Q: Do you agree with the Theravada view that we cannot find anything which is permanent or which exists forever?
A: It is true that in this wide world of composite things there is nothing permanent which exists forever. It is basically, samsara. On the other hand, our Buddha-nature, as with nirvana, is incomposite and unborn. This nature is beyond temporality which means it is eternal. It is also beyond the Five Aggregates of material shape, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness.
Q: It always sounds to me that Theravada Buddhism, by saying the Buddha denied the self, is really advocating a form of annihilationism. Do you agree?
A: Any Buddhist is an annihilationist, or the same, a materialist, who believes that there is no postmortem survival, in addition, to believing there is no self. Bear in mind, that we are not the sum of our body parts; nor are we the aggregates of material shape, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. We transcend all this because our true nature is unborn and incomposite. When our temporal body craps out it doesn’t mean that our true nature or self craps out. Life goes on, in other words.
Q: According to Theravadins “all things” are said to be without a self or Buddha-nature. Is that true.
A: Yes and no. “All things” refers to the five skandhas or aggregates which I mentioned earlier. The Buddha said that these aggregates are not his self. There is a very good reason that he said this. These aggregates belong to Mara, the Buddhist demon, and they are suffering. So it is true that all things are without self but only because the self transcends the Five Aggregates or, the same, all things. It also transcends suffering.
Q: I am really getting confused at this point. So the Buddha did not deny a self as the Theravadins teach. Right?
A: Right. By means of the Five Aggregates, the Buddha taught that we should not accept these aggregates as being our true self or, the same, our Buddha-nature. No aggregate is the Buddha-nature. This is a far cry from a complete denial of self which in Pali is natthatta, which is an annihilationist belief.
Q: Who realizes nirvana?
A: It is our inmost self which in Sanskrit is pratyâtman or in Pali, paccattam. Our inmost self is the absolute—but it’s suffering from a bad case of spiritual amnesia. It is bound up with composite things, clinging to them; not wanting to give them up. It can’t see itself as a result of this clinging. When it finally catches a glimpse of the incomposite, this being nirvana, it has really found itself; its true nature. Nirvana can only be realized by the inmost self. What else might realize nirvana? Think of this like a little drop of water searching for the ocean. When it finally jumps into this great ocean nothing of it is apart from the ocean and nothing constituting the ocean is different than the drop of water.
Alicia:
It is better to recognize it than to describe it.
Posted by: The Zennist | January 11, 2013 at 07:43 PM
Is out innermost self (paccattam) the spirit?
Posted by: Alicia | January 11, 2013 at 10:22 AM
Entering the light of lights, until reaching the other shore,
a truth of permanent nature this is what a zennist is striving for,
In it, a body of spirit graced, emerged through this dharma call,
outside it, fleeting shadows and ghosts, all less pleasant to recall.
Posted by: minx | November 22, 2012 at 05:41 AM
Damn, them Cambodian and Thais monk again@!
I heard them monks still eats shrimps and meats from donators and they love it!!. Right here in my town they still have Sunday feast where followers bring in pork BBQ spare reef and Chinese sausages along with roast pheasant, YUM YUM!!. It is great being Thais monks :)
They also got lot of money from donor, to build a temple and a few housing units for the monks....Heck, I would like to join the Thais monk clan here, shave my head and pretend to sit still in meditation for 1 hour, that will impress a lot of Westerners,,,,,,,and I will be golden, LOL
Bodhiratna
Posted by: Bodhiratna | November 22, 2012 at 01:48 AM
your water analogy is a logical and metaphysical grand error, also the same error used by other Indians, the "drop of water..back to the Absolute/Ocean".... if this were so, then attribution would reoccur, to the point that said water would "flow out to the lands (phenomena) again". Said logical impossibility posits Perfection as merely a "return to the One as Identical TO the One", rather than removal of attribution from self to other as is the case in the One.
The correct analogy would be the drop would FREEZE as Itself, no longer capable of flowing (=asava = tanha = avijja)
Posted by: Java Junkie Foghorn Leghorn | November 21, 2012 at 11:36 PM