Consciousness/The Buddha Nature

So there is no-self.

All phenomena are impermanent.

All phenomena are interdependent.

So 'we' are totally dependent on everything else in the universe for our own 'subtle existence'.

So what is consciousness? Who or what is experiencing beyond the aggregates of the sense and of mind? The Buddha Nature? Then is the Buddha Nature not permanent? Doesn't this suggest some sort of subtle permanent self or a one-consciosuness?

 

What if there is no self, but some sort of shared spirit that over periods we call lifetime divides itself into a seperate entity, to experience and gather experiences for the whole. Amalgamating its seperate spirit back to the whole at the end of a life.

Probably a really poor way of phrasing but what if while permanent self is a delusion, the temporary self is real whilst it exists.

If there is no self, how can we say buddha was buddha himself?

 

Well yes, I have no problem with this. Saying no sort of self exists at all would be falling into nihilism I believe...I agree with the notion of 'subtle existence'. We exist, but only conceptually.

For example I hold a glass up. Then move the glass away behind my back. The air reacts to the cause and goes into the gap where the glass was. The glass must exist conceptually because it's creating an effect. Plus our mind notices the glass is missing. We can take teh glass and really analyse it and we'll fidn its made out of many components , sand is one, but we ultimately find it's empty of any inherent existence. It came into its form through many causes and conditions and is changing by the milisecond (natural decay).

So yeah, no problem there.

A striking resemblance to this perhaps?

http://www.vedanta.org/wiv/overview.html

Just take the concepts of god and replace them with 'Nirvana' and the terms 'Atman' and replace them with 'Buddha-Nature'...ta daaaa!

 

In this early stage of learning about the Tao and Buddhism I find it hard to coenceptualize the twin ideas of embracing the delusion of self and nihilism, but am starting to ponder such questions.

I gotta check out that link when I have the peace of mind to really read what it says, but it seems like an interesting concept.

I heard once that every single cell in our bodies is in a constant state of growth or decay, absorbing not only from what we eat but combining with particles from our surroundings. In that sense it might be true that even our physical form is not a "self" but a constant amalgamation of others.
It also might be true that even if a seperate entity of energy calls itself "our self", it is constantly absorbing energy and experience from its surroundings, giving energy and experience too, maybe in that sense it cannot be a "self" but a constant amalgamation of others.

If a glass is filled with water from the sea the water takes the shape of the glass, is it still the sea or is it a seperate glass of water individual and different from the sea? If we poured that water into the sea would it still be a glass of water within the sea or would it become the sea?

 

Beyond the aggregates of the sense and mind? Which undergo experience?

It IS the aggregates of the sense and mind which undergo experience.

That which one calls consciousness (which in and of itself, is a fancy term for "awareness"), is quite literally just that: awareness. The combination of these elements in dukkha allows us to be aware of "happiness," to be aware of "pain," of "sorrow," of "anger," all feelings that we have are no different than all things we see, all items we place our hands upon and touch.

The body touches an object and its nerves relay the message "soft." Just as this happens for the body, the mind feels an emotion, and relays the message "fear." The changes "we" experience are only changes in the way our body percieves what it is sensing.

When one is angry, they see things differently, they react differently. This "change in our self" is only a change in one of the many aggregates which make up the human form -- of course, that aggregate may have significant influence over the other aggregates, causing them all to behave differently.

And this is why the Buddha teaches "no self," because the aggregates and experiences that one might call a "self" are constantly changing, and are never constant.

 

no, the sea its a mixture of salt, hydrogen and oxygen and maybe some plankton and possibly some sewage...The plankton came from mummy plankton, and for mummy plankton to exist she needed sunlight, and the the sunlight came from the sun, and the sun came from a rather long process of large bodies of rocks, minerals and gases colliding and interacting to create the star we call the sun...Incidently all life on earth was dependent on the creation of the sun...So we and the rest of the universe are in that in that glass of sea water...the glass and the sea water are the same thing yet at the same time different on a purely conceptual dualistic basis...

