You made some errors here.
Still, it seems that there’s reifying the unmade.
I was referring to normal percipience as being relatively stable in comparison to a dream. It is not really essential how one proclaims it.
But what is ‘reification’? It’d be good to agree upon these terms.
For example in describing a cessation of a dream as the discernment of being awake, as i see it, i reify cessation as the discernment of salayatana or simply as the discernment of being awake. I assert that it is something.
But if i say
‘long ago our teacher attained parinibbana’
Do i reify it here?
As i understand it, I reify in regards to the unmade but i make a point of extending the scope of reification beyond only constructed things having to do with existence. And i am not just saying this to avoid criticism.
As i see buddha was also criticized for saying that cessation of feeling is plesant. Isnt that essentially a rebuke for reification? And he explained it by extending the scope of semantic targets which is what i do.
As you wish. Just to say that what I’ve presented are not propositions but citations from the suttas.
If you want to take the 1st NT and dukkha as in SN56.11 and the teachings in SN 35.23 as propositions up for debate, for example, that’s up to you.
Final cessation is not a “thing”, place, or even “nothing.” In this way it’s beyond all descriptions and propositions. I think we may agree on this.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that there can be no knowledge or understanding, while alive, of complete cessation at the final death without rebirth to “be” complete cessation – of all dukkha and experiences.
From the above citations and other suttas, some practitioners understand the teachings and the words the Buddha used, like nirodha, bhavanirodha, nibbāna and parinibbāna to mean what they mean regarding final nibbāna: full cessation of all dukkha and experience with the final death of an arahant, (without the need for dream propositions and other forms of maññati).
Thanks for there convo, but we’re probably not going to resolve the differences here. 
1 Like
I can say the same thing in regards to cessation of a dream in strictly speaking not being a “thing”.
Still this cessation occurs in dependence on something. Some discernable ayatana or some dhatu other than what ceased.
In the case extinguishment of the dream it is the salayatana which are it’s basis.
In case of parinibbana it is the ayatana where there is no world for just it is the end of dukkha.
Likewise, maybe the ai will make sense of it
It breaks the symmetry.
Ajahn brahm uses the natthi cake for this. There isn’t cake. When Anuruddha asked for cakes from his mom after losing in gambling, the 4th time or something, his mom replied, “there isn’t cake.” “Then send some of that there isn’t cake to me.”
His mom knowing that Anuruddha never knew the meaning of there isn’t, put an empty cake box in the container and let the servants carry it to Anuruddha, thinking that this is the way he would know. Devas put in divine cake into it due to Anuruddha’s past good kamma. Then when Anuruddha ate the cake, he cried and said his mom doesn’t love him. Because his mom never send such a delicious cake to him before. from then on, he would only eat there isn’t cake. His mom just continue to send empty container. And the devas fill them up.
Thinking of “there isn’t” as something is reifying.
What does this mean, what symmetry?
How would you delineate a difference between dreams and the being awake?
I see. This mistake manifests like this
One who does this takes words like extinguishment-cessation-end of bhava, merely as names describing a certain type of bhava.
Like the man thinking nothing is a name of a certain type of cake.
Therefore like i said it is necessary to interrogate people in regards to how they conceive of ‘the unmade’ to see if it doesn’t turn out to be merely a misleading name they use is reference to something definitively made.
I don’t do this and i would be able to tell if i did.
Three characteristics define the not dream element; arising is discerned, a cessation is discerned and relative stability as it persists is discerned.
vs
“The unconditioned has these three characteristics. What three? No arising is evident, no vanishing is evident, and no change while persisting is evident. These are the three characteristics of the unconditioned.”
You matched the others well, but you didn’t match this one.
Then why not just say it’s the same as atheist version of eternal death? Other than the trivial rebirth, no self detail. It is of no mind, no body, no experience too.
More mindfulness when awake. Can logically see magical things happening is dreaming, whereas in dream magical things are not deemed as strange.
Anyway, dream analogy only carries so far. Dream due to self view, but after self view dream is gone, woken to reality, realized that reality is conditioned, and conditioning is due to the belief in self in the dream, so when dream ends, reality will end one day too. Completely.
it can be solved, indeed. As soon one realize the real meaning of “Cease” inside the teachings.
Note the Buddha never used expressions like “cease of experience” or “cease of knowledge”.
Why do you think death implies a different nibbana?. Can you explain this point?
What makes the difference in death regarding nibbana in life?
The state of being awake is a constructed state and so i can’t match the description of something unconstructed.
Because it is nothing like this and would be wrong for the same reason as if one would say that the cessation of a dream is like the atheist version of eternal death as if it occurs in dependence on nothing but such is not possible.
