From what I understand you agree that the 5 aggregates exist dependent on conditions. You agree that when the condition for their existence will disappear, they too will cease without reminder. When ignorance will disappear, volitional formations will disappear. Then consciousness and name and form will disappear. Then, contact will disappear too. Because contact will disappear, then the other 3 aggregates that have contact as their condition will disappear too. Apart from their dependent condition, they can not continue to exist. I understand that you agree with this.
And, also, you have agreed that there is no such thing as a self apart from the 5 aggregates. If the 5 aggregates were to cease without reminder, then there would be impossible for such a thing as a self to be discerned apart from them. You yourself have expressed this position, it is you who have admited this to be correct.
From what I understand you believe there is a self, that self is made out of the 5 aggregates of an arahant and that self perishes when attaining parinibanna.
Is this the position you believe in ? Is this your position on the problem ? A self that is made out of the 5 aggregates of an arahant, a self that perishes at arahant death ? Is this your position or is your position different than this ?
Or do you simply do not understand what the word “self” means in English language, as explained in my previous message ? You seem to be confusing “a being” or “an airplane” or “a computer” with “an impermanent self”.
I do not understand what difference is there between “a being” and “an impermanent self”. By definition a self can not be impermanent. The 5 aggregates are impermanent. Similarly the metal, the windows, the fuel of the airplane is impermanent too. Together they make up an airplane. It is the same with the 5 aggregates of the human only that a “sense of self” develops witch is just another part of the being. When ideas like “this is my body” or “this is my consciousness” appear, they are just dependently arisen, empty of a self things such as a particular image displayed by a computer. The trick is, this feeling that “this is my consciousness”, this feeling of a thing belonging to yourself, this feeling itself is just like a window that has poped up on a computer, like the smoke produced by a car, like the sound produced by a musical instrument (to quote Buddha). The trick is to understand this.
This highlighted part is difficult to understand and requires contemplation. There are many suttas trying to explain this, one of the best been the one with the simile of a musical instrument. It is somewhere in SN “Book of sense bases” somewhere in the last subchapters. Buddha explains how the sound of a musical instrument is something that arises dependent on conditions. That there is a complicated machine, a human that plays it, etc. that together produce the sound that comes out of the instrument. If someone were to say “enough with this instrument, bring me just the sound” - that would be impossible. It is the same with this sense of self. This sense of self is produced by conditions, by this complicate machine made out of 5 aggregates. As explained in the highlighted part.
First one needs to remove self view. He needs to properly understand that this is like the sound of an instrument. Then, the tendency to take things as yourself will continue to exist because it is an underlying tendency. The underlying tendency to conceit. It is like an addiction, like a bad tendency. And this has to be removed too in order to reach arahanthip. But first step is removing the view of a self. Understanding that this idea of “this is my consciousness” is an idea that has arisen dependent on conditions, a phenomenon that has popped up dependent on conditions, like the sound of a musical instrument or a window on a computer or the smoke produced by a car. If there would be no musical instrument, there would be no sound.
Buddha said to regard these 5 aggregates like we would regard the branches and leaves of a forest. If somebody would gather the branches and leaves of a forest ad set them on fire, would we say “this is my self, it is my self burning” ? It is the same with the musical instrument. The instrument is not our self, the sound of the instrument is not our self. In the same way, the 5 aggregates are not ourselves, the phenomenons that appear like “this body is my self, this consciousness is myself” - that idea, that opinion is like the sound produced by a musical instrument. It is not ourself. It is an idea, a feeling arisen dependent on conditions, just like the smoke of a car or the sound of a musical instrument.
