Bhikkhu Bodhi on Nibbāna

[Jasudho]

Good points, though still open to different interpretations and understandings.

Regarding AN10.6, this clearly applies to a living being. Even the final paragraph mentions " a mendicant." So nothing here about parinibbāna.

Also, in the sutta, it’s about immersion, i.e. samadhi, not final nibbāna.

In AN10.7, Sariputta is alive with aggregates and senses present, perceiving and realizing that " ‘The cessation of continued existence is extinguishment. The cessation of continued existence is extinguishment.’
If anything, this can be understood as pointing exactly to “cessation” : the final death (cessation of continued existence) is Extinguishment. It’s right there.

Nothing is added about the cessation of existence being an ineffable “something.”
Just: extinguishment.

[Jasudho]

@Notez

He talks about how he for lack of better terms now knows two categories of reality, one made and another unmade, one discerned conventionally and another in it’s own rite.

No one disputes that conditional processes are the same as nibbāna.

What’s disputed is whether final nibbāna remains what you appear to see as an everlasting unconditional reality/“something” or whether it all ceases at final nibbāna.
What ceases? Dukkha. With nothing remaining.

[Notez]

@Jasudho

Nothing is added about the cessation of existence being an ineffable “something.”
Just: extinguishment.

Yes but extinguishment of a fire is peceived based on the eye ayatana, the extiguishment of perceptions of form can be perceived based on the formless ayatana, whereas an altogether cessation of existence as extinguishment can be perceived based on what?

Must be the unmade doesn’t it?

Well certainly such a thing would not be something like form or the formless ayatanas, nor something cognized with intellect.

[Jasudho]

@Notez

cessation of existence as extinguishment can be perceived based on what?

The senses, which were still present since Sariputta was still, of course, alive.

Contemplating the complete ending of all conditions, meaning all dukkha, led to his perception/understanding that the cessation of the existence is extinguishment.

If we keep practicing sincerely eventually there will be awakening and greater clarity.
Maybe it’s best to leave it at that, at this point.

[Notez]

@Jasudho

@Notez

cessation of existence as extinguishment can be perceived based on what?

The senses, which were still present since Sariputta was still, of course, alive.

What senses are these? As i see it, this is an indefensible proposition.

You can’t assert that he just ponders how great parinibbana is.

Sutta explain that he is liteally not percipient of the world at that time, but you explain this as something he ponders & inclines his mind to.

But how, friend Sariputta, could a monk have an attainment of concentration such he would neither be percipient of earth with regard to earth… nor of the next world with regard to the next world, and yet he would still be percipient?"

It is also explained here

where for an excellent thoroughbred of a man the perception[2] of earth with regard to earth has ceased to exist; the perception of liquid with regard to liquid… the perception of fire with regard to fire… the perception of wind with regard to wind… the perception of the sphere of the infinitude of space with regard to the sphere of the infinitude of space… the perception of the sphere of the infinitude of consciousness with regard to the sphere of the infinitude of consciousness… the perception of the sphere of nothingness with regard to the sphere of nothingness… the perception of the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception with regard to the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception… the perception of this world with regard to this world… the next world with regard to the next world… and whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after, or pondered by the intellect: the perception of that has ceased to exist. Sandha Sutta: To Sandha

But they are not not percipient.

[Dhabba]

@Jasudho

AN 10.6 & AN 10.7 are both about Nibbāna.

Just look at how many of the synonyms I posted earlier that are being used:

And yet they would still perceive.”

“But how could this be, sir?”

“Ānanda, it’s when a mendicant perceives: ‘This is peaceful; this is sublime—that is, the stilling of all activities, the letting go of all attachments, the ending of craving, fading away, cessation, extinguishment.’

@Dhabba

the peaceful, the sublime, the ending of craving, extinguishment,

@Jasudho

But it points toward the cessation understanding.

Exactly, to regard the khandhas as selfless and rejecting eternalism ”points toward the cessation understanding”.

But in this ”cessation understanding” don’t you think some would then imagine that Nibbāna equals termination?

Maybe that is why The Buddha goes on by saying in SN 22.81 that one should also give up the following:

”repulsed by continued existence, and not repulsed by the cessation of continued existence”

This is the best of the convictions of outsiders, that is: ‘I might not be, and it might not be mine. I will not be, and it will not be mine.’
When someone has such a view, you can expect that they will be repulsed by continued existence, and they will not be repulsed by the cessation of continued existence.

Why should one give it up such view?
I mean the ”repulsed by continued existence, and not repulsed by the cessation of continued existence” part, isn’t that the goal of the teaching?

Why should one who sees the khandhas as selfless and rejects eternalism also reject ”repulsed by continued existence, and not repulsed by the cessation of continued existence”?

I guess you will instead answer that ”being repulsed by continued existence, and not repulsed by the cessation of continued existence” is a form of craving?

