Is there a difference in English between “reality” and “truly existing”? They are saying the same thing, yes? On your car argument, this is so easily turned around. If there is no atta, why bother being a lawyer? Why bother jumping out of the way of a car yourself, since its just impersonal elements colliding? Its not the best counter. I would jump out of the way, or defend myself in court, for the same reason you would. Because conventionally there is a world of attas and substances and individual things. Ultimately, not so much.
yes, it is a non-sense. These attributes of nibbana cannot exist in a nothingness. And the Buddha and arhants were able to describe these attributes:
“Bhikkhus, I will teach you the truth and the path leading to the truth…. I will teach you the far shore … the subtle … the very difficult to see … the unaging … … the stable … the undisintegrating … the unmanifest … the unproliferated … the peaceful … the deathless … the sublime … the auspicious … … the secure …. the destruction of craving … the wonderful … the amazing … the unailing … the unailing state … Nibbāna … the unafflicted … dispassion … … purity … freedom … the unadhesive … the island … the shelter … the asylum … the refuge … …”
- SN 43.37
any person can realize that in order to explain these characteristics it should exist a nature of knowledge. By necessity
However, one cannot expect that any nihilist can have some answer for the many Suttas invalidating a nothingness. Most times they would avoid the answers about these Suttas, and that’s all.
The real problem is in a wrong understanding of what means “cease of consciousness”. The Cease of consciousness is the cease of the actions of knowledge. Consciousness means cognitions, the movements of knowledge. And this is what ceases:
"And why do you call it ‘consciousness’? Because it cognizes, thus it is called consciousness. "
SN 22.79
the Cease of Consciousness is referred exactly to what the Buddha explained: the movements of knowledge, cognitions.
When we check inside the sources the Suttas with a cease of Consciousness, also we can check that there is also a knowledge of this same fact. Something knowing the cease already made, a nature witness of what happened.
About that nature without movements of knowledge, we only can say that simply it should be a fundamental nature, opposite to an unconsciousness or to a darkness in mind. That is, a nature just enlightening. And because this reason the Buddha said:
“Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is defiled by incoming defilements.”
note that even in the Western philosophical tradition, the greek word for consciousness, synedeisis, is made of syn-(union) and eidesis(the potential to know, to imagine, to fabricate). The difference between the nature of knowledge and the action-to-know was always understood by logics even outside the Buddha teaching.
In order to preserve the common sense, one should accept that the Cease of Consciousness must include that nature. By necessity. On the contrary, the cease of Conciousness would be an unconsciousness. No other way. And the Buddha and arhants would have been unable to explain and describe both the process and the results of cease.
The Buddha taught a cease of Consciousness rightly understood, no a cease of knowledge.
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Many people use them as synonyms in common english. Some use them in different ways in common english. In Buddhist circles you can find groups that define them differently when discussing technical details. My preferred definitions (which I prefer only because I think they are skillful) provide that ‘real’ and ‘truly existing’ are not synonymous. Here is how I like to define them:
- real - actually existing in the way something appears to exist
- truly existing - capable of being found when looked for with penetrative analysis
In this sense, anatta is real, but does not truly exist. Why? Because anatta appears exactly as it actually exists - without substance or essence. But it can’t be said that anatta truly exists, because anatta cannot be found when looked for with penetrative analysis.
I only offer these definitions in the hope it might facilitate clear communication by those debating doctrine in this thread if you choose to accept them; not because I think these are some kind of special objectively true definitions.
My point is that the Buddha taught the “reality” and “realness” of experience via the six senses.
That is the realness of our lives as beings – in the midst of the characteristics of anicca, dukkha, and anattā.
The fact that no essence, soul, or self can be found in any conditional processes does not mean, from the above standpoint, they are not real experiences.
And that’s what we can work with on the Path.
imo, the “why do anything at all?” rhetorical question more likely arises when people take the view “nothing is real anyway, so why bother?”
I’m not saying this is necessarily your view, but it’s not an uncommon one when folks get stuck in “emptiness.”
i.e:
“If a monk abandons passion for the property of consciousness, then owing to the abandonment of passion, the support is cut off, and there is no base for consciousness. Consciousness, thus unestablished, not proliferating, not performing any function, is released. Owing to its release, it stands still. Owing to its stillness, it is contented. Owing to its contentment, it is not agitated. Not agitated, he (the monk) is totally unbound right within. He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.”
