A Consciousness outside the Bundles?

I’m talking about nibbana with residue (which appears to be the Nibbana most discussed in the suttas). How does a Buddha experience/know Nibbana with no citta or no vinnana?

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Of course I’m only speculating here, but perhaps he sees that the first contact that touches him after emerging from the cessation of all feeling and perception is painful compared to no contact at all and infers from that that full extnguishment is the ultimate bliss?

EDIT: Actually in SN 41.6, there’s this:

So basically…I have no idea yet :stuck_out_tongue:

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It seems to me your personal belief is the Buddha experienced Nibbana when he was 35 years old, entered Nibbana at 80 years old and, for those 45 years in-between, temporarily entered & emerged from Nibbana.

Well perhaps if we use the word extinguishment instead of the word Nibbana, we may say that at 35 years old craving was extinguished and at 80 years old everything was extinguished.

Off to bed, have a nice day at work! :slight_smile:

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@sujato Do you think this the right translation?

Could " suññato phasso, animitto phasso, appaṇihito phasso" be translated as well as empty contact, signless contact and desireless contact?

I don’t know why, but I feel that the idea is that once coming back from such deepest level of stillness, the way contact happens changes in qualitative terms. Like someone’s vision once ambient light is increased or brought in: it becomes detailed, far sighted, color and shapes can now be better distinguished.

The way it is translated gives a different idea, that after such thing contact starts to occur with a different set of objects: emptiness, signlessness and freedom of desire. A little bit odd.

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The translation is incorrect. The statement is an answer to the question, “how many (kati) contacts contact them?” (i.e. “how many kinds of contact do they experience?”), not “what do they make contact with?”

The terms declined in nominative here are adjective and noun: “emptiness contact, signless contact, undirected contact”. It can, of course, be convenient to construe the syntax differently to make an idiomatic rendering, but not, as here, when it creates a false impression.

Oh, and thanks for the questions, these always make me go back and check my work!

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:pray:

Dear @charlie,

First, I would like to humbly apologize :pray:. I re-read my post and it didn’t make sense at all. I re-phrased it, hopefully it makes more sense. This previous wasn’t my weekend :sweat_smile: LOL. I responded to your post late at night after a long day :weary: :sleepy::sleeping: . So please accept my sincere apologies for the trouble :blush:!

@Raivo, thank you for the assist :heart_eyes:! I was indeed thinking of that sutta! But due to my weariness and lack of clarity, didn’t refer to it! Please also accept my apologies for the trouble!

@Deeele, thank you also for the assist :heart_eyes:! I’ve rephrased my initial post hoping that it would make better sense!

Thank you all very much for your understanding! Glad to have dhamma friends willing to point out mistakes!

Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!

Happy vassa!

in mettā,
russ

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Hi @Russell,

Not to worry. If I understood you correctly, your central point is that Buddha describes consciousness as being extinguished at the time of becoming Arahant and as Ajahn Bua describes mind as indestructible this conflicts with the suttas.

You wrote: “The Lord Buddha explicitly said that nibbāna is the extinguishing of the consciousness(es). It’s like a fire being snuffed out which is a great simile (MN 72). Another great simile is from the Therigatha by Ayya Patacara ( Thig 5.10)”.

MN 72 Describes all five aggregates in a similar way:

any (name your aggregate) by which one describing the Tathagata would describe him: That the Tathagata has abandoned.

But abandoned is quite different from extinguished.

Thig 5.10:

And taking a pin, I pulled out the wick: Like the flame’s unbinding was the liberation of awareness.

It does not say awareness was extinguished but rather it was liberated. And, she came up with this verse and presumably communicated it to others. Does this not imply both consciousness and mind?

If an arahant has extinguished consciousness then you would have to come up with some other mysterious property in order to explain how it is that they appear to be quite conscious and intelligent.

Finally, consider SN 22.122 stating that an arahant experiences all five of the aggregates:

An arahant should attend in an appropriate way to these five clinging-aggregates as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a dissolution, an emptiness, not-self. Although, for an arahant, there is nothing further to do, and nothing to add to what has been done, still these things — when developed & pursued — lead both to a pleasant abiding in the here-&-now and to mindfulness & alertness.

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Hi Charlie

This translation appears to be from Bhikkhu Thanissaro. If so, it is likely the term ‘awareness’ refers to the ‘citta’ (emotional mind) rather than to consciousness (vinnana).

Regards

:pray:

Dear Charlie,

Apologies for the delay. Been working on a project. Thank you so much for replying. I greatly appreciate it. I still don’t get what Ajahn Bua is stating but perhaps it’s just my understanding. I’ll just put it to the side and keep practicing. It’ll come to me when the time is right.

Hope you had a good vassa!

in mettā,
russ

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