Does the Tathagata exist before death?

Discussion
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A recollection of the child can arise (mind-consciousness), and a desire to say ‘feed’ the child can also arise, and what would conventionally be called something like ‘a desire to seek out’ can arise, which causes one to move. Then the child once again arises in the eye-consciousness, then mind-consciousness. It’s obviously much more granular than that and there are many more steps, but hopefully you get the drift.

Yeah. Sure there is.

Not if you attempt to treat everything that arises in your world with kindness and compassion. “Make Peace, Be Kind, Be Gentle” - This is my main practice to all that arises in my world.

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Is it not just a matter of what one defines as ‘the world’. Buddha defines that, i believe, in a subjective way. If one sees soundwaves as the world, molecules, neutrino’s, all kinds of radiation, these do not cease in the perception of cessation and feeling, i believe. What ceases is cognition, i.e. how those things are experienced within a human body and mind.

Soundwaves are experienced as sounds. Those sounds cease but soundwaves not. They keep being produced. Certain Molecules binding to receptors are experienced as certains smells and tastes. Those tastes and smells cease, but not the molecules. Why would they cease?

Still i think Buddha has found the nature of mind. How the mind is without any defilement. He has seen it as it is, egolessness nature. It is defilement which distorts our perception of ourselves and
others. Indeed, Buddha’s teachings have a practical implication, i.e. to discover and see this for ourseves too and end delusion.

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I think that the idea that what you do not perceive does not exist (anymore) leads to (or is) neglect, irresponsible behaviour, madness, enormous suffering, superior wrong view.

If you think like this about your own child (lets assume), and while not seeing her/him, thinking ‘it does not exist’…sorry that is just neglect and madness. There is really nothing wise about this stu.

Please…

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Perhaps that’s why mendicants don’t procreate? :wink:

But seriously, I think that you might’ve missed (or misunderstood) the bit above that? Here it is again …

While there is desire for that child to be reborn into our consciousness there will be no neglect. People go to extraordinary lengths due to their desire to be with, hold, feed, train and generally look after children (well those that they assume are theirs or should be theirs).

And of course from the perspective of the child they are still maintained. In the same way that (your version of) you is maintained in your stream of consciousness while (my version of) you falls away from my stream of consciousness.

It affords you the opportunity to pay attention to what is arising in your consciousness in the present moment instead of fantasising about the past and future. This is the basis of (Buddhist) meditation imho.

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I do not think that the EBT support your ideas that a child is born in of from your mind, and has no independend existence from your mind or perception. Nor your idea that the child is reborn in your mind when you again perceive it.

I do not really understand why other particpants, more respected participants then me, do not correct your ideas. but i rest my case. I cannot do more than i have done.

Maybe you embrace for practical reasons the view that what you do not perceive does not exist: To stop worrying, to focus on what is immediately at hand, oke, that i accept. For the same reasons one can for practical reasons embrace the idea that the body is ugly or repellent, or food, or even me :grinning:. Those are not really facts but one can embrace them for good reasons.

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Just a short general comment on this topic. I’ve mostly just laid aside this whole fourfold negation question with respect to the status of an arahant. At this point, it just seems too mysterious and confusing to me.

That said, I don’t find the explanation sometimes given that the Tathagatha doesn’t really exist before death and therefore the question of their status is inapplicable after death also, entirely satisfactory. Firstly, ruling out the four cases: exists/not exists/both exists and not exists/neither exists nor not exists, is, as far as I can recollect, only ever applied in the suttas to an arahant or the Tathagatha himself. It’s not applied to earlier path stages or ordinary followers, i.e., there are no statements such as you don’t really exist now and therefore existence isn’t really applicable in the future either. Secondly, it is clear that this four case inapplicability is valid for the living arahant or Tathagatha. This is consistent with statements in various places about the untraceability of such beings even in this life.

I think that whatever this fourfold inapplicability/negation is referring to likely is special and particular and holds only for beings after full enlightenment (something has fundamentally changed when alive, which leads on to this inapplicability after death, and this untraceability when living).

As it says in the Khema sutta:

“No, ma’am. Why is that? Because the ocean is deep, immeasurable, and hard to fathom.”

