SuttaCentral
You might be right but i don’t like this kind of criticism and i am not convinced that you are right.
Now the question is whether the ship sutta actually lends support to the argument being made here.
I say it doesn’t because what is being discussed by Ven. Pannadhammika are pernicious wrong views incompatible with correct training.
Cdpatton seems to think that it does in using this sutta as evidence countering Ven. Pannadhammika’s statement.
Technically speaking i omitted >80% of the post. You focused on a subset of the omitted. Why? Because you think it is relevant to the point that i was making as in that point not being capable of being made without the omission.
Then you made a point of proclaiming this.
I think this is irrelevant to the point that i was making.
Please don’t psychoanalyze me. It’s very annoying.
You have quite the imagination.
I apologize and will refrain from further engagement with you on this subject of @cdpatton’s comment. I further apologize to everyone else for derailing the thread. 
Now the point that i made in posting the Sati excerpt was alluding to it being impossible for people like Sati Fisherman’s son to train correctly.
And his pernicious wrong view as being subject to discussions akin to those occuring in this thread.
Therefore i deduct that
Is disagreeable to me in light of this because it seems to assert that no matter what Sati thinks he can train correctly.
Which is in a sense correct because if a person holds wrong views then he should make an effort to abandon it and this is his right training.
But then we ought not have disdain for discussion akin to what occurs here because it is in course of discussion that one can be abandon wrong views.
One can think maybe cdpatton didn’t dismiss the ideological discussions itt but it looks to me like it
It’s up to you whether you engage or not but i hope you see what i was getting at now that i’ve explained it in more detail which is a good thing to come out of this.
Maybe i do misrepresent his take, not a mind reader unfortunatelly, but if so it’s not intentional to score some arbitrary victory.
I do however agree with the general sentiment of cdpatton’s take on it.
One should not neglect other aspects of the training in favor of discussing the difficult points of the dhamma. If one focuses on sila & samadhi then one can figure the things pertraining to views in course of the training, but one will have to somehow abandon them views at some point, as it will be the bottleneck of one’s faculties limiting release.
Hello Venerable @NgXinZhao!
The sutta is about ending the defilements in this very life (Nibbāna), spoken by The Buddha to monastics:
”Perhaps they don’t regard form or feeling or perception or choices or consciousness as self. Nor do they have such a view: ‘The self and the cosmos are one and the same. After passing away I will be permanent, everlasting, eternal, and imperishable.’ Still, they have such a view: ‘I might not be, and it might not be mine. I will not be, and it will not be mine.’ But that annihilationist view is just a conditioned phenomenon.”
So since this is about monastics who already don’t regard form or feeling or perception or choices or consciousness as self;
I really wonder exactly how ”cessationists”, who do not regard the khandhas as self, differ from these annihilationists in the sutta who also do not regard the khandhas as self?
(The annihilationists in the sutta also, just like ”cessationists”, reject eternalism.)
———————————————-
That’s how a mendicant might gain a state of immersion like this. They wouldn’t perceive earth in earth, water in water, fire in fire, or air in air. And they wouldn’t perceive the dimension of infinite space in the dimension of infinite space, the dimension of infinite consciousness in the dimension of infinite consciousness, the dimension of nothingness in the dimension of nothingness, or the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception in the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. And they wouldn’t perceive this world in this world, or the other world in the other world. And yet they would still perceive.” <—————
————————-
in such case it would be another fundamental contradiction with the Buddha teaching in where birth and death are delusion of -self.
yes, are conscious. Although the question is: How can this be possible if we should understand the “Cease of consciousness” according your sense of eradication of any knowledge?
Note that you claim the cease of consciousness means the annihilation of Consciousness, a blank space in where nothing exists. While in the next line you claim the arhant again have a consciousness because the aggregates still remains.
How can this be possible under your notion of “Cease of Consciousness” like the end of any consciousness?. Do you mean the persistence of the aggregates is causing the arising of a new consciousness despite the previous Cease of Consciousness?
Note the fundamental contradiction with the D.O. in where it is said:
And this mind-and-body, O monks, what is its source…? Mind-and-body has consciousness as its source and origin.…
while you claim the aggregates are the cause of a new arising of consciousness for the arhant.
Are you aware of the contradictions for that notion of “Cease”?. It seems that we cannot apply that notion of “Cease of consciousness” like the end of any consciousness to the arhant without contradicting the D.O.
How it can be solved in your notion of “Cease”?
IMHO, the difference is in a wrong understanding of the Cease of Consciousness like an annihilation of the Consciousness aggregate. The right meaning of the teachings is about the Cease of Consciousness is the Cease of the Consciousness-clinging aggregate.
