I have encountered practitioners of the no-self teaching who claimed the sutra to be a forgery. I admit that the main reason I enjoyed the sutra so much is because it resonated with all my previous beliefs about enlightenment when I first read it. It may not be authentic, but I suspect the main reason it is considered a forgery to be because it conflicts with no-self dogma.
To those whom consider the text authentic, it is one of the most important teachings of the Buddha, perhaps his best effort at explaining Nirvana before he died.
The sutra describes Buddha and Bodhisattva as having compassion for all beings as if their first born son. My experiments with unconditional love leading up to my reading this Sutra had led me to suspect that Nirvana was induced by some form of impersonal love, not attached to anyone yet all embracing. The sutra denounces attached love, and still emphasizes the importance (for instance) of loving-kindness throughout.
When Buddha came to the no self teaching, he claimed that while it was true, he had introduced the teaching to inhibit pride. Since the teaching had sunk in somewhat by the time of his authoring the sutra and things seemed yet incomplete with its adherents, he decided a new teaching was necessary to complete what no self had started: the Buddha Self inherent in all beings.
It is my opinion that no self is an authentic enlightenment teaching that only takes the practitioner part of the way, where they get stuck if they identify the teaching is complete. The enlightenment advantages of cutting off self reflection are considerable, but if pride remains, an ego remains -- and it is as large and problematic as that pride.
I suspect that when self reflection stops, most of the ego’s triggers are cut off and there is no verbal internal impulsive dialogue. I also suspect that a complex of emotional motivations persist, creating a subliminal instead of a verbal ego. This subliminal ego can be reprogrammed.
Thru self initiation and meditation, after a particular initiatory event wherein I dumped pride in favor of an unconditionally loving state of mind, after one try to silence the mind, I permanently turned off my impulsive internal dialogue. I had barely heard of no self, studying other, mostly Western, schools of enlightenment. I don't have to meditate to silence my mind. I haven't experienced a moment of sorrow or self doubt since this happened.
If it is not possible to telepathically interrogate Buddha to authenticate his version of enlightenment, building a Buddha Self is at first only going to go as far as "the best you can come up with". The most realistic list of qualifications that can actually exist in you, if you identify with them and don't question them at any level.
Because of impermanence, there is no abiding permanent self. My interpretation of this is that because everything is vibration, everything dies when the particles shift. Think about it. How is it possible to survive if instant to instant isn't even composed of the same particles?
If consciousness persists, someone could call it a self. So long as it was not confused with an abiding permanent self, no internal self reflection is motivated. Giving someone else the credit, the previous vibrational states all being separate individuals, doesn't trigger pride, humiliation, nor guilt.
The Buddha Self doesn't improve anything if confused with an abiding permanent self, thereby baiting self reflection.
“Buddha taught no-self incomplete, according to the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra”
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ArchangelIdiotis
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“Buddha taught no-self incomplete, according to the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra”
-Archangel Idiotis, leader of an ostrich cult.
Re: “Buddha taught no-self incomplete, according to the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra”
A Cup of Tea
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"
-One of the more fun Zen Koans.![[devil]](./images/smilies/Devil.png "Devil")
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"
-One of the more fun Zen Koans.
Re: “Buddha taught no-self incomplete, according to the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra”
There is a tree stump outside my window.
How many ways can I describe it? How many words can I use?
Do even I experience it fully? Let alone can I convey it...
If I described it nonstop for a year straight, could you paint a photo-accurate picture of it?
ALL description, is incomplete.
Even as I say "tree stump", you only have any impression of what I speak, because you have seen tree stumps yourself. You have a preexisting frame of reference, which my words evoke. Without that frame of reference, I may as well have described the drismaffinta outside the other window.
What's a drismaffinta you ask? Well, nothing particularly. Or anything. Words have meanings because of a social contract of agreed meaning. And this only works with any remote accuracy when the thing described is within a common-ground of experience and understanding. On top of that, it's a label, which is specifically designed to strip away nuance, and be reductive, not additive.
The problem the Buddha faces, is that they are faced with describing a drismaffinta to the uninitiated whom have no frame of reference. Using words, which by design only describe things with agreed upon meanings in the shared experience.
All of which is to say, that nothing a buddha *ever* writes, about an element of enlightenment, outside of the common ground, can truly be complete. That's just asking far too much of 'words'. So, I don't particularly fret over whether a document has 'completeness' when describing nigh infinite concepts.
--
That said... I had thoughts on the concept of inner dialogue which might be of interest (or not).
My own understandings are not 'explicitly' buddhist, daoist, or tantric (though there is quite a lot of overlap).
