The sequence of dependent origination starts (or ends) in 'avijja' or ignorance. Now what is ignorance .. the cause of all the other limbs and subsequently to all existential problems ?
It should be said upfront that this ignorance feeds into the samskaara, the latent tendencies which in turn feeds into the ignorance.
Can this ignorance be the conviction that there is this limited 'me' a spatio temporal reality ?
This feeling when arising with the samskara tendencies and other associates leads to birth etc. This seems consistent.
In classical dependent origination Theravada literature, the ignorance is decribed in negation as 'Not seeing the Noble Truths, Dukkha, Arisal of Dukkha, Cause of Dukkha - Tanha, Cessation and the Path'.
Well, initially it looked like this was written to make the philosophy self consistent. Looking deeper though, does it mean that the 'me' even if stripped down of sanskara and like, has the marks of Dukkha etc.? May be that's why the truths are The Nobel Truths ..
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
On continuity of self
Continuity is a tricky issue. To understand that the feeling of continuity - the feeling that I existed for so long- arises due to the desire to exist, as Buddha puts it due to bhava tanha (desire to become) is a revealing insight. Having said that, if one believes, by wrongly grasping Anatta as a principle, that there is no 'I'; only dhammas exist, is also equally wrong. It is actually vibava tanha, desire for non existence. But it is inherent that we tend to believe that the 'I' the enemy and tend to ignore it.
The result is that when faced with a tough situation, we tend to solve the situation with immediate instincts, which is the reaction, the only arsenal we have at hand. We don't want to bring our good nature, our strengths that we acquired when facing the issue. Inherently we miss the continuity of our personality !
To note that it's the 'I' feeling that brings in our good conditioning and our past strengths is a wonderful insight, that's the key.
The trick is that what inherently we should not hold on to as oneself is the accumulated past actions and their effects on the psyche. What one should hold on to oneself is the feeling of oneself. The latter is inherently just a feeling but it is a true feeling.
Ramana maharishi says that holding on to this feeling and seeking leads to the beyond. That is for one to see.
The result is that when faced with a tough situation, we tend to solve the situation with immediate instincts, which is the reaction, the only arsenal we have at hand. We don't want to bring our good nature, our strengths that we acquired when facing the issue. Inherently we miss the continuity of our personality !
To note that it's the 'I' feeling that brings in our good conditioning and our past strengths is a wonderful insight, that's the key.
The trick is that what inherently we should not hold on to as oneself is the accumulated past actions and their effects on the psyche. What one should hold on to oneself is the feeling of oneself. The latter is inherently just a feeling but it is a true feeling.
Ramana maharishi says that holding on to this feeling and seeking leads to the beyond. That is for one to see.
On Self Enquiry
Ramana Maharishi propounds self enquiry. The method, as I understand is
1. Every being has an irrefutable feeing of 'I', of one self.
2. Observe the feeling.
3. See the attributes of 'I' as different from the 'I' feeling.
For eg. If I say I am Krishnan. Krishnan is my name, not me. Who am I ?
Iam a man - again my gender, not me ... the sequence to be applied to all the mental personalities that we observe when in introspection.
4. Bhagavan says that this I feeling is like a knot that between the mortal life and the divine. A knot is not an entity in itself. He also says that the I world and God arise and vanish together.
5. If we could de link all the modifiers from the I feeling, the 'I' feeling would dissapear and Divinity would shine forth. This is the most important point, one feels.
This method is marvellous. A one step method. Notice JK speaks about observing oneself in action and speaks about observing all the conditioning in it's completeness and the mind would be silent.
One feels an instinctive connection to dependent arising. As mentioned earlier, the Buddha speaks about the mental concept of body-mind (nama rupa), conciousness, sankara (samskara) and at the last ignorance in the reverse order. But what is ignorance ? Is it not the feeling of 'Iam' ? To be distinguished from 'Iam this vs that' which acomes in nama rupa etc.- Just the feeling of this limited I, separate independent but existing in this space time ?
This feeling of I, as in dependent arising is the basis of samskara. But what causes this feeling ? remember each limb arises depdendent on the other-it is not a linear chain. Hence, the feeling of I is nourished by the samskara itself.
