Expert: Numenius - 2/25/2010

Question
Hello,I am reading a translation of the Majjhima Nikaya by Bhikkhus Nanamoli and Bodhi.Do you recommend other translations or translators?Can you also recommend a qualified teacher in OH or the N.E. USA?Thank you.Tom

Answer
Hello,I am reading a translation of the Majjhima Nikaya by Bhikkhus Nanamoli and Bodhi.Do you recommend other translations or translators?Can you also recommend a qualified teacher in OH or the N.E. USA?Thank you.Tom

Greetings………..

Both Nanamoli and Bodhi (who I know personally) are highly sectarian Theravada misstranslators of the pali nikayas; however, if one ignores the atman cover-ups as employed by B. Bodhi, his translations rank as 3rd or 4th in accuracy.

FL Woodward, who did not translate the Majjhima is best or second best pali translator, next to that of I.B. Horner,…..whose translations (both of them) can be purchased thru the pali text society to which I am member.

Nanamoli and Bodhi have a materialistic no-atman agenda which is contrary to the very core of Buddhism itself and their translations are reflected as such, namely that all pro-atman pali passages are hidden and covered over in their pseudo-translations.

Read the book “DOCTRINE OF THE BUDDHA” by George Grimm, to which all is cited via doctrinal evidences and substantiations.

Nanamoli and Bodhi are both westerners well-brainwashed in the Sri Lankan theravadin tradition of no-atman commentarialism as found in the works of Buddhaghosa. As such, the negation of the atman by these peoples is as logical as the denial of Jesus by a devout Christian, i.e. not at all.

The below is an accurate summation of Bodhi and Nanamoli’s non-doctrinal position and inaccurate translations……along with some info I have written for you regarding the Atman in Buddhist doctrine:

[The Advaita tradition in Indian Philosophy , Chandradhar Sharma   Motilal publishers ISBN 812081312X  1996]
“The Hinayana schools missed the Buddha’s advaitavada and elaborated a metaphysics of radical pluralism. The inner contradictions in their metaphysics led to the rise of Mahayana”  page: 3
“The Hinayana (Theravada) interpretation of Buddha’s silence on the avyaakrta (inexpressible questions; i.e. is, is not, both, neither) questions is in accordance with its view of radical pluralism. According to the Hinayana, the Buddha advocated the theory of elements and denied the ultimate reality of souls and God (Brahman/Absolute)”page: 21
“The Abhidhamma treatises of the Pali canon, though called ‘the word of the Buddha’ (buddhavacana) are really the Theravada interpretation that misses the deeper truth in the Buddha’s teachings”  page:16
“Hinayana’s reduces the self to a series of fleeting mental states which are taken as real…Hinayana rejects the eternal (empirical) ego but (ignorantly) glorifies the uchchheda-drsti (nihilistic view) by accepting the reality of mental states.” page: 26-27
“Even Hinayana which ignored the absolutism of the Buddha and elaborated a system of radical pluralism and which was emphatic in denying the Self , admitted Nirvana as an eternal positive reality, calm and blissful. But Hinayana degraded Nirvana to the level of an eternal substance (asamskrta dharma) set over and above the worldly objects (samskrta dharmas) in which there was cessation of misery. This (view) was corrected by Mahayana which revived the absolutism of the Buddha and treated Nirvana as the transcendental Absolute at once immanent in the phenomena, the ‘dharmata’ of all dharmas” page: 29
“Even if, as some scholars do, the word atta (atman) in attadipa (light of Soul) is interpreted as meaning just ‘oneself’ without any reference to an ontological reality called “Self” and the phrase ‘attadipa’ is taken to mean ‘you yourself are your light’, it has to be admitted that the Buddha is asking his disciples to seek light within and not outside. Now, if there is no true “Self/Atman”, then who is to seek the light and where? And if all objects, as the Buddha says, are perishable (anicca) and miserable (dukkha) and the light is to be sought only in the subject, then the reality of the transcendent subject is clearly implied in the passage” page: 30
“It is incorrect to hold that the Buddha starts with a spirit of opposition to the Upanishads and initiates a new tradition of anatmavada (no-Soul-ism) against the Upanishads tradition of atmavada. Anatmavada is nirahankara-nirmamavada, the removal of the false notion of the (ego) ‘I’ and the ‘mine’, which the Upanishadic seers themselves unmistakably voice and which all systems of Indian philosophy accept.” page: 31
“Hinayana schools of Theravada (Sarvastivada), due to an imperfect understanding of the teachings, forgot the Absolutism of the Buddha and created a metaphysics of radical pluralism in the form of the theory of momentary elements in their Abhidhamma treatises and commentaries”  page: 35



