Well, yeah. What good is a metaphysical self? Does it see? Does it feel? Does it act?Manapa wrote:Hi
I agree with Thanissaro also.
The Buddha didn't make metaphysical or ontological statements of absolute reality….
Monks, whatever contemplatives or priests who assume in various ways when assuming a self, all assume the five clinging-aggregates, or a certain one of them. SN III 46. If the metaphysical self sees, act, feels, what differentiates it from the khandhas?
What the Buddha dealt with was the “All”: "Monks, I will teach you the all. And what is the all? The eye and forms, the ear and sounds the nose and odors, the tongue and tastes, the body and touch, the mind and mental phenomena. This is called the all. If anyone, monks, should speak thus: ' Having rejected this all, I shall make known another all' - that would be a mere empty boast." SN IV 15, which is an interesting text in that it seems to be a response to the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad’s notion of what is “All”:
So, again, what need is there of a metaphysical all or self? If it feels or acts, what differentiates it from the khandhas? What does it do? How can it be known?Klaus Klostermaier's A SURVEY OF HINDUISM, pgs: 137-8, 149-50 wrote:"In the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad we read a dialogue in which Yajnavalkya is asked the crucial question: Kati devah, how many are the devas [gods]? His first answer is a quotation from a Vedic text:
'Three hundred and three and three thousand and three." Pressed
on, he reduces the number first to thirty-three, then to six, then to
three, to two, to one-and-a-half and finally to One.
'Which is the one deva [god]?' And he answers: "The prana (breath, life). The Brahman. He is called tyat(that).' Though the devas still figure in sacrificial practice and religious debate, the question 'Who is God?' is here answered in terms that has remained the Hindu answer ever since.
10. Verily, in the beginning this world was Brahman. It knew only itself
(atmanam): "I am Brahman!" Therefore it became the All. Whoever of the gods became awakened to this, he indeed became it; likewise in the case of seers (rsi), likewise in the case of men. Seeing this, indeed, the seer Vamadeva began:-
I was Manu and the sun (surya)!
This is so now also. Whoever thus knows "I am Brahman!" becomes this All; even the gods have not power to prevent his becoming thus, for he becomes their self (atman).
So whoever worships another divinity [than his Self], thinking "He is
one and I another," he knows not. He is like a sacrificial animal for the gods. Verily, indeed, as many animals would be of service to a man, even so each single person is of service to the gods. If even one animal is taken away, it is not pleasant. What, then, if many? Therefore it is not pleasing to those [gods] that men should know this.
11. Verily, in the beginning this world was Brahman, one only.