Existence after Death, Nihilism, and Anattā

[DKervick]

@Sujith

The act of renunciation is the most potent one in the life of an ascetic and he or she is not searching for poison to end suffering. If you think that is the case, then the Dhamma is pure venom since it quite literally aims for the cessation of all phenomena - and existence (bhava) is categorized as a phenomenon in the Dhamma.

I agree renunciation is extremely important for the pursuit of the path. One can’t make much progress in liberation and toward the bliss of total release if one is getting drunk all the time, pursuing sexual conquests and gratification, haggling on the phone all day about the price of sailboats, or arguing with one’s spouse about the exploding household expenses.

But I think it is a mistake to think that when all attachment has ended, when the asavas have been destroyed, when greed, hatred and confusion have been extinguished, and when the process of constructing a me and a mine have been suspended, then no experience of happiness remains. On the contrary, the liberation of nibbana brings perfect bliss and peace - utter happiness.

I think “bhava” in the context of paticca-samuppada refers to something like becoming or ongoing existence or persistence. It has an organic connotation. It’s not just the bare ontological concept of existence. Because we are constantly fashioning a self out of the materials of our existence, we don’t just experience the cessation of coldness and rising of heat in a particular location as they are. We experience that location as my hand (for example), and experience the hand as becoming hot. And we constructively incorporate that hand process into the process of our own ongoing existence, something that is happening to me. Once we understand all of the phenomena we perceive as not self, and thus achieve release from the attachment to those phenomena, we are no longer a participant in the realm of birth and death. We have gone beyond birth and death.

@Sujith

It’s the key doctrinal content of the Dhamma where birth is identified as the cause of suffering and the cessation of birth is presented as the solution to finally eradicate suffering - I don’t see how this fundamental aspect of the Dhamma can be disregarded.

Well, yes, birth is the cause of suffering in that beings can’t suffer if they aren’t born. But by the same token, birth is the cause of happiness - including nibbana. Beings can’t attain nibbana if they aren’t born either.

Suppose you were in the possession of a bomb that had the capacity to vaporize the whole world. And suppose, just as a thought experiment, this bomb were so powerful that it wouldn’t just vaporize all beings, but it would prevent them all from being reborn too. Would you use it?

@Sujith

If the cessation of suffering is what a person wishes for and there is no belief in anything other than common materialism, then suicide is the logical answer - there is just no way around this problem, no matter how much philosophical wizardry is used.

Precisely. That’s why its very dangerous and harmful to perpetuate the idea that the entire goal of the Buddhist path and the whole meaning of life is just the cessation of suffering, rather than the attainment of increasing happiness - leading to pure happiness. If religious people teach and perpetuate this entirely negative doctrine, then the only thing standing between their disciples and suicide is the disciples’ belief that they will be reborn as a hungry ghost or a jackal or a sponge. And then if the disciples use their common sense and critical faculties, and stop believing in rebirth, they might turn suicidal. Buddhism without the prospect of real happiness - and not just the utter cessation of all phenomena - is a noxious doctrine leading to fear, anxiety and depression. It might be successful in inducing desperate people to give gifts to monks so they can move onto a better place, but it doesn’t help them live happier lives here and now.

@Sujith

Such a survey may seem depressing and hopeless, but can suffering be just wished away by hope ?

Suffering can’t be wished away with hope. You have to follow the path of practice to achieve release from it.[quote=“Sujith, post:60, topic:5468”]
What others say is blissful, the noble ones say is stress.
What others say is stressful, the noble know as bliss.
[/quote]

Agreed. The bliss part is just as important as the suffering part. The path to the cessation of suffering is also the path to perfect bliss.

[DKervick]

I think in this case it’s being used primarily in reference to the mind-body problem.

[garekm]

@DKervick

This misconception, if I am right, risks turning “Buddhism” into little more than a miserable but pious suicide cult in which people are terrified by the endless stretches of sadness they imagine before them, and desperately try to end it all. Ending it all is itself mistakenly viewed as the goal. They only reason such people don’t “use the knife” is because they think they are trapped and will only be reborn again. Practicing this form of Buddhism actually risks making people more unhappy and depressed.

True.

@DKervick

So the path is eminently worth pursuing even if the goal isn’t achieved.

But what if you do reach the goal? Then it’s the end. The end of everything, end of suffering, end of happiness, end of bliss. There can be no bliss because there is no one to feel or experience bliss.

It still sounds depressing.

[DKervick]

Why believe it is the end of bliss?

[garekm]

@DKervick

Why believe it is the end of bliss?

There is no one, no thing that can experience bliss. Non-existence cannot experience bliss.

[garekm]

Is there an alternative, less pessimistic view of paranibbana? What about Thanissaro’s “mind like fire unbound” are there Theravadins who accept that and what does that entail in a nutshell?

