Nanavira Thera Dhamma Page

]3 July 1963
... And, in spite of all our religious demagogues have to say about it, Mahayana is not the Buddha's Teaching. People say that it is most desirable at the present time that Buddhists the world over should be united. Perhaps it is desirable, perhaps not; but in whatever way they do propose to unite, it must be done not on the pretext that Mahayana correcdy interprets the basic Teaching. (Alas! Much diat passes in Theravadin countries for the correct interpretation comes from Mahayana. The Milindapanha, I think, is largely responsible.)

]6 July 1963
... But these monks were (I presume) Mahayana monks, and their ordination is not, strictly speaking, recognized by us as valid. For us, they are upasakas and not bound by our Vinaya rules.

...

Mahayana is based (I'am speaking only of the philosophical aspect) on two wrong views, (i) That all our normal experience is merely appearance, behind which there lurks Reality (which it is the business of the yogin to seek out), and (ii) that what the Buddha taught was that this Reality behind appearance is the non-existence of things. We can sum this up by saying that Mahayanists (generally speaking—and also many Theravadins) hold that the Buddha taught that things do not really exist, but only appear to, that this apparent existence is due to avijja or ignorance. (first view) is common to all mystics at all times and in all places.

(На заявление о том, что Тхеравада, Дзэн и Ваджраяна по сути едины.)
        But that is just the point—I don't see. It is notoriously difficult to talk to Hindus about the Buddhadhamma. Hindus assert that the Buddha was a Hindu (by birth, that is to say, which is the only way to be a Hindu), and infer from this that whatever he taught must of necessity be a part of Hinduism. The consequence of this conveniently simplified view is that no Hindu will admit that you are telling him anything that he does not already know And if this is the situation between Hindus and Buddhists, it is a hundred times worse between Mahayana Buddhists and Theravadins. Mahayanists accept the Pali Suttas (at their own valuation) and then claim to go beyond them (rather as Hegelians claimed to have gone beyond Christianity, by mediation in a higher synthesis). The Mahayanists interpret the Pali Suttas (with which they are usually not very well acquainted) to conform with their own ideas; and the trouble is that there is much in the current orthodox Theravadin interpretation of the Pali Suttas to support the Mahayanist contention, (An English bhikkhu with Theravada upasarnpada uses these interpretations to ridicule the Theravadin claims to be different from Mahayana; and so long as these interpretations are allowed to be orthodox it is not easy to challenge his argument.)
        I think I told you some time ago (in connexion with Huxley and chemical mysticism) that the Mahayanist view can be summed up in two propositions, the first common to all mystics, and the second supposed to represent the Buddha's solution to the problem raised by the first.
        (i) Behind the ordinary appearance of things there lies Reality, which it is the task of the Yogi to seek. Existentialist philosophers do not go as far as this: if they admit such a Reality—Jaspers, for example—they quality it by saying that it is necessarily out of reach. See Preface (m).
        (ii) Reality is the non-existence of things. In other words, things do not really exist, they only appear to do so on account of our ignorance (avijja). (George Borrow1 tells of a Spanish gypsy in the last century whose grandfather held this view, so it hardly needs a Buddha to declare it. It seems to be closely allied to the Hindu notion of maya— that all is illusion.)
        Now the Pali texts say that the Buddha taught anicca/dukkha/ anatta, and the average Theravadin, monk or layman, seems to take for granted that aniccatd, or impermanence, means that things are perpetually changing, that they do not remain the same for two consecutive moments. Failing to make the necessary distinctions (see Paticcasamuppada [c]), they understand this as implying perpetual flux of everything all the time. This, of course, destroys the principle of self-identity, 'A is A'; for unless something endures unchanged for at least a certain interval of time you cannot even make the assertion 'this is A since the word 'is' has lost its meaning. Bypassing dukkha as something we all know about, they arrive at anatta as meaning 'without self-identity'. (This is Mr. Wettimuny's theme,2 following Dahlke. I do not think he is aware that he is putting himself among the Mahayanists.) Granted the premise that anicca means 'in continuous flux', this conclusion is impeccable. Unfortunately, in doing away with the principle of self-identity, you do away with things—including change, which is also a thing. This means that for the puthujjana, who does not see aniccata, things exist, and for the arahat, who has seen aniccata, things do not exist. Thus the Mahayanist contention is proved.
        The difficulty arises when we deal with the sekha, who is in between the two; are we to say for him that 'things partly exist and partly do not exist', or that for him 'some things exist and some do not' (in which case we seem to have Eddington and the quantum theory)? The former, no doubt, would be preferable, but what is one to make of a partly non-existent thing? And in any case we have the curious state of affairs that there is change (or impermanence) only so long as it is not seen; for in the very instant that it is seen it vanishes. (This is certainly true of avijja—see A Note on Paticcasamuppada §24—but the vanishing of avijja, as I understand it, leaves impermanence intact and does not interfere with the three Laws of Thought.) I still don't think the Notes are Mr. Blofeld's cup of tea, but I shall be interested to see whether he is able to absorb them into Mahayana—if one has a mystical outlook, based on the principle that A is not A, there is nothing that cannot be reconciled with anything else.

