So are you saying the aggregates persist in final nibbāna?
If not, then they cease.
I have no idea wha you’re trying to say here.
Which is?
In your “internal” experience.
So explain how they persist.
I really don’t understand how you claim the aggregates persist after parinibbāna. They are clearly conditioned and dukkha and the only thing not conditioned and without dukkha is nibbāna.
I’ve cited many suttas in an attempt to explain.
Also se SN26.10:
"The cessation, settling, and ending of form is the cessation of suffering, the settling of diseases, and the ending of old age and death. Yo ca kho, bhikkhave, rūpassa nirodho vūpasamo atthaṅgamo, dukkhasseso nirodho, rogānaṁ vūpasamo, jarāmaraṇassa atthaṅgamo. The cessation, settling, and ending of feeling, Yo vedanāya …
perception, yo saññāya …
choices, yo saṅkhārānaṁ … and consciousness is the cessation of suffering, the settling of diseases, and the ending of old age and death.” yo viññāṇassa nirodho vūpasamo atthaṅgamo, dukkhasseso nirodho, rogānaṁ vūpasamo, jarāmaraṇassa atthaṅgamo”ti.
“Reverend, when these six fields of contact have faded away and ceased with nothing left over, does anything else exist?”
“Don’t put it like that, reverend.”
“Does nothing else exist?”
“Don’t put it like that, reverend.”
“Do both something else and nothing else exist?”
“Don’t put it like that, reverend.”
“Do neither something else nor nothing else exist?”
“Don’t put it like that, reverend.”
“Reverend, when asked these questions, you say ‘don’t put it like that’. … How then should we see the meaning of this statement?”
“If you say that ‘when the six fields of contact have faded away and ceased with nothing left over, something else exists’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated. If you say that ‘nothing else exists’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated. If you say that ‘both something else and nothing else exist’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated. If you say that ‘neither something else nor nothing else exist’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated. The scope of proliferation extends as far as the scope of the six fields of contact. The scope of the six fields of contact extends as far as the scope of proliferation. When the six fields of contact fade away and cease with nothing left over, proliferation stops and is stilled.”
But both eternalists and cessationists seem to somehow know better…
So it is not ”mere cessation” after all, wow who would have thought? And not ”something” either, hmmmm.
SN 22.81 will help anyone who is confused, but then one has to study the sutta and see that one might just be that type of buddhist that The Buddha is talking about.
As you’ve probably noticed the Tetralemma, in this version and others, has engendered a lot of discussion and various interpretations.
So it can be helpful to keep an open mind about this…
The questions are asked from the standpoint of a belief in a self or a “something” that exists prior the death, otherwise why would the questions be asked?
The questions are about whether something else, beyond the six senses, will persist after they cease.
The responses bypass and don’t offer categorical answers because the questions are based on a mistaken premise.
“Will something else exist when green fades away and ceases?”
“Don’t bother.”
“Will something not exist when green fades away and ceases?”
“Don’t bother”
And so on…
To answer any of these questions would open the door to mistaken views and understanding.
People don’t have to agree with this. But the point is, this is consistent with the suttas too.
So it not you and the others on the forum who are wrong claiming ”nothing” and by doing so proliferating the unproliferated?
So it’s actually Ānanda’s fault then?
“If you say that ‘when the six fields of contact have faded away and ceased with nothing left over that ‘nothing else exists’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated.
Isn’t this exactly what many on the forum are saying/claiming?
How are you not ”conditioning the unconditioned”
when knowing in advance what the six fields of contact having faded away and ceased with nothing left over & nibbāna ”must” entail?
Not so. He does not say ‘don’t bother asking’ he says the question itself is posed on a fallacious premise akin to asking what happened in the 8th terminator movie, it is an narration of a narrative beyond cessation.
The annihilationists ignore the reasoning behind how the not coming into play of DO being literally the definitive end of the world, in this training, but they keep talking about an after because they are not in this training.
Yes there are countless ways to interpret the texts but guess what, there are countless ways of interpreting anything.
What matters is the merit of an interpretation, whether it has predictive power, whether it lends itself to cross-reference, whether it’s adaptation is expected to produce happiness, etc
Really, I don’t know what you’re getting at here.
