How is final nibanna different from the extinction of consciousness after death as conceived by materialists?

Wow, that is quite nice and fits rather well :slight_smile: :fire:

But that is not how Buddhists thought of Atman. Atman was eternal, unchanging, and conscious. This was used in arguments to demonstrate anatta. Buddhism went from a means to liberate beings to an obsession with debunking Brahmanism. I suspect the Buddhism went from liberation as the end of suffering in this life to the extinguishing of consciousness at death of a arahant because it was committed to anatta(not Atman).

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This certainly agrees remarkably with many of the short and simple sutras in SN/SA, which I think are more obvious in SA because it begins with the short sutras and builds up to the more elaborate ones as a general policy in many of its samyuktas. They basically say that liberation is ceasing to be addicted to the sensory experience of the world. There are even a couple sutras that talk of consciousness growing on the substrates of the other four aggregates using a plant metaphor.

The thing to remember, too, is that animist beliefs tend to imbue the physical world with spirit rather than focus on a separate world like the heavens or a spirit realm. Breath as the soul makes sense in many ways. Things stop breathing when they die, breath is moist and warm, also things living things need to survive and leave them when they die. But these kinds of practical, real-world observations turned into ideas as human thought became more abstract, and then those ideas became things divorced from day-to-day life. Spirits turned into something separate from the body or like a second non-physical body, etc.

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That is not quite accurate. Atman wasn’t used by Buddhists in a special way. The word existed and was used in a certain way prior to the Buddha. The Buddha merely pointed out that such an idea was untenable.

Later on, Hinduism borrowed ideas from Buddhism to create their version of an everlasting Source (Wikipedia):

Adhyaropa Apavada - imposition and negation

See also: Neti Neti

Since Gaudapada,[252] who adopted the Buddhist four-cornered negation which negates any positive predicates of ‘the Absolute’,[253][254][note 50] a central method in Advaita Vedanta to express the inexpressable is the method called Adhyaropa Apavada.[252] In this method, which was highly estimated by Satchidanandendra Saraswati, a property is imposed (adhyaropa) on Atman to convince one of its existence, whereafter the imposition is removed (apavada) to reveal the true nature of Atman as nondual and undefinable.

Advaita Vedanta (non-dualism) sees the “spirit/soul/self” within each living entity as being fully identical with Brahman.[59] The Advaita school believes that there is one soul that connects and exists in all living beings, regardless of their shapes or forms, and there is no distinction, no superior, no inferior, no separate devotee soul (Atman), no separate god soul (Brahman).[59] The oneness unifies all beings, there is divine in every being, and that all existence is a single reality, state the Advaita Vedanta Hindus. In contrast, devotional sub-schools of Vedanta such as Dvaita (dualism) differentiate between the individual Atma in living beings, and the supreme Atma (Paramatma) as being separate.[60][61]

The borrowing of ideas from Buddhism complicated things to the point that now, Buddhists reject certain teachings because they exist in Hinduism (not realising that they were original to Buddhism to begin with). I’ll be exploring this theme sometime later when I have more headspace.

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Yes, Atman predated the Buddha and it has other meanings and connotations. But, those other meanings and connotations did not shape Buddhism to the extent that the eternal, unchanging, and conscious Atman did. That said, what benefit would changing how I think of self have?

I don’t have a view of self in the abstract. I view the self as the feeling of being an organism in a hostile environment. That is not abstract. That is as visceral as it gets and I think it is far more keeping with how the suttas that taught the cessation of the world viewed it. The problem is not how I view self, but that the notion of self as being in the world was de-emphasized to the point of being virtually forgotten in Buddhism to fixate on an abstract Atman that has no resemblance to what the vast majority of human beings think of as self and so miss how down to earth and sensible the Buddha really was. Instead we just have a bunch of people who don’t know what anatta really means in a way that is relevant to how they really think of self and whether or not nibbana is experienced in some way. The former is odd since we see a lot of westerners who never heard of the notion of this abstract Atman until they learned about Buddhism accepting it uncritically as if that is how they conceived it all along. Sorry, I am ranting. The main point is the bolded question above.

In the traditonal interpretation this is correct, but if we take the interpretation of ego rebirth rather than physical rebirth, it means that the Arahant doesn’t become something in the first place (born) let alone dies at a later time, and what is not born cannot die. Say for example when an alcoholic wakes up in the morning with a fresh mind they may just have normal desires as a human being, but throughout the day as the 3 poisons stir up and worsen, and the misery of existence and suffering starts to boil up, thoughts and perceptions of alcohol arise as an escape from suffering and the alcoholic becomes (born) a hungry ghost.