I reckon.

 

But what is experiencing it if there is no self to experience it? It's a complete paradox

 

anyway, actually I wanted this topic to be more about the buddha nature...

This explains more about what i'm getting at;

"Unlike the Western concept of "soul" or some interpretations of the Indian "atman", Buddha-nature is not considered an isolated essence of a particular individual, but rather a single unified essence shared by all beings with the Buddha himself. (This doctrine of essence unsettles many Buddhists as it strikes them as in violation of some interpretations of anatta, as for example that of Nagarjuna, which attacks all essences; similarly, a trans-personal self shared by multiple beings exists already within the Hindu context in some monistic and/or pantheistic interpretations of the atman, and such concepts are generally regarded as being rejected under anatta.)"

So isn't Buddhism just a refined version of the ancient Hindu thought of Vedanta?

 

I believe I answered this question in the second line of my last post, there's no paradox here:

"It IS the aggregates of the sense and mind which undergo experience." - Hik

The idea of the "self" is much like the idea of the collective Humanity being viewed as one single living being. Humanity undergoes constant change, from primitive to technological, from ignorant to intuitive, from frail to powerful. Yet Humanity has no singular self. It is an aggregate of smaller parts.

We are all individuals all having awareness of individual experiences, and similarly, the senses and parts of these physical bodies that you and I have, are all individual parts having awareness of individual experiences.

Saying "I" when referring to a complete human body, is akin to saying "Man" when referring to all of Humanity. Man experiences change the same way we do -- when Man becomes strong, it is because individual humans have become strong -- when an individual human becomes strong, it is the parts of that human which have become strong. When part of a human becomes strong, it is because the structures and molecules within that part have become strong. And so on and so forth.

Of course, "Humanity" has no "self," only aggregate individuals which make it up. And in that same sense, each of "us" has no "self," only aggregate senses from which we are made up.

The skin experiences touch. The eyes experience sight. The ears experience sound, the tongue taste, and the nose aroma. And the brain experiences thoughts. These six senses are interconnected in a dependent way -- when one sense becomes aware of a change, the other senses may react. This is true on a macro scale, when one human being becomes aware of a change, another may react. When one amino acid in the body becomes aware of a change, another may react.

It is not "you" who feels hot, it is the body that reacts to heat. It is not "you" who thinks, it is the brain which percieves a thought object. If this were not true, then certain "automatic" functions of the human body could not happen without a certain level of awareness -- the brain and body regulates blood pressure and pH without ever having to percieve a thought object or sense the level of blood pressure -- and simply because we DO percieve some things and sense some things, only means that something, somewhere, is aware of a change, whether it is the mind or the body or the eye or the nose or the tongue, or all of them at the same time.

No, not really. The Buddha nature is not an "essence" that is shared between all beings. It is a nature which all aggregate beings have.

The Buddha nature is the nature of progression from ignorant to wise, it is the nature and tendency to follow a path which leads to awakening and Nibbana.

All ignorant beings desire to become wise and tend toward it -- and so, all beings have the "Buddha nature." Just as no human truly believes themselves to be evil or wrong, no human wishes to stay ignorant.

Also, as the idea of the Buddha-nature is often misunderstood because of the limitation of words, the term is only accepted in Mahayana Buddhism, and is rejected by other schools such as Theravada and Tibetan Buddhism.

I personally am a sort of ... freelance Buddhist/Zen Buddhist, and I do not accept the idea of the Buddha-nature as atman (soul), especially after reading into the Buddha's idea of anatman (no soul). I see it only as a nature, a tendency -- to me, it is not an essence or a self or part of one.

 

Ok, thank you.

As I said, I have no trouble with realising impermanent nature of all phenomena...

