Mind Like Fire Unbound

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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justindesilva wrote: Sat Apr 28, 2018 1:51 pm
User1249x wrote: Sat Apr 28, 2018 12:39 pm
justindesilva wrote: Sat Apr 28, 2018 10:22 am I understand that most westerners try to understand nibbana before even learning the basics of buddhism.
i think that people often might be going about it backwards as well. Instead of studying the conditioned element people pounder and philosophise about the unconditioned, thus disenchantment with the conditioned does not become conditioned, the realization of non-self does not become conditioned and views about the unconditioned are conditioned.
may I be cleared. Do you mean to say that we have to arrive at anicca dukka anatma working backwards from nibbana.? To my knowledge in Buddhism that is impossible.
No i mean that one should be studying what is conditioned to see the 3 characteristics and then become disenchanted with the conditioned.
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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User1249x wrote: Sat Apr 28, 2018 4:55 am
JohnK wrote: Fri Apr 27, 2018 7:02 pm I finally got to opening the book by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, The Mind Like Fire Unbound.
https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Wri ... dition.pdf
He makes the point that while nibbana literally means extinguishing (as in fire), we should understand how fire was presumed to operate at the time of the Buddha. He paraphrases his teacher (Ajaan Fuang Jotiko) as saying the mind released is like fire that has gone out -- the fire is not annihilated but is still there, diffused in the air; it simply no longer latches on to any fuel -- interesting.
Thought I would share an early paragraph:
To understand the implications of nibbana in the present life, it is necessary to
know something of the way in which fire is described in the Pali Canon. There,
fire is said to be caused by the excitation or agitation of the heat property. To
continue burning, it must have sustenance (upadana). Its relationship to its
sustenance is one of clinging, dependence, & entrapment. When it goes out, the
heat property is no longer agitated, and the fire is said to be freed. Thus the
metaphor of nibbana in this case would have implications of calming together
with release from dependencies, attachments, & bondage. This in turn suggests
that of all the attempts to describe the etymology of the word nibbana, the
closest is the one Buddhaghosa proposed in The Path of Purification: Un-(nir) + binding
(vana): Unbinding.
that really does kind of sound like eternalism, OP's interpretation in particular. A sankhara that becomes free, forever dissolved within the evovling world systems.

i am pretty sure that the burning fire originally represents sankharas, exhaustion of fuel represents the exhaustion of causes for arising of sankharas(suffering) and the cessation of fire is the cessation of suffering, abscence of fire is abscence of sankharas.

idea to entertain: Sankhara transl. formation, plural formations, formations spawn of past formations, transformation, formed in sequence, in formation, information, nibbana has no information, no-formation, not-formed, unborn, ducy

if Ven. Thanissaro is indeed an eternalist it would be quite ironic and sad
I definitely would not take from these few sentences that Thanissaro is an eternalist. As I make my way through the book, I'll see if I can clarify. Also, just to be clear, I tried not to offer any interpretation of any kind -- just reporting on what I read. The only clarification I might make is that Thanissaro says the statement by Ajaan Fuang is what motivated him to study this further -- resulting in the book -- that is, he does not offer Ajaan Fuang's words as his own conclusion. I'll try to keep you posted.
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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mikenz66 wrote: Sat Apr 28, 2018 5:35 am See Ven Dhammanando's summary here:
viewtopic.php?t=22741&start=60#p329417

Of course, that doesn't mean that the teachings of those Ajahns is worthless. There are a variety of ways to interepret the suttas, and to interpret personal experience.
From Bhante Dhammanando's post there:
Dhammanando wrote: Tue Feb 24, 2015 1:40 pm
Mkoll wrote:In your experience, is this concept of a primordial citta common in the Ajahn Mun and Chah forest traditions?
I think "common" would be a bit of an understatement. The primordial citta conception and similar strains of thinly disguised soul theory and semi-eternalism are ubiquitous in these traditions.
Mkoll wrote:Can you say say who is well-known from those traditions who espouse it and those who don't?
Among the Thai ajahns I don’t know of any who don’t teach this.
And then our own poll here at DW:

