Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda—Part 1-12

Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda: Analysing the Heart Sutra from Theravadin Perspective—Part 1-12

 Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda—Part 1

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato Samma-sambuddhassa

Homage to the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the Supremely Enlightened One !

Khīnam purānam navam natthi sambhavam - Viratta cittā āyatike bhavasmim

Te khīnabījā avirūlhicchandā - Nibbanti dhīrā yathā’yam padīpo

Idam pi sanghe ratanam panītam - Etena saccena suvatthi hotu

The liberated ones’ old kamma is destroyed with no more growing

The Arahants fade out - Just as this lamp has done

in this sangha is this precious jewel

By this truth may there be well-being!

(Buddha Meditation Centre Saskatoon)

ABSTRACT

This study compared Vibhajjavada and Sarvastivada by comparing their scriptures and refuted the five theses of Mahadeva downgrading the arahants, from the Vibhajjavadi perspective. The origin of Mahayanist texts are unclear, as their authors are concealed behind speculation. Nevertheless, they follow the Mahadeva's five points to promote the bodhisattva ideal. The popular Mahayanist belief is the bodhisattvas postpone their own enlightenment until all beings are liberated. According to Mahayanist sutras, which contradict each other to some extent, Bodhisattvas may only propagate Mahayana and only the Buddhas emancipate the beings. The goal of Mahayana is everyone must become a Buddha. Millions have become bodhisattvas and Buddhas, who are on their missions of emancipation but they are not heard or seen by the oridinary people. These sutras promote a form of eternalism (sassatavada) and a type of annihilationism (uccedavada). The Heart Sutra (Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtra) promotes a bodhisattva to the Buddha level and a God-like figure. Thus, the Mahayanist scriptures are closer to the Vedas than to the Dhamma-Vinaya Sasana established by the historical Buddha. A Sammasambuddha is an arahant and a Vibhajjavādi (Vibhajjavādo: one who practices analytical reasoning). After His 45 year career, the Buddha left us with the Dhamma as our teacher. With the respect for the Buddha and the Dhamma, the elders have preserved the Dhamma-Vinaya Sasana for 2,500 years so that all the Buddha's followers may access the unconditioned peace, Nibbāna.

1.0. INTRODUCTION: the Background:

Ye dhamma hetuppa bhavatesam hetum tathagato ahatesanca yo nirodhoevam vadi maha samano.

Prince Siddhatta was born in the Solar Dynasty (Suriyavamsa) in 563 624-623 BC. He became a Sammasambuddha in (528) 588 BC. He established the Dhamma-Vinaya Sasana, the religion of the Buddhists, and the Sangha, the keeper of Buddhism. He spoke the Dhamma in the Pali dialect of the Prakrit language.

Thera in Pali is a senior bhikkhu with "10 years from his upasampadā." The Pitakas were compiled during the Buddha's lifetime. After the Buddha's Parinibbána in 483 544-543 BC [But all the traditional views, except the traditions of Ceylon and Burma, do not have sufficiently strong evidences in their support (Jainism in Buddhist Literature)] , Venerable Mahakassapa Thera organised 500 elders and held the First Buddhist Council, which (re)compiled and categorised some of the Buddha's teachings and established the Sangha Sasana (Theravada/Sthaviravada), as the Dhamma itself is the arbitor. Sangha Sasana merely relays the Dhamma, without individuals adding their own philosophies.

"Enough, Vakkali! What is there to see in this vile body? He who sees Dhamma, Vakkali, sees me; he who sees me sees Dhamma. Truly seeing Dhamma, one sees me; seeing me one sees Dhamma."-SN 22.87

After some time passed, schisms occurred because people from different philosophical backgrounds entered the Sangha and created different religious ideologies. The Sangha, the keepers of the Dhamma-Vinaya Sasana, shed these ideologies in the future Buddhist Councils. Pacittiya 70 prohibits the bhikkhus from associating "with a samanera who develops erroneous views [page53 The manual of the bhikkhu]."

The rebel groups adopted the prohibited Sanskrit "the language of the Vedic revelation (śruti)" and "put the word of the Buddhas into (Sanskrit) verse." To prohibit the Sanskrit, the Buddha said,

The Dharma is a living reality. The words used to transmit it should be the words used daily by the people. I do not want the teaching to be transmitted in a language that can be understood by only a few scholars.. I want all my disciples, both ordained and lay, to study and practice the Dharma in their native tongues [Pali, Burmese...].

Sanskrit is essential to learn from the Sanskrit literature of Brahmanism, to fit within Brahmanist society and to have influence on it.

[According to the Mahāvaitulya mahāsannipāta (T. 397), they were the Sarvāstivādins, who] read, recited, copied and spoke about non-Buddhist texts, received [the doctrine] concerning the existence of [the dharmas] of the three time periods [past, present and future] and of internal and external [dharmas ...] [Why Did the Buddhists Adopt Sanskrit? (Vincent Eltschinger (2017, 323)]

Mahayana innitially emerged from the first schism of Devadatta. His followers (the Vajjian monks) continued to split the Dhamma-Vinaya and the Sangha. They portrays the ex-seer Devadatta as a bodhisattva in the chapter 12 of the Lotus Sutra (100 B.C. - 200 A.D.). The development of the Mahayanist scripture probably began after the second Sangha Council (also known as the Sattasati and the Yasatthera Sangiti).

The eight most senior theras led the second council and rejected the corrupt Vajjian monks for their breach of the ten Vinaya rules, including the use of gold and silver, and the intake of the forbidden food and drinks. These Vajjian monks left the Sangha with their hatred of the arahants. The heart of Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda is Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtra, the mini version of the Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra, demonstrates the Sarvāstivādi ideals: downgrading the arahants and promoting the bodhisattvas. They formed the first Mahayanist sect known as the Mahasanghika and created many Mahayanist vehicles, such as Bodhisattvayāna, Tantrāyāna and Mantrāyāna.

The rebelious Mahasarnghikas created a new religion (Mahāyāna/Sarvāstivāda) based on the existing over a long stretch of time. After bringing the Sanskrit into Mahayana, the widespread use of the Bramanical practices became easier.

The Mahasarnghikas worked out a primitive, and rather unsystematic, scheme in the Mahavastu. Later the Dasahhumika, c. A.D. 100, the Bodhisattvabhumi, c. 400, and the Madhyamakdvatara, c. 650, worked out a neater arrangement, which has become classical in Mahayana tradition. Our Sutra stands halfway between the earlier and the final arrangement...[Conze, Large Sutra, 23. as quoted in No Turning Back: The Concept of Irreversibility in Indian Mahayana Literature, Peter James Gilks - page 20 (2010, thesis - ANU Australia)]

The Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra (100 B.C. - 100 A.D.) is considered to be the oldest sutra."

The Short Prajnaparamita Texts were composed in India between 100 BC and AD 600. [Perfect Wisdom: Prajnaparamita Texts (Edward Conze)]

In Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtra (the Heart Sutra), Subhuti the protagonist became Avalokiteśvara. Both sutras place the Venerable Sariputta in the same supporting role. Avalokiteśvara is also known as Padmapani and Siva (Shiva).

[Avalokiteshvara Padmapani, Pakistan (Swat Valley) (The Met):] Bodhisattva as the lotus-bearer Padmapani was a favored form of Avalokiteshvara [...] The antelope skin over his shoulder is a reminder of his ascetic nature, akin to Shiva.

• The Heart Sutra is a mantra. It follows Brahmanic tradition of using om and svaha for the divine worship.

[Heart (The Buddhist Centre):] om namo bhagavatyai aryaprajnaparamitayai aryavalokitesvaro bodhisattvo

• The meaning of the mantra at the end of the Heart Sutra (Richard Hayes):

"You Brahmin priests with your fancy fire sacrifices aren't the only ones who get people to heaven. We can do it without killing animals and wasting trees. So there."

• The Mahayanist/Sarvāstivādi monks took sufficient time to develope new concepts to be well designed and believable in order to abandon fire sacrifice.
• Chanting the Heart Sutra mantra is to get to heaven without fire sacrifice. In practice, it is chanted for success and gain.
• The Heart Sutra portrays the domination of other religions over the Theravada. Downgrading the arahants is a direct attack on the the elders as an attempt to discredit them. And promoting the bodhisattva ideals is to prevent the Buddhist populations from attaining various stages of Nibbána, Namarupa pariccheda ñana (knowledge of the distinction between body/mind), for example.

In Sariputtatthera Vatthu, the Buddha declared:

Verse 392: If from somebody one should learn the Teaching of the Buddha, he should respectfully pay homage to that teacher, as a brahmin worships the sacrificial fire.

The Buddha's instruction became the backbone of the Theravada. However, neither fire sacrifice nor another way of devine worship is the original part of the Dhamma-Vinaya.

According to Wayman (1978), Śrīmālā-sūtra was the first to adopt Mahādeva's five theses (points) downgrading the arhat. Mahayanist hierarchical structure presented in the Lankavatara Sutra places arhats at the fifth stage and bodhisattvas at the sixth to the tenth stages. That justifies a tenth-stage Avalokiteśvara bodhisatva teaching an arhat.

The Heart Sutra effectively executes these five points, which divided the Mahāsāṃghika sect. That schism led to the development of Mahayanist traditions without arahants.

Since the reputation of the great arahants of early Buddhism never entirely vanished, arahants still play a certain role in some sects of Mahāyāna and are regarded at least as equal to bodhisattvas of the sixth plane, bhūmi.

These sutras adopted the term "Sound Hearers (voice-hearer)" and later defined it as arhats who "are incapable of genuine and equal enlightenment"— for example,

[Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra (The Flower Adornment Sutra)] All of these were states of Universal Worthy Bodhisattva's wisdom-eye; they had nothing in common with the Two Vehicles...these great disciples had relied on the Sound Hearer Vehicle to escape... They forsook living beings and dwelt in their own affairs... Which is why ... they could not behold such vast great spiritual penetrations.

Those authors put all arahants under these five points, but could not destroy Mahayanist texts that recognise the true nature of arahants; for example, Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra says,

Mahākātyāyana, during the lifetime of the Buddha, explained the words of the Buddha and made a Pi le (Peṭaka).

In earlier development, Mahayana even downgraded the Buddha in the Bloodstream Sermon. According to Bodhidharma, anyone can become a buddha by living an idle lifestyle.

"A Buddha is an idle person...

Bodhidharma, who hated the arhats, is considered an expert in the Lankavatara Sutra (The Sutra of the Ten Stages). However, he did not know his Sutra of the Ten Stages recognises the Sugata Buddha as an arhat.

[Lanka Chapter 1:] Then said Mahamati the Bodhisattva-Mahasattva: O blessed One, Sugata, Arhat and Fully-Enlightened One, pray tell us about the realization of Noble Wisdom

According Red Pine [Heart (Red, page 8)], the shastras were composed by "the later followers of the Buddha:

They included a work by Dharmashri (c. 100 B.c.), another by Upashanta (c. A.D. 28o), and a third by Dharmatrata (c. A.D. 320). These three shastras were considered essential reading for members of the Sarvāstivādi sect, and they eventually formed the basis of an Abhidharma school in China.

The Heart Sutra, which was not considered essential, might be composed much later than the essential sutras.

The dates of the sutras are approximate only. These dates indicate how the Mahayanists took several hundred years to compose the first Mahayanist sutras—much more time than the Buddha's entire career. And the Mahayanists came up with a totally different ideology that distinguishes Mahayana from Theravada but identical to the Vedas traditions.

The Sarvāstivādi sutras provide new concepts and meanings, such as:

• Dharmakaya: Dharma-body (Buddha-lands, etc.)
• Anuttara: the fundamental reality underneath the whole Universe, emptiness, fullness
• Anuttarā samyak-saṃbodhi: unexcelled perfect enlightenment;
• The ten-stage Nirvana
• Tathāgatagarbha: Tathāgata womb
• Ālaya-vijñāna: the Universal Mind, storehouse consciousness or the one eternal mind
• Buddha-dhàtu: Buddha-svabhāva, the Buddha-nature—was developed to support Bodhisattvayāna.

[Breakthrough Sermon, Bodhidharma:] The Sutra of the Ten Stages [Lankavatara] says, “In the body of mortals is the indestructible buddha-nature.

This study aims to understand Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda by comparing their scriptures and analysing the main concepts found in these scriptures in reference to Vibhajjavāda. An analysis on the Heart Sutra would reveal how Mahadeva's five points are incorrect and baseless.

A Mahayanist/Sarvāstivādi sutra cannot be understood in isolation but in comparing with other Sarvāstivādi sutras in the Vibhajjavādi context. The Sarvāstivādi monks, in writing the Heart Sutra, must only follow the Sarvāstivādi approaches found in the Sarvāstivādi scripture, such as the Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra, the Lankavatara-Sutra and the Lotus-Sutra.

This work presents Vibhajjavādin scripture and thought first, followed by Sarvāstivāda and analysis of the Heart Sutra in Mahayanist and Theravadin contexts.

1.1. Main links used in this work:

1. New Heart Sutra translation by Thich Nhat Hanh; cited as [Heart (Thich)]
   1. The Heart Sutra as recited in the Triratna Buddhist Community (Sanskrit), The Buddhist Centre; [Heart (Centre):]
   2. Heart Sutra (Shippensburg University); [Heart (Uni)]
   3. Heart Sutra, [Heart (Dharmanet)],
   4. Heart Sutra Red Pine; [Heart (Red)]
   5. Heart Sutra, The longer version (Wiki);
   6. THE PRAJNA PARAMITA HEART SUTRA Hsuan Hua
   7. The Ratnaguna-samcayagatha compare with Aṣtasāhasrikā (Avalokiteśvara is not present)
   8. Gayatri Mantra: a reference for the Heart Sutra mantra and the seer (Devadatta in a past life) in the Lotus Sutra Chapter 12; "Gayatri mantra is said to be the essence of all mantras;"
2. Maha Prajnaparamita Sastra Full (200 A.D.) By Nagarjuna; [Prajnaparamita (CONZE page 3):]
   1. Avalokiteśvara appears once among other bodhisattvas, see page 38
   2. Maha Prajnaparamita Sastra 1 Gelongma Karma Migme Chodron (PDF)
   3. Maha Prajnaparamita Sastra 2 Gelongma Karma Migme Chödrön (web pages)
      1. Appendix 3 - Why the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara is so named: all these creatures have only to hear the name of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara to be freed from this great mass of suffering.
   4. Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra
3. The Lankavatara Sutra (400 A.D.) (translated by Suzuki and Goddard); cited as [Lanka Chapter 1:]
   1. Introduction to the Lankavatara Sutra (D.T. Suzuki)
   2. link 2
   3. Lanka (Red Pine)
4. Wonderful Dharma Lotus Sutra (100 B.C. - 200 A.D.) — Saddharma Pundarika Sutra, Translated into Chinese during the Yil, Tson Dynasty by Kumarajiva, Translated into English by the Buddhist Text Translation Society; cited as [Lotus Chapter 1:];
   1. Lotus Sutra The Buddhist Text Translation Society in USA
   2. Compassionate Lotus Sutra — Karuna Pundarika Sutra, Volume 6, The 4th Section of Chapter 4, Dharmaraksa
5. Aṣtasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (Avalokiteśvara not present)
   1. Conze, n.d., 18 (Avalokiteśvara not present)
6. THE DIAMOND SUTRA: THE PERFECTION OF WISDOM Red Pine
7. The Bloodstream Sermon Red Pine
8. Why Did the Buddhists Adopt Sanskrit? Vincent Eltschinger (2017, 323)
9. [Vasubandhu (Jonathan C. Gold)] — quoted in chapter 5.1.

Vibhajjavādi texts were taken from various websites for the Tipitaka (Sutta, Vinaya, Abhidhamma, commentary);

1. The Great Chronicle of Buddhas Ven. Mingun Sayadaw [Chronicle of Buddhas (Mingun)]
   1. The Great Chronicle of Buddhas PDF
2. Abhidhamma In Daily Life Ashin Janakabhivamsa; PDF; [Abhidhamma (Janakabhivamsa)]
   1. Part 4 - How Rebirth Consciousness Appears
3. A Manual of Abhidhamma Nàrada Mahà Thera
4. The Buddhist Monastic Code I Thanissaro Bhikkhu
5. PATICCASAMUPPADA
   1. The Doctrine of Paticcasamuppada
   2. A Discourse on Paticcasamuppada
6. Guide to Tipitaka: Canonical Pâli Buddhist Literature of the Theravâda School U Ko Lay
7. Concise Pali-English Dictionary A.P. Buddhadatta Mahathera
1. Pāli Dictionary
2. Theravada glossary
3. BUDDHIST DICTIONARY
4. พจนานุกรมพุทธศาสตร์ ฉบับประมวลธรรม 佛 教 词 典 (Pali Terms)

Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda—Part 2

2.0. VIBHAJJĀVADA:

Sthaviravāda [Theravāda] the doctrine of the elders. Sthaviravāda is the oldest form of the Buddha's teachings [...] five hundred holy elders (sthavira-s) [thera-s] who formed the first Buddhist Council soon after the Mahāparinirvāṇa of the Buddha. The assembled monks headed by Kāśyapa, also known as Mahākāśyapa chanted the teachings of the Buddha from their memory and thus they came to be known as the words of the elders. [Buddhānusmṛti - A Glossary of Buddhist Terms]  

vibhajjavāda : [m.] the religion of reason; the religion of analytical reasoning.

Sarvāstivāda : the Sarvāstivāda subschool, an offshoot and dissidence of the Sthaviravāda school (pāli, Theravāda) [Baruah, 2000, p. 44 as quoted by Dilip Loundo (2016 page 19)]. The Sarvāstivāda school drew considerable opposition among Buddhist circles, being accused of being directly influenced by Vedic realist schools of Sāṃkhya and Vaiśeṣika and, as a consequence, they were expelled from the Buddhist community [King 1995, p. 91 as quoted by Dilip Loundo (2016 page 20), in THE ‘TWO TRUTHS’ DOCTRINE (SATYADVAYA) AND THE NATURE OF UPĀYA IN NĀGĀRJUNA]

Dhamma-Vinaya—Buddhavada—Vibhajjavāda—Anattavada

2.0.1. The Pāli Dialect:

Pali is the scriptural language (dialect) of the Vibhajjavādis. It is the language of the Buddha.

[The Pali Companion: Table 1: A Simplified Tree of World Languages (tipitaka.net)]

The Old Indo-Aryan period comprises Vedic Sanskrit (used in Vedas, Brahmanas and Upanishads) and classical Sanskrit (used in Mahabharata, Ramayana and Puranas). However, contemporary Sanskrit and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit (used in Mahayana texts) are later developments during the Middle Indo-Aryan period.

• What was the local dialect/language of the original composers of the Vedas?
  • That local dialect could be the early Prakrit or Pali.

[Apr 19, 2024 IAS Exam Latest Updates (Amruta Patil)]

Prakrit is a group of vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan languages spoken in India between the third and seventh century BCE. According to current research, Pali is a mash-up of numerous Prakrit languages that were amalgamated and heavily Sanskritized around the third century BCE.

[The manual of the bhikkhu (Venerable Dhamma Sāmi) page100]

In the context of the dhamma, the use of a Christian monastic terminology (ordination, confession, etc.) or of Sanskrit terms (karma, nirvâna, etc.) is a negligence. Their meaning is different and sometimes in contradiction with the meaning of the terms that they intend to translate and which the Buddha utilised. Pali is a dialect, not a language. Before it was written down, the collection of canonical texts was transmitted only orally. This is why there is no Pali alphabet.

2.0.2. One-sided Approach

Sariputtatthera Vatthu:

Verse 11: They take untruth for truth; they take truth for untruth; such persons can never arrive at the truth, for they hold wrong views.

Faith is a one-sided approach.

• Faith provides truths and rejects others.

Speculative view (hypothesis) taken (with faith in science/scientists) is also one-sided.

• Some theories cannot be proven, so one must take them with faith.
• For example, Big Bang Theory and Darwinian Evolution are one-sided approach.
  • Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest, is known as the father of the Big Bang Theory. He proposed this theory to explain how God created the universe. Some claimed the Big Bang Theory had been proven.
  • Darwinian Theory and Evolutionary theory proposed how a group of a species would mutate to speciate. The gradual change led to speciation has never been observed, however. The gradual change rather leads to subgroups in a family. The physicality and mentality of a species preserve themselves. Cats would always want to be cats no matter how their looks have changed, for example. Living fossils, such as seashell species and crocodilians, have had different appearances.
  • Darwin died a Christian. Physics is agnostic.

Faith and truth are two opposite ends, however.

The actual truth is also one-sided. It is at the opposite side of faith.

• One who knows the actual truth might not be able to show or explain it to others.
  • For example, Nibbána—the Buddha explained Nibbána for 45 years, but only a few understood it.
  • For example, Kappa Sutta explains the four immeasurable eons.
• Faith can be based on truth.
  • One can become a Buddhist by conviction after hearing or reading a verse and is convinced by it.

Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra:

Buddhāvataṃsaka (the Flower Adornment Sutra) assumes:

[the Sound Hearers / arhats] constantly dwelling in the reality-limit and ultimate stillness and quietude, they were far removed from great compassion. They forsook living beings and dwelt in their own affairs. [This quote is also found in the Gandavyuha Sutra (Entering the Dharma Realm of the Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia.]

• The sutra does not inform us where to find a bodhisattva to see his missions and actions to compare with the arhats. It does not compare the works of the bodhisattvas and the works of the arhats and their relationship with the living beings.

Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva

Anger Destroys All Virtue and Peace

Fault-finders never attain the cessation of aversion. Arahants are not among those obsessed with fault-finding and baseless judgment.

Arahants do not live a lifestyle harmful to themselves and others. The arahants have stopped harmful existence. They cannot provide material support to the poor. However, they can help the seekers to find the path to liberation. They do not possess anything other than the eight basic requisites, which support them to travel the middle way, avoiding the two extremes stated in the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta:

• Yo c·āyaṃ kāmesu kāma·sukh·allik·ānuyogo hīno gammo pothujjaniko an·ariyo an·attha·saṃhito,
  • the devotion to hedonism towards kāma, which is inferior, vulgar, common, an·ariya, deprived of benefit,
• yo c·āyaṃ attakilamath·ānuyogo dukkho an·ariyo an·attha·saṃhito.
  • The devotion to self-mortification, which is dukkha, an·ariya, deprived of benefit.

The Bhikkhus' Rules: FAQs Bhikkhu Ariyesako:

[A] practising bhikkhu knows that as his mind changes so quickly, he has to be extremely cautious about involving himself in doubtful situations. It is better to be safe than sorry, even if this may seem over-scrupulous.

• Theravadins are encouraged to watch their own minds. One, who does not know his own mind, judging others' minds could be offensive.

Sacitta Sutta (AN 10:51) One’s Own Mind Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Just as when a person whose turban or head was on fire would put forth extra desire, effort, diligence, endeavor, relentlessness, mindfulness, & alertness to put out the fire on his turban or head; in the same way, the monk should put forth extra desire, effort, diligence, endeavor, relentlessness, mindfulness, & alertness for the abandoning of those very same evil, unskillful qualities.

Kakacūpama Sutta (MN 21) The Simile of the Saw

'Our minds will be unaffected and we will say no evil words. We will remain sympathetic, with a mind of good will, and with no inner hate. We will keep pervading these people with an awareness imbued with good will and, beginning with them, we will keep pervading the all-encompassing world with an awareness imbued with good will — abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.'

Dhammapada 202:

natthi rāgasamo aggi natthi dosasamo kali natthi khandhasamā dukkhā natthi santiparaṃ sukhaṃ

• Nibbána is the state of peace completely free from the burden of the nāma-rupa.

The Sangha Protects Others, According to the Buddha:

"O Bhikkhus, protecting oneself, one protects others; protecting others, one protects oneself. And how does one, in protecting oneself, protect others? By earnest practice, cultivation and development (of satipatthana). In this way, by protecting oneself, one protects others. [Sammasati - An Exposition of Right Mindfulness (Ven. P. A. Payutto)]

• For the obvious reasons, the Buddha did not say martial art, self-defence techniques, army, police, etc. can protect oneself and others. These things might protect oneself but do not protect others. Others are the other sides, enemies, foes, other martial artists, other self-defenders, other armies, other police, etc. They are trained to suppress others.

2.0.3. Theravadī: One Who Does Not Speak One-sidedly:

Vibhajjavāda.– The name given to the Dhamma by the orthodox; the term is identical with Theravāda and the Buddha is described as Vibhajjavādī. e.g., Mhv.v.171; VibhA.130; cp. Kvu. Trs. introd. p.38.

Vibhajjavādo is mentioned twice by the Buddha in the Subha Sutta.

Vibhajavādo kho ahamettha māṇava nāhamettha ekaṃsavādo [Subhasuttaṃ].

vibhajja : [abs. of vibhajati] having divided or analysed.

vibhajjavāda : [m.] the religion of reason; the religion of analytical reasoning.

Vibhajjavādis (the Analysers, the Analytical Reasoners) are reasonable, as they avoid the one-sided approach of blind faith and theories. They speak based on observational knowledge of the phenomena. Strangers do not understand the attainments of the arahants that provide them with the ability to speak the truths in detail.

vibhajati: to distribute, divide; (fig.) to distinguish, dissect, divide up, classify; to deal with something in detail, to go into details.

vibhajati: [vi + bhaj + a] divides; dissects; classifies. It can mean 'to analyse'.

Dhamma-niyāma Sutta [page 100]


... vibhajati uttānī-karoti "sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā"ti... explains it, & makes it plain: All processes are inconstant.

Vibhajati can be defined as 'to explain in detail and analytically'. The Buddha did not need to teach the mature individuals in detail, as they understood the basic of the Dhamma easily. For example, the Venerable Assaji explained Buddha Dhamma in one verse.

Ye dhamma hetuppa bhavatesam hetum tathagato ahatesanca yo nirodhoevam vadi maha samano.

Hearing that verse was enough for the Venerable Sariputta to attain Sotapatti.

The first moment of this supermundane consciousness is termed Stream-entry (sotapatti) and the person who experiences it is a Stream-winner (sotapanna). [Path and Fruit (Sister Ayya Khema)]

Teaching an individual and teaching an audience are different. An audience is usually a mix of maturity. The Buddha would teach the crowd appropriately, using the appropriate amount of words and length of time. When some individuals in an audience needed further explanation, they sought the elders.

While such brief teachings would escape the understanding of the great majority of the monks, those disciples with sharp faculties of wisdom could readily fathom their meaning. Under such circumstances the ordinary monks, reluctant to trouble their Master with requests for an explanation, would turn for clarification to the senior disciples whose comprehension of the Dhamma had already been confirmed by the Blessed One. So important did this function become in the early Sangha that the Buddha himself established a separate category of eminent disciples called “the foremost of those who analyse in detail the meaning of what was stated (by me) in brief.”

That was how the Buddha created the Sangha's role by letting the elders explain the detail to the juniors.

2.0.4. Venerable Mahākaccāna: the foremost analytical reasoner

aggaṃ saṅkhittena bhāsitassa vitthārena atthaṃ vibhajantānaṃ

the foremost of those who analyse in detail the meaning of what was stated in brief (by the Buddha)

vibhajjavāda : [m.] the religion of reason; the religion of analytical reasoning.

vibhajjaādi : a Vibhajjavādo, an analytical reasoner

vibhajantānaṃ: vibhajitum:

[5]: It happened that the Buddha, having briefly explained the Dharma, went back to his cell. Then, doubting that they understood well, the monks went to Kātyāyana to ask him to explain the words of the Teacher, for, they thought: “This Venerable Mahākātyāyana, praised by the Teacher and venerated by his wise colleagues is able to explain fully the meaning” (ayaṃ kho āyasmā Mahākaccāno Satthu c’eva saṃvaṇṇito sambhāvito ca viññūnaṃ sabrahmacārīṇāṃ, pahoti c’āyasmā Mahākaccāno imassa Bhagavatā saṅkhittena uddesassa uddiṭṭhassa vitthārena atthaṃ avibhattassa vitthārena atthaṃ vibhajitum): cf. Majjhima,I, p. 110; III, p. 194, 223; Anguttara, V, p. 256, 259–260. See also Vimalakīrtidnirdeśa, French transl., p. 164–165

To teach in detail analytically, the Buddha is a Vibhajjavādi (Vibhajjavādo), and so are the elders.

The Venerable Mahākātyāyana (महाकात्यायन) was given the title 'the foremost of those who analyse in detail the meaning of what was stated in brief' by the Buddha. The Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra recognises him as Mahākātyāyana:

The Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra says: “Mahākātyāyana, during the lifetime of the Buddha, explained the words of the Buddha and made a Pi le (Peṭaka), ‘box-collection’ in the Ts’in language (Chinee), which, until today, is used in southern India.”

The earlier Mahayanist scriptures recognising the arhats is important. One who accepts the authenticity of the earlier scriptures should reject the later scriptures that downgraded the arhats.

2.0.5. Kalyana Mitta (Spiritual Friend):

[Venerable Ananda] said that “half of the good life” is friendship with good people (kalyanamitta), companionship with good people, closeness with good people, only to be corrected by the Buddha that these are not half but actually the whole of the good life (SN. 45v.2). [Friendship, the Whole of Life Well-lived (Janet Surrey and Charles Hallisey)]

2.0.6. The Path to Nibbána: How is Nibbána to be attained?

Narada Maha Thera

• Morality (sila)
  • Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood;
• Concentration (samadhi)
  • Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration;
• Wisdom (pañña)
  • Right Understanding, Right Thoughts;
• Noble Eightfold Path has three categories—Sila, Samadhi, Panna.

Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda—Part 3

2.1. Vibhajjavādi Dhamma Paṭisambhidā-ñāṇa

A bhikkhu who attains the highest level attains Analytical Knowledge (Paṭisambhidā-ñāṇa). Arahants are Vibhajjavādis.

(page86) With this object in view, he meditates again on the three characteristics (Patisankha nana), and thereafter becomes completely indifferent to all conditioned things— having neither attachment nor aversion for any worldly object (Sankharupekkha nana). Reaching this point of mental culture, he takes for his object of special endeavour one of the three characteristics that appeals to him most, and intently keeps on developing insight in that particular direction, until that glorious day when, for the first time, he realises Nibbána, his ultimate goal [A Manual of ABHIDHAMMA (Narada Maha Thera)]

Recommanded reading: The Eightfold Path; The Noble Eightfold Path: The Way to the End of Suffering (Youtube Video) by Bhikkhu Bodhi;

The 4 analytic insights

[(Saṁyojana) Kotthita Sutta (Translated by Piya Tan ©2009) Page 39]

(1) the analytic insight in effects; attha,paṭisambhidā

Sāriputta declares in Paṭisambhidā Sutta (A 4.173):

that within a fortnight (aḍḍha,māsa) of his ordination he is able to master the 4 analytic insights both “specifically and literally” (odhiso vyañjanaso) [4.5n]. Of the analytic insight in effects, he declares:

Anguttara Nikaya: Paṭisambhidā Sutta: The Four Analytical Knowledge

(Translated from German by Google)

A.VII.36 The True Friend II - 6. Dutiya-mitta Sutta

• Traditionaly the qualities of the Sangha are nine, for contemplation:

Contemplation of the Sangha (Sangha-Nusati)

Chapter 42 - The Dhamma Ratanā [Chronicle of Buddhas (Mingun)]

Part 8 - The Nine Supreme Attributes of the Sangha

Suppaṭipanno bhagavato sāvakasaṃgho ujuppaṭipanno bhagavato sāvakasaṃgho, ñāyappaṭipanno bhagavato sāvakasaṃgho sāmīcippaṭipanno bhagavato sāvakasaṃgho. Yadidaṃ cattāri purisayugāni aṭṭhapurisa puggalā esa bhagavato sāvakasaṃgho āhuneyyo pāhuneyyo dakkhiṇeyyo añjalīkaranīyo anuttaraṃ puññakhettaṃ lokassa.

Part 9 - Contemplation of the Sangha

The yogi who wishes to contemplate on the Sangha should commit to memory the nine attributes of the Sangha in Pāli and its translation as given above. [...] The virtuous one, who repeatedly contemplates on the Sangha, becomes exceptionally devoted to the Sangha comparable to the ariyas devotion to the Sangha. He gains a stable mindfulness, a profound wisdom, and much merit.

