According to the Buddha, "Who am I?" is an inappropriate question to ask

[Shin]

4 minutes ago, Barry J said:

@Shin  I like to use “where is who right now?” with my students 

I don't even know what that sentence means ?

[Barry J]

4 minutes ago, Shin said:

I don't even know what that sentence means ?

@Shin look within buddy. The answer is the question or the other way around I always mix those up whenever a student asks me

Edited September 18, 2018 by Barry J

[who chit]

Ramana stated,and something that's not often pointed out,is that inquiry is good for those who are "ripe" for it. And I fully agree with this. It takes a certain level of aptitude or inner development for it to be useful. Otherwise,without some sort of guidance, it can create a whole mess of confusion for an "unripe" seeker.

[Leo Gura]

I made a blog post about this topic not too long ago:

https://www.actualized.org/insights/anekantavada

[Flow With Life]

7 hours ago, Solace said:

@Flow With Life I understand what you are saying The imaginary self cannot be eternal, it is the no self, or absence of a "imaginary self" that is the Truth.  

It was a matter of terminology. I was coming from the perspective that the eternal self and no self were the same, so just replace the times I referred to eternal self with no self, and what I said will be coherent with the Buddha's teaching. We are referring to the same thing after all, the consciousness which is realised in perception of the stillness and silence.

Buddha rejects also the notion that "there is no self". The issue is not the answer. The issue is the question. The mere fact of asking "Who am I?" causes one to frame potential answers in terms of a self, rather than in terms of one's own actions. And this, he says, it what leads to a "wilderness of views", entangling oneself, rather than leading to liberation.

The soteriological goal of Buddhism, Nibbana, is neither perception nor consciousness.

[Flow With Life]

7 hours ago, Haumea2018 said:

Negation of all ontological concepts: the Self, God/Gods, etc.

Hmm... I suppose I would agree with this to an extent. It negates more than just that, but yes.

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Unless you believe that only Buddhists fully awaken (which in itself is a concept to surrender), then definitely "yes".

Definitely "yes"? Sounds like there is some clinging to the idea that "my enlightenment must be the true enlightenment, so everyone else's enlightenment must either be fake, or they are also talking about the same enlightenment as mine". You leave no room for the possibility that people are referring to very different experiences, but which, due to their individual ineffable qualities, seem to be described in seemingly similar ambiguous, paradoxical language. Perhaps a better stance would just be to say "maybe, maybe not".

[ajasatya]

the goal of the historical buddha was to establish a solid and comprehensible mindset and set of practices that lead to freedom from destructive patterns.

in general, he wasn't into philosophy or metaphysics. there are several suttas where he talks to those kinds of seekers and shows them that they were just wasting energy and going nowhere. there is a HUGE step required before going deeper.

however, in some rare occasions, he did talk about the nature of Reality with a few and more advanced meditation practitioners.

[Flow With Life]

7 hours ago, Barry J said:

So what man? Do you think that the Buddha was more enlightened than other enlighteneds? Would you consider that Buddha was not even real? Don’t you find all of this stuff boring and predictable?

Your tone comes across as rather antagonistic. I make no such assumptions as those you have stated. It matters not to me who was more enlightened than who, whatever that means. It matters to me whether following a path leads to desirable results. It also matters not to me whether the Buddha was real. No I don't find this stuff boring and predictable, thank you for asking.

[Flow With Life]

7 hours ago, who chit said:

If there is "no positing of some substantial self or soul" then what is reborn or not reborn.
"Rebirth, friend, is painful; non-rebirth is pleasant".AN 10.13: 

And also here which implies both a "self" or soul that is reborn to an "eternal abode": he is due to be reborn [in the Pure Abodes], there to be totally unbound, never again to return from that world.
AN 9.36 Jhana Sutta

Ah, yes, this is a famous question which has perplexed Buddhist scholars and non-scholars and non-Buddhists alike for centuries. What is reborn?

The short answer is: it doesn't matter. There is the experience called birth. There are the experiences called aging, illness, and suffering. There is the experience called death. Rinse and repeat. A causal loop governed by karma (intention). This is the wheel of becoming, Samsara, which the goal of Buddhism is to escape from. To no longer be reborn again. It matters not "who" or "what" is reborn, or "who" or "what" suffers.

