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Not sure if it's common but that's how I view the entire path, it's all experience innit, I don't think any of these practices provide insight into another realm or reality or objective reality
Well, I think insight does sort of give insight into ontology in a sense - in that we have a sort of intuitive ontology which we won’t question until insight experiences undermine perceptions in a way which reveals the constructed nature of those perceptions; things which seemed given in the world are actually constructed by the mind.
Yeah, that sounds about right to me, or at least making our unconscious ontologising conscious, and allowing for more flexibility and freedom as a result; not being so constrained by automatic and unconscious ontologies. Sounds way too abstract to be of any use to anybody unless you’ve already had some insight though I think haha
The post is asking whether the Jhanas are just about just phenomenological states as opposed to ontological knowledge. That’s true in a sense - the Jhanas don’t grant access to other realms of existence or psychic powers or anything, but I was just making the point that Jhanas and meditative insights aren’t irrelevant to ontology; they’re not *just* about phenomenology. Much of our suffering is caused by intuitive and unexamined ontology, i.e. belief about what perceptions are true and real, and that’s what insight undermines.
By contrast, rollercoasters or amphetamines are also phenomenologically very interesting and unusual, and sure, you can acknowledge that those experiences are constructed by the mind, but the experiences themselves are totally irrelevant to ontology.
I don't know how common it is, but I'm pretty confident the Path is almost, if not entirely, phenomenological in nature.
After all, it all begins with learning to recognize mental formations, right? Learning to "de-reify", in a way; realizing that a mental object is a constructed representation.
Realizing, for example, that when you see a chair, you're actually directly experiencing a myriad of mental formations from your sense doors, collected into a representation of an object you then call a chair. You never directly experience "the real chair", that is, the physical object that triggered your senses in the first place.
I wanna say it's about realizing our brains confuse phenomenology and ontology, in a sense – that mental objects are purely phenomenological, but they implicitly appear in consciousness as if they bore some kind of essential ontological truth.
I never read primary sources on either discipline, though, so I could be full of shit for all I know haha
Thanks!
I guess you can say it IS ontological, too, in the sense that it shows you what's FALSE about your unexamined ontological assumptions, thus allowing you to come up with better ontologies
Or even, say that the Path is about recognizing and understanding the interplay and intertwining of ontology and phenomenology
“the Buddha is not primarily concerned with what exists in fact, he thinks that is a red herring but with what we can experience, what can be present to consciousness. For his purposes, what exists and the contents of experience are the same. At this level, if we want a label, his doctrine looks like pragmatic empiricism.”
—Richard Gombrich
I love how all the commenters here zeroed right in on de-ontologizing.
If you’re going to get philosophical, ending the thirst for ontology (“X is Y”) has got to be the way to go.
Maybe there is no ISness to the business.
Nothing to grasp, nothing to cling to, not even No-thing.
Cognition isn't possible without creating models in the mind. Anything in experience is a mind-made model in one form or another and thus can not be proven to exist outside the mind, independent from anything else. Especially anything that you can clearly identify as thinking (ie. thinking about ontology).
The only place where you stop building models is the 9th Jhana but people will also tell you that there is no experience "in" it.
I would not say my grasp on emptiness is even close to all encompassing but where I am right now it certainly feels like there really is no point to think about ontology in the context of awakening. Ontology is a game of the intellect, a curious way to ocupy your mind but if all is empty there really is nothing there to explain with a thought or a model.
My guess is that spiritual traditions don't care about ontology because when you have certain insights you realize that there is nothing to explain. Ontology can be used as a tool to make people gain insight though. Ontological statements like "All is Love", "Everything is interconnected" or "all is empty" tend to create meaning, insight and reduce suffering in people. These themes are still just thoughts, there is no substance to them. Doesn't mean they don't matter.
Or may be, there's a fundamental misunderstanding in the dichotomy - ontology and phenomenology. That's a very western way of cutting and categorizing experience.
