FIRST ASSIGNMENT

one 5 page Book Review on a book from the syllabus reading list  (due in week 5)
For the book review please include these items:
--concise summary of the book
--statement of the strong points on your view
--statement of the weak points on your view
--evaluation of whether this is a good book that you can recommend to a friend,
and why or why not?
--put the document in Times New Roman 12 point type double-spaced
--after the 5 page paper puts the ENDNOTES
--For the endnotes use the Short Version of Chicago manual of Style (the Internet
web link is on your syllabus)
Ask me when you are working on the Book Review if any questions arise in the process.

1. For the Book Review you do not use Template and Main Argument format but instead
this format:
a. It is five pages double spaced in Times New Roman 12 point type with ENDNOTE
on an additional unnumbered page that provide very brief quotations from the book
being reviewed that support your claims about the book.
b. The first 2 and ½ pages provide an overall statement of the main ideas and statements
made in the book by its author.
c. The next 1 page provides your own statement of the strong points of the book.
d. The next 1 page provides your own statement of the weak points of the book.
e. The final ½ page answers the question: would you recommend this book to a friend?
Why or why not?

Overall statement of the main ideas and statements made by the author:
Book Report Kalupahana Principles of Buddhist Psychology

Wilkinson, Audwin T.

Student ID#: 6401106014

hapkido1996@gmail.com

Introduction

This book is for scholars of Buddhism, as extended treatments of Buddhist psychology

are scant, infrequent and tend to reflect and perpetuate earlier misconceptions. The author

elaborates Buddhist psychological principles, takes more recent scholarship into account, and

details the sources of the early misconceptions. His effort comprises two main parts and two

appendices.

Part One, in particular, makes frequent comparisons between the Buddha's thoughts as

portrayed in the Early Buddhist Texts and those of William James. The author's stated reason for

this in the Preface is not to make the claim that the Buddha and James came to exactly the same

conclusions; instead, it is to lay the groundwork for "more comprehensive and fruitful

comparative studies in philosophy and culture." (K: xiv)

Chapter One establishes a theme recurrent throughout the book. Kalupahana describes a

flaw in received wisdom, viz. that the Buddha's original doctrines were primitive and that

Nagarjuna sophisticated them by enhanced emphasis on śūnyatā. This is, however, a

misrepresentation by T.R.V. Murti and his pupil, Chatterjee, Vedantists whose distortions of

Nagarjuna and Vasubhandu, respectively, confirmed Vedanta's substantialist doctrines, though

flatly denied in the Pali texts. Righting this wrong, he suggests, could very well contribute to

healing the Theravada-Mahayana divide.

 Chapter Two addresses the difficulty of categorizing Buddhism in Western philosophic

terms, and indeed whether it is even philosophy. It offers, for example, no explicit propositional

calculus, but it overlaps with Western philosophy enough such that Kalupahana regards a radical

empiricism with aspects of pragmatism. Chapter Three, The Indian Background, is a brief

description of the religious and intellectual contexts within which Buddhist doctrines arose. The

eternal, immutable atta/atman hypothesis, soundly rejected by the Buddha, originated in the

Upanishads. Instead, he perceived observable processes, anatta and the infinitely mutable

paticcasamuppada.

In Chapter Four, the author further defines anatta and paticcasamuppada, along with

relevant, pivotal concepts such as namarupa, the pancakhanda, and the dhatu or elements, all of

which are ongoing processes rather than entities. The implications of these are spelled out in

Chapter Five, which, borrowing from James, introduces the stream of consciousness as a near

equivalent of the namarupa, the unfixed seat of awareness. Following up on this, in Chapter Six,

Kalupahana explains how associating mind (mano) with consciousness (vinnana) in mano-

vinnana (self-consciousness) makes it easy to reify, resulting in the errant belief that mind or

consciousness can exist independently of the nama-rupa. Chapter Seven explains how this

revised understanding of the self as non-self is a middle path between the horns of the eternalist-

annihilationist dilemma.

James again shares the stage in Chapter Eight, also taking a middle path, but between

materialism and spiritualism. His 'sensationalism' admits neither, but does admit the subjective

perception of positive and negative qualities, somewhat analogously to the Buddha's

paticcasamuppada. Chapter Nine further details the Nagarjuna scandal of the substantialists,

relates James' rejection of the transcendental Ego and the Buddha's rationale for relinquishing the
metaphysical quest. In Chapter Ten, the progressive structure of the Buddha's yoga is plainly and

concisely laid out.

Part One: The Buddha's Psychological Reflections

Chapter One

History of Buddhist Philosophy - An Interpretation

T.R.V. Murti, in 1956, described Nagarjuna's work from a Vedantic standpoint, describing the
Buddha as the originator of an incomplete metaphysics of elements, the dhamma. Then
Nagarjuna provided a revolutionary improvement upon the Buddha's seminal work, giving us
"emptiness" as a more advanced focal point. For many years, this depiction dominated Buddhist
studies, even though it entailed reducing the Buddha figure to a relatively unsophisticated
initiator of the dhamma metaphysic, which then needed to be upgraded by Nagarjuna and others.

