When a monk has reached the cessation of perception and feeling, his ability to perceive and feel is completely turned off. Tradition claims that at this moment there are no cittas, cetasikis and chitaja-rupa in it. Moreover, bhavanga chitta, the consciousness that arises when the consciousnesses of the six sense doors are absent, is also absent. It is known that consciousness cannot arise from rupa, otherwise we would see how stones become living beings. The concept of bhavanga citta was created for this very purpose - to explain the continuity of consciousness in moments of unconsciousness. But there is no bhavanga-citta in nirodha-samapati, and there is nothing for consciousness to arise from.
I have informed some teachers, such as Ajahn Suchart, and it is not like all teachers agree that the cesssation of the processing of sense-info, the stilling of all formations, also means that all ceases. There is still an element of knowing, the one who knows, some say.
I have seen Ajahn Pannavaddho also teaches that knowing is not a sense-experience.
In Uncommon Wisdom he says: Say we know a sensation. The knowing is not the same as the sensation. Knowing is not a sensory experience. Sensation is an object of awareness, something that is known. But the knowing itself is never an object of awareness; rather, it’s awareness itself. Normally, whatever we experience is perceived through the senses. But we can never experience the citta in this way because the citta is actually that which knows all sensations. The citta is the center, everything else is peripheral. Basically, it is the knowing essence within us".
I think there are signs in the sutta’s too that the stilling of all formations does not stay unknown. It is known. It would also be weird to talk about this stilling as the highest goal and happiness while it would be metaphysical and in no way accessible to know or perceive at all. I think that is not in line with Dhamma.
It would be great that an expert who can really enter this state can give clarity.
I think sense-consciousness (vinnana’s) arise when sankhara’s again start arising in the mind. Those sankhara’s are taken as sense-object?
Snp 4(The Chapter of Eights) and Snp 5(The Way to the Beyond) appear to represent the thinking of different factions in Buddhism with this as the wedge between them.
In the Chapter of Eights, the goal is the end of forms, the cessation of sensory perception. In the Way to the Beyond, the goal is the end of consciousness.
We know these factions were at odds with one another because the we are told in Snp 4.11. The Buddha does not engage in the dispute. Bodhi says that it is a dispute between eternalists and annihilationists.
“Whatever I asked you have explained to me.
I ask you once more, please tell me this:
Do some astute folk here say that this is the extent
of purification of the spirit?
Or do they say it is something else?”“Some astute folk do say that this is the highest extent
of purification of the spirit.
But some of them, claiming to be experts,
speak of a time when nothing remains.Knowing that these states are dependent,
and knowing what they depend on, the inquiring sage,
having understood, is freed, and does not dispute.
The wise do not go on into life after life.”
I think Buddhists need to take these differences seriously instead of trying to reconcile them with strained apologetics which appears to have no purpose than to save the canon in its entirety. It is like Christians not acknowledging that some of the gospels insist of adherence to old testament law and some do not. Both of these reflect a struggle between factions. How you practice depends on which side you think is authentic.
Let’s not deviate into the debate about the nature of nibbana and doubts about the existence of transcendental consciousness. these topics are very well explained in other discussions and essays. Here I am interested in the question of how the emergence of consciousness after interruption is explained with the help of the suttas (in nirodha-samapati and in asanya sat).
You can’t ignore the issue without begging the question.
The closest this is explained, i think, in MN44, but that you allready know, i guess
It is known that consciousness cannot arise from rupa, otherwise we would see how stones become living beings.
But at DN14 we have:
Then Vipassī thought, ‘When what exists is there consciousness? What is a condition for consciousness?’ Then, through proper attention, Vipassī comprehended with wisdom, ‘When name and form exist there’s consciousness. Name and form are a condition for consciousness.’
Then Vipassī thought, ‘This consciousness turns back from name and form, and doesn’t go beyond that.’ It is to this extent that one may be reborn, grow old, die, pass away, or reappear. That is: Name and form are conditions for consciousness. Consciousness is a condition for name and form. Name and form are conditions for the six sense fields. The six sense fields are conditions for contact. Contact is a condition for feeling. Feeling is a condition for craving. Craving is a condition for grasping. Grasping is a condition for continued existence. Continued existence is a condition for rebirth. Rebirth is a condition for old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress to come to be. That is how this entire mass of suffering originates.’
So if we accept DN rather than the Abhidhamma and commentaries, the reason consciousness returns after the cessation of perception and feeling is because the practitioner still has a living body and that living body gives rise to perceptions and feelings depending on its contact with the environment and that is all perfectly understandable without any appeal to “mind-moments” or any other esoteric substances.
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Name and form is a condition for the emergence of consciousness, moreover, the Name - here - is a number of mental processes, without which consciousness does not arise. If consciousness arises depending on the name-form, this does not mean that it arises depending on the form alone.
