Some in all honesty argue that the Arahat loses his empirical sense of self.
But let’s focus on my second question.
With the extinguishment of the defilements there can be no contempt, aversion, or attachment.
Conditional processes arise and cease until parinibbāna.
For I have seen the Blessed One,
and this bag of bones is my last.
Transmigration through births is finished,
now there’ll be no more future lives.
Thig2.2
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But … is being a leaf in the wind not more similar to being a slave than liberated?
Again, sorry but I’m not understanding what you’re getting at.
I mean, it’s the unawakened who are blown about by kamma and their cravings. Not awakened ones.
For them conditional processes are all dukkha, which will completely end after parinibbāna.
While alive, there is liberation from “mental” anguish.
See SN36.6
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Apparently, feeling no more desire and aversion leaves one totally indifferent to things. How go about your day? How decide anything? How act? You would have lost base completely.
How would he still be able to feel that conditional processes are Dhkkha if there can not be any aversion anymore? How would he manage to stay mindful?
If he doesn’t it seems to me that he becomes completely merged with tbe conditional processes and is assimilated rather than liberated. Or not?
Equanimity is not indifference. Feelings are experienced by the arahants without any ego as a defence mechanism. The arahant can see clearly the best thing to do in any situation and act with Wisdom and compassion.
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Equanimity is a response to a value judgment. Where does such come from without aversion to anything?
Have you ever walked to the store or somewhere without attachment or aversion – just walked to the store?
Not saying this is the Awakened state, but the example is an illustration of how things can be attended to without being a zombie.
Because: knowledge of things as they are and knowledge that the defilements are gone for good. Pañña.
The equanimity of dispassion, virāga, and the equanimity of non-attachment, free of greed, anger, and ignorance.
When these are completely extinguished there is the equanimity of nibbāna with residue.
Ah, knowledge. Like in the old Greek gnosis? Pure coincidence of course.
Close. Not quite the same since gnosis has a number of different connotations.
See SN12.33 and related suttas.
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I see.
Btw the refuge to the triple gem … what is that from? And is the Arahant technically still taking refuge?
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These are mentioned in a number of suttas.
For example, Snp1.4:
“Then Bhāradvāja the Farmer, shocked and awestruck, went up to the Buddha, bowed down with his head at the Buddha’s feet, and said, “Excellent, Mister Gotama! Excellent! As if he were righting the overturned, or revealing the hidden, or pointing out the path to the lost, or lighting a lamp in the dark so people with clear eyes can see what’s there, Mister Gotama has made the teaching clear in many ways. I go for refuge to Mister Gotama, to the teaching, and to the mendicant Saṅgha.”
Other suttas are similar in this way.
I would say, imho, that Arahants no longer need to take refuge. The practice for ending the defilements is finished. However, they often abide mindfully as it is a pleasant abiding, said the Buddha.
In a sense, they are the refuge, so to speak, as they are awakened and without future rebirth.
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I do not see as the goal,as the purpose of the training of the mind, to regard or conceive the body and mind as literally not me, not mine, not my self. Seeing body and mind as literally not me, not mine, not my self is, i believe, a sickness, a problem, a disorder, and something that comes with suffering. There are people who literally see the body as not theirs. This is a serious problem, not wisdom. There are stories of people who take it literally that their leg is not theirs and they want to remove is with a knife…It is not wisdom.
It is easy to see and understand that no person can live without a sense of self. That is also why i believe it is a myth that Dhamma leads to this state. Dhamma uproots fettering. It uproots automatic, compulsive, instinctive, habitual patterns of me making, mine making etc. Is this the same as totally uprooting any me and mine making? I do not believe so.
The liberated mind is liberated from unfreedom but not from an ability to become emotional, to conceive or to deal with the body and mind in a functional way as me and mine.
But now this is not the result anymore of compulsiveness. It is merely functional to live the life.
But functional in a way it does not give rise to burden.
That is my view on this. The sutta’s support it, because it is evident that the Buddha still has a functional sense of me and mine.
But if one does not at all identify with a plan…can one still follow up on that?
I asked because it occurred to me that the catholics have a doctrine by which the church shields its members from certain divine punishments just by being a member alone.
I was wondering if maybe the Sangha had such a function within Buddhism as well or if this was even the actual significance of the refuge.
Luckily the Buddha never said that there wouldn’t be a Sangha after his Parinibbana.
That is because they still have a sense of self. Why need tk cut off the leg if there is no sense of self at all? The body is also not self, the mind is also not self. What you have described is a mental illness, not the state of enlightened ones. Therefore they must still have a sense of self and view of self.
When no self is seen, and no sense of self remains, there’s no reference to self. No thought of “I am” with conceit is possible. There can be understanding of the concept and memory of it, but no misunderstanding to take anything as self.
AN 1.270
“It is impossible, mendicants, it cannot happen for a person accomplished in view to take anything as self. But it is possible for an ordinary person to take something as self.”
MN131
And how do you not falter amid presently arisen phenomena? It’s when a learned noble disciple has seen the noble ones, and is skilled and trained in the teaching of the noble ones. They’ve seen true persons, and are skilled and trained in the teaching of the true persons. They don’t regard form as self, self as having form, form in self, or self in form. They don’t regard feeling … perception … choices … consciousness as self, self as having consciousness, consciousness in self, or self in consciousness. That’s how you don’t falter amid presently arisen phenomena.
