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I don’t even see how MN43 supports the proposal:
“Feeling, perception, and consciousness—
these things are mixed, not separate.
And you can never completely dissect them so as to describe the difference between them.
For you perceive what you feel, and you cognize what you perceive. … "
SuttaCentral
I’m a bit confused as to what you are objecting to? Vedana, conceptualisation and conscious awareness are not emotions.
That implies that emotions are not experiential. So I am lost on that. There is no emotion outside of experience. One experiences emotions. However, I may prose that kayika is homeostatic and sensory affects, and * cetasika* is emotional affect. Does this fit? I have not analysed these words in depth.
Experiential as in the raw physical or mental experience itself, before emotions come into play which occurs after. I agree that cetasikañca is the emotional effect. It is this which the Buddha and Arahants are free from in life. The 2nd dart.
Do you mean when it gives an extremely brief explanation of the extremely simple model of 6 senses? If so, I object. For example
Yes. The model that is apt from direct experience. My view of the Buddha’s epistemology is that he rather shunned synthetic a posteriori theories, just like synthetic a priori ones.
- Have you never felt fear in your body? Or anger, or love, or disgust? If not, try asking a friend to surprise you at random some time this month with a bag of either fresh vomit or stale urine or faeces. Or to do a severely scary prank on you. I think you will soon experience affect in your body, which has not come ‘physical touch’.
No, but I have in my mind. If fear were a physical sensation then the Buddha and Arahants would not be free from it. A bag of vomit will make me heave due to smelling giving rise to negative vedanā at the mind base, which in turn can cause physical movements. I can, however, experience said things without those physical repulsions. I work as a scientist by trade, so I can deal with some pretty disgusting samples on a day to day basis. If mindfulness and sense restraint is strong then normal physical reactions can not occur. There will only be the smell and negative vedanā.
The body can perceive sound. Deaf people can do so. I think this falls outside of the sutta explanation of ‘touch’.
They aren’t hearing. They are sensing vibrations, which is touch.
There are also senses which the Buddha never mentioned, such as the sense of gravity (balance), sense of heat (even if not touching), and so on.
Heat would be touch, but the heat is one thing and the touch is another. Heat would be the object of the physical āyatana (domain, abode). I’m unsure about a sense of gravity. Likely that comes from multiple senses.
So I don’t think we should take the model as something complete or perfect - just a very simple model that is practically useful for the teaching purpose. Very brief statements explaining roughly what’s going on.
I don’t think the Buddha wanted us to develop a theory, as per what I understand his epistemology to be. The Abhidhamma or Abhidharmas on the other hand will give you a theory, as will modern science, or Rationalist philosophy etc.
Is this EBT doctrine? If so, do you have a source?
I gave you one. MN 43. The physical body experiences touch. The mind experiences them all. Part of nāmakāya is vedanā. When physically making contact with some object, the condition is there for vedanā to arise at the mind base. Vedanā is a mental dhamma, not a physical one. Note, this is all referencing conditionality rather than causality, which I think the Buddha rejected. Its not a detailed theory, but merely pointers to how experience is structured.
I don’t know what this nāmakāya is, but I assure you that it’s entirely normal for the person in your example to experience vedanā which is perceived to arise in their physical body. And you can even notice some of this by changes in their posture.Similarly, you can even do this in reverse to some extent - change your affective experience by rearranging your posture or even your face.
The nāmakāya is the constituents of nāma, part of what makes up the mind. As the EBT show, the Buddha taught that vedanā only occurs in the mind as an object of the mind base, as a mental dhamma. Now of course, modern theories may disagree. That is fine, but the EBT themselves and so the Buddha were quite clear. Psychotherapy might disagree. Individuals might disagree, but if we agree or not is another matter to what the texts actually say.
I still don’t get this. Perhaps you are using the term ‘experiential’ in a way other than meaning ‘experience’? I can’t get how you are seeing emotions as non-experiential.
Addressed above.
- Is the attainment of nibbāna, the end of dukkha?
Awakening to the unconditioned element, nibbāna, does lead to the total cessation of dukkha. Since we are not dealing with a causality model but rather conditionality the time gap between the cessation of a condition and its future consequent can be quite some time. Whilst alive 1/3 of dukkha has ceased immediately, namely the dukkha of formations. However the dukkha of pain and the inherent dukkha of conditioned phenomena will remain until the exhaustion of life, at which point all dukkha then finally ceases without remainder.
