[NEWyear]

Bodhi:

The traditional interpretation of this formula, expounded in full detail in the Visuddhimagga (Chapter XVII), has guided followers of mainstream Theravaada Buddhism for centuries in their understanding of this most profound and difficult principle of the Dhamma.

The Buddha indeed said paticcasamuppada was profound. However, he did not contradict Ananda's assertion that it was simple.


Hence a criticism of it that claims to be validated by the Suttas themselves strikes from within at the very core of the orthodox Theravaada commentarial tradition.


...and strikes it down! Very well put....

3. My purpose in writing this examination is to vindicate the traditional three-life interpretation against Ven. ~Naa.naviira's critique of it. I propose to show that the approach which he considers to be "more satisfactory" not only cannot be justified by reference to the discourses of the Buddha, but is in fact flatly contradicted by those discourses. I also intend to establish that, contrary to Ven. ~Naa.naviira's allegations, the three-life interpretation, though not explicitly stated in such terms, is fully in accord with the Buddha's teachings.

Fail. Fail. Fail.

In my view, this interpretation, far from deviating from the Suttas, simply makes explicit the Buddha's intention in expounding dependent arising.


Funny the Buddha never mentioned this. Had "three-lives" been his intention, he would have expounded it, at lengths, many times over in the suttas, just like everything else.

In making this assertion, I am not saying that the detailed exposition of pa.ticca-samuppaada (PS) as found in the Pali Commentaries can in all particulars be traced back to the Suttas.

That is quite an understatement.

The aim of the Commentaries, in their treatment of PS, is to correlate the Suttanta teaching of PS with the systematic analysis of phenomena and their conditional relations as found in the Abhidhamma.

An admission of revisionism. In other words, their purpose is to attempt to kick the Buddha's teaching of PS into the abhidhammic worldview where it does not belong, and turn into a metaphysics that it is not.

This results in an explanation of PS that is far more complex and technical than anything that can be drawn out from the Sutta texts themselves.

Complex, unwieldy, nonsensical, inaccurate, and false.

I also believe that the Commentaries take unnecessary risks when they try to read back into the Suttas ideas deriving from tools of interpretation that appeared perhaps centuries after the Suttas were compiled.

Yes.

All that I wish to maintain is that the essential vision underlying the commentarial interpretation is correct: namely, that the twelvefold formula of PS extends over three lives and as such describes the generative structure of sa.msaara, the round of repeated births.


Um there is no mention at all of "samsara" in PS or any of the Buddha's teachings describing it.

Unlike Ven. ~Naa.naviira, however, I do not hold that all later works, such as the Abhidhamma Pi.taka and the Commentaries, should be rejected point blank as miasmas of error and decay.

Um see note above about AB and Comy.

The three-life interpretation of pa.ticca-samuppaada has been maintained by the Theravaada tradition virtually from the time that tradition emerged as a distinct school.

Fallacy: Appeal to Tradition

In contrast, Ven. ~Naa.naviira's view of pa.ticca-samuppaada, as pertaining solely to a single life, appears to be without a precedent in the tenet systems of early Buddhism.

That is, if you exclude the Buddha himself from "early Buddhism".

Thus, when Ven. ~Naa.naviira holds that he has correctly grasped the Buddha's intention in expounding PS, this implicitly commits him to the thesis that the entire mainstream Buddhist philosophical tradition has utterly misinterpreted this most fundamental Buddhist doctrine, and had already done so within two centuries after the Master's demise.

Um Nanavira is not "alone" in this. Others -- myself for example -- have come to this conclusion independently.

It helps if one reads the suttas themselves, rather than studying abhidharma or the commentaries or relying on other outside sources to tell one what one can find out for oneself.

While it is not altogether impossible that this had occurred, it would seem a lapse of an astonishing magnitude on the part of the early Buddhist community.

Indeed. I see that lapse, and find it rather astonishing myself, as well.

Ven. ~Naa.naviira maintains that pa.ticca-samuppaada, in its twelve-factored formulation, applies solely and entirely to our existential situation in this present life, without any reference to temporal divisions.

As does the Buddha, for example, in MN 38:

"Good, Bhikkhus! You say this and I also say it. Thus when this is present, that happens. When this arises, that arise. That is, because of ignorance, [volitional] formations arise. Because of [volitional] formations, consciousness arises. Because of consciousness, name and form arise. Because of name and form, the sixfold sense base arises. Because of the sixfold sense base, contact arises. Because of contact, feelings arise. Because of feelings, craving arises. Because of craving, clinging arises. Because of clinging, becoming arises. Because of becoming, birth arises. Because of birth, old age, sickness, death, grief, lament, unpleasantness, displeasure and distress arise. Thus arises the complete mass of dukkha.

"Bhikkhus, you who know thus and see thus, would your mind run to the past: 'Was I in the past or was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what did I become?'" "No, venerable sir." "Bhikkhus, would you who know and see thus, run to the future: 'Will I be in the future, or will I not be in the future? What will I be in the future? How will I be in the future? Having been what, what will I become?'" "No, venerable sir." "Bhikkhus, would you who know and see thus have doubts about the present: 'Am I, or am I not? What am I? How am I? Where did this being come from? Where will it go?'" "No, venerable sir."

...


"Good, O, Bhikkhus, I have led you in this Dhamma which is visible here and now, timeless, open to inspection, leading onwards and to be experienced by the wise for themselves. It was in reference to this that it was said: 'Bhikkhus, this Dhamma is visible here and now, timeless, open to inspection, transcendent and to be experienced by the wise for themselves'



It is also clear from the Suttas that the Buddha's motive in teaching PS is to lead us to a present resolution of the existential problem of suffering. Repeatedly in the Suttas we see the Buddha teaching PS in order to lay bare the structure of conditions that underlies the origination and cessation of dukkha.

