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In an mp3 talk on jhanas given in June 2003 (cant find the link now and he has 165 talks on his website ) he tells the story of a student of his who was meditating...

...for quite a long time... his wife went to check on him and could find no movement, no breath... she called an ambulance that rushed him off to the hospital who hooked him up to an EEG and ECG - no traces on either just alarm bells... an Indian doctor there recalled his parents talking about yogis who could go into a state of supension so he hooked him up to defibrillator paddles to try and restart the heart... several times they tried and several times they failed... by now he was scheduled to be sent off to the morgue...

...at which point he woke up and said "what am I doing here - I was in my bedroom" ... he said he had been in a totally blissful state of rapture .. he had felt nothing that had happened to him... (altho as he later related to his teacher the main pain was being given a complete ear-bending by his wife afterwards!).

As Ajahn Brahm said this is not just based on someone not being able to observe someone breathing this is in a real western hospital expensively kitted out emergency room.

So I think on that basis one can get some idea of what non-diluted jhanas are all about...

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ANATTA (NON-SELF)[1]
Ven. Ajahn Brahmavamso
Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Samma Sambuddhassa
Sabbe Sankhara Anicca - Sabbe Sankhara Dukkha - Sabbe Dhamma Anatta Ti

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"All conditioned things are impermanent. All conditioned things are suffering. All dhammas (all things conditioned and unconditioned) are anatta". These are the three basic factors of all existence. It is in order to penetrate these truths that we practice the Noble Eightfold Path. We equip our minds with power through the abandoning of the five hindrances[2]; then we can actually uncover these truths by experiencing the deep states of meditation. In fact, once one of these three basic characteristics of existence (ti-lakkhana) is seen in its fullness one will also see the other two in their fullness. As the Buddha said, "What is impermanent, subject to change, is suffering, and that by its very nature cannot be taken to be 'me', 'mine', or a 'self'. Whatever is taken to be a self will cause suffering" (SN 22, 59). In fact, the permanent happiness of a self is impossible.

The Buddha's teaching on anatta (non-self) is deep and profound because it challenges something very basic to our assumptions about life. The Buddha talked about avijja (delusion) being the root cause of all problems, of all rebirths, the root cause of defilements. He explained what avijja is through the teaching of the vipallasas (the perversions or distortions of view, thought and perception). Namely, the vipallasas say that by view, thought and perception we take what is dukkha to be sukha (happiness); we take what is impermanent to be permanent; we take what is not beautiful (asubha) to be beautiful (subha); and we take what is anatta to be atta, a self (AN 4, 49). Never in that teaching of the vipallasas did the Buddha say that we take what is self to be anatta. It's always something that is anatta that is taken to be a self. This is because throughout the Buddha's teachings there never was, in any way whatsoever, an atta (self) postulated.

Therefore, this Dhamma discourse will explain how the practice of deep meditation, combined with careful investigation uncovers the truth of anatta, so that the illusion of a 'self' can be removed.

"There is Nothing"

Towards the end of his teaching life, Ajahn Chah would visit the Western monks at Wat Pa Nanachat once a week to take a sauna for his health. He would also give a Dhamma talk before his sauna, to offer us some wisdom, encouragement and inspiration. On one of these occasions I remember that after the Dhamma talk, I thought for once, instead of going right away to help care for Tan Ajahn, I would sit meditation and use some of the inspiration from his talk to aid my meditation. So I went around to the back of the Dhamma hall at Wat Pa Nanachat, where no one was and I sat meditation. I don't know whether it was for half an hour or one hour. I had a very nice meditation, a very deep meditation. When I came out afterwards I had a lot of happiness and clarity in my mind.

Of course, the first thing that came to my mind after that meditation was to see if I could assist my teacher, Ajahn Chah. So I got up and started walking towards the sauna. Half way between the Dhamma hall and the sauna, I met Ajahn Chah coming in the opposite direction with two or three Thai laymen. He had completed his sauna and he was on his way back to Wat Pa Pong. When he saw me, he obviously perceived that I'd had a very deep meditation and that my mind was clear, so it was one of those occasions when he tried, out of compassion, to enlighten me. He looked me in the eye, as Ajahn Chah could do, and said, "Brahmavamso, tam mai?" which means, "Brahmavamso, why?" I said, "I don't know". He laughed and said, "If anyone ever asks you that question again the right answer is, 'Mai me arai' (there is nothing)". He asked me if I understood, and I said, "Yes", and he said, "No you don't".

I'll always remember his reply. As he walked off it was like a profound teaching that he had just shared with me. What he was actually saying here by his teaching, 'Mai me arai' was, there is nothing, just emptiness, anatta. This is a powerful teaching because in our world we always want to have something. We always want to grab on to something, and to say "there is something". But actually, there is nothing.

Whether one looks at the body (rupa), feelings (vedana), perceptions (sanna), the mental formations (sankhara, which includes the will), or consciousness (vinnana)[4], for each one of these - 'Mai me arai' - there is nothing there. This is the teaching of anatta. However, it is very difficult for people to accept such a teaching; that there is nothing. The reason that it is difficult to accept is because one almost always asks the wrong questions. It's well known that if you ask the wrong questions then you will get the wrong answers. So it's important to ask the right questions first of all. Looking through the suttas, (the collected discourses of the Buddha) one can find many instances of those questions being asked of the Buddha that did not lead to any purpose or have any use. These were thoughts or questions or inquiries that the Buddha said were wrongly formed, and most importantly, they were not conducive to Enlightenment.

What do You Take Your Self to be?