- SN 22.55
when the consciousness has been already released, we read later “Owing to its release, it stands still… contented… not agitated”… and finally “he discern”.
What X is knowing these later results if the consciousness already has ceased in a nothingness and cannot be there?
How to solve the problems of that nothingness for the consumption of thinking beings?
“Don’t put it like that, reverend” means “leave that position”. It doesn’t mean “No, nothing exists”
If we imagine a nothingness we are proliferating the unproliferated.
About the unproliferated, I wrote in the previous message. If one become aware about the real meaning of Consciousness inside the Suttas, that is being cognitions, then all becomes more clear and it can fit.
Hope it can helps
But that is not an early text, and its specific ideas on emptiness are widely considered by text-critical scholars to be later. As Siderits and Katsura write right at the start of their introduction to the MMK:
The claim that all things are empty first appears in the Buddhist tradition in the early Mahāyāna sūtras known collectively as Prajñāparamitā, beginning roughly in the first century B.C.E. Earlier Buddhist thought was built around the more specific claim that the person is empty: that there is no separately existing, enduring self, and that the person is a conceptual construction. Realization of the emptiness of the person was thought to be crucial to liberation from saṃsāra. The earliest Mahāyāna texts go considerably beyond this claim, asserting that not just the person […] but everything is devoid of intrinsic nature. While they assert that all things are empty, however, they do not defend the assertion. Nāgārjuna’s task in MMK is to supply its philosophical defense. (emphasis added)
I am not arguing here that the Prajñāparamitā and Nāgārjuna interpret the early texts wrongly. However, in this discussion and elsewhere you are using their later jargon while most others are coming from the perspective of the earlier texts (as appropriate on this discussion board, which is on early texts). In the language of the Pāli Nikāya’s ‘exist’ doesn’t mean absolute existence, and ‘cease’ doesn’t mean the destruction of absolute entities. So existence isn’t eternalism and cessation isn’t annihilation.
For example, in AN10.22 the Buddha says people with insight will know of what exists that it exists (atthi) and of what does not exist that it does not exist (natthi). In the specific context of the middle teaching in SN12.17, he emphatically says suffering exists. In AN7.55 he says the abandonment of what exists leads to enlightenment. And so forth. He never qualifies these statements in any way, nor is there a discussion about absolute existence versus some type of non-absolute existence in the Pali canon.
When people here are using language in this earlier sense that the Buddha used it, it would be nice if we not pigeonhole them into eternalism or annihilationism just because of such a semantic matter. We’d just be talking past one another.
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Hello Venerable!
I’ve read Siderits say this, but this is technically wrong. The claim that phenomena are void, hollow, and insubstantial is found in the Phena sutta where the aggregates are so described and the Viper sutta where the āyatana are so described; the āyatana being the All. One could dispute that what Nagarjuna meant by emptiness was different from what was described as void and hollow in the those Pali suttas, but that is separate matter. In common english, void, hollow, and empty are all synonyms.
I do agree though that it is prudent to be careful mixing jargon as this can lead to bad miscommunication or misunderstanding. Probably best to avoid jargon whenever possible or to explicitly spell out jargon by giving definitions or using language that is found in the Pali canon when discussing the Pali canon. That seems the most practical, prudent and skillful to my mind at least. 
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Yes, there is no clue in all the sutta’s that the sublime supreme peace of Nibbana ceases.
I believe the mere-cessation-idea is bases upon the wrong view that with the cessation of bhava all ends. I believe this relies on a wrong idea of what bhava is. Bhava is always due to grasping, see Paticca Samuppada. Bhava refers to what the Buddha called so nicely a house in Dhammapada
I’ve seen you, house-builder!
You won’t build a house again!
Your rafters are all broken,
your roof-peak is demolished.
My mind, set on demolition,
has reached the end of craving. (Dhp154)
Tanha—upadana—bhava…
Bhava is the house that is build. It is build up, it is constructed, literally, due to grasping.
And that what is constructed, build up is always liable to desintegrate.
That was not something the Buddha sought.
The concepts of bhava covers constructed reality. A build up reality or existence.
