No rebirth - what happens next?

I do not see people as bad. But i believe that it is serious mistake to not understand that Dhamma, in essence is not about making, constructing, producing, but about letting go, relinquishment, detachement. Buddha did not create the mind. He purified it. Buddha did not create the true peaceful, unlimited unburdened characteristics of a purified mind. His effort was abanonding all what limits mind, all what burdens. Buddha is not the creator of peace, Nibbana, dispassion. We all share in this nature of mind. But defilements yet hinder us to see this.

You’re using the all differently from how the Buddha used it: A Dystopian Present - #17 by NgXinZhao

sn35.33-42/

At Sāvatthī.

“Mendicants, all is liable to be reborn. And what is the all that is liable to be reborn? The eye, sights, eye consciousness, and eye contact are liable to be reborn. And the pleasant, painful, or neutral feeling that arises conditioned by eye contact is also liable to be reborn.

The ear … nose … tongue … body … The mind, ideas, mind consciousness, and mind contact are liable to be reborn. And the pleasant, painful, or neutral feeling that arises conditioned by mind contact is also liable to be reborn.

Seeing this a learned noble disciple grows disillusioned … They understand: ‘… there is no return to any state of existence.’”

“Mendicants, all is liable to grow old. …”

“Mendicants, all is liable to fall sick. …”

“Mendicants, all is liable to die. …”

“Mendicants, all is liable to sorrow. …”

“Mendicants, all is liable to be corrupted. …”

“Mendicants, all is liable to end. …”

“Mendicants, all is liable to vanish. …”

“Mendicants, all is liable to originate. …”

“Mendicants, all is liable to cease. …”

Clearly then, as Buddha said, all ceases, therefore your notion of the unconditioned within the all, is a wrong notion. What’s left? The real unconditioned, which you label as mere cessation.

Yet you critiqued me when I said the cessation, nothing after parinibbāna is peaceful and happy, and you also put that to your notion of the unconditioned. If you can describe your notion of the unconditioned, so can I.

An9.47

Furthermore, take a mendicant who, going totally beyond the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, enters and remains in the cessation of perception and feeling. And, having seen with wisdom, their defilements come to an end.
Puna caparaṁ, āvuso, bhikkhu sabbaso nevasaññānāsaññāyatanaṁ samatikkamma saññāvedayitanirodhaṁ upasampajja viharati, paññāya cassa disvā āsavā parikkhīṇā honti.
To this extent the Buddha said that extinguishment is apparent in the present life in a definitive sense.”
Ettāvatāpi kho, āvuso, sandiṭṭhikaṁ nibbānaṁ vuttaṁ bhagavatā nippariyāyenā”ti.

when the cessation of perception and feeling is said to be nibbāna in a definitive sense, and the only difference between it as a corpse is:

“When someone dies, their physical, verbal, and mental processes have ceased and stilled; their vitality is spent; their warmth is dissipated; and their faculties have disintegrated.

When a mendicant has attained the cessation of perception and feeling, their physical, verbal, and mental processes have ceased and stilled. But their vitality is not spent; their warmth is not dissipated; and their faculties are very clear. That’s the difference between someone who has passed away and a mendicant who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling.”

What else can we conclude but no mind no body after parinibbāna? No soul, so nothing left. If you put your unconditioned as that something left, then it functions as a soul. Which is denied in Buddhism. Nothingness itself is unconditioned.

All these are refuted once you said:

Ofcourse i meant…your position that all ceases after a final death…denies asankhata. It just denies what cannot cease and according EBT MN115 also must be known. But you will never ever know your mere cessation. So this cannot refer to asankhata.

Yes, this world of vinnana ceases, I do not reject that.

But mine makes sense :grinning:

Why would what has no characteristic to arise, cease and change, function as a soul? You cannot think about it as something that transcends personal existence?

Nothingness is a jhana, and very different then nothing remaining after a last death.

This can be remedied understanding the pāli word properly. Asankhata means Without sankhatas, not unconditioned, just as Anatta means Without atta.

1 Like

Nibbāna is known by the stream winner, by the supramundane consciousness.

Nibbāna without remainder then is known by just removing the remainder from Nibbāna with remainder.

We are not talking about taking things as self, but about the definition of soul. From the second discourse, what’s impermanent and suffering cannot be considered as a self/soul. Therefore a soul is permanent and happy.

This fits in with your notion of unconditioned. It doesn’t fit in my notion because there is nothing.

I am pretty sure you have seen the 9 levels of nothingness too already right? Let’s not revisit this.

What is the difference in your mind? What is this understanding that remedies? Without conditioned phenomena versus unconditioned? :pray:

It’s easy to reify the unconditioned into something. It’s clear that without conditioned/constructed means nothing.

