16.4 Of Attending to All at Once (KV16.4)

Controverted Point: That one can attend to everything simultaneously.

Theravādin: Do you imply that we know the consciousness by which we so attend? You deny. But I ask you again—now you assent. Then do we know as consciousness the consciousness by which we so attend? You deny. But I ask you again—now you assent. Then is the subject of consciousness its own object? You deny. But I ask you again—now you assent. Then do we experience mental reaction by the same mental reaction? Do we feel a feeling by that feeling? And so on for perception, volition, cognition, applied thought, sustained thought, zest, mindfulness, understanding? If you deny, you undo your previous affirmations … .

When we attend to the past as past, do we then attend to the future as future? You deny. But I ask you again—now you assent. But this commits you to a collocation of two parallel mental processes … And this holds if I substitute “present” for “future”… And if you claim that we can, while attending to the past as past, attend also to the future as such, and to the present as such, we get a collocation of three parallel mental processes … And—we may ring the changes with the same argument on other permutations of the time relations … .

Pubbaseliya, Aparaseliya: But was it not said by the Exalted One:

“When he by wisdom doth discern and see:
`Impermanent is everything in life'!
Then he at all this suffering feels disgust.
Lo! herein lies the way to purity.
When he by wisdom doth discern and see,
That `Everything in life is bound to Ill'! …
That `Everything in life is Void of Soul'!
Then he at all this suffering feels disgust.
Lo! herein lies the way to purity”?

Hence we can attend to all at once.

The Points of Controversy, an English translation of the Pali Abhidhamma Kathāvatthu. Translated by Shwe Zan Aung and C.A.F. Rhys Davids. First published by Pali Text Society, 1915.

This SuttaCentral edition was prepared by Manfred Wierich and Ven. Vimala and proofread by Josephine Tobin. Some changes were introduced:

Abbreviations, i.e., those of cited works and the participants in the controversies, were expanded.

Cross-references were linked.

Some typographic changes were introduced, among others, i.e.: the phonetic symbol “ŋ” was changed to the Pāli diacritical letter “ṃ”, “ô” to “o”, single quotes to double quotes, and “:—” to “:”.

Letter-spacing with fixed spaces was replaced with bold font.

The corrigenda were merged into the text. Some could not be resolved, though.

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