No I don’t. I don’t find such a metaphysical view important for practice. Nor do I view the aggregates as atta from the emotional perspective of delight, security, and craving (which is more important for practice).
Anyways, I don’t want to go in detail with your posts and it seems we have many points of commonality anyways. It would take too much time for me to sort through the things we agree and disagree on and respond.
Since I’m being too lazy to write out my position again, here’s a post I like from Geoff Shatz on this topic which I think is pretty darn close to how I see it.
The Asaṅkhata Saṃyutta of the Saṃyuttanikāya offers thirty-three epithets for this goal, almost all of which are either metaphors or evocative terms suggestive of the various facets of this goal. But each of these epithets is then explicitly and unequivocally defined as the elimination of passion, aggression, and delusion. One of these epithets is nibbāna, which is a term relating to an extended metaphor. Ven. Ñāṇamoli, The Path of Purification, p. 790, note 72:
Modern etymology derives the word nibbāna (Skr. nirvāṇa) from the negative prefix nir plus the root vā (to blow). The original literal meaning was probably ‘extinction’ of a fire by ceasing to blow on it with bellows (a smith’s fire for example). It seems to have been extended to extinction of fire by any means, for example, the going out of a lamp’s flame (nibbāyati — M iii 245).
Soonil Hwang, Metaphor and Literalism in Buddhism: The Doctrinal History of Nirvana, p. 9:
Western scholars tend to agree on the etymological meaning of nirvāṇa as ‘going out’: the noun nirvāṇa is derived from the negative prefix nir plus the root vā (to blow). Its original meaning seems to be, as Ñāṇamoli suggested, ‘“extinction” of a fire by ceasing to blow on it with bellows (a smith’s fire, for example).’ When a smith stops blowing on a fire, it goes out automatically. In this respect, this word nirvāṇa should be understood as intransitive: a fire going out due to lack of cause, such as fuel or wind.
If we accept this etymological meaning, which is probably pre-Buddhist, what does the term refer to within the early Buddhist tradition? One of the common misunderstandings of nirvāṇa is to assume that it refers to the extinction of a person or soul. This view may be caused by the words nibbuta and nibbuti, which can be used of the person or soul. However, both words are derived not from nir√vā (to blow) but from nir√vṛ (to cover) and their meaning in these cases is, as K. R. Norman suggests, ‘satisfied, happy, tranquil, at ease, at rest’ for the former and ‘happiness, bliss, rest, ceasing’ for the latter. Moreover, not only does this view lack any textual evidence, it is also the mistaken opinion identified in the early canon as annihilationism (ucchedavāda).
The canon repeatedly, explicitly, and unequivocally defines nibbāna as the elimination of passion, aggression, and delusion. This is the goal of practice. Beyond the attainment of this goal, early Pāḷi Buddhism has nothing to say. SN 48.42 Uṇṇābhabrāhmaṇa Sutta:
“But master Gotama, what is it that nibbāna takes recourse in?”
“You have gone beyond the range of questioning, brāhmaṇa. You were unable to grasp the limit of questioning. For, brāhmaṇa, the holy life is lived with nibbāna as its ground, nibbāna as its destination, nibbāna as its final goal.”
There are two reasons why the Buddha had nothing to say about any matters beyond the attainment of this goal. The first is that any view regarding the postmortem existence or non-existence of an awakened arahant is not conducive to actually attaining the goal. It “does not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calmness, direct gnosis, full awakening, nibbāna.” It is considered a fetter of view (diṭṭhisaṃyojana). MN 72 Aggivacchagotta Sutta:
The view that after death a tathāgata exists is a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a vacillation of views, a fetter of views. It is accompanied by dissatisfaction, distress, despair, and fever. It does not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calmness, direct gnosis, full awakening, nibbāna.
The view that after death a tathāgata does not exist is a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a vacillation of views, a fetter of views. It is accompanied by dissatisfaction, distress, despair, and fever. It does not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calmness, direct gnosis, full awakening, nibbāna.
The view that after death a tathāgata both exists and does not exist is a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a vacillation of views, a fetter of views. It is accompanied by dissatisfaction, distress, despair, and fever. It does not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calmness, direct gnosis, full awakening, nibbāna.
The view that after death a tathāgata neither exists nor does not exist is a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a vacillation of views, a fetter of views. It is accompanied by dissatisfaction, distress, despair, and fever. It does not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calmness, direct gnosis, full awakening, nibbāna.
The other reason, as suggested by the Buddha’s exchange with the brāhmaṇa Uṇṇābha already mentioned, is that there is no way to describe or designate or define anything beyond the attainment of this goal.
The most elegant and subtle aspect of the dhamma expounded in the Nikāyas is that it doesn’t impose any sort of metaphysical view regarding the nature of the liberated mind. This is clear in the sense of the liberated, measureless mind → appamāṇacetasa, being free from any sort of measuring → pamāṇa.
It is precisely this which differentiates early Buddhism from every other religious and secular worldview, and also separates early Buddhism from virtually every later strata of Buddhist exegesis — both ancient and modern. It’s unfortunate that most authors of Buddhist commentary haven’t seen fit to heed the Buddha’s advice on this point.
The two trends of Buddhist exegetical interpretation both fail to appreciate this point, and fall into either a uniquely Buddhist version of nihilism or a uniquely Buddhist version of eternalism. These post-canonical views are uniquely Buddhist because, for the most part, they manage to avoid the annihilationist and eternalist views criticized by the Buddha in the discourses.
The nihilist version of Buddhist exegetical interpretation errs through mistaken reductionism. This thesis posits that an arahant is nothing more than the aggregates, and therefore, because the aggregates cease without remainder at the time of the arahant’s death, the “arahant” is likewise terminated. This reductionism errs because there are explicit statements in the discourses which tell us that an arahant cannot be measured even while alive, and specifically, cannot be measured using the criteria of the aggregates. Since this is the case, there is nothing whatsoever that can be posited about the postmortem existence or non-existence of the arahant. Language and logical inference don’t apply to that which cannot be qualified or measured. There is no criteria for measurement.
The eternalist versions of Buddhist exegetical interpretation (there is more than one), all err for the same reason. Since an arahant cannot be measured or traced even while alive, there is nothing whatsoever that can be posited about the postmortem existence or non-existence of the arahant. Again, language and logical inference don’t apply to that which cannot be qualified or measured. There’s no criteria for measurement.
This explanation is following very closely to the majority of suttas which discuss the undeclared points rather than just hovering around two or so that support one side or the other. For example the ‘neo-eternalists’ cite DN 11 and MN 49, while the ‘neo-nihilists’ cite anuruddha and yamaka suttas. The reality is that if we consider the full survey of relevant suttas on the tetralemma, it’s clear that the immeasurability/ineffability/beyond scope of language argument is far more common and that we should interpret other suttas in light of the majority rather than the other way around.
Actually the “it’s suffering to hold any of the arms of the tetralemma” argument is also common in the suttas, and serves as a helpful stopgap for anyone who would rather just get back to practice rather than debate here about the topic.
That’s all from me on this thread, if you have burning questions or criticisms you want a response from me on you can PM but I can’t promise I’ll want to engage for long there either.
