Is nibbana similar to annihilation?

I think the chariot simile is used to show our concept of the chariot is an illusion. There are only a putting together of parts.

Even the concept of the parts, are illusions. There is further subdivision. What is then left…but illusory concepts? :slight_smile:

Then waves are in their natural state, without ‘collapse’. :wink: -using quantum mechanics as a explanatory tool rather than as evidence of reality. :grinning:

with metta

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In Sutta it says that people do unwholesome action , after break up the body they will be borne in woeful state. There is some sort of continuation. But the chariot does not have a continuation.

[quote=“Mat, post:142, topic:6335”]
Then waves are in their natural state, without ‘collapse’.

[/quote]Quantum potential - Wikipedia

Lets take an example- say a famous politician like Donald Trump says something, it is then reported on a newspaper, then someone takes a picture of that article and puts it up on Facebook, and then we read it and retain it in our memory.

There is a movement of information. But it would wrong to say that now, Donald Trump is bodily in my head. Similarly there is information transfer from one moment to the next or one life to the next. Experiences arise and pass away. An ‘imprint’ is ‘sent’ forwards.

with metta

A mind-moment passes away - ceases. When it ceases it ceases entirely. It is no-more! Something else happens that bares a resemblance to what had been - that has now ceased. There is an empty gap between these two events. There is nothing sent-forward between this mind-moment and the next one. This is like action at a distance! Something is observed in one place and another thing is observed somewhere else and they have an ‘apparent’ relationship but nothing passes in-between. It is a complete mystery to science but it has been observed and they are trying to find ways to put it to use. It may be used in a communication system where nothing is transmitted through space like a radio-wave. When we communicate on-line a stream of information is sent from the planets surface and received by a satellite that then sends a stream of information back to the planets surface and then we receive a signal from that source via a ‘server’ - that is received by our digital-devices. With an action at a distance communication system no information would need to pass from one computer to another. The act of typing something at one point would cause something to happen at another computer far away - simultaneously. If rebirth takes place it could be this kind of phenomena - no ‘imprint’ is ‘sent’ forwards. No information, no signal, no nothing is sent forward.

That’s exactly what I meant- you just said it much better than I!

with metta

Nibbāna = Non-continuation (and non-rebirth).

Pari-Nibbana means extinction - without remainder. No more coming to any state of being. That which comes to a state of being is not-self. It is not a self that is in the stream of re-becoming and therefore, there is not a self that is annihilated after the Buddha stopped breathing.

"“Malunkyaputta, did I ever say to you, 'Come, Malunkyaputta, live the holy life under me, and I will declare to you that ‘The cosmos is eternal,’ or ‘The cosmos is not eternal,’ or ‘The cosmos is finite,’ or ‘The cosmos is infinite,’ or ‘The soul & the body are the same,’ or ‘The soul is one thing and the body another,’ or ‘After death a Tathagata exists,’ or ‘After death a Tathagata does not exist,’ or ‘After death a Tathagata both exists & does not exist,’ or ‘After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist’?”

“No, lord.” …

“Malunkyaputta, if anyone were to say, ‘I won’t live the holy life under the Blessed One as long as he does not declare to me that “The cosmos is eternal,”… or that “After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist,”’ the man would die and those things would still remain undeclared by the Tathagata.” - Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta

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Mind-moments and time-moments?

“General relativity yields only a block, but causal sets seem to allow a “becoming,” … “The block universe is a static thing — a static picture of the world — whereas this process of becoming is dynamical.” In this view, the passage of time is a fundamental rather than an emergent feature of the cosmos." - Quanta Magazine

https://www.audible.com.au/pd/Health-Personal-Development/Being-Nobody-Going-Nowhere-Audiobook/B01JGPPUZ4

I think in Hinduism there is the idea of “seeing through” transitory personal experience, revealing Atman/Brahman beneath. The question is then whether Nibbana can be considered to be “beneath” the aggregates.

Imagine a child imagines a Christmas tree and draws it on paper. The image in his imagination is the conventional world of trees, dogs etc. The drawing of the Christmas tree would be the aggregates- nothing more than just colour, lines and the limited spread of colour, that he has subsequently given meaning to. The background paper, is emptiness, that 90% of broadstroke Buddhism, refers to. Many try to erase the drawing and claim Nibbana. But no craving or ignorance has been removed so it is just emptiness (akasa), such as when following the breath, the breath stops causing a gap, in between the inbreath and the outbreath. If the drawing vanished, and so did the paper- that would be Nibbana. Its ‘vacuum’ (not as in the vacuume of outer space, but just as in the absence of paper).

The question about whether Nibbana is ‘under’ the aggregates is difficult to answer as under doesn’t readily apply to the simile. ‘There is that dimension where…’ (sutta?) applies here.

with metta

“With the complete surmounting of perceptions of form, with the disappearance of perceptions of sensory impact, with non-attention to perceptions of diversity, aware that ‘space is infinite,’ one enters upon and abides in the base of infinite space [akasa] this is the fourth liberation. By completely surmounting the base of infinite space, aware that ‘consciousness is infinite,’ one enters upon and abides in the base of infinite consciousness: this is the fifth liberation. By completely surmounting the base of infinite consciousness, aware that ‘there is nothing,’ one enters upon and abides in the base of nothingness: this is the sixth liberation. By completely surmounting the base of nothingness, one enters upon and abides in the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception: this is the seventh liberation. By completely surmounting the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, one enters upon and abides in the cessation of perception and feeling: this is the eighth liberation. And thereby many disciples of mine abide having reached the consummation and perfection of direct knowledge.” - Majjhima Nikāya 77

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