Taṇhā ‘craving’ (self-attachment) is the arising of dukkha (not anatta ‘not-self’ is the arising of dukkha).
Why is it for the monks so clear that whatever is impermanent (anicca) is also suffering or dukkha?
Maybe they did not understand anicca to be mere a concept of impermanence, but also of things that are inconstant, desintegrate, unstable and therefor cannot be maintained as one would wish and are unreliable. They are not really able to function as refuge or to grasp at as an escape from suffering.
The Buddha somewhere described that one can in practice not seperate sanna, vedana, and vinnana and describe their differences. I feel this is also true for anicca, dukkha and anatta.
I think it is not that bad that the meaning of anicca in the context of Dhamma is more then only impermanence. Maybe the word literally translates that way, but in the context of Dhamma its meaning cannot really be seperated from dukkha and anatta. It overlaps eachother in meaning.
The suttas do say that what is impermanent and unsatisfactory is not fit to be regarded as self. But they don’t say that what is permanent and satisfactory should be regarded as self.
The suttas also say we should not regard the aggregates as “me” and “mine”, so the point is to reduce attachment and identity, and not to find an atta.
dukkha is associated with anattā and anicca. That’s why they are called the 3 lakkhanas. They always go together. So,
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Everything that is anattā is simultaneously anicca and gives rise to dukkha. So avoiding dukkha is also avoiding anything that is anicca and anattā.
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The word anicca depends on the word nicca for its meaning, without the nicca being real, anicca would be equally unreal. There is no reality to anattā if there is reality to attā. Dukkha would be similarly meaningless/unreal if its counterpart (sukha) were unreal.
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To avoid something that gives rise to dukkha, therefore, one has to avoid all the anattā and anicca.
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Nibbāna (the state of no dukkha, or the state of sukha) is not described as nicca & attā - because what Nibbāna is - is not learnt by words but has to be realized for oneself. So the buddha only says what nibbāna is not (and he only talks about dukkha-nirodha “ending dukkha”, not about sukha-ppatti “finding/attainment of sukha”), as I’ve mentioned above:
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Going back to the Second Noble Truth, dukkha arises because of tanha. Tanha arises through not seeing anicca and anatta.
But the suttas don’t talk about finding an atta.
Anicca and anatta are negative-adjectives, they are not substantive nouns. One can see anicca (of something) and anattā (of something) - but not one cannot see anicca and anattā themselves.
What does it mean to see the anicca (of something) or the anattā (of something)? It means one understands that whatever one can gain is liable to loss (with the passage of time). Everything that feels attractive will eventually decompose. What is liable to loss cannot be considered as belonging to oneself or as part of oneself. Therefore one isn’t attracted to anything that isn’t oneself and considers nothing as belonging to oneself. By volitionally discarding attachment to what is not oneself and what doesnt belong to oneself, one realizes one’s own natural state that is sukha and nicca. This last fact is to be realized and not to be verbalized.
anicca = transience, instability (opposite of, or other than, nicca. nicca = stable, enduring)
anattā = something that is other than attā (i.e. other than oneself, other than the noumenon)
If you understand Pali and Sanskrit grammar deeply, here is something for you to read and reflect on.
dukkha, anicca and anattā are all found together - a thing that is anicca is also anattā, and dukkha comes along with such a thing (that is anicca and anattā).
To avoid dukkha therefore, you have to avoid anything that is anicca, and avoid anything that is anattā. By avoiding everything that isn`t nicca and attā, one puts an end to dukkha. Why? because what isn’t nicca and attā gives rise to dukkha. By claiming possession, ownership and/or relationship with something that is a-nicca & an-attā - dukkha is produced.
That is exactly the point I was making when I said what I said in my point 4 above - that is exactly the via-negativa method. The attā is to be realized by oneself. It is not a topic of verbalization. Hence the Buddha’s noble silence when such questions are asked explicitly.
The suttas dont also talk about finding sukha, they talk about ending of dukkha. Ending dukkha is = finding sukha, and sukha, nicca and attā are characteristics of nibbāna (but this would not be explicitly verbalized in the canon - as verbalizing it would be reductionist i.e. realization of Nibbāna is not verbalizable conceptually into reductionist arguments - so it is expected that the exact words that you are not seeing in the canon are what the Buddha chooses to maintain his noble silence on). Hence the via-negativa.
Speaker 1 - “He said there was no self!”
