Hello everyone!
Please, I have a question: if all dhammas are annata because they are conditioned, in what sense is nibbana annata if it is not conditioned?
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Here’s a nice essay by our Bhante Sujato:
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Some historians believe that Nibbana was only introduced to the teaching when Buddhists were pressured by the other Shramanic movements to accept certain minimal doctrines or else be excluded from the broader community.
@Malunkyaputta , I dont know about that. There are many early suttas talking about nibbana.
Which ones? I’d be interested to read what they have to say about this.
Okay, so admittedly this is not about Nibbana. I apologize. Isn’t it funny what the mind does with things that one has read.
According to both Bronkhorst and Anderson, the four truths became a substitution for prajna, or “liberating insight”, in the suttas[124][100] in those texts where “liberating insight” was preceded by the four jhanas.[125] According to Bronkhorst, the four truths may not have been formulated in earliest Buddhism, and did not serve in earliest Buddhism as a description of “liberating insight”.[126] Gotama’s teachings may have been personal, “adjusted to the need of each person.”[125]
This replacement was probably caused by the influence and pressures of the wider Indian religious landscape, “which claimed that one can be released only by some truth or higher knowledge.”[102]
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What do you believe that the sutta’s mean with the concept of atta? How is this used?
Maybe we can then understand why Nibbana is called anatta.
Has atta a psychological meaning?
An ontological
A phenomelogical
A philosophical?
Or has it all these meanings?
For example, if someone regard the body as self…what does this mean?
Does this mean that this person has some idea that the body is eternal, inherently existent, substantially existent? Does this person has at that moment some ideas about to ontological status of the body?
Or does it just mean that that person regards the body as himself? The psychological mechanism of identifying with the body?
How do you see this? What does atta exactly mean?
I do not believe this is right. The three characteristics describe the three marks of conditioned existence, conditioned phenomena and states. But reality also consist of asankhata according EBT. Also asankhata can be known, and must be known. That what has no characteristic to arise, cease and change.
Buddha teaches two elements and truths, sankhata, which has the characteristics to conditionally arise and cease and change, and there is the asankhata element. That what has no characteristics to arise, cease and change. That what is totally stable, constant, not-desintegrating. An unsupported reality.
This is refered to as the stilling of all formation, dispassion, total detachment, purity, peace, Nibbana.
Or refered to like this:
"there is, mendicants, that dimension where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no wind; no dimension of infinite space, no dimension of infinite consciousness, no dimension of nothingness, no dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; no this world, no other world, no moon or sun. There, mendicants, I say there is no coming or going or remaining or passing away or reappearing. It is not established, does not proceed, and has no support. Just this is the end of suffering.”
In conditioned existence all has some support and ofcourse that is not reliable, cannot be a refuge.
Such cannot be stable. Only what has no support can function as a refuge, protection.
When the Buddha found this, his search came to an end. That is what i believe.
He never sought to cease. He always understood that he had to find that what has no support, Nibbana.
All conditioned existence is fragile, dependend, unreliabe, unstable, inconstant because it supports on this or that. Nibbana does not. I believe Nibbana is a peace beyond understanding.
Is this atta or anatta. I feel we must first determine what atta means. I have no idea, meaning to many.
Anatta is a way to perceive Nibbana. A fully Awakened Buddha understands and experiences full Anatta, in Nibbana and Enlightenment, and it is in fact considered the full purpose of the Buddhadhamma in my opinion. It is a Dhamma. Words can only explain so much.
But I don’t know Nibbana is called anatta in the EBTs
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Oke, i know from reading some commentaries of Abhidhamma books that Nibbana, together with rupa, cetasika and citta are seen as paramatha dhammas. Those are not words or concepts but realities. (Nina van Gorkom)
Nina van Gorkom says:
- All conditioned dhammas, citta, cetasika and rupa, are impermanent, “anicca”.
(Is that true? How can we know? Green.)
- All conditioned dhammas are “dukkha”; they are “suffering” or unsatisfactory, since they are impermanent.
(Is this true? How can we know this?, Green)
-All dhammas are non-self, “anatta” (in Pali: sabbe dhamma anatta, Dhammapada,
vs. 279).
(What does such mean? non-self, no-self, not -self, even translating anatta is a mysterie, Green).
Thus, the conditioned dhammas, not nibbana, are impermanent and dukkha. But all dhammas, that is, the four paramattha dhammas, nibbana included, have the characteristic of anatta, non-self"
In two notes van Gorkom says:
7 Sankhara dhammas are conditioned dhammas that arise together depending on each other. The Pali**term “sankhata” is also used. Sankhata means what has been put together, composed by a combination of factors. Sa nkhata dhamma is what has arisen because of conditions.
8 In Pali: asankhata: not conditioned, the opposite of sankhata. In the Dhammasangani nibbana is
referred to as asankhata dhatu, the unconditioned element. Sometimes the term visankhara dhamma, the dhamma which is not sankhara (vi is negation), is used.
