All notions of subjectivity of 'I' and 'mine', are upādāna

(from Ven Nanavira writings)

On p. 302 you say, 'The Arahat Grasps only towards the end of all Grasping'. With this I do not agree. There is no grasping (upādāna) whatsoever in the arahat. The puthujjana is describable in terms of pañc'upādānakkhandhā, but the arahat (while he still lives) only in terms of pañcakkhandhā. Upādāna has already ceased.

There are four kinds of upādāna—kāma, ditthi, sīlabbata, and attavāda—, and the arahat has none (see Majjhima 11: i,67). The expression in the Suttas for the attainment of arahatship is anupādāya āsavehi cittam vimucci.[1] The term sa-upādisesa-nibbānadhātu, which applies to the living arahat, you take (p. 299) as 'Nibbāna with the Grasping Groups remaining'. But this, in fact, has nothing to do with upādāna. Upādisesameans simply 'stuff remaining' or 'residue'. In Majjhima 10: i,62 the presence of upādisesa is what distinguishes the anāgāmī from the arahat, and this is clearly not the same precise thing as what distinguishes the living arahat (sa-upādisesa-nibbānadhātu) from the dead arahat (an-upādisesa-nibbānadhātu). Upādisesa is therefore unspecified residue, which with the living arahat is pañcakkhandhā. The arahat says pañcakkhandhā pariññātā titthanti chinnamūlakā (Theragātha 120),[2] and the mūla (or root) that is chinna (or cut) is upādāna. This means that there can still be rūpa, vedanā, saññā, sankhārā, and viññāna without upādāna.

This statement alone, if it is correct, is enough to invalidate the account on p. 149 (and elsewhere) of life as a process of grasping—i.e., a flux, a continuous becoming. For this reason I expect that you will be inclined to reject it as mistaken. Nevertheless, I must point out that the two doctrines upon which your account of grasping seems principally to rely—namely, the simile of the flame (p. 146) and the celebrated expression 'na ca so na ca añño' (p. 149), both of which you attribute to the Buddha—are neither of them to be found in the Suttas. They occur for the first time in the Milindapañha, and there is no evidence at all that they were ever taught by the Buddha.

You will see, of course, that if we reject your account of grasping as a process, we must return to the notion of entities, and with this to the notion of a thing's self-identity (i.e., for so long as an entity endures it continues to be 'the self-same thing').

And would this not be a return to attavāda? The answer is, No. With the question of a thing's self-identity (which presents no difficulty if carefully handled) the Buddha's Teaching of anattā has nothing whatsoever to do. Anattā is purely concerned with 'self' as subject ('I'). And this is a matter of considerably greater difficulty than is generally supposed.

In brief, then, your book is dealing with a false problem; and the solution proposed, however ingenious, is actually beside the point—it is not an answer (either right or wrong) to the problem of dukkha, which is strictly a subjective problem.

Perhaps this response to your request for criticism may seem unexpectedly blunt; but where the Dhamma is concerned 'polite' replies designed only to avoid causing possible displeasure by avoiding the issue serve no useful purpose at all and make confusion worse confounded. Since I think you are a person who understands this, I have made no attempt to conceal my thought.

Editorial notes:

[36.1] anupādāya...: 'freed in mind by not holding to the cankers'

[36.2] pañcakkhandhā...: 'The five aggregates, being completely known, stand with the root cut off.'

*

Thank you for your letter. I am glad to find that you have not misunderstood mine, and that you apparently see that the principal point of disagreement between us is a matter of some consequence.

You say: 'But if the idea of Grasping is not applicable to the living Arahat when, for example, he is taking food,—then I am confronted with a genuine difficulty. In other words, if one cannot say that when the Arahat is taking food, he is (not) taking hold in some fashion or other, then I am faced with the difficulty of finding or comprehending what basically is the difference between life-action and other action, as of physical inanimate things'.

The first remark that must be made is that anyone who is a puthujjana ought to find himself confronted with a difficulty when he considers the Buddha's Teaching. The reason for this is quite simply that when a puthujjana does come to understand the Buddha's Teaching he thereby ceases to be a puthujjana. The second remark (which, however, will only displace your difficulty from one point to another, and not remove it) is that all conscious action is intentional (i.e., purposive, teleological). This is as true for the arahat as it is for the puthujjana. The puthujjana has sankhār'upādānakkhandha and the arahat has sankhārakkhandha. Sankhāra, in the context of the pañcakkhandhā, has been defined by the Buddha (in Khandha Samy. 56: iii,60) as cetanā or intention.

