Hi Pyjter, 
Thanks for your reply.
There’s no need to apologize, as I was also coming from good faith. I just wanted to point it out in general because others may misunderstand it.
Anyway. Instead of replying to every single point you made, I’ll back up a bit to illuminate some central problems I perceive in Ven. Anālayo’s work.
You say I may have a good point when I asked for passages where nibbāna is said to be beyond language. I tend to agree 
, because I think the only one Venerable Anālayo refers to is the Upasīva Sutta. But that is meager evidence for such a central thesis. First of all, because the sutta actually talks about the sage being unable to be defined, not nibbāna itself. As I said, this is a reference to anatta, not to the ineffability of nibbāna. Also, because of how the Buddha himself explains the limits of language in this text: “When everything is eradicated, all ways of describing are eradicated as well.” As I also said, when nothing is left, there is nothing to be named or defined. So to Ven Anālayo, nibbāna is beyond language because it is some ineffable transcendent condition. To the Buddha it is simply because “everything is eradicated”.
But I’ve already said all that. To get to the point, this is eradication isn’t annihilationism, which is about a self getting destroyed. Even in the Upasīva Sutta, in the line just before this one, the Buddha explains there is no self. This is indicated by SN1.20 which has an identical line: “For that does not exist for him, by which one could describe him.” (Bodhi tl.) This is said in the context of conceiving there to be one who is the teacher/communicator and the conceit “I am better/equal/worse”. So the topic here is anatta. It’s not that a teacher/communicator is in some condition that is beyond language, as Anālayo interprets the sage to be, in the identical line in the Upasīva Sutta. SN1.20 talks about a teacher who is alive versus the extinguished sage after death, but the point is the same: we should not take either to be a self. So, Ven. Anālayo is mistaken when he thinks the Buddha doesn’t teach anatta in his reply to Upasīva—on the contrary, this is exactly what he does. He explains that, when “everything is eradicated” and when “the sage disappears”, it isn’t an annihilation of a self.
This is something Venerable Anālayo does multiple times: not considering the concept of anatta when discussing the doctrine of annihilationism. He explains that the presence of a self doesn’t distinguish annihilationism from the remainderless cessation of self-less processes. But in doing so, it is he who is setting up a straw man (let’s assume unintentionally), because what the annihilationists in the discourses continually say or indicate gets destroyed is exactly a self/being. (This can be a philosophical proposed self or a psychological one, which, having wrong view, all materialists also have.) Ven Anālayo says that the remainderless cessation of the mere aggregates, without the involvement of a self, is also annihilationism. I don’t mind him calling it such himself, but in the discourses the doctrine of annihilationism is always something different.
This is clear for example in SN22.85, where Venerable Yamaka lets go of the view of annihilationism when he realizes that the death of an enlightened being is just the cessation of the five aggregates, not the destruction of a being/self. He doesn’t let go of that view by realizing extinguishment after death is some kind of transcendental experience.
So Venerable Anālayo equates mere cessation to annihilationism on the basis of their perceived outcome, but in doing so neglects the actual difference made in the suttas. The perceived outcome may indeed not be different, but that doesn’t make them identical views. The assumption of a self is what makes all the difference here.
Actually, the Buddhists used the same terms as the annihilationists. The difference is, they don’t reference a self. The annihilationists say a self gets cut off/annihilated (uccheda) and destroyed/eradicated/annihilated (vibhava, eg. DN1). The Buddhist say existence get cut off/annihilated (uccheda, eg. Thig5.5) and that the aggregates get destroyed/eradicated/annihilated (vibhava, e.g. SN22.55). As to this latter discourse, Ven Anālayo also notes it “speaks of the annihilation of each aggregate” (at Samyukta translations vol 3.). So perhaps what Anālayo calls annihilation, namely the remainderless cessation of the self-less aggregates, isn’t such a wrong view after all. The early Buddhists themselves called it as much (in Pāli).
Ven. Anālayo also misrepresents the Upāsiva Sutta when he paraphrases it as: “Upasīva’s next inquiry is whether such going out [of the sage] should be understood to entail that there is nothing or else that there is eternal absence of affliction.” But “there is nothing” is never said by Upāsiva. He explicitly asks whether he would no longer exist, hence he’s assuming self:
He who disappeared, does he no longer exist?
Or is he eternally well [lit. ‘without affliction’]?
