SuttaCentral
Well, with a 100 people you have a 100 different understandings of Buddhism, no one can do better than their own perceptions! 
You and I will probably not even accept our present views a few years from now, because our understanding will have evolved 
Indeed. And I’m glad you used the word “perceive.” The Buddha instructed us to cultivate the perception of anicca, of dukkha in what is anicca, of anatta in what is dukkha, etc (e.g. AN 7.49, AN 10.60). This is not the same thing as coming to a view like “everything is dukkha” and clinging to that. That would just condition the mind to be depressed and aversive. Insight is developed via a dynamic process fueled by wise effort, not via an arrival and sticking to a view. Developing the perception of impermanence is very helpful in moving toward seeing the nature of views, IME.
Possibly. However, I have two questions:
How does impermanence differ from nihilism? If life is perceived as impermanent, is that not nihilism?
Importantly, how does the perception of impermanence assist in the final goal of ending ‘birth’ (‘jati’)?
Thanks 
You seem somewhat stubbornly committed, despite the evidence of many sutta passages pointing in an opposite and more hopeful direction, to interpreting the suttas in the most bleak and pessimistic manner possible, so that you can then go on to reject the teachings in the suttas.
The neuropsychological evidence points to the existence of states of mind in which experience is present, but suffering due to bodily pain is not. These states of mind are not nibbana, and if they occur in the context of a person attempting to live their everyday lives, they are dangerous and dysfunctional, and will lead to other forms of suffering. But the very fact that they exist is relevant to the conceptual questions we have been examining. And if they occur only temporarily to one abiding in a deep state of meditation, they might not be dysfunctional.
“Real Buddhism” is, I would say, whatever can be pulled out of the Buddha’s teaching as passed down to us in the earliest texts, and also whatever can be known from direct experience by putting those teachings into practice. There might not be only one consistent doctrine if we rely on the texts alone. The issues we are debating have been debated repeatedly throughout Buddhist history. The various schools of Theravada orthodoxy are only one way of interpreting the texts.
Obviously, if texts say at one and the same time, in reference to the same attainment, “This is bliss” and “This is the cessation of existence”, we have an immediate problem of interpretation, since it is hard to understand how anything can be blissful if it does not exist. One approach is to de-emphasize the bliss part of the description, and say that nibbana is the complete cessation of everything that in anyway constitutes the experience of the arahant. This camp says that “bliss” here only means something negative like “not-suffering”, and is compatible with the complete absence of any positive reality that is part of the arahant’s experience.
But that interpretive approach is hard to reconcile with the joyful exultations of the arahants recorded in the suttas, which seem to point to an attainment that is experienced as perfect freedom, perfect peace, and a pure, undefiled happiness. The burden of the constructed self has been “put down”. What is experienced is no longer experienced as part of a me: the tendency to “conceit” has been entirely eradicated during this experience, and so the experience is not accompanied by conceptualizations incorporating the elements of experience into what is I and mine. There is just the experience, without the constructed fiction of an experiencer separate from the experience that is “having” the experience.
So I would suggest that we should focus on the proper interpretation of the “existence” side of the interpretive puzzle above. The Buddha’s use of the term “bhava” refers to something more specific than just the bare ontological meaning of “existence”. It refers to the continuity of a being or self, something that perceives itself as existing from one moment to the next, and is therefore involved in an experienced process of becoming. But once the stream of experience no longer includes the processes of I-making and my-making, there is no longer any experience of becoming. The experiences arise and pass away, but the experience no longer has any intimation of a continuing self that is abiding from one moment to the next, and is successively inhabiting each moment of experience.
We should not assume that the Buddha’s attainments, and the attainments of the other arahants, could be easily described by the conventional language and idioms available to them.
On the contrary. I do not have any agenda of rejecting the suttas and it is unfair of you to characterize me in such a way. I am simply doing my best to understand the suttas. Personal attacks are sign that you are losing the argument, so stick to reasoning.