Intentionality as a necessary characteristic of all consciousness is well recognized by the phenomenological (or existential) school of philosophy (have a look at the article 'Phenomenology' in the Encyclopaedia Britannica), and though the subject is not particularly easy it presents no inherent difficulties. But in order to understand the nature of intention it is absolutely necessary to return to the notion of 'entities', and to consider the structure of their temporary persistence, which is 'Invariance under Transformation'. This principle occurs in quantum mechanics and in relativity theory, and in the Suttas it makes its appearance as uppādo paññāyati; vayo paññāyati; thitassa aññathattam paññāyati, three characteristics that apply to all the pañcakkhandhā (see Khandha Samy. 37: iii,38). Intentionality is the essential difference between life-action and action of inanimate things.

But now this difficulty arises. What, precisely, is upādāna (grasping, or as I prefer, holding) if it is not synonymous with cetanā (intention)? This, and not any other, is the fundamental question raised by the Buddha's Teaching; and it is extremely difficult to see the answer (though it can be stated without difficulty). The answer is, essentially, that all notions of subjectivity, of the existence of a subject (to whom objects are present), all notions of 'I' and 'mine', are upādāna. Can there, then, be intentional conscious action—such as eating food—without the notion 'It is I who am acting, who am eating this food'? The answer is, Yes. The arahat intentionally eats food, but the eating is quite unaccompanied by any thought of a subject who is eating the food. For all non-arahats such thoughts (in varying degrees, of course) do arise. The arahat remains an individual (i.e. distinct from other individuals) but is no longer a person (i.e. a somebody, a self, a subject). This is not—as you might perhaps be tempted to think—a distinction without a difference. It is a genuine distinction, a very difficult distinction, but a distinction that must be made.

*

But the fact is that no one, not even the Buddha, can describe an arahat in such a way as to be intelligible to a puthujjana; and the reason is, as you point out, that the whole of the puthujjana's experience is saupādāna, including his experience of the anupādāna arahat (whether he sees him, thinks about him, visualizes or imagines him, or hears him described). Your account of the difficulties that you encounter when you consider the arahat and his robe, as far as it goes, is quite correct. (I say 'as far as it goes' since to you the arahat's robe is to be worn 'by him', whereas to him it is to-be-worn, not 'by me' but 'on this body'.) (...)

You say that, as far as you see it, the arahat's experience functions automatically. By this I presume that you mean it functions without any self or agent or master to direct it. But I do not say otherwise. All that I would add is that this automatically functioning experience has a complex teleological structure.

The puthujjana's experience, however, is still more complex, since there is also avijjā, and there is thus appropriation as well as teleology. But this, too, functions automatically, without any self or agent to direct it. On account of the appropriation, however, it appears to be directed by a self, agent, or master. Avijjā functions automatically, but conceals this fact from itself. Avijjā is an automatically functioning blindness to its automatic functioning. Removal of the blindness removes the appropriation but not the teleology. from letter to Sister Vajjira

from her answer:

I can see the matter clearly now, though not, of course, all its implications. In that way, the subject is removed from experience, and the pañcakkhandhā can function apart from upādāna. Thus the question is settled. I have lost a dimension of thought, at least to the degree to grasp this matter, i.e. my own upādāna...

