You are confusing phala-samapati, contemplation of the nibbana element, and nirodha-samapati, in which all perceptions are completely stopped.
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MN70 describes this category of persons: “And what person is freed by wisdom? It’s a person who does not have direct meditative experience of the peaceful liberations that are formless, transcending form. Nevertheless, having seen with wisdom, their defilements have come to an end. This person is called freed by wisdom. I say that this mendicant has no work to do with diligence. Why is that? They’ve done their work with diligence. They’re incapable of being negligent.”
I guess these persons also are not able to enter the cessation of perception and feeling but still their defilements have ended. So, i believe, the meditative Path of complete stilling of formations is not the only way to become an arahant. I feel this is very positive because for many people it is not easy to still.
But then one is not hopelessly lost.
I tend to believe that directing the mind to the deathless means that one here and now directs the mind to emptiness, to what is not seen arising, ceasing and changing. I do not think it is about ideas.
It is more like connecting to what is already present. It is not that stilling and peace can be absent, i think. One can see noise as the absence of stillness, but i believe this is a mistake. Noise is more covering up the stillness but stillness is there again when noise stops. It is onproduced, unmade.
In the same way, i feel, movement, arising formations, does not mean an absence of non-movement.
I think these are in reality no opposites.
Why are taints removed? What is the principle behind this removal?
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Namo Buddhaya!
The peaceful liberations transcending form are the four formless feeling-perception-states, the discernment of the asankhata is not included therein.
The taints are destroyed by a seeing with wisdom. The stock phrase in the sutta is like this
- “Furthermore transcending the base of neither perception nor non-perception one enters into & remains in the cessation of perception & feeling. And his taints are destroyed by his seeing with wisdom.”
This stock phrasing is also explained as the extinguishment & dhamma ‘visible in this very life in a definitive sense’, and deathless & extinguishment are also called the destruction & removal of taints.
Now if you were to put the referenced things together it will be quite clear that
- Not all arahants attain the formless liberations.
- All arahants attain destruction of taints.
- Taints are destroyed by a seeing with wisdom.
- A stream enterer has seen with wisdom and thus some of his taints are removed.
I teach that it is not necessary to actually have the formless perception attainment to transcend it because the pinnacle of percipience is surpassed by the seeing with wisdom whether one has the lower attainment or not.
I hold that the seeing with discernment refers to a directing of mind to the Deathless. And that this means realizing, as in actually attaining, the cessation, the stilling of all constructs, the extinguishment.
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One discerns the extinguishment of feeling -states as a pleasure where nothing is felt, even as the most extreme pleasure. In light of this bliss everything else is reckoned merely as dukkha.
This results in a disenchantment with dukkha.
Before having attained it one can see the drawbacks of the conditioned but in regards to there being an alternative this is something that one takes on faith.
Having seen the deathless one goes beyond faith.
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You understand correctly. Your mistake is that you have accepted the view of the eternal, unchanging citta, which is produced without will-formers and ignorance. This is a wrong view associated with bhava-tanha. In the suttas, citta, along with manas and viññana, is called impermanent and changeable. Another sutta describes citta as dependent on name and form, just like viññāna. Citta is not an entity separate from the five aggregates. Likewise, “pure knowing ability” is not some entity separate from the khandha of consciousness that would manifest itself through the totality of consciousness. This “citta” or “essence” is nothing other than Atta, which is within or without the aggregates. After all, if you ask, is it impermanent, is it suffering? - No. So it can be grasped as I and Mine? - Yes. So this is Atta.
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Thanks Nikolas for your direct approach and honesty. I appreciate that.
I do not feel i make this mistake. I will try to explain.
I agree with those teachers and sutta’s that show or teach that the mind without any attachment, grasping, defilement cannot be identified or described as this or that. It cannot be described in terms of the body, not in terms of feelings, not in terms of perception, not in terms of any will, not in terms of any vinnana or moment a sound, smell, idea, tactile sensation is experienced etc etc . It cannot even be called humane. All such descripions rely on identification. They are all invalid. They can never express the detached mind.
All that can be seen arising, ceasing, changing are, i believe, mere the projections of this unfathomable mind. Mind grasping at her own projections is what has happenend during endless lives. While grasping at minds projections, such as greed and hate, and the notion “I am, and " the view " I am this”, etc. we have failed to see it were mere projections.
Mind gets all the time trapped in her own projections and experiences all this at that moment as true, real. Just like getting caught up in a film. Delusion is like being caught up in the projections of mind and experiecing it as very real and true, as reality. This is the result of avijja and tanha. All bhava is like being caught up in a film, caught up in projections and experiencing all as very real.
Becoming caught up in the projections of the mind, that is what Buddha tries to remedy, in essence.
He identified all causes and conditions in the mind due to which the mind gets caught up in her own projections, and described it in terms of: 3 tanha’s, 4 asava’s, 7 anusaya’s. These are all different angles to describe how the mind instinctively, not freely, becomes caught up in her own projections and starts conceiving in an endless mental proliferation, while experiencing this as reality.
He tries to explain that conceiving comes with wrong understanding of ourselves, others and situations. So, Buddha tries to invite us to see for ourselves what is mind and what is conceiving.
What is the wisdom of the mind and what is the wisdom of conceiving. Those differ. We must see this for ourselves.
Digging deep into the nature of mind cannot be done by reasoning and conceiving and study sutta’s, or other studies, ofcourse. It can only be done by letting go, relinquishment, and uprooting all defilements. Until i have really done this, i i use words like…i believe, i feel, i think…but not i know.
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Thanks. I also tend to see it this way. But not really knowledgable about this.
I also believe that if one has not tasted cessation one also does not really see Paticca Sammupada, how everything conditionally arises. What is your comment on that?
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One sees it in as far as understanding goes, one understands the dependent origination and one has a realistic expectation as to the possibility of cessation and as to what is the unmade, but it is unimaginable as to how it actually is.
It is as if one was to describe sand to someone who has never seen it, he can more or less understand how it is to the point of recognizing it when he sees it.
I hold that a dhamma-follower has a pretty good understanding of these things.
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