The so called pessimistic views you attribute to me are based on all the corrections that people (including you) have made of my views of nibbana and so I’m expressing my ‘corrected’ view.
My actual view of nibbana is close to the ancient Greek view of equanimity, peace of mind, contentment with little and finding pleasure in the simple things in life such as sitting in a garden on a sunny day or going on silent retreat with dhamma friends.
But you won’t even allow me those pleasures:
If someone tells me that I can’t enjoy sitting in a garden with a tranquil mind without worrying about all the flowers dying; or I can’t go on silent retreat without some sense of sadness about my friends dying, then I ‘d say that person is a pessimist. But, by your own words, that is your view of Buddhist doctrine. So it is you that has a pessimistic and bleak view of early Buddhism. Thanks for teaching me.
I didn’t think I attacked you, but sorry if the tone was offending.
Certainly, one can find enjoyment in all sorts of everyday activities. There is no question that enjoying a hike in a beautiful forest, and a pleasant and carefree day in a lovely garden is, relatively speaking, a much happier state of existence than lying in bed with a fever and gastric distress from food poisoning.
But these states are only relatively and imperfectly happy states, which are mixed with some level of suffering, and cannot be identified with nibbana. The Buddha taught a path to a state that was both purely happy, containing no admixture of pain whatsoever, and supremely happy, in that it is a happier state than any other state one can experience.
The pain that remains present in even states that are very happy, in ordinary worldly terms, is always experienced at some level, whether one mindfully attends to it or not. The point of mindfully attending to all of the elements of one’s experience, the pleasures and the pain, is not to then become absorbed in the pain and make oneself morose in the midst of gladness. The point is to make further progress on the path toward the highest happiness by seeing, and letting go of, the constructive mental factors that are causing continuing suffering.
@Brahmali @Erika_ODonnell @raivo @DKervick @tuvok @cjmacie @DaoYaoTao @Deeele @Sujith
Hi bhante and friends ,
What is suffering ?
We are not talking about
the bodily suffering right ?
We are talking about
psychological suffering ?
Or mentally suffering right ?
So , how does one come to the
Conclusion that one is suffering ?
For example , our eyes is
looking at a very ugly object ,
and the reaction is that
the mind say " disgusting "
through the mouth!
Correct me if I’m wrong with it !
And does the above conclusion
of disgusting feeling is suffering ?
With Metta
Yes, I would say that all experience that is in any way unhappy, dissatisfied or unpleasant is included: mental, physical, “existential” - all of it.
As it is sometimes pointed out the translation ‘suffering’ for dukkha is often too dramatic. Just looking at our experience of deep satisfaction or joy in life a rendering like ‘incomplete’ is certainly more fitting. ‘Incomplete’ simply because it goes away again. Of course if I’m all upekkha/chill with the going-away-of-joy then no problem, or rather the opposite: bodhi!
As it was mentioned in this discussion, part of the buddha-dhamma seems to only make sense with the endless-cycle-of-rebirths in the background. Who doesn’t believe in it: no big problem with a comfortable life. But who really believes in it, sees the endless/ neverending repetition of coming and going, joy, pain, again dying, again forgetting, etc., how could someone really enjoy a nice day in the garden? There would be a constant voice in the back of the mind: ‘practice! go beyond! reach the ‘safe shore’ of safety! then you can relax and enjoy!’ So who believes in samsara - and the EBT have a clear tendency to make us believe it - would indeed see not just incompleteness but actual ‘existential’ suffering, even in a nice experience. Am I too far off interpreting you in this way @DKervick?
If life is on-the-whole comfortable, then it will be on-the-whole comfortable whether it lasts 75 years or 75 billion years. If it also contains much suffering, then it is worth looking for a way the lessen and end that suffering no matter how long it lasts. Surely one wants to live the best possible life, no matter how long it lasts, no?
The question of rebirth is just a question about how long life is, not about the qualitative nature of life.
Also, the rebirth defenders don’t really think you will be reborn as “you”. It’s a different person (or other being) with a different name, different memories and a different sense of identity, who has somehow inherited your kamma.