Compare the ‘nothingness’ that you posit happens at the end of life of an enlightened one and the ‘nothingness’ that you arrive at by directly perceiving the essence of conditioned phenomena in the here and now? Do they refer to the same ‘nothingness’ or are they different and then can you explain? :pray:

Yeah, I’m not sure that changing a couple of words will change @Green’s mind :wink: :pray:

1 Like

In one setting, we create an object that is defined by its property (namely, something not having conditions); in another, it just refers to absence of something (namely, absence of conditions).

I’ll try to give a crude analogy. An empty glass is absent of orange juice, but it’s not the absence of orange juice as an object itself.

Why? Because if I ask you what is the absence of orange juice?, said glass is not the answer to it (it might be an example for you to demonstrate, but said glass isn’t in every single case the ontological answer to the question). The correct answer is a property that is common to a lot of things, mainly, everything that lacks orange juice.

However, if I point at an empty glass and ask “Is this glass empty of orange juice?”, the answer is always yes.

1 Like

Same. They have the same name, Nibbāna. Cessation of all conditioned phenomena, and its causes, without arising again.

I answered here like this because you put quotation marks on the nothingness.

If you want to ask about the difference between the stream winner seeing nibbāna vs parinibbāna then:
For the one with perception seeing it, there’s still perception left. For stream winner vs arahant, stream winner haven’t eradicated greed, hatred and delusion yet, so haven’t touched nibbāna with the body (personally touched Nibbāna), just see the water of Nibbāna in the well.

It could be that you’re describing what I’d call a non-affirming negation. It isn’t the case that the current King of France is bald. This does not imply a current King of France, a King, a country called France, baldness, that in the past there was a King of France, that he was bald, it simply means what it says, “It isn’t the case that the current King of France is bald.” :pray:

1 Like

Think of it this way:

An empty glass is not the actuality of absence of orange juice.

If it were:

  1. An empty glass is absence of orange juice.
  2. An empty bowl is absence of orange juice.
  3. Therefore an empty glass is an empty bowl.

Being empty of orange juice is a property of the empty glass, not it’s reality.

Is there an ‘again’ in the lack of essence in conditioned phenomena?

Does this lack of an essence came into existence with the perception of it? Does it go out of existence with the ending of the perception of it?

The nothingness that occurs at the end of life of an enlightened one is dependent upon the ending of life. It arises at the end of life. You posit that once arisen, it never ends.

What is the nothingness that is the lack of essence of conditioned phenomena dependent upon? With what condition does it arise?

:pray:

Mendicants, the conditioned has these three characteristics. What three? Arising is evident, vanishing is evident, and change while persisting is evident. These are the three characteristics of the conditioned.”

That we know all right and that is not special. We are all obsessed with coming and going.

“The unconditioned has these three characteristics. What three? No arising is evident, no vanishing is evident, and no change while persisting is evident. These are the three characteristics of the unconditioned.” (AN3.47)

See? I am not using asankhata in an incorrect manner.

Mere cessattion is just the position/understanding of Dhamma that denies/ignores/rejects what has not the chararcteristic to cease.

I am not sure if I can answer your questions very well, I haven’t actually read the nibbāna books and sermons that others had written, so I am unclear about nibbāna can be produced or not. Because part of the description is the unmade.

But then one has to divert attention to Nibbāna to see nibbāna.

If we just take nothingness, it’s similar to what @green would say, take away things, and what is left, the unmade. Nothing.

Perhaps let me think about what Burg’s book said. So in developing the mind sharp enough to see moment by moment arising and falling of all. Then seeing only
falling, then no more arising.

It is similar to @green’s notion that it’s between the spaces of arising and falling. But he just reifies it, and I say it’s nothing.

So how can nothing be created?

The perception of it can be created.

Same thing as parinibbāna, it’s not that nothing arisen. It’s just nothing left over after it all ends.

Using TV analogy, the whole TV is gone. Even the room, the person seeing the TV, all are gone.

“Absence of conditions has these three characteristics. What three? No arising is evident, no vanishing is evident, and no change while persisting is evident. These are the three characteristics of the absence of conditions.”

I would say. Ven. @sujato does translate as you’ve quoted, but one of his mentors, Ajahn Brahm, translates is in this manner.

Perhaps Bhante could enlighten us on this subject. :pray:

With the ending of life of an enlightened one it is posited that something (life, vitality, consciousness, energy) becomes nothing. Where as before there was something, after there is nothing.

This is quite different from let’s say the lack of essence of conditioned phenomena, right? It isn’t the case that this essence exists and then some condition happens and it then pops out of existence never to arise again, right? Rather, the lack of essence of conditioned phenomena is not born, is not made, is not produced, does not change and does not cease, right? If we directly perceive this lack of an essence what is it that we’re seeing?

:pray:

1 Like

I very roughly remember a quote from Ajahn Brahm once. He mentioned how some people are concerned about how cessation makes sense with the preservation of energy(?). He said that the short answer was that nothing preserves nothing; absolutely nothing is in fact preserved. Something to that effect; it’s a vague memory.

Or, if no substance or essence had ever arisen, what could be preserved of it?

2 Likes

13 posts were merged into an existing topic: What is dukkha?