If he is translating sankhara as things, then yes, since nibbana is asankhata.
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Very interesting. I have also been trying to investigate what the brahmins meant by atman. It seems to me that they were well aware that the world of the senses is fleeting and unsatisfactory. Hence the search for something permanent or some essence.
What the Buddha Dhamma seem to be saying is those who search for some thing permanent will find none, when this is seen with wisdom that is the end of searching right there. End of all craving, nibbana in other words.
Those who search for something satisfactory will find none, when this seen with wisdom that is the end of searching right there.
Those who search for some essence, some pith, some core will find none, when this is seen with wisdom that is the end of searching right there.
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I think itâs us readers who try to impose a clarity on the suttas which they donât have - the path to abhidhamma. Is it that unreasonable that some passages suggest permanent immortality (amata), even a state, or bliss, while others are more abstract (e.g. asankhata)?
How about this often repeated (and old) stock passage where the bhikkhu
ârealizes for himself with direct knowledge, in this very life, that unsurpassed brahmacariyapariyosÄna for the sake of which clansmen rightly go forth from the household life into homelessness, and having entered upon it, he dwells in itâ
(SN 6.3, SN 7.1, SN 7.2, SN 7.10, SN 12.17, SN 21.4-6, SN 21.11, SN 21.12, SN 22.35, SN 22.63, SN 35.64, SN 35.89, SN 35.95, SN 41.9, SN 47.3, SN 47.15, SN 47.16, SN 47.46, AN 2.5, AN 3.130, AN 4.257, AN 5.56, AN 5.180, AN 6.55, AN 6.60, AN 7.56, AN 8.30, AN 8.63, MN 7, MN 26, MN 27, MN 57, MN 70, MN 73, MN 75, MN 82, MN 85, MN 86, MN 89, MN 92, MN 124, DN 8, DN 9, DN 16, DN 25, DN 26, Snp 1.4)
If I leave all philosophizing aside, that sounds quite simply like they found an ideal state and then stayed in it. Of course we can superimpose a fancy non-state nibbana here, but if you read this passage like a normal person then you simply understand âthey completed their spiritual studentship and then stayed âthereââ. The problem arises only, I think, if we try to find an understanding which fits all different contexts of liberation.
I think you are right. I have been reflecting on my own path. At first when I read the dhamma it spoke to the heart this made me want to investigate it, after all this acquisition of knowledge it it seems to me itâs all just spinning around in thought going no where. So itâs not unreasonable at all because I donât know. But I hope this will spur me to find out for my self.
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The pith is the Path.
It makes more sense to me that Nibbana is included in dhamma but not for that to imply that it is necessarily nicca.
If Nibbana is included under the umbrella of dhamma here, I do not think we can necessarily infer that then Nibbana must be nicca (permanent). Just because something is not white does not mean it is black. Being not anicca does not mean it is nicca! 
The suttas, e.g. the Vacchagotta Sutta SN44.8, seem to imply that the dual category of existence and non-existence falls squarely into the domain of sankhara/the conditioned (and simply does not apply to Nibbana). I guess perhaps something similar could hold for the nicca/anicca duality.
It would seem to make more sense to me for Nibbana to fall in this dhamma category. It doesnât seem very likely to me that some of the other principles would be realistic candidates for a self fixation, whereas thereâs a real danger than Nibbana could be (has been) transformed into some kind of universal overself. If Nibbana is left out of the dhamma category, wouldnât that be a reasonable logical inference? Nibbana certainly isnât sankhara. And sankhara is said to be impermanent and unsatisfactory. Without the third, âsabbe dhamma anattaâ and we just had âsabbe sankhara anattaâ, might not a person be likely to ask: well, if thereâs no self in the conditioned, hang on, maybe thereâs still room there in the unconditioned??? IMO the third statement clears that up and does not have to necessarily imply anything else about Nibbana.
Hi @sukha.
That sounds right. So the question becomes what is the domain of things that are anatta. Presumably anything that is clung to or craved is anatta (by nature not self or belonging to self). One can presumably crave a non-present nibbÄna, but to cling to or crave a present nibbÄna is incoherent.
David.
Anicca doesnât just mean impermanent, it also means inconstant, unreliable and subject to conditions (ie conditioned).
So I think Nibbana would qualify as nicca.
Nibbana as nicca is not ruled out by the âsabbe sankhara anicca, sabbe sankhara dukkha, sabbe dhamma anattaâ statement but Iâm not sure itâs actually logically ruled in either.
