SuttaCentral
By that understanding death and the break up of the body changes nothing. The matter that was the body continues. If that matter is impersonal suffering before paranibbana, then it remains impersonal suffering after. Matter does not dissolve. And attempting to divide it into “internal” versus “external” is to make it personal again which is not appropriate.
Regarding matter as ontologically mental stuff doesn’t change or alter this problem.
Can you cite the suttas that teach this, of the experience of “things” being non-dukkha?
We appear to agree that things in themselves are not necessarily dukkha. But again, we cannot really know what reality or the world beyond the six senses is like.
I would try if I understood what you meant by “teach this” since I’m not sure which specific statements you want citations for.
Or perhaps you just mean AN 6.63 that I referenced above? Did you see it?
What suttas teach that the experience of anything is non-dukkha? Can you cite any.
The ones you’ve cited speak of things in themselves not being dukkha, which we appear to agree on. But that’s different than what you wrote about there being experience that is not dukkha.
The suttas I offered earlier are explicit in saying all experiences are dukkha.
AN 6.63 speaks of experiencing and knowing “the world’s pretty things” which are identified as “sensual stimulation” which are not inherently dukkha. It is only by ones greedy intention that they serve as a basis for the arising of dukkha. I believe this sutta is labeled penetrative for a reason and not by accident.
But AN6.63 doesn’t say experience isn’t dukkha. The context is one of giving up desire and craving for things.
“The world’s pretty things stay just as they are,
but a wise one removes desire for them…”
isn’t dealing with the fundamental dukkha of experience. It says what we appear to agree about, that things as they are outside of experience may not be dukkha. That’s all.
There’s no reference to our experience of them not being dukkha.
And, in general, rather than staking a position on one sutta, I’d offer that the teachings in many are likely of greater import. And these, including the ones cited by @Nikolas are many, not few.
It says that sensual stimulation is not inherently dukkha. You appear to acknowledge that with the above. Sensual stimulation is experienced. If sensual stimulation is not experienced, then how would we be speaking about it right now? So not inherently dukkha, but experienced. Thus it is possible to experience without dukkha.
It doesn’t say it, it shows it. Sensual stimulation is experienced. Sensual stimulation is not inherently dukkha. Therefore experience isn’t inherently dukkha. What makes it dukkha is ones greedy intention. It is possible to experience without greedy intention. If it were not possible to experience without greedy intention, then how would the path even be possible?? Truly not understanding where we disagree.
I don’t have any problems with the other suttas that @Nicholas cited. I don’t have any problems with AN 6.63 either. In general, I place import on integration into practice and experience. In this case, I’m fortunate to have had the limited experience of the world’s pretty things without the arising of greedy intention and thus to verify for myself. This experience has given me confidence that with practice I can have more and more experience of sensual stimulation without greedy intention. How is it possible to believe that there can be no experience without greedy intention and still believe that the path is possible?
Do you really (in all honesty) feel, see, know, experience that feelings and perceptions that come and go are dukkha, are suffering? Why does the Buddha teach that anything impermanent is dukkha because that is not at all what we experience, right? If i take a trip on the bike many feelings, sensations, visuals, smells, sounds, tactile feeling come and go but i do not feel that as dukkha at all.
This means that only matter included by karma in the internal, bodily region or that which is taken as an object by consciousness through the senses (consciousness is conditioned by external matter) can be considered rupa. But matter itself is not considered.
Experience is always impermanent, which means experiences will always be pain and pleasure, replacing one another. Only true cessation will put an end to this change of experiences.
At this point I might raise a heretical question. Is it possible to suffer without experience?
Say I decide to meditate instead of doing my usual grocery shopping. While I am peaceful, an old lady at the bus station has problems with the ticketing machine, gets excited and run over by a bus. Had I been there I would most certainly have assisted her and the accident wouldn’t have happened.
Is it reasonable to say that, as a human being, I still have suffered?
I’m sorry, where does the Buddha say this?
He says their cessation should be known, meaning they are fundamentally dukkha.