[DKervick]

In the suffering free state, the bliss is there, but the thought “I am experiencing bliss” is not. When one emerges from that state, the “I” and some suffering return. But life is transformed because the taste and awareness of perfect freedom are still present.

[DKervick]

The Buddha says that for the arahants, the world shines.

[garekm]

@DKervick

In the suffering free state, the bliss is there, but the thought “I am experiencing bliss” is not. When one emerges from that state, the “I” and some suffering return. But life is transformed because the taste and awareness of perfect freedom are still present.

How about the paranibbana state?

[DKervick]

There is no parinibbana state.

[DKervick]

@garekm

Is there an alternative, less pessimistic view of paranibbana? What about Thanissaro’s “mind like fire unbound” are there Theravadins who accept that and what does that entail in a nutshell?

If you are interested in exploring more optimistic conceptions of post-mortem reality for the arahant, you can look at some of the people who interpret the deathless in a more substantive way. Some believe that there is an eternal, unchanging, unconditioned realm or level of reality, and that the arahant on some way attains that realm and abides in it eternally.

[garekm]

@DKervick

If you are interested in exploring more optimistic conceptions of post-mortem reality for the arahant, you can look at some of the people who interpret the deathless in a more substantive way. Some believe that there is an eternal, unchanging, unconditioned realm or level of reality, and that the arahant on some way attains that realm and abides in it eternally.

Ajahn Thanissaro? Any other Theravada bhikkhus? Which ones?

[DKervick]

Yes, Thanissaro appears to be one:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/change.html

One thing it might be helpful to bear in mind is that nothing is “depressing” in itself. Sadness, grief and melancholy are emotional responses to the world, and through the cultivation of meditative awareness and concentration, one can gradually let go of these painful emotional states and reactions. If you are painfully haunted by all of these deep metaphysical questions about the nature of the universe, the mind and life beyond death, by all means don’t neglect the disciplines and meditative practices that can help you release that pain - and can be effective whether or not you get answers to the questions.

[Gabriel]

@DKervick

Some believe that there is an eternal, unchanging, unconditioned realm or level of reality

And here we have elegantly slipped again into ontology, with the exact danger of ‘eternalizing’ the afterlife of the arahant. Abstract texts like MN 102 leave us little place to wiggle. Our discussion is extremely important because a ditthi is not just a conscious philosophy I market, but also finding out about my unconscious principles and bringing them to light (before eradicating them).

If I risk summarizing the complete Dhamma it would make Buddhism a

1. sabbe-sankhara-dukkh-ism
2. nirodha-magga-ism
3. no-views-about-the-past-the-future-or-the-afterlife-ism

Where 1. and 2. are well within the ‘four truths’, the third can only be described as a corrupted principle. Because next to this ‘no-view-ism’ (and it would be great to collect all the EBT sources) we also have countless accounts of personal rebirths. “In the past when I was…” (so the Tathagata has a past after all?!) or when the Buddha is bugged with a question where a certain bhikkhu or householder fared after passing away, and the Buddha says ‘he’s in this or that realm’.

For whatever reasons, the EBT are unsatisfying in that regard, providing biographies, talking about persons, afterlife, rebirth, implying that a person is reborn (and what would that be other than a core element, an atta?)

[DKervick]

@Gabriel

And here we have elegantly slipped again into ontology, with the exact danger of ‘eternalizing’ the afterlife of the arahant.

Yes, I tend to agree with you. But there are at least a few passages within the canon that can be taking as pointing to the existence an unconditioned element or layer or realm or something or other. And some serious scholars have made serious attempts to develop those suggestions into an overall interpretation of the dhamma. Since some people might need, at least temporarily, to hold open the possibility of certain kinds of metaphysical pictures in order to reduce their suffering, it’s worth keeping in mind that the interpretation of these challenging and sometimes cryptic texts has always been a matter of contention.

It’s probably a futile task for people like me, who are from from attaining nibbana, to try to work out the nature of nibbana in advance from the difficult words of ancient texts, especially when there is so little we can say for sure about which of those texts are the most important and authentic. Back to practice then!