***

Upādāna, therefore, depends upon the pañc'upādānakkhandhā (as we may also see from the usual paticcasamuppāda formulation). And the fundamental upādāna is attavāda, belief in 'self'. (See A NOTE ON PATICCASAMUPPĀDA §§10, 12, & 13. Compare also Khandha Samy. ix,1 <S.iii,105>: Rūpam upādāya Asmī ti hoti no anupādāya; vedanam...; saññam...; sankhāre...; viññānam upādāya Asmī ti hoti no anupādāya. ('Holding matter there is '(I) am', not not holding; holding feeling...; holding perception...; holding determinations...; holding consciousness there is '(I) am', not not holding.')) (...) The puthujjana takes his apparent 'self' at face value and identifies it with the creature: the creature, for him, is 'self'—Satto ti pacceti. He does not see, however, that this identification is dependent upon his holding a belief in 'self', attavād'upādāna, and that this, too, is anicca sankhata paticcasamuppanna; for were he to see it, upādāna would vanish, and the deception would become clear—Evam eva kho Māgandiya ahañ c'eva te dhammam deseyyam, Idan tam ārogyam idan tam nibbānan ti, so tvam ārogyam jāneyyāsi nibbānam passeyyāsi, tassa te saha cakkhuppādā yo pañcas'upādānakkhandhesu chandarāgo so pahīyetha; api ca te evam assa, Dīgharattam vata bho aham iminā cittena nikato vañcito paladdho; aham hi rūpam yeva upādiyamāno upādiyim, vedanam yeva..., saññam yeva..., sankhāre yeva..., viññānam yeva upādiyamāno upādiyim. ('Just so, Māgandiya, if I were to set you forth the Teaching, 'This is that good health, this is that extinction', you might know good health, you might see extinction; with the arising of the eye, that in the five holding aggregates which is desire-&-lust would be eliminated for you; moreover it would occur to you, 'For a long time, indeed, have I been cheated and deceived and defrauded by this mind (or heart—citta): I was holding just matter, holding just feeling, holding just perception, holding just determinations, holding just consciousness'.') (Majjhima viii,5 <M.i,511>). With the vanishing of belief in 'self' the identification would cease. The ariyasāvaka, on the other hand, sees the creature as pañc'upādānakkhandhā; he sees that upādāna is dependent upon these pañc'upādānakkhandhā; and he sees that the puthujjana is a victim of upādāna and is making a mistaken identification. He sees that since the creature is pañc'upādānakkhandhā it cannot in any way be identified as 'self'; for if it could, 'self' would be impermanent, determined, dependently arisen; and the ariyasāvaka knows direct from his own experience, as the puthujjana does not, that perception of selfhood, of an inherent mastery over things, and perception of impermanence are incompatible. Thus nayidha sattūpalabbhati, 'there is, here, no "creature" to be found', means simply 'there is, in this pile of pure determinations, no creature to be found such as conceived by the puthujjana, as a "self"'. The Alagaddūpamasutta (Majjhima iii,2 <M.i,138>) has Attani ca bhikkhave attaniye ca saccato thetato anupalabbhamāne... ('Since both self, monks, and what belongs to self actually and in truth are not to be found...'), and the meaning is no different. The words saccato thetato, 'in truth, actually', mean 'in the (right) view of the ariyasāvaka, who sees paticcasamuppāda and its cessation'.[*]

[*] The question discussed here, whether saccato thetato a 'self' is to be found, must be kept clearly distinct from another question, discussed in A NOTE ON PATICCASAMUPPĀDA §22, viz whether saccato thetato the Tathāgata (or an arahat) is to be found (ditth'eva dhamme saccato thetato Tathāgate anupalabbhamāne... ('since here and now the Tathāgata actually and in truth is not to be found...') Avyākata Samy. 2 <S.iv,384>). The reason why the Tathāgata is not to be found (even here and now) is that he is rūpa-, vedanā-, saññā-, sankhāra-, and viññāna-sankhāya vimutto (ibid. 1 <S.iv,378-9>), i.e. free from reckoning as matter, feeling, perception, determinations, or consciousness. This is precisely not the case with the puthujjana, who, in this sense, actually and in truth is to be found.

*

Upādānapaccayā bhavo; bhavapaccayā jāti; jātipaccayā jarāmaranam... ('With holding as condition, being; with being as condition, birth; with birth as condition, ageing-&-death...') The fundamental upādāna or 'holding' is attavāda (see Majjhima ii,1 <M.i,67>), which is holding a belief in 'self'. The puthujjana takes what appears to be his 'self' at its face value; and so long as this goes on he continues to be a 'self', at least in his own eyes (and in those of others like him). This is bhava or 'being'. The puthujjana knows that people are born and die; and since he thinks 'my self exists' so he also thinks 'my self was born' and 'my self will die'. The puthujjana sees a 'self' to whom the words birth and death apply.[d] In contrast to the puthujjana, the arahathas altogether got rid of asmimāna (not to speak of attavāda—see MAMA), and does not even think 'I am'. This is bhavanirodha, cessation of being. And since he does not think 'I am' he also does not think 'I was born' or 'I shall die'. In other words, he sees no 'self' or even 'I' for the words birth and death to apply to. This is jātinirodhaand jarāmarananirodha.(... ) The puthujjana, taking his apparent 'self' at face value, does not see that he is a victim of upādāna; he does not see that 'being a self' depends upon 'holding a belief in self' (upādānapaccayā bhavo); and he does not see that birth and death depend upon his 'being a self' (bhavapaccayā jāti, and so on). The ariyasāvaka, on the other hand, does see these things, and he sees also their cessation (even though he may not yet have fully realized it); and his seeing of these things is direct.