“When a noble disciple understands sensual pleasures in this way—and understands their source, diversity, result, cessation, and the practice that leads to their cessation—they understand that this penetrative spiritual life is the cessation of sensual pleasures.”
Why should their cessation be known if they’re not dukkha as they are experienced?
Notice the Buddha does not go into whatever may or may not happen to “outside” things with cessation desire.
I cannot follow your train of thought here. Of course there’s sensual stimulation through the senses. We agree. How does it follow that experience is therefore not fundamentally dukkha?
Agree. We appear to disagree that the mere presence of experience, always through the six senses, is also fundamentally dukkha. Otherwise, why would the Buddha teach about the necessity for their complete cessation?
I’m not aware of ever suggesting this. Sorry if in some way this was unclear.
Hi,
If you choose to read the sutta citations I’ve offered you’ll see it’s what the Buddha taught. It’s not about us and our opinions regarding experiences. 
Please reread AN 6.63 and pay special attention to the distinction that the Teacher made between “sensual stimulation” and “sensual pleasures.” It appears you are conflating the two. The difference between the two is greedy intention.
Sensual stimulation without greedy intention does not lead to suffering. Sensual stimulation without greedy intention is not inherently dukkha.
Sensual stimulation + greedy intention = sensual pleasures. Sensual pleasures lead to suffering. Sensual pleasures are to be done away with by abandoning greedy intention.
Hi,
Again, I don’t see the sutta saying this at all. Where’s the quote for this in the sutta?
The Buddha does differentiate sensual stimulation from sensual pleasures but at no point says the former is free of dukkha.
The sutta is focussed on the letting go of craving and desire and invokes aspects of DO as a way to teach about the ending of all dukkha, while the maintenance of desire perpetuates existence, rebirth, and dukkha.
The sutta is not pointing to ontological arguments but to the necessity of ending craving. Again, I’d suggest it’s about context.
Reading the aggregates of feelings and perceptions the sutta teaches about their cessation, not how they are without dukkha:
"And what is the cessation of feelings? When contact ceases, feelings cease. The practice that leads to the cessation of feelings is simply this noble eightfold path, that is: right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right immersion.
When a noble disciple understands feelings in this way … they understand that this penetrative spiritual life is the cessation of feelings. ‘Feelings should be known. And their source, diversity, result, cessation, and the practice that leads to their cessation should be known.’ "
And
“‘Perceptions should be known. And their source, diversity, result, cessation, and the practice that leads to their cessation should be known.’”
So again, because they are fundamentally forms of dukkha they need to cease. But of course, they don’t cease while an arahant is still alive, so the Buddha is pointing to the need for them, and the other aggregates, to completely cease at final nibbāna. Otherwise, why would they need to cease?
Finally, the Buddha cites, as he does in SN56.11, the forms of dukkha and includes the five grasping aggregates as a summary of this:
“‘Suffering should be known. And its source, diversity, result, cessation, and the practice that leads to its cessation should be known.’ That’s what I said, but why did I say it? Rebirth is suffering; old age is suffering; illness is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress are suffering; not getting what you wish for is suffering. In brief, the five grasping aggregates are suffering.”
The Pāli and the context(s) for the five grasping aggregates don’t point to only when they’re grasped, but to their coming into existence via grasping and dukkha, their very presence leading to grasping and dukkha , their existence as perpetuating grasping and dukkha, and their cessation as necessary for the final ending of dukkha.
The Buddha taught so often about the need for the complete and final cessation of the senses and aggregates.
Right, the Teacher differentiates between these two and emphasizes that greedy intention is what separates them because it is greedy intention which leads to dukkha. Without greedy intention the world’s pretty things stay just as they are and do not lead to dukkha. That is why the wise do not form greedy intentions toward them.
Agreed.
Agreed. I’m surprised and happy that we agree the Teacher is not making an ontological argument.
Agreed.
Ah, but this I cannot agree with, “fundamentally forms of dukkha.” I cannot agree with this because it isn’t stated and it is an ontological argument that I thought we agreed the Teacher wasn’t making? If you believe that the aggregates are fundamentally and ontologically dukkha incarnate then it is impossible for what is fundamentally and ontologically dukkha to abandon dukkha. And that’s just one of the the problems.