Isn't Bhagavan's instruction directly leading to the 'ignorance'- avijja - first step in the dependent arising ? However, observation of this 'I' without the backdrop of Dhamma could mislead the mind to constructing some theories about the 'I self' - Iam consiousness and the kind.
Ok, suppose that we observed the 'I' on the backdrop of dependent arising, dropped all of its attributes (one should be very very careful not to have any mentations at this point too), what's left ? Would that result in the JK's state of observaing the conditions in its totality ?
we are somewhere, but what's the next step ? Is that the last step ?
On a different note, the textual versions of dependent arising some how do not stress the I feeling, although that feeling is most obvious and potent. It is not surprising, as the guiding principle is anatta. So it would be tricky to emphasise about the self-I feeling- at the beginnning and reject there after. Unless of course one where to resort to a Bhakthi kind of approach where the Other personality is emphasised.
A practisioner could be at cross roads - he/she feels the 'I' but can't accept it- bacause of wrong grapsing of Anatta. Negetivism creeps in. Practising the Bhagavans self enquiry in the same plane as the dependent arising seing the harmony of both, one feels, would help.
1. Every being has an irrefutable feeing of 'I', of one self.
2. Observe the feeling.
3. See the attributes of 'I' as different from the 'I' feeling.
For eg. If I say I am Krishnan. Krishnan is my name, not me. Who am I ?
Iam a man - again my gender, not me ... the sequence to be applied to all the mental personalities that we observe when in introspection.
4. Bhagavan says that this I feeling is like a knot that between the mortal life and the divine. A knot is not an entity in itself. He also says that the I world and God arise and vanish together.
5. If we could de link all the modifiers from the I feeling, the 'I' feeling would dissapear and Divinity would shine forth. This is the most important point, one feels.
This method is marvellous. A one step method. Notice JK speaks about observing oneself in action and speaks about observing all the conditioning in it's completeness and the mind would be silent.
One feels an instinctive connection to dependent arising. As mentioned earlier, the Buddha speaks about the mental concept of body-mind (nama rupa), conciousness, sankara (samskara) and at the last ignorance in the reverse order. But what is ignorance ? Is it not the feeling of 'Iam' ? To be distinguished from 'Iam this vs that' which acomes in nama rupa etc.- Just the feeling of this limited I, separate independent but existing in this space time ?
This feeling of I, as in dependent arising is the basis of samskara. But what causes this feeling ? remember each limb arises depdendent on the other-it is not a linear chain. Hence, the feeling of I is nourished by the samskara itself.
Isn't Bhagavan's instruction directly leading to the 'ignorance'- avijja - first step in the dependent arising ? However, observation of this 'I' without the backdrop of Dhamma could mislead the mind to constructing some theories about the 'I self' - Iam consiousness and the kind.
Ok, suppose that we observed the 'I' on the backdrop of dependent arising, dropped all of its attributes (one should be very very careful not to have any mentations at this point too), what's left ? Would that result in the JK's state of observaing the conditions in its totality ?
we are somewhere, but what's the next step ? Is that the last step ?
On a different note, the textual versions of dependent arising some how do not stress the I feeling, although that feeling is most obvious and potent. It is not surprising, as the guiding principle is anatta. So it would be tricky to emphasise about the self-I feeling- at the beginnning and reject there after. Unless of course one where to resort to a Bhakthi kind of approach where the Other personality is emphasised.
A practisioner could be at cross roads - he/she feels the 'I' but can't accept it- bacause of wrong grapsing of Anatta. Negetivism creeps in. Practising the Bhagavans self enquiry in the same plane as the dependent arising seing the harmony of both, one feels, would help.
The symbolism in Sri Chandi
Sri Chandi-Devi Mahatmyam- is a very potent text. It has so many symbolisms and inner meanings, one feels.
A powerful sequence is when Devi takes on Rakthabhija - the Asura, where a drop of blood falls on earth gives rise to a new Asura of the same kind. As all the manifestations of Devi attack the asura, so much blood is spilled, so many new asuras are formed and the whole world is covered by them. To solve this mess, Devi entrusts Kaali to expand her mouth and drink up all drops of blood before it touches the earth and the asuras if formed. The idea is that subsequently the asura would become deficient of blood and finally collapse. Devi attacks the Asura with all weapons, blood flows profoundly, and Kali drinks up all the blood not letting it fall on the ground. Finally the asura falls.
