The logical implications of anicca

[suaimhneas]

@sujato

The reason for the difference between the use of sankhara and dhamma is not because one of them includes Nibbana. It is because dhamma here means “principle” as in, the laws of nature: dependent origination, the four noble truths, and so on. They are descriptions of how the world is, so they are not themselves “impermanent” (since they are always accurate descriptions of samsara) nor are they suffering. They are, however, clearly not self.

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 doesn’t seem very likely to me that some of the other principles would be realistic candidates for a self fixation, whereas there’s 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, wouldn’t that be a reasonable logical inference? Nibbana certainly isn’t sankhara. And sankhara is said to be impermanent and unsatisfactory. Without the third, “sabbe dhamma anatta” and we just had “sabbe sankhara anatta”, might not a person be likely to ask: well, if there’s no self in the conditioned, hang on, maybe there’s still room there in the unconditioned??? IMO the third statement clears that up and does not have to necessarily imply anything else about Nibbana.