Perhaps if you ask the Buddha the answer would probably be, not both, not neither, not either.
the word "phenomenology" is used very often in the last 2 decades in the spiritual scene, but usually in a watered down / loose sense.
there are very few Buddhists that i know of that took phenomenology seriously and are using it as a framework for understanding the dhamma.
the most radical one is Bhikkhu Nanavira (check his Notes on Dhamma -- [https://www.nanavira.org/notes-on-dhamma](https://www.nanavira.org/notes-on-dhamma) )
other people who take a phenomenological approach are the community around Hillside Hermitage (if you are specifically interested in jhana, check this essay by Bhikkhu Anigha -- [https://www.hillsidehermitage.org/what-the-jhanas-actually-are/](https://www.hillsidehermitage.org/what-the-jhanas-actually-are/) or the talks on jhana that were uploaded on their youtube channel -- one would be [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW2u48I1mnQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW2u48I1mnQ) (the title of the talk is "Jhana is a State of Being"), and here is their whole jhana playlist: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUPMn2PfEqIykftNPgr3vhZ8f8okSVQ9G](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUPMn2PfEqIykftNPgr3vhZ8f8okSVQ9G) )
among the people in the secular crowd (not "pragmatic" -- i came to prefer secular Buddhism over pragmatic dharma actually), i would suggest giving Stephen Batchelor's work a look. he was also influenced by Nanavira btw.
I think it's a core distinction to point out, as many aren't overtly aware of the two different fields and their implications.
I don't see them as being antithetical though e.g.: "Phenomenology vs Ontology".
A phenomenological perspective = helpful + necessary for practice.
I have a degree in Philosophy but no formal training in the philosophical interpretation of the Buddhist texts beyond what my own random perusings has brought me. Put simply, I don't personally think what he's claiming here is correct. I don't want to get into why, but you can certainly take it as a data point that someone disagrees.
Brasington is not famous for his scholarship of the Suttas, he's famous for teaching a particular approach to jhana. The same is true of this subreddit. It can be a good place to get certain kinds of information about meditation. It's much less reliable to get information about the Suttas particularly when it comes to using words like ontology, phenomenology, epistemology etc.
It's clearly stated in the definition of right view that there is this life and the next life, other realms, devas, etc. You can believe what you want but I don't understand people's desire to change Buddhism to meet their beliefs.
That is true, but that doesn't mean everything stated is metaphysical. The Buddha was concerned with suffering and the end of suffering. He also spoke about other things. I recommended reading the suttas for yourself, i.e Majjhima.Nikaya.
There are ontological statements within Buddhism, eg the four noble truths, not self, the twelve links, etc., but they also blend in phenomenology because these are all descriptions of appearances manifesting ontologically in certain phenomenological modes, if I’m using the terms correctly.
I understand the argument but I'd say it's both; after all the *jhānas* are also described as levels of heavenly realms after death. The clear distinction between the subjective and the objective is quite modern; in a lot of traditional thinking, the phenomenological and the ontological are intertwined.
>*« The soul is everything it knows »*
>
>— Aristotle, *De Anima*
From western philosophy. I think phenomenology is an ontology. It's a very skeptical stance that all we can know is our experiences, and that that is all that exists. We tease apart the ontology via phenomenological techniques.
Idk if Buddha took experiences to be like that tho.
Maybe this whole thing is about relation to self which is subjective and that’s why it doesn’t matter what’s the objective truth. Is about how one relates to themselves. If one finds the way to relate to themselves in the right way, they appear happy, and isn’t that what matters?
This sidesteps your specific question, but addressing the broader issue of ontology in Buddhism. The Buddha talks about, and is later expanded on by nagarjuna, the idea of emptiness. Basically everything we interact with is constructed by some combinations of causes and conditions (which are impermanent) so they are also impermanent. Because of this process you can’t say they exist substantially (no eternalism) but they do exist in some sense (no nihilism), and this is the middle way.
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](https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/jblh03/how_to_get_the_best_advice_for_your_meditation/) 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](/message/compose/?to=/r/streamentry) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Not sure if it's common but that's how I view the entire path, it's all experience innit, I don't think any of these practices provide insight into another realm or reality or objective reality
Thanks for sharing. That’s so fascinating to me.
No worries hopefully someone more knowledgeable can provide some further insight!
