[peveballery]

You're actually saying the same thing I am. Everyone can experience it, but you can not give it to another person. The most oft-used metaphor is a finger pointing to the moon. The teachings are the finger, the moon is what you're meant to see for yourself. The Noble Eightfold Path as understood conceptually is mundane, but it leads to the supramundane Noble Eightfold Path.

[Ruilnasr]

Everyone can experience it, but you can not give it to another person.

This is empirical knowledge, isn't it?

[wentscat]

What you are calling "supramundane", Cloud, is a matter of applying one's own experiential context to a teaching. The Buddha did teach to use experience to verify his teachings. One example:

Maybe a better way of explaining what I mean as the difference between mundane and supramundane...

I tell you that a fire is hot, that it causes pain, and that you don't want to stick your hand in it. From that you've come to the mundane understanding that a fire is hot and causes pain.

Wanting to verify your understanding, you go ahead and stick your hand in the fire (just a little). The fire burns and causes you pain. That burning, that pain which you experience, would be the supramundane knowledge.

Anyone else wanna chime in? =)

The Buddha taught:

Here, householders, a noble disciple reflects thus: 'I am one who wishes to live, who does not wish to die; I desire happiness and am averse to suffering. Since I am one who wishes to live, who does not wish to die; who desires happiness and is averse to suffering; if someone were to take my life, that would not be pleasing and agreeable to me. Now if I were to take the life of another -- of one who wishes to live, who does not wish to die, who desires happiness and is averse to suffering--that would not be pleasing and agreeable to the other either. What is displeasing and disagreeable to me is displeasing and disagreeable to the other too. How can I inflict upon another what is displeasing and disagreeable to me?' Having reflected thus, he himself abstains from the destruction of life, exhorts others to abstain from the destruction of life, and speaks in praise of abstinence from the destruction of life. Thus this bodily conduct of his is purified in three respects.(Veludvareyya Sutta)
By the way, the word "supramundane" in itself means "supernatural".

[nanyaHgoc]

You're actually saying the same thing I am. Everyone can experience it, but you can not give it to another person. The most oft-used metaphor is a finger pointing to the moon. The teachings are the finger, the moon is what you're meant to see for yourself. The Noble Eightfold Path as understood conceptually is mundane, but it leads to the supramundane Noble Eightfold Path.

I'm not saying the same thing, no.

The "finger-and-the-moon" was not the Buddha's analogy. The Buddha described lokiya teachings, but these were the superstitions and speculative views that preceded him: karma, reincarnation, ancestor worship, etc. He did not describe these as "Noble". The Buddha described his own Eightfold Path as Noble and lokuttara. He did not delineate between a conceptual, "lokiya Noble" path that is "just understood conceptually" and a greater "lokuttara Noble Path" that is actualized or reified or put into practice. He described superstitions and speculative views as a lokiya path, and his own teachings as being "noble" and "lokuttara". And his use of "lokuttara" was that which rises above worldly concerns.

[ringtonesmannq]

I was replying to Kaarine, who said essentially the same thing that I did...

I was only pointing out that there is the conceptual and the non-conceptual, intellectualization and direct experience. The direct experience is the transformative component that leads one to stream-entry and beyond; enlightenment isn't simply having a conceptual understanding of the teachings. Words are just words, it's the reality they point toward that is important. Nothing anyone says is supramundane, it can only point to the supramundane.

Anyway that's all I had to say, I'm outta this one. Later!

[Quaganoca]

Is the Buddha not using direct experience to teach here?:

Here, householders, a noble disciple reflects thus: 'I am one who wishes to live, who does not wish to die; I desire happiness and am averse to suffering. Since I am one who wishes to live, who does not wish to die; who desires happiness and is averse to suffering; if someone were to take my life, that would not be pleasing and agreeable to me. Now if I were to take the life of another -- of one who wishes to live, who does not wish to die, who desires happiness and is averse to suffering--that would not be pleasing and agreeable to the other either. What is displeasing and disagreeable to me is displeasing and disagreeable to the other too. How can I inflict upon another what is displeasing and disagreeable to me?' Having reflected thus, he himself abstains from the destruction of life, exhorts others to abstain from the destruction of life, and speaks in praise of abstinence from the destruction of life. Thus this bodily conduct of his is purified in three respects.
The Buddha did not teach using an presumption that "there is the conceptual and the non-conceptual, intellectualization and direct experience." I know that this is a popular assumption in many sects, but it is not a given conceptual framework in the Buddha's teachings, and it is in itself an example of the sort of "intellectualization" of the Buddha's teachings that it claims to refute.