Clearly the symbolism indicates the vasanas - the tendencies. The tendencies, when fallen on the soil of our samskara - accumulated potencies in a very loose manner - gives rise to a personality. And, tendency is just a celebrated name for desire. So desire takes life on the ground of accumulated tendencies. A detour here, is to note that this is in similar light to the Buddhas Paticha Samuppada-desire arisen in the base of sanskaras give rise to jati. A point to be remembered that the dependent arising is not a linear chain-mutual dependence of every limb is a prerequisite for the other.
Fine, so what does this whole act mean ? Let me jot down some possibilities:
1. The desire fallen on a different base - Kalis tongue, divinity -does not take a new life. In principle similar to Thakur's (Sri Ramakrishna) path of directing the desire to the divine. Lets investigate the 'tongue' a bit more. Tongue is baseless and structureless in itself. It leads to the internals where digestion takes place-a state of flux. So does this symbolism mean that when the desire is taken by a system which does not have the fixed structure - the structure of personality feeling (ignorance and sankara of Paticha Samuppada) - it would not take life.
2. The asura needed attack by two forces to be destroyed: Devi attacking him, making the blood to flow and Kaali to take up all that blood. Does it mean that to eliminate all the negativism we need two pronged attack ? On in which the tendencies flow out, and another in which they are annihilated ? Interesting to note that this two forces faintly resemble the Vishnu Siva tatvas respectively.
This point needs some thought. Every spiritual path has symbolisms about both the facets. One presenting ('out going') , the other withdrawing. Shakti-Siva, Pravritti-Nivratti, Prakruti-Purusha, Yin-Yang. In one perspective, the Theravada principle of Nirvana faintly resembles the latter where as the Mahayana principle of Bodhisatta resembles the former. In Chandi too, the blessing the Vaisya seeks is to attain 'Sanga vichyuti karaakam', to go beyond the self identity (the latter) where as the king sought the former to be born as Manu. Is there some deeper message here ? Is it impied that for complete going beyond, one needs creativity as well as renunciation in the same potency ?
3. The assurance of Devi is most encouraging. She says 'Ksheena raktha bhavisyati' will be depleted of blood - about the asura. Wow ! so is it a promise that tendencies will be depleted on practice ? There is of course, only a limited amount of blood-but I guess this works if the depleting process is quicker than the rate at which blood is regenerated !
A powerful sequence is when Devi takes on Rakthabhija - the Asura, where a drop of blood falls on earth gives rise to a new Asura of the same kind. As all the manifestations of Devi attack the asura, so much blood is spilled, so many new asuras are formed and the whole world is covered by them. To solve this mess, Devi entrusts Kaali to expand her mouth and drink up all drops of blood before it touches the earth and the asuras if formed. The idea is that subsequently the asura would become deficient of blood and finally collapse. Devi attacks the Asura with all weapons, blood flows profoundly, and Kali drinks up all the blood not letting it fall on the ground. Finally the asura falls.
Clearly the symbolism indicates the vasanas - the tendencies. The tendencies, when fallen on the soil of our samskara - accumulated potencies in a very loose manner - gives rise to a personality. And, tendency is just a celebrated name for desire. So desire takes life on the ground of accumulated tendencies. A detour here, is to note that this is in similar light to the Buddhas Paticha Samuppada-desire arisen in the base of sanskaras give rise to jati. A point to be remembered that the dependent arising is not a linear chain-mutual dependence of every limb is a prerequisite for the other.
Fine, so what does this whole act mean ? Let me jot down some possibilities:
1. The desire fallen on a different base - Kalis tongue, divinity -does not take a new life. In principle similar to Thakur's (Sri Ramakrishna) path of directing the desire to the divine. Lets investigate the 'tongue' a bit more. Tongue is baseless and structureless in itself. It leads to the internals where digestion takes place-a state of flux. So does this symbolism mean that when the desire is taken by a system which does not have the fixed structure - the structure of personality feeling (ignorance and sankara of Paticha Samuppada) - it would not take life.