First, we can check the necessity to be aware of the difference here:
At Savatthi. There the Blessed One said, “Monks, I will teach you the five aggregates & the five clinging-aggregates. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak.”
"Whatever consciousness is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near: That is called the consciousness aggregate.
[…]
"Whatever consciousness — past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near — is clingable, offers sustenance, and is accompanied with mental fermentation: That is called the consciousness clinging-aggregate.
SN.22.48
now we have been informed: the difference is in clinging-sustenance. And these are the type of aggregates in where the Cease should arise. Not in the aggregates themselves but in the five clinging-aggregates:
"Monks, I will explain to you the burden, the laying hold of the burden, the holding on to the burden, the laying down of the burden. Listen.
"What, monks, is the burden?
"‘The five groups of clinging’ is the answer. Which five? They are: the group of clinging to corporeality,… to feelings,… to perceptions,… to mental formations,… to consciousness. This, monks, is called ‘the burden.’
"What is the laying hold of the burden? The answer is that it is the person,[4] the Venerable So-and-so, of such-and-such a family. This, monks, is called ‘the laying hold of the burden.’
"What is the holding on to the burden? The answer is that it is that craving which gives rise to fresh rebirth and, bound up with lust and greed, now here now there finds ever fresh delight. It is sensual craving,[5] craving for existence,[6] craving for non-existence.[7] This, monks, is called ‘the holding on to the burden.’
“What is the laying down of the burden? It is the complete fading away and extinction of this craving, its forsaking and giving up, liberation and detachment from it. This, monks, is called ‘the laying down of the burden.’”
SN. 22.22
here is when we find the difference: according your view the Cease of Consciousness should be the Cease of the Consciousness aggregate. However, these Suttas clearly shows the Cease of Consciousness is the Cease of the consciousness-clinging aggregate.
really this is not in that way, because the experience of nibbana in lesser ariyas is fast or without enough stabilization in the experience. After the Cease of Consciousness all teh stages goes really fast in just moments. This is what we find in all the episodes of stream-entry inside the Suttas and the same at least until anagamin state.
These explanations of the Cease with discernment of these stages cease-by-cease as taught in the DO, this is only is in the reach of arhants or people close to arhanthood. Because there is necessity of long experiences in nibbana, and this is only possible in people with all or practically all defilements eradicated.
By the way, How do you understand the arising of nibbana in the lesser ariyas?.
What could be the explanation for the requested cessation of clinging before the arising anatta and nibbana in lesser ariyas?. If according your view this is not caused by a Cease of Consciousness only possible in arhants after death, What could be the cause?
Again, note how according D.O., the cease of Consciousness is the first step and requisite for the arising of cease of clinging in order that anatta and nibbana can arise.
How could we understand a right meaning of “Cease” without keeping in mind the goal of the Cease of Consciousness is the end of clinging to consciousness instead the end of consciousness itself?
How could we understand that luminosity except in people engaged in contemplating consciousness as consciousness, and then realizing the end of the clinging to consciousness without the annihilation of consciousness?
A lot of contradictions can solved magically as soon one realize the difference between the cease of clinging-aggregate and the cease of the aggregates. Of course, also there is a cease of the aggregates, although first it should be understood the cease of the clinging-agreggates. On the contrary, nothing can fit as we are checking in this case of a nothingness-nibbana.
here it seem you are forgetting the residue are the five senses, and it doesn’t include Consciousness according Suttas:
This was said by the Lord…
"Bhikkhus, there are these two Nibbana-elements. What are the two? The Nibbana-element with residue left and the Nibbana-element with no residue left.
"What, bhikkhus, is the Nibbana-element with residue left? Here a bhikkhu is an arahant, one whose taints are destroyed, the holy life fulfilled, who has done what had to be done, laid down the burden, attained the goal, destroyed the fetters of being, completely released through final knowledge. However, his five sense faculties remain unimpaired, by which he still experiences what is agreeable and disagreeable and feels pleasure and pain. It is the extinction of attachment, hate, and delusion in him that is called the Nibbana-element with residue left.
"Now what, bhikkhus, is the Nibbana-element with no residue left? Here a bhikkhu is an arahant… completely released through final knowledge. For him, here in this very life, all that is experienced, not being delighted in, will be extinguished. That, bhikkhus, is called the Nibbana-element with no residue left.
“These, bhikkhus, are the two Nibbana-elements.”
Itivuttaka § 44
How could we claim the physical death of the arhant is the real difference if Consciousness is not a residue?