Kalupahana says that more recent work refutes that. Instead, he says, Nagarjuna and the lesser-
known Moggaliputta-tissa were instead attempting to rid Buddhist doctrine of later substantialist
developments that had crept in and return it to its original form.

Murti's student, Chatterjee, also a Vedantist, made similar mistakes in describing Yogacara, the
"mind only" school. Consequently, a new look at Vasubandhu's work was in order. Kalupahana
concludes that, as with Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu was not an innovator, but was instead engaged in
re-establishing Early Buddhism's middle way in response to later substantialist metaphysics.
Correcting these misrepresentations of Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu and Moggaliputta-tissa, could
potentially, according to Kalupahana, show that the popular image of a Theravada-Mahayana
doctrinal split is faulty and in need of correction.

Chapter Two: Epistemology and Psychology

In this chapter, the author observes that it is difficult to pigeonhole the Buddha as a philosopher
by modern standards. He didn't develop an algorithm for distinguishing true and false logical
argumentation, nor a propositional calculus for representing meaningful statements, for example.
Nevertheless, the Buddha's approach to psychology as epistemology is well within the scopes of
philosophical empiricism and the American school of pragmatism. This can be demonstrated, as
the author does, by the considerable topical overlap between the Buddha's dhamma and
philosophers traditionally regarded as exemplars of those fields. Regarding empiricism, these
include at least Descartes, Hume and Kant, with William James and C.S. Peirce representing
pragmatism. It should be noted that Kalupahana doesn't claim that the Buddha's teachings agree
with all of these philosophers; they're mentioned here only to show how the topics they
addressed overlap sufficiently to regard the Buddha as a philosopher.

Chapter Three: The Indian Background

In this relatively short chapter, Kalupahana sources, through select excerpts, the Upanishads as
representing the religious and philosophical background within which Buddhism arose and
against which the Buddha debated. Therein, atta/atman is described as being eternal and
immutable, ultimately identifiable with the universal quintessence, Brahman itself. The author
suggests that Kant's "transcendental apperception" is the atta/atman, while the conventional
changing, evolving self of everyday experience is the "empirical consciousness." The Vedic
cosmology is reflected in the Indian caste system, with the Brahmin class at the pinnacle. In
principle, they are above even the ruling class, much less the other creations of Brahmam. The
cosmological connection serves as the ethical unperpinning for the caste system, such that it is
every Indian's inescapable duty to embody it. The atta/atman is "consciousness of self," while the
Brahman is one's conscientiousness towards maintaining the moral law.

All of this, the Buddha repeatedly and soundly refuted with the empirically based anatta and
paticcasamuppada, as expounded in the Pali Nikayas and Chinese Agamas. This is taken up in
detail in Chapter Four: The Buddha's Conception of Personhood.

Chapter Four: The Buddha's Conception of Personhood

The Psychophysical Personality

Kalupahana begins this chapter by identifying the concepts the Buddha developed to counter the
atta/atman belief. They include, in addition to the anatta and paticasamuppada doctrines
previously mentioned, namarupa, the pancakhanda, and the dhatu or elements.

An interesting result of the namarupa scheme is that, according to the author, it eliminates the
troublesome mind-body dualism. Consciousness itself is dependent upon the rupa, which is in
inter-dependent relationships with the sense objects. By not speculating about the ontological
nature of those sense objects, the Buddha was able to avoid the horns of the substantialism vs
transcendentalism dilemma. The dhatus are not elements in the modern sense of the term.
Instead, what is commonly regarded as matter is "contact with resistance." What is commonly
regarded as mind is "contact with concepts." Like that, the Buddha dismissed ontological
concerns as not worthy of investigation or debate, as they contribute nothing towards one's quest
for Awakening. What's important to know is that the faculty dhatu have contact (phassa) with the
object dhatu and the result is the consciousness dhatu. This is a dynamic process that leaves no
room for static, enduring entities. Consciousness at any moment is the result of volitional focus
on select phenomena depending upon one's dispositions, the results of which are the sankhata,
conditionally arisen and constructed phenomena.

The remainder of this chapter is taken up with the author's explication of the pancakhanda one
by one as foundations for attachment, upadanakkhanda. Since it's safe to assume that the reader
is already familiar with them, I will only paraphrase the author's statements that I found to be
noteworthy:

1) Rupa: Bypassing the metaphysical notion of the 'stuffness' of the physical world, the body is
more relevantly seen as process, "function," rather than a static being. It is an inseparable aspect
of personality or personhood, as are all the khandas.

2) Vedana: Emotional feelings are included alongside physical feelings and sensations arising
from contact with sensory 'rupa' objects.

3. Sanna: The less common term 'apperception' may be a better word, as it is the bringing
together of vedana events into a cognizable experience. This results in the stream of
consciousness, not discrete snapshots of awareness. There can be no pure percept that is
somehow independent of the other khandas. Neither sanna nor any of the other khandas cant
serve as a thing-in-itself.