Anālayo earlier realizes that “since Upasīva’s query concerned either annihilation or an eternal condition, it seems that he should be envisaged as operating under the assumption that there is a self.” But then why paraphrase Upasīva’s actual words on annihilationism as “there is nothing” and not quote them as they actually are? Note that he leaves this verse out, even though he includes the surrounding verses (with a questionable translation of “one gone to the end” instead of “one who disappeared/came to an end”).
As to Venerable Anālayo’s own view: he mentions “the after-death condition of the sage”, and this condition is not “mere nothingness”. So I can only conclude that to him the sage still exists in some form. To get back to the Buddha’s accusation of annihilationism in MN22, where you think “it’s also significant what he doesn’t say”. With this in mind, then it is at least just as significant that he doesn’t reply by simply saying he teaches more than nothingness, that he teaches some transcendent state. Nobody would ever accuse him of annihilation ever again, just like nobody is ever going to accuse venerable Anālayo as such. (Yet those who teach remainderless cessation continually are compared to annihilationists, just like the Buddha was… Ven. Anālayo is making a 2500-year-old mistake.)
Although I think we can derive everything we need to know from what the Buddha actually does say, I can, to some extent, agree there may be some significance in what he doesn’t say. But only when we consider the entire canon, not just two or three discourses where we expect a certain specific response. Throughout the entire canon it is never said that nibbāna after death is some sort of experience or perception. That seems much more significant to me than a specific reply to Upasīva or to the accusations of annihilationism—both of which can very well be interpreted to actually say what Ven Anālayo thinks they do not say.
Venerable Anālayo’s view actually fits Upasīva’s second assumption: the sage is forever without affliction. Despite this condition being supposed to be beyond language (which I disagree with), what Venerable Anālayo presents is an eternalist doctrine. The discourses talk about wrong views of percipient selves that last forever, and although he doesn’t explicitly calls it such, this something that is “to be experienced” and perceived, is a kind of self or aspect of a self. Same for Venerable Bodhi’s transcendental experience. Whatever we do or do not call it, doesn’t make a difference for what it is. The difference is merely nominal.
Finally, I do not read Chinese, but will point out a significant difference between Venerable Anālayo’s translation of MA200 (parallel to MN22) and that of Charles Patton:
(Anālayo:) Recluses and brahmins misrepresent me by falsely saying what is untrue: “The recluse Gotama proclaims what leads to annihilation; he proclaims the cutting off and destruction of truly existent sentient beings.” Yet, I make no statements about what herein does not exist. I do state that here and now the Tathāgata is free of sorrow.
(Patton:) Ascetics and priests misrepresent me. They speak falsely and not truly: “The ascetic Gautama guides without any supposition. He claims that a really existent sentient being is ended, ceased, and destroyed.” If this were so, the absence of self wouldn’t be explained. The Tathāgata explains the absence of sorrow in the present life.
I thought 無我 was a standard expression for anatta, but Ven Anālayo seems to split it up into “I” and “not exist”. But that seems to my untrained eye unwarranted, for one because in the rest of the response (not all of which I quoted) the Buddha refers to himself as ‘the Tathāgata’, not as ‘I’. Maybe @cdpatton himself can clarify 若此中無我不說.
Contextually Patton’s translation makes more sense. The Buddha is again pointing out that he doesn’t teach annihilation because there is no self, no “really existent being”. Though the Pāli parallel is different, there he does the same by saying there is only suffering (no self) and a cessation of suffering (not of a self). This, again, points out the difference between his view and annihilationism, which is not in the perceived outcome.
I’ll let you have the final word if you so wish. Thanks for the exchange, it helped me think more clearly about all this. I’ll probably write something more official at some point in the future—and something less polemic. I apologize if the above comes across as too much of an affront attack; being direct is just the easiest way to word things when a bit short on time.
You don’t need to explicitly mention death to clarify what you are talking about. If I say “my grandfather is not in this world anymore” it simply means he died. The sutta talks about not being in any of the realms nor in between (death and rebirth), which refers to not being reborn anywhere. This is clarified elsewhere:
If there is no departing and arriving, there is no passing on and being reborn. If there is no passing on and being reborn, you will not be here, not in the beyond, nor in between the two. Just that is the end of suffering. (E.g. Ud8.4)
In Ud8.1 “just the end of suffering” is said to be the absence of the form and formless among many other things. The Buddha still experienced these things, which means “just the end of suffering” wasn’t reached yet.
(@Sood sorry I followed your earlier post by saying the exact same in different words. I didn’t notice or perhaps we posted at the same time.)