Nicca seems to primarily mean something like constant, continuous, permanent, and hence anicca its opposite, but saying sankhara/the conditioned is âXâ doesnât necessarily mean the Unconditioned is âNot Xâ, e.g. saying the conditioned exists doesnât necessarily imply that the Unconditioned does not exist. Maybe the Unconditioned is nicca. Itâs hardly anicca but perhaps these terms just donât apply. I suppose it has been referred to as sukkha in some places (in Iti43 come to think of it) but whether thatâs meant in an ontological sense is another question.
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Itâs actually interesting to look up the occurrences of nicca in the suttas - very down-to-earth, and not philosophical at all. Sometimes it means âall the timeâ in a mundane sense, for example.
The horribly inconsistent term dhamma is part of the problem here, I think. It would be much easier if nibbana wasnât included there, but, alas, it is (occasionally). See for example SN 35.33 (ff.): âsabbaáč jÄtidhammaáčâ - âEverything is birth-dhammaâ, or âall is liable to be rebornââ as Sujato translates it. Including nibbana? of course not, and the sutta goes on to clarify that the salayatana are meant. Yet, it says âsabbaâ.
Even worse, AN 8.83, AN 10.58: âchandamĆ«lakÄ sabbe dhammÄâ - âall dhamma are rooted in desireâ.
Why btw is it that sabbe saáč
khÄrÄ are anicca & dhukkha, but dhamma are anatta?
We find the claim that all dhamma are anatta in SN 22.90, SN 44.10, AN 3.136, AN 7.18, MN 35, (Dhp 20)âŠ
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Interesting!
Yes, itâs pretty vague. Often seems to read rather like the English word âthingsâ (another vague word whose scope depends a lot on context, e.g. âtidy up your thingsâ has a rather different meaning to âall things are impermanentâ ).
I guess it must be some broadening of scope. Something like: âall conditioned things are impermanent and unsatisfactoryâ being followed by âall things are anattaâ. I suppose it is well-established already elsewhere that conditioned things, e.g. the khandas, are anatta. I guess the point is that anattaâs scope is broader than conditioned things. I suppose one can lump some kinds of universal invariances (dhamma principles, four noble truths etc.) in there. Itâs not absolutely certain that nibbana has to be in there (given dhamma is such a vague term). Universal overself ideas have argued anatta is restricted to the khandas. But seems more plausible to me that nibbana is included here as a dhamma. Being designated a dhamma is so vague as to IMO imply very little about nibbana anyway (for those who might worry about that).
Logically, if nibbana is included under the dhamma category here, then all I think that this necessarily implies about nibbana is that it is not anicca and not dukkha and not conditioned (since it then needs a separate category). Surely, not controversial. However, not anicca and not dukkha are not necessarily the same as nibbana actually being ontologically nicca and sukha. Of course, it doesnât rule those out either.
Nibbana could not be considered nicca. There is nothing to be nicca, where nibbÄna is simile with extinguishment of fire. What exactly is left there to be nicca?
NibbÄna is not a state or a place.
Relatively nibbana can be considered sukha as explained in AN 9.34.
But it is beyond vedanÄ, where it doesnât have the feel of happiness (sukha).
It is difficult to take nibbana as anatta dhamma as well.
It is more likely neither-self-nor-non-self.
The absence of defilements. Theyâve been zapped and theyâre not coming back.
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Yes, I think nicca would apply to the permanent cessation of the taints associated with Nibbana.
When I look at asankhata, it means liberation/nibbana in SN 43.1-12.
AN 3.47 is a bit mysterious in that it suggests that there are more than just one element that is asankhata (similarly in AN 2.86, MN 115 & DN 34 are vague too).
Puzzling are AN 4.34 & AN 5.32, not emphasizing that nibbana is asankhata. Together with MN 44 they clarify that the magga is a sankhata dhamma.
So why then do we need in the formula dhamma to be anatta. I at least canât find what we miss if we declare âsabbe sankhata anattaâ. Can you maybe say again why that would be insufficient?
From the Wikipedia article on Nirvikalpa samadhi
The âundiscriminate cognitionâ knows first the unreality of all objects, then realizes that without them also the knowledge itself falls to the ground, and finally directly intuits the supreme reality
And a passage from Sn12. 70 which reads very similiarly
First, SusÄ«ma, comes knowledge of the stability of the Dhamma, afterwards knowledge of NibbÄna.â
The first passage seems to indicate that directly intuiting the supreme reality would be the end of that path.
Whilst the the second passage, which I assume describes the attainment of stream entry, would on the contrary be just the beginning of the Buddhist path.
My take on it is, that the sotapanna intuits the existence of Nibbana as a dhamma but doesnât have experiential understanding of its anatta Nature.
