How can nibbana be achieved if it is causeless and unconditioned?

The Watercooler
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Unconsciousness, deep sleep, or coma are not devoid of consciousness; they lack memory and awareness. There are mental processes in a suppressed, weakened state. Entry into them occurs without any wisdom.

In contrast, the attainment of Nirodha Samapatti occurs through very acute awareness in Jhana. The mind on this path is extremely sharp and pure, without any suppression. This exceptionally sharp and conscious mind gradually refines and finally extinguishes through tranquility and the wisdom of renunciation. Because the mind is conscious, this cessation is not associated with the loss of awareness and memory but with the cessation of contact through the weakening of attachment to sense objects, by moving from coarser objects to subtler ones. Releasing the coarser and taking the subtler, finally releasing even the subtlest object through tranquility and insight. This release of the subtlest object is the special component that distinguishes Nirodha Samapatti as a transcendent state!

Nibbana is the cessation of contact, the release of acquisitions and objects, the cessation of attachment, the cessation of enchantment and enjoyment with objects and vedanas. Nibbana is fully realized in the process of achieving Nirodha Samapatti because to sever contact, one must destroy attachment to objects and restless passion.

When the mind arises again, it finds no objects and directly perceives the element in which there is no arising, changing, and ceasing—it sees the non-object, animitta. This is the moment of Phala Samapatti, the contemplation of the peace of cessation, Nibbana. It occurs immediately after Nirodha. This is another transcendent, unseen property of Nirodha Samapatti.

Finally, having reached Nirodha, the mind sees the peace and relief it experienced without being bound by the formations and agitation of phenomena. It sees that there is no enduring essence hidden behind the husk of formations. Thus, it deeply understands emptiness and anatta. This is another transcendent and unseen property of Nirodha Samapatti.

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I said that those views are silly & childish because when i was a child i entertained such views.

When i was about 7 years old, my then 7 year old sister held the materialist annihilation view and we discussed it.

When i was 13 i learned about Buddhism and i figured that Buddha taught that parinibbana as some eternal bliss attained after death and i rejected it.

I don’t mean to offend anyone and i am actually surprised anyone would take offense.

It’s a moot point whether the difference is small or not. They don’t actually understand how rebirth comes about and wouldn’t be able to explain or defend it.

They just take it on faith without any grounding in logic.

This is one of the things that they will never try to explain because they don’t understand how to explain it. If they understood then they wouldn’t be siding with the materialists in their conceiving of cessation.

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Not devoid of consciousness but lacking awareness. What are you talking about?

I don’t understand this.

The mind is conscious without contact?

I don’t know what you are talking about nor what books you are getting these ideas from.

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I don’t know whether you actually hold those views or not, but i think it is important that the general public is made aware that this kind of buddhism is actually being taught and that it is common.

I think that there is much criticism being directed at those who speak of the eternal citta but there is hardly anyone who talks about this materialism+rebirth kind of buddhism.

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I’m wondering if you’ve read and considered the two threads I posted previously, and you also may wish to have a look at:

And

https://journal.equinoxpub.com/BSR/article/view/8891/10347

You may get a better understanding of the different viewpoints, even as you may continue to disagree.

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Sort of yes

Sn22.81

Perhaps they don’t regard form or feeling or perception or sankhara or consciousness as self. Nor do they have such a view: ‘The self and the cosmos are one and the same. After passing away I will be permanent, everlasting, eternal, and imperishable.’ Still, they have such a view: ‘I might not be, and it might not be mine. I will not be, and it will not be mine.’ But that annihilationist view is just a constructed phenomenon. ”

One can totally hold wrong views and it won’t help that they don’t regard form or feeling or perception or sankhara or consciousness as self.

The main issue is that they conceive of khandas as being in a world and being extinguished like a fire.

One shouldn’t think of parinibbana like this because it’s rather an extinguishment of a world and it is possible because there is something which is not a constituent of any world.

The fire analogy is not applicable to understanding parinibanna literally in that way because fire becoming extinguished is just a change in the constructed element, whereas the cessation of the constructed element occurs because of the unconstructed

I haven’t but i’ll take a look

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I read the op and i probably won’t read the whole thread, it is what it is.

The problem with the materialist cessation view is not that it’s dark but that it is impossible.

If the khandas of the various beings were like fires dependently arising, existing & ceasing, in a single world, then such cessation would be possible but this is just not so.

When material things like a fire cease in the world, the world merely changes, this doesn’t violate any logical principles like conservation of energy, in other words we don’t make something into nothing, we just change what is.

When we talk a fires cessation, the heat dissipates and etc, nothing is destroyed.

However if we assert that khandas are in the world and that they are extinguished. Unlike a fire where heat dissipates and energy is conserved, the khandas are just deleted out of existence, we have essentially annihilated something, effectively turning something into nothing.

Essentially if consciousness is asserted to be a constituent of the world then we have to conserve it like we do with energy.

