But the complete ending of the aggregates only occurs at pari-Nibbana ( death of an Arahant ), so are you saying that dukkha is not completely removed until pari-Nibbana?
No, not by definition. “Sabbe dhamma anatta” allows for the possibility that Nibbana is an impersonal reality.
Who says that atman = brahman is personal?
Atta is a type of view, a wrong one. Before attaining Nibbana, we can take anything as atta, even Nibbana itself. After attaining Nibbana, any such views are destroyed.
Sure, but we are told 100s of times that the khandhas are anicca, what is anicca is dukkha, and what is dukkha cannot be atta.
Well, certainly nibbana is not part of the khandhas. nibbana is not anicca, therefore it is not dukkha, therefore it can be atta.
Why is nibbana not the real atta - in contrast to the fake atta of imaginary views?
Atta is a wrong view caused by a lack of knowledge (avijja). Nibbana is achieved through panna that cuts the mental defilements, one of which is atta-ditthi. Surely a stain remover can not be called a stain itself.
That there are wrong views of atta doesn’t mean that atta itself is a wrong view. We’ve had some topics about it already: The EBT don’t say that there is no atta.
Isn’t this is exactly what “sabbe dhamma anatta” is saying?
Everything that is real is dhamma. What is not dhamma? Concepts (panatti). If there is atta, then it should not be a dhamma. So there could be atta, but it is only a concept, not a real thing (paramattha). Or in other words, atta is no more than a wrong view (conception) one make in one own mind.
I would agree if we knew what sabbe dhamma meant. Dhamma is a weird zombie word of the EBT. Coming from ‘support’ and ‘law’ it then meant ‘teaching’ or ‘doctrine’. But it also means ‘thought’, and finally - and I might add this smells like Abhidhamma - it’s came to mean ‘thing’.
So I wouldn’t know what the ‘dhamma’ in sabbe dhamma anatta actually refers to. Do you have a definition found in the EBT?
I don’t have an EBT reference. We can take “sabbe sankhara anicca/dukkha” as comparison. So why is anatta targeted to dhamma not sankhara? Because it also applies to asankhara. What is asankhara? Nibbana. Is there anything else other than nama, rupa, and Nibbana? Not that I ever heard of.
So you mean that asankhara is also anatta? Interesting. Would be nice to see that validated somehow. I understand your reasoning, but you know, it’s always good to have some sutta references…
Asankhara is anatta simply because there is no avijja that causes atta-ditthi.
When there is atta-ditthi, there is formation of the five khandhas. When there is no atta-ditthi, there is no formation of the five khandhas. Nibbana, is simply free from all that.
We can also say that atta is something that can be tainted by avijja and then taken as self. Nibbana is no such thing.
Even when there is sutta reference, the interpretation is up to the reader. That is why I actually prefer late texts like the Visuddhi Magga, commentary, and abhidhamma texts because then can explain a lot that the meaning of the suttas.
This is correct, and well explained by char101. To put in the opposite way:
"‘A person has six properties.’ Thus was it said. In reference to what was it said? These are the six properties: the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, the wind property, the space property, the consciousness property. MN140
Nibbana is not mentioned here, and supports the concept of 'sabbe dhamma anatta’ti.
with metta
Sorry, I can’t follow the argument. Are you relating dhatu and sankhara?
The sutta is saying a person, or conventionally what is misapprehended as atta, is made up of these six elements; “the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, the wind property, the space property, the consciousness property”. It includes everything except Nibbana.
It is quite clear that the five aggregates do get confused for being atta. This happens naturally and due to the presence of craving- what we like we make them ‘me’ or ‘my own’. And if anyone makes Nibbana ‘me’, it is because they are thinking of the concept of Nibbana, without having really seen/experienced true Nibbana. When they do, there is no way they can consider it to be self, because it doesn’t have any features that fabrications (sankhara) have.
with metta
Not me, but my point stands. Having followed this discussion I still think the suttas are ambiguous on the question of whether Nibbana is a transcendent reality, or a state of mind, or something else.
Could you provide some sutta support for this view? Nibbana is usually described as cessation of the taints, not cessation of the aggregates ( except as a temporary meditative state ).
Sankhara is conditioned. Nibbana is unconditioned. Conditioned means to appear dependent on a condition (cause). What is the cause? Kamma. What is the cause of kamma? Avijja. So mental taint is the cause of the appearance of the 5 khandhas. For a sutta source I think there are several suttas about paticcasamuppada and it’s reversal, but I don’t have the number.