2.1.1. THE VIBHAJJAVĀDI GOAL: ANUPĀDĀNA IS NIBBĀNA:

Nibbāna Sutta

Sāriputta explains to Udāyi (Lāludāyi, according to the Commentary: AA.ii.810) how Nibbāna is happiness, though in it there is no experiencing (vedayitam). A.iv.414f.

The goal of a Vibhajjavādin bhikkhu is Anupādāna—detachment (relief) from the burden of the nāma-rupa complex.

(Dhamma paṭisambhidā-ñāṇa) Being endowed with Analytical Knowledge of dhamma (phenomena), the Buddha knew discriminately and comprehensively about every dhamma and was able to expound them to others. [Chronicle of Buddhas (Mingun)]

• A Sammasambuddha is a Vibhajjavadi, a dhamma analyst who knows all the dhammas just the way they are and who possesses the ability to explain analytically.

Verse 264: Not by a shaven head does a man become a samana, if he lacks morality and austere practices and tells lies. How could he who is full of covetousness and greed be a samana? Verse 265: He who has totally subdued all evil, great and small, is called a samana because he has overcome all evil.

• The Sammasambuddha is a samana (Verses 264) and a dhammattho (Verses 256). He is also a muni (Verses 268). He is known as Sakyamuni (the sage of the Sakya people; sa-ki-ya).

The Buddha recommended the bhikkhus to become a Vibhajjavadi like Him.

The Sammasambuddha encourages the bhikkhus to stay on the Noble Eightfold Path (ariyo atthangikomaggo) and reach the Noble Goal, Nibbána.

Verse 364: The bhikkhu who abides in the Dhamma, who delights in the Dhamma, who meditates on the Dhamma, and is ever mindful of the Dhamma, does not fall away from the Dhamma of the virtuous.

Siṃsapāvana Sutta—The Siṃsapā forest:

tasmātiha, bhikkhave, 'idaṃ dukkhan'ti yogo karaṇīyo, 'ayaṃ dukkha·samudayo'ti yogo 'karaṇīyo, 'ayaṃ dukkha·nirodho'ti yogo karaṇīyo, 'ayaṃ dukkha·nirodha·gāminī paṭipadā'ti yogo karaṇīyo ti.

• One's duty is
  • to investigate, identify and understand dukkha and the cessation of dukkha
  • to reach the cessation of dukkha

2.1.2. THE VIBHAJJADI RESOLVE:

One is destined to reach the Right Truth and the Noble Goal if one is righteous, truthful, consistent and persistent in effort and is respectful to the path and the teachers. That is the fundamental rule of the Noble Path.

Kitagiri Sutta (Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

Monks, I don't say of all monks that they have a task to do with heedfulness; nor do I say of all monks that they have no task to do with heedfulness.

• One who has not got rid of sakkaya ditthi has things to do with heedfulness.

"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this: 'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I.' For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, the Teacher's message is healing & nourishing.

• One who has not understood the meaning of sakkaya ditthi and the means to get rid of it (sakkaya ditthi) should live understand its meaning and the means to escape from it.
• One should have conviction in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. One should listen to one's teacher (the mentor) with conviction in the Three Gems.

For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this: 'Gladly would I let the flesh & blood in my body dry up, leaving just the skin, tendons, & bones, but if I have not attained what can be reached through human firmness, human persistence, human striving, there will be no relaxing my persistence.'

• One should not limit one's effort before one understands the Dhamma (reality).

For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, one of two fruits can be expected: either gnosis here & now, or — if there be any remnant of clinging-sustenance — non-return."

2.1.3. THE NOBLE PATH TO NIBBĀNA

The Noble Eightfold Path (BUDDHIST DICTIONARY):

• Wisdom (paññā)
  • Right view (sammā-diṭṭhi)
  • Right thought (sammā-saṅkappa)
• Morality (sīla)
  • Right speech (sammā-vācā)
  • Right action (sammā-kammanta)
  • Right livelihood (sammā-ājīva)
• Concentration (samādhi)
  • Right effort (sammā-vāyāma)
  • Right mindfulness (sammā-sati)
  • Right concentration (sammā-samādhi)

The Four stages to Nibbana via the Eightfold Noble Path:

• Sotāpatti-phala
• Anāgāmī-phala
• Sakadāgāmī-phala
• Arahattaphala

2.1.4. Types of Nibbāna

Nibbàna is the same to everyone. It can be realised incrementally and experienced stage by stage.

According to the text and the commentarial interpretations, Nibbàna, experienced by Sotàpannas, Sakadàgàmis, and Anàgàmis, is saupàdisesaNibbànadhàtu as they have the body and some passions still remaining.

2.2. PATICCASAMUPPADA: Rebirth Process

PATICCASAMUPPADA

1. Avijja-paccaya sankhara;
   1. Dependent on ignorance, reaction (conditioning) arises;
2. sankhara-paccaya vinnanam;
   1. Dependent on reaction (conditioning), consciousness arises;
3. vinnana-paccaya nama-rupam;
   1. Dependent on consciousness, mind-body arise;
4. nama-rupa-paccaya salayatanam;
   1. Dependent on mind-body, the six senses arise;
5. salayatana-paccaya phasso;
   1. Dependent on the six senses, contact arises;
6. phassa-paccaya vedana;
   1. Dependent on contact, sensation arises;
7. vedana-paccaya tanha;
   1. Dependent on sensation craving and aversion arise ;
8. tanha-paccaya upadanam;
   1. Dependent on craving and aversion, clinging arises ;
9. upadana-paccaya bhavo;
   1. Dependent on clinging, the process of becoming arises ;
10. bhava-paccaya jati;
11. Dependent on the process of becoming, birth arises;
12. jati-paccaya jara-maranam soka-parideva-dukha-domanassupayasa sambhavanti; evametassa kevalassadukkhakkhandhassa samudayo hoti.
13. Dependent on the base of birth, ageing and death arise, together with sorrow, lamentation, physical and mental sufferings and tribulations.

[The Buddha - Vipassana - J Krishnamurti (Research Study); (Topics:) Ignorance and Conditioning - Consciousness]

• Buddha Dhamma concerns the Four Noble Truth, with a focus on the techniques for self-emancipation.
• The Buddha can teach but one must understand, and that understanding is self-emancipation.
• Paticcasamuppada is the unified law of life (satta-loka)

Avijjā and Saṅkhārā

We should focus on Avijjā and Saṅkhārā in attempt to analyse Vibhajjavāda.

2.2.1. Sabba Sutta:

sabba : [adj.] all; every; whole; entire.

According to the Sabba Sutta, the world (the universe) is the sphere of six senses—just six, no more or less. Things exist in correspondence with six senses—sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought. These six senses are all.

Three worlds (loka-s):

• Satta Loka: (Nama-rupa world) lifeform
• Okāsa-loka: (Rupa only) the infinite space/universe
• Saṅkhāra-loka: (Rupa only) the particles: solidity, liquidity, gaseousness, heat and space

Laws of the satta-loka:

• Paticcasamuppada is the unified law of life (satta-loka). It is not related to the Physical World (Okāsa loka) and Particle World (Saṅkhāra loka).
• Saṅkhārā is action and reaction (construct).
• Kamma is intention (volition).
• Nama and rupa (metaphysical) are this side of dukkha.
• The other shore/side from the nama-rupa lump of dukkha is Nibbána.
• Avijja vs Vijja
• Nibbána is outside the law of kamma-vipaka.
• Nibbána is attainable by ending the intention (cetanā).

2.2.2. The Patthana Dhamma

• The Patthana Dhamma is the unified law of existence related to both life and non-life.

PAṬṬHĀNA, Paccayaniddesa: The 24 Modes of Conditionality

Some of the paccaya-s:

1 Hetu paccayo Root Condition: The six roots are related to the states associated with the roots and to the matter produced thereby by root condition.

2.2.3. Theory of Kamma in Theravada

Mahasi Sayadaw

The Venerable Buddhaghosa writes in the Visuddhi Magga:

1. REPRODUCTIVE KARMA,
2. SUPPORTIVE KARMA,
3. OBSTRUCTIVE KARMA OR COUNTERACTIVE KARMA,
4. DESTRUCTIVE (UPAGHATAKA) KARMA

According to the priority of effect:

1. WEIGHTY (GARUKA) KARMA,
2. PROXIMATE (ASANNA) KARMA OR DEATH-PROXIMATE KARMA,
3. HABITUAL (ACCINA) KARMA,
4. RESERVE OR CUMULATIVE (KATATTA) KARMA,

According to the time in which effects are worked out:

1. Immediately Effective (ditthadhammavedaniya) Karma,
2. Subsequently Effective (uppapajjavedaniya) Karma,
3. Indefinitely Effective (aparapariyavedaniya) Karma,
4. Defunct or Ineffective (ahosi) Karma.

2.3. RIGHT VIEW

• The view aligned to reality and that leads to freedom from sakkaya ditthi and dukkha
• Understanding of nama and rupa (body-mind complex)

The Buddha advised the Kalamas in Kalama Sutta,

"Do not be led by reports or traditions, or hearsay. Do not be led by the authority of religious texts, nor by mere logic or inference, nor by considering appearances, nor by speculative opinion, nor by seeming possibilities, nor because one's own teacher has said so. O Kalamas, when you know for yourselves that certain things are wrong, unwholesome, bad, then give them up; when you know for yourselves that certain things are right, wholesome, good, then accept them, follow them."

• Science is evidence based, not faith-based. However, some people have too much faith in scientists and scientismists and take science like a religion and hate whoever questions their religion.
• Scientism tries to explain or criticise everything.

[Scientism:] science alone can render truth about the world and reality.

In Anguttara Nikaya: Tika Nipata, the Buddha said,

Whether a Tathagata appears in the world or not, the fact remains as a firm and inevitable condition of existence that all conditioned formations are impermanent, that all conditioned formations are subject to suffering, that all things are [ownerless].

• Sabbe Saṅkhārā Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta

2.3.1. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:

Section IV - The Creation and Its Cause (Swāmī Mādhavānanda):

Verse 1.4.1: In the beginning, this (universe) was but the self (Virāj) of a human form...the unity of the Self..

• the Upanishad creator's story

Verse 1.4.7: taddhedaṃ tarhyavyākṛtamāsīt, tannāmarūpābhyāmeva vyākriyata, asaunāmāyamidaṃrūpa iti; tadidamapyetarhi nāmarūpā...This (universe) was then undifferentiated. It differentiated only into name and form—it was called such and such, and was of such and such form. So to this day it is differentiated only into name and form—it is called such and such, and is of such and such form...

• the Upanishad creation story

Verse 1.4.4: She thought, ‘How can he be united with me after producing me from himself? Well, let me hide myself.’ She became a cow, the other became a bull and was united with her; from that cows were born. The one became a mare, the other a stallion; the one became a she-ass, the other became a he-ass and was united with her; from that one-hoofed animals were born. The one became a she-goat, the other a he-goat; the one became a ewe, the other became a ram and was united with her; from that goats and sheep were born. Thus did he project every-thing that exists in pairs, down to the ants.

• the Upanishad evolutionary theory

The Mahayanist concepts gradually emerged into a twin of Upanishad and other Vidic traditions. That is explained in the coming chapters.

2.3.2. Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta

tiratana: [ti+ratana] the three gems, i.e.

• The Buddha only recognised the tiratana and the tisaraṇa. The Buddha did not reject but also did not recognise the creation stories of His time. In His first sermon, He simply ignored them:

the loka with its devas, with its Māras, with its Brahmās, with the samaṇas and brahmins, in this generation with its devas and humans

• In His first sermon intended for the liberation of the sugati beings (dugati beings must become sugati beings):
  • The Buddha mentioned the sugati loka (happy realms) and its devas, Māras, Brahmās, samaṇas, brahmins and humans.
  • He rejects the existence of the creator god and creation stories by not recognising them.
  • The Buddha recognises the brahmins.
  • His sermon is concise, comprehensible, complete, and fit for memorisation and recitation. The Buddha used this method in His teaching.
• Points to consider are:
  • The Buddha was born into a Vedic family.
  • The Pancavaggiya (five ascetics/brahmins) were Vedic experts.

Four Types of individuals (puggala)

[Abhidhamma (Janakabhivamsa)]

1. Dugati ahetuka puggala (who take patisandhi in woeful, unhappy abodes called Apaya)
   1. Dugati puggala cannot understand the Dhamma the level to attain liberation.
2. Sugati ahetuka puggala
   1. Human Being born without alobha, adosa and amoha and weak kusala and so are born blind, dumb, deaf or idiotic. Some are born sexless; some as bisexual beings. [Ancient times did not have languages for the disable.]
   2. Deities (e.g. ogre, ogress) of the Catumaharaja plane, with no home nor food. To eat, they must wander among houses and find the leftovers thrown away by the people. Some devas can force humans to provide sacrificial food.
   3. Sugati ahetuka puggala (in general) are unable to comprehend the Dhamma.
3. Dvihetuka puggala (humans and devas with good Dana, dvihetuka ukkattha kusala and tihetuka omaka kusala etc.)
4. Tihetuka puggala (intelligent and wise humans and devas capable of achieving jhana and attain Magga and Phala by parami perfections. Only laziness and lack of discipline prevent them from becoming ariya persons.)
   1. Dvihetuka puggala and Tihetuka puggala are able to understand the Dhamma.

Can One Become A Dvihetuka puggala or Tihetuka puggala?

One who wants to become a Dvihetuka puggala or Tihetuka puggala might already be one. Those who are not do not want to.

2.3.3. WRONG VIEW WRONG ACTION

'Wrong view' leads to 'wrong destination' because actions are led by views (right and wrong). If one follows the wrong view, one also follows the wrong direction. A thirsty traveller in a desert would go to the mirage expecting to find water. Going to a real heaven in the wrong direction would lead to a fake heaven, which does not exist. A wrong view can never lead to a good destination. Beings are lost in the labyrinth of views (delusions).

Only 'seeing things the way they are', not the way they look, can lead to freedom from suffering. We must ignore or reject harmful theories and beliefs.

'the knowledge and vision according to reality'，is one of the 18 chief kinds of insight vipassanā [Yathabhuta Nana Dassana (Nyanatiloka Mahathera)]

2.3.4. SUBHA SUTTA

• Subha in the Subha Sutta was Todeyyaputta, Todeyya's son, a follower of traditional Brahminism.

Brahmins have a belief that by practising in conformity with the doctrines of their own religion, they would reach the World of Brahmas on their demise [...]

2.4. Birth is a Nama-Rupa Process

Brahmavihara Dhamma : Part 4: (92) Culakammavibhanga Sutta Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw:

According to the Buddha's Dhamma, for so long as tanha, human passionate desire, is still clinging and not yet freed, the process of rupa and nama will be going on continuously from one existence to another due to kamma... If tanha, desirable passionate attachment, is totally eliminated through the achievement of Arahattaphala by contemplating Vipassana, the continuing process of rupa and nama will cease to operate after the arising of cuti or death consciousness, called Parinibbána...

• Each living organism thinks "the process of rupa and nama" is 'I am', 'my body', 'my mind', etc. Each living organism assumes I am the doer (I feel, I live, I gain, etc.) and I am the sufferer (I am hurt, he/she hurts me, I lose, I'm ill, etc.).
• Life is nothing but doing and suffering. Life is merely these two. However, beings cannot get enough of them for some reasons based on ignorance (avijja), craving (kama-tanha, bhava-tanha) and clinging (upādāna).
  • Tanha is also written as raga.
• Sabbe Saṅkhārā Dukkha.

Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw: Chapter 1 - Vinnana And Nama-rupa:

The doctrine says that vinnana gives rise to nama rupa... Rebirth consciousness is invariably coupled with feeling (vedanā), perception (saññā), contact (phassa), volition (cetana), mental advertance (manasikara) and other elements of mind relating to the objects of death bed visions of a person.

• Fully understanding the nama and rupa as anicca-dukkha-anatta abandons the sakkaya ditthi and attains the sotapanna stage.

Kiñci Saṅkhārā Sutta (Piya Tan):

“It is impossible that a person who has gained right view would regard any formation as permanent”

Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda—Part 4

2.5. DITTHUPĀDĀNA

Ditthi upādāna - clinging to a speculative/wrong view due to the lack of proper consideration/mindset (yoniso manasikara).

According to the Brahmajula Sutta of the Dīgha Nikāya, in the 6th century B.C in India there were 62 wrong views. All the 62 can be philosophically grouped into two. They are annihilationism and eternalism - (Ucchedavada and Sassatavada) [THE CONCEPT OF UPĀDĀNA AND ANUPĀDĀNA IN EARLY BUDDHISM (R Punna)]

Theravada (as Vibhajjavāda) here rejects Ditthi upādāna.

2.5.1. Attavadupādāna

Ucchedavada and Sassatavada are based on attavada or attavadupādāna (attachment to the soul or self), not in line with the Ariya Sacca (the Noble Truth). Attavadupādāna is based on sakkaya ditthi, which is instinctive; everyone is born with it.

Sakkaya (Sa or Santo, that means which really exists, and Kaya, aggregate) means the five aggregates which really exist. Ditthi means 'view'. These two words constitute Sakkaya Ditthi... Sakkaya Ditthi is the breeding and the birth place of the sixty two kinds of Ditthi.

• Sakkaya ditthi means clinging to nama and rupa as I am—i.e. this body is me, mine. That is to say clinging to impermanent things, which will soon no longer exist, is a painful mistake.

The Buddha gave a detailed analysis of these wrong views asserted in sixty-two ways and pointed out that these views had their origin in feeling which arose as a result of repeated contact through the six sense bases. Whatever person holds these wrong views, in him feeling gives rise to craving; craving gives rise to clinging, clinging gives rise to existence; the kammic causal process in existence gives rise to rebirth, and rebirth gives rise to ageing, death, grief, lamentation, pain, distress and despair. [Guide to Tipitaka: Canonical Pâli Buddhist Literature of the Theravâda School (U Ko Lay):]

• Vedana (expecially pain) makes us to cling to our bodies and fearful of pain, death, aging, and disease.
• Contemplating and witnessing the nature of anicca (impermanence) regularly for a long time can cut off this clinging.
• We must regard nama as nama and rupa as rupa, not me or mine.

One who has sakkāya ditthi views the body as I am — this body is me.

Upadana leads to attavadupadanam/attavādūpādānaṃ (Soul-theory). Attavadupadanam can also be understood as sakkaya ditthi (regarding the nama-rupa complex as I am).

Pali Commentaries Atthakatha - English Translations Collection:

(v) Cattaro upadana-kamupadamn, ditthupadanam, sflabbatupadanam, attavadupadanam.

1. Sakkaya-ditthi - sati + kaye + ditthi, literally, view when a group exists. Here kaya refers to the five Aggregates of matter, feeling, perception, mental states, and consciousness, or, in other words, to the complex-compound of mind and matter. The view that there is one unchanging entity, a permanent soul, when there is a complex-compound of psycho physical aggregates is termed sakkaya-ditthi. Dhammasangani enumerates twenty kinds of such soul theories (see Dhammasangani Translation, pp. 257-259). Sakkaya-ditthi is usually rendered by self-illusion, theory of individuality, illusion of individualism.

2.5.2. UPĀDĀNA (Birth Determinant)

Upādāna (attachment/clinging) is the opposite of anupādāna (detachment).

4 kinds of clinging are: sensuous clinging (kāmupādāna), clinging to views (diṭṭhupādāna), clinging to mere rules and ritual (sīlabbatupādāna), clinging to the personaljty-belief (atta-vādupādāna).

Upādāna (clinging) occurs as the mind clings to perceived reality: man, cat, dog, car, a woman's voice, a cat's meow, the taste of meat, the smell of a flower, etc. Upādāna occurs as a belief in perceived reality as real and permanent (unchanging). Why do we believe a man is a man, a cat is a cat, a car is a car, a woman's voice is a woman's voice, a meow is a meow, etc? We do so because we instinctively believe they are real and stable. Why do we believe something exists and is real?

A cat is only a perceived reality. The reality (paramattha) is there is no cat but a nāma-rupa complex.

The process of perceiving, believing and clinging is so short. There is no natural resistance against this process. Thus, the Buddha advised the bhikkhus to develop indriya samvara sila.

As a result, one is able to comprehend the true reality of the sense objects without reacting to them with greed or aversion resulting in wholesome thoughts and actions.

• Perceived reality (wrong concepts and ideas) is a wrong view.
• Clinging to perceived reality (wrong views) leads to wrong actions.

Avijja-paccaya saṅkhārā (Dependent on ignorance, reaction (conditioning) arises).

We act according to our instincts. Upādāna is instinctive. We cling to something with love or hatred. Upadana is deeper than memory. It is a part of Paticcasamuppada: Anuloma (forward order). It determines the future form/birth:

vedana-paccaya tanha; Dependent on sensation craving and aversion arise ;

To know a cat as a cat means clinging, and clinging means to be reborn as a cat.

'Know a dog as a dog' means to be reborn as a dog.

'Know a hen as a hen' means to be reborn as a hen.

'Know a fish as a fish' means to be reborn as a fish.

We cannot be reborn as a car, a house, a boat or a tree; however, we can be reborn as something that can cling to that car, that house, that boat, that tree, etc. Whatever being (a bitch, for example) is living in that car, that house, that boat, that tree, etc., can become one's mother.

Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw explains thus,

for having pleasurable attachment to his properties with greed, when he died, he was conceived in the womb of a bitch at his own house. The bitch gave birth to an infant dog in about one and a half or two months time. [Subha's father, Todeyya, was reborn as a dog]

If no animal is there to become a mother, then there will be a ghost (peta) to haunt a property or an item. Some stories are collected in Vimānavatthu and Petavatthu. (Vimānavatthu and Petavatthu)

To see something as mere nāma and rupa can correct the view. Why don't we see nama and rupa but cat, dog, man, car, alcohol, etc.? When we hear a sound, why do we know it's a cat, a car, a dog, a person, etc.? When we smell something, why do we know it is a flower, perfume, fresh air, etc.?

Because we memorised them and because our instinct is to perceive and memorise them that way.

The wrong view leads to clinging. Clinging means one is flowing with the current. The process of cutting off attachment is to let go, and that is also to go against one's true nature or instinct. That is not the nature mentioned in the Bloodstream Sermon — "The one who knows his nature is a buddha."

'To let go of something' means to have appropriate mindset (yoniso manasikara).

2.5.3. Yonisomanasikāra

yonisomanasikāra : [m.] proper consideration. Yoniso Manasikara (Proper/Wise Attention)

Yonisomanasikāra could be translated as 'appropriate mindset', with which one could reflect appropriately anything in any situation. Mindset (Vocabulary.com):

a habitual or characteristic mental attitude that determines how you will interpret and respond to situations.

Luang Por Pasanno: Wise Reflection (audio)

[35:00] The 2nd Noble Truth ... to let go of suffering ... What's its cause? What's its source? ... The cessation of suffering is to be realised. The path leading to cessation of suffering is to be caltivated and developed... We don't pay much attention to the cessation of suffering. If we were suffering all the time, we wouldn't be here... [Without paying attention to the end of suffering] We go on to the other subject, identifying another suffering ... not here yet, but it's gonna come...

WISE ATTENTION: YONISO MANASIKARA IN THERAVADA BUDDHISM By Dr Ari Ubeysekara

“Monks, with regard to internal factors, I don’t envision any other single factor like appropriate attention as doing so much for a monk in training, who has not attained the heart’s goal but remains intent on the unsurpassed safety from bondage. A monk who attends appropriately abandons what is unskillful and develops what is skillfull.”[3]

PERIPHERAL AWARENESS Ajahn Nyanamoli Thero

Body postures are more general than attending to a particular action or perception. But having a “body there” is even more general than the postures. Because to be walking, sitting, standing or lying down, one needs to have a body in the first place. That’s why one can also use the knowledge of “there is body”, as the peripheral anchor for one’s daily actions and experiences.

2.5.4. Samyojanna (Fetters)

Self identification view. The view that mistakenly identifies any of the khandha as "self"; the first of the ten fetters (samyojana). Abandonment of sakkaya ditthi is one of the hallmarks of stream entry (see sotapanna).

Mogok Sayadaw advised that before meditating, one should remove five (1-5) samyojanna and establish Right View.

(1) personality-belief (sakkāya-ditthi)

• Rāga and tanhā are the same.

2.5.5. Ten kilesās:

1. False views (sakayaditthi)
2. Doubt (vicikiccha)
3. Belief in the effectiveness of rituals
4. Sensuous pleasure (raga)
5. Aversion (dosa)
6. Passion towards rupa jhanas (pertaining to the sphere of forms)
7. Passion towards arupa jhanas (pertaining to the formless sphere)
8. Self pride (mana)
9. restlessness and worries (uddhacca)
10. Ignorance (avijja)

• Kilesā are saṅkhārā.
• One must suppress these kilesā, especially during mediation.

2.5.6. Saṅkhārā: Vaci (verbal), Mano (mental) and Kaya (physical).

Sila and Indriyasamvāra Sila support the Samādhi.

Sammā Samādhi supports the mind to anchore on the vipassanā object and prevent the saṅkhārā.

Samādhi: focus,

Knowing the state/nature of the body and mind (nāma-rupa) is pannā—yathā bhuta nāna dassana.

2.5.7. vedana-paccaya tanha

Vedana occurs at the physical and mental sense organs:

Types of vedanā and a State Beyond Vedana (Vipassana Research Institute):

• Kāyika vedanā (bodily feeling) are five kinds.
• Cetasika vedanā (mental feeling) are 52 kinds.

Five Kinds Of Vedana

• sukhindriya (pleasure)
• dukkhindriya (pain)
• somanassindriya (mental joy)
• domanassindriya (mental grief)
• upekkhindriya (equanimity)

Five Kāyika Vedana (Bodily Feeling)

Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching occur at the panca kamaguna (five sense elements): eye, ear, nose, tongue and body.

2.5.8. The 52 Cetasikas:

[Mental Factors or Mental Properties (= Cetasika): Mental Factors in group (page 5-7):]

• 13 ‘Aññasamāna’ Cetasikas (common with the other)
  • Common with Kusala Cittas, Akusala Cittas, Vipāka Cittas or Kiriya Cittas
  • “ethically variable”
• 14 Akusala Cetasikas (unwholesome)
• 25 Sobhana Cetasikas (beautiful mental factors)

[Nārada Thera:] No sobhanas - (beautiful) occur in an immoral consciousness.

Aññasamāna Cetasikas are two types:

[quote]

• 7 sabbacittasadharana cetasikas
• 6 pakinnaka cetasikas

Whereas in the Suttas all phenomena of existence are summed up under the aspect of 5 groups:

• corporeality,
• feeling,
• perception,
• mental formations,
• consciousness (s. khandha),

The Abhidhamma as a rule treats them under the more philosophical 3 aspects:

• consciousness,
• mental factors and
• corporeality (citta, cetasika, rūpa).

Cetasika or mental factor, is another type of Dhamma which arises together with citta, experiences the same object as citta, falls away together with citta and arises at the same base as citta. Cetasikas have each their own characteristic and perform each their own function. There are 52 types of cetasikas in all.

[end quote]

cetasika : [adj.] mental; (nt.), a mental property.

The four realties are citta, cetasika, rupa, Nibāna.

Due to ignorance (heedlessness, lacking sati/mindfulness), vedanā (sensation) can lead to saṅkhārā (thought, speech, body movement). During meditation, thought and body movement are disruption and considered as kilesa.

kilesa : [m.] passion; lust; depravity; impurity.

Vedana → Saṅkhārā → Taṇhā → Upādāna

tanha-paccaya upadanam;

Upādāna: (One is) clinging to saṅkhārā with the force of Taṇhā.

The strength of taṇhā is essential for upādāna.

Avijjā and taṇhā are always paired to renew a being.
[The Connection Between Atta and Dukkha: Buddhist Analysis of Human Experience and the Ways to Transcend Unsatisfactoriness (Bhikkhuni Dhammanandā)]

2.6. Swimming Against the Current

U. Mapa

One can be re-born in the deva world due to some past good deeds (kamma) but once the force of the good kamma is exhausted there will be the descending journey which could even be to the very bottom of the plains of existence

Dhammapada - Verse 218

In that person a deep yearning for the undefined Nibbána has arisen. He has already touched it mentally. He is called a swimmer against the current-an upstream bound person. He has already started the process towards Nibbána.

2.6.1. Samatha-vipassanā:

MOGOK SAYADAW'S WAY TO THE VIPASSANA PRACTICE:

Venerable Mogok Sayadaw, in a lecture: အပါယ်လေးပါးတခါးပိတ်တဲ့အမြင်, explained about who was born in the past and who will be born in the future lives. He said nama rupa (Mind-body-complex) lived and died in the past lives. Nama rupa also live the current life. Only nama and rupa will be reborn to live and die in the future lives before reaching the Nibbána. Samsara is the birth and death of rupa and nama recurring.

The Nama-rupa process is not somebody or a being. The past body is not me, not my life. The current body is not me, not my life, either. If there is the future body, regarding it as 'me', 'my body', 'my life' is unwise.

That lecture related to the Three Parinnas:

1. You must recognise and differentiate between mind [nama] and matter [rupa] in the present sensation that develops. This is called Nataparinana.
2. You must recognise and realise the impermanence, suffering and impersonal qualities (Anissa, Dukkha and Anatta) of the present sensation. This is called Tiranaparinana.
3. You must realise that the present sensation is neither your body, nor your mind and try to avoid clinging (Tanha) and self-conceit (Mana) and delusion or wrong view of regarding consciousness as your soul (Ditthi). This is called Pahanaparinana.

2.6.2. The Three Parinnas

Also in The Vipassana Dipani (The Manual of Insight), Mahathera Ledi Sayadaw explains the Three Parinnas in details. However, they are large and complex subjects. Reading alone could not be enough to understand them.

Quotes from Mahathera Ledi Sayadaw's book:

Parinna means profound knowledge.

1. Nata-parinna, Autological knowledge.
2. Tirana-parinna, Analytical knowledge.
3. Pahana-parinna, Dispelling knowledge.

Nata-parinna:

a profound and accurate discernment of mental and material phenomena with all their proximate causes, and also of Nibbána, as shown in the previous sections on the Truths and the Causes.

Tirana-parinna:

1. Anicca-parinna: a perfect or a qualified knowledge of the law of death (marana). Here by death is meant the two kinds of the same, conventional death (sammutimarana) and the ultimate death (paramatthamarana).
2. Dukkha-parinna: a perfect or a qualified knowledge of the intrinsic characteristic Ill or infelicity. Here Ill is of two kinds:
   1. Vedayita-dukkha (Pain-feeling ill): bodily and mental pains
   2. Bhayattha-dukkha (Fear producing ill): Bhaya-nana (knowledge of things as fearful), and of the Adinavanana (knowledge of things as dangerous)
3. Anattá-parinna: the perfect or the qualified knowledge of things mental and material as possessing the characteristic of No-soul." By this knowledge of things as no soul [no atta], the Anatta-nanna, all the mental and material phenomena that belong to the ultimate truths are discerned as having no soul.

Pahana-parinna:

the perfect or the qualified knowledge that dispels hallucinations. It dispels the three Nicca-vippallasas by means of the insight acquired through the contemplation of Impermanence, the three Sukha-vipallasas and the three Subha-vippallasas, by means of the insight acquired through the contemplation of Ill, and the three Atta-vippallasas by means of the insight acquired through the contemplation of No-soul.

[End quote]

2.6.3. Nibbāna Is Near; Not Far Away: Sammary

Dhamma Talks by Mogok Sayadaw; 15th December 1961

Nibbāna is a natural phenomenon (Sabhāva Dhamma). Atthi Bhikkhave Nibbānaṃ – Monks! Nibbāna exists. In the Saṁyutta the Buddha said: Nibbānass'eva santike – Nibbāna is not far away, very near (SN.1.46/ (6). Accharāsuttaṃ).

There are trains from good rebirth to good rebirth (sugati to sugati), good rebirth to bad rebirth (sugati to dugati), and good rebirth to Nibbāna. Except the Paccekabuddhas, the world naturally takes the two trains as it can know Nibbāna only with the help of a Sammasambuddha.