SN22.102
“Mendicants, when the perception of impermanence is developed and cultivated it eliminates all desire for sensual pleasures, for rebirth in the realm of luminous form, and for rebirth in a future life. It eliminates all ignorance and eradicates all conceit ‘I am’.
Yes this formula does not say…take something as my self. What does it mean to take something as self?
Probably that something is taken as inherently existent, with a core, atta, absolute.
It does not say…that a Buddha cannot see the body and mind on a functional level as me and mine.
The sutta’s also show a Buddha that has still a sense of mine…for example in my former lifes. This means that a Buddha still sees these experiences in former lifes as me and mine. But i see also plenty of reason that the Buddha also does this regarding experiences in this last life. He really thinks about his experiences with his fellow searchers and with his teachers as…“that was me, that were mine experiences”. And he had also ideas like: “first i was not awakened and later I was awakened”. I do not see how all such can exist without any sense of me, mine, my self towards experiences.
And how is a mendicant ignited? When there is the concept ‘I am because of this’, there are the concepts ‘I am such because of this’, ‘I am thus because of this’, ‘I am otherwise because of this’; ‘I am fleeting because of this’, ‘I am lasting because of this’; ‘mine because of this’, ‘such is mine because of this’, ‘thus is mine because of this’, ‘otherwise is mine because of this’; ‘also mine because of this’, ‘such is also mine because of this’, ‘thus is also mine because of this’, ‘otherwise is also mine because of this’; ‘I will be because of this’, ‘I will be such because of this’, ‘I will be thus because of this’, ‘I will be otherwise because of this’. That’s how a mendicant is ignited.
And how is a mendicant not ignited? When there is no concept ‘I am because of this’, there are no concepts ‘I am such because of this’, ‘I am thus because of this’, ‘I am otherwise because of this’; ‘I am fleeting because of this’, ‘I am lasting because of this’; ‘mine because of this’, ‘such is mine because of this’, ‘thus is mine because of this’, ‘otherwise is mine because of this’; ‘also mine because of this’, ‘such is also mine because of this’, ‘thus is also mine because of this’, ‘otherwise is also mine because of this’; ‘I will be because of this’, ‘I will be such because of this’, ‘I will be thus because of this’, ‘I will be otherwise because of this’. That’s how a mendicant is not ignited.
SN1.25
When a mendicant is perfected, proficient,
with defilements ended, bearing the final body:
would they say, ‘I speak’,
or even ‘they speak to me’?”
“When a mendicant is perfected, proficient,
with defilements ended, bearing the final body:
they would say, ‘I speak’,
and also ‘they speak to me’.
Skillful, understanding the world’s conventions,
they’d use these terms as no more than expressions.”
“When a mendicant is perfected, proficient,
with defilements ended, bearing the final body:
is such a mendicant drawing close to conceit
if they’d say, ‘I speak’,
or even ‘they speak to me’?”
“Someone who has given up conceit has no ties,
the ties of conceit are all dissipated.
Though that intelligent person has transcended substantial reality,
they’d still say, ‘I speak’,
and also ‘they speak to me’.
Skillful, understanding the world’s conventions,
they’d use these terms as no more than expressions.”
SN35.85
And then Venerable Ānanda … said to the Buddha:
“Sir, they say that ‘the world is empty’. What does the saying ‘the world is empty’ refer to?”
“Ānanda, they say that ‘the world is empty’ because it’s empty of self or what belongs to self. And what is empty of self or what belongs to self? The eye, sights, eye consciousness, and eye contact are empty of self or what belongs to self. …
The pleasant, painful, or neutral feeling that arises conditioned by mind contact is also empty of self or what belongs to self. They say that ‘the world is empty’ because it’s empty of self or what belongs to self.”
AN2.24, AN2.25
24
“Mendicants, these two misrepresent the Realized One. What two? One who explains a discourse in need of interpretation as a discourse whose meaning is explicit. And one who explains a discourse whose meaning is explicit as a discourse in need of interpretation. These two misrepresent the Realized One.”25
“These two don’t misrepresent the Realized One. What two? One who explains a discourse in need of interpretation as a discourse in need of interpretation. And one who explains a discourse whose meaning is explicit as a discourse whose meaning is explicit. These two don’t misrepresent the Realized One.”
Meaning which is explicit means no self. Meaning which need interpretation is the ones where arahants use the term self, I etc.
Without purifying one’s view of not self, it is not possible to accept the correct doctrine of nothing after parinibbāna. The sense of self would scream and struggle, for it sees the sublime highest happiness as annihilation just because there’s no way the sense of self can exist there.
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Feeling hunger → walk to food → eat.
You do not adress my arguments…how can you uphold that a Buddha has no sense of me and mine while he remembers his former lifes as me and mine? Or, how is one even able to claim awakening without any sense of self? Are mere impersonal processes gonna claim their awakening? ofcourse not.
Such claim require a sense of self.
Regarding the happiness of mere cessation. There can be no such a thing. At best you can delight in the prospect that finally for you all ends at a last death, all vinnana, all perceptions, feelings, all. If that makes you happy oke. I say, those people have the most strong sense of self of all people.
Mere impersonal processes have no desire to cease. Only a mind with a strong sense of self has such desires to cease.
Those people who have no desire to cease have a much directer understanding of the ego-less nature of mind. They must be seen as wiser and less defiled. Those who desire mere cessation as most defiled.
Yes, i turn the words of Brahmali around.