One of those wrongly formed questions is "Who am I?" This is an inquiry that many people in the world follow: "Who am I?" However, a little bit of reflection should make it very clear that this question already implies an assumption that you are someone. It already implies an answer. It's not open enough. Instead, one needs to rephrase the question from, "Who am I?" or even, "What am I?" to, "What do I take myself to be?" or, "What do I assume this thing called 'I' is?" Such questions dig very deep into one's avijja (delusion). Only then can one start to really look at what it is that one takes one's 'self' to be.

Consider the human body. Do you consider the body to be yours? It's very easy to say, "The body is not self" when one is young, healthy and fit. The test comes when one is sick, especially when that sickness is very deep and lasting, or can even be life threatening. That's when one can really see at a deeper level whether one is taking the body to be 'me' or 'mine'. Why does this fear arise? The fear is always because of attachment. One is afraid that something which one cherishes is being threatened or taken away. If ever a fear of death comes up at any time, that will show with ninety nine percent certainty, that in that moment one is seeing or thinking that this body is 'me', or is 'mine'.

Contemplate this body. Contemplate the death of this body, contemplate the contents of this body, and take it apart as it says in the Satipatthana Suttas (MN 10, DN 22). See that with whatever parts of this body, that it's just flesh and blood and bones. It's just the four great elements (earth, water, heat and air), just atoms and molecules and chemicals, that's all. Continually contemplating the body in this way, one will eventually break down the delusion that this body is substantial, beautiful, delightful and one's 'own'.

The Illusion of Control

When there is a self, there will be things that belong to a self. When there are things belonging to a self there will be control, there will be work, there will be doing. This illusion of a self (taking oneself to be something substantial) is what creates craving and attachment. This is what creates will. That's why when people take the body to be the self, then they go and take it to the gym, they take it to the beauty parlour, they take it to the hair dressers, they wash it, they preen it, they try hard to make it look nice. "This is important, this is me. It's my selfimage." Such people think that it's very important what they look like. They think that it creates their happiness. Other (wiser) people say how stupid they are. Other people tell the truth. The point is that if you take the body to be you, you will want to control it. Some people get upset when they start to get old and ugly and smelly. They start to get upset when they get sick, because they realise they can't control this body.

Some people who I've seen dying try and control their body to the very end. To be with someone when they are dying, and to see them struggling for the last breath, and trying to control everything, this is one of the saddest things to see in life. This is real suffering. Then you see those other people, who have more wisdom, those who can let go and not struggle at death. Realising that this body is not theirs any more, they don't care about it any more, and they don't try to control it. The 'controller' has gone. When this controlling has gone, then so much peace, ease and freedom naturally arises in the mind.

Achievements are Not Yours

Even deeper than the body is the stuff of the mind. First of all, let us consider the objects of the mind. So often people identify themselves with their thoughts, or with the perceptions or objects, which come up in their minds. For example, it's so easy to actually take one's achievements to be 'me', or to be 'mine'. If one takes any achievements to be 'me', or to be 'mine', the inevitable result of that is pride, and the attachment to praise. How much suffering results from pride? Every time one does something wrong, one will feel that there is some problem there. Very often because of pride, when one does something wrong, one may even break the precepts[5] and lie, just out of taking one's abilities to be 'me', or to be 'mine'. That's why in the world when someone makes a mistake they usually say, "I wasn't feeling my self today". "When I do something right, that's the real me."

People often say that speaking in public is one of the most terrifying things that one can do. This kind of fear is always because of some attachment. One then needs to ask the question: "Fear of what?" "Fear of losing what?" It's always fear of losing what is called 'reputation'. That is to say, the delusions about what one takes oneself to be. All of these things are just conditioned. If I give good talks, it's just because I've had a lot of practice that's all. If I give bad talks, that has nothing to do with me either. Maybe it is because the tea isn't strong enough. It has nothing to do with me. Isn't that marvellous, to take away the sense of self from whatever one does? Then there's no sense of guilt, no sense of fear, of remorse. One doesn't go back afterwards and say, "What I did today was really rotten and horrible". It's just conditioning, that's all.

If one takes any success in meditation to be because of one's own abilities, then one misunderstands the law of causality, the law of cause and effect. For example, any skill in meditation that I have is nothing to do with me, it's just because of causes. It's not one's abilities or inabilities that stop success in meditation. Never think, "I can" or "I can't", that is just coming from a sense of self. Create the causes. Once the causes are there, then one will be able to experience jhanas[6] , one will be able to get Enlightened. When one gets to be skilled in creating the causes for deep meditation, creating the causes for insight, and creating the causes for liberation, then one will understand what bhavana (development of the mind) really means.

Thoughts are Not Yours

When thoughts come up in the mind it's both useful and fascinating for one to consider, "Why did I think that? Where did that thought come from?" Very often one can trace these thought patterns back to teachers who inspired you, either in words or in books. Why did you think that thought? Is it really your thought, or is it the thought of Ajahn Brahm, or maybe the thought of your father, or the thought of your mother? Where did that thought come from? Thought does not belong to you. Thoughts come according to their conditions, they are triggered in the mind because of causes. It's fascinating to see that thought is anatta, not 'me', and not 'mine'.

Why is it that thoughts obsess the mind? Thoughts come in and we grab hold of them. We make them stay because of the illusion that they are important. People sometimes have such nice thoughts, they come and tell me later, and they call them 'insights'. They are just thought, that's all. Just leave the thoughts alone. Don't take them to be 'mine'. If one takes thoughts to be 'mine', then one will go and beat someone else over the head with them, and argue about who's right and who's wrong. Letting them go is far more peaceful, far more joyful. Thinking is one of the biggest hindrances to deep meditation. Thinking so often stops one from seeing the truth, from seeing the true nature of things.

