. :smile:

Thank you

Element
Last edited by Element on Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
Element

Re: Buddhagosa

Post by Element »

clw_uk wrote:The buddhas said "the world is void of a self or anything pertaining to a self"

The line "there is no sufferer only suffering" seems in line with this as the suffering that rises does not have a self.
Hi Craig

'Self' is delusion. Thus if we see with right wisdom a child having a tantrum, we see that child is empty of self. It does not have a real self. However, that child's mind is full of delusion. It has delusion. That delusion is real. The delusion in that child's mind gives rise to the view it is a self. The child's mind is obsessively thinking: "I want this", "this is mine", "you cannot do this to me". The child's mind is under the influence of self belief.

If the world was void of self as you are inferring, the Buddha would not have taught his disciples to free their minds of 'self-belief". In the sutta, the Buddha states:
And what is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self? The eye is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self. Forms... Eye-consciousness... Eye-contact is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self.

"The ear is empty...

"The nose is empty...

"The tongue is empty...

"The body is empty...

"The intellect is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self. Ideas... Intellect-consciousness... Intellect-contact is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self. Thus it is said that the world is empty."
Buddha said in SN 35.68: "What is the world?" The eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind and associated sense spheres are the world.

The Buddha has exhorted us to examine the emptiness of the individual dhammas mentioned above, such as the eye, ear, etc. The Buddha did not state there was one mass of convoluted and entwined dukkha dhammas and that mass is empty. What can be clearly seen as empty, the Buddha advised was empty. Buddha did not teach as below:
Becoming's Wheel reveals no known beginning;
No maker, no experiencer there;
Void with a twelvefold voidness, and nowhere
It ever halts; for ever it is spinning.
Kind regards

Element
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robertk
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Re: Buddhagosa

Post by robertk »

Element wrote:Whilst all things are inherently void of self, the follow teaching is not the Buddha's intent regarding dependent origination and voidness:
Becoming's Wheel reveals no known beginning;
No maker, no experiencer there;
Void with a twelvefold voidness, and nowhere
It ever halts; for ever it is spinning.
Buddha's intent was to use voidness to end the wheel rather than capitulate like the evangelical Mahayanas do that the wheel is void. This is the same as teaching: "We are all sinners but Jesus loves us". Instead of freeing our lives from sin, we just capitulate and say: "Jesus loves me".

For the Lord Buddha, voidness was a synonym for the ending of the wheel and not the wheel itself.

Buddha said voidness is void of sensuality, void of becomng and void of ignorance. (MN 121) Buddha thus said voidness is void of the wheel.

Buddhaghosa's voidness may hold to the ultimate nature of unenlightened beings but it is not inner enlightenment nor the Buddha's intention of expounding these dhammas.

As the saying goes: "Three strikes and your out". This exposition of Buddhaghosa does not even pass go. No $200. No cigar.
The citation from Buddhaghosa is certainly true Dhamma. Perhaps you are the one who is lost?
Element

Re: Buddhagosa

Post by Element »

robertk wrote: The citation from Buddhaghosa is certainly true Dhamma. Perhaps you are the one who is lost?
The citation to me from Buddhaghosa is philosophical non-sense.

When Ananda said to the Buddha: "I have heard the world is empty", Buddha did not reply the world is empty.

Buddha provided an exercise for accuracy of insight or dhammavicaya. Buddha advised Ananda the various sense spheres were empty so they could be examined one by one.

Buddha did not want Ananda holding broad generalisations that were not the genuine accurate detailed meticulous insight and did not lead to the cessation of dukkha.

The citation to me from Buddhaghosa is absolute philosophical non-sense and I am not lost. 8-)

A wheel spinning around is not the end of dukkha and is thus not void.
Last edited by Element on Mon Jan 26, 2009 6:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
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tiltbillings
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Re: Buddhagosa

Post by tiltbillings »

Element wrote:
robertk wrote: The citation from Buddhaghosa is certainly true Dhamma. Perhaps you are the one who is lost?
The citation to me from Buddhaghosa is philosophical non-sense.

When Ananda said to the Buddha: "I have heard the world is empty", Buddha did not reply the world is empty.

Buddha provided an exercise for accuracy of insight or dhammavicaya. Buddha advised Ananda the various sense spheres were empty so they could be examined one by one.

Buddha did not want Ananda holding broad generalisations that were not the genuine accurate detailed meticulous insight.

The citation to me from Buddhaghosa is absolute philosophical non-sense and I am not lost. 8-)
Before this devolves into a gainsaying match, I would suggest that it very likely that you two will not come to an agreement, but in the mean time rather than mere gainsaying, present arguments for your positions using the suttas (since you both likely agree on the veracity of them). Give us poor readers something to chew on, rather than: "You are wrong." "No, you are wrong."
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Element

Re: Buddhagosa

Post by Element »

tiltbillings wrote:...present arguments for your positions using the suttas.
Buddha defines voidness below:
"He discerns that 'Whatever disturbances that would exist based on the effluent of sensuality... the effluent of becoming... the effluent of ignorance, are not present. And so this, his entry into emptiness, accords with actuality, is undistorted in meaning, pure — superior & unsurpassed.

