Tagged: Early Buddhism
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Polak - The Pleasure of Not Experiencing Anything (2023)
13Grzegorz Polak's article reconstructs the philosophical basis for the early Buddhist claim that the pleasure (*sukha*) of nibbāna lies in the absence of experience (*vedayita*). The author argues that *vedayita* and the five aggregates (*khandhas*) do not represent all cognition but a specific type of introspectable, reportable "access consciousness" that is inherently fabricated (*saṅkhāra*) and tied to a mistaken sense of self. Drawing on modern cognitive science, the paper posits that this form of consciousness is not continuous and its very generation is correlated with a subtle tension and fundamental discomfort (*dukkha*). Consequently, states of deep absorption or "flow" are pleasurable due to a lower frequency of this self-conscious awareness. The ultimate psychological transformation, therefore, involves ceasing to identify with one's consciousness, which allows for its absence to be realized not as annihilation, but as a profound, non-introspectable comfort (*sukha*) while the organism remains intelligently and receptively engaged with the world.
Polak - Who Identifies with the Aggregates (2023)
14This paper analyzes the Buddhist concept of identifying with the five aggregates (*khandhas*) as "I am this," challenging the traditional view that the aggregates are the objective constituents of a person by proposing they are instead passive, phenomenal representations of subjective experience. Drawing on Nikāya similes that imply a distinction between the individual and the aggregates, the author argues that key cognitive faculties like the mind (*citta*) operate separately from the *khandhas*, which are better understood as the end-results of cognitive processes rather than active agents themselves. Consequently, the fundamental error of identifying with the aggregates is interpreted as a mistaken projection of agency and identity onto one's own phenomenal self-representation, a process which, by attaching to something inherently distorted and unsatisfactory (*dukkha*), becomes a primary source of suffering.
Shults - On the Buddha's Use of Some Brahmanical Motifs in Pali Texts (2014)
15This paper by Brett Shults argues that Pali texts demonstrate a sophisticated and deliberate engagement with Brahmanical culture by strategically adopting and reinterpreting its motifs to articulate Buddhist teachings. Moving beyond the idea of a shared cultural vocabulary, the author illustrates how early Buddhists repurposed specific Brahmanical elements for their own didactic purposes. Examples range from metallurgical similes, where the Brahmanical concept of refining gold for ritual purity is transformed into a metaphor for mental purification, to the Buddha's detailed technical knowledge of the Sāvitrī mantra's gāyatrī meter. The analysis further shows how core Brahmanical practices, such as the agnihotra (fire sacrifice) and the three Vedic ritual fires, are systematically interiorized and ethicized, shifting their focus from external rites to internal development and social responsibilities, thereby challenging and supplanting the original Brahmanical framework using its own terms.
Vetter - Explanations of dukkha (1984)
16In a philological analysis of the First Noble Truth, Tilmann Vetter argues that the concluding statement on the five aggregates (*upādānakkhandhā*) is not a summary of suffering (*dukkha*), but rather another example of it. He bases this on the presence of the coordinating particle *pi* ("also") in this final statement in older Pāli manuscripts, such as those used in Hermann Oldenberg's edition of the Mahāvagga. Vetter contends that later editors and commentators, notably Buddhaghosa, worked from texts where this *pi* was missing, leading them to develop an anachronistic interpretation of the aggregates as a summary or foundation for all other forms of suffering. He asserts that the original reading with *pi* is more historically sound, presenting the five aggregates as a distinct, added item in the list of things that are *dukkha*, with the term *sankhittena* ("in brief") indicating it is a concise point requiring further explanation, not a summation of what precedes it.
Wynne - The ātman and its negation (2010)
17The famous Buddhist "No Self" (anātman) doctrine is largely absent from the earliest texts because the original teachings were founded on a different and more subtle philosophy than the later, standard interpretation. Early critiques, such as the "Not-Self" (anattā) teaching, are grounded in a principle of "epistemological conditioning," where fundamental concepts including "self," "existence," and even space-time are not ultimate realities but are dependently originated through cognitive processes. This is why the early texts pragmatically avoid direct ontological statements like "the self does not exist," instead guiding practitioners to see that identifying with conditioned phenomena is "unsuitable" and thereby transcend the very conceptual framework that creates a sense of self. The explicit "No Self" doctrine developed later, as seen in texts like the *Vajirā Sutta* and the Abhidharma, when this subtle philosophy gave way to a "reductionistic realism" that analyzes the person as a collection of essenceless components within an objectively real world, thus shifting the focus from a radical critique of conceptuality to the denial of a specific entity.
Anālayo - A Meditator's Life of the Buddha (2017)
18Bhikkhu Anālayo's "A Meditator's Life of the Buddha" presents a scholarly yet practical biography that traces the Buddha's inner journey, drawing exclusively from early Buddhist discourses in Pāli and their Chinese Āgama parallels to distinguish historical accounts from later legends. The book chronologically follows Siddhartha Gotama's quest from his initial motivation to go forth, through his struggles with asceticism and mastery of concentration, to the night of his awakening, his subsequent forty-five years of compassionate teaching, and his final meditation. Functioning as a guidebook for serious practitioners, each chapter concludes with a meditative exercise, enabling readers to engage with the Buddha's path and apply his insights—from developing moral conduct and overcoming fear to cultivating the four noble truths and dwelling in emptiness—to their own spiritual journey.