But let us say that someone gives up the view since seeing the khandhas as selfless and rejecting eternalism can only point to termination with nothing more - mere cessation, you don’t think they might have some doubts and uncertainties about the teaching when rejecting both eternalism and annihilation?

Would you have doubts and uncertainties if you gave up the view of ”mere cessation”?

[Notez]

@Dhabba

“Ānanda, it’s when a mendicant perceives: ‘This is peaceful; this is sublime—that is, the stilling of all activities, the letting go of all attachments, the ending of craving, fading away, cessation, extinguishment.’

It is important to this one to mn64

Whatever exists therein of material form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, he sees those states as impermanent, as suffering, as a disease, as a tumour, as a barb, as a calamity, as an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as void, as not self. He turns his mind away from those states and directs it towards the deathless element thus: ‘This is the peaceful, this is the sublime, that is, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all attachments, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, Nibbāna.’

Because then one can show that this directing of mind to the deathless, is a samadhi attainment and not some pondering or intellectual insight or a coming to agreement, but a direct experience of the dukkhanirodha as sannavedaniyanirodha attainment.

It can also be tied to sandha sutta to further substantiate with

the perception of this world with regard to this world… the next world with regard to the next world… and whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after, or pondered by the intellect: the perception of that has ceased to exist. Sandha Sutta: To Sandha

These texts also refute the idea that direct experience of bhavanirodha as nibbana is some blackout or unconsciousness because it is said

And they wouldn’t perceive this world in this world, or the other world in the other world. And yet they would still perceive.

[Jasudho]

@Notez

You can’t assert that he just ponders how great parinibbana is.

Why not? He contemplates cessation and experiences cessation of the five senses. The sixth is still present since he is percipient of final nibbāna as cessation. As extinguishment.
Since he understands final cessation as cessation, one can say he perceives what is not perceivable – cessation. It’s a play on words.

Have a look at:

A paradoxical perception in the Pāli discourses?

In AN10.7 Venerable Sāriputta says he was meditating in such a way he wasn’t even perceiving the state of neither-awareness-nor-nonawareness (or ‘neither-perception-nor-nonperception’), yet at the same time he was still aware. This is paradoxical, because beyond this state of meditation there is only the cessation of all awareness, so how could Sāriputta still be aware? The answer lies in his subject of meditation. The perception he was cultivating was, “the cessation of existence is extinguishm…

[Notez]

@Jasudho

Why not? He contemplates cessation and experiences cessation of the five senses. The sixth is still present since he is percipient of final nibbāna as cessation.

Because as i explained in the previous post both an10.7 & an10.6 refute this in light of mn64. The three together make it explicit that this is not something one thinks about but a samadhi attainment.

So what samadhi are we talking about, there are not many alternatives which fit the descriptions, only sannavedaniyanirodha.

[Dhabba]

@Jasudho from that thread you posted:

@Sunyo

This perception entails the realization that the cessation of existence is indeed the goal of the Buddha’s path

This is the best of the convictions of outsiders, that is: ‘I might not be, and it might not be mine. I will not be, and it will not be mine.’
When someone has such a view, you can expect that they will be repulsed by continued existence, and they will not be repulsed by the cessation of continued existence.

Why should one then give it up such view?
I mean the ”repulsed by continued existence, and not repulsed by the cessation of continued existence” part, isn’t that the goal of the teaching?

[Jasudho]

@Dhabba

AN 10.6 & AN 10.7 are both about Nibbāna.

I never said they weren’t. But there’s a difference between nibbāna while alive, as the extinguishment of greed, anger, and ignorance and parinibbāna with the final cessation of all the senses and aggregates.

@Dhabba

”repulsed by continued existence, and not repulsed by the cessation of continued existence”

The awakened are not repulsed. Those who see final nibbāna as cessation, extinguishment need not be repulsed either – except by dukkha, so to speak.
The sutta is clearly addressing those with the wrong views of etarnaiism or annihilation.

@Dhabba

I guess you will instead answer that ”being repulsed by continued existence, and not repulsed by the cessation of continued existence” is a form of craving?

Yup.

@Dhabba

But let us say that someone gives up the view since seeing the khandhas as selfless and rejecting eternalism can only point to termination with nothing more - mere cessation, you don’t think they might have some doubts and uncertainties about the teaching when rejecting both eternalism and annihilation?

Unless we’re arahants there will be, imo, some uncertainties. Less and less as we deepen the practice, but until all ignorance has been extinguished, we’re all left with some gaps in understanding.
So that’s why I’ve written in this thread and elsewhere that I incline to cessation and understand the teachings as pointing to this. But I never use(d) the word “certain.”
Whether others are feel “certain” is up to them.

[Notez]

@Jasudho

@Notez

You can’t assert that he just ponders how great parinibbana is.

