Dr. Greg Goode wrote in Emptything:

It looks your Bahiya Sutta experience helped you see awareness in a different way, more .... empty. You had a background in a view that saw awareness as more inherent or essential or substantive?

I had an experience like this too. I was reading a sloka in Nagarjuna's treatise about the "prior entity," and I had been meditating on "emptiness is form" intensely for a year. These two threads came together in a big flash. In a flash, I grokked the emptiness of awareness as per Madhyamika. This realization is quite different from the Advaitic oneness-style realization. It carries one out to the "ten-thousand things" in a wonderful, light and free and kaleidoscopic, playful insubstantial clarity and immediacy. No veils, no holding back. No substance or essence anywhere, but love and directness and intimacy everywhere...

........

Stian, cool, get into that strangeness! There is a certain innocent, not-knowing quality to strangeness that counteracts the rush to certainty, the need to arrive, to land.

I still don't get your "no compromise" point. Can you rephrase it, but without the words "between" or "compromise"?

Anything can be denied. And is. There is one prominent Advaita teacher that I like who likes to say "You can't deny that you are the awareness that is hearing these words right now."

This kind of gapless continuity, so prized in Advaita, is readily denied in other approaches to experience:

you. can't. deny. that. you. are. the. awareness. hearing. these. words. right. now.

I remember feeling during one retreat, just how many ways that this could be denied. From a different model of time and experience, there are gaps and fissures all over the place, even in that sentence (hence. the. dots). Each moment is divided within itself, carrying traces of past and future (retention and protention). The first "you"-moment and the second "you"-moment are not necessarily experienced by the same entity. Each "I" is different. Entitification itself is felt as autoimmune, as divided within itself, and any "gaplessness" is nothing more than a paste-job.

Not saying one of these is right and the other wrong. Just pointing out how something so undeniable can readily be denied!

......

Emptiness group:

Awareness and Emptiness.

Many people, myself at times as well, have thought that Advaitic, atman-style awareness and emptiness are the same thing. When I began to study Nagarjuna, I was reading through a lens colored by the Advaita teachings. You know how they go, Awareness is the Self and very nature of me. The psychophysical components are certainly not me. I remain the same through the coming and going and changing of the components.

At that time, I had had trouble understanding 50% of the key line in the Heart Sutra,

"Form is emptiness and emptiness is form."

I got the "form is emptiness" part. But I couldn't grok the "emptiness is form" part. Thinking that Advaitic Awareness=emptiness, I was used to thinking that Awareness IS, whether universes arise or not. How can Awareness equal its contents? And if it did, why even call it global Awareness? The contents could speak for themselves," I was thinking.

Also, many Advaitic-style teachings proceed by refuting the phenomena (thoughts, feelings and sensations) but retaining THAT to which they arise. That was the type of teaching I was used to, and it colored my approach to Madhyamika.

So it was very easy to read the Buddhist notion of "emptiness" in this same way. But it began to get a little puzzling. In my readings of Prasangika Madhyamika (which never mentions a global awareness), they never say that anywhere that emptiness=awareness. Nevertheless, I was supplying this equivalence for myself, making the mental substitution of one highest path's highest term with another's.

As I continued, there seem less and less evidence that Madhyamika was doing this, but I didn't encounter anything that knocked the idea away. It got more and more puzzling for me.

And then one day I read this from Nagarjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Sloka IX:4, about the "prior entity," or a subject or owner or substrate for what is seen and heard. (translations from the Garfield edition).

"If it can abide Without the seen, etc., Then, without a doubt, They can abide without it."

Then it dawned on me! The independence (and hence the dependence) that Buddhism is talking about is two-way, not just one-way. If A is logically independent from B, then B is logically independent from A.

If you can have a self that doesn't depend on things seen, then you can have things seen that do not depend on a self.

So, for Nagarjuna, can you really have a self that is truly bilaterally independent from what is seen?

No, because of his next sloka, IX:10:

"Someone is disclosed by something. Something is disclosed by someone. Without something how can someone exist? Without someone how can something exist?"

With these two verses, I finally understood the two-way dependence that Buddhism was talking about. And both halves of that important line in the Heart Sutra finally made sense!!

.........

Taken from Krodha (Kyle Dixon)'s Dharmawheel posts compilation: https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2023/05/table-of-contents-for-malcolm.html

I'm not sure what you mean by "itch," but I can tell you that when I began to study the Mulamadhyamakakarika (MMK), I wanted to let it speak for itself. I didn't want to bring to it any presumptions that I picked up from other teachings, such as that all reality depends on an aware ground of being. This was my intention from the beginning, and it took me a while to detect those assumptions in myself as I proceeded with my study. The text of the MMK itself actually helped dissolve those assumptions from my study and practice of Madhyamika.

It's pretty clear that in the MMK there is no support for an aware ground of being.

About verses 8 and 9. they are dialectical arguments against the notion of an independent self that is the basis and unifying substance of all experience. As dialectical arguments, they examine consequences that would follow if there were really such an independent self. And they find that the consequences are absurd, or that they go against the independent-self idea. Confronting these absurd consequences frees us from assenting to the independent-self doctrine.

Verses 8 and 9 are instances of the same/different argument schema. Those who believe in existence usually assert that if A and B exist, then they must be the same as each other, or different from each other.

Verse 8 examines the absurd consequences of stating that the seer and hearer and feeler are the same.

It looks at what would happen if there were a self that is the hearer and seer and feeler (which is what the independent-self doctrine asserts). If there were such a self, it would contravene the insights from Verses 4-6, which argue that the seer depends on the seen just like the seen depends on the seer.

In our experience, seeing and hearing and feeling happen at different times, sometimes apart, sometimes together. If there WERE such a self, the very same self that hears and sees, Verse 8 is arguing that the self would have to exist PRIOR to hearing and PRIOR to seeing.

Verse 9 examines the absurd consequences of stating that the seer and hearer and feeler are different. It argues that in this case, there would be multiple independent selves, one for seeing, one for hearing, and one for feeling. This obviously contradicts the main point of the independent self doctrine, which is that there is just ONE entity which does all the seeing and hearing.

Nagarjuna's strategy here is to show that assuming an independent entity prior to experience makes no sense at all. This is because it makes no sense if the seer equals the hearer, and it makes no sense if the seer does not equal the hearer.

Therefore, it makes no sense!

And it keeps on going, getting more and more radical.

Verse 11 - here the MMK uses the conclusion about the absurdity of the independent seer to refute the inherent existence of independent modes of perception.

In Verse 12, the MMK says that having seen all this, we are freed from conceptions and assertions of existence and non-existence.

.......

