Anicca, dukkha, anatta

Discussion
21

SN35.94
“Mendicants, it’s just the six fields of contact
that lead the unrestrained to suffering.
Those who understand how to restrain them
live with faith as partner, uncorrupted.

When you’ve seen pleasant sights
and unpleasant ones, too,
get rid of desire for the pleasant,
without hating what you don’t like.

When you’ve heard sounds both liked and disliked,
don’t fall under the thrall of sounds you like,
get rid of hate for the unliked,
and don’t hurt your mind by thinking of what you don’t like.

When you’ve smelled a pleasant, fragrant scent,
and one that’s foul and unpleasant,
get rid of aversion for the unpleasant,
while not yielding to desire for the pleasant.

When you’ve enjoyed a sweet, delicious taste,
and sometimes those that are bitter,
don’t be attached to enjoying sweet tastes,
and don’t despise the bitter.

Don’t be intoxicated by a pleasant touch,
and don’t tremble at a painful touch.
Look with equanimity at the duality of pleasant and painful contacts,
without favoring or opposing anything.

People generally let their perceptions proliferate;
perceiving and proliferating, they are attracted.
When you’ve dispelled all thoughts of the lay life,
wander intent on renunciation.

When the mind is well developed like this regarding the six,
it doesn’t waver at contacts at all.
Mendicants, those who have mastered greed and hate
go beyond birth and death.”

But how to do this?

SN 35.1 / SN 35.4
The six interior/ exterior sense fields are impermanent, suffering, and not-self. When a noble disciple truly sees them like this, they become disillusioned and liberated.

SN 35.17 / SN 35.18
Beings are attached to the six interior/ exterior sense fields due to gratification, repelled due to drawbacks, and find escape because there is an escape.

SN 35.19 / SN 35.20
If you enjoy the six interior/ exterior sense fields, you enjoy suffering.

SN 35.23
The “all” consists of the six interior and exterior sense fields.

SN 35.33–42
The “all” consisting of the six interior and exterior sense fields is liable to be reborn, to age, etc.

SN 35.25
The “all” consisting of the six interior and exterior sense fields should be given up by understanding.

SN 35.32
The way to uproot all conceivings is to investigate the six sense fields as impermanent, etc.

SN 35.61
To end grasping, see how sense experience gives rise to feeling.

SN 35.62

To end grasping, investigate the six sense fields as impermanent, etc.

SN 35.84
The Buddha tells Ānanda that in the training of the noble one the “world” consisting of six sense experience is liable fall apart.

SN 35.107
The origin and ending of the world are explained in terms of sense experience giving rise to craving and suffering.

SN 35.91
Being stirred by craving is painful, so the Realized One lives unstirred, not identifying with any aspect of sense experience, or indeed, with the entire scope of the aggregates, elements, and senses.

SN 35.99
Develop meditative immersion so as to truly understand the process of sense experience.

SN 35.101
Let go of what is not yours: the process of sense experience. You wouldn’t be upset if someone took the grass and sticks from the monastery grounds, so why worry over the aggregates?

SN 35.150
The way suitable for realizing extinguishment is to contemplate the process of sense experience as impermanent, suffering, and not-self.

SN 35.158 / SN 35.159
Focusing properly on the interior/ exterior sense fields you see them as they are and become free.

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22

I believe this is an expression of utu niyama, “the fixedness of the law regarding all things,…or natural order that governs temperature, seasons and other physical events…” (Nyanatiloka). CO2 emissions have dropped and coronavirus will probably become an annual event, declining in summer and re-emerging in winter, causing permanent change in the habits of humans. It is incorrect to regard the earth or the cosmos as a passive bystander in this global warming, which is interfering with the support system for rebirth, which cannot be done.

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23
  1. be your own island

“Mendicants, form is impermanent.
“Rūpaṃ, bhikkhave, aniccaṃ.

What’s impermanent is suffering.
Yadaniccaṃ taṃ dukkhaṃ;

What’s suffering is not-self.
yaṃ dukkhaṃ tadanattā;

And what’s not-self should be truly seen with right understanding like this: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’
yadanattā taṃ ‘netaṃ mama, nesohamasmi, na meso attā’ti evametaṃ yathābhūtaṃ sammappaññāya daṭṭhabbaṃ.

Seeing truly with right understanding like this, the mind becomes dispassionate and freed from defilements by not grasping.
Evametaṃ yathābhūtaṃ sammappaññāya passato cittaṃ virajjati vimuccati anupādāya āsavehi.

Feeling is impermanent …
Vedanā aniccā …

Perception …
saññā …

Choices …
saṅkhārā …

Consciousness is impermanent.
viññāṇaṃ aniccaṃ.

What’s impermanent is suffering.
Yadaniccaṃ taṃ dukkhaṃ;

What’s suffering is not-self.
yaṃ dukkhaṃ tadanattā;

And what’s not-self should be truly seen with right understanding like this: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’
yadanattā taṃ ‘netaṃ mama, nesohamasmi, na meso attā’ti evametaṃ yathābhūtaṃ sammappaññāya daṭṭhabbaṃ.

Seeing truly with right understanding like this, the mind becomes dispassionate and freed from defilements by not grasping.
Evametaṃ yathābhūtaṃ sammappaññāya passato cittaṃ virajjati vimuccati anupādāya āsavehi.
SN22.45

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Hmmm , form is impermanent
But But by itself Not suffering .
Think again .

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25

I am wary of getting in to long circular debate about this. But as I see it, putting a hand in to the fire and ‘Suffering’ is one thing, and seeing the the ‘suffering’ inherent in the fire is something else.