viewtopic.php?f=16&t=25166

And this shows that there is a plethora of views within Theravada regarding nibbana and parinibbana.
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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JohnK wrote: Sat Apr 28, 2018 3:38 pm I definitely would not take from these few sentences that Thanissaro is an eternalist. As I make my way through the book, I'll see if I can clarify. Also, just to be clear, I tried not to offer any interpretation of any kind -- just reporting on what I read. The only clarification I might make is that Thanissaro says the statement by Ajaan Fuang is what motivated him to study this further -- resulting in the book -- that is, he does not offer Ajaan Fuang's words as his own conclusion. I'll try to keep you posted.
Okay, I'll try a bit more clarification (from the Abstract).
He says that the imagery of extinguished fire leads some, those utilizing a modern understanding of fire, to conclude "nibbana implies extinction." Others, informed by the Vedic idea that fire is immortal, conclude that "nibbana implies eternal existence."
Not surprisingly, he says that there are weaknesses in BOTH of these interpretations.

He goes on to say: "The weakness of both these interpretations is that they do not take into account the way the Pali Canon describes (1) the workings of fire, (2) the limits beyond which no phenomenon may be described, and (3) the precise implications that the Buddha himself drew from his metaphor in light of (1) & (2)."

He concludes the Abstrat with: "...when viewed in light of the way the Pali Canon describes the workings of fire and uses fire imagery to describe the workings of the mind, it is clear that the word nibbana is primarily meant to convey notions of freedom: freedom in the present life from agitation, dependency, & clinging; and freedom after death from even the most basic concepts or limitations -- such as existence, non-existence, both, or neither—that make up the describable universe."
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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JohnK wrote: Sat Apr 28, 2018 11:17 pm
JohnK wrote: Sat Apr 28, 2018 3:38 pm I definitely would not take from these few sentences that Thanissaro is an eternalist. As I make my way through the book, I'll see if I can clarify. Also, just to be clear, I tried not to offer any interpretation of any kind -- just reporting on what I read. The only clarification I might make is that Thanissaro says the statement by Ajaan Fuang is what motivated him to study this further -- resulting in the book -- that is, he does not offer Ajaan Fuang's words as his own conclusion. I'll try to keep you posted.
Okay, I'll try a bit more clarification (from the Abstract).
He says that the imagery of extinguished fire leads some, those utilizing a modern understanding of fire, to conclude "nibbana implies extinction." Others, informed by the Vedic idea that fire is immortal, conclude that "nibbana implies eternal existence."
Not surprisingly, he says that there are weaknesses in BOTH of these interpretations.

He goes on to say: "The weakness of both these interpretations is that they do not take into account the way the Pali Canon describes (1) the workings of fire, (2) the limits beyond which no phenomenon may be described, and (3) the precise implications that the Buddha himself drew from his metaphor in light of (1) & (2)."

He concludes the Abstrat with: "...when viewed in light of the way the Pali Canon describes the workings of fire and uses fire imagery to describe the workings of the mind, it is clear that the word nibbana is primarily meant to convey notions of freedom: freedom in the present life from agitation, dependency, & clinging; and freedom after death from even the most basic concepts or limitations -- such as existence, non-existence, both, or neither—that make up the describable universe."
I hope you do not feel bad about misrepresenting or causing people to talk badly about Ven. Thanissaro, as i see we are just attempting to analyze some texts. It seems somewhat cryptic too me and it is hard to tell for sure what he thinks about it and if he holds any views one way or another.

Fwiw i think Nibbana implies extinction but only that of Sankharas, it can also be said to be eternal but only in as far as it is not impermanent and unchanging, without a before and after, a constant. I think eternal is a very bad word to use because the word explicitly implies duration. That being said eternal or everlasting are conveying the meaning of being without an end, which does apply. Unending does not imply eternal although there is some overlap in meaning.
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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one can be atheist about Nirvana

this takes the form of thinking Nirvana is annihilation

rather than thinking Nirvana is a dimension
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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rather than thinking Nirvana is a dimension
Ye, heaven for a retired soul 8-)
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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Making my way through the book.
Excerpts from the end of Chapter II in case it is useful:
So, to summarize: The image of an extinguished fire carried no connotations of annihilation for the early Buddhists. Rather, the aspects of fire that to them had significance for the mind-fire analogy are these: Fire, when burning, is in a state of agitation, dependence, attachment, & entrapment—both clinging & being stuck to its sustenance. Extinguished, it becomes calm, independent, indeterminate, & unattached: It lets go of its sustenance and is released...