[Deeele]

[quote=“Sujith, post:60, topic:5468”]
Dismissing all people who think that bringing the cycle of suffering to an end is a worthy goal[/quote]

If ending reincarnation is the end of suffering, how can there be an assurance reincarnation will end? What is the internal sign that gives assurance reincarnation will end? Thanks

@Sujith

It’s the key doctrinal content of the Dhamma where birth is identified as the cause of suffering and the cessation of birth is presented as the solution to finally eradicate suffering

MN 38 appears to have a description of the cessation of birth occurring while the eye sees the form, the ear hears the sound, etc, as follows:

On seeing a form with the eye, he does not lust after it if it is pleasing; he does not dislike it if it is unpleasing. He abides with mindfulness of the body established, with an immeasurable mind, and he understands as it actually is the deliverance of mind and deliverance by wisdom wherein those evil unwholesome states cease without remainder. Having thus abandoned favouring and opposing, whatever feeling he feels, whether pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant, he does not delight in that feeling, welcome it, or remain holding to it. As he does not do so, delight in feelings ceases in him. With the cessation of his delight comes cessation of clinging; with the cessation of clinging, cessation of being; with the cessation of being, cessation of birth; with the cessation of birth, ageing and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair cease. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.

What is your personal interpretation of the above passage from MN 38? Thanks

@Sujith

This brings us to paticca-samuppada

I have read paticca-samuppada literally means ‘dependent-co-arising’, i.e., all twelve conditions must arise together. What is your view on this, where you seem to believe contact, birth & death (for example) to be discretely separate events? Thanks

[Brahmali]

@DKervick

I don’t understand this, Bhante. If materialism is true but arahantship is achievable, then after death the arahant does not partake in any happiness at all, let alone the highest happiness. It is true that neither the arahant, nor anyone else, will experience pain after death. But it is also true that they won’t experience happiness.

Now we are really getting to the heart of the matter. It is precisely because nothing at all is felt that this is the highest happiness. I am pretty much just quoting from a sutta, which I would be happy to dig out if you are interested.

Another interesting sutta to consider is MN 59, which ranks happiness from the most basic to the highest. It starts off with sensual pleasures, as one would expect. It then goes through the jhānas one by one, each one being more happy than the previous one. One of the fascinating things about the jhānas is that as you go from third jhāna to the fourth you leave behind the highest possible experience of pleasurable feeling (sukha), and yet the fourth jhāna is considered more happy than the third. It is precisely the absence of a direct experience of pleasure that make the fourth jhāna more pleasurable! It sound like a paradox, but it isn’t. It is probably only experience that can fully convince people that this is actually true.

The sutta then continues through the immaterial attainments to the cessation of perception of feeling. The greatest happiness is this final attainment. In other words, the greatest happiness is achieved when nothing at all is felt! Why, because not feeling is superior to feeling.

@DKervick

It seem to me that the first is likely the more rational course.

Sure. But the stakes are still infinitely smaller compared to psychic pain without end in sight.

@DKervick

But nothing about the meditative awareness we cultivate can tell us what the ultimate nature of those mental phenomena are.

But there is. The purpose of meditation is ultimately to see that all phenomena are subject to the three characteristics of impermanence, suffering, and non-self. When you see this, you lose all desire and craving, because everything you could possibly crave for is seen as dukkha. When all craving disappears, including a temporary stop of the underlying tendencies, you see directly that the engine that drives existence has stopped. You directly know that the mind must come to end, eventually (that is, at death), if craving/desire is permanently extinguished. So yes, these things can be directly known, but it takes a very powerful meditative experience, which is otherwise known as streamentry.

@DKervick

To my mind, this is simply a confusion.

It’s not confusion, but it is certainly very rare for anyone to see this. The Dhamma really goes against the stream, and to me this is what makes it to extraordinarily interesting, powerful, and of course liberating.

The root problem is the sense of self. It is this that makes it virtually impossible to see that non-experience could be preferable to experience/feeling. The sense of self gives us a very powerful vested interest in existence, whether this is described in terms of feeling or anything else. The sense of self blinds us to what is true happiness. Delusion is the root problem.

@Coemgenu

I notice “materialism” popping up a lot in this inquiry, for the sake of clarity, given the wide range of “hard” and “soft” materialisms one can encounter, are we speaking of “materialism” as a position that only “material” exists, or as doubt or disbelief in the material existence of nagas and other assorted creatures and beings and/or doubt or disbelief in the material existence of multiple worlds/dimensions?

I just use “materialism” to describe the philosophy that experience ends when you die.

[Mkoll]

I’d say it’s more the latter than the former, but it’s a bit of both. Mostly though, it’s the textbook definition of wrong view. Here, from AN 10.176:

He has wrong view, is warped in the way he sees things: ‘There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed. There is no fruit or result of good or bad actions. There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no brahmans or contemplatives who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.’

The Buddha is obviously the foremost contemplative in proclaiming this world and the next via direct realization.

The materialist view is also one of the 62 wrong views in DN 1 and is summed up well there:

“Herein, bhikkhus, a certain recluse or a brahmin asserts the following doctrine and view: ‘The self, good sir, has material form; it is composed of the four primary elements and originates from father and mother. Since this self, good sir, is annihilated and destroyed with the breakup of the body and does not exist after death, at this point the self is completely annihilated.’ In this way some proclaim the annihilation, destruction, and extermination of an existent being.

