Existence after Death, Nihilism, and Anattā

I don’t think we disagree about as much as it might at first have appeared, Bhante. But there are some disagreements.

I don’t know is we can draw this conclusion, Bhante. In the suttas, consciousness (viññāṇa) always seems to be used in the sense of the cognition of objects of some kind - either the visual, auditory, somatic, olfactory, gustatory objects of the senses, or internal mental objects to which we can direct our attention. Consciousness is the awareness of something. Being aware of some object means that we are in some kind of mental contact with it, and when we are in contact with it, we have a feeling response to it: the objects is experienced as pleasurable, painful, or some combination of the two.

But this leaves open the possibility that there are other kinds of state one can experience that are objectless. These states are unified, undifferentiated and complete in themselves, and are not directed upon an object. They are blissfully and perfectly pleasurable - though not the kind of pleasure that comes from contemplating and feeling the effects of some object, and are without any tincture pain or suffering. The one undergoing this experience is thus perfectly happy, although, since viññāṇa, ahamkara have mamamkara have ceased during the experience, there is no thought at that time of the kind “I am happy” or “I am experiencing pleasure.” There is only the experience and not the conscious reflection on it.

I pretty much agree with all of this, although I would put it slightly differently: Although they had the experience, and thus abided in it for however long they occurred, they did not also have the concurrent experience of reflecting on or thinking about the experience they were having. All reflective, conscious and discursive mental experience had ceased during the experience. They were extremely happy during the experience, in fact happy in the highest possible way, but it is only after they begin to emerge from the experience that they recover the mental tools to think “Wow, that supreme bliss” or something of the sort.

Yes, I think this is it. I would say it means that there is a self-contained experience that is perfect happiness, but it does not consist in taking pleasure in any objects of either the senses or the mind.

That could be. But we don’t really know whether the arahant abides in perfect happiness after death. What seems clear from the descriptions above is that when the arahant attains nibbana in this very life, in addition to everything negative being extinguished, there is something positive that remains, something that makes that attainment a state of perfect happiness, and not just a blank spot in the flow of the arahant’s experience that is neither happy nor unhappy. But we don’t know what happens to the arahant after death. It could be nothing. The arahant’s mental processes might come to a complete end, including the ability to abide in the state of supreme happiness.

We have to disagree partly here. Yes, consciousness (viññāṇa) always has some object. It is always the cognition of some metal object, the awareness of something, even if that something is very attenuated, such as the base of the sphere of infinite space or the base of nothingness. And feeling arises from consciousness. But that doesn’t entail that there are no mental states that are not states of consciousness. Certainly if such states exist, they have attributes in the sense that there is something that is true of them. But the state itself does not involve the consciousness of its own attributes.

What if you could be reborn into a perfectly happy state that was truly perpetual, endless? Buddhist doctrine says that such a state cannot exist, because everything that is born ultimately dies. Everything that has a beginning has an end. But I wonder what argument or insight could actually prove this to be true? After all, there doesn’t seem to be any conceptual or logical absurdity in the idea of a thing or state that has a beginning but no end.

But in any case, these are matters I try not to worry too much about. It has always seemed to me that part of the point of the path is to let go of the anxiety about what I might be in the future, which includes worries about whether or not there is something beyond death. This is unwise attention.

https://suttacentral.net/en/mn2/9

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I don’t want to derail this interesting discussion, but something is not clear to me.

It was said, that with experience of Stream Entry one gets a glimpse of Nibbana. If I understand correctly that is the state you call here ‘cessation of perception and feeling’.

It was also said, that jhanas are not required for Stream Entry. How is that possible? How could one have experience, or rather non-experience of such great stillness, to the point of cessation of any experience without going through all 8th jhanas, or at the very least without stumbling on the first one?

Well, this then would be the feeling aspect of this attainment. You don’t need a separate object, a duality of experience, to have feeling. But feeling ends - completely - in the quote from MN 59.

All reflection ends as you enter the first jhāna. This is the beginning of non-dual awareness. The end of perception and feeling is a long way beyond this.

