Upasīva and Fire "Atthaṅgato"

[Dogen]

@Sunyo

It’s just like the Buddha uses the term Tathagata to conventionally refer to enlightened people while alive. But in MN72, as elsewhere, he refuses to flat out affirm that a Tathagata “still exists” or “no longer exists” after death. It’s the same situation with the term muni, is what I’m suggesting.

Also, it’s clear that Upasiva himself at least takes the Buddha to be talking about death when he asks about the sage: “does he no longer exist, or is he eternally well?” In my interpretation, the Buddha actually addresses this question. If the Buddha was only talking about liberatoin while alive, he would effectively just be leaving Upasiva’s confusion unaddressed.

Hello bhante again! Thanks for chiming in.

I’m beginning to think Yamaka Sutta again offers a clean parallel to Upasīvasutta, with Muni “disappearing”, and Tathagata “Not being found alive”.

Even MN 72 which you’ve quoted seems to point something along these lines:

For a realized one has seen:‘Such is form, such is the origin of form, such is the disappearance of form…

That’s why a Realized One is freed with the ending, fading away, cessation, giving up, and letting go of all conceiving, all churning, and all I-making, mine-making, or underlying tendency to conceit, I say.”

So, isn’t it possible that namakaya may be an interesting way to say asmimana? → “I am this name, I am the muni” etc.?

Since, in Yamaka and MN72, the reason the question “Is tathagata x after death?” is irrelevant, is precisely because Tathagata has already disappeared for Yamaka, there’s no identifying with the khandas — rather than khandas ceasing after death, per se.

So I don’t disagree with you on this:

@Sunyo

The Buddha says you cannot identify such a thing as a sage (i.e. self), just as there is no thing-in-itself that is THE fire.

Bur rather, just relocating the fire analogy to the sage realising that there’s no sage, like there’s no tathagata at all (and like in the Tathagata example, sage/tathagata both being a paradoxical sounding shorthand for someone who stopped identifying with the khandas).

Since the question Upasīva asks is thus:

@Sunyo

“All-Insightfull One, if he stays there
for many years without faring on,
and he were cooled (sītisiyā) and liberated right there,
would the consciousness of someone like him pass away?”

This seems identical to the common refrain in Thag/Thig, like Thig 1.15:

I was restrained
“Kāyena saṁvutā āsiṁ,
in body, speech, and mind.
vācāya uda cetasā;
Having plucked out craving, root and all,
Samūlaṁ taṇhamabbuyha,
I’m cooled and quenched.
sītibhūtāmhi nibbutā”ti.