The aggregates of clinging to dukkha or is it still “everything that is formed is dukkha”?

This is too much of an assumption and speculation. This is not in the suttas I referred to.

I suppose the challenge will be to find references to, or figure out how the aggregates are not suffering. That would be an example of a ‘non-upadana’ khandha.

Just suppose that the Buddha said instead in the 1st Noble Truth that “In brief, the five grasping aggregates are suffering.” (saṅkhittena pañcaupādānakkhandhā dukkhā.)

In that case, what will happen to the 4th Noble Truth? There is no more any need to eradicate the “grasping”, so the Eightfold Noble Path to end suffering becomes just Two forks Path: Wait it out or Simply kill oneself. Apparently, the Buddha didn’t want to teach such Two forks Path to non-enlightened beings.

But there is a reason for dukkha in craving. Is not it? by stopping craving you stop aggregates.

Sorry I was trying only to answer your question in the first post so I missed other questions.

True. However, how do you explain the following case:

If we take away the engine of a train while it’s running, will the train stop? Yes. But will the train stop immediately? Unlikely though, unless you apply an opposite force adequately.

So, by stopping craving, aggregates will be stopped but it will not be stopped immediately unless an arahant kills himself.

Namo Buddhaya!

This is how i think about this

All things which are not called upadanakhanda, but which arise & cease, are neither the same thing as the upadanakhanda nor are they apart from the upadanakhandas.

Therefore, from the formulation of the first noble truth, it should be inferred that only dukkha arises and only dukkha ceases.

For example

When one says “aggregate of perception”, it includes all perceptions, past, present & future.

The desire for perception is neither the aggregate of perception subjected to clinging nor is it apart from the perception aggregate subjected to clinging. Rather it is the relishing that there is.

The arahant is without a desire for the classes of past, present & future perception. For him there is no more relishing but if you talk about the aggregate of that being’s perception, it will include past perception which was relished and that relishing is neither the same thing as the perception aggregate nor is it apart from it.

Hence the upadanakhanda are called upadanakhanda, the upadana is neither the khanda nor is it apart from the khanda.

And it is the same with all things conceived & perceived as arising & ceasing.

MN75 for example says:

For context, we can compare this also with MN144 and SN35.87, which mention taking up (upadana-ing) the body at birth.

He does make that division in that one sutta you quoted, but often the two terms are just synonyms. We can’t expect complete consistency in these texts. Also, Pali terms and compounds often have multiple meanings, and you have to derive from context which applies. This is a feature of the language which doesn’t translate well into English.

SN22.22 for example once says that the upadana-khandhas are a burden and once that the khandhas are burdens:

And what, bhikkhus, is the burden? It should be said: the five aggregates subject to clinging. […]
“The five aggregates are truly burdens,

Here the terms are used synonymously. It also clarifies that the “non-upadana” khandhas are still a burden, meaning they’re still suffering. The text also says:

"And what is the picking up of the burden? It’s the craving that leads to future lives … "

It’s this picking up (i.e. taking up, upadana) of the aggregates that leads to “future lives”.

There are more, but sorry, still don’t the references. They’re somewhere in my notes which I don’t have here atm. :upside_down_face:

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My impression is that if the Buddha was able to say that any formation is dukkha, even without grasping, he must have had experiential knowledge that the stilling of all formation is the total end of dukkha. Without this experiential knowledge he would just be a philospher, like so many. I do not believe this.

This seems to align with those sutta’s that teach that in the process of progressive stilling of formations, the mind becomes more and more refined and unburdened. Those formations that still exist in those meditative attainments apparently still burden somehow the mind.

I tend to see this as the result of feelings. Feelings are, as it were, always a kind of im-pressions on the heart or mind, even nice ones. Also those bases of nothingness etc. are also like that, i think. Still an im-pression on the mind. This probably disappears totally at the stilling of all formations and emptiness is realised (i believe).

