I feel, what we need most is first of all just to accept this as completely normal. It is just normal that sentient beings are equiped with survival programs. We have them too. From an evolutionairy perspective it is completely normal and understandable.
The word normal means “typical or expected” and in this sense, yes, ignorance is expected. However, this does not mean that ignorance is necessary or advantageous. Precisely the opposite. Luckily, there is an escape from this situation rooted in ignorance.
Ignorance is not necessary for survival or happiness. Ignorance is the enemy of happiness and giving up ignorance is the way to true happiness.
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For mention of nibbana with/without remainder, see Itivuttaka 44.
Yes, I’m aware. Thank you. I don’t think that sutta says anything about the death of an enlightened being.
Really?
The stock passage is there. Fulfilled, laid down the burden, extinguished.
Basta, finito, etc etc.
(Have another look)
Yes, really. Shakyamuni described his enlightment under the bodhi tree in the same terms. The holy life lived, the burden laid down, complete extinguishment right there. Nibbana without remainder occurring under the Bodhi tree. The parallel is also in agreement.
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Perhaps you are claiming the Buddha is still alive ?
Or is this a semantical thing you are discussing?
The question is: why assume that the stock passage refers to the death of an awakened one?
Exists after death, doesn’t exist after death, both exists and doesn’t exist after death, neither exists nor does not exist after death.
If it was inappropriate to say the Tathagata was apprehended as real and actual in his very life, how could it be fitting to declare any of the above?
I think because it describes the extinguishment of an arahant.
Perhaps it depends on what one understands ‘extinguishment’ to mean.
It seems some may think there is something after extinguishment, but that seems to negate the usual meaning of the word.
It does. But why do you think this takes place with the death of a physical body and subsequent decay? Are you equating an arahant with a physical body? Residing in a physical body? Owning a physical body? Somehow apart or distinct from a physical body?
Define this something that you perceive others to infer? Physical bodies are perceived after extinguishment; do you contend otherwise? They are perceived after extinguishment with remainder and for extinguishment without remainder. Do you contend that corpses disappear from mere existence subsequent to the death of a physical body previously appropriated by one who subsequently laid down that burden?
You make an interesting point here; one I had never seen before. A relevant question though, I guess, is whether or not the conservation of matter/energy is a principle that applies to consciousness as well.
Conservation of matter/energy governs physical processes. If you believe mind and matter are interdependent, then I’m not sure how you could say that conservation of matter/energy doesn’t apply in some fashion to mind as well. Even those who say that mind and matter are of two different substances I think will admit that mind and matter are interdependent.
What’s more interesting to me is to consider how anything that is thoroughly dependent can ever be said to truly arise, truly persist, truly cease.
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Isn’t the Mahāparinibbāna sutta about this?
Three months from now the Realized One will finally be extinguished.”
Ito tiṇṇaṁ māsānaṁ accayena tathāgato parinibbāyissatī”ti.
You can find such usage more than a hundred times in this one discourse btw.
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Yes, it is.
There seems to be an attempt to redefine the word ‘extinguishment’.
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I don’t understand this sutta and cannot claim any insight into why it declares what it does over and over. My best guess - and it is just that a guess - is that Ananda who I don’t believe was an arahant at this time was quite attached to the Teacher and overcome with grief. The sutta seems to me as much about Ananda as it is about the Teacher. My best guess is Ananda was quite confused here like many are with a hard to understand point, but again it is just a guess and I would take it with a grain of salt. Probably a lot less as I’m quite fallible and prone to error.
Iti44: “What has nothing left over pertains to what follows this life, where all states of existence cease.”
As others said, in DN16 throughout it is also clear what this “element of extinguishment with nothing left over” refers to. It is mentioned quite a few times.
Also AN4.23: “From the night when the Realized One understands the supreme perfect awakening until the night he becomes fully extinguished—in the element of extinguishment with nothing left over—everything he speaks, says, and expresses is real, not otherwise.”
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But the above quote is attributed to the Buddha, not to Ananda.
I’m not sure I understand your point. Are you saying the entire sutta is unreliable due to the confusions of Ananda (owing to the story about the first council recitation)?
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It really seems quite clear.