SuttaCentral
Also one should be careful if thinking of the ayatana as something existing parallel & underlying this reality because this reality changes and the ayatana doesn’t.
All notions of duration apply exclusively to describing the changes and not the end of change wherein no change is discerned.
Your post is not clear. It sounds as if the quote above is your position.
Hi,
Agree with your fire put out by water example.
However, āyatana is a word with several meanings and connotations, including opportunity.
It doesn’t necessarily point to some ontological “place” or unconstructed "whatever.’
In the suttas parinibbāna is used to refer to the final death of an awakened one and to nibbāna while alive. It depends on the context.
Your example here is clearly about the latter, as the “sentient being” is alive “in the present life.”
Also, nibbāyati, used in your quote refers to " one in whom the fires (of passion etc.) cease to burn; becomes cool" in this context.
So, no reference to “timeless knowing” here.
Your use of MN63 refers to the inability to pin down the liberated one as any kind of self or “thing”, which is true. The absence of all ignorance and grasping also means that there will be no way to define an awakened one in terms of any form of clinging or attachment.
But again, the aggregates and senses remain while an awakened being is alive, and although they can’t be pinned down as any particular “thing,” this has nothing to do with a “timeless knowing” – which is clearly not referred to here.
I don’t see how the Kālāma sutta has anything to do with this particular discussion. The Buddha here is saying to not completely rely any teachings merely by oral statements or writings, but he isn’t throwing the baby out with the bathwater!
He says to learn his teachings – how else by communication and by reflecting about them? --and then to practice them to verify their truth and efficacy.
So if you’re implying we shouldn’t rely on the teachings in the suttas and we should in the end follow our own particular interpretations about the Dhamma, it sounds a bit open ended…
Also, in DN16 the Buddha enjoined the Sangha to refer to the (oral) sutta teachings to resolve disputes about various interpretations.
Not really. See above.
For those who are in the currect life there is still seeing, hearing, feeling in the tactile sense, and knowledge of that. That is what knowing is. What they don’t know or have are intentions/volition/kamma/citana. The fire that has gone out is kamma/greed/hatred/delusion, not the seen, heard, felt, and known.
That is not the answer he gives. He is crystal clear why he does not declare them.
Interestingly, He refers to himself as “I” here. Not having intentions/volition/kamma/cetana didn’t stop him from referring to himself as “I”. He “knew” how to use the language. He could have simply said what you said, but he didn’t. He said said what I quoted.
I am saying read the suttas with a critical eye. When you read one sutta that says “I do not declare X” and another that declares X, that’s a problem. Keep the baby. Get rid off the bath water. Of course, that means you can tell the two apart. The problem is that canon kept both. You are assuming that only his “oral suttas” are in the canon and they are in their original form.
What they still have are the senses and aggregates, hence also cetanā – but not with a self-sense or any attachments. The Buddha and arahants didn’t walk from place to place like zombies – they decided where to go. But that selfless process of intention does not generate new kamma.
However you wish to interpret and understand this sutta – and I’m not disagreeing with your general point here – this has nothing to do with a timeless knowing or awareness.
Sorry, but I’ve never said this.
Meanwhile, if you favor a view of final nibbāna as a kind of ineffable timeless awareness or knowing, there’s been no support offered so far.
[Shakes dust from feet]
What I said is that the Buddha explicitly said he did not declare what happened to a Buddha after death and there is ample evidence of that. With regard to what the living Buddha knew, he knew only the seen, only the heard, only the felt, and only the known. That is in Ud 1.10 and it is clear there that he “knew” in some sense there. This is no longer a productive conversation so I will leave it at that.
Namo Buddhaya!
I think this is implied
where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon.
If there are none of these things then how change. There are no constructed things therein for something to change.
And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor staying; neither passing away nor arising: unestablished,[1] unevolving, without support [mental object].[2] This, just this, is the end of stress.
I am hestitant to take the english at face value but this would imply there being no discernable change.
Then it is said
This, just this, is the end of stress.
It think ties to this
Where consciousness does not land or grow, name-&-form does not alight. Where name-&-form does not alight, there is no growth of fabrications. Where there is no growth of fabrications, there is no production of renewed becoming in the future. Where there is no production of renewed becoming in the future, there is no future birth, aging, & death. That, I tell you, has no sorrow, affliction, or despair.”
And this ties well back to the verse about vinnana anidassana for that is also where name & form gain no footing, consciouness ceasing, all is brought to an end.
There are plenty other words that do make it explicit like the word where being used.
Note that opportunity has semantic overlap with words like possibility, opening, option and alternative
It is a good word to use and we have many examples of it’s usage, eg the salyatana and the arupa ayatanā and so this one, wherein no world, is analogical to those but also categorically different.
