I'm not really sure if that is true. On a conventional level, yes you can adjust your view to reduce dukkha. On an unconventional level, the Buddha taught the end of dukkha. To me there is a big difference.Sam Vara wrote: ↑Mon Jul 02, 2018 10:32 amI'm not talking about how a thought structure works. People's thought structures might work the same way, or differently. I'm talking about you having misunderstood how the Buddha recommends we relate to his teaching. You claim that this relating is inevitably a form of grasping or clinging: upādāna. That's not what the Buddha taught.Saengnapha wrote: ↑Mon Jul 02, 2018 9:39 am Of course you are not going to see it the way that I do, but that doesn't mean that our thought structure doesn't work in the same way as each other's structure works.
Saengnapha said, Grasping and attachment are also present in your structure, is it not? If it isn't, then you have achieved your goal, as you mentioned that nibbana is the goal of Theravada.
The Buddha does say it is universal, perhaps not using the same words. Ignorance is what he uses to describe this condition. Grasping is a sign of it.Sam Vara said: Yes, grasping/attachment is present, but that's not what is at issue here. The question is whether this grasping is universal, an ineradicable aspect or component of every thought. Your argument is, apparently that it is. The Buddha doesn't say this, so I am pointing out that error.
1. It is effective for becoming a better person which to me has little to do with cessation of ignorance as the Buddha described seeing things the way they are.Sam said: 1) You claim that the Eightfold Path (or Graduated Training, etc., ) is ineffective. I am claiming that all you have is your evidence that it is ineffective for you, and that attempts to extrapolate that failure to others or to present it as inevitable are an error in logic.
2) The factors which you adduce as evidence of the inefficacy as per (1) also apply to any understanding of UG, etc.
3) Your point is based on a confusion of upādāna and chanda, or terms such as gaṇhāti in MN 22.
Presumably, you think that words and logic and cleverness are properly used when you make periodic and repeated claims that what many people here understand as the Buddha-Dhamma is wrong or ineffective, but not when those claims are challenged.
2. 100% agreed.
3. I don't feel confused about this, especially words that I have to look up the meaning of.
Words and logic are good for day to day living and communication. They fall short in describing truth and reality. If they were effective, we would all share the same view. Challenging this is a waste of time, but you may do it to satisfy your own view.