Therefore, give thinking no value. Give it no interest. Instead, give that value and interest much more to the silence. For those of you who have experienced long periods in meditation, where not a thought has been going on in your mind, isn't that nice, isn't that beautiful, isn't that just so lovely, when there is peace in the mind and not a thought coming up? Remember that, cherish that thought of no thought. Then it's a thought that ends thought. All truth, all insight, all wisdom, arises in the silence.

The 'Doer' is Not Self

If one thinks "I am in charge", if that delusion is still there, that will be a major hindrance to one's meditation. This will create restlessness, and there will be craving for this, that and the other. One will never be able to get into jhanas. However, one must understand that the 'doer' cannot let go of doing. This is like trying to eat your own head. That's what people often try and do. They try to do the non-doing. That's just more doing! It has to be like a change, a flip in the mind. It takes some wisdom to see that this 'doing' is just a conditioned process. Then one can let go. When one lets go, then this whole process just goes so beautifully, so smoothly, so effortlessly. With luck one might get into a jhana. In the jhana states the 'doing' has gone and it has stopped for a long time. Coming out again afterwards one will naturally think, "This is good, this is beautiful, this is wonderful". Then one will start to see this illusion of the 'doer'.

To do is to suffer. Doing is dukkha, dukkha is doing. When there is doing, it's like a wave on the lake. The stillness is lost. When the stillness is lost, like the rippled surface of a lake it distorts the image of the moon high in the sky. When the lake is perfectly still and nothing is happening, when no one is doing anything to disturb the moment, then the reflection is pure, truthful, real, and it's also very beautiful. The jhanas should give one enough data to see once and for all that this thing, that which we call 'the doer', is just a completely conditioned phenomenon. That insight has profound effects afterwards. Sometimes people ask the question, "If the will is not yourself, if it's nothing to do with you, why bother? Why even bother to get up at four o'clock in the morning and meditate?" The answer is, "Because you've got no choice".

'The Knower' is Not Self

Even deeper than 'the doer' is 'the knower'. The two actually go together. One can stop 'the doer' for a little while in the jhanas, but later it comes back again. One even can stop 'the doer' for aeons by going to the jhana realms after one dies. However, it will still come back again. Once there is a 'knower' it will react to what it knows, and it will create 'doing'.

'The knower' is usually called consciousness or citta (mind), which is what knows. That knowing is often seen to be the ultimate 'self'. Very often people can get the perception, or the paradigm, in their minds of perceiving something in here, which can just know and not be touched by what it knows. It just knows heat and cold, pleasure and pain. It just knows beauty and ugliness. However, at the same time (somehow or other), it can just stand back and not be known, and not be touched by what's actually happening. It is important to understand that the nature of consciousness is so fast, so quick, that it gives the illusion of continuity. Owing to this illusion, one misses the point that whatever one sees with your eyes, or feels with the body, the mind then takes that up as it's own object, and it knows that it saw. It knows that it felt. It's that knowing that it saw, knowing that it felt, that gives the illusion of objectivity. It can even know that it knew.

When philosophy books talk about 'self reflection' or 'self knowledge', the fact that not only do "I know", but that "I know that I know", or that "I know that I know that I know", is given as a proof of the existence of a self. I have looked into that experience, in order to see what actually was going on with this 'knowing' business. Using the depth of my meditation, with the precision that that gave to mindfulness, to awareness, I could see the way this mind was actually working. What one actually sees is this procession of events, that which we call 'knowing'. It's like a procession, just one thing arising after the other in time. When I saw something, then a fraction of a moment afterwards I knew that I saw, and then a fraction of a moment afterwards I knew that I knew that I saw. There is no such thing as, "I know that I know that I know". The truth of the matter is, "I know that I knew that I knew". When one adds the perspective of time, one can see the causal sequence of moments of consciousness. Not seeing that causal sequence can very easily give rise to the illusion of a continuous 'knower'. This illusion of a continuous 'knower' is most often where people assume that their 'self' resides.

However, as it says in the suttas, one can see that even knowing is conditioned (sankhata) (MN 64). One can see that this too rises because of causes, and then ceases when the causes cease. This is actually where one starts to see through the illusion of objectivity. It is impossible to separate the 'knower' from the known. As the Buddha said many times, "In all of the six senses, such as the mind base, when mind base and mind objects come together it turns on mind consciousness. The coming together of the three is called phassa (contact)" (eg. MN, 28). Consciousness is conditioned, it has its causes, and it's not always going to be there. During the experience of jhana one is totally separated from the world of the five senses. All five senses have disappeared. All that's left is mind, mind base, mind experience. One then knows clearly what mind (citta) is.

Understanding the Nature of Consciousness

Once one knows what mind consciousness is (mind activity, the mind sense), then one can actually notice outside of the jhanas, in ordinary worldly consciousness, that whatever one sees is followed immediately by a different type of consciousness. Different types of consciousness are arising and passing away, one after the other. Maybe it's another sight consciousness, and then mind consciousness, or maybe taste consciousness, and then mind consciousness. This mind consciousness follows immediately, so close behind the other five types of sense consciousness, that it gives the five senses an illusion of similarity. When one sees something, when one hears something or feels something with the body, what is in common with those experiences? What gives it the illusion of sameness? After experiencing jhana one will know that there is this mind consciousness always following behind; holding the hand, so to speak, of the other five senses. Once one sees that, then one can understand why there's an illusion of continuity in the experience of consciousness.

