Hi Nina: I admire and respect your devotion to working with the texts and understanding them in your actual practice. You must be busy, and I don't want to distract you or add more to your plate. But your example just raised two thoughts. You wrote:
<< As to the wrong view of self, one sees the self as controller ... as possessor. For instance, one believes that there is a self who can at will induce the arising of Pa~n~naa. Whereas pa~n~naa is a cetasika that can only arise because of the appropriate conditions.>>
Maybe we should be careful, though, not to throw the bathwater out with the baby.
((I hope my quotations are legible this time. I've cited from a UTF8 text.))
1. Agreed that paññā is a `cetasika' (in Abhidhamma terminology), inasmuch as, in the Suttaani, it is referred to as a dhamma: e.g., MN 43 says (at i.292): "Paññā yañca viññāṇaṃ ime dhammā saṃsaṭṭhā no visaṃsaṭṭhā. . . . Yañcāvuso pajānāti taṃ vijānāti. Yaṃ vijānāti taṃ pajānāti." "Paññā and viññāṇaṃ - these dhammā are conjoined, not disjoined. . . . For, friend, what one wisely understands, that one cognises, and what one cognises, that one wisely understands."
This may or may not raise a question about whether paññā and viññāṇa in the first sentence should be taken to refer primarily to what might very roughly be called `mental content' (your `cetasika'); Ven. Bodhi translates dhammā here as `states', which can only be understood as `mental states'; whereas the verbs pajānāti and vijānāti refer primarily to function and experience, i.e., to the `consciousness-of' that `mental content' or `mental state'. Perhaps this is supported by the following passage, a little farther on in the same text (i.293):
"Friend, with what does one wisely understand a dhamma that can be known?"
"Friend, one understands a dhamma that can be wisely known with the `wisdom-eye' (paññācakkhunā)."
"Friend, what is the purpose of paññā?"
"The purpose of paññā, friend, is direct knowledge, its purpose is full understanding, its purpose is abandoning." (Ven. Nyanamoli's & Ven. Bodhi's trans. modified)
Of course, it is very difficult (well, impossible) to separate out `mental content' or `mental state' from the act of `knowing', of `recognising', of `intuiting'; but, at the same time, there is surely an important distinction to be recognised between the act of `knowing' and what is `known' in and through that act.
2. Again, since paññā is a dhamma (of the type `cetasika', according to Abhidhamma), it is paticca-samuppanna, dependently co-arisen, it is dependent upon conditions. But it does not arise arbitrarily, nor does it arise merely automatically or deterministically. We can't just sit and wait, hoping that paññā will just happent to conditionally arise some day. MN 43 again says (at i.293): "paññā bhāvetabbā, viññāṇaṃ pariññeyyaṃ", "paññā is to be developed (cultivated), viññāṇa is to be thoroughly understood". This raises the deep and fascinating problem of `agency'. True, we cannot just `will' paññā to arise. But we can, and we are exhorted to, develop and cultivate the conditions that will be conducive for paññā to arise: that is a matter for which we have some volitional responsibility, and also some volitional effectivity. Just a couple of classical examples, with which you will be familiar, of this sense of agency, are the following:
MN 32 (M i.215) "Idhāvuso . . . bhikkhu cittaṃ vasaṃ vatteti, no ca bhikkhu cittassa vasena vattati." "Here, friend, . . . a bhikkhu wields mastery over his mind, he does not let the mind wield mastery over him."
And again, MN 20 (M i.120-121): "cetasā cittaṃ abhiniggaṇhitabbaṃ abhinippīḷetabbaṃ abhisantāpetabbaṃ", "he beats down, constrains, and crushes mind with mind"
There are several instances in the Sutāni where the doctrine or view of the moral efficacy of doing and not doing acts (of body, speech, and intellect) is ascribed to the Buddha. The strongest example is at A i.62: "Kiriyavādī cāhaṃ brāhmaṇa akiriyavādī cāti. . . . Akiriyaṃ kho ahaṃ brāhmaṇa vadāmi kāyaduccaritassa vacīduccaritassa manoduccaritassa, anekavihitānaṃ pāpakānaṃ akusalānaṃ dhammānaṃ akiriyaṃ vadāmi. Kiriyañca kho ahaṃ brāhmaṇa vadāmi kāyasucaritassa vacīsucaritassa manosucaritassa, anekavihitānaṃ kusalānaṃ dhammānaṃ kiriyaṃ vadāmi. Evaṃ kho ahaṃ brāhmaṇa kiriyavādī ca akiriyavādī cāti." "I am one who preaches action [kiriya], Brahmin, and one who preaches non-action [akiriya]. . . . I say `non-action', Brahmin, of wrongdoing by body, wrongdoing by speech, wrongdoing by thought; of manifold evil and unwholesome thoughts [dhammā], I say `non-action'. And I say `action', Brahmin, of doing good by body, doing good by speech, doing good by thought; of manifold wholesome thoughts, I say `action'. In this way, Brahmin, I am one who preaches `action' and one who preaches `non-action'." (My trans.)
There's also a quite humorous instance (MN 71, at i.483), where Vaccha asks the Buddha if any Aajivaka (`Fatalist', who doesn't believe that willed action has any effect upon a person's 'destiny') has ever gone to heaven after death. The Buddha replies: "Ito kho so vaccha ekanavuto kappo yamahaṃ anussarāmi nābhijānāmi kañci ājīvakaṃ saggūpagaṃ aññatra ekena, sopāsi kammavādī kiriyavādīti." "When I recollect the past ninety-one aeons, Vaccha, I do not recall any Aajivaka who, on the dissolution of the body, went to heaven, with one exception, and he held the doctrine of the moral efficacy of action, the doctrine of the moral efficacy of deeds." (Ven. Nyanamoli's and Ven. Bodhi's trans.)
If we take the import of questions 1 and 2 together, we are invited to comprehend the nature of `knowing' and of `doing' in a way that admits their reality and efficacy, yet without having to posit an ontologically independent, separate, self-existing entity called an `attā', to which the pronoun `ahaṃ' refers as though it were a name for an `object'.