The Two Extremes of Buddha

“If he feels a pleasant feeling, he feels it detached. If he feels a painful feeling, he feels it detached. If he feels a neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling, he feels it detached. This, bhikkhus, is called a noble disciple who is detached from birth, aging, and death; who is detached from sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair; who is detached from suffering, I say.
https://suttacentral.net/en/sn36.6/10

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Sure. I guess there are words, then there is meaning. :slight_smile:

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I had the same thought. There is nothing necessarily bad about being detached, as @Mat pointed out. A detached person can still have compassion and can actually be more helpful than someone overcome by grief.

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"Sensing a feeling of pleasure, he senses it disjoined from it. Sensing a feeling of pain, he senses it disjoined from it. Sensing a feeling of neither-pleasure-nor-pain, he senses it disjoined from it. This is called a well-instructed disciple of the noble ones disjoined from birth, aging, & death; from sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs. He is disjoined, I tell you, from suffering & stress.

Visaññutto has been rendered in different ways. I like the above as it feels closer to my experience. However I dont think it sounds quite right to say ‘disjoined from suffering’, but I would leave that to an arahanth. :laughing:

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They are synonyms: unbound, unfastened, disconnected, disengaged, parted, separated, uncoupled, untied, unhitched, , unhooked, detached
dispassionate: “she remained a detached observer of these events”

But this jars with the idea that conditioned phenomena are created by volitional formations.

They construct the conditioned, bhikkhus, therefore they are called volitional formations.
SN 22.79

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What does enlightenment feel like? Maybe it is like that scene from the ‘Sound of Music’ where Julie Andrews is singing the theme song in the mountains and everything is fantastic.

That would be end of all suffering. This is because of the cause of all suffering, craving and ignorance (avijja) has been removed. This in turn, is because we managed to remove ignorance and see that everything was anicca, dukkha and anatta. When one see this tilakkhana deeply enough via nibbida, viraga and nirodha craving is reduced, and at the moment of attainment, all fabrications (sankhata dhamma) stop arising. The DO is reversed. Nibbana (3rd Noble Truth) is realized. What happens afterwards- things return to normal, minus craving and delusion.

The Nibbana without lack of vedana (and sanna) happens for only a moment at the point of attainment. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any distinct point of attainment! The state of arahathood afterwards is called having attained Nibbana (…in general) or the realization of Nibbana, or Nibbana with residue (the five aggregates) remaining.

with metta

If you truly see things as they really are, then any craving you might have will be instantly extinguished for ever. Imagine a piece of dung.

“Seeing thus, bhikkhus, the instructed noble disciple experiences revulsion towards form, revulsion towards feeling, revulsion towards perception, revulsion towards volitional formations, revulsion towards consciousness. Experiencing revulsion, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion his mind is liberated. SN22.76

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Assuming I had attachment towards dung (!) seeing it, my attachment would vanish. However my definition of suffering also includes impermanent objects, simply because of their impermanence (that which is impermanent, is dukkha SN22.59), not mediated via craving. It takes Vipassana meditative practice to really appreciate this kind of (sankhara dukkha, IMO) suffering. In short while my mental suffering has ceased the dung still exists (i.e. all conditioned phenomena, which are impermanent). It will do so as long as there is a functioning body and mind. So for all suffering (‘suffering is to be fully comprehended’) to cease the arahath must pass away. As we live in a world with natural laws she cannot suddenly vanish!

The world didn’t vanish when the Buddha attained nibbana under the bodhi tree. The world didn’t change, nothing changed, apart from his view of the world.

If one is detached, dispassionate, disjoined, unbound to impermanent things, then how can they cause suffering?

Let’s use another example, say Rugby. Words cannot express how uninterested, detached and dispassionate I am about Rugby. Rugby is a complete social construction, a social fabrication, and yet fans will cry tears of joy and tears of sorrow when their team wins or loses. The fans are clearly caught up in a form of enchantment and delusion. If that spell is broken, then Rugby remains but tears of joy and sorrow no longer occur, because the fan has become dispassionate about it. Furthermore, when the spell is broken, then the impermanence of Rugby will no longer cause dukkha.

“They construct the conditioned, bhikkhus, therefore they are called volitional formations.
SN 22.79”

The quote above explicitly states that conditioned phenomena are created by the mind. If Conditioned phenomena are no longer being generated by the mind, then there is no dukkha. In other words the sport of rugby is perceived in an unconditioned liberated way. By extension, everything will be viewed in this new unconditioned way. Permanent nibbana.

When the buddha became awake under the Bodhi tree, nothing in the world changed. It was his perception of the world that changed. He became dispassionate, disenchanted by it all. He was no longer in the grip of the delusion that binds us to such things.

“What do you think, monks — Is form constant or inconstant?”
“Inconstant, lord.”
“And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful?”
“Stressful, lord.”
“And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to change as: ‘This is mine. This is my self. This is what I am’?”
“No, lord.” SN22.59

Assume I have no craving (or aversion) to rugby but had to sit in a never ending rugby match until my life was over, how unsatisfactory that would be? Or if I had to mediate while having to smell dung piles all aroud me, till my time was up. This is a visceral level of dukkha best described as (or responded to) as ‘repulsion’. Some experiences are hardwired into our brains to move away from. This can only be experienced with Samadhi giving rise to insight, through Vipassana. Otherwise there is no reason to develop Samadhi and no reason for insight as a training.

The DO doesn’t stop suffering by stopping craving (it could have), but birth itself, which maybe seen as an unpopular step for some. It would have been nice to live long -or forever- without any psychological suffering.

