I'll address a few of the points you made:
1) I'm not saying that we should accept the word of either a modern living
meditation master or the commentarial literature on faith alone. The truth
of either needs to be tested and verified through our own meditative
experience. Otherwise it's just one faith vs. another faith, and we simply
agree to disagree. Just as we have no assurance that 2500 year old
commentarial literature is correct, a living meditation master may or may
not be practicing the essence of the Buddha's teaching correctly. That's a
perfectly valid point.
2) the danger of grasping views, even right views wrongly: I'll list some
common examples:
a) asserting anatta, holding no-self as an absolute truth - speaking from
personal experience, this leads to depression and a nihilistic outlook on
life.
b) asserting dukkha, contemplation of body impurity, seeing the foul
unstable nature of all conditioned phenomena: holding this view as an
absolute truth, again speaking from personal experience, can lead to
pessimism, depression, suicidal tendencies.
c) attempts at dissecting 5 khandhas and other Buddhist models into
independent atomic dhammic elements: This leads to logical problems, in the
same way that atman is untenable. If there were a permanent, pure, all
pervading soul, then how could it possibly undergo any evolution or change?
If there are atomic dhammic units of ultimate reality but somehow they're
ultimate and impermanent and the same time, it runs into the same class of
logical problems as with atman.
d) and the most common problem of all is holding (what we believe to be)
right views as absolute truths instead of regarding it as a provisional
truth, a hyposthesis that we operate under with a healthy type of
uncertainty and humility. This leads to much unwholesome activity such as
wrong action, wrong speech, uncivilized and uncompassionate posts on email
lists, publicly accusing monks of being heretical sinners who need to
repent, etc.
The Buddha's sublime and pragmatic teaching is just an expedient, not
doctrine to be grasped at as absolute truth. My first inclination many many
years go was to believe, "oh I'm not so stupid. I wouldn't grasp on to
views, even right views, incorrectly." But it's a much more subtle and
insidious tendency than we realize. The evidence is in reflecting on the
history of our actions, and a prime example is the tone of the recent email
list conversations. If we truly did not grasp at views wrongly, there
wouldn't be these heated exchanges. If we didn't grasp at views wrongly, we
wouldn't be so passionate and appear insecure in the manner in which we
discuss our views.
3) Concerning these two sutta excerpts:
[m43] Maha Kotthita: Feeling, perception, & consciousness: are these
qualities conjoined or disjoined? And is it possible, having divided them,
to describe their separateness?
Sariputta: Feeling, perception, & consciousness are conjoined, not
disjoined, and it is impossible, having divided them, to describe their
separateness
[M 109] The Buddha: These five clinging-aggregates are rooted in desire...
Sustenance is neither the same thing as the five clinging-aggregates, nor
are they separate. Whatever desire & passion there is with regard to the
five clinging-aggregates, that is the sustenance there...
==================================================
As you pointed out also with arupa jhanas, arupa realms for future rebirth,
interestingly enough I take that as more evidence of the futility of trying
to classify 5 khandhas and separating nama from rupa into more detail than
necessary.
I myself had a tendency (western scientific habits) of wanting to
reduce/dissect 5 aggregates into atomic dhammic elements to gain further
understanding. For example, with that mindset, my questions would be why is
sankhara omitted from the [m43] if it's dealing with mentality? And for
[m109], why wouldn't volition/sankhara nicely encapsulate "sustenance"? why
did the Buddha phrase it in such a cagey way? With this kind of mindset
(searching for atomic dhammic elements), the list of questions is endless. I
wondered whether vedana is actually rupa or nama, whether sensation of
pain/pleasure is actually physical or mental. And the two jhana factors of
sukkha+piti (happiness+rapture), I wondered again whether those elements
were mental or physical, nama or rupa or both? Finally what I concluded was
that I could never find resolution to my satisfaction through book study,
and that the important point really was how dukkha arises and how can it
cease. And the only way dukkha can be reduced meaningfully (improving our
quality of life/happiness) is that with each moment of my living experience,
I have to carefully investigate:
a) am I happy right now?
b) if not, why not?
c) ok, I've observed that some derivative of craving/aversion without fail
is the proximate cause every single moment that I experience unpleasant
feelings or lack of happiness.
d) so what's causing craving?....
e) etc...
These are really the important questions to be asking, and whether vedana is
precisely mental/physical, or both, whether I can enumerate all the
wholesome and unwholesome types of cittas, dyads, triads, etc, really
doesn't contribute to my experiential understanding of dukkha and realizing
its cessation. Knowing the rudimentary characteristics of the 5 khandhas I
believe is sufficient to go all the way. That's just my personality and
disposition, other Buddhists may find a different way of learning works best
for them. The acid test is whether it brings right concentration and right
mindfulness to maturity and full development, whether our demeanor,
personality undergo favorable transformation, whether the
kilesas/defilements are attenuated and eventually destroyed.
4) antaraabhava: With the amazing and diverse modes of living beings,
jellyfish with light passing through their rupa bodies, devas of immaterial
realms with no rupa(?), ghost realms, viruses, bacteria, the relativity of
perceived time, the sheer complexity and unknown extent of it all, I find it
surprising that people could on the basis of faith in commentarial scripture
be so assured that rebirth is instantaneous in all cases. So be it, I have
nothing further to say, and really had no intention of joining in on the
whole thread in the first place other than to implore the list members to
observe compassionate speech and courtesy.