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Michael Hernandez
While
it is incorrect to say there is "a doer" as a truly existing entity; it
is also incorrect to say, that there is "no one that doing".
(I've heard this extreme position so many times. It sounds reasonable but it end up with the idea there is no need to practice)
Action and intention is exactly where the sense of a self happens. For example a bicycle is the result of action or doing.
So
in the practice of "non-doing" we can begin to see this. While the
practice of "non-doing" is actually still a doing it is the practice of
stillness we can see movement.
All conceptual designation is movement.
A Sutta about doing and doer-ship.
Read carefully.
Here is the commentary:
Although
the Buddha taught that there is no permanent, eternal, immutable,
independently-existing core “self” (attā), he also taught that there is
“action” or “doing”, and that it is therefore meaningful to speak of one
who intends, initiates, sustains and completes actions and deeds, and
who is therefore an ethically responsible and culpable being. It should
be quite clear from its usage in this sutta, and from the argument of
this sutta, that kāra in atta-kāra must be an agent noun, “doer, maker”:
this is strongly entailed, for example, by the Buddha’s statement:
“ārabbhavanto sattā paññāyanti, ayaṃ sattānaṃ attakāro ayaṃ parakāro”,
“initiating beings are clearly discerned: of (such) beings, this is the
self-doer, this, the other-doer”
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Attakārī Sutta: The Self-Doer
Michael Hernandez
Soh Wei Yu
when we hear a certain personality say "There is no one doing anything"
that person clearly is in error. There are beings clearly seen as those
doing
Soh Wei Yu
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Michael Hernandez It is important to understand this:
Malcolm Smith
Malcolm
Smith [Participant 1] "The argument from chap 2 depends on natural
functions (movement, burning of fire, seeing of the eye, etc.) being
predicated on the moment of time which it takes place, and when the non
obtaining of time is established it leads to the non happening of the
function. This is not justified."
Why?
Nāgārjuna
shows two things in chapter two, one, he says that if there is a moving
mover, this separates the agent from the action, and either the mover
is not necessary or the moving is not necessary. It is redundant.
In
common language we oftren saying things like "There is a burning fire."
But since that is what a fire is (burning) there is no separate agent
which is doing the burning, fire is burning.
On
the other hand, when an action is not performed, no agent of that
action can be said to exist. This is why he says "apart from something
which has moved and has not moved, there is no moving mover." There is
no mover with moving, etc.
This
can be applied to all present tense gerundial agentive constructions,
such as I am walking to town, the fire is burning, etc.
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[Participant 3] Malcolm Smith these are not agentive constructions,
they are unaccusative (cf. "byed med") verbs, so of course no separate
agent can be established. So what?
The
example of the fire and the eye are likewise not convincing, because
they just happen to describe natural functions, but this is not all that
unaccusative verbs do. When you say "the cat falls down", you cannot
say that "falling down" is what a cat "is", the same way you can with
fire burning.
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Malcolm Smith
Malcolm
Smith [Participant 3] the point is aimed at the notion that there has
to be a falling faller, a seeing seer, etc. it is fine to say there is a
falling cat, but stupid to say the cat is a falling faller. The
argument is aimed at that sort of naive premise.
For example, if eyes could see forms by nature, they should be able to forms in absence of an object of form, and so on.
But
if the sight of forms cannot be found in the eyes, and not in the
object, nor the eye consciousness, then none of them are sufficient to
explain the act of seeing. Because of this, statements like the eyes are
seers is just a convention, but isn’t really factual.
And it still applies in this way, apart from what has been seen and not been seen, there is no present seeing.
1
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Choosing
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Alan Watts: Agent and Action
Soh Wei Yu
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May
16
No Self, No Doer, Conditionality
Also see: Some Remarks on Conceptualization and Transcendent Experience
"Mere suffering is, not any sufferer is found
The deeds exist, but no performer of the deeds:
Nibbana is, but not the man that enters it,
The path is, but no wanderer is to be seen."
No doer of the deeds is found,
No one who ever reaps their fruits,
Empty phenomena roll on,
This view alone is right and true.
No god, no Brahma, may be called,
The maker of this wheel of life,
Empty phenomena roll on,
Dependent on conditions all." Visuddhimagga XIX.
-------------------------------
In the ultimate sense, there do not even exist such things as
mental states, i.e. stationary things. Feeling, perception,
consciousness, etc., are in reality mere passing processes of feeling,
perceiving, becoming conscious, etc., within which and outside of
which no separate or permanent entity lies hidden.
Thus a real understanding of the Buddha's doctrine of kamma and
rebirth is possible only to one who has caught a glimpse of the
egoless nature, or //anattata//, and of the conditionality, or
//idappaccayata//, of all phenomena of existence. Therefore it is said
in the //Visuddhimagga// (Chap. XIX):
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No Self, No Doer, Conditionality
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Everywhere, in all the realms of existence, the noble disciple
sees only mental and corporeal phenomena kept going through the
concatenation of causes and effects. No producer of the
volitional act or kamma does he see apart from the kamma, no
recipient of the kamma-result apart from the result. And he is
well aware that wise men are using merely conventional language,
when, with regard to a kammical act, they speak of a doer, or
with regard to a kamma-result, they speak of the recipient of the
result.