Therefore one can’t just delete consciousness from the world making it into nothing.

The logic of the proposition is just demonstrably erroneous.

We have to think way differently for things to make sense.

First of all we have to use the sutta definitions for what is a world, not the ideas of materialists, and then proceed to extinguish it by exhausting causes & conditions for it’s conception & perception which is possible because an unmade can be discerned as a cessation of the made.

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That’s up to you, but you’re missing a lot of important information including from several Venerables.
The info is worth reading and considerin, but that’s your call.

Fine. Agree.
But you appear to be conflating the Buddha’s teachings about the world with whatever an “outside” world may be. The Buddha didn’t deny a world or reality with earthquakes and other conditions, but
in the suttas you’re referring to he focussed on the six senses and the I, me, mine delusion. This can indeed cease completely.

AN4.23: "The cessation of the world has been understood by the Realized One; and he has realized the cessation of the world. The practice that leads to the cessation of the world has been understood by the Realized One; and he has developed the practice that leads to the cessation of the world."

Nothing here about the conservation of energy because the extinguishing of greed, anger, and ignorance is the ending of rebirth, the cessation of the world of the aggregates/ senses, and the ending of dukkha.
This has nothing directly to do with any outside “reality” or world of energy conservation but of the world of experience via the six senses/aggregates.

Similarly in SN12.44: “And what is the ending of the world? Eye consciousness arises dependent on the eye and sights. The meeting of the three is contact. Contact is a condition for feeling. Feeling is a condition for craving. When that craving fades away and ceases with nothing left over, grasping ceases. When grasping ceases, continued existence ceases. … That is how this entire mass of suffering ceases. This is the ending of the world.”

And SN35.107: “When grasping ceases, continued existence ceases. When continued existence ceases, rebirth ceases. When rebirth ceases, old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress cease. That is how this entire mass of suffering ceases. This is the ending of the world. …”

So rather than being about the conservation of energy, or philosophizing about how something turns to nothing, or conflating the world of physics and weather, the Buddha taught about the world in these suttas as the locus of dukkha and the ending of dukkha.

See above.

Also AN10.95:
" “Uttiya, I teach my disciples from my own insight in order to purify sentient beings, to get past sorrow and crying, to make an end of pain and sadness, to end the cycle of suffering, and to realize extinguishment.”

“But when Master Gotama teaches in this way, is the whole world saved, or half, or a third?” But when he said this, the Buddha kept silent.

“Then Ānanda said to the wanderer Uttiya, …In the same way, it’s not the Realized One’s concern whether the whole world is saved by this, or half, or a third. But the Realized One knows that whoever is saved from the world—whether in the past, the future, or the present—all have given up the five hindrances, corruptions of the heart that weaken wisdom.”

No conservation of energy, etc. Just the ending of defilements as the “outside” world rolls on…

This may apply while an arahant is alive but not for final cessation after death and the ceasing of the khandhas. Or are you arguing that the senses and khandhas still exist after the death of an arahant?

If not, then out they went, like a flame going out, (the flame is only a metaphor in the suttas, of cessation).

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Mental processes may be suppressed. But since there is no awareness and mindfulness, you will not remember these experiences, although they are there. Although there are practices that allow you to become aware of yourself in deep sleep.

No, the mind is fully aware when it enters cessation. And cessation is achieved through calming and breaking the contact of the perceiving support (manas) and objects (through discarding the highest object of the 4th arupa, without taking any other), and not through loss of memory, awareness and suppression of mental processes, as happens during loss of consciousness.

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The following article by Choong Mun-keat may be useful for your question regarding “the uncompounded” and “realisation”:

“A comparison of the Pāli and Chinese versions of Jhāna Saṃyutta , Asaṅkhata Saṃyutta , and Abhisamaya Saṃyutta : early Buddhist discourses on concentrative meditation, the uncompounded, and realisation”, Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies , 2021 (21), pp. 10-43.

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How is this mental fabrication different…

…from this?

You invent something in the same way, while leaving a loophole for the desire to exist in the form of a certain reality, different from the world, in which inexplicable existence continues.

All this is not new under the sun. The world is divided into two camps. Some are atheists, they don’t believe in anything, and death is the end of everything. Other eternalists, like you, dream in different ways about the kingdom of heaven, moksha, a transcendental existence in nirvana.

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Namo Buddhaya!

Whatever you think of as an outside world is just your thinking coming into play.

You can never in any way establish the existence of such an outside world and therefore to speak of it is meaningless because there exists no operation, experiment or a way of thinking to prove that such a thing is a truth & reality.

It’s not a matter of opinion, try it.

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You are using the word reality here in a sense of constructed reality.

Former asserts that there is a world which having been with khandas becomes without khandas.

Latter asserts that a world is altogether dependently arisen and it’s extinguishment is possible because there is a truth & reality which is not a world.