We could claim such thing only regarding the world, because we don’t have idea of what can happens later. You are drawing a crucial line at death, in a quite materialist style, although this it is not of real relevance for an arhant. For an arhant the death is delusion, we should understand this point.
In example, think about an arhant who dies although because whatever reason, he wish to realize parinibbana from a second-acquisition of -self instead at the same moment of death. As Consciousness is not part of the residue of five senses, a common person would die and the clinging to the gross-rupa acquisition of a body will lack of sustenance. Then a new -self acquisition would arise quickly at that same moment for that clinging. However, because the arhant keeps detachment from the -self building processes, he could allow the arising of a second-acquisition of a -self in order to realize his final nibbana from there.
In such cases, Where is the authority of the physical death like a border to establish the definitive nature of the meaning of “Cease”?
According Buddha, the Reality is a process of becoming without any stop, and no Reality is destroyed in nibbana. Instead this is the discovery of a pure freedom from the clinging to that constant activity with arising of beings and experiences/realms of existence. None of these Realities are annihilated in the arising of nibbana.
Nibbana in its non-becoming is more rich of what we could be able to conceive. This can be realized with this acquisition of a -self or with any other at any moment. Death means zero to understand the meaning of “Cease” regarding that constant activity
On the contrary, how we can understand Suttas like this:
"The Tathagata — a worthy one, rightly self-awakened — directly knows earth as earth. Directly knowing earth as earth, he does not conceive things about earth, does not conceive things in earth, does not conceive things coming out of earth, does not conceive earth as ‘mine,’ does not delight in earth. Why is that? Because the Tathagata has comprehended it to the end, I tell you.
He directly knows water as water… fire as fire… wind as wind… beings as beings… gods as gods… Pajapati as Pajapati… Brahma as Brahma… the luminous gods as luminous gods… the gods of refulgent glory as gods of refulgent glory… the gods of abundant fruit as the gods of abundant fruit… “”
at least I understand is common-sense that such explanation is not possible from an annihilation in some blank ambit or a dark unconsciousness of a nothingness.
Hope you can clarify better your view regarding the previous contradictions. If your view is more complex of what is seems, please give more details
The Mahasamghika version is quite different.
I’m referring to the Pāli Nikāyas. I assume there are many versions of many things in the texts of all the various schools and traditions.
For the record i did not dispute the omission in general but i did not agree with the way that you was framing it where that particular omission was being somehow strategic & relevant to what i was saying.
Furthermore if you consider the statement
Similarly, a person who trains properly will be liberated. What they think will happen has little to do with it. I wish people would care about those types of suttas instead of getting wrapped up in ideological arguments, but such are people.
I think because of the reference to the sutta, it is redundant to include that we are describing a person assumed to train correctly. That is what the text does whether i include the first sentence or not.
Furthermore you said
I don’t dispute that a person who is new is expected to hold wrong views and that there is a course of training for the abandonment of these views.
However i also make a point of describing a person as incapable of attainment & an outsider on account of holding pernicious wrong views as it is one of the six major bad kamma and a block to path attainments.
I don’t see how a person like this can be said to be in training of the noble ones at all let alone training correctly. I don’t say that a puthujjana is in that particular training or is doing it correctly for as long as he holds those views.
Can a putthujjana make right effort as to abandon wrong view as to become established in right view which is a forerunner of the path? Yes and in that he would develop the factors of the path as to become set in the course of righteousness, transcending the range of ordinary people.
So a person who has pernicious wrong views has in as far as he is concerned zero chance of directing the mind to the deathless when he sits down to meditate, it doesn’t matter if hindrances are supressed he remains incapable of awakening.
Therefore these discussions about views are far from trivial.
Ok, so which one is “right”?
If there is no “thing” because all is dependently originated, then you can’t say that final nibbāna is absolutely nothing. You say my language us overly strict, and not to do with EBT, yet in the EBT we are cautioned against thinking in terms of absolute existence (atthitā) and absolute non-existence (natthitā). In this thread you have been arguing that final nibbāna is natthitā. To say there really is nothingness you first have to posit something. Thinking there really is something and then said thing is destroyed is the basis of the Annihilationist view. Its a subtle Annihilationism, but Annihilation it remains.
10. To say “it is” is to grasp for permanence.
To say “it is not” is to adopt the view of nihilism.
Therefore a wise person
Does not say “exists” or “does not exist.”
11. “Whatever exists through its essence
Cannot be nonexistent” is eternalism.
“It existed before but doesn’t now”
Entails the error of nihilism.
