Maybe you do understand, but you are rejecting confidence in what your mind already perceives because of the newness of such a perspective. With the way you are asking and the things you are saying, I already sense an answer in your words, you are just being thorough. Trust yourself!
I donât think it is that way, because I donât have the slightest idea whatsoever why it is wrong to say an Arahant does not exist after death, when there is absolutely nothing there after his death.
I really 100% donât understand that part.
Because the Buddha wants you to stop thinking in terms of what exists and what does not exist, and view the world with Right View in an understanding of dependent origination. I think you understand that perspective, so try to find it within your Metta.
Dear Brother in the Dhamma
Thanks for your kind and patient reply.
When I asked you about the non-cheese, you said âeverything that has not the attribute of cheese,â yet you seem to struggle with the idea that an arahant is a person who has not the attributes of those chained in the sequences of Dependent Origination. In other words, as you cannot compare a dream to air (and that would have been the correct logical answer to my question since dream and air are not in the same category of existence) so you cannot compare the existence that ordinary people experience to that of an arahant.
You say people are making things complicated, but then you want to engage in the philosophy of religion, and that needs tools to do so. For instance: are you noticing now that you think that the existence of an arahant is not a different logical class than that of an ordinary person when it is a different class. . If you do hit grasp this surely not easy point nobody will be ever able to satisfy your question. The two experiences are not comparable exactly like trees cannot be compared to dreams.
Do you fully understand PratÄ«tyasamutpÄda? If so, your answer would be already there; if not, you cannot answer your question, and honestly, I think nobody will be able to your satisfaction.
I think if you start from the course on PratÄ«tyasamutpÄda presented by @Brahmali here https://youtu.be/V3EAiznA88c it may help you to understand how the Buddha deeply saw the idea of existence.
Said that, if you are on the path towards your liberation, I can suggest that at the end of the day, the question if an arahant exists or not during or after their lives on earth is rather useless since, as the Buddha explained more than once, it is only your own experience that will answer your question and not intellectual debates which at the end cannot bring any real benefit to our path.
I hope this may help.
One of the reasons for which I have renounced to continue teaching and researching religious studies and philosophy was precisely that it will slow my effort towards liberation by useless playing with concepts and doing so extending my permanence in dukkha (even just the dukkha of exciting thoughts from those lucubrations that end in hindering meditation).
In the end, I think many of us are so distant from that liberation state that engaging with what it might be can make us even more distant from it.
With metta
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi gave a talk last weekend on
AN.4. 173 MahÄkoáčáčhikasutta
â When the senses end, is there anything left? Or is that just proliferation?â
https://suttacentral.net/an4.173/en/sujato
which I think is pertinent to your question.
I think the way all these teachings are phrased, itâs meant to help us discard the notion of eternalism and annihilationism.
Once youâve discarded these 2 extremes, and see dependent origination, thereâs just this arises, that arises, this ceases, that ceases, then your question would be answered. If you want to explain this realization to the next generation, youâll be stuck with the same old words the Buddha used, cause to go off to any extremes is not conducive towards abandoning eternalism and annihilationism.
So focus on abandoning those 2 extremes, allow the mind to see, whatever has a beginning has a cause, whatever has a cause has an end.
Nowadays, I am learning to see beginning and endings in walking meditation. Seeing beginning, one doesnât have the view of annihilationism. Seeing ending, one doesnât have a view of eternalism. So, practise until you can see beginning and ending of other things around you as well. It could trigger that wisdom understanding.
OK, Iâll give it another shot. I am not sure I can add much to what has already been said by all these good people, but here goes anyway.
If you say the arahant does not exist after death, you would be right from a certain narrow point of view. If you understand an arahant as a mere stream of mental phenomena, then it is clearly the case that this stream no longer exists after the arahant dies. The problem arises when you try to communicate this to ordinary people. For an ordinary person the end of the process of life will invariably be seen as the end of a personal self. If you donât like this personal self, then you will welcome this ending. But if you like it, which is the case for most people, the ending with seem traumatic.