Yes, this approach would acknowledge swoons, anesthesia, “zone” moments and deep sleep.  We could say that these are “longer” gaps than the gaps between momentary sounds and other sensations.  But that isn’t a metaphysical claim, just a non-theoretical comment about experience.

The main takeaway from the refutation of an independent “prior entity” is that continuity is only imputed casually as a transactional, conventional way of organizing experience.  It’s not a serious claim, and it wouldn’t hold up under analysis.  So for this kind of practical manner of speaking, continuity doesn’t require an inherent, underlying ground.  If continuity itself were examined, it would be just as insubstantial as the other things examined by the MMK. 

Many Buddhist meditations focus on discerning the DIScontinuities in what we normally assume is continuous and unbroken.

Also, for Nagarjuna in this chapter, the “prior entity,” has already been refuted in by the time he reaches verses 8-12.

 

Writing this article has been on my to-do list for a few months but I couldn't do it due to exams and workload. Now I'm having a short holiday so I think I should quickly get this typed out.

There is a kind of pathology or danger in various kinds of insights because they are partial and one may not have yet seen the complete picture. As you may have seen in my recent discussions, the pathology or danger in non-doership is that one will fall into a kind of extreme deterministic thinking - that somehow because there is no doer, nothing can/should be done about things. This leads to a very passive attitude to things, or rather, one is restricted to experiencing no-self in a passive way (of merely letting experience happen in non-doership), one which prevents the experience of non-dual in action/activities via complete non-dual engagement, involvement, incorporating intentions, and later going into total exertion. (Also non-doership does not imply one has arisen non-dual insight)

Furthermore, someone who had some insight into the non-division of subject and object can fall into the extremes of subsuming (either object into subject like certain forms of traditional and neo Vedanta, or subsuming subject into object like Actualism), and via subsuming all phenomena into pure subjectivity, end up with an extreme notion of solipsism (the view that there is no others, only me).

Then there is the often mentioned-by-me (and Thusness) "disease of non-conceptuality". And finally -- blindness to karmic propensities, the afflictive actions and conditioning arising out of delusional framework of inherency and subject/object.

As I pasted some days back an excerpt from Thusness from one year ago on the disease of non-doership:

"John Tan: Nihilistic tendencies arise when the insight of anatta is skewed towards the no-doership aspect. The happening by itself must be correctly understood. It appears that things are accomplished by doing nothing but in actual case it is things get done due to ripening of action and conditions.

So the lack of self-nature does not imply nothing needs be done or nothing can be done. That is one extreme. At the other end of extreme is the self-nature of perfect control of what one wills, one gets. Both are seen to be false. Action + conditions leads to effect.

June 1 at 11:32am · Unlike · 8"

And I just wrote:

"What you said is not completely wrong but can be misleading unless you understand 'nature' as 'dependent origination' (replying to a post about anger, killing, suffering being the expression of nature instead of a self). Which is to say, it is not fate, or some sort of outside determinism, nor is it spontaneous arising without causes, but simply dependencies playing out here.

For example, torturing people is the result of ignorance, aggression, etc etc. There are various causes and conditions as listed in the twelve links of dependent arising. And it is not something that is fixed. By engaging in dharma practice we deal with the afflictions and liberate them. Four noble truths are like what doctor does - diagnosis, cause, relief, cure. Four noble truths are completely in alignment with "no self, dependent origination". It would be erroneous if a doctor realizes there is no self, therefore, thinks that all diseases are 'just as it is' and should not or cannot be dealt with. They should be dealt with. But they are dealt with not via the attempting to exert control or hard will via by the false notion of agency (sickness can't be cured merely by trying to will or control it out of existence - there are so many dependencies involved). They are dealt with via seeing its dependent origination and treating its dependent origination in a non-inherent way.

Now in the case of 'torturing', if someone practices metta, it can help (or if you prefer, leave out the 'someone' -- 'practicing metta can help'). Then when fundamental delusion is cleared, aggression can no longer arise. There is nobody controlling anger, anger arise whether one wants to or not -- yet it can be treated by applying the right antidote (e.g. metta) or actualizing wisdom so that it releases (e.g. anatta, twofold emptiness), just like diseases happen whether one wants to or not -- yet there is medicine, cure. There is suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the path that ends suffering."

Thusness then added on:

"“There is nobody controlling anger, anger arise whether one wants to or not”

Maybe sees it this way:

There is no one controlling anger, anger arises due to dependent origination.

With ignorance comes attachment. When attachment meets its secondary conditions, anger arises. Without secondary conditions, anger does not arise. Although it does not arise, it will not cease to arise unless the primary cause is severed. Here the appearance of “spontaneous arising” is seen from the perspective of DO.

Seeing this way, there is anatta; there is dependent origination; there is mindfulness of the cause of anger, the conditions, the cure and the ending of it. There is no bypassing as in “nothing needs be done”, albeit no-self."

...

Now.. there is another pathology which actually is the main one I wanted to address in this post.

On solipsism, as pointed out by Thusness before based on his own experience (that is, he too faced this tendency of solipsism after an initial breakthrough to nondual over a decade ago), the danger of someone going into nondual or even emptiness without the taste of total interpenetration is that one can easily fall into the extremes of solipsism. If we are directly experiencing our reality like in Vipassana, what we see are endless dependencies - seamless and intricate, in such a case there is no danger of falling into the view of solipsism.

As I wrote in my article Dharma Body last year: "...(Note: Dharma as simply a unit of experience dependently originating - not implying any inherently existing material universe [as the universe/dharma body here is seen as marvelous activities/phenomena dependently originating seamlessly without center or boundaries], nor is this dharma body in any sense a subjective body at all [if it is subjectively self-existent then causes and conditions will not be incorporated nor necessary for any given manifestation])..." - http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2013/09/dharma-body.html

Also, as Piotr shared last month, "...what Soh told me in the past, if we apply Buddha's deconstruction from sound example from sutra, then clarity I call visual form right now of this laptop, letters is no more "mine" than any of secondary conditions right now, and Buddha's teaching about not-mine and other teachings sealed possibility of solipsism permanently for me. Somehow [solipsism] for me its non-issue lol "

He's referring to what I told him many months ago:

"Thusness wrote "you see, when we say there is no self or other, we can still not see in terms of DO."

I commented: this is very important.. and lately I'm seeing it more as well. To overcome all sense of I, me, and even mine, D.O. has to step in. Many people talk about no I, no background, but still there is sense of mine... and there are also those that say everything is 'the manifestation of my mind or my nature'.. that is subtly subsuming everything to mind. Even if there is no duality.