This ties to there being two elements
The constructed which is diverse & evolving
The unconstructed which is a singleness & unevolving
And so both of these are possible realities or opportunities to be wit
There is that opportunity, monks, where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind;
It doesn’t roll off the tongue but it is not far off.
Ud1.10
where the water, earth, fire, and wind find no footing,
There the stars do not shine, nor does the sun give light,
There the moon does not glow, there darkness is not found.
And when the sage, the brāhmaṇa, has experienced nibbāna through his own sagacity,
Then from both form and formless, happiness and suffering, he is free.”
This is also about the ayatana of which we speak, being free from happiness & suffering is a reference to cessation of pleasant & unplesant feeling and the release from dukkha is extinguishment, the foremost happiness, nibbāṇaparamaṃ sukhaṃ, the asankhata makes it possible.
Note the referent of vinnana anidassana verse also uses the word luminous and this ties well to the light analogy i referenced above
Where consciousness does not land or grow, name-&-form does not alight.
And this line of verse
There the moon does not glow, there darkness is not found.
Therefore it is definitely something real and apparently also analogically luminous at that, but one should not think it to be dukkha, anicca or anatta, and one should appreciate the implications of this in light of the wordplay we talked about.
If the mind is cleansed from lobha, dosa, moha, from all that leads to unvoluntairy binding to sense-objects (via 7 anusaya) that is called the sublime state of supreme peace, Nibbana.
MN26 says that this is what the Buddha sought. This imperishable state of peace (Snp1.11).
Why would this state not refer to awareness? Does mind transform into a non-mind and not knowing mind when all defilement are uprooted? I think the sutta’s explain that mind becomes limitless.
AN10.81 also says that when mind is detached from the khandha’s, also from vinnana, it is limitless.
Defilements limit the mind. When uprooted mind shows to be limitless.
Nibbana always refers in a practical sense to the peace and the freedom, the flexibility, the great applicability, the pliancy of a mind that is not ruled anymore by inner drifts that lead to unvoluntairy engagement with sense objects. This is no special state of concentration but just the situation of unfettering, Unbinding, Nibbana. Nibbana refers in practice to a freedom and peace of mind that is not the results of grasping but the result of the uprooting of all grasping tendencies, all unvoluntrairy engagement.
Vinnana is also almost never some bare awareness of something. MN28 explains this. If one becomes aware of something particular, a certain smell, a certain idea, sound, a visual etc. that catches the eye, ear, nose, …mind…then vinnana arises. Please take notice of this.
Vinnana refers in practice to a situation in which something has caught the eye, ear…the minds special attention and has got engaged, hooked with that, fettered via (one or more) 7 kinds of anusaya. Vinnana is in this sense also more then a bare awareness or consciousness. It is an eye, ear…mind caught moment. Vinnana refers to a situation in which mind is hooked to something seen, heard etc, Caught to a sense object via an anusaya.
The vinnana that arises this way, that is a defiled sense contact and attached knowing moment.
If you look into this in practice you can also see this is a moment that mind has become fixed upon something, is caught, and that is also a certain rigidness and burden and unfreedom.
This is very clear, at least for me, from the sutta’s but also from practice. There is such a huge difference between, for example, seeing and being caught by something seen. The last is vinnana. The mind is in a very different state when it is caught by something or not.
For example seeing. We are aware of many things when we walk. Many visuals for example, but that does not mean at all that all visuals catch our eye and mind. To become eye-and mind catching there must be some special interest from the mind towards that visual. Then mind gets hooked for a moment. That is when eye vinnana arises says MN28. But when the mind is not caught, not engaged, that is an awareness. It is very different situation. We all know this, right?
Some teachers refer to this difference as: an eye, ear…mind-caught moment is a kamma vinnana, and the other is vinnana. Arahants have no kamma vinnana, Their mind does not unvoluntairy get engaged with sense objects.
Initital engagement via 7 anusaya is in Dhamma never ones choice. It is historically grown. For example: If a man sees the woman form it is historically grown that will catch his eye (as example). This is not a result of a choice. It is also not ones choice that the mind engages via disliking and revulsion with pain. This is all historically grown, also when mind gets engaged via ‘me, mine, my self’ with a sense-object. This is not the choice of an atta or self.
When the mind it without this unvoluntairy engagement, i can see that this mind cannot be found. If you seek this mind, trying to find it, the light of that seeking does not land anywhere, as sunlight that finds no object. It just does not land.
The unengaged mind is a bit strange. It can be said to be present but one cannot establish its presence from a personal perceptive, when seeking it. It seems like it is anidassanam and without surface.
Some teachers say that it really can be found, but only when also the personal perspective collapses and not by seeking it.
I feel the best way to translate Nibbana is as peace and freedom that is the result of the extinguishment of all defilements. All that causes unvoluntairy fettering and limitations of mind. The sutta’s refer often to Nibbana as peace.