Like some yogi’s seem to teach, from experience, this emptiness is not a mere emptiness, no nothingness, not a mere cessation, but it has also an aspect of intelligence. It has not the burden of feelings, im-pressions. That is its happiness. To me this makes the most sense.

(Yes, this more or less re-defines what the most suble, pure mind really is. Mind can even be without feelings and perceptions. In other words, one must no think that mind is the same as the formations arising in it)

I can relate to this a bit, at least for that part that feelings come with a certain burden, im-pression.
Even joyful ones.

But the most important thing, i believe, is that ‘knowing the khandha’s are a burden’ can only be real knowledge, true knowledge, wisdom,if one has discovered and knows that the stilling of all formations is a state of lack of any burden and suffering, because feelings are absent, any im-pression.

This is a feeling - neither painful nor pleasant, that is, neutral. If we are aware of something and yet do not feel anything, then this state is called upekkha. Upekkha-vedana is pure awareness without feelings.

@Nikolas, Why do you think there is still a neutral feeling when all formations are stilled?

By the way, a neutral feeling is felt…as nor pain nor pleasure. It is not at all that one does not feel anything.

How does the Buddha know this?

Because you are speculating. In your model, all formations are calmed, but at the same time some consciousness, some mind remains and is aware. The process of awareness – it is that which abiding, presence, and doing (You can distinguish this presence from absence, when there is no awareness, thus you see that it is a concrete present state). For something to be, to be present, it must appear. That which has not appeared is not present and does not abide, does not act and is not available. If something appeared, arose, became existing and active, it will also cease, leaving some effects and results in existence. And so we immediately have three components inherent in all formations - these are emergence, change and destruction.

That your so-called “Primordial Mind” does not exist as an unchanging entity that has no arising is proven by the fact that there are moments when we have no awareness. Since this mind must always be present, without changing or arising in its full extent and force of manifestation, there should be no moments of cessation of awareness. If this mind arises once, with the achievement of enlightenment or after “cleansing” from formations, it means that it undergoes transformations, changes, changes forms, arises once, and therefore is subject to cessation. Again we prove that this mind has all three characteristics of formations - change, origination and decay.

It is felt because it is realized. If there is no process of awareness, then there is no neutral feeling. Neutral feeling is this most subtle experience based on the bare fact of awareness.

@Green

Name at least one thing in the material world that would exist without any beginning. The mind is of the same nature. This is precisely the unique discovery of the Buddha.

However, the Buddha’s disciples asked him whether there was any mind or matter that would not be subject to impermanence, variability and decay. Buddha rejected the possibility of the existence of such mind and matter (Sutta - “Nail” and also “Flowers”). They asked meaning exactly what you mean by a certain Purified Mind. If the Buddha taught some transcendental mind or matter, they could object to the Buddha and say - “but you taught us such and such a shining citta before! Why do you say that such mind or matter does not exist?..” But they did not object, since the Buddha did not teach such things.

Moreover, their very question about the existence of such mind or matter would not arise, since they would initially already know the answer to this question due to the fact that its existence would be a basic view in the doctrine.

@Nikolas

I made a long reply, but deleted all again.

My choice is: I trust those buddhist teachers, great masters of all times and of all kinds of buddhist traditions, who more or less discovered the same Truth and share, i believe, the same kind of understanding of Dhamma.

Their message is: the main obstacle is that we do not know nor see that even our personal local perspective on the world is anicca, dukkha, anatta. This local personal unique perspective we feel as nicca, as just as it is, a fixed reality. While also this personal and local perspective on the world arises any moment and ceases any moment, due to causes and conditions.

This arising local and personal unique perspective on the world gives us a strong sense of Me. It provides us also with a sense that there are just as many minds as bodies. Or at least that the nature of mind is personal, and unique, and bound to a specific time and space. We believe mind lives in 2023 and in Russia or in the Netherlands. This is all based upon that personal perspectieve that ons holds and sees as absolute true. Not arising.

I believe the great masters have seen this is not true in the end. But one can never know or see this from within that personal perspective. Jhana can never reveal this. But i believe, cessation can. Because, i believe that with cessation that personal perspective falls away.

