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**Kamendoriks** · 05-14-2010, 11:44 AM

Ok, I think i'm beginning to understand what you have been saying all this time.

Excerpts from an MN 38 commentary found here:

Bhikkhu Sàti is clearly influenced by the Buddha's teaching of rebirth. If there is rebirth, there
must be someone or something that is reborn; and that, ultimately, I am. Because if there is no-one
who is reborn, then who experiences the result of good or bad actions? The Buddha rejects the
notion that some-one is reborn; but then there must be some-thing, and this clearly is
consciousness. Bhikkhu Sàti says, "it is this same consciousness that runs and wanders, not
another." Remaining the same long enough to be reborn, consciousness is permanent, and
therefore "my" ultimate identity must be found in consciousness. It all makes sense. Certainly this
logic would make perfect sense to the sages of the Upanisads, for whom this ultimate
consciousness, and this ultimate identity, is called àtman (self).

But it does not make sense to the Buddha, who declares, "have I not stated in many discourses
that consciousness is dependently arisen (pañiccasamupanna vi¤¤àõa), since without a condition
(paccaya) consciousness does not come into being?" It is not "this same consciousness" that runs
and wanders at all, for at any moment - at this moment - the consciousness which we experience,
and with which we identify, has arisen because of a condition, and it ceases because of a
condition. But I don't believe I ever said that it is a self that gets reborn, the way I understood it was it was a rekindling of something inside, but not a permanent thing. Maybe that's me identifying with a self again. How do I explain it, lets say, that every being is made up of vibrations, and this vibration is a life force, which makes up the physical self and the mind, at death, do these vibrations move on?

Or do you think even that is just identifying with a self? It can't be, because the way I've understood it all this time, is that identification of a self is purely in the mind, and there is experience outside that.

05-14-2010, 11:44 AM	#33
Kamendoriks Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 627 Senior Member	Ok, I think i'm beginning to understand what you have been saying all this time. Excerpts from an MN 38 commentary found here: Bhikkhu Sàti is clearly influenced by the Buddha's teaching of rebirth. If there is rebirth, there must be someone or something that is reborn; and that, ultimately, I am. Because if there is no-one who is reborn, then who experiences the result of good or bad actions? The Buddha rejects the notion that some-one is reborn; but then there must be some-thing, and this clearly is consciousness. Bhikkhu Sàti says, "it is this same consciousness that runs and wanders, not another." Remaining the same long enough to be reborn, consciousness is permanent, and therefore "my" ultimate identity must be found in consciousness. It all makes sense. Certainly this logic would make perfect sense to the sages of the Upanisads, for whom this ultimate consciousness, and this ultimate identity, is called àtman (self). But it does not make sense to the Buddha, who declares, "have I not stated in many discourses that consciousness is dependently arisen (pañiccasamupanna vi¤¤àõa), since without a condition (paccaya) consciousness does not come into being?" It is not "this same consciousness" that runs and wanders at all, for at any moment - at this moment - the consciousness which we experience, and with which we identify, has arisen because of a condition, and it ceases because of a condition. But I don't believe I ever said that it is a self that gets reborn, the way I understood it was it was a rekindling of something inside, but not a permanent thing. Maybe that's me identifying with a self again. How do I explain it, lets say, that every being is made up of vibrations, and this vibration is a life force, which makes up the physical self and the mind, at death, do these vibrations move on? Or do you think even that is just identifying with a self? It can't be, because the way I've understood it all this time, is that identification of a self is purely in the mind, and there is experience outside that.
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