In direct experience, there is simply the knowledge that "There is this, and there is this, and there is this". A sense of self would just be another thing that can either be present or absent in direct experience. Erasing that sense of self would just be another event in the causal loop. A convenient, but temporary, relief from suffering. But that kind of enlightenment is based on the absence of a sense of self, hence it is conditioned. All that arises due to conditions, is subject to change.

[Flow With Life]

19 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

the goal of the historical buddha was to establish a solid and comprehensible mindset and set of practices that lead to freedom from destructive patterns.

in general, he wasn't into philosophy or metaphysics. there are several suttas where he talks to those kinds of seekers and shows them that they were just wasting energy and going nowhere. there is a HUGE step required before going deeper.

however, in some rare occasions, he did talk about the nature of Reality with a few and more advanced meditation practitioners.

Hmm.. an interesting perspective. Thank you for sharing. My current understanding is that in orthodox Theravada, the Buddha not only refused to talk metaphysics, he explicitly stated that metaphysics should always be put aside as being non-useful. I could be misinformed though, and I admit total ignorance of the Mahayana, Zen, and Tibetan traditions.

[ajasatya]

12 minutes ago, Flow With Life said:

What is reborn?

in my journey this is what i found: reborn is something Reality itself does. it becomes conscious of itself over and over.

i can think "i was born" but, in fact, Reality gave birth to itself in the form of a human baby.

so, i, as Reality itself, will be reborn. i have been here forever and i'll be here forever. it's a matter of what you understand by "i".

the phenomenon of rebirth is real, but it happens like the waves in the sea. one wave is not the same as the previous one nor the next one. the wave is something that the sea does. confusion arises when the wave thinks it's not the sea itself, moving.

Edited September 18, 2018 by ajasatya

[Flow With Life]

12 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

in my journey this is what i found: reborn is something Reality itself does. it becomes conscious of itself over and over.

i can think "i was born" but, in fact, Reality gave birth to itself in the form of a human baby.

so, i, as Reality itself, will be reborn. i have been here forever and i'll be here forever. it's a matter of what you understand by "i".

the phenomenon of rebirth is real, but it happens like the waves in the sea. one wave is not the same as the previous one nor the next one. the wave is something that the sea does. confusion arises when the wave thinks it's not the sea itself, moving.

But then non-confusion, say "realizing oneself as the sea", is a mental quality, and hence, is conditioned. The knowledge itself is conditioned, and so the knowledge is impermanent. The knowledge arose due to one's actions. The Christians say, we got kicked out of the garden out of original sin. The Buddhists would say... our past accumulated good karma ran out.

Nibbana is not simply a nice aerial view of the cosmos, it is bringing the wave-making to a complete end, never to begin again.

Edited September 18, 2018 by Flow With Life

[ajasatya]

6 minutes ago, Flow With Life said:

But then non-confusion, say "realizing oneself as the sea", is a mental quality, and hence, is conditioned. The knowledge itself is conditioned, and so the knowledge is impermanent. The knowledge arose due to one's actions. But as the Christians say, we got kicked out of the garden out of original sin; or as the Buddhists would say... our past accumulated good karma ran out.

intellectual knowledge is far from enough. freedom requires direct experience, not just dogma like the following one:

6 minutes ago, Flow With Life said:

Nibbana is not simply a nice aerial view of the cosmos, it is bringing the wave-making to a complete end, never to begin again.

are you talking about the entire universe freezing at once? 

here, a more experienced practitioner than both of us talking about what he's been doing for 40+ years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odWIPhj-ivo

Edited September 18, 2018 by ajasatya

[Flow With Life]

1 minute ago, ajasatya said:

intellectual knowledge is far from enough. freedom requires direct experience, not just dogma like the following one:

are you talking about the entire universe freezing at once? 

