Help me understand Anatta

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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Seitaka wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 3:17 pm …Buddhism is claiming that all is nothing but interdependently originated conditioned dharmas, all of which have the qualities of being impermanent, suffering, and being dream-like or illusory, or in other words that "nothing is", there has never been anything at all from the beginning, which is indeed nihilism…
This is where the error can be found in your interpretation.

Nihilism simply asserts that ultimately nothing exists, and that Phenomena do not exist.
Buddhism doesn’t assert that “ultimately, nothing exists”.

Buddhism asserts that within any given phenomenon, there is no self-arising essence, no inherent thing that can be identified as that phenomenon. If you examine a snowman, you’ll find snow, but no man.

Getting back to the title of this thread, that assertion specifically includes the idea of atman.
The difference between the Buddhist view and the Vedantic view is that Vedanta identifies that which is aware as atman, a self.

Buddhism argues that awareness isn’t a self, it is simply awareness, and that if you examine awareness, that ultimately you cannot find anything in that awareness that constitutes self, atman, some kind of specific entity that is even reborn.

Anything you think you can identify as self or atman is an object of awareness, rather than awareness.

The fact that awareness is not limited by time or space, is a concurrent issue, but not really a factor in the atman/anatman debate.
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Seitaka
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

Post by Seitaka »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 4:02 pm This is where the error can be found in your interpretation.

Nihilism simply asserts that ultimately nothing exists, and that Phenomena do not exist.
Buddhism doesn’t assert that “ultimately, nothing exists”.

Buddhism asserts that within any given phenomenon, there is no self-arising essence, no inherent thing that can be identified as that phenomenon. If you examine a snowman, you’ll find snow, but no man.
This is all an analysis of phenomena. Conditioned phenomena are by definition impermanent, non-self, and suffering. The question is whether there is an unconditioned, permanent reality or essence or awareness or whatever term we wish to employ, in other words is there anything at all which is not subject to causes and conditions and therefore not impermanence and suffering? I would think nirvana or Buddhahood or the Dharmakaya should fit the bill, especially since in the Pali the Buddha mentions an escape from the conditioned rather than all simply being conditioned:

The born, become, produced,
made, fabricated, impermanent,
composed of aging and death,
a nest of illnesses, perishing,
come from nourishment
and the guide that is craving
is unfit for delight.

The escape from that
is calm, permanent,
beyond inference,
unborn, unproduced,
the sorrowless, stainless state,
the cessation of stressful qualities,
the stilling of fabrications,
bliss.


PadmaVonSamba wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 4:02 pmGetting back to the title of this thread, that assertion specifically includes the idea of atman.
The difference between the Buddhist view and the Vedantic view is that Vedanta identifies that which is aware as atman, a self.

Buddhism argues that awareness isn’t a self, it is simply awareness, and that if you examine awareness, that ultimately you cannot find anything in that awareness that constitutes self, atman, some kind of specific entity that is even reborn.

Anything you think you can identify as self or atman is an object of awareness, rather than awareness.

The fact that awareness is not limited by time or space, is a concurrent issue, but not really a factor in the atman/anatman debate.
Well I believe it is consciousness, vijnana, rather than the atman which was conceived of as being reborn in Vedanta. The Atman is transcendent and timeless, a reality altogether different from what one normally calls "I" or myself, namely the empirical skandhic self. From an article I read on the topic:

According to Karel Werner ‘No Indian school of thought has ever regarded the human soul or the carrier of human personal identity as a permanent substance’. He holds that early Buddhist thinkers, as well as modern scholars, came to misleadingly equate Atman (identical with Brahman) with the notion of a substantial individual soul or personality. This would imply that any anatta doctrine based on rejecting such a ‘soul’ is misdirected, since the ‘soul’ was never posited in the Žfirst place.