- Did the Buddha attain nibbāna under the bodhi tree?
He awakened under the Bodhi tree to dependent origination and so cognised the deathless element. This meant 1/3 of dukkha immediately ceased and the condition for all future dukkha had ceased, whilst the rest of his life was more of a winding down.
The Buddha’s life after enlightenment, was characterised by suffering
The Buddha’s life after enlightenment was suffering
There was indeed still dukkha, yes. Pain and the inherent dukkha of conditioned dhammas.
Would they? I doubt it. Do you have any example of any arahant experiencing kāyikañca in response to a memory? If so, a quote and reference would be great!
You doubt that they have memory? If so this is easily falsified by the Buddha remembering his two Brahmin come annihilationist former teachers, Āḷāra Kālāma & Uddaka Rāmaputta, post awakening. I struggle to see how awakening obliterates memory. However, assuming you meant painful memory I still don’t see how this holds either. The Buddha tells his disciples that he still dwells in the pleasant abiding of the jhānā and other meditative attainments. It follows that he is not in these jhānā when saying this, since they are absorbed states, which means he is remembering them as pleasant. He is having a pleasant memory. Memory and vedanā are two different things. There is the remembering of the event at the mind base, and the arising of vedanā based on that condition at the mind base. Naturally, for the Buddha and Arahants this does not turn into lust or other emotional states (the 2nd dart). So we have here then a raw experience (memory) at the mind base which is the condition for vedanā at the mind base, but which does not lead onto emotional formations. In other words, a kāyikañca experience. Naturally this applies to painful or neutral memories too (or, more specifically, a memory which is the basis for painful or neutral vedanā).
‘NIbbāna’ also meant ‘death’ - was that perhaps common usage?
I’m not aware of nibbāna ever meaning “death”, at least not in the suttas or āgamas.
But anyway, you said ‘obviously ’. Well, do you have any EBT sources which make a clear case that neither the Buddha nor arahants (or either or) have not attained nibbāna? And if so, then is there a corresponding absence of doctrine to say the arahants/buddha saying that they have? That would make it ‘obvious ’. And the teachings are supposed to be clear!
No EBT state that the Buddha and Arahants have not cognised nibbāna. That would be bizarre. There is nothing contradictory in the Buddha cognising nibbāna and still experiencing some forms of dukkha whilst walking around, with all dukkha only ceasing when life is exhausted.
Or, are you saying that even in the Buddha’s time, he was teaching about 2 different nibbānas, both with technical path-specific meaning (as opposed to common usage for death), and that the nibbāna attained while alive is a state characterised by dukkha , or even, nibbāna is dukkha ?
No. There is only one unconditioned dhamma. What he wasn’t doing was constantly cognising it.
and that the nibbāna attained while alive is a state characterised by dukkha , or even, nibbāna is dukkha ?
No and no.
That would seem as if it is the position you are being forced into with this logic, no?
Not at all, for the reasons given above. The problem is that you think the Buddha is constantly cognising nibbāna and awakening under the Bodhi tree was the immediate end of all dukkha. This is possibly because you view dependent origination as a model of causality rather than conditionality, and because you possibly weren’t aware of or do not accept more than 1 type of dukkha. I do not share your premises, so your logic forces me nowhere. Of course, I do not wish to shove words in your mouth so please feel free to correct me here.
If nibbāna is seen not merely as a formal meditation state, but rather, a lived experience, anyway.
It is not a meditation state, but it is the object of a special kind of meditation since it is an āyatana (domain, abode) that only awakened minds can mentally touch. It is not a “lived experience”. When cognising nibbāna there is no experience of conditioned dhammas. Naturally the Buddha and Arahants are not always in this state, since they walk around, talk to people and eat.
So if this is not your conclusion, then do you say nibbāna type 1 is only a temporary state while in meditation, and the Buddha was in a constant state of dukkha whenever he was not sat meditating in that specific state? And that only nibbāna type 2 , being death )of an arahant), is the only other end of dukkha?
Nibbāna is a permanent and external dhamma which persists without changing and is cognised at the mind base based on the pali suttas. The northern āgamas are a little more obscure. If you wish to follow the sautrāntikas then it is total oblivion. Personally the pali suttas seem to get it right.
Are emotions not part of experience?
