Talk:Upādāna

Questionable creation of new sections?
I wanted to make the notion of "clinging" more concrete (for instance, how do you know when you are experiencing "clinging"?), so I added some text from the Abhidhammattha Sangaha. However, doing this made this short article look pretty unstructured. So, wanting to add structure -- and also knowing how some Buddhist practitioners find the Abhidhamma and its commentary to be anathema -- I gave the new material the heading of "From the Abhidhamma Pitaka." To then counter balance this, I gave the preceding material the heading of "From the Sutta Pitaka." However, this last change necessitated shifting around some text that was general to Buddhism versus text that pertained to the Sutta's exposition of the 12 Nidanas.

I regret if this restructuring or introduction of headers has caused me to delete a portion of text which someone else might have valued or to introduce any errors or, in anyone else's estimation, reduced the impact of this article. Please revert any such changes. Best wishes, LarryR 18:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Since I found some of the Abhidhammattha Sangaha material in the Sutta Pitaka and also found Visuddhimagga information related to the Nidanas, it no longer made sense to separate the material in terms of Sutta and non-Sutta sources. So, after adding the aforementioned material, I reorganized once again along content issues, starting with analyzing the term ("types of clinging"), making the term more concrete ("manifestations of clinging") and then contextualizing the term within the grand Nidana scheme ("clinging in the causal chain of suffering").  I hope others will find that this reorganization will make more sense to first time readers of this article; and, I regret and apologize if this reorganization in fact is contrary to any other conscientious editor's desires (in which case, please revert and/or edit, of course :-) ).


 * I'm tempted to simply merge the first two subsections ("types" and "manifestations") under a subsection of "Definition" or some such, as is done in the skandha article. If anyone else is so inclined, please feel free to do so.  Thanks, LarryR 17:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Is a disambiguation page needed?
It appears that this article started as a disambiguation page and then morphed into a combo-Buddhism-Hinduism (or, chronologically, should that be combo-Hinduism-Buddhism?) page. Is this the right approach? Or should this current article be split into three pages: a disambiguation page, a "upadana (Buddhism)" page, and a "upadana (Hinduism)" page -- especially given that the terms' usages almost seem conceptually unrelated. Help from anyone with more than five weeks of Wikipedia experience appreciated. Thanks, LarryR 05:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Readability of Buddhism article?
I've been told by a person whose editorial instincts I greatly trust that the current Buddhism portion of this article (which I mostly wrote) is difficult to understand. Thus, I'd like to make some changes that I think would make it more readable but doing so would change aspects of this article that existed prior to my contributions. So, I'd like to run these changes by anyone following this article here on this talk page: Thanks for any feedback. LarryR 12:38, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Create a new lead for the article. Initially, the article focussed on the Nidanas.  While personally I very much value this, I think most non-Buddhists and non-academic Buddhists will not find such an initial focus to be helpful or of interest.  While there is a current one-line reference to upadana's part in "suffering," I'm not sure this is enough (and I additionally think the sentence is difficult for most readers because of its reliance on Pali words, one of which [Tṛṣṇā] does not display on most user's screens -- which gets to the second point below).  So, I'm kind of embarrassed to say, I'm thinking a better lead might be a re-hashing of the First Noble Truth where the Buddha mentions the "clinging aggregates."  Any objections?  Any better ideas?
 * 2) Use less unfamiliar Pali/Sanskrit. Words like nirvana and dharma have pretty widespread recognition in English-speaking countries now (not the least of which is due to a rock band and television show).  In addition, concepts like bodhisattva and paramita are pretty central to significant portions of Buddhist society.  Unfortunately, though I wish it were otherwise, words like "upadana" and even probably (?) tanha are largely unfamiliar and strange lookng to the vast majority of potnential wiki-readers and thus, I believe, create obstacles to a wiki-reader's ability to make it through an article.  (Am I in error here?)  It is for this reason that, after identifying the most common current translation for lesser-known Pali/Sanskrit words (such as "clinging" for upadana, and "craving" for tanha, and "aggregate" for khandha, etc.), I'd like to use the English word as the primary referent in the article.  More specifically, in this article, after first defining upadana as "clinging" in this article, I'd like to change future uses of the term to the word "clinging."  I know this is controversial -- or at least a difficult call.  Does anyone object here?  Any alternate suggestions?
 * 3) Move references to lesser-known sources to end notes. This pertains to my own contributions primarily insomuch that I often toss out sutta titles and the like. In retrospect, I think too many in-article references to lesser-known sources (such as to the Culasihanada Sutta) can be a barrier to most wiki-readers. (Is there a "profile" for such readers?). So, with the exception of frequently referenced sources, such as the Sutta Pitaka or Abhidhamma or Prajnaparamita Sutra or Buddhaghosa, etc., I'd like to move most references to other primary sources to end notes. Sound good?