I suppose I find myself agreeing with this passage I read in SK Hookham's "The Buddha Within" but whenever I discuss these topics with Buddhists they tell me I am heterodox or crypto-Advaitin:

Shentongpas oppose this view with powerful arguments backed up by the scriptures. For example, it is taught in the Mahayana and even in the
Hinayana Buddhist traditions that the Buddha is eternal and noncompounded and yet compassionately acting in the world. How could
compassion and the power to act in the world be eternal and noncompounded if they were not of the very nature of Absolute Reality? If one argues (as many Buddhists have done over the centuries) that the Buddha’s mind and qualities are momentary and dependently arising (i.e. are compounded phenomena), and that He is said to be eternal merely because the continuity is never broken,there is no difference between the use of the term “ eternal” for the nature of the Buddha and the use of the term “ impermanent” for the nature of samsara, which is also an unbroken
continuity. Thus, one has reduced the doctrine, which is presented as profound and difficult to understand, to nothing but a shift in the usage of the
term “ permanent.”

On the other hand, if the qualities of the Buddha are non-compounded and eternal, then there is no question of potential and development. They
are either present in beings already or they never will be. Hence, the Tathagatagarbha doctrine states that in fact beings do have these Qualities, and that they are intrinsic to a being’s Nature.
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Astus
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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Seitaka wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 3:17 pmLet's put it a different way, what is the ultimate difference between saying someone/something never existed to begin with and a someone/something is annihilated at death? The latter involves something that was and is lost and becomes nothing, the former simply states that there was nothing to begin with. In both cases the ultimate truth or end is nothing, namely nihilism.
There are the five aggregates: form, feeling, perception, intention, consciousness. That covers the entire spectrum of human experience. The lack of self means that there is no experience anywhere that can rightly be called a self. But as long as one assumes any experience as one's own or as oneself, for that long there are craving and hatred, and from craving and hatred come the perpetuation of suffering. Recognising that there is no entity behind experience, no ultimate doer or experiencer, does not change reality, but changes how experience operates: not based on ignorance, craving, and hatred, but based on wisdom, generosity, and kindness. Seeing only the concept of self and claiming that it's nihilism is disregarding the entirety of reality and worrying about a fictional concept.
What exactly about that view corresponds to some of these words used in the Pali to describe Nirvana:
That when there is no longer all the worry and anxiety about oneself, there is peace.
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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PadmaVonSamba wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 4:02 pmBuddhism argues that awareness isn’t a self, it is simply awareness, and that if you examine awareness, that ultimately you cannot find anything in that awareness that constitutes self, atman, some kind of specific entity that is even reborn.
Buddhism also shows that awareness is a conditioned, momentary phenomenon.
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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Seitaka wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 6:28 pm
There are 5 skandhas, all of which possess the qualities of anatta, dukkha, and anicca, etc. There is nothing whatsoever that transcends the skandhas since that would be akin to the Hindu atman and therefore the skandhas are the totality of a sentient being, human in our case. The goal of the Buddhist path is to end the causes and conditions for future rebirth and hence the continual arising and dissolution of the skandhas, namely samsara.
If it is unconditioned and isn't annihilated, isn't this what people often pejoratively call crypto-Advaita or eternalism?
Maybe you should look into Buddha Nature.

There is a lot of debate about how Buddha Nature is or isn't an eternal "self."

It may also be beneficial to learn the difference between the goal of Mahayana and that of Theravada.
Seitaka wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:13 pm
So what is this awareness which transcends the skandhas? Why is this awareness not my true nature and hence Self as opposed to my false nature which is non-self, namely the particularized skandhic entity? What occurs to this awareness in relation to ultimate liberation or parinirvana rather than in regards to rebirth? If it is conditioned or impermanent and hence annihilated with parinirvana, we are back to square one.
In Buddhism, what we call self is merely a false projection of the mind upon our skandhas. In reality, they are no-self (which in Mahayana we call "emptiness"). There is Buddha Nature, which is your true nature and may "transcend the skandhas," depending on how you understand the meaning of "transcend."