The Buddha taught to Rohitassa Devaputta to look for Nibbāna at 2-armed-lengths body (AN.4.45 Rohitassasuttaṃ). One cannot see Nibbāna before penetrating kilesa (mental defilements). Nibbāna, the asaṅkhata dhàtu is the end of the saṅkhata dhàtu. So Rohitassa Devaputta contemplated this 2-armed-lengths body back and forth and saw the inconstancy and disenchantment of it. One who sees the inconstancy and disenchantment of this 2-armed-lengths body can make a firm decision as it's truly dukkha sacca. That way one can come to an end of asaṅkhata dhàtu.

If you win kilesa, you will find dukkha. By penetration of dukkha and then Dukkhasa antaṃ karissati – at the ending of dukkha, you will realise Nibbāna.

2.6.4. Maha-Rahulovada Sutta: The Greater Exhortation to Rahula

In the Maha-Rahulovada Sutta, the Buddha gives a method of focusing on the four mahabhutas.

"Rahula, any form whatsoever that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near: every form is to be seen as it actually is with right discernment as: 'This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am.'"

• The Buddha advised Venerable Rahula to establish Right View on the four internal elements (solid, liquid, gas, heat).
  • This solid is not me, not mine.
  • This liquid is not me, not mine.
  • This air is not me, not mine.
  • This heat is not me, not mine.

2.6.5. Mūlapariyāya Suttaṁ | The Root of All Things

The Mūlapariyāya Suttaṁ explains how to develop Right View on the four rupa elements.

The ordinary person

2.6.6. Satipatthana:

In walking meditation, as a way of kayagatasati, a yogi can know the start and the end of a step. When doing other actions, the yogi notes the start and end of these actions. A yogi can focus on the start and the end, just these two, as the meditation object. The yogi will be aware that the start followed by the end.

In anapanasati meditation, the yogi focuses on the breath in and out and the start and the end of the breath — to understand death (marana) and the momentariness of existence. Someone new to this practice can focus on the area the in and out air touching. As breathing naturally and fully, one can remain mindful for a long time. One can know the breath, as it can be fast, steady or slow. One will naturally become aware of the start and the end of each breath.

In anapanasati meditation, some focus on the breath (air) moving along the windpipe, and some on the abdomen inflating and deflating.

One can also contemplate on marana (death/impermanence) as Dhamma-satipatthana. This body is impermanent; it will be thorwn away one day. This body is not me; it goes its own way.

In the vedanā-satipatthana training, the goal is sannāvedāyita nirodha.

[PATICCASAMUPPADA] Through deep insight, the Buddha discovered that the crucial link is vedana. In the anuloma-paticcasamuppada, he says "vedana-paccaya tanha'' (with the base of sensation, craving and aversion arise). Vedana is the cause of tanha, which gives rise to dukkha. In order to remove the cause of dukkha or tanha; therefore, one must not allow vedana to connect with tanha; in other words, one must practise Vipassana meditation at this juncture so that avijja becomes vijja or panna (wisdom). One has to observe vedana, to experience and to comprehend the truth of its arising and passing away, i.e., anicca. [...] [MN 28] One who sees paticcasamuppada sees the Dhamma. One who sees the Dhamma sees paticcasamuppada... [The Buddha - Vipassana - J Krishnamurti (Research Study); (Topics:) Ignorance and Conditioning - Consciousness]

2.6.7. Right Effort

• Concentration (samādhi)
  • Right effort (sammā-vāyāma)
  • Right mindfulness (sammā-sati)
  • Right concentration (sammā-samādhi)

Sustaining undisrupted awareness is sammā-vāyāma (Right Effort). Before meditating, one should determine, "I will keep my mind focusing on the breath. I will not let my mind leave it."

Keeping the mind focused on a meditation object is to prevent the saṅkhārā. Preventing the saṅkhārā (and kilesa) is to avoid agitation and pleasure, and to stop Paticcasamuppada in regular (anuloma) motion.

samādhi : [m.] meditation; onepointedness of the mind.

Samadhi: Stilling and straightening the mind to end it from clinging to affection or aversion is to go against nature and swim upstream. A developed mind has strong samadhi and is skilful in avoiding wrong view/thought and emotion (saṅkhārā and kilesa).

Sila, Samādhi, Pannā

Samatha-Vipassana means preventing the active saṅkhārā (mano, vaci, kaya).

One should keep the body and mind stable. Mouth, mind and body must be kept motionless, except the motion of breathing. The mind is stablised by being mindful of breathing.

Mano-saṅkhārā are thoughts (thinking, seeing images, hearing songs, etc.).

Kaya-saṅkhārā are physical activity (movement, changing position, bodily sensations).

Vaci-saṅkhārā are verbal sounds, speech and thought that includes words.

When saṅkhārā appears, one must notice it until it ends.

When an emotion (greed, anger or whatever it is) appears, one must know/notice it; but make sure to witness the end of it.

The goal is to see the end (anicca).

Seeing (noticing) the anicca is panna (insight).

And then one knows there is no longer such thought or emotion.

According to the Theras, the saṅkhārā must be cut off before it becomes upadana. If the end of the saṅkhārā is noticed, it will not become upadana. Then anupadana can be attained by the end of the vedanā if the end is noticed/acknowledged.

Noticing is sati (mindfulness).

Understanding or seeing the cutting off (ending) is panna (insight).

Anapanasati Sutta: Mindfulness of Breathing

Practical Vipassana Meditation Exercises Mahasi Sayadaw

2.7. THE FOUR FACTORS OF A SOTAPANNA

[Quote] The Venerable Mogok Sayadaw in his discourse on Sotapanna given on the 2nd March, 1960, in Upper Burma, explained the four factors of a Sotapanna, quoted from the original Pannaca Pali.

1. A person who has a right view towards the absence of self or personality view, but the aggregation of five corporeal and mental parts in every being.
2. A person freed from any doubt about this view.
3. A person who has a firm and non-wavering decision about this view.
4. A person who comes to know this view not only through external sources but also with his or her own effort to know this view through Vipassana meditation and insight. [End quote]

Upon losing the wrong view of self, a person establishes the right view and voluntarily dispossesses his attachment to others. He gives up claiming 'this is me', 'that is mine'. He becomes a sotapanna.

That is, however, different from a Bodhisattva losing "individualized will-control" (Lanka Chapter 13).

Sariputtatthera Vatthu:

Verse 11: They take untruth for truth; they take truth for untruth; such persons can never arrive at the truth, for they hold wrong views.

Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda—Part 5

2.8. Saṅkhāra:

Saṅkhāra (Theravada glossary):

Formation, compound, fashioning, fabrication - the forces and factors that fashion things (physical or mental), the process of fashioning, and the fashioned things that result. Sankhara can refer to anything formed or fashioned by conditions, or, more specifically, (as one of the five khandhas) thought formations within the mind.

• Saṅkhāra: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and mental activities
• Saṅkhāra is construct. Construct is activity.
• Sight is a construct. Sight occurs as an activity composed of looking, seeing, light/image incoming, brain and mind functioning, etc.
• Sound is a construct. Sound occurs as an activity composed of listening, hearing, sound waves incoming, brain and mind functioning, etc.
• Smell...
• Taste...
• Touch...
• Thought is a construct. Thought occurs as an acivity composed of recalling memory, composing ideas, brain and mind functioning, etc.

Paramattha & Saṅkhāra

Existence is made of paramattha (reality, real things) and saṅkhāra (activity).

Four Paramatthas are Citta, cetasika, rūpa, Nibbāna.

Saṅkhāra is either natural or intentional.

The Four Noble Truths

The Catusacca (the Four Truths or Facts) are Ariya-Sacca (the Noble Truth, the Ultimate Truth). These four truths are the true nature (sbhāva) of paramattha and saṅkhāra.

The Catusacca Daḷhī Kamma Kathā composed by the Elder Revata (2491 Sāsanā Era) is a must-read:

The Buddha had to acquire the ten perfection (pāramis) over four asankheyyas and a hundred thousand kappas; a paccekabuddha, over two asankheyyas and a hundred thousand kappas; a Chief Disciple or Mahāsāvaka, over one asankheyyas and a hundred thousand kappas. To what end? To attain to the Four Noble Truths. Why? Because it is only knowledge of the Four Noble Truths that leads to the realization of Nibbana, which makes one secure against the hazards of repeated (birth), ageing, disease and death and the natural tendency of all worldlings to fall into the four miserable states (apāya). One should therefore follow the example of those Noble Ones who have entered Nibbana and strive for the knowledge of the Truth.

Two truths:

1. The paramattha-sacca (the ultimate truth, or reality that really exists in nature);
2. The samuti-sacca (the conventional truth, or the conventions and beliefs that really exist among us);

Sacca : truth; Truth also means a statement or speech is truthful or of a noble person.

TATHĀGATĀ

the Buddha uses to address himself. He is “thus come” (tathā āgata) in the sense that he is neither an emissary of any divine being (God, etc) nor prophets, but arises as the most highly evolved being amongst us as the natural process of spiritual evolution and awakening. He is “thus gone” (tathā gata) in the sense that, just like the truth he proclaims, he dies, thus authenticating the reality that he and we commonly are.
(Sacca) Tathāgatā Sutta (Piya Tan)

Nāma and Rūpa

There are five aggregates of clinging.

• Nāma is the collective term for saṅkhata dhamma: citta (viññāṇa) and cetāsika (vedanā, saññā, saṅkhāra). Thus, nāma is the four mental componets (vedanā, saññā, saṅkhāra and viññāṇa). Citta is also known as mano and viññāṇa. Citta (mind) and cetasika (mental factors) rise and fall together.
• Rūpa is the four mahābhūta (solid, liquid, gas and heat) and space. Space is the gaps between the particles (mahābhūta). Thus, rūpa is the corporeal body. Rūpa is often translated as form; i.e. the biological body.
• A being is a nāma-rūpa complex or a metaphysical being.

Saṅkhāra as the three built environments:

• Satta-loka is lifeforms and their systems/activities—Avijja-paccaya sankhara (delusion conditions/supports constructs/activities).
• Okāsa-loka is large objects like plants, rivers, mountains, seas, oceans, rocks, galaxies, stars, planets, moons, etc. and their systems/activities. Okāsa-loka houses lifeforms.
• Saṅkhāra-loka is the particals (mahābhūta) and their systems/activities. Saṅkhāra-loka is of particle physics and chemistry existing inside and outside the biological beings (Satta-loka).
• The Satta-loka is made of the five aggregates. Okāsa-loka and Saṅkhāra-loka are made of matters (rūpa or mahābhūta).
• Everything in the three worlds (Satta-loka, Okāsa-loka, Saṅkhāra-loka) is saṅkhāra or a form of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch or thought.
• See Sabba Sutta (The All are these six senses only, no more.)
• Nibbāna is thus the other shore, relief from the burden of the natural activities (birth, aging, death) and intention (kamma saṅkhāra). Nibbāna is thus relief from the nāma-rūpa complex (the natural and intentional activities).

2.8.1. Three types of saṅkhāra:

• Mano-saṅkhāra (mental construct/formation/activity)
• Vaci-saṅkhāra (verbal...): words, comversation, cry, etc.;
• Kāya-saṅkhāra (bodily...): physical action and reaction (all physical activities, which are not vaci);
• These saṅkhāra can be natural or intentional.
• Kamma saṅkhāra (intentional activities) are led by the mind (viññāṇa and mano-saṅkhāra).

Kamma Saṅkhāra (Intentional Activity)

• Intention is kamma (mano-kamma).
• A mental activity with intention is mano-kamma.
• A verbal activity with intention is vaci-kamma.
• A bodily activity with intention is kaya-kamma.
• Intention forms in the mind, so it is a mano-saṅkhāra (mental construct).
• Intention is based on wholesome and unwholesome cetasika (mental factors)

In Samyutta Nikaya Sutta 12.25 the Buddha said “With ignorance as condition, either by oneself, Ananda, one wills bodily intentions (kāya Saṅkhāra), following which arises internally pleasure and pain; or, because of others one wills bodily intentions, following which arises internally, pleasure and pain.” [CONDITIONED ARISING OF SUFFERING (Ven. Dhammavuddho Mahāthera)]

• 'Bodily intention' (kaya-saṅkhāra): intention to act bodily;
  • Kāya: body, bodily;
  • Intention: mano-saṅkhāra
• Mental pain and pleasure; as intention is inside the mind, pleasure and pain are internal (inside the mind).

One casts three types of saṅkhāra (construct/activity) all day long.

• Kamma is volition, intentional action, which can be subtle or gross.
• The Buddha said, "Kamma is intention."

Saṅkhāra Examples:

Avijjā-paccaya saṅkhāra (ignorance conditions/supports construct/activity):

• Beauty is saṅkhāra (natural and with intent). Beauty exists because it is supported by other saṅkhāra-s, including but not limited to fashion, makecup, good health, young age, exercise, nutrition, perception, culture, cleanliness, and genetic conditions. Being propped up by various suitable supports, beauty exists. When suitable things come together, they create beauty. When these supports are affected, beauty is affected.

2.8.2. Cetasikas (Mental Factors):

Cetasika is a paramattha. It exists as it is.

A being is made of rūpa (solid, liquid, gas and heat), citta (viññāṇa) and cetāsika (vedanā, saññā, saṅkhāra). However, one does not need akusala-cetasika (avijjā). By removing akusala-cetasika (avijjā), one attains kusala-cetasika (vijjā) and the binding (saṅkhāra) is unbinded.

• saṅkhārakkhandha (m.) the aggregate of mental coefficients

Sankharakkhandha (the fifty cetasikas which are not vedana or sanna) is real; it can be experienced. When there are beautiful mental factors (sobhana cetasikas) such as generosity and compassion, or when there are unwholesome mental factors such as anger and stinginess, we can experience sankharakkhandha. All these phenomena arise and fall away: sankharakkhandha is impermanent. [Nina Van Gorkom. Chapter 2 - The five khandas]

• Cetasika are vedanā, saññā and saṅkhāra (feeling, memory/perception, and construct/activity)
• 14 kusala cetasika (wholesome) and 14 akusala cetasikas (unwholesome mental factors) associate with saṅkhāra and Kamma Saṅkhāra.
• Viññāṇa (consciousness) is citta, one of the four paramatthas. Citta and cetasika occur together and stated as Aññamañña paccayo (explained below);

Aññamañña Paccayo (PAṬṬHĀNA) 

Aññamañña paccayo: Paccaya RECIPROCATES WITH  paccayuppanna

paccayuppanna : (adj.) arisen from a cause.

paccaya : (m.) cause; votive; requisite; means; support.

• Citta and cetasika (saṅkhāra and vedana/ayatana) arise together or mutually supportive. Details can be read in Pa-Auk Sayadaw's Sampayutta Dhammayatana.
  • Ayatana: sense
  • Vedanā: feeling
  • saṅkhāra: construct
  • Avijjā-paccaya saṅkhāra
• No matter how one is well-behaved, these Anusaya Kilesās will not die out. Either kusala or akusala cetasika (wholesome or unwholesome mental factors) will arise when consciousness (citta) comes in contact with a convenience. Our problems are the unwholesome mental factors.

[Ledi Sayadaw] Lokuttara, or supramundane consciousness, is the noble mind (ariya-citta) which has become free from the threefold desire, and has transcended the three planes, kāma, rūpa, and arūpa. It is of two kinds, thus: noble consciousness in the path (of stream-entry, etc.) and noble consciousness in the fruition (of stream-entry, etc.). [Ledi Sayādaw Mahāthera. The Manual of Insight Vipassanā Dīpanī; The Wheel Publication No: 031/032]

• By means of practicing vipassanā, one can separate citta from akusala cetasika. When akusala cetasika are eradicated from the mind, ariya-citta arises.
• Anupàdisesa-Nibbànadhàtu is the final cessation of the five aggregates of clinging (Upādānakkhandha).
• Nibbànadhàtu: Santisukha (the ultimate-peace element); Nibbàna is an element (paramattha).

Akusala Cetasikas (unwholesome mental factors)

Abhidhamma (Ashin Janakabhivamsa)

• Factor 1 - Moha (delusion)
• Factor 2 - Ahirika (moral shamelessness)
• Factor 3 - Anottappa (moral fearlessness)
• Factor 4 - Uddhacca (distraction, restlessness, wavering)
• Factor 5 - Lobha (greed)
• Factor 6 - Ditthi (wrong view)
• Factor 7 - Mana (conceit)
• Factor 8 - Dosa (hatred)

Factor 9 - Issa (envy)

Factor 10 - Macchariya (jealousy, selfishness)

Factor 11 - Kukkucca (remorse)

• Factor 12-13 - Thina and middha (sloth and torpor)
• Factor 14 - Vicikiccha (doubt, scepticism)

Among the akusala cetasikas are the ten kilesā (akusala cetasika) shown with bullet points.

Hetu paccayo

Lobha, dosa, and moha are called akusala hetus and alobha, adosa, and amoha are called kusala hetus. These latter 3 hetus if they arise with abyakata dhamma they are called abyakata hetus. Lobha is also known as tanha, upadana, samudaya and so on. Moha is sometimes called avijja. Alobha is sometimes refered to dana or offering but it is non attachment. Adosa is metta or loving kindness. Amoha is pannindriya cetasika and simply called panna and is sometimes called vijja.
Htoo Naing. Patthana Dhamma: Chapter 5 - Hetu paccayo (or root condition).
Htoo Naing. Patthana Dhamma (a different book): Hetu paccayo (page 15)

Kilesā occur in three levels:

1/ anusaya-kilesa: low level, latent, like sediments waiting to be stirred up.
2/ pariyuttana-kilesa: medium level arising only in the mind due to causes and conditions.
3/ vitikkakama-kilesa: coarse level, manifesting in unwolesome speech or action, breaking precepts.
[Defilements (kilesā) (Thanh Huynh - Honolulu Dhamma Community)]

Anusaya Kilesas (latent tendency):

If you don’t remove or destroy [latent tendency or defilements (anusaya kilesā)] with Path Knowledge, the khandhas and samudaya (i.e., taṇhā) are always sticking together. [Buddhavada (Mogok Sayadaw); also see 4.2. ANUSAYA]

• Cetasikas are embeded in the formation of a being, including the arupa-brahmas.
• When something convenient (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, or thought) is present to consciousness (Viññāṇa), anusaya kilesā (the latent tendency) grows like seeds.
• At the contact with the convenience, Viññāṇa and the cetasika co-arise simultaneously according to Aññamañña paccayo (Mutuality or Reciprocity Condition)
  • To think, one must be conscious; and to continue thinking, one must be conscious.
  • To see a sight, one must be conscious...
  • To smell a smell...

Comparing with Mahayanist concepts:

• Anusaya kilesās are not based on discrimination and erroneous reasoning (Lanka)
• Anusaya kilesās are not in the Ālaya-vijñāna (the Universal Mind, storehouse consciousness), nor are related to the buddha-nature (Buddha-dhàtu, Buddha-svabhāva). The Mahayanist Ālaya-vijñāna and Buddha-svabhāva are neither citta nor cetasika known to the Vibhajjavadis.

2.8.3. The Role of Saññā

Saññā is a type of cetasika. Other cetasika are vedanā and saṅkhāra. Cetasika is a reality (paramattha).

Saññā is memory (events) and perception (a form of mano-saṅkhārā). However, saññā and saṅkhārā must be different. Saññā must not be saṅkhārā (construct). Saññā must be a raw material. Although saññā and saṅkhārā are similar, saññā must not be saṅkhārā or a product of saṅkhārā.

Saññā as the past events is memory. Events are not imagined. Events occur at the present are reality (not memory).

Saññā can exist as the future events or future memory, like a plan. If a plan is possible to be carried out, then some future events are predictable. In that sense, some future events are knowable.

A Buddha can analyse an individual's mentality and potentials. Based on that knowledge, a Buddha can know and prophesies some major events about an individual or the world. However, a Buddha cannot know the potentials of all the individuals with weak mind (Iddhipāda) and faculties (indriya) who travel randomly any direction into the dark.

This is what the Buddha said about those going into the dark:

The chance for a being in a hell to be reborn as a human is less than that of a blind turtle, surfacing once a century, to happen to put its head through a ring moved by the winds across the surface of the sea. Even if a human rebirth is attained, the person will be poor, ugly and ill, and will tend to do evil actions which will send him or her back to hell (M. iii.169; Bca. iv.20)

PETER HARVEY. AN INTRODUCTION TO BUDDHIST ETHICS: Foundations, Values and Issues. Page 30 University of Sunderland

The Buddha advised the monks to go into the relief from the burden of nāma and rūpa:

“Monks, that’s how rare it is to get reborn as a human being. That’s how rare it is for a fully enlightened Buddha to be born into the world. That’s how rare it is for the Dhamma and training taught by a Buddha to shine in the world. Now, monks, you have been reborn as a human being. A fully enlightened Buddha has been born into the world. The Dhamma and training taught by a Buddha shine in the world.

Iddhipāda

iddhiyā pādo iddhipādo, i.e., root or basis of attaining completion or perfection (success or potency). [79] [The Venerable Ledi Sayādaw. The Requisites of Enlightenment (Bodhipakkhiya Dīpanī), Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy • Sri Lanka, The Wheel Publicaton No. 171/172/173/174.]

4. Iddhipāda Sutta.-The path mentioned above should be practised, accompanied by concentration and effort, compounded with desire, energy, idea and investigation. S.iv.365.

Indriya

11. Faculty of faith (saddh’- indriya) [Nyanatiloka Mahāthera. Guide through the Abhidhamma Piþaka, Page 18]

Avijjā-paccaya saṅkhāra; Saṅkhāra-paccāya vinnānam;

• Avijjā and saññā condition the saṅkhārā. Avijjā is a type of kilesā cetasika (mental defilement). Avijjā exists in two forms: Delusion or the lack of right view; Heedlessness or the lack of mindfulness. Both forms of avijjā are always present in saññā (i.e. wrong view).

Saṅkhāra is construct and construction.

Mano-saṅkhāra can also be understood as percept.

• percept. noun. : an impression of an object obtained by use of the senses : SENSE-DATUM (Merriam-Webster)
• Percept: a mental concept that is developed as a consequence of the process of perception [Google/Oxford Languages].
• [percept:] Perception usually combines several sensations into one thought or percept. The percept, of course, is a mental state corresponding with its outside object. A Percept is the product of Perception, or in other words, our idea gained through Perception

Saññā and Vipassanā

Saññā can be understood as sense-datum, outside object, perception, and memory.

The sense-datum is an object immediately present in experience. It has the qualities it appears to have.  

A controversial issue is whether sense-data have real, concrete existence. Depending upon the version of the sense-data theory adopted, sense-data may or may not be identical with aspects of external physical objects; they may or may not be entities that exist privately in the subject’s mind. Usually, however, sense-data are interpreted to be distinct from the external physical objects we perceive. The leading view, in so far as the notion is appealed to in current philosophy, is that an awareness of (or acquaintance with) sense-data somehow mediates the subject’s perception of mind-independent physical objects. The sense-datum is the bearer of the phenomenal qualities that the subject is immediately aware of. [Sense-Data (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)]

Lifeforms (nama-rūpa complexes) and the law of life (Paticcasamuppada) have existed in the past infinity. Saññā as memory can be recalled or accessed by anyone. Some arahants can recall the past 500 lives. Some arahants recalled several eons of the past Earths. A Buddha can recall with no limit in a very short moment. The Sakyamuni Buddha said, even if He spent His entire lifetime, He would not reach the beginning (of existence), which is considered non-existent.

Inthe Western thought, the natural memory can be improved by training [Javier Vergara / Procedia (Page 3513) - Social and Behavioral Sciences 46 ( 2012 ) 3512 – 3518)]. In the Theravada teaching, a liberated mind (which attained arahantta phala) can recall at least the past 500 lives. 

Saṅkhāra and saññā belong to cetasika, which is a paramattha (reality). However, they are impermanent. That begs a question: How can the impermanent saṅkhāra and saññā be accessed? They are impermanent in theory, as they will be forgotten. The physical destruction of the memory of the past events might not happen.

As though written down into books, the memories (including sense-data) seem not to have disappeared. The fact is each of us can recall the memory, which stays with us for a lifetime. We are forgetful and cannot recall our memories whever we want to; however, they are present, and our minds revisit them sometimes. Our inability to explain how memories exist should not prevent us from admitting the fact that memories exist and can be recalled. These noble ariyas can know others' minds and access the past memories and forsee the future events.

Avijja-paccaya sankhara (ignorance conditions/supports a construct; e.g. sakkāyadiṭṭhi).

• Avijjā (ignorance) is saññā (as memory, misperception or wrong view).
• Saṅkhāra (as activity) is misunderstanding/misperceiving nama-rūpa complex as an I-being, I am, he is, she is, it is, they are... Misperceiving the nama-rūpa complexes as individuals or as beings (I-beings).
• Saññā and saṅkhāra are always together as one's problems.
• Saṅkhāra-paccāya vinnānam: when saṅkhāra (e.g. idea) is present, consciousness arises. One begins to know the construct. Saññā-Saṅkhāra are the subject to know (be conscious about).
• Saṅkhāra-paccāya vinnānam: Saṅkhāra bridges between saññā and viññāṇa—perceiving is made of saññā, saṅkhāra and viññāṇa.
• Sabbe saṅkhāra anicca—all constructs are impermanence;
• Construction: Saṅkhāra as activity (intentional or unintentional):
  • sankhara-paccaya vinnanam (Dependent on reaction (conditioning), consciousness arises);
  • Mano-saṅkhāra (Citta-Saṅkhāra), vaci-saṅkhāra, kaya-saṅkhāra—mental, verbal and bodily construct/activity which a being performs intentionally or unintentionally;
  • Cetana is also intention (volition).

Saññā (memory) is like the soil and fertilizer. Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, or thought acts like a signal (reminder).

• In vipassanā, one puts effort to block the reminder reaching the memory (saññā)—like a responsible person kills the fire before it reaches the gunpowder. Once a sense reminder (ayatana) reaches saññā, they give birth to kamma sankhāras. The sense reminder (ayatana) is too fast for the untrained minds to block. So one does not block it but avoid it. One must develop the mind to have this avoiding ability and skill through a gradual training which comprises the indriya-samvara-sila and vipassanā. Basically, it means to prevent mano-saṅkhāra (thought) because it leads vaci-saṅkhāra and kaya-saṅkhāra.
• As the kilesā are not fed or fertilised, they will become weak and suitable for jhāna development; however, they will remain as Anusaya Kilesās. Only the vipassanā-ñana can totally eradicate Anusaya Kilesās.

Indriya-samvara-sila and Vipassanā

"In seeing there is merely seeing. In hearing there is merely hearing. In sensing there is merely sensing. In cognizing there is merely cognizing. In this way you should train yourself. "Bāhiya, when there is only seeing in seeing, hearing in hearing, sensing in sensing, cognizing in cognizing, then you will not be 'with that.' When you are not 'with that,' you will not be 'in that.' When you are not 'in that,' you will be neither here nor beyond nor in between the two. Just this is the end of suffering." [The Bāhiya Sutta (Douglas C. B. Kraft)]

Four Types of Capacity for Path Attainment

It is stated in the Puggalapaññatti (the “Book of Classification of Individuals,” (p. 160) and in the Aṅguttara Nikāya (AN 4:133) that, of the beings who encounter the Sāsana, i.e., the Teaching of the Buddha, four classes can be distinguished, viz.:

A padaparama is an individual who [...] cannot obtain release from worldly ills during this lifetime. If he dies while practising samatha (tranquillity) or vipassanā (insight) and attains rebirth either as a human being or a deva in his next existence, he can attain release from worldly ills in that existence within the present Buddha Sāsana.

niyata : one who has obtained a sure prediction made by a Buddha.

aniyata : one who has not obtained a sure prediction made by a Buddha.

aniyata neyya individuals can attain release from worldly ills in this life only if they put forth sufficient effort [...] within the present Buddha Sāsana.

(The Venerable Ledi Sayādaw. The Requisites of Enlightenment (Bodhipakkhiya Dīpanī))

2.8.4. Our concern:

Our concerns are our own mental, verbal and bodily activities:

Due to delusion (avijjā), we do not know where we have been and what we should do during this lifetime. The purpose of life in general is to practice selfishness to ultimate level.

One builds a life only to lose it to the death. Nobody can reclaim his/her previous life, properties, wealth and works. Rebirth in dugati-loka does not allow rebuilding life. One must get another opportunity in sugati-loka.

Due to clinging (upādāna) to self, one cannot separate from the new life, which is now. One always clings to the new life because of sakkāyadiṭṭhi (sakkāya-diṭṭhi). The past life is like yesterday.

• Sakkāyadiṭṭhi: clinging to nāma-rūpa as I am—i.e. this body is me, mine; the major wrong view (mano-saṅkhāra)
  • Nāma: the four mental khandas (vedanā, saññā, saṅkhāra and viññāṇa).
  • Rūpa: the corporeal body or the four mahābhūta.

Remember the following:

• Sakkāyadiṭṭhi is ego, egocentric and a very heavy burden to carry and climb uphill.
• Sakkāyadiṭṭhi extends beyond one's five aggregates.
• Sakkāyadiṭṭhi extends to others' five aggregates as well. So we can hear people say, this is mine, and that is also mine.
• Sakkāyadiṭṭhi only helps one to fall downhill.
• A chance of getting relief from this burden is rare.
• A chance to know true dana, sila, bhavanā is very rare.
• One day this body will be thrown away or buried somewhere; and that body, too.
• Truth is painful as long as one is clinging to the five aggregates.
• Thus, our true concerns are our own mental, verbal and bodily activities.

The Buddha warns us to reflect the following: 

"The five facts that one should reflect on often, whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained..." 

'I am subject to aging, have not gone beyond aging.'

'I am subject to illness, have not gone beyond illness.'

'I am subject to death, have not gone beyond death.'

'I will grow different, separate from all that is dear and appealing to me.' 

'I am the owner of my actions,[1] heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.'

[Upajjhatthana Sutta— AN 5.57 (Thanissaro Bhikkhu)]

Upādāna (clinging) manifests as mano-saṅkhāra (mental activity/construct):

We cling to live body and dead body. We have seen enough pain in society in good time and bad time.

Upādānakkhandha：[m．] the factors of clinging to existence．

The five upādānakkhandha: rūpakkhandha, vedanākkhandha, saññākkhandha, saṅkhārakkhandha, viññāṇakkhandha

We take the body for self; thus we cling to rupakkhandha. We take mentality for self; thus we cling to vedanakkhandha, to sannakkhandha, to sankharakkhandha and to vinnanakkhandha. If we cling to the khandhas and if we do not see them as they are, we will have sorrow.

Saṅkhārakkhandha (m.) the aggregate of mental coefficients

• Saṅkhāra among the five aggregates is mano-saṅkhāra. Saṅkhārakkhandha is also designated as upādānakkhandha as there is clinging.
• The upādānakkhandha rises from sakkāyadiṭṭhi (clinging to self and the five aggregates).
• Most beings cling to all these five. Some cling to either rūpa or nāma and are reborn in the arūpa-brahma worlds.
• Will is the intention to get a desired object. To will means to get something one desires. One wills, and as one is willing, one acts. In this process, will and dukkha (suffering) rise together spontaneously.

In Samyutta Nikaya Sutta 12.25 the Buddha said “With ignorance as condition, either by oneself, Ananda, one wills bodily intentions (kāya Saṅkhāra), following which arises internally pleasure and pain; or, because of others one wills bodily intentions, following which arises internally, pleasure and pain.” [CONDITIONED ARISING OF SUFFERING (Ven. Dhammavuddho Mahāthera)]

• 'Bodily intention' (kaya-saṅkhāra): intention to act bodily;
• Kāya: body, bodily;
• Intention: mano-saṅkhāra
• Mental pain and pleasure; as intention is inside the mind, pleasure and pain are internal (inside the mind).

Anusaya Kilesas: Bhava-Taṇhă to Bhava-Saṅkhāra

Three types of taṇhă: kama-taṇhă, bhava-taṇhă, vibhava-taṇhă.

'Wherever in the world, there are delightful and pleasurable things, there this taṇhă (craving) arises and takes root.' [...] By 'taking root' is meant that, failing to contemplate on the impermanent nature of pleasurable things, craving for them lies dormant, taking root to arise when favourable circumstances permit. This latent craving, lying dormant in sense-objects which escape being contemplated on, is known as ărammananusaya. [U Ko Lay. Discose on the Wheel of Dhamma - Part 5: Maha Satipatthăna Sutta. SukhiHotu Dhamma Publication,1998)]

The Effect of Anusaya Kilesās: Kāmataṇhā and Kāma-loka:

After the destruction of a world of beings, either by a cosmic fire, flood or storm, only darkness remains in space, completely empty and void.