The Buddhist term Anatman (Sanskrit), or Anatta (Pali) is an adjective in sutra used to refer to the nature of phenomena as being devoid of the Soul, that being the ontological and uncompounded subjective Self (atman) which is the “light (dipam), and only refuge” [DN 2.100]. Of the 662 occurrences of the term Anatta in the Nikayas, its usage is restricted to referring to 22 nouns (forms, feelings, perception, experiences, consciousness, the eye, eye-consciousness, desires, mentation, mental formations, ear, nose, tongue, body, lusts, things unreal, etc.), all phenomenal, as being Selfless (anatta). Contrary to countless many popular (=profane, or = consensus, from which the truth can ‘never be gathered’) books (as Buddhologist C.A.F. Davids has deemed them ‘miserable little books’) written outside the scope of Buddhist doctrine, there is no “Doctrine of anatta/anatman” mentioned anywhere in the sutras, rather anatta is used only to refer to impermanent things/phenomena as other than the Soul, to be anatta, or Self-less (an-atta).

Specifically in sutra, anatta is used to describe the temporal and unreal (metaphysically so) nature of any and all composite, consubstantial, phenomenal, and temporal things, from macrocosmic to microcosmic, be it matter as pertains the physical body, the cosmos at large, including any and all mental machinations which are of the nature of arising and passing. Anatta in sutra is synonymous and interchangeable with the terms dukkha (suffering) and anicca (impermanent); all three terms are often used in triplet in making a blanket statement as regards any and all phenomena. Such as: “All these aggregates are anicca, dukkha, and anatta.” It should be further noted that, in doctrine, that the only noun which is branded permanent (nicca), is obviously and logically so, the noun attan [Skt. Atman], such as passage (SN 1.169).

Anatta refers specifically and only to the absence of the permanent soul as pertains any or all of the psycho-physical (namo-rupa) attributes, or khandhas (skandhas, aggregates). Anatta/Anatman in the earliest existing Buddhist texts, the Nikayas, is an adjective, (A is anatta, B is anatta, C is anatta). The commonly (=profane, consensus, herd-views) held belief to wit that: “Anatta means no-soul, therefore Buddhism taught that there was no soul” is an irrational absurdity which cannot be found or doctrinally substantiated by means of the Nikayas, the suttas (Skt. Sutras), of Buddhism.