'Knowing' is like the particles of sand on a beach. From a distance it looks like there is no gap, no space, between those grains of sand. Then one goes closer and closer and closer and sees that there are just grains of sand, and in between those grains there is nothing. Nothing runs through those grains of sand. Like water in a stream. It looks like there is a continuous flow. However, once one gets closer with a microscope, an electron microscope, one can see that between the water molecules there is nothing, just space. One can then see the granular nature of consciousness. One consciousness arises and then another disappears. As it says in the Satipatthana Samyutta, "cittas arise and pass away" (SN 47, 42).

A person who still thinks they are the citta (mind), 'the knower', might be able to let go of the body, and get reborn into the jhana realms. But they would have to be reborn into this world again. They are again subject to more rebirths, more suffering. This is because they haven't fully let go of bhava (being). This person has not yet eradicated bhava-tanha (the craving to be), which results from taking the 'knower' to be self. It's like the simile of the tadpole. The tadpole is hatched in the pond, always in the water, and therefore it can't understand what dry land is. However, when the tadpole grows up to be a frog and leaves that water for the first time it carries the water on it's back. It's wet and slimy, but at least it knows what dry land is and it gets an idea for the first time what dryness is.

Getting Out of the Pond, and Onto Dry Land

The only way that one can understand what is meant by, "the self is not 'the doer'" is to get into a jhana. This means that one is getting out of the pond of doing. The only way that one can really understand that 'the knower' is not self, is to get out of the pond of the five senses, and to stay just with the sixth sense. With just the mind consciousness remaining, then after a while, whether one likes it or not, whether one thinks it's true or not, one will actually see that that which is called 'knowing' just arises and passes away. It is granular, it is fragmentary.

The whole purpose of these jhanas is to learn through practice, bit by bit, to let go of more and more consciousness. It's like slicing away at mind consciousness. Allowing consciousness to cease, by calming it, settling it, and allowing it to go to cessation. Then the consciousness completely ceases for long periods of time in what's called nirodha-samapatti (the attainment of cessation). This is the cessation of all that is felt and all that's perceived asanna-vedayita-nirodha). Any person who experiences this attainment, they say, will be an arahant or an anagami afterwards. Why? Because they've seen the end of consciousness, they've touched that as an experience.

With this experience there is no longer any thought or theories or ideas. This is bare experience. All that one formerly took to be 'me' is seen as just delusion (avijja). What was anatta? One will realize that for many lifetimes, one had taken all these things to be a self, and that the result was so much birth and consequent suffering. The cause was so much controlling and doing and craving (tanha). Wriggling through Samsara, wriggling towards happiness, wriggling away from pain, always trying to control the world. It's not what one would like to see. However, through the experience of the jhanas, and the surmounting of conditioning, one has gone beyond all of that. It is not what one has been taught. It is what one has seen, it is what one has actually experienced. This is the brilliance of the Buddha's teaching of anatta. It goes right to the heart of everything.

They say that the Dhamma is the source. One is not going outwards to its consequences, one is not getting lost in papanca (mental proliferation). One is going right in to the very middle, the very essence, and the very heart of the atta, what one takes to be 'me'. From the body into the mind, from the mind into 'the doer', from 'the doer' into 'the knower', one can then see that one is not 'the knower'. It's just causes and conditions. That's all it is, just a process. Then one will understand why the Buddha said that he doesn't teach annihilation. Annihilation means that there is some thing there that existed, which is now destroyed. Nor did he teach eternalism (that there is some thing there that is never destroyed). He taught the Middle Way, namely Dependent Origination.

The process that one has taken to be a self for all these lifetimes is just an empty process. Cause effect, cause effect, cause effect - just a process. "When there is this, this comes into being. With the cessation of that, that ceases." That is the heart of the Buddha's teaching. Everything is subject to that law. If one can see everything as being subject to that law, then one has seen fully into the nature of anatta. Samsara has been mortally wounded; and one will soon make an end of all birth, old age, death and suffering. If, however, there is just a tiny bit left, which one hasn't seen, just a tiny bit - that can keep one stuck in Samsara for aeons. Sabbe-dhamma-anatta'ti. The whole bloody lot!

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One reason I respectfully raise this issue here is that I am interested what the counter-argument would be... Its a bit like X saying that the world is made up of atoms... After huuuuuge efforts and striving he has found this... Y says "yes I agree but did you know that if you also conduct this experiment you will find that inside what you think are indivisible atoms lies something else"...

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It is impossible to separate the 'knower' from the known.

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He looked me in the eye, as Ajahn Chah could do, and said, "Brahmavamso, tam mai?" which means, "Brahmavamso, why?"
I said, "I don't know". He laughed and said, "If anyone ever asks you that question again the right answer is, 'Mai me arai' (there is nothing)".

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He asked me if I understood, and I said, "Yes", and he said, "No you don't".

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I'll always remember his reply. As he walked off it was like a profound teaching that he had just shared with me. What he was actually saying here by his teaching, 'Mai me arai' was, there is nothing, just emptiness, anatta. This is a powerful teaching because in our world we always want to have something. We always want to grab on to something, and to say "there is something". But actually, there is nothing.

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Originally posted by VIL
I think it may be a question of what we consider realization in relation to what most consider perfection. Is it an end state, or are perfections limitless in their perfections? Is the emptiness within the last doll really emptiness or is it really fullness or paridoxically both, like Krisha and his flute or Christ and the reed or Baha'ullah and the mirror? So, is the last doll really solid or empty?

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Does it matter?

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a nonsensical question like "why?". Nothing.

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Mike: Well it is a very common Zen-master-koan type situation - so not out of the ordinary in that context.

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"If anyone ever asks you that question again the right answer is, 'Mai me arai' (there is nothing)".

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*Theravada promotes the concept of Vibhajjavada (Pali), literally "Teaching of Analysis." This doctrine says that insight must come from the aspirant's experience, critical investigation, and reasoning...