After forever and an aeon, and after cosmic condensation and precipitation, at the same place another human world will be reborn as a body of liquid just like the previous ones. This water body, as big as a planet, will gradually become suitable to support life.

Some of the Brahmas, who have lived their lifespans, will be reborn as humans in that new human world. The first-ever generation of humans are sky-dwellers, with brahma-like body, brahma-like rays, brahma-like lifespan and brahma-like lifestyle. Their auras can shine like the moon and the sun.

Gradually, after passing forever and an aeon, the water mass will condense into physical nutrition. Seeing that beautiful physical food and breathing its nice smell for forever and an aeon, these beings will eventually lose control due to their anusaya kilesa stirring and rising in their minds.

One of them will taste it, eat it and persuade others to do the same—that is how eating is the first religion and politics.

11. ... It was endowed with colour, smell and taste. It was the colour of fine ghee or butter, and it was very sweet, like pure wild honey. [Aggañña Sutta (DN27 On Knowledge of Beginnings) (Pali Canon Online)]

All things must come to an end one day. This is the impermanent nature of everything, anicca. So also the world [...] During the destruction of the world, all living beings become Brahmas and dwell in Brahma which is not affected by [the destruction.] [Ashin Janakabhivamsa. Part 2 - How The World Came To An End.]

Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda—Part 6

2.8.5. Sabbe Saṅkhāra Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta:

The Fact of Impermanence (Piyadassi Thera)

They arise and cease, that is their nature: They come into being and pass away, Release from them is bliss supreme. — Mahaa-Parinibbaana Sutta (DN 16)[1]

Anicca (Impermanence) According to Theravada (Bhikkhu Ñanamoli):

"What is impermanent? The five categories [khandha] are impermanent. In what sense impermanent? Impermanent in the sense of rise and fall [udaya-vaya]" (Ps. Aanaapaanakathaa/vol. i, 230).

• Saṅkhāra is the process of constant rise-and-fall.
• Saṅkhāra are sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought. They are constantly rising and falling, from the beginning to end, according to their lifespans.

The Buddha uttered the following verses to Sāmāvati:

appamādo amatapadaṃ pamādo maccuno padaṃ | appamattā na mīyanti ye pamattā yathā matā |

Verse 21-23 - The Story of Sāmāvati (Ven. Weagoda Sarada Maha Thero)

Citta, cetasika and rupa are impermanent. Everything constructed with them is conditioned to be impermanent. An impermanent thing (Saṅkhāra) is ownerless, as it goes on its own accord. Impermanence is a law. It does not hear the cries and prayers of the atta (self/ego). One should accept reality. To be able to accept reality, one needs to train the mind. When the mind is well-conditioned to accept reality, one ends mental suffering.

• Sabbe saṅkhāra anicca (all constructs/activities are impermanence).
• Anicca is dukkha (impermanence is suffering).
• Time and again to begin and end is samsara, the cycle of pain.

The Buddha said that one's imminent duty is to get rid of sakkāyadiṭṭhi. One should contemplate thus, this impermanent metaphysical body is not me. It is not mine. It is not somebody. It is not a being but Paticcasamuppada the law of life (the chain, or law, of dependent origination, or the chain of causation).

Two Types of Dukkha

[The vipassanā Dipani (The Manual of Insight): The Three Parinnas (Mahāthera Ledi Sayadaw)]

[Quote] Dukkha-parinna means either a perfect or a qualified knowledge of the intrinsic characteristic Ill or infelicity [unhappiness; misfortune]. Here Ill is of two kinds:

1. Vedayita-dukkha (Pain-feeling ill).
2. Bhayattha-dukkha (Fear producing ill).

Here Vedayita-dukkha is synonymous with Dukkha-vedana, which is present in the Vedana Triad of Sukhaya-vedanaya-sampayutta- Dhamma, Dukkhaya - vedanaya-sampayutta-dhamma, and Adukkhamasukhaya-vedanaya-sampayutta-dhamma.

Bhayattha-dukkha is synonymous with Dukkha-saccam and with Dukkham, which is present in the three salient features, Anicca, Dukkha, and Anattá. [End quote]

• Will for verbal activity or bodily activity is Vedayita-dukkha,
• Sabbe saṅkhāra dukkha: When three sticks are set upright leaning against one another at their upper ends, each of them depends on, and is depended on by, the other two. As long as one of them remains in such an upright position, so long will all remain in the same position. And, if one of them falls, all will fall at the same time. (construct/activity) is thus synonymous with dukkha.
• All kusala and akusala (wholesome and unwholesome) verbal, mental and physical constructs (activities) are dukkha.

Enjoyment:

There is enjoyment. This knowledge is saññā.

One does not know much about enjoyment. This lack of knowledge is avijjā.

Avijjā-Paccaya Saṅkhāra:

• Enjoyment is mano-saṅkhāra (mental-construct/activity) supported by a convenient (constructive/desirable) support.
• Enjoyment occurs when craving for enjoyment is provided with a convenience. Underneath the enjoyment are craving and clinging, coexisting together.
• When the convenience is cut off, enjoyment is cut off and disagreement (mano-saṅkhāra) arises, and dukkha arises.
• If craving and clinging are cut off, enjoyment is cut off, too, and dukkha is cut off.
• Enjoyment spends too much physical and mental energies.

Mano-saṅkhāra and Citta

• Mano-saṅkhāra: mental Construct/Activity
• Mind leads every time, but it is conditioned/supported by saṅkhāra (i.e. mano-saṅkhāra)
• Enjoyment (sa
• Mano-saṅkhāra triggers the Vaci-saṅkhāra (verbal construct) and Kaya-saṅkhāra (bodily construct)
• These saṅkhāra are Kamma saṅkhāras (except the saṅkhāras triggered by vāsanā).
  • Vāsanā refers to habitual patterns of thought, speech or action that are imprinted in the mind. 
  • The habitual way one speaks, walks, eats, behaves, etc. are saṅkhāras with no intention (kamma) and innocent. For example, when scare-pranked, one screams and jumbs irrationally but predictably and laugh spectacularly. And the people watching the show laugh, too.

Mano-Saṅkhāra: Mental Construct & Construction

The Mind Citta Sutta (SN 1:62)

• Citta-Sutta: The world is led by thought （citta） and plagued by it．S.i.39； cf．A.ii.177.
• Sanā and Saṅkhāra work together. Wrong view leads wrong action (akusala kamma) to wrong destination (dugati / duggati).

Avijjā-Paccaya Saṅkhāra

paccaya : (m.) cause; votive; requisite; means; support.

• Ignorance conditions/supports the re-construction (rebirth) of the various mental, verbal and physical activities;

Avijjāya tveva asesa viraga-nirodha, saṅkhāra-nirodho (When such ignorance ceases, it cannot condition the re-construction)

• Avijjā: heedlessness, recklessness, carelessness, lack of attention, ignorance, misperceiving, misunderstanding, taking a wrong view,
  • View is kamma (mono-kamma or mano saṅkhāra).
  • Wrong View (micchaditthi) basically means misperception or with reference to sakkāyadiṭṭhi—I am, he is, she is, it is, beautiful.
  • Our actions are usually led by sakkāyadiṭṭhi, which makes us to be ego-centric and discriminatory.

Anusaya Kilesas (latent tendency): How Does Saṅkhāra Occur?

Verse 1: manopubbangama dhamma [Dhammapada Verse 1 Cakkhupalatthera Vatthu]

Verse 2: All mental phenomena have mind as their forerunner; they have mind as their chief; they are mind-made. If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness (sukha) follows him like a shadow that never leaves him. [Dhammapada Verse 2 Matthakundali Vatthu]

• Citta (vinnāna/consciousness) leads the thought (kamma saṅkhāra: intentional activity). Kamma is intention. This intentional thought (kamma vaci-saṅkhāra) becomes the subject on which the next vinnāna to occur as the rebirth of new consciousness—saṅkhāra-paccāya vinnānam.
  • When a unit of vinnāna (consciousness) ceases, another unit of vinnāna is born right away. Every new vinnāna is based on saṅkhāra—saṅkhāra-paccāya vinnānam. This process will go on as the samsarā of the three saṅkhata dhātu (citta, cetasika, rūpa).
  • Saṅkhāra is cetasika, either wholesome or unwholesome.
  • Cetasika and vinnāna (citta) co-arise—Aññamañña paccayo (explained above).

These two verses from Dhammapada echo the Paticcasamuppada teaching that vinnana is conditioned by sankhara. For the verses say that happiness or misery arises from kamma sankhara, and in fact sukha or dukkha occurs together with vinnana. Again, vinnana implies the associated mental factors and its physical basis viz., rupa. Hence, the teaching that vinnana conditions nama rupa. [A Discourse on Paticcasamuppada (Mahasi Sayadaw):]

• In the rebirth process, saṅkhāra-paccāya vinnānam (mano-saṅkhāra conditions/causes/supports the consciousness)
• Mano-saṅkhāra includes rebirth vision (gati nimitta, which is the vision of the abodes or plane of existence he will be reborn in (Ven. Janakabhivamsa)).

In Atthi Raga Sutta: Where There is Passion (Nyanaponika Thera), the Buddha explains how saṅkhāra conditions the arise of vinnāna—(volitional thought: saṅkhāra; consciousness: vinnāna.

"If, O monks, there is lust for the nutriment sense-impression... volitional thought [vaci-saṅkhāra/mano-kamma]... consciousness [vinnāna], if there is pleasure in it and craving for it, then consciousness takes a hold therein and grows. Where consciousness takes a hold and grows, there will be occurrence of mind-and-body [nāma-rūpa]. Where there is occurrence of mind-and-body, there is growth of kamma-formations [kamma saṅkhāra]. Where there is growth of kamma-formations, there is a future arising of renewed existence. Where there is a future arising of renewed existence, there is future birth, decay and death. This, I say, O monks, is laden with sorrow, burdened with anguish and despair.

• kamma saṅkhāra: volitional saṅkhāra
• Vaci-saṅkhāra/mano-kamma: Thought is considered as vaci-saṅkhāra, but as it occurs in the mind, it is mano-kamma. Vaci-kamma is speech through the mouth.

[The Concept of Existence (Bhava) in Early Buddhism, iafor (Pranab Barua):]

• Cetasika (mental concomitance): vedanā, saññā, and saṅkhāra (feeling, perception and mental formation and emotion)
• Cetasika is led by citta. However, citta and cetasika occur simuteneously.
• Citta is immediately followed by vedanā, saññā, and then saṅkhāra and replaced by another citta
• Saṅkhāra can continue as thought, as the saññā feeds the information (memory)

Dependent on feeling [vedana] arises craving (taṇhā). Craving results in grasping (upadana). Grasping is the cause of kamma (bhava) which in its turn, conditions future birth (jati). Birth is the inevitable cause of old age and death (jara-marana). [Buddhism in a Nutshell: Dependent Arising (Paticca Samuppada) (Narada Thera)]

• Taṇhā(lobha) is a kilesa (akusala cetasika).
• Perceiving a construct as a cat, a car, a woman, a dog, a hand ... is a wrong view. Delusion (avijja or moha) causes this view. A construct should be understood as it is. There is no cat but nāma-rūpa. There is no car but rupa. There is no woman but nāma-rūpa.
• Perceiving is kamma saṅkhāra (volitional saṅkhāra) that leads to Kammabhava.

[Mahasi Sayadaw:] Kammabhava means the kamma that leads to rebirth.

• consciousness takes a hold therein and grows: that is Ārammaṇa paccayo: 

(7)All dhammas are related to mindconscious-ness-element and its associated states by object condition.  

(8)Grasping any dhamma as object, these dhammas arise: consciousness and mental factors. The former dhamma is related to the latter dhammas by object condition.

The Law of Dependent Arising

(The law of life; the chain, or law, of dependent origination, or the chain of causation)

Narada Maha Thera

• Dependent on Ignorance (5 ) arise Conditioning Activities (6). 
• Dependent on Conditioning Activities arises (Rebirth) Consciousness (7). 
• Dependent on (Rebirth) Consciousness arise Mind and Matter (8). 
• Dependent on Mind and Matter arise the six (Sense) Bases (9). 
• Dependent on the six (sense) Bases arises contact (10). 
• Dependent on Contact arises Feeling (11). 
• Dependent on Feeling arises Craving (12). 
• Dependent on Craving arises Grasping (13). 
• Dependent on Grasping arises Action or Becoming (14) 
• Dependent on Action arises Birth (15). 
• Dependent on Birth arise Decay, Death, Sorrow, Lamentation, Pain, Grief, and Despair. Thus arises the whole mass of suffering.
• Thus arises the whole mass of suffering.
• Herein this is the Law of the Dependent Arising.

Abhidhammattha Sangaha of Anuruddhacariya; A Manual of Abhidhamma: CHAPTER VIII - THE COMPENDIUM OF RELATIONS,

2.4.6. Saṅkhāra and Rebirth

Ārammaṇa paccayo: Beings are reborn according to their sense-data/perception and mental activities. Perceiving and constructing views (mano-saṅkhāra) on nāma-rūpa complex as dog, pig, cat, fish... beings are reborn as dogs, pigs, cats, fish... Perception and mental activity never stop. That is how we know things and how we are traversing the neverending from one species to another in the samsarā, carrying the burden of nāma-rūpa.

Upādānakkhandha: perception (saññā) is firmly attached to the physical body (rūpa), feeling (vedanā) and consciousness (vinnana).

That view makes us see things on the surface as a cat, a car, a woman, a dog, a hand, and so on. We are not used to perceiving beneath the skin. Such a sight is too uncomfortable for us. A cat, a car, a woman, a dog, a hand, and so on are a construct (a thing conditioned).A construct (a conditioned thing) differs from illusion. For example, there is no arahant (Tathagata) but a construct or one who has reached the other shore the Nibbāna.

A conversation between Yamaka bhikkhu and Venerable Sāriputta Thera went this way in the Yamaka Sutta (Thanissaro Bhikkhu):

"Do you regard the Tathagata as that which is without form, without feeling, without perception, without fabrications, without consciousness?"

Nāma is the mental aggregates (four mental phenomena: vedanā, saññā, saṅkhāra, vinnana) and rūpa is the physical aggregates (the 32 body parts).

Seeing things as they are (Yathabhuta ñana Dassana) overcomes attachment and aversion. However, only the vipassanā-ñana (vipassanā-insight) can stop the nature of the mind from involuntary development of (mano-saṅkhāra) attachment to the body as I-being (I-am) and aversion.

When you feel a pleasant feeling what will arise? Attachment...

Pleasant > Attachment (taṇhā); Unpleasant > Aversion (dosa). The mind attaches to something whether it is desired or undesired. Love/attachment and hate/aversion are the causes for the mind to attach to an object or subject.

Every moment, the mental state is either attachment or aversion. This is how we constantly experience dukkha (suffering).

Experience (mano-saṅkhāra) is suffering. We only experience suffering. But craving (taṇhā) makes us think we feel pleasure while we experience pleasurable feeling or lesser pain. For example, salt is salty. The right amount of salt makes good taste and craving. Too little or too much salt makes bad taste and agression.

All of these are the five upādānakkhandha: rūpakkhandha, vedanākkhandha, saññākkhandha, saṅkhārakkhandha, viññāṇakkhandha.

Active Suffering: saṅkhāra and kamma are interchangeable, so there are vaci kamma/saṅkhāra, mano kamma/saṅkhāra and kaya kamma/saṅkhāra. Passive Suffering is caused by sight, smell, sound, taste, touch and thought (mental fabrication or citta-saṅkhāra). We go through active and passive sufferings from one moment to another. We suffer physically and mentally at the same time.

Only the arahants are free from mental suffering. They do not mentally suffer from the mental and physical vedanā (feeling) because they have cut off the mind from attaching to vedanā. An arahant no longer feels vedanā as his or hers even at a serious pain is present. Mental attachment to feeling is like a piece of magnet to large and small iron pieces. The attachment occurs involuntarily due to the nature of mind.

• Vedayita-dukkha (Pain-feeling ill)—from the presence of the undesirable, and from the lack of the desirable (essential);
• Bhayattha-dukkha (Fear producing ill)—fear of the presence of the undesirable, and fear of the lack of the desirable (essential);

vedayita : (nt.) feeling; experience.

bhaya, n. fear, fright, danger, calamity,

bhayaiikara, adj. fearful, dreadful,

[THE STUDENT'S PALI-ENGLISH DICTIONARY (MAUNG TIN. M.A.)]

Saññā is the enemy:

Saññā can be understood as sense-datum, outside object, perception, and memory. Saññā (sense datum / perception) tells us vedanā is pain, itch, cold, good smell, bad smell, girl, boy, cat, etc.

(Based on the teaching of Mogok Sayadaw and Theinngu Sayadaw:)

Vedanā is vedanakkhandha. It is vedayita, dukkha-sacca (the truth of suffering). It is a cetasika, one of the four paramattha (realities). Whenever we experience something, we should notice vedanā and know it as vedanā rather than pain, itch, cold, good smell, bad smell, girl, boy, cat, man, woman, tree, etc. However, saññā hides vedanā, the reality (paramattha), and informs us that we experience pain, itch, cold, good smell, bad smell, girl, boy, cat, man, woman, tree, etc. Thus, we fail to notice the vedanā and follow the information given by saññā and become delusional and miss the reality.

Vedanā: sight, sound, smell, taste and touch

Pannā tells us the reality: vedanā is experience.

Pannā develops when one notices or knows sight, sound, smell, taste or touch as vedanā. Thus, we must be mindful of vedanā and let go of saññā, according to Ārammaṇa paccayo: Grasping any dhamma as object, these dhammas arise: consciousness and mental factors.

Saṅkhāra is an enemy, too:

• Saṅkhāra is mental activity, thought especially.
• If the mind has something else to do or think, it does not focus on vipassana. One needs strong samādhi and commitment.
• Avijjā-paccāya saṅkhāra ;
  • Avijjā is heedlessness, caused by the lack of mindfulness (samādhi).
• Saṅkhāra-paccāya vinnānam (Construct/activity conditions/supports consciousness);
  • Saṅkhāra sends the mind outside (out of meditation) to attend on various sense objects
  • Saṅkhāra causes the mind to be attending on unimportant subjects.
  • Saṅkhāra bends the mind, while Saññā deceives it (provides the mind with misperception).
• Saṅkhāra-nirodha vinnāna-nirodho;
• In the Dhammapada, the Story of Sāmāvati, the Buddha uttered verse 21:

appamādo amatapadaṃ pamādo maccuno padaṃ

Heedfulness is the Deathless path, heedlessness, the path to death.

Pabhassara Sutta

• In the Pabhassara Sutta (Luminous), the Buddha clarifies the effect of saññā and sankhāra on vinnāna:

"Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is freed from incoming defilements. The well-instructed disciple of the noble ones discerns that as it actually is present, which is why I tell you that — for the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones — there is development of the mind." {I,vi,2}

• Defilements are ten kilesā, which associates with saññā and saṅkhāra that condition the vinnāna.
• Saṅkhāra, which is not associated with kilesā, can condition the vinnāna, too.
• Saṅkhāra-nirodha vinnāna-nirodho;

The Restraint of the Faculties (Indriya-Saṃvara-Sīla)

Detachment (Anupādāna) is free from attachment and aversion.

Nibbana is a Pali word and it derives from nirvana which composes of ni and vana. Ni means nikkhanta or liberated from vana or binding effect. Vana is the dhammas that bind various different lives in the samsara. So nibbana means liberated from binding in the samsara. this binding is tanha. [Htoo Naing. Patthana Dhamma: Chapter 6 - Ārammana paccayo (or object condition)].

Practicing the development of detachment reduces sakkāyadiṭṭhi. Traditionally, the development conprises upekkha (calmness in the sense of Brahmavihara) and the Indriya-Saṃvara-Sīla (Restraint of the Faculties).

While the Brahmaviharas are natural human capacities, they may be underdeveloped and unavailable when they are most needed. [The Four Faces of Love: The Brahma Viharas (Gil Fronsdal)]

The Buddha explains about self-restraints that can prevent bad rebirth. Laypeople do not train with them because of the difficulties laypeople have to deal with in society.

After receiving the Buddha’s discourse with delight, Sakka put the next question: 

“Venerable Sir, how does a bhikkhu practise so as to keep his faculties well guarded?”  

[The Great Chronicle of Buddhas (Ven. Mingun Sayadaw)]

Deeper understanding of atta is attained with Nāmarūpapariccheda ñana.

Sakkāyadiṭṭhi is reduced gradually at the first stage of enlightenment, which is nāma-rūpa pariccheda ñana. This ñana (knowledge) is the ability to distinguish nāma (mental phenomena) and rūpa (material phenomena).

In the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta, the Buddha clarifies nāma-rūpa as anicca, dukkha and anatta:

"Bhikkhus, form [rūpa] is not-self. Were form self, then this form would not lead to affliction, and one could have it of form: 'Let my form be thus, let my form be not thus.' And since form is not-self, so it leads to affliction, and none can have it of form: 'Let my form be thus, let my form be not thus.'

• Form (rūpa) is the five aggregates of clinging.
• Nāma is the collective term of consciousness (vinnāna), feeling (vedanā), memory-perception (saññā), and mental activities (Saṅkhāra)

Right View, Right Understanding:

Magganga Dipani Ledi Sayadaw:

• kammassakata samma-ditthi--Right View or Understanding that in the case of beings only two things, wholesome and unwholesome actions performed by them, are their own properties that always accompany them wherever they may wander in many a becoming or world-cycle;
• dasavatthuka samma-ditthi-- Right Understanding of the ten kinds of subjects;
• catu-sacca samma- ditthi--Right Understanding of the four Realities or the Four Truths.
• Kammayoni: Only the wholesome and unwholesome actions of beings are the origin of their wanderings in many a becoming or world-cycle.

Sotapanna's Right View

a person born blind [...] is cured of the cataract and gains sight. From the moment the cataract disappears, the view of the earth, the mountains, the sky with sun, moon and stars, etc, is opened to him and remains so throughout his life. Similarly, the noble stream-enterers (sotāpanna-ariya) gain the view of the three characteristics of existence (ti-lakkhaṇa) and of the Four Noble Truths, and do not lose it. This is how the path factor “right view” is firmly established.

The Venerable Ledi Sayādaw. The Requisites of Enlightenment (Bodhipakkhiya Dīpanī).

Right Understanding (Kyaw Min):

[Quote] The Doctrine of Anattā [Anattavāda] can be understood as composed of 3 parts. 

1. there is no soul,
2. there is no self,
3. there is no control over our body processes. [End quote]

Self (atta or soul) means the non-existent owner of nāma-rūpa. Nāma-rūpa are dhamma (nature or phenomena) and the slaves of no one. They do not take command. They obey none but the law of anicca. That is why we must observe them using a vipassanā method to understand them and to become wise.

That is why nāma-rūpa are anatta: owned by no-one. Details are taught in Cula-Saccaka Sutta.

When views are corrected, one achieves Ditthi-Visuddhi (purifications of view).

a yogi ... should first fortify his knowledge by learning and questioning about the soil. After he has perfected Sīla and samādhi that are the roots. Then he can develop the five purifications (of view) that are the trunk. [The quote is modified.]

Attaining the Insight Wisdom, the fundamental knowledge of nature, is to gain the ability to give up sakkāyadiṭṭhi: craving for existence (bhava taṇhā) and claiming ownership of the nāma-rūpa complex.

A word of warning; until one attains to the Path-Knowledge as the first stage (sotapatti magga ̣ñāna), there is no stability and security for a worldling or puthujjana whether he happens to be a great monarch of men, or of devas, or of Brahmas. Only sotappatti magga provides real security. For a sotāpanna, one who ‘enters the stream’ of the Path, is one who realizes Nibbāna and has been precluded from falling into the four miserable states or apāya; and is also firmly put on the Path until one is released from the hazards of samsāra, the round of births, ageing and death. That is why the Buddha, out of great compassion for all sentient beings, urged for the teaching of the Truth. [The Elder Revata. 2491 Sāsanā Era. Catusacca Daḷhī Kamma Kathā.]

—————————————————————————————————————————

Also good to read:

Paramatthas are explained in several books, including the following:

• Dr Mehm Tin Mon: Introducing the Higher Teachings of the Buddha: Buddha Abhidhamma: Ultimate Science

His ultimate teaching, known as Abhidhamma, describes in detail the natures of the ultimate realities that really exist in nature but are unknown to scientists. His method of verification is superior to scientific methods which depend on instruments. He used His divine-eye to penetrate the coverings that hide the true nature of all things. He also taught others how to develop concentration and how to observe with their mind-eyes the true nature of all things and finally the four Noble Truths which can enlighten one to achieve one’s liberation from all miseries for ever.

• N.K.G. Mendis: The Abhidhamma in Practice, The Wheel Publication No. 322/323

First Cause: Buddhism does not postulate a first cause. The world is beginningless, a continuous arising and passing away of phenomena dependent on conditions.

• Ledi Sayādaw Mahāthera: The Manual of Insight Vipassanā Dīpanī; The Wheel Publication No: 031/032

Lokuttara, or supramundane consciousness, is the noble mind (ariya-citta) which has become free from the threefold desire, and has transcended the three planes, kāma, rūpa, and arūpa. It is of two kinds, thus: noble consciousness in the path (of stream-entry, etc.) and noble consciousness in the fruition (of stream-entry, etc.).

• Saṅkhāra (Pali Kanon): Saṅkhāra

Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines: This term has, according to its context, different shades of meaning, which should be carefully distinguished. (I) To its most frequent usages (s. foll. 1-4) the general term 'formation' may be applied, with the qualifications required by the context. This term may refer either to the act of 'forming or to the passive state of 'having been formed' or to both.

• Bhikkhu Bodhi: Saṅkhāras in Dependent Origination

Saṅkhāra is virtually synonymous with kamma, a word to which it is etymologically akin.

Milindapanha: Saṅkhāra and Anatta

The answers of Venerable Nagasena and the questions of King Milinda are compiled as Milindapanha.

Two of the major topics are self (page 46) and soul (page 128) (see Pages). Venerable Nagasena and the king agreed a being and a thing are constructs (saṅkhāra).

Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda—Part 7

3.0. THE THIRD BUDDHIST COUNCIL:

Venerable Moggaliputta Tissa Thera led the 3rd Buddhist Council of Theravada School. That was not a schism as the outsiders were not the true members of the Sangha. However, the king supported them like the members of the Sangha.

Because it helped promote tolerance and mutual respect, Asoka desired that people should be well-learned (bahu sruta) in the good doctrines (kalanagama) of other people's religions. [The Edicts of King Asokaan, English rendering by Ven. S. Dhammika © 1994]

King Asoka was supporting everyone who claimed he belonged to the Dhamma-Vinaya community (the Sangha) established by the Sakyamuni. However, they did not join the Dhamma-Vinaya community, nor know, nor care the Buddha's teaching.

Venerable Moggaliputta Tissa Thera determined that "the Vibhajjavāda alone contained the teaching of the Buddha."

Rest of the monks who were true believers, told about the doctrine of the Buddha, that it was Vibhajjavāda i.e. the religion of analytical reasoning. This answer was supported by Moggaliputta-Tissa who was present there. He told that the Buddha was Vibhajjavādin (analyser). The Thera was made the gurdian of the Order. To purify the Sangha, the king requested to hold the Uposatha ceremony.

Uposatha

uposatha : [m.] Sabbath day; observance of 8 precepts; biweekly recitation of the Vinaya rules by a chapter of Buddhist monks.

Mūḷuposatha sutta (AN 3.70), (Bhikkhu Bodhi)

“There are, Visākhā, three kinds of uposatha. What three? The cowherds’ uposatha, the Nigaṇṭhas’ uposatha, and the noble ones’ uposatha [...] (3) “And how, Visākhā, is the noble ones’ uposatha observed? The defiled mind is cleansed by exertion. And how is the defiled mind cleansed by exertion?

The mentioned uposatha ceremony is for the monks to recite the Vinaya rules. It cannot be observed with the participation of the public, including the monks (and priests) from other religions.

[Uposatha (Thanissaro Bhikkhu)] The monastic observance may be held in one of four ways, depending on the size of the Community in a particular territory: If four bhikkhus or more, they meet for a recitation of the Pāṭimokkha; if three, they declare their mutual purity to one another; if two, they declare their purity to each other; if one, he marks the day by determining it as his uposatha. In addition to these regular observance days, the Buddha gave permission for a Community to recite the Pāṭimokkha only on one other occasion: when unity has been reestablished in the Community. This, the Commentary says, refers only to occasions when a major dispute in the Community has been settled (such as a schism—see Chapter 21), and not to occasions when the uposatha has been suspended for minor reasons. Thus there are two occasions on which the bhikkhus are allowed to meet for the uposatha: the last day of the lunar fortnight and the day for reestablishing unity.

The public uposatha is open to everyone, including non-Buddhists. The participants are expected to observe a set of uposatha sīla, either 8, 9 or 10 (aṭṭha-sīla, navanga-sīla or dasa-sīla).

uposathika : [adj.] one who observes [uposatha] precepts.

Aṭṭha-sīla 8 (Uposatha, Uposatha-sīla): 6. Vikālabhojanā veramaṇī； 7. Naccagītavāditavisūkadassanā mālāgandhavilepanadhāraṇamaṇanavibhūsanaṭṭhānā veramaṇī； 8. Uccāsayanamahāsayanā veramaṇī;

On the basis of not-Dhamma as ‘Dhamma’… Dhamma as ‘not-Dhamma’… not-Vinaya as ‘Vinaya’… Vinaya as ‘not-Vinaya’, Emperor Asoka expelled the non-Vibhajjavādis who could not observe the uposatha, including the Sarvāstivādis, from the Sangha.

[Schism (Thanissaro Bhikkhu)]
Ven. Upāli: “‘A split in the Community, a split in the Community (saṅgha-bheda)’ it is said. To what extent is the Community split?”
The Buddha: “There is the case where they explain not-Dhamma as ‘Dhamma’… Dhamma as ‘not-Dhamma’… not-Vinaya as ‘Vinaya’… Vinaya as ‘not-Vinaya’… [...] a light offense as ‘a heavy offense’… a heavy offense as ‘a light offense’… an offense leaving a remainder as ‘an offense leaving no remainder’… an offense leaving no remainder as ‘an offense leaving a remainder’… a serious offense as ‘a not-serious offense’… a not-serious offense as ‘a serious offense.’ On the basis of these eighteen grounds they pull away, pull apart, they perform a separate uposatha, perform a separate Invitation, perform a separate Community transaction. To this extent the Community is split.”—Cv.VII.5.2

Devadatta caused the first schism on the basic of Vinaya rules. The Vajjian monks caused the second schism on the same ground. The Sangha established by the Sakyamuni was attacked several times from within.

Vibhajjavādi Dhamma Missions

Emperor Asoka sent forth nine missionaries to nine different countries to propagate the religion of the Buddha and crowned it with success... also the Bhikkuni Sangha in Aparantaka, Suvannabhumi and Ceylon.

Emperor Asoka sent his son and daughter, Arahant Maha Mahinda Thera and Arahant Sanghamitta Theri, to Sri Lanka, where the events of the 3rd Buddhist Council were recorded.

"Arahant Mahinda, who introduced the Buddhadhamma to Sri Lanka, is the Redactor of the Buddhapåjàva in Sinhala Buddhism."

Sri Lanka became a foothold of the Dhamma-Vinaya Tradition. Suvannabhumi was also a foothold where Thera-vada Buddhism thrives presently.

Vibhajjavādi Dhamma Paṭisambhidā-ñāṇa

Analytical Knowledge (Paṭisambhidā-ñāṇa) allows the arahants to reason and teach in detail analytically. Understanding the nature of the Teachings of the Buddha and the Sangha, Venerable Moggaliputta Tissa Thera described them as Vibhajjavādis. That is Theravada, the doctrine of the arahants. Dhamma paṭisambhidā-ñāṇa is the ability to analytically and in detail explain the nature of reality.

The Buddha as an awakened sage is neither a theorist nor a philosopher. Theravada is not philosophy. The Buddha is an arahant.