And what is build up, will desintegrate.
Does this mean that Buddha teaches that there is nothing that does not desintegrate?
No! Now we coming to the core of Dhamma, the heart of Dhamma. I believe 
Buddha taught the Path to the Stable, Not-Desintegrating, Constant, the Amazing, The refuge, Peace, etc
SN 43.14–43: Anāsavādisutta—Bhikkhu Sujato (suttacentral.net)
What is this? This is the Path to the sublime supreme peace of Nibbana, a oneness. It cannot desintegrate because the peace of Nibbana is not some build-up reality or existence. It is no a constructed reality like a house, jhana, temporary mindset, nice feeling etc.
It is uncondioned.
One can also not grasp this peace. That is like grasping air. Peace is the natural result of the absence of grasping. Then there is the sublime supreme peace of Nibbana…called everlasting in the sutta’s and imperishable.
It is this peace that is stable, constant, also a stable factor here and now in our lives. Asankhata. It is not seen arising, ceasing, changing.
… searching (for truth) I saw "inward peace (Snp4.9)
There it all starts. if this peace would be absent, there is no refuge, no escape (Ud8.3)
It is this what the Buddha searched. That what does not desintegrate.
That was the goal, the destiny. Do you agree with this?
It is a cynical idea, i feel, to think about a mere cessation as something that is peaceful and does not desintegrate. No hair on my head that believes Buddha was so cynical to talk about 'the everlasting peace of becoming non-existent as lifestream without anything remaining. But oke, you make a different choice.
But there is really no sutta’s that says that the search of the Buddha was to cease at death with nothing remaining, i.e. becoming non-existent…this all relies, i believe, on a wrong understanding of bhava.
Patisambhidgamagga, a texts in the Pali Canon, has a Treatise on Emptiness that contains much info about how emptiness is used in the sutta’s.
It says there is no difference between anatta nupassana and sunatta (or sunyata) nupassana.
Contemplating not self is the same as contemplating emptiness.
Nibbana is called ulitmate emptiness
These are all aspects of the person. Also, they are empty of a specific thing, namely a self, compare SN35.85. By “all things” wrt the MMK, Siderits/Katsura mean something different, namely the whole of nature, which is empty not just of a self but of any inherent nature. These are the fundamental differences in philosophy.
Either way, as I said, I don’t want to discuss whether this interpretation is right or wrong. I don’t have any fundamental objections to it. But let’s at least acknowledge that people can use terms like ‘exist’ and ‘cease’ without implying eternalism or annihilationism.
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If one removes the chairs, the tables, the chests from a room, one does not produce the empty room.
Is that room constructed, made, now? No. The natural room of the mind, peace, is likewise not produced, made, constructed. It is just the natural result of removing the tables of greed, the chairs of hate, and the chests of delusion.
The peace of Nibbana is not produced, not made. But the removal of lobha, dosa and moha is. The chairs, the tables, the chests really must be removed from the room. That removal takes effort, takes wisdom, takes skillful means, patience, vision, development. But the peace of Nibbana is never produced, never made, never build up, never constructed. It is just the natural result of gradual removal.
I do not really understand why people resist this so much. What can i do about it? For me it all makes sense and it is inline with the EBT too. Peace is the asankhata element in our lifes. It becomes more and more demonstrable/evident with the removal of defilements.
To see the peace of Nibbana as being made, produced, constructed is just not wise. And this is really not my personal idiosyncratic Dhamma but shared by many teachers. It is also inline with EBT.
Ajahn brahm would say: when the room is gone, then that’s the true impermanence.
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I’m sorry to see that after over 400 posts it’s still being debated if things are ‘really’ real, but I’m glad the Venerable has stressed the Buddha’s position as found in the Pali suttas.
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If things are real or not are central to the Dhamma.
Teachers, even of the same tradition, express sometimes a different understanding of Dhamma. Let alone teachers of different traditions. I have accepted this. I have studied a lot of them. Tried to find out what makes sense to me. I am not a total beginner in this.
For me it makes much sense that the sublime supreme peace of Nibbana is not produced and made. In the way i expressed this in my previous post. But, apparantly what makes sense to me, often makes no sense at all for others So be it. We are totally on our own in this. I have no problem with that anymore.
