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Saį¹yutta NikÄya 35.92 Linked Discourses 35.92
9. Channavagga 9. With Channa
Paį¹hamadvayasutta A Duality (1st)
āDvayaį¹ vo, bhikkhave, desessÄmi. āMendicants, I will teach you a duality. In this discourse and the next, the Buddha discusses the structure of sense activity as the duality of interior and exterior. From the sparse hints in the discourses themselves, it seems he is critiquing the doctrine of infinite, non-dual consciousness taught by YÄjƱavalkya especially in Bį¹hadÄraį¹yaka Upaniį¹£ad 2.4 = 4.5 and 4.3.23ā32.
Taį¹ suį¹Ätha. Listen ā¦
KiƱca, bhikkhave, dvayaį¹? And what is a duality?
CakkhuƱceva rÅ«pÄ ca, sotaƱceva saddÄ ca, ghÄnaƱceva gandhÄ ca, jivhÄ ceva rasÄ ca, kÄyo ceva phoį¹į¹habbÄ ca, mano ceva dhammÄ caāItās just the eye and sights, the ear and sounds, the nose and smells, the tongue and tastes, the body and touches, and the mind and ideas.
idaį¹ vuccati, bhikkhave, dvayaį¹. This is called a duality.
Yo, bhikkhave, evaį¹ vadeyya: Mendicants, suppose someone was to say:
āahametaį¹ dvayaį¹ paccakkhÄya aƱƱaį¹ dvayaį¹ paƱƱapessÄmÄ«āti, tassa vÄcÄvatthukamevassa. āIāll deny this duality and describe another duality.ā Theyād have no grounds for that claim, The same ādualityā is described as the (sentient) body and āexternalā name and form, which are essential for contact through the six senses (SN 12.19:1.3). | Compare YÄjƱavalkyaās culminating philosophy: āFor when there is a duality, as it were, then one sees the other; one smells, tastes, hears, greets, thinks of, touches, and cognizes the other. But when this All has become the Self, how and what would one see? How and what would one smell, taste, greet, hear, think, touch, or cognize? By what would one cognize that which cognizes this All? This Self is not that, not that! ā¦ By what would one cognize the cognizer?ā (Bį¹hadÄraį¹yaka Upaniį¹£ad 2.4.14 = 4.5.15; readings vary). According to the Buddha, the dualistic structure of experience is primary; the mind functions as a duality. If one asserts, with YÄjƱavalkya, that āthere is no second reality here that he could see as something distinct and separate from himselfā (BU 4.3.23), how can one then assert that the primordial person split in two to make man and woman (BU 1.4.3); or that there is a duality of truth and falsehood (Åatapatha BrÄhmaį¹a 1.1.1.4)? YÄjƱavalkya denies the duality of self and other implicit in the structure of the senses, yet asserts the dualities of truth and falsehood, mortality and immortality, and man and woman. The implication is that such an assertion is incoherent, for to make such an assertion relies on the duality of speech and the senses. For all his ānondualā talk, YÄjƱavalkya ends up asserting one axis of duality, namely the eternal survival of the soul (as at SN 12.15:2.1) against the transience of worldly things. While there is no necessary correspondence between the dualities of interior/exterior and eternalism/annihilationism, those who focus on the inner consciousness, which appears to the unwary as ever-present, tend to fall into eternalism, while those who focus on the ephemeral material world of the exterior senses tend to be annihilationists. Epistemology shapes metaphysics.
Puį¹į¹ho ca na sampÄyeyya. theyād be stumped by questions, and, in addition, theyād get frustrated.
UttariƱca vighÄtaį¹ Äpajjeyya.
Taį¹ kissa hetu? Why is that?
YathÄ taį¹, bhikkhave, avisayasmināti. Because theyāre out of their element.ā
Navamaį¹.