4. Sankhara: Kalupahana favors translating sankhara as 'dispositions,' at least in this work.

Sankhara is responsible for individuation. It is that which processes the five khandas into their
particular forms. He seems to suggest that it is the volitional aspect of sankhara that prevents
humans from being mere automata, though the author doesn't address Conscious Automatism
theory. The author alludes to Popper's Three Worlds and suggests that sankhara may equate with
World Three in that scheme, with sankhara being that ability to focus on this or that particular in
W3.. If so, then Kalupahana may not be sympathetic to Conscious Automatism.

5. Vinnana: Consciousness is the source of the sense of continuity of the causal phenomenal
chain, but does not fit the criteria for being an entity in itself; it cannot function independently of
rupa. It is the activity or function of rupa, as James describes.

Summing up this chapter, Kalupahana reiterates that none of the pancakkhanda are irreducible,
meaning that they are not entities, and that atta/atman is not to be found in this bundle, neither in
substance nor in function.
ñ

Chapter Five Stream of Consciousness and the Consciousness of Self

Because the Buddha used personal pronouns, some people think that he was implying that there
was a subtle, transcendental Self that was not part of the pancakkhanda. But this would put him
back in company with the Vedic brahmins and Jains, to whom he was explicitly opposed, as well
as the later Kant. Does this mean that the Self is nothing more than a mental fabrication, as
Hume would later conclude? According to the author, no. Both Kant and Hume were working
within a framework that allowed them to isolate moments in time, rather than deal with it as an
undifferentiated flow. Sarvastivadins and Sautrantikas had made the same mistake in formulating
their doctrine of momentariness, which some mistook as representing the Buddha's teaching.

The Buddha's take is not a dialectical middle way between these doctrines. Instead, the stream of
consciousness/becoming is something other. In this scheme, beings are causally connected
streams of arising phenomena, not discrete beings nor figments of the imagination. The sankhara
description shows how humans evolve and progress through time according to evolving
dispositions rather than fixed qualities. William James, whose knowledge of Buddhism would
have been rudimentary, picked up on this perspective and was the first to call it a 'stream of
consciousness.' This perspective avoids both the sensationalist and intellectualist conclusions
with the paticcasamuppada doctrine. No things-in-themselves, but not no-thing, either. The sense
of self does not entail being as an entity nor being as a fiction or delusion. The author takes up
the explanation of how this works out in the next chapter.

Chapter Six Perception

The assumption in the Upanishads that consciousness is originally pure and only becomes
clouded by perceptions of plurality in everyday existence is often mistaken to be in agreement
with the Buddha's teachings. It is not. The other metaphysical assumption, that this
consciousness is of an eternal Self, is more easily shown to be in opposition to the Buddha's
claims. The author identifies the former mistake as resting on a extra-contextual interpretation of
a single line from the Pali texts that describes "luminous" thought. By placing the line back into
its proper context, Kalupahana corrects this error. The Buddha doesn't describe a single mind or
consciousness. Instead, there are six internal ayatana, or sense bases, each with its own object,
making six consciousnesses: eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, etc. Furthermore, they again
are functions, not entities, and they are interdependent with rupa. The association of mind
(mano) with consciousness (vinnana) in mano-vinnana (self-consciousness), he says, makes it
particularly easy to reify, and thus arises the error that mind or consciousness can exist
independently of the nama-rupa. The exhaustiveness of this model is declared in the Sabba-sutta
(SN 35.23).

Going even further, the Buddha famously rebuked the monk Sati for teaching that vinnana is
identical with a transmigrating Self (MN 38).
The author then reiterates that any consciousness occurs in dependence upon the six sense bases
in contact with their corresponding sense objects, and nowhere else. The process of sankhara is,
again, what makes the resulting humans distinct from mere automata. First of all, people,
including enlightened ones, have feelings pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Secondly, they have
interests. We focus on this or that according to our predispositions and local conditions. To focus
on one thing entails de-focusing on something else, unless one is omniscient, a possibility that
the Buddha rules out for both the unenlightened and the enlightened alike. The pinnacle of
human achievement is, instead, the three knowledges, tevijja. The unenlightened are still bound
up by the kilesas and this fact skews their understanding. As a result, Kalupahana says, they
continue to be tripped up by the idea of a transcendental self-consciousness.

The author returns to William James several times throughout this chapter. Here, he quotes
James to illustrate how the American pragmatist also saw similar flaws in the way his
contemporary psychologists and philosophers mistakenly treated consciousness as a pure,
substantial thing (Ego) discrete to the individual and separate from the objects with which
contact was made, a mistake James attributed to Kant. The correction being that consciousness of
self arises in conjunction with perception of other through paticcasamuppada.

The problem that arises from this misapprehension, according to the Buddha, is obsession
(papanca) with Self, finding it and speculating what happens to it after death and all the conflicts
that arise when people's speculations conflict. Absent this Ego, what is actually going on? The
author answers this question in the next chapter.

