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

[NgXinZhao]

@Dhabba

And if, when I was asked by him, ‘Is there no self?’ I had answered, ‘There is no self,’ this would have been siding with those ascetics and brahmins who are annihilationists.

• When he attends unwisely in this way, the view ‘no self exists for me’ arises in him as true and established - MN 2

“If, Ānanda, when I was asked by the wanderer Vacchagotta, ‘Is there a self?’ I had answered, ‘There is a self,’ would this have been consistent on my part with the arising of the knowledge that ‘all phenomena are nonself’?”

“No, venerable sir.”

“And if, when I was asked by him, ‘Is there no self?’
I had answered, ‘There is no self,’ the wanderer Vacchagotta, already confused, would have fallen into even greater confusion, thinking, ‘It seems that the self I formerly had does not exist now.’” =
Attakārīsutta The Self-Doer AN 6.38

This is interesting. I wonder how would it map to the 4-fold framework I posted here? Truly Exist, dependently exist, dependently ceased, truly not existing

Let’s try with eternalism first, an eternalist would see no. 2, conditioned phenomena which are impermanent, as 1, as permanent, some essence, a self. To dispel that notion, just ask them to see cessation of all phenomena.

To dispel the notion of all doesn’t exist, just ask them to see arising of phenomena from 3 (dependently cease) to 2. Then they wouldn’t say all doesn’t exist. I am a bit in doubt about how to map all doesn’t exist here. Do they see 2 as 4 (totally not existing)? Or 3 as 4? But 3 is unobservable as well as 4. Do they deny that 2 exists at all, despite the senses tells them that there’s experience? Maybe like the movie the matrix. It’s all just brain signals and thus we cannot be sure that the world exist, and even the signals itself can just be abstract thing, simulated on something but not even a brain. I dunno.

But does all doesn’t exist is the same as annihilationism?

The self I previously had no longer exist now… Hmmm… so a person doesn’t start in life believing in annihilationism, but gets brainwashed into it. The self…might be referring to the 5 aggregates, and doesn’t exist means denying the 5 aggregates even exist as 2 (dependently existing). So everything is fake, unreal. Does sounds similar to all doesn’t exist. The next life, or even moment is another person, so go hedonistic, for it’s another person who bears the results of the action. Completely no sense of self, including conventional self, no basis for morality then. This doesn’t gel much with the 7 annihilationist view in DN1, as there it is the sense of self identified with the 7 body-mind which dies at death that the self is annihilated.

It’s hard to get a consistent picture of annihilationism from all these suttas. Maybe there are different types of them.

As for Buddhism, we acknowledge the conventional self of the 5 aggregates, but say that ultimate self doesn’t exist in all 4 levels of truly existing (1), existing dependently (2), not existing dependently (3), not existing truly (4). In short, self doesn’t exist (4), but 5 aggregates exists (2).