How do we know there's no soul ?
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From young, I been taught a soul exist and will depart from my body when I die. How do I know there's no soul ?
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Recently been chanting heart sutra so this question pops up. Heart Sutra say the self is composed of five aggregates and five aggregates are all empty.
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I have been reciting heart sutra for many times. I wonder is there a soul or only a self composed of five aggregates. Ok I can accept my body is an illusion or impermanent. What abt the mind aspect and the issue on soul? Conscious and mind seemed real to me.
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Read this carefully, think through and understand this article, I'm sure it will answer your question, but if you have any more questions we can discuss: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/search/label/Yozan%20Dirk%20Mosig
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Ur article too complex.
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When we say body is illusion we don't mean it is not real. Body sensations cannot be denied! Just that there is no independent and unchanging entity. I think you should start with experiencing and realizing the luminous essence of mind. Conceptual knowledge of emptiness even though very important still doesn't suffice. When you realize the inseperability of luminosity and emptiness, you are enlightened.
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So there's no soul which departs from our body ? I was thinking if mind and body are not the self then maybe soul is the true self. How to know luminous essense of mind?
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I recite heart sutra for merits and good roots.
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Just read and understand this especially last three paragraphs: Reification is the process by which the mind makes a thing (res), or a material object, out of a concept or an abstraction. By extension, it is making a thing out of a form, a shape, a configuration, a Gestalt, a perception, or an image. It is to “thing� an event or a phenomenon, to transform an ongoing, fluid process, into a frozen and static spatial or temporal cross-section of the same, endowing such construction with the qualities of reality and separateness. Vasubandhu understood that every single object differentiated by the mind out of its global and holistic experience is created by this process, including the concept of the individual self, the “I� or “me.� Reifications are little more than delusions, and refer to momentary states remembered from the past experience of the person (whose concept of himself or herself as a separate individual is itself a reification). People constantly act, behave, and live out their lives as if reifications were actually real, separate entities, rather than the delusory constructions of the mind. Language has developed as a system of communication for myriads of reified concepts, and consequently consists primarily of reified labels. These labels tend to perpetuate the illusion that reified concepts are actually real, existing objects, for their reality seems to be attested to by the very fact that labels exists for each of them. Language automatically fosters further reifications, in a vicious cycle which prevents the individual from effectively communicating in a non-reifying, nondualistic manner. This is one of the reasons why “ultimate reality� is essentially “ineffable.� As Lao Tze put it, “the tao that can be told is not the real Tao.� Buddhist training consists largely of short-circuiting the reification process, by using non-verbal, non labeling experiential practice (such as meditation) to become “awakened� to the “as-it-is-ness� of inexpressible reality. Because of the delusory nature of any labeling process, with its consequent reifications, any attempt to offer a name for the unnamable Reality must always fall short, although sages have offered terms such as Thusness, Tathagatagarba, Buddha Nature, Dharmakaya, Suchness, the Big Self, the Absolute, or the Tao. According to Walpola Rahula (1974), “Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of a [separate] soul, self, or atman. According to the teaching of the Buddha, the idea of a [personal] self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of “me� and “mine,� selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities and problems. It is the source of all the troubles in the world, from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this false view can be traced all the evil in the world.� It is important to realize what is meant by the “self� rejected by the Buddha as illusory. Not only are human beings declared to lack a soul or self, but so is everything else: rivers, mountains, this paper, and your pencil, all lack a separate self. What this means is that they cannot have any existence except in terms of the interconnected net of causal conditions that made their existence possible. All things (including human beings) are composites, in other words, they are composed of parts, and have no real existence other than as temporary (impermanent) collections of parts. They are essentially patterns, configurations, or Gestalten rather than objectively existing separate entities. They possess no separate essence, self, or soul that could exist by itself, apart from the component parts and conditions. Consider, for example, an automobile. Does it have an essence or a “soul� when separated from its component parts? Does it have any real existence apart from its parts? One could try the following mental exercise. Removing one of the tires of the car, one could ask oneself, is this the car? Successively taking away the windshield, a door, a piston, a bolt, the radiator cap, and continuing until the last piece of metal, plastic, glass, or rubber has been removed, one would never find the part which, if removed, transforms what remains into a non-car. Such part, if found, would have represented the essence or the “soul� of the car, and yet it was nowhere to be found. Now all we have is a pile of parts—where is the car? At which point did the car disappear? If we reflect carefully we are left with the realization that there never was a car there—all that was there was a conglomerate of parts temporarily connected in a certain way, so as to result in a particular mode of functioning, and “car� was just a convenient label to designate this working arrangement. The word “car� is nothing but a label for the gestalt formed by the constituent parts, and although it is true (as realized by Wertheimer and the other Gestaltists) that the whole is more than the sum of the parts (one cannot drive sitting on any of the separate parts, or on a random heap of them, but driving is possible when one puts them together in a certain way), it is equally true that a gestalt cannot continue to exist when separated from its parts. The gestalt, the “whole,� cannot exist by itself; it does not have a separate self or “soul.� But what about a person? According to Buddhist psychology, what we call a “person� is the composite of five groups of elements or skandhas. The skandhas are form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. Just as an automobile is a temporary collection of car parts, a person is a temporary arrangement of these five aggregates or skandhas. There is no separate, independent self or soul that would be left if we removed form (which includes the body), feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. While these aggregates are together, the functioning gestalt we call a person exists; if they are removed, the gestalt ceases to be. For this reason, the self can be said to be “empty� of reality when separated from its component aggregates— a view of the self radically different from Western perspectives. But it is not only the self that is empty, and cannot exist by itself; the skandhas themselves are also empty. The five skandhas, like everything else, are dependently arisen, and cannot exist by themselves. Take the form of one’s body, for example. What would remain of it, if one removed one’s perception of it, one’s feelings about it, one’s impulses to act on it or with it, and one’s conscious awareness of it? Form is empty of reality when separated from perceptions, feelings, impulses, and consciousness. And what about feelings? They also cannot exist by themselves. Feelings are feelings about something, about one’s body, one’s perceptions, one’s impulses, one’s state of consciousness. The same is true of the remaining skandhas—each one is composed of the other four. They are in a state of interdependent co-origination, they inter-are (Hanh, 1988).