Mind can only exist with consciousness - self-consciousness or reflective awareness is not required, just consciousness. I cannot see how the word mind has any meaning if there is no awareness. Mental states only exist dependent on our ability to experience them.

Certainly in the suttas mind and consciousness are used synonymously.

You know that these states have been effected through causes, that is, samādhi happens because the causes have been put into place. Once the causes run out of momentum, the state itself is lost. This is what you see.

Streamentry is not the same as experiencing the cessation of perception and feeling. Streamentry is an insight into the nature of conditioned existence, and you only glimpse nibbāna inferentially; see SN 12.68.

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However if this state involved a sense of time, it wouldn’t be ultimate bliss, IMO.

With metta

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While this makes sense logically, there seems to come a point in advanced practice where it’s not clear to the being if awareness (of an object) is still there or not (eg MN 102). The arupa-ayatanas for example get quite lofty, and especially the neither-nor-ayatana #8 sounds like it’s easy to confuse with complete cessation. especially for someone/something reborn in that realm.

Regarding ‘ultimate bliss’ etc., this must be either deficient, or a metaphor (both are unfortunate because misleading). Any experience of anything creates / depends on a basis in which it is experienced. If there is a basis, it is a dependent state. And this already disqualifies complete liberation. While we have a ariyāyatana in AN 9.69 it’s not clear what it refers to.

If there is a ‘radiating citta’ as an effect of complete liberation it can’t be ‘bending’ in ‘perception’ - that would be per definition namarupa. Now who knows how arahants operate in daily life. Maybe they ‘perceive’ and bend their minds toward the object, and then it ‘straightens out’ by itself, maybe not.

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I have had always thought that the duality is required to have feeling. Feeling is conditioned by consciousness and contact with an object - either a sense object or a mind object. No object, no vedana.

But that leaves open the possibility that there are states of mind that are pleasurable and happy, but not pleasurable vedana. They are not pleasure taken in the contemplation of some object, not even the contents of one’s own mind.

In contemporary philosophical terms, this is the claim that an essential property of mentality is intentionality - the directedness toward some object of thought or awareness. But this claim has been denied by those who hold there are “raw” non-intentional mental states that are not directed toward any object or representative of anything. They just are. They have their own intrinsic features that don’t refer beyond themselves.

As for the word “experience”, we can distinguish a sense of this term in which it is roughly synonymous with undergoing. Your mental experiences are just the events that occur, of whatever kind, in the course of your mental life, whether these are intentional or non-intentional mental events. So, in that sense, to have some experience X does not entail that there is some thing Y that the experience X is an experience of. And it is not necessary that X itself be the object of a further state of mental awareness. It is thus conceivable that a person could undergo experience X without at the same time being aware that they are undergoing X. The awareness of one’s own mental states is an additional mental phenomenon that typically accompanies those states, and introduces, as you say, a duality in the mind. But it is not necessary that that duality always be present.

By the way, this is fun! :slight_smile:

Yes, that seems right. Even if the state had a beginning of time, if the person in that state were aware of the passage of time or its temporal limits, their enjoyment of the state would be troubled.

Bhikkhu Bodhi certainly thinks Nibbana is a transcendental state:

Nibbana is … a reality transcendent to the entire world of mundane experience, a reality
transcendent to all the realms of phenomenal existence. link

and

Nibbana is … the unconditioned state experienced while alive with the extinguishing of the flames of greed, aversion, and delusion.
The Noble Eightfold Path: The Way to the End of Suffering

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One view I’ve seen iterated is that nibbana is an unconditioned dhamma (so actually has a reality) that is sukha, nicca, but anatta. I haven’t seen anything yet to really contradict such an interpretation (though someone here may well point it out) from my sutta reading so far (there even seems to be some basis for that view in some passages). When consciousness and the rest of the five aggregates are gone, when everything else is stripped away, then what’s left? Nothing or the ineffable/inconceivable?