Speaker 2 - “No, he said the skandhas (body, sensory-feelings, thoughts, habits, intelligence etc) weren’t worth calling self!”
Speaker 3 - “No, he said that these things weren’t self!”
Speaker 4 - "No, he said these things should be considered to be distinct from oneself.
As you progress from Speaker 1 to speaker 4, there is an improvement in understanding at each stage.
This thread is about Waharakas and their interpretation of anicca, and my posts were intended to show why not only the Waharaka interpretation of the word anicca is a misinterpretation, but even traditional theravada interpretations of anattā are misinterpretations. So both of them point at the misunderstandings of each another when they are both wrong.
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So the Buddha didn’t say the goal of the path was to realise the atta, but you assume it is implied?
No, it’s “not fit to be regarded as self”, a rather different meaning.
I infer it, I don’t assume it. There is a massive difference between inferring and assuming. The Buddha didnt confirm the exact thing that you want to find his confirmation for, because that is the topic of his noble silence (the topic of his realization) which he wants his followers to realize for themselves. So you will not find it being explicitly mentioned anywhere in the canon, as that would be the verbalization of the thing that is not to be verbalized. He verbalized what he thought about an-attā, a-nicca and dukkha (which are things that characterize saṃsāra) - rather than verbalizing about attā, nicca and sukha (which are things that by implication characterize the tathāgata/nibbāna).
Doesnt make sense. What type of samāsa is it in your understanding - tappurisa, bahubbīhi or something else? How did you establish that it means what you’ve stated it to be?
I’m referring to SN 22.59:
“Is what is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change fit to be regarded thus: ‘This is mine, this I am, this is my self’?”—“No, venerable sir.”
The aim of this is to reduce the tendency to identify with the aggregates as “me” and “mine”, thus reducing attachment. It’s not saying there is a self (atta).
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This seems tenuous to me. Why would the Buddha remain silent on such an important realisation?
And what about the important distinction in: “Sabbe sankhara anicca, sabbe sankhara dukkha, sabbe dhamma anatta”, which points to Nibbana also being characterised by anatta.
One way to understand this phrasing is that it’s a response to the doctrines taught in the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads, and other Brahminical teachings, that moksha, liberation, was merging into the Absolute Brahman, which was characterized as permanent, blissful, and Self. The True Self.
Admittedly, this Self was not a “thing” in the usual sense but was taught as “the unseen seer” and the “unknown knower” for example, and liberation was characterized as into this True Self was everlasting, blissful, and without change.
In SN22.59, the Buddha refutes this by teaching the exact opposite as anicca, dukkha, anattā.
As he points away from the Brahmanical doctrine of Self – the question then, in this context, becomes whether it’s fitting to regard any of this as I, me, mine.
If Self, atta, is permanent, happy, and unchanging and everything is the opposite, according to the Buddha, how can it “be fit” to understand anything as self/atta?
You were referring to something else then. “Fit to be regarded thus” is a translation for the phrase “kallaṁ nu taṁ samanupassituṁ” , not a translation of the compound word “anattā”.
Anattā does not mean “not fit to be regarded as self”. If you think it means that, maybe you can explain the grammar and semantics of the compound to show how it can get the meaning you are ascribing to it.
I’ve already said it - Verbalizing it would not lead towards its realization - and that is what the Pali canon also says (knowing the avyākṛtas will not lead to duḥkha-nirodha or nirvāṇa : “Na hetaṁ, āvuso, atthasaṁhitaṁ nādibrahmacariyakaṁ na nibbidāya na virāgāya na nirodhāya na upasamāya na abhiññāya na sambodhāya na nibbānāya saṁvattati. Tasmā taṁ abyākataṁ bhagavatā”ti. ). It would have to be realized by oneself, it is not a topic of verbalization/argumentation.
Nibbāna is not characterized by the three lakkhanas (anicca, dukkha & anattā). If it were, then nibbāna would not be an escape from saṃsāra (or from dukkha). If nibbāna were characterized by the three lakkhanas, what would be the whole point of such a nibbāna?
The upanishads teach that the attā (“not an-attā”) is characterized by nicca (“not a-nicca”) and sukha (“not dukkha”) and realizing the true nature of the attā is the goal of realization (to escape saṃsāra i.e. overcome dukkha).
The Buddha teaches the giving-up/rejection of everything that is characterized by anicca, dukkha, anattā so that you may realize nibbāna which is not a-nicca, not an-attā and not dukkha.
