The other way to final Nibbāna according to the suttas

[Dhabba]

@Myles

Yes, but isn’t it simply because annihilation implies something (sense of self) is going to stop existing, when in reality the sense of self is just an illusion.

Therefore, cessation is simply the ending of the khandas, and since khandas are suffering, the ending of khandas is the ending of suffering.

What led you to the conclusion that ”in reality the sense of self is just an illusion”?

If something has been experienced, it has actually been experienced by the experiencer, right? Experiences and memories are very important things.

The current self has a duration that is conditional but the ”self” we happen to be right now is of course real, until we die and take rebirth.

There is a responibility for our deliberate actions and so on that determines what kind of rebirth.

I think people take it way too far with this ”not-self” thing, almost to the extreme point that the Buddha specifically warned about, namely the wrong view:

‘My self does not exist in an absolute sense.’

@Sunyo

One of the speculative views in DN1 actually is that there is a permanent mind or consciousness (which in the Buddha’s days was called an atta). This is a speculative view, I would argue, because the conclusion that any type of consciousness/mind/experience is permanent, is always speculation added to the bare experience. Unless you live forever, it can’t ever be directly understood to be so.

In contrast, despite the comprehensiveness of the sutta, the mere cessation of the five aggregates (or six senses) isn’t described as a speculative view.

I disagree and the fact that Sāti, who even met the Buddha in the flesh, still came to his conclusions are NOT based on speculations.

On the contrary, his conclusions are only based on actual experience.

If one start to go through previous existences, ”here I was like this, then I died and arose there and was like that and so on and so on” you have a real actual experience of being an ”permanent self” - the only remedy for this is Paticca-Samuppada.

@Myles

Perhaps it’s because all logic by the common person generally begins with the foundation that the self exists, and therefore we will always see cessation as annihilation unless you have right view?

Mundane right view: ‘There is what is given and what is offered and what is sacrificed; there is fruit and result of good and bad actions; there is this world and the other world; there is mother and father; there are beings who are reborn spontaneously; there are in the world good and virtuous recluses and brahmins who have realized for themselves by direct knowledge and declare this world and the other world.’ This is right view affected by taints, partaking of merit, ripening on the side of attachment. - Every religion has all of this.

Supramundane right view can be summarized as wisdom:

“And what, monks, is right view that is noble, taintless, supramundane, a factor of the path? The wisdom, the faculty of wisdom, the power of wisdom, the investigation-of-states enlightenment factor, the path factor of right view in one whose mind is noble, whose mind is taintless, who possesses the noble path and is developing the noble path: this is right view that is noble, taintless, supramundane, a factor of the path.

The problem is that I made a whole thread about this but even got private messages telling me that I’m wrong and that all the groups mentioned in the sutta SN 22.81 are just puttujhanas and have nothing to do with buddhism.

Yet all these groups mentioned in the sutta do adhere 100% to NOT regarding form or feeling or perception or choices or consciousness as self.

They all obviously have mundane right view and can enter rupa loka and arupa loka.

Funnily enough in SN 22.81 the Buddha mentions how some reject eternalism but still hold on to this wrong view:

Perhaps they don’t regard form or feeling or perception or choices or consciousness as self. Nor do they have such a view: ‘The self and the cosmos are one and the same. After passing away I will be permanent, everlasting, eternal, and imperishable.’ Still, they have such a view: ‘I might not be, and it might not be mine. I will not be, and it will not be mine.’ But that annihilationist view is just a conditioned phenomenon. And what’s the source of that conditioned phenomenon? … That’s how you should know and see in order to end the defilements in the present life.

But no ”cessationalist-buddhist” seem to understand that he is talking about their specific wrong view. The sutta is about Nibbāna, as in ending all the defilments in this very life - which is what Nibbāna truly is since you don’t greedily relish the blissful feelings and perceptions in arupa loka but instead cool down.

Anyhow, cessationalists still claim all the things said in the sutta are only about puttujhanas. What makes one a puttujhana?

Not having the wisdom only found in the Buddha’s teaching.

The fact that the Buddha praises outsiders with exactly the same formula he now tells monks to give up, if they want to end the defilements in this life, says a great deal about how wrong it is to imagine one will somehow vanish 100%.

@Dhabba

Here in AN 10.29 the Buddha praises outsiders using exactly the same phrase and formula as in SN 22.81:

”This is the best of the convictions of outsiders, that is: ‘I might not be, and it might not be mine. I will not be, and it will not be mine.’ When someone has such a view, you can expect that they will be repulsed by continued existence, and they will not be repulsed by the cessation of continued existence. Some sentient beings have such a view. But even the sentient beings who have views like this decay and perish.”

Like I wrote in the other thread:

@Dhabba

This is applicable to various ascetic practices by others that are very painful to the body but due to the deep concentration attained leads one to the formless realm of nothingness. These meditators don’t care about a future ”existence” of any sort in rupa loka and kama-loka and couldn’t care less about ”ceasing to exist” as they have come to know existence (kama-loka & rupa-loka): since the formless realm of nothingness is seen as the highest type of ”cessation” in their dhamma.

Yet in SN 22.81 everyone is encouraged to completely give up every notion of ‘I might not be, and it might not be mine. I will not be, and it will not be mine.’

In AN 10.29 the reason for the Buddha’s praise is:

When someone has such a view, you can expect that they will be repulsed by continued existence, and they will not be repulsed by the cessation of continued existence.

But this reason for praise seems not to be applicable anymore in SN 22.81 and is instead considered a wrong view that has to be given up in the pursuit of ending the defilements in this present life.

Any clue as to why?

SN 22.81 and the distinctly buddhist teachings found in it

So here is SN 22.81 First the Buddha describes that anyone who regard form or feeling or perception or choices or consciousness as self is: ”An unlearned ordinary person who has not seen the noble ones, and is neither skilled nor trained in the teaching of the noble ones. They’ve not seen true persons, and are neither skilled nor trained in the teaching of the true persons.” This teaching of NOT regarding form or feeling or perception or choices or consciousness as self is distincly buddhis…