Saying something utterly ends is not proliferating the unproliferated.
Like saying a flame ceases. That’s all.
If we get into discussions about where the flame went, does something else still exist after the flame went out, is there a sort of awareness that continues after the flame disappears and goes out, etc.
It’s not about fault. It’s about interpreting the teachings here.
You have your interpretation and others have different interpretations.
You may also wish to read, in case you haven’t seen it yet:
There are several posts about the Tetralemma in the thread.
“If you say that ‘when the six fields of contact have faded away and ceased with nothing left over that ‘nothing else exists’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated.”
Isn’t this exactly what many on the forum are saying/claiming?
How are you not ”conditioning the unconditioned”
when knowing in advance what the six fields of contact having faded away and ceased with nothing left over & nibbāna ”must” entail?
This is such a cope. If the questions and their answers are meaningless for us to know, why are they even included?
So your proposed interpretation is that the meaning is in that the questions are to be set aside.
This is far from a literal reading and as you alluded to agree upon, no interpretation is worth anything if it doesn’t demonstrate predictive power or lends itself to cross-reference, so what is the merit of your proposed interpretation?
Then Venerable Ānanda went up to Venerable Mahākoṭṭhita, and exchanged greetings with him. When the greetings and polite conversation were over, Ānanda sat down to one side, and said to Mahākoṭṭhita:
“Reverend, when these six fields of contact have faded away and ceased with nothing left over, does anything else exist?”
“Don’t put it like that, reverend.”
“Does nothing else exist?”
“Don’t put it like that, reverend.”
“Do both something else and nothing else exist?”
“Don’t put it like that, reverend.”
“Do neither something else nor nothing else exist?”
“Don’t put it like that, reverend.”
“Reverend, when asked these questions, you say ‘don’t put it like that’. … How then should we see the meaning of this statement?”
“If you say that ‘when the six fields of contact have faded away and ceased with nothing left over, something else exists’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated. If you say that ‘nothing else exists’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated. If you say that ‘both something else and nothing else exist’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated. If you say that ‘neither something else nor nothing else exist’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated. The scope of proliferation extends as far as the scope of the six fields of contact. The scope of the six fields of contact extends as far as the scope of proliferation. When the six fields of contact fade away and cease with nothing left over, proliferation stops and is stilled.”
This is not the Cease taught by the Buddha, the end of clinging. There is the middle way of the Buddha teaching, and it should exist from the beginning until the end.
Note how you shows only 2 alternatives: annihilation or persistence. And then it becomes a wrong notion of “Cease”, believing this is a destruction, annihilation.
The obvious difficulty is: Where it that third alternative? How to know that?: when an end of Clinging can arise. And then the alternative will becomes manifest. Until then, our frame of Reality is ruled by that polarity. And the best thing to do is trying to understand and to catch the point.
Accepting the “existence” or “non-existence” is leaving that point. And that’s very important because this is keeping a right position; keeping the open door so the alternative can become manifest.
If we fall in the polarity, we are putting a tap to our mind. That’s logical. No magics.
anatta. Of the aggregates or whatever other thing.
yes. But these Suttas are misunderstood if there is the belief about the “Cease” is a destruction.
Read this:
"And what is the fire property? The fire property may be either internal or external. What is the internal fire property? Whatever internal, belonging to oneself, is fire, fiery, & sustained: that by which [the body] is warmed, aged, & consumed with fever; and that by which what is eaten, drunk, chewed, & savored gets properly digested, or whatever else internal, within oneself, is fire, fiery, & sustained: This is called the internal fire property. Now both the internal fire property and the external fire property are simply fire property. And that should be seen as it actually is present with right discernment: ‘This is not mine, this is not me, this is not my self.’ When one sees it thus as it actually is present with right discernment, one becomes disenchanted with the fire property and makes the mind dispassionate toward the fire property.
“Now there comes a time, friends, when the external fire property is provoked and consumes village, town, city, district, & country; and then, coming to the edge of a green district, the edge of a road, the edge of a rocky district, to the water’s edge, or to a lush, well-watered area, goes out from lack of sustenance. There comes a time when people try to make fire using a wing-bone & tendon parings.”