Upadana and basic needs
Within this article there is no hint to basic needs. Is it common knowledge that craving always refers to phenomena one does not actually need? ("The Basic Needs of Human Beings

Although society has been changed with the time the basic needs of people are the same as Buddha mentioned. Clothes, food, shelter and medicine are the basic needs of human beings.")cited from weblink; what about understanding and being understood? no need according to buddhism? is it termed upadana whenever you wish for communication?
 * Austerlitz -- 83.236.111.35 (talk) 15:07, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Briefly, and I'd be happy to elaborate on this more if you desire, it is not the object in question (whether medicine, food, communication, etc.) but our relationship to it, whether one of simply awareness, one of desire, one of craving, one of clinging, one of possession, one of identity, etc. Does this make sense?  GTG, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 22:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, it does make sense. Thank you. Austerlitz -- 88.72.25.1 (talk) 18:47, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Remove paragraph that is without citations, poorly edited, and that contradicts sourced material?
Back in March 2012, an editor (who has made no other contributions and whose user page has been removed) added the following text to this article (after a discussion of the Pali canon's, the Abhidhamma's and Buddhaghosa's explications of the term):


 * Meaning of Upadana is raw material. For example, Upadana of a pot is soil. After Tanha is generated in Satta or creature, it gathers Upadana khandas as upadanas, as raw materials. Using upadana khandas it tries to generate required vedanas. As there are five setsor kinds of upadanas they are called panch upadana khandas. All the Upadana things are clssified in five upadana khandas, five sets or categories. Only after gathering of upadanas satta — creature can manifest itself. Hence after upadana there comes a link of Bhava. So the meaning 'clinging' is wrong.

I think that thinking of upadana as "raw material" could be useful; for instance, elsewhere in the article the notion that upadana originally meant "fuel" is discussed (and attributed to an internationally recognized source). In addition, I appreciate the sincerity of intention that went into this paragraph as indicated by its use of meaningful Pali phrases. But for this paragraph to state that upadna is unequivocally "raw materials" without citation, indicating that the only meaningful context for updana is in regards to the aggregates (khandha) and then deducing that this somehow refutes the widespread, scholarly translation of upadana as "clinging" (e.g., for starters, the PED definition is at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.0:1:3973.pali) appears to me to be poorly reasoned, unfounded, and harmful to readers of this article. Therefore, I'd like to remove this paragraph (and the related, similarly worded one stuck in at the very bottom of this article's section on "Buddhism"). Any objections?

Thanks, Larry Rosenfeld (talk) 10:35, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Skandhas?
The 5 skandhas, which are also described as "clinging", are only listed here under "See also". There really needs to be an explanation here and under Skandhas of the relationship between these sets of ideas. Hans Wolfgang Schumann, in "Buddhism: An outline of its Teachings and Schools" actually lists the 5 Skandhas as Upadana-Kkandha.


 * Hmmm (later). Think I have the answer to my own question. The skandhas refer to the attributes of the person that give rise to clinging. The upadanas are the types of clinging. However, it would be better if a more informed person would make this clarification.

--174.7.56.10 (talk) 02:53, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

What is the purpose of the table of views of the samanas?
It was confusing and contradictory to Buddha's teachings and I cannot identify what it has to do with Upadana. Reading the source of this table ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sama%C3%B1%C3%B1aphala_Sutta ) clarified some things, but I think it should be clarified to readers why the table is there, or maybe the table should be removed.

115.132.144.11 (talk) 15:20, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

What about aversion?
The article states that "Upādāna (clinging) and taṇhā (desire) are seen as the two primary causes of suffering". But according to the theory behind vipassana, aversion is also a primary cause of suffering. Why isn't this mentioned, is it something that is not important in Buddhism? —Kri (talk) 19:49, 29 July 2015 (UTC)