Chapter Seven The Selfless Self

What's going on is a constant stream of experience (vinnanasota), of becoming (bhavasota) fed

by ever-changing perceptions (sanna). We have memories and dispositions, also in flux, that
provide the sense of continuity, from which we can only rightly infer an ever-changing,
conventional self. The author notes that the Buddha never argued for eliminating all sense of
self, only for the mistaken eternal Self. He continued to use personal pronouns, for example, but
without the implication that a Self resides immutably throughout experience. Meditation and
seclusion may be therapeutic in remedying the illusion of Self, but taken to the point of
eradicating the conventional self would be unskilled, unwholesome and unhealthy. That is,
attempting to do so would be a move toward annihilationism, the other extreme from eternalism.
The trick, according to the author, is to keep a provisional sense of self without letting it grow
into the eternal kind. Neither the aggregates nor their abstract derivatives can be rightly regarded
as Self. But complete negation of selfhood is not thereby entailed, either. The Buddha's answer
would be to set the issue aside and not cling to any self-view (sakkaya-ditthi) at all. Clinging to a
concept of self as transitory or illusory tends to lead one into either complete hedonism in one
extreme or to another extreme of complete altruism in the form of self-sacrifice on the other. The
opposite alternative is to reify the Self into an absolute identity which may either need 'cleaning,'
as in the case of the Jains, through self-mortification, or "possessive individualism" that also
results in hedonism.

There is a middle way. Epistemologically, an adept must come to see paticcasamuppada, the
innate interrelatedness of all phenomena. The arising of the sense of self is just another
phenomenon that owes its fleeting existence to other phenomena, in turn serving as a condition
for the arising of yet more phenomena. The Buddha's use of 'self,' then, is in reference to an
empirical self (attadhipateyya ) that dominates our way of being distinct from an eternal Self or
one that can be annihilated. Similarly, according to Kalupahana, James conceived of a 'social
self' that performs much the same role.

The author draws a parallel with the way that the Buddha recognized that his Sangha must live in
dependence on people who did not understand his teachings deeply. This fact is encapsulated in
the Pali word 'lokadhipateyya,' meaning dominance of the world. This necessitated the
development of the Vinaya. On the one hand, the rules must serve to keep relations smooth with
the laypeople, but also not interfere with the overriding need for monks to develop themselves,
dhammadhipateyya.

All of the above can be seen through the lens of sankhara translated by the author as
'dispositions.' Dispositions are neither to be reified nor annihilated. Instead, they are to be
appeased, or calmed (sankhara-samatha). This calming is the summum bonum, or paramatha, of
the Buddhist path.

Chapter Eight Emotions and the Foundation of the Moral Life

Pleasant and agreeable (sukha, manapa) and unpleasant, disagreeable (dukkha, amanapa)
feelings arise in virtually everyone, but not in one who has achieved cessation (nirodha-
samapatti). The resulting calm and relaxation are only experienced after one emerges from this
state. They are bodily experiences, and therefore not properly regarded as emotions.

Emotivists hold that moral judgments are based on one's emotions and are not therefore properly
regarded as facts-in-the-world. Ephemeral, emotions are unsatisfactory and worrying for the
emotivist. If, however, we connect emotional states with bodily states, then, according to James,
the issue resolves into one of perception, a question more ameliorable to empirical analysis.
Their ephemeral aspect remains, however, as bodily states are also thus. Substantialism is not
entailed, either by James or the Buddha, though. James regards his position a middle stance
between the materialist and spiritualist views, calling it the 'sensationalist' position.
From the Buddhist perspective, these sensations arise via paticcasamuppada. Both employ the
empiricist approach and avoid reductive materialism.

**I tended strongly toward reductive materialism until recently because I had not been exposed
to a thorough, systematic exposition on why this was micca-ditthi. Thanks to this book, now I
have a firmer, though imperfect, understanding of why reductive materialism is not ultimately
potent enough to describe the world of experience. Side note: meditation as experiencing
experiencing. Experiencing the process first-hand. Self-reflective awareness.**

This non-substantialist perspective prevents the discovery of an internal structure to experience.

The more subtle of these emotions are moral, intellectual and aesthetic, Kalupahana observes.
Somehow, many modern scholars of Buddhism favor the moralizing emotions and think that the
Buddha favored the elimination of the intellectual and aesthetic ones. Tanhakkhaya, the gradual
disappearance of craving/attachment, doesn't imply or entail that the sensations, vedana,
themselves be eliminated. Only that one not identify with them nor attach to or crave them as
they arise and pass. Doing so gives rise to the defilements. Restraining from identity views and
attachment does the opposite. It is the path to niroda-samapatti,cessation of perception and the
felt.

Nimitta as noumenon/hypokeimenon, suñña the denial of it. Also, anuvyañjana is then the
phenomenon or quality. Thus, suñña, animitta (no sign, noumenon) and appanihita (free of
desire) refer to the non-substantialist approach to phenomena, sensory experience. No need to
say that intellectual or aesthetic experiences are themselves the problem; one's reaction to them is
either kusala or akusala, just as with the moral experiences. Intellectual and aesthetic
experiences are described throughout the EBTs, including with relation to nibbana.

People have emotions and express them in society, affecting members of society because we
aren't discrete. Because of these potential effects, the question of ethics is applicable. However, it
would be over-reaching to proclaim universal, immutable ethic or ethical code or a Good. The
Buddha taught that both 'good' and 'bad' ultimately need to be released, abandoned, not clung to.