And responding to something you mentioned... Buddhas have pure skandhas while sentient beings have impure skandhas.
Last edited by SilenceMonkey on Fri Jul 30, 2021 6:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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Queequeg wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:57 pm
In Madhyamaka, Samsara = Nirvana and Klesha are Bodhi. How is this possible? Because of emptiness.
:anjali:
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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mabw wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 3:30 pm
Queequeg wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 10:57 pm
Sanlun which claimed to be a Madhyamaka lineage is not the limit of Madhyamaka thought in East Asia.
Hi Queequeg, can you elaborate on this? Are you referring to the developments in Tientai? Thanks.
Hi. This fellow claimed that in East Asia Madhyamaka was an inferior teaching and apparently of little relevance. In the various ranking systems that emerged in E. Asia where Madhyamaka was dumbed down to be equated with certain schools like the Sanlun for rhetorical purposes, that certainly was claimed. But yes, for instance, in the Tiantai school, Nagarjuna is considered a patriarch and arguably you can't understand Tiantai without understanding Nagarjuna. Its not as if Madhyamaka doesn't play a role in, for instance, schools that teach Tathagatagarbha. Madhyamaka is integrated. The teachings on emptiness are critical no matter which school of Mahayana one considers, imo, some more critical than others. Without emptiness, one starts thinking tathagatagarbha teachings teach self, like this fellow here.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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Seitaka wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 8:08 pm Well the Pali cannon technically is a part of Mahayana too in the form of the Agamas,
No, this is not correct.
what does parinirvana look like for Madhyamaka?
Madhyamaka asserts a nonabiding nirvana, since it is a Mahāyāna system.
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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Queequeg wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 5:51 pm Hi. This fellow claimed that in East Asia Madhyamaka was an inferior teaching and apparently of little relevance.
I claimed that it was a provisional teaching in the systems I am most interested in, which is true, I didn't claim that it wasn't of relevance though.
Queequeg wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 5:51 pmWithout emptiness, one starts thinking tathagatagarbha teachings teach self, like this fellow here.
And like the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra when read literally and not through preconceived hermeneutical lens, Dolpopa, the Jonang tradition, various historical East Asian Buddhists, and various modern scholars and practitioners of Buddhism. It's obvious that this interpretation has existed for a long time in Mahayana history and not just among the ignorant or uninformed.
Malcolm wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 5:59 pm No, this is not correct.
What I meant is that Theravadin or Pali teachings are found in the Mahayana Agamas and that the viewpoints therein are not entirely irrelevant to or divorced from Mahayana.
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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I'm not sure if we have answered your question, Seitaka. You seem quite knowledgeable about buddhism, and so it is quite strange that you have such a question, to be honest. It is really the question of a beginner, and yet your interventions in this forum show that you have a certain sophistication in your knowledge, and your writing, if you will allow me to analyze it, is that of a very well-educated person, university level at least.

So the contradiction is quite strange, to be honest. I wonder if you are self-educated in Buddhism and have simply missed out on this basic bedrock fact, or if you have some bizarre agenda in asking the question?

If we have not given you convincing answers, perhaps I can turn your question around and ask you to supply any sort of evidence that Buddhism is tantamount to atheist suicide or pure nihilism, as you claim.

But I think you will have great difficulty in finding any sutra or reliable source that would support the above.

To maintain your position would be what is called in certain circles Incorrect View.

But of course, I would like to give you the opportunity to respond.
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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Supramundane wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 7:06 am I'm not sure if we have answered your question, Seitaka. You seem quite knowledgeable about buddhism, and so it is quite strange that you have such a question, to be honest. It is really the question of a beginner, and yet your interventions in this forum show that you have a certain sophistication in your knowledge, and your writing, if you will allow me to analyze it, is that of a very well-educated person, university level at least.

So the contradiction is quite strange, to be honest. I wonder if you are self-educated in Buddhism and have simply missed out on this basic bedrock fact, or if you have some bizarre agenda in asking the question?

If we have not given you convincing answers, perhaps I can turn your question around and ask you to supply any sort of evidence that Buddhism is tantamount to atheist suicide or pure nihilism, as you claim.

But I think you will have great difficulty in finding any sutra or reliable source that would support the above.

To maintain your position would be what is called in certain circles Incorrect View.

But of course, I would like to give you the opportunity to respond.
Hi Supramundane, thank you for your kind words. I do have some knowledge regarding Buddhism but still much to learn.

I don't have an agenda in asking this question other than to try to understand how the views I often hear are not nihilistic as per logic. I certainly don't believe Buddhism taught nihilism but that's because I believe there is transcendence in Buddhism, whether regarding the original doctrines or the interpretation of Tathagatagarbha given by some. (I posted the perspective above but my post was never approved?)