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I think there is another angle to this: the cessation of pain can be realized in this very life as mentioned in the Mahaparinibbana sutta:

I, Ānanda, at present, am old, elderly, of great age, far gone, advanced in years, I am eighty years old. It is like, Ānanda, an old cart, which only keeps going when shored up with bamboo, just so, Ānanda, I think the Realised One’s body only keeps going when shored up with bamboo.

When the Realised One doesn’t pay attention, Ānanda, to any of the signs, when all feelings have ceased, he lives having established the signless mind-concentration, and at that time, Ānanda, the Realised One’s body is most comfortable.

Also related is what the Buddha says regarding how feelings are to be viewed by one who is still striving (SN 36.5) :

When, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu has seen pleasant feeling as painful, painful feeling as a dart, and neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling as impermanent, he is called a bhikkhu who sees rightly.

But how exactly can we view pleasant feelings as painful ? Is it just by observing them and seeing that they are also impermanent, or is there any deeper realization that needs to happen ?

Practising and understanding the Dhamma should really be fun, at least most of the time. So I am glad you are seeing it that way. Hopefully it is also helpful for the practice of the path. Keep on enjoying!

This question only arises because of the sense of self. When the sense of self is gone, the question is seen as meaningless. This is why the Buddha normally refused to answer similar kinds of question. To answer would be to buy into the delusion.

I don’t think you see them as painful - that would be an oxymoron - but you see their shortcomings. First, you understand their conditioned nature and thus their unreliability. Second, through your own experience you realise that neutral feelings are superior to pleasant feelings.

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Yes, you are right I think! :slight_smile: Thinking about it now, while there may be passages one could probably stretch to being indicative one way or the other (though never really conclusively from what I have seen), the Buddha does seem to in the main to just not answer (as you say) or sidestep questions of this type, which must be deliberate, and seems to signify that he thought answering such questions was unhelpful. Thank you for the reply!

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I do agree with you. If death is really the end, then there is no point to Buddhism. But can you explain why Bhikkhu Bodhi has such radically different ideas than yours about nibbana?

Exactly. Nothing is experienced. It is nonsensical to describe post-death as the highest happiness.

In fact, the epicureans used such an argument to insist that death is not to be feared by any rational creature because it can’t be experienced and it is the end. So the emphasis becomes to enjoy life here and now. Enjoyment doesn’t mean being consumed by greed, anger and delusion, rather it means understanding those things and developing some level of peace of mind and serene calmness: ataraxia.

It seems that Early Buddhism changed even during the course of the Buddha’s teaching or perhaps the suttas changed as they were being written now. The concept of nibbana gradually shifted in the suttas from (1) being awake (buddha) and free from delusion, greed and anger; to (2) attaining some kind of timeless transcendental ecstatic bliss ; and then finally the meaning shifted to (3) cessation, non-existence. There are suttas to support all three definitions; and the fact that Vens BB and @Brahmali, two of the leading teachers on EBT in the world, can disagree so fundamentally on the central and defining concept of nibbana is surely a genuine cause for concern?

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Hi bhante , does an arahant
having any sense of self ?
I mean while still alive .

Different conditioning; taking different people as our teachers.

Yes, this is what it means in the suttas.

Just think about it for yourself and see where the practice takes you. For me, any idea that the arahant after death partakes of some sort of state is a species of eternalism. It makes Buddhism indistinguishable from Vedanta and similar to any other religion that teaches eternal life after death.

No. The arahant still uses the ordinary vocabulary of the world, such as “I”, but they do not use it to refer to an existing personal core.

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Thanks, Bhante.

Yes. I remember being confused by another of BB’s essays where he criticises Vedanta, but I could not see how his view actually differs from it! :grin:

Perhaps I am missing something, but being awake and free from delusion is nothing like total mental cessation. I don’t see how both can describe nibbana-here-and-now.

In the suttas, nibbāna normally refers to the cessation of the defilements. I was just making the point that the cessation of perception and feeling would be equivalent to what happens after the arahant dies. And I do recall there is at least one sutta where this is called nibbāna here and now.

Through out 24 hour a day
whether sleeping or not an
Arahant is in what kind of state then ?

I am not sure if “state” is the right word, but yes, the arahant never has a sense of self.

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