For the Buddha, the 'good' is what does no harm to self or other. Not an instrument to happiness
or fulfillment in itself. Thereby, anatta and paticcasamuppada are seen as non-absolutism and
non-substantialism.

Chapter Nine Conception

Under the influence of Platonism, Kant rejected psychology as a "scandal to philosophy." In

philosophy, ideas are treated as static entities. How they come to be (process) is
"psychologizing."
The Buddha did not work in that environment. He "psychologized" without hesitation when it
was needed. James apparently felt somewhat embarrassed in doing so. Even so, he helped
undermine the field of philosophy by a) undermining its concept of a pure, transcendental Ego as
a "psychologist's fallacy," and b) showing how discounting emotions robs the emotivist
philosophers of their subject matter, emotions, which they alleged to be the real foundation for
ethics. "Sense of sameness" appears in the stream of consciousness, not entailing an unchanging
object or entity, thus avoiding the psychologist's fallacy.

Buddha's pudgala-nairatmya, non-substantiality of persons (realization of?), was misunderstood

by some, so they proposed "substantial elements"/'fundamental particles' called dhamma and
claimed that it was the Buddha's "real" message. They then projected it into Nagarjuna, calling
his work a Copernican revolution. A "scandal of historical Buddhist interpretation." Trying to
slip in an Upanishadic materialist view of self into Buddhism. However, clear indications of this
not being the case can easily be found in both the Pali Nikayas and Chinese Agamas, and re-
reading Nagarjuna closely shows that the idea didn't originate with nor was it proposed by him.

The Buddha recognized dhamme-nana, knowledge of phenomena (direct experience), and

anvaye-ñana, inference or 'knowledge about.' (sense of sameness) The Buddha stopped at
phassa, contact, without proposing anything regarding noumena, ie "ought bodies." Functional
view of concepts. Conceiving: sankha; sañña-nidana: sense experience(?). Conceptual
knowledge is not self-sufficient, nor is "true" experience beyond conceptualization.

American Pragmatism: a difference that makes no difference is no difference. Splitting hairs

about speculative metaphysical views on the noumenon doesn't produce any difference. Leave it
alone. The sarana-patipada (warring path) vs arana-patipada. Splitting hairs for one-
upmanship. Reflect local conditions and conventions, w/out stubbornly clinging to the notion
that 'only this is true and all else is false.' The Buddha's choice of words, concepts and images are
conventions, not to be clung to in a exercise of extreme literalism.

Conceptual proliferation, obsession (papañca), nandi (delight), mañati (conceiving), māna

(conceit), Mūlapariyāya Sutta (MN I) is an explanation of paticcasamuppada applied to how
suffering arises in ordinary people. Seeing things as they really are means seeing things as
beyond the scope of the senses, necessarily other than as they appear? Not unknowable, but not
completely knowable? The audience in this sutta are described in the commentaries as Brahmins
who, though ordained, wanted to cling to their old ideas, thus the ending. (Mystery solved?)
Structure of this sutta parallels an Upanishadic story too close to be an accident, which may have
displeased the monks even more. 4th wall? The displeased Brahmins personified the unlearned
masses described in the story. Maybe a literary device. If so, damn slick, dood.

SN 1:? For him who has renounced conceit, there are no bonds. All his bonds of deeming are
exhausted. And the prudent one who has overcome the notion of self may say, "I speak" or
"They speak to me." Yet the adept, having understood the worldly convention, speaks
conforming to such mere convention (vohAramatthena). (aham(ng)-kAra)

Chapter Ten Analytic Yoga

The Buddha had to describe this psychology (of yoga) as the result of not being able to find the
atta/atman. Patanjali's yoga may be a reworking of Upanishadic epistemology in response to the
Buddha. (rationalists: takki, vimamsi) (adhivutti-padani: overstatements) Two forms of freedom:
freedom of thought (ceto-vimutti) and freedom through wisdom (panna-vimutti). Synonyms:
samatha and vipassana (analytic). Four types of self-culture required before even getting to the
meditation: ariya silakkhanda (ethical restraint), ariya indriya samvara (sense restraint) , ariya
sati sampajanna (mindfulness), and ariya-santutthi (contentment, giving up metaphysical quest).

Then one can start to work on nivarana (five constraints): abhijja (greed), vyapada
(malevolence), thina-middha (sloth-torpor), uddacca-kukucca (excitement-restlessness) and
viccikicca (doubt).

4 Preliminary Stages of Contemplation

1. ariya silakkhanda- freedom from dukkha-causing misdeeds

2. ariya indriya-samvara- sense restraint, abandon search for nimitta (substance) and qualities
(anuvyanjana), non-grasping attitude towards them.

3. ariya sati-sampajanna- noble mindfulness, cultivating yathabhuta (how things have come to
be). Antithesis: muttassati (forgetfulness).

4. ariya-santutthi (contentedness)- abandonment of metaphysical quest.

Next, overcome the nivarana, five constraints/hindrances: abhijjha (greed), vyapada

(anger/animosity)(replaced by sabba-pana-bhuta-hitanukampi (universal concern, compassion),
thina-middha (sloth-torpor), uddhacca-kukkhucca (excitement-restlessness) and vicikiccha
(doubt).

