“As to this… right view comes first. And how … does right view come first? Right purpose… proceeds from right view, right speech proceeds from right purpose; right action proceeds from right speech; right mode of livelihood proceeds from right action; right endeavor proceeds from right mode of livelihood; right mindfulness proceeds from right endeavor; right concentration proceeds from right mindfulness; right knowledge proceeds from right concentration; right freedom proceeds from right knowledge. In this way… the learner’s course is possessed of eight components, the perfected one’s of ten components.”
(MN 117, PTS Vol. III p 119)
The “course” is the path leading to the end of suffering, and from the above, a path to the end of suffering is still trod by the arahant.
In the chapter on in-breathing and out-breathing in SN V, Gautama describes the mindfulness that made up his way of living as both his way of living when he was as yet the Bodhisattva and as the Tathagatha’s way of living.
Ch’an teacher Yuanwu said (as best as I can recollect at the moment), “If you feel like stopping, stop. You will never be finished.”
I read Arahants are free from the dukkha described in the Four Noble Truths, which is the dukkha of attachment & becoming caused by craving. We may need to read SN 56.11, which reads to say the five grasping aggregates are dukkha. Arahant may feel painful feelings, but these painful feelings are not suffering when there is not grasping of/to them. We can also read SN 36.6 or SN 22.1.
How can extinction be blissful when everything, including bliss, is extinct?
I doubt any arahants teach the extinction of the aggregates is blissful.
This sounds both very wrong & over dramatic.
I read about some monks committing suicide however they were those very close to the end of life and were subjected to extremely serious painful & disabling illness.
Reverend Sāriputta, I’m not keeping well, I’m not getting by. The pain is terrible and growing, not fading; its growing is evident, not its fading. 5.2The winds piercing my head are so severe, it feels like a strong man drilling into my head with a sharp point. 5.35.4The pain in my head is so severe, it feels like a strong man tightening a tough leather strap around my head. 5.55.6The winds slicing my belly are so severe, like a deft butcher or their apprentice were slicing open a cows’s belly with a sharp meat cleaver. 5.75.8The burning in my body is so severe, it feels like two strong men grabbing a weaker man by the arms to burn and scorch him on a pit of glowing coals. 5.9I’m not keeping well, I’m not getting by. The pain is terrible and growing, not fading; its growing is evident, not its fading.
As an example: The physical pain caused by a grave illness can not be escaped by mental disattachment.
Or such an ilness may rob you of your mental capabilities of attachment/disattachment alltogether, like a stroke or Alzheimer’s.
Sadly and tragically, the deaths of two of the most famous teachers of your line of thought, Buddhadasa and Tinch Hat Nanh, could in this light be seen as the biggest counterargument against their own teaching.
There are also other less severe elements of Dhukka that can not be avoided by disattachment. The need for a bathroom per example.
I believe that the fact that it is impossible for a human being to escape all Dukkha in this life is one of the main reasons why the
Buddha taught the middle way. Only if I agree to a necessarily remaining residue can I allow myself not to revert to an asceticism that would otherwise solve the problem.
“Some time later I see that they have indeed realized the undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom in this very life, and live having realized it with their own insight due to the ending of defilements, experiencing exclusively pleasant feelings.”
Tamenaṁ passāmi aparena samayena āsavānaṁ khayā anāsavaṁ cetovimuttiṁ paññāvimuttiṁ diṭṭheva dhamme sayaṁ abhiññā sacchikatvā upasampajja viharantaṁ, ekantasukhā vedanā vedayamānaṁ.
MN12
"Just as, mendicants, even a tiny bit of fecal matter still stinks, so too I don’t approve of even a tiny bit of continued existence, not even as long as a finger-snap.”
Well I believe he’s talking about conditioned existence.
As is the possible Realization of Sunyata, the non-existentce of the noumenal world, begins to unbind one from conditioned existence, or even the thought that they exist.
Apart from this spontaneous pick of Sutta that I happened to just have read, we can make this topic a Sutta challenge and throw different Suttas at each other for a week. We will still not have accomplished anything.
EBT are not coherent, and there are Suttas that will confirm and contradict any of the different standpoints of the major schools. In fact I believe that these contradictions are the very origin of the different schools.
IMO, any practionioner today can only select their particular view from their preference, scriptural interpretation and philosophical reasoning. Nobody is able to prove any of these viees without a doubt, first and foremost not from the Canon.
I never posted the above. A misinterpretation of Dhamma has caused a misinterpretation of my post.