No doer of the deeds is found,
No one who ever reaps their fruits;
Empty phenomena roll on:
This only is the correct view.
And while the deeds and their results
Roll on and on, conditioned all,
There is no first beginning found,
Just as it is with seed and tree. ...
No god, no Brahma, can be called
The maker of this wheel of life:
Empty phenomena roll on,
Dependent on conditions all.
In the //Milindapanha// the King asks Nagasena:
"What is it, Venerable Sir, that will be reborn?"
"A psycho-physical combination (//nama-rupa//), O King."
"But how, Venerable Sir? Is it the same psycho-physical
combination as this present one?"
"No, O King. But the present psycho-physical combination produces
kammically wholesome and unwholesome volitional activities, and
through such kamma a new psycho-physical combination will be
born."
Soh Wei Yu
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...
Buddha said:
"This humankind is attached to self-production
Or holds to production by another.
Those who have not understood this
Have not seen it as a dart.
But one who sees (this as it is),
Having drawn out the dart,
Does not think, 'I am the agent,'
Nor does she think, 'Another is the agent.'
This humankind is possessed by conceit,
Fettered by conceit, bound by conceit.
Speaking vindictively because of their views,
They do not go beyond samsara."
- Tatiyananatitthiya Sutta
--------------------
Lopon Malcolm said:
"There is no "experiencer" since there is no agent. There is merely experience, and all experience is empty."
"There are no agents. There are only actions. This is covered in the refutation of moving movers in chapter two of the MMK."
"Why should there be someone upon whom karma ripens? To paraphrase the
Visuddhimagga, there is no agent of karma, nor is there a person to
experience its ripening, there is merely a flow of dharmas."
--------------------
Labels: Anatta, Buddhaghosa, Dependent Origination, Theravada 1 comments | |
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Individuality, Nonduality, Anatta, Nirvana - Page 2 - Dharma Wheel
Soh Wei Yu
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Would an arahant say "I" or "mine"?
Other
devas had more sophisticated queries. One deva, for example, asked the
Buddha if an arahant could use words that refer to a self:
"Consummate with taints destroyed,
One who bears his final body,
Would he still say 'I speak'?
And would he say 'They speak to me'?"
This
deva realized that arahantship means the end of rebirth and suffering
by uprooting mental defilements; he knew that arahants have no belief in
any self or soul. But he was puzzled to hear monks reputed to be
arahants continuing to use such self-referential expressions.
The Buddha replied that an arahant might say "I" always aware of the merely pragmatic value of common terms:
"Skillful, knowing the world's parlance,
He uses such terms as mere expressions."
The
deva, trying to grasp the Buddha's meaning, asked whether an arahant
would use such expressions because he is still prone to conceit. The
Buddha made it clear that the arahant has no delusions about his true
nature. He has uprooted all notions of self and removed all traces of
pride and conceit:
"No knots exist for one with conceit cast off;
For him all knots of conceit are consumed.
When the wise one has transcended the conceived
He might still say 'I speak,'
And he might say 'They speak to me.'
Skillful, knowing the world's parlance,
He uses such terms as mere expressions." (KS I, 21-22; SN 1:25)
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Soh Wei Yu
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Also:
SN 5.10 PTS: S i 134
CDB i 229
Vajira Sutta: Vajira
translated from the Pali by
Bhikkhu Bodhi
© 1997
Alternate translation: Thanissaro
Setting
at Savatthi. Then, in the morning, the bhikkhuni Vajira dressed and,
taking bowl and robe, entered Savatthi for alms. When she had walked for
alms in Savatthi [135] and had returned from her alms round, after her
meal she went to the Blind Men's Grove for the day's abiding. Having
plunged into the Blind Men's Grove, she sat down at the foot of a tree
for the day's abiding.
Then
Mara the Evil One, desiring to arouse fear, trepidation, and terror in
the bhikkhuni Vajira, desiring to make her fall away from concentration,
approached her and addressed her in verse:
By whom has this being been created?
Where is the maker of the being?
Where has the being arisen?
Where does the being cease?
Then
it occurred to the bhikkhuni Vajira: "Now who is this that recited the
verse — a human being or a non-human being?" Then it occurred to her:
"This is Mara the Evil One, who has recited the verse desiring to arouse
fear, trepidation, and terror in me, desiring to make me fall away from
concentration."
Then the bhikkhuni Vajira, having understood, "This is Mara the Evil One," replied to him in verses:
Why now do you assume 'a being'?
Mara, have you grasped a view?
This is a heap of sheer constructions:
Here no being is found.
Just as, with an assemblage of parts,
The word 'chariot' is used,
So, when the aggregates are present,
There's the convention 'a being.'
It's only suffering that comes to be,
Suffering that stands and falls away.
Nothing but suffering comes to be,
Nothing but suffering ceases.
Then Mara the Evil One, realizing, "The bhikkhuni Vajira knows me," sad and disappointed, disappeared right there.
