Importance and uniqueness of Buddhist Path

[Guest guest]

Hello All,

Yes I do think that the Jiva is a psycho-physical entity. I or more

importantly Vedanta does not identify the Jiva and the Self, there is the

field and the knower of the field. The Jiva is the specific locus of

liberation but the liberated soul does not identify his 'forensic' identity

(finger-prints, dna etc.) with his absolute identity. But all are not freed

when one is freed. He must persuade others that there are no boundries in

sat cit ananda.

 

Identity is experienced as a reality and is demonstrated in perception and

memory. Yet how does a series of conscious states become conscious of

itself as a series? It is the answer to this fundamental question that

makes us little vedantins or Buddhists or whatever you're having yourself.

The inquiring mind will be led to ask 'but what is a conscious state

anyway?'.

 

What is it that is primative in the sense of initially given or immediately

felt. This immediate or non-mediated reality is important. What you call

this state can give rise to a certain bias in thinking. If you think of it

as a conscious state then you may find yourself marooned on the mental side

of the world viewing consciousness as the link to reality. This is the

classic Idealist (Buddhist) position.

 

If however you hold that this position is not a primative one but the

result of an analysis then you may speak of the basic given as a state of

awareness. Inner linked to outer is as it were parasitic on this

'suchness'. This is the reason that Sankara dismisses Vijnanavada in B.S.B.

II.ii.28.

 

This primative given is difficult to speak of. Sartre wrote about the

pre-reflective cogito i.e. that state before there is a split into 'I',

'think', 'I am'. There is just a fulness of self-awareness. He also spoke

of non-thetic (self) awareness, before there is a split into subject and

object. Previously on the list Sri Nair drew our attention to those states

of absorption in music and Sri Dwaite quoted Eliot 'You are the music while

the music lasts' (from The Four Quartets).

 

Now here's the odd thing. This state is part of the stock in trade of

Buddhist practice, I'm thinking of Vipassana and Zen, but it's only on the

rational side that they start from a stage beyond this, attained by

analysis, taking it to be primative.

 

What is Sankara's position on this? I think that it is most cogently

expressed in Upadesa Sahasri paras 74/75 where the disciple doubts the

changeless nature of the Self which 'consists of consciousness' and yet all

the mental modifications <<our conscious experience>> are constantly

changing.

Ð#75. The teacher said to him,"your doubt is not justifiable, for you,

the Self, are proved to be free from change, and therefore perpetually

the same on the ground that all the modifications of the mind are

(simultaneously) known by you. You regard this knowledge of all the

modifications which is the reason for the above inference as that for

your doubt. If you were changeful like the mind or the senses (which

pervade their objects one after another), you would not simultaneously

know all the mental modifications, the objects of your knowledge. Nor

are you aware of a portion only of the objects of your knowledge (at a

time). You are, therefore, absolutely changeless."

 

This is basic primative knowledge/awareness. Typically the disciple moves

to the analysed stage beyond this to make the point that knowledge in the

sense of action is an extraction from the raw material. Action with its

implication of change is thereby involved. The Teacher denies this saying

that this is an application of the word 'knowledge' only in a secondary

sense. I take this to mean that the root source of 'knowledge' is the

immediate, self-luminous state.

 

Looking at Neti,neti Brh.II.iii.6 and the commentary by Sankara we find him

briskly dismissing the opposition (the spin, the spin) including a

Yogacarin. "Now we (the scriptures) shall describe the form of that 'being'

indentified with the organs i.e. the subtle body. It consists of

impressions, and is produced by the impressions of gross and subtle objects

and the union of the individual self; it is variagated like pictures on a

canvas or wall, is comparable to an illusion, or magic, or a mirage, and is

puzzling to all. For instance the Buddhistic Idealists (Yogacaras) are

mistaken into thinking that the self is this much only."

 

This is I suppose a reference to the no-self theory (anatman) and it comes

from dwelling on the analysed side of basic awareness i.e.the mental. On

that side you can experience only the flux and looking for a self on the

analogy of an inner subject looking at his inner objects, you will not find

it. The advaitin finds that the primary source of consciousness/awareness

from this itch to samadhi is replete with self. As this basic state has not

been thought about (the face you had before you were born as in the Zen

koan) or trifled with he takes it for an absolute. Would that perhaps be

called sahaj samadhi?

 

Having the primary sense of self (through 'suchness') the advaitin in the

course of atma vichara will be able to declare; 'neti, neti' and use it as a

way of return to that which he never left.

 

There's high rollin' no limits metaphysics for you. Speaking of which I

may be using the term in a more inclusive sense than you. In my adventures

trawling the net I turned up course notes of a Dr.Christian Perring

(American ...uky.edu ?) on The Metaphysics of Persons in which identity is

discussed along with neorological conditions, brain bisection and you will

be glad to hear 'Buddhist conceptions of "no-self" and nirvana'. The text

mentioned is 'The Buddhist Theory of no-self' by Serge-Christopher Kolm.

(C.U.P. '85) No antidote of a capsule of Sankara offered.

Best Wishes, Ciao and Blessings, Michael

 

 

 

 

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