Whereas when the Arahant wakes up in the morning, even the basic desires of a human do not arise, nothing stirs up or worsens, and he does not even go from heaven to hell like many jhana attainers who do not have Supermundane right view, who go from sublime bliss to quarreling with others.

So in terms of the 3 poisons and ego rebirth, the Arahant has no fuel to become anything, a self and conceit is never born, thus he never experiences misery and suffering, and never dies. Thus the deathless has been reached.

Hmm
 I believe that view needs to be revisited. The Buddha often said I teach just one thing. Suffering and its end.

Much of what we think he said about Atman is what we’ve extrapolated from the meaning we think Atman should have.

He referred to atta and anatta almost always (perhaps only) within the context of explaining howclinging gives rise to suffering or how to end clinging.

Sure. But it is somewhat abstract to say it is not fitting to consider form
 feeling
 perception
 fabrication
 consciousness as self (Anatalakkhana Sutta). You need to have a good grasp of what a ‘self’ is and how it functions to understand this instruction. For many years in my teens and early twenties I didn’t have the faintest clue as to what this could actually mean.

Clarifying this comment. I’m not at all advocating for an eternal consciousness that is the source of all things. Any such source is just another avenue for clinging and feeding.

The consciousness outside of the aggregates I mentioned in a previous comment is not a source. Neither is it eternal. It neither provides sustenance nor requires it and it is outside of space and time.

The unfortunate thing is that the usurping of Buddhist teachings by others who espouse eternalist views has meant that even the mention of consciousness in conjunction with the deathless seems heretical to many Buddhists.

The Buddha wasn’t just arguing against the Upanishadic Atman, but also Jain ideas of a self. For the Jains, the atta is eternal yet can change. They thought it “both exists and doesn’t exist” after death, for an Arahant.

The self-aspect is just one part of why some don’t agree with the idea you’ve presented. Another is how consciousness is treated in the suttas. For example, SN1.2 explicitly says consciousness ends with emancipation. But more importantly, MN43 says

“Feeling, perception, and consciousness—these things are mixed, not separate. And you can never completely dissect them so as to describe the difference between them. For you perceive what you feel, and you cognize what you perceive. That’s why these things are mixed, not separate. And you can never completely dissect them so as to describe the difference between them.”

Which, the way it’s been explained to me, means that there can be no consciousness outside the aggregates. If consciousness is always mixed up with the aggregates of feeling and perception, then a non-aggregate consciousness is hard to fit into the picture.

Right and as a result the purpose of meditation for the Jains was to cease all activity.

Read this sutta again. The reason that the instruction is given in to dispel the unchanging Atman. Each bundle is considered and deemed impermanent and therefore cannot be self. I do not know where you are from or what culture you grew up in so what applies to you may be different. I am an American of european desent who was raised to be, at least nominally, catholic. I never until I became interested in Buddhism, ever connected my sense of self to be unchanging so this argument of impermance carries no weight. What we see in this sutta is a change in the point of meditation for the benefit of Brahmans to see impermanance rather than the end of the world of the senses which is much more meaningful to anyone who is not a Brahman.

Added later: I would also say I doubt most people have the expectation that a self would be free of suffering. Being in a hostile environment or world causes suffering through deprivation, sickness, predation, etc
 and it is this view of self that attaining a formless state undermines. Likewise, its antidote of “in the seen there is merely the seen, in the heard there is merely the heard 
” makes the most sense. It works because “there is no you in that”. What is the that? It is the world of the senses. What is the you in that world? An organism. And this notion is meaningful to virtually every human being that has ever lived minus some Brahmans.

There is a sutta (Sorry, I can’t remember which one) where the Buddha says there is nothing outside the All (5 aggregates). If the purpose of this line of argument is to save the canon as a while, I think it fails.

I agree that the Buddha’s teaching where usurped and to the detrement of the Buddha and all his followers.

SN 35.23?

My take on this sutta is that describing something beyond conditioned reality is impossible not because that thing doesn’t exist but because language and perceptions are conditioned. It’s a language issue not an ontological one.

As one person said once
 if you’ve transcended x and gone into y, it will be difficult to describe y in terms of x.

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I don’t see that. It seems to be very clear in what it says and I don’t see that it says that. Can you explain how you arrived at your conclusion?

Mendicants, suppose someone was to say: ‘I’ll reject this all and describe another all.’ They’d have no grounds for that, they’d be stumped by questions, and, in addition, they’d get frustrated. Why is that? Because they’re out of their element.”

So, if someone tries to describe something apart from the six senses they’d be out of their element.

It’s like the story of the turtle who goes up on dry land and then comes back to tell the fishes about it, but they can’t comprehend what is being said because it’s so radically different from their experience.

