Unio Mystica = Nibbana?

The Watercooler
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Hi

I am wondering about your thoughts on the similarity between the ancient concept of unio mystica (mystical union) and Nibbana.

Are they really the same? Needless to say that I am not proposing a Christian God in Buddhism. I feel it is easy to see how ancient Christians could just have interpreted the experience as divine.

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There are sentient beings that are diverse in body and unified in perception , such as the gods reborn in Brahmā’s Host through the first absorption.
DN 15
:pray:

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Hi,

For union there has to be two or more entities merging, so to speak.
Contrary to this, including the teachings on anattā, the suttas describe the realization of nibbāna while alive as the cessation of greed, anger, and ignorance and ultimately of the cessation of the senses and aggregates without rebirth at parinibbāna.

As in MN22:29.2:
"They understand: ‘Rebirth is ended, the spiritual journey has been completed, what had to be done has been done, there is no return to any state of existence.’
‘Khīṇā jāti, vusitaṁ brahmacariyaṁ, kataṁ karaṇīyaṁ, nāparaṁ itthattāyā’ti pajānāti.

“It’s when a mendicant has given up transmigrating through births in future lives, cut it off at the root, made it like a palm stump, obliterated it, so it’s unable to arise in the future.”

And AN3.55:4.2:
"When you experience the ending of greed, hate, and delusion without anything left over, that’s how extinguishment is visible in this very life, immediately effective, inviting inspection, relevant, so that sensible people can know it for themselves.”

evaṁ kho, brāhmaṇa, sandiá¹­á¹­hikaṁ nibbānaṁ hoti akālikaṁ ehipassikaṁ opaneyyikaṁ paccattaṁ veditabbaṁ viññūhī”ti.

So it’s more about the ending of craving and ignorance, which perpetuate conditional existence and dukkha, rather than some “thing” entering into a blissful union with something else.

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As you may be aware, I personally share this view. However for the sake of discussion, there are one or two arguments I could think of.

First, union and/or non-duality may just be the closest terms that language has to describe the experience in question. They must not necessarily be of essence. Rather, it is clear that, in a total union, even the term “union” is neutralised, since it by nature of thought requires the limiting concept of “plurality” to have a thinkable content. Therefore, total unity is cessation (pick either pure Being or pure Nothing).

So the term “union” is just a description of the experience in question from inside the empirical viewpoint. Therefore, the mere name of the term unio mystica is not by itself enough to conclude that the phenomenon is not the same.

The argument I would nevertheless use against this view of Nibbana is the same that I would use against Hegel’s absolute spirit: That there is no way to be sure about the essence of this cessation. It could possibly just be a mental phenomenon explainable by natural law and the nature of perception. Therefore, it lacks an “absolute” meaning.

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Hi,

Thanks for sharing.

We agree that abstract words and concepts cannot encapsulate what they’re pointing to.

At the same time,

but that “pure Nothing,” I’d suggest, is another subtle form of objectification, (same with Being).

All this is abstract.
Just offering a small bit about how we can reify what’s less than zero. So to speak. :slightly_smiling_face:

Might we apply this – knowing no example is perfect – to full cessation after parinibbāna?
There never was an attā/being to begin with, even as processes manifested in unique ways for a while, then they completely stopped at the final death and: