Annihilation of ”mere cessation” ;)

[NgXinZhao]

@Notez

khandaparinibbana, but one could say parinibbana of delusion too.

Nibbana, as a removal of taints, depends on turning the mind away from the khandas and towards the deathless element, towards a direct experience of khandanirodha, the stilling of all sankhara.

First comes khandanirodha, by attaining this some of the taints are removed. If he is steady in that, all taints are removed. He can still enter into & abide in the same principial khandanirodha attainment after the complete removal of delusion, for as long as life-force lasts, up until the khandaparinibbāna.

I think the proper usage is that parinibbāna of defilements is when arahant is alive and attained to arahanthood. Parinibbāna of the 5 aggregates is only at the death of arahant.

Regardless, it’s just semantic labeling, we should understand the meaning of what is commonly referred to. So that mere changing the labels doesn’t affect any conclusions.

For common usage, we just normally say nibbāna for when arahant is still alive and parinibbāna for the death of arahant and asking what’s left if anything after that.

My position as with orthodox Theravada and many sutta central monks is that only body, corpse is left, no mind. No 6 sense bases, contacts, nothing can be said of it left, closest language we can use is nothing left. No 7th sense, no pure mind, not even just Nibbāna itself as a positive ontological thing.

@Dhabba

they rejoice in (the idea of) non-being, asserting: ‘In as much as this self, good sirs, when the body perishes at death, is annihilated and destroyed and does not exist after death—this is peaceful, this is excellent, this is reality!’ Thus, bhikkhus, do some overreach.

I think this shows you how even this total cessation can be rejoiced in by some people. As you, @Dhabba keeps on asking how this conception of parinibbāna can be rejoiced in. I think other than the “self” quoted there, the rejoicing is also a problem. Any delight itself is fuel for further existence.

There’s 3 types of annihilationism from what I can see from these discussions.

1. Annihilation means no rebirth, the materalist atheist position. Definition of annihilation valid. Buddhism rejects annihilation of this type as we have rebirth as part of the core doctrines.

2. Annihilation means annihilation of self. Definition of annihilation valid. Buddhism also rejects that this applies to Parinibbāna as there’s no self in the first place to be annihilated. So anything else that gets annihilated, is ok: defilements, 5 aggregates, 6 sense bases, all suffering. We just call it cessation, but if the meaning is clear, without causing confusion, annihilation can be used too, but since annihilation means annihilation of self, we just say cessation of all is not annihilation as there’s no self to be annihilated.

3. Annihilation means nothing after death. This definition of annihilation is not valid for people who holds the same position as me. It is for those who holds this definition of annihilation that they must reject the position of nothing after Parinibbāna and construe anything else, be it Nibbāna itself, consciousness unestablished, dhammakāya, or something more subtle.

So perhaps the key is to focus on debunking that annihilation definition no. 3 via the suttas and show that it’s not what the Buddha meant when he used this term.

To be fair, annihilation 1 implies annihilation 3 as nothing after death, and annihilation 2 is just different from annihilation 3 in the sense of the self concept. So it is very close, subtle difference which could mean the difference of true attainment of stream entry or not.

“All doesn’t exist” doesn’t apply only when we can see arising. When dependent cessation does it’s job and all conditioned things ceases without arising again, the condition of “all doesn’t exist” to not apply is gone.