Also consider this from AN 4.173:

“If you say that, ‘When the six fields of contact have faded away and ceased with nothing left over, something else exists’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated. If you say that ‘nothing else exists’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated. If you say that ‘both something else and nothing else exist’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated. If you say that ‘neither something else nor nothing else exists’, you’re proliferating the unproliferated. The scope of proliferation extends as far as the scope of the six fields of contact. The scope of the six fields of contact extends as far as the scope of proliferation. When the six fields of contact fade away and cease with nothing left over, proliferation stops and is stilled.”

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So this is the definition of the Jain jiva (their version of Atman), from Wikipedia:

According to the Jain text, Samayasāra:

Know that the Jiva (soul) which rests on pure faith, knowledge, and conduct, alone is the Real Self. The one which is conditioned by the karmic matter is to be known as the impure self. – Verse 1-2-2

According to Vijay Jain, the souls which rest on the pure self are called the Real Self, and only arihant and Siddhas are the Real Self.[26]

And from the Mariam Webster dictionary:

Rest on:
phrasal verb ; 1 · to depend or rely on (someone or something).

This also fits into the framework of sustenance, as sustenance is what all beings within samsara depend on.

At the end of the day, even the Jain definition of Atman is something akin to the Brahmin / Hindu definition of a Source.

Every definition of the self boils down to one or both of the following:

  • The being that searches for or creates sustenance.
  • The being that consumes sustenance and assimilates it.

A self that does neither of the above is not a self in any way that makes sense.

Every definition of the Atman boils down to one or both of the following:

  • A self that makes available an unlimited amount of sustenance. (i.e. a Source).
  • A self that consumes and assimilates sustenance in perpetuity, by virtue of relying on or resting on a Source that provides in an unlimited way.

Dualistic philosophies say that the producer and consumer are distinct. Non-dualistic philosophies say that ultimately the producer and consumer are one.

In contrast, the Buddha’s teaching is that there is no sustenance or source of sustenance that can provide satisfaction in perpetuity. All sustenance is based in the aggregates and is inconstant. He therefore teaches us not to cling to the aggregates. In other words, don’t look for pleasure in them and don’t feed on on them.

In a nutshell, every teaching bar the Buddha’s presents the ultimate sustenance or source of sustenance and teaches that beings can gain satisfaction by feeding on it for eternity. All concepts of an Atman/Source or even Christian heaven can be boiled down to this.

In contrast, the Buddha’s teaching shows that there is no reliable sustenance to be found and suffering ceases only when feeding is given up.

Specifically on the consciousness aggregate:

The consciousness aggregate has two functions with regard to the self:

  • It assists in the search for sustenance by allowing cognition of said sustenance (the sustenance always being some combination of aggregates).
  • It assists in the feeding process by allowing cognition of the process of feeding.

When dispassion arises for the aggregates, clinging to the aggregates ceases. Therefore after death, the consciousness aggregate no longer arise either to assist in the search for sustenance or its consumption.

Yet that does not necessarily mean that all consciousness is gone for an awakened being who has died. There can still be a consciousness whose function is beyond producing and consuming, beyond the aggregates and therefore beyond space and time. It is entirely unrelated to feeding and therefore has no connection to a self.

For an awakened being, there is no self (i.e. something that either provides sustenance in perpetuity nor consumes sustenance in perpetuity) to be found.

Here it is:

What do you think, mendicants? Is form permanent or impermanent?”

“Impermanent, sir.”

“But if it’s impermanent, is it suffering or happiness?”

“Suffering, sir.”

“But if it’s impermanent, suffering, and perishable, is it fit to be regarded thus: ‘This is mine, I am this, this is my self’?”

The wording is very particular. It does not make a claim about reality (i.e. there is no self in absolute terms). It says that it is not fitting for aggregates to be regarded as self because the aggregates are inconstant and therefore are therefore synonymous with suffering.

It is through assimilation that a self is maintained and/or (re)created. Which is why using the word sustenance also works quite well:

What do you think, mendicants? Is form permanent or impermanent?”

“Impermanent, sir.”

“But if it’s impermanent, is it suffering or happiness?”

“Suffering, sir.”

“But if it’s impermanent, suffering, and perishable, is it fit to be regarded thus: ‘This is mine, I am this, this is my sustenance’?”

I don’t know about this “sustenance” business. I merely wanted to highlight that there were competing theories of the atta around when the Blessed One was alive. For the Jains, the atta is an eternal substance but one that can change. For example, it can be modified by the influx of sub-atomic kammic particles. They also thought that existence and non-existence didn’t strictly apply to it, for the Arahants. Rather it both existed and didn’t exist when awakened one’s (in their system) died. They are strongly dualist too.