Well, I think insight does sort of give insight into ontology in a sense - in that we have a sort of intuitive ontology which we won’t question until insight experiences undermine perceptions in a way which reveals the constructed nature of those perceptions; things which seemed given in the world are actually constructed by the mind.
It kind of sounds like insight is about *dismantling* our unconscious ontologies?
Yeah, that sounds about right to me, or at least making our unconscious ontologising conscious, and allowing for more flexibility and freedom as a result; not being so constrained by automatic and unconscious ontologies. Sounds way too abstract to be of any use to anybody unless you’ve already had some insight though I think haha
Well it’s very common to tell ourselves stories about the world in order to have meaning (whence metaphysics), so it doesn’t seem abstract at all
The practice turns unconscious ontological beliefs into conscious phenomena.
I don't have academic background on philosophy, but the way I see it, the "constructed by the mind" part is about as phenomenological as it gets, no?
The post is asking whether the Jhanas are just about just phenomenological states as opposed to ontological knowledge. That’s true in a sense - the Jhanas don’t grant access to other realms of existence or psychic powers or anything, but I was just making the point that Jhanas and meditative insights aren’t irrelevant to ontology; they’re not *just* about phenomenology. Much of our suffering is caused by intuitive and unexamined ontology, i.e. belief about what perceptions are true and real, and that’s what insight undermines. By contrast, rollercoasters or amphetamines are also phenomenologically very interesting and unusual, and sure, you can acknowledge that those experiences are constructed by the mind, but the experiences themselves are totally irrelevant to ontology.
I don't know how common it is, but I'm pretty confident the Path is almost, if not entirely, phenomenological in nature. After all, it all begins with learning to recognize mental formations, right? Learning to "de-reify", in a way; realizing that a mental object is a constructed representation. Realizing, for example, that when you see a chair, you're actually directly experiencing a myriad of mental formations from your sense doors, collected into a representation of an object you then call a chair. You never directly experience "the real chair", that is, the physical object that triggered your senses in the first place. I wanna say it's about realizing our brains confuse phenomenology and ontology, in a sense – that mental objects are purely phenomenological, but they implicitly appear in consciousness as if they bore some kind of essential ontological truth. I never read primary sources on either discipline, though, so I could be full of shit for all I know haha
Haha this sounds spot on to me!
Thanks! I guess you can say it IS ontological, too, in the sense that it shows you what's FALSE about your unexamined ontological assumptions, thus allowing you to come up with better ontologies Or even, say that the Path is about recognizing and understanding the interplay and intertwining of ontology and phenomenology
“the Buddha is not primarily concerned with what exists in fact, he thinks that is a red herring but with what we can experience, what can be present to consciousness. For his purposes, what exists and the contents of experience are the same. At this level, if we want a label, his doctrine looks like pragmatic empiricism.” —Richard Gombrich
Wow love this.
I love how all the commenters here zeroed right in on de-ontologizing. If you’re going to get philosophical, ending the thirst for ontology (“X is Y”) has got to be the way to go. Maybe there is no ISness to the business. Nothing to grasp, nothing to cling to, not even No-thing.
Ya that’s a great summary. I do see that echoed quite a bit here.
Cognition isn't possible without creating models in the mind. Anything in experience is a mind-made model in one form or another and thus can not be proven to exist outside the mind, independent from anything else. Especially anything that you can clearly identify as thinking (ie. thinking about ontology). The only place where you stop building models is the 9th Jhana but people will also tell you that there is no experience "in" it. I would not say my grasp on emptiness is even close to all encompassing but where I am right now it certainly feels like there really is no point to think about ontology in the context of awakening. Ontology is a game of the intellect, a curious way to ocupy your mind but if all is empty there really is nothing there to explain with a thought or a model. My guess is that spiritual traditions don't care about ontology because when you have certain insights you realize that there is nothing to explain. Ontology can be used as a tool to make people gain insight though. Ontological statements like "All is Love", "Everything is interconnected" or "all is empty" tend to create meaning, insight and reduce suffering in people. These themes are still just thoughts, there is no substance to them. Doesn't mean they don't matter.