How does the latter amount to an 180-degree repudiation of the former?
Hi,
Firstly, because the Buddha never taught that the attā exists and taught that the characteristics attributed to the attā, such as permanence and control (such as to make form otherwise) as in SN22.59, do not exist.
Secondly, and this gets into a topic that has been much debated on this forum – and not wishing to get into it on this thread – those who understand final nibbāna to be cessation do not assert that there remains any “thing” or “dhatu” whatsoever – hence, no characteristics such as nicca or attā.
So, in this sense, a 180 -degree opposite to the Three Characteristics.
He didn’t need to teach it, the idea predates him and was inherited by the society in which he functioned. He didn’t explicitly teach that it doesn’t exist, or deny it’s existence.
So according to your understanding:
- a-nicca exists but nicca doesnt exist
- dukkha exists but sukha doesnt exist
- an-attā exists but attā doesnt exist
Therefore without the conceptual validity of nicca, its opposite a-nicca by inference is also meaningless (as it becomes an absolutist concept). Dukkha would also be conceptually meaningless (as an absolutism) in the conceptual absence of sukha. An-attā also is therefore conceptually meaningless as it becomes absolute in the absence of attā. You appear to have invented your own model of Buddhism where nothing makes logical sense anymore. In your conceptual model of Buddhism, dukkha cannot be overcome as it has become absolute.
So your model (shared by the people you’ve mentioned above) is based on a circular logic. Those who understand final nibbāna to be cessation claim that the attā doesnt exist, and the reason attā doesnt exist is because the buddha doesnt teach it, and the reason he doesnt teach it is because he teaches final cessation.
But cessation here is not a translation of nibbāna . Nibbāna (from Skt nir + √vā + na) is a past passive participle form, and literally means ‘death’ i.e. “stopping the blowing” (of a wind, in this context the breath of life). The verbal root √vā which gives rise to this noun means “to blow air”.
The buddha doesnt teach cessation of life in order to prove that attā doesnt exist, he teaches the cessation of dukkha, and he teaches cessation of dukkha by abandonment of anything characterized by a-nicca and an-attā.
To overcome dukkha, the Buddha is asking you to give up a-nicca and an-attā, not to embrace them.
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Perhaps not literally, but every teaching about the aggregates and senses points to anattā.
These are your attributions, not mine.
It’s also not about existence and non-existence in an ontological sense regarding “reality out there” – whatever it may be.
The Buddha taught from the standpoint of all experiences as mediated and perceived by the senses, including the mind sense.
So is there any nicca is conditional experiences?
From MN1:
"Mendicants, it would make sense to be possessive about something that’s permanent, everlasting, eternal, imperishable, and will last forever and ever.
Taṁ, bhikkhave, pariggahaṁ pariggaṇheyyātha, yvāssa pariggaho nicco dhuvo sassato avipariṇāmadhammo, sassatisamaṁ tatheva tiṭṭheyya.
But do you see any such possession?”
Passatha no tumhe, bhikkhave, taṁ pariggahaṁ yvāssa pariggaho nicco dhuvo sassato avipariṇāmadhammo, sassatisamaṁ tatheva tiṭṭheyyā”ti?
“No, sir.”
“No hetaṁ, bhante”.
“Good, mendicants!
“Sādhu, bhikkhave.
I also can’t see any such possession.
Ahampi kho taṁ, bhikkhave, pariggahaṁ na samanupassāmi yvāssa pariggaho nicco dhuvo sassato avipariṇāmadhammo sassatisamaṁ tatheva tiṭṭheyya.
It would make sense to grasp at a doctrine of self that didn’t give rise to sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress.
Taṁ, bhikkhave, attavādupādānaṁ upādiyetha, yaṁsa attavādupādānaṁ upādiyato na uppajjeyyuṁ sokaparidevadukkhadomanassupāyāsā.
But do you see any such doctrine of self?”
Passatha no tumhe, bhikkhave, taṁ attavādupādānaṁ yaṁsa attavādupādānaṁ upādiyato na uppajjeyyuṁ sokaparidevadukkhadomanassupāyāsā”ti?
“No, sir.”
“No hetaṁ, bhante”.
“Good, mendicants!
“Sādhu, bhikkhave."
Sukha exists conditionally in contrast to dukkha – which exists, as per the 1st NT in SN56.11.