So while dogma X or Y may say to strike a board with a hammer, my process may instead be to strike the pointy end of a nail with a board. Leaving aside arguments about carpentry skill ego... the point is that completely different approaches can deal with the same fundamental result. (thus the many spokes of the wheel, yada yada)
It is my impression that the 'right approach', is merely a matter of what approach is most sensible to a person, from the place in which they are already standing. Are they already holding a nail and hammer? Are they holding a board? Are they an experienced administrator of financial resources whom might understand the mating of a nail to a board best through an economics model? Sure, one might be taught a whole series of steps to get to the precipice of the key bit, from the easy starting point of another. But that may not be (and is often not) the most direct or easiest route for that person to get the key point (nail pun intended).
But enough preface.
I was taught by my mentor (directly, and whom knows all of the myriad nuance of where I am standing to start with, and may be different from the sensibilities of where you stand yourself), that the inner dialogue is not "true thought".
Instead that raw thought, or true thought, is itself "raw conception" without any representative form (words, visuals, etc). That the bit we generally think of as the inner dialogue, whether it's a novel or a picture-book, is a secondary manifestation of true thought. That the inner dialogue is like a puppet-show which is produced by our ego, for viewing by our ego, and is (like words and labels) unavoidably reductive, and lacking in nuanced depth. My mentor regarded the internal dialogue as almost like self-masturbatory impulsiveness of the ego.
If we think "Oh, i need to pick up some milk from the store later", this takes about 2 seconds. But the raw conceptual idea occurred in something more like 2 milliseconds. Also the ego does it's little drama production in a sequential-linear fashion, one idea at a time, while the raw consciousness can juggle a dozen such raw thoughts simultaneously. On top of that, the verbal portrayal uses labels, while the original raw thought is interwoven with countless nuances of the ideas relationship with time, meaning, etc. One result of this, is that from just a bandwidth perspective, the inner dialogue is like a 2400 baud modem, compared to the raw mind's fiber optic connection. And worse still, the inner dialogue is warped by the wants & needs of the ego.
I think this is echoed elsewhere, like in psychology the idea that the conscious mind is the "tip of an iceberg". Except generally about 10% of ice floats above the water. While I think consciousness is more like 1%.
The 'emotional' nature of the preconscious mind is also an issue... or perhaps more accurately, it engenders both pros and cons. Emotions are ENORMOUSLY susceptible to influence, from within and from without both. Also, emotions are not always anchored well to truth, though sometimes they can be. But that's getting into a different patch of weeds.
There's a fundamental relationship between thought and emotion. Where emotion flows like a fluid current. Reason is more mechanistic... but the substance of raw conceptual thought is *made of* something akin to hardened bits of the same fluid. If emotion is the current of a river, thought is taking ice of the river, and fashioning a lever and fulcrum of it, and creating a momentary 'action' of abstract reason out of the same fundamental substance. I do not mean to suggest water or ice in any explicit manner here, but merely as a metaphor for the nature of the relationship between thought and emotion.
On a side note, this makes is much easier to 'perceive' an emotion than a thought. Because the emotion flows with substantial mass, and for a prolonged period, while a thought could be done with a small quantity of the 'stuff' of consciousness, and if you blink, you could miss the trick of the lever moving on the fulcrum. I do not think that the drama-stage of the internal dialogue is particularly comparable to true thought at this basic level though. Which is, I think, why a lot of "mind reading" analysis falls flat. It's focused on an internal drama about thought, but is itself warped, reductive, and not really a part of the uh... 'actuation' of thought. Put another way, I don't think the threads which link consciousness extend into the internal dialogue. It's a side-show, even though most of the world regards it as the whole of their cognitive selves, which is the infamous sea of samsara. A discomforting place, but not from without. Uncomfortable due to the warped realities of our internal psychodramas.
A simple approach to trying to make use of this concepts:
"Try to think as you do when you catch a ball. And explore your consciousness branching out from where that is. The mind when catching a ball must act too quickly to fuss with the internal dialogue. We often only understand that as hand-eye coordination, because that is the only thing which forces us to interface with it. But all of the thought of our consciousness forms in that layer of mind."
It's not far from an 'active' form of the meditative mind.
OR... this may all sound silly. It depends where you are and what makes sense to you, from where you are, and the myriad threads of reality and understanding within easy grasp of that point. Also, this is all made of words, and we've already covered what a clumsy and brute instrument I think that is. And I in no way intend this tidbit to be a complete thought, fully woven with other related and important understandings.
How many ways can I describe it? How many words can I use?
Do even I experience it fully? Let alone can I convey it...
If I described it nonstop for a year straight, could you paint a photo-accurate picture of it?
ALL description, is incomplete.
Even as I say "tree stump", you only have any impression of what I speak, because you have seen tree stumps yourself. You have a preexisting frame of reference, which my words evoke. Without that frame of reference, I may as well have described the drismaffinta outside the other window.