If Nibbana refers to the removal of lobha, dosa and moha from mind, (all limitations) why would Nibbana be without any knowing aspect?
Nibbana may have an etymological meaning of extinguishment ( i do not know) but then it refers to the extinguishment of the fires of lobha, dosa and moha but not of knowing. It is not that an arahant becomes not-knowing. It is not difficult to see that Nibbana refers to knowing in a not unvoluntaire engaged way. And if it refers to bhava-nirodha then, i believe, it refers to the situation that a non engaging mind does in this very life have no bhava or is beyond it and has the freedom to enter a bhava one choices to enter.
Yes, Vinnana means engagement (MN28). An eye, ear…mind catching knowing moment. A temporary freeze of the stream because one perception has special interest of the mind. Hooked.
This happens unvoluntairy via the anusaya that are triggered at sense-contact. When there is no unvoluntairy engagement because 7 anusaya are uprooted, there is still seeing but merely seeing, hearing etc. Vinnana does not establish then. It does not land, as it were. I believe, if vinnana does not land/establish anymore in this very life, that becomes ones certainty that it will also not land/establish anymore in a next life.
The absence of any internal drift, tendency, volitional activity, habitual force, instinct, flood, yoke that causes unvoluntairy engagement due to true knowledge, is called the sublime state of supreme peace, dispassion, Nibbana, detachment. Nibbana is this peace and this freedom. Freedom, because, the mind that becomes unvoluntairy engaged with sense -objects is scattered, jumpy, not free.
This unfree mind is not easy to use, apply, and the freed mind is.
Less engagement, more inner light. 
And what is the path that leads to the unconditioned, the uninclined, the 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?
Serenity.
Yes, and many more things, see SN43 in total
Something I find difficult to understand is why those who wish to identify with / delight in conceiving Nibbana as a type of consciousness / featureless awareness are Buddhist at all?
Advaita Vedanta exists. It uses Buddhis methods of analysis. It simply redefines the goal as what those who cling to this understanding of vinnana anidassana believe Nibbana to be.
Welcome @Cordeaux! 
What is difficult to understand?
MN1 says puthujjanas delight in Nibbāna but the buddhist disciples in higher training and so on should not delight.
Let us say that there are those buddhists that delight in Nibbāna despite The Buddha saying one should not delight/identify - These buddhists are then actually puthujjanas for disregarding what the teacher actually said regarding the matter, right? Do you agree?
You might be surprised then that The Buddha actually also called ”cessationists” on the buddhist path for puthujjanas.
The sutta SN 22.81 is about a monk who wonders how one should end all the defilements in this very life, nibbāna.
When I asked a junior monk here on Sutta Central: exactly how the distinctly buddhist ”annihilationist” group mentioned in this sutta differs from the buddhist ”cessationists” on this forum?
He passed the question along to senior monks since he could not answer - and they also never replied to the question.
Why?
Because both the buddhist ”annihilationists” in the sutta and the cessationists on this forum adhere to exactly the same things; that the khandhas are not-self and rejecting eternalism.
So no difference at all. None whatsoever.
That is why every cessationist imagines everyone who rejects their ”mere cessation” views are therefore ”eternalists” - they can’t see beyond these fixed view of theirs - just like the ones mentioned in SN 22.81.
And yet this view of theirs is in reality disregarding what The Buddha actually taught and so The Buddha calls these annihilationist people on the buddhist path: puthujjanas.
Just like he calls eternalists for puthujjanas, and even those who reject both annihilation and eternalism but who still, thanks to this double rejection, have doubts and are uncertain about the true teaching for puthujjanas.
I am not well acquainted with Vedanta but if Buddhism was not around now during this existence of mine I would still be a religious person/meditator and either follow the Jain teachings or more likely Daoism - or even Vedanta or anything else that focuses on meditation.
Some of us are seekers.
So in return I wonder why the buddhists who come from a atheist/materialist/scientific background claim:
*That the 5 senses cease in the first jhana.
*That there is no light in the jhanas.
*That ”the gates to hell are always open and one can leave hell whenever one wishes”.
*That higher heavenly unseen beings in Kama Loka , devas, are pretty much non-existent or ”taboo” and that the Brahma Gods, if they now happen to even truly exist (in Rupa Loka, which corresponds to the 4 jhanas), they are still just arrogant and narcissistic - hardly any good traits in these higher beings apparently…
Trust me you can’t find a single non-buddhist seeker/meditator/religious or spiritual person aka ”a puthujjana” that would approve of all the contradictions above - but some buddhists have no worries at all making these 100% wrong claims.
Despite the opposite to these strange claims being found in the suttas.
So sometimes I too wonder, why even be buddhist in the first place when holding on to all these wrong views that not only contradict the buddhist teaching but also contradict the actual experiences of non-buddhist meditators?
Buddhism is the ultimate religious teaching there ever was and will be, with a complete cosmology.