How would you know?
Unless there’s experience in your version. When there’s experience, it’s basically the mind sense is there, therefore not real parinibbāna.
I don’t get your dependence thing. Too many “as ifs” in your long sentence.
1 Like
The regular salayatana, taken as an end of a dream, are nothing like the dreamayatana and these to ayatanas are nothing like the atheist’s conception of nothingness after death.
In the same way the ayatana which is the end of salayatana wherein there is neither this world nor the next, taken as the end of dukkha is nothing like the salayatana, the dreamayatana or the nothingness conceived of by an atheist.
It’s unlike a feeling or a dream, incomparable like one can’t describe it for lack of words.
How is possible a cease of the “mind sense”?. Do you mean the Cease of Consciousness?
Maybe are we forgetting that the Cease of Consciousness happens at nibbana in life?
And in such case, Where is the final difference between nibbana and parinibbana?
Then your version is a 7th sense kinda thing and it’s still an existence from the conventional point of view.
Well, not going to try to convince you. Others had tried. You’re obviously not going to be convinced.
See this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/s/te37ac3rLh
https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/s/FmT2gWJsqB
I recommend you to read the 500+ post already, as we have gone through it before. Sorry for the high upfront cost to participate in the discussion. It’s just so we who did the discussion don’t repeat it with everyone who just newly joined in.
1 Like
Right, a person would ask that.
And this is akin to asking
how would one know the cessation of aggregates as a pleasure not felt
Or
How could one discern cessation of existence as something apart from existence
I don’t know how to best explain it and will think about it. I would want to cross reference everything to first show how suttas speak about this and then offer a way to tie it together as to answer it correctly.
This is difficult because one would draw from descriptions of cessation of perception & feeling to account for the faculty of discernment, the faculty which ends at parinibbana.
In the explainations of cessation of perception & feeling the sutta method divorces the faculty of discernment from cessation of all sankhara which is noteworthy. The saying is
- first cease verbal sankhara
- second bodily sankhara cease
- third cease the mental sankhara
- and at that time one’s faculties are exceptionally bright. Mn43
The sutta also speak of
- an eye of discernment
- a seeing with discernment
The fleshly eye, the divine eye, and the supreme eye of wisdom—these three eyes were taught by the supreme Buddha. The birth of the fleshy eye is helpful to obtain the divine eye. The arising of the knowledge of the Four Noble Truths is obtained by the unsurpassed eye of wisdom. Whoever obtains the eye of wisdom is released from all suffering.
Therefore as i see this is what one would draw from, essentially proclaiming discernment of cessation in these terms up until parinibbana but no further.
Note that for a non-arahant cessation attainments remove taints & fetters but they can still keep entering into that attainment after becoming an arahant. In this sense the immediacy of cessation is apprehended differently after arahantship as no longer a removal of taints for he has none to begin with.
In a similar way the talk of cessation attainment as being associated with discernment only goes in as far as the lifeforce & faculties go but it doesn’t change the immediacy, it changes only how one talks about it.
To explain this further would be difficult for me.
Is there a discussion along these lines in Theravada sources, or are you being rhetorical here? I ask because I’d be interested in investigating any traditional sources like the Abhidhamma, Suttas, Commentaries that make this case.
Commentary says it’s the 5 senses which are not taking objects since no 5 sense consciousness, then they are like mirrors in box, very clear, from having to sense objects.
Anyways, in the spirit of EBT, it’s very interesting interpretation you have, I hope it’s really from your direct experience.
Yea it is a way of saying nothing at all, if i explained it like this people would all laugh at me.
Wrong path up to wrong samadhi, which is samadhi with wrong views, leads to wrong knowledge which leads to wrong liberation. Which I intepreted it to be, not liberated, thinks they are liberated.
Since actually not liberated, their attainments is temporary and they undergo rebirth. Thus they would like the rest of the unenlightened people have to restart the path in the future. Or if they are fortunate enough to switch views in this life, the foundations and experience in samadhi might lead them to get right liberation fast.
That is not discussing views about Nirvana. It’s one thing to be of another religion and think, for instance, that the heaven of neither conception nor no conception is liberation, this is a different topic.
I’ve noticed that modern Buddhists really like to expand the concept of wrong view to encompass any view they disagree with, but it is actually a rather narrow concept in suttas. Generally, when it comes to liberation, the wrong view is that liberation isn’t possible, not these nuanced arguments about what liberation is.
So, is there a discussion about views about Nirvana in Theravada sources that uses right/wrong view to distinguish what was considered correct or not?
1 Like