Brucenkhamen

Samadhi is often translated as concentration, which is wrong in my view. Samadhi is one pointedness of mind.

Yes concentration is a pretty poor translation for samadhi as it implies straining, squinting, or striving.

I think one pointedness of mind is better as long as it's understood that it's about the mind and not so much about being one pointed on an object. Collectedness, stabalising, centering I think are good descriptions.

Asoke people emphasise more the aspect of concentration, and thus their meditation is concentration in whatever they do whether it be eating, working or sleeping. Every action is carried out with careful concentration, which is their meditation. "

I think most of us would understand what you've described to be right mindfulness, not right concentration, though the two go hand in hand and the level of emphasis varies from teacher to teacher.

If the jar represents the mind, it seems, according to Buddhadhasa, that the purpose of meditation is to distinguish between the peanuts and the walnuts, and remove only the walnuts. If the peanuts are still inside the jar, then the jar cannot be described as being empty, period. There's where the confusion lies.

However, the term 'to empty the jar of walnuts' , or 'to empty the mind of defilements', does make sense, and after reading Bhuddadhasa's article I understand that this is what he meant by the 'void' or 'empty' mind.

While I agree the title of the book is a bit confusing the content is quite clear, and that's the main thing.

The problem with your peanuts and walnuts analogy is that both are equally desirable and neither are integral with the jar.

If we said that if we removed pollution from water then we'd have "void water" it's still a bit counterintuitive but is closer to what he's saying about the mind.

What he writes makes sense from a practical point of view. A mind which is free of anxiety, worry, fear and anger etc, and a mind that is free of a sense of ego that causes one to be vulnerable to the effects of imagined insults, is a mind that can function more efficiently and understand more clearly. I have no criticism of such benefits, but I still wonder what the ultimate purpose is.

If the state of mind you describe is not dependant on conditions, is that not enough?

I once spent nearly a half day back and forth with him on a single Pali term, nibbida, trying various Thai and English translations until he was satisfied.

I wonder whether the way Ajahn Buddhadasa uses the word sunnata (void) in this talk nibbida (cassation) might have been more appropriate, the latter implies emptying out whereas the former implies being intrinsically empty

I think most people would understand a 'void' as being a 'completely empty' space, not something that is partially empty.

I have the same reaction to the word "void", to me it suggests nihilism. However if Ajahn Buddhadasa had used the word "emptiness" as the translation of sunnata I probably would have assumed he was using it in the Mahayana sense ie the lack of an intrinsic or essential nature.

Either way he clearly defines the sense in which he is using it, an adjective for the mind being void/empty of something.

Here's a long and detailed critique of Dhammakaya by former member Dr Mano Laohavanich: http://www.undv.org/vesak2012/iabudoc/22LaohavanichFINAL.pdf

Interesting and scary stuff.

I don't know why this group is tolerated by the wider community.

the Void Mind.

I hadn't heard it phrased like this before but I see there is a book with this title from Ajahn Buddhadhasa talks, it's very good http://www.suanmokkh.org/system/books/files/000/000/015/original/Buddhadasa_Bhikkhu_Void_Mind.pdf?1462866778

I'd like you to be nice or neutral to TRD.

You'll be surprised how genuine he is.

I don't really want to be talking about a third person.

However checking through my responses to the above over the last 6 pages of this thread as I suspected I haven't found any where I've gotten personal, as far as I can see I challenge the ideas or how they are expressed not the person, if anyone doesn't like having their ideas challenged perhaps posting them on a public forum is not a good idea.

While discussions on this board can get pretty bickery at times it's rare to find such a blatent personal attack as post #256.

I'll take your feedback under advisement though.

Please note I haven't personally been belittled but have observed.

That's what I thought, I didn't think I'd ever intentionally belittled you, you've contributed positively to this board for many years.

I know you've got good intentions but perhaps others would prefer to fight their own battles.

It's not the bluntness but the belittling it's accompanied with.

Could you please give an example of text you felt belittled by?

You are one of us, but I feel uncomfortable when reading the feelings (+ or -) which color your words.

I'm sorry to hear that, we are all adults here and should be able to discuss objectively.

While I can be blunt at times I think it would be safer to assume that there are no feelings colouring my words.

In the original texts sunnata/emptiness is mostly just a synonym for not-self.

You are a fundamentalist Buddhist hung up on dogma and mistake it for the truth. You are no different to a fundamentalist Christian or Muslim. Your mind derives some satisfaction from deciding that emptiness means not self. Congratulations. What does it bring you? Is that the truth you are looking for. Conceptual gratification about a word. For you Buddhism is a religion, which also means you are an end of path denier. You will do anything to stay on the path and revel in its mystery and complexity as you see it. The more difficult and arduous the path, the more you become invested in it and that investment cannot be threatened by anything that doesn't conform to entrenched ideas based on what you have come to regard as the pure doctrine. But that's your prison. Don't you see? If you were transported back in time and came face to face with the Buddha I think you would actually be disappointed. When Buddhism becomes all about the words and you get irritated when taken out of your comfort zone and have to resort to calling it science fiction or new age or some such disparaging remark, then you really have to question what it is that you think you know. Fundamentalism is safe you see but it keeps mind in a trap. The essence of what Buddhism is, is what happened under the Bodi tree before all the words were written which were then consumed by those like you who mistake them for truth. Release your mind and you will find out you had the cart before the horse. Be still and stop thinking about scripture too much. It's a trap.

