Almost all annihilationists believe in rebirth (all annihilationists believe in a Self)

[Sunyo]

Hi all,

I earlier said I had no time to read the whole thread but felt a quick reply was in order. So I did.

Well, I read (scanned, tbh) the thread now, and hilariously, it seems like I was the first one to give an on-topic reply about whether most annihiationists were materialists or not. The rest was all about existence and nonexistence. Oh well.

or “Nothing else exists” (your position here) are both refuted in the suttas.

Hi @Dogen,

Let me first acknowledge that your general point I agree with. I also try to avoid such statements (though it depends a bit on the situation). But AN4.173 & 174 you refer to don’t actually say this. It’s a translation error. It means “something else [like a self outside the senses] no longer exists”, not nothing exists. Check Venerable Sujato’s translations and this discussion.

Snp5.7 doesn’t refute this clearly either. But what it does do—and this is my main crux against calling nibbāna “nothing”—is stating the formless state of nothingness to have the awareness/perception “there isn’t anything” ('natthi’ti). So to say “nibbāna is nothing” in the Buddha’s time would be to equate it to the state of nothingness. But perhaps that’s your point too.

I also think @NgXinZhao has a point here that we shouldn’t trip over words too much. Ajahn Brahm once went to a multi-faith gathering. A Christian priest told him, “Nothing is higher than God.” He replied: “Exactly! Nothing is higher than God.” They use the word ‘nothing’ in a different sense but from context it is clear what they mean.

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Also hi @Vaddha and others,

Since I was tagged on this. First, I don’t fundamentally disagree with these ideas about absolute, inherent existence and non-. There’s something to it. But I think it’s too philosophical, certainly from the perspective of the early discourses. The suttas are more down to earth and approach things psychologically much more so than philosophically (which I would argue this debate mostly is, philosophy).

For instance, this was given as an example of inherent existence:

“There are some ascetics and brahmins who are annihilationists. They assert the annihilation, eradication, and obliteration of an existing being on seven grounds.” (DN1)

The way this is often read is not in a Nāgārjuna-like way of inherent existence, but as the assumption of a being that is considered to be more than just the five aggregates. It assumes a self, not an “existing being” in the sense of the khandhas having some intrinsic reality. It reflects a psychological attitude on the annihilationist behalf, taking things to be their self. I think the context makes that quite clear as well, where “existing being” is clearly synonymous to “self”.

It’s similar to Māra in SN5.10 assuming a “being”. Notice that Vajira’s reply to Māra says, “there is no being to be found” (which just means “no being exists”) but then she says, “the khandhas exist” (khandhesu santesu, where santesu is a form of atthi, also used in sato sattassa, “existing being”). This shows that the “existing being” is assumed to be something outside of the aggregates, because in reply the aggregates are said to exist.

So this thing about “an existing being” has little to do with inherent existence, but more so about what we assume exists, primarily from a psychological pov.

The Buddha continually said that things exist. He also said the khandas exist, and that wise people agree on that (SN22.94). Even in specific context of the middle way, “suffering exists” (atthi dukkhaṃ, SN12.17). All factors of Dependent Arising are also said to exist. (SN12.4) I can bring up many many more such quotes.

They’re temporary things, sure. But in his language, temporary things simply exist. He doesn’t ever nuance this in any way by saying, “By existence I don’t mean absolute existence”. If this distinction was so important to understanding the dhamma, it would have been more clearly brought out in the Pāli canon. And the Buddha would have avoided using “exist”, or clarified it, at least once.

Also, when talking about parinibbāna, it is said that the senses “no longer exist”. (SN35.83) (Natthi cakkhu, etc)

So clearly, the Buddhists had no problems using terms like “exist” (atthi) and “not exist” (natthi).

What matters is the distinction between annihilation and eternalism, I agree. And again, I have no fundamental philosophical objections to the idea of there being no inherent existence. But an objection I do have is that if people use language in the exact same way as the Buddha (according to the Pāli texts), we shouldn’t imply that they therefore misunderstand what he was teaching, or that they’re missing something fundamental.

Because the important thing is impermanence, which we all agree on. Whether we say things exist and then they cease and no longer exist, or insist on saying that things don’t inherently exist: from the present-moment point of view of experience I think it comes down to the same thing (and even philosophically to a large, if not full, extent). To me it’s all just semantics about what we mean by “exist”. No need for arguments here. Semantics is boring!

But if we want to reflect the language of the early texts, then we can say “exist” and “doesn’t exist”.

I think the basic development is also well-explained by Siderits and Katsura in the notes to their translations of the Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, as well as by Vélez de Cea in “Emptiness in the Pali Suttas and the Question of Nagarjuna’s Orthodoxy”. To summarize, Madhyamaka philosophy went considerably beyond the principles present in the Pāli canon. (And note that they are all very sympathetic to this philosophy and don’t refute it.) In other words, it is compatible with it, but not equal to it.