In dependent origination you totally see the entire formation of interdependencies... not in words but directly taste the totality of its workings forming every moment of experience. When the drum beat sounds you don't see it as just 'the manifestation of my mind' but you see it as the person hitting, the drum, the vibration, the ears etc... all in total exertion... how can that have anything to do with I or mine? It is not 'mine' anymore than it is the person hitting, the drum's, the vibration's... etc. It is not only that there is no hearer behind sound... not only no I but no mine at all.. the sound itself does not belong to anyone... it is the entire universe in total exertion so to speak.. but it is not understood in logic. You have to see the whole process and interdependencies directly. Breathing is like this... walking is like this... every action every experience is like this. This is the path to dissolve I, me, mine... only through D.O. is the release thorough.

Not 'everything is just consciousness' or 'everything is my consciousness'... consciousness isn't that special or important. It does not have a special, independent, ontological status. Rather it is the interdependencies the workings of D.O. through which that moment of consciousness/experience is in total exertion. The true turning point is when mind is completely separated from mine.. I, me, mine.. the dualistic and inherent tendency must be dissolved and replaced with the wisdom of D.O."

Some conversations with Thusness back in 2012 are quite illuminating on this subject:

10/22/2012 9:09 AM: John: To me is just is "AEN" an eternal being...that's all. No denial of AEN as a conventional self

10/27/2012 2:48 PM: John: All is just him is an inference too. There is no other is also an assumption
10/27/2012 2:48 PM: AEN: That's what I said lol
10/27/2012 2:48 PM: AEN: He didn't see it
10/27/2012 2:49 PM: John: But other mindstreams is a more valid assumption. Don't u think so?
10/27/2012 2:50 PM: John: And verifiable
10/27/2012 2:50 PM: AEN: Yeah

10/27/2012 6:21 PM: John: Whatever in conventional reality still remain, only that reification is seen through. Get it?
10/27/2012 6:23 PM: John: The centre is seen through be it "subject" or "object", they r imputed mental constructs.
10/27/2012 6:24 PM: John: Only the additional "ghostly something" is seen through
10/27/2012 6:26 PM: AEN: Ic..
10/27/2012 6:26 PM: John: Not construing and reifying. Nothing that "subject" does not exist.
10/27/2012 6:26 PM: John: Get it?
10/27/2012 6:28 PM: John: This seeing through itself led to implicit non-dual experience
10/27/2012 6:28 PM: AEN: "Nothing that "subject" does not exist." - what u mean?
10/27/2012 6:29 PM: John: Not "subject" or "object" does not exist.
10/27/2012 6:30 PM: John: Or dissolving object into subject or subject into object...etc
10/27/2012 6:30 PM: AEN: Ic..
10/27/2012 6:30 PM: John: That "extra" imputation is seen through.
10/27/2012 6:30 PM: AEN: Oic
10/27/2012 6:31 PM: John: R u clear? Conventional reality still remain as it is.
10/27/2012 6:34 PM: John: Btw focus more on practice in releasing any holdings....do not keep engaging on all these.
10/27/2012 6:35 PM: AEN: Ic.. Conventional reality are just names imposed on non-inherent aggregates right
10/27/2012 6:35 PM: John: Yes
10/27/2012 6:37 PM: John: That led to releasing of the mind from holding...no subsuming of anything
10/27/2012 6:39 PM: John: What u wrote is unclear
10/27/2012 6:40 PM: John: Do u get what I mean?
10/27/2012 6:42 PM: AEN: Yeah
10/27/2012 6:43 PM: John: Doesn't mean AEN does not exist...lol
10/27/2012 6:43 PM: John: Or I m u or u r me
10/27/2012 6:44 PM: John: Just not construing and reifying
10/27/2012 6:44 PM: AEN: Ic..
10/27/2012 6:45 PM: AEN: Nondual is collapsing objects to self, thus I am you
10/27/2012 6:45 PM: AEN: Anatta simply sees through reification, but conventionally I am I, you are you
10/27/2012 6:45 PM: John: Or collapsing subject into object
10/27/2012 6:45 PM: AEN: Ic..
10/27/2012 6:45 PM: John: Yes
10/27/2012 6:46 PM: John: U r still unclear abt this and mixed up
10/27/2012 6:47 PM: John: Seeing through the reification of "subject", "object", "self", "now", "here"
10/27/2012 6:48 PM: John: Get it?
10/27/2012 6:48 PM: AEN: Oic..
10/27/2012 6:48 PM: John: Seeing through "self" led to implicit non-dual experience
10/27/2012 6:49 PM: John: Coz experience turns direct without reification
10/27/2012 6:49 PM: John: In seeing, just scenery
10/27/2012 6:50 PM: John: Like u see through the word "weather"
10/27/2012 6:51 PM: John: That weather-ness
10/27/2012 6:51 PM: John: Be it subject/object/weather/...etc
10/27/2012 6:52 PM: AEN: ic..
10/27/2012 6:53 PM: John: That is mind free of seeing "things" existing inherently
10/27/2012 6:53 PM: John: Experience turns vivid direct and releasing
10/27/2012 6:55 PM: John: But I don't want u to keep participating idle talk and neglect practice...always over emphasizing unnecessarily
10/27/2012 6:57 PM: AEN: Oic..
10/27/2012 7:06 PM: John: What happens to experience?
10/27/2012 7:10 PM: John: I hv very important deal that should take place within this month hopefully they go through smoothly...we meet after that
10/27/2012 7:13 PM: AEN: Oic.. Ok..
10/27/2012 7:13 PM: AEN: U mean after anatta? Direct, luminous, but no ground of abiding (like some inherent awareness)
10/27/2012 7:15 PM: John: And what do u mean by that?
10/27/2012 7:20 PM: AEN: Means there are only transient six sense streams experience, in seen just seen, etc
10/27/2012 7:20 PM: AEN: Nothing extra
10/27/2012 7:21 PM: John: Six stream experiences is just a convenient raft
10/27/2012 7:21 PM: John: Nothing ultimate
10/27/2012 7:23 PM: John: Not only must u see that there is no Seer + seeing + seen...u must see the immerse connectedness
10/27/2012 7:26 PM: John: Implicit Non-dual in experience in anatta to u means what?

...

Then, there is another disease after one has some non-conceptual direct realization -- be it I AMness or some sort of non-dual insight, one has a direct taste of pristine, unsullied Awareness or Presence. One's practice then becomes based on that direct taste, that taste is only present when one is bare, naked and non-conceptual.

Furthermore, one may find that 'thoughts' is a source of much misery and confusion, and think that the goal of practice is therefore to completely strip off all thoughts. These practitioners could not find a resolution to these confusion and so they resorted to practice of non-conceptuality and naked awareness (however if they did realize anatta and emptiness, these confusions will dissolve but not via grasping to a state of non-conceptuality). Actually, suffering and confused thoughts are the result of a more fundamental underlying cause -- delusion, view of inherency, and so it is more important to resolve those fundamental underlying causes that causes grasping.