"So when even in the external fire property — so vast — inconstancy will be discerned, destructibility will be discerned, a tendency to decay will be discerned, changeability will be discerned, then what in this short-lasting body, sustained by clinging, is ‘I’ or ‘mine’ or ‘what I am’? It has here only a ‘no.’ MN.28.
in the understanding of the aggregates, the Buddha disciples were trained to differentiate the internal reality and the external reality. Although is is the same property what is manifest.
The 4 elements were named by the ancients like earth, wind, water and fire. Although these ancient names refers to the properties of: solidity, movement, cohesion and heat, respectively.
These “properties” are very closer to our notions of “energies”. And as we know, nobody can know directly any energy but only through its manifestations. In example, we cannot know the electrical energy but its presence in a lighting, a bulb on, a body pain, the digits in a manometer, and so on.
Well, if here we reflect in these 4 elements causing the aggregate of Form, we can realize that there is no a clear border between the existence of our body and the external reality. Because the causes of the aggregate of form pervades everywhere. And logically, when we imagine that the body or whatever form could be destroyed, just is happens that these 4 elements comes and go, changes, and so on.
With these 4 properties (being like energies) we can explain the arising of any form in the Reality and any realm of existence with forms. Frequently, we can change “Form” by “matter”, although it should be used with prevention. Because the common fire is also a form, although in the world many people don’t consider the fire to be “matter”. We should know that in the world still nobody knows what’s exactly the fire What state of matter is fire? | Article | RSC Education
Therefore, one shouldn’t rely in Science to understand the Dhamma. Sometimes it is useful to understand something as I do with the example of the electrical energy. However, the human Science still is too primitive regarding the Dhamma reach. With Dhamma we can explain whatever phenomena in the Reality and also the connection with consciousness. Science still is very far of such thing.
I hope the summary can be helpful to understand why the annihilation of the aggregates is not possible. Nobody can annihilate these fundamental properties of the aggregate of Form. These are not “things” but are “properties”. Are like energies. And nobody can destroy an energy, that’s an absurdity, an impossible. Ask any Scientist is you wish. Despite our Science still is primitive, they will agree in this point. If your are trapped in materialist frame, think in this point of the annihilation of energy. At least this wordly notion could be useful to reject the notion of a final annihilation of Reality.
Although again, that worldly notion doesn’t mean that there is not a cease also for the aggregate of Form and its 4 elements. There is that cease: with non-clinging. With the Buddha teaching of the Cease of clinging is possible the cease of whatever thing. Even when the world laws physics don’t allow that. Buddha teaching is amazing. No thing can be compared
So ”cessationists” have no self notions and when the six fields of contact have faded away and ceased with nothing left over ‘nothing else exists’, is still true?
When something ceases, it’s annihilated. The aggregates do get annihilated in the suttas, but that isn’t the doctrine of Annihilationism since the aggregates are empty. Or, to use a commentarial phrase, they are nissatta (not a being) and nijjīva (lifeless, souless).
The cessationists are just saying that all conditions cease, that there is no intrinsic essence to anything, and if they have attained experiences in meditation of the cessation of consciousness, for example, they come to understand that after the final death, everything will simply cease when the six senses and aggregates finally cease.
This is not the same as proliferating about whether something continues to exist that never existed in the first place.
The discussions about the tetralemma are endless and it’s probably best if we just leave it here at this point.
Well we all have self notions until Arahantship. The question is how the suttas frame things. For the suttas saying that the aggregates and sense bases cease, are destroyed forever, isn’t annihilationism since for the suttas the aggregates aren’t a self. The destruction of a self being Annihilationism in the early texts.
Sorry, but you seem to continue to misinterpret what I’m trying to say. If I’m not clear, I apologize, but I honestly I have no idea how you’re reaching some of your conclusions and how you’re making some of your assertions.
The point is not that there aren’t important interpretations of the teachings. Of course there are.
The point is that the questions are based on a false premise, and so they are meaningless in that way. that’s why no categorical answers are offered.
when something ceases, this is because there is an activity. A Cease is not a destruction or annihilation.
The cease, stop and vanishing of an activity, it is not the destruction of the thing which was active.
This is exactly the problem in the confusion of nibbana with a nothingness in where the Reality “will not exist anymore”.
