Sat, Chit, Ananda - reply to Sri Sankarraman (reply to Yogendra Bikkhu)

[Guest guest]

Namaste dear sir Yogendra Bikkhu Yogi,

 

For what I have written I shall be responsible. I never run away

from my responsibilities so I am indebted to respond to you openly

on the list. I really do not think that this will disturb the other

members, rather it serves as an exchange of ideas that may be read

by anyone else if it is done in the list. So I am forwarding my

response to your criticisms about what I wrote. You wrote:

> 1. I donot think Sankara/Advaita makes the statement: 'Self is

ever-existing'. Our understanding of existence is conditioned by our

knowledge or perception of material and mental existence. We cannot

fathom the truth revealed by the Upanishads and cannot understand

the nature of Brahman since it is beyond the horizon of our

experience. Thus words such as 'ever-existing' donot apply.

Existence and non-existence are terms that donot apply to Brahman.

This is my opinion and in the last few emails of this thread, this

is the very thing that I have tried to ascertain. Are you telling me

that Advaita itself deviates from this position in several places -

that it is inconsistent as a philosphy?

 

my reply: Not at all. No.

 

Or are you telling me that I have misunderstood your statement?

 

my reply: When I declare that the Self is ever-existing, I am

saying that it is everywhere, and also all through time. So it would

be better to say that this statement does not apply. It all depends

on from where you look at it. I made a statement regarding time and

space, which are, to the Self, in my still immature understanding,

irrelevant. So it is better to say that no concept applies.

 

Or is it the case that I don't understand Sankara's position on the

question of the 'existence' of Brahman. Or is it that Sri

Sankarraman and several others on this list who have confirmed my

understanding are incorrectly

> representing Advaita?

 

my reply: If you have read my previous messages posted on this

list you have noticed that I affirmed some two or three times that I

was for 8 years a Buddhist. So Sri Sankarraman and others are way

much better than me to expose Advaita. In fact I read every one of

their messages with attention and respect. So please do not consider

me as representative of Advaita. I´m just a seeker of Truth. Others

such as Sri Sankarraman, Sri Subrahmanian and Prof. JK, Greg and

Harsha are way better than me to explain Advaita Vedanta to you. In

fact I am here to learn, not to teach. Although I have a Guru and

have had several very interesting experiences, including the

recalling of previous births and some others, I do not claim to have

reached self-realization so please do not put me in this position.

 

you wrote also:

> 2. It is but hard to understand how you presume to understand the

Buddha better than his own disciples living in those days? Yet it is

possibleif your kamma is better than theirs. Still, let me point out

the following to you.

 

I was in the 13th century a.D. a disciple of the Buddha myself,

Tibetan. So I have some familiarity with his teaching although much

has been forgotten. But I was a monk and I remember clearly many

things. My connection which Tibetan Buddhism goes back to this

lifetime in Tibet which I, due to the grace of my Guru, remember

clearly. I was a nyingmapa, studied His teachings since childhood.

Still, I did not claim that I understand him better than anyone. It

is your assumption that I claim to understand his teachings better

than others. I did not make any such claim. So please do not put me

in this unjust position because I did not claim to understand his

teachings. What I understand is that he exposed the 4 noble truths,

the eightfold path and also praised virtue and exposed teachings

about the 5 skandhas or aggregates and the unreality of them. My

problem is when he says "consciousness is unreal". This is my only

problem with his doctrine. I have, in this lifetime here in Brazil,

taken the triple refuge from noone lesser than Venerable Bikkhu

Puhulwelle Vipassi, who resides part of the year here and is the

president of the Brazilian Buddhist Society as well as many other

international societies of Buddhism. I have sat near him and

meditated with him several times, all the times I did this I felt

incredibly ´high´ and joyous after the experience. I highly esteem

and respect Ven. Vipassi. Further I have also taken the Bodhisattva

vow with noone less than Jigme Tulku Rinpoche, whom I highly esteem;

I have taken some tantric empowerments, one from himself, and heard

him expose the Dharma of the Buddha for eight consecutive hours,

delighted for such a clear exposition. More recently I have heard

for three days a very respected Bikkhuni (I will not write her name

here) from the Tibetan tradition, but I was very confused about the

way she was exposing the Dharma. Furthermore, every 15 days I sit

and meditate 1 hour with my Guru. But please do not put me into a

position I did not claim to myself, that is, of understanding the

Buddha´s teachings better than anyone. Wisdom tells me never to do

this. I only exposed my understanding, however incorrect, of his

teachings as I have been hearing from all these Dharma teachers.