It seems that some buddhist do not even see Nibbana as paramatha dhamma. I believe some have the opinion that Nibbana is a concept. Not something that can be known. At best one can know for oneself that there is no rebirth anymore, by reasoning and inference, and that is knowing Nibbana. That is the belief of some. And some see Nibbana as atta, sukha, and nicca while the khandha’s are seen as dukkha, anicca and anatta. Some believe we cannot express what Nibbana is. Oh, and some believe Nibbana is like life itself, an intelligent field.
Ehum 
Yes, we buddhist are famous for our ideas and great imagination.
I believe in general the dhammapada verse:
“Sabbe dhammā anattā"
is interpretated as: .all dhammas, conditioned and unconditioned (nibbana) are anatta.
Sometimes Nibbana in the sutta’s is called an imperishable state and i believe also eternal.
I like to see Nibbana as peace beyond understanding but this is because i am always led by \ my famous gut-feelings and have the greatest imagination of all.
To whatever extent there are phenomena conditioned or unconditioned, dispassion is declared the foremost among them, that is, the crushing of pride, the removal of thirst, the uprooting of attachment, the termination of the round, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, nibbāna. (Trans : Ven. Bodhi)
AN 4.34
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Thank you all for your answers.
My point can be more philosophical: if conditioned dhammas are anatta, because they are conditioned, then for what reason is Nibbana called anatta, assuming it is a dhamma?
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You may find these essays/threads of interest –
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IMO EBT are not philosophically coherent. They allow for different interpretations that in the end make up the different “camps” within Theravada.
To my understanding, the three major interpretations are the following:
Nibbana as the “unconditioned element”. Here Nibbana indeed seems to be understood as the unconditioned element vs the conditioned elements, and more or less a “place” or “ultimate reality”. Various interpretations of its nature are possible, like a monist last element or dualist transcendence. A problem here seems to be the reconcilliation with “not-self”. Eg Ajahn Thanissaro, Bh. Bodhi
Nibbana as the state of complete disattachment in this life. I call this camp the “hunky-dorists”. Eg Tinch Hat Nanh, Buddhadasa
Nibbana as cessation, the end of everything, were philosophically, it would have to be akin to Heidegger/Hegel’s “Being/Nothing”. Eg Ajahn Brahm, Brahmali (Sujato?)
I myself choose to follow a skeptical approach. Certain Suttas (AN 3.65, MN63) seem to offer this possibility and show a way to go. For me personally, Buddhisms biggest value is that of a consequent Lebensphilosophie relative to human lived experience.
Hope this helps.
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If we are talking about Early Buddhism as a whole, we have to see if the phrase “sabbe dhammā anattā” was accepted by all early sects, and if they all simultaneously included nibbāna as one of those anattā dhammas.
If nibbāna is anattā, Buddhism would be completely nihilist.
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From Ven. Anadajoti’s work:
I’m not sure that’s a good way to formulate it. The teaching lead to a dissolution of all ideations - why would you need to formulate that which is beyond formulations? Talking about atta complicates matters (as it probably has in the past, as conventionally, people refer to their being as atta, but then say “that’s not real atta, this is real atta” etc. )
Snp 5.7 is one of my favourite suttas regarding this:
“The one who has come to rest, is he then nothing?” said venerable Upasīva,
“or is he actually eternally healthy?
Please explain this to me, O Sage,
for this Teaching has been understood by you.”“There is no measure of the one who has come to rest, Upasīva,” said the Gracious One,
“there is nothing by which they can speak of him,
when everything has been completely removed,
all the pathways for speech are also completely removed.”
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But is it possible to know that?
For what reason do you think that if Nibbana is not atta, then Buddhism is nihilistic?
On topic of “sabbe dhammā” there is an interesting sutta AN10.58
This term is used 30 times in this sutta in various ways.
kiṁmūlakā, āvuso, sabbe dhammā?
Brother, rooted in what is all dhammā?chandamūlakā, āvuso, sabbe dhammā
Rooted in desire, brother, is all dhammā.
manasikārasambhavā sabbe dhammā
Produced by manasikāra is all dhammā.
…
nibbānapariyosānā sabbe dhammā
nibbāna is the end of all dhammā
So it seems to me that this sutta states that things (dhamma) are rooted in desire and are temporary and finally burn out as fire out of fuel ~ nibbana (when the fire of desire goes out).
Do you think in this context nibbana simply means “going out as fire out of fuel”. In that case its hard to say if its a dhamma in itself, rather it describes the end of dhamma.
I suppose this depends on the definition of those words, if nibbāna in that context means simply going out of the fires of raga/lobha,dosa,moha in citta - then what could remain is pure citta or if some believe citta is dhamma too and does not last then only atta could remain. Afterall, only anatta is dukkha, right?
There are things and beings. This sutta cleary states that for one who has come to rest there is no thing by which they can speak of him. Things (dhamma) have been removed, what remains is a pure being.
PS: In this context, existence or birth would be mixing of things with being.
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I’ve never seen the formulation that dhammas are anatta because they are conditioned.
I’ve seen discussed that the 3 characteristics can apply to all sankharas.
And that all dhammas are anatta.
Sabbe sankara dukkha (all sankaras are stressful),
Sabbe sankara anicca (all sankaras are impermanent),
Sabbe dhamma anatta (all dhammas are not-self),
Would you mind sharing where you saw that formulation?
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