“In the same way, great king, any form by which a Realized One might be described has been cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, obliterated, and unable to arise in the future. A Realized One is freed from reckoning in terms of form. They’re deep, immeasurable, and hard to fathom, like the ocean. To say that after death, a Realized One exists, or doesn’t exist, or both exists and doesn’t exist, or neither exists nor doesn’t exist: none of these apply.

Any feeling … perception … choices … consciousness by which a Realized One might be described has been cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, obliterated, and unable to arise in the future. A Realized One is freed from reckoning in terms of consciousness. They’re deep, immeasurable, and hard to fathom, like the ocean. To say that after death, a Realized One exists, or doesn’t exist, or both exists and doesn’t exist, or neither exists nor doesn’t exist: none of these apply.”

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@faujidoc1,

The purpose of samadhi does seem to be to “reach the end of the world”. The canon, unfortunately, is very inconsistent in telling us how deep we have to go. I put together a table of these differences here. I am not an inerrantist with regard to the canon so this does not surprise me.

I suspect that “reach the end of the world” means the cessation of sensory perception and thought, that is, the world of the six senses. With regard to the extinguishment of consciousness, that depends on what you mean by consciousness. Does the extinguishment of consciousness mean extinguishment of what it is like to be a person/organism or the end of all experience? I believe it is the former. If it is the latter, meditation is unnecessary. One is just needs to go under a general anesthetic.

Added later: I believe the goal is a formless experience without pleasure or pain. The world of the senses is a world of forms.

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What about things like this from SN 12.15? Any good?

“‘All exists’: Kaccana, this is one extreme. ‘All does not exist’: this is the second extreme. Without veering towards either of these extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma by the middle: ‘With ignorance as condition…

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Stu, that’s IMO a pretty reasonable point on SN 12.15

‘All exists’: this is one extreme.
‘All doesn’t exist’: this is the second extreme.
Avoiding these two extremes, the Realized One teaches by the middle way:
‘Ignorance is a condition for choices. Choices are a condition for consciousness. …

but, at least to me, it seems something else is going on (what’s with the fathomlessness and untraceability?) with the more specific case of the arahant. It’s a bit unclear what “the All” refers to in SN 12.35. Maybe the senses (including the mind) and what they experience as in the Sabba sutta in SN35.23? Or I think maybe dependent origination is being referred to (what passes away cannot really exist absolutely and what arises cannot really not exist absolutely), so maybe the All is the conditioned. Or maybe it’s broader again (everything: conditioned and unconditioned)? :man_shrugging:

I don’t think SN 12.15 necessarily implies that the All is unfathomable or untraceable (though the universe is mysterious enough :slight_smile: ). And does the status of the arahant after death fall under what SN 12.15 is talking about? Maybe (perhaps depends on if it is referring just to the conditioned or even broader). I just find all this confusing, but I think there’s somewhat of a gap and something else going on between the very general case of the All and the more specific case of the arahant. :man_shrugging:

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Guys, it’s best not to overcomplicate this. “To exist” in dhammic terms means to exist existentially not metaphysically, which means to have the 3 poisons, it doesn’t mean having the 5 aggregates (mind-body) which refers to metaphysics. The dhamma doesn’t deny that the 5 aggregates exist (i.e. exist metaphysically)

To exist (existentially which is what dependent origination is referring to) = 3 poisons:

As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One: “‘A being,’ lord. ‘A being,’ it’s said. To what extent is one said to be ‘a being’?”

"Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for form, Radha: when one is caught up[1] there, tied up[2] there, one is said to be ‘a being.’[3]

  • Satta Sutta

The 5 aggregates exist metaphysically (aka independently, aka world phenomen below) and that is fine and normal

“Form that’s constant, permanent, eternal, not subject to change is agreed upon by the wise as not existing in the world, and I too say, ‘It doesn’t exist.’
…
“And what is agreed upon by the wise as existing in the world that I too say, ‘It exists’?

“Form that’s inconstant, stressful, subject to change is agreed upon by the wise as existing in the world, and I too say, ‘It exists.’
…
“Form is a world-phenomenon in the world that the Tathāgata directly awakens to, breaks through to. Directly awakening to & breaking through to that, he declares it, teaches it, describes it, sets it forth. He reveals it, explains it, makes it plain. Whoever—when that is being declared, taught, described, set forth, revealed, explained, & made plain by the Tathāgata—doesn’t know, doesn’t see, then what can I do for that fool, that run-of-the-mill person: blind, without eye-sight, not knowing, not seeing?