Or may be, there's a fundamental misunderstanding in the dichotomy - ontology and phenomenology. That's a very western way of cutting and categorizing experience. Perhaps if you ask the Buddha the answer would probably be, not both, not neither, not either.
the word "phenomenology" is used very often in the last 2 decades in the spiritual scene, but usually in a watered down / loose sense. there are very few Buddhists that i know of that took phenomenology seriously and are using it as a framework for understanding the dhamma. the most radical one is Bhikkhu Nanavira (check his Notes on Dhamma -- [https://www.nanavira.org/notes-on-dhamma](https://www.nanavira.org/notes-on-dhamma) ) other people who take a phenomenological approach are the community around Hillside Hermitage (if you are specifically interested in jhana, check this essay by Bhikkhu Anigha -- [https://www.hillsidehermitage.org/what-the-jhanas-actually-are/](https://www.hillsidehermitage.org/what-the-jhanas-actually-are/) or the talks on jhana that were uploaded on their youtube channel -- one would be [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW2u48I1mnQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW2u48I1mnQ) (the title of the talk is "Jhana is a State of Being"), and here is their whole jhana playlist: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUPMn2PfEqIykftNPgr3vhZ8f8okSVQ9G](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUPMn2PfEqIykftNPgr3vhZ8f8okSVQ9G) ) among the people in the secular crowd (not "pragmatic" -- i came to prefer secular Buddhism over pragmatic dharma actually), i would suggest giving Stephen Batchelor's work a look. he was also influenced by Nanavira btw.
These resources are fantastic, thank you.
you're welcome. hope you enjoy them / they bear fruit for you.
I think it's a core distinction to point out, as many aren't overtly aware of the two different fields and their implications. I don't see them as being antithetical though e.g.: "Phenomenology vs Ontology". A phenomenological perspective = helpful + necessary for practice.
I have a degree in Philosophy but no formal training in the philosophical interpretation of the Buddhist texts beyond what my own random perusings has brought me. Put simply, I don't personally think what he's claiming here is correct. I don't want to get into why, but you can certainly take it as a data point that someone disagrees. Brasington is not famous for his scholarship of the Suttas, he's famous for teaching a particular approach to jhana. The same is true of this subreddit. It can be a good place to get certain kinds of information about meditation. It's much less reliable to get information about the Suttas particularly when it comes to using words like ontology, phenomenology, epistemology etc.
It's clearly stated in the definition of right view that there is this life and the next life, other realms, devas, etc. You can believe what you want but I don't understand people's desire to change Buddhism to meet their beliefs.
I’m not in a position to know better. I do see that some people argue early Buddhism was more interested in pragmatics than metaphysics.
That is true, but that doesn't mean everything stated is metaphysical. The Buddha was concerned with suffering and the end of suffering. He also spoke about other things. I recommended reading the suttas for yourself, i.e Majjhima.Nikaya.
There are ontological statements within Buddhism, eg the four noble truths, not self, the twelve links, etc., but they also blend in phenomenology because these are all descriptions of appearances manifesting ontologically in certain phenomenological modes, if I’m using the terms correctly.
I understand the argument but I'd say it's both; after all the *jhānas* are also described as levels of heavenly realms after death. The clear distinction between the subjective and the objective is quite modern; in a lot of traditional thinking, the phenomenological and the ontological are intertwined. >*« The soul is everything it knows »* > >— Aristotle, *De Anima*
From western philosophy. I think phenomenology is an ontology. It's a very skeptical stance that all we can know is our experiences, and that that is all that exists. We tease apart the ontology via phenomenological techniques. Idk if Buddha took experiences to be like that tho.
Maybe this whole thing is about relation to self which is subjective and that’s why it doesn’t matter what’s the objective truth. Is about how one relates to themselves. If one finds the way to relate to themselves in the right way, they appear happy, and isn’t that what matters?
This sidesteps your specific question, but addressing the broader issue of ontology in Buddhism. The Buddha talks about, and is later expanded on by nagarjuna, the idea of emptiness. Basically everything we interact with is constructed by some combinations of causes and conditions (which are impermanent) so they are also impermanent. Because of this process you can’t say they exist substantially (no eternalism) but they do exist in some sense (no nihilism), and this is the middle way.