This being the set of events—stillness, independence, unattachment—associated with the extinguishing of a fire and the attainment of the goal, it would appear that of all the etymologies offered to explain the word ‘nibbana,’ the one closest to its original connotations is that quoted by Buddhaghosa in The Path of Purification (VIII, 247). There he derives the word from the negative prefix ‘nir,’ plus ‘vana,’ or binding: ‘Unbinding’.

Modern scholars have tended to scorn this derivation as fanciful, and they favor such hypotheses as ‘blowing out,’ ‘not blowing’ or ‘covering.’ But although these hypotheses may make sense in terms of modern Western ideas about fire, they are hardly relevant to the way nibbana is used in the Canon. Freedom, on the other hand, is more than relevant. It is central, both in the context of ancient Indian theories of fire and in the psychological context of attaining the goal: ‘Not agitated, he is totally unbound right within.' [SN22:53]
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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Freedom, on the other hand, is more than relevant.
I'd say, selfdom is more relevant for him. Hence all this eel-wriggling.
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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Continuing with Chapter III in case there is interest.
Chapter II ended like this:
...the aspects of fire that...had significance for the mind-fire analogy are these: Fire, when burning, is in a state of agitation, dependence, attachment, & entrapment—both clinging & being stuck to its sustenance. Extinguished, it becomes calm, independent, indeterminate, & unattached: It lets go of its sustenance and is released...
...of all the etymologies offered to explain the word ‘nibbana,’ the one closest to its original connotations is...‘Unbinding’...
‘Not agitated, he is totally unbound right within.' [SN22:53]
In Chapter III, he focuses on another word borrowed from the workings of fire: UPADANA, commonly translated as "fuel," but which also means nourishment/sustenance. It also means clinging -- fire clings to its fuel. In terms of the mind, the question for upadana as sustenance is "Sustenance for what?" He answers, " 'Sustenance for becoming' & its attendant ills."
"just as if a great mass of fire...would, without sustenance, go out; even so, monks, in one who keeps focusing on the drawbacks of those phenomena that offer sustenance, craving stops...Thus is the stopping of this entire mass of suffering and stress SN 12:52...
And what, monks, are phenomena that offer sustenance? What is sustenance? Form, monks, is a phenomenon offering sustenance. Any desire or passion related to it is sustenance. Feeling... SN22:121"
He concludes there:
"Thus passion and desire are both the act of taking sustenance and the sustenance itself, while {the aggregates] simply offer the opportunity for them to occur...passion and desire are the act of clinging and the object clung to."
The rest (and largest part) of the chapter considers in detail the "four modes of sustenance."
"Monks, there are four [modes of] sustenance for becoming. Which four? Sensuality...views...habits and practices...doctrines of the self...MN 11"
I may provide later some select quotes from the rest of the chapter.
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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JohnK wrote: Wed May 02, 2018 8:08 pm
The rest (and largest part) of the chapter considers in detail the "four modes of sustenance."
"Monks, there are four [modes of] sustenance for becoming. Which four? Sensuality...views...habits and practices...doctrines of the self...MN 11"
Many thanks, John. Also for those who are interested, Ajahn T. has written this very nice little article about what can be done with these "four modes of sustenance".