In a kind of play on words, Sariputta said, “Extinguishment is bliss”, " Sukhamidaṁ, āvuso, nibbānan, in AN9.34. For those who see final nibbāna as cessation, the utter and irrevocable extinguishment of all experiences/dukkha is the “bliss” of a-dukkha, so to speak.
Regarding the etymology of nibbāna, what’s important is how the Buddha employed and it not how it was used pre-Dhamma or elsewhere. In the suttas it means extinguishment, cessation, quenching (going out) in the contexts that are being discussed here.
Anattā doesn’t exist as a “thing” but is rather an absence; empty of anything deemed a self, ( in the virahita sense in these contexts).
I’m not posting to prove or disprove whether attā ultimately exists or not. That’s a thicket of views.
What’s clear, as above in MN1 and hundreds of other suttas, is that the Buddha taught that all experiences are empty of what can be called a self, and that this self is never directly defined but contrasted to the Brahmanical teachings which state attā as being permanent and unchanging.
This is not to say that this is the only purpose of the Buddha’s teachings about this. Rather, one understands directly the absence of any inherent essence/self/soul or whatever one labels it.
Right. Everything is let go of.
Again, I never implied anything about embracing anicca and anattā. Not sure where that came from.
It’s not about picking apart every word that’s expressed.
It’s about skillfully using conditional experiences and their Three Characteristics for the purpose of letting go and liberation from them, I think we agree…
An-attā applies to dhammas (things), attā is not a objectifiable “thing” either in Buddhism or in Vedānta (upanishadic philosophy). Vedanta agrees with the Buddha that all dhammas are an-attā. Since the idea of the attā predates him, he didnt need to teach it, the society in which he was born inherited the idea. His teaching about the aggregates and senses being an-attā is an argument of the absence of attā in objectifiable things, not an argument intended to abolish the conceptual-reality of the attā (inherited by his society) and make an-attā an invariable absolutism.
The aggregates and senses are anattā. That means they are something else other than the attā. That is exactly the case in Vedānta (upanishadic philosophy) as well. The psychophysical body (= the aggregates & senses) is not the attā (i.e. an-attā). Conversely, the attā is not the psychophysical body. Attā in Vedānta is not a ‘thing’, it is not objectifiable.
You may ask - “where do the upanishads agree with the Buddhist claims “sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā”, “sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā” & “sabbe dhammā anattā’?”
Brihadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad Chapter 3 - Section 4 (titled “Uṣasta Brāhmaṇa”) - The brahmin named Uṣasta Cakrāyaṇa questions Yājñavalkya (in the royal court of Janaka, the king of Kosala) to describe the ātman (attā) objectively.
Yājñavalkya responds to him - "You cannot see that (ātman) which is the witness of vision; you cannot hear that (ātman) which is the hearer of hearing; You cannot think that (ātman) which is the thinker of thought; you cannot know that (ātman) which is the knower of knowledge. Such (an unobjectifiable one) is the ātman, everything else apart from it is perishable.
So from this, we can infer:
- Yajnavalkya of the brihadaranyaka upanishad teaches that everything that is an-attā (not the attā) is perishable/impermanent (a-nicca) and
- this distinction between attā and everything else (an-attā) is made in the context of giving up attachment to the a-nicca (perishables)
- the reason for giving up attachment to what is an-atta & a-nicca is to overcome dukkha.
You said earlier: "those who understand final nibbāna to be cessation do not assert that there remains any “thing” or “dhatu ” whatsoever – hence, no characteristics such as nicca or attā "
So I was inferring that by saying no nicca or atta, you meant:
- a-nicca exists but nicca doesnt exist
- dukkha exists but sukha doesnt exist
- an-attā exists but attā doesnt exist
I understand this, but dukkha is no more conceptually real in any sense than sukha. Same goes for the an-attā/attā and a-nicca/nicca pairs. One is only as conceptually real and meaningful as its opposite counterpart. You are trying to absolutize it by removing the conceptual duality that is inherent in the nouns an-attā , a-nicca etc.
Even the Buddha (whatever magical powers he might have had) did not have the ability to alter logic and linguistic-reasoning in the way you’ve imagined.
Sāriputta was not saying it after attaining final cessation, he was saying it when he was still alive. He was not talking about parinibbāna (“final irrevocable cessation” in your terms) but about nibbāna when he was still alive - unless you believe that the sukha was referring to an afterlife knowledge of the irrevocably extinguished Sariputta that he somehow verbalized when he was still alive.
