Does MN 60 contradict SN 12.15? If so, why is it so?
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If you read the discourse on the right view -The Samma-ditthi Sutta, the ninth sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya, the Collection of Middle Length Discourses – you will see that there are two levels of right view. Lokiya Samma-ditthi (mundane right view) and Lokuttara Samma-ditthi (the TRUE right view). The persons that the Buddha addresses are in two different planes – one has a mundane right view, and the other has a Right View in its truest sense. So there’s no real contradiction between the two.
The Right View on Rebirth is explained in the famous Buddhist book “Milindapahna” which contains a long dialogue between the Greek king Milinder and Arahant Nagasena.
Miln III.5.5: Transmigration and Rebirth (Miln 71) The king asked: "Venerable Nagasena, is it so that one does not transmigrate and one is reborn?" "Yes, your majesty, one does not transmigrate and one is reborn." "How, venerable Nagasena, is it that one does not transmigrate and one is reborn? Give me an analogy." "Just as, your majesty, if someone kindled one lamp from another, is it indeed so, your majesty, that the lamp would transmigrate from the other lamp?" "Certainly not, venerable sir." "Indeed just so, your majesty, one does not transmigrate and one is reborn."
As per the scriptures, a being is a stream of Mind connected ‘ Nama-Rupa’. When a person dies, no soul departs. The stream of consciousness ( viññana) upon death, becomes one of the contributing causes for the arising of a new set of five aggregates of clinging (Panca Upadana Khandas) elsewhere. In the Attakara sutta, you will find that you do exist. But there is no permanent self in you and the five clinging aggregates (panca upadanakkanda) which constitutes you is beyond your control, and therefore Anatta (non-self). (read Anatta Lakkana Sutta).
Upvote:2
SN 12.15 says that "everything exists" and "everything doesn't exist" are opposite extremes and are both wrong view.
I guess there are different problems with each view: e.g. "everything exists" implies attachment and ignores conditioned/composite nature of everything; whereas "everything doesn't exist" implies nihilism and amorality.
I think that MN 60 concentrates its argument on one aspect, i.e. that the view that "nothing exists" leads to amorality:
it can be expected that, shunning these three skillful activities — good bodily conduct, good verbal conduct, good mental conduct — they will adopt & practice these three unskillful activities: bad bodily conduct, bad verbal conduct, bad mental conduct. Why is that? Because those venerable contemplatives & brahmans do not see, in unskillful activities, the drawbacks, the degradation, and the defilement; nor in skillful activities the rewards of renunciation, resembling cleansing
For that reason, "everything exists" is the relatively skillful view.
Incidentally I think that people sometimes talk about a "two truths" doctrine, i.e. that "conventionally things exist but ultimately nothing exists". Another way to express the "conventional truth (or relative truth) versus ultimate truth" duality is to call conventional "skillful" or "skillful means".
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