It is said: "….of foremost importance it the citta, the mind’s essential knowing nature. It consists of pure and simple awareness: the citta simply knows"
and… *"Those activities that arise in the citta, such as awareness of good and evil, or happiness and suffering, or praise and blame, are all conditions of the consciousness that flows out from the citta. Since it represents activities and conditions of the citta that are, by their very nature, constantly arising and ceasing, this sort of consciousness is always unstable and unreliable. *
The conscious acknowledgement of phenomena as they arise and cease is called viññãna. For instance, viññãna acknowledges and registers the sense impressions that are produced when sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile sensations contact the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body respectively. Each such contact between an external sense sphere and its corresponding internal base gives rise to a specific consciousness that registers the moment at which each interaction takes place, and then promptly ceases at the same moment that the contact passes. Viññãna, therefore, is consciousness as a condition of the citta"
So, in this model, vinnana flows out from the citta, as a wave on the ocean.
It also says: "At the level of Arahant, the citta has absolutely no involvement with anything.
Once the citta is totally pure, it simply knows according to its own inherent nature. It is here that the citta reaches it culmination; it attains perfection at the level of absolute purity. Here the continuous migration from one birth to the next finally comes to an end."
So, in this model, the citta is also not involved in vinnana moments that arise, such as sounds, odours, visuals, tactile feelings etc. Those keep arising and ceasing but there is no me and mine making anymore,.
While vinnana is instable, citta is the one stable. I think it might match with those EBT in which is described that the mind is also detached from vinnana.
“It is because the Tathagata is released, detached, and emancipated from feeling . . . perception . … volitional activities . . . consciousness that he dwells with a mind free from boundaries” (AN10.81, Bodhi)
Maybe the citta is still present in nirodha samapati, an element of knwoing, and maybe vinnana starts to flow out again from the citta when sankhara starts to arise again and are taken as sense-object.
(fragments from the Appendix of Arhatttamagga, arhahattaphala in which citta is being explained.
It is clearly stated in the suttas that chitta is conditioned by the name-form and together with mano and vinnana constantly arises and ceases, is conditioned and not permanent, and therefore passive and not-self. In the Brahmajala Sutta, belief in the eternal chitta (mano, vinnana) is called one of the false views.
There can be no one who knows without something to know. Knowing always knows something. Whether there are presence or lack of objects. All objects are divided into 6 classes. 5 Feeling and Sixth Mental. Thus, Chitta is only an appeal for a combination of consciousness and all mental processes.
Perception and feeling are said to be formations of the mind (chitta). for the formations to stop, the chitta must die out. contact with objects must be broken. the suttas describe that a monk in nirodha differs from a dead person only in that his body is warm and his abilities are sharp (that is, the functions of the body are preserved, and not destroyed, like in a dead person). The comparison with a dead person is very accurate, because the dead person does not have any chitta, mano and vinnana left. a dead man is a pile of rotting meat, bones, organs, sewage and liquidity. It has no consciousness. there is no consciousness or chitta in one who has entered nirodha samapati.
The mind (heart) of the Buddha is free from aggregates not in a substantial sense (as one substance is free from another), but through non-attachment, non-clinging, non-appropriation as I and Mine. not involving in the aggregate.
So, this has become yet another interesting dialogue in which all i bring forth is rejected as false, untrue etc etc. Oke. Please accept Green, it is just false…why do you not see it??
Hmmm…i am not going to reject this based only on ideas and reasoning. I have seen and heard description in books and of teachers that there can be a knowing while there is nothing sensed nor felt.
So, they teach that ‘nothing sensed and felt’ is not the same as a black-out. I trust that. I have faith in that.
I also am strongly convinced that the nature of mind without any defilement is a pure awareness, a pure knowingness. And this knowing is not involved in anything. Like a mirror and its reflections. The pure nature of mind is solely reflective. This is the escape from suffering in this life. In EBT Buddha does nothing else but sum up all those factors due to which the mind does not function in a pure reflective, mirror-like way: due to tanha, asava, anusaya, fetters, me and mine-making. kilesa’s. Nothing more, nothing less.
Also EBT says the stilling of all formations is not like blacking-out but is perceived. We discussed this with references many times. It would not surprise me at all that in sannavedayitanirodha, with the stilling of all formations, with the cessation of sensing and feeling, this knowingness sees itself for the first time as it is. It has, for once, itself as object.
The Buddha said that in the future his Dhamma and his lectures would be neglected, and different teachers and writers would be listened to.
If there is no cessation of perception, then there is the perception of something. In your case, some subtle mental object in the door of manas. This is vinnana.
you see, the six spheres of contact describe everything that can be.
Cleansing the cup does not make it unbreakable, immortal. Cleansing the mind of defilements does not change its nature of conditioned arising and ceasing. You can check - wash the cup in the kitchen and try to break it.
They perceive when there is something to perceive, in nibbana with residual aggregates during the life of an arahant
You have an oxymoron - in the cessation of knowing there is knowing. Think about the fact that since in meditation there is a cessation of rupa, a cessation of pleasant and painful vedana, a cessation of many things in stages, there must be a moment when cognition also ceases. It `s naturally. If you cannot allow that awareness to stop, then you are hooked on the idea of eternal, unceasing awareness. And this is the very idea of atman from the time of the Buddha. That is how the Upanishads described it, and that is what the Buddha denied. It was not without reason that he developed the concept of the five aggregates and made an analysis of non-influence through the understanding of non-permanence.
The idea of atman refers to a soul-like entity which cannot be compared to the knowingness buddhist masters talk about which is, at that same time it is seen, seen as not an atta. It is exactly opposite you present. Seeing the knowingsness destroys any still abiding idea and perception an atta.
Now i am gonna stop.