“Emotion” doesn’t seem to have an obvious one-to-one Pali translation. However, one could surmise that emotions are complex experiential sequence involving all of the aggregates.
Let me put it in the dependent origination language.
Raw physical or mental experience means contact (sense base+ sense object+ sense consciousness), then feelings (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral). In most cases, feelings is unavoidable after contact happens, contact is unavoidable as long as there’s 6 sense bases.
Emotions is what happens after feelings, that is craving, attachment, existence. Likes and dislikes for the feelings are part of craving. For unenlightened beings, we need strong mindfulness to prevent cravings from following feelings. For enlighten beings (arahant), they automatically have no more cravings, regardless of their feelings.
In terms of the usage of the 4 Brahma viharas as emotions, the arahants still are capable of generating the 4 Brahma viharas.
It seems that living as human body is conditioned to the experience of kāyikañca. Can we say that for the awakened Buddha and Arahants, they could have killed themselves to end all dukkha, but out of compassion for other beings, they chose to stay and educate the ordinary people?
Arahants have no craving for living or dying. Usually suicide due to suffering is due to aversion, having no aversion, it’s hard to imagine arahants committing suicide.
Yes indeed, out of compassion they teach. I think if you want to apply this model of delaying final nibbana, it’s better suited for those Mahayana level 10 Bodhisattvas.
I agree. Whilst the Buddha and Arahants cannot be free from pleasant, neutral or painful raw experience whilst alive but they are free from the formations of delight, boredom and sorrow, lamentation etc.
Personally I struggle to see how a Buddha or Arahant would commit suicide. They would lack the emotional formations necessary for it, imo.
Why? They could just stop to eat and drink.
Although it’s a slightly different situation, I can understand how an arahant or Buddha wouldn’t have any interest in having a potentially fatal disease treated. In that case it could be considered “suicide,” I suppose, since they are letting themselves die. Tan Ajahn Dun, who’s considered an arahant, had cancer and was ready to just let it run its course before his students implored him to get it treated. He has no attachment to his body or this life, so he basically thought, “Well, OK. Guess it’s my time.” Anyway, here’s Tan Ajahn’s talk about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTWx1n1zSYE.
There are two suttas that I know of in which an arahant commits suicide: SN 22.87 and SN 35.87. In both cases the arahants are gravely ill. Their intention may be motivated by compassion, in that they may have felt that they couldn’t teach, would be a burden on their community, and had nothing more to accomplish in the Dhamma.
It doesn’t look like either were Arahants when planning it nor carrying the deed out. I’m inclined to agree with the commentaries here.
That would be a means, based on a certain mindset. I’m doubting that mindset exists in an Arahant.
In SN 22.87, Vakkali declares to the Buddha that he has no more desire, lust, and affection for what is impermanent, dukkha, and subject to change (i.e., the five aggregates). This is his declaration of arahantship. Do you interpret this differently?
He then kills himself, after which the Buddha declares that Vakkali has attained final nibbāna.
In SN 35.87, Channa declares that he will “use the knife blamelessly”, meaning that he is an arahant. Though Sāriputta and Mahācunda seem to doubt this, when they report it to the Buddha and ask about Channa’s rebirth destination, he replies “Didn’t the bhikkhu Channa declare his blamelessness?” He then corroborates Channa’s declaration that he used the knife blamelessly.
The commentary to the first account is:
The elder, it is said, overestimated himself. As he had suppressed the defilements by concentration and insight, he did not see himself assailed by them and thus thought he was an arahant. Disgusted with his miserable life, he cut his jugular vein with a sharp knife. Just then, painful feeling arose in him. Realizing he was still a worldling, he took up his main meditation subject, explored it with knowledge, and attained arahantship just as he died.
That seems to me a strained explanation that has to invent a lot of details that aren’t there in the discourse. Isn’t a more straightforward reading that they were arahants who killed themselves?
In SN 22.87, Vakkali declares to the Buddha that he has no more desire, lust, and affection for what is impermanent, dukkha, and subject to change (i.e., the five aggregates). This is his declaration of arahantship. Do you interpret this differently?
Does this imply Arahantship or non-return? It isn’t all that clear on it’s own.
In SN 35.87, Channa declares that he will “use the knife blamelessly”, meaning that he is an arahant. Though Sāriputta and Mahācunda seem to doubt this, when they report it to the Buddha and ask about Channa’s rebirth destination, he replies “Didn’t the bhikkhu Channa declare his blamelessness?” He then corroborates Channa’s declaration that he used the knife blamelessly.
