{"id":253,"date":"2016-01-25T01:23:51","date_gmt":"2016-01-25T01:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/walking-towards-a-right-view"},"modified":"2019-08-04T04:41:10","modified_gmt":"2019-08-04T04:41:10","slug":"walking-towards-a-right-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2016\/01\/25\/walking-towards-a-right-view\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking towards a right view"},"content":{"rendered":"

Right view is a way of knowing what it is that we experience. It is approached by a collaboration of labelling and interpretation. To know samma ditthi<\/span>\u00a0(right view) means to know that we exist in a maelstrom of a phenomenon that includes choices and that their relationships and unfolding are\u00a0manifestations of a calculus of conditioning along a river of time and suffering.<\/p>\n

Autobiography<\/h3>\n

I read the Buddhist texts and wonder at their insight. For so long I had abandoned the possibility of a knowledge that could not<\/em> be communicated purely in facts; facts that were the insight of reporting; reporting\u00a0that was innocent of subjectivity or perspective (except incidentally). I had concluded that the scientific tradition (born in the West and subsuming all cultures with its material offerings) was the sole contender in the epistemic race.<\/p>\n

Phenomenology and psychology are infants, and products of a parallel evolution, to the dharma of Buddhism. All three claim that the features of subjectivity may be described, and routes to their modification explored and documented. (A tentative fourth may be added in the shape of the psychedelic travellers). There is something irreducible within the first-person perspective that may be directed to by analytical instruction, but not reduced-to.<\/p>\n

Chancing upon a sign-post<\/h4>\n

I woke to find myself in a dark wood<\/a>, and in my search for relief and its possibilities, chanced upon and embraced the practice of meditation. Familiarizing myself with meditation introduced\u00a0me to an appreciation of Buddhist texts on meditation, and their complex familiarity with the hazards of the mind and the means for traversing its sufferings. The expertise of their teachings impressed upon me the possible benefits of their practice. And so I have found myself in another wood, studying the eightfold path.<\/p>\n

The spiritual and historical datum of the eightfold path are expressed elsewhere better than I ever could. What remains to be described is my reality, and its incorporation of the path. I have begun my auto-didactic studies focusing on the first path: sammaditthi. I have read what those who know better have explained, and attempted to comprehend the constellation of concepts, and in my waking life, hear the music of their spheres.<\/p>\n

Right view qua map and destination<\/h3>\n

Sammaditthi is a theoretical framework for interpreting reality. It is difficult to summarize, and its explication is approached in the traditional texts by multiple routes. It is perhaps a combination of considerations.<\/p>\n

What is the nature of that which we live, or what is the nature of the experienced existence?<\/p>\n

What does it mean\u00a0to be\u00a0living in this nature, or what does it mean to exist when we are experiencing this nature?<\/p>\n

The first of these sets seeks to identify the components of life, and the second to identify the choices of life.<\/p>\n

Sammaditthi is not just a paradigm to be invoked in explanation and identification, it is also an intuition to be sought. And although\u00a0it is difficult to consider a goal (i.e. sammaditthi) which has not been achieved, this is not a true delimitation, since right view is both a path and destination. A destination is an achievement of displacement, and a path is an achievement of iteration (the fact of an asymptote does not deny the gradient of the curve). Thus sammaditthi is an application as much as it is an attainment.<\/p>\n

The first part of sammaditthi is its theoretical comprehension. The second part of sammaditthi is its supramundane knowledge, which is said to be its intrinsic self-expression in the liberated being, and the result of a practiced awareness of its mundane knowledge (combined with the rest of the eightfold path). (It is also said to be an intuition of the four noble truths).<\/p>\n

The theoretical framework<\/h3>\n

There are a number of obvious pillars in the structure of sammaditthi, although these ones may be neither sufficient nor necessary, and may instead be considered as suggestive adumbration, indicating the identity of complex architecture. Consider the contents of experience as products of aggregates; consider the mechanism of phenomenon as dependent origination; consider the salience of choice as ownership of action.<\/p>\n