Then, the jhāna, which the author calls "preliminary stages":

1. Free from desire (kāma) and akusala dhamma. Joy/rapture from aloofness, seclusion. Vitakka
(reasoning) and vicāra (investigation) present.

2. Vitakka and vicāra cease. Joy/rapture from concentration (samādhijaṃ).

3. Aloof, joy/rapture from equanimity distinct from the previous joy/rapture (nippītika), mindful
and alert (sato sampajāno).

4. adukkham-asukhaṃ, able to direct the mind to perception and understanding of phenomena.

The above is a stock description leading up to the arupajjhana, but the author says it's based on a
poor reading:

Vitakka and vicāra translated as 'initial thought' and 'discursive thought' is sloppy and opens the
way for a transcendental intuition and ineffable truth. Rational psychology of the scholastics
favor those translations, but unless you are entirely dependent upon them, the interpretations are
errant. He agrees with Rhys Davids' 'reasoning' (vitakka) and 'investigation (vicāra).'

Because the word yathābhūta as 'as things have come to be' instead of 'things as they are.'

Avoid focusing only on the past as a way to understand. Instead, understand how things came to
be, then focus on the given. Otherwise, you get obsessed with reasoning and investigation and
get stuck there.

The joy and happiness you encounter can also lead to obsession. Ordinary joy and happiness
come from things meeting our expectations; in jhana, it comes from novel learning in context of
the moment.

The upekkha (upa + iks, too see/perceive) - that develops allows for unbiased, close
consideration/scrutiny.

The Higher Stages of Contemplation

The Buddha's return to Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta's arupajjhana meditations served
to show their insufficiencies. The 4th jhana perceptions are left behind and an attempt is made to
peel off layers of perception to get to the underlying, ultimate reality. (Trying to get to the
noumena?) The infintude of space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, neither perception nor
non-perception (Based on Materialism, leaves us stuck with the problem of the one and the
many?)

It left the Buddha empty-handed, no transcendental intuition. But maybe it weakened his belief
in the ultimate nature of entities and Self, as neither would survive the arupajjhana meditations.
The frequent imagery of peeling away the trunk of a plantain tree to find the heartwood.
Therefore, the Buddha said to get rid of the obsession with metaphysical substance/noumenon
before even starting. That advice doesn't appear in the depictions of his training under
Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta, but it does appear in suttas after his Awakening. The
experiences of the arupajjhana are described as bodily experiences, so nothing transcendental is
entailed or suggested. Nothing cognitive, either. No real knowledge or insight. That didn't occur
until the Buddha emerged from them and accidentally stumbled upon vipassana and panna, ie
Awakening.

The Sixfold Higher Knowledge

Abhinna or panna does not immediately follow nirodha. The Buddha found the epistemological
limitations of rupa and arupajjhana. Rather, that process actually starts earlier, in the preparatory
stages, ie after the 4th preliminary state (catutthajjhana). This description discounts both the
materialists' atta/atman and the skeptics' rejection of it, along with moral and psychological
phenomena.

Most suttas describe the abinna just after the 4th jhana, implying that it's still necessary to
direct/bend the mind towards that knowledge, but the Samannaphala describes that he directed
his attention towards his psycho-physical personality beforehand. Contra the materialists, the
body is not identical with the self; it is instead a by-product of conditions that dissipates when
conditions change, and consciousness isn't a mere by-product of the body, but instead is
associated with or co-dependent upon it.

(I don't get that distinction. Sounds like there is body, then mind, then mind makes body? Clear
as mud. Body is born, senses developed, etc, then mind constructs a mental representation of the
body? Mind mapping including the body?)

Apparent permanence of physical self/atta is mana (pride, conceit). Declaring oneself to be more
than one really is.

The abhinna are described as 1) tele/psycho-kinesis (miracles), 2) clairaudience, 3) telepathy

(knowing whether someone else's thought processes are clean or dirty, 4) retrocognition, 5)
clairvoyance (how beings fare according to deeds), and 6) the waning of influxes/asavas (most
important).

The author says that none of these are mysterious or transcendent and that if we could abandon
the search for Self or substance, they could be common. 4) and 5) are "relevant," and 6) is
necessary for Awakening.

The Buddha utilized rebirth as Pascal's Wager! (author) However, not as an unverified
hypothesis, but as a personally verified claim. Also, knowledge of paticcasamuppada doesn't
give one predictive ability to say, for example, that everyone will be reborn.

The last, panna, has asavakkhaya (waning of influxes/asavas) as its object. (Birth finished,
nothing more to be done.)

Summary: Human experience produces dispositions, which can be + or -, desire for or rejection
of. All of these are the asavas, grouped thusly:
1) Kamasava.

2) Bhavasava.

3) Ditthasava.

4) Avijjasava.

Nagarjuna included a whole chapter on these asavas before following it up with one on the truth
(satya/satta), suggesting he knew of their supreme importance. However, its placement at the
end leads some to think that it's beyond both (bodily) perception and cognition, leaving it
ineffable. Instead, it's the clear vision of how things have come to be in the sense of clearly
seeing 'this is suffering, this is the cause,' etc (4NT). Yathabhutam pajanati (seeing things as they
really are/have become) is the clear perception of the 4NT and paticcasamuppada (both
dynamic), not the noumena or omniscience or anything static, like a Self, etc.