As I often quoted from Thusness in this article on the disease of non-conceptuality:
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2011/08/disease-of-non-conceptuality.html

Excerpt: "In case 1 practitioners see ‘The seen is neither subjective nor objective.... it just IS....’
In terms of experience, practitioners will feel Universe, Life. However this is not anatta but rather the result of stripping off (deconstructing) identity and personality.

When this mode of non-conceptual perception is taken to be ultimate, the terms “What is”, “Isness”, “Thusness” are often taken to mean simply resting in non-conceptuality and not adding to or subtracting anything from the ‘raw manifestation’. There is a side effect to such an experience. Although in non-conceptuality, non-dual is most vivid and clear, practitioners may wrongly conclude that ‘concepts’ are the problem because the presence of ‘concepts’ divides and prevent the non-dual experience. This seems logical and reasonable only to a mind that is deeply root in a subject/object dichotomy. Very quickly ‘non-conceptuality’ becomes an object of practice. The process of objectification is the result of the tendency in action perpetually repeating itself taking different forms like an endless loop. This can continue to the extent that a practitioner can even ‘fear’ to establish concepts without knowing it. They are immobilized by trying to prevent the formation of views and concepts. When we see ‘suffering just IS’, we must be very careful not to fall into the ‘disease’ of non-conceptuality."

What these practitioners fail to understand that the key to release does not lie in trying to sustain a state of non-conceptuality or naked awareness, but in releasing the various bonds of consciousness that reifies self and phenomena. Very soon, non-conceptuality itself becomes one's new bondage and attachment. Non-conceptual experience isn't itself a problem, but attachment to it or treating as a be-all end-all of practice is problematic.

In fact, non-conceptual experience should be complemented with right view, and at the beginning even a conceptual understanding of right view can be very helpful, as it serves as a condition for direct realization of emptiness. As Thusness also wrote, "...The journey of emptying also convinces me the importance of having the right view of Emptiness even though it is only an intellectual grasped initially. Non-conceptuality has its associated diseases…lol…therefore I always advocate not falling to conceptuality and yet not ignoring conceptuality. That is, strict non-conceptuality is not necessary, only that habitual pattern of reification needs be severed..." - http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2014/07/a-and-emptiness.html

Only after deepening of insights do we realize, it is the realization and actualization of twofold emptiness that is the definitive path of self-release/liberation. This is discussed more indepth in my previous article, "Self-Release".

Then comes the fourth pathology -- blindness to karmic propensities.

What is karmic propensities? Kyle Dixon wrote: "...the very act of 'holding' or grasping is another factor which reifies a subject relating to objects. For the very act of 'holding' presupposes something to be held and a subject to hold it, and that activity in and of itself implies these two. The action or activity literally creates the illusion of a subject-object dichotomy, and if that illusion is not seen for what it is, then the entire process runs away with itself, becoming an intricate and delusional structure of habitual tendencies which are conventionally referred to as a 'self'. Again, there is no self contained therein, within, or apart from that activity, but the delusion surrounding that activity cannot see that in the absence of insight which reveals it to be so.

For example, if we were to say there is only unpleasant emotions and no entity which is feeling those emotions; emptiness would argue that those emotions are still arising due to either accepting or rejecting. The very act of accepting and/or rejecting presupposes something to be accepted or rejected, and the very act itself (along with the presupposition the action is based upon) is precisely what the entity is. The entity cannot be found apart from that action, and ultimately the so-called entity cannot be found within that action either, but under the sway of delusion this is not apparent. That is what the notion of karma truly is: 'action', but it is delusional action which is predicated upon the misunderstanding that the apparent dependencies and relationships between subjects and objects, or objects and objects etc., is valid. So emptiness seeks to penetrate these subtle assumptions, presuppositions, conditioning behaviors and so on by revealing the unreality of the factors they are based upon. It is a very thorough and comprehensive process, which is also very liberating. If done skillfully it utterly exhausts these subtle tendencies and neuroses, and with the pacification of those tendencies, the illusion of the entity which can exist or not exist is also pacified..." - http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/self-as-karmic-tendencies.html

Overwhelmed by a partial insight -- be it non-doership, or I AMness, or usually One Mind, one clings to the 'Absolute' and neglects the 'relative'. This can happen when one fails to see the total exertion of karmic propensities from moment to moment - manifest completely as traces of clinging and identification in various forms.

Zen priest/teacher Alex Weith also talks about the stagnating waters (emphasis added): "...The problem is that we still maintain a subtle duality between what we know ourself to be, a pure non-dual awareness that is not a thing, and our daily existence often marked by self-contractions. Hoping to get more and more identified with pure non-dual awareness, we may train concentration, try to hold on to the event of awakening reifying an experience, ***or rationalize the whole thing to conclude that self-contraction is not a problem and that suffering is not suffering because our true nature is ultimately beyond suffering. This explains why I got stuck in what Zen calls "stagnating waters" for about a year.***

This is however not seen as a problem in other traditions such as Advaita Vedanta where the One Mind is identified with the Brahman that contains and manifests the three states of waking, dreaming and deep sleep within itself, yet remains untouched by its dreamlike manifestation..."

Also, others may also say things like "suffering is awareness, contraction is awareness" etc etc -- skewing towards the aspect of non-dual luminous clarity that is never lost. Sure -- luminous clarity is never lost, and is manifest in every single manifestation, but no matter how clear that clarity is, it will never release suffering. Your mindstream has always been luminously clear but still you have been lost in samsara for beginningless lifetimes undergoing tremendous and countless sufferings. What good is that? Realizing non-dual luminosity is not enough. As discussed earlier, it is not the definitive path of release. And although even suffering and emotions are by nature luminous and empty, if we do not realize and actualize this luminous yet empty nature (note: not just 'luminous clarity' but more importantly the 'empty' nature) which releases those afflictions, then we are simply mouthing high views and deluded concepts.

Often coming together with this pathology of blindness to karmic propensities is the "I got it syndrome", which is to say, they think whatever they realize is complete or is perfect. Every insight can have that effect -- the realization of I AMness may result in a deceptive thought "this is it, this is liberation, enlightenment" etc. The realization of One Mind, pure transparency, etc, can also result in that effect. In truth, one is still far from total release and realization. Even if one has realized twofold emptiness, one is far from full actualization, which explains for the relative difference between the 1st bhumi Bodhisattva (who realized emptiness) and the 11th/13th/16th bhumi corresponding to Buddhahood. I must say, I am far from full Buddhahood, and I doubt anyone I know is anywhere close to full Buddhahood yet (although a number of people I personally know have begun the definitive path of release). It is always good to keep this in mind and be humble about one's practice and achievements.

