Does MN 60 contradict SN 12.15? If so, why is it so?
Upvote:0
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".
More post
- 📝 What is the difference between Enlightenment and Nibbana?
- 📝 Find Sutta: eat first before hearing the teaching
- 📝 can MN.43 be my alibi?
- 📝 Any authentic sutta from any tradition that gives guidance on what kind of partner to choose?
- 📝 Buddha's Power of Seeing Other Beings Mind
- 📝 DN 15: Whose or which consciousness enters the mother's womb?
- 📝 AN 8.30 Great thoughts, thoughts of great man, thing-able, (de-)touch-able for everyone? (thinking in first jhāna)
- 📝 Right Channel to esclate Buddhism rules and regulation matters
- 📝 gradual versus sudden enlightenment
- 📝 Is working in government insurance company right livelihood?
- 📝 Benefits of Producing and Caring for Children
- 📝 Is it Vipassana?
- 📝 Where to concentrate exactly during meditation?
- 📝 Can we define craving without mentioning self?
- 📝 Does Pa Auk Has A Plan To Translate Tipitaka Pali To English?
- 📝 What does the one taste of the dharmadhatu really mean?
- 📝 How death anniversaries take place by Buddhist rituals?
- 📝 Will an electronic gadget designed on reward/punishment mechanism of brain help improve meditation?
- 📝 What are the "defilements"?
- 📝 What do we do when we've broken a precept?
- 📝 Is it true that Physics confirms some of the Buddha's teachings?
- 📝 Why don't teachers just tell us the answers?
- 📝 In which sutta does a lay disciple of the Buddha tell a non-buddhist mendicant that he has experienced jhana?
- 📝 What do buddha taught about dreams?
- 📝 Buddhism on paying for previous bad Karma
- 📝 Meditating as sleep aid
- 📝 How do memories affect the path?
- 📝 Buddha saying he doesn't have to follow all the rules?
- 📝 Loving Communication
- 📝 Do meditative "exercises" and "mental workouts" enhance the ability to reach enlightenment?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Does MN 60 contradict SN 12.15? If so, why is it so?
- 📝 Why does the Buddha call himself the Tathāgata?
- 📝 Why does insight lead to to compassion?
- 📝 Why does the Buddha always answer a question if asked three times?
- 📝 If a Buddhist believes lay life is not ideal for the practice, why does he or she continue?
- 📝 Why does Mara, the Evil One one comes looking for consciousness at death?
- 📝 Why does killing produce bad karma?
- 📝 Why does the Buddha, in the Pali Canon, periodically engage in harsh speech?
- 📝 Why does 'thoughts' and 'memories' not part of aggregates?
- 📝 What does "Namaste" mean in Buddhism context and why is it even associated with Buddhism?
- 📝 Why does the mind always want to 'do something' and how to cultivate 'non-doing'?
- 📝 Why do enlightened beings want to save sentient beings? Does everyone want to be saved?
- 📝 Why does the Buddha appear androgynous in some depictions?
- 📝 Why did the Buddha contradict about His teachings in these two different suttas?
- 📝 Why does Milinda step into Nagasena's trap?
- 📝 Does evolution contradict Buddhism?
- 📝 Why does my mind naturally wander?
- 📝 Why does Mahasi Method have the points on the Body to attend to?
- 📝 Why does Buddhism seem to have more than one goal?
- 📝 Why the view "I am the owner of my karma" not contradict anatta?
- 📝 Why does one suffer because of ignorance if ignorance is unintentional?
- 📝 Why does "not existing from its own side" make something a "conceptual construction"?
- 📝 Why does my mind feel slow to think nearly half day after my meditation?
- 📝 Why does the third noble truth not include the ten fetters?
- 📝 Why does the Buddha blame Ananda asking him to remain living forever?
- 📝 In the movie Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring, why does the master cry?
- 📝 Why does Buddhism use the word "realm" when describing one of the different races?
- 📝 Does the Buddha's concept of Citta contradict the Mahayana doctrine of emptiness?
- 📝 During Anapana, why does the breathing become slower and slower as we progress?
- 📝 Why does MN 117 refer to a dirty defiled (กิเลส) right view of bondage?