The Buddha demystified the traditional Indian quest for mystery and esoteric knowledge.
Satipatthana can be practiced by just about anyone, regardless of status. Even though South and
SE Asians alike continue to be enthralled with the quest for mystery, they do so because they
don't know or understand what the Buddha said/recommended.

BIG POINT!!! Satipatthana. Mindfulness. Is NOT about focusing on the present moment! It's
about understanding how things have become, not how they are at this or any other moment. It's
focused on the "historical present," looking back to see how things became how they are. Anu-
passana. This leads to understanding how things work. (Not just a moment's relief from stress, as
in McMindfulness.)

This radically empirical re-flection is to be applied four ways or to four things:

1) kaya or psycho-physical being

2) vedana or physical or emotional feelings

3) citta or thoughts

4) dhamma or facts in general

James: radical empiricism means neither including things that aren't experienced nor leaving out
things that are. Relations between things must be experienced relations, as well. They are just as
real as anything else.

Kalupahana: no mysticism or extreme spiritualism. De-mystificaiton. Even so, it must have

seemed as mystical or spiritual to James' peers, who would rather have something under a
microscope or on a scale (quantifiable). James gradually became to understand that Buddhism
was different from the yogas he'd described before, and his later writings reflected that.
Psycho-kinesis example: James had a friend who attributed his skills to Hathayoga. Friend would
be lazy and indolent for long periods, then frenetic with productivity. James concluded that the
friend's mind wasn't being helped or purified by Hathayoga, that instead it was twisting up his
behavior. Kalupahana says that's what the abhinnna psycho-kinesis (knowledge of others'
relative purity of mind) really is. Completely non-mystical. (Sad that modern history connotes it
with telekinesis and other woo.)

In contrast, James told of his friend who had breast cancer but kept focus on saintliness and
cheerfulness. This was the moral potential of 'something extra' within us that impressed James,
not mysticism or spiritualism.

In Buddhism, raga, lobha and tanha are the things we need to use our potential to de-focus off
of, and cultivate karuna, viraga (dispassion), metta, etc. Freedom 'from' pursuing the passions
leads to freedom 'to' cultivate the virtues.

Chapter Eleven Suffering

What is genuine about the realization/recognition of dukkha?

Western philosophers (Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Jaspers) have put dukkha in the pessimistic
context of the classical tragedies, a tendency among substantialists and absolutists.

Sarvastivadins inserted substantialist thought into the Buddha's teachings, despite sabbe dhamma
anatta. (Vasubhandu reporting?)

(Me: Buddha Nature, etc is substantialist thinking)

Never "sabbe dhamma dukkha" or "sabbam dukkham." (absolutist)

Nor "sabbam idham dukkham." (universalist)

Both are substantialist positions and led to the modern misunderstanding that "All is suffering."

Wow!

Aided by Brahminical philosophers attributing distorted quips like "sarvam dukkham" (all is
suffering) to the Buddha, helping to eradicate Buddhism from India. The Western philosophers
above also followed this kind of Brahminical distortion/misrepresentation. Thus we have this
particularly German view of Buddhism as pessimistic. The Brahmin philosophers emphasized
the "bliss" of the Upanishads.
In reality, it was the Jains who deserved the label. The Buddha rejected their claim that all
present experiences are the result of past kamma, ie fatalism.

The Buddha recognized this belief, as well as the questions about what I used to be or what will I
be, as transgressing the limits of human reflection and investigation (being beyond the reach of
empiricism). He focused on dispositions, instead. That which is dukkha is limited (birth, death,
aging, etc).

Repeating the four delusions:

1) impermanent as permanent

2) unsatisfactory as satisfactory

3) insubstantial as substantial

4) unpleasant as pleasant

Empirically, neither permanent nor substantial are known, so a rationalist approach can't work.
Can't assume the permanent just because there is the impermanent, etc.

With 2) and 4), however, both opposites can be experienced.

Both eternalists and annihilationists can be optimistic (for different reasons). Birth is
reincarnation for the former, and the latter don't have to worry about what happens after death.
Skeptics about the whole issue, however, can be pessimistic. What's going to happen? If your
disposition is negative, you can be pessimistic.

However, the Buddha's admission of retrocognition allows that the beginning of a stream of
consciousness need not be confined to one person at one time (like birth). That's because there is
no entity involved. It's the result of paticcasamuppada. Bhava-tanha conditions birth, but birth
can continue to be a burden if bhava-tanha continues in the born person. But not if s/he
cultivates viraga (dispassion). Therefore, there is no intrinsic link between birth and dukkha. If
the link can be broken, it's not intrinsic.

(Similar for the other tanhas.)

Marana, death, is an insufferable burden because of bhava-tanha. Get rid of the obsessive
craving, and death becomes nothing. This is how the dispositions (sankhara) are so crucial.