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Why have I moved the matter towards a discussion of the content of the Vedantic self in relation to the no-self thesis of Buddhism? I have done so in view of the alleged dichotomy between the two systems of thought described in terms of positive ontology (Vedanta) and negative ontology (Buddhism). Vedanta is metaphysically Being-oriented, specifically the Being of Atman or the true individual self, which is ultimately identical with Brahman or the Absolute Reality. Buddhism is metaphysically oriented to Nothingness or Emptiness, known as Sunyata, so much so that Absolute Reality is identified with Absolute Nothingness.

So thank you for that... unfortunately with the clocks having gone forwards, not enough coffee in the bloodstream and that page being blue on turquoise colour scheme I am gonna have to wait for more neurones to come online ... but yeh certainly hits the bullseye in terms of addressing the precise question I raise so many thanks.

More coffee time

Mike

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"'Seeing thus, the instructed Noble disciple grows disenchanted with the body, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with mental processes, and disenchanted with consciousness. Disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, he is released. With release, there is the knowledge, "Released." He discerns that, "Birth is depleted, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world."'

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"When one does not understand death, life can be very confusing."

"The Dhamma has to be found by looking into your own heart and seeing that which is true and that which is not, that which is balanced and that which is not balanced."

"Only one book is worth reading: the heart."

"Don’t think that only sitting with the eyes closed is practice. If you do think this way, then quickly change your thinking. Steady practice is keeping mindful in every posture, whether sitting, walking, standing or lying down. When coming out of sitting, don’t think that you’re coming out of meditation, but that you are only changing postures. If you reflect in this way, you will have peace. Wherever you are, you will have this attitude of practice with you constantly. You will have a steady awareness within yourself."

"When sitting in meditation, say, “That’s not my business!” with every thought that comes by."

"The heart of the path is quite easy. There’s no need to explain anything at length. Let go of love and hate and let things be. That’s all that I do in my own practice."

"We practice to learn how to let go, not how to increase our holding on to things. Enlightenment appears when you stop wanting anything."

"If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace."

"You are your own teacher. Looking for teachers can’t solve your own doubts. Investigate yourself to find the truth - inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important."

"Try to be mindful and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things. You will see many strange and wonderful things come and go, but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha."

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Mike: When I get there I'll be sure to remember to post.

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Originally posted by Doc


Here's another good article comparing the original Vedanta, which survives today as Advaita Vedanta, and the original Buddhism, which survives today as Theravada Buddhism. Very interesting!

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author mmothra from http://mmothra.blogspot.com/2007/02...uddhism.html
Vedanta & Buddhism
Via Access to Insight

Vedanta and Buddhism are the highlights of Indian philosophical thought. Since both have grown in the same spiritual soil, they share many basic ideas: both of them assert that the universe shows a periodical succession of arising, existing and vanishing, and that this process is without beginning and end. They believe in the causality which binds the result of an action to its cause (karma), and in rebirth conditioned by that nexus. Both are convinced of the transitory, and therefore sorrowful character, of individual existence in the world; they hope to attain gradually to a redeeming knowledge through renunciation and meditation and they assume the possibility of a blissful and serene state, in which all worldly imperfections have vanished for ever. The original form of these two doctrines shows however strong contrast. The early Vedanta, formulated in most of the older and middle Upanishads, in some passages of the Mahabharata and the Puranas, and still alive today (though greatly changed) as the basis of several Hinduistic systems, teaches an ens realissimum (an entity of highest reality) as the primordial cause of all existence, from which everything has arisen and with which it again merges, either temporarily or for ever.

With the monistic metaphysics of the Vedanta contrasts the pluralistic Philosophy of Flux of the early Buddhism of the Pali texts which up to the present time flourishes in Ceylon, Burma and Siam. It teaches that in the whole empirical reality there is nowhere anything that persists; neither material nor mental substances exist independently by themselves; there is no original entity or primordial Being in whatsoever form it may be imagined, from which these substances might have developed. On the contrary, the manifold world of mental and material elements arises solely through the causal co-operation of the transitory factors of existence (dharma) which depend functionally upon each other, that is, the material and mental universe arises through the concurrence of forces that, according to the Buddhists, are not reducible to something else. It is therefore obvious that deliverance from the Samsara, i.e., the sorrow-laden round of existence, cannot consist in the re-absorption into an eternal Absolute which is at the root of all manifoldness, but can only be achieved by a complete extinguishing of all factors which condition the processes constituting life and world. The Buddhist Nirvana is, therefore, not the primordial ground, the eternal essence, which is at the basis of everything and form which the whole world has arisen (the Brahman of the Upanishads) but the reverse of all that we know, something altogether different which must be characterized as a nothing in relation to the world, but which is experienced as highest bliss by those who have attained to it (Anguttara Nikaya, Navaka-nipata 34). Vedantists and Buddhists have been fully aware of the gulf between their doctrines, a gulf that cannot be bridged over. According to Majjhima Nikaya, Sutta 22, a doctrine that proclaims "The same is the world and the self. This I shall be after death; imperishable, permanent, eternal!" (see Brh. UP. 4, 4, 13), was styled by the Buddha a perfectly foolish doctrine. On the other side, the Katha-Upanishad (2, 1, 14) does not see a way to deliverance in the Buddhist theory of dharmas (impersonal processes): He who supposes a profusion of particulars gets lost like rain water on a mountain slope; the truly wise man, however, must realize that his Atman is at one with the Universal Atman, and that the former, if purified from dross, is being absorbed by the latter, "just as clear water poured into clear water becomes one with it, indistinguishably."

