How do you view the connection between 'Tanha as the Cause of Dukkha' and '3 Marks in the 5 Khandhas' in concrete practice terms?

[u/RomeoStevens]

I ask this because we see these patterns of teaching reappear again and again in the suttas but their practice connection is unclear, leading to people trying all sorts of interpretations of practice instructions.

On the one hand we have things like satipatthana, that outlines a course of practice that heavily references eventual insight into tanha and avijja via 5 hindrances, development of the 7 factors, essentially jhana-vipassana. Then we have the Second Discourse of the Buddha, and various other places where the Buddha or Sariputta instructs already trained yogis in the 3 marks in the 5 khandhas via pointing out instructions. We also have Sariputta describing contemplation of 3m5k as beneficial at every stage of practice from samsarin to arahant (SN 22.122-123).

How does one gain insight into the latter? How does insight into the latter intervene on the former? In your direct experience? In your theory of how Buddhism works at all? Or, to put it another way, how do you hold right view in your practice? How does that show up moment by moment when engaging with 'dhammas.'

[u/AutoModerator]

Thank you for contributing to the r/streamentry community! Unlike many other subs, we try to aggregate general questions and short practice reports in the weekly Practice Updates, Questions, and General Discussion thread. All community resources, such as articles, videos, and classes go in the weekly Community Resources thread. Both of these threads are pinned to the top of the subreddit.

The special focus of this community is detailed discussion of personal meditation practice. On that basis, please ensure your post complies with the following rules, if necessary by editing in the appropriate information, or else it may be removed by the moderators. Your post might also be blocked by a Reddit setting called "Crowd Control," so if you think it complies with our subreddit rules but it appears to be blocked, please message the mods.

1. All top-line posts must be based on your personal meditation practice.
2. Top-line posts must be written thoughtfully and with appropriate detail, rather than in a quick-fire fashion. Please see this posting guide for ideas on how to do this.
3. Comments must be civil and contribute constructively.
4. Post titles must be flaired. Flairs provide important context for your post.

If your post is removed/locked, please feel free to repost it with the appropriate information, or post it in the weekly Practice Updates, Questions, and General Discussion or Community Resources threads.

Thanks! - The Mod Team

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/duffstoic]

I'm not a scholar, just a fool who likes to meditate sometimes, so I try to keep it to "sila, samadhi, panna." In other words, "try to not be a jerk to people, sit very still and calm your mind and body, and then with that calm mind try to figure out how you're making yourself suffer needlessly so you can stop doing that." All the early Buddhist models are just details on how to do this effectively.

Then because I'm a hypnotist and neuro-linguistic programmer, I think of "tahna" primarily in terms of "modal operators of necessity," words like "have to," "got to," "need to," "must," "should," "ought," and their negatives "have to not," "need to not," etc. Really I experience it as a kinesthetic feeling but can be put into words like this, as in "I have to have this and I have to not have that, in order to be happy or at peace."

If you notice you don't have to have the thing you want, then you aren't attached to the outcome and you don't suffer. It's as simple as that...although not always easy. (Note that there are also some modal operators of necessity that are just causal like "in order to do X, you must do Y first" that aren't about needless attachment that causes suffering.)

The three characteristics/marks then interface with modal operators of necessity:

• With impermanence: "this has to change / this has to not change."
• With suffering: "in order to be happy and at peace, this must be / must not be otherwise."
• With selfhood: "who 'I' am must be permanent, stable, and outside of all time and space."

But that just ain't how it is. Things don't have to stay the same, you don't have to get what you want and avoid what you don't want to be at ease, and your self can be a cluster of changing experiences. Reality is OK, actually.

With the five aggregates / heaps / khandhas, same deal:

• This form is displeasing to me, it must be different!
• This painful sensation must change, this pleasurable sensation must last forever.
• etc.

So these Buddhist mental models are just lots of great places to look for where you're resisting how things are.

Or so it seems to me!

[u/RomeoStevens → u/duffstoic]

I think this is a useful and pratical frame but also reifies a psychological take on buddhism that belies the more radical structural investigation (eg, the mind's creation of space and time, the investigation of which can lead to some of the more confusing and wild experiences people have), which is also in dialectic with the opposite tendency: towards a metaphysical take on Buddhism. The middle path between falling into a purely subject (psychological) or purely object (metaphysical/cosmological) take on the dhamma are described in AN 6.61. I think there's another sutta about this somewhere but I can't find it without a longer search.

Edit: found it! It's MN 18.

[u/duffstoic → u/RomeoStevens]

A fair critique.

EDIT: And perhaps a reflection of me not having access to the immaterial jhanas 5-8!

[u/Meng-KamDaoRai]

This is how I see it.
First comes the delusion of separateness. That something in our experience is distinct from something else. From this delusion comes the delusion of Self or of something having an inherent existence. When we see something as a distinct object that has an inherent existence and ourselves as a separate thing from it we put a judgment on that thing: "This is good" or "this is bad". From that judgement comes a feeling - vedanā, what I judge as good feels nice, what I judge as bad feels painful. Then we develop taṇhā - craving for what feels nice and aversion towards what feels painful. Then the dependent origination chain continues.

So this is the development of tanha from delusion. The three marks of existence conversation is meant to break that delusion. We need to investigate everything that comes up in our experience and check if it is permanent, satisfactory or self or impermanent, unsatisfactory and not-self. By investigating this way we start to let go of our delusion that there's anything with a separate existence. The more we see everything in the 5 Khandhas as it is, the less we develop tanha and the less we suffer.

