I am delighted to hear that you are shocked to learn from the Buddha that a sekha bhikkhu can be fond of work, talk, or sleep. (I make no apology for speaking bluntly since (i) if I do not do it nobody else will, and (ii) as I have already told you, time may be short.)
Quite in general, I find that the Buddhists of Ceylon are remarkably complacent at being the preservers and inheritors of the Buddha's Teaching, and remarkably ignorant of what the Buddha actually taught. Except by a few learned theras (who are dying out), the contents of the Suttas are practically unknown. This fact, combined with the great traditional reverence for the Dhamma as the National Heritage, has turned the Buddha's Teaching into an immensely valuable antique Object of Veneration, with a large placard in front, 'DO NOT TOUCH'. In other words, the Dhamma in Ceylon is now totally divorced from reality (if you want statistical evidence, tell me how many English-educated graduates of the University of Ceylon have thought it worthwhile to become bhikkhus[3]). It is simply taken for granted (by bhikkhus and laymen alike) that there are not, and cannot possibly be, any sekha bhikkhus (or laymen) actually walking about in Ceylon today. People can no longer imagine what kind of a creature a sotapānna might conceivably be, and in consequence superstitiously credit him with every kind of perfection—but deny him the possibility of existence.
I venture to think that if you actually read through the whole of the Vinaya and the Suttas you would be aghast at some of the things a real live sotāpanna is capable of. As a bhikkhu he is capable of suicide (but so also is an arahat—I have already quoted examples); he is capable of breaking all the lesser Vinaya rules (M. 48: i,323-5; A. III,85: i,231-2); he is capable of disrobing on account of sensual desires (e.g. the Ven. Citta Hatthisāriputta—A. VI,60: iii,392-9); he is capable (to some degree) of anger, ill-will, jealousy, stinginess, deceit, craftiness, shamelessness, and brazenness (A. II,16: i,96). As a layman he is capable (contrary to popular belief) of breaking any or all of the five precepts (though as soon as he has done so he recognizes his fault and repairs the breach, unlike the puthujjana who is content to leave the precepts broken).
There are some things in the Suttas that have so much shocked the Commentator that he has been obliged to provide patently false explanations (I am thinking in particular of the arahat's suicide in M. 144: iii,266 and in the Salāyatana Samy. 87: iv,55-60 and of a drunken sotāpanna in the Sotāpatti Samy. 24: v,375-7). What the sotāpannais absolutely incapable of doing is the following (M. 115: iii,64-5):—
1. To take any determination (sankhāra) as permanent,
2. To take any determination as pleasant,
3. To take any thing (dhamma) as self,
4. To kill his mother,
5. To kill his father,
6. To kill an arahat,
7. Maliciously to shed a Buddha's blood,
8. To split the Sangha,
9. To follow any teacher other than the Buddha.
All these things a puthujjana can do.
Why am I glad that you are shocked to learn that a sekha bhikkhu can be fond of talk (and worse)? Because it gives me the opportunity of insisting that unless you bring the sekha down to earth the Buddha's Teaching can never be a reality for you. So long as you are content to put the sotāpanna on a pedestal well out of reach, it can never possibly occur to you that it is your duty to become sotāpanna yourself (or at least to make the attempt) here and now in this very life; for you will simply take it as axiomatic that you cannot succeed. As Kierkegaard puts it,
Whatever is great in the sphere of the universally human must...not be communicated as a subject for admiration, but as an ethical requirement.
(CUP, p. 320)
This means that you are not required to admire a sotāpanna, but to become one.
***
It will be noticed, however, that we are now no longer debating whether or not the anāgāmī is liable to phassa, but whether or not your question 'Is the anāgāmī liable to phassa?' is answerable. And whether we decide that it is answerable or not depends upon whether we regard the paticcasamuppāda formulation as a Universal Law (which will include the sekha) or as a pedagogical device (which treats the sekha as irrelevant).