The substance of phenomenon<\/h4>\n

All that we see is a phenomenon, projecting\u00a0its impression against the cave wall of our mind. Some phenomenon are rupa<\/span>, physical, tangible bodies of form; some are vedana<\/span>, sensations derived from our sense organs; some are sa\u00f1\u00f1a<\/span>, perceptions arising from the contact of sense organs with their objects; some are sankhara<\/span>, mental properties (incl. imagination and volition) and some are vi\u00f1\u00f1a<\/span>, sum contents of our consciousness.\u00a0There is nothing in our experience that is not directly one of these khanda<\/span>, aggregates.<\/p>\n

When we see our experience as khandas, then we can see the common features\u00a0of all phenomenon. Everything is annica<\/span> (impermanent), everything is dukkha<\/span> (unsatisfying), everything is anatta<\/span> (soulless).<\/p>\n

Every phenomenon appears as substantial, yet fades away in its own manner, physical things age and die, mental things dissipate. Every phenomenon appears as a seed promising satisfaction, yet it can never do so, because all that is pleasant will disappear, and the unpleasant is inherent in our yearning. Every phenomenon appears as a manifestation of a soul, most obviously our self, yet there is nothing permanent behind the veil of flux<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The mechanism of phenomenon<\/h4>\n

All the khandas that we see are conditioned by previous circumstances, allowing us to see that all experiences are conditioned and conditions. The explanation of paticca-samuppada<\/span> (dependent origination) elaborates this principle, beginning with ignorance, and ending with rebirth, showing how the first leads to the last, and the last back to the first.<\/p>\n

When we see that everything in our life holds to this principle, we can believe the necessity of outcome, and in doing so agree with kammassakata sammaditthi<\/span>, a right ownership of our actions. Every experience is the phala<\/span> (fruit) of previous kamma, although we may not know their identity;\u00a0to own an experience is to own its\u00a0inevitable chain of origination. Every kamma\u00a0(qua volition) will result in a phala<\/span>; to own an action is to own its\u00a0inevitable chain of origination.<\/p>\n

The root of suffering<\/h4>\n

All our kamma are volitions that act upon an existing substrate of previous kamma. And though the opportunities and predilections of the present moment are biased by the past, their value lies in the extent to which they move towards participating in pa\u00f1\u00f1a<\/span>\u00a0(wisdom) or gravitate into the well of avijja\u00a0<\/span>(ignorance). Avijja is the mula<\/span> (root) of the kilesas<\/span> (defilements), as lobha<\/span> (greed), dosa<\/span> (aversion), and moha<\/span> (delusion). Our unwholesome actions are the result of avijja, which denies the signs of phenomenon (annica, dukkha, anatta), and collaborates with the senseless suffering of the cycle of pattica-samuppada within samsara.<\/p>\n

When we see that our choices are our own (per kammassakata sammaditthi), and that their allegiance with avijja or\u00a0pa\u00f1\u00f1a determines the nature of their outcome, then we can see every moment as an opportunity to move towards truth and towards an end to suffering (liberation or nibbana); or towards ignorance and towards further suffering.<\/p>\n

The means to its intuition<\/h3>\n

To intuit sammaditthi requires a rewriting of false intuitions. Thus it is not enough to know the facts of sammaditthi in the manner of recitation, but to draw patterns in the water until further patterns are detected in their wake. It may be more helpful to think of this as “the path” to right view, and that the joining of this path (not its end but its process) is dependent on a repeated questioning of reality.<\/p>\n

Towards this end there are a number of approaches labelled and elaborated in the traditional texts, including the 16 means in the ninth sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya by Sariputta<\/a>. Here I describe two:<\/p>\n

The nature of the wholesome and unwholesome actions<\/h4>\n

All actions can be defined as unwholesome (or wholesome) if they are blameworthy and cause suffering (or not). The unwholesome actions are those that participate in the mula stemming from avijja. A wholesome action is one that refrains from an unwholesome action. The\u00a0unwholesome<\/a> (and wholesome) actions\u00a0are numbered as 10. Each action\u00a0is understood in\u00a05 ways.<\/p>\n