https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/Medit ... n0032.html
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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From Chapter III on Sensuality (just quotes I liked):
A theme recurrent throughout the Canon is that complete knowledge of any object does not end with an understanding of its allure & drawbacks, but goes on to comprehend what brings emancipation from the mental fetters based on both.
‘And what is the emancipation from sensuality?
Whatever is the subduing of passion & desire, the abandoning of passion & desire for sensuality, that is the emancipation from sensuality.’ MN 13
"Seeing a form unmindfully, focusing on its pleasing features, one knows with mind enflamed and remains fastened to it."
[Notice how these lines draw directly on the image of burning as entrapment.]
"One’s feelings, born of the form, grow numerous.
Greed & provocation injure one’s mind.
Thus amassing stress one is said to be far from Unbinding."
[And so on with the rest of the six senses.]
"One not enflamed with forms — seeing a form with mindfulness firm—knows with mind unenflamed
and doesn’t remain fastened there.
While one is seeing a form — and even experiencing feeling — it falls away and does not accumulate.
Faring mindful and thus not amassing stress,one is said to be in the presence of Unbinding."
[And so on with the rest of the six senses.]
SN 35:95
In addition to the fire metaphor, I liked "fastened" -- many people who see no harm in some attachment (as they hear the word), to loved ones for example, would nevertheless recognize the value of not being "fastened" to (or entrapped by) them.
"The passion for his resolves is a man’s sensuality,
not the beautiful sensual pleasures found in the world.
The passion for his resolves is a man’s sensuality.
The beauties remain as they are in the world,
while the wise, in this regard, subdue their desire."
AN 6:63
Thus sensual pleasures, which belong to the realm of form, are the ‘clingable phenomena’ that offer sustenance for the bond of desire & passion.
...freedom from sensuality as a clinging/sustenance requires a two-pronged approach: to realize the true nature of the bait and to extricate oneself from the trap.
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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Quotes from the "Views" section of Chapter III -- some emphasis added:
Views are the second mode of clinging/sustenance. And, as with the abandoning of attachment to sensuality, the abandoning of attachment to views can lead to an experience of Unbinding...
Attachment to views can block an experience of Unbinding in any of three major ways. First, the content of the view itself may not be conducive to the arising of discernment and may even have a pernicious moral effect on one’s actions...
Secondly, apart from the actual content of the views, a person attached to views is bound to get into disputes with those who hold opposing views, resulting in unwholesome mental states for the winners as well as the losers...
Thirdly, and more profoundly, attachment to views implicitly involves attachment to a sense of ‘superior’ & ‘inferior,’ and to the criteria used in measuring and making such evaluations. As we saw in Chapter I, any measure or criterion acts as a limitation or bond on the mind...
...attachment to views must be abandoned through knowledge, and not through skepticism, agnosticism, ignorance, or a mindless openness to all views...
Agnosticism, then, is not a way of abandoning standpoints but is simply another standpoint: Like all standpoints, it must be abandoned through knowledge. The type of knowledge called for—in which standpoints are regarded, not in terms of their content, but as events in a causal chain...
"'Does Master Gotama have any position at all?'
'A "position," Vaccha, is something that a Tathagata has done away with. What a Tathagata sees is this: "Such is form, such its origination, such its disappearance; such is feeling...
...a Tathagata -- with the ending, fading away, stopping, renunciation & relinquishment of all conceivings, all excogitations, all I-making & my-making & obsessions with conceit -- is, through lack of clinging/sustenance, released.' MN72
The construings the Buddha relinquished include views not only in their full-blown form as specific positions, but also in their rudimentary form as the categories & relationships that the mind reads into experience. This is a point he makes in his instructions to Bahiya, which led immediately to the latter’s attaining the goal. When the mind imposes interpretations on its experience, it is engaging implicitly in system-building and all the limitations of location & relationship that system-building involves. Only when it can free itself of those interpretations and the fetters they place on it, can it gain true freedom.
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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Continuing Chapter III (about the modes of sustenance for becoming), the section on Habits and Practices:
Habits & practices.
The Canon mentions a variety of habits & practices--the third mode of clinging/sustenance. Prominent among them are Brahmanical rituals & Jain practices of self-torture...
But there is another practice which, though a necessary part of the Buddhist path, can nevertheless offer sustenance for becoming; and which -- as the object of attachment to be transcended -- figures prominently in descriptions of the goal’s attainment. That practice is jhana, or meditative absorption.
The rest of the section on habits and practices is about jhana -- and its transcendence.
To abandon attachment to jhana as a sustenance for becoming means, not to stop practicing it, but rather to practice it without becoming engrossed in the sense of pleasure or equanimity it affords, so that one can discern its true nature for what it is...Once the mind can detach itself from the pleasure & equanimity offered by jhana, it can be inclined toward that which transcends jhana -- the unconditioned quality of deathlessness... The fact that the various levels of jhana are nurtured & willed, and thus dependent on conditions, is important: A realization of exactly how they are nurtured — a realization acquired only through practical experience with them — can give insight into the conditioned nature of all mental events and is one of the ways in which the attachment to jhana, as sustenance for becoming, can be abandoned...mastery of jhana can lead to the insight that transcends it.
‘He discerns that “If I were to direct equanimity as pure & bright as this toward the dimension of the infinitude of space and to develop the mind along those lines, that would be fabricated. [Similarly with the remaining formless states.] ”He neither fabricates nor mentally fashions for the sake of becoming or un-becoming. This being the case, he is not sustained by anything in the world [does not cling to anything in the world].
Unsustained, he is not agitated. Unagitated, he is totally unbound right within. MN 140
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Re: Mind Like Fire Unbound

