Does this metaphor in old India not mean that when a flame is extinguished it is not gone, it is not destroyed, not really ceased, but the flame gone out, is freed from its food, becomes independend of it’s fuel, the wood? Samsara is like a flame which cannot escape from the fuel, the wood, and is very agitated. You can see that in the flames. It is not free, dependend. But a flame gone out was this not seen as a freed flame?
I like that idea of Nibbana being always present. If you remove adventitious mud from water, the natural result is pure water. I think with mind it is the same. If we remove adventitious defilements like avijja and tanha, the natural result is a pure mind, Nibbana.
Do we construct the pure water? Not really. It is umade, it was there all the time and the mud was never ever really mixd up with the water. It was always adventitious to the water. If mud would really mix up with water it could not be removed. The same with defilments and mind. Defilements never ever really mix up with the pure nature of mind. They are always adventitious. (AN1.49/50)
Such ideas may exist in the (later) Upanishads, but not in the suttas, no. Interestingly, the suttas actually do mention the idea that an extinguished fire goes back to its source… as a wrong view held by non-Buddhists! (E.g. MN76) In the Buddha’s own words we actually find ideas about fire which are the direct contrary. For example, just from the Majjhima Nikāya alone: no fire can exist without fuel (MN39), the fire element is impermanent (MN28) and the flame and radiance of an oil-lamp are impermanent (MN146).
Oke thank you for that @Sunyo , maybe we can discuss a little bit, if you wish.
I personally find it still somewhat disturbing to read about Nibbana, the ulitmate goal, as extinguishment or going out like a flame. Maybe that’s why my mind latches to the idea that Nibbana is not about the heartwish to go out like a flame, and never experience anything anymore, but about finding the deepest truth about ourselves. A truth which does not lie in the domain of conceivings. Finding this truth is, i belief, a very noble goal. For me the Bodhisattva was a truth-seeker. A Buddha is someone who knows the truth. I belief only the truth will liberate.
Although there is no personal eternal self, i belief, the Dhamma is still about self-knowledge because all we think, say and act arises due to a certain self-and other knowledge. Our self-knowledge is different from a Buddha. Our self-knowledge is related to the khandha’s and we cannot really see beyond it. A Buddha can.
When the Buddha teaches that the khandha’s are not me, mine, my self, i belief that is not only a tactic to become dispassionate and work towards liberation. I belief he found the truth that the khandha’s are really not me, mine and myself. He found the truth about himself in something stable, unmade, unbecome, and unlike the nature of the khandha’s, I belief.
So we have two faces: a face seen from the perspective of identification with the khandha’s and a face unidentified. The first is made, a constructed reality, and the second is asankhata, unmade, unbecome.
Mind and vinnana, the same?
Here in this context of Nibbana or freedom of agitation, liberated, ‘mind’ is not the same as vinnana, right? Because, the freed mind is also freed from vinnana. Detached from it (AN10.81). It cannot be the same as vinnana. Must there not be something more than 5 khandha’s, if one can be detached from 5 khandha’s? Refering to AN10.81 what is this mind without limits? I think that is the key. Is this mind without limits personal, a subject, a self? I do think this is the deathless dimension, the unmade, unbecome, our true self.
Going out like a flame might relate to the 5 khandha’s, to who we are not, but who/what we are, i belief, cannot go out like a flame.
Yes, finding truth is a very noble goal. Yes, you are correct that overcoming ignorance (knowing the truth) is what leads to liberation from dukkha. And yes, the N8FP is all about removing ignorance and understanding the truth about the way things really are. Yet I think the Buddha went forth not with the primary intention to seek truth, but with the primary intention to be liberated from dukkha. He knew that anything that wasn’t true got in the way of liberation so in that way the Buddha was a truth seeker. There’s a subtle but important difference and making that distinction set the Buddha apart from all other truth seekers. Discovering and knowing truth served to bring him to what he ultimately sought, liberation from dukkha.
In MN 26 the Buddha relates what he specifically sought was:
"And what is the noble search? It’s when someone who is themselves liable to be reborn, understanding the drawbacks in being liable to be reborn, seeks the unborn supreme sanctuary, extinguishment. Themselves liable to grow old, fall sick, die, sorrow, and become corrupted, understanding the drawbacks in these things, they seek the unaging, unailing, undying, sorrowless, uncorrupted supreme sanctuary, extinguishment. This is the noble search.
Mendicants, before my awakening—when I was still unawakened but intent on awakening—I too, being liable to be reborn, sought what is also liable to be reborn. Myself liable to grow old, fall sick, die, sorrow, and become corrupted, I sought what is also liable to these things. Then it occurred to me: ‘Why do I, being liable to be reborn, grow old, fall sick, sorrow, die, and become corrupted, seek things that have the same nature? Why don’t I seek the unborn, unaging, unailing, undying, sorrowless, uncorrupted supreme sanctuary, extinguishment?’"