There is the ‘real’ aggregates (form, feeling, perception etc) and the fabricated aggregates (fabrications). The latter is fabricated by the mind. However when someone says ‘sabbe sankhara aniccati’ all fabrications are impermanent, it refers to all conditioned phenomena- that is everything. Sankhara has several meanings: Anicca Vata Sankhara
The meaning as applied here is all impermanent entities- ie sankhara in its broadest sense of all conditioned phenomena. Everything that arises and passes away.

Nibbana, the type with no remainder- with no aggregates remaining, with no conditioned phenomena must also be attained to say dukkha is completely rooted out. Otherwise as long as birth exists, dukkha exists.

with metta

What do you mean by this ? Cessation of craving results in the cessation of birth according to paticca-samuppada.

Yet that is exactly what the Buddha did. He sat in samsaric existence and still said that the nibbana he experienced is peaceful bliss.

So, you are now saying that the Buddha did not teach freedom from psychological suffering in this very lifetime. But the claim is often made that he did:

But isn’t the gradual removal of aversion toward unpleasant things part of the Path ? Strengthening the mind by removal of the tendency to react in a knee-jerk manner when something nauseating hits our senses is part of the process and an Arahant has reached the culmination - a mind that can perceive repellent phenomena with equanimity. From MN 152:

And how is one a noble one with developed faculties? There is the case where, when seeing a form with the eye, there arises in a monk what is agreeable, what is disagreeable, what is agreeable & disagreeable. If he wants, he remains percipient of loathsomeness in the presence of what is not loathsome. If he wants, he remains percipient of unloathsomeness in the presence of what is loathsome. If he wants, he remains percipient of loathsomeness in the presence of what is not loathsome & what is. If he wants, he remains percipient of unloathsomeness in the presence of what is loathsome & what is not. If he wants — in the presence of what is loathsome & what is not — cutting himself off from both, he remains equanimous, alert, & mindful.

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Yes, but all feelings (vedana) are impermanent and therefore dukkha- even pleasant ones, no?

Ok, if nibbana was simply the absence of psychological suffering (it is that and more, IMO) how to explain these statements which are equally and boldly featured in descriptions of nibbana:

“There is that dimension where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither dimension of the infinitude of space, nor dimension of the infinitude of consciousness, nor dimension of nothingness, nor dimension of neither perception nor non-perception; neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon. And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor stasis; neither passing away nor arising: without stance, without foundation, without support [mental object]. This, just this, is the end of stress.”
— Ud 8.1

“There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned.”
— Ud 8.3

Where water, earth, fire, & wind have no footing:
There the stars do not shine,
the sun is not visible,
the moon does not appear,
darkness is not found.
And when a sage,
a brahman through sagacity,
has known [this] for himself,
then from form & formless,
from bliss & pain,
he is freed.
— Ud 1.10

I have heard that on one occasion Ven. Sariputta was staying near Rajagaha in the Bamboo Grove, the Squirrels’ Feeding Sanctuary. There he said to the monks, “This Unbinding is pleasant, friends. This Unbinding is pleasant.”

When this was said, Ven. Udayin said to Ven. Sariputta, "But what is the pleasure here, my friend, where there is nothing felt?"AN 9.34

with metta

I was responding to your earlier statement: Some experiences are hardwired into our brains to move away from.

MN 152 indicates that it is possible.

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Someone seeking only the absence of psychological suffering would not be seeking emancipation from the born-become-made-fabricated. There would be no issue with the fabricated being present. But it is the case that the fabricated arises and passes away -is impermanent and therefore dukkha. The end of arising (nirodha, 3rd Noble Truth) must be realised for this dukkha to cease.

This contradicts the Buddha’s statement that fabricated things are made by the mind. Conditioned phenomena are made by volitional formations. If there are no volitional formations, then there is no dukkha. The 3 marks of existence do not exist in one that has no volitional formations.

It also contradicts the idea that the Buddha achieved perfect equanimity in this lifetime whilst alive.

The idea that you are not acknowledging and contradicting is this:

“They construct the conditioned, bhikkhus, therefore they are called volitional formations.
SN 22.79”

the absence of volitional formations leads to this :

calm, permanent,
beyond inference,
unborn, unproduced,
the sorrowless, stainless state,
the cessation of stressful qualities,
the stilling of fabrications,
bliss". Iti43

"Monks, these three are fabricated characteristics of what is fabricated (sankhata). Which three? Arising is discernible, passing away is discernible, alteration (literally, other-ness) while staying is discernible.

"These are three fabricated characteristics of what is fabricated.

"Now these three are unfabricated (asankhata) characteristics of what is unfabricated (Nibbana). Which three? No arising is discernible, no passing away is discernible, no alteration while staying is discernible.
“These are three unfabricated characteristics of what is unfabricated.”
AN 3.47

"Monks, form is inconstant, changeable, alterable. Feeling… Perception… Fabrications… Consciousness is inconstant, changeable, alterable.
SN 25.10

In short all phenomena (except nibbana, where no arising, changing or passing away is seen) is conditioned (sankhata) phenomena. Fabrications (sankhara, the fifth aggregate) is also conditioned, as are the other four. In other words tilakkhana applies to all 5 aggregates. Tilakkhana also applies to the six sense bases as well.

If it were limited to fabrications there would be purely psychological nibbana, potentially achievable through good therapy. There wouldn’t be a breathrough into the nibbana element. The nibbana explained as an absence, in the Dhamma wouldn’t make sense otherwise. There would be no arising of the dhama eye of stream entry, as long as the entire world is seen as not suffering, but if only the defilements/fabrications are seen as the problem.

It is only when all phenomena that arises is seen as anicca, dukkha and anatta that it will be possible to let go of attachment to things arising in our world. This counteracts the delusions that there is what is permanent and satisfactory. As long as they maintain their ability to be pleasing, they will form the grounds to be potentially clingable, hence the term clinging aggregates (updana khanda).