Element wrote:Thanissaro provides some commentary
here on
bhavanga-citta.
Thanissaro raises more questions than he answers, doesn't he?
For the very reason unclear minds cannot see arising & passing is the very reason why most religions hold there is a permanent soul.
Looks like it.
Buddha did not spend six years searching for no reason, despite being able to enter jhana as a child. Then mind is indeed illusive & delusive.
Yet the mind is not only one single entity, is it? It is layered, for example there is the conscious and the subconscious. When we remove defilements of the conscious, we can see the subconscious creating and destroying the 'I' and controlling us like a puppy through desires. Then we can draw the consequences and turn the tables, so to speak.
I disagree with you Cap. From a Modern Theravada perspective, I would say the bhavanga lies in the bhavatanha & vibhavatanha of the beholder.
To be clear, I understand bhavanga to be the condition for becoming in your sentence above. However, when we remove defilements of mind, does the condition simply go away, or is it still there, like the five aggregates are still there in an arahat? For I understand bhavanga to be the subconscious in a wider sense, and it doesn't just puff away in a cloud of smoke only because we catch it, does it? Does bhavanga not become a part of luminous mind? To be clear, what exactly do you mean by bhavanga, bhavantanha and vibhavantanha here? Please translate it as you understand it.