It is going too far to say that, to me, the sekha is essentially arahat, and that, rigorously, I exclude him from paticcasamuppāda anuloma. Where paticcasamuppāda is concerned, we are dealing with the difference between the puthujjana and the arahat, and the question of the sekha simply does not arise. He is in between. The sekha, like the two-faced Roman god Janus (whose month this is), is looking both ways, to the past and to the future. The past is anuloma, and the future is patiloma, and if it is too late to include the sekha in anuloma it is too early to include him in patiloma. Or if you wish he is something of both.
(The sekha—no longer a puthujjana but not yet an arahat—has a kind of 'double vision', one part unregenerate, the other regenerate.) As soon as one becomes a sotāpanna one is possessed of aparapaccayā ñānam, or 'knowledge that does not depend upon anyone else': this knowledge is also said to be 'not shared by puthujjanas', and the man who has it has (except for accelerating his progress) no further need to hear the Teaching—in a sense he is (in part) that Teaching.
Strictly, only those are puthujjanas who are wholly puthujjanas, who have nothing of the arahat at all in them. But on ceasing to be a puthujjana one is not at once an arahat; and we can perhaps describe the intermediate (three) stages as partly one and partly the other: thus the sotāpanna would be three-quarters puthujjana and one-quarter arahat.
***
Bradley makes a distinction that seems to have a certain (limited) application to the Dhamma. He speaks of the metaphysicians, on the one hand, who speculate on first principles and the ultimate nature of things; and on the other, of
those who are not prepared for metaphysical enquiry, who feel no call towards thankless hours of fruitless labour, who do not care to risk a waste of their lives on what the world for the most part regards as lunacy, and they themselves but half believe in. (PL, p. 340)
(What a cry from Bradley's heart!) This second category contains those who take principles as working hypotheses to explain the facts, without enquiry into the ultimate validity of those principles (this is the normal practice with those who study special subjects—physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and so on—and who are metaphysicians, if at all, only in their own conceit). In brief: those who look for first principles, and those who take things on trust because they work in practice.
In the Suttas, too, we find something of this distinction between those sekhā who are ditthipattā ('attained-through-view') and those who are saddhāvimuttā ('released-through-faith').[a] The former have heard the Buddha's Teaching, reflected on it, and accepted it after considering the ultimate principles on which it is based. The latter have heard the Teaching and reflected on it (as before), but, instead of seeking its first principles, have accepted it because it inspires them with trust and confidence. Both of them have practised the Teaching, and both have attained to sotāpatti or beyond, but one puts paññā foremost, and the other saddhā. But there is also a third kind of sekha, the kāyasakkhi ('body-witness'), who is quite without any corresponding category in Western philosophy: he is one who puts samādhi foremost—he develops mental concentration and gets all the jhānas, and needs not so much paññā or saddhā. In A. III,21: i,118-20, the Buddha is asked which of these three is the best, but he declines to discriminate between them, saying that any one of them may outdistance the other two and arrive first at the final goal.
[a] These sekhā are sotāpanna and beyond. Before sotāpatti (i.e. after reaching the magga but not the phala)—see CITTA—sekhā are dhammānusārī or saddhānusārī, between whom the same distinction holds.
***
The fullest Sutta description of the kāyasakkhi, ditthipatto, and saddhāvimutto (referred to hereafter as k, d and s) is given in the Kītāgiri Sutta, M. 70: i,477-78. The k is described as an individual who has reached the arūpaattainments and dwells therein, and, having seen with understanding, has got rid of some of the āsavā. The dis an individual who has not reached the arūpa attainments, but, having seen with understanding, has got rid of some of the āsavā, and has thoroughly seen and considered the Teachings of the Tathāgata. The s is an individual who has not reached the arūpa attainments, but, having seen with understanding, has got rid of some of the āsavā, and whose saddhā in the Tathāgata is thoroughly established and well-rooted. All three are at least sotāpanna, but not yet arahat; and all three have some degree of samādhi, paññā, and saddhā, but each one emphasizes one of these three—the k puts samādhi first, the d puts paññā first, and the s puts saddhāfirst.
