Sure, my intention wasn’t to get into a discussion about the nature of nibbana. I guess I’m saying ‘let’s avoid getting into metaphysics, and stick to things that are knowable’ or something like that 
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Unfortunately , discussion of whatever you know is including Nibbana which actually is something that you don’t know which is unavoidable .
Lots of references to knowing, the known, knowledge and, understanding may lead to confusion with regard to the not-born.
We assume we clearly-see what we are talking about when we talk about knowing and understanding but we may not understand the process directly.
Careful and sustained reaction-free attention can shed light on the nature of experience. We may take the process of experience for granted.
We take for granted there is a not-born .
That which (is) must exist - it is phenomenal. Once in existence - whatever (it) is - is death-bound (it will cease). When phenomena no longer arise and cease there is nothing to experience. When experience ceases, subject/object, knowing and the known comes to an end.
That makes sense, so maybe we should distinguish two kinds of khandha grasping: 1. the involuntary one, common to animals and non-philosophical humans, giving rise to all kinds of normal phenomena and views 2. an explicit conviction / teaching / agenda that says something like “My spiritual insight tells me that after death my formless essence will merge with the highest deathless realm”…
Coming from the unusual to the exceptional we find in SC 17.1
Seeing in this way they’re not anxious about what doesn’t exist.” (Sujato, very similarly Gethin)
Seeing thus, he is not agitated over what is not present. (Thanissaro)
So evaṃ samanupassanto asati na paritassatī”ti.
which appears only in this text and lays the foundation for all further anatta discussion of the sutta.
Somewhere in the middle would be a translation as “he is not anxious about what is not”
I just had a deja-vu reading to older thread where @Sylvester offers a nice interpretation
Anyhow, I cannot interpret SC 17.1 other than that the educated noble disciple is not afraid of “what is not” - which is that the self is not in the six mentioned before. There is no introduction of an ontological argument here - just before we had the exposition that the khandhas + 6th is not atta. And this is “what is not” - the atta in the khandhas.
Is this at that point agreeable, or is there another good reading?
If there is the notion of possessing something that gives rise to attachment then the loss of that possession creates stress.
If there is the belief that something precious is possessed that cannot be found then we are inviting trouble.
Emptiness cannot be found because it was never lost. How can we find something that has no location? Just let go …
Anything we may find no matter how wonderful it may be will not resolve the dukkha because it will not last.
We are left with nothing and that is where the world of becoming ends.
No more fabrications, the natural stilling of all formations, the ending of compounded phenomena without essence.
In order to enter it must be empty. On entering everything vanishes.
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I understand it like this:
[Paraphrased] Can someone get anxious about something that doesn’t exist internally?
Yes, eternalists get anxious about that. When they hear about fading away, cessation, extinguishment etc., they get anxious because they think they are going to be destroyed.
But people who aren’t eternalists dont have this problem. They don’t get anxious because they don’t think they are going be destroyed.
It seems to me that MN 22 might be particularly targeting eternalism, maybe this was Ariṭṭha’s view? Seems like the Buddha is going out of his way to point out eternalism as a particularly foolish teaching.
Annihilationism doesn’t seem to get the same treatment, see e.g. AN 7.55.
Edit: Here is the agama version of AN 7.55, MA 6. Here we can see the Pali version of annihilationsm view vs the Agama version:
It might not be, and it might not be mine. It will not be, and it will not be mine. I am giving up what exists, what has come to be.’ (Pali, AN 7.55)
There is no self, nor is there anything belonging to a self; in the future there will be no self and nothing belonging to a self. What has already come to exist will be abandoned; when it has been abandoned, equanimity will be attained; [I shall be] neither defiled by delight in existence nor attached to contact [through the senses]. (Agama, MA 6)
Interesting that the Pali and Agama present the view of annihilationism in such different ways (if this is indeed what is going on).
Of course, the view of annihilationism can be used as a means of practice (AN 7.55, MA 6), where as eternalism it seems cannot.
Could you please use the internal references for which passage you refer to? It’s a long sutta…
“Can someone get anxious about something that doesn’t exist internally?” Isn’t that introduced only at CS 20.1? So far I only dealt with up to CS 17.1
Sorry I don’t understand this numbering. What does CS mean? Is there any way to see this in the browser?
Before it was possible to indicate paragraph by adding “/17” at the end of the url.
at the top of the sutta you find the ‘text settings’ wheel. There you can activate ‘view textual information’ - at least it works in my browser…
Sorry, it’s SC (not CS) - I guess suttacentral?
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6 seems to be about pannapti or concepts, ideally included in 5, but it is more than mere thought- it is the content of thought that are getting a special mention here, as they form the basis of a myriad of views (ditti), such as the cosmos and self is eternal. The mind without samadhi or the uninstructed person isnt able to appreciate that even the thought which contains the concept ‘I am eternal’ is itself impermanent.
with metta
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And you can then click on the tags, and copy the url to provide a link…
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I’m at SC 26-27… 
So far (until SC 17.1) we’ve had a ‘normal’ anatta discourse, i.e. there is no atta in the khandhas + the 6th.
A confirmation that also the more general-sounding “they’re not anxious about what doesn’t exist” means atta-in-khandhas (and not atta per se) follows in SC 18.2-6: “anxiety about what doesn’t exist externally”. What is described here is symmetrically atta-in-objects (again not atta per se).
More difficult is the passage at SC 20.1: “anxiety about what doesn’t exist internally”. Didn’t we have this already before with the khandhas + the 6th? And indeed it is a repetition because here the 6th is singled out and presented again (SC 20.4).
But now we get what seems to be a direct clash between late Vedic and Buddhist teachings. Because now exactly the 6th (“after death I will be permanent”) is contrasted with the Buddha teaching nibbana.
We have to see it again in context: These ‘eternalists’ must have been either advanced meditators or ritualists who thought they have secured the eternally blissful brahmaloka for themselves. Nobody else would have believed at that time to have secured eternity. The Buddha with a superior authority they couldn’t neglect “took away” their eternity, so “they sorrow and pine and lament” (SC 18.6).
SC 21.3 makes clear what all this was from the Buddha’s perspective - merely a ditthi, a conviction, a view (that educated students are not supposed to have)
So when this ditthi is not there consequently there is no “anxiety about what doesn’t exist internally”. So far we are therefore still on the level of ditthis - no ontological axiom has been proclaimed yet (until SC 22), correct?
Again, faithfully following the argument of the text I see no other way to read it but would be interested if some of you do.
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I don’t get any meaningful result when I search for SC22. Is this SN or MN?
with metta
Sorry for the confusion, because I go slowly with the sutta I use the internal text reference that appears when you activate “view textual information” in the settings at the top. So SC 17.1 etc. refers to ‘paragraph’/sentence #17.1 in this sutta MN 22.
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I’m still not entirely clear about the logic of this statement in the suttas. Why is the assumption made that what is self must be permanent and satisfactory? It seems to suggest that anatta is negating Atman, rather than self-view or “psychological” self?
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In MN62 it’s the contemplation of impermanence which leads to the eradication of the conceit “I am”.
“Develop the (mind-) development that is perception of impermanence, Rāhula. For, from developing the (mind-) development that is perception of impermanence, Rāhula, that which is the conceit, ‘I am’ will be got rid of.”
The only sutta I can think of which describes a direct approach to anatta insight is the Bahiya Sutta, which I think involves the practice of “bare attention”.