Still what I have exposed represents MY UNDERSTANDING and is

therefore much inferior, probably, to anyone else´s understanding.

> a. Gautama the Buddha never denied the Self and it's permanence or

non-permanence. It is clear that you are unaware of his position. In

the Brahmajala Sutta, the Buddha explains all the different views

regarding the Self that he does not endorse. The Buddha endorses

none of the views existing in those days or later. He in fact,

rejects all views. But the point to be noted is that he does not

make any statement of his own on the self either, except that we

incorrectly perceive it as the material and the mental phenomena.

 

my reply: He also stated that the fifth skandha, namely

Consciousness, is empty of existence. Had he stopped in the fourth

skandha, denying it as non-self, I would wholly agree with him. But

he goes on to say that Consciousness is unreal and empty and false.

So this puzzles me. If you can clarify this to me, it would be of

great benefit.

 

you wrote:

 

Accordingly, we have ego. This ego is the cause of misery and once

this ego is eradicated, on the basis of wisdom and right view, all

misery is ended - Nibbana. Thus the Buddha did not deny the self or

anything, he only said what is not the self - the body, the

feelings, the perceptions, the fabrications and consciousness.

 

my reply: yes, indeed, this is also my understanding. you are not

telling me anything new. how can consciousness be non-self? what is

self then? the answer is, sunya or void. but what is this void? is

it not the nature of consciousness? what exactly did he mean

by "consciousness"? if he meant "self-consciousness" i would agree

with him. but it seems he meant "awareness". if you can clarify this

also, it would be of great value.

 

then, you wrote:

> b. I did not understand how one could say that "he rendered the

truth in a

> different form, denying the Self and its permanence.". First of

all, this statement of yours assumes that the permanent existence of

the Self [as stated by you] is the truth. Second, it assumes that

your representation of the truth is the best. Third, you think that

the people of those times in India were very immature to

misunderstand the truth and that people like you [and if you like

me, you would include me too ] can understand it better. Fourth,

you are saying that denying the Self is a way of affirming the Self

[which according to you is the truth]. I shall not argue with you on

this, but shall just point out the weaknesses of your statements.

 

my reply: 1)I did not affirm that the permanent existence of the

Self is the truth, 2)I did not affirm that my representation of

truth is the best, 3) I do not think that people "of those times" in

India were less capable of understanding him, I just exposed an

OPINION, WHICH IS NOT TO BE TAKEN AS AUTHORITATIVE STATEMENT. If I

was a Buddhist authority or teacher you could have blamed for what

you have erroneously assumed about my statements. My statements are

only my own view and do not "assume" anything which is not written

in these statements. So please do not put *your* interpretation of

my statements as *my statements* because you are interpreting me

wrongly. Still, I admit that due to the possibility that someone

interprets me wrongly, I shall not make any more statements about

*my understanding* of Buddhism on this list, since I will then be

prosecuted by you as having implied or said things which I did not

imply nor say.

> 3. "Gautama saw that many people were losing interest in Samadhi",

but then why did he have to teach other very important things. The

Buddha's teachings are not confined to Samadhi and meditation as you

might believe. The Buddha has very much talked of panna (Prajna) or

wisdom. He has also talked of Samadhi and has left us a suite of

meditative techniques to choose from and to practise to learn a lot

from . Besides these, he also gives a lot of similies to explain how

these techniques function. He also gives a very detailed description

of what actually happens in these meditative techniques and in

samsara per se. Most important of all the Buddha's stress on morals,

virtue, ethics has been totally disregarded here. For your

information, a third of the Pali literature of the Buddha's

teachings are about morals. His emphasis on viraga (dispassion) has

been forgotten by you, wherein he says that dispassion is the tool

used to get Prajna, but even dispassion is only a phenomenon

> and hence the completely enlightened one has neither passion nor

dispassion.