As regards samādhi, the situation is this. As soon as a person reaches the first path (not the fruition, which may come much later—see CITTA) he gets the ariyapuggala's right view (sammāditthi), which is his paññā. And it is a characteristic of paññā that when one has it (as an ariyapuggala) one also has samādhi, viriya, saddhā, and sati.*
Now, one who has this paññā can, simply by developing his paññā, at the same time develop his samādhi; and when these have reached sufficient strength (more is required for each successive stage) the attainment of fruition takes place. Although the development of paññā is, of necessity, partly discursive (or intellectual), in the actual attainment of fruition (sotāpatti, etc.) the mind becomes steady (since samādhi has been automatically developed together with paññā, and the two now combine as equal partners—see M. 149: iii,289[1])—and there is direct intuition instead of discursive thinking. So in all attainment of fruition there is samādhi. But it is also possible for the ariyapuggala to develop his samādhi separately by means of ānāpānasati etc., and this is, in fact, the pleasantest way of advancing (for some people, however, it is difficult, and they have to grind away at vipassanā practice—i.e. development of paññā). In this way, a far greater degree of samādhi is developed than is actually necessary for the attainment of fruition; and so the k has arūpa attainments that he does not actually need to reach nibbāna.
The minimum strength of samādhi that is necessary for fruition is as follows: for arahattā and anāgāmitā, jhāna strength is needed (the first jhāna is enough)—see Mahāmālunkya Sutta, M. 64: i,432-37; for sakadāgāmitā and sotāpatti full jhāna is not needed—see A. IX,12: iv,378-82[b]—but it is necessary to have the samādhi nimitta (which comes long before jhāna)—see A. VI,68: iii,422-3.[2] But the samādhi can be developed either separately beforehand (as explained above) or together with paññā, and presumably in cases where there is attainment simply on listening to the Buddha it is the latter. (I am aware that there has been a controversy about whether jhāna is or is not necessary for the attainment of sotāpatti, but, as so often in controversies, the disputants have gone to extremes. Those who assert that jhāna is necessary believe—rightly or wrongly—that their opponents are maintaining that no samādhi at all is necessary. But the fact of the matter is that some samādhi is necessary, but not full jhāna; and this may or may not, have been developed independently of paññā.) I am afraid (as you point out) that this question is rather complicated; but I think I have covered the ground. Let me know what is still not clear.
*This fact is not understood by the puthujjana, who has no experience of such a phenomenon. Certainly he can get samādhi of a kind (by the practice of ānāpānasati, for example), but this is not the sammāsamādhi of the path (which he does not have). And similarly with viriya, saddhā, and sati. See BALA.
***
Time and again the Buddha points out that it is only those who have successfully devoted themselves to their own welfare and made sure of it (by reaching sotāpatti) that are in a position to help others—one himself sinking in a quicksand cannot help others to get out, and if he wishes to help them he must first get himself out (and if he does get himself out, he may come to see that the task of helping others to get out is not so easy as he formerly might have supposed). The notion of 'Absolute Unselfishness' is less straightforward than people like to think: it applies, if properly understood (but nobody less than sotāpanna does properly understand it), to the Buddha and to the other arahats (which does not mean to say that they will necessarily devote themselves to 'selfless service'), but not to anyone else.
***
He is no longer 'a politician' or 'a fisherman', but 'a self'. But what we call a 'self', unless it receives positive identification from outside, remains a void, in other words a negative. A 'self', however, is positive in this respect—it seeks identification. So a person who identifies himself with himself finds that his positivity consists in negativity—not the confident 'I am this' or 'I am that' of the positive, but a puzzled, perplexed, or even anguished, 'What am I?'. (This is where we meet the full force of Kierkegaard's 'concern and unrest'.) Eternal repetition of this eternally unanswerable question is the beginning of wisdom (it is the beginning of philosophy); but the temptation to provide oneself with a definite answer is usually too strong, and one falls into a wrong view of one kind or another. (It takes a Buddha to show the way out of this impossible situation. For the sotāpanna, who has understood the Buddha's essential Teaching, the question still arises, but he sees that it is unanswerable and is not worried; for the arahat the question no longer arises at all, and this is final peace.)