(The situation is complicated by the fact that the Mahayana Buddhists adopt, without due acknowledgement, the Hindu notion of maya—that all is illusory, that nothing really exists—and in consequence that their ideas of nirvana are closer to the Hindu concept than to the Teaching of the Pali Suttas. The French, through historical accident, are more familiar with Mahayana than with Theravada.)

This letter gives me an opportunity to add something to what I said earlier. In my letter of the 26th I think I remarked that Mahayana Buddhism had taken over the Hindu idea of maya without even proper acknowledgement. But this statement is obviously too simple, and is perhaps unjustified (since I do not know that the Mahayanists did not think up the idea for themselves). It almost sounds as if there were no real difference between the two teachings; whereas, in fact, distinctions must be made At the same time it is true to say that the Mahayana concept of nirvana is separated by an abyss from the nibbana of the Pali Suttas.

For the Hindu, then, the variety of the world is illusion, and for the Mahayanist it is ignorance; and in both cases the aim is to overcome the world, either by union with Brahma or by attainment of knowledge. Unlike the Hindus and the Mahayanists, the Pali Suttas teach that the variety of the world is neither illusion (maya) nor delusion (avidya) but perfectly real. The attainment of nibbdna is certainly cessation of avijja, but this leaves the variety of the world intact, except that affectively the variety is now uniformly indifferent. Avidya, clearly enough, does not mean to the Mahayanist what avijja does in the Pali Suttas. You will have noticed, I expect, that Sister Vajira was holding more or less the Mahayanist view that nothing really exists, and that relief came when she was induced to abandon this idea.

Edward Conze's translation as 'invisible infinite consciousness which shines everywhere' is quite wild (no doubt he has taken it without considering the Pali at all), and one is tempted to ask how consciousness can be 'invisible' if it 'shines everywhere'. But what, precisely, it is that Mahayanists understand by nibbana is very difficult to make out.

1. The traditional interpretation of paticcasamuppáda (of its usual twelve-factored formulation, that is to say) apparently has its roots in the Patisambhidámagga <i,52>, or perhaps in the Abhidhammapitaka. This interpretation is fully expounded in the Visuddhimagga <Ch. XVII>. It can be briefly summarized thus: avijjá and sankhárá are kamma in the previous existence, and their vipáka is viññána, námarúpa, saláyatana, phassa, and vedaná, in the present existence; tanhá, upádána, and bhava, are kamma in the present existence, and their vipáka is játi and jarámarana in the subsequent existence.

2. This Note .... It is not therefore proposed to enter into a detailed discussion of this interpretation, but rather to indicate briefly that dissatisfaction with it is not unjustified, and then to outline what may perhaps be found to be a more satisfactory approach. ....

5. Let us now consider sankhárá ....

Now the traditional interpretation says that sankhárá in the paticcasamuppáda context are kamma, being cetaná. Are we therefore obliged to understand in-&-out-breaths, thinking-&-pondering, and perception and feeling, respectively, as bodily, verbal, and mental kamma (or cetaná)? Is my present existence the result of my breathing in the preceding existence? Is thinking-&-pondering verbal action? Must we regard perception and feeling as intention, when the Suttas distinguish between them Phuttho bhikkhave vedeti, phuttho ceteti, phuttho sañjánáti...  (Contacted, monks, one feels; contacted, one intends; contacted, one perceives;...) [Saláyatana Samy. ix,10 <S.iv,68>])? .....