In the Glossary of Arhattamagga-Arahattaphla it is said:

“Normally, the “knowing nature” of the citta is timeless, boundless, and radiant, but this true nature is obscured by the defilements (kilesa) within it. Through the power of fundamental ignorance, a focal point of the “knower” is created from which that knowing nature views the world outside (this is what i refer to as that personal perspective on the world, green). The establishment of that false center creates a “self” from whose perspective consciousness flows out to perceive the duality of the “knower” and the “known”. Thus the citta becomes entangled with things that are born, become ill, grow old, and die, and therefore, deeply involved it in a whole mass of suffering”.

I also feel this is what the mystics of the world share. They all share that kind of understanding and experience that one must not see and understand mind as something local and personal, and like there are biljons of minds, just as many mind as bodies.

This is exactly what the Buddha was pointing to when he said that the disappearance of the Dhamma will be due to the fact that people will stop inclining their ears to the Buddha’s Dhamma and will begin to listen to teachers instead of his Word. SN 20.7, AN 5.49 ( also DN26, AN5.88, AN 4.180)

These teachers are not Buddhas, they are conditioned by their craving and ignorance. Even an arahant does not have all the teaching abilities of the Buddha and sometimes cannot convey the meaning of the teaching. For example, when describing his mind, in which there are no clinging and obstacles, no limitations or identifications with the world, he means the state of lifetime nibbana, but another person will understand this as a description of the eternal shining atta hidden in every being. I choose Buddha. I don’t choose teachers (if they contradict Buddha). They say Ajahn Maha Bua loved to cry with emotion in connection with the Dhamma. And guests came to Ajahn Manu - Buddhas with a retinue of arahants (?!). Think about it - who do you give your preference to and who do you rely on.

The needs on the level of the 5 material senses are childsplay compared to the intellectual needs. I see that very clearly now. Oke, i am a bit older now.

These intellectual needs are so strong, so strong. This need for thinking, making order by figouring things out, busy with developing ideas into a nice consistent mental puzzle…brrr… all madness.

It is really alarming, i feel, how strong this all is. I am mentally sick. It is not really difficult to controll the 5 senses but this intellectual need…it is like rage.
Try to stop thinking, reflecting, discussing, debating, studying, feeding oneself intellectually.
Just try for a week…brrrrr…My God…

Then one sees how one feeds oneself and how one need that food. Very much.

Love for Dhamma is, ofcourse, not really love for what buddhism has to offer in terms of doctrinal knowledge, philosophy, sophisticated ideas. Really that is only love for Mara.
It is only ones intellectual hunger. Seeking satisfaction in swallowing words, book, concepts, ideas. That is not real Dhamma practice.

For long i related with Dhamma this way. I am still not stopped. I am addict.
Just to satisfy my intellectual needs. And in Buddhism one can eat almost endlessly ideas.
It is not really dhamma-practice. I know that now. But now i am addicted. I admit to everybody here.

Finally i have said something.
Wish you all well.

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It is simply that the 5 aggregates are neutral, they are just the body and mind processes conditioned by the six external object which are also neutral by itself. Clinging arises upon the meeting of the six sense faculties and the six sense object with the mind in wrong view, which doesn’t understand itself thinking every aggregates is me, mine and myself. Clinging starts.

From MN28

But when the eye is intact internally and exterior sights come into range and there is corresponding engagement, there is the manifestation of the corresponding type of consciousness.
The form produced in this way is included in the grasping aggregate of form. The feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness produced in this way are each included in the corresponding grasping aggregate.
They understand: ‘So this is how there comes to be inclusion, gathering together, and joining together into these five grasping aggregates.

So in this sutta, it is explained that when contact happens, aggregates gather together and form clinging aggregates. So there is the awareness because it is clinging and gathering 5 aggregates.
As such aggregates without clinging are aggregates that does not come together and exists outside of ‘self’.