Ah, but the Teacher’s Nibbana and the cessation of mind has acted as a cause and condition for the arising of the minds which are acting with intention to talk to eachother in the here and now several thousands of years later 
The arising of other minds continues unabashedly after the Teacher’s Nibbana 
but you probably knew I was going to say that 
I see, then it’s quite trivial. Someone taught me recently that Nibbāna although unconditioned, can act as a condition for other things like the lokuttara citta of the arahant.
As long as there’s no notion of an actual individual still existing as a personal lifestream, I don’t regard the reputation, or teachings left behind by an individual as the individual. It’s just the same notion of atheist materialists taking comfort in whatever things are left behind by those who died. Yet, since all are impermanent, whatever impact they leave behind will fade away as well, thus are also not self, not to be regarded as them.
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The individual is just a convention we use and does not have substantive existence. The “person” we are at any moment A is not the same as the “person” at any moment B where A < B. We say they are the “same person” because it is useful, but we err when we forget that it is a convention we are using because it is useful and does not correspond to some reductive reality of the person.
Ah, but these atheist materialists think that some reductively real person has ended when they didn’t exist as some independent entity for even one moment. Just as the “President of the United States” is not the same person across multiple decades, but still exists as a convention just so the person isn’t the same person from any moment to moment.
The impact A will cease and give rise to impact B which will cease and give rise to impact C and so on and the complexity of the trace will grow boundlessly. None of them were ever self. Not even for a moment.
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Death is for a materialist not a destructtion of a self but just like the light going out and not going on anymore.
Religious people believe in an atta, a soul, some entity like thing that survives death. But materialist do not think about themselves in terms of existing like an entity, an atta. They have no doctrine of atta they attach to.
They might not have an intellectual fixation on the idea of a soul or self, but they still have a passionate and deeply ingrained sense of self; the sense of a person as a real reductively existing thing that substantially ends at death. We all do. This is why we cry and lament and feel intense grief on the death of a loved one or why we run away from and fear death. As you might point out, we tend to take ourselves very very seriously
Which tells us something about the true soteriological purpose of the Buddhadhamma. It is not chiefly concerned with combating intellectual ideas and concepts, but something much more deeply ingrained.
I agree totally, i think we are all on the same page here, whatever different ideas about Dhamma we might have.
Do you feel sense of self and sense of being a person is the same?
Not Buddhism. A soul thing is called reincarnation, we believe in rebirth without soul, process of how is dependent origination. That’s why in dependent cessation, rebirth completely ceases with nothing leftover as all of existence in the chains are all ceased without remainder.
How would you say that they are different? They are the same. In sutta it is called the notion “I am”. It is to be eradicated by an arahant.
Yes, thanks. Probably you also write this to inform others. You know i know that.
That all ceases with nothing left over is a very problematic reading because Buddha teaches that what does not arises and ceases.
I believe that the uprooting of asmi mana, the notion I am, does not mean that the person now vanishes, evaporates, desintegrates. Body and mind keep functioning is a unity. That is what we conventionally call a person. I reject the idea that a person can be reduced to parts. No what makes a person a person is how all these parts are integrated and form a unity that can think, speak, act.
A person can’t be reduced to parts, but also shouldn’t be regarded as the sum of the parts in a particular arrangement in time and space. A person is a convention designated upon a valid basis. Just like the “President of the United States.” That’s all.
And where I get into trouble with Venerable @NgXinZhao is claiming that the aggregates are also conventions that exist in the same way. It’s turtles all the way down folks
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BTW, I have a proposal for a ceasefire between you two: how about we say, “that all ceases with nothing left over” doesn’t include that which neither arises or ceases? In other words, we define “the ALL” as an individual experience of the set of things that arise and cease. So Venerable @NgXinZhao can say that “the ALL ceases with nothing left over” he means that an individual experience of this set of things that arise and cease has ceased, but not implicate anything that does not arise and cease? Which may leave upon the possibility that an individual experience of that which does not arise and cease could remain?
That’s exactly what is denied in my view. And what is so troubling to those who claim something leftover at parinibbāna.
Any experience is part of the consciousness aggregate, and thus it ceases at parinibbāna.