Ven. Nāgārjuna’s MMK
In my view, according to the Buddha the result of parinibbāna is no type of experience or awareness, i.e. there is nothing left. If you don’t agree with that, then it seems there are two options. Either you think the Buddha didn’t know/care/explain what happens after parinibbāna, or you think there is still something remaining afterwards. In the latter case it is that which holds that there is a truly, inherently existing thing—namely something that remains.
This would be true if I accepted the duality of existence and non-existence. When though nothing can be posited as being real, how can you say there is absolutely nothing? Nothing depends on something, and so can’t be established either. Its a product of your own mind, and so it too is an illusionary concept. Personally, according to the exegesis I have accepted, nibbāna is the giving up of the very thinking you propose here.
In other words, it is exactly because there are no truly existing things that parinibbāna can end in nothingness. If there were such things, then this wouldn’t be the case, because inherently existing things can’t cease (otherwise they wouldn’t truly exist). And also, if parinibbāna ended in some kind of mind or experience, then that itself would be the truly existing thing.
Nothingness is relative to somethingness. Like big and small, they exist dependently but can’t be established independently of each other. To say there really is nothingness is to say nothingness is a substance, but nothing is no-thing and so you end in a contradiction. Nothingness doesn’t make sense. Somethingness doesn’t make sense. Ultimately these things do not make sense. Thinking in terms of Nothingness in relation to final nibbāna is as much an error as thinking it really is something. Both miss the deeper aspects of the Buddha’s profound Dhamma, IMO.
I would ask, how could there be no truly existent things yet nibbāna still be something? If you agree that nibbāna is not something, then it is nothing. Those are the only logical possibilities in ordinary (i.e. non-Nāgārjuna) language. That’s why earlier I tried to press you on this point, to take a stand on the matter. You acknowledged that it is possible to talk in, let’s say, “non-ultimate” way, yet didn’t say what your position is on this.
As mentioned, this is a false dilemma. Its only a dilemma if you think there really is something. Its the same kind of thinking that drove the 4 questions. Does an Arahant exist after death (śramaṇa Eternalism), not exist (Annihilationism), both Exist and Not-Exist (Jainism) or Neither Exists nor Does not Exist (Vedic)? It has to be one of those answers, according to the ancient ascetics, except there is another option: None of those apply. So is nibbāna something or nothing? Neither apply. In the end, even the notion of nibbāna is let go of. When you say final nibbāna is absolute nothingness, you are saying final nibbāna really doesn’t exist.
I’m not familiar enough with the other traditions to offer comments about them.
Also, it’s not possible to recover the original buddhavacana, so debating which version is categorically"right" is not useful.
At some point, one decides to follow the teachings in their chosen tradition along with guidance from their teacher(s) --otherwise one can “window shop” the teachings without delving deeply into them.
I’m not saying you’re doing this, but makling the point.
Also, the Pāli Nikāyas and the Āgamas differ little in terms of important teachings and doctrines, so there is some “validation” in that.
Perhaps you would want to look at this picture I made and showed you a while ago.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/s/3MaB4oX7dG
See the mental suffering ends with arahanthood, but physical suffering only ends at the death of arahants. Buddha having backache, sickness are evidences of physical suffering.
Right in all the factors of the path, is due to right view. Wrong view makes the whole path wrong.
I also acknowledged that the samadhi developed, morality etc wouldn’t be wasted for one who has just that wrong view about the nature of parinibbāna, if they switch to right view, they could attain fast due to the previously developed morality and meditation.
I am sorry, I am just a junior monk. So I don’t think I can answer your question well. Perhaps senior monastics might be able to Bhante @sujato , Bhante @Brahmali , Bhante @Sunyo
According to Bhante Aggacitta, this is the immersion into Nibbāna only accessible by the arahants. Directly perceiving Nibbāna. Bhante @Sunyo has a different view on this as he made in another topic.
from ud1.10 “Where water and earth,
fire and air find no footing:
there no star does shine,
nor does the sun shed its light;
there the moon glows not,
yet no darkness is found.
When we close our eyes, there’s no light coming in, so we see darkness, but soon the eye sense shut down and we cannot even call it darkness. Perhaps it’s due to the association of darkness with the eye sense needs some time to shut down that we associate the non-functioning of eye sense with darkness. Eg. death. However, technical speaking since there’s no sensor for light, we cannot say there’s light nor darkness. It’s just clear that when all 6 senses fades, there is neither sound nor silence, neither touch nor non-touch, neither dhamma nor non-dhamma (mind objects) as there’s no senses to sense them or the absence of them in the first place. Of course, it’s closer to absence of them than to presence, hence the short term usage of nothing after parinibbāna. I maybe wrong, so the senior monastics are welcome to correct me.