I do not mean intellectual knowledge. I do mean exactly the direct experience that you speak. The problem is that an experience is fleeting. Even if it is an experience of seeming eternity or infinity. I'm sure rebirth in the realm of "feeling like I'm absolute infinity" is quite pleasant. Not so pleasant when, after one's good karma runs out, you are reborn as a pig in a slaughterhouse, totally unenlightened. And round and round the wheel we go.

I am not talking about the entire universe freezing, for that is to posit an external universe outside of direct experience. There is simply the halting of the continuance of an experience of birth, succeeding the experience of death, in direct experience.

[ajasatya]

8 minutes ago, Flow With Life said:

There is simply the halting of the continuance of an experience of birth, succeeding the experience of death, in direct experience.

do you mean no more sentient beings?

i edited my previous comment and added a link to a great video on this subject.

Edited September 18, 2018 by ajasatya

[Flow With Life]

6 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

do you mean no more sentient beings?

Here's the thing, you are holding this conception in your mind that there is this "cosmic ocean", and that all of the "waves of experience", so to speak, must be the activity of that cosmos.

But I am holding no such conceptions. There is simply what can be pointed to in direct experience. Nibbana is the ending of rebirth, in direct experience.

EDIT: to more directly address your question: the idea of "beings" no longer applies

Edited September 18, 2018 by Flow With Life

[ajasatya]

4 minutes ago, Flow With Life said:

Nibbana is the ending of rebirth, in direct experience.

so you're saying that something fundamentally different happens to enlightened beings when they die, as if they have changed the mechanics of existence for themselves?

sorry, but i think you're just repeating what you've heard from the buddhist doctrine.

Edited September 18, 2018 by ajasatya

[Flow With Life]

Just now, ajasatya said:

so you're saying that something fundamentally different happens to enlightened beings when they die, as if they have changed the mechanics of existence for them?

Close. More precisely, when a being attains the 4th stage called Arahant (the highest stage of awakening in Theravada), it can be said that their mind has no passion for anything, not even for Nibbana. Without passion, they produce no further karma (intentional actions).

However, the body-mind continues to act (by the momentum of past karma) without producing new karma. Unlike the Jains which believe one must burn off all past karma, in Buddhism, you simply need to see how present karma is created. Once you see it, you stop; like how if one realizes they are pinching themselves, they will stop because it simply hurts.

At this point, the following can NOT be said of the Arahant: they exist, they don't exist, they both exist and not exist, they neither exist nor not exist. Concepts of existence, non-existence, self or non-self are simply irrelevant to the Arahant.

When the body-mind of the Arahant dies, because no further karma is being planted, no further birth takes place.

As for the "mechanics of existence", Buddhism teaches Dependent Origination, which is way too involved to explain here, but suffice to say that no, they do not change the mechanics of the system, they change its input variables, causing them to leave the system entirely; like a system crash when you divide by zero.

[ajasatya]

13 minutes ago, Flow With Life said:

When the body-mind of the Arahant dies, because no further karma is being planted, no further birth takes place.

and what happens when the body-mind of a non-Arahant dies?

13 minutes ago, Flow With Life said:

causing them to leave the system entirely; like a system crash when you divide by zero

was there anything that you could point at and say "this is what's leaving the system". was there anything at all that became enlightened in the first place?

Edited September 18, 2018 by ajasatya

[Flow With Life]

8 minutes ago, ajasatya said:

and what happens when the body-mind of a non-Arahant dies?

I do not refer to a physical body, as such. Simply the experience of being embodied. One life, human, next life, pig. What happened to the previous "human body"? Who knows. Who cares? I'm pig now.

Quote

was there anything that you could point at and say "this is what's leaving the system". was there anything at all that became enlightened in the first place?

Descriptions of the final state tend to be paradoxical, nonsensical, and yes they sound very much like some of the things that Non-dual traditions teach. This is likely what spawned Zen and Tibetan traditions (while the Theravada faithfully, or dogmatically depending on how you see it, stuck to their texts).

But no, nothing is said to leave the system, nor is it said that there was something left from, nor something left towards. No coming, no going, no standing still. The path is completely untraceable, as if it was never walked. Indeed, there can be no path to Nibbana, or else, there would be a path out, defeating the whole purpose of a permanent salvation.

Edited September 18, 2018 by Flow With Life