Good that you agree that sukha and dukkha are conceptually-binary pairs, and that samsāra and nibbāna are contrasted with the opposing terms dukkha and sukha respectively.
Sukha must be conceptually real because without it, there would be nothing else other than dukkha, and it would be incapable of elimination - i.e. it would have become an absolutism in the same way as you’ve sought to absolutize a-nicca & an-attā (without inquiring about how can sukha alone be conceptually real but not nicca and attā; despite all three being mentioned in the statements “sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā”, “sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā” & “sabbe dhammā anattā”).
Dharmic ideas existed before the Buddha, you speak of pre-Dhamma as if he was introducing Dharma de-novo.
Regardless of that, the buddha doesn’t claim that nibbāna means extinguishment or cessation of the attā, it is rather extinguishment of dukkha, so it is not clear why you are mentioning extinguishment in the context of the attā?
If you understand nibbāna as a extinguishment of the attā, you would be an ucchedavādī (annihilationist) which is a view criticized by the buddha. Unless you are an ucchedavādī (and also consider the Buddha as one), you cannot claim that the meaning the Buddha ascribed to nibbāna was to conceptually abolish the attā.
He said “sabbe dhammā an-attā” (all things are an-attā). Being attached to anything that is an-attā gives rise to dukkha". But nibbāna is sukha because nibbāna is not an-attā (i.e. not the absence of attā).
If attā is something, and if an-attā implies ‘absence’ or “other than” attā - it still is a binary. You can’t abolish one side of the binary and thereby raise the other side to an absolute, and still pretend you are talking about an absence rather than an invariable absolutism which you have thereby made it to be.
If an-attā were conceptually an absolutist invariability as you conceive it to be, it would be linguistically/semantically meaningless - as absolutes cannot be processed linguistically and it wouldn’t need to be thereafter distinguished as attā vs anattā in a relativist (binary) sense.
You are misinterpreting the MN1 there. The text you’ve quoted makes 2 assertions, one about possessions (pariggaha) and another about “holding-on to theories of ātman” (atta-vāda-upādāna). The 2 assertions made in the sutta as per your quote above are:
- There is no “possession” (pariggaha) that can be grasped/possessed by one that is simultaneously also nicca, dhuva, sassata, or aviparṇāmadhamma. If there were, it would make sense to grasp or possess or hold on to it - but there isn’t such a possession.
- There is no “holding-on to theories of ātman” (attavādupādāna) - which theory, when held-on to, prevents sorrow, lamentations, dukkha, bad-moods or annoyances from arising.
Regarding the first assertion - this word pariggaha would not apply to attā or nibbāna as one cannot possess them. They are not objectifiable or possessifiable! One cannot possess, grasp, or hold-on to attā (oneself) - they are not possessions - here the sutta above is talking of possessions. One can only grasp or hold-on or get attached to anything that is an-attā i.e. anything that is not attā. Attā isn’t a pariggaha (possession) in the first place.
Regarding the second assertion - the Buddha uses the via-negativa method, precisely to avoid holding on to theories of the attā (such as eternalism and annihilationism etc) - so by maintaining a noble silence when he was questioned positively about the attā, and by speaking about everything else other than the attā (i.e. about an-attā), he was not holding on to theories of the attā.
If on the other hand, as you presume, the Buddha held-on to (or taught) the theory that the attā didn’t exist, he would be himself going against the second assertion above. The via-negativa method used by the Buddha to avoid commenting about the attā positively - is used by Yājñavalkya in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad in exactly the same way for the same purpose. But because the Upaniṣads don’t stem from a single source of thought unlike the Buddhavacana, there are other upaniṣadic philosophers who had other ideas.
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Agree.
Never said it was in Vedānta or the Dhamma. I’m not sure how or why you’re incorrectly ascribing this notion to me.
Right. Meanwhile, the Buddha distinguishes his teachings by never asserting an attā, and always teaching otherwise. As in SN22.59.
Thanks for sharing how you came to infer this. What I was trying to express is that utter cessation, not even “being” nothing, can’t meaningfully be described by any characteristics, such as nicca, etc.
It’s not about concepts, but conditional experience – in which dukkha is certainly real. SN56.11.
Another attribution to me that I haven’t made.
Getting into debates about abstract nouns and concepts like “real” and “unreal” etc. can lead to a lot of misunderstandings.