What's a drismaffinta you ask? Well, nothing particularly. Or anything. Words have meanings because of a social contract of agreed meaning. And this only works with any remote accuracy when the thing described is within a common-ground of experience and understanding. On top of that, it's a label, which is specifically designed to strip away nuance, and be reductive, not additive.
The problem the Buddha faces, is that they are faced with describing a drismaffinta to the uninitiated whom have no frame of reference. Using words, which by design only describe things with agreed upon meanings in the shared experience.
All of which is to say, that nothing a buddha *ever* writes, about an element of enlightenment, outside of the common ground, can truly be complete. That's just asking far too much of 'words'. So, I don't particularly fret over whether a document has 'completeness' when describing nigh infinite concepts.
--
That said... I had thoughts on the concept of inner dialogue which might be of interest (or not).
My own understandings are not 'explicitly' buddhist, daoist, or tantric (though there is quite a lot of overlap).
So while dogma X or Y may say to strike a board with a hammer, my process may instead be to strike the pointy end of a nail with a board. Leaving aside arguments about carpentry skill ego... the point is that completely different approaches can deal with the same fundamental result. (thus the many spokes of the wheel, yada yada)
It is my impression that the 'right approach', is merely a matter of what approach is most sensible to a person, from the place in which they are already standing. Are they already holding a nail and hammer? Are they holding a board? Are they an experienced administrator of financial resources whom might understand the mating of a nail to a board best through an economics model? Sure, one might be taught a whole series of steps to get to the precipice of the key bit, from the easy starting point of another. But that may not be (and is often not) the most direct or easiest route for that person to get the key point (nail pun intended).
But enough preface.
I was taught by my mentor (directly, and whom knows all of the myriad nuance of where I am standing to start with, and may be different from the sensibilities of where you stand yourself), that the inner dialogue is not "true thought".
Instead that raw thought, or true thought, is itself "raw conception" without any representative form (words, visuals, etc). That the bit we generally think of as the inner dialogue, whether it's a novel or a picture-book, is a secondary manifestation of true thought. That the inner dialogue is like a puppet-show which is produced by our ego, for viewing by our ego, and is (like words and labels) unavoidably reductive, and lacking in nuanced depth. My mentor regarded the internal dialogue as almost like self-masturbatory impulsiveness of the ego.
If we think "Oh, i need to pick up some milk from the store later", this takes about 2 seconds. But the raw conceptual idea occurred in something more like 2 milliseconds. Also the ego does it's little drama production in a sequential-linear fashion, one idea at a time, while the raw consciousness can juggle a dozen such raw thoughts simultaneously. On top of that, the verbal portrayal uses labels, while the original raw thought is interwoven with countless nuances of the ideas relationship with time, meaning, etc. One result of this, is that from just a bandwidth perspective, the inner dialogue is like a 2400 baud modem, compared to the raw mind's fiber optic connection. And worse still, the inner dialogue is warped by the wants & needs of the ego.
I think this is echoed elsewhere, like in psychology the idea that the conscious mind is the "tip of an iceberg". Except generally about 10% of ice floats above the water. While I think consciousness is more like 1%.
The 'emotional' nature of the preconscious mind is also an issue... or perhaps more accurately, it engenders both pros and cons. Emotions are ENORMOUSLY susceptible to influence, from within and from without both. Also, emotions are not always anchored well to truth, though sometimes they can be. But that's getting into a different patch of weeds.
There's a fundamental relationship between thought and emotion. Where emotion flows like a fluid current. Reason is more mechanistic... but the substance of raw conceptual thought is *made of* something akin to hardened bits of the same fluid. If emotion is the current of a river, thought is taking ice of the river, and fashioning a lever and fulcrum of it, and creating a momentary 'action' of abstract reason out of the same fundamental substance. I do not mean to suggest water or ice in any explicit manner here, but merely as a metaphor for the nature of the relationship between thought and emotion.
On a side note, this makes is much easier to 'perceive' an emotion than a thought. Because the emotion flows with substantial mass, and for a prolonged period, while a thought could be done with a small quantity of the 'stuff' of consciousness, and if you blink, you could miss the trick of the lever moving on the fulcrum. I do not think that the drama-stage of the internal dialogue is particularly comparable to true thought at this basic level though. Which is, I think, why a lot of "mind reading" analysis falls flat. It's focused on an internal drama about thought, but is itself warped, reductive, and not really a part of the uh... 'actuation' of thought. Put another way, I don't think the threads which link consciousness extend into the internal dialogue. It's a side-show, even though most of the world regards it as the whole of their cognitive selves, which is the infamous sea of samsara. A discomforting place, but not from without. Uncomfortable due to the warped realities of our internal psychodramas.