***
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.
***
That the puthujjana does not see aniccatā is evident from the fact that the formula, 'Whatever has the nature of arising, all that has the nature of ceasing', which is clearly enough the definition of aniccatā, is used only in connection with the sotāpanna's attainment: Tassa...vītamalam dhammacakkhum udapādi. Yam kiñci samudayadhammam, sabbam tam nirodhadhamman ti.[1] Aniccatā is seen with the sotāpanna's dhammacakkhu, or eye of the dhamma. I am glad, nevertheless, that you are managing to turn your mind towards aniccatā at times, though of course you will not really see it until you know yourself to be a sotāpanna.
***
Let there be no mistake in the matter: the existential philosophies are not a substitute for the Buddha's Teaching -- for which, indeed, there can be no substitute.[k] The questions that they persist in asking are the questions of a puthujjana, of a 'commoner',[l] and though they see that they are unanswerable they have no alternative but to go on asking them; for the tacit assumption upon which all these philosophies rest is that the questions are valid. They are faced with an ambiguity that they cannot resolve.[m] The Buddha, on the other hand, sees that the questions are not valid and that to ask them is to make the mistake of assuming that they are. One who has understood the Buddha's Teaching no longer asks these questions; he is ariya, 'noble', and no more a puthujjana, and he is beyond the range of the existential philosophies; but he would never have reached the point of listening to the Buddha's Teaching had he not first been disquieted by existential questions about himself and the world.
***
In other words, an ariyasāvaka sees birth with direct vision (since jāti is part of the paticcasamuppāda formulation), but does not necessarily see re-birth with direct vision. It is obvious, however, that jāti does not refer straightforwardly to the ariyasāvaka's own physical birth into his present existence; for that at best could only be a memory, and it is probably not remembered at all. How, then, is jāti to be understood?
10. 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. Quite clearly, the idea of re-birth is totally irrelevant here.
***
'Self' as subject can be briefly discussed as follows. As pointed out in PHASSA [b], the puthujjana thinks 'things are mine (i.e. are my concern) because I am, because I exist'. He takes the subject ('I') for granted; and if things are appropriated, that is because he, the subject, exists. The ditthisampanna (or sotāpanna) sees, however, that this is the wrong way round. He sees that the notion 'I am' arises because things (so long as there is any trace of avijjā) present themselves as 'mine'. This significance (or intention, or determination), 'mine' or 'for me'—see A NOTE ON PATICCASAMUPPĀDA [e]—, is, in a sense, a void, a negative aspect of the present thing (or existing phenomenon), since it simply points to a subject; and the puthujjana, not seeing impermanence (or more specifically, not seeing the impermanence of this ubiquitous determination), deceives himself into supposing that there actually exists a subject—'self'—independent of the object (which latter, as the ditthisampanna well understands, is merely the positive aspect of the phenomenon—that which is 'for me'). In this way it may be seen that the puthujjana's experience, pañc'upādānakkhandhā, has a negativeaspect (the subject) and a positive aspect (the object). But care is needed; for, in fact, the division subject/object is not a simple negative/positive division. If it were, only the positive would be present (as an existing phenomenon) and the negative (the subject) would not be present at all—it would simply not exist. But the subject is, in a sense, phenomenal: it (or he) is an existing phenomenal negative, a negative that appears; for the puthujjana asserts the present reality of his 'self' ('the irreplaceable being that I am'). The fact is, that the intention or determination 'mine', pointing to a subject, is a complex structure involving avijjā. The subject is not simply a negative in relation to the positive object: it (or he) is master over the object, and is thus a kind of positive negative, a master who does not appear explicitly but who, somehow or other, nevertheless exists.[c] It is this master whom the puthujjana, when he engages in reflexion, is seeking to identify—in vain![d] This delusive mastery of subject over object must be rigorously distinguished from the reflexive power of control or choice that is exercised in voluntary action by puthujjana and arahat alike.