The aggregates themselves aren't dukkha; the craving for/attachment to them is (or brings it
about? It works if the cravings themselves are dukkha, too?). James: meliorism, the belief that
life can be improved with concerted/concentrated effort. Schopenhauer fell for the pessimism, as
it matched his outlook, but Buddhism is neither optimistic nor pessimistic.
 Chapter Twelve The Dilemma of Freedom

Both the Buddha and James saw the problems with determinism. Upanishads and the atman
determined caste, Jains' determinism resulted in self-mortification and the lack of freedom of the
will.

Because the Buddha offered a type of causation, paticcasamuppada, many people think that he
taught a form of determinism inimical to freedom of the will.

James' social context was such that the sciences were gleefully promoting strict determinism (it
helped make their problems easier to solve, viz inference from limited observations). Response:
can't experimentally prove human behavior; scientific hypotheses focus only on those aspects of
reality that adhere to determinism. However, James says, people have the ability to choose what
to focus on, which isn't something that the sciences focus on. (Still true?)

For the Buddha, this was the sankhara/dispositions that develop during the stream of
consciousness. Not necessarily during the lifetime of this body. (Seems to coincide with what
I've been thinking about waves of conditions and results flowing through populations like wind
blowing through a wheat field.)

For James, belief in free will was of moral importance.

The Buddha could have used a-dhamma to refer to things not experiential, but he didn't. Instead,
the word appears in the text as an approximate synonym for 'evil' or akusala deeds. For the
Buddha, facts or non-facts, experiential or not, deeds only have importance IF they are of moral
consequence.

What's possible is always less than what's demanded. One answer is to seek to leave this world in
order to satisfy demands in another. Others may abandon the demand to satisfy the world, ie self-
denial. The middle way is to take the world as it is and only demand what's possible within it.
James seems to arrived at this conclusion (approximately) through rational reflection; the
Buddha through trial-and-error (experience).

Chapter Thirteen The Psychology of Freedom

Materialists: mind is reducible to matter. Ex: behaviorism.

Spiritualists: mind is separate from the material being and its sensory experiences. Ex:
Upanishads, culminating in the Vedanta.
The latter treated the Buddha's teaching very poorly, ex, the Sabba Sutta. Distorted his words to
chase Buddhism out of India or to subsume it. Or both.

In '69, Rune Johanssen tried to do the freedom part w/out the psychology part. Nanananda tried
to help, but also failed. He did recognize that the Awakened One still has experiences and
conceptions, but, stuck on cessation, his model of consciousness was so different from the
Buddha's that he couldn't make it work.

In the Udana, the Buddha is explicit that the Self is not to be found in any sort of experience,
whether the mind is material or spiritual. Nagarjuna brought this up, too.

Yathabhuta:

1) the seen as mere seen

2) heard as mere heard

3) reflected

4) cognized

5) convention

No search for an Unmoved Mover or Uncaused (First) Cause. Speculative, can't be empirical, as
in the unseen beauty queen. Perplexing, and the Buddha didn't claim omniscience. Instead, avoid
the fruitless search is the answer. Such a quest is fed by raga (lust), tanha, etc.

People and animals naturally gravitate toward the pleasurable and avoid pain, so the Buddha
made pleasures that weren't harmful (meditation). A kincana is one who is still searching in vain
for the unfindable; akincana (freed one) have given it up. Anchored to such unfruitful ideas, one
is alaya, freed from it, analaya. Alaya is what muddies the water wrt Awakening.

Giving up the metaphysical chase, the asavas and nivaranas cease. Such a one can't get sick with
high blood pressure or other diseases common to people, but still gets old and dies.

(Begging the question? One who has diabetes, etc, can't be Awakened; the existence of high
blood pressure, etc, is evidence that one hasn't attained?)

Such a one is able to overcome social, economic, political, etc constraints. (Dalai Lama?)

To his son, Rahula: Any deed that you want to do that doesn't hurt yourself or others is cool-sala.
(Freedom!)
James admitted that his knowledge of the varieties of religious experience, though
thoroughgoing, was second hand, learned through others rather than his personal experience.

Talking about self-mortification, he regarded chastity, obedience and poverty as ascetic practices
from Christianity. Didn't remark on the first, ambivalent about the second, held the last in high
esteem as freedom and obeisance to a higher power, the last part of which departs from the
Buddha. The Buddha emphasized doing rather than having; being in the sense of being happy.

James contra perennialism, OK with pluralism, aware of excesses and need for balance/restraint.

PART TWO REVISIONS AND RESURRECTIONS

Chapter Fourteen Psychology and the Abhidhamma

Metaphysical positions such as substantialism are inflexible, and lead inevitably to conflict. If
resolution were possible, it would have been achieved after Hume's Treatise on Human Nature.
The Buddha did succeed in avoiding metaphysics by appeasing the dispositions by providing
wholesome fruits of actions. There were 'tender-minded' and 'tough-minded' in the mix. Tender-
minded couldn't let go of substantialism. Sutta Pitaka suttas can be said to be aimed at them. The
Abhidhamma Pitaka was aimed at the tough-minded.

The Abhidhamma language is about definitions and clarifications, and doesn't lend itself to
substantialist interpretations. All phenomena must be one of these:

1) states of consciousness (citta)

2)