Now you criticize this saying that i talk about an exringuishment of reality [world] but i describe it as a reality [unmade] and the latter as a continuation of the former. But i do not describe the latter as a continuation of the former.

Therefore you are misunderstanding and are musrepresenting me because when i say that there is something not pertaining to any world i do not describe it as a continuation of s world.

I say that all the made ceases, existence ceases, all modes of being cease, all that could be grasped with wrong view as belonging to a being is utterly annihilated.

You can criticize me saying that i talk about an exringuishment or reality but i describe it as reality, that would be observant of you.

But i do not describe as a truth & reality only that which is made, pertaining to existence, pertaining to modes of being and which can ve grasped with wrong view to be personal for beings. I describe as a truth & reality whatever & in whatever terms that a truth & reality is discerned.

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The point is that you have a wrong idea of ​​fire and ceasefire. The cessation of fire is not associated with the dispersion of energy in space, as if the fire were a certain substance, and then this substance dissolved. No, fire was the process of generating energy or releasing energy from fuel. This energy entered the external environment every moment, as long as there were moments of conversion of fuel energy into heat. As soon as the fuel supply stopped, the energy supply to the external environment also stopped.

The same process occurs with consciousness. Consciousness transforms the energy of fuel into mental energy.

Many yogis suggest that consciousness constantly emits a bright radiance, giving rise to cittaja-rūpa. In other words, consciousness continually loses energy, releasing it like flames that dissipate and extinguish every moment in the surrounding environment. One form of cittaja-rūpa involves intentional limb movements, a way moments of consciousness discharge the impulse of energy within them.

Sometimes, under certain conditions, moments of consciousness leave a karmic impulse.

Intention can also bring about changes in the surrounding world, forming the basis of magical powers, iddhi, curses, spells, and blessings.
This is another way each moment of consciousness, each moment of “flame,” discharges and transfers energy to the surrounding world.

When the process of consciousness burning, based on karma, formations, the body, life force, senses, and objects, stops, the last moment of consciousness releases its energy, and a new one does not arise. The energy does not disappear; the impulse of energy that was in the moment of consciousness discharges naturally, nowhere getting stuck; simple awareness does not arise.

It is said that arahants do not accumulate karma. It is also said that arahants and Buddhas emit a special radiance from their bodies. Perhaps it is because the energy that was leaking (asavas - leaks) through the creation of new karma now does not leak there. Now this energy transforms into light, into generations of luminous cittaja-rūpa.

For this reason, arahants and Buddhas do not experience fatigue and laziness; they have a lot of energy for alertness, strength, action, and supernatural powers. The energy of their moments of consciousness produces beneficial effects and discharges, dissipates every moment.

It is very much like how a fire burns and moments of flame dissolve. This is why the Buddha loved this example of fire.

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This is what i meant, you explained it better. My point was that nothing is destroyed, the world merely changes.

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Sorry this is not from any book that i’ve read, do you have a scriptural reference?

This is not in the suttas nor can this be inferred from the suttas. I am not going to discuss this because that’d be a waste of time.

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So it’s the same story with consciousness. every moment, every impulse of consciousness emits energy into the surrounding world and dissolves, giving way to another moment of consciousness. If a new moment of consciousness does not arise, due to the lack of sufficient conditions, the whole process stops. I roughly described how a moment of consciousness emits its energy. There are many ways: producing karma, supporting the body, realizing intentions, intentional movement, work, light constantly emitted by consciousness, etc. One way or another, each moment of consciousness dissolves its energy/or information and therefore goes out, giving way to another. The other arises on the basis of the energy of its own causes and conditions, that is, a kind of fuel. Therefore, stopping the khandhas is quite possible with the cessation of fuel supply/contact and does not contradict the laws of logic.

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Buddha said that consciousness, like fire, burns on the basis of brushwood. In another sutta, the Buddha said that the restlessness of the six realms is based on the life force. The exit from nirodha-samapati occurs due to the presence of vital force in the body. In short, consciousness, its activity, depends on the energy or impulse supplied from causes and conditions, from the body and karmic force. You yourself know that moments of consciousness are “effective,” that is, they produce an effect every instant. If they produce an effect, then they have some impulse or reserve of energy. You yourself say that in nature energy does not come from nowhere. Consequently, moments of consciousness take it from their own suitable causes and conditions. I read about the fact that consciousness generates generations of chittaja-rup, that is, produces an effect in the material world, from the Venerable Pa Auka Sayadaw, teacher of Buddhist meditation Samatha and Vipassana.

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Comeon, this is entirely foreign to suttas. I see how these theories stem from the ideas of thinking materially about the immaterial rather than thinking immaterially about the material but it is not something i am going to entertain because there is no scriptural foundation for these ideas.

Everything i talk about has explicit scriptural basis and i expect that we discuss the texts.

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You will not discuss this, as it completely refutes your statements :wink:

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