The Buddha's disciples, who are also arahants, know the Four Noble Truths through their own observation and release from delusion. Knowing modern views and modern science is not their task. They are not philosophers and philosophical scholars. They do not claim to possess omniscience.

Titthiya Sutta (Sectarians):

[The Buddha advises the monks,] you should answer those wanderers of other sects in this way, ‘Friends, passion carries little blame and is slow to fade. Aversion carries great blame and is quick to fade. Delusion carries great blame and is slow to fade. [Thanissaro Bhikkhu]

3.1. Kaccānagotta Sutta (Right View)

Kaccānagotta Sutta Pali:

‘sammādiṭṭhi sammādiṭṭhī’ti, bhante, vuccati. Kittāvatā nu kho, bhante, sammādiṭṭhi hotī’’ti?...
‘‘‘Sabbaṃ atthī’ti kho, kaccāna, ayameko anto. ‘Sabbaṃ natthī’ti ayaṃ dutiyo anto. Ete te, kaccāna, ubho ante anupagamma majjhena tathāgato dhammaṃ deseti – ‘avijjāpaccayā saṅkhārā; saṅkhārapaccayā… L. Feer, Saṃyutta-nikāya,V. 16 —[copied from Early Buddhism: A New Definition (Vijitha Kumara, page 130)]

• sammādiṭṭhi : right view
• What is the right view, bhante?

Sarvāstivāda 

Sarvāstivāda means "those who claim that everything exists" [...] the Sarvāstivādins suggest that "everything," that is all conditioned factors (dharma), "exist" and can exert causal efficacy in the three time periods of the past, present, and future.
[Sarvastivada And Mulasarvastivada (Encyclopedia.com)]

The main Sarvāstivādi concept 'all dhamma exist in all three times' was familiar to the Buddha, not because He taught it, but because He rejected it.

'Everything exists': That is one extreme. 'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle: From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications (saṅkhārā). From fabrications as a requisite condition comes consciousness. [Kaccānagotta Sutta (SN 12:15) (Thanissaro Bhikkhu)]

Somehow, that concept, despite the Buddha's famous rejection, came to associate with Buddhism once again, not because the Buddha taught it, but the outsiders made it as if the Buddha accepted it.

We, too, must reject the notion of 'everything exists' just the way the Buddha rejected it. The rejection is also present in the paṭicca samuppāda, as He explains:

Imagine two sheaves of reeds the one leaning against the other. In the same way consciousness depends on named-shapes, named shapes depend on consciousness [...] birth depends on existing, aging and death depend on birth — the coming into existence of upset, grief, lamentation, pain and misery. [...] If, however, friend, I were to remove one of those sheaves of reeds one would fall down if I were to remove the other the other would fall down. — SN 5.67 [Dependant Uprising, Downbound Dependent Own-making (Dependent Origination, Conditioned Genesis, The Causal Law),

The Paṭicca Samuppāda provides two sheaves of reeds that support each other, but one of them can be removed to topple them both. When they are toppled, we cannot say everything exists. The Buddha's Dhamma, which shows us the four Paramattha, is nothing like a "dharma theory" that was created by the Sarvāstivādis.

Kaccānagotta Sutta continues:

[The Buddha:] By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.
"By & large, Kaccayana, this world is in bondage to attachments, clingings (sustenances), & biases

3.2. Vibhajyavāda & The Present Dhamma

The Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia:

vibhajyavāda; A school of thought doctrinally opposed to the Sarvāstitvāda. holds that the present dharma-s alone exist. However, some among them like the followers of the Kāśyapīya, concede that the past karma that have not yet given fruit (adatta-phala) can also be said to exist.

Here is a part of Magganga Dipani by Ledi Sayadaw:

kammassakata samma-ditthi
Sabbesatta kammadayada, kamayoni, kammabandhu kammappatisarana yam kammam karissanti kalyanam va papakam va tassadayada bhavissanti.
Sabbe satta kammassaka: There exist such properties as elephants, horses, vehicles, cattle, fields, buildings, gold, silver, jewels, etc. Those properties can be said to belong to us in the present existence before we pass away. But when we pass away those properties do not accompany us beyond death. They are like properties which we borrow for some time for our use. They are liable to destruction during the present existence. As those properties which beings possess do not accompany them to their new existences, they cannot be claimed as properties belonging to those beings. The Buddha therefore said, 'sabbe satta kammassaka.' The only property of all beings that accompanies them is their own volitional action... [Ledi Sayadaw explains the entire thing here.]

• Venerable Mogok Sayadaw warned us to avoid sassata ditthi, the belief in permanence (nicca), 'eternity-belief'. Based on his explanation: A kamma (action) exists while it is happening between the start and the end. For example, feeding an animal: this action exists only while that animal is fed. That action cannot exist before and after that animal is fed. However, as if following the doers, the potential effect of certain wholesome and unwholesome kamma (volition) is inevitable.

Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta

Furthermore, bhikkhus, this is the dukkha ariya·sacca: jāti is dukkha, jarā is dukkha (sickness is dukkha) maraṇa is dukkha, association with what is disliked is dukkha, dissociation from what is liked is dukkha, not to get what one wants is dukkha; in short, the five upādāna'k'khandhas are dukkha.

• The Buddha introduced the Dukkha Sacca in His first sermon.
• Vedayita-dukkha: The truth is dukkha are birth, aging, death, association with what is disliked, dissociation from what is liked, and not to get what one wants.
• Bhayattha-dukkha: The truth is the constant fear of these dukkha is also dukkha.
• Due to the past wholesome and unwholesome kamma, one gets birth, aging, death, etc.
• However, Beings born in the sugati-loka do not suffer from birth, aging, and bodily pain (kayika-dukkha), as these dukkha do not exist there.
• The past unwholesome kamma do not affect these beings during their existence in sugati-loka, especially the arupa-brahmas.
• The Buddha understood the followers of Nigaṇṭha (the Nigaṇṭhas) did not know the existence of the sugati-loka. Thus, they were speculators who fell into sassatavada (eternalism) and ucchedavada (nihilism/annihilation). Details can be read here: The Buddhist Critique of Sassatavada and Ucchedavada: The Key to a proper Understanding of the Origin and the Doctrines of early Buddhism (Y. Karunadasa).
• In the Devadaha Sutta, the Buddha pointed out the mistakes of these Nigaṇṭhas.

Devadaha Sutta (the Law of Kamma)

[MN 101] “‘So, friends, it seems that you don’t know that you existed in the past, and that you did not not exist… you don’t know what is the abandoning of unskillful qualities and the attainment of skillful qualities in the here & now. That being the case, it is not proper for you to assert that, “Whatever a person experiences—pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain—all is caused by what was done in the past. Thus, with the destruction of old [kamma] through asceticism, and with the non-doing of new actions, there will be no flow into the future. With no flow into the future, there is the ending of [kamma]. With the ending of [kamma], the ending of [dukkha]. With the ending of [dukkha], the ending of feeling. With the ending of feeling, all [dukkha] will be exhausted.” (Thanissaro Bhikkhu)

• If the present is completely conditioned by the past [kamma] and if we could not break that condition to do new kamma in a condition not determined by the past, then at this present we could not even do anything intentionally (kamma) as our action would be restrained by the past kamma.

A Vibhajjavādi cannot accept Sarvāstivāda's notion of the three times:

all dharmas exist in the past, present and future, the "three times".

Past and future exist at this present moment implies they merge with the present time. Yesterday and tomorrow are today and they are so every day without meaning one can live yesterday and tomorrow today. If one's injury healed yesterday, both injury and healing exist today, right now. For three times doctrine (Sarvāstivāda), dead people are dead, alive and exist at all stages and every moment of time. Even though one has reborn countless times, one still lives in the past lives and also the future lives. One has lived the past infinity and the future infinity. As the future has also been lived, there is no way to change the future, so what will happen will happen — according to the God one believes. After one passes away, one will relive the same life again and again countless times in the past and the future. Someone who will become a Buddha is already a Buddha. Someone who will go to hell is already in hell while living this life as a human.

Rational and irrational people, including the physicists, philosophers, writers and filmmakers, took the doctrine of three times seriously and imagined time machines.

Assuming kamma (action) exists constantly (past, present and future) constitutes sassata ditthi (eternalism). Assuming actions and their effects do not exist constitutes ahetukaditthi (view of uncausedness) — see the 8th question on page181 of this book: Milindapanha: kammaphalaatthibhavapanha. King Milinda asked many questions about kamma. The answers of wisemen and philosophers of the time did not satisfy the king. He got the answers only when he met Venerable Nagasena; see A SEARCH FOR THE LEARNED (TALENT HUNT), pages12-16.

Venerable Nagasena explained how the future is yet to exist:

Can anyone point out the fruits that a tree has not yet produced, saying: “Here they are, there they are”?” [See 3.2. QUESTION REGARDING VALIDITY OF FRUIT AND RESULT OF WHOLESOME AND UNWHOLESOME]

Real is the present; the past is gone; the future is yet to exist. That is the knowledge of the arahants.

Every action has the process of existence: birth, decay and death. Understanding anicca can abandon sakkaya ditthi.

Sakkaya ditthi is a sense with which one perceives a nama-rupa complex as me, you, he, she, it, cat, dog and so on.

Right View according to the Sakyamuni

The Buddha and His disciples visited Vesāli, the capital of the Vajjians, several times, and many arahants were made there. Saccaka, who the Buddha addressed as Aggivessana, was a famous Jain teacher of the Licchavi rājās. They accompanied Saccaka when he went to challenge the Buddha. There a famous debate on anattavada occurred, as recorded in the famous Cula-Saccaka Sutta.

[The Buddha asked,] “Well, Aggivessana, when you say that [rūpa] is self, do you have power over that [rūpa]. Can you have your [rūpa] be any different than it is?” Saccaka could not answer and remained silent [...] “Released they are endowed with unsurpassed Right View, unsurpassed practice, and unsurpassed release. Released, they honor and respect the Tathagata in this manner: The Buddha teaches the Dhamma for awakening (to Four Noble Truths), the Buddha teaches the Dhamma to develop restraint, the Buddha teaches the Dhamma for developing tranquility, the Buddha teaches the Dhamma for ending samsara (ignorance). The Buddha teaches the Dhamma for total unbinding.” (John Haspel).

• [rūpa]: The four mahabhuta (solid, liquid, gas, heat), each changes according to its nature.
• Self (atta) means the owner or arbitor of the five aggregates of clinging.
• do you have power over that [rūpa]: None of the five aggregates is self (atta).
• Vesāli became a Buddhist capital after the debate. But not all the Nigaṇṭhas were happy. Their attack on the Buddha and the Sangha never stopped. They succeeded only after a few centuries later.

3.3. QUESTION REGARDING VALIDITY OF FRUIT AND RESULT OF WHOLESOME AND UNWHOLESOME

(kammaphalaatthibhavapanha page181) 8. King Milinda said: “If, O Venerable Nagasena, with the (present) Mind-body-complex (nama-rupa) either wholesome or unwholesome kammical actions were performed where will the fruit and result of those actions (kamma) be located?”
“The fruit and result of kammical actions tend to follow the Mind-body-complex, O King, like a shadow that never leaves it.” (So replied the Elder.)
“Now what do you think, O King? Can any one point out the fruits which a tree has not yet produced, saying: “Here they are, there they are”?” (So asked the Elder.)
“Not possible it is, O Venerable One.” (So replied the king.)

• Shadow means the potential. As long as the tree exists, the potential of fruiting of that tree exists. The fruits will be on that tree, not elsewhere. The potential never leaves the tree.
• Mahayana created the concept of Ālayavijñāna (storehouse consciousness).
  • Ālayavijñāna is also regarded as the store house of vāsanas and karmic tendencies (vāsanāparibhāvita and sarvabījaka). However, it is neither the permanent identity of a person nor a form of collective unconscious. Continuous build-up and discharge of karmic tendencies cause the ever-changing nature of ālaya-vijñāna. [Wisdom Lib]
• Compare ālayavijñāna with indestructable buddha-nature. Buddha-nature is also vijñāna/citta. Awareness is Buddha-nature.
  • [Breakthrough Sermon, Bodhidharma:] The Sutra of the Ten Stages says, “In the body of mortals is the indestructible buddha-nature [...] Our buddha-nature [the self-nature of Buddha] is awareness: to be aware and to make others aware. To realize awareness is liberation.
  • be­cause garbha (which nearly always means 'embryo' in Sanskrit) is translated by ts'ang, ( = 'womb'; lit. 'storehouse'), a certain vacuum was created in the Chinese vocabulary which the terms fo hsing and fo hsin ( = buddha-citta) neatly filled. [Rawlinson, Andrew. "The Ambiguity of the Buddha-Nature Concept in India and China."]
  • Ālayavijñāna belongs to or a part of buddha-nature (buddha-citta).
  • According to the concept of citta-matrata

THE NIYAMA-DIPANI The Manual of Cosmic Order Mahathera Ledi Sayadaw

[Kamma-Niyama] The moral order--Kamma (action) is that by which men execute, deeds, good or evil, meritorious or the opposite. What is it ? It is volition (cetana), moral or immoral. We are told in the Pali texts: 'By action, Bhikkhus, I mean volition. It is through having willed that a man does something in the form of deed, speech or thought.'

The nama-rupa process, which occurs according to the law of paticcasamuppada (Pratītya-Samutpāda), is like a tree; See 2.3. PATICCASAMUPPADA. The nama-rupa process, which occurs due to the niyama(s) other than kamma niyama, is outside the law of paticcasamuppada but not unrelated.

Naked Kassapa

The ascetic Acelakassapa put forward four theories of origination of suffering and wanted to know Buddha’s answer to them. [Dependent Origination and the Buddhist Theory of Relativity (Kottegoda S. Warnasuriya (page 154)]

"'He who performs the act also experiences [the result]' — what you, Kassapa, first called 'suffering caused by oneself' — this amounts to the Eternalist[3] theory. [Acela Sutta: Naked Kassapa]

An action was done by a doer, not someone else. However, the doer and the action (kamma) can exist only during the action is being done, not before or after. The doer happens to exist because of doing. The doer and doing exists at the same time. Action and doer don't exist outside doing or before or after the action is done.

Saying there is no doer falls into ahetukavada and probably uccedavada, too, as 'no doer' means 'nobody is responsible' to take the consequences. When the action is done, it becomes a seed that grows into a tree (as nama-rupa process) according to the paticcasamuppada law. The fruiting or consequences of volition (kamma/seed) will appear on this tree.

Of Causal Genesis [Mahathera Ledi Sayadaw (contrinues)]

Paticcasamuppada is Causal Genesis or Dependent Origination (Process). The key words are depdendent and process. The process depends on the action done by the doer, which no longer exists by the next stage of the process. For example, a sound comes out after the drummer hit a drum with a drumstick. The birth of the sound is dependent on the hitting process, but the sound itself is independent to be in the law of impermanence—no butterfly-effect here.

That is how things exist, but not "everything exists".

Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda—Part 8

3.4. Mahishasaka or Sarvāstivādis

[wisdomlib.org:] [Mahishasaka had the doctrines] similar to those of the Mahasanghika. [Mahishasaka] denied reality to past and future, but maintained the reality of the present. Similarly, the school rejected the doctrine of the void and the non ego, the production of taint by the Five consciousness, the theory of nine kinds of non activity, and so on. They held that enlightenment came suddenly rathern than gradually.

Mahasamghika split from the Sthaviravāda (Theravada or Dhamma-Vinaya) and produced many schools.

According to the Theravādin Dīpavaṃsa, the Sarvāstivādins emerged from the older Mahīśāsaka school, but the Śāriputraparipṛcchā and the Samayabhedoparacanacakra state that the Mahīśāsaka emerged from the Sarvāstivāda. [Sarvastivada (wiki)]

Some Vajjian monks, who were possibly the followers of Devadatta, established the Mahasamghika after the schism after rejecting ten Vinaya rules. Like a few other monks, a Vajjian monk complained about the Vinaya rules. The story is recorded in Vajjiputta Sutta, which was utilised to support an argument that the Dhamma-Vinaya tradition added new rules. Indeed, the Buddha, the founder of the Dhamma-Vinaya Sasana, added new rules as required. However, before His passing He let the monks remove the minor rules, but the monks kept all the 227 rules. Only some Vajjian monks once again attempted to remove ten rules and split the Sangha after their attempt failed. These rebel monks founded many schools that united into Mahayana. The Sarvāstivādis wrote many famous Mahayanist scriptures.

Gandhāran Mahīśāsakas are associated with the Pure Land teachings of Amitābha Buddha. [Seated Buddha Amitabha statue.jpg (wiki)]

• Mādhyamika Also known as: Śūnyavāda, Shunyavada, Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Sarvastivada Also known as: Sarvastivadin, Vaibhashika, Encyclopaedia Britannica

Mahāsaṅghikās revised the Dhamma and Vinaya in their own way. The revised collections were known as Ācariyavāda as distinguished from the Theravāda of the First Buddhist Council. Dīpavaṃsa says, that the Mahāsaṅghikās did not stop after changing the Vinaya rules. They went further by laying down for themselves new doctrines contrary to the established ones. They recited for their purposes the sūtras and Vinaya, they made alterations in the texts and their arrangements and interpretations.

There are four kinds of teachings, that can be accepted as the Buddha's words – sutta, suttānuloma, ācariyavāda, attanomati. In Parinibbāna Sutta there are other four kinds of teaching – Buddhāpadesa, Saṅghāpadesa, Sambahulattherāpadesa, Ekattherāpadesa. They are not contradicting each other.

They also replaced portions of the text by others according to their liking and even rejected certain parts of the canon though they have been accepted according to the tradition of Mahā Kassapa's council. They refused Parivāra and Abhidhamma Pakaraṇa, Paṭisambhidā, Niddesa and Jātaka.

Mahāsaṅghikās divided their canon into five parts: 1. Sūtra, 2. Vinaya, 3. Abhidhamma, 4. Miscellaneous, 5. Dhāranīs.
[ Notes from BPU Sri Lanka - Third Year ]

According to Sibani Barman in Dipavamsa (study): Chapter 2d - The Third Buddhist Council,

the Vibhajjavādins claim that their theories and Canon are same as the original Sthaviras (the elders).

• But that statement is untruthful. Kaccānagotta Sutta is a living proof. This is explained in 3.3.

Sarvāstivādis Doctrines

[David Bastow. The first argument for Sarvastivada. Asian Philosophy Vol. 5 No. 2 Oct.1995 Pp.109-125 Copyright by Asian Philosophy]

[Bastow:] The argument is two-fold: that past states of mind can be directly perceived; and that the temporal and causal context of these states of mind, including their karmic future and the possibility of an alternative saving future, can also be directly perceived.

In demonstrating their belief, the Sarvāstivādis attacked, the Venerable Maugdalyayana in the Maugdalyayana-skandhaka, the first chapter of the Vijnanakaya (200 BCE?):

[Bastow:] The sramana Maugdalyayana says: The past and the future do not exist; the present and the unconditioned (asainskrta) exist.

• Atacked: Singled out a thera, ignored the Buddha, and attacked the Dhamma;
• The Venerable Maugdalyayana represents the Sakyamuni Buddha.
• The past is memory, not the present dhamma. The past as memory is perceived, not lived nor imagined. The past as perceived is not lived, but it was lived, so it can be perceived.
• The future is yet to be lived, so it cannot be perceived, but it can be planned, expected and imagined.

[Bastow:] Section 1: [The Sarvāstivādis argued based on] probably Anguttara Nikaya III section 69 (i.e. A i 201-3). "There are three akusala-mulani (roots of ill, roots leading to bad consequences). These are lobha, greed; dvesa, anger; and moha, confusion." From this agreed premise the argument proceeds, first taking the case of lobha. There is no doubt then that there has been, is, will be a seeing that lobha is akusala (otherwise translated: a seeing of akusala--presumably meaning akusala-dharmas--in or through lobha). The lobha that is thus seen--is it past, present or future? If it is past or future, then it must be admitted that past or future exist. So could it be present?

• Lobha (greed) which existed in the past does not exist now, nor will exist in the future. When the object that caused that state of mind dimished, that greed also dimished. For example, one ate a certain food with greed. After eating it, greed was replaced by another state of mind, sleepiness, which was about sleeping and delusion. Sleepiness is different from craving for food. One does not get sleepy for food.
• If the same greed were to exist until now, one must be greedy the same way one was greedy for that food. Then one must not have different states of mind, anger and delusion.
• Greed cannot liberate anyone from anger and delusion.
• If that greed and all other greed must exist right now, greed must be accumulating and becoming too much to handle.
• And there were times of anger and delusion.
• Can anyone proove they are suffering from all the greed, anger and delusion which they had in the past?

[Bastow:] To allow this would involve admitting that there are in one pudgala two simultaneous cittas, states of consciousness; but this cannot be admitted. However, there must be seeing of either past lobha, or future lobha, or present lobha; otherwise it could not be that someone sees that lobha, akusalamula, is akusala. And in that case it would not happen that someone becomes repelled by lobha, detached, freed from lobha, obtains nirvana (or has obtained or will obtain nirvana).

• Hetu paccaya (root condition)
• Root (anusaya) exists but not as a plant (lobha).

[Anusaya Sutta:] its root destroyed, made like a palmyra stump, deprived of the conditions of development, not destined for future arising; [Thanissaro Bhikkhu]
[Anusaya] are identified or associated with kleśa, paryavasthāna, and āsrava, and they are the ‘root’ of bhava
[Dr. Ari Ubeysekara:] The seventh and the last of the latent tendencies is [obsession with ignorance (avijjanusaya)] which can be considered as the root cause of all unwholesome actions.

• Root (obsession) of greed is not greed.
• Nibbana is realised by exhausting the past kamma committed based on greed, anger and delusion.
• Anusaya Sutta: Obsessions (1): the seven obsessions

[Bastow:] The same argument is then applied to other things that can be seen with respect to lobha: it can be seen that lobha is a fetter, a bondage, an anusaya; and further that lobha is to be rejected, to be left behind, to be abandoned, to be fully known (prajna).

• Sarvāstivādis knew about anusaya, but they might not understand it as explained by the Sakyamuni Buddha.
• Lobha comes into being when consciousness comes to contact with a sight, sound, smell, taste, touch or thought of an object/subject that is alluring.
• Dosa comes into being when consciousness comes to contact with a sight, sound, smell, taste, touch or thought of an object/subject that is agitating/annoying.
• Moha comes into being when consciousness comes to contact with a sight, sound, smell, taste, touch or thought of an object/subject that is difficult, mysterious, deluding...
• Lobha, dosa, and moha cannot exist at the same moment of consciousness, nor unconscious-ness.
• Lobha, dosa, and moha are cetasika.
• Citta and cetasika need each other's support to stand like the two sheaves of reeds.
• Lobha, dosa, and moha cannot be abandoned, but they must be eradicated by digging out the roots.

Devadaha Sutta (2)

[SN 22:2 Venerable Sāriputta explained to a large number of monks:] ‘When one is not free from passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, & craving for [rūpa], then from any change & alteration in that [rūpa], there arises sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, & despair.
When one is not free from passion… for feeling… for perception… for fabrications… & despair.
When one is not free from passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, & craving for consciousness... & despair.
Seeing this danger, our teacher teaches the subduing of passion & desire for [rūpa]… for feeling… for perception… for fabrications.
Seeing this danger our teacher teaches the subduing of passion & desire for consciousness.’

A History of Indian Philosophy Volume 1

by Surendranath Dasgupta | 1922 | 212,082 words | ISBN-13: 9788120804081

Quoting Vasumitra (100 A.D.), Surendranath Dasgupta presents three major Mahayanist groups as doctrinally not very different, and the Hindu authors ignored their (minor) differences.

1. Mahāsaṅghikas: the body was filled with mind {citta) which was represented as sitting,
2. Prajñaptivādins: no agent in man, no untimely death, for it was caused by the previous deeds of man,
3. Sarvāstivādins believed that everything existed.

We can observe how all these doctrines are presented in the earliest Mahayanist sutras, particularly the Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra, the Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtra, the Lankavatara Sutra, Saddharma Pundarika Sutra (the Lotus Sutra).

the Prajñaptivādins had inaugurated the Śūnyavāda by drawing up a list of ten emptinesses. In the Mahāvibhāṣā [...] we read [...] there are many śūnyatās [...] Were the Prajñaptivādins the inventors of these ten śūnyatās or were they borrowed from the Mahāyānists? [II. Emptiness in the Hinayānist sects]

Gelongma Karma Migme Chödrön asks that question. The Hindu writers seem to have the answer:

[Dasgupta] When the Hindu writers refer to the Buddhist doctrine in general terms such as “the Buddhists say” without calling them the Vijñānavādins or the Yogācāras and the Śūnyavādins, they often refer to the Sarvāstivādins by which they mean both the Sautrāntikas and the Vaibhāṣikas, ignoring the difference that exists between these two schools. 

Nāgārjuna did not consider the Prajñaptivādins as Mahayanists. Mahayana did not exist when the Mahāsaṅghikas was formed after the second schism (Devadatta's schism was the first), so they are considered as Sthaviravādis, who produced Prajñaptivādins and Sarvāstivādins. By AD 5th-6th, Bodhidharma arrived to China, and according to him, Mahayana was well-established as the Yogacara school, which adopted the Lankavatara Sutra.

Bodhidharma was believed to have introduced the Lankavatara Sutra to Chinese Buddhism. This sutra was a development of the Yogacara (“Mind-only”) school of Buddhism established by the great masters Asanga and Vasubandhu, and Bodhidharma is described as a “master of the Lankavatara Sutra”. [ Bodhidharma – the founder of Gongfu (Tsem Rinpoche and Pastor Adeline)]

The authors of the Lankavatara were the Sarvāstivādins.

[Bodhidharma, 41:] the only reason I’ve come to China is to transmit the instantaneous teaching of the Mahayana This mind is the Buddha.

[Bodhidharma, 29:] "This nature is the mind. And the mind is the buddha."

[Lanka:] this triple world is nothing but a complex manifestation of one’s mental activities."

[The Zen teaching of Bodhidharma: Bloodstream Sermon, p29 (Bodhidharma)]

Bodhidharma, known as an expert in the ten-stage sutra, was a zen master, from the Yogacara school. He did not know vipassana, as he condemned arhats. He was clearly a follower of Mahadeva, who authored the five points downgrading the arhats.

[Bodhidharma:] Among Shakyamuni’s ten greatest disciples, Ananda was foremost in learning. But he didn’t know the Buddha. All he did was study and memorize. Arhats don’t know the Buddha... 

Bodhidharma did not know the meaning of arhat. Nāgārjuna defines arhat in Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra as follow:

[quote]

1. Ara means enemy (ari) and hat means to kill (han). The expression therefore means “killer of enemies”.^[1] Some stanzas say:

The Buddha has patience (kṣānti) as his armor (varman),
Energy (vīrya) as his helmet (śīrṣaka),

Discipline (śīla) as his great steed (mahāśva),

Dhyāna as his bow (dhanus),

Wisdom (prajñā) as his arrows (śara).

Outwardly, he destroys the army of [Māra] (https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/mara#mahayana) (mārasena).

Inwardly, he destroys the passions (kleśa), his enemies.

He is called Arhat.

2. Furthermore, A marks negation and rahat means ‘to be born’. The expression means, therefore, “unborn”. The seeds (bīja) of the mind of the Buddha (buddhacitta) ‘do not arise’ in the field of rebirths (punarbhavakṣetra), for ignorance (avidyā) in him has been dissolved.

[end quote]
Nevertheless, the Flower Sermon, which was composed in 1036 states that Mahayana comes from Kashyapa, whom Bodhidharma mentions in the Bloodstream Sermon. Based on Bodhidharma's attitude to the arhats, that Kashyapa could not be the Venerable Mahakassapa, the father of the Sangha who established the Theravada. However, that Kashapa appears in the Lankavatara Sutra:

Kashyapa (fl. 400 B.C.) . Also known as Uruvilva Kashyapa or Mahakashyapa, he was the eldest of the three Kashyapa brothers and among the Buddha’s earliest disciples. He was also India’s First Patriarch of Zen. [Lankavatara Sutra: Glossary. Page 458]

The Mahayanists expect they could become Buddhas by following these individuals.

The Flower Sermon (1036 AD) : the Buddha gathered his disciples together for a talk on Dharma. Instead of speaking, however, the Buddha simply held up a lotus flower in front of him without saying a word.
“I possess the true Dharma eye, the marvelous mind of Nirvāṇa, the true form of the formless, the subtle Dharma gate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures. This I entrust to Mahakasyapa.”

 

Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda—Part 9

4. INTRODUCTION TO SOME MAIN CONCEPTS

4.1. Bodhisatta

The Theravadin bodhisattas are ordinary people who live among all types of beings. They could be special but silly sometimes as well. Before sufficiently mature, they might or might not excel in something. The final ten lives of the Sakyamuni are special, as his maturity was reaching the level of Buddhahood. That is demonstrated in the jataka, which compiles the lives of the bodhisatta, or the past lives of the Sakyamuni.

In all Buddhist countries the Jataka tales were the major sources for developing the character of the people. They were used widely in preaching by monks and lay preachers. King Dutugemunu (2nd century B.C.), in Anuradhapura, paid for the support of preachers to teach Dhamma, the teachings of the Buddha. They usually used these stories in their sermons. Even the Venerable Arahant Maha Mahinda, who introduced Dhamma into Sri Lanka, used these stories to illustrate the truth of the teachings. Some were even used by the Lord Buddha in his teachings, and from him his followers learned them and passed them into popular use in society. Even earlier, the same types of stories were present in Vedic literature. [Kurunegoda Piyatissa is the author of Buddhist Tales for Young and Old]

The Coming Buddha, Ariya Metteyya Sayagyi U Chit Tin 

In the future (ten) Bodhisattas will attain full awakening in the following order:
the most honourable (Ariya) Metteyya,
(King) Rama,
(King) Pasenadi of Kosala,
(the Deva) Abhibhu,
(the Asura Deva) Dighasoni,
(the Brahman) Candani,
(the young man) Subha,
the Brahman Todeyya,
(the elephant) Nalagiri, and
(the elephant) Palaleya.

• In the Theravadi context, a bodhisatta does not know he is a bodhisatta. A Sammasambuddha would teach him a suitable Dhamma, but he would not be told what to do as a bodhisatta. A Paccekabuddha or an arahant would not tell him he is a bodhisatta, either. A bodhisatta is on his own path with the tendency towards the Bodhi. His task is to perfect the ten perfections (paramis).

There are eight qualifications for the man who is to become a Great Bodhisatta:
[1.] He must be a human being (manusatta), as this is the plane in which Buddhas arise. This is the plane in which beings can have the three root causes of being free of greed, hatred, and confusion. 
[2.] He must be a male (lingasampatti), for only a man can become a Buddha

[also see Collected Wheel Publications Volume XXV: Numbers 377–393 - page 101]

• Some complained because females cannot become Buddhas.
• The role of Yasodhara began in the very first bodhisatta life of the Buddha, just as the saying goes: "'behind every great man there's a great woman."
• The bodhisatta's name was Sumedha. Yasodhara's was Sumitta.

The five Stalks of Lotus-flowers given by Sumitta

While travelling through space, the ascetic Sumedha saw the citizens being engaged cheer fully in road-reconstruction [...] they were repairing the road in order that the Buddha [Dipankara ] and his disciples could tread on it comfortably. [...] He requested them to give him a chance to repair a part of the road [and] used his own labour with the view that he would earn more merit by using his labour than by using his super-normal power. Before he finished repairing his portion of the road, the Buddha and his disciples came. To prevent the feet of the Buddha and his disciples from getting soiled, he prostrated himself on the mud to form a man-bridge. Among the welcoming people, there was a young woman named Sumitta. As soon as the young woman saw the ascetic, she was very happy and delighted. So, she gave five lotus-flowers to him leaving three lotus-flowers in her hands. The ascetic offered the flowers to the Buddha while lying on the muddy road.

Liberality

Dhana ('treasures'), the 7 qualities: faith, morality, moral shame, moral dread, learning, liberality and wisdom. Cf. A. VII, 5, 6. (Wisdom Library)

VASANA (HABBIT-ENERGY)

Vāsanā (वासना):—Sanskrit technical term corresponding to “mental imprints”,
Vāsanā (वासना) refers to “latent predispositions”,
Vāsana (वासन) refers to “(the defilement of) habitual tendency”,

• Thse definitions are neutral and universal.