I think now we have come down to opinion. I’ve provided definitions for every term under scrutiny here, many from reliable sources. I’ve also generalised the competing theories mentioned to provide a unified understanding. If there is something that deviates from that understanding I’m happy to be told of it. However the nature of that deviation has to be clearly articulated.

Sure, each religion can ascribe properties to a self beyond the fundamentals of producer and consumer. However, I was merely trying to get to the common denominator behind all senses of ‘self’, Atman/atta or jiva.

Even if that is the case such a definition is contradictory to their definition of Atman or Jiva. If there is a producer (source) and consumer (self), existence and non-existence must always apply. Both the producer and consumer exist in relation to each other, as well as what is being produced and consumed. This is one reason why the teaching of the Jains is incoherent.

Many religions try and describe esoteric ideals and project an air of authority. I’ve found no examples of any that speak about or incorporate Buddhist ideas in a coherent fashion. (By Buddhist ideas I mean ideas commonly found in the suttas).

One final comment of a general nature.

Words like self, non-self, eternal, exist, non-exist etc. have become buzz words of a sort that are used without putting much thought into how to define them such that their practical implications are sensible. If asked to give a definition of these words, many either fail to do so or give a definition that is incomplete or contradictory to other parts of the relevant teaching.

Hi @dhamma012 I think you have provoked an interesting conversation, but I am not quite sure what you are trying to get at. Non-duality is associated with Yogacara and then, of course, Advaita Vedanta. I won’t get into yogacara with you, but as far as I know, consciousness that is not self is Brahman, the One. The Atman goes through a process of self-awakening that leads it to realize that it is One with Brahman. Advaita most definitely has its philosophical problems, but if you wish to go through the process of attaining a universal consciousness that is not-self, because there may be One, there are definitely gurus out there to show you the way. Is that what you are after? If you’re talking individual consciousness that is not self, they you’re talking yoga, and samkhya is most definitely a dualist school.

I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

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I guess what I’m trying to get at is that much of the opposition to consciousness outside the aggregates comes from trying to find ways in which Buddhism is unique when compared against other religions. This is particularly problematic when other religions borrow bits and pieces from Buddhism because then those parts become the other and are subsequently rejected by Buddhists.

For example, the deathless is never equated to nothingness in the suttas. However that is how it is generally interpreted because, at least in part, it seems to provide an easy way for Buddhists to differentiate themselves from others. This causes confusion, as evidenced by the title of this thread: How is final nibbana different form extinction of consciousness after death.

Based on Wikipedia’s article on Brahman though, the Oneness is definitely a self:

In major schools of Hindu philosophy, it is the material, efficient, formal and final cause of all that exists.[2][4][5] It is the pervasive, infinite, eternal truth, consciousness and bliss which does not change, yet is the cause of all changes.[1][3][6]

It is the cause of all changes part of the description that shows that the Oneness is a self. It is the Source of all things and is therefore an eternal, endless supply of sustenance. Anything that wills sustenance into being has to be a self.

So this is where another inconsistency creeps in. On the one hand, the Oneness is claimed to not be a self. On the other hand, it behaves very much like a self would behave. It creates things for consumption, which is a characteristic of the self. In Buddhism, willed creation falls under the fabrication aggregate (also known as the mental formation aggregate).

Not at all :slight_smile: . The aim of Buddhism first and foremost is the ending of suffering. So that is my aim. My interest in consciousness outside the aggregates is to have a view of the Buddha’s teaching that is not self contradictory.

For example, below is an extract from AN9.36:

Ajahn Thanissaro

He turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, inclines his mind to the property of deathlessness: ‘This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.’

Ven. Sujato

They turn their mind away from those things, and apply it to the deathless: ‘This is peaceful; this is sublime—that is, the stilling of all activities, the letting go of all attachments, the ending of craving, fading away, cessation, extinguishment.’

There is a qualitative difference between these two translations.

Ajahn Thanissaro doesn’t reject consciousness outside the aggregates, so therefore leaves a mechanism by which the deathlessness can be experienced as exquisite.

Ven. Sujato, as far as I know, does reject consciousness outside the aggregates, and runs into a problem. Even though his translation describes the deathless as sublime, there is now no mechanism for the deathless to be experienced as sublime, on account of the complete lack of any kind of consciousness.

You could get around this by saying that perhaps the deathless is only sublime to Arahants who are alive and not dead. However in such a case we would expect the Buddha to qualify his statement to the effect of: while alive the deathless is experienced as sublime.

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Hi @dhamma012. I understand the different views of the two translators, but I have difficulty seeing the:

Perhaps you could elaborate, since they look the same to me, apart from using some different words, such as sublime/exquisite, etc.