***
The puthujjana sees neither a task to be performed that can justify his existence—not even, in the last analysis, that of perpetual reflexion (Heidegger's Entschlossenheit or 'resoluteness', acceptance of the guilt of existing; which does no more than make the best of a bad job)—nor a way to bring his unjustifiable existence to an end. The ariyasāvaka, on the other hand, does see the way to bring his existence to an end, and he sees that it is this very task that justifies his existence.
***
The ditthisampanna sees the present person (sakkāya) as arisen dependent upon present conditions and as ceasing with the cessation of these present conditions. And, seeing this, he does not regard the present person as present 'self'. Consequently, he does not ask the question Who? about the present. By inference—atītānāgate nayam netvā having induced the principle to past and future (cf. Gāmini Samy. 11 <S.iv,328>)[a]—he does not regard the past or future person as past or future'self', and does not ask the question Who? about the past or the future.
***
This is mine; this am I; this is my self'—so he regards the eye. 'Not, this is mine; not, this am I; not, this is my self'—so he regards the eye.
If N'etam mama is translated 'This is not mine' the implication is that something other than this is mine, which must be avoided. These three views (of which the sotāpanna is free) correspond to three degrees or levels of appropriation. Etam mama is the most fundamental, a rationalization (or at least a conceptual elaboration) of the situation described in the Mūlapariyāyasutta (Majjhima i,1 <M.i,1-6>) and in the Salāyatana Samyutta iii,8 <S.iv,22-3>. Eso'ham asmi is a rationalization of asmimāna. Eso me attā is a rationalization of attavāda—it is full-blown sakkāyaditthi. Though the sotāpanna is free of these views, he is not yet free of the maññanā of the Mūlapariyāyasutta (which is fundamental in all bhava) or of asmimāna, but he cannot be said to have attavāda.[a] See DHAMMA [d] & PHASSA. The sotāpanna (and the other two sekhā), in whom asmimāna is still present, know and see for themselves that notions of 'I' and 'mine' are deceptions. So they say N'etam mama, n'eso'ham asmi, n'eso me attā ti. The arahat is quite free from asmimāna, and, not having any trace of 'I' and 'mine', does not even say N'etam mama, n'eso'ham asmi, n'eso me attā ti.
***
Every set of pañcakkhandhā[a]—not pañc'upādānakkhandhā in the arahat's case—is unique, and individuality in this sense ceases only with the final cessation of the pañcakkhandhāat the breaking up of the arahat's body. But a living arahat is no longer somebody or a person, since the notion or conceit '(I) am' has already ceased. Individuality must therefore be carefully distinguished from personality,[b] which is: being a person, being somebody, being a subject (to whom objects are present), selfhood, the mirage 'I am', and so on. The puthujjana is not able to distinguish them—for him individuality is not conceivable apart from personality, which he takes as selfhood. The sotāpanna is able to distinguish them—he sees that personality or 'selfhood' is a deception dependent upon avijjā, a deception dependent upon not seeing the deception, which is not the case with individuality—, though he is not yet free from an aroma of subjectivity, asmimāna. The arahat not only distinguishes them but also has entirely got rid of all taint of subjectivity—'he' is individual but in no way personal. For lack of suitable expressions (which in any case would puzzle the puthujjana) 'he' is obliged to go on saying 'I' and 'me' and 'mine' (cf. Dīgha i,9 <D.i,202>; Devatā Samy. iii,5 <S.i,14>[14]). Individuality where the arahat is concerned still involves the perspective or orientation that things necessarily adopt when they exist, or are present, or are cognized; and for each individual the perspective is different. Loss of upādāna is not loss of point of view.