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Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Just read and understand this especially last three paragraphs:
Reification is the process by which the mind makes a thing (res), or a material object, out of a concept or an abstraction. By extension, it is making a thing out of a form, a shape, a configuration, a Gestalt, a perception, or an image. It is to “thing� an event or a phenomenon, to transform an ongoing, fluid process, into a frozen and static spatial or temporal cross-section of the same, endowing such construction with the qualities of reality and separateness. Vasubandhu understood that every single object differentiated by the mind out of its global and holistic experience is created by this process, including the concept of the individual self, the “I� or “me.� Reifications are little more than delusions, and refer to momentary states remembered from the past experience of the person (whose concept of himself or herself as a separate individual is itself a reification). People constantly act, behave, and live out their lives as if reifications were actually real, separate entities, rather than the delusory constructions of the mind.
Language has developed as a system of communication for myriads of reified concepts, and consequently consists primarily of reified labels. These labels tend to perpetuate the illusion that reified concepts are actually real, existing objects, for their reality seems to be attested to by the very fact that labels exists for each of them. Language automatically fosters further reifications, in a vicious cycle which prevents the individual from effectively communicating in a non-reifying, nondualistic manner. This is one of the reasons why “ultimate reality� is essentially “ineffable.� As Lao Tze put it, “the tao that can be told is not the real Tao.�
Buddhist training consists largely of short-circuiting the reification process, by using non-verbal, non labeling experiential practice (such as meditation) to become “awakened� to the “as-it-is-ness� of inexpressible reality. Because of the delusory nature of any labeling process, with its consequent reifications, any attempt to offer a name for the unnamable Reality must always fall short, although sages have offered terms such as Thusness, Tathagatagarba, Buddha Nature, Dharmakaya, Suchness, the Big Self, the Absolute, or the Tao.
According to Walpola Rahula (1974), “Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of a [separate] soul, self, or atman. According to the teaching of the Buddha, the idea of a [personal] self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of “me� and “mine,� selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities and problems. It is the source of all the troubles in the world, from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this false view can be traced all the evil in the world.�
It is important to realize what is meant by the “self� rejected by the Buddha as illusory. Not only are human beings declared to lack a soul or self, but so is everything else: rivers, mountains, this paper, and your pencil, all lack a separate self. What this means is that they cannot have any existence except in terms of the interconnected net of causal conditions that made their existence possible. All things (including human beings) are composites, in other words, they are composed of parts, and have no real existence other than as temporary (impermanent) collections of parts. They are essentially patterns, configurations, or Gestalten rather than objectively existing separate entities. They possess no separate essence, self, or soul that could exist by itself, apart from the component parts and conditions.