Thanks. I think the Buddha was a very sensitive person who developed a great sense of insecurity, unsafety, terror, in regard to the truth of suffering; sickness, aging, death. He was very aware of how unsafe and insecure this life is. The more he opened his eyes the more he felt this. Awakening to the truth of suffering is a kind of terror. He wanted a safe place, a protection, a refuge amidst this unreliability. He realised quit soon that anything that is anicca, cannot function as a refuge. It is unreliable. In short, then he came to see the reliable in himself, asankhata element.
For this detached mind I think a better translation is ‘a mind free from boundaries’ or ‘limits’. It refers to the absence of the five hindrances. That is clear in MN111, which uses the exact same phrase with reference to the states of samadhi, and always followed by “and there is an escape beyond it”. For example, with the first jhana:
Quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unskillful qualities, he entered and remained in the first absorption, […] And he meditated without attraction or repulsion for those phenomena; independent, untied, liberated, detached, his mind free of limits. He understood: ‘There is an escape beyond.’
(This “he” is Sariputta before his enlightenment.)
The escape beyond these states of samadhi, beyond this purified mind, is cessation, the stilling of the aggregates including consciousness. You’ll see that after Sariputta attained cessation in MN111 afterwards he realized there is no escape beyond. That is, cessation is the end of suffering. Of course it was only temporary for him then, so it is not truly nibbbana. Nibbana is permanent cessation.
If this sounds disturbing, as you say it is to you, then I would say you need to contemplate it like Sariputta Which is to say, you need to contemplate it after attaining jhana. Because that is when the mind is free of these kind of emotions. It’s free from these limits.
I feel free to disagree with you bhikkhu @Sunyo. In my opinion AN10.81 describes the end fruit of the Path, or, in other words, the definitive taste of supreme enlightment.
"“Sir, how many things has the Realized One escaped from, so that he lives unattached, liberated, his mind free of limits?” (AN10.81)
Is is not about temporary jhana but how the Thathagata lives, any day, any moment. So it is in my opinion about the end fruit of the holy life, Nibbana. The state of deepest purification. The mind is permanently freed, liberated, detached from rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara and vinnana etc. Unagitated all the time.
The mind detached, purified, liberated from all 5 khandha’s is, i belief, the one that is stable, reliable, unmade, refuge, the island, unproduced, wieldy, free, measureless, empty. It is only in the thirst for, the attachment to, the longing for, the identification with the 5 khandha’s that this freedom and detachment is not tasted.
AN10.81 is about how the Tathagata lives, constant with the taste of freedom, Nibbana, supreme enlightment. A Tathagata is also already free from death, in this live. Does the Tathagata die? Then you belief he is the khandha’s and is that true? Is that what sutta’s say? How can a Tathagata be the khandha’s if he is liberated and detached from it? Also sutta makes clear the Tathagata may not be seen as the khandhas. So what else can he be but the asankhata element itself, the deathless, unborn, not ailing, etc?
I feel extinguishment as the highest goal sounds quit negative and frightening . I think al lot of people have the same feelings about this as me. To extinguish like a flame…well…that’s nice!? I find it a disturbing idea. That was the context.
To extinguish like a flame sound very much like becoming non-existend, like totally vanishing in air, nothing remaining. Is that the highest goal of Buddhas-Dhamma? I cannot belief it. This cannot be true.
For example…if one would extinguish like a flame one would certainly not exist after death but that is not taught, not even for an arahant and Tathagata. So this extinguishment is not the same as going out like a flame, like vanishing totally.
I think Thanissaro did a great attempt to give some positive context for the translation of extinguishment for Nibbana.
I really do feel that it is also somewhat problematic when one wants to go out like a flame and vanish without nothing remaining. If one is really looking foward to that, how does that differ from a depression, from a blue mind? From vibhava tanha? I hope this is not flagged because this really impresses my heart. I am sincery worried about this motivation. Some will say…well you don’t have to…i do anyway.
I don’t think it’s the same a depression. The feeling which one might experience in a depression is still believing in a self which is permanent and faulty. If one sees that their is nothing there but conditions then what is there to go out but the burning of those conditions?
“Bhikkhus, all is burning. And what, bhikkhus, is the all that is burning? The eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning, and whatever feeling arises with eye-contact as condition—whether pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant—that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hatred, with the fire of delusion; burning with birth, aging, and death; with sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair, I say. SN35.28
Although phrases in the suttas usually have very standard meanings, it might signify something else here than the hindrances in MN111, you’re right, that’s not impossible. But then still I see no reason to take this as a permanent mind of sorts that is outside the aggregates.
There is no Tathagata at all, not inside the aggregates nor outside. Tathagata is just a label but nothing real. “Even in this life you can not find a ‘Tathagata’.” (MN22)
See also SN22.85:
“Reverend Yamaka, suppose they were to ask you: ‘When their body breaks up, after death, what happens to a perfected one, who has ended the defilements?’ How would you answer?”
