Enjoying Nibbana?

The Watercooler
21

Thanks for sharing.

My experience is: Theravada, mahayana, vajrayana they all teach that detachment , non-clinging is the goal. Whatever one makes ones home, there is attachment happening. If ones makes peace ones home, stillness, emptiness, whatever, there is still delight, there is still clinging, there is still avijja and tanha. There is still no end of suffering.

Making a state ones home is an expression of living with a sense of self. Buddha came to see that being without any sense of home/self makes mind extremely pliant, stilled, flexible, unburdened, free. Being homeless. He sought a home and he found it in being homeless.

Being homeless means one is not in some fixed state of peace or stillness or emptiness. Nibbana and fixation mutually exclude eachother. Mind without clinging has no abidingplace. Its can make everything ones home any moment but also abandon this immediately at wish. This is the freedom of the awakened ones.

1 Like
22

Maybe the sequence from MN59 explains this:

(sensual pleasures… each jhāna…)

It’s when a mendicant, going totally beyond the dimension of nothingness, enters and remains in the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. This is a pleasure that is finer than that.

There are those who would say that this is the highest pleasure and happiness that sentient beings experience. But I don’t grant them that. Why is that? Because there is another pleasure that is finer than that. And what is that pleasure? It’s when a mendicant, going totally beyond the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, enters and remains in the cessation of perception and feeling. This is a pleasure that is finer than that.
It’s possible that wanderers of other religions might say, ‘The ascetic Gotama spoke of the cessation of perception and feeling, and he includes it in happiness. What’s up with that?’

When wanderers of other religions say this, you should say to them, ‘Reverends, when the Buddha describes what’s included in happiness, he’s not just referring to pleasant feeling. The Realized One describes pleasure as included in happiness wherever it is found, and in whatever context.’”

That is what the Buddha said.

And then compare with AN9.34

There he addressed the mendicants: “Reverends, extinguishment is bliss! Extinguishment is bliss! (sukha)”

When he said this, Venerable Udāyī said to him, “But Reverend Sāriputta, what’s blissful about it, since nothing is felt?”

“The fact that nothing is felt is precisely what’s blissful about it.

(sensual pleasures… each jhāna…)

Furthermore, take a mendicant who, going totally beyond the dimension of nothingness, enters and remains in the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception. While a mendicant is in such a meditation, should perceptions accompanied by the dimension of nothingness beset them due to loss of focus, that’s an affliction for them. Suppose a happy person were to experience pain; that would be an affliction for them. In the same way, should perceptions accompanied by the dimension of nothingness beset them due to loss of focus, that’s an affliction for them. And affliction has been called suffering by the Buddha. That too is a way to understand how extinguishment is bliss.

Furthermore, take a mendicant who, going totally beyond the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, enters and remains in the cessation of perception and feeling. And, having seen with wisdom, their defilements come to an end.

That too is a way to understand how extinguishment is bliss.

23

If you accept conditioned arising and impermanence and cessation - there is a logical, you could say natural, consequence - unconditioned. We (as in English speakers) use propositional logic so when we say the “unconditioned is …” we automatically fall into substance attribute thinking. Pretty sure this problem of connecting language to ‘wisdom’ did not pass by Buddha unnoticed, and pretty sure he pointed out the gibberish that arises from I-mine in relation to “I am unconditioned and these attributes are mine.”

24

The answer is in the suttas - “nothing is just nothing.” All sorts of metaphysical calisthenics have been performed around this in order to reasonably hypostasize “nothing.” OK. It does however go against both Indian and Western positivism : nothing comes from nothing.

Probably you should look at the construction of engagement and dispute in Nagarjuna. An there are other critical books to his way not just the MMK. Certainly also the Dispeller of Disputes and Crushing the Categories.