The problem is that the experience of an ordinary person, a puthujjana, does not reflect the underlying reality. The puthujjana is incapable of experiencing without somehow relating it to an âIâ and a âmineâ. This is what delusion is all about. It is not something you can avoid; it is the default reaction of the mind. If you try to pin it down, it is very slippery, yet the feeling is always there: you have a definite sense of existence.
It follows from this that if you say to a puthujjana that the arahant does not exist after death, you have a monumental failure in communication. There is no way they will understand. The most obvious response for them would be to reject the Dhamma. Why? Because people generally do not want to stop existing.
To be understood, you need to express what happens to an arahant in a different way. The arahant is merely the five khandhas, the five factors of personality. The five factors of personality are suffering. And so when the arahant dies, it is just suffering coming to an end. Nothing of value is lost. You thought there was something of value there, but it turned out to be an illusion. Cessation is the highest happiness, because all suffering comes to an end. Suffering was all there ever was.
For this reason it is far more accurate, and easy to grasp, to say that suffering ends, rather than saying the arahant does not exist. We donât really understand the arahant, but we all have some idea of suffering.
I suppose we could distinguish between different truth values. Is a statement true merely because it adheres to some narrowly defined logic, yet is liable to be misunderstood by the listener? Or is it true because it helps the interlocutor to a proper understanding the issue at hand? I donât think saying âan arahant does not exist after deathâ is helpful to most people; in fact I think it is downright misleading. And so the truth value is limited.
Anyway, I wish you the best of luck. May you get much joy and peace from your Buddhist practice!
So you mean that it is correct to say that, from a narrow point of view and narrow defined logic. What do you mean with narrow in that context?
It seems to me that you are defining truth not as that which is factual, (even though it may not be helpful) but as that which is helpful (even though it may not be 100% factual). Which is a view that I do not share.
The Buddha did not just not use the expression âdoes not exist after deathâ instead he fully rejected it and said that it is wrong.
If he simply would not use it I would understand that, but calling it wrong on the ground that it can be misunderstood doesnât seem truthful to me.
To me personally saying that existing, not existing, both or neither are all wrong is much more confusing than saying that an Arahant does not exist after death, because it seems, that this fourfold negation points to some mystical, ineffable something rather than simply nothing.
I also donât understand why a statement is more important to make sense to a person who grasps at a self than being more important to make sense to a person that doesnât grasp at a self. That seems backwards to me.
I am really sorry that I cannot just accept all the answers, but I cannot half heartedly accept something that just doesnât make sense to me.
Thanks for your kind wishes.
All Sages merge with the worlds energy. Which is One without another. Buddhist is a method to learn there is no individual soul but that everything is connected. We are to awaken to the illusion of separateness. Nirvana is the ocean where all rivers merge and loose their name.
Thatâs what every other religion teaches.
Buddha says Truth is One. Brahman represents the Love Frequency. The one thing that makes the world go round. Is Love. Without love. There is chaos. Buddha had to walk in the Path of Love to be able to transform merge in Love itself.
Itâs really not mystical. Handling concepts like this is, just as an example, critical to understanding most programming languages.
NA == TRUE
NA == FALSE
(NA == TRUE) & (NA == FALSE)
(NA != TRUE) & (NA != FALSE)
Are all statements that do not evaluate to âTRUEâ
Existence and non existence are not categories that apply to the Tathagata either while alive or dead.
If you say, âThe Arahant does not exist after deathâ you are wrongly applying a category to him which simply does not apply. This can lead to a contagion of errors - for example, you might then think that the Arahant exists while alive, and then identify something that is present while alive but not while dead with the Arahant, and then that might promote a view of self within you and be a barrier to stream entry.
Can you explain that in more detail? I have no understanding of programming languages.
When you say
Does that mean that there is âsomethingâ after death that cannot be explained or put into words, but is different to there being just ânothingâ?
Is ânothingâ not equating to ânon existenceâ?