It seems unlikely that he was an Arahant, since Sariputta went on to urge him:
When this was said, the Venerable Mahacunda said to the Venerable Channa: “Therefore, friend Channa, this teaching of the Blessed One is to be constantly given close attention: ‘For one who is dependent there is wavering; for one who is independent there is no wavering. When there is no wavering, there is tranquillity; when there is tranquillity, there is no inclination; when there is no inclination, there is no coming and going; when there is no coming and going, there is no passing away and being reborn; when there is no passing away and being reborn, there is neither here nor beyond nor in between the two. This itself is the end of suffering.’”
This would be unnecessary if Channa was awakened. It reads more that he was a sotāpanna.
The non-returner has overcome the fetter of desire for sensuality but hasn’t overcome clinging to all of the aggregates.
One who has overcome desire for the five aggregates is said to be well-liberated – in other words, an arahant. From SN 22.4:
Venerable sir, this was said by the Blessed One in ‘The Questions of Sakka’: ‘Those ascetics and brahmins who are liberated in the extinction of craving are those who have reached the ultimate end, the ultimate security from bondage, the ultimate holy life, the ultimate goal, and are best among devas and humans.’ How, venerable sir, should the meaning of this, stated in brief by the Blessed One, be understood in detail?”
Householder, through the destruction, fading away, cessation, giving up, and relinquishment of desire, lust, delight, craving, engagement and clinging, mental standpoints, adherences, and underlying tendencies towards the form element, the mind is said to be well liberated.
“Through the destruction, fading away, cessation, giving up, and relinquishment of desire, lust, delight, craving, engagement and clinging, mental standpoints, adherences, and underlying tendencies towards the feeling element … the perception element … the volitional formations element … the consciousness element, the mind is said to be well liberated.
Thus, householder, when it was said by the Blessed One in ‘The Questions of Sakka’: ‘Those ascetics and brahmins who are liberated in the extinction of craving are those who have reached the ultimate end, the ultimate security from bondage, the ultimate holy life, the ultimate goal, and are best among devas and humans’—it is in such a way that the meaning of this, stated in brief by the Blessed One, should be understood in detail.
Do you know of an example in which someone has no more desire, lust, and affection for the five aggregates, yet is not fully liberated?
Yet as wise as Sāriputta was, he is depicted in the early discourses as not always knowing another person’s level of development. For example, in MN 97, Sāriputta teaches Dhānañjāni (on his deathbed) the path to rebirth in the Brahma-world, apparently not realizing that he could have been established in stream-entry. The Buddha gently admonishes him for this:
But Sāriputta, after establishing Dhanañjāni in the inferior Brahmā realm, why did you get up from your seat and leave while there was still more left to do?”
Sir, I thought: ‘These brahmins are devoted to the Brahmā realm. Why don’t I teach him a path to the company of Brahmā?’
And Sāriputta, the brahmin Dhanañjāni has passed away and been reborn in the Brahmā realm.
So, to me, a more straightforward reading of the sutta is that the monks visiting Channa assumed he was not an arahant, an assumption that the Buddha then corrected at the end of the sutta.
But I don’t say this is the only interpretation, just the one that seems most likely to me.
One who has overcome desire for the five aggregates is said to be well-liberated – in other words, an arahant. From SN 22.4:
That gives a more comprehensive explanation of what one is freed from than what we see in SN 22.87. It seems that Vakkali still had the remaining 5 fetters.
Yet as wise as Sāriputta was, he is depicted in the early discourses as not always knowing another person’s level of development. For example, in MN 97, Sāriputta teaches Dhānañjāni (on his deathbed) the path to rebirth in the Brahma-world, apparently not realizing that he could have been established in stream-entry. The Buddha gently admonishes him for this:
Which means we can’t establish either way. The text lends itself to either or reading. A more consistent reading, in line with all of the other EBTs available, would be that he was not an Arahant IMO.
So, to me, a more straightforward reading of the sutta is that the monks visiting Channa assumed he was not an arahant, an assumption that the Buddha then corrected at the end of the sutta.
Naturally I am inclined to disagree.
But I don’t say this is the only interpretation, just the one that seems most likely to me.
Indeed, the two suttas are vague.