I have no idea how what is posted above is related to the Teachings.
A misunderstanding is not related to the Teachings of the Buddha. Keep in mind, if a monk believes ‘jati’ means ‘rebirth’ or ‘physical birth’, they cannot be free from suffering. This is because the suttas say birth causes death and deaths causes sorrow & grief. If a monk believes this life is a ‘birth’, then, for them, sorrow & grief cannot end because birth has not ended. A monk with wrong view cannot be an Arahant. If we wish to try to understand dependent origination, we can start with:
SN 12.2, which says: Birth is a condition for old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness and distress to come to be.
SN 12.20, which says: Aging-and-death, bhikkhus, is impermanent, conditioned, dependently arisen, subject to destruction, vanishing, fading away, and cessation.
SN 12.66, which says: ‘The many diverse kinds of suffering that arise in the world headed by aging-and-death: this suffering has acquisition as its source, acquisition as its origin; it is born and produced from acquisition. When there is acquisition, aging-and-death comes to be; when there is no acquisition, aging-and-death does not come to be.’
The suttas above say death is caused by attachment (acquisition) and for Arahants without attachment the concept of “death” fades away & ceases.
I read MN 86, which says about Angulimala becoming a monk: Ever since I was born in the noble birth, sister, I don’t recall having intentionally taken the life of a living creature. By this truth, may both you and your baby be safe.’ MN 86 does not read like jati means physical birth. It reads to mean some type of ‘identity birth’.
The Buddha taught the complete freedom from suffering, where this suffering is attachment (instead of physical pain).
For some Noble Ones, when the body is very old & ill, their life form is obviously completely incapacitated, where they cannot look after the life form anymore. These Noble Ones have ended their life, without craving for any other new life, as described MN 144, which says the monk lays down his life without attaching to any (concept; want; notion) of any type of new or other life.
Also doesnt apperantly imply that the buddha reccomended suicide no later than one finger snap after enligtenment.
And in addition to the finger snap refrence clearly not being an instruction for arhant suicide it also doesnt apply to them in the first place since with the utter fading away and cessation of the asavas, there has been an utter fading away and cessation of ignorance, and hence, via a chain I can give you several weeks worth of sutta refrences for, an utter fading away and complete cessation of “continued existence”
How approving of something has very mich to do with the OP’s question is quite beyond me, an explicit statement to the effect that the arahant lives without suffering, purely experiencing pleasure, until they die, is directly applicable to it.
Anyway, the idea that “cetainly not the canon” on a site supposedly devoted to the study of precicely those texts is a bizarre statement.
Whoa, hold on a second! I do not think that the above Sutta endorses Arahant suicide.
Rather, I was trying to use it as an argument against the “one life / Nibbana without residue”-theory that I suspected you and friend @Dunlop to hold (based on some of your statements).
No, bizarre is somebody who claims to have studied the Canon without noticing the apparent philosophical contradictions. Even a giant like Bh. Bodhi admits that there are passages that even he can’t reconcile.
Perhaps you could explain what the “one lifetime nibanna withput residue” theory is and give an example of what you take to be a “philosophical contradiction” in the suttas and i can tell you if id noticed it or not.
The idea that the Arahant is completely free of Dukkha in this life, not only at Parinibbana, which as a necessary consequence leads to a different interpretation of the 12 nidanas of dependent origination resulting in an allegorical understanding of rebirth.
A contradicting view is a view that holds “a+b” while “a” can be shown to have consequences leading to the impossibility of “b” under the logical principle of excluded contradiction.
This is not my view. I think parinibanna is a late term and all its associated metaphysical/theoretical baggage is late, scholastic baggage.
There being no parinibanna in the earlier parts of the ebt, there is no issue, and the qoute i give is perfectly conaistent with this earlier material
The scattered parinibanna stuff, seemingly mostly used as an epitath to indicate a dead arhant (and also in some cases living ones) then develops into the sectarian Therevada three lifetimes theory of DO, for which the is no evidence in the EBT.
I didnt ask for a definition of contradiction, i know what the word contradiction means, and your definition is wrong anyway, its “law of excluded middle” or “principle of non contradiction”, which are two different things btw.
I was asking for an example from the suttas that you take to be contradictory.
Whoops! Well the seven suttas i mention are still relevant and useful to anyone who wants to familiarise themselves with the textual evidence regarding suicide in the ebt.
The unfortunately broken up thread also contains a lot of interesting discussion regarding anapana and other meditation related topics.