Consider, for example, an automobile. Does it have an essence or a “soul� when separated from its component parts? Does it have any real existence apart from its parts? One could try the following mental exercise. Removing one of the tires of the car, one could ask oneself, is this the car? Successively taking away the windshield, a door, a piston, a bolt, the radiator cap, and continuing until the last piece of metal, plastic, glass, or rubber has been removed, one would never find the part which, if removed, transforms what remains into a non-car. Such part, if found, would have represented the essence or the “soul� of the car, and yet it was nowhere to be found. Now all we have is a pile of parts—where is the car? At which point did the car disappear? If we reflect carefully we are left with the realization that there never was a car there—all that was there was a conglomerate of parts temporarily connected in a certain way, so as to result in a particular mode of functioning, and “car� was just a convenient label to designate this working arrangement. The word “car� is nothing but a label for the gestalt formed by the constituent parts, and although it is true (as realized by Wertheimer and the other Gestaltists) that the whole is more than the sum of the parts (one cannot drive sitting on any of the separate parts, or on a random heap of them, but driving is possible when one puts them together in a certain way), it is equally true that a gestalt cannot continue to exist when separated from its parts. The gestalt, the “whole,� cannot exist by itself; it does not have a separate self or “soul.�
But what about a person? According to Buddhist psychology, what we call a “person� is the composite of five groups of elements or skandhas. The skandhas are form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. Just as an automobile is a temporary collection of car parts, a person is a temporary arrangement of these five aggregates or skandhas. There is no separate, independent self or soul that would be left if we removed form (which includes the body), feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. While these aggregates are together, the functioning gestalt we call a person exists; if they are removed, the gestalt ceases to be. For this reason, the self can be said to be “empty� of reality when separated from its component aggregates— a view of the self radically different from Western perspectives. But it is not only the self that is empty, and cannot exist by itself; the skandhas themselves are also empty.
The five skandhas, like everything else, are dependently arisen, and cannot exist by themselves. Take the form of one’s body, for example. What would remain of it, if one removed one’s perception of it, one’s feelings about it, one’s impulses to act on it or with it, and one’s conscious awareness of it? Form is empty of reality when separated from perceptions, feelings, impulses, and consciousness. And what about feelings? They also cannot exist by themselves. Feelings are feelings about something, about one’s body, one’s perceptions, one’s impulses, one’s state of consciousness. The same is true of the remaining skandhas—each one is composed of the other four. They are in a state of interdependent co-origination, they inter-are (Hanh, 198
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I saw a book by Dalai Lama in english bookshop abt knowing who you really are. I did not look through It but the cover caught my attention. -
Originally posted by Yui Hirasawa:
So there’s no soul which departs from our body ?
I was thinking if mind and body are not the self then maybe soul is the true self.How to know luminous essense of mind?
I am currently reading a dalai lama book too, called lighting the way. Hhdl certainly has deep insights about emptiness. The so called soul that departs the body is not your real self, it is simply a dependently originated impermanent phenomena of consciousness arising due to ignorance. As such the soul is also empty of inherent self, but it does take the shape of a seven year old child when the body passes away... And this antarabhava can last for up to forty nine days before rebirth after which if he or she has not taken birth, will fall into the ghost realm. -
He like Xing Yun fashi wrote many buddhist books.
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There are many ways to realize the luminous essence of mind. You should seek a teacher. Actually you should practice da zhi mu fa if you are in ren cheng. If you into zen, self inquiry and koan are also direct ways. Different teachers teach somewhat different methods but they all are aimed at experiencing and realizing pure awareness.
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I am interested in zen koan the sound of one hand clap.
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don't talk about 'soul'.
the word 'soul' implies something which transmigrates from lifetime to lifetime ad infinitum. everytime someone asks this question, another can counter-answer this question by posting articles on Anatta or the selflessness of the mind-body complex.
Let me rephrase this question, not 'soul' but this word called 'spirit'. Do humans have spirit?
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Originally posted by Yui Hirasawa:
Recently been chanting heart sutra so this question pops up. Heart Sutra say the self is composed of five aggregates and five aggregates are all empty.
If you subscribe to the doctrine of emptiness, then it is this simple:
Everything is emptiness, emptiness is everything.
A famous Vietnamese monk, pointing to a flower in the vase, said: it is not flower!
When you figure this out, you are enlightened! No need to free yourself from suffering!
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Lol... Is it true to say those who are attached to Emptiness thinks it's everything? I think they forgot form is not empty too... Transfer your $ to my acct. Im willing to spend for u. Lol
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Originally posted by I No Stupid:
If you subscribe to the doctrine of emptiness, then it is this simple:
Everything is emptiness, emptiness is everything.
A famous Vietnamese monk, pointing to a flower in the vase, said: it is not flower!
When you figure this out, you are enlightened! No need to free yourself from suffering!
In which sutra is it said that "everything is emptiness, emptiness is everything"?
Have you figured this out? Namely the "everything is emptiness, emptiness is everything"?
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Originally posted by 2009novice:
Lol... Is it true to say those who are attached to Emptiness thinks it's everything? I think they forgot form is not empty too... Transfer your $ to my acct. Im willing to spend for u. Lol
hahaha, I like your humour. My bank account is empty. Do you think it is not empty?
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Originally posted by realization:
In which sutra is it said that "everything is emptiness, emptiness is everything"?
Have you figured this out? Namely the "everything is emptiness, emptiness is everything"?
I didn't say I quoted the sutta. But there is a doctrine on Emptiness.
What I said is gathered from all the various posts and I am under that impression. To which part of what I said is something you cannot figure?