***
For an ariyasāvaka, paticcasamuppāda is a matter of direct reflexive certainty: the ariyasāvaka has direct, certain, reflexive knowledge of the condition upon which birth depends. He has no such knowledge about re-birth, which is quite a different matter. He knows for himself that avijjā is the condition for birth; but he does not know for himself that when there is avijjā there is re-birth. (That there is re-birth, i.e. samsāra, may remain, even for the ariyasāvaka, a matter of trust in the Buddha.) The ariyasāvaka knows for himself that even in this very life the arahat is, actually, not to be found (cf. Khandha Samy. ix,3 <S.iii,109-15> and see PARAMATTHA SACCA [a]), and that it is wrong to say that the arahat 'was born' or 'will die'. With sakkāyanirodha there is no longer any 'somebody' (or a person—sakkāya, q.v.) to whom the words birth and death can apply. They apply, however, to the puthujjana, who still 'is somebody'.[b] But to endow his birth with a condition in the past—i.e. a cause—is to accept this 'somebody' at its face value as a permanent 'self'; for cessation of birth requires cessation of its condition, which, being safely past (in the preceding life), cannot now be brought to an end; and this 'somebody' cannot therefore now cease. Introduction of this idea into paticcasamuppāda infects the samudayasacca with sassataditthi and the nirodhasacca with ucchedaditthi. Not surprisingly, the result is hardly coherent. And to make matters worse, most of the terms—and notably sankhāra (q.v.) —have been misconceived by the Visuddhimagga.
***
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'.[a]
[a] 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.
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Time and again the Buddha points out that it is only those who have successfully devoted themselves to their own welfare and made sure of it (by reaching sotāpatti) that are in a position to help others—one himself sinking in a quicksand cannot help others to get out, and if he wishes to help them he must first get himself out (and if he does get himself out, he may come to see that the task of helping others to get out is not so easy as he formerly might have supposed). The notion of 'Absolute Unselfishness' is less straightforward than people like to think: it applies, if properly understood (but nobody less than sotāpanna does properly understand it), to the Buddha and to the other arahats (which does not mean to say that they will necessarily devote themselves to 'selfless service'), but not to anyone else.
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He is no longer 'a politician' or 'a fisherman', but 'a self'. But what we call a 'self', unless it receives positive identification from outside, remains a void, in other words a negative. A 'self', however, is positive in this respect—it seeks identification. So a person who identifies himself with himself finds that his positivity consists in negativity—not the confident 'I am this' or 'I am that' of the positive, but a puzzled, perplexed, or even anguished, 'What am I?'. (This is where we meet the full force of Kierkegaard's 'concern and unrest'.) Eternal repetition of this eternally unanswerable question is the beginning of wisdom (it is the beginning of philosophy); but the temptation to provide oneself with a definite answer is usually too strong, and one falls into a wrong view of one kind or another. (It takes a Buddha to show the way out of this impossible situation. For the sotāpanna, who has understood the Buddha's essential Teaching, the question still arises, but he sees that it is unanswerable and is not worried; for the arahat the question no longer arises at all, and this is final peace.)
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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.
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That the puthujjana does not see aniccatā is evident from the fact that the formula, 'Whatever has the nature of arising, all that has the nature of ceasing', which is clearly enough the definition of aniccatā, is used only in connection with the sotāpanna's attainment: Tassa...vītamalam dhammacakkhum udapādi. Yam kiñci samudayadhammam, sabbam tam nirodhadhamman ti.[1] Aniccatā is seen with the sotāpanna's dhammacakkhu, or eye of the dhamma. I am glad, nevertheless, that you are managing to turn your mind towards aniccatā at times, though of course you will not really see it until you know yourself to be a sotāpanna.
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Let there be no mistake in the matter: the existential philosophies are not a substitute for the Buddha's Teaching -- for which, indeed, there can be no substitute.[k] The questions that they persist in asking are the questions of a puthujjana, of a 'commoner',[l] and though they see that they are unanswerable they have no alternative but to go on asking them; for the tacit assumption upon which all these philosophies rest is that the questions are valid. They are faced with an ambiguity that they cannot resolve.[m] The Buddha, on the other hand, sees that the questions are not valid and that to ask them is to make the mistake of assuming that they are. One who has understood the Buddha's Teaching no longer asks these questions; he is ariya, 'noble', and no more a puthujjana, and he is beyond the range of the existential philosophies; but he would never have reached the point of listening to the Buddha's Teaching had he not first been disquieted by existential questions about himself and the world.