Why not? He contemplates cessation and experiences cessation of the five senses.

I don’t particularly understand what the cessation of the five senses has to do with it.

Suppose that

He turns his mind away from those states and directs it towards the deathless element thus: ‘This is the peaceful, this is the sublime, that is, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all attachments, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, Nibbāna.’

Is a reference to samadhi divorced from the five senses wherein on contemplates the drawbacks of the aggregates and comes to agreement with painibbana being delightful. And that by doing this contemplation one can become a stream enterer and even arahant.

Then take this text

42. Previously, I didn’t have any unification of mind. I didn’t have any control over it. I would leave the monastery four or five times a day.

43. There was a certain nun in whom I had confidence. I approached her and she taught me the Dhamma about aggregates, elements and sense bases.

44. As I listened attentively to what she taught me, my mind was overjoyed. I sat in the same cross legged position for seven days. On the eighth day, having torn apart the dark mass of ignorance, I stretched out my legs.
    https://suttafriends.org/sutta/thig3-2/

Are we supposed to think that the nun contemplated the drawbacks for seven days?

Or maybe this is the samadhi associated with a direct experience of unalloyed bliss as parisukha?

Now, I — without moving my body, without uttering a word — can dwell sensitive to unalloyed pleasure for a day and a night… for two days & nights… for three… four… five… six… seven days & nights. So what do you think: That being the case, who dwells in greater pleasure: King Seniya Bimbisara of Magadha or me?’ Cula-dukkhakkhandha Sutta: The Lesser Mass of Stress

[Dhabba]

@Jasudho

I never said they weren’t. But there’s a difference between nibbāna while alive, as the extinguishment of greed, anger, and ignorance and parinibbāna with the final cessation of all the senses and aggregates.

So you agree that one can still perceive beyond the elements and beyond all planes of existence?

@Jasudho

The sutta is clearly addressing those with the wrong views of etarnaiism or annihilation

SN 22.81

But you never explain exactly how cessationists differ from the buddhists in the sutta who also ,just like cessationists, regard the khandhas as selfless and reject eternalism?

[Jasudho]

@Notez

I don’t particularly understand what the cessation of the five senses has to do with it.

I’m inferring this ,as the sutta states that he no longer perceives the world. By this I take the "world’ as the Buddha defined it in SN35.23.

@Notez

Are we supposed to think that the nun contemplated the drawbacks for seven days?

Or maybe this is the samadhi associated with a direct experience of unalloyed bliss as parisukha?

Who knows? I’m not interested in getting caught up in trying to interpret the the nun did or did not contemplate.

Did you choose to read the Thread by Ven. Sunyo on perception? It has a direct bearing on much of our discussion.

Also, would you please point out suttas in which the Buddha very clearly and repetitively teaches about DO and the cessation of dukkha, about the cessation of the defilements, about the ceasing of all conditions, and then equally clearly declares that parinibbāna is an everlasting “knowing” or something like that?
I mean, it’s not hard to declare something like this. Several Upanishads are quite clear about an “unseen seer”, an “unknown knower” as everlasting bliss.

[Jasudho]

@Dhabba

So you agree that one can still perceive beyond the elements and beyond all planes of existence?

I don’t know what you really mean by this.

@Dhabba

But you never explain exactly how cessationists differ from the buddhists in the sutta who also ,just like cessationists, regard the khandhas as selfless and reject eternalism?

I’ve done this several times. Please see the previous, related, posts on this issue.

[Notez]

@Dhabba

you never explain exactly how cessationists differ from the buddhists in the sutta who also ,just like cessationists, regard the khandhas as selfless and reject eternalism?

He can say the difference is in how they train

The annihilationist trains ‘I might not be and it might not be mine; I will not be and it will not be for me’

Whereas the ariyan trains
‘It should not be and it should not be for me; it will not be and it will not be mine’.

It’s not a very good answer because it’d follow that the annihilationist can just change how he trains and become ariya just by doing that as if he doesn’t hold pernicious wrong views other than training incorrectly.

[Notez]

I wouldn’t interpret it in the worst way, there is not much to hide in the Bhikkhu Bodhi’s reply.

I think most likely it’s an editorial mistake. One can see the post is very long and the edit didn’t remove the words ‘reply from bhikkhu bodhi’ and so unlikely to be deliberate.

[HinMarkPeng]

@Jasudho

The word “eternalist” can have many meanings in different contexts. Here it’s just shorthand for believing “something” continues after the death of an arahant.
This has been labeled as “timeless citta”, “pure knowing”, etc.
Whatever one calls it, it indicates “something” that is unending, and it is this sense, that “eternalist” is used here.