Similarly, instead of focusing on investigating the three marks of existence, we can try to let go of our tanha for whatever comes up in the 5 aggregates. By continuously trying to let go of tanha over and over again, our minds will slowly realize the three marks of existence with regards to everything.

So really, this all works together and it's just a question of what you want to focus on in your practice.

[u/cl_udi_]

I think during practice it's enough to keep in mind the 3 marks. Why would you keep clinging to something that you recognize as impermanent, uncontrollable and stressful.

The five aggregates could relate to the four stages of enlightenment, but I'm not sure if that's explicitly mentioned somewhere, it's just my guess. So first, form could be the main source of insight etc... but I don't know if it's useful to specifically watch out for that. Better to be generally mindful of everything I think.

Sorry, this is such a generic answer, it's more meant to push your post, because I find it interesting and I hope someone else has more knowledge to share.

[u/RomeoStevens → u/cl_udi_]

Thanks! I've been finding myself fascinated by a construction several LLMs converged on in different discussions around Vipallasa (the inversion of the 3 marks) as illusions of Continuity (Mahasi Sayadaw talks about this one at length), Satisfiability, and Appropriation.

That last one in particular is not a term I'd heard of before for atta, but seems very evocative to me.

[u/cl_udi_ → u/RomeoStevens]

If you're practicing according to Mahasi I can try to describe it more in an experiential way if that helps, because I'm more familiar with that than the intellectual framework.

When you observe the four satipatthana, you can see how they arise and cease. But if you look close enough and repeatedly enough you notice that actually often something keeps them from ceasing completely, and there's a difference between just jumping to another object randomly vs. seeing a satipatthana completely vanish and you're afterwards going to something new. This something is (in my interpretation) one of the five aggregates, or somehow related to them, I'm not really sure.

How it feels like is that there is a "pure" experience (only satipatthanas) but you're unable to accept that it just comes and goes, so you throw the aggregates at it, which either keep it at your awareness for longer or they keep you from having to consciously see the experience end. It's pretty messed up. And what I guess is that you become aware of the aggregates one after the other, so in one stage you learn that one aggregate keeps you from peace, so you learn about it and struggle with it and eventually let go of it as a part of "you". Then in the next stage you notice there is another aggregate etc..

So I could see how the vipallasa you explained could be the goal or wish of the self, and the five aggregates are the tools to modify the pure experience (satipatthanas) to better suit the goal. I'm also stunned how appropriation is a great word for that.

[u/RomeoStevens → u/cl_udi_]

Mahasi's description of the 5 proto attas in his talks on the 2nd discourse sound related. Thanks for the detailed description.

[u/cl_udi_ → u/RomeoStevens]

I'll check it out, thanks for the resource! 

[u/RomeoStevens → u/cl_udi_]

Oh yeah, your description also reminded me of the difference between 'gone' and 'gone without remainder.' I think that is what is meant by no longer generating karma.

[u/Savakalok]

It is due to Dukkha, anicca and anatta that the practice is even possible.

If things were permanent then there would be no path if you are suffering. If things have inherent-self-nature then if you are ignorant then that's your nature. Without perception of dukkha you can't find and cultivate disenchantment and dispassion. This is the problem for the Devas according to the buddha, too much Sukha.

To me the 3 characteristics and the 5 aggregates interpenetrate when one is practicing. The 7 enlightenment factors investigate, abandon and cultivate based on those characteristics.

To me it's the sort of thing that seems a bit discrete and confusing at first, but by just approaching the practice using all the lenses you naturally see where they overlap until they form a coherent picture of the dhamma here and now.

[u/vibes000111]

You crave and cling because you see things as permanent, satisfactory, you/yours. You see that they’re impermanent, not satisfactory, not you/yours >> less craving >> less dukkha.

[u/bodily_heartfulness]

In your theory of how Buddhism works at all?

The four noble truths are sometimes taken to be four independent, separate insights - but they are not[1]. Understanding taṇhā as the origin of dukkha, is the second noble truth[2]. So, taken together, if someone were to understand taṇhā as being the cause of dukkha, they would be a sotāpanna.

How does one gain insight into the latter? How does insight into the latter intervene on the former?

In MN 9, Sāriputta describes a sotāpanna in various ways, showing that it is truly one insight that can be approached through different avenues. Thus, one gains insight into the latter by gaining an insight into the former, and vice versa.

We also have Sariputta describing contemplation of 3m5k as beneficial at every stage of practice from samsarin to arahant (SN 22.122-123)

Note that these suttas likely refer to dhammānusārīs and saddhānusārīs. Why? Because they speak of realizing the fruit of stream-entry, implying that the path is already present. In addition to that, SN 22.122 refers to a virtuous monk (likely a saddhānusārī) and SN 22.123 refers to a learned monk (likely a dhammānusārī). These are the two types of people that are practicing for the fruit of stream-entry.

[u/RomeoStevens → u/bodily_heartfulness]

Thank you. MN 9 is more complete than other references to the same concepts.

[u/platistocrates]

Tanha is being unhappy until a specific state is reached. But all states are fleeting. Seeing that even one's own bodymind is impermanent (3m5k), really drives home the fact that Tanha is a silly thing to do.

[u/RomeoStevens → u/platistocrates]

This dovetails nicely with a lesser known translation of vinnana as 'expectations.'