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In other words, an ariyasāvaka sees birth with direct vision (since jāti is part of the paticcasamuppāda formulation), but does not necessarily see re-birth with direct vision. It is obvious, however, that jāti does not refer straightforwardly to the ariyasāvaka's own physical birth into his present existence; for that at best could only be a memory, and it is probably not remembered at all. How, then, is jāti to be understood?
10. 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. Quite clearly, the idea of re-birth is totally irrelevant here.
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'Self' as subject can be briefly discussed as follows. As pointed out in PHASSA [b], the puthujjana thinks 'things are mine (i.e. are my concern) because I am, because I exist'. He takes the subject ('I') for granted; and if things are appropriated, that is because he, the subject, exists. The ditthisampanna (or sotāpanna) sees, however, that this is the wrong way round. He sees that the notion 'I am' arises because things (so long as there is any trace of avijjā) present themselves as 'mine'. This significance (or intention, or determination), 'mine' or 'for me'—see A NOTE ON PATICCASAMUPPĀDA [e]—, is, in a sense, a void, a negative aspect of the present thing (or existing phenomenon), since it simply points to a subject; and the puthujjana, not seeing impermanence (or more specifically, not seeing the impermanence of this ubiquitous determination), deceives himself into supposing that there actually exists a subject—'self'—independent of the object (which latter, as the ditthisampanna well understands, is merely the positive aspect of the phenomenon—that which is 'for me'). In this way it may be seen that the puthujjana's experience, pañc'upādānakkhandhā, has a negativeaspect (the subject) and a positive aspect (the object). But care is needed; for, in fact, the division subject/object is not a simple negative/positive division. If it were, only the positive would be present (as an existing phenomenon) and the negative (the subject) would not be present at all—it would simply not exist. But the subject is, in a sense, phenomenal: it (or he) is an existing phenomenal negative, a negative that appears; for the puthujjana asserts the present reality of his 'self' ('the irreplaceable being that I am'). The fact is, that the intention or determination 'mine', pointing to a subject, is a complex structure involving avijjā. The subject is not simply a negative in relation to the positive object: it (or he) is master over the object, and is thus a kind of positive negative, a master who does not appear explicitly but who, somehow or other, nevertheless exists.[c] It is this master whom the puthujjana, when he engages in reflexion, is seeking to identify—in vain![d] This delusive mastery of subject over object must be rigorously distinguished from the reflexive power of control or choice that is exercised in voluntary action by puthujjana and arahat alike.
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The puthujjana sees neither a task to be performed that can justify his existence—not even, in the last analysis, that of perpetual reflexion (Heidegger's Entschlossenheit or 'resoluteness', acceptance of the guilt of existing; which does no more than make the best of a bad job)—nor a way to bring his unjustifiable existence to an end. The ariyasāvaka, on the other hand, does see the way to bring his existence to an end, and he sees that it is this very task that justifies his existence.
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The ditthisampanna sees the present person (sakkāya) as arisen dependent upon present conditions and as ceasing with the cessation of these present conditions. And, seeing this, he does not regard the present person as present 'self'. Consequently, he does not ask the question Who? about the present. By inference—atītānāgate nayam netvā having induced the principle to past and future (cf. Gāmini Samy. 11 <S.iv,328>)[a]—he does not regard the past or future person as past or future'self', and does not ask the question Who? about the past or the future.
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This is mine; this am I; this is my self'—so he regards the eye. 'Not, this is mine; not, this am I; not, this is my self'—so he regards the eye.