Therefore the goal of the dhamma is to remove the delusion of existentialism, which causes existential suffering. It has nothing to do with the objective/metaphysical/materialistic world, and has nothing to do with stopping metaphysical existence.

It’s grasping to the aggregates that is the issue, not the aggregates themselves.

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This is correct, AFAIK. :grin:

What is a person? Or rather what am ‘I’?

There are a host of options to choose from… At the broadest level I could identify with my social position (son/ parent/ employee etc) or with this body, or with perceptions, thoughts, consciousness etc.

As we drill down, rejecting all these options we narrow down to the idea that ‘I am this stream of Consciousness’. But as the Buddha points out in MN38, even that process can be dissected into 6 sub processes. ‘I’ can be seen as a construct… a clinging to impersonal experience, a conceiving based upon ignorance… like a lingering scent associated with the parts of a flower (SN22.89). In modern terms this person - ‘I’ - am a lot like Siri but with craving, attachments and defilements!

What happens if ‘I’ put aside that sense of identification to Consciousness (Nibbana)? What’s left when all the processes that have so far been considered to be ‘I’ cease too (Parinibbana)(SN12.65)?

What remains?
…### ??? Undefined ??? ###

So what am ‘I’? Do I exist? Do I not exist? Both? Neither? In the 3 times (past/present/ future)?

All these questions can now be seen as inevitably flawed - they are of the type “Where is the Hippogriff ?” :rofl:. The best possible answer is in terms of Dependent Origination, IMO.

SN22.87
One who sees the Dhamma sees me; one who sees me sees the Dhamma.

How deep in Meditation need one go to be able to see through the sense of Self identification- the ‘I’ , ‘my’ and ‘mine’ making? I suspect that that varies, depending on the amount of insight one achieves. :slightly_smiling_face:

(All views are personal opinions and not reflective of any kind of ‘achievement’ on my part!)

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What does this mean? It could mean that when there is no grasping at all, you cannot be reckoned in terms of khandha’s. I think this makes sense. I personally feel this is the base state of every being, sometimes called the buddha-nature.

Without grasping or identifying with khandha’s you cannot say you are a being, not even a human, nor a man or woman, nor buddhist . Later buddhist refer to this as the empty nature of mind.

I feel this emptiness is the most natural abiding state and does not change too. It is also not seen arising. One can become theoretical and say that also this emptiness or stillness arise but i think that moment one graps at theory.

I have the idea the Budddha refers to this unconstructed empty state as the unconditioned and also as deep, immeasurable, hard to fathom. It is groundless.

In other words, there is no fixed identity but there is only the temporary construction of it due to grasping. This created identity arises and ceases all the time but there comes a time we start to see it as fixed, as our identity, as who or what we are. From that time conceived ideas about ourselves, sakkaya ditthi’s, get grip on us. We start to see these ideas as facts, truth about ourselves. It is also a defense mechanism . a fixed Identity somehow is like armour. It protects against instabilty, it protects against anicca. A fixed idenity feels safe.

It is pure terror to abandon such ideas about ourselves and live really without such ideas :blush:

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“does the arahant exist before death”, (asked the fool the wise)

“What do you mean by ‘arahant’?”

“That particular purified body and mind without lobha, dosa and moha, visible for me and others here and now, speaking and acting, teaching Dhamma”.

“But Green, why would you call this a living arahant?”

“Euuh, is that not correct. What is wrong about this?”

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And the next sutta fleshes that out a little more: SN 22.95:

“Mendicants, suppose this Ganges river was carrying along a big lump of foam. And a person with good eyesight would see it and contemplate it, examining it carefully. And it would appear to them as completely void, hollow, and insubstantial. For what substance could there be in a lump of foam?

In the same way, a mendicant sees and contemplates any kind of form at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; coarse or fine; inferior or superior; near or far—examining it carefully. And it appears to them as completely void, hollow, and insubstantial. For what substance could there be in form?

Suppose it was the time of autumn, when the rain was falling heavily, and a bubble on the water forms and pops right away. And a person with good eyesight would see it and contemplate it, examining it carefully. And it would appear to them as completely void, hollow, and insubstantial. For what substance could there be in a water bubble?

In the same way, a mendicant sees and contemplates any kind of feeling at all … examining it carefully. And it appears to them as completely void, hollow, and insubstantial. For what substance could there be in feeling?

