18.2.12.1 Wisdom and Knowledge Series, post #18. Buddhism, post #13.1: CONTINUATION OF My view of anatta. By samsarictravelling/Ai (Dinh) Le.

Wisdom and Knowledge Series, post #18. Buddhism, post #13.1 (18.2.12.1):

The below post is at Dhamma Wheel message board ( https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=33509 ):

Dan74-MkII wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 31, 2019 2:02 pm

Hi Samsarictravelling

Could you share how your anatta beliefs inform or help your practice?

_/|\_
Dan

Okay, I'm not getting paid for this, but hopefully I will get something back in the future for this.

May what I say benefit my family members and myself with worldly prosperity, worldly happiness, and spiritual growth and happiness.

Here goes:

Here I go explaining anatta:

All conditioned things are impermanent, changing (anicca).

What is anicca, that is dukkha. How is that? For example, when some family member passes away, suffering (dukkha) results.

What is dukkha, that is anatta. Why? Dukkha results because you have no control over it. If your atman (soul) was in control, dukkha could not be the result.

Side note: Also because things are anicca, there is anatta. Anicca means everything is conditional, due to cause and effect. And if everything is conditional, due to cause and effect, there can be no such thing as the atman as the Hindus believed. What is the atman belief of the Hindus? The Hindus believed in an unchanging, permanent soul (atman) that resides in a person. If everything is changing (anicca) according to Theravada Buddhism, there can be no element in existence that could exist as an unchanging, permanent soul (atman) like the Hindus believed.

'What is anatta, one should see it as it really is, with correct wisdom thus: This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.' Why? If something is anatta -- it includes the idea of anicca (impermanence) -- then you could see it as mine for now, but not mine forever; I may be this way now (I am), but I may become a different personality later;this is definitely not the self/soul (atman) that the Hindus believed, because you cannot control a suffering aspect when it arises, and a second reason as well, that it is anicca (See side note above). What does it mean 'you cannot control a suffering aspect when it arises'? Because what is dukkha, that is anatta (mentioned above already, but now I will explain more). Dukkha means that aspect is not atman. If that aspect were atman, dukkha could not arise for that aspect. Why? Atman means an unchanging, permanent, soul, that is in control. If atman existed for that aspect, there would be control over the aspect, power over the aspect, and that means when one has absoulute control over an aspect, one would will it to not cause suffering, right? Who, if they can, would allow suffering to arise? If you had an unchanging, permanent soul that was in control, you would not allow dukkha to arise. But according to Theravada Buddhism, because there exists the experience of suffering, there is no atman, at least in that aspect where you are suffering. Theravada Buddhism (or maybe Buddhism in general???) would go on to say everything can be seen as dukkha, so everything is anatta...

There is a self in the mundane sense. So I exist as Ai Le (or 'samsarictravelling' is another name I am known as). But in the ultimate sense, there is no self because there is no unchanging, permanent soul (atman) that resides in a person, as the Hindus believe. According to what I believe: there is a changing self that goes from one life to the next, but this self has no unchanging, permanent soul/essence (atman) like the Hindus believe. Again: this self that goes from one existence to another is changing, and like I said, is not an unchanging, permanent atman like the Hindus believe.

This unchanging, permanent atman of the Hindus is the same type of soul the Christians believe in, do you think so?

samsarictravelling

17.2.12 Wisdom and Knowledge Series, post #17. Buddhism, post #13: My view of anatta. By samsarictravelling/Ai (Dinh) Le.

Wisdom and Knowledge Series, post #17. Buddhism, post #13 (17.2.12):

I posted the below post at Dhamma Wheel message board ( https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=33509 ):

I guess what I write below is my view of what anatta means basically to me. I say "guess" because I am not pondering how much truth in what I write "spontaneously" as what I actually believe -- it actually may be what I might really believe, but cannot truthfully say for sure:

If you go to my http://facebook.com/aidinhle , you will see Thanissaro Bhikkhu has the middle prominent position in my banner.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu has helped me gain a self-powered life through his translation of the Majjhima Nikaya 61 ( https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.061.than.html ), and his discriminating (analytical) teachings helped me, too, so I am paying my gratitude to him in putting his image in my banner. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, though, I do not follow.

My name samsarictravelling, I will now explain what it means.

If I called myself samsarictraveller, it would sound better, but does not convey the idea there is no self.

In the Visuddhimagga, it is said something like this:

Suffering, but no sufferer.

Actions, but no doer.

Nibbana, but no one who enters it.

The path, but no one on it is seen.

So, likewise: no traveller, just travelling.

I do not believe in an unchanging soul (atman), like the Hindus believe.

All dhammas -- dhammas encompasses all the conditioned (samsara) and the only one Unconditioned thing: nibbana -- are anatta;not-self;without a soul/Soul.

samsarictravelling/Ai (Dinh) Le

16.2.11 Wisdom and Knowledge Series, post #16. Buddhism, post #12: Difference between the Kalama Sutta in Pali Canon and its Chinese parallel.

Wisdom and Knowledge Series, post #16. Buddhism, post #12 (16.2.11):

I originally posted this at the Dhamma Wheel message board ( https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=33475&start=15 ):

I actually found on the internet at this Wisdom Publications website (is it a real Wisdom Publications website, or not?) that they have the Introduction to The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha (Anguttara Nikaya English translation by Bhikkhu Bodhi) online, and it does include the passage about the Kalama Sutta and its Chinese parallel. It is found almost to the bottom of the webpage:

INTRODUCTION

...

The Chinese Parallels

...

An intriguing divergence between the two traditions occurs in a discourse widely known as the Kālāma Sutta, which records the Buddha’s advice to the people of Kesaputta. In contemporary Buddhist circles it has become almost de rigueur to regard the Kālāma Sutta as the essential Buddhist text, almost equal in importance to the discourse on the four noble truths. The sutta is held up as proof that the Buddha anticipated Western empiricism, free inquiry, and the scientific method, that he endorsed the personal determination of truth. Though until the late nineteenth century this sutta was just one small hill in the mountain range of the Nikāyas, since the start of the twentieth century it has become one of the most commonly quoted Buddhist texts, offered as the key to convince those with modernist leanings that the Buddha was their forerunner. However, the Chinese parallel to the Kālāma Sutta, MĀ 16 (at T I 438b13‒439c22), is quite different. Here the Buddha does not ask the Kālāmas to resolve their doubts by judging matters for themselves. Instead, he advises them not to give rise to doubt and perpexity at all. He tells them point blank: “You yourselves do not have pure wisdom with which to know whether there is an afterlife or not. You yourselves do not have pure wisdom to know which deeds are transgressions and which are not transgressions.” He then explains to them the three unwholesome roots of kamma, how they lead to moral transgressions, and the ten courses of wholesome kamma.

SOURCE: https://www.wisdompubs.org/book/numerical-discourses-buddha/introduction

samsarictravelling