DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Emptiness - break off thread from the beginners section.

**Psymoussy** · 11-25-2011, 12:44 PM

Conventionally Dependent Origination is considered in interpretations, to be over 3 lifetimes. Personally I prefer the momentary or one lifetime version. However I won't go into that because there are plenty of references in the Theravada forum.

It's my opinion that a genuine experiential understanding of sunnata (emptiness) is arrived at not through complex debate, nor through spacing out in an emptiness la-la land, but through simple analysis, together with regular meditation practice - and the purification of mental obscurations......

To quote Ajahn Buddhadasa:

"If at any moment any person at all has a mind empty of grasping at and clinging to 'I' and 'mine', even if it is only for an instant, it means that the mind has realized emptiness. It is pure, radiant and at peace. It is one and the same thing as the heart of the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. Thus at any moment that one has a mind empty in this way one has taken refuge, one has reached the Triple Gem."

http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha196.htm

Hi Aloka;

The way you just framed this question kind of answers it without having to analyze. Obviously "experiential" understanding can't come through debate. Debate is a type of experience, naturally, but the term "experiential understanding" specifically refers to emptiness achieved through non-conceptual discernment, at least as I understand the term.

Just to reiterate far more briefly what I stated above...

Debate fails to have the slightest effect on one's deep belief structure. That is to say, feeling in response to stimuli, discrimination, intention (and all the things which impinge on and are influenced by these mental factors), aren't changed by adopting an intellectual position; they are, however, forever changed by nonconceptual discernment of what one has always believed to be "I"; failing to find I in a conclusive way, a definitive way, in a way which destroys all clinging to I----well, that WILL change feeling, discrimination, intention.

So, I'm not sure of what you really think about debate. I agree that debate is useless in meditation; it may even be harmful if you try to force your understanding onto your meditation object, rather than examining it without prejudice, and honestly looking at it, at how it exists, at its causes, etc. However I think it is a good way to disabuse oneself of wrong view, especially if one clings to certain fallacies regarding eternalism or nihilism. That's one of the main reasons that it was engaged in, historically.

11-25-2011, 12:44 PM	#34
Psymoussy Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 458 Senior Member	Conventionally Dependent Origination is considered in interpretations, to be over 3 lifetimes. Personally I prefer the momentary or one lifetime version. However I won't go into that because there are plenty of references in the Theravada forum. It's my opinion that a genuine experiential understanding of sunnata (emptiness) is arrived at not through complex debate, nor through spacing out in an emptiness la-la land, but through simple analysis, together with regular meditation practice - and the purification of mental obscurations...... To quote Ajahn Buddhadasa: "If at any moment any person at all has a mind empty of grasping at and clinging to 'I' and 'mine', even if it is only for an instant, it means that the mind has realized emptiness. It is pure, radiant and at peace. It is one and the same thing as the heart of the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. Thus at any moment that one has a mind empty in this way one has taken refuge, one has reached the Triple Gem." http://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha196.htm Hi Aloka; The way you just framed this question kind of answers it without having to analyze. Obviously "experiential" understanding can't come through debate. Debate is a type of experience, naturally, but the term "experiential understanding" specifically refers to emptiness achieved through non-conceptual discernment, at least as I understand the term. Just to reiterate far more briefly what I stated above... Debate fails to have the slightest effect on one's deep belief structure. That is to say, feeling in response to stimuli, discrimination, intention (and all the things which impinge on and are influenced by these mental factors), aren't changed by adopting an intellectual position; they are, however, forever changed by nonconceptual discernment of what one has always believed to be "I"; failing to find I in a conclusive way, a definitive way, in a way which destroys all clinging to I----well, that WILL change feeling, discrimination, intention. So, I'm not sure of what you really think about debate. I agree that debate is useless in meditation; it may even be harmful if you try to force your understanding onto your meditation object, rather than examining it without prejudice, and honestly looking at it, at how it exists, at its causes, etc. However I think it is a good way to disabuse oneself of wrong view, especially if one clings to certain fallacies regarding eternalism or nihilism. That's one of the main reasons that it was engaged in, historically.
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