My conclusion is…people who believe that the end of rebirth and the end of bhava must mean a mere cessation without anything remaining…, they all do not accept asankhata in this very life. That is what they all have in common. They do not accept anything stable, constant, not-desintegrating in this very life. They do not accept what is not seen arising and ceasing and changing during this very life.
I feel there is so much resistance towards accepting asankhata in this very life. I feel, here lies the pain. here is where we go in different directions.
If you study the concept of asankhata in the texts you can see it refers to the peace of Nibbana. When lobha, dosa and moha are uprooted, removed, that is called asankhata and this is the bliss of peace, Nibbana. It is this peace that is not seen arising and ceasing and changing.
Asankhata is not decribed as mere cessation, nor as nothing and nor as something that lies after last death.
I know that it all might not align with what Ajahn Brahms says, or Ajahn Brahmali, but my intention is not to disrespect them. I am just making sense of things my way, and ofcourse i know that there are many buddhist teachers who totally not agree that Buddha taught a Path of Mere cessation. So, it is not that i feel totally alone.
wish you well.
I agree its a later text, but its a later text with the correct exegesis IMO. Sujato’s “A History of Mindfulness” is also a later text, but it deals with the exegesis of the early texts. I see the Prajñāpāramitā as a correction to Abhidharmic excess, returning to the original meaning of Buddhadhamma. Of course, you are free to disagree. I would also have to disagree with Siderits and Katsura. In the early texts we see that the 1st fetter given up is that of truly existing things. We see the Buddha didn’t accept notions of true existence or non-existence. We see him denying substance. His focus on that time was the atta, but what is true of the atta substance is true of all substances. The Prajñāpāramitā focused on dhammas because the Ābhidhammikas had reified them into truly existing things, and so that needed a correction. Dhammas aren’t truly existing things though. They are concepts we use to let go of mistaken notions. I mean, there isn’t really an “earth element” or “wind element” is there.
You are talking about absolute true nothingness Bhante. That is just the opposite end of arguing for absolute true somethingness. The Buddha was fine with using “is” and “is not” (atthi & natthi) but he didn’t agree with atthitā and natthitā (Truly Existing & Truly Not-Existing), as per the suttas. You are arguing for natthitā here. To say there is really something and it exits forever is to fall into Eternalism. To say there really is something and then there is nothing is to fall into Annihilationism. Buddhadhamma rejects these extremes. Far from talking past each other, I think all this is quite on point. You think nibbāna is total nothingness because, like the Ābhidhammikas, you have reified the dhammas. Thinking the dhammas are real is still Sakkāyadiṭṭhi. Likewise people argue that nibbāna is truly something because of reifying the dhammas, usually consciousness in that case.
In the specific context of the middle teaching in SN12.17, he emphatically says suffering exists.
You never experience something called “impermanence” or “dukkha” or “anatta”. These are concepts forged in the mind and applied to experience. Since impermanence, dukkha and anatta are conceptual, not actual, how can dukkha actually exist, or the dhammas actually exist? They can’t. Suffering exists like the self exists. Awakening is realising there never really was anyone who suffered, since there never really was anything to speak of.
"It was then that the Bhagavān addressed the monks, “Suppose a clear-eyed man closely examines and discerns a mass of floating foam that was produced by the rapids of a great river. When he closely examines and discerns it, there is nothing there, no stability, no substance, and nothing solid. Why is that? Because there is no solid substance in that mass of foam.
“So it is with whatever forms that there are, whether they are past, future, or present, internal or external, crude or fine, beautiful or ugly, or distant or near. Monks, when they are closely examined, considered, and discerned, there is nothing there, no stability, no substance, and nothing solid. They are like illnesses, abscesses, thorns, and killers. They are impermanent, painful, empty, and not self. Why is that? Because forms have no solid substance.
The Related Discourses | 1. The Aggregates | 48 (265). Bubbles and Foam (dharmapearls.net)
Sakkaya ditthi as tendency is described in MN44 and MN64, for example.
For me it lives this way: pain is felt and almost immediately the sakkaya ditthi anusaya is triggered too, (like many others). Then this pain is regarded as my pain. And mental proliferation starts upon experiencing pain.
I see it like this that when sakkaya ditthi is still present, mind tends to make a personal drama of things.