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:slightly_smiling_face: or the suffering inherent in the hand :raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed:

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Lets be simple , suffering inherent in the form … ! ? If this stand then for an arahant still cannot escape it .

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That’s correct, until PariNibbana

But remember - they will not be reborn! So this is the last time to have to put up with it :smiley:
So the physical dart of suffering still exists (this is part of the ‘remainder’), but the mental dart is completely gone. Without the mental dart the physical sensations are much less acute and no longer distressing. However, there is still physical suffering. That is why, IMO, the buddha has said that, for one who has completed the spiritual work to the end, suicide in cases of unbearable mortal pain, doesn’t result in bad Kamma…

:slight_smile:

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This wasnt the point in the core teaching .

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The king asked, “If a person has crossed over to the other shore, and will not be reborn hereafter does he still feel any painful sensation?”

Nāgasena replied, “Some he feels and some not.”

“Which painful sensation does he feel and which not?”

“He may feel bodily pain, but not mental pain.”

“What do you mean by the expression that he feels bodily pain but not mental pain?”

“He is liable to suffer bodily pain, because the body still exists, he is not liable to mental pain, because the mind has got rid of all evil, and is without any desire.”

The king said, “If a person who has crossed over to the other shore still cannot get rid of the bodily pain, then he has not attained the Path of nirvana.” Again the king said, “If a person who has attained the Path has no sense desire, and while his mind is in peace, yet bodily pain still exists, then what is the use of attaining nirvana? If a person has attained nirvana, why does he not die?”

“It is like the unripe fruit, we need not force it to ripen, but when it is ripe, we need not wait again.”

Nāgasena continued, “There is a thera by the name of Sariputra who has attained the Path. The following was said by Sariputra when he was alive: ‘I do not seek for death, I do not seek for birth; I abide my time, when my time comes, I shall go.’”

“Excellent, Nāgasena.”
T1670b 2.19

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Thanks very much for the Sutta Quote :pray: :slightly_smiling_face: :sunflower:

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You’re welcome :pray::grinning: :pray:
here’s another well reasoned explanation from the same book…IMHO, “The questions of King Milinda” are a great FAQ resource! :rofl:

Mil6.1.6
‘Venerable Nāgasena, your (members of the Order) say:

“There is one kind of pain only which an Arahat suffers, bodily pain, that is, and not mental.”

‘How is this, Nāgasena? the Arahat keeps his mind going by means of the body. Has the Arahat no lordship, no mastery, no power over the body?’

‘No, he has not, O king.’

‘That, Sir, is not right that over the body, by which he keeps his mind going, he should have neither lordship, nor mastery, nor power. Even a bird, Sir, is lord and master and ruler over the nest in which he dwells.’

‘There are these ten qualities, O king, inherent in the body, which run after it, as it were, and accompany it from existence to existence. And what are the ten? Cold and heat, hunger and thirst, The necessity of voiding excreta, fatigue and sleepiness, old age, disease, and death. And in respect thereof, the Arahat is without lordship, without mastery, without power.’

‘Venerable Nāgasena, what is the reason why the commands of the Arahat have no power over his body, neither has he any mastery over it? Tell me that.

‘Just, O king, as whatever beings are dependent on the land, they all walk, and dwell, and carry on their business in dependence upon it. But do their commands have force, does their mastery extend over it?’

‘Certainly not, Sir!’

‘Just so, O king, the Arahat keeps his mind going through the body. And yet his commands have no authority over it, nor power.’

‘Venerable Nāgasena, why is it that the ordinary man suffers both bodily and mental pain?’

‘By reason, O king, of the untrained state of his mind. just, O king, as an ox when trembling with starvation might be tied up with a weak and fragile and tiny rope of grass or creeper. But if the ox were excited then would he escape, dragging the fastening with him. Just so, O king, when pain comes upon him whose mind is untrained, then is his mind excited, and the mind so excited bends his body this way and that and makes it grovel on the ground, and he, being thus untrained in mind, trembles and cries, and gives forth terrible groans. This is why the ordinary man, O king, suffers pain as well in body as in mind.’

‘Then why, Sir, does the Arahat only suffer one kind of pain—bodily, that is, and not mental?’

‘The mind of the Arahat, O king, is trained, well practised, tamed, brought into subjection, and obedient, and it hearkens to his word. When affected with feelings of pain, he grasps firmly the idea of the impermanence of all things, so ties his mind as it were to the post of contemplation, and his mind, bound to the post of contemplation, remains unmoved, unshaken, becomes stedfast, wanders not—though his body the while may bend this way and that and roll in agony by the disturbing influence of the pain. This is why it is only one kind of pain that the Arahat suffers—bodily pain, that is, and not mental.’

44., Venerable Nāgasena, that verily is a most marvellous thing that when the body is trembling the mind should not be shaken. Give me a reason for that.’

‘Suppose, O king, there were a noble tree, mighty in trunk and branches and leaves. And when agitated by the force of the wind its branches should wave. Would the trunk also move

‘Certainly not, Sir!’

‘Well, O king, the mind of the Arahat is as the trunk of that noble tree.’

‘ Most wonderful, Nāgasena, and most strange! Never before have I seen a lamp of the law that burned thus brightly through all time.’

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33

It appears from the suttas that dukkha (personal suffering) has ceased for the Arahant. So dukkha here must be the second arrow, ie mental suffering. And not the first arrow, which is bodily pain.

Also the aggregates continue for the Arahant, what actually ceases is clinging, or “clinging aggregates”. Which means that the aggregates are not inherently dukkha in the sense of personal suffering.
However the aggregates are inherently unsatisfactory, due to their impermanence.

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