Vedanta and Buddhism have lived side by side for such a long time that obviously they must have influenced each other. The strong predilection of the Indian mind for a doctrine of universal unity (monism) has led the representatives of Mahayana to conceive Samsara and Nirvana as two aspects of the same and single true reality; for Nagarjuna the empirical world is a mere appearance, as all dharmas, manifest in it, are perishable and conditioned by other dharmas, without having any independent existence of their own. Only the indefinable "Voidness" (sunyata) to be grasped in meditation, and realized in Nirvana, has true reality.

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The present treatise by Prof. Dr. H.V. Glasenapp has been selected for reprint particularly in view of the excellent elucidation of the Anatta Doctrine which it contains. The treatise, in its German original, appeared in 1950 in the Proceeding of the "Akademie der Wissenschaften and Literatur" (Academy of Sciences and Literature). The present selection from that original is based on the abridged translations published in "The Buddhist," Vol.XXI, No. 12 (Colombo 1951). Partial use has also been made of a different selection and translation which appeared in "The Middle Way," Vol. XXXI, No. 4 (London 1957).

The author of this treatise is an eminent Indologist of Western Germany, formerly of the University of Koenigsberg, now occupying the indological chair of the University of Tuebingen. Among his many scholarly publications are books on Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and on comparative religion.

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orginal article from http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/...heel002.html
This so-called Middle Doctrine of Nagarjuna remains true to the Buddhist principle that there can be nowhere a substance, in so far as Nagarjuna sees the last unity as a kind of abyss, characterized only negatively, which has no genetic relation to the world. Asanga and Vasubandhu, however, in their doctrine of Consciousness Only, have abandoned the Buddhist principle of denying a positive reality which is at the root all phenomena, and in doing so, they have made a further approach to Vedanta. To that mahayanistic school of Yogacaras, the highest reality is a pure and undifferentiated spiritual element that represents the non- relative substratum of all phenomena. To be sure, they thereby do not assert, as the (older) Vedanta does, that the ens realissimum (the highest essence) is identical with the universe, the relation between the two is rather being defined as "being neither different nor not different." It is only in the later Buddhist systems of the Far East that the undivided, absolute consciousness is taken to be the basis of the manifold world of phenomena. But in contrast to the older Vedanta, it is never maintained that the world is an unfoldment from the unchangeable, eternal, blissful Absolute; suffering and passions, manifest in the world of plurality, are rather traced back to worldly delusion.

On the other hand, the doctrines of later Buddhist philosophy had a far-reaching influence on Vedanta. It is well known that Gaudapada, and other representatives of later Vedanta, taught an illusionistic acosmism, for which true Reality is only "the eternally pure, eternally awakened, eternally redeemed" universal spirit whilst all manifoldness is only delusion; the Brahma has therefore not developed into the world, as asserted by the older Vedanta, but it forms only the world's unchangeable background, comparable to the white screen on which appear the changing images of an unreal shadow play.

In my opinion, there was in later times, especially since the Christian era, much mutual influence of Vedanta and Buddhism, but originally the systems are diametrically opposed to each other. The Atman doctrine of the Vedanta and the Dharma theory of Buddhism exclude each other. The Vedanta tries to establish an Atman as the basis of everything, whilst Buddhism maintains that everything in the empirical world is only a stream of passing Dharmas (impersonal and evanescent processes) which therefore has to be characterized as Anatta, i.e., being without a persisting self, without independent existence.

Again and again scholars have tried to prove a closer connection between the early Buddhism of the Pali texts, and the Vedanta of the Upanishads; they have even tried to interpret Buddhism as a further development of the Atman doctrine. There are, e.g., two books which show that tendency: The Vedantic Buddhism of the Buddha, by J.G. Jennings (Oxford University Press, 1947), and in German language, The Soul Problem of Early Buddhism, by Herbert Guenther (Konstanz 1949).

The essential difference between the conception of deliverance in Vedanta and in Pali Buddhism lies in the following ideas: Vedanta sees deliverance as the manifestation of a state which, though obscured, has been existing from time immemorial; for the Buddhist, however, Nirvana is a reality which differs entirely from all dharmas as manifested in Samsara, and which only becomes effective, if they are abolished. To sum up: the Vedantin wishes to penetrate to the last reality which dwells within him as an immortal essence, or seed, out of which everything has arisen. The follower of Pali Buddhism, however, hopes by complete abandoning of all corporeality, all sensations, all perceptions, all volitions, and acts of consciousness, to realize a state of bliss which is entirely different from all that exists in the Samsara.

After these introductory remarks we shall now discuss systematically the relation of original Buddhism and Vedanta.

(1) First of all we have to clarify to what extent a knowledge of Upanishadic texts may be assumed for the canonical Pali scriptures. The five old prose Upanishads are, on reasons of contents and language, generally held to be pre-Buddhistic. The younger Upanishads, in any case those beginning from Maitrayana, were certainly written at a time when Buddhism already existed.

The number of passages in the Pali canon dealing with Upanishadic doctrines, is very small. It is true that early Buddhism shares many doctrines with the Upanishads (Karma, rebirth, liberation through insight), but these tenets were so widely held in philosophical circles of those times that we can no longer regard the Upanishads are the direct source from which the Buddha has drawn. The special metaphysical concern of the Upanishads, the identity of the individual and the universal Atman, has been mentioned and rejected only in a few passages in the early Buddhist texts, for instance in the saying of the Buddha quoted earlier. Nothing shows better the great distance that separates the Vedanta and the teachings of the Buddha, than the fact that the two principal concepts of Upanishadic wisdom, Atman and Brahman, do not appear anywhere in the Buddhist texts, with the clear and distinct meaning of a "primordial ground of the world, core of existence, ens realissimum (true substance)," or similarly. As this holds likewise true for the early Jaina literature, one must assume that early Vedanta was of no great importance in Magadha, at the time of the Buddha and the Mahavira; otherwise the opposition against if would have left more distinct traces in the texts of these two doctrines.