A simple approach to trying to make use of this concepts:
"Try to think as you do when you catch a ball. And explore your consciousness branching out from where that is. The mind when catching a ball must act too quickly to fuss with the internal dialogue. We often only understand that as hand-eye coordination, because that is the only thing which forces us to interface with it. But all of the thought of our consciousness forms in that layer of mind."
It's not far from an 'active' form of the meditative mind.
OR... this may all sound silly. It depends where you are and what makes sense to you, from where you are, and the myriad threads of reality and understanding within easy grasp of that point. Also, this is all made of words, and we've already covered what a clumsy and brute instrument I think that is. And I in no way intend this tidbit to be a complete thought, fully woven with other related and important understandings.
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ArchangelIdiotis
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- Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2022 6:24 am
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Re: “Buddha taught no-self incomplete, according to the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra”
I was watching some videos by one of the English translators of the Sutra mentioned in my first post. He was emphasizing the Sutra's Buddha Self teaching.
What he was describing sounded like the perspective some mystics have about God. Not the man in the clouds most people visualize when they think of the Bible, but perhaps a better representative of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic Book's original intended symbolic meanings: a consciousness that is everything because its heart and will embraces everything with the most pragmatic possible want. Realizing the Buddha Nature would be a matter of perfecting one's ability to manifest the Will and Actions of God.
I admit, I didn't get that kind of impression when I read the Sutra, and haven't encountered anything similar anywhere else within Buddhism.
Interestingly, Shakyamuni's lineage was reputedly that of the sun. The sun as a symbol to meditate on produces objectless, all-embracing, omnidirectional love, and could be claimed to provide the universe a heart and a symbolic consciousness.
In Genesis, Jacob receives the name Is Ra El (Is Ra if God, El is Hebrew for God) when he wrestled with a man alone until daybreak, when the sun rises. If he was alone, he wrestled with himself, and received selflessness in the spiritual essence of the sun. Jacob's son was in charge of all of Egypt except Pharaoh's own throne, the highest ranking authority in Egypt in those days was Pharaoh and Ra himself - the Pharaoh's were considered God.
Shakyamuni's only son was Rahula. Rearranged, the letters spell U R Alah. As if all heirs of the Buddha's wisdom are intended to be the Judeo-Christian and Islamic God. Notice Allah is constructed from the name of Ra.
What he was describing sounded like the perspective some mystics have about God. Not the man in the clouds most people visualize when they think of the Bible, but perhaps a better representative of the Judeo-Christian and Islamic Book's original intended symbolic meanings: a consciousness that is everything because its heart and will embraces everything with the most pragmatic possible want. Realizing the Buddha Nature would be a matter of perfecting one's ability to manifest the Will and Actions of God.
I admit, I didn't get that kind of impression when I read the Sutra, and haven't encountered anything similar anywhere else within Buddhism.
Interestingly, Shakyamuni's lineage was reputedly that of the sun. The sun as a symbol to meditate on produces objectless, all-embracing, omnidirectional love, and could be claimed to provide the universe a heart and a symbolic consciousness.
In Genesis, Jacob receives the name Is Ra El (Is Ra if God, El is Hebrew for God) when he wrestled with a man alone until daybreak, when the sun rises. If he was alone, he wrestled with himself, and received selflessness in the spiritual essence of the sun. Jacob's son was in charge of all of Egypt except Pharaoh's own throne, the highest ranking authority in Egypt in those days was Pharaoh and Ra himself - the Pharaoh's were considered God.
Shakyamuni's only son was Rahula. Rearranged, the letters spell U R Alah. As if all heirs of the Buddha's wisdom are intended to be the Judeo-Christian and Islamic God. Notice Allah is constructed from the name of Ra.
-Archangel Idiotis, leader of an ostrich cult.
Re: “Buddha taught no-self incomplete, according to the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra”
The qualifications for enlightenment include rising beyond and transforming the personality.ArchangelIdiotis wrote: ↑Thu Jun 29, 2023 3:27 am... Nirvana was induced by some form of impersonal love, not attached to anyone yet all embracing. ...
If consciousness persists, someone could call it a self. So long as it was not confused with an abiding permanent self, ...
Latin: Persona = mask
The spirit experiencing consciousness progressively refines its vehicles - discarding dense substance/energy and moving its consciousness to more subtle vehicles.
Consciousness is regarded as available at the intersection of matter and spirit - e.g. a brain
Awareness does not need such an interface.
So there is a process of growing out of lesser selves and identifying with yet more profound selves
At third stage enlightenment, the human initiate passes out of the human kingdom - retaining the human format as convenient
The initiate progressively perceives itself as an anchoring of Light from before the universe occurred
The initiate understands itself as a finger tip of a vast transcendental Entity.