But obviously I have had some doubts and confusions recently that are reflected in this thread...As I learn and study more and more from the various traditions i'm starting to find things that really don't satisfy me and contradictions in certain suttras and teachings...Especially the Mahayana suttras. Many seem to be sugesting either a.) There is a Buddha-Nature and this is described as belonging to an individual and is 'endless' and 'unchanging' (so permanent...suggetsing atman) or b.) There is a Buddha-Nature and everyone has it but it belongs not to the individual but to a all beings as a 'one'.

Forgive me but isn't the Zen thought on this supportive of the 'self-mind' (infact I though zen was part of the mahayana school?)?

"a number of Buddhist traditions, particularly traditions outside of India, like the Chan and Zen of China, have used terms like "Self-mind, one's original nature, the original nature of consciousness" or "one's original face," which are similar to the Self of Vedanta."

Also in the Tibetan tradition: "The Buddha states (in the Tibetan version of the Sutra): "all phenomena ["dharmas"] are not non-Self: the Self is Reality("tattva"), the Self is eternal ("nitya"), the Self is virtue ("guna"), the Self is everlasting ("shasvata"), the Self is stable ("dhruva"), and the Self is peace ("siva")".

Isn't this also suggesting 'eternal self' (atman)?

The only form of Buddhism that rejects these notions of Buddha nature outright is the Therevada tradition.

This (and other elements i've been studying) is leading me to feel that the Mahayana schools have perhaps in soem ways distorted the original teachings of the Buddha and misrepresented his words in sutras, whilst the closest thing we have too the original teachings is contained in the Therevada traditions (Pali Canon?).

Not trying to pick a fight with the Mahayanas! Just that is how it seems to me the more I read.

This is exactly why I refuse to commit to any one paticular tradition.

 

We all do. ^_^ I was stuck for a while on whether jokes were wholesome or not, but we figured that one out.

"Life is study!" - Kentaro Oe, Golden Boy

The Buddha did not achieve Nibbana by following the path of others, nor did he say "believe everything I say." In more or less words, he said, analyze what I say, and if you find it to be true, believe it. He also said that at any given time there may be a handful of men who are close to Nibbana and have all arrived there from different paths, but that he teaches the way he achieved Nibbana in the hopes that what he has taught may someday aid in another person's achieving of Nibbana.

When it comes to truth and Buddhism, I follow my own path. That being said, I have derived a great amount of wisdom from the Buddha's words, but of course there are some things (such as reincarnation) that I do not believe in.*

* I have been unable to understand the Buddha's stance on exactly what reincarnation is, but I do not believe in any Hindu form of reincarnation. I do believe in the forming of beings and deforming of beings which ultimately become a part of other beings, perhaps this is what the Buddha called "volitional energy" and "reincarnation," though it is a stretch in words -- but it wouldn't surprise me because the Buddha turned "suffering," or "dukkha," into this incredibly complex idea that has less and less to do with "suffering" every day.

Strictly used, Zen Buddhism is indeed a branch of Mahayana Buddhism, which is why I am now disassociating myself with that identifier.

Loosely used, "Zen" (without the Buddhism) is used to describe a philosophy of following one's own path and breaking free from the conformity of sects of any particular religion. In this sense, you may find Zen Christians or Zen Shintoists or who knows, maybe even Zen Satanists, it doesn't matter. It can be roughly equated with "non-denominational" and a good analogy might be the Japanese ronin -- a samurai with no master, who roams, learning from others around him.

The confusion many people have is when they try to describe "Zen" combined with "Buddhism." What many (such as myself) WANT to mean, is a freelance, self-intuitive, sectless type of free-form Buddhist practice. However, in English, combining "Zen" and "Buddhism" gives you "Zen Buddhism," which already has a specific sect and meaning.

(We need a new word! Let's make one up!)

I really have no idea how Tibetan Buddhism can make such a claim, unless that is in some sort of metaphor, analogy, or otherwise requires some sort of conceptual cypher to understand.