I asked this question to understand why my Buddhists acquaintances, both online and in the real world, tell me that I am un-Buddhist, heterodox, a crypto-Vedantin and so on when I share my views. I always find this strange because here in the West these same Buddhists who tell me what I believe is non-Buddhist seem ready to accept more secular or atheistic interpretations of Buddhism, such as the gods not being real, siddhis not being real, or even worse that rebirth isn't real, that enlightenment isn't a profound transcendent gnosis but simply living in the moment, etc.
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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Seitaka wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 6:28 pm Hello all, decided to join the forum to hopefully learn more about various topics which interest or still confuse me so I figured I'd start with the big one, namely those issues dealing with anatta, the skandhas, and nirvana and/or Buddhahood. Please help me see if I am understanding the mainstream perspective correctly:

There are 5 skandhas, all of which possess the qualities of anatta, dukkha, and anicca, etc. There is nothing whatsoever that transcends the skandhas since that would be akin to the Hindu atman and therefore the skandhas are the totality of a sentient being, human in our case. The goal of the Buddhist path is to end the causes and conditions for future rebirth and hence the continual arising and dissolution of the skandhas, namely samsara.

If the skandhas are the totality of a sentient being and no metaphysical entity or otherwise transcends them and nirvana is simply the elimination of future rebirth, how is this not nihilism or annihilationism? Since by definition there is nothing "outside" the skandhas and they are by nature suffering and impermanent, their final end cannot be anything but absolute negation correct?

If this is correct, how is this not spiritual suicide? It would replicate what a materialist atheist would think would occur at death, the only impediment being the karmic conditions for future rebirth in the Buddhist view, but with their elimination what differentiates the Buddhist nirvana from the aforementioned atheist suicide?
Because death is what happens to a samsara being. If there is death there is rebirth. Once awakened there is no death, although the body may not continue, but then again it can transform. Nirvana is not an end, because there's no beginning. Buddha said the mind is luminous.
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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Seitaka wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 6:21 pm And like the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra when read literally and not through preconceived hermeneutical lens, Dolpopa, the Jonang tradition, various historical East Asian Buddhists, and various modern scholars and practitioners of Buddhism. It's obvious that this interpretation has existed for a long time in Mahayana history and not just among the ignorant or uninformed.
When you say "literally", is it similar to what you mean by "technically", as in "he Pali cannon technically is a part of Mahayana"?

The "self" that is discussed in the MPNS is not the self conceived by non-Buddhists. It is the Tathagatagarbha. But this "self" is not some tangible substrate, like snow or gold in the above discussion. By the literal terms of the MPNS it is a mistake to take the Tathagatagarbha as a tangible thing. Rather, it is described as the Buddha is described in other texts. It has nothing to do with samsara and samsaric wrong views about self.

Have you been here at DW before under a different handle? You sound familiar.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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I think, Setaika, you will find that if you study early Buddhism and the historical Buddha, he positioned himself in opposition, not only to Hindus advocating Atman, but also to the materialists who advocated nihilism. As a result, the Middle Way is the bedrock of Buddhism.

Although, as you point out, there is latitude among various schools of Buddhism to hold different views, and even within schools themselves there are conflicting interpretations and views, nihilism is not an acceptable view.

To make it more explicit for you, imagine if you were to tell a stunned priest that you hold the view that JC is a zombie living today in Damascus panning for coins because you are of the view that only a zombie could have removed the rock of his grave and, logically, he must still be walking the back alleys somewhere. This would be not be termed as an acceptable view, but as a radical renunciation of the very religion itself. It is okay to interpret certain things; you can think outside the box, but you cannot leap off the Mobius strip.

Although there is room for interpretation of certain concepts in Buddhism, there is no latitude or intellectual space for nihilism.

I'm not worried about you though; you seem to be an intelligent fellow, and so I think you must arrive at this conclusion yourself, and I am confident you will eventually:)
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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PadmaVonSamba wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 4:02 pm

Buddhism argues that awareness isn’t a self, it is simply awareness, and that if you examine awareness, that ultimately you cannot find anything in that awareness that constitutes self, atman, some kind of specific entity that is even reborn.