However, it is unfortunate that very often, people who have not even realized emptiness (but may have realized the aspect of unconditioned Clarity/Awareness) can often be tricked into thinking of himself as "I got it". Even the neo-Advaitin/Zen teacher Adyashanti have made a related remark, "Whenever you touch upon a deep truth, suchness of reality, your true nature, each aspect feels like it's total and complete and all-inclusive at that moment. So that's why teachers have a very hard time getting through to people when they have an initial experience of anything because if it's an initial experience of reality it feels totally complete and there is a certain innate confidence that arises within you. Not an egoic confidence but a confidence that comes from reality." I will also add, very often that experiential confidence does in fact translate into an egoic kind of confidence. The "I got it syndrome" translates into "I know it all syndrome", so one has effectively shut down from further learning and practice.

Yet another neo-Advaitin teacher Vishrant said in a talk where he described 'awareness of awareness' as merely a kindergarten stage of awakening, "the teachers that are flying in and out and telling people they are awake are actually misleading people. The terrible side of that is when somebody is told they are awake, the ego grasps it and says, 'I am awake', and then stop seeking, and then these people stop looking because they think they've already found. So it cuts off their chances for ongoing awakening. It's very sad."

If even these neo-Advaitin teachers are clear about this pitfall, so much more must Buddhists (and other traditions like traditional Advaita) take heed and be aware of our kleshas!

If we are clear about our many faces of karmic propensities, we will know the path ahead. If we are ignorant of them, or in denial of them, or cling to the Absolute, then there is no way we will ever experience its release. There is no way, no chance at all, for someone ignorant of their karmic propensities or the four noble truths to experience Nirvana. They are not even on the path towards its release because they do not even see the afflictions/propensities, nor the cause of the afflictions, nor the end or path that ends afflictions.

Very often if one is blind to karmic propensities, one can also fall into a nihilistic attitude -- a denial or rejection of a path, or a denial or rejection of suffering, afflictions, etc.

First we need to know the faces of self/Self, I, me, mine, inherency. Then we need to scan our entire body mind for any clinging and contraction and grasping... fully touch the dharma of clinging and afflictions. This is a moment to moment practice.. very often various afflictions only manifest in the presence of secondary conditions (the primary condition is ignorance). Get intimate with afflictions, with karmic propensities, with delusion. It's ok.. you won't be harmed as there never was a you separate from these afflictions anyway, so any sort of avoidance or dissociation is simply another form of delusion and affliction. But through wisdom into its true (luminous and empty) nature they are allowed to release.

Also see: No Self, No Doer, Conditionality

Thusness commented: "It is a good article... ...In the article there is no obsession or singling out clarity as independent and existing by itself. "Being" here is understood within/from the context of anatta, process, verb, no locus and without agent. His term of "being" is not to single out from the ever dynamics of appearance but rather understood from the standpoint of non-action. Would be better if there is integration of total exertion (dependent origination) into it; makes the article more complete."