(2) It is of decisive importance for examining the relation between Vedanta and Buddhism, clearly to establish the meaning of the words atta and anatta in Buddhist literature.

The meaning of the word attan (nominative: atta, Sanskrit: atman, nominative: atma) divides into two groups: (1) in daily usage, attan ("self") serves for denoting one's own person, and has the function of a reflexive pronoun. This usage is, for instance, illustrated in the 12th Chapter of the Dhammapada. As a philosophical term attan denotes the individual soul as assumed by the Jainas and other schools, but rejected by the Buddhists. This individual soul was held to be an eternal unchangeable spiritual monad, perfect and blissful by nature, although its qualities may be temporarily obscured through its connection with matter. Starting from this view held by the heretics, the Buddhists further understand by the term "self" (atman) any eternal, unchangeable individual entity, in other words, that which Western metaphysics calls a "substance": "something existing through and in itself, and not through something else; nor existing attached to, or inherent in, something else." In the philosophical usage of the Buddhists, attan is, therefore, any entity of which the heretics wrongly assume that it exists independently of everything else, and that it has existence on its own strength.

The word anattan (nominative: anatta) is a noun (Sanskrit: anatma) and means "not-self" in the sense of an entity that is not independent. The word anatman is found in its meaning of "what is not the Soul (or Spirit)," also in brahmanical Sanskrit sources (Bhagavadgita, 6,6; Shankara to Brahma Sutra I, 1, 1, Bibl, Indica, p 16; Vedantasara Section 158). Its frequent use in Buddhism is accounted for by the Buddhist' characteristic preference for negative nouns. Phrases like rupam anatta are therefore to be translated "corporeality is a not-self," or "corporeality is not an independent entity."

As an adjective, the word anattan (as occasionally attan too; see Dhammapada 379; Geiger, Pali Lit., Section 92) changes from the consonantal to the a-declension; anatta (see Sanskrit anatmaka, anatmya), e.g., Samyutta 22, 55, 7 PTS III p. 56), anattam rupam... anatte sankare... na pajanati ("he does not know that corporeality is without self,... that the mental formations are without self"). The word anatta is therefore, to be translated here by "not having the nature of a self, non-independent, without a (persisting) self, without an (eternal) substance," etc. The passage anattam rupam anatta rupan ti yathabhutam na pajanati has to be rendered: "With regard to corporeality having not the nature of a self, he does not know according to truth, 'Corporeality is a not-self (not an independent entity).'" The noun attan and the adjective anatta can both be rendered by "without a self, without an independent essence, without a persisting core," since the Buddhists themselves do not make any difference in the use of these two grammatical forms. This becomes particularly evident in the case of the word anatta, which may be either a singular or a plural noun. In the well-known phrase sabbe sankhara anicca... sabbe dhamma anatta (Dhp. 279), "all conditioned factors of existence are transitory... all factors existent whatever (Nirvana included) are without a self," it is undoubtedly a plural noun, for the Sanskrit version has sarve dharma anatmanah.

The fact that the Anatta doctrine only purports to state that a dharma is "void of a self," is evident from the passage in the Samyutta Nikaya (35, 85; PTS IV, p.54) where it is said rupa sunna attena va attaniyenava, "forms are void of a self (an independent essence) and of anything pertaining to a self (or 'self-like')."

Where Guenther has translated anattan or anatta as "not the self," one should use "a self" instead of "the self," because in the Pali canon the word atman does not occur in the sense of "universal soul."

(3) It is not necessary to assume that the existence of indestructible monads is a necessary condition for a belief in life after death. The view that an eternal, immortal, persisting soul substance is the conditio sine qua non of rebirth can be refuted by the mere fact that not only in the older Upanishads, but also in Pythagoras and Empedocles, rebirth is taught without the assumption of an imperishable soul substance.

(4) Guenther can substantiate his view only through arbitrary translations which contradict the whole of Buddhist tradition. This is particularly evident in those passages where Guenther asserts that "the Buddha meant the same by Nirvana and atman" and that "Nirvana is the true nature of man." For in Udana 8,2, Nirvana is expressly described as anattam, which is rightly rendered by Dhammapala's commentary (p. 21) as atta-virahita (without a self), and in Vinaya V, p. 86, Nirvana is said to be, just as the conditioned factors of existence (sankhata), "without a self" (p. 151). Neither can the equation atman=nirvana be proved by the well-known phrase attadipa viharatha, dhammadipa, for, whether dipa here means "lamp" or "island of deliverance," this passage can, after all, only refer to the monks taking refuge in themselves and in the doctrine (dhamma),and attan and dhamma cannot possibly be interpreted as Nirvana. In the same way, too, it is quite preposterous to translate Dhammapada 160, atta hi attano natho as "Nirvana is for a man the leader" (p. 155); for the chapter is concerned only with the idea that we should strive hard and purify ourselves. Otherwise Guenther would have to translate in the following verse 161, attana va katam papam attajam attasambhavam: "By Nirvana evil is done, it arises out of Nirvana, it has its origin in Nirvana." It is obvious that this kind of interpretation must lead to manifestly absurd consequences.