[feeshyLew]

I take mundane to mean anything and everything that can be taught in language. Supramundane is experiential understanding, that which is seen directly by investigation and observation, not itself based on thought.

Yes stuka, but the supramundane understanding is the result of practice, not of conceptually understanding the teachings.

Hi Cloud

Your views are Mahayana views, when you assert "supramundane is beyond language".

The 'two truths' of Mahayana do not accord with the two truths of the Pali suttas.

The Pali suttas do not use the word 'supramundane' ('lokuttara': 'transcendent') as you are.

The Pali suttas use 'lokuttara' to refer to both certain teachings as well as a state of mind.

I am inclined to agree with the views of Stuka on this subject.

With metta



Thus you should train yourselves: 'We will listen when discourses that are words of the Tathagata — deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent (lokuttara), connected with emptiness — are being recited. We will lend ear, will set our hearts on knowing them, will regard these teachings as worth grasping & mastering.' That's how you should train yourselves."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....007.than.html

[opdirorg]

All: I'm confused. I'm going to throw some things out their this thread seems to relate to not to impose them on the discussion but to aid im my grasping of the issue(s).

It seems to relate to: the profane/ordinary versus sacred in comparative religion studies; and to the epistemological distinctions not only between induction and deduction but also denotation and connotation. To define a tree, for instance, by denotation, simply requires pointing to a tree (denote means "to point to"). To define a tree, by connotation, however, requires asking what is it that all trees have in common? Or, put in terms of induction and deduction, a particular tree is an instance or sub-class (inductive understanding) of the general class (deductive understanding) "tree."

Speak, brothers & sisters. I await your insights.

[mr.nemo]

All: I'm confused.

In the Buddha's teachings, nothing is anywhere near as complicated as you describe. He described those superstitions and speculative views that preceded him, and which he saw as being conducive (through the effects of the asavas) to moral conduct, as being "right view that is affected by the taints (asavas). His own teachings, based in discernment and consisting of the 4NT/8FP, IDP/PS, the 3 Characteristics, anatta, sunnata, the 37 factors of Awakening, etc, he called Noble (ariyo) and described as being lokuttara), beyond "the world", meaning beyond worldly concerns. He didn't encumber his teachings with epistemology or ontology or metaphysical speculations.

[ivandiadser]

A reincarnation of Gregory Bateson?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Bateson

[fedelwfget]

In the Buddha's teachings, nothing is anywhere near as complicated as you describe. He described those superstitions and speculative views that preceded him.... He didn't encumber his teachings with epistemology or ontology or metaphysical speculations.

A thicket of views and all that, right? IDP = iddhipada? What's PS? He did have an epistemology and ontology of his own, though, right? That is, his life wasn't totally void of theories of knowledge an being.

[bestgenpower]

Element: Do you mean me? I do love systems science, but he died after I was born.

[harriettvanders]

Of course!

[SingleMan]

IDP/PS

idappaccayatā paṭiccasamuppādo

idappaccayatā = the general process of cause & effect; conditionality

paṭiccasamuppādo = a specific process of cause & effect about how suffering arises & ceases



Ālayarāmā kho panāyaṃ pajā ālayaratāya ālayasammuditāya duddasaṃ idaṃ ṭhānaṃ yadidaṃ – idappaccayatā paṭiccasamuppādo

For a generation delighting in attachment, excited by attachment, enjoying attachment, this/that conditionality & dependent co-arising are hard to see.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....026.than.html

‘‘Katamo ca, bhikkhave, paṭiccasamuppādo? Jātipaccayā, bhikkhave, jarāmaraṇaṃ. Uppādā vā tathāgatānaṃ anuppādā vā tathāgatānaṃ, ṭhitāva sā dhātu dhammaṭṭhitatā dhammaniyāmatā idappaccayatā. Taṃ tathāgato abhisambujjhati abhisameti. Abhisambujjhitvā abhisametvā ācikkhati deseti paññāpeti paṭṭhapeti vivarati vibhajati uttānīkaroti. ‘Passathā’ti cāha – ‘jātipaccayā, bhikkhave, jarāmaraṇaṃ’’’.