I don’t agree. The fact that the Buddha says of the sekha disciple that “he ought not…”, rather than that “he does not…” clearly implies that the sekha disciple might do the thing in question if he so wished. If it were impossible for him to do so, then there’d be no reason for the Buddha to advise him not to, and there’d be no difference between a sekha and an asekha.
And so when we encounter a person delighting in Nibbāna, we know that he might be either a puthujjana doing what puthujjanas cannot help but do, or a sekha who is presently being remiss about carrying out the Buddha’s instruction to sekhas.
Nibbana is in EBT refered to as the sublime state of supreme peace…
Why would one choose that this cannot be known, realised, attained while the texts really say so? Or why would one choose to see this peace of Nibbana as the peace that arises from the knowledge that one will not be reborn again, like the peace of a reassurance (the same as the materialist who can be peaceful with the idea all just ends at death)? Or the reassurance of the Christian that at death he will be with Jesus or God? Nibbana as the peace that depends on the knowledge that one will not be reborn? Or why would one think that the peace of Nibbana is the peace of a non-existence after a last death? That is cynical. Such ideas make no sense, to me at least.
It is much more likely that the peace of Nibbana is in fact just the nature/quality/suchness of mind that is freed from lobha, dosa and moha. The taste of purity. The suchness of a pure mind. The removal of lobha, dosa and moha is also described as Nibbana in EBT.
And if these defilements are absent in the mind, does mind suddenly become a non-mind? To me it seems only reasonable that the peace of Nibbana is the peace of mind that is detached from 5 khandha’s, like AN10.81 describes. It has become without limits, a total transparant clear openess. Because what limits can there be for a mind that is not attached?
Attachment brings pressure onto body and mind. And when this is gone there is peace, no pressure, no stress, no fear, no agitation.
There is only seeing things as they really are in buddhism. Rupa as rupa, vedana as vedana, sanna as sanna, sankhara as sankhara, vinnana as vinnana and Nibbana as Nibbana. Now one knows the sankhata and asankhata elements or aspect of life.
The idea that Nibbana is a concept, just a designation, a name, a label that is ofcourse correct but ofcourse it points to something. It points to a sublime state of supreme peace.
MN11. "Bhikkhus, when ignorance is abandoned and true knowledge has arisen in a bhikkhu, then with the fading away of ignorance and the arising of true knowledge he no longer clings to sensual pleasures, no longer clings to views, no longer clings to rules and observances, no longer clings to a doctrine of self. When he does not cling, he is not agitated. When he is not agitated, he personally attains Nibbana.
That situation of being without agitation is the same as being at ease, peaceful, Nibbana, home.
I tend to see it like this: peace usually relies on something: on temporary satisfaction of the senses, on succes, on all going well, rules and rituals, strong faith, views, etc. but only the peace of Nibbana is arrived at in the opposite way, by not grasping. In this sense it is against the wordly stream and all floods in ourselves.
Later buddhist see Buddhahood also as bloom, i like that. One can say that a Buddha floursihes. The qualities of mind we all have in potential they all flourish. The holy life is to flourish. Freeing ourselves from defilement is like flourishing. Only suffering gets lost. One cannot loose oneself because there is no self to loose. The only way that one can loose oneself that the EBT describe, is that one becomes more and more confused.
Anidassanam might refer to the situation that if one would seek the mind of the arahant or Buddha it cannot be found. The light that seeks a detached mind, is not able to land on something that it can recognise as ‘aha here is this detached mind’. It is like we must admit that it cannot be seen but still we can also not say that it is absent.
Hello Venerable @Dhammanando!
I meant the following:
A buddhist might continue to delight in Nibbāna despite being told that one ought not to do so - as in willfully disregarding The Buddha’s advice regarding the matter.
The uninstructed worldling, who is not a seer of the noble ones and is unskilled and undisciplined in their Dhamma, who is not a seer of superior persons and is unskilled and undisciplined in their Dhamma.
It is this act of disregarding, even when being shown what was actually taught, that makes one unskilled and undisciplined in the noble ones Dhamma.
My point is that one can take a wrong view so far that one is in fact a puthujjana and not a seer of noble ones any more.
The new user asked us why we don’t change religion since we, according to the post, obviously don’t belong to buddhism…
I only asked the very same thing back by adding some observations of mine regarding views.
If someone regards the khandhas as not-self and rejects eternalism and therefore thanks to this embraces ”mere cessation” one is not following what The Buddha said regarding the matter - and he calls those with such views puthujjanas.
Thanks for this interesting question @Cordeaux! I’ve opened a new thread devoted to exploring this question with the hope that it will focus peoples minds into actually answering as I’d like to learn something. Unfortunately, I doubt this thread will be helpful into answering as the participants seem devoted to debating whether Nibbana is or is not a type of consciousness.