http://www.evertype.com/misc/vitakka.html

Some remarks on conceptualization and transcendent experience Home

Some remarks on conceptualization and transcendent experience in the Theravāda tradition, with two notes on translation Michael Everson This paper, written originally in 1988, was an excursion into theology -- or perhaps “noetology”. It was an attempt at commentary proper, rather than at disinterested analysis. It is a basic tenet of Buddhism that suffering arises from false notions of self. Individuals perceive themselves as separate entities, autonomous yet dependent on their world, experiencing change and continuity. The uniqueness of each moment of existence is distorted by the filter of a self which categorizes and interprets those moments, judging them good or bad and fighting a useless battle to keep the good and shun the bad. The nexus for the introduction of false notions of self into experience is the point at which experience is conceptualized. Enlightened consciousness results when these false notions are no longer imposed upon the perceptual process. It cannot be said that the Buddhist description of conceptualization is without its difficulties. Indeed, a Buddhist description ofanything is much entangled in relationships: just as any event in the world depends on a nigh infinite series of causes, and engenders a nigh infinite series of effects, so does a light shone on any facet of Buddhist epistemology shine and reflect off of each other facet. It is difficult to pluck one string of the sitar without causing the sympathetic strings into resonance as well. Still, conceptualization, and its relation to conditioned and enlightened consciousness, is central to Buddhism -- both to its taxonomy of the problem of existence and to its soteriology. An investigation of that relation will suggest a reëvaluation of notions of action and being. Buddhism might be described as a kind of cure to the disease of dukkha, of ‘suffering’ or ‘unsatisfactoriness’. Existence (bhava) is an ongoing process of becoming, manifest in its constituents (aṅga). The natural (or ideal) condition for the mind is a calm flow (bhavaṅga-sota), through which (around which, in which) the constituents of becoming interact harmoniously in an “experiential stream” of what is as it is. Nyanatiloka remarks that bhavṣaṅga-sota is explained in the Abhidhamma commentaries as the foundation or condition (kaṁraṇa) of existence (bhava), as the sine qua non of life, having the nature of a process, lit. a flux or stream (sota). [Nyanatiloka 1980:38] Conceptualization impedes the harmonious flow of bhavaṅga-sota. It is a process for ordering stimuli to consciousness, convenient for interaction with the world, but, apparently, not essential once the world has been investigated. Bondage to concepts is considered to be an inevitable consequence of the process of conceptualization because of the fiction of the self, and that bondage to concepts leads to expectation and denial, the causes of dukkha. A review of the process leading up to conceptualization will be helpful here. The immediate precursors to conceptualization have been classified as a purely impersonal, causal process. In the Madhupiṇḍika-sutta, the venerable Kaccaṁna sums up his understanding of the Buddha’s teaching: Manañ-c’ āvuso paṭicca dhamme ca uppajjati manoviññāṇaṁ, tiṇṇaṁ saṅgati phasso, phassapaccayā vedanā, yaṁ vedeti taṁ sañjānāti, yaṁ sañjānāti taṁ vitakketi, yaṁ vitakketi taṁ papañceti, yaṁ papañceti tatonidānaṁ purisaṁ papañcasaññāsaṅkhā samu-dācaranti atītānāgatapaccuppanesu manoviññeyyesu dhammesu. [Majjhima-nikāya 18 (Madhupiṇḍika-sutta) (1888: I:112)] ‘And, brothers, the mind and mental objects are the cause for the arising of mental consciousness. The meeting of the three is sense contact; feelings are the result of that contact; what one feels one perceives; what one perceives one reasons about; what one reasons about one differentiates; what one differentiates is the origin of the sign of perceptions and obstructions which assail a man with regard to mental objects to be comprehended by the mind, in the past, the future, and the present.’ Interaction between one of the sense-bases (the five senses and the mind) and an object gives rise to the attentive faculty of consciousness, that is, of awareness of objects. The meeting of the three is contact (phassa); from this contact arises sensation or feeling (vedanā). The living being with functioning sense organs must interact with objects, become conscious of them through contact, and feel or sense them. When the ego intrudes and makes the connection “I experience this object”, the process loses its impersonality, and becomes first a kind of deliberate and conscious, then a subconscious and automatic activity, conditioned by karmic predisposition. Kaccāna’s description points to this shift from impersonal to personal in his movement from a simple ablative construction to the inflected personal verb: “Phassapaccayā vedanā, yaṁ vedeti taṁ sañjānāti” ‘From the condition of contact [arises] feeling; what one feels, one perceives’. Suddenly it is an individual person (puggala) who experiences sensation; and when he does, he perceives, knows, or recognizes (compare sañjānāti with Latin cōgnōscit). A person has arisen here out of nonperson: attā out ofanattā. That ego, once established with its faculties of memory and volition, will evaluate its sensations in terms of itself; it will judge, and desire. That ego is a confluence of material and mental processes, and, apart from them, has no real existence. Conceptualization arises from perception. “Yaṁ sañjānāti taṁ vitakketi” ‘What one perceives, one reflects on’. This is indicative of the insidious nature of the ego to take the original subjective experience and “objectivize” it. Though each object, contact, and sensation be unique, the ego takes them only in relation to itself and its past, present, and future experience and needs. The concepts (vitakkā) which arise through perception tend toward proliferation, for the ego becomes attached to them. Conceptions become preconceptions, and the whole scheme is filled with error. The Buddha was concerned about the detrimental nature of attachment to speculative views of existence and of the Transcendent. The problem is not whether or not the views themselves have validity, for it is clear that they do, depending on, and with respect to, the particular point of view. “The fact that existence is a relative concept is often overlooked by the worldling.” [Ñāṇananda 1974:20] It is axiomatic that the frog knows what the tadpole cannot; but the question here is whether or not the tadpole’s point of view is wise, and the Buddhist approach would be to say that no point of view is worthwhile unless it is a view which encompasses reality as it is. That view is impersonal. From the Sutta-nipāta: “Mūlaṁ papañcasaṁkhāyā” ti Bhagavā “‘mantā asmī ’ti sabbam uparundhe, yā kāci taṇhā ajjhattaṁ, tāsaṁ vinayā sadā sato sikkhe.” [916 (1913:179)] ‘“He should”, said the Lord, “break up the root of these signs of obstruction,[1] the notion ‘I am the thinker’. Whatever his subjective desires, he trains himself to give them up, always mindful in his discipline.”’ It should be noted that both E. M. Hare [Sutta-nipāta 1944:134] and Hammalava Saddhatissa [Sutta-nipāta 1985:107] have mistranslated mantā asmi as ‘all the thoughts “I am”’ and ‘all thought of “I am”’ respectively. A better reading would have mantā <mantar ‘thinker’ (< Sanskrit *mantṛ) and take the deictic ’ti as setting off the phrase mantā asmi as translated above. (Cf. Neumann’s translation “Ich bin’s, der denkt”, ‘I am the one who thinks’. [Sutta-nipāta 1911:299]) The Commentary to the Sutta-nipāta, however, explains this phrase by mantāya: ...tassā [papañcāya] avijjādayo kilesā mūlaṁ, taṁ papañcasaṁkhāya mūlaṁ ‘asmī’ ti pavattamānañ ca sabbaṁ mantāyauparundhe, yā kāci ajjhattaṁ taṇhā uppajjeyyuṁ, tāsam vinayāya sadā sato sikkhe upaṭṭhitasati hutvā sikkheyyā ti. [Paramatthajotikā II.iv.14 (1917:II:562)] {My emphasis.} ‘...from this [obstruction] comes the root, the impurities which begin with ignorance: this root of the signs of obstruction is ‘I am’, which results in pride, and he should break up all [this] by wisdom, whatever the subjective desires that should arise, for/of these he trains himself to give up, ever mindful, he should discipline himself, being one whose attention is firm.’ Here the dative mantāya would also prove difficult for Hare and Saddhatissa’s readings, where we should expect *manā asmi (formanāya asmi) ‘of the thought “I am”, since we have mano ‘thought’ opposed to mantā ‘wisdom’, as I think the Commentary has it, or even manta (< Sanskrit mantra) ‘charm, doctrine, Holy Scripture’. [Cf. Childers 1875:238-39, and Rhys Davids & Stede 1979:520-22] In any case, I find the present suggested reading more in keeping with the spirit and the sense of the intent of the text, and with the goals of the tradition generally.[2] It is the conceptual attachment of agent to action (yaṁ maññati taṁ mantar), resulting from the initial separation of agent from action, which the Buddha attacks in the Kālakārāma-sutta, not whether or not there exists a thinker at all. It is true that identification with (or even the ‘real’ existence of) the personal ego is denied elsewhere by the Buddha: ...sutavato ariyasāvakassa avijjā pahīyati vijjā uppajjati. Tassa avijjāvirāgā vijjuppādā “Asmī” ti pi ’ssa na hoti, “Ayam aham asmī” ti pi ’ssa na hoti, “Bhavissanti, na bhavissanti, rūpī, arūpī, saññī, asaññī, n’eva saññī nāsaññī bhavissan” ti pi ’ssa na hoti. [Saṁyutta-nikāya XXII.47.6-7 (Atthadīpa-vagga) (1890:III:46-47)] {My punctuation.} ‘...for the noble learned disciple, ignorance is abandoned and knowledge arises. From this cleansing of ignorance and coming into existence of knowledge, his “I am” is no more, his “This I exists” is no more, his “I will be, I will not be, I will have form, I will not have form, I will be conscious, I will be unconscious, I will be neither conscious nor unconscious” is no more.’ Yet there is no suggestion that a universal (albeit Vedāntist) ontological interpretation of aham asmi ‘I am’ would be rejected, though such a rejection could be inferred, I think, in the readings of Hare and Saddhatissa. J. G. Jennings has remarked that “[t]he an-attadoctrine so strongly emphasized by [Gotama] declares the transience of individuality, yet insists upon an ultimate or fundamental unity”. [1974:571] While the Pāli commentarial tradition would doubtless reject a Vedāntist claim of an essential unity to Reality, I see no reason to think that a radically non-attached, Liberated notion of “I am” is instrinsically inconsistent with Buddhist teachings. Pure being is neither conceived nor attached, It just Is, and if there is for “me” only “being”, then, it seems, “I am”.[3] The conceptual attachment of agent to action results from an initial (erroneous) separation of agent from action. The source of the delusion standing in the way of Liberation (papañcasaṁkhā) is the personal notion “I am a thinker” (mantā asmi). Mindfulness is the method by which one learns the process of letting go (vinaya); that process begins with the elimination of attachment to the things perceived (pleasure, pain, desire, dislike) and culminates in the elimination of attachment to the identification with the notion that there is in fact a perceiver apart from the perception. This process of detachment from ego is admittedly difficult to describe, and it may be fruitless to attempt to do so. What may be more fruitful is to investigate the effects precipitated by that process. By and large, they derive from a fundamental revision of the process leading up to conceptualization, and from the removal of the causes leading to conceptual proliferation and egoistic “ownership” of experience. The Sutta-nipātadescribes the one who has managed this: “Sa sabbadhammesu visenibhūto, yaṁ kiñci diṭṭhaṁ va sutaṁ mutaṁ vā, sa pannabhāro muni vippayutto na kappiyo nūparato na patthiyo” ti Bhagavā ti. [914 (1913:178)] ‘“He who has discarded all theories about anything seen or heard or conceived is a monk who is enlightened and liberated; there is no rule, no abstention, no desire for himself”, said the Lord.’ He is ‘disarmed’ (visenibhūta) with respect to all views based on what has been seen, heard, or conceived; he is liberated, has laid down his burden (pannabhāro, having, perhaps, “enlightened” his load!), and is without desire. There is no self to be concerned for. What is the character of the impersonal viewpoint? In the Kālakārāma-sutta, transcendent experience is characterized quite comprehensively: Iti kho bhikkhave Tathāgato daṭṭhā [diṭṭhā in Burmese MSS] daṭṭhabbaṁ diṭṭhaṁ na maññati adiṭṭhaṁ na maññati daṭṭhabbaṁ na maññati daṭṭhāraṁ na maññati, sutvā sotabbaṁ sutaṁ na maññati asutaṁ na maññati sotabbaṁ na maññati sotāraṁ na maññati, mutvā motabbaṁ mutam [sic] na maññati amutaṁ na maññati mottabaṁ [sic] na maññati motāraṁ na maññati, viññātvā viññātabbaṁ viññātaṁ na maññati aviññātaṁ na maññati viññātabbaṁ na maññati viññātāraṁ na maññati. [Aṅguttara-nikāya 4:24 (Kālakārāma-sutta) (1888: II:25)] ‘Thus, O monks, the Tathāgata, having seen whatever is to be seen, does not conceive of what is seen; he does not conceive of what has not been seen; he does not conceive of that which must yet be seen; he does not conceive of anyone who sees. Having heard whatever is to be heard, he does not conceive of what is heard; he does not conceive of what has not been heard; he does not conceive of that which must yet be heard; he does not conceive of anyone who hears. Having felt whatever is to be felt, he does not conceive of what is felt; he does not conceive of what has not been felt; he does not conceive of that which must yet be felt; he does not conceive of anyone who feels. Having understood whatever is to be understood, he does not conceive of what is understood; he does not conceive of what has not been understood; he does not conceive of that which must yet be understood; he does not conceive of anyone who understands.’ Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda’s translation of this passage proves problematic. [1974:9-11] For the sake of brevity and simplicity, I will make a neutral reconstruction of this passage using just the verb karoti ‘to do’ as an example, since it is first the construction which is in question. “Iti kho bhikkhave katvā kātabbaṁ kataṁ na maññati akataṁ na maññati kātabbaṁ na maññati kattaraṁ na maññati.”Ñāṇananda would translate this so: “A Tathāgata does not conceive of a thing to be done as apart from doing; he does not conceive of ‘an undone’; he does not conceive of a ‘thing-worth-doing’, he does not conceive about a doer.” This “thing to be done apart from doing” is offered by Ñāṇananda as an alternative to the sense given in Buddhaghosa’s Commentary to the Aṅguttara-nikāya, which, according to Ñāṇananda, takes the words ‘[katvā kātabbaṁ]’ in the text to mean ‘having [done], should be [done]’, and explains the following words ‘[kataṁ] na maññati’ as a separate phrase meaning that the Tathāgata does not entertain any cravings, conceits, or views, thinking: ‘I am [doing] that which has been [done] by the people’. It applies the same mode of explanation throughout. [1974:10 n.1] (Buddhaghosa’s original reads Daṭṭhā daṭṭhabban ti disvā daṭṭhabbaṁ. Diṭṭhaṁ na maññatī ti taṁ diṭṭhaṁ rūpāyatanaṁ ahaṁ mahājanena diṭṭham eva passāmī ti taṇhāmānadiṭṭhīhi na maññati. [IV.iii.4 (1936: III:39)] ‘Daṭṭhā daṭṭhabbaṁ means “having seen what is to be seen”. Diṭṭhaṁ na maññati means “I see the thing seen which is even seen by the people”; one does not conceive {of it} by desires or conceits or opinions’ [i.e., he does not conceptualize about it].) Ñāṇananda prefers to treat the formally ambiguous daṭṭhā/diṭṭhā as ablative of the past participle (so katā from kata) “giving the sense: ‘as apart from [doing]’; and, ‘[kātabbaṁ kataṁ]’ taken together, would mean ‘a [do-able] thing’.” He suggests that the absolutive forms sutvā, mutvā, and viññātvā are “probably a re-correction following the commentarial explanation”, and that the ablatives suttā, mutā, and viññātā evince the most correct reading. [Ñāṇananda 1974:10 n.1] I am not certain that his revision is necessary. F. L. Woodward’s translation seems to follow Buddhaghosa with respect to the verbs suṇāti, maññati, and vijānāti: “[Doing] what is to be [done], he has no conceit of what has been [done] or not [done] or is to be [done], he has no conceit of