Sarvāstivāda

[Lanka Chapter 3:] By emptiness in the highest sense of the emptiness of Ultimate Reality is meant that in the attainment of inner self-realization of Noble Wisdom there is no trace of habit-energy generated by erroneous conceptions...

• Sarvāstivāda's the major problem of the mortals is vāsana (habit-energy), which exists on the Universal Mind (ālayavijñāna), which ceases only when the mortal-mind ceases to discriminate, as the bodhisattva attains Nirvana:
• That quote reminds the purification of the mind, which is developed with samadhi (jhana) in Vibhajjavadi tradition. Visuddhimagga: Sila, samadhi, panna;
• Samatha and vipassana are practiced as one. [Quote:] The reason many of them give for this ambivalence is that certain kinds of difficulties can arise when undertaking Jhana practice that potentially outweigh the benefits of learning it (e.g., Ajahn Chah, Food For the Heart, 2002). And it is for this very reason that it is so important that if the Jhanas are to be taught and practiced, in keeping with the tradition established by the Buddha when he first taught them, this should happen in companionship with – in consociation with – the Brahma Viharas. [THE JHANAS AND THE BRAHMA VIHARAS (Lloyd Burton)]

Vibhajjavada

vāsanā (f.) former impression; recollection of the past.

Theravada considers vāsanā (former impression/habit) as a neutral thing that is neither good nor bad.

For example, some people speak swear words unintentionally. The action can be offensive to some people. Instead of swear words, some use religious words. That action, too, could be offensive to some people.

An unintentional action is not good or bad kamma (volition). A thought is a mental volition; a dream is not. The Buddha advised one should not repeat a bad kamma and develop a bad habit. A wholesome habitual kamma develops a wholesome habit.

Kamma (volitions) are bodily, verbal, or mental. They begin mentally and then verbally or bodily. The mind leads every intention. Kamma done too many times can become a habit, a behaviour and a unintentional reaction in any situation. A good habitual deed creates a habit, a good habit. A habit of the past life can show up as an instinct. For example, fear is a very strong emotion because we experienced fear too many times in the infinite past. Only cecadas enjoy cecada music. The Buddha said beings who enjoy meat are reborn as carnivores. A deed is done based on instinct. Staying carelessly, heedlessly and ignorantly is the most common instinct. Carelessness, heedlessness, ignorance and forgetfulness are due to underdeveloped mental faculties.

Personality, behaviour and reaction are determined by one's construct, e.g., cat-ness. The way one behaves (speaks, sleeps, eats, walks, writes, thinks, reacts with a certain emotion, etc.) is determined by instincts (species type), physical conditions, and habits (developed in a culture) that are gradually changing due to learning, imitating, adjusting, etc. Everyone is only a nāma-rūpa complex with no self, soul or anything but a construct. This is how nature works, not philosophical or a perspective.

• The Buddha taught about the nature of wholesome vāsanā (habit) that can last until the end of the samsarā. Prior to receiving prophecy from a Sammasambuddha, the bodhisattas have already developed the vasanā to perfect the ten perfections (pārami).
• Understanding the nāma and rūpa paramatthas is the essential step towards liberation.

4.2. Bodhisattva

The Maha Prajnaparamita Sastra (Gelongma): Part 5 - The Bodhisattva in the Mahāyāna system explains a bodhisattva's self-sacrifice as an example of Actions producing the thirty-two marks:

“Take hold of...my hands (hasta) and my feet (pāda) [asked the bodhisattva]. ” When the merchants took hold of him, he killed himself with his knife (śastra).

• That story seems to have a humourous intention. How did that bodhisattva move his knife without using his hands and legs?

Who is a  bodhisattva [Daśa­sāhasrikā­prajñā­pāramitā: Glossary]?

A being who is dedicated to the cultivation and fulfilment of the altruistic intention to attain manifestly perfect buddhahood, traversing the five bodhisattva paths and ten bodhisattva levels.

• Ten bodhisattva levels are presented in the ten-stage sutra (the Lankavatara Sutra). Why do not they choose the bodhisattva concept presented in the Lotus Sutra?

The Sarvāstivādis created theories to emphasise bodhisattvahood and other concepts that became a part of the Mahayanist faith. Mahayana and Sarvāstivāda were different then. However, their scriptures merged into the Mahayanist scripture; see The Adoption of Mahayana Buddhism by the Sarvastivadins and Abhayagirivasins (page146). Before the merger, according to Maha Prajnaparamita Sastra (Gelongma) the Mahayanists ridiculed the Sarvāstivādis.

The practitioners of the Mahāyāna say: The disciples of Kātyāyanīputra (Sarvāstivādis) are beings [immersed] in saṃsāra; they do not recite and do not study the Mahāyānasūtras; they are not great bodhisattvas; they do not recognize the true nature (satyalakṣaṇa) of dharmas.

• That is how Sarvāstivādis became the Mahayanists. Vasubandhu was a Sarvastivadi who founded Yogācāra School.

[Vasubandhu (K. T. S. Sarao):] According to tradition, during the day he would lecture on Vaibhashika doctrine and in the evening distill the day’s lectures into a verse. When collected together the six hundred plus verses (karikas) gave a thorough summary of the entire system. He entitled this work the Abhidharmakosha (Treasury of Abhidharma).

[Vaibhashika: Jain philosophy:] Vaibhāṣika (or Āryasamitīya or Sarvāstivāda) is the name of one of the four schools of Buddhism, the other three being (i) Sautrāntika, (ii) Yogācāra or Vijñānavāda and (iii) Śūnyavāda or Mādhyamikavāda or Nairātmyavāda. The Vaibhāṣika school is so called as it attaches a very great importance to vibhāṣā, the commentary on Abhidhamma-piṭaka.

• Sarvāstivāda is followed in Tibet alongside other Mahayana schools (Dhammanando).
• Mahāyānasūtras and Sarvāstivādi sutras are the same now, whether they were different or not.

Parshva Kātyāyanīputra (1365-1290 BCE).—According to Paramartha’s “Life of Vasubandhu” , Katyayaniputra, a brahmana Buddhist, lived 500 years after Buddha nirvana (1865 BC). Hiuen Tsang also records that Katyayaniputra flourished 500 years after nirvana. Paramartha tells us that Katyayaniputra went to Kashmir. He collected the information of the Abhidharma of Sarvastivada with the help of 500 Arhats and 500 Bodhisattvas. He arranged them into eight books amounted to 50,000 verses.

• The Sarvāstivādi arhats are not the Vibhajjavadi arahants who followed the Dhamma-Vinaya.
• Sarvāstivādi arhats do not attain the saññā-vedayita-nirodha (nirodha-samāpatti).
• Bodhidharma and other prominent Mahayanists considers the Sarvāstivādi arhats and the Vibhajjavadi arahants in the same light, nevertheless. As they do not share the same knowledege with the Vibhajjavadis, they do not believe in the nirodha-samāpatti.

4.3. Arahant

Araham Sutta [1] - An arahant is one who has really seen the arising, ending, etc., of the five grasping groups (upadanakkhandha). S.iii.161.

samudaya : [m.] rise; origin; produce.

Araham Sutta [2] - That noble disciple is released by perfect insight (sammadanna) who has really seen the satisfaction in, the misery of, the escape from, the five indriyas. S.v.194.

• An arahant is made when one realises the ending of upadana (clinging to senses and grasping for existence), which keeps the ordinary beings ordinary.

Anusaya

Anusaya (अनुसय) - Anusaya (“obsesssion”; “underlying tendency”) - the 7 “proclivities”, inclinations, or tendencies are: sensuous greed (kāma-rāga, s. samyojana), grudge (patigha), speculative opinion (ditthi), sceptical doubt (vicikicchā), conceit (māna), craving for continued existence (bhavarāga), ignorance (avijjā) (D.33; A.VII.11-12). [Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines (NYANATILOKA)]

An analytical approach to sabhāva needs a clear understanding of the body and saṅkhāra. The body is the five aggregates (khandas). Saṅkhāra is the formation of thought, idea and perception that lead to upadana (clinging).

These bodies are the Satta loka. The other two are Okāsa loka and Saṅkhāra loka.

• Satta loka is the world of beings (zoological world) governed by Paticcasamuppada.
• Okāsa loka is the physical world of plants and natural physical objects, including mountains, oceans, planets, stars, and so on.
• Saṅkhāra loka is particle world: the world (the elements or particles) as the "phenomena which are arising and passing away moment to moment inside the bodies".

See The Three Worlds explained by Venerable Mogok Sayadaw. The 118 elements are not fundamental. They belong to earth (solid), water (liquid), air (gas), and fire (heat). Heat is energy and is impermanent. Conservation of Energy Principle falls into sassatavada.

Anusaya was also discussed in part 8.

[The Sūtra of Boundless Life:] “O Mañjuśrī, whoever writes these one hundred and eight names of the Buddha called Boundless Life and Wisdom, the Utterly Discerning King of Splendour [...] And when they die, they will be reborn in a pure land such as the universe of Boundless Qualities, the buddha field of the Buddha of Boundless Life.”

• Mahayanist Buddhas in pure lands (buddha-land) are not found in the Pali Pitaka. Those who want to be reborn in a pure pand (buddha-land) are Mahayanists.
• Theravadis can lose sarana (refuge in the Tisarana / Tiratana) if they take refuge in these Mahayanist Buddhas and follow their teaching and the samgha established in thier names.
• The Threefold Refuge (tisarana): Buddham saranam gacchami I go to the Buddha for refuge. Dhammam saranam gacchami I go to the Dhamma for refuge. Sangham saranam gacchami I go to the Sangha for refuge.

SARVĀSTIVĀDA (VAIBHĀSIKA): EVERYTHING EXISTS

[SARVĀSTIVĀDA (Encyclopedia of Religion):] Characteristic Doctrines [...] is the theory of time [...i.e.] sarvam asti ("everything exists")—all of the three dimensions of time (past, present, future) exist; that is, the present continues to exist when it becomes the past, and so forth. This doctrine seems to have been developed as a way to protect the laws of causality (especially as they apply to karmic or moral retribution) from the potentially undermining effect of the doctrine of impermanence.

• The Sarvāstivādis argue the reality of anusaya support the notiong of all three times exist.

Arhat

• Ārya-aparimita-āyurjñāna-nāma-mahāyāna-sūtra
• Amitāyus Dhāraṇī

[The Sūtra of Boundless Life:] In which there dwells the tathāgata, the arhat, the completely and perfectly enlightened one called Boundless Life and Wisdom, the Utterly Discerning King of Splendour. om namo bhagawate | aparimita ayurjnana subinischita tejo rajaya | tathagataya arhate samyaksambuddhaya
[Amitāyus Dhāraṇī :] om namo bhagawate | aparimita ayurjnana subinischita tejo rajaya | tathagataya arhate samyaksambuddhaya 

• Tathāgata is an arhat, according to the Sūtra of Boundless Life.
• In general, sutras condemn arhats and consider them as imperfect, unenlightened.

4.4. Tathāgata

Tathāgata means, in my opinion, the natural being who comes, lives and goes in natural way, who is no more struggling for survival, influence and pleasure, who has ceased saṅkhāra. Its meaning combines tathatā (suchness) and araham (arahant), who attains the saññā-vedayita-nirodha (nirodha-samāpatti) after eradicating anusaya.

Mahayanist Buddha

Some Mahayanist texts present their ideas on who the Buddha is. Lankavatara and Lotus provide their version of Buddha. Both are different from the Sammasambuddhas.

Lankavatara:

[Bloodstream Sermon:] A Buddha is an idle person...Arhats don’t know the Buddha... 

the only reason I’ve come to China is to transmit the instantaneous teaching of the Mahayana This mind is the Buddha.

• Bodhidharma was not familiar with arahants. He could have travelled to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to meet a Vibhajjavadi arahant. Bodhidharma chose China where he could spread Mahayana.
• Bodhidharma's view on Buddha being the mind is based on Lankavatara's Citta-Gocara, ālayavijñāna, etc.. However, the reason is not given for why he said a Buddha is an idle person.
• Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā states Bodhidharma's view differently:

[Gaganagañja (Oslo):] All dharmas are the buddha. He who knows this truth will not destroy existence nor remain in existence. (from Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā)

• The concept 'all dharma' represents Sarvāstivāda.

[Vaibhashika (in Jain philosophy):] In short, according to [Vaibhāṣika/Sarvāstivādis] school all [dharma] is real, and that shows the significance of its designation as ‘Sarvāstivāda’.

• All dharma is real in terms of Tathagata or the mind (citta-matrata), who is all dharma (reality and illusion).

[Abhidharma (Noa Ronkin)] The Sarvāstivādins (“advocates of the doctrine that all things exist”) were unique in their stance that the characteristics of conditioned phenomena exist separately as real entities within each moment. Their claim, then, is that all conditioned dharmas—whether past, present, or future—exist as real entities (dravyatas) within the span of any given moment. This induced a host of problems, one of which is that the Sarvāstivāda definition of a moment is difficult to reconcile with its conception as the shortest unit of time (von Rospatt 1995, 

• Gaganagañja's All dharmas are the buddha follows Lankavatara, which hints how the Tathagata (the original Buddha) is all dharma by stating all the names are the Tathagata's names.

[Lanka Chapter 12:] and fail to see that the name they are using is only one of the many names of the Tathagata.

• That is the original Tathagata (the mind). He is in everyone as the indestructible buddha-dhatu (buddha-svābhāva), which shines when a bodhisattva has given up his/her individualised will-control.
• He is ālayavijñāna, emptiness, paramartha, etc. Lankavatara does not say he is Mahesvāra, but resides in it. Mahesvāra is Citta-Gocara (realms of thought).
• The mind is also a dharma. In terms of citta-matrata, Bodhidharma is direct.
• The Tathagata (the original Buddha) is the embodiment of reality and illusion. All that exists is the mind. What being seen, heard, tasted, etc. are merely mind-made (illusions).

Daśa­sāhasrikā­prajñā­pāramitā:

[buddha body of reality (dharmakāya g.­202):] The ultimate nature or essence of the fruitional enlightened mind of the buddhas, which is non-arising, free from the limits of conceptual elaboration, empty of inherent existence, naturally radiant, beyond duality, and spacious.

• non-arising (an­ut­pādita; anutpāda; asamutthāna) [quotes are shown with bullet points]
  • an­ut­pādita :  state of unproductive. This concept agrees with Bodhidharma's A Buddha is an idle person.
  • anutpāda : Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra (chapter 41).— He has no loss of wisdom.— (prajñā); as his wisdom of the three times [past, present, future] is unobstructed, he has no loss of wisdom.
  • The phrase 'wisdom of the three times' follows the Sarvāstivādi ideology.
  • A Critical Study of the Guhjasamaja Tantra (wiki): The wise one possessor of vajra peace, should visualise the Ocean of Wisdom at the centre of Space, and imagine himself at the centre of the moon; he should visualise a shrine made of the four jewels, garlanded with rays of light, as the dwelling of the Oceans of Wisdom of the three times; he should send out clouds of worship from his pores, and, if he wishes, gather them together into [...] all the Blessed Buddhas of the ten directions, born from the vajra wisdom of the three times, having come before the Teacher of the Guhyasamâja, worship and honour him, for he is the Teacher of all Bodhisattvas and Tathagatas,
  • vajra wisdom : Five buddha families: The buddha family; vajra family; ratna family or jewel family; padma family or lotus family; karma family;

[2.­9] “If you ask what is the ‘understanding of all phenomena,’ it is the partial understanding of selflessness with respect to personal identity58 that śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas acquire with reference to the twelve sense fields. That is called the understanding of all phenomena.

• When one escapes from sakkaya ditthi, one becomes sotapanna—but according to the commentaries it corresponds to sat-kāya, 'existing group', hence not to Sanskrit sva-kāya, 'own group' or 'own body'.
  • Sva-kaya—One’s own body (svakāya) is inner; another’s body (parakāya) is outer. 

[the partial understanding of selflessness with respect to personal identity (ekāntika­pugdala­nair­ātmya­jñāna):] Selflessness in this context‌ implies the lack of inherent existence in personal identity and also in physical and mental phenomena. Śrāvakas are said to expound the doctrine of selflessness only in terms of the absence of personal identity, while pratyekabuddhas additionally realize the emptiness of external phenomena, composed of atomic particles. However, unlike bodhisattvas they do not realize that the internal phenomena of consciousness too are without inherent existence [a­pra­kṛti].

• a­pra­kṛti : accidental property or nature; not an inherent or inseparableproperty (Sanskrit)
• a­pra­kṛti : unnatural or (nicht im normalen Zustande befindlich) not in normal condition (google translate);

4.5. Highest Knowledge

So far, the study has discovered three kinds of attainable knowledge presented by the Mahayanist sutras.

• Anuttarasamyaksaṃbodhi (an­uttara­citta)
  • the Lotus Sutra
  • the Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā
  • Ārya­daśa­sāhasrikā­prajñā­pāramitā­nāma­mahā­yāna­sūtra
• The Noble Wisdom
  • the Laṅkāvatarā Sutra
• The vajra wisdom of the three times
  • the Guhjasamaja Tantra (he is the Teacher of all Bodhisattvas and Tathagatas, he indeed is the Blessed One, Mahavajradhara, Lord of all Buddha-wisdoms.)
  • Ārya­daśa­sāhasrikā­prajñā­pāramitā­nāma­mahā­yāna­sūtra
• Prajñā
  • Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra

4.6. Sarvāstivādi Nirvana

Sarvāstivādi Nirvana is the state of non-duality or Emptiness (non-duality, un-bornness and no self-natureness). Emptiness means Tathagata, the eternal entity, which is everything abstract and personification of the abstract. Emptiness or Nirvana is presented with two opposing meanings:

• Maya (the illusion of the external world), and
• Satya (reality or Tathagata). See 5.2.

[Lanka Chapter 7:] Some recognize me [...] as Emptiness.

The term maya existed before the Buddha's time. His mother was named as Maya, for example. Nevertheless, maya did not become prominent in the Buddha's teachings. Nagarjuna was fond of maya and it developed his religious theories.

Although it sounds like a metaphysical speculation, it may not be the case; it could be related to a meditative insight instead. And probably from this interpretation of Nirvana, Nagarjuna got his inspiration for expounding the teaching of Nirvana and Samsara as being the same [both are illusory, both are anutpada (unarising)]. While the traditional meaning of Nirvana was kept intact, there seems to be a reasonable effort by the author of AP to break away from the final shackle of attachment, leaping into the realm of perfect wisdom (Buddhistdoor International Ng Yeow Foo, 2013).

•  Nirvana and Samsara as being the same : This concept is presented in the Lankavatara Sutra. It is at odd with the Lotus Sutra's nirvana.
• Bodhidharma's works were based on Lankavatara.

4.7. Citta-Mātratā (vijñaptimātra)

Huge volume of texts were composed with one essence 'Citta-mātratā'. Mind and maya—that's all.

[Gaganagañja (Oslo):] In fact, both defilement and purification (saṃkleśavyavadāna) are just conventional expressions (saṃketapada). 

'Citta-mātratā' (mind only) was adopted into Yogācāra Mahayana (Vijnanavada). It identifies the mind concepts presented in the Laṅkāvatarā Sutrā of the Sarvāstivādis. The sutra presents the concept of 'mind only' as emptiness, buddha-nature, the universal mind (storehouse consciousness), the eternal Buddha (tathagata), the one residing in all bodhisattvas and Mahesvāra (Cittagocara/Citta-Gocara) with innumerable buddha-lands.

Although the founding of Yogācāra is traditionally ascribed to two half-brothers, Asaṅga and Vasubandhu (fourth–fifth century bc), most of its fundamental doctrines had already appeared in a number of scriptures a century or more earlier, most notably the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra (Elucidating the Hidden Connections) (third–fourth century bc). Among the key Yogācāra concepts introduced in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra are the notions of ’only-cognition’ (vijñaptimātra), three self-natures (trisvabhāva), warehouse consciousness (ālayavijñāna), overturning the basis (āśrayaparāvṛtti) and the theory of eight consciousnesses. [Buddhism, Yogācāra school of (Lusthaus, Dan)]

• These terms are also discussed in the next chapters.

4.8. Cittagocara  (चित्तगोचर) 

The Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra presents Cittagocara as "the realm of thought." Thought is saṅkhāra, which is discussed in 2.8. Saṅkhāra.

Cittagocara (चित्तगोचर) In the realm of thoughts (cittagocara) with all beings, they engage their thought and consciousness in living beings. Since their continuity of thoughts (cittasaṃtāṇa) is unobstructed (anāvaraṇa), they have insight (prajñā) also in the continuity of their own thoughts.

Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā 

The Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā is a Mahāyāna dharmaparyāya and is the eighth chapter of the great canonical collection of Mahāyāna Buddhism, the Mahāsaṃnipāta. The text is lost in the original Indic, but survives in Chinese and Tibetan translations [The Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā and the Sky as a Symbol of Mahāyāna Doctrines and Aspirations (Jaehee Han)]

Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā

(University of Oslo)

[Gaganagañja (Oslo):] “Venerable Śāriputra, in the same way awakening has the essential character of open space (tathā śāriputra bodhir gaganasvabhāvalakṣaṇā), and, in the case, my roots of good are transformed into that. This is the reason why this treasury of open space (gaganagañja)

• Gaganaga (गगनग):—[=gagana-ga] [from gagana] m. ‘moving in the sky’, a planet, 
• Gaganagañja (Sky Jewel) is a Mahayanist bodhisattva. He is different from a Theravada bodhisatta.

Gaganagañja (गगनगञ्ज) is the name of a Bodhisattva mentioned as attending the teachings in the 6th century Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa: one of the largest Kriyā Tantras devoted to Mañjuśrī (the Bodhisattva of wisdom) representing an encyclopedia of knowledge primarily concerned with ritualistic elements in Buddhism. The teachings in this text originate from Mañjuśrī and were taught to and by Buddha Śākyamuni in the presence of a large audience (including Gaganagañja)

gaganasvabhāvalakṣaṇā: gaganasvabhāva (nature of open space / essence of the sky) lakṣaṇā (character)

Gaganasvabhāva (गगनस्वभाव): “that which is becoming the essence of the sky”

Lakṣaṇa (लक्षण) refers to a “characteristic”

[Gaganagañja (Oslo):] incomparable complete awakening (anuttarasamyaksaṃbodhi),

• Anuttarasamyaksaṃbodhi is found in the Lotus Sutra. The Laṅkāvatarā Sutra presents the Noble Wisdom as the highest attainment.

Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda—Part 10

4.9. Sabhāva

Sabhāva (Pāli) means nature. It probably means essence, too. The sabhāva (nature) of reality (Paramattha) is constant and unchangeable; for example, the nature of solidity is solid. Four paramattha-s are citta, cetāsika, rūpa, Nibbāna. Cetāsika are vedanā, saññā, saṅkhāra. Sabhāva of a name or term (Paññatti) is imaginary, as it changes according to its culture.

Imaginary sabhāva

Imaginary sabhāva and theoretical sabhāva are also paññatti. The believers perceive the religious truths of their religion as the actual truths, but they reject others' truths. Sarvāstivādis may accept Sarvāstivāda is the truth and reject Vibhajjavādis. The perception of a putthujanna is paññatti or the constructed reality or fictional reality in a computer game, for example. A game has its own reality that makes the game works or determines how things work in the world of that game.

Holding a wrong view (micchaditthi) cannot benefit anybody.

Svābhāva

Svabhāva (Sanskrit) also means nature. Major sutras argue that svābhāva is absent in all things—svabhāva-śūnyatā (emptiness of self-nature). That approach rejects two realities (cetāsika and rūpa). Mahayana acknowledges them, but it stands with svabhāva-śūnyatā. Instead, Mahayana asserts that in the human beings, there is the industructable buddha-svabhāva (buddha-self-nature or buddha-nature), which links them to awakening (Buddhahood) via bodhisattva stages.

self-nature ［自性］ (svabhāva; jishō): The individual nature that all things maintain; their unchanging identities. Also, the notion that things or beings exist independently, separate from all others.

The notion of svabhāva-śūnyatā also rejects Sarvāstivāda.

[Sarvāstivāda (सर्वास्तिवाद):] 'the existence of all dharmas in the past, present and future, the 'three times'.

Sarvāstivāda claims a dharma can remain the same in the three times because of a constant essence or self-nature (svabhāva).

[Sarvāstivāda (wiki):] In order to explain how it is possible for a dharma to remain the same and yet also undergo change as it moves through the three times, the Vaibhāṣika held that dharmas have a constant essence (svabhāva) which persists through the three times.^[30] The term was also identified as a unique mark or own characteristic (svalaksana) that differentiated a dharma and remained unchangeable throughout its existence.^[30] According to Vaibhāṣikas, svabhavas are those things that exist substantially (dravyasat) as opposed to those things which are made up of aggregations of dharmas and thus only have a nominal existence (prajñaptisat).^[30]

Svabhāva-śūnyatā is presented in the major sutrās like Laṅkāvatarā and Heart. Why does Laṅkāvatarā of Sarvāstivāda reject Sarvāstivāda's the self-nature in all things?

Svabhāva-śūnyatā (emptiness of self-nature)

Laṅkāvatarā uses self-nature (svabhāva), which the mortals do not have. That probably means 'a cat is a cat but it does not have cat-ness (cat-svabhāva), so the cat was, is and will be a cat (in its lifespan)' without its own nature.

There is indestructible buddha-nature in the mortals (Bodhidharma). The essense of cat or catness is buddha-self-nature (buddha-svabhāva), which can be perceived in all three times. This perception is sassata ditthi, according to the Sakkyamuni.

Buddha-Svabhāva

Buddha-dhatu (buddha-element or awareness) is also buddha-svabhāva (buddha-self-nature), as svabhāva is self-nature. Svabhāva in the sutras is not mere nature but self-nature.

Buddha-nature in everyone is the potential for buddhahood, as per Mahayana. Buddha-nature is about citta-matrata (mind only). The original Tathagata is that mind in everyone, which shines when a bodhisattva has cleared erroneous conceptions and given up his/her individualised will-control.

[Lanka Chapter 3:] inner self-realization of Noble Wisdom there is no trace of habit-energy generated by erroneous conceptions...

Notion of Self

The concepts of self in the Mahayanist approach are collected here without trying to make sense of what self is. It seems Mahayana accepts slef-view is delusional. It presents Daśa­sāhasrikā­prajñā­pāramitā, an­ātman and ātmasaṃjñā.

an­ātman (non-self) (g.­1104) The view that there is no self existing independent of the five psycho-physical aggregates. Also translated here as “selflessness” and “absence of self.”

[ātmasaṃjñā:] Third of the four misconceptions; the mistaken notion of a self existing independent of the five aggregates.

• Does that mean a self exists within the five aggregates?
• The five aggregates are not self but maya (illusion) in Mahayanist context.

Mahayana replaces self with buddha-nature embeded within the maya (the mortals).

Buddha-nature (Tathagata-Nature, Tathagata-garbha) is the self-nature (svabhāva) of the Tathāgata, which is responsible for becoming Buddhas. Beings are Maya, so they do not have their own self-nature. They may become enlightened by the realisation of the non-being of self-nature. This is also stated in the Heart Sutra. However, every being has Buddha-nature inside. When this being attain the tenth stage of bodhisattvahood, that being's own Buddha-nature [will be] revealed as Tathagata, according to Laṅkāvatarā.

[Lanka Chapter 7:] When the teachings of the Dharma are fully understood and are perfectly realized by the disciples and masters, that which is realized in their deepest consciousness is their own Buddha-nature revealed as Tathagata.

That is why Nirvana (Emptiness/non-duality) is not Nibbana, a bodhisattva is not a bodhisatta, and the Mahayanist Buddha who promotes miccha ditthi is not a Vibhajjavādi who guides us towards Samma Ditthis. Mahayana was not established by Sakyamuni the Sammasambuddha. The Sarvāstivādis rejected the Dhamma-Vinaya Sasana. They only utilised the names of prominent figures in Buddhism.

The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra 

(Kosho Yamamoto, 1973)

[page 29] I shall now explain the excellent three ways of cultivating Dharma. To think of suffering as Bliss and to think of Bliss as suffering, is perverse Dharma; to think of the impermanent as the Eternal and to think of the Eternal as impermanent is perverse Dharma; to think of the non-Self [anatman]as the Self [atman] and to think of the Self [atman] as non-Self [anatman] is perverse Dharma; to think of the impure as the Pure and to think of the Pure as impure is perverse Dharma. Whoever has these four kinds of perversion, that person does not know the correct cultivation of dharmas.

[page 32] Even though he has said that all phenomena [dharmas] are devoid of the Self, it is not that they are completely/ truly devoid of the Self. What is this Self? Any phenomenon [dharma] that is true [satya], real [tattva], eternal [nitya], sovereign/ autonomous/ self-governing [aisvarya], and whose ground/ foundation is unchanging [asraya-aviparinama], is termed ’the Self’ [atman]. This is as in the case of the great Doctor who well understands the milk medicine. The same is the case with the Tathagata. For the sake of beings, he says "there is the Self in all things" O you the four classes! Learn Dharma thus!

• Any phenomenon, but Mahayana presents 'only mind' (citta-matrata), which is Tathagata. So there is no phenomenon like the citta-matrata.
• Only the Tathagata has self (atman) or real. The rest is imagined (Maya).
• The key point is made as The same is the case with the Tathagata. That statement affirms self is atma and the Tathagata—"there is the Self in all things"
• Buddha-svābhāva is stated in Lankavatara and Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtra as self (atmam/atta) in the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra.

Tathatā

Theravada:

Tathata (“suchness”) designates the firmly fixed nature (bhāva) of all things whatever.—The only passage in the Canon where the word occurs in this sense, is found in Kath. 186 (s. Guide, p. 83).

• Tathatā is not familar to Theravadins.

bhava : [m.] the state of existence. || bhāva (m.) condition; nature; becoming.

• bhāva : sabhāva (nature)

Mahayana: tathatā (suchness), svābhāva (nature) and atman (lasting self) seem to share the same purpose.

Ātmatathatā (आत्मतथता) 

Gaganagañja bodhisattva is a rare occation presented the suchness of the self:

[Gaganagañja (Oslo):] Then he understands [...] the suchness of throught, the suchness of living being, and the suchness of all dharmas (sarvadharmatathatā) through the suchness of the self. This the suchness of all dharmas (sarvadharmatathatā) is the absence of suchness, is not different from suchness (avitathatā), and nothing else but suchness (ananyathā).

• tathatā is used excessively for a reason.
• ātma is self;
• tathatā is suchness;
• ātmatathatā - is this term only found in Gaganagañjaparipṛcchāsūtra, the eighth chapter of Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā? Similar terms are Ātmagrāha and Ātma-Pāramitā (Supreme Unity) or ātmapāramitā (perfection of ātman).
• ātmatathatā : atmata or atta is an essential part of Mahayana. Other sutras present it as svabhāva.
• avitathatā : suchness without error; avitathatā is a statement that einforces the previous statements, including ātmatathatā.
• Theravada is anattavada—anatta / anatman (no atta/no soul). This is also explained in the previous chapters.

[Gaganagañja (Oslo):] The the limit of emptiness (śūnyatākoṭi) is the limit of the self (ātmakoṭi) [...] The limit of the self is the limit of all dharmas (sarvadharmakoṭi).  Why is that? Concerning all dharmas, the limit of them, the limit of emptiness, and the limit of tranquility; being unattached to the gate into these three limits is attaining the unattached knowledge to any dharma. 

• The limit of the self is the limit of all dharmas (sarvadharmakoṭi) :

[Lanka Chapter 12 (Tathagata):] the ultimate Principle of the Dharmakaya ... the Truth-body, or the Truth-principle of ultimate Reality (Paramartha)... is manifested under seven aspects:

• the limit of the ultimate truth is beyond limit: the ultimate truth is the mind (citta-matrata)
• paramārtha is presented as the Tathagata or Emptiness in Lankavatara.
• Vasubandhu also provided his version of paramārtha.

