EBT Quotes contradicting a set of Premises

Discussion
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Hi everyone,

P(1) ALL CONSCIOUSNESS IS IMPERMANENT, SUFFERING AND WITHOUT SELF.(Suffering <==> Consciousness)

P(2) Consciousness is caused and it’s causes can be rooted out completely.

P(3) When the sankharas cease vinnana ceases eventually.

P(4) In “Nibbāna with residue” there is still consciousness.

P(5) The most profound states of samādhi are states of consciousness.

P(6) A living Buddha/Arahant has consciousness.

C(1) Therefore “Nibbāna with residue” is impermanent and suffering too.

C(2) The most profound states of samādhi consciousness are suffering too.

C(3) The full ending/cessation of consciousness is the full ending of any suffering and is therefore more desirable
than the blisses of even the most profound states of samādhi consciousness and “Nibbana with residue”.

C(4) A living Buddha/Arahant is suffering too.

C(5) A consciousness free of of greed, hatred and
delusion is suffering too.

C(6) Only non-consciousness is permanent and free from suffering (Nibbana in the strict sense).

C(7) Consciousness can be ended completely.

I’d be thankful for any Quotes from the EBTs that contradict any/all of these 6 Premises!
(Or if you can show me that a conclusion doesn’t follow from these Ps)

Best,
Michael

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Great summary. I am wondering if you’re claiming if there’s a contradiction here.

Oh are you using C as in contradiction or conclusion?

Anyway, I kinda question this P5, cessation of perception and feeling has no mind, no consciousness. It’s up there with many profound states of samadhi like the signless immersion, perception of nibbāna, etc, so I am not sure how to judge most profound state.

Also, just to clarify for future anticipated question, the suffering implied for nibbāna with residue and so on is the gross unpleasant suffering of having a physical body, the suffering of conditionality, that the body needs food to survive, needs to go to toilet and so on, and the suffering of change, of it being impermanent, so even the most comfortable chair will become uncomfortable when one sits there long enough.

The most profound states of samadhi is suffering as in it cannot last forever, part of suffering of change.

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Hello NgXinZhao ,
thank you for your reply!

Interesting point -from a 3d-Person perspective I’d guess that they still show different patterns in (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), electrocardiography (ECG) etc. than those from non-rem sleep , koma etc.

yes the Cs are some Conclusions

Best,
M.

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It’s not easy to find a non returner lay person who would be willing to do it on demand while being measured. Anyway, need some independent source to verify if the participant really is attaining to the cessation of perception and feeling. And it’s also not easy to verify.

Anyway, whatver brainwaves there are, they are not mind. Mind is not brain.

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I would like to remind you that cessation of perception and feeling is a state of samadhi and is not without causes. It needs it’s conditions to exist ( Meditation, Effort, Persistence etc). Thus it’s impermanent and not self.

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“Vinnana” should be understood as eye-vinnana, ear … nose … taste … body … mind-Vinnana.

It should be understood as the attachment to respective sense objects in connection to vinnana.

Nothing more. Nothing less. When talking of abstract notions like awareness, etc. then other words should be used

What “consciousness”??? What exactly do you mean by “consciousness”?

Sure. But not in the way you think.

. There is no eye attachment, no ear … no nose … no tongue … no body … no mind attachment.

All of those attachments have been dissolved. If you are talking about bare awareness, you should be considering different words.

As such, your argument relies on a false equivalence of sense-consciousness and the idea that awareness and consciousness are equals.

Sure. No one argues they are not. Samadhi is not the goal of the path. It is a means to an end.

You’ve gone beyond sense-consciousness and wrongfully extended into levels of percipience which do not apply to Nibbana with or without residue.

I believe most would agree that the “residue” is the kamma of this life. Once that residue is exhausted there is no further pain or suffering.

The Buddha complained of back pain in his later years. No one is claiming that the Buddha didn’t experience pain. The claim is that he realized “rebirth is ended”.

The consciousness of that state is beyond suffering. The kamma of the body cannot be escaped until the physical ending of the body.

The end of consciousness is not the same as the end of suffering. IMO.

Perhaps the Self can be ended completely. And perhaps you’re right. But I don’t see how this conclusion follows from your premises.

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So you are saying that P(1) is false since the suttas speak only of a kind of “ordinary consciousness” -everyday consciousness of the everyman ?
I intended “conscioussness” here to mean ANY conceivable awareness however pure etc. , any possible way that anything can be experienced at all . Are you saying there is some kind of permanent non-suffering consciousness/awareness? That to me would sound like Patanjalis purushas … you would have a dualism though of material prakriti-cittas and purushas…

On the other hand :

[…]Why is that? Because there is another kind of
pleasure loftier and more sublime than that pleasure. And what is that other kind
of pleasure? Here, Ānanda, by completely surmounting the base of neither-per-
ception-nor-non-perception, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the cessation of
perception and feeling. This is that other kind of pleasure loftier and more sublime
than the previous pleasure.120 (MN I 400 and SN IV 228)

If pleasure here doesn’t just mean non-dukkha this cessation can’t mean no awareness at all. At the same time other passages imply that you can’t cease perceiving and feeling without also ceasing consciousness:

Feeling, perception and consciousness, friend – these states are conjoined
(saṃsaṭṭhā), not disjoined, and it is impossible to separate each of these states from
the others in order to describe the difference between them. For what one feels,
that one perceives; and what one perceives, that one cognises.29 (MN I 293)

Best, M.

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We should take seriously the later on where consciousness, feeling and perception are not separatable.

The sutta on the cessation is a higher pleasure has someone ask, how can it be pleasure when there’s nothing felt, exactly because there’s nothing felt that it’s bliss.

From the 3rd Jhāna onwards, we have the peak of pleasant feelings, and the peak of neutral feelings would be the neither perception nor non perception. And cessation is no feelings. If there were any awareness there, it can only be aware of neutral feelings. Feelings is of 3 types, pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, not 4 types, pleasant, unpleasant, neutral and no feeling. There’s no awareness of no feeling, thus it’s not part of feelings.

It’s hard indeed to understand it form the self idea point of view, but since there is no self, nothing is better than something. And there’s no contradiction of having no self in nothing, because there’s also no self in something.

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I didn’t address P(1). I addressed P(3), P(4), and P(6).

Is P(1) false? Maybe.

From AN 11.7

Could it be, sir, 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. 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. They wouldn’t perceive this world in this world, or the other world in the other world. And they wouldn’t perceive what is seen, heard, thought, known, attained, sought, or explored by the mind. And yet they would still perceive.

“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.’

Note the bolded in particular. If you truly want to refer to consciousness in the same context, then, in this case, it pertains not to what is either “thought” or “known”. Would that still be “consciousness” in your opinion?

Well. From the above sutta, it would appear that there is at least one perception (or aspect of consciousness - if you prefer) which is not suffering. However, this aspect, as I’ve said, is utterly divorced from sense-consciousness. It is something neither thought of nor known by the mind. Ie. not a classical specimen of consciousness.

I am saying AN 11.7

“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.’

Then there might be a peculiar type of consciousness associated with the above peculiar type of perception.

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:pray:
Also, the ”known” from AN 11.7 (and all the other suttas) is in Pali: Viññātaṁ.

Viññātaṁ = Known

Viññāṇa = ??? :wink:

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Whilst alive Buddhas and Arahants suffer, because all feelings are dukkha. Anything conditioned is dukkha.