If N'etam mama is translated 'This is not mine' the implication is that something other than this is mine, which must be avoided. These three views (of which the sotāpanna is free) correspond to three degrees or levels of appropriation. Etam mama is the most fundamental, a rationalization (or at least a conceptual elaboration) of the situation described in the Mūlapariyāyasutta (Majjhima i,1 <M.i,1-6>) and in the Salāyatana Samyutta iii,8 <S.iv,22-3>. Eso'ham asmi is a rationalization of asmimāna. Eso me attā is a rationalization of attavāda—it is full-blown sakkāyaditthi. Though the sotāpanna is free of these views, he is not yet free of the maññanā of the Mūlapariyāyasutta (which is fundamental in all bhava) or of asmimāna, but he cannot be said to have attavāda.[a] See DHAMMA [d] & PHASSA. The sotāpanna (and the other two sekhā), in whom asmimāna is still present, know and see for themselves that notions of 'I' and 'mine' are deceptions. So they say N'etam mama, n'eso'ham asmi, n'eso me attā ti. The arahat is quite free from asmimāna, and, not having any trace of 'I' and 'mine', does not even say N'etam mama, n'eso'ham asmi, n'eso me attā ti.
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Every set of pañcakkhandhā[a]—not pañc'upādānakkhandhā in the arahat's case—is unique, and individuality in this sense ceases only with the final cessation of the pañcakkhandhāat the breaking up of the arahat's body. But a living arahat is no longer somebody or a person, since the notion or conceit '(I) am' has already ceased. Individuality must therefore be carefully distinguished from personality,[b] which is: being a person, being somebody, being a subject (to whom objects are present), selfhood, the mirage 'I am', and so on. The puthujjana is not able to distinguish them—for him individuality is not conceivable apart from personality, which he takes as selfhood. The sotāpanna is able to distinguish them—he sees that personality or 'selfhood' is a deception dependent upon avijjā, a deception dependent upon not seeing the deception, which is not the case with individuality—, though he is not yet free from an aroma of subjectivity, asmimāna. The arahat not only distinguishes them but also has entirely got rid of all taint of subjectivity—'he' is individual but in no way personal. For lack of suitable expressions (which in any case would puzzle the puthujjana) 'he' is obliged to go on saying 'I' and 'me' and 'mine' (cf. Dīgha i,9 <D.i,202>; Devatā Samy. iii,5 <S.i,14>[14]). Individuality where the arahat is concerned still involves the perspective or orientation that things necessarily adopt when they exist, or are present, or are cognized; and for each individual the perspective is different. Loss of upādāna is not loss of point of view.
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For an ariyasāvaka, paticcasamuppāda is a matter of direct reflexive certainty: the ariyasāvaka has direct, certain, reflexive knowledge of the condition upon which birth depends. He has no such knowledge about re-birth, which is quite a different matter. He knows for himself that avijjā is the condition for birth; but he does not know for himself that when there is avijjā there is re-birth. (That there is re-birth, i.e. samsāra, may remain, even for the ariyasāvaka, a matter of trust in the Buddha.) The ariyasāvaka knows for himself that even in this very life the arahat is, actually, not to be found (cf. Khandha Samy. ix,3 <S.iii,109-15> and see PARAMATTHA SACCA [a]), and that it is wrong to say that the arahat 'was born' or 'will die'. With sakkāyanirodha there is no longer any 'somebody' (or a person—sakkāya, q.v.) to whom the words birth and death can apply. They apply, however, to the puthujjana, who still 'is somebody'.[b] But to endow his birth with a condition in the past—i.e. a cause—is to accept this 'somebody' at its face value as a permanent 'self'; for cessation of birth requires cessation of its condition, which, being safely past (in the preceding life), cannot now be brought to an end; and this 'somebody' cannot therefore now cease. Introduction of this idea into paticcasamuppāda infects the samudayasacca with sassataditthi and the nirodhasacca with ucchedaditthi. Not surprisingly, the result is hardly coherent. And to make matters worse, most of the terms—and notably sankhāra (q.v.) —have been misconceived by the Visuddhimagga.
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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'.[a]
[a] 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.
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