Another problem is what I’ve said in this thread - one of those aggregates at the least - the form aggregate - does not actually fundamentally cease when you say it does: at the break up and death of the Arahant. Rather, at best it transforms and is “reborn” as something else. That something else being fundamentally and inherently dukkha according to you.
The Teacher taught so often for the complete letting go of those polluted aggregates as anything suitable to be called “I” or for anything at all to be suitable to be called “mine.” The Teacher taught that we should not obsess about the aggregates, but rather to become utterly dispassionate about the aggregates; to utterly give up our greedy intentions. Craving after the non-existence of the aggregates has to be let go of as well.
The whole question of reliable knowledge predates phenomenology but phenomenology did arise out of this question (which for us was most dramatically and influentially handled by Immanuel Kant). Western phenomenology is understood to start with Husserl - and his famous questioning of what he called the natural attitude. It’s a difficult thing to describe - most people just take their life world - whatever presents to them - straight up. So phenomenology was instrumental in lifting the hood on questions like “not create her own perspective with her own truths.” Phenomenology is quite advanced - there is a division (which has been convincingly challenged) between transcendental phenomenology (e.g. Husserl, and most people put Heidegger in that camp) and what is usually just referred to as embodiment, which is Merleau Ponty. As well phenomenology is linked to what’s called plain philosophy through a man named Stanley Cavell.
When you go to school and are taught to identify your biases, for instance in English, which is usually where good critical practices get taught, you are taught that thanks to phenomenology. Ethnography now (anthropology) depends upon phenomenology. In both disciplines anyone who doesn’t preface their work with identification of biases … ah … probably … well let’s just say s/he won’t get very far.
Other than that, within philosophy, people frequently point out"psychologism" in various thinkers’ perspectives for various reasons. So, at the most basic level, you need to know that’s also there, and that is possibly what you are encountering. These days there can even be other things, but psychology has tended to swamp most everything until just recently.
You have to keep phenomenology in mind when you think about Buddhist practice as the cultivation of wisdom and the cultivation of what in some types of Buddhism is called power (i.e. the meditative side). Just on this one side that we are talking about, it is the practice of wisdom that matters. What is your image of that?
In the vedic tradition wisdom (the Vedāḥ) is described as śruti (heard) or dṛṣṭi (seen).
Re: Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā (300-200 BCE), poetic diviners (ṛṣis) acquired the Vedāḥ through mystical experience as hearers (śrotṛ) and seers (draṣṭā). It is eternal revelation not of man (apauruṣeya), self-evident (svataḥpramāṇa), perfect, infallible and all-knowing (viśvavid).
So this notion of wisdom was formalized a bit later than when we think Buddha was alive, but the idea that … I know the Self (atman) that is the One … (source) … Brahman … among the poets of the Rgveda and all sorts of different thinking about that … is truly ancient. You have to keep in mind that this view - of wisdom - does bubble up. This is under extreme duress and challenge at the time of Buddha in the form of skeptical materialism.
Yes, it is about us. It is about how we experience things.
Why can’t we say that the forces influencing vision (the visible) - together with the eye and the consciousness of the eye - create the “perception” of the visible - shapes, colors, light, darkness, etc.?
The world cannot be taken out of the equation, since it participates in contact. It is not the imaginary visible that is involved in the contact, otherwise we would say that the mother’s son became his own father, which is impossible and absurd. The impermanence of the world is the basis for the impermanence of the perception of the visible.
Buddha measures the world around him not in the form of color, shape, mountains, trees and stones, but in the form of measurable relationships: everything that is fluid is objectively fluid. Everything that burns and reacts again objectively exhibits this property. It can be distinguished from what is static and has mass, hardness, etc.
Division into 4 elements is the first attempt to objectively describe matter as it is, which is what quantum physics is now doing, reducing everything to the elementary relations of attraction, cohesion, motion, mass, inertia, etc.