Suppose that in the last month of summer, at noon, a shimmering mirage appears. And a person with good eyesight would see it and contemplate it, examining it carefully. And it would appear to them as completely void, hollow, and insubstantial. For what substance could there be in a mirage?

In the same way, a mendicant sees and contemplates any kind of perception at all … examining it carefully. And it appears to them as completely void, hollow, and insubstantial. For what substance could there be in perception?

Suppose there was a person in need of heartwood. Wandering in search of heartwood, they’d take a sharp axe and enter a forest. There they’d see a big banana tree, straight and young and grown free of defects. They’d cut it down at the base, cut off the top, and unroll the coiled sheaths. But they wouldn’t even find sapwood, much less heartwood. And a person with good eyesight would see it and contemplate it, examining it carefully. And it would appear to them as completely void, hollow, and insubstantial. For what substance could there be in a banana tree?

In the same way, a mendicant sees and contemplates any kind of choices at all … examining them carefully. And they appear to them as completely void, hollow, and insubstantial. For what substance could there be in choices?

Suppose a magician or their apprentice was to perform a magic trick at the crossroads. And a person with good eyesight would see it and contemplate it, examining it carefully. And it would appear to them as completely void, hollow, and insubstantial. For what substance could there be in a magic trick?

In the same way, a mendicant sees and contemplates any kind of consciousness at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; coarse or fine; inferior or superior; near or far—examining it carefully. And it appears to them as completely void, hollow, and insubstantial. For what substance could there be in consciousness?:

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Did you see the commentary note that I posted back in post #9? It doesn’t help us much, but I did find it interesting :slight_smile:

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No, I hadn’t read that. Thanks, it’s interesting!

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Yes, the aggregates still exist independently, they’re just insubstantial and not worth grasping.

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Interesting note (1) to AN 10.58 by Ajahn Thānissaro here

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There’s also this

“They are not sense pleasures, the world’s pretty things:
Man’s sensuality is the intention of lust.
The pretty things remain as they are in the world
But the wise remove the desire for them.

and another version of it

There are five varieties of sensuous pleasure.

pañcime bhikkhave kāmaguṇā

Visible objects known via the visual sense…​ tangible objects known via the tactile sense, all of which are likeable, loveable, pleasing, agreeable, connected with sensuous pleasure, and charming

cakkhuviññeyyā rūpā…​ kāyaviññeyyā phoṭṭhabbā iṭṭhā kantāmanāpā piyarūpā kāmupasaṃhitā rajaniyā.

These however are not sensuous yearnings.

Apica kho bhikkhave nete kāmā

In the [terminology of the] Noble One’s training system they are called the varieties of sensuous pleasure.

kāmaguṇā nāmete ariyassa vinaye vuccanti

The sensuous yearning of a man is his thoughts bound up with attachment.

Saṅkapparāgo purisassa kāmo

The world’s attractive things are not sensuous yearning

Nete kāmā yāni citrāni loke

The sensuous yearning of a man is his thoughts bound up with attachment.

Saṅkapparāgo purisassa kāmo

The world’s attractive things remain as they are

Tiṭṭhanti citrāni tatheva loke

The wise eliminate their hankering for them

Athettha dhīrā vinayanti chandan ti.

— A.3.411

So once again, this shows the Buddha isn’t concerned with the external objective and metaphysical world, but only with the internal subjective world.

Key lines:

  • The sensuous yearning of a man is his thoughts bound up with attachment. (not objects in the world)
  • The world’s attractive things remain as they are
  • The wise eliminate their hankering for them

In other words, the problem isn’t the objects in the world, it’s the thoughts in your head regarding them. To say or imply the Buddha is saying the world is made up in the mind is quite a reach, if that were the case he wouldn’t say objects “remain as they are in the world”.

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I think this is all because of guiding us towards dispassion and the living experience that while passion weakens, and the ability of the kilesa’s to govern us weakens, only the cause for suffering weakens.
What is abandoned is not substantial us. It is not that real fundamental changes happen to us. It is not that we change from lead into gold. We cannot change.

Like purified water. It becomes itself while defilements are removed. It is not that it turn into nectar of the Gods or acid. It just stays water, what it always was and is.

We also can only become more ourselves, while the power of defilements weaken and get less grip on us.

Only more become ourselves is not different from becoming Buddha’s, whole, complete.