(5) As far as I can see there is not a single passage in the Pali canon where the word atta is used in the sense of the Upanishadic Atman.1 This is not surprising, since the word atman, current in all Indian philosophical systems, has the meaning of "universal soul, ens realissimum, the Absolute," exclusively in the pan-en-theistic and theopantistic Vedanta, but, in that sense, it is alien to all other brahmanical and non-Buddhist doctrines. Why, then, should it have a Vedantic meaning in Buddhism? As far as I know, no one has ever conceived the idea of giving to the term atman a Vedantic interpretation, in the case of Nyaya, Vaisesika, classical Sankhya, Yoga, Mimamsa, or Jainism.

(6) The fact that in the Pali canon all worldly phenomena are said to be anatta has induced some scholars of the West to look for an Atman in Buddhism. For instance, the following "great syllogism" was formulated by George Grimm: "What I perceive to arise and to cease, and to cause suffering to me, on account of that impermanence, cannot be my ego. Now I perceive that everything cognizable in me and around me, arises and ceases, and causes me suffering on account of its impermanence. Therefore nothing cognizable is my ego." From that Grimm concludes that there must be an eternal ego-substance that is free from all suffering, and above all cognizability. This is a rash conclusion. By teaching that there is nowhere in the world a persisting Atman, the Buddha has not asserted that there must be a transcendental Atman (i.e., a self beyond the world). This kind of logic resembles that of a certain Christian sect which worships its masters as "Christs on earth," and tries to prove the simultaneous existence of several Christs from Mark 13,22, where it is said: "False Christs and false prophets shall arise"; for, if there are false Christs, there must also be genuine Christs!

The denial of an imperishable Atman is common ground for all systems of Hinayana as well as Mahayana, and there is, therefore, no reason for the assumption that Buddhist tradition, unanimous on that point, has deviated from the original doctrine of the Buddha. If the Buddha, contrary to the Buddhist tradition, had actually proclaimed a transcendental Atman, a reminiscence of it would have been preserved somehow by one of the older sects. It is remarkable that even the Pudgalavadins, who assume a kind of individual soul, never appeal to texts in which an Atman in this sense is proclaimed. He who advocates such a revolutionary conception of the Buddha's teachings, has also the duty to show evidence how such a complete transformation started and grew, suddenly or gradually. But non of those who advocate the Atta-theory has taken to comply with that demand which is indispensable to a historian.

(7) In addition to the aforementioned reasons, there are other grounds too, which speak against the supposition that the Buddha has identified Atman and Nirvana. It remains quite incomprehensible why the Buddha should have used this expression which is quite unsuitable for Nirvana and would have aroused only wrong associations in his listeners. Though it is true that Nirvana shares with the Vedantic conception of Atman the qualification of eternal peace into which the liberated ones enter forever, on the other hand, the Atman is in brahmanical opinion, something mental and conscious, a description which does not hold true for Nirvana. Furthermore, Nirvana is not, like the Atman, the primordial ground or the divine principle of the world (Aitareya Up. 1,1), nor is it that which preserves order in the world (Brhadar. Up. 3,8,9); it is also not the substance from which everything evolves, nor the core of all material elements.

(8) Since the scholarly researches made by Otto Rosenberg (published in Russian 1918, in German trs. 1924), Th. Stcherbatsky (1932), and the great work of translation done by Louis de la Vallee Poussin Abhidharmakosa (1923-31) there cannot be any doubt about the basic principle of Buddhist philosophy. In the light of these researches, all attempts to give to the Atman a place in the Buddhist doctrine, appear to be quite antiquated. We know now that all Hinayana and Mahayana schools are based on the anatma-dharma theory. This theory explains the world through the causal co-operation of a multitude of transitory factors (dharma), arising in mutual functional dependence. This theory maintains that the entire process of liberation consists in the tranquilization of these incessantly arising and disappearing factors. For that process of liberation however, is required, apart from moral restraint (sila) and meditative concentration (samadhi), the insight (prajna) that all conditioned factors of existence (samskara) are transitory, without a permanent independent existence, and therefore subject to grief and suffering. The Nirvana which the saint experiences already in this life, and which he enters for ever after death, is certainly a reality (dharma), but as it neither arises nor vanishes, it is not subject to suffering, and is thereby distinguished from all conditioned realities. Nirvana being a dharma, is likewise anatta, just as the transitory, conditioned dharmas of the Samsara which, as caused by volitions (that is, karma-producing energies (samskara)), are themselves also called samskara. Like them, Nirvana is no individual entity which could act independently. For it is the basic idea of the entire system that all dharmas are devoid of Atman, and without cogent reasons we cannot assume that the Buddha himself has thought something different from that which since more than two thousand years, his followers have considered to be the quintessence of their doctrine.

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Buddhism generally rejects the Self (Atma or Purusha) of Yoga-Vedanta and emphasizes the non-Self (Anatman). It says that there is no Self in anything and therefore that the Self is merely a fiction of the mind.

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It says that there is no Self in anything and therefore that the Self is merely a fiction of the mind.

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Originally posted by Doc


Here is a brief exerpt from 'Yoga and Buddhism" by David Frawley, which compares their respective views of 'Self and not-Self'.

...
However a number of Buddhist traditions, particularly traditions outside of India, like the Chan and Zen traditions of China and Japan, have used terms like Self-Mind, one's Original Nature, the Original Nature of Consciousness or one's Original Face, which are similar to the Self of Vedanta.

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VIL - I appreciate the attempt to introduce logic to this (not always a feature of internet fora )...

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Despite warm desires that really "all religions are the same" sadly they are not (this is one example another is the Christian idea of no-rebirth and an eternal heaven/hell vs reincarnation and only finite times even in heaven or hell).

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Originally posted by VIL:

"Another perspective is that we "die" every night when we go to sleep and are "born" anew within the dream state..."

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So perhaps our Dreams are dreaming us? Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction!

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