This is due to the way of regarding things. This drama arises because of making things so personal.
It is not only…“I feel pain” but also…“now again i feel pain and I do so my best. Why this happens to me, this is not honest, i am not a bad person etc”.
I believe this is what sakkaya ditthi does. It is always in the domain of view, in the domain of regarding things in very personal way, through personal eyes which feed a kind of drama.
When sakkaya ditthi becomes less strong also this inner tendency to build up a personal drama becomes less strong, i believe. Then it becomes…“Oke, i feel pain…”, but one does not regard it thisway that it becomes a drama.
In a sense one can say, i think, when sakkaya ditthi makes things so personal, that is also like making things susbstantial. But i more like making things so personal because for me this is less philosophical.
It is not asmi mana, but ofcourse it is related to asmi mana too.
Another example: the impression might arise that one is not respected enough or appreciated. This is a strong tendency in me. I am a bit over-sensitive in this. With sakkaya ditthi this becomes a real personal drama. It echoos around in the mind, it is fed by how one regards things.
Regarding things so personal. I think we all can recognise this (oh no i am always the only one ). Mind becomes restless, agitated, and is completely lost in her own stream of projections at that moment.
When sakkaya ditthi is gone ofcourse one still will experience pain as felt by a me/I, or one can still feel not respected… but the drama, all that mental turmoil, the personal drama that arises due to regarding things in a very personal way, it does not arise anymore.
Mind becomes without sakkaya ditthi more and more sober, simple, less dramatic, more at ease. A lot of drama vanishes. But i think we can also say that we humans like drama 
The ulitmate ease is the sublime supreme peace called Nibbana, the uprooting of all anusaya. This peace called Nibbana is…yes…not created, not produced, not made, like water is also not produced when defilements are removed.
Some believe that this peace of Nibbana is absent, and only arises after endless lifes of hard practice. And that idea again leads to the idea that also the peace of Nibbana will cease.
But is it really true that the peace of Nibbana arises at some moment in time? Or was in there all the time, but did we not see it due the effect of defilements? I believe this last is the case.
The peace of Nibbana is the one stable and constant, asankhata.
I’ll just butt in here, if I may. C. You’ve gone too far down the Prajnaparamita rabbit hole.
Impermanence is “conceptual” not actual??? In order for you to negate the “actuality” of impermanence you have applied the concept of “conceptual”.
So, you really haven’t succeded actuality.
That dukkha is actual is quite obvious. If a car hits you, as J. Mentions, the pain is no less actual than conceptual. It exits as a concept in the mind, but that’s a trivial point.
What’s non-trivial is the actuality of the pain. The experience of the pain. And as venerable Sunyo has pointed out, people who are using EBT’s as their frame work apply the word “actual” to what is relevant.
And the “conceptual” aspects of suffering aren’t as nearly relevant as the “actual” aspects of suffering. Indeed, I might go a step farther to talk about the “actual conceptual” aspects (as opposed to the “concepts of actuality”).
What is actually conceptual is the suffering in the mind. That can’t be escaped by a rendezvous with sunyata. You can’t sunyata your way out of an actuality. However, it’s very easy to suynata your way into a view that all things are conceptual.
Emptiness (in the positive sense) is entirely conceptual. In fact you have to absolutely conceptualize the “emptiness” of dependent origination in order to arrive at the conclusions of the Prajnaparamita.
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You don’t see, hear, smell, taste or touch “impermanence” or “dukkha” or “anatta”. These are concepts applied to sense experience.
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Maybe a good time to note that if you are anything like me you don’t actually know the minds of others. All I can do is guess at what the words people chose reveal or don’t reveal about their minds, but in the end it is just a guess and I must remain mindful of my own ignorance. I do think it is a skill to accurately discern the minds of others, but I’m very very far from perfecting this skill and so I try and keep in mind what I don’t actually know.
I think it is said in sutta that the Teacher was foremost in ability to articulate the dhamma and that even arahants were not as skilled as he at choosing the correct way to explain dhamma to more limited minds. Based on this I think it skillful to be mindful that others might very well have much more developed minds than my own even if what they say seems not in accord with my own feeble and limited understanding.
But what do I know, maybe everyone else has a full and complete ability to know the minds of others and I’m the only limited being here 