[ringtonesmannq]

Bodhi continues:

6. I now intend to take up for scrutiny what might be regarded as the two main planks of Ven. ~Naa.naviira's interpretation. The two planks to which I am referring are his attempts to explain the relationships between those conditions which, in the traditional interpretation, are held to extend over different lifetimes. These are: (i) the nexus of bhava, jaati, and jaraamara.na -- becoming ('being', in Ven. ~Naa.naviira's translation), birth, and aging-and-death; and (ii) the nexus of avijjaa, sa"nkhaaraa, and vi~n~naa.na -- ignorance, formations ('determinations'), and consciousness. I will show that Ven. ~Naa.naviira's explanations of both these groups of factors fail to draw support from the source that he himself regards as the supreme authority in interpretation of the Dhamma, namely, the Pali Suttas.

Bodhi has painted himself into a corner here. Although the burden of proof is upon him to both show the supremacy of "three-lives" and to refute PS in the here and now, he has already given up on the former responsibility and admitted that PS is for the quenching of dukkha here and now, and that there is plenty in the Suttas to support that. But now he asks us to forget that concession and and attempts to refute parts of paticcasamuppada in the here-and-now.

I will also show that, contra Ven. ~Naa.naviira, on both points the Suttas confirm the traditional interpretation, which regards these connections as involving a succession of lives.


Which would require showing the Buddha directly and explicitly explaining paticcasamuppada in a "three-lives" context, at great length and many, many times throughout the suttas, just as we see any other teaching the Buddha proclaimed. The Buddha does not teach paticcasamuppada in this way even once. Not once.


Before we go any further, we should point out that Ven. ~Naa.naviira does not cite any suttas to support his understanding of bhava, jaati, and jaraamara.na, and in fact there are no suttas to be found in the Pali Canon that explain the above terms in this way.

It is so funny to see Bodhi pointing that finger after failing to cite any suttas to support his assertion above in #5:

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. 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.


And, having nothing else to go on, Bodhi now erects a Straw Man:

Moreover, on Ven. ~Naa.naviira's interpretation it may not even be quite correct to say 'jaatipaccayaa jaraamara.na.m'. On his view, it seems, one would be obliged to say instead, 'bhavapaccayaa jaati, bhavapaccayaa jaraamara.na.m'.

...and argues against it:

Since he regards the puthujjana's taking himself to be a self as the basis for his notions "my self was born" and "my self will die," it would follow that 'being' would be the condition for both 'birth' and 'aging-and-death'. But that is not what the Buddha himself asserts.

Nor does Nanavira assert this.


More to come...