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**arreskslarlig** · 12-15-2011, 06:40 PM

The usual argument for flux runs like this: We can see that comparatively major changes (the manufacture and eventual destruction of my concrete slab, for example) occur infrequently. Subsidiary changes (e.g. cracks; chipping around the edges) are more common events. Minor changes (scratches on the surface, accumulation of dirt) can be noticed yet more often. It is easy enough to perceive in this progression a principle: less significant changes tend to occur more frequently than more general ones. There is the temptation to leap from this to the notion that below the threshold of perception changes are occurring, though we cannot observe them, with yet-greater frequency. It requires only one further extrapolation to reach the conclusion that ultimately (as opposed to merely conventionally) everything is changing, on an atomic level, all the time: flux. And, it is explained, it is because we fail to see this truth that we form attachments to the impermanent, thereby exposing ourselves to misery.

source; by Sāmanera Bodhesako

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'We have said that time is the sine qua non of the succession of mental states. To every separate state of consciousness [citta]…there are three phases - genesis (uppada), development (thiti), and dissolution (bhanga). Each of these three phases occupies an infinitesimal division of time - an instant (khana)… and together form one mental moment (cittakkhana)…There are more than one billion of such thought moments in the time that would be occupied by the shortest flash of lightning…Seventeen thought moments are held to be requisite for a complete process of consciousness…Buddhists speak of matter as lasting seventeen thought moments.' (Shwe Zan Aung, Compendium of Buddhist Philosophy, p 25)

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It is this momentariness that is not found in the Suttas, yet many in Theravadan circles (especially the modern vipassana meditation movement) build their meditation method partly on this foundation. This speculative momentariness-view becomes what they expect to see, but it is a phantasm.

12-15-2011, 06:40 PM	#25
arreskslarlig Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 470 Senior Member	The usual argument for flux runs like this: We can see that comparatively major changes (the manufacture and eventual destruction of my concrete slab, for example) occur infrequently. Subsidiary changes (e.g. cracks; chipping around the edges) are more common events. Minor changes (scratches on the surface, accumulation of dirt) can be noticed yet more often. It is easy enough to perceive in this progression a principle: less significant changes tend to occur more frequently than more general ones. There is the temptation to leap from this to the notion that below the threshold of perception changes are occurring, though we cannot observe them, with yet-greater frequency. It requires only one further extrapolation to reach the conclusion that ultimately (as opposed to merely conventionally) everything is changing, on an atomic level, all the time: flux. And, it is explained, it is because we fail to see this truth that we form attachments to the impermanent, thereby exposing ourselves to misery. source; by Sāmanera Bodhesako --- 'We have said that time is the sine qua non of the succession of mental states. To every separate state of consciousness [citta]…there are three phases - genesis (uppada), development (thiti), and dissolution (bhanga). Each of these three phases occupies an infinitesimal division of time - an instant (khana)… and together form one mental moment (cittakkhana)…There are more than one billion of such thought moments in the time that would be occupied by the shortest flash of lightning…Seventeen thought moments are held to be requisite for a complete process of consciousness…Buddhists speak of matter as lasting seventeen thought moments.' (Shwe Zan Aung, Compendium of Buddhist Philosophy, p 25) --- It is this momentariness that is not found in the Suttas, yet many in Theravadan circles (especially the modern vipassana meditation movement) build their meditation method partly on this foundation. This speculative momentariness-view becomes what they expect to see, but it is a phantasm.
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