Perhaps I should qualify that not everyone would be terrified of parinibbāna as total cessation, especially those with little attachments to the self view. People can also delight in the concept of total cessation. Like a suicidal person who doesn’t believe in rebirth can delight in the ending of their current suffering, thinking that eternal death is better than life.
I still don’t get your insistence of bringing private Buddha into here. Is it your catchphrase? How is private Buddha relevant to these discussion? Please provide a step by step link. I don’t think anyone would dispute that private Buddha was unenlightened before enlightenment.
Are you sure you’re not being influenced by Mahayana doctrine of emptiness here?
Birth is the production, descend, apparence of the aggregates, obtaining of the sense bases. It’s a one event for most people once per lifetime.
Death is the perishing, breaking up, disapperance, dying, death, completion of time, break up of the aggregates, laying down of the carcass, cutting off the life faculty. It happens once for most people per lifetime. Assuming people might count temporary heart stop as death and got rescued back from the brink of death.
Death happens to enlightened people, for them a final death, and rebirth happened to all of us. But for enlightened people no future rebirth anymore.
Perhaps you are mixing up the state of arahant while still alive and parinibbāna?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/s/Vt3xC72vKd
See this picture. While still alive, there’s consciousness, 5 aggregates for the arahant, after parinibbāna, the 5 aggregates already ceased. That is where full dependent cessation happens.
Ok, I see you have radically different view of consciousness if you can claim arahants doesn’t have the mind sense while still alive.
Cessation of clinging is not the same as cessation of aggregates. Cessation of aggregates follows at death upon cessation of clinging for the arahants.
In dependent origination, the link of volutional formations to consciousness is rebirth relinking consciousness. After being reborn, the consciousness and name and form are mutually dependent and generate each other until death. That is why at arahanthood, with the cessation of ignorance etc, consciousness is still not ceased for the arahant as there’s still name and form which generates consciousness.
Only at death is the whole dependent cessation completed for the arahant.
Materialism is rejected because they deny rebirth. Once we already took into account rebirth and that it can be ended completely, I don’t think it’s helpful to compare doctrines by how close or how far away it is from materialism. It is what it is, just look at dependent origination, conditionality. When all causes for things ceases without remainder, all ceases. That’s at parinibbāna.
Whereas at arahanthood, the causes for future rebirth is ceased already. And current mind body is sustained via mutual generation of consciousness, name and form.
Sorry Bhante, but I remember that picture and it does not resolve the contradiction to my mind. You claim that the aggregates are literal dukkha. The mind is 4 of those aggregates. You claim that mental suffering is gone while alive. How can you claim that mental suffering utterly ceases while alive when the mind - 4 of those aggregates - is alive and present and literal dukkha incarnate?
Then we need to go deeper dive into the 3 types of sufferings.
From the post above due to the sutta quoted there, there’s no negative mental states for the arahants. No anger, aversion, unpleasant mental feelings.
So the 3 types of sufferings, the first one on unpleasant feelings, is half of them gotten rid of by arahants. The mental half. Physical unpleasant feelings is still possible. But basically, the mental part is actually not half but basically the majority of suffering.
3rd suffering of conditionality is obvious for arahants. Still have to eat, go to toilet etc. Or suffer the physical unpleasant feeling of not taking care of the body. This includes having a mind. The arahant’s mind is also conditioned. If hearing good dhamma can get happiness, if get into deep meditation can get happiness. But even the baseline of non-geeed, hatred and delusion is already great happiness. Just that like the sutta which says even fame is dangerous for the arahant for preventing happiness in the here and now, arahants also need time and seculsion for deep meditation for more happiness. That is a very subtle sense of unsatisfactoriness.
2nd suffering of change I am a bit ambiguous about. On the one hand, without clinging or craving there should be no issue with dealing with change, on the other hand, the 5 aggregates of arahants obviously are still subject to change. So even the meditation of cessation of perception and feeling is temporary and unsatisfactory due to that. It’s very subtle. I heard the rule of not storing food is because an arahant monk did it so that he could go into cessation for 7 days, come out, heat up the stored food and eat, then go back in quickly and repeat. So to have the need to come out and eat, that itself is a form of subtle suffering. He clearly just prefers to be in cessation all the time if he could.
The 5 aggregates are marked with suffering even beyond craving is due to impermanence. What is impermanent is unsatisfactory.