2. The asura needed attack by two forces to be destroyed: Devi attacking him, making the blood to flow and Kaali to take up all that blood. Does it mean that to eliminate all the negativism we need two pronged attack ? On in which the tendencies flow out, and another in which they are annihilated ? Interesting to note that this two forces faintly resemble the Vishnu Siva tatvas respectively.
This point needs some thought. Every spiritual path has symbolisms about both the facets. One presenting ('out going') , the other withdrawing. Shakti-Siva, Pravritti-Nivratti, Prakruti-Purusha, Yin-Yang. In one perspective, the Theravada principle of Nirvana faintly resembles the latter where as the Mahayana principle of Bodhisatta resembles the former. In Chandi too, the blessing the Vaisya seeks is to attain 'Sanga vichyuti karaakam', to go beyond the self identity (the latter) where as the king sought the former to be born as Manu. Is there some deeper message here ? Is it impied that for complete going beyond, one needs creativity as well as renunciation in the same potency ?
3. The assurance of Devi is most encouraging. She says 'Ksheena raktha bhavisyati' will be depleted of blood - about the asura. Wow ! so is it a promise that tendencies will be depleted on practice ? There is of course, only a limited amount of blood-but I guess this works if the depleting process is quicker than the rate at which blood is regenerated !
Sunday, February 28, 2010
About Divinity
Into "Hindu" readings of late. The difference between this and "Buddhist" seems very blurd and seems to fade.
One glitch, a diffucilty that one feels when one enters the former is the personality inherently associated with the divinity.
What if one looks at the various gods as the various approaches to divinity itself ?
In reaching vishnu - krishna you take up an encompassing path - reject none, sarvam vishnumayam jagat. It does not really matter if u reach the feet of vishnu, the locale of vishnu, etc. etc.
In reaching auspicious (ness), siva, rudra you take up the path of denial, destruction or (going as it seems) beyond the imminent obvious conclusions about our selves and the surroundings.
It is sort of made obvious in the mother worship though. Sri chandi speaks about devi as eternal, but as if appears when there is a need an imbalance. The three charitas have mention about the taking form of the devi, and her disappearance after the task is done.
One glitch, a diffucilty that one feels when one enters the former is the personality inherently associated with the divinity.
What if one looks at the various gods as the various approaches to divinity itself ?
In reaching vishnu - krishna you take up an encompassing path - reject none, sarvam vishnumayam jagat. It does not really matter if u reach the feet of vishnu, the locale of vishnu, etc. etc.
In reaching auspicious (ness), siva, rudra you take up the path of denial, destruction or (going as it seems) beyond the imminent obvious conclusions about our selves and the surroundings.
It is sort of made obvious in the mother worship though. Sri chandi speaks about devi as eternal, but as if appears when there is a need an imbalance. The three charitas have mention about the taking form of the devi, and her disappearance after the task is done.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Meditations in dependent origination-cessation
In meditation, one seeks the personality that is evident at that state.
The birth - jati can be seen as
the present personality that is evident. This is pointed out by Ajan Chah.
The cause of that can be seen
as becoming-bhava. We became this (momentary) personality because we
held to something strongly - clinging (upadana). That clinging
happened because we liked it- we craved for it- tanha. The craving was
caused by the feeling- vedana, caused by the contact-phasso. contact
of sense objects with the sense spheres occurred as there are the
sense spheres - salayatanam. The senses are because of our mind and
body- this is the key link - nama rupa. This pertains to our mind made
body- the mental concept of our body. It is interesting that in the
components of nama rupa, the sankara is included.- it is due to our
past impressions that the present concept of our mind body exits. What
exits in the mind, as a cause of mind body ? what is beyond that ?
Buddha says it is consciousness-vinnanam. I think this is where a link
Ramana Maharshi's idea of self enquiry- "the feeling of I" exists. The
cause of that Buddha says is sankara. Sankara is caused by ignorance-
Avijja. What is this now ? Is it the concept of self ? It it the
limitedness one perceives ? Is it the concept that every one of the
above links exists because of the central concept of self ? Is it,
like in the Kachayana vacha gotta sutta, the extremes of the feeling
of "is" and the other extreme of 'is not' ? Or is it the substance
view- the view that all these are existent as absolute entities ?
The mind cannot perceive, the thought cannot touch. Here another link
to Krishnamurti's idea of "Precipice" looks close.