... somebody got out of bed on the wrong side this morning.

If you investigate a little further.

Apart from radiation, light, and matter, deep space is empty (nothing) but still exists.

You can go up, down or across the vacuum of space (void).

This void is empty but still exists.

I think your interpretation here sounds like borderline science fiction.

The Mahayana teaching of emptiness (while I guess it varies from school to school) is just about how all things lack an essential/intrinsic nature of their own, ie they are all just changing combinations of components, causes, conditions, and interdepedancies.

Translating sunyata as voidness instead of emptiness I think can be misleading, it's not about existence being one meaningless black hole.

From Wikipedia "Voidness does not mean nothingness, but rather that all things lack intrinsic reality, intrinsic objectivity, intrinsic identity or intrinsic referentiality. Lacking such static essence or substance does not make them not exist - it makes them thoroughly relative". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%9A%C5%ABnyat%C4%81

In the original texts sunnata/emptiness is mostly just a synonym for not-self.

And it is the fundamental nature of being that was being discussed, but you first used the word metaphysical to characterise concepts about existence as meaningless and intellectual laziness. At least I wasn't talking about realms and hungry ghosts, but that which is directly experienced.

Yes, we directly experience the totality of existence every day, at least in a limited way.

When Buddha become enlightened he saw innumerable past lives pass before him. Is that not metaphysical in nature?

Add the Greek prefix "meta-" (beyond) to the base "physical" (nature), and you get metaphysical a near synonym to the Latin-based word "supernatural." Both concern phenomena that are outside everyday experience or knowledge.

Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics

So Buddhism has no metaphysical concepts does it?

I'm sure you know it does.

However the Buddha was recorded as often not engaging regarding metaphysical questions.

Advaita, means not two which means that the Self is one without a second. There is only consciousness. Brahman is not a being or deity. It is a way of describing the totality of existence as both the absolute and the relative as it appears as samsara. I maintain that the essence of Buddhism is non duality. What Buddha taught was essentially very simple but most people can't see the wood for the trees.

It's pantheistic monism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism and mincing words doesn't make it any the less so, the absence of personal pronouns referring to this totality of existence doesn't make it any less so. I think a metaphysical concept describing the totality of existence is meaningless and intellectual laziness.

What Buddha taught was essentially very simple but most people can't see the wood for the trees.

Trees are not made of just one thing, they are not just made of wood. One needs to understand that certain component parts have certain characteristics as nobody wants to live in a house made of leaves.

If you need such a metaphysical concept I don't have a problem with that, just be honest about it and dispense with the obfuscation, it's just not relevant to Buddhist practice as presented in original texts. Mahayana does seem to lean towards it more and seems to be able to do so without all the unnecessary waffle in my opinion.

Actually, I devote my time to a number of different activities. However, my circumstances are such that I'm reluctant to spend much time sitting still, meditating, essentially doing nothing, although I do spend some time like that.

I prefer to practice my meditation through the mindful engagement in simple tasks in the garden (a fairly large garden which takes up quite a lot of time), in a peaceful and natural environment.

I think there is a middle way between theory and practice and we each have to find our own balance.

I see where you are coming from. Being suggests a deity to you. But there is another reason to capitalise the word. Whereas we might agree that your personhood is different from mine in the sense that if you stub your toe then you will feel the pain rather than me, how about being? For me, being is the same as awareness. It is unbounded, undifferentiated and without form. As such can we really speak of being in the same way as individual personhood. Can we say this is my being and this is your being when being is unbounded. So if there is just being it surely conforms to the grammatical rule of capitalization. And there is no need to deify it either.

At last weve made some progress.

So if I may paraphrase what I think you are saying You believe each of us is a being (self, soul, Being, atman) and the citta / 5 aggregates arises out of this.

If thats the case as a theory I dont see a problem with it from a Buddhist perspective as anicca, dukkha, anatta applies to the 5 aggregates, it forms no part of Buddhist practice as defined in the early texts though.

I cant help but think this theory is inherently dualistic though.

It also appears you dont subscribe to the Wikipedia description Advaita (Sanskrit; not-two, "no second") refers to the idea that the true Self, Atman, is the same as the highest Reality, Brahman. If you dont deify these beings as Brahman.

If Im guessing wrong then dont leave it up to me to guess.

Please don't reply if you are unable to be respectful and abide by the precepts.

Please advise which precepts you consider me to have broken.

One starts with B and the other starts with b. That's the only difference. As a practising Buddhist you really have some issues you need to resolve don't You?

I shouldn't have to teach you English grammar.