But it’s not like someone with wrong view is done for. Recognizing wrong view as wrong view and seeking to establish the mind in right view leads to weal, per MN 117. Holding wrong view leads to the opposite, as repeatedly taught in many texts, one example being AN 3.117 .

[Sujith]

@Deeele

If ending reincarnation is the end of suffering, how can it be ever known it will be ended? What is the internal sign that gives assurance reincarnation will end? Thanks

I can speak only for myself, and to me, the assurance will arrive when the infallible stability of the Dhamma is understood as explained in SN 12.17.

First, Susīma, comes knowledge of the stability of the Dhamma, afterwards knowledge of Nibbāna.

In my personal Dhamma career, I have never renunciated anything, in the sense of ‘sacrificing’. I have ‘rejected’ things but never renunciated anything. Since all conditioned things are unsatisfactory (‘dukkha’), as advised in SN 22.59, what is there to ‘renunciate’?

Family, for one thing. But you have your own personal trajectory, as do others…

Respectfully, your posts give the impression there is “playground” or something attractive in sexual & sensual pleasures that must be denied & renunciated, which creates a sort of ‘despotism’ or ‘authoritarianism’ in your attempt to transmit Dhamma.

No! Suicide is not the logical answer. Respectfully, your posts seem to be drifting further & further from the Dhamma to me, into a form of emotional blackmail & authoritarianism that the Lord Buddha did not engage in.

That’s a lot of harsh words and I did no such thing as engage in ‘despotic authoritarianism’ or ‘emotional blackmail’.

The only contentious point that I was discussing with DKervick was the old debate of rebirth - and it was mostly in a non-combative manner. The key point which I don’t agree with is his position that the pursuit of happiness is the goal. To me, abandoning the thirst for happiness is a higher release, since happiness is also ultimately conditioned by other factors.

MN 38 seems to describe the cessation of birth occurs while the eye sees the form, the ear hears the sound, etc, as follows:

On seeing a form with the eye, he does not lust after it if it is pleasing; he does not dislike it if it is unpleasing. He abides with mindfulness of the body established, with an immeasurable mind, and he understands as it actually is the deliverance of mind and deliverance by wisdom wherein those evil unwholesome states cease without remainder. Having thus abandoned favouring and opposing, whatever feeling he feels, whether pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant, he does not delight in that feeling, welcome it, or remain holding to it. As he does not do so, delight in feelings ceases in him. With the cessation of his delight comes cessation of clinging; with the cessation of clinging, cessation of being; with the cessation of being, cessation of birth; with the cessation of birth, ageing and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair cease. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.

@Sujith. What is your personal interpretation of the above passage from MN 38?

That’s a marvellous passage and the main thing that is striking to me is the equilibrium that is presented as the highest liberation. Cessation is presented as the eradication of the desire to partake of either pleasure or pain, happiness or distress.

As for how elimination of desire actually results in the destruction of birth, I have no idea - the mundane mechanics of this is not present in the EBTs, to my knowledge.

I have read paticca-samuppada literally means ‘dependent-co-arising’, i.e., all twelve conditions must arise together. What is your view on this, where you seem to believe contact, birth & death (for example) to be separate events?

Nope, not going to take the bait.

We already have Nanavira vs BB, Nanananda vs traditionalists…

[Deeele]

@Mkoll

Mostly though, it’s the textbook definition of wrong view. Here, from AN 10.176:

He has wrong view, is warped in the way he sees things: ‘There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed. There is no fruit or result of good or bad actions. There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no brahmans or contemplatives who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.’

MN 117 states the opposite right view is a defiled right view & not the noble right view; that this defiled right view is only for the development of morality, as stated in MN 117 and MN 60. It seems unrelated to the Noble Eightfold Path of liberation (apart from assisting with a moral foundation).

The very fact that this defiled right view believes there are (spontaneously arisen - not “reborn”) “beings” (“satta”) shows it is really wrong view from a noble point of view, even though it is right view from a moral point of view. SN 5.10 states it is Mara that believes “beings” (“satta”) are real.

Also, the Pali is paraloka, which means: “other worlds” rather than “next world”.

it follows, there appears to be nothing in this teaching that explicitly states there is reincarnation.

@Mkoll

“Herein, bhikkhus, a certain recluse or a brahmin asserts the following doctrine and view: ‘The self, good sir, has material form; it is composed of the four primary elements and originates from father and mother. Since this self, good sir, is annihilated and destroyed with the breakup of the body and does not exist after death, at this point the self is completely annihilated.’ In this way some proclaim the annihilation, destruction, and extermination of an existent being.

This is obviously a wrong view because it maintains the belief in “self”. I suggest to read it carefully.

Regards