Anything you think you can identify as self or atman is an object of awareness, rather than awareness.
Your point is similar to this observation by Hume in A Treatise of Human Nature, though I am having trouble guessing whether or not its annihilationist elements might be a productive addition to the discussion at hand.

"For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions removed by death, and could I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If any one, upon serious and unprejudiced reflection thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continued, which he calls himself; though I am certain there is no such principle in me."
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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PadmaVonSamba wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 4:02 pm...and that if you examine awareness
Who, now, is examining awareness?
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

Post by Dhalsim's Pratyahara »

Queequeg wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 2:48 pmBut this "self" is not some tangible substrate...
That's a straw man. Setting it aside, you care about your suffering...or you would not conceive of a way out through liberation.
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

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Subcontrary wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 1:56 am
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Fri Jul 30, 2021 4:02 pm Buddhism argues that awareness isn’t a self, it is simply awareness, and that if you examine awareness, that ultimately you cannot find anything in that awareness that constitutes self, atman, some kind of specific entity that is even reborn.
Anything you think you can identify as self or atman is an object of awareness, rather than awareness.
Your point is similar to this observation by Hume in A Treatise of Human Nature, …

"For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist.
Well, that Hume fellow might have benefited from Buddhist meditation and study. It would have taken him a lot further. Awareness itself can also be an object of awareness.

There’s a difference between saying

I don’t exist”

and

“there’s no I which has any inherent existence”.

But that’s all been gone over repeatedly in this thread already.
EMPTIFUL.
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Re: Help me understand Anatta

Post by haha »

If somebody stating that Madhyamikas is Nihilisim, then it is nothing but a false altercation. lol. Before stating that one needs to check what Nagarjuna meant by anucchedam as well as asAsvatam.What Advaita said about illusion and what Madhyamikas said about illusion is not a same thing. However, it looks similar in term of word but it is not same in term of meaning.

Buddha is not only self-awaken, he is also an arhat. If the teachings from the pali canon are not included, then please say which Mahayana scriptures explain following terminologies (i.e. the eight deliverances, the nine attainments of successive stations, and the nine unlovely perceptions, etc.) provided in MahaPrajnaparamita Sutra.
Thus having stood in the perfection of wisdom, a Bodhisattva, a great being should fulfil the four stations of mindfulness; the four right efforts; the four bases of psychic power; the five dominants; the five powers; the seven limbs of enlightenment; the eightfold Path. He should develop the emptiness concentration, the sign-less concentration, the wish-less concentration. So he should develop the four trances, the four Unlimited, the four formless attainments, the eight deliverances, the nine attainments of successive stations, and the nine unlovely perceptions. Which nine? I.e. he perception of a swollen corpse, a worm-eaten corpse, a festering corpse, a bloody corpse, a bluefish corpse, a corpse being devoured, a scattered corpse, a burned corpse, a corpse of only bones. He should develop the perception of revulsion from food. He should develop the recollection of the Buddha, of the Dharma, of the Sangha, of morality, of renunciation, of the Gods, of breathing, of agitation, of death, of what belongs to the body; the perception of impermanence, of ill, of not-self, un-loveliness, death, lack of delight in anything in the world, distrust for everything in the world; the cognition of ill, origination, stopping, path; the cognition of extinction, of non-production, the cognition of dharma, the subsequent cognition, the cognition conforming to worldly convention, the cognition of mastery, the cognition according to the letter. He should develop the concentration with thoughts adjusted and discursive; the concentration without thoughts adjusted, and with only discursive thoughts; the concentration without either thought adjusted or thoughts discursive. He should develop the dominant “I shall come to understand the not yet understood”, the dominant of understanding, the dominant of one who has understood. He should develop the stations of mastery, the all-bases, the cognition of the all-knowing, both calming-down and insight, the three knowledges, the four analytical knowledges, the four grounds of self-confidence, the five imperishable super-knowledges, the six perfections, the seven prizes, the eight discoursings of the Superman, the ten powers of a Tathagata, the eighteen Buddha-dharmas; the great friendliness, the great compassion, the great pathetic joy, the great even-mindedness.

The Large Sutra On Perfect Wisdom With The Divisions Of The Abhisamayalamkara Translated By Edward Conze pp 67-68
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