This is a very important concession. Bodhi admits that the Buddha taught, over and over in the Suttas, PS in the here-and-now.

However, in order to understand how pa.ticca-samuppaada fulfils this function, we should focus on the question: What is the meaning of the dukkha that the Buddha's Teaching is designed to liberate us from?

Indeed. This is where we separate the wheat from the chaff, and the Buddha's teachings from putthujana superstitions.

Ven. ~Naa.naviira contends that this dukkha is the anxiety and stress that pervades our present existence, and hence he interprets all the terms of the standard PS formula in a way that lends support to this contention.

Just like the Buddha did.

But if we read the Suttas on their own terms, in their totality, we would find that Ven. ~Naa.naviira's understanding of dukkha falls far short of the vision of the first noble truth that the Buddha wishes to impart to us.

Bodhi makes this claim by fiat and without any means of support or citation. The Buddha defines dukkha in terms of not having the wanted and having the not-wanted. In his first discourse, we see this same idea represented in terms of "becoming and non-becoming":

"And this, monks, is the noble truth of the origination of stress: the craving that makes for further becoming — accompanied by passion & delight, relishing now here & now there — i.e., craving for sensual pleasure, craving for becoming, craving for non-becoming.

Of course, dukkha does include "existential anxiety," and there are several suttas which define the conditions for the arising and removal of such dukkha.

Another very important concession. Bodhi is conceding the veracity of paticcasamuppada in the here-and-now yet again. Now he forces himself to show the supremacy of his own interpretation (and support it with convincing cites to the suttas) and show the insignificance of the here-and-now, which he cannot do.

An unbiased and complete survey of the Nikaayas, however, would reveal that the problem of dukkha to which the Buddha's Teaching is addressed is not primarily existential anxiety, nor even the distorted sense of self of which such anxiety may be symptomatic.

Saying that one's position is supported by "an unbiased and complete survey..." without any citation is Begging the Question. ("Begging the question" is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself. )

Bodhi attempts to avoid his responsibility to support this assertion with cites to the suttas by declaring it by fiat. No dice.

The primary problem of dukkha with which the Buddha is concerned, in its most comprehensive and fundamental dimensions, is the problem of our bondage to sa.msaara -- the round of repeated birth, aging, and death.

Same thing here. Bodhi provides nothing to support this assertion-by-fiat, because there is no support for this assertion in the suttas.

We shall note here that Bodhi hammers on the phrase "birth, aging and death" in all of his discussions, and attempts to conveniently forget that the last nidana is not "aging and death" ("decay" is an alternate translation for the former, BTW), but also includes "sorrow, lamentation, grief, pain, distress, and despair, in short this entire mass of suffering". This is because this does not fit into his vision of "dukkha" as equating to reincarnation/"re-birth".

A glance at the Suttas would suffice to reveal to us the "fundamental attitudes" that motivated the Buddha and the early disciples in their own quest for deliverance.

Yes -- it is clearly stated that his concern was for the elimination of suffering.

We find, for example, that each Bodhisatta, from Vipassii to Gotama, seeks the path to enlightenment with the thought, "Alas, this world has fallen into trouble, in that it is born and ages and dies and passes away and is reborn, and it does not know of the escape from this suffering of aging and death."

Appeal to superstitious myth.

When young seekers go forth into homelessness out of faith in the Buddha, they do so because they have realized: "I am immersed in birth, aging and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair; I am immersed in suffering, afflicted with suffering. Perhaps one can discern here an end-making to this entire mass of suffering."

Bodhi displays an uncanny talent for selective vision here.

Again and again the Buddha stresses the misery of repeated existence within sa.msaara, again and again he underscores the urgency of escaping from it (see e.g. SN ii,178-93).

-- and also an uncanny talent for equivocation and for citing to his own equivocations of translation. The whole series of "samsara without discoverable beginning" suttas hammer on a single "moral of the story": It is enough to experience revulsion toward all sankharas, enough to become dispassionate toward them, enough to be liberated from them. What the Buddha is saying in this series of suttas is to quit wasting time and energy with metaphysical and cosmological speculations, and get on with the business of practising the Dhamma. These suttas are relied upon heavily by traditionalists who equivocate their meaning, including Bodhi.


And his constant injunction to the monks throughout his ministry was to dwell diligently so that "having abandoned the cycle of births, you will make an end of suffering."


And another equivocation of "samsara" as being "reincarnation".

These words should leave no doubt that by putting an end to suffering the Buddha means -- not release from existential anxiety -- but release from the round of rebirths.


That all wraps up pretty nicely for Bodhi, unless one pays attention to how the Buddha defined dukkha.

In so far as the Dhamma addresses the problem of our present suffering, it does so by situating that suffering in its larger context, our condition of sa.msaaric bondage.


The Buddha does not define dukkha or his Dhamma in terms of "our condition of samsaric (reincarnative) bondage". The Buddha defines the problem of present suffering in terms of present suffering: "Bhikkhus, you who know thus and see thus, would your mind run to the past: 'Was I in the past or was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what did I become?'" "No, venerable sir." "Bhikkhus, would you who know and see thus, run to the future: 'Will I be in the future, or will I not be in the future? What will I be in the future? How will I be in the future? Having been what, what will I become?'" "No, venerable sir." "Bhikkhus, would you who know and see thus have doubts about the present: 'Am I, or am I not? What am I? How am I? Where did this being come from? Where will it go?'" "No, venerable sir."


More to come.....