Does SN 12.44 explain the missing mechanism behind Ud 1.10 and nibbāna?

[Charlie]

@u-dont-exist.com

I’m still unsure about saying that the aggregates are “no longer conditioned,” though. SN 22.79 explicitly describes conditioned form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. Did you mean that they’re no longer conditioned by ignorance and the āsavas, which seems to be your broader argument, rather than that the aggregates themselves have become unconditioned?

SN22.79 describes the five clinging aggregates as conditioned by sankhara (choices):

Choices (sankhara) produce conditioned phenomena; that’s why they’re called ‘choices’.
And what are the conditioned phenomena that they produce?
Form is a conditioned phenomenon; choices are what make it into form. Feeling is a conditioned phenomenon; choices are what make it into feeling…

Further down in SN22.79 he is describing the ‘de-conditioning’ process (my term):
And what things do they get rid of and not accumulate?
They get rid of form and don’t accumulate it.
They get rid of feeling …perception …choices …consciousness and don’t accumulate it.

So is he getting rid of and not accumulating choices which is the conditioning factor producing conditioned phenomena? That’s how I read it.

@u-dont-exist.com

1. Do the aggregates remain for a living arahant?

2. Are they still appropriated as me or mine?

3. How do the six sense streams become one coherent experience in the first place—and does that cross-sensory unification itself change in direct nibbāna?

1. According to the suttas, for the Arahant the five aggregates remain (note that they are not defined as clinging aggregates any longer). And they are now described as scattered and abandoned, etc.

2. According to the suttas no. The sense of I am this or that, I am, as well as conceit are no longer present.

3. How do the 6 sense streams become one coherent experience:
   In my view, this is what dependent origination is describing. The little engine at the center spinning out ‘the world’ is namarupa (perceptions and form as clinging aggregates - that is they stick together to create the impression of a distinct ‘thing’) and consciousness that grabs on to that namarupa-bundle-‘thing’ and experiences it as reality. That is then taken as me/not me or mine/not mine - the great illusion/magic show.

Does that cross-sensory unification itself change in direct nibbāna?

The Bahiya Sutta and other similar ones seem to be saying yes. Specifically, in the seen there is just seeing, in the heard just hearing and so on. To me this implies that the worldly person sees distinct objects/things and so they take on a sense of permanence and graspability where as the Arahant experiences the underlying flow of phenomena without objectifying it. That’s the impression I get.

It seems to me that the Arahant is still able to function pretty well so maybe the experience must still leave them knowing which car is theirs and how much money is still owed on it. So perhaps this is more of a ‘transcends and includes’ as opposed to one type of experience vs another but who knows?