“Sir, if they were to ask this, I’d answer like this: ‘Reverend, form is impermanent. What’s impermanent is suffering. What’s suffering has ceased and ended.
Feeling … perception … choices … consciousness is impermanent. What’s impermanent is suffering. What’s suffering has ceased and ended.’ That’s how I’d answer such a question.”
Can I ask why do you think being liberated from the “sankhata”, the five aggregates, is a good, non-disturbing thing?
Well, I think you’ll agree the point is to let go of all desire, including that for existence or non-existence.
What i do not understand is why people belief that Dhamma is totally understood from and within the perspective there is nothing but conditions? I belief that is not the message of the Buddha.
I belief, then one only knows the part of sankhata dhatu. But one also has to know asankhata dhatu (according DN) That is the key, the unmade, unbecome, unproduced, not born, deathless.
If this would not be something real how can there be an escape, a refuge, an island?
Yes, if this asankhata dhatu is not real, then there is no refuge.
I belief that enlightment means that one has seen that ones deepest nature is this asankhata dhatu. Therefor one knows there is not really any dying for an enlightment. Enlightment does not die. The truth does not die. Only suffering ends.
If one longs to vanish or go out like flame, because one sees that as the end of suffering, and longs for it, i belief that is a very different thing.
If there is no knowing outside the aggregates then cessation of the aggregates cannot be known. I belief cessation of the aggregats can be known, as peaceful. I have seen clues that cessation does not mean that all knowing ends and one becomes totally unconscious. A non-dual knowing remains.
Some make a distinction between citta and 5 khandha’s (Maha Boowa)
I think this refers to the fact that the nature of the Tathagata is real but cannot be described with words of the world.
If a Tathagata would not be real and just a label, how can wounding a Tathagata have such extreme consequences that one after death immediately is born in hell?
Because being not liberated and attached to the khandha’s , agitated like a flame, is burdensome. For example, when there is pain it is burdensome that aversion arises, and one cannnot feel the pain in a detached manner. This inability, this lack of control, this impotency, this fettering is suffering.
I think it very great when one can, in this very life, know or taste sannavedayitanirodha.
Then one has overcome a lot of obstacles, i belief.
I feel that the longing not to exist anymore after death, and not to perceive or feel anything anymore after death, born from aversion or being fed up with existence and its suffering, is vibhava tanha, and is related to an ego-perception. I feel its colour is not light but dark.
I think it is very different from the heart felt wish to overcome the own inner demons and obstacles for purity and finding the truth about oneself. Even overcoming this aversion to suffering.
Yes, I think it is good to be perfectly honest to oneself and others, at least try, and look at what is the real motive behind ones goals, deeds etc. Like looking in the mirror.
For example, there can be more than one reason to renounce the world and become a monk.
A person might also see this as a happy way of living, a comfortable way of living, while he/she is not really motivated to attain Nibbana, the real goal of the holy under the Buddha. Texts desribe this. It is just an example that there can be many motives behind something.
I think also with practicing Dhamma. Many people are, ofcourse, very much attracted to the idea that suffering can end. It might take many years of practice to discover that this longing not to suffer makes one desperate, resistant, angry. frustrated, sad, because one keeps experiencing all kind of sufferings in this life, pains, sickness, loosing abilities, losses, dying, ripening unwholesome kamma etc.
It is like the Buddha-Dhamma does not work.
There comes a time when one sees that this longing for the end of suffering is itself a cause for suffering. A big burden. The more one has fed that longing the bigger the burden becomes.
It is greed based, ego-based, rooted in ignorance.
It is due to the longing not to suffer that one cannot relate un-emotionally to personal troubles, pains, sufferings.
Preparations are an act of intention as well. This rendering also captures the ‘forming’ of something, or putting it together. The wiktionary page for saṃskṛtá actually has ‘put-together’ as its first definition. संस्कृत - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
This only begs the proposed definition and does not explain step-by-step how one would arrive at this. I could as easily replace the word choice with something else and point to my own rendering to fortify it. This is a fallacy of logic.
It absolutely is the point; this is well-said. The fact that you require two or three different renderings of one single pāli term shows that it is rendered improperly. The word is one of deep meaning, deeper than any other word I can think of, but that does not mean it has variegated meaning, as you’ve proposed.
Sankharas are not just choices but things that are formed together. This forming, preparing or putting together gives rise to consciousness. I’ll continue contemplating this and may come back in another year or more to explain step-by-step.
I don’t have the ability to commit to full time study and translation work or I verily would. I’m not sure if you were meaning to be snarky or genuinely encouraging but all I can currently only offer a critique of the work you’ve done, which I come into contact with quite often, and I always read sankharas as sankharas instead of choices, because I can’t say that out loud in good faith. In my experience it has conduced to more clarity when we sit down and discuss the deep meaning of the term rather than render in this incomplete way
Which is to say, you need to contemplate it after attaining jhana. Because that is when the mind is free of these kind of emotions. It’s free from these limits.