Words such as, “the knowing nature of the pure Citta” and the like are just epithets for Nibbana. The suttas are full of these, e.g. the deathless, the unborn, unshakable, etc… When used by the Thai forest tradition teachers, they describe personal experiences in terms that can be understood at that time and in that place. Just as the Buddha did in his day. I dare say those who listened to his talks understood the meaning of the Pali words that are disputed today much better than we do now.

To say that using such terms infers an eternalist view is wrong and a misrepresentation of what is being said. By way of explanation perhaps this simile may help. Suppose there was a room in complete darkness. Then, the curtains were opened and the sunlight came in and dispelled the darkness. The Sun did not just appear when the curtains were opened. It was there all the time. (As is the unconditioned Nibbana.) Now the sunlight does not belong to the room or any person. It is not that room’s sunlight. It is simply nature.

The dark room is a defiled Heart. Nirodha is the opening of the curtains. When the sunlight pours in, the Heart is pure, free from the darkness of ignorance and defilement, free from attachment to Sankhara. The pure Heart is a singularity, unconditioned, belonging to no-one, simply nature. Beyond the duality of the conventional world. So, there is no actual or implied meaning that some personal, eternal component of a being transcends the aggregates.

There is no self. The Heart is not a "self and Nibbana is just the replacement of ignorance with knowledge in the Heart.

[Jasudho]

Hi,

@HinMarkPeng

The Sun did not just appear when the curtains were opened. It was there all the time. (As is the unconditioned Nibbana.)

And this is one of the main points of disagreement. I recall these teachings being offered in the Zen tradition as well.
When nibbāna is assumed to be ever-present – “eternal” in this context – this metaphor makes sense. But how can one claim parinibbāna is not full cessation/nothing yet then claim nibbāna is ever-present – but not an indescribable “something”?
Clearly, it’s not a conditional “something”, but practitioners who hold this view use words like "dhatu", "āyatana" and other descriptors which they understand as pointing to nibbāna as a kind of reality, as “something”, however indescribable.
Indeed, some do call it an “unconditional reality”; hence, “something”.

For those who see final nibbāna as full cessation, there is nothing left, nothing ever-present.
To take your metaphor, it’s like saying a room is full of trash (defilements, senses, aggregates, which are all dukkha).
After all the trash has been removed, it’s just: gone.
It’s a total absence. Of trash. Of dukkha. That "absence, that “gone-ness” is not a thing or state or timeless whatever – it’s just the extinguishment, the complete absence, of what was previously there. And that absence is not ever-present as an ineffable “something”. Complete absence is not even nothing --in this case, absence of all conditions and all dukkha.
Nirodha. Nibbāna - extinguishment, as the Buddha taught. Of all conditions, of all dukkha.

(All metaphors are limited, so I can imagine people saying “What about the room?!” But that’s just an aspect of a metaphor. There fundamentally is no room).

Again, this is different than nibbāna while the senses and aggregates are present. How that is “experienced” is not what is meant by full cessation at parinibbāna.

I think this highlights one of main differences in the interpretation of the teachings and experiences by sincere practitioners. While I incline to one side, I fully respect practitioners who do see it differently.

On we go…

[Dhabba]

@Jasudho

@Dhabba

So you agree that one can still perceive beyond the elements and beyond all planes of existence?

I don’t know what you really mean by this.

What I mean is the following:

“It could be, Ānanda, that 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.

This above already excludes many of the various planes of existence.

And with the following below one is in a state of immersion that excludes ALL other planes of existence:

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.”

You agree that the suttas AN 10.6 & AN 10.7 are both about Nibbāna, so then you ought to also agree that this state of immersion in the suttas, which is beyond all planes of existence and where a mendicant would still perceive is in fact the unconditioned, undefiled, the truth, the far shore, the subtle, the very hard to see, the freedom from old age, the constant, the not falling apart, that in which nothing appears, the unproliferated, the peaceful, the freedom from death, the sublime, the state of grace, the sanctuary, the ending of craving, the incredible, the amazing, the untroubled, the not liable to trouble, extinguishment, the unafflicted, dispassion, purity, freedom, not clinging, the island, the protection, the shelter & the refuge.

???

————————-

@Jasudho

@Dhabba

But you never explain exactly how cessationists differ from the buddhists in the sutta who also ,just like cessationists, regard the khandhas as selfless and reject eternalism?

I’ve done this several times. Please see the previous, related, posts on this issue.

No you haven’t, surely those buddhists in SN 22.81 who do not regard the khandhas as self and who reject eternalism would come to very same conclusions about Nibbāna as cessationists do?

You even wrote yourself:

@Jasudho

it points toward the cessation understanding.

Ok but then I really wonder what type of extra insight cessationists have compared to these buddhists? What is the difference?

AN 10.6 & AN 10.7 says one can still perceive in a state of immersion beyond all planes of existence -

So do you think the buddhists in SN 22.81:

Who 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.’

• would agree or disagree with there being a state of immersion beyond all planes of existence where one can still perceive?