By “real” is meant here as the Buddha indicated in the 4NTs, DO (DN15), and in SN35.23, as examples.
We disagree here. He was certainly alive when offering this teaching but the sutta points, I think, to parinibbāna:
"Furthermore, take a mendicant who, going totally beyond the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, enters and remains in the cessation of perception and feeling. And, having seen with wisdom, their defilements come to an end.
Puna caparaṁ, āvuso, bhikkhu sabbaso nevasaññānāsaññāyatanaṁ samatikkamma saññāvedayitanirodhaṁ upasampajja viharati, paññāya cassa disvā āsavā parikkhīṇā honti.
That too is a way to understand how extinguishment is bliss.”
Imināpi kho etaṁ, āvuso, pariyāyena veditabbaṁ yathā sukhaṁ nibbānan”ti.
Saññāvedayitanirodha being the temporary absence of all experience is closest to parinibbāna, compared to nibbāna while the senses are active, (although without clinging, defilements, or identification).
This utter cessation is blissful because of the progressive absence of conditional experiences, as described in the sutta.
Concepts again. Sukha is “real” in the sense it is an experienced quality of pleasure, sometimes very refined. It disappears in the fourth jhana.
Nothing to do here with absolutes and ontological realities.
In the Buddha’s teachings, again referring to SN35.23 as an example, all that can be experienced, hence known, hence “real” is via the six senses, including the sense organs, and the aggregates.
Whatever external Reality may or may not be cannot be directly accessed.
Since, as in SN12.15, "what arises is just suffering arising, and what ceases is just suffering ceasing… ‘Dukkhameva uppajjamānaṁ uppajjati, dukkhaṁ nirujjhamānaṁ nirujjhatī’ , the ending of all this after parinibbāna is the cessation of all dukkha, nibbāna, the very purpose of Dhamma practice.
From this standpoint, it’s not a “thing” of any sort.
Of course there were ideas and practices, like some of the formless attainments, before the time of the Buddha. He adopted some into the path of practice.
It’s the new teachings and changes he made that I’m focusing on.
But I don’t. The point is that the Buddha never brought any kind of attā into his teachings, except to point to asserting or clinging to one as a mistake.
Not an ontological something – just not found, absent, in any experience, however subtle.
Exactly what I’ve been trying to express with respect to the sutta teachings.
Again, a mistaken attribution. I think we agree the Buddha was beyond theories and held onto nothing.
The point is that in all experiences via the aggegates and senses, there is no attā. I mean, how many times did the Buddha point this out?
This has nothing to do with whatever external Reality, which is beyond our direct experience, may or may not be, or whether there ontologically is attā or anattā.
It’s about how the Buddha taught how to use conditional experiences, via the senses and aggregates, to attain liberation from the intrinsic and experientially real dukkha we all experience.
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I am disinclined to have a prolonged conversation as I dont see you trying to respond substantively to my detailed comments. Your quick short quips sound like knee-jerk reactions to me rather than well thought out substantive responses.
I wasn’t making mistaken attributions to you, they were my understanding of the implications of your statements. Since I can’t read your mind, I was trying to understand what the point you were making really implies from a larger doctrinal perspective.
So again, how does that make any sense doctrinally to describe the lack of experience (after utter annihilation) using positive terms like sukha? What else could utter annihilation mean other than the lack of any experiencer? What is the sukha there - and whose sukha? These (among others) are the doctrinal implications behind the ostensible validity of nibbāna being translated as “utter cessation” I was expecting you to address.
Utter cessation would be ucchedavāda, which was repudiated by the Buddha. He would not be repackaging “uccheda” under a new name ‘Nibbāna’
You are apparently arguing against yourself here. Either accept that the buddha held on to a theory of the attā’s conditional or unconditional absence (which is a theory of attā) or non-existence (which is another theory of attā) or claim that he didnt have any theories of attā. You can’t talk both ways.
The phrase “…there is no attā” above apparently relies on a mistranslation of the compound an-attā, so please clarify the grammar of the compound, the type of the negation that it uses, and how the semantics of the compound emerges from the grammar and interacts with the context in which it is used.
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I feel the same way. We finally agree about something!
I don’t appreciate my responses, including with sutta citations, being labeled as “knee-jerk responses”. Whatever.
We’re apparently talking past each other and I’m not interested in labeling your responses negatively.
I think we’re both trying.
Regarding
You may wish to read:
So, yes, in all friendliness, let’s call it a day and end the exchanges here.
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