I take asankhata to mean not subject to conditions, ie âunconditionedâ, or independent of changing conditions. I think in Theravada this refers exclusively to Nibbana, while some other Buddhist schools allow for several unconditioned dhammas, including space.
An interesting point of controversy here about whether space is unconditioned:
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Obviously I wasnât actually asserting the above (just that the âsabbe sankharaâ statements didnât necessary imply the above). Often, in the suttas, it is easier to figure out what something is not rather than what it is.
That sounds like reasoning from the MN72 sutta with Vacchagotta. IMO there are probably limits to how literally one should take the flame simile.
Sure, there are direct parallels. The flame process is extinguished. The psychophysical process called an arahant is extinguished (the fuel is used up). However, the Buddha uses the flame simile to give an example of inapplicable statements.
âSuppose that fire burning in front of you was extinguished. Would you know: âThis fire in front of me is extinguishedâ?â
âYes, I would, Master Gotama.â
âBut Vaccha, suppose they were to ask you: âThis fire in front of you that is extinguished: in what direction did it goâeast, south, west, or north?â How would you answer?â
âIt doesnât apply, Master Gotama. The fire depended on grass and logs as fuel. When that runs out, and no more fuel is added, the fire is reckoned to have become extinguished due to lack of fuel.â
That seems fair enough. Asking where the flame is when itâs gone is not applicable. However, if one was to say the flame no longer exists, then that sounds like a very reasonably applicable statement to me (and the sutta doesnât say it is inapplicable to the flame).
However, earlier in the sutta the Buddha says he doesnât hold views like an arahant exists after death, does not exist after death, both exists after death and does not exist after death and vice versa (other suttas rule out these also as inapplicable). Seems a lot less straightforward than for a flame in terms of applicability.
And then the Buddha says:
âIn the same way, Vaccha, any form by which a Realized One might be described has been cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, obliterated, and unable to arise in the future. A Realized One is freed from reckoning in terms of form. Theyâre deep, immeasurable, and hard to fathom, like the ocean. âTheyâre rebornâ, âtheyâre not rebornâ, âtheyâre both reborn and not rebornâ, âtheyâre neither reborn nor not rebornâânone of these apply.
Seems not something one could really say about the simple extinguished flame in the flame simile. So, generally, Iâm not sure we can treat this simile totally literally.
Well, I suppose the the arahant (or flame in the simile) is not nicca but Nibbana and the arahant are not quite the same thing.
Donât actually disagree with this when taking other suttas into account. Sure, vedana isnât in Nibbana so that would seem reasonable.
You wouldnât consider Nibbana a dhamma? Just curious.
Or you wouldnât consider Nibbana to be anatta? Or do you think anatta would be an inapplicable label?
That does sound rather like the statement that an arahant both exists and does not exist after death, which was one of four combinations ruled as inapplicable to Nibbana.
Some of your suttas are referring to the path. Saying that the raft or the stream is conditioned seems no great problem to me. But what about the final âdestinationâ (the ocean all the streams flow into or the âFar Shoreâ)? Having âdhammaâ instead of âsankharaâ adds little I guess, except perhaps that it might imply that Nibbana is also anatta. Why else would it be there?
Or maybe itâs just emphasizing that there really is no atta anywhere? That there isnât some loophole (unconditioned stuff where atta might be hiding).
As to there being other unconditioned phenomenon, who knows? I guess something like the basic framework/machinery that underlies physical reality might come close to qualifying. However, the Buddha never says the universe is eternal, just without discoverable beginning. So I guess that might not quite make the mark either!
Perhaps all possible universes with all possible physical laws do exist out there somewhere (there are cosmologists that have speculated along these lines) . Maybe there are static unchanging perhaps rather uninteresting universes that have always been and always will be exactly the same.
âThere are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.â and all that! Though Iâm sure that all falls under the Buddhist useless speculation category!
To take nicca from the ontological pedestal:
AN 4.39-40 (similarly in DN 5) âI praise that kind of non-violent sacrifice; for example, a regular gift (niccadÄna) as an ongoing family sacrifice.â
SN 16.3 "Mendicants, you should approach families like the moon: withdrawn in body and mind, always the newcomer (niccanavaka), and never impudent.
DN 32: âThere the trees are ever in fruit (niccaphalÄ)â
SN 2.17: âThis mind is always (nicca) anxiousâ
SN 3.13: âIâll set up a regular (nicca) daily allowance of a hundred dollars for you.â
etc. etc.
I would say before applying nicca to a permanent cessation or anything similarly philosophical or soteriological letâs first find examples that allow such an application of the term. It has a very mundane every-day meaning: regular, continuous, always.