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The last section of Chapter III is about doctrines of self as sustenance for becoming; this section is roughly twice as long as any of the previous sections in the chapter.
Doctrines of the self form the fourth mode of clinging/sustenance. The Canon reports a wide variety of such doctrines current in the Buddha’s time, only to reject them out-of-hand for two major reasons. The first is that even the least articulated sense of self or self-identification inevitably leads to stress & suffering...The second reason for rejecting doctrines of the self is that, whatever form they take, they all contain inherent inconsistencies.
‘If anyone were to say with regard to a monk whose mind is thus released
that “The Tathagata exists after death,” is his view, that would be
mistaken;
that “The Tathagata does not exist after death”...that “The
Tath›gata both exists & does not exist after death”.
..that “The Tath›gata
neither exists nor does not exist after death”
is his view, that would be
mistaken.
Why? Having directly known the extent of designation and the
extent of the objects of designation, the extent of expression and the
extent of the objects of expression, the extent of description and the extent
of the objects of description, the extent of discernment and the
extent of the objects of discernment, the extent to which the cycle revolves: Having
directly known that, the monk is released. [To say that,] “The monk
released, having directly known that, does not see, does not know is his
opinion,” that would be mistaken.’
[This last sentence means that the
monk released is not an agnostic concerning what lies beyond the extent
of designation, and so forth. He does know & see what lies beyond, even
though—as Ven. Sariputta said to Ven. MahaKotthita—he cannot express it,
inasmuch as it lies beyond objectification.

