Hi @Gabriel , thanks. This is all new terrain for me: what are the earliest layers?
But i have done some exploring of Sutta Nipata. I have seen the message is there also: do cut of the desire for name & form (Snp 2.12, Vangissasutta):
“He cut off craving for mind and body in this very life,” (Snp 2.12)
What Snp4.15 says is also consistent with all is said about khandha’s in SN22 and other places:
*One who has no sense of ownership *
in the whole realm of name and form,
does not grieve for that which is not,
they suffer no loss in the world.
If you don’t think of anything
as belonging to yourself or others,
not finding anything to be ‘mine’,
you won’t grieve, thinking ‘I don’t have it’.
So, see body and mind (the nama of mental aspect of: vedana, sanna, sankhara and vinnana) as not Me and mine. Sutta Nipata says the same.
Maybe the word khandha is not literally used, and maybe they are not listed as a groups of five in Sutta Nipata but those texts are all about khandha’s and craving and grasping khandha’s.
I also belief the Buddha is truthful when he teaches this (from Snp3.12):
“Sights, sounds, tastes, smells,
touches, and thoughts, the lot of them—
they’re likable, desirable, and pleasurable
as long as you can say that they exist.
For all the world with its gods,
this is what they agree is happiness.
And where they cease
is agreed on as suffering for them.
The noble ones have seen as happiness
the ceasing of identity.
This insight by those who see
contradicts the whole world.
What others say is happiness
the noble ones say is suffering.
What others say is suffering
the noble ones know as happiness"
I can relate to this. There is no heavier burden then that because of identity view and perception.
I belief this is true. Real happiness is the abandoment of identiy, i.e. the abandonment of the self-views (this i am, this is mine, this i my self) and the abandoning of the conceit ‘I am’ (asmin mana).
In the end it is very simple. Buddha says; happiness lies in the abandoment of anything that burdens the heart. It cannot be expacted that there can come an end to this burden when mind is still in a personal ego-related sphere, and has grasped the known as Me and mine. Ofcourse that is burden.
I totally agree with the Buddha’s analyses that real happiness comes from uprooting all that burdens. But this does not have to be understood, perse, as the end of rebirth, because this all refers to loosing the burden in this very life, and experiencing the relaxation of missing the burden of me and mine-making in this very life.