[Gaganagañja (Oslo):] thought of awakening (bodhicitta)

• Thought is not a meditative insight (vipassanā-ñāṇa), nor dhyānapāramitā (ध्यानपारमिता) (“virtue of meditation”).
• Thought in Mahayanist context is related to buddha-nature and citta-gocara.
• Thought is vaci-saṅkhāra. During meditation, thought can become an unstoppable stream, which drowns the meditator and fails the meditation.
• Instead of random thought, one can cultivate positive thought.

[What is Bodhicitta? (DALAI LAMA AND THUBTEN CHODRON):]
Bodhicitta is a primary mental consciousness. As such, it is accompanied by (is concomitant with) various mental factors, a principal one being the aspiration to attain full awakening. How does this aspiration arise? Contemplation of the kindness of sentient beings and their duḥkha in saṃsāra causes great compassion, which is a mental factor wishing sentient beings to be free from suffering. [...] In the Ornament of Clear Realizations Maitreya describes twenty-two types of bodhicitta

• Bodhicitta practice is similar to metta bhavana.
• Metta bhavana is one of the four brahmavihara practiced by Theravadis to build the foundation of mindfulness (samadhi).

[Diamond Sūtra Discussion: The true way of the Great Vehicle:]
Yifa: The Buddha told Subhuti, “All bodhisattva mahasattvas should master their minds [citta] like this:
‘Of all kinds of sentient beings [sattva]; whether born from an egg [aṇḍajā], womb [jarāyujā], moisture [saṃsvedajā] or metamorphosis [upapādukā]; whether with form [rūpa] or without form [arūpa]; whether with perception [saṃjñā], or without perception [asaṃjñā], or neither with perception nor without perception. I cause them all to enter the nirvana without remainder, liberating them.

• The true way of the Great Vehicle: Is it how a bodhisattva emancipating the beings?
• I cause them ... liberating them: Which bodhisattva liberated the beings? Did Nagarjuna bodhisattva liberate any being?
• Ten original vows presented in Lankavatara, which states emancipation is the duty of the Buddhas.

Daśa­sāhasrikā­prajñā­pāramitā: INTRODUCTION:

Chapter 3 i.­33

Fixation may ensue when those phenomena and attributes are considered as permanent or impermanent, as conducive to happiness or
suffering, with self or without self, empty or not empty, with signs or signless, having or lacking aspirations, calm or not calm, void or not void, afflicted or purified, arising or not arising, ceasing or not ceasing, and as entities or non-entities. Deluded minds would view these phenomena and attributes as absolutely existent whereas bodhisattvas should train so as to understand that they are all non-apprehensible‍—mere designations and conceptualizations.

• those phenomena are all the phenomena (dharma); see Chapters 1 and 2 i.­32
• permanent or impermanent, happiness or suffering, with self or without self: This is truth denial or truth avoidal (avoidance), the Sakyamuni would say;
• empty or not empty: In the Heart Sutra, Avalokisvara discovered emptiness and attained the highest Nirvana; and he explained it to the Venerable Sariputra.

[Heart (Thich):]“Listen Sariputra, this Body itself is Emptiness and Emptiness itself is this Body.

• they are all non-apprehensible‍—mere designations and conceptualizations: But are they?

Chapter 14 i.­52

This Great Vehicle does not apprehend afflicted mental states or their absence, nor does it apprehend notions of permanence and impermanence, self and non-self, and so forth. [...] Once bodhisattvas have developed, without apprehending anything, the notion of sentient beings as their father, mother, or child, with their minds set on genuinely perfect enlightenment, they see that all notions of self and the like are entirely non-existent and non-apprehensible.

• permanence and impermanence, self and non-self : Permanance is unreality. Impermanence is reality. Why is it wrong to reject unreality and accept reality? Why is rejecting both unreality and reality the path to the Mahayanist buddhahood? That path to the Mahayanist buddhahood is not the Magga Sacca, one of the Four Noble Truths.

4.10. Paramārtha (Sanskrit)

Paramārtha (परमार्थ) as the “absolute point of view” is found in Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra (chapter XXXII-XXXIV).

Paramārtha (परमार्थ) or paramārthaśūnyatā refers to “ultimate emptiness” one of the “twenty emptinesses” (śūnyatā) as defined in the Dharma-saṃgraha (section 41) [...] The work is attributed to Nagarjuna who lived around the 2nd century A.D. Paramārtha (“ultimate”) or Paramārthasatya refers to “ultimate truth” and represents the first of the “two truths” (satya) as defined in the Dharma-saṃgraha (section 95).

Extracted from Gaganagañjaparipṛcchā (University of Oslo), which presents different approaches to paramārtha (the “highest truth”):

[Gaganagañja (Oslo):]
1)the absence of fraud (aśāṭhya) is included in honest and clarity;
2)honest is included in calmness (śānti) and gentleness (sauratya);
3)calmness is included in shame (hrī) and modesty (apatrāpya);  
4)shame (hrī) is included in introspection and restraining the senses (indriyasaṃyama); 
5)introspection is included in investigating emptiness (śūnyatā) and one’s own essential nature (svabhāva);

[...]
[Gaganagañja (Oslo):] Those who perceive things thus are beyond the fruition of causes (visāmagrī).  Why is that? This is because the Lord said that understanding defilements (saṃkleśa) is purification (vyavadāna); suppressing defilements (saṃkleśasaṃghāta) is not purification as the essential character (svabhāvalakṣaṇa) of defilement is purification.  In fact, both defilement and purification (saṃkleśavyavadāna) are just conventional expressions (saṃketapada). Defilement and purification (saṃkleśavyavadāna) are not apprehended within the limit of the ultimate truth (paramārthakoṭi). Since the limit of the ultimate truth is beyond limit (akoṭi), that which is beyond limit is the true limit (bhūtakoṭi).  The true limit (bhūtakoṭi) is the limit of emptiness (śūnyatākoṭi). The the limit of emptiness (śūnyatākoṭi) is the limit of the self (ātmakoṭi). 

• paramārthakoṭi

14) cultivating the three gates of freedom (trivimokṣabhāvanā) is included in the absence of personality (niḥpudgala) and the ultimate truth (paramārtha);

• paramārtha

43) truth (satya) is included in the concealed truth (saṃvṛtisatya) and the highest truth (paramārthasatya);  44) reality (bhūta) is included in suchness (tathatā) and the true state (tattva);  45) accordance with basis (āśrayānulomika) is included in cause and condition (hetupratyaya); 

• paramārthasatya

4.11. Paramattha (Pali)

Paramattha means real truth or ultimate reality.

The Four Paramattha: citta, cetāsika, rūpa and Nibbana. The rest are perceived truths (conventional realities), what we think or misinterpret as true (or real).Citta and cetasika are nama (mental truths). Rūpa is physical truth. These two belong to Dukkha Sacca and Samudaya Sacca. Nibbana is Nirodha Sacca — Cessation Trth: the cessation of dukkha at the ceasing of samudaya.

samudaya : [m.] rise; origin; produce.

Oxford: essence

The basic or primary element in the being of a thing; the thing's nature, or that without which it could not be what it is. A thing cannot lose its essence without ceasing to exist, and the essential nature of a natural kind, such as water or gold, is that property without which there is no instance of the kind. Locke contrasted real essences...

• Things are built with nāma and rūpa, which are sankhata paramtthas (conditioned realities/elements). Elements can be seen as the essence of the saṅkhāra.

Body and Mind (saṅkhāra)

Sankhāra-Paccayā Viññāna

• Paramattha is the nāma-rūpa complex (saṅkhāra). A nāma-rūpa complex is the five aggregates, which are put together to function.
  • If one sees the nāma-rūpa complex without the veil of panatti, one sees the paramattha (reality).
  • Seeing reality is vipassanā insight. One must directly see the nāma-rūpa complex through .
  • Paramattha is amoha.
• Nibbāna is seen by seeing the paramatthas.
• Samatha vipassana is the means to see the paramatthas, including the Nibbāna, just as they are.

Sammuti & Paññatti

• Sammuti is conventional reality or a convention.
• Paññatti is perceived truth (names). Knowing the names is saññā (conventional knowledge).
  • A nāma-rūpa complex is called with such and such names and known with such and such terms.
  • Seeing a cat is seeing panatti (name/designation). Knowing it as a cat is knowing the sammuti (convention).
  • Saññā (conventional knowledge) lets us see a cat, a dog, etc. but veils the reality of the nāma-rūpa complex.
• Saññā is moha/avijja (delusion / ignorance).

Avijjā-Paccayā Sankhārā

The essence of a construct is perceptual, not real. Certain natural principles (laws) are responsible for building the constructs (saṅkhāra). For example,

• A cat is a cat because of its cat-ness, which is impermanent and may evolve and change. Growing up from being in the womb to being on the deathbed is possible because there is no essence but a set of principles (laws).
• A cat can be created by two cat parents. The principles of life are very complex. Life cannot come from the primordial soup.
• Gold can be created from platinum and mercury. That process demonstrates the existence of the principles that create the elements known to science.
  • However, the four elements (mahābhūta: solid, liquid, gas, heat) cannot be constructed.
• The principles of life forms are different from the principles of lifeless elements.
• These principles do not demonstrate the essence of a construct, such as cat-ness and gold-ness because the essence (mahābhūta) is shared.

Sabhāva should be considered with some natural principles, including:

• dhammatā (a general rule; nature),
• vasanā
• niyāma - There are five niyamas (principles) of life. The Buddha explained about them so that we would understand the nonexistence of soul, self and person. Dhamma-niyāma Sutta [page 100]
• Also see Part 7 for niyāma

Background

Nibbana In Theravada Perspective With Special Reference To Buddhism In Burma Ashin Dhammapia (OCRed) (Ashin Dhammapia)

[Page 70-71]
According to Buddhist literature, the two truths: sammuti-sacca (conventional truth) paramattha-sacca (ultimate truth) do not directly appear in Pali canonical texts, but appear in that form only in commentaries.
However, it is useful to apply the truths by commentarial methods: nitattha (explicit meaning or direct meaning) and neyyattha (implicit meaning or inferred meaning ).
Yet the Buddha still used the conventional truth when he addressed his teachings to an audience in order to let the audience realize the essence of the Dhamma, which is related to the ultimate truth in his teachings.
Regarding this matter it is stated: samutisacca-mukheneva paramatthasaccadhigamo hoti (dependent on sammuti-sacca [conventional truth], paramattha-sacca [ultimate truth] can be obtained).
[Page 114]
A being is considered to be subject to an existence with a process that contains arising and decaying; rebirth and death and so on. This criterion is applied to all living beings with conventional truth (sammuti-sacca), but it does not apply to absolute ultimate reality (paramattha-sacca).

Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda—Part 11

5.1. Vibhajjavāda vs Sarvāstivāda

Āṇi Sutta

Sarvāstivāda

In future time, there will be bhikkhus who will not listen to the utterance of such discourses which are words of the Tathāgata, profound, profound in meaning, leading beyond the world, (consistently) connected with emptiness, they will not lend ear, they will not apply their mind on knowledge, they will not consider those teachings as to be taken up and mastered.

Vibhajjavada

Thus, bhikkhus, the discourses which are words of the Tathāgata, profound, profound in meaning, leading beyond the world, (consistently) connected with emptiness, will disappear.

• Suññatā, (f.) (abstr. fr. suñña) emptiness, “void, ” unsubstantiality, phenomenality; freedom from lust, ill-will, and dullness, Nibbāna
• MAJJHIMA NIKĀYA III: Kāyagatāsatisuttaṃ Kayagatasati: Ten benefits of Kayagatasati:

Bhikkhus, mindfulness of the body in the body, practised, developed, made much, made the vehicle, made the foundation, indulged in the practise with aroused effort, I declare ten benefits. What are the ten?

• ākiñcañña-āyatana: The sense of nothingness
  • One is to sense nothing in this formless jhana (outside the five senses)

Vibhajjavadis (Theravadis) follow the Dhamma-Vinaya Sasana established by the Buddha.

5.1.1. The meaning of "great vehicle"

Nagarjuna explains in the Maha Prajnaparamita Sastra the meaning of Mahayana.

[Prajnaparamita (CONZE page 32):]

1 . Its Constituents :

(a) Six Perfections.

(b) 20 Kinds of Emptiness.

(c) 112 Concentrations.

(d) 21 Practices.

(e) 43 Dharani-doors.

(f) 10 Stages.

2. Three questions concerning the great vehicle.

3. Why the "Great Vehicle" is so called.

• Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra presents the 10 stages of bodhisattva career. Lankavatara presents the ten stages of bodhisattva nirvana. Lotus does not but it shares Anuttarasamyaksambodhi, the concept presented by Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra. Lankavatara does not.

[Prajnaparamita (CONZE page 577):] Gradually they are nirvanized in the realm of Nirvana which leaves nothing behind and that through the three vehicles, i.e. the Disciple-vehicle, the Pratyekabuddha-vehicle, or the great vehicle. It is thus that Bodhisattvas achieve much good when they raise their thought to the supreme enlightenment and progress to Thusness, etc. to : until they win final Nirvana in the realm of Nirvana which leaves nothing behind.

• All the three vehicles can reach the realm of Nirvana.
• Bodhisattvas achieve much good for what? What is it necessary: the appraisal of the public or Mahayanist ego?
• Mahayanists with Sarvāstivādi sutras did not understand their goal clearly. They chose one or mixed some and could not stop developing new schools.
• Vibhajjavada is one school with some branches. Some value the branches. Some value the Dhamma-Vinaya.

Ādhārayogasthāna

The Yogācārin mahayana advocates for Buddhahood but does not accept everyone can become a Buddha:

Yogasthāna one is titled the section on the basis (ādhārayogasthāna) because it deals with the basis (ādhāra) for becoming a bodhisattva (topic 1). There are three main aspects of the basis of a bodhisattva. The first is an inborn unique predisposition (svagotra) for the bodhisattva path, those who lack this are said to be unable to reach Buddhahood. The second is "the basis of initially engendering the resolve to reach Buddhahood (prathamaś cittotpādaḥ), which refers to arousing bodhicitta, practicing the perfections for the benefit of oneself and others, and so forth. The third is "the basis of practicing all the factors leading to Awakening" (sarve bodhipakṣyā dharmāḥ).^[82] [Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra (wiki)]

On the other hand, chanting the name of Amitabha (Avalokiteśvara) alone is enough for a place in heaven:

if we can recite Namo Amitabha Buddha exclusively, we will have grasped the essence of the Dharma [...] It doesn’t matter if a person is of superior, intermediate or inferior ability, intelligent or dull, literate or illiterate, male or female, young or old, worthy or unworthy – anyone who recites will achieve rebirth [and then Buddhahood in the Pure Land]. Such certainty does not apply to practitioners of other schools [although our Buddha Amitabha and bodhisattvas have mercy for all of you]. [A Discourse by Dharma Master Huijing Amitabha-Recitation Society, Tainan, Taiwan; March 10, 2007]

Mahayanist Scriptures

Some early authors of the Savāstivādi/Mahayanist sutras were Mādhyamika, Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, etc. However, the authors of the Heart Sutra (Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtra) is not known, forgotten or revealed.

in his Treasury and Twenty Verses arguments, Vasubandhu argues that naïvely to require that all scriptures be interpreted literally is to insist that the Buddha repeatedly contradicted himself. He cites many internal references to lost or unknown texts, and argues that this shows that no lineage or school can claim to have a complete canon. Unlike his Mādhyamika opponents, Vasubandhu believes that the Mahāyāna Sūtras must be read under a “special intention [abhiprāya],” so as to prevent the danger of nihilism. [Vasubandhu: 3. Approaches to Scriptural Interpretation (Jonathan C. Gold)]

• That is the background of the Savāstivādi/Mahayanist scriptures. They understood their scriptures were not flawless and reliable.
  • Ancient intellects with good intentions analysed the TiPitaka to find flaws.
  • King Milinda created several questions, and the Venerable Nagasena Mahathera answered them and removed doubts from the mind of the king. He followed the Buddha and became a member of the Sangha.
• so as to prevent the danger of nihilism: But it is eternalism (sassatavāda), of "outside agent" (Ephesians 5:18: be filled in the Spirit)

The outside agent

[Ephesians 5:18 (Eddie Rasnake):] being “filled with the Spirit” involves the Spirit getting you. Paul contrasts being drunk on wine with being filled with the Spirit. In both cases, an outside agent is influencing the person. With both, it is initiated by an act of the will, and both are results of the outside agent’s work on the inside. With wine, it is alcohol released from the stomach into the bloodstream and brain. With filling, it is the already present Spirit released into all parts of the body. Both result in altered personalities consistent with the altering agent. 

• The ten-stage bodhisattva training comprises “filled with the Spirit” and "result in altered personalities"
• “filled with the Spirit”: the Tathagata's universalized life as manifested in its transformations
• "result in altered personalities": he no longer lives unto himself

[Lanka Chapter 13:] In the perfect self-realization of Noble Wisdom that fallows the inconceivable transformation death of the Bodhisattva's individualized will-control, he no longer lives unto himself, but the life that he lives thereafter is the Tathagata's universalized life as manifested in its transformations. In this perfect self-realization of Noble Wisdom the Bodhisattva realizes that for the Buddhas there is no Nirvana.

• for the Buddhas there is no Nirvana: they become Buddhas because the original Tathagata (the Spirit) fills the completely. Thus, both Amitabha Buddha and Avalokiteśvara are forms and names only, as the same original Tathagata is in them—form is empiness/empty; emptiness is form. That Tathagata is emptiness.

Magic and Witchcraft

A magazine interviewed a famous Theravada monk Thit-cha-taung Sayadaw U Tiloka about witch-craft and possession. The Sayadaw explained a fine-particle body of a paranormal being can possess and unpossess a coarse-particle human body just the way milk and water can merge and unmerge, and a flame can move through metal mesh without destroying each other. The fine-particle body can occupy the spaces inside a coarse-particle body. The paranormal being can possess a human or animal by suppressing consciousness that resides around the chest. The possessed becomes totally unconscious and unaware of the situation. Such a paranormal being can be parasitic.

The fine-particles like the cool-therm (sita tejo) can pass through a coarse-particle body. We can see the sita tejo as shadow or the dark when the light is off. All beings on the Earth are made of the fine or coarse particles (the different forms of the four mahabhuta).

There are thus two types of tejo and sita tejo. Utu (climate) is another name for tejo. When the body and environs are cool, sita tejo pervades the entire atmosphere. When hot, unha tejo does the same. If this tejo dhatu is hot when it should be hot and cool when it is the time for cool season, we have healthy climate. In our bodies if tejo is moderate we are healthy; if not we are sick; if in excess we die. [Abhidhamma in Daily Life (Ashin Janakabhivamsa): Part 1 - The Four Fundamental Elements]

• One feels comfortable when sita tejo (cool therm) and unha tejo (hot therm) are in balance. When sita tejo is more, it is cold. When unha tejo is more, it is hot. It should not feel anything in a vacuum. However, sita tejo is everywhere. Unha tejo can be blocked by objects. Sita tejo can go through objects and be seen as shade and shadow.

The paranormal being like gandhabba devas (translated as fairy) can come and dwell with their mansions inside humans, like a tree-spirit in a tree. A gandhabba deva can be summoned and made to come and reside inside a human body. That is not a type of possession. Either way, the individuals with gandhabba devas dwelling inside them can get a share of the deva's supernatural power to perform (extraordinary) magic, witchery, etc., These individuals with such power can follow the amoral path to hurt others or the moral path to treat or help those attacked/hurt by those from the lower path. Not all gandhabba are good devas. They would not come and reside in a human unless they can get something back.

The Vinaya prohibits the bhikkhus from using these devas, performing magic and fortune-telling.

Think Again Before You Dismiss Magic (Roger R. Jackson): An article on the Lion's Rore (a Buddhist website) explores the practice of magic and spell in the Buddhist world. The author argues for the practice of magic and spell. He asked a young Siri Lankan bhikkhu, who replied, "That is not [Theravada] Buddhism."

"Magic is our shared heritage.” — Sam van Schaik

• Why isn't Buddhism our shared heritage, too?
• Shouldn't the practice of vipassana be our shared heritage?
• Rather vipassanā-ñāṇa (insight knowledge) should be our shared heritage.
• The fact is gandhabba devas do not enjoy the Dhamma.

In the Atanatiya Sutta (D.iii.203, 204) the Gandhabbas are mentioned among those likely to trouble monks and nuns in their meditations in solitude. 

• Practicing magic, spell and witchcraft is not Buddhism. Theravadi bhikkhus do not let the gandhabbas reside inside their bodies.
• In the Theravadi countries, some bhikkhus treat the patients suffering from spells, possession, and magic.
• Taung Twin Sayadaw Khin Gyi Phyaw (a book written in Burmese);
• The same book: တောင်တွင်းဆရာတော်ခင်ကြီးဖျော် - ကဝေသာရကျမ်း.pdf;

Alavaka Yakkha

Alavaka Sutta: DISCOURSE TO ALAVAKA: The seventh question of Alavaka: Who is tactful and energetic, And gains wealth by his own effort. The Buddha's answer: Fame will he acquire by truth, And friendship by his giving.

Understanding the meaning of the Buddha's words, Alavaka said, "Now I know what is the secret of my future welfare. It is for my own welfare and good that the Buddha came to Alavi." Alavaka prostrated before the Buddha and begged to be accepted as a disciple. [Life of the Buddha: 10. Alavaka, the Demon (Buddha Net)]

• Buddhists celebrate the taming of the Alavaka Yakkha as one of the eight glorious victories of the Buddha.

Mass Conversion (Dhammābhisamaya)

[King of Alavi] with his hosts of ministers, troops and were joined by the citizens of Āḷavi who did obeisance to the Buddha and sat down around him and asked: “Exalted Buddha, how could you tame such a wild and cruel ogre?”

The Buddha then delivered the aforesaid Āḷavaka Sutta in twelve verses in which He started His narration with the attack made by the ogre and went on relating in detail: “In this manner did he rain nine kinds of weapons, in this manner did he exhibit horrible things, in this manner did he put questions to me, in this manner did I answer his questions.” By the end of the discourse eighty-four thousand sentient beings realized the Four Truths and found emancipation.

Regular Offerings made to The Ogre

Now King Āḷavaka and the citizens of Āḷavi built a shrine for the ogre Āḷavaka, near the (original) shrine of Vessavana Deva King. And they regularly made to the ogre, offerings worthy of divine beings (devatabali) such as flowers, perfumes, etc.
[The Great Chronicle of Buddhas (Ven. Mingun Sayadaw): Part 4 - Taming of Āḷavaka the Ogre]

The birth of all things

'The external agent' rejects upadana-paccaya bhavo (life arises due to clinging), as the Buddha stated in the Paticcasamuppada.

[Lanka Chapter 3:] They foster the notion that the birth of all things is derived from the concept of being and non-being, and fail to regard it as it truly is, as caused by attachments to the multitudiousness which arises from discriminations of the mind itself.

• How do such attachments act as the reasons for the birth of all things (all dharmas: living and nonliving, physical and abstract)?
• Lankavatara: the mind's discrimination and false imagination—but what is the mind?

[Lanka Chapter 3:] When objects are not seen and judged as they truly are in themselves, there is discrimination and clinging to the notions of being and non-being, and individualized self-nature, and as long as these notions of individuality and self-nature persist, the philosophers are bound to explain the external world by a law of causation.

• The individualized self-nature can be understood as atta, which the Sakyamuni rejects.
• Svabhāva-Śūnya (empty/emptiness of self-nature) is used to reject the individualized self-nature or self, which is however replaced with buddha-self (buddha-self-nature).
• The Savāstivādi/Mahayanist scriptures replaces atta with svabhāva (sabhāva) without rejecting its meaning. That atta is the atta (buddha-sabhāva) of the original Tathagata, who is presented by Lankavatara.
• Thus, Svabhāva-Śūnya does not represent anattavada (Dhamma-Vinaya/Vibhajjavada).

5.1.2. Heart Sutra: Background

Heart Sutra (Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya) is believed composed in the Kushan Empire in the 1st century CE.

[Heart (Red, page 21):] since the Heart Sutra was clearly organized as a response to the teachings of the Sarvastivadins, it was probably a Sarvastivadin monk (or former Sarvastivadin monk) in this region who composed the Heart Sutra upon realizing the limitations of the Sarvastivadin Abhidharma

• For some reasons, the Heart Sutra author(s) brought the Venerable Sariputta into the scene inferior to a bodhisattva, who was equipped with the knowledge invented by the Sarvāstivādis.
• The Heart Sutra is a mantra. Mantra was originally developed by the Brahmins and the Jains.

[Heart (Centre):] Hear then the great dharani, The radiant peerless mantra, The Prajnaparamita...

• dharani: [Red Pine (wiki)] mantra and dharani were originally interchangeable, but at some point dhāraṇī came to be used for meaningful, intelligible phrases, and mantra for syllabic formulae which are not meant to be understood.

5.1.3. Jñānapāramitā vs Prajñāpāramitā

The Savāstivādi/Mahayanist scriptures present two sets of pāramitā. For the concept of Avalokiteśvara, they present the set of six pāramitās, excluding Jñānapāramitā.

[Heart (Red page 5-6):] Whoever the author was, he begins by calling upon Avalokiteshvara, Buddhism's most revered bodhisattva, to introduce the teaching of Prajnaparamita, the Perfection of Wisdom, to the Buddha's wisest disciple, Shariputra. Avalokiteshvara then shines the light of this radical form of wisdom on the major approaches to reality used by the Sarvastivadins, the most prominent Buddhist sect in Northern India and Central Asia two thousand years ago, and outlines the alternative approach of the Prajnaparamita. Finally, Avalokiteshvara also provides a key by means of which we can call this teaching to mind and unlock its power on our behalf

• the author was certainly not the Sakyamuni, nor Nāgarjuna, but unknown one(s) who probably wanted to remain secret.
• the author(s) were Sarvāstivādi scholars obviously, the pseudo-bhikkhus who will not listen to the utterance of such discourses which are words of the Tathāgata (Āṇi Sutta).
• Avalokiteshvara (Avalokiteśvara), Buddhism's most revered bodhisattva is unknown in the Pali Canon.
• What is reality used by the Sarvastivadins? It is emptiness—[as per Heart (Dharmanet),] the futility of any concept to accurately express the nature [svabhāva] of reality [the original Tathagata (citta-matrata)].

5.1.4. Prajñā in place of Jñāna:

[Heart (Red continues)] The basis for this reformulation is the teaching of prajna in place of jnana, or wisdom rather than knowledge.

• Nāgārjuna may reject jñāna (the 10th pāramitā) to allow Avalokiteśvara keep the bodhisattva ideal according to Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra.
• Both Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra and Lankavatara were composed in 100CE. They share the concept of prajna as understanding emptiness and as a pāramitā.

What is prajñā (perfect wisdom)?

[Prajnaparamita (CONZE page 56):] The Lord: Here the Bodhisattva, the great being, coursing in the perfection of wisdom, truly a Bodhisattva, does not review a Bodhisattva, nor the word "Bodhisattva", nor the course of a Bodhisattva, (nor the perfection of wisdom, nor the word "perfection of wisdom". He does not review that "he courses", nor that "he does not course"). He does not review form, feeling, perception, formative forces, or consciousness. (P38) And why? Because the Bodhisattva, the great being, is actually empty of the own-being of a Bodhisattva, and because perfect wisdom is by its own-being empty.

• Lankavatara also advocates for the giving up of individualised will-control.
• Do these two sutras advocate for 'Blank Mind'?
  • [Nayaswami Asha:] diminishing self-control and awareness by drugs or alcohol, or deliberately reducing your will power and blanking the mind, can be a way of opening the door for someone else to move in. [A Blank Mind: Dangerous or Desirable?]
• When buddha-nature (mind/awareness) is cleared and developed, the bodhisattva is no longer living for himself, according to Lankavatara.
• Citta-matrata (mind-only) means the lack of physical body, which the mind needs for interaction and emancipation.

[Prajnaparamita (CONZE page 189):] a Bodhisattva who courses towards enlightenment. If, when this is being expounded, the thought of a Bodhisattva does not become cowed, stolid, or regretful, and if his mind does not tremble, is not frightened, nor terrified, then that Bodhisattva, that great being courses in perfect wisdom. [...] It is because of the nonbeingness, the emptiness, the isolatedness of a being, because of the absence of an own-being in it, that a Bodhisattva does not approach (a Bodhi-being) at the beginning, at the end, or in the middle. And why? Because as a result of the nonbeingness of a being, its emptiness, its isolatedness, and the absence of own-being in it one cannot apprehend its beginning, etc.

• Emptiness is a result of the nonbeingness of a being.

[Lanka Chapter 2:] you and all Bodhisattvas should discipline yourselves in the realization and patience acceptance of the truths of the emptiness, un-bornness, no self-natureness, and the non-duality of all things.

Defining prajñā:

[Lanka Chapter 3:] By emptiness in the highest sense of the emptiness of Ultimate Reality is meant that in the attainment of inner self-realization of Noble Wisdom [āryajñāna] there is no trace of habit-energy generated by erroneous conceptions...

• Prajñā means emptiness in the highest sense...

[Prajñā (Buddhism) (Williams):] prajñā according to Mahayana Prajñāpāramitā sutras is ultimately the state of understanding emptiness (śūnyatā).^[16]
[What is Prajna? (cont.) (FoGuangPedia):] Prajna is understanding the inherent emptiness of dependent origination, and knowing that true emptiness is only possible because of wondrous existence.
[Prajñā (Hinduism):] Prajña or Pragya is used to refer to the highest and purest form of wisdom,

• Prajñā and jñāna (knowledge) are similar. Jñāna (knowledge) can replace prajñā to describe the same thing.
• Hypothesis: Prajñā in Hinduism is why prajñā became the most important in Mahayana to reject jñāna (knowledge) and Vibhajjavāda.

Prajñā cannot replace Jñāna

Lankavatara presents its Noble Wisdom as perfect-knowledge (jnana) in Chapter 4, 11 and 12. Lankavatara does not consider prajñā as wisdom.

[Lanka Chapter 4:] There are four kinds of Knowledge: Appearance-knowledge, relative-knowledge, perfect-knowledge, and Transcendental Intelligence [...]
Perfect-knowledge belongs to the world of the Bodhisattvas who recognize that all things are but manifestations of mind; who clearly understand the emptiness, the un-borness [...] and is the pathway and entrance into the exalted state of self-realization of Noble Wisdom.
Perfect-knowledge (jnana) belongs to the Bodhisattvas who are entirely free from the dualism of being and non-being, no-birth and no-annihilation, [...] To them the world is like a vision and a dream, it is like the birth and death of a barren-woman's child; to them there is nothing evolving and nothing disappearing.
The wise who cherish Perfect-knowledge, may be divided into three classes, disciples, masters and Arhats. [...] Arhats rise when the error of all discrimination is realized. Error being discriminated by the wise turns into Truth by virtue of the "turning-about" that takes place within the deepest consciousness. Mind, thus emancipated, enters into perfect self-realization of Noble Wisdom.

[Lanka Chapter 11:] The Blessed One replied: The Bodhisattvas are those earnest disciples who are enlightened by reason of their efforts to attain self-realization of Noble Wisdom and who have taken upon themselves the task of enlightening others. They have gained a clear understanding of the truth that all things are empty, un-born, and of a maya-like nature; [...] and they are abiding in the perfect-knowledge that they have gained by self-realization of Noble Wisdom.

• Avalokiteśvara's discovery of Svabhāva-Śūnya (Maya)

[Lanka Chapter 12:]  Second, as Jnana, [Dhammakaya] is the mind-world and its principle of the intellection and consciousness. Third as Dristi, it is the realm of dualism which is the physical world of birth and death wherein are manifested all the differentiation, desire, attachment and suffering.

• [Lanka Chapter 4:] Ones who have perfected jnana are who clearly understand the emptiness,
• [Lanka Chapter 11:] They have gained a clear understanding of the truth that all things are empty [...] they are abiding in the perfect-knowledge that they have gained by self-realization of Noble Wisdom.
• [Lanka Chapter 12:] Jnana is Dhammakaya.

Prajñāpāramitā

To reach āryajñāna (the Noble Wisdom), Lankavatara chapter 11 recommends "to practice the six Paramitas" which are presented in Lanka chapter 9 as charity, good behavior, patience, zeal, thoughtfulness and wisdom.

