SuttaCentral
I am also curious how they interpret AN10.6.
By the way, as you know, it is not only my personal view. There are teachers, such as Maha Boowa, Ajahn Suchart, who teach that sannavedayitanirodha is known, the total stilling of formations, and peace. It does not stay unnoticed. That would also be strange. That the highest bliss stays unnoticed.
I think the confusion can be in the translation of sanna as perception. If you see a tree is it sanna that perceives or eye-vinnana?
I notice that people who study the Pali language and translate texts still make different choices. In the Netherlands we also have translaters of the Nikayaâs, experts in Pali, and they also make different choices in translating Pali concepts compared to others. In Belgium there is teacher who is also seen as Pali and Dhamma-expert and he translates the final goal of the Dhamma as self-realisation. There are so many different choices.
I also do not fall anymore for the reading that i, as lay person, see things only deluded and subjectively, distorted, while monastics or even teachers see all undistorted and objectively.
I respect teachers but i do not believe anymore that they do not make subjective choices. For example, the idea of parinibbana as mere cessation. Or how they explain sannavedayitanirodha.
Thank you for the warm welcome.
I believe the Buddha teaches a real refuge, an island, a home. This home is no survival of an ego or entitiy-self or soul after death. This home consists of seeing all aspect of oneâselfâ as it is. i.e. those aspects that arise and cease. Rupa is rupa, vedana is vedana, sanna is sanna, sankhara is sankhara, vinnana is vinnana. Not me, not mine. And one knows the deathless, that what does not arise and cease as it is. Not me and not mine.
If one knows it like this, i believ, one does not think that parinibbana is mere cessation, because one knows what does not cease. Also in this reading there is no survival of an ego or self after death because the deathless is no ego or self. And also in this reading the khandhaâs end, but not all ends.
Just recalled that I talked about this very topic about a year ago. Maybe it is helpful, maybe not. 
sorry, but it is the Path to the Unconditioned.
"âMendicants, I will teach you the unconditioned and the path that leads to the unconditioned.
(SN43.12)
Dhamma is not a Path to non-existence, like it is also no Path to existence.
Longing for non-existence, is i believe, indeed normal but still dark, and i think closely related to vibhava tanha. One does not want to feel and perceive anything anymore because one is tired, fed up, or cannot bear suffering anymore. One sees the escape in becoming non-existent after death. Welcoming death. I do not feel comfortable at all that this is Dhamma.
Sorry i am so windy but this is for me important theme.
IMO, if you have a strong feeling about a translation, but you also know that you donât have the relevant expertise to judge a translation, you probably shouldnât trust that feeling.
A good exercise is to ask yourself what kind of evidence would change your mind. If you canât think of any evidence that would change your mind, or even imagine how evidence could change your mind, you are probably engaging in motivated reasoning.
Yes. But I was responding that - in the context of the post - the unconditioned is not a form of existence. I agree with Ajahn Brahmaliâs understanding, which was the understanding that was creating a feeling of pessimism for some. My point was that I donât find that interpretation of parinibbana pessimistic.
I notice that translaters make different choices. You know that too. All Pali experts. I am investigating that and try to make sense of it. I feel that is the only way. I think everybody does. It is not like others do not make subjective choices and do not engage in motivated reasoning. Translators do too. I see it happen here all the time.
I also think Pali experts doubt about the translations of other Pali experts, otherwise they would not, again, translate tho whole Pali Canon. Sometimes choices make a huge difference in understanding.
So there is a lot of responsibility.
I can only lie those translations next to eachother, and with the knowledge i have, make sense of it.
When 1 teacher explains that all ceases during sannavedayitanirodah and another does teach that not all ceases, than there is something going wrong in the Sangha. This must be solved i feel. This cannot go on because not both can be right. I feel people do not take responsibility for this. If they do not know what it is, than please be honest and share that. I do not know what it is. Maybe some day.
Well, i believe the Buddha taught that the Path is not a Path to become non-existent. What he says is that it leads to the end of existence, existence as human, animal, deva, but that is not the same as becoming non-existent. There is the clue.
He specifically says that one cannot say an enlightend person has become non-existent after death.
I think weâre working at different things here. 
This thread was about the intepretation that âparinibbana is mere cessationâ being a pessimistic belief. This belief was causing someone emotional distress. I responded to that distress by offering that I donât think that interpretation is necessarily pessimistic. My intent was to comfort, not argue interpretation.
You are arguing that the interpretation is wrong. It may be. I hold it not because I have any personal experience that confirms it. But because teachers I respect, like Ajahn Brahmali and Ajahn Sona, teach it. So I have no basis to argue with your interpretation because I lack either the scholarship or the personal experience to form an independent opinion. I - as a working approach - take the position of teachers who have a history of being correct about things I can confirm from personal experience.
Good luck in your investigations! Much Metta!
I also hope the thread will not devolve into the discussion about what is right and wrong. This has been done before, and we tend to see the same arguments again and again. 
Sure, to hold that ânibbana is the cessation of existenceâ (as in SN12.68 fyi) is a wrong translation based on a wrong view is one way of dealing with that perspective. But this thread started out much more interestingly, asking the question how to look at that perspective without causing distress, rather than asking whether it is right or wrong.
That is much more interesting. I think one thing we could do is look at the phrasing we use? Why do we say âmereâ cessation, when perhaps we should be using a term like âspectacularâ. Iâve heard it likened to a shooting star. After traveling far across the universe, these tiny (insignificant) specs of dust burn up far above Earthâs surface as they plunge at terrific speeds into the upper atmosphere, making the air around them glow as they pass by, thereby giving a wonderful display to all who witness the spectacle.
What is pessimistic about that? Theyâve completed their journey, done what needs to be done, and have gone out leaving a spectacle in their wake - and whatâs more, very often they lead more of us (insignificant specs of dust) on to that spectacular cessation. 