The Pali compound term and noun for “no soul” is natthatta (literally “there is not/no[nattha]+atta’[Soul]), not the term anatta, and is mentioned at Samyutta Nikaya 4.400, where Gotama was asked if there “was no- soul (natthatta)”, to which Gotama equated this position to be a Nihilistic heresy (ucchedavada). Common throughout Buddhist sutra (and Vedanta as well) is the denial of psycho-physical attributes of the mere empirical self to be the Soul, or confused with same. The Buddhist paradigm (and the most common repeating passage in sutta) as regards phenomena is “Na me so atta” (this/these are not my soul), this most common utterance of Gotama the Buddha in the Nikayas, where “na me so atta” = Anatta/Anatman. In sutta, to hold the view that there was “no-Soul” (natthatta) is = natthika (nihilist). Buddhism differs from the “nothing-morist” (Skt. Nastika, Pali natthika) in affirming a spiritual nature that is not in any wise, but immeasurable, inconnumerable, infinite, and inaccessible to observation; and of which, therefore, empirical science can neither affirm nor deny the reality thereof of him who has ‘Gone to That[Brahman]” (tathatta). It is to the Spirit (Skt. Atman, Pali attan) as distinguished from oneself (namo-rupa/ or khandhas, mere self as = anatta) i.e., whatever is phenomenal and formal (Skt. and Pali nama-rupa, and savinnana-kaya) “name and appearance”, and the “body with its consciousness”. [SN 2.17] ‘Nonbeing (asat, natthiti [views of either sabbamnatthi ‘the all is ultimately not’ (atomism), and sabbam puthuttan ‘the all is merely composite’ [SN 2.77] both of this positions are existential antinomies, and heresies of annihilationism])’”. In contrast it has been incorrectly asserted that affirmation of the atman is = sassatavada (conventionally deemed ‘eternalism’). However the Pali term sasastavada is never associated with the atman, but that the atman was an agent (karmin) in and of samsara which is subject to the whims of becoming (bhava), or which is meant kammavada (karma-ism, or merit agencyship); such as sassatavada in sutta = “atta ca so loka ca” (the atman and the world [are one]), or: ‘Being (sat, atthiti [views of either sabbamatthi ‘the all is entirety’, and sabbamekattan ‘the all is one’s Soul’ [SN 2.77] both are heresies of perpetualism]). Sasastavada is the wrong conception that one is perpetually (sassata) bound within samsara and that merit is the highest attainment for either this life or for the next. The heretical antinomy to nihilism (vibhava, or = ucchedavada) is not, nor in sutta, the atman, but bhava (becoming, agencyship). Forever, or eternal becoming is nowhere in sutta identified with the atman, which is “never an agent (karmin)”, and “has never become anything” (=bhava). These antinomies of bhava (sassatavada) and vibhava (ucchedavada) both entail illogical positions untenable to the Vedantic or Buddhist atman; however the concept of “eternalism” as = atman has been the fallacious secondary crutch for supporting the no-atman commentarialists position on anatta implying = there is no atman.

Logically so, according to the philosophical premise of Gotama, the initiate to Buddhism who is to be “shown the way to Immortality (amata)” [MN 2.265, SN 5.9], wherein liberation of the spirit/mind [Greek = nous] (cittavimutta; Greek = epistrophe) is effectuated thru the expansion of wisdom and the meditative practices of sati and samadhi (assimilation, or synthesis, complete disobjectification with all objective [unreal] 'reality'), must first be educated away from his former ignorance-based (avijja) materialistic proclivities in  that he (the common fool) “saw any of these forms, feelings, this body in whole or part, to be my Self/Atman, to be that which I am by nature”. Teaching the via negativa methodology of anatta in sutta pertains solely to things phenomenal, which were: “subject to perpetual change; therefore unfit to declare of such things ‘these are mine, these are what I am, that these are my Soul’” [MN 1.232]. The one scriptural passage where Gotama is asked by a layperson what the meaning of anatta is as follows: [Samyutta Nikaya 3.196] At one time in Savatthi, the venerable Radha seated himself and asked of the Blessed Lord Buddha: “Anatta, anatta I hear said venerable. What pray tell does Anatta mean?” “Just this Radha, form is not the Soul (anatta), sensations are not the Soul (anatta), perceptions are not the Soul (anatta), assemblages are not the Soul (anatta), consciousness is not the Soul (anatta). Seeing thusly, this is the end of birth, the Brahman life has been fulfilled, what must be done has been  done.”

I cannot recommend a “qualified teacher” such that all “Buddhist teachers” are sectarian in nature, and 100% of them are utterly unlearned in earliest Buddhist doctrine and the message thereof.