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Cakkhum, Etam mama, eso'ham asmi, eso me attá ti
samanupassati. Cakkhum, N'etam mama, n'eso'ham asmi, n'eso me attá ti samanupassati. Majjhima xv,6 <M.iii,284> | |
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'This is mine; this am I; this is my self' -- so he regards
the eye. 'Not, this is mine; not, this am I; not, this is my self' -- so he regards the eye. |
If N'etam mama is translated 'This is not mine' the
implication is that something other than this is
mine, which must be avoided. These three views (of which
the sotápanna is free) correspond to three
degrees or levels of appropriation. Etam mama is the
most fundamental, a rationalization (or at least a conceptual
elaboration) of the situation described in the
Múlapariyáyasutta (Majjhima i,1
<M.i,1-6>) and in the Saláyatana
Samyutta iii,8 <S.iv,22-3>. Eso'ham asmi is
a rationalization of asmimána. Eso me
attá is a rationalization of
attaváda -- it is full-blown
sakkáyaditthi. Though the
sotápanna is free of these views, he is not yet
free of the maññaná of the
Múlapariyáyasutta (which is fundamental in all
bhava) or of asmimána, but he cannot be
said to have attaváda.[a] See DHAMMA
[d] & PHASSA. The
sotápanna (and the other two
sekhá), in whom asmimána is still
present, know and see for themselves that notions of 'I' and
'mine' are deceptions. So they say N'etam mama, n'eso'ham
asmi, n'eso me attá ti. The arahat is quite
free from asmimána, and, not having any trace
of 'I' and 'mine', does not even say N'etam mama,
n'eso'ham asmi, n'eso me attá ti.
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Footnotes:
[a] The Múlapariyáyasutta is as follows. (i)
The puthujjana 'perceives X as X; perceiving X as X,
he conceives X, he conceives In X, he conceives From X, he
conceives "X is mine"; he delights in X...'. (ii) The
sekha 'recognizes X as X; recognizing X as X, he
should not conceive X, he should not conceive In X, he should
not conceive From X, he should not conceive "X is mine"; he
should not delight in X...'. (iii) The arahat
'recognizes X as X; recognizing X as X, he does not conceive
X, he does not conceive In X, he does not conceive From X, he
does not conceive "X is mine"; he does not delight in X...'.
This tetrad of maññaná, of
'conceivings', represents four progressive levels of
explicitness in the basic structure of appropriation. The
first, 'he conceives X', is so subtle that the appropriation
is simply implicit in the verb. Taking advantage of an
extension of meaning (not, however, found in the Pali
maññati), we can re-state 'he conceives
X' as 'X conceives', and then understand this as 'X is
pregnant' -- pregnant, that is to say, with
subjectivity. And, just as when a woman first
conceives she has nothing to show for it, so at this most
implicit level we can still only say 'X'; but as the
pregnancy advances, and it begins to be noticeable, we are
obliged to say 'In X'; then the third stage of the pregnancy,
when we begin to suspect that a separation is eventually
going to take place, can be described as 'From X'; and the
fourth stage, when the infant's head makes a public
appearance and the separation is on the point of becoming
definite, is the explicit 'X is mine (me, not
mama)'. This separation is first actually realized in
asmimána, where I, as subject, am opposed to X,
as object; and when the subject eventually grows up he
becomes the 'self' of attaváda, face to face
with the 'world' in which he exists. (In spite of the simile,
what is described here is a single graded structure all
implicated in the present, and not a development taking place
in time. When there is attaváda, the rest of
this edifice lies beneath it: thus attaváda
requires asmimána (and the rest), but there can
be asmimána without attaváda.)
Note that it is only the sekha who has the ethical
imperative 'should not': the puthujjana, not
'recognizing X as X' (he perceives X as X, but not as
impermanent), does not see for himself that he should not
conceive X; while the arahat, though 'recognizing X as
X', no longer conceives X. See KAMMA.
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