Now, at every step Nagarjuna's idea that each of these cause effect
links are not temporally connected and are not absolute, but each
exist because the other came to be will help us from falling into the
trap 'existentialism'- considering that each this links are absolutely
existent.
The birth - jati can be seen as
the present personality that is evident. This is pointed out by Ajan Chah.
The cause of that can be seen
as becoming-bhava. We became this (momentary) personality because we
held to something strongly - clinging (upadana). That clinging
happened because we liked it- we craved for it- tanha. The craving was
caused by the feeling- vedana, caused by the contact-phasso. contact
of sense objects with the sense spheres occurred as there are the
sense spheres - salayatanam. The senses are because of our mind and
body- this is the key link - nama rupa. This pertains to our mind made
body- the mental concept of our body. It is interesting that in the
components of nama rupa, the sankara is included.- it is due to our
past impressions that the present concept of our mind body exits. What
exits in the mind, as a cause of mind body ? what is beyond that ?
Buddha says it is consciousness-vinnanam. I think this is where a link
Ramana Maharshi's idea of self enquiry- "the feeling of I" exists. The
cause of that Buddha says is sankara. Sankara is caused by ignorance-
Avijja. What is this now ? Is it the concept of self ? It it the
limitedness one perceives ? Is it the concept that every one of the
above links exists because of the central concept of self ? Is it,
like in the Kachayana vacha gotta sutta, the extremes of the feeling
of "is" and the other extreme of 'is not' ? Or is it the substance
view- the view that all these are existent as absolute entities ?
The mind cannot perceive, the thought cannot touch. Here another link
to Krishnamurti's idea of "Precipice" looks close.
Now, at every step Nagarjuna's idea that each of these cause effect
links are not temporally connected and are not absolute, but each
exist because the other came to be will help us from falling into the
trap 'existentialism'- considering that each this links are absolutely
existent.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Meditations
In meditation, on observation of any phenomena, the minds starts to go deeper, observes the reactions, and further deeper.
All the depth arising with the feel of layers of our consciousness are all creations of the mind.
A single sight -like the sights of Varanasi - has all the reaction, samskara, dependent origination built into it. The search of phenomena to observe is also a construct of the mind,
so is to mentally map dependent origination to the observed phenomena - although the latter leads to a deep silence within.
Why ? Lets go back to dependent origination. The Nama Rupa - name and form pertains to our own form and name - identity, inclusive of all the samskara- and not of the object. Sense bases are the evolute and contact and further it proliferates.
Retracing back takes us to ignorance.
Ignorance of what ? Ignorance of having a belief in a self- a person- defined, limited, reacting, conditionally substantiated living process bundle.
On a clearer perspective, once again we can connect with Kacchanna Gotta sutta. The Buddha says that having an opinion 'this exits' means eternalism and 'does not exist' means nihilism. Thus the feeling that some thing 'exits' - not even limiting as a self, is ignorance.
So what then is beyond the ignorance ?
Is this is the precipice versed by JK ?
Is this where the suttas stop and other spiritual paths continue verbalising ?
Indeed this should be the stoppage to all proliferations as we understand..
All the depth arising with the feel of layers of our consciousness are all creations of the mind.
A single sight -like the sights of Varanasi - has all the reaction, samskara, dependent origination built into it. The search of phenomena to observe is also a construct of the mind,
so is to mentally map dependent origination to the observed phenomena - although the latter leads to a deep silence within.
Why ? Lets go back to dependent origination. The Nama Rupa - name and form pertains to our own form and name - identity, inclusive of all the samskara- and not of the object. Sense bases are the evolute and contact and further it proliferates.
Retracing back takes us to ignorance.
Ignorance of what ? Ignorance of having a belief in a self- a person- defined, limited, reacting, conditionally substantiated living process bundle.
On a clearer perspective, once again we can connect with Kacchanna Gotta sutta. The Buddha says that having an opinion 'this exits' means eternalism and 'does not exist' means nihilism. Thus the feeling that some thing 'exits' - not even limiting as a self, is ignorance.
So what then is beyond the ignorance ?
Is this is the precipice versed by JK ?
Is this where the suttas stop and other spiritual paths continue verbalising ?
Indeed this should be the stoppage to all proliferations as we understand..
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