the [doer]”; but he readsdaṭṭhā as the nomen agentis: “[A] Tathāgata is a seer of what is seen, but he has no conceit of what is seen”. [1933:27] Following Buddhaghosa, I would suggest that “Tathāgato katvā kātabbaṁ kataṁ na maññati” etc. should read ‘Having done what is to be done, the Tathāgata does not conceive of what is done; he does not conceive of the undone; he does not conceive of that which must yet be done; he does not conceive of a doer’. ‘Conceive’ (maññati) here means ‘to make a concept of’. Important too is the translation here of kātabbaṁ. There is really no reason to suggest that Buddhaghosa would have the gerundive be taken in an obligatory sense ‘should be done’, or the valued (read judged!) sense of ‘a thing-worth-doing’, as Ñāṇananda has taken it. [1974:10-11, 10 n.1] The context does not require that the form be understood as a participium necessitatis, but only as a future passive participle. According to Manfred Mayrhofer, the meaning of the future passive participle “ist die des ‘in Zukunft getan werden müssenden’”, ‘is that of “that which must yet be done”’. [1951:174] Ñāṇananda’s obligatory “should” is unnecessary, for the deed which “is to be done” comes about through the exigencies of causality. That the Tathāgata is beyond causality is not taken into consideration by the forms of Pāli grammar, but he is nonetheless certainly free from obligation and evaluation. The deeds of most individuals are causally effected, and the point of the text is that once a deed is done, the Tathāgata is no longer concerned with it, or with the deed undone, or the deed yet to do, or the doer. He is concerned only with the doing, and only in the moment in which it is done. It is fairly easy to see that Ñāṇananda’s “thing to be done as apart from doing” is an attempt at just such an understanding, though I think the textual revision of absolutive to ablative is unnecessary. What is there, then? Just seeing, hearing, feeling, or understanding. There is no agent, no patient, no recipient, no locus: only the verb, the process, or rather, the proceeding. To be enlightened is not to be or to do any thing: it is only being, or doing. This is admittedly circular, and it is proverbial to any student of mysticism--and certainly recognized by the Buddhist tradition itself--that little can besaid which can give any real sense of what goes on in transformed consciousness. Buddhism offers nonetheless its own kind of description, always tending toward the practical, toward the causes which will bring about the Liberation itself: that is, toward the empiric. The path to Liberation is twofold: moving away from deluded action, and moving toward wise action. It is all the more significant for its corollary that the entire process [of cause and effect] could be made to cease progressively by applying the proper means. Negatively put, the spiritual endeavor to end all suffering, is a process of ‘starving’ the conditions of their respective ‘nutriments’ (āhārā), as indicated by the latter half of the formula of Dependent Arising. However, there are enough instances in the Pāli Canon to show that it is quite legitimate to conceive this receding process too, positively as a progress in terms of wholesome mental states. [Ñāṇananda 1974:46-47] The eradication of conceptualization and the cultivation of a dispassionate, impersonal observation is the key to Liberation. “Ever-becoming and ever-ceasing-to-be are endless action.... Ceaseless action is the Universe.” [Merrell-Wolff 1973:247] Since the being embodied must be a part of such action, his hope must be to loose himself from the bounds of causal action: he must seek Liberation. Perhaps it is not so ironic that in order to do so, he must realize that there is nothing but action; for then he is, so says the Buddha, free. Notes [1] I prefer here the reading of papañca as ‘obstruction’ or ‘hinderance’ to the commonly met with ‘obsession’. Here I follow Rhys Davies’ suggestion that papañca is at least semantically related to *papadya ‘what is in front of the feet’, where he compares Latinimpedimentum (though Sanskrit prapadya should give Pāli papajja). [Rhys Davies 1979:412] An obsession is an obstruction, but not all obstructions are obsessions. Cf. also above, in the passage taken from the Madhupiṇḍika-sutta, where papañceti is taken in its sense as derived from Sanskrit prapañcayati ‘to describe at length’, from prapañca ‘diversity’. Back to text. [2] Robert Buswell has pointed out to me that Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda has arrived at the same conclusion. [Ñāṇananda 1971:31] Back to text. [3] Without really trying to second-guess the Tathāgata, the argument here is simply that he might recognize a distinction in the semantics of aham asmi with respect to his own description of the Enlightenment, and that of the Vedāntists. (He would almost certainly reject the use of such metaphor for paedagogical purposes, however.) Jennings is right to point out that the Vedāntist schools and their concepts of, for example, māyā, contributed to the Buddha’s own teachings. [Jennings 1974:cix-cx] Certainly, it can be said that useful comparison can be made between the Buddhist and Vedāntist traditions if such semantic differences are reconciled. Fundamental unities are realized in the Buddhist tradition at least insofar as the alienation of attāand anattā are concerned (Cf. the remarks on bhavaṅga-sota above.). Back to text. References Aṅguttara-nikāya. 1888. Aṅguttara-nikāya. Vol. 2. Edited by Richard Morris. London: Henry Frowde for the Pali Text Society. 6 vols. (1885-1910). Aṅguttara-nikāya. 1933. The book of the Gradual Sayings. Vol. 2: The book of the Fours. Translated by F.L. Woodward. London: Oxford University Press for the Pali Text Society. Buddhaghosa. 1936. Manorathapūraṇī: commentary on the Aṅguttara-nikāya. Vol. 3. Edited by Hermann Kopp. London: Oxford University Press for the Pali Text Society. 5 vols. (1924-1956). Childers, Robert Cæsar. 1875. A dictionary of the Pali language. London: Trübner & Co. Jennings, J. G. 1974. The Vedāntic Buddhism of the Buddha: a collection of historical texts translated [and edited] from the original Pāli. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. [Reprint of 1947 ed.] Majjhima-nikāya.. 1888. Majjhima-nikāya. Vol. 1. Edited by V. Trenckner. London: Henry Frowde for the Pali Text Society. 4 vols. (1888-1925). Mayrhofer, Manfred. 1951. Handbuch des Pāli, mit Texten und Glossar: eine Einführung in das sprachwissenschaftliche Studium des Mittelindischen. 1. Teil: Grammatik. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. Merrell-Wolff, Franklin. 1973 The philosophy of consciousness-without-an-object: reflections on the nature of transcendental consciousness. New York: Julian Press. Ñāṇananda. 1971. Concept and reality in early Buddhist thought. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society. Ñāṇananda. 1974. The magic of the mind: an exposition of the Kālakārāma-sutta. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society. Nyanatiloka. 1980. Buddhist dictionary: manual of Buddhist terms and doctrines. 4th edition, revised by Nyanaponika. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society. Paramatthajotikā. 1917. Sutta-nipāta commentary: being Paramatthajotikā II. Vol. 2. Edited by Helmer Smith. London: Humphrey Milford for the Pali Text Society. 3 vols. (1916-1917). Rhys Davies, T. W., and William Stede, eds. 1979. The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English dictionary. London: Pali Text Society. [Reprint of 1925 ed.] Saṁyutta-nikāya. 1890. Saṁyutta-nikāya. Edited by Leon Feer. London: Henry Frowde for the Pali Text Society. 3 vols. (1888-1890). Sutta-nipāta. 1911. Die Reden Gotamo Buddhos aus der Sammlung der Bruchstücke Suttanipāto des Pāli-Kanons. Translated by Karl Eugen Neumann. München: R. Piper & Co. Sutta-nipāta. 1913. Sutta-nipāta. Edited by Dines Andersen and Helmer Smith. London: Henry Frowde for the Pali Text Society. Sutta-nipāta. 1944. Woven cadences of early Buddhists. Translated by E. M. Hare. London: Humphrey Milford for the Pali Text Society. Sutta-nipāta. 1985. The Sutta-nipāta. Translated by Hammalava Saddhatissa. London: Curzon Press.

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