Not sure if I understand you correctly, but maybe like this: If I knew that I would be reborn into eternity, but in a pleasant deva realm, I probably wouldn’t care much about any practice. The urgency that the EBT try to create is that no matter how well I do now, or how well I practice, as long as I haven’t made a breakthrough I’ll be exposed to an unsafe up-and-down, rebirth in hell and as a cockroach included. And beneath human it seems difficult to improve one’s life.
Hmm. I don’t think that is the picture that they generally present. Rebirth isn’t supposed to be a random cycle of Russian Roulette. The nature of your next life is supposedly determined by the kammic qualities of your intentional action in this life.
But yes, the possibility of attaining pleasant future lives through the accumulation of good kamma and merit, according to the conventional Buddhist worldview, is one reason why I am skeptical that the reality or non-reality of rebirth makes much difference to the permanent relevance of the path for everyone, at every moment. For many people who believe in rebirth, the long future road ahead of them is an interesting horizon of worldly prospects that can go very well for them if they live well. It is no different for them in that regard than the horizon of their present worldly life.
If a person has a sunny and upbeat demeanor, they will probably have a sunny perspective on both the remainder of their present life and the long haul of future lives. But if they have a perspective more attuned to suffering, they will be concerned to seek a way out of that suffering, no matter how long they think it is gong to last.
Time lengths are relative. I can imagine this kind of conversation among one of those insect species that live only for an hour. One insect says: “This life is so stressful and dreary. I’m going to meditate and try to find true happiness!” The other insect says, “Fool. You don’t know that it is possible to live two hours, three hours, six hours, even a whole day! You could even live a whole year! Or 75 years! Unless you realize that you might live as long as 75 years, your meditation and search for true happiness is pointless. A life of only an hour just doesn’t contain enough existential dread to make a search for liberation meaningful. But if you knew you were going to be reborn for 75 years, wow! Then you would really want to meditate!”
Thank you James. I personally only talk about psychological suffering or mental suffering (in the context of the Four Noble Truths).
There are other teachings that use the word ‘dukkha’ (such as painful feelings & the Three Characteristics) however I do not translate the word ‘dukkha’ as ‘suffering’ in these other teachings.
Regards 
But, then you are
indirectly saying an Arahant
still in suffering as long as
he/she is existing
with a physical body
and the 5 aggregates !
And this contradict
your statements
and the four noble truth !
Best wishes
I’m sorry James. I don’t really understand what you are saying. Could you put i another way?
Because you are implying
as long as One whom
is having " all " ( i. e. )
" experience " plus
" Existential " ,
Is in fact they were
Still in suffering !
And an Arahant also
having " experiences " !
And being " existential " !
Best wishes
[quote=“James, post:155, topic:5468”]
But, then you are
indirectly saying an Arahant
still in suffering as long as
he/she is existing
with a physical body
and the 5 aggregates !
[/quote]I think @DKervick’s point is more along the lines of: "what is pain? is pain the experience of pain or is pain something in-and-of itself? If pain is experience of pain, then how can that experience be transformed?
I think it is moreso along the lines of saying: the material body of the Arahant is a normal human body (including a nervous system), it is the mind that has changed? If I am reading correctly, I don’t want to be putting words in anyone’s mouth.
Yes by physical pain and mental pain I mean two kinds of experiences, such as the physical experience of a pain in your toe and the mental experience of grief when your puppy dies.
Ah ha , I see. Then if
there is pain in the toe ,
is it not you experience it
" afterwards " ?
There is a series of continuous
pain sensations occurs in the toe ,
and every each one related to
the Functioning of the mind ,
therefore the mind link up
the painful sensations and
Take it to as " me painful " !
And one says ,
" oh dear I am suffering " !
Or " wow I am happy " !
Which is of course
a kind of delusion !
This is supposed to be same as
what happened to the mind part !
Am I getting this right ?
Best wishes .