Instead of saying âthe Arhat does not exist, after His passing, much like in His life,â the Buddha is capable of saying: âbecause of great Dhamma practice, cessation has ended the body, the Stream has been fully entered thanks to the final Meditation, and suffering has fully ended for the aggregates.â Without throwing up the question of existence or non-existence based on whether there is a Self or not, the Buddha can describe the final Stream Entry of Mahaparinirvana without pressuring the inquiring student of envisioning a Self that is not there. There is nothing, in fact, from the very beginning to envision. Namaste.
Even though âthe Arhat does not exist, after His passing, much like in His life,â may not be the best way to phrase it or the most helpful one for every student, that doesnât mean it is entirely wrong. But the buddha did teach that it is wrong, did he not?
Do you mean to say that self means existence, and no self means non-existence here?
Do you mean here that saying there is no self does pressure the student to envision a self?
Do you mean to say that there is nothing and there never has been something? I donât think that is correct because there is dukkha, there are the aggregates and so on, if there was nothing from the beginning then everyone would be enlightened already.
I am not entirely sure what you mean with your post.
My question is not:âWhy didnât the buddha teach that the Arahant does not exist after death?â I understand that it may not be the best way to phrase the teaching, but my question is why did the buddha reject that view altogether and taught it as incorrect.
The programming statements were just an example of the non-applicability of categories being practically used for mundane purposes. The point is just that fourfold negation isnât mystical.
No. That would be âThe Tathagata exists after deathâ which is not true.
Imagine you have a lit candle on your desk. You extinguish it. The category of location no longer applies to the flame - you cannot say âit is on my deskâ and you cannot say âit is located somewhere off my deskâ. Nor can you say, âthe flame is located both on and off my deskâ or âthe flame is located in a place that is neither on or off my deskâ. You then throw the candle in the trash. Still, you cannot say where the flame is located.
Here, âcandleâ is a metaphor for the five aggregates, âflameâ is a metaphor for the Arahant, extinguishing the flame is a metaphor for enlightenment, and throwing the candle out is a metaphor for death, âlocated on my deskâ is a metaphor for exists and âlocated off my deskâ is a metaphor for doesnât exist.
The aggregates, or Skandhas, are Empty, just as when they are cessated. There is no Self in them, and never was, so it is good to perceive them without a perception of Self, even a missing Self. I think that is one of the points the Buddha has made in His explanation.
Oh, ok. I did not mean that the fourfold negation is mystical but that which it points to is mystical, or ineffable. Because everything we can imagine is one of these points. If you say he exists, that does mean something is there. If you say he doesnât exist, that means nothing is there. Saying both means there is and isnât something there, which is already puzzling and ineffable and neither too. And rejecting all of these viewpoints means that the truth is ineffable and mystical and seemingly paradox.
I know the simile with the flame, but it also confuses me to be honest.
If I would ask does the flame exist after it is extinguished, it would be easy to say âno it doesnâtâ. But both âbeing located on my deskâ and âbeing located not on my deskâ assume that the flame does exist in the first place. So the solution to the simile is saying:" the flame does not exist" but the entire point of the simile is that this is wrong, so it confuses me very much.
Are you of the view that after death of an arahant there is absolutely nothing because everything ceases? Or do you think that is wrong to say?
Where? He didnât say ârightâ or âwrongâ or âyesâ or ânoâ. He simply said âit doesnât applyâ.
The Buddha simply explained that not considering the Tathagata in terms of either form, feeling, perception, choices or consciousness and then saying that after death this exists, doesnât exist, both exists and doesnât exist, neither exists or doesnât exists is nonsensical, it doesnât apply.
To say âsomething doesnât existâ there needs to be âsomethingâ in the first place. If there is no something, saying âsomething doesnât existâ does not apply.
Itâs like saying ânothing doesnât existâ. Itâs a silly statement.
Whats the difference between âdoesnât applyâ and âis wrong?â
I think this is simply not true, it is exactly the opposite of true. Please read that sentence again. You are basically saying:âSomething has to exist for it not to exist. And when something does not exist it is wrong to say it does not existâ
Read that sentence again. Let me make an example. If there are no unicorns, saying âunicorns donât existâ does not apply. Does that make sense to you?
âsomething doesnât existâ means nothing other than âthere is no somethingâ