samathasavaka wrote:

> I have never come across a passage in the Suttas/Sutras that denies
> the existence of a soul, like i said in another post, i've only seen
> Buddha denying the khandas to be the soul, or denying dharmas
> (phenomena, things) to be the soul.

Hi SS:

Courtesy of Tang Huyen over on usenet, responding to the claim that the
soul can be found beyond the aggregates:

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"The Buddha says: "There are four stations for consciousness. What are
the four? Approaching form, consciousness, standing, stands,
takes-as-its-object form, with form as platform, delights in it, waters
it and grows it; approaching feeling, consciousness, standing, stands,
takes-as-its-object feeling, with feeling as platform, with notion,
compositions as platform, delights in them, waters them, and grows them.
Monks! In them consciousness comes, goes, dies, gets born and grows. If
one was to declare consciousness' coming, going, dying, getting born,
and growing apart from them, that would only be speech (Skt.
vag-vastu-matram), and if asked one would be unable to answer, it would
increase one's stupidity (Skt. sammoham apadyeta), for it would be
beyond one's sense-field (Skt. avisayatvat). When passion with regard to
the modality of form is done away with, the contact occasioned by mind
getting entangled with form is cut, and when the contact occasioned by
mind getting entangled with form is cut, the taking-as-object ends, when
the taking-as-object ends, consciousness has no place to stand on, and
will no longer grow. When passion with regard to the modalities of
feeling, notion, and compositions is done away with, the contact
occasioned by mind getting entangled with them is cut, and when the
contact occasioned by mind getting entangled with them is cut, the
taking-as-object ends, when the taking-as-object ends, consciousness has
no place to stand on, and, unestablished (apatitthita), will no longer
grow. As it no longer grows, it no longer composes (na abhisankharoti),
when it no longer composes, it is stable (thita), when it is stable, it
knows that it has enough (thitatta santusito), when it knows that it has
enough, it is liberated (santusitatta [vimutto]), when it is liberated,
with regard to the world it has nothing to grasp ([vimuttam] na kiñci
loke upadiyati, Skt. na kiñcil loka upadatte), not grasping he is
unperturbed, unperturbed, internally he fully blows out (aparitassam
paccattaññeva parinibbayati, Skt. aparitasya atmaiva parinirvati). Birth
is ended, the chaste life has been lived, what has to be done is done,
one knows for oneself that there is no further becoming. I say that that
consciousness will not go east, west, south, north, the zenith or nadir,
the intermediaries, or any other direction (nanyatra), in the present
things it is shadowless (nischaya), blown-out (parinirvvati or
parinirvrta), cooled, become pure (brahmi-bhuta)." SA, 39, 9a, 64, 17a,
SN, III, 54-55 (22, 54), 58 (22, 55), Vyakhya, 271-272, 668.

The important part, which survives in the Chinese _Conjoined Agama_
(Samyukta-Agama) and in Sanskrit fragments, says very clearly that
anything outside of the six sense-spheres (or the five aggregates) is
"only a thing of speech (Skt. vag-vastu-matram)", or more completely:

"If one was to declare consciousness' coming, going, dying, getting
born, and growing apart from them [the four stations for consciousness,
which are the four aggregates outside of consciousness], that would only
be speech (Skt. vag-vastu-matram), and if asked one would be unable to
answer, it would increase one's stupidity (Skt. sammoham apadyeta), for
it would be beyond one's sense-field (Skt. avisayatvat)."

Again, if you do not take that to be explicit enough about the "all",
the Buddha makes the famous declaration:

"All (sarva), that is the twelve places (dvadasayatanani), from the eye
and forms to the mind and objects-of-mind, that is how the Tathagata
makes known the all (sarvam ca prajñapayati) and the concept of the all
(sarva-prajñaptim ceti). If any recluse and brahman was to declare:
'this is not the all, I shall revoke it and declare another all,' that
would only be speech (vag-vastu-matram), and if asked one would be
unable to answer, it would increase one's stupidity (sammoham apadyeta),
for it would be beyond his sense-field (a-visayatvat)." SA, 319, 91a,
Zitate, 507, SN, IV, 15 (35, 23), Maha-vibhasa, T, 27, 1545, 378b-c."

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So you can continue to claim all over the internet that the soul is
beyond the aggregates, but, as noted by the Buddha, such a claim "would
only be speech (vag-vastu-matram), and if asked one would be unable to
answer, it would increase one's stupidity (sammoham apadyeta)." The
commentary to this sutta reads "Tassa vacavatthur ev assa. Spk: It would
be just mere utterance. But if one passes over the twelve sense bases,
one cannot point out any real phenomenon."

----
Lee Dillion