Lankavatara does not recognise jñānapāramitā, nor āryajñāna as a paramita. Nevertheless, Nāgārjuna presents Daśapāramitā (दशपारमिता) (the “ten perferctions”) in the Dharma-saṃgraha (section 18), including 5) dhyāna-meditation, 6) prajñā-wisdom, and 10) jñāna-knowledge.

If Nāgārjuna authored both the Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra and the Dharma-saṃgraha, why did he reject jñānapāramitā? The true author of the Dharma-saṃgraha might be a different Nāgārjuna if Nāgārjuna the author of Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra did not present the Daśapāramitā. The four further virtues [were] added later, but the authors are not the famous Nāgārjuna.

Florin Deleanu proposes a hypothesis:

It is not so important whether the content of the four extra perfections, or for that matter the daśapāramitā model itself, was known to the authors of the Ādhārayogasthāna or not. [...] The ten-pāramitā model must have been adopted later, and one of the reasons probably was the introduction of the complex vihāra-based path and the need to have more perfections corresponding, whenever possible, to each major stage. (On the pāramitā-theory in the Bodhisattvabhūmi in general and its influence on later Yogācāra texts, see SHIMIZU, 1987.) [Meditative Practices in the Bodhisattvabhūmi Quest for and Liberation through the Thing-In-Itself (Florin DELEANU. Page 905)]

Ādhārayogasthāna is an invention of the Yogācāra school

[Florin Deleanu (page 884):] The textual history of the Yogācāra tradition begins with the Śrāvakabhūmi, an exposition of the theory and praxis of the spiritual path along lines common to a few Northern Śrāvakayāna schools, most notably the Sarvāstivāda.

The Sarvāstivādis claim Sarvāstivāda was a part of the original Sangha, which they argued with, without ever been a part of it. Thus, their doctrine does not come from the original Dhamma-Vinaya established by the Sakyamuni. Their doctrine existed during the Buddha's time, so it was rejected by the Buddha Himself.

The followers of Lankavatara and Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtra (the mini version of the Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra) ignore the āryajñāna (the Noble Wisdom). Instead, they follow Anuttarasamyaksambodhi from the Lotus Sutra but not the Nirvana concept presented by it.

Prajñāpāramitā is the sixth stepping stone to reach Āryajñāna (Noble Knowledge), buddhahood, understanding of emptiness. Prajñā (wisdom) cannot replace jñāna (knowledge) without a successful rebellion.

5.1.5. Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara vs Arhat Śāriputra

[Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra (chapter XV): Śāriputra (शारिपुत्र):]“Śāriputra is by far the foremost in wisdom (prajñā). A stanza of the Buddha says: ‘Except for the Buddha Bhagavat, the knowledge (jñāna) of all beings would not equal a sixteenth part compared with the wisdom (prajñā) and learning (bahuśruta) of Śāriputra’”.

• Śāriputra's wisdom is Paṭisambhidā (Analytical understanding). It is not 'understanding the inherent emptiness of dependent origination, and knowing that true emptiness is only possible because of wondrous existence (FoGuangPedia)'.
• wondrous existence is dukkha, too.
• Yet for an obvious reason Avalokiteśvara had to teach wisdom (prajñā) to Śāriputra because his prajñā is not 'understanding the inherent emptiness of dependent origination...

[Buddhāvataṃsaka (the Flower Adornment Sutra):][the Sound Hearers / arhats] constantly dwelling in the reality-limit and ultimate stillness and quietude, they were far removed from great compassion. They forsook living beings and dwelt in their own affairs.

• Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra predates Buddhāvataṃsaka. The latter was written for attacking the arhats.
• However, Nāgārjuna was an original thinker of the superior wisdom of the bodhisattvas. He ignored the Tathagatas of the past were Arhats.

[Prajnaparamita (CONZE page 3):] It is then said that the wisdom of a Bodhisattva is superior to that of the Arhats, because in his compassion he puts it at the disposal of all beings, so that they may be able to win Nirvana. This superiority is based on the "thought of enlightenment"

• upadana-nirodha bhava-nirodho: The arahant arises from the cessation of clinging.
• This bodhisattva concept ignores the eradication of anusaya kilesas, which the Sarvastivadis were very much aware of.

and the 6 perfections (P 41), and it finds an expression in the fact that, as the source of all that is good in the world, the Bodhisattvas are worthy of the gifts of all beings, including the Arhats.

• Some Mahayanist sutras insists arhats are not good enough while admitting the Buddhas are arhats.

5.1.6. What Is the Āryajñāna:

[Lanka Chapter 1:] In the days of old the Tathagatas of the past who were Arhats and fully-enlightened Ones came to the Castle of Lanka on Mount Malaya and discoursed on the Truth of Noble Wisdom that is beyond the reasoning knowledge of the philosophers as well as being beyond the understanding of ordinary disciples and masters; and which is realizable only within the inmost consciousness [...] Then said Mahamati the Bodhisattva-Mahasattva: O blessed One, Sugata, Arhat and Fully-Enlightened One, pray tell us about the realization of Noble Wisdom [...] By which, going up continuously by the stages of purification, one enters at last upon the stage of Tathagatahood [...] Mahamati the Bodhisattva-Mahasattva: By Noble Wisdom, going up continuously by the stages of purification, one enters at last upon the stage of Tathagatahood, Noble Wisdom is involved in all the stages of purification

• masters are Paccekabuddhas, whom Lankavatara does not recognise as arhats.
• Mahamati's questions also explain about Noble Wisdom.
• Mahamati the Bodhisattva-Mahasattva: By Noble Wisdom, going up continuously by the stages of purification, one enters at last upon the stage of Tathagatahood,
  • Noble Wisdom is involved in all the stages of purification
• Tathagatahood enables Bodhisattvas-Mahasattvas to bring all beings to the same perfection of virtue.

[Lanka Chapter 13:] Nirvana is the realm of the Dharmata-Buddha; it is where the manifestation of Noble Wisdom that is Buddhahood expresses itself in Perfect Love for all; it is where the manifestation of Perfect Love that is Tathagatahood expresses itself in Noble Wisdom for the enlightenment of all -there, indeed, is Nirvana!

• Noble Wisdom that is Buddhahood expresses itself
  • Nirvana or Tathagatahood are not attainment but rather developments inside a bodhisattva.

Lankavatara presents the āryajñāna as the highest stage that is Tathagatahood that develops within a bodhisattva. Then he should perfect Jñānapāramitā the “perfection of knowledge.” Lankavatara explains about Noble Wisdom from chapter 1 to chapter 13.

Rejecting jñāna is rejecting āryajñāna.

• Prajnaparamita rejects Jñānapāramitā. That is how Nāgārjuna rejects Nāgārjuna— an evidence that indicates Nāgārjuna was a pseudonym of many Nāgārjunas.
• Āryajñāna of Lankavatara is not Anuttarasamyaksambodhi of Lotus, Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra and the Heart Sutra (Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayasūtra).
• Rejecting jñāna is to reject āryajñāna and Sabbanuta Ñāna.
• Ñāna (jñāna) means enlightenment in both Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda.

5.1.7. Sabbanuta Ñāna (Omniscience)

The Great Discourse on the Wheel of Dhamma Part VIII [Buddha Net]

Sammasambodhi is the arahatta magga nana which is attained only by the Buddhas. The Buddhas gain this arahatta magga nana intuitively by their own efforts without any instruction from others. By this nana, they rightly and perfectly know everything because with it arises simultaneously the sabbannuta nana which knows everything.

PIC AND HISTORY Mahidol University Mara tries to prevent the going forth, telling the Prince that in seven days he will inherit an empire; the Prince does not listen

When Prince Siddhattha had ridden the horse through the city gate into the moonlit night, a voice like music arose from close to the city gate. That voice forbade the Prince from going forth.

• Parinimmita-vassavatti is the highest deva realm in the kama-loka (sense-pleasure world, opposed to mind-pleasure brahma-loka).
• Vasavattī is a name given to the Māra, Maradevaputta.

[Mara's visit to deter the Bodhisatta by feigning goodwill in The Great Chronicle of Buddhas (Ven. Mingun Sayadaw):] (...the Mara was in fact just a powerful Deva inhabitant of the Paranimitta Vasavatti Deva world, leading an insurgency there with a large retinue of evil Devas, causing great nuisance to humans, Deva and Brahmas in their performance of meritorious deeds.)

Vibhajjavāda and Sarvāstivāda—Part 12

5.1.8. Śūnyavāda

Śūnyavāda and Māyāvāda are two parts of Sarvāstivādi creationism and eternalism. Maya is the form (flesh and blood) and mind (Emptiness/Śūnya) is the External/Outside Agent in the form.

[Heart (Red; page 6-7)]: Avalokiteshvara lists the major conceptual categories of the Sarvastivadin Abhidharma and considers each in the light of Prajnaparamita [...] Avalokiteshvara reviews the major signposts near the end of the path without introducing additional conceptual categories that might obstruct or deter those who would travel it.

The Sarvāstivādi Lankavatara Sutra is the backbone of Mahayana, which was brought to China by Bodhidharma. The sutras that contradict Lankavatara is herectical. However, for some reasons, the Mahayanists did not stop producing new sutras, which might or might not agree with Lankavatara.

• So, can we be called 'the enlightenend' when we know our own svabhāva does not exist but buddha-svabhāva does in each of us?

Śūnyavāda

The Lankavatara Sutra demonstrates both Sarvāstivādi Śūnyavāda and Māyāvāda. It presents seven types of Emptiness, including the Emptiness of self-nature [Svabhāva-Śūnya], with very brief explanations that are insufficient to understand these concepts. They are too brief to understand the meaning and intention of "all of the five Skandhas are equally empty" and "form is emptiness, emptiness is form." That has left the Mahayanist scholars in disagreement and argument.

Citta-matrata:

[Lanka Chapter 3:] emptiness of self-nature is meant that all things in their self-nature are un-born; therefore, it is said that things are empty as to self-nature [...] When it is recognized that the world as it presents itself is no more than a manifestation of mind, then birth is seen as no-birth,

• Mind: the only real thing. It is more real than existence.
• Manifestation of mind: maya or the world
• Birth exists, but it is imagination according to Lankavatara.
• all things in their self-nature are un-born: gotra-svabhāva? Tathāgatagarbha?

Seven Kinds of Emptiness

The Mahayanists present "Sixteen Kinds of Emptiness", "Eighteen Kinds of Emptiness within Four Kinds of Emptiness", "Sixteen kinds of emptiness", "Twenty kinds of emptiness", etc.

The Lotus Sutra does not peresent these types of emptiness; however, it presents interesting types of emptiness.

If mind is the only thing, why are the systems so complex? What is the need for many types of emptiness?

[Lanka Chapter 3:] The Blessed One replied: What is emptiness, indeed! It is a term whose very self-nature is false-imagination, but because of one's attachment to false-imagination we are obliged to talk of emptiness, no-birth, and no self-nature.

• The Blessed One is the original Tathagata or the mind.
• False imagination is maya—it is the false imagination of the mind.
  • A false imagination (illusion) cannot have false imagination.
  • It is the false imagination of the mind or the original Tathagata.

Lankavatara presents seven kinds of emptiness:

1. emptiness of mutuality which is non-existent;
2. emptiness of individual marks;
3. emptiness of self-nature;
4. emptiness of no-work;
5. emptiness of work;
6. emptiness of all things in the sense that they are unpredictable, and
7. emptiness in its highest sense of Ultimate Reality.

The Lankavatara Sutra emphasises the Emptiness of self-nature (svabhāva-śūnya). It rejects the emptiness of mutuality but presents mind (buddha-nature) inside the mortals. Nothing is mutual between illusion and reality. Illusion is the false imagination of mind.

• Svabhāva-śūnya: the mortals do not have their own self (self-nature)

The other five kinds of emptiness must also be important. However, bringing all seven types of Emptiness and other concepts of Emptiness into a comprehensive concept is unachievable. Understanding Emptiness with all these concepts is likely impossible. Nevertheless, we are informed that emptiness (svabhāva-śūnya) is the ultimate reality, while on the other side is maya, the false imagination of mind.

• 6. emptiness of all things in the sense that they are unpredictable: Emptiness of all things is unpredictable;
• Unpredictable nature is God. For example:
  • The Wildly Unpredictable Nature of Jesus
  • God is Consistent, Yet Unpredictable. - Graham Cooke
  • THE UNPREDICTABLE GOD WHO NONETHELESS STILL LOVES
  • The Unpredictable God - River of Life Blog
  • Why is God So Unpredictable? - Key Life
• Unpredictability is divine nature.
• Buddha-nature, as it is described, does not have the same attributes of divine-nature. However, emptiness has such qualities. Divine-nature in Mahayana comes in a number of flavours: Buddha-nature, emptiness, Maheśvara, Ālayavijñāna, etc.

Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra presents 18-20 kinds of emptiness

[Prajnaparamita (CONZE page 19):] Considering the paramount importance of the idea of emptiness, a list of 20 kinds of emptiness is particularly welcome. The term "emptiness" as such is said to mean "neither unmoved nor destroyed". "Unmoved" (a-kutastha) means that it overtowers (kiita) all change, is unchangeable in what it is, in its own being, "steadfast as a mountain peak, as a pillar firmly fixed". The opposite would be the change, or destruction, of its own being. Both of these are excluded.

[Prajnaparamita (CONZE page 48):] (22) to be trained in the eighteen kinds of emptiness, i.e. the emptiness of the subject, etc.

• "neither unmoved nor destroyed": Nothing is something. Emptiness is something eternal without change.

Nagarjuna (also) presents three emptinesses in the Maha Prajnaparamita Sastra [Gelongma].

The first is similar to Sunna Sutta. See 5.1.12.

[Nagarjuna:] The eye is empty (śūnya): in it there is no ‘me’ (ātman) or ‘mine’ (ātmīya), and there is no dharma ‘eye’. It is the same for the ear, nose, tongue, body and mind.

• Why does Mahāprajñāpāramitāsūtra present different sets of emptiness?
• They are likely the works of different authors.

[Gelongma:] For the disciples of the Mahāyāna ‘Greater Vehicle’ who are of keen faculties (tīkṣnendriya), the emptiness of dharmas is taught, and immediately they know that saṃsāra is eternally empty (nityaśūnya) and the same as nirvāṇa.

• Lankavatara explains Nirvana is Samsara because the original Tathagata is eternal:

[Lanka Chapter 2:] Even Nirvana and Samsara's world of life and death are aspects of the same thing [emptiness]

• As Nirvana is Samsara, these sutras have no other shore but the shoreline around a lake.
• Lankavatara's the original Tathagata is not one of those who got to the other shore.
• Now we know that too, but what special purpose does that knowledge serve? Gelongma gives no examples.

[Gelongma:] For the disciples of the Hīnayāna ‘Lesser Vehicle’

• Gelongma demonstrates the Sarvāstivādis' fundamental antipathy to Vibhajjavada.

[Gelongma:] If the Buddha were to speak of only one single emptiness, the many wrong views (mithyādṛṣṭi) and passions (kleśa) could not be destroyed [...] People who cling to the nature of emptiness (śūnyatālakṣaṇābhiniviṣṭa) fall into [the extreme] of nihilism (ucchedānta); to speak of the eighteen emptinesses is to hit the target (lakṣya) right on. To speak of ten or fifteen emptinesses would likewise provoke doubts (saṃśaya), but this is not at issue.

• Gelongma gives no examples for his views.
• How many types of emptiness did Avalokiteśvara discover?
• Just one; it's Svabhāva-Śūnya (dharmaśūnyatā).

5.1.9. Avalokiteśvara discovered Svabhāva-Śūnya (Maya)

[Lanka Chapter 2:] the truths of the emptiness, un-bornness, no self-natureness, and the non-duality of all things.

• Emptiness or mind (vijñana) does not die, so is un-born. Both the original Tathagata and Krishna are un-born. The indestructible buddha-nature (in the body of mortals) is vijñana not different from soul.
• Non-duality means mind (buddha-nature) is real, maya is not—Citta-matrata (Vijñaptimātra).
• Mahayana accepts the five aggregates but rejects their svabhāva: anicca, dukkha, anatta. Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosha does not reject dukkha.
• Vibhajjavadi Buddha did not deal with the concept of dual-nondual or un-bornness. Nonetheless, Nama-rupa are paramatthas and can be seen as dual. The five aggregates are anatta (anattavāda).

[Lanka Chapter 3:] the fundamental fact that the external world is nothing but a manifestation of mind... emptiness, no-birth, and no self-nature.

• No self-nature: Svabhāva-Śūnya is Maya (false imagination). Maya is the manifesation of mind.
• Mind is buddha-nature; Our buddha-nature is awareness (Bodhidharma).

[The Buddha nature (Six Senses):] Buddha nature means that the true nature of our mind is pure, right from the beginning, and has been so since the beginning of time. Although it is in itself perfectly unblemished, it becomes obscured, which prevents us from seeing it in its true form.

• Mind inside maya (the mortals) is aware and can imagine, pray and worship with hope for emancipation.
• It is a close system with the original Tathagata as the Godhead (godhood/buddha-nature). The original Tathagata is the Holy Ghost (emptiness/mind).

overcame all Ill-being

[Heart (Thich):] Avalokiteshvara while practicing deeply with the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore, suddenly discovered that all of the five Skandhas are equally empty, and with this realisation he overcame all Ill-being.

• Avalokiteśvara discovered Svabhāva-Śūnya (Maya).
• if all the five Skandhas are equally empty of own svabhāva (own self-nature), Saṃjñā is empty. Saṃskāra is empty. And vijñāna is empty of svabhāva, too.
• If vijñāna (mind) is empty of svabhāva, buddha-svabhāva (gotra-svabhāva) is empty of svabhāva. Then, Gotra-Svabhāva is empty of gotra-svabhāva, is fale imagination, maya.
• Gotra-svabhāva is ālayavijñāna and tathāgatagarbha.

This `gotra-svabhava` means that the gotra (seed nature) of the `Tathagata` exists in all sentient beings. [THE SIGNIFICANCE OF `TATHAGATAGARBHA`：A POSITIVE EXPRESSION OF `SUNYATA` (HENG-CHING SHIH)]

• According to citta-matra theory, that citta is the original Buddha/Tathagata, whose seeds are inside all the mortals—The original Tathagata's seeds are trying to grow up inside all of the bodhisattvas.
• As vijñāna is immortal Self (svabhāva), we should only say not all the five Skandhas but four are empty.
• If vijñāna is not ālayavijñāna or tathāgatagarbha, then we must add them among the five skandhas. Then, there are seven Skandhas, including rupa, vedanā, saṃjñā, saṃskāra, vijñāna, ālayavijñāna and tathāgatagarbha.
• Attavāda: The five Skandhas are equally empty of own svabhāva but occupied by Buddha-nature (mind)
• Anattavāda: mind (citta) is impermanance (anicca); impermanence is suffering (dukkha).
• Empty of svabhāva/self-nature sounds like anattavada. However, the indestructiblity of vijñāna (buddha-self-nature) is sassatavada and attavada.

Heart Sutra: Empty of Own svabhāva

[Heart (Red; pages 87)]: the Five Skandhas are empty of self-existence. [p77] Something that is empty of self-existence is inseparable from everything else, including emptiness. [p91] But if, as Avalokiteshvara tells us, all dharmas are empty of self-existence, impermanence 'no longer applies, as they neither come into being, nor do they cease to be. [p92] In the light of Prajnaparamita, all such states are seen to be empty of self-existence. [p94] And because such a self cannot be found, dharmas are said to be "empty of self-existence." [p120] But since the Five Skandhas are empty of self-existence, suffering must also be empty of self-existence. But if suffering is empty of self-existence, then there is no self that suffers. Thus, in emptiness there is no suffering, no source of suffering, no relief from suffering, and no path leading to relief from suffering. This is the basis of Avalokiteshvara's interpretation of the Four Truths. ['empty of self-existence' appears 13 times]

• That is Sarvastivādi Māyāvāda and Śūnyavāda.
• Is svabhāva translated as self-existence and self-nature because of self (atta)?

[Heart (Red; page 69):] Emptiness does not mean nothingness. It simply means the absence of the erroneous distinctions that divide one entity from another, one being from another being, one thought from another thought. Emptiness is not nothing, it's everything, everything at once. This is what Avalokiteshvara sees...

• the absence of the erroneous distinctions: That means the truth is all beings are connected, and there is no distinction between the original Tathagata, buddhas, bodhisattvas, ordinary beings... Some Mahayanists believe everyone is enlightened.

[Heart (Thich):] Thich Nhat Hanh considered emptiness is "totality" and "wholeness." If they are applied to Heart-Sutra, "all of the five Skandhas are equally empty" becomes "all of the five Skandhas are totality and wholeness."

• Thich Nhat Hanh's statement disagrees with sunyavada and Māyāvāda. Red Pine's "does not mean nothingness" sounds like Thich Nhat Hanh's view. If emptiness is totality and wholeness, emptiness does not mean emptiness.

[Heart (Red; page 75)]: But in the light of Prajnaparamita, form is not simply empty, it is so completely empty, it is emptiness itself, which turns out to be the same as form itself.

• Red Pine is a great Mahayanist scholar. Yet he, too, is confused about emptiness, mind, self, etc. Mahayanist scholars, including Thich Nhat Hanh, interpreted the Heart Sutra differently and are confused about emptiness profoundly.

[Heart (Red; page 33)]: Others say true appearances transcend such dialectics—that they are the absolute, subjective mind—the mind's self-nature.

• Self-nature is what is not empty but "totality" and "wholeness."
• With this self-nature, maya suffers:

EMPTINESS (SUCHNESS), NON-DUALITY AND NON-EXISTENCE

[Heart (Red; page 120, quoted in Heart (Dharmanet)):] Since the Five Skandhas are empty of self-existence, suffering must also be empty of self-existence. But if suffering is empty of self-existence, then there is no self that suffers. Thus, in emptiness there is no suffering, no source of suffering, no relief from suffering, and no path leading to relief from suffering. This is the basis of Avalokiteshvara’s interpretation of the Four Truths.

• then there is no self that suffers: there is buddha-self-nature that is aware of sufferings.
• if suffering is empty of self-existence, then there is no self that suffers: We can only guess if suffering has awareness (buddha-nature) of suffering or not.
• So, self-existence means self's existence, and self-nature means self's nature. That is all about self after all.

the Zen master immediately used his thumb and index finger to pinch and twist the novice’s nose. In great agony, the novice cried out “Teacher! You’re hurting me!” The Zen master looked at the novice. “Just now you said that the nose doesn’t exist. But if the nose doesn’t exist then what’s hurting?” [New Heart Sutra translation by Thich Nhat Hanh]

• If the mortals cannot suffer because they do not have their own selves (self-nature), why do we feel pain?
• If self is the thing that suffers, does the indestructible buddha-nature suffer?
• But we all know we feel the pain.
• Then, do the sutras indirectly mean the mortals have selves?

Vasubandhu

[Vasubandhu:] the five sense organs (eye, ear, nose, tongue, skin) can each be inferred from the awareness of their respective sensory objects. But, he [Vasubandhu] says, there is no such inference for the self [2.1 Disproof of the Self (Jonathan C. Gold)].

• Vasubandhu accepted the physical nature as reality and rejected self at first, but changed his mind later and became a founder of 'mind only' school, which resembles Māyāvāda. The Lankavatara Sutra presents Māyāvāda and ten stages towards Maheśvara and the Lotus Sutra presents the ekayāna (buddhahood is the only liberation).

“If the images of physical forms, and so on, were just consciousness, not physical things, then the Buddha would not have spoken of the existence of the sense bases of physical form, and so on.” [3. Approaches to Scriptural Interpretation (Jonathan C. Gold)]

• After converting to Mahayana, Vasubandhu rejected the physicality and advocated for 'mind only'as a founder of a Mahayanist school. The sutras transformed Mahayana into Māyāvāda.

Nāgārjuna: Rūpa Has Selves

The specific nature belonging to each dharma is, for example, the solidity (khakkhaṭatva) of earth (pṛthivi), the wetness (dravatva) of water (ap-), the warmth of fire (uṣṇatva) of fire (tejas), the mobility (īraṇatva) of wind (vāyu): such natures differentiate dharmas, each of which has its own nature”. [Tathata (Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra chapter XLIX)]

• The Tathata concepts suggests mental and physical aggeregates have selves, contradicting the Heart Sutra and the discovery of Avalokiteśvara.
• Tathata is not a common word in the Theravada literature.

[Theravada:] Tathata (“suchness”) designates the firmly fixed nature (bhāva) of all things whatever.—The only passage in the Canon where the word occurs in this sense, is found in Kath. 186 (s. Guide, p. 83).

5.1.11. Sarvāstivādi Eternalism

Tathatā also represents Sarvāstivādi eternalism that rejects anicca (impermanence):

Tathatā represents the sameness of dharmas throughout the three times.

• Tathatā in that sense is the original Tathagata.

Hence at the time when the mental consciousness delivers it judgment, the perceptual cognition no longer exists since all things are momentary. [The Theory of Two Truths in India: 3.2 Ultimate truth (Sonam Thakchoe)]

• That is about form, not self-nature (svabhāva) and the eternal Tathagata.
• The Theravada monks observed the mind and body and developed direct knowledge, so they spoke about their discoveries. However, the Sarvāstivādi philosophers and scholars relied on speculative theories, and ended up with eternalism, which they originally belonged to.

Samkhara

[Samkara, a critic of non-authodox Buddhism,] divides Buddhism into three types: the “realists” (sarvāstitvādins), the “idealists” (vijñānavādins), and the “nihilists” (śūnyavādins) [...] in this simple threefold manner, and many would take great exception to the characterization of śūnyavāda, the “theory of the void” associated primarily with the Mādhyamika school of Nāgārjuna, as mere “nihilism.” [The Essential Vedanta Eliot Deutsch And Rohit Dalvi (PDF file) (Eliot Deutsch and Rohit Dalvi; page 126)]

• Mahayanist sects share the same sutras. Probably, their interpretations of these sutras made them different. They are unintentionally analysed when these sutras are analysed. Mahayanists are a mix of personalists and impersonalists. Probalby, Red Pine and Thich Nhat Hanh are good examples.
• Some accused Samkhara of borrowing the Sarvāstivādi concepts of Māyāvāda without considering they came from Brahmanism and Jainism. According to Suhotra Swami, Māyāvāda (Impersonalism) was very ancient (so it did not originate in Sarvāstivāda:

[Suhotra Swami] originally Vedanta meant Vaisnava-vedanta. The Vedanta-sutras were compiled by Vyasadeva, a Vaisnava. The Srimad Bhagavatam is the natural commentary on the Vedanta-sutra, written by Vyasadeva himself 5000 years ago. [VII. A historical comparison of Vaisnava-vedanta, Mayavadi-vedanta and Buddhism.]

Personalism

• Some believed Adi Samkara (Śaṅkarācārya) was rather a seudo-Buddhist.
• Yet his work is precisely sarvāstivādi, only the names are different:

[Bhajan & Kirtan Library:] Sankaracarya is supposed to be an impersonalist who preached impersonalism, impersonal Brahman, but it is a fact that he is a covered personalist. In his commentary on the Bhagavad-gita he wrote, "Narayana, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is beyond this cosmic manifestation." And then again he confirmed, "That Supreme Personality of Godhead, Narayana, is Krsna. He has come as the son of Devaki and Vasudeva." He particularly mentioned the names of His father and mother. So Krsna is accepted as the Supreme Personality of Godhead by all transcendentalists. There is no doubt about it."[Sri Isopanisad, Introduction]

Svabhāva in Mahayana & Indian Religions

[Breakthrough Sermon (Bodhidharma):] Our buddha-nature [buddha-svabhāva/buddha self-nature] is awareness: to be aware and to make others aware. To realize awareness is liberation [...] The Sutra of the Ten Stages [Lankavatara] says, “In the body of mortals is the indestructible buddha-nature.

[Svabhāva (Wisdom Library)] Shaivism: [verse 9.5-11, while explaining the universality of Amṛteśa]—“Amṛteśa is supreme. He is free of disease. His nature is inherent (svabhāva), fully enumerated, constant, eternal, and immovable. [He has] no form or color, and is the highest truth. Because of that, he is omnipresent. The splendid Deva delights in all āgamas, pervades all mantras, and grants all siddhis. In this way, he is like a transparent crystal sewn onto a colored thread, always reflected with its color, [and] seeking [to] look like this and that. [...]”.

The Great Void (Emptiness) of Shaktism
[Shakta and Shakti (Usha Chatterji):] Her own dark form is the Void (Shunya). As Digambari she is naked, but Her nakedness is space itself. "The series of universes appear and disappear with the opening and shutting of Her eyes". The Mother's play or this cosmic manifestation is a continual process of creation, maintenance and dissolution, usually symbolised by the Hindu Trinity, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. [Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Autumn, 1968)]

• A concept of svabhāva is shared among Breakthrough Sermon, Shaivism and Shaktism.
• Lankavatara's original Tathagata corresponds with Siva (Shaivism).
• Lotus and Shaktim share the emptiness/void concept.
• Her nakedness is space itself: A Sarvastivādi asankhata (asaṁskrṭa) is space (Ākāśa).

[Lotus Chapter 5:] ultimate Nirvana which is constantly still and extinct and which in the end returns to emptiness.

• Emptiness in that sense must be Ākāśa.

5.1.12. Atta-Suññatā

“voidness in formations” (saṅkhāra-suññatā) [...] and “voidness of self” (atta-suññatā) [...] variously classified in the Suññakathā of the Paṭisambhidāmagga. The “void mind-deliverance” (suññata-cetovimutti) is that connected with atta-suññatā (MN 43).
[The Three Basic Facts of Existence: III — Egolessness (Anattā) Collected Essays, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka, The Wheel Publication No. 202–204]

• atta-suññatā , f., emptiness as to soul;
• Atta is not svabhāva. The latter is shared among Indian religions that reject the anattavāda (Buddha-Sasanā).
• Mahayana replaced atta with svabhāva because Mahayana refused to follow anattavāda.

The knowledge of an arahant:

• all of the five Skandhas are equally empty of atta (me, mine, I).

[Dhammakiti (담마끼띠):] Unlike the theory of self-begetting mutation by Brahmanism which argues that many appear from one, the understanding of Buddhism may be the revelation of truth from many to one based on the theory of dependent origination [...] The word ‘emptiness’ is mentioned in many discourses of early Buddhism [Culasunnata-sutta, Mahasunnata-sutta, Majjhima Nikaya] [초기불교에 나타난 대승공관의 기초 -맛지마 니까야의 『소공경』 과 『대공경』을 중심으로-]

The knowledge of Avalokiteśvara:

• all of the five Skandhas are equally empty of svabhāva (self-nature).
• If Avalokiteśvara realised anicca, dukkha and anatta, he would become a noble person.

Ariya-Puggala: the Four 'Noble Ones'

• the Stream-winner (Sotāpanna),
• the Once-Returner (Sakadāgāmi),
• the Non-Returner (Anāgāmī),
• the Holy One (Arahat).

Anatta Dhamma: Non-being of I-being/soul

• Anatta (not-atta) - (the five aggregates are) not me, not mine; see Part 4: 2.6.4. Maha-Rahulovada Sutta
• Me or mine occurs due to misperception.
• Empty of atta (the I-satta, I-being or soul)
• Satta: being, lifeform;

Sunna Sutta: Sunna is the knowledge of the Buddha and the arahants:

Insofar as it is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self: Thus it is said, Ānanda, that the world is empty.

• The Venerable Ānanda was then a sotapanna. He became an arahant on the eve of the first sangayana.

Anatta-lakkhana Sutta (The knowledge of the Buddha and arahants):

"Bhikkhus, [rūpa] is not-self.

• Rūpa: mahābhūta;
• Nāma: citta (viññāṇa) and cetasika (vedanā, saññā, saṅkhāra)

Atta-Suñña (Atta-Suññatā)

the Buddha, the Analyzer (Vibhajjavaadi), analyzed the so-called being, the sankhaara pu~nja, the heap of processes, into five ever-changing aggregates, and made it clear that there is nothing abiding, nothing eternally conserved, in this conflux of aggregates (khandhaa santati). [The Fact of Impermanence (Piyadassi Thera)]

• The Vibhajjavādi Buddha rejected everything that looks like indestructible buddha-svabhāva, Ālayavijñāna, etc.
• This book discusses "Atta-Suñña" in detail: The Path of Purification By Buddhaghosa (Page 529)