The first bit of what you posted, to me, sounds like "Self-mind" is what one uses when viewing the illusion of the singular self as truthful or factual. In other words, as I type this out, I am constantly using "I," which would mean I am in a sort of "self-mind" even though I know that the self is merely an aggregate of parts which make up a cohesive whole that, although percieved as a single entity, is actually not so much.

Of course, I use self-mind because it's easier for communication. When one breaks free from self-mind, one becomes like Occam (a resident agnostic on the Hip Forums), who always speaks in the third person. Occam constantly says things like, "Occam disagrees with your stance on morality, he believes that morality is ..." and so forth. And Occam has been the target of some ridicule for it.

Hence why I do not associate myself with any of these sects, I feel this way too, and I do not trust any one of them to be correct.

Also it is important to understand, the Buddha taught others as individuals, the Buddha may say one thing to one person, to help him understand, but may say something contradictory to a different person, or even to the same person at a different time, but again to help him understand a different concept.

Certainly over the millennia, people have taken his words and distorted them time and time again.

They can't all be right, unless everyone can be right, which is most likely the case.

What is interesting to note is, unlike Christian sects, which denounce other Christian sects as wrong, the three major Buddhist sects (Tibetan, Therevada, Mahayana) all recognize the truth and wisdom of the other sects, and they do not war over who is right and wrong. It seems plenty apparent that all sects have their individual truths and wisdoms, none of the sects claim to be more correct than the others, only that the wisdom each sect contains is right for different people; there is no rivalry, only compassion for leading others out of ignorance, which takes different answers for different people. And for this reason, I still respect all three major schools, and listen to what they have to say, agreeing and disagreeing as I see fit.

 

Do you believe this or do you know this? Why not first find out if there is or is not a self. btw, what do mean by a "self"?

The first meditation is supposed to be "Who am I?" Anything you can think of isn't you. But you'll have to contemplate it until you enter meditation, until the mind gets tired and stops thinking.

But if you are saying that there is no self, as in, there is no ego, well we know we all have an ego, we all have an identity. It isn't a matter of believing that there is no self, it is a matter of having to find out for yourself that the statement is true.

So, just believing that there is no ego, or that the ego is an illusion won't do. It has to becoming a knowing, it has to be existential.

Otherwise, who is to say that the Watcher isn't the self?

 

It's not a matter of 'believing' it's a matter of realising.

No faith required.

If I truly realised then i'd probably be an enlighetned being.

So no I don't 'believe' this.

However I can understand it on a conceptual level. I get glimpses of it during meditations. But if I said I truly realised it i'd be lying.

 

IMHO. Enlightenment is not something achieved in totality like turning on a switch. There are degrees of it, as there are degrees of ignorance, or degrees in the understanding of chemistry or physics. You could learn all that man has discovered about this universe, yet there is still much more left to find. You can become the greatest Buddha, yet there is always room to become an even greater Buddha.

 

I see

 

Buddha is changing and growing, too ... even as enlightenment changes.

Realize change ... Embrace change.

Just a thought.

 

The term Buddha-nature is used for the first time in the tantric literature, and in the Wheel's Third Turning. In the literature of tantric Buddhists shunyata is not the final say on the essence of ones being. While the Buddha Nature has shunyata as a component, it's other aspects include clarity and effulgence. Thus emptiness from extremes, clarity, and effulgence is the Buddha Nature.

 

Moreover, the 12 links of dependent origination, go to the point of Buddha Nature by saying that since eveything depends on everything, therefore everything depends on the base of existance which is empty of characteristics, thus all is maya, based on Buddha Nature. In ultimate analysis, Buddha is all that there is, which is possible to know, and nothing else exists.

 

In mahaparinirvana sutra the Buddha gives us a very clear and beautiful definition of buddha nature: vinnanam anidassanam sabbato prabham: Consciousness without object, shining everywhere. This is the true reality or substratum of the world, Buddha nature. And it is what the enlightened ones abide in within themselves, and this is why it is called the self in Hinduism - it is that close to us, it is our true nature.