Embers ji,
Confused Ji. Understood. It isn't that I am opposed to anatta, but rather I have not been convinced of its truth.
And this means that you are convinced about the truth of Atman?
But before I proceed, let me answer your question regarding the reality/concept distinction.
Realities are two, the conditioned and the unconditioned.
Conditioned realities are two, mental and physical phenomena.
Mental phenomena are two, consciousness and mental factors.
The five sense consciousness are real so too their corresponding bases and objects. The one through the mind door is real, but the object of the mind door include concepts which is the product of memory and thinking. Concepts are not real.
So for example, when we perceive a monitor screen, we can understand that this is a concept formed at the mind door and is not what the eye consciousness experiences. Seeing experiences visible object, hearing experiences sound, tasting experiences taste, smelling experiences smell and touch experiences, the primary elements of earth, fire and wind.
Before hearing about all this, we got the impression that seeing for example, sees people and things, but now we understand that this is not so and therefore begin to appreciate how much ignorance there is.
Here is Bhikkhu Bodhi in the Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma on the topic of Citta and consciousness:
Quote: "What we ordinarily think of as consciousness is a series of cittas, momentary acts of consciousness, occurring in such rapid succession that we cannot detect the discrete occasions, which are of diverse types.... The Abhidhamma... also exhibits them as ordered into a cosmos, a unified and closely interwoven whole." I.2 (Page 29)
My personal conclusion of this is that if "we cannot detect the discrete occasions"
We cannot detect but we can understand. Why do you think that the development of the Path requires coming to be aware of a single unit of consciousness?
then there is little empirical evidence to conclude that it i.e. consciousness or citta, is not permanent.
The fourth of the Four Noble Truths is the Noble Eightfold Path. This is a Path of understanding and not of coming to see individual consciousness which is impossible anyway, due to the very nature of the consciousness process. Besides, what you are saying has the implication that the development of wisdom begins only after seeing individual consciousness rise and fall, and this does not make sense, does it?
And what of the relationship between suttamayapana (understanding at the level of hearing), cintamayapanna (understanding at the level of reflection) and bhavanamayapanna (direct understanding)? Indeed the dispensation is sometimes described in terms of intellectual understanding, direct understanding and realization or pariyatti, patipatti and pativedha. This means that those who are savakas and considered followers of the Buddha include pariyatti level of understanding as well. Also with all levels of understanding is the mental factor of saddha or confidence / faith, are you saying that this cannot arise for one who does not see individual consciousness rise and fall away?
Individual characteristics of different types of consciousness, mental factors and physical phenomena appear all day. The problem is that we take them for 'self' or 'something' instead of understanding them for what they are as elements, as mental phenomena or physical phenomena, as aggregate and so on. Indeed it is in the very understanding of an element as element that “self” is negated. In other words it is not self, precisely because it is an element or reality.
Both Impermanence and non-self can be understood at a basic level by knowing for example, that the perception of 'computer screen' follows upon the experience by seeing consciousness of visible object. The seeing fell away by conditions and was followed by the thinking which arose and fell away without control. And take anger for example, who wants to get angry, yet it is there before we know it. With a little understanding we can also see the thinking moves around from one object to another to feed the anger. Would this have happened if anger was self? Anger is so unpleasant, who would wish for it. And when angry, there is also seeing, thinking and other sense experiences, would it not be that in order for the one to appear, the other must have fallen away? And that they seem to all happen simultaneously does this not point to the tremendous rate at which the different consciousness rise and fall away one after another?
As I pointed out, no control and anatta are intimately connected. If there is no control over any consciousness such as seeing, hearing and thinking, the mental factors such as feeling, anger and attachment and no control over growth and decay of the physical body, this means that there is no ‘self’ who would otherwise have been able to control.
You refer to the need for empirical evidence. But is wisdom about proving things either to oneself or someone else? Does wisdom require reasoning to be convinced? What would the evidence be measured against?
In which case I am left with a permanent consciousness (or citta) which I may as well consider self, consciousness or Atman.
You might consider instead that this is evidence of the extent of ignorance. Indeed that you fall back on the perception of permanence and 'self' reflects the influence of wrong view.
Someone who hears the Buddha for the first time and has some understanding of the message would get the impression of coming to know what he never knew and very different from everything else. Doubt is one of the main fetters and appears to influence your thinking. You are saying to the effect that because you do not understand the Buddha's teaching on Anatta, you will have to believe in Atman. And because you don’t perceive / understand impermanence, you have to assume permanence. This is not right is it, given that you approach the teachings in order to understand and then suddenly appeal to empirical evidence to judge whether or not the Buddha was right?
And since you refer to the need for evidence, why don’t you show me the evidence for permanence and atman?
I would still be interested in your response on intention, a question from my last post, if you would be so kind to consider it:
Quote: This is interesting, are you suggesting that 'kamma as a cause of craving' can be seen and understood by us?
No, you misread me. What I said was:
Quote: “But kamma as cause can be understood as and when they arise and this includes when craving is at the root.”
It meant that kamma is cause, and that when this is rooted in craving, it can be understood as such.
If so how does one distinguish kamma that is not based on craving, aversion and ignorance as there is still intention?
Your referring to dependent origination as basis for understanding kamma could be seen as showing that so long as ignorance has not been eradicated, there’d be kamma conditioning rebirth. This includes not only unwholesome kamma rooted in craving, aversion and ignorance, but good kamma rooted in non-attachment, non-aversion and non-delusion as well.
Moral restraint for example, can be known, as is the intention to lie.
Does intention ever cease? If so what impels a being without intention to act?
There is intention as a mental factor with every kind of consciousness. When this accompanies a resultant consciousness, it performs the function merely of coordinating the associated states. When it accompanies volitional consciousness it also performs the function of kamma, namely cause for future results. But not all such kamma produces results, only those that are the ten wholesome and unwholesome courses of conduct. The intention accompanying the functional consciousness of the Arahat, this does not produce any results. Without intention, there is no Buddha, not to speak of his actions.
