What Does Anicca Mean?

The Watercooler
50

For me that is not so logic. To ‘define’ agitation as arising and falling seems to me a bit strange. Many texts (i have allready given references) say that agitation is due to clinging and ceases when clinging ceases. Agitation is not the same as arising and falling. If there is detachment, and arising and falling formations are not clung to, there is also no agitation because of this arising and falling of formations. Otherwise an arahant and Buddha can never be without mental suffering too.

I use concepts of EBT texts and have studied them and study them.

51

ordinary happiness and pleasures are dukkha from the ultimate truth point of view. sukkha = dukkha is paradoxical in logical/semantic sense but not for those who has gone beyond. on our mundane level we must not pretend sukkha =dukkha(vice versa) because that would be denial/ignorance( we must see things as they are). aniccha, dukkha, anatta are ultimate truths that are interrelated but they are also each ‘stand alone’ truths. everything is dukkha not just because of aniccha but because of other fundamental reasons.

52

Hi @nobula

It is taught that sufferings like sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, sadness have a cause, are produced. It arises because of wrong view or wrong understanding (SN22.43). The cause of this suffering is an-sich not in the khandha’s, i belief. Not in their change, not in their arising, not in their decay, not in their impermanence or cessation, but in the wrong views and understanding of them and of yourself.
There is always this me and mine-making in the unenlightend mind in regard to the khandha’s and that causes the suffering, not the impermanent aspect of the khandha’s.

What reasons do you see to call everything dukkha?

I tend to see that as a strategy not as some kind of absolute truth. For example, to see the khandha’s as dukkha leads the mind to dispassion, to a point it understand and really experiences the khandha’s are an-sich not dukkha but the me and mine making causes dukkha.

Yes, i know the texts also teach that any birth is suffering but i think that is not the perspective of ultimate truth but seen from the perspective that any birth comes again with me and mine making of the khandha’s. This repeats again and again while avijja is still there.

53

sorry but you are wrong. five khandhas = dukhha, period(no this or that). me and mine as you point out is different, more related to anatta and ofcourse me/mine is always dukkha, nobody disagrees.

again wrong. the entirety of budhha’s teaching is about dukkha and the first noble truth is dukkha(implies an absolute truth). you are confused between ordinary dukkha(pain/suffering) versus ultimate dukkha on the level of khandas. when you reach to the level where you can experience rising and passing of each khandas individually, you would have already been far past beyond any me/mine and pain/pleasure polarity. at that level things just rise and pass away and they are dukkha not because they are painful but simply because they are karmic remnants from the past and you are looking from the point of view of nibbana where nothing rises and passes(total cessation). the complete truth is available at that point and anything below that point is dukkha no matter how much sukkha you have or how profound your knowledge.

54

Oke @nobula , you think i am wrong.

First of all, I belief, there is a difference between dukkha in dukkha-nupassana, in contemplating dukkha as a characteristic of the khandha’s, and dukkha as the noble truth of suffering. Contemplating dukkha in the khandha’s is, i belief, a strategy to remedy the perspective of sukha in the khandha’s, which is very usual happening and closely related to the arising of passion and avijja.

The role of insight is to remedy those usual perspectives in our minds (nicca, sukha, subha and atta) which are connected to the arising of passion and the blinding of the mind. Contemplating anicca, dukkha, asubha and anatta leads to dispassion. Once dispassionate, passion does not blind the mind anymore and cannot weaken wisdom anymore.

-"…a virtuous bhikkhu should carefully attend to the five aggregates subject to clinging as impermanent, as suffering, as a disease, as a tumour, as a dart, as misery, as an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as empty, as nonself. (SN22.1122)

The khandha’s are ofcourse not really a tumour, a disease etc. but contemplating that way one contemplates the dukkha aspect in it, and that remedies seeing the khandha’s as sukha.

It is like contemplating the body. Ofcourse the body is not really repulsive as some absolute truth about the body, but developing that highly subjective perspective on the body might lead to more dispassion in regard to the body, to detachment.

Why? The goal is to see and taste and realise, ofcourse, the totally purified mind. The mind without someone, a subject, an ego who suffers! This is ultimate happiness (see further).

If there is detachment from the khandha’s how can they still be cause of suffering? Yes, if khandha’s are subject of clinging they are cause for suffering but what if they are not?
Why would the impermanence of the body be suffering for one in which there is no clinging to the body as me and mine?

Unlike the world the Buddha saw ulitmate happiness in the total purification of mind, even emptying the mind of it’s usual ego-conceit.

So, I belief a Buddha has transcended suffering during life. I know this can be questioned but it is what i belief. What do you and I or others really know about the life, the mind, the way of experiencing of a Buddha? We must rely on some texts but that does not mean a lot.
I choose for a Dhamma who leads to the total ending of suffering during life. A Dhamma in which life and khandha’s are only a burden inasmuch it is clung to and wrongly grasped. That is my choose and i belief there is support for this in EBT.

If there is no one home (No Me-making) who suffers? One can only talk about a burden when there is someone inside feeling and carrying that burden, an ego, but where is the burden when there is not someone feeling and carrying that burden inside? This is described as highest happiness:

"Dispassion for the world is happiness
for one who has gone beyond sensual pleasures.
But dispelling the conceit ʻI am’
is truly the ultimate happiness.” (Udana 2.1)

There can be ultimate happiness while living with khandha’s when there is no one home anymore to suffer and carry the burden of khandha’s. This is because the real burden is not the khandha’s but the clinging to them as me and mine creates the burden and suffering.
This is the escape which can be experiences by the wise. I do not think this is wrong. Maybe some feel this is all controversial but i feel the EBT give support for this kind of understanding.

Hard to image is the reality in which there is no one home, no ego to suffer or to be burdened. Even the most worse pains are no suffering for a mind that is pure. But even the smallest pains are a big burden for the unpurified mind.

Sannavedayitanirodha is the most comfortable abiding during life but one cannot maintain this state during daily life, but if one sees with wisdom, all asava’s end and one is free of any burden. Then ones mind is really purified. If this is really possible? I think it is. Dukkha is no absolute truth, it is caused.

55

what you are saying here is not incorrect but it only applies to sakadagami /arhats. for them khandas are no problem because they are already on their way out. their khandas are last remaining fuel. they are not creating any causes for new khandas. maybe you are an arhat and you are just expressing your experience