 

my reply: dear sir, I am well aware that the Buddha stresses

morals and virtues. In fact had you read my previous postings to

this list you would have read that I think that "the philosophy is

very interesting (...) regarding (...) and virtue." Not to mention

the northern school, with the 6 Paramitas and the Bodhisattva goal.

This is what made me a Buddhist. And I am well aware that one third

of the Pali Canon is on morals and correct conduct. I think it is

called Vinaya Pittaka , please check if this is correct. So you see

my understanding and my reading of the Suttas and Sutras is not

little, as you have wrongly presumed.

> 4. "So Gautama emphasized the change in everything, and the

substratum of samsara -- which is to say, the character of ordinary

states of consciousness which is suffering, and pointed out nirvana,

which is bliss." This is correct. Yet this is not all. One needs to

spend time to read the Buddha's teachings to understand him better.

Please try to read about it before speculating. Please don't mind

this, but I am rather disappointed that people are ready to form

opinions about another philosophy without even giving it a good

reading.

 

my reply: I have already read a lot, believe me. But still I

cannot see how Consciousness is empty and unreal. To say that

consciousness is empty of selfhood is okay, but to say that it is

non-self is a little too much for me, because without consciousness

there can be no voidness to be experienced.

> 5. "So He formulated these 4 noble truths as they are called, but

they were then interpreted to mean a different thing, so Buddhists

began quarreling with each other and several schools emerged.". What

according to you is the meaning of the four noble truths, which the

Buddha intended to teach. What according to you is the meaning the

Buddhists today have conjured up? Isn't it a little pretentious to

assume that you understand the Buddha much better 2500 years after

his death than people at his time. What proof or evidence do you

have for that?

 

my reply: I did not say that I understand his teachings better

than anyone, I repeat.

> 6.

> a. According to the Buddha, since you say 'It is my personal

experience that only in rare moments I experience that Bliss that I

know to be my own nature', by virtue of the word 'my', 'I'

and 'own', you have no idea of Nibbana. In Nibbana, there is no

concept of 'I' or 'my' or 'mine'. I think in what I have understood

about Vedanta it is the case with Moksha as well. Correct me please

if I am wrong. Besides, according to the Buddha, the experience of

Nibbana is not something that we 'experience' and come out of. There

is no place called Nibbana or thing or experience. Nibbana is beyond

description or classification.

 

my reply: Samadhi is not Nirvana, you can say. I can agree with

you on that. Nirvikalpa Samadhi cannot be equated to Nirvana -- I

wrote wrongly on this, so I admit this here. The concept of "mine"

and "me" is an illusion, as you have stressed. By "my own nature" I

mean "the real nature of the mind-body apparatus called Frederico".

In denying selfhood, I am totally with you. There is no ego or self,

there is nothing which is particularly "me" or "mine". I did not

claim to have attained Nibbana or Nirvana.

 

you wrote:

> b. According to the Buddha as long as the passion for 'my own

nature' remains, you will keep searching for it. You like and love

yourself. You want yourself to be asserted (or denied in case you

beleive otherwise). Neither a search for the self nor an attempt to

prove it's non-existence will help in the noble path. The Buddha

says that one will wander in all the wrong directions, and will

waste his time without cultivating the primary quality of viraga

[dispassion] due to which this passion of 'my own nature' and

questions of 'Do I exist?' 'Who am I?' etc. will vanish and in it's

place will be questions like 'What is the worth of clinging to the

body or mind or consciousness? Let me let go of it and live in

peace.' It is questions of the latter type that will lead one to

enlightenment according to the Buddha.

 

my reply: Yes, you are completely correct. I shall focus on the

latter type of questions to be more dispassioned. You are right and

thank you for this bright exposition.

 

> If you have any further doubts about this, kindly write to me

directly, so that we may not disturb the others on the group.

>

> -Bhikku Yogi

 

my reply: I do not think this will bother members of the group. I

appreciate your clarification of Viraga and I would like you to

clarify also the emptiness of Consciousness, what it means exactly?

If you will. Thanks for the exchange of ideas.

 

best wishes,

fred