7. No doubt more such specific inadequacies and inconsistencies in the traditional interpretation of paticcasamuppáda could be found, but since this is not a polemic we are not concerned to seek them out. There remains, however, a reason for dissatisfaction with the general manner of this interpretation. The Buddha has said (Majjhima iii,8 <M.i,191>) that he who sees the Dhamma sees paticcasamuppáda; and he has also said that the Dhamma is sanditthika and akálika, that it is immediately visible and without involving time (see in particular Majjhima iv,8 <M.i,265>). Now it is evident that the twelve items, avijjá to jarámarana, cannot, if the traditional interpretation is correct, all be seen at once; ....

It is there maintained that the word sankhára, in all contexts, means 'something that something else depends on', that is to say a determination (determinant).

In spite of the venerable tradition, starting with the Patisambhidámagga (or perhaps the Abhidhamma Pitaka) and continued in all the Commentaries (see Anguttara V,viii,9 <A.iii,107,§4>), paticcasamuppáda has nothing to do with temporal succession (cause-and-effect). Precedence in paticcasamuppáda is structural, not temporal: paticcasamuppáda is not the description of a process.

Sparśa refers to the contact between the senses and their sense-objects, e.g. between the open eye and the light.

Phassa, 'contact', is defined as the coming together of the eye, forms, and eye-consciousness (and so with the ear and the rest). But it is probably wrong to suppose that we must therefore understand the word phassa, primarily at least, as contact between these three things.

This (то, что дхармы inherently in subjection, they are appropriated, they are mine) is the foundation of the notion that I am and that things are in contact with me. This contact between me and things is phassa.

All normal experience is dual (dvayam -- see NÁMA, final paragraph): there are present (i) one's conscious six-based body (saviññánaka saláyatanika káya), and (ii) other phenomena (namely, whatever is not one's body); and reflexion will show that, though both are objective in the experience, the aroma of subjectivity that attaches to the experience will naturally tend to be attributed to the body. In this way, phassa comes to be seen as contact between the conscious eye and forms -- but mark that this is because contact is primarily between subject and object, and not between eye, forms, and eye-consciousness.

But when (as commonly) phassa is interpreted as 'contact between sense-organ and sense-object, resulting in consciousness' -- and its translation as '(sense-)impression' implies this interpretation -- then we are at once cut off from all possibility of understanding phassanirodha in the arahat; for the question whether or not the eye is the subject is not even raised -- we are concerned only with the eye as a sense-organ, and it is a sense-organ in puthujjana (омрачённый чел) and arahat alike. Understanding of phassa now consists in accounting for consciousness starting from physiological (or neurological) descriptions of the sense-organs and their functioning. Consciousness, however, is not physiologically observable, and the entire project rests upon unjustifiable assumptions from the start. This epistemological interpretation of phassa misconceives the Dhamma as a kind of natural-science-cum-psychology that provides an explanation of things in terms of cause-and-effect.

We can sum this up by saying that Mahayanists (generally speaking—and also many Theravadins) hold that the Buddha taught that things do not really exist, but only appear to, that this apparent existence is due to avijja or ignorance. (first view) is common to all mystics at all times and in all places

(Alas! Much diat passes in Theravadin countries for the correct interpretation comes from Mahayana. The Milindapanha, I think, is largely responsible.)

Спарша - это феноменологически рефлексируемый факт контакта органами с объектом. Интересное начинается тогда, когда оказывается, что без спарши нет ни индрии (как выполняющего свои функции органа), ни объекта. И наоборот. Вот это и есть настоящая ВЗАИМО-обусловленность.

The word dhamma, in its most general sense, is equivalent to 'thing'

Я вобще не понимаю индрий, что за орган?

Ты похоже не дочитал, это же он говорит в самом общем смысле, а потом он его прилагает к экспириенсу, вводит редукцию и получает "то о чем говорят сутры". Он как бы делает там в объяснении еще 2 шага после "most general sense".

Так че орган зрения - голова?

И зачем мне вообще этот орган фантастический нужен?