We usually only capitalise a word like being when referring to one specific being, without a capital b could refer to one or many beings or a state of being.

Which did you intend? I don't see how maintaining the ambiguity further adds anything to the discussion.

How do you get to the notion of theism from what I have written? You know I really have no idea what you are talking about.

What is Being with a capital B? ie how does it differ from being with a small b?

Yes, Buddha would have objected to the idea of Being experienced by a self. The self with a small s is the person, but if you try and find this person you will never find it. Everywhere you look is not the self which is the true meaning of anatta, not that there is something called a not self. In the Mahaparinirvana Sutra what is referred to as the Self with a big S also means Being, which knows itself without the intermediary of another self to experience it. In vedanta, chit (sanskrit) and in Buddhism, citta (pali) are essentially the same and describe individuated consciousness which is impermanent, which arises from Being. We have to be careful and recognize that language always imposes duality on the subject. For, instance does saying "arises from" or "prior to" even mean anything when we talk about that which is without form.

At least you are now out of the awareness closet and doing full blown theism.

Could you provide a quote from the early Buddhist texts (ie the Suttas or Agamas) where the Buddha says citta arises out of Being (Brahman, True Self, God, or any other names one might like to euphemise it by).

It never ceases to amaze me how followers of other spiritual paths try to retrofit their ideas onto Buddhism, like it lends legitimacy or something.

While the Buddha never explicitly denied the God concept I think its pretty clear its not central; to his path, and this is a significant point of difference from other paths.

Wikipedia appears to be well aware of this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman#Buddhist_understanding_of_Brahman and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nontheistic_religions#Buddhism

From the Tevijja Sutta..

"A young brahmin called Vasettha once went to see Gotama. "This is the only straight path," he declared, "the path of salvation that leads one who follows it to union with Brahma [God], as is taught by brahmin Pokkharasati!" Gotama asked him whether any brahmin had ever seen Brahma face-to-face. Since God is invisible and unknowable, Vasettha was obliged to reply: "No." In that case, countered Gotama, any claim about a path that leads to union with Brahma must be groundless. "Just as a file of blind men go on, clinging to each other, and the first one sees nothing, the middle sees nothing, and the last one sees nothing, so it is with the talk of these brahmins. Their talk is laughable, mere words, empty and vain."

And from Bhante Sujato https://sujato.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/why-we-can-be-certain-that-god-doesnt-exist/

I practice the Middle Way.

If I may make an observation I think probably you are mostly thinking about, reading about, and discussing the middle way.

In order to practice it one needs to suspend these to a certain extent and just get aquainted with the mind as it is.

Personally, I don't find this article very convincing.

I'm with you, but Luangta has a colourful way of saying things at times that can easily be taken as not consistent with the suttas.

I'll try and do a bit more digging when I have time, I think this is the only real smoking gun from that article though "the true power of the cittas own nature is that it knows and does not die." and in the same book "But since the essential knowing nature of the citta never dies".

However looking at theses excerpts from the same book are more in line with the suttas...

One moment after another from the day of our birth to the present, the khandhas have risen and fallen away continuously. On their own, they have no real substance and it is impossible to find any. The cittas interpretation of these phenomena lends them a semblance of personal reality. The citta clings to them as the essence of oneself, or as ones own personal property. This misconception creates a self-identity that becomes a burden heavier than an entire mountain, a burden that the citta carries within itself without gaining any benefit. Dukkha is its only reward for a misconceived attachment fostered by self-delusion.

Every conventional realityno matter how refined it is or how bright and majestic it seemsinvariably manifests some irregular symptoms. These are sufficient to catch the cittas attention and make it search for a solution. Both the very refined sukha and dukkha that arise exclusively within the citta, and the amazing radiance that emanates from it, have their origin in avijja. But since we have never before encountered them, we are deluded into grasping at them when we first investigate this point. We are lulled into a sound sleep by avijja, believing that the subtle feelings of satisfaction and shining radiance are our true essence beyond name and form. Oblivious to our mistake, we accept this majestic citta, complete with avijja, as our one true self.

The self as reference point, which is the essence of avijja, remains integrated into the cittas knowing nature. This is the genuine avijja. Ones self is the real impediment at that moment. As soon as it disintegrates and disappears, no more impediments remain. Everything is empty: the external world is empty, and the interior of the citta is empty. As in the case of a person in an empty room, we can only truly say that the room is empty when the person leaves the room. The citta that has gained a comprehensive understanding of all external matters, and all matters pertaining to itself, this citta is said to be totally empty. True emptiness occurs when every single trace of conventional reality has disappeared from the citta.

All allusions to oneself, to the true essence of ones being refer specifically to this genuine avijja. They indicate that it is still intact. All investigations are done for its sake. This self is what knows; this self is what understands. This self is radiant, light and happy. I and minethe genuine avijja lies here. Everything is done for its sake. Once it finally disintegrates, so too does the personal perspective. Things are still done, but not for anyones sake.

Crikey! I'll have to read this long Sutra before I reply.

You didn't have any plans for the rest of the year did you?