Hi all,
Sorry, this thread goes too quickly for me to follow, but I’ll just reply to this, as it was brought up twice:
It seems to me that interpretation has the same problems I pointed out. At least, it doesn’t address any of them. So in light of a discussion, perhaps you can do so.
To interpret AN10.6–7 we either suppose it uniquely describes nibbana as a perception (that has arisen!) that also isn’t a perception. Or, as I suggest, we consider the different meanings of the word ‘perception’ (saññā).
The “perception of death” (maraṇasaññā) for example is not a conscious experience of death but a reflection on it. Likewise, in AN10.6 Sariputta says he has the perception “this is peaceful, this is sublime, namely … cessation, extinguishment”. This is also a reflection on what nibbana is, not a direct perception of it. This is even more clearly the case for “extinguishment is the cessation of existence” at AN10.7, because existence only ceases at death (see Iti44), and Sariputta was still alive.
More detailed arguments for this I already gave here.
Interpreted like this, these statements by Sariputta fit the other discourses very well. At least it seems preferable to a unique description of nibbana as a type of perception/samadhi (which it just isn’t) that is beyond all consciousness.
The reason the ‘all’ is defined the way it is, is that it is literally all one can be aware of. The Buddha says, if you propose anything beyond it, any other “all”, it is groundless.
And what is all? The sense of sight and sights, the sense of hearing and sounds, the sense of smell and smells, the sense of taste and flavors, the sense of touch and tangibles, the mind and mental phenomena. That is what’s called all.
If someone would say they reject this as all and defined all as something else, their words would just be groundless. When questioned about it, they will be unable to explain and will get frustrated. Why? Because it is outside of their field of experience. (SN35.23)