I find it still worrying that my fellow humans are aiming at becoming totally non-existent after death, investing their time in going out like a flame. Taking great delight in becoming non-existent as namarupa and vanish totally, for ever.
I think i cannot really seperate this concern from what i believe is right and wrong view and maybe also ethically. I am probably stubborn, but i cannot.
In the end i feel it is a mistake to think that aiming at the cessation of existence and suffering (no rebirth as human, deva etc) is the same as aiming at ones non-existence or the desire to vanish.
I feel there goes something wrong. Aiming at the end of rebirth and suffering, is, i feel, aiming at finding truth about oneself and life. It is about investigating things. About inner research.
I notice i want to free people of those (in my opinion) dark ideas and dark drives to vanish for ever.
And this is not because i believe life is so great, and living in samsara is really great. And it is not because i like suffering so much. I feel it is not oke. But everybody must decide for her/himself.
I feel there is really nothing wrong with a sense of concern and distress when you meet someone who desires to vanish after death, go out like flame, aims at becoming non-existence, evaporating like a dust particle entering the earth -atmosphere. There is nothing spectacular about this. Sorry to say.
This distress one feels when one meets such a person needs no remedy at all. It needs no wider perspective or. It needs not more wisdom. It is oke, as it is.
Personally, I view cessation as an incredibly challenging teaching. But I donât want to adopt a less plausible reading of the suttas in order to make me feel good.
When I think about the Buddhaâs teaching on cessation, that challenges my sense of self and my sense of wanting to exist. I donât really delight in that, but I respect the Buddha for saying it like it is.
For me, it makes me reflect on questions like âis it actually good to exist?â, âis cessation really better than existence?â.
Honestly, I think itâs pretty terrible if thereâs no way out of existence. Youâre basically forced to exist for eternity.
No one asked me if I wanted to exist, and the universe will force me to experience things forever? Thatâs basically the most unfree thing imaginable if you ask me 
The world is known/discerned in a directional manner, hence the connotation of positive/negative or optimistic/pessimistic. The teachings for laity differs from the teachings for monastics in the sense that both are presented as a direction: for laity, existence is acknowledged to be better than non-existence, or that life is preferable to death, hence right action is the one that leads to favorable rebirth (sila/the five precepts). The elitism for laity is rooted in worldly standards of what is favorable: beauty, wealth, longevity, IQ âŚetc. So is lay equanimity, which is rooted in accepting/living with less favorable conditions.
The elitism for monastics begins by acknowledging that the worldly grain/direction is distorted. Non-existent is preferable to existent in the sense that existence leads nowhere, even if it pretends to. As this thread discusses pessimism and philosophy, it would not do harm if i quote Arthur Schopenhauer, who is well know for his pessimistic philosophy and was influenced by Indian thought:
The development of intelligence will weaken or frustrate the will to reproduce, and will thereby at last achieve the extinction of the race. Nothing could form a finer denouement to the insane tragedy of the restless will;âwhy should the curtain that has just fallen upon defeat and death always rise again upon a new life, a new, struggle, and a new defeat? How long shall we be lured into this much-ado-about-nothing, this endless pain that leads only to a painful end? When shall we have the courage to fling defiance into the face of the Will,âto tell it that the loveliness of life is a lie, and that the greatest boon of all is death?
If death or non-existence is acknowledged to be preferable to life/existence, then death in its conventional form is nothing but a part of the continuum of existence (in disguise). The worldly negative is nothing but a shadow of the positive, hence suicide is not a real solution. Ending existence/ or parinibbana would still be expressed in the negative, but as a negation of the worldly negative (the deathless). As such, to think of parinibbana as negative is to conflate it with conventional death, where life is assumed to be preferable, which is a completely subjective view of things. Upon serious reflection, we have no less reasons to crave death than to crave continuity.
I respect that very much Eric, and the same here. I have clearly understood that EBT says that the noble search is the search for that what does not arise and cease, what is not born, not gets old, dies, becomes sick. I feel it a huge mistake to think this refers to vanishing after death like a particle entering the Earth atmosphere.
Yes, i partly agree Eric. I do not object to the end of being born again and again. I am at a point i do not see this as pessimistic, but aiming at becoming non-existence and vanishing is for me.
I think the escape is clearly taught by the Buddha (udana 8.3)
"There is, mendicants, an unborn, unproduced, unmade, and unconditioned. If there were no unborn, unproduced, unmade, and unconditioned, then you would find no escape here from the born, produced, made, and conditioned. But since there is an unborn, unproduced, unmade, and unconditioned, an escape is found from the born, produced, made, and conditioned.â
It makes no sense at all, i feel, that ceasing to exist, vanishing like a particle entering the atmosphere at death, would be this unborn, unbecome, unmade. Come onâŚ
I believe the Buddha shares the knowledge that we have never ever been really a lifestream but have always seen this wrongly, and as a result had to be born over and over again. We our obsessed with what moves, changes, and therefor have no eye for what does not. This is our blindness. We do not know asankhata. We have never seen our real face. Now it the time to see that we are not this lifestream of nama and rupa and find the truth about ourselves. The truth will set us free.
Not our longing not to exist anymore.
To me, I feel that it does kinda make sense.
The next question is what kind of evidence could override that feeling. If we feel so strongly that no evidence can make us change our mind, thereâs really no point in discussing it
Oke, i find it weird. If after death all just ceases, why would one call this the unborn, unmade, unbecome?
What does it in your opinion mean when the Buddha says in DN34 we have to know that what does not arise, cease and change and is asankhata?
Regarding evidenceâŚpeople try to find evidence for their reading in texts, and great experts, still come to different readings. So, all is subjective.
I am still worried about some readings.