To wish to have an experience of nibbāna of the highest bliss, is to wish to have a self there, to enjoy Nibbāna forever. Doesn’t matter if they think they experienced ego death or feel no sense of self, the self delusion goes very deep. As long as there’s anxiety about this view I say, there the self delusion can be found hidden very deep in their mind.
What does feelings break up into, what parts makes up feelings? Let’s help you with one step, 108 different kinds of feelings. Then take one of them and break that apart, what makes that feeling up?
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I know that if i ask you…Yeshe does the person exist…you will reason in such a way ‘a person’ cannot be found, pinpointed, traced. So why would one even think it is real, a reality, existent.
Such a sutta is also about the Tathagata who cannot be found to be real here and now.
I understand the logics and long ago, around 2010 i did this experiment with a person.
I said to him…show me the tree…he was not able to…ofcourse he touches that ‘tree’. But smart as i am, a real logician, i said…now you have shown me a stem, but i asked you to show me the tree.
So it went on. He was not able to show me the tree.
At this very moment, 14 years later, i must admit i do not really know what this all means. I tend to believe that it shows that tree, bush, car, a human are concepts…oke…but does it not exist?
There really is something, non-conceptually, that can be called a tree there outside, i believe. Or like you say, there is a valid base. So, that we cannot pinpoint something does not mean it does not exist? Is that a valid conclusion?
Your funny. Apart from the last i agree. But in my limited understanding the deathless cannot be experienced in an individual way, as part of the All.
No, it is not like that. It is more like AN11.9, i believe
In order to deny this, then it seems you have to deny one of the three:
- That which does not arise and does not cease exists.
- That it is possible to experience that which does not arise and does not cease.
- That the experience of that which does not arise and does not cease itself does not arise and does not cease.
Agree? I take it you deny #3?
Feeling is not material so it can’t be broken up into material objects, but feeling does not exist in a standalone independent way. It is a fuzzy concept co-mingled and co-dependent upon contact, perception, and consciousness. It is also quite dependent upon what is felt. There is no positing of the existence of feeling without dependence upon what is felt. When we analyze feeling with reductive or penetrative analysis we can’t find any substantial existent that survives that reductive or penetrative analysis. It is empty and has no essence or core. If feeling were a substantive thing then everyone would experience the same feeling given the same “what is felt” but this isn’t the case. Feeling depends upon khamma as well. Feeling is just a convention that we label upon a valid basis.
Very good that you do that tree thing with someone. Now try to do with yourself. Is there a person/soul/self here?
Is the word “self” the self? No.
Is the feeling of the sense of self the self? It’s a physical feeling in the gut and then emotional clinging, all not really the self, no.
Is body the self? It’s just atoms and molecules, cells, following physical, biological, chemical laws, it’s not under our control. No.
Is the mind base/ contact/ consciousness the self? Mind contact comes and goes, it is so impermanent, on so many different objects. It’s merely experience, how can it be a self?
Are all of them the self? Since the parts are not self, how can the parts combined become self? There’s just emergence due to parts functioning. Like parts of a company, CEO, building, staff, money flow, business model, etc comes together to become a company, but when we look closely, there’s no company-ness anywhere, it’s not in the parts. But the idea of the company brings the parts together.
Same to the self delusion propagates this rebirth, brings the 5 aggregates together. When it is broken, including conceit and ignorance, this 5 aggregates coming together cannot last long. There’s no more driver to keep the 5 aggregates together for next life. The end after their breaking up.
Conventionally we can say there’s a self as mere designation, ultimately, without concepts, just seeing things as they are, there’s no self.
Correct! Just because we can’t find something or that something is just a convention does not mean it doesn’t exist or the valid basis cannot function. Pick some river you are familiar with: just because you can’t pinpoint or find that river does not prevent you from drowning in it. Just because someone says, “The President of the United States is just a convention therefore he/she has no power over me” doesn’t make it so!
Yes, deny 3.
Exactly that feeling is in dependent origination, but the self is not. This is one difference between them at least. So when the conditions for feelings all cease, feelings can be known to be ceased. Whereas there’s no self to be annihilated because no self in the first place.
Yeah, #3 does seem quite difficult to support through logic. It falls apart and leads to contradiction from what I can discern.
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