MN 121
So how can there be a twelve-fold voidness concocting sensuality, becoming and ignorance when voidness is free of these defilements?
Element

Re: Buddhagosa

Post by Element »

tiltbillings wrote: ...present arguments for your positions using the suttas.
Buddha said:
On seeing a form with the eye, he is passionate for it if it is pleasing; he is angry with it if it is displeasing. He lives with mindfulness to the body unestablished, with a limited mind, and he does not understand realistically the deliverance of mind and deliverance by wisdom wherein those evil unwholesome states cease without remainder. Engaged as he is in favouring and opposing, whatever feeling he feels - whether pleasant or painful or neither-pleasant-nor-painful - he delights in that feeling, welcomes it, and remains holding on to it. As he does so, delight (nandi) arises in him. Now,
delight in feelings (vedanàsu nandi) is clinging (upàdàna). Becoming is conditioned by his clinging; becoming conditions birth; birth conditions ageing-&-death; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair come to be. Thus is the arising of this entire mass of suffering.

“On seeing a form with the eye, he is not passionate for it if it is pleasing; he is not angry at it if it is displeasing. He lives with attention to body established, with an immeasurable mind, and he understands realistically the deliverance of mind and deliverance by wisdom wherein those evil unwholesome states cease without remainder. Having abandoned favouring and opposing, whatever feeling he feels - whether pleasant or painful or neither-pleasant-nor-painful - he does not delight in that feeling, welcome it, or remain holding to it. As he does not do so, delight in feelings ceases in him. From the cessation of his delight comes cessation of clinging; from the cessation of clinging, the cessation of becoming; from the cessation of becoming, the cessation of birth; from the cessation of birth, ageing-&-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair cease. Thus is the cessation of this entire mass of suffering.

Mahàtanhàsankhaya Sutta
Therefore, the wheel of becoming has a known beginning and a known end.

E
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tiltbillings
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Re: Buddhagosa

Post by tiltbillings »

Therefore, the wheel of becoming has a known beginning and a known end.
And the beginning is?
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Element

Re: Buddhagosa

Post by Element »

tiltbillings wrote:...present arguments for your positions using the suttas.
Buddha said:
And what is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self? The eye is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self. Forms... Eye-consciousness... Eye-contact is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self.

"The ear is empty...

"The nose is empty...

"The tongue is empty...

"The body is empty...

"The intellect is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self. Mental objects... Mind-consciousness... Mind-contact is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self. Thus it is said that the world is empty."
The Dhammas above do not include craving, attachment, becoming, birth and dukkha. The Dhammas above are the sense spheres. Buddha did not say becoming was void or attachment was void. Buddha did speak in convoluted contradiction.

E
Last edited by Element on Mon Jan 26, 2009 6:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
Element

Re: Buddhagosa

Post by Element »

tiltbillings wrote:
Therefore, the wheel of becoming has a known beginning and a known end.
And the beginning is?
Better you read the text Tilt. This is not a kindergarten. :reading:
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tiltbillings
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Re: Buddhagosa

Post by tiltbillings »

(A. X, 62): "No first beginning of the craving for existence can be perceived, o monks, before which it was not and after which it came to be. But it can he perceived that craving for existence has its specific condition. I say, o monks, that also craving for existence has its condition that feeds it (sáharam) and is not without it. And what is it? 'Ignorance', one has to reply."
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Element

Re: Buddhagosa

Post by Element »

tiltbillings wrote:(A. X, 62): "No first beginning of the craving for existence can be perceived, o monks, before which it was not and after which it came to be. But it can he perceived that craving for existence has its specific condition. I say, o monks, that also craving for existence has its condition that feeds it (sáharam) and is not without it. And what is it? 'Ignorance', one has to reply."
You did not reply to the previous question Tilt about MN 38.

Exchanging quotes is the same as mere opinions of "right" and "wrong".

The suttas are full of mundance & supramundane quotes.

Next, you will pull up some mundane quote about endless samsara.

Keep the discussion on the level of supramundane dhamma.

If one cannot discern a beginning of ignorance, how can it be ended?

You are misunderstanding AN X.62. You have turned it into a doctrine of eternalism rather than a doctrine of dukkha nirodho.
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tiltbillings
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Re: Buddhagosa

Post by tiltbillings »

Better you read the text Tilt. This is not a kindergarten.
I have read the text, but I do not see your point. Please be kind enough to draw it out.
Nexr, you will pull up some mundane quote about endless samsara.
Probably.
Keep the discussion on the level of supramundane dhamma.
Now, that is an interesting distinction, but not yet convincing.
If one cannot discern a beginning of ignorance, how can it be ended?


Why does one have to see the beginning of ignorance to stop it? Explain, if you would be so kind, what you might mean by seeing the beginning of ignorance.
You are misunderstanding AN X.62.
Possible, but not yet shown to be so.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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tiltbillings
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Re: Buddhagosa

Post by tiltbillings »

"Bhikkhus, the round is beginningless. Of the beings that travel and trudge through this round, shut in as they are by ignorance and fettered by craving, no first beginning is describable." SN 15:1

"That both I and you have to travel and trudge through this long round is owing to our not discovering, not penetrating, four truths. What four? They are: (I) the noble truth of suffering, (II) the noble truth of the origin of suffering, (III) the noble truth of the cessation of suffering, and (IV) the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering." DN 16

Now, I suppose these are mundane dhamma, but if so, why?
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Element

Re: Buddhagosa

Post by Element »

tiltbillings wrote:Why does one have to see the beginning of ignorance to stop it? Explain, if you would be so kind, what you might mean by seeing the beginning of ignorance.
Buddhagosa has said the wheel never ends. Stopping the wheel requires the seeing of ignorance arising now. Its 'beginning' has no relevance to stopping the wheel. Buddha did not talk about dependent origination like buddhagosa did. buddhagosa has convoluted various dhammas.
Becoming's Wheel reveals no known beginning;
No maker, no experiencer there;
Void with a twelvefold voidness, and nowhere
It ever halts; for ever it is spinning.
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