See the discussion of SN 35:23, AN 4:173, & SN 35:117 in Chapter One.]
DN 15
Form, monks, is not-self. If form were the self, this form would not lend itself to dis-ease...
...And is it right to assume with regard to whatever is inconstant, stressful, subject to change,
that “This is mine. This is my self. This is what I am”?’ -- No, lord.’ SN 22:59
This formulation is interesting from the modern psychological notion of self or self-concept or self-identity.
What the modern notion refers to is certainly inconstant, stressful, and subject to dis-ease;
So the "modern answer" would be "Yes, doctor."
It seems that the modern notion of self would fit the category of fabrication -- both the concept and the mental phenomenon being labelled such.
The "self" of the Canon is presumably referring to a fabrication of the time that is different from the modern one.
On the surface, doctrines about the self would appear simply to be another variety of speculative view. They deserve separate treatment, though, because they all come down to a deeply rooted sense of ‘I am’— a conceit coloring all perception at the m fundamental level...
...The sense of ‘I am’ can prevent a person from reaching the goal, even when he feels that he has abandoned attachment to sensuality, speculative views, & the experience of jhana.
Whereas the contemplative or brahman under discussion in this passage reads an ‘I’ into what he is experiencing, the Buddha simply observes that ‘There is this....’ This unadorned observation—which simply sees what is present in an experience as present, and what is absent as absent...
...He discerns that “This mode of perception is
empty of the effluent of sensuality... the effluent of becoming... the
effluent of ignorance. And there is just this non-emptiness: that connected
with the six sensory spheres, dependent on this very body with life as its
condition.” Thus he regards it as empty of whatever is not there.
Whatever remains, he discerns as present: “There is this.” And so this, his
entry into emptiness, accords with actuality, is undistorted in meaning, pure
— superior & unsurpassed.
MN 121
After presenting the famous dialog with Vacchagotta on self, he says:
This dialogue is one of the most controversial in the Canon...If someone else more spiritually mature than Vacchagotta had asked the question, they say, the Buddha would have revealed his true position. This interpretation, though, ignores the fact that of the Buddha’s four express
reasons for not answering the question, only the last is specific to Vacchagotta. The first two hold true no matter who is asking the question: To say that there is or is not a self would be to fall into one of two philosophical positions that the Buddha frequently attacked as incompatible with his teaching. As for his third reason, the Buddha wanted to be consistent with ‘the arising of knowledge that all phenomena are not-self,’ not because he felt that this knowledge was worth holding onto in & of itself..., but because he saw that the arising of such knowledge could, through causing the mind to let go of all forms of clinging/sustenance, lead to liberation.
...View the world, Mogharaja, as empty — always mindful, to have removed any view about self.
This way one is above & beyond death...Sn 5:15
The fundamental difference between this dialogue & the preceding one lies in
the questions asked: In the first, Vacchagotta asks the Buddha to take a position
on the metaphysical question of whether or not there is a self, and the Buddha remains silent. In the second, Mogharaja asks for a way to view the world so that one can go beyond death, and the Buddha speaks, teaching him to view the world without reference to the notion of self.
This suggests that, instead of being a metaphysical assertion that there is no self, the teaching on not-self is more a strategy, a technique of perception aimed at leading beyond death to Unbinding...
...‘By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by [takes as its object] a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it has come to be with right discernment, “non-existence” with reference to the world doesn’t occur to one. When
one sees the stopping of the world as it has come to be with right discernment, “existence” with reference to the world doesn’t occur to one... SN12:15
Thus for the person who aims at Unbinding, the Buddha recommends a technique of perception that regards things simply in terms of the four truths concerning stress, with no self-identification, no sense that ‘I am’, no attachment to ‘I’ or ‘mine’ involved. Although...there may be a temporary, functional identity to one’s range of perception, this ‘identity’ goes no further than that. One recognizes it for what it is: inconstant & conditioned, and thus not worthy of being taken as a self—for in transcending attachment to it, there is the realization of deathlessness.
For a person who has attained the goal, experience occurs with no ‘subject’ or ‘object’ superimposed on it, no construing of experience or thing experienced. There is simply the experience in & of itself.
...monks, the Tathagata, when seeing what is to be seen, doesn’t construe [an object as] seen, doesn’t construe an unseen, doesn’t construe
[an object] to-be-seen, doesn’t construe a seer... AN4:24
A view is true or false only when one is judging how accurately it refers to something else. If one is regarding it simply as an event in & of itself, true & false no longer apply. Thus for the Tathagata — who no longer needs to impose notions of subject or object on experience, and can regard sights, sounds, feelings, & thoughts purely in & of themselves — views are not necessarily true or false, but can simply serve as phenomena to be experienced. With no notion of subject, there is no grounds for ‘I know, I see;’ with no notion of object, no grounds for ‘That’s just how it is.’ So —although a Tathagata may continue using ‘true’ & ‘false’ in the course of teaching others, and may continue reflecting on right view as a means of abiding mindfully & comfortably in the present — notions of true, false, self, & not self have lost all their holding power over the
mind. As a result, the mind can see conditioned events in their suchness—‘such are the aggregates, such their origin, such their disappearance’— and is left free to its own Suchness: unrestrained, uninfluenced by anything of any sort.
This concludes our survey of the four modes ofclinging/sustenance—passion & delight for sensuality, for views, for habits & practices, and for doctrines of the self—and should be enough to give a sense of what is loosed in the Unbinding of the mind. All that remains now is the question of how.
There is just one more chapter.
Those who grasp at perceptions & views wander the internet creating friction. [based on Sn4:9,v.847]
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