"Now what is dependent co-arising? From birth as a requisite condition comes aging & death. Whether or not there is the arising of Tathagatas, this property stands — this regularity of the Dhamma, this orderliness of the Dhamma, this this/that conditionality. The Tathagata directly awakens to that, breaks through to that. Directly awakening & breaking through to that, he declares it, teaches it, describes it, sets it forth. He reveals it, explains it, makes it plain

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....020.than.html THE LAW OF NATURE

The third topic I'd like to mention is conditionality (idappaccayata), which means:

because this is, this is; because this arises, this arises; because this is not, this is not; because this quenches, this quenches.

These conditions are called "idappaccayata," the law that things happen according to causes and conditions. We can also call it dependent origination (paticca-samuppada) because idappaccayata and paticca-samuppada are the same thing, the same principle of wisdom to be studied, seen, and understood. You will see that everything in the world is constantly flowing, that all the world is in continual flux. It is a profound and complex matter. Many books treat it in great detail, particularly when it's described in terms of dependent origination.

http://www.what-buddha-taught.net/Bo...l_Disease2.htm

[Aswdwdfg]

A reincarnation of Gregory Bateson?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Bateson

Best known to my mind as being married to anthropologist Margaret Mead and together having Mary Catherine Bateson, with whom he wrote the work Angels Fear .... in this way he has been reincarnated many times in the education of anthropolgy students worldwide I would suspect ....

Full fathom five thy father lies;
of his bones are coral made;
Those pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Seanymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! Now I hear them, Ding-dong, bell.


SHAKESPEARE, The Tempest

[WeissVine]

Hi Aloka

The old adage that "context is everything" is relevant here.

Mundane -

Lokiya (& lokika) (adj.) [fr. loka; cp. Vedic laukika in meaning "worldly, usual"] 1. (ordinarily) "belonging to the world," i. e. -- (a) world -- wide, covering the whole world, famed, widely known Th 1, 554; J vi.198...

...2. (special meaning) worldly, mundane, when opposed to lokuttara.

Supramundane -

Lokuttara: The term lokuttara has two meanings -- viz. (a) in ordinary sense: the highest of the world, best, sublime (like lokagga, etc.), often applied to Arahantship, e. g. lokuttaradāyajja inheritance of Arahantship J i.91; DhA i.117; ideal: lokuttara dhamma (like parama dhamma) the ideal state, viz. Nibbāna M ii.181; pl. l. dhammā M iii.115. -- (b) (in later canonical literature) beyond these worlds, supra -- mundane, transcendental, spiritual. In this meaning it is applied to the group of nava lokuttarā dhammā (viz. the 4 stages of the Path: sotāpatti etc., with the 4 phala's, and the addition of nibbāna),...

.... lokiya (in meaning "mundane") is contrasted with lokuttara ("transcendental") at many passages of the Abhidhamma,

Source: Pali Text Society Pali-English Dictionary.

A

[fount_pirat]

Best known to my mind as being married to anthropologist Margaret Mead and together having Mary Catherine Bateson, with whom he wrote the work Angels Fear .... in this way he has been reincarnated many times in the education of anthropolgy students worldwide I would suspect ....

Yes, Andy

I once was a big fan. I read all of his books I could find. I particularly enjoyed Steps To An Ecology of Mind.

Nice to read others are familiar with GB.

[extessarere]

Yes, Andy

I once was a big fan. I read all of his books I could find. I particularly enjoyed Steps To An Ecology of Mind.

Nice to read others are familiar with GB.

Oh yes, the most engaging formal studies I have undertaken have been in anthropology ( followed closely by a term of first year philosophy and logic ) - so relevant to the functional, as well as spirirtual aspects of our lives

[wmhardware]

A thicket of views and all that, right? IDP = iddhipada? What's PS? He did have an epistemology and ontology of his own, though, right? That is, his life wasn't totally void of theories of knowledge an being.

Not really. He saw them as speculative and refused to answer such questions, or redirected them toward his own phenomenological teachings.

[Wgnhqhlg]

Hi Aloka

The old adage that "context is everything" is relevant here.......

Hi Aliarchus, Re #36 - I usually look up Pali words in these two places:

http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud...ict/dic3_l.htm

and:

http://what-buddha-said.net/library/....htm#lokuttara