The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvana in Early Buddhism

306 Pages·1995·17.42 MB·English

by  Peter Harvey

PEI~SONALITY,
CONSCIOUSNESS
ANI) NII:tVANA
IN EAI:tLY
BUI)l)HISM
PETER HARVEY
THE SELFLESS MIND
Personality, Consciousness and Nirv3J}.a
in Early Buddhism
Peter Harvey
~~ ~~~~!;"~~~~urzon
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published in 1995
by Curzon Press
Reprinted 2004
By RoutledgeCurzon
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Transferred to Digital Printing 2004
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© 1995 Peter Harvey
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ISBN 0 7007 0337 3 (hbk)
ISBN 0 7007 0338 I (pbk)
Ye dhammd hetuppabhavti tesaf{l hetUf{l tathiigato aha
Tesaii ca yo norodho evQf{lvtidi mahiisamaf10 ti (Vin.l.40)
Those basic processes which proceed from a cause,
Of these the tathiigata has told the cause,
And that which is their stopping -
The great wandering ascetic has such a teaching
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Dr Karel Werner, of Durham University (retired),
for his encouragement and help in bringing this work to publication.
I would also like to thank my wife Anne for her patience while I
was undertaking the research on which this work is based.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
Key non-Buddhist concepts 1
Key Buddhist concepts 2
'Not-Self' and scholars 7
Sources 9
Methodology 11
Part I Exploring tbe Notion of Selflessness
THE QUESTION OF SELF 17
Scholars who see a metaphysical Self in the
'early Suttas' 17
Uses of the word 'self' (alta) in the 'early Suttas' 19
Passages which might indicate the acceptance of a Self 21
Nibbiina as not-Self and not related to a Self 23
Self as 'not being apprehended' 24
A Self beyond 'existence' and 'non-existence'? 28
Proof of the impossibility of a Self 31
Buddhism and the Upani~ads on Self 33
The status of the 'person' 34
Why is Self not denied?: the Buddha and the
Annihilationists 38
The 'I am' attitude: its cause, effect and its ending 40
2 THE MEANING OF 'NOT-SELF' 43
The role of viewing phenomena as not-Self 43
The criteria for Self-hood 46
Nibbiina and the Self-ideal 51
3 DEVEWPING A SELF WITHOUT BOUNDARIES 54
Living with citta as an 'island' 54
Developing a 'great self' 55
'One of developed self' 57
The Arahat as self-contained and 'dwelling alone' 58
The Arahat's boundaryless citta 60
The Arahat's boundaryless, self-contained self 62
4 PERSONAL CONTINUITY AND RESPONSmiLITY 64
The person as a continuity 65
Responsibility for actions 66
The stability of character traits over lives 68
What conserves character traits and the unity of the
'continuity'? 72
To what extent are 'continuities' isolated from each other
and the world? 74
5 MY WORLD AND ITS END 78
The Self-world link and the meaning of 'world' (loka) 78
The Buddhist perspective on the world 79
The undetermined questions 83
The undetermined questions on the world 84
6 THE LIFE-PRINCIPLE AND THE BETWEEN-LIVES STATE 89
The undetermined questions on the life-principle 89
The 'life-principle' accepted by early Buddhism 91
Discernment and rebirth 95
The question of the intermediary existence (antarii-bhava) 98
The nature of the intermediary existence 102
The gandhabba: spirit-being of the intermediary
existence lOS
Part II: Saqasiric and Nibbinic Discernment 109
7 THE CENTRALITY OF DISCERNMENT 111
The nature and centrality of citta 111
A person as discernment and the sentient body 116
The vortical interplay of discernment and the sentient
body 119
8 DISCERNMENT AND CONDmONED ARISING 122
The nature of the constructing activities 122
The conditioning of discernment by the
constructing activities 124
The conditioning of discernment by ndma-rupa 127
Discernment as conditioned by attention 129
The conditioning of the sentient body by
discernment 130
Conditioned Arising as an analysis of the
perceptual process 134
9 DISCERNMENT AND THE PERCEPTUAL PROCESS 138
The perceptual process in the 'early Suttas' 138
The nature and functions of cognition (saiiiiii) 141
The activity of discernment (viiiiiiii}Q) 143
The functions of discernment in the Abhidhamma
'process of cittas' 145
The nature of viiiiiiii'Ja 148
The effect of karma on discernment in the
perceptual process 151
10 BHAVANOA AND. THE BRlGHTLY SHINING MIND 155
Is the bhavailga concept ruled out by the 'early
Sutta' world-view? 155
'Early Sutta' evidence for a bhavailga-type state 151
The meaning of 'bhavailga' 160
The roles of bhavahga 162
The brightly shining citta 166
Freedom from defilements 169
The shining citta and bhavailga 170
The Arahat's ever-shining citta 173
The shining citta and the Buddha-nature 114
The shining citta and the realms of rebirth 111
ll NmBANA AS THE TIMELESS 'SlOPPING' OF THE
ENTIRE PERSONALITY 180
The nibbiina-element without remainder of upiidi 181
Nibbiina during life as not ever-present in the
Arahat 182
The 'stopping' of the personality{actors during life 185
Nibbiinic 'stopping' and nirodha-samiipatti 187
Re-entry to the state of 'stopping' 188
Nibbiina during life as 'unborn', 'unconstructed'
and 'deathless' 189
Nibbiina as a timeless object of insight 193
12 NIBBANA AS A TRANSFORMED STATE OF DISCERNMENT 198
Nibbiina as a form of discernment 199
Nibbiinic discernment as 'stopped', 'objectless'
and 'unsupported' 201
Udiina.80 as a description of nibbiinic discernment 203
The nature of nibbiinic discernment 205
Unsupported discernment and nibbiina beyond death 208
The relation of nibbiinic discernment to the
Arahat's normal state 210
Theraviidin perspectives 214
Alahiiyiinaperspectives 217
13 SEEKING THE TATHAGATA 227
The 'untraceability' of the tathiigata 228
The 'hard to fathom' tathiigata and Dhamma 231
The tathiigata as 'not being apprehended' 235
Nibbiinic discernment and the views on the
tathiigata after death 239
14 CONCLUSION 246
Appendix: The Theory of the Process of Cittas 252
Notes 259
Abbreviations 274
Bibliography 277
Index and glossary 282
Charts
1. The 'process of cittas' in waking consciousness,
according to Abhidhamma theory 146
2. The cilia-sequence in sleep 163
3. The cilia-sequence in meditative jhiinas 163