Dependent origination

Originally Posted by jonesboy

I did not say the aggregates make up a self, so you are not understanding what I am saying or what the Buddha is saying.



As I said earlier your emotions are not separate from you. They are not permanent and are therefore not a true self.

Next.

I’m not going to do your work anymore.

You know what you said and so does Gem and anyone who reads this thread.

Jonesboy:

You are the anger
The anger is you
It is all you
The teachings do not say you are not your feelings, your body etc.
Incorrectly arguing The Buddha said the five aggregates is what you are (misquoting the Buddha)

The consistent dishonesty, twisting of words, misrepresentation and corruption of the most basic of Buddhist principles is astounding, except of course it’s just another day with you...

JL

Originally Posted by Gem

That seems strande considering the numerous suttas where He says "not myself"

Read it again Gem, in my post above, he’s leading you down the wrong path. http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/sh...&postcount=380

It’s a play on the words to skew the meaning.

Originally Posted by Gem

First you say the aggregates are what you are, then contradict that by saying that can't be a self because they are not permanent. Such a direct contradiction isn't understandable at all

It’s what happens in witness stands, you can tell through the inconsistency that there is something going on,

Originally Posted by Gem

Merely saying that not self, not myself, not mine predominates Buddhist teachings.

Yes, it’s fundamental and like the ABC of the English alphabet

As Thich Nhat Hanh said it’s one of the 3 Dharma seals and a good initial sniff test for whether that teaching is a genuine Buddhist teaching or not.

Jl

Originally Posted by Gem

There are also other suttas where these teachings are said, so it isn't just an aside within Buddhist philosophy. The Alagaddupama Sutta says the same thing in more detail. The Samanupassana Sutta, also, as well as the Khemaka Sutta... and several other instances... so the base premise is the error when the thought I am this and I am not that renders some notion of self theory.


Hence in the meditation, one observes the feeling, the thought, as it is in itself, not as I am that or not that per se as an a right or wrong answer, but discerning if in fact there is self nature there, and when the self referential thought ceases altogether, the primal distress that arises from me, my, mine, and I ends.

Yep, 100%

The example we are looking at is what happens when one learns the theory and develops a god complex.

Chogyam Trungpa apparently talked about people like that.

Not practicing it will inevitably lead down this path,

Jl

Originally Posted by sentient

Pure Awareness itself being vast, empty, open, space-like and not having form, substance, content, self-nature ….. and yet it is lucid, awake, beyond duality and unobstructed by conceptual overlays…….
I’d call this the ‘spatial dimension’.

It seems to me that Anatta teachings are the pointers that lead to the experience, the realization of Shunyata.


But when we ignore the ‘spatial dimension’ altogether and just focus on the 'form dimension' - after a while this becomes our default mode …… and there we have it. A separate self-identity - Ego is born.


To me the skandhas/aggregates are like a DIY - project.
How to build a separate self - ego with seemingly solid, seemingly permanent and impenetrable walls - in 5 easy steps.

https://www.beezone.com/Trungpa/fiveskandas.html


Teachings and Meditation starts to reverse this process ….

*

Yep............

[sentient]

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

we arrive

we find that

we is there

I know – I know … a figure of speech ….

It is that paradox.

Kalu Rinpoche

We exist because we do not ….

Originally Posted by Phaelyn

If somebody insult's you, and you don't feel anything negative towards them, you are egoless
- they might even say nobody is home in you
but you are more there than somebody who automatically gets mad

The art of attaining teflon-like-'ness'

*

[sentient]

Originally Posted by janielee

Yep............

Good when we can agree

*

Originally Posted by sentient

We exist because we do not ….


The art of attaining teflon-like-'ness'

*

I remember being enarmoured with that wink wink nudge nudge but what an obvious, in some ways boring, secret?

The reality is that most people who think they’re Teflon run away and no reaction at times, easy, a smile in a fight, child’s play.

There are few on this forum who are genuinely empty, but there sure is a lot of shoulder slapping. Perhaps I’ve been around spiritual circles for too long. Imo.

Jl

[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by janielee

I’m not going to do your work anymore.

You know what you said and so does Gem and anyone who reads this thread.

Jonesboy:

You are the anger
The anger is you
It is all you
The teachings do not say you are not your feelings, your body etc.
Incorrectly arguing The Buddha said the five aggregates is what you are (misquoting the Buddha)

The consistent dishonesty, twisting of words, misrepresentation and corruption of the most basic of Buddhist principles is astounding, except of course it’s just another day with you...

JL

Yes, you are that anger, that anger is a result of your attachments. Clear the attachments and that same energy (awareness) transforms.

Clarity and anger are not separate things. One is just filled with attachments.

Think of it like water. You can have dirty water (attachments) but if you filter them (remove the attachments) it becomes pristine (clarity).

I think you just want to disagree with everything I say so much that it clouds your judgement.

[jonesboy]

Originally Posted by janielee

The third misinterpretation is similar to the first, but it introduces the idea that a self, to be a true self, has to be permanent. According to this interpretation, the Buddha is affirming that the five aggregates are what you are, but these five aggregates don't really qualify to be called a self because they aren't permanent.

Do you not understand that this is saying according to this (mis)interpretation, the five aggregates are what you are.

You either don’t understand English, or have some pathological approach to truth telling.

I’m convinced after multiple discussions with you that you cannot accept or ever admit that you are wrong, even when the truth is in plain sight. Deflection, denial, twisting words and facts to fit an agenda.

Ergo, if you can’t even be honest, no wonder you don’t understand Buddhist teachings, and cannot penetrate the truth of them.

Energy? Pff. So basic,

Jl

So now you have to attack the interpreter?

Here is some more in much simpler terms.

The Five Aggregates
A Study Guide
by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu

One of the new concepts most central to his teaching was that of the khandhas, usually translated into English as "aggregates."

The most common response to these questions is best exemplified by two recent scholarly books devoted to the subject. Both treat the khandhas as the Buddha's answer to the question, "What is a person?" To quote from the jacket of the first:

"If Buddhism denies a permanent self, how does it perceive identity?… What we conventionally call a 'person' can be understood in terms of five aggregates, the sum of which must not be taken for a permanent entity, since beings are nothing but an amalgam of ever-changing phenomena… [W]ithout a thorough understanding of the five aggregates, we cannot grasp the liberation process at work within the individual, who is, after all, simply an amalgam of the five aggregates."

From the introduction of the other:

"The third key teaching is given by the Buddha in contexts when he is asked about individual identity: when people want to know 'what am I?', 'what is my real self?'. The Buddha says that individuality should be understood in terms of a combination of phenomena which appear to form the physical and mental continuum of an individual life. In such contexts, the human being is analysed into five constituents — the pañcakkhandhā [five aggregates]."

This understanding of the khandhas isn't confined to scholars. Almost any modern Buddhist meditation teacher would explain the khandhas in a similar way. And it isn't a modern innovation. It was first proposed at the beginning of the common era in the commentaries to the early Buddhist canons — both the Theravādin and the Sarvāstivādin, which formed the basis for Mahāyāna scholasticism.

[jonesboy]

[quote=Gem]

Originally Posted by jonesboy

Not a self that makes up a permanent being or a permanent aspect.

Why? Because the aggregates are not permanent.. but nowhere does it say that is not an aspect of you. As a matter of fact he says exactly that.


Well I did quote the exact words whch were "not self" and "not myself"


That seems strande considering the numerous suttas where He says "not myself"

Not at all. People attach to anger, to sensations and because of that attachment they think of themselves as a person, a Gem. That those feelings make up a personality.

All those things are impermanent and are not in the truest sense what you really are. It is the clarity underneath the attachments, that every changing flow that is you, not the attachments.

So the not-myself he is saying the attachments are not your true self, more of an ego being. There is no ego-being. He is saying go deeper. Hence the entire Buddhist practices of working on moving beyond the attachments.

Think of the dirty water in the post above.

First you say the aggregates are what you are, then contradict that by saying that can't be a self because they are not permanent. Such a direct contradiction isn't understandable at all, but I'm not here to quabble over self theories. Merely saying that not self, not myself, not mine predominates Buddhist teachings. If people want to have the impression that they are the feelings and so forth, then that's their self theory, and the teachings on not-self are not not like an answer that says I'm a self but not the things. It's basically an attitude in mere observation, "this is body/mind", sans self-referential thoughts such as "I am" "this is mine" "this is myself". That's what I consider to be the the underlying understanding of the thing.

In the Buddha's time what was the teachings?

There was Brahma.

Think of Brahma as a big circle. Everything that is, is within this big circle which we could also call Universal Mind.

Some schools believed in the end of suffering and the goal was cessation. Others believed that all there was, was Brahma and that we are just aspects of this One being finding it's way back to himself. Later, you have schools that believe you can be one Like Brahma, not fully Brahma but like him. Still a subset of Brahma.

Within all of that was the belief of the Atman.

Ātman, sometimes spelled without a diacritic as atman in scholarly literature,[11] means "real self" of the individual,[1][10] "innermost essence",[12] and soul.[1][13] Atman, in Hinduism, is considered as eternal, imperishable, beyond time, "not the same as body or mind or consciousness, but is something beyond which permeates all these"

The Not-Self of the Buddha is to refute all of this. That there is no "real self" that there is no "innermost essence or soul". Why? Because it is all impermanent, emptiness.

Beyond that the Buddha pointed out the limitation of Brahma. Not just that we are subsets of Brahma or even the realization of Universal Mind equal to Brahma is still not the realization of a Buddha. As Universal Mind is still a limitation. Emptiness of Universal Mind is what the Buddha realized.

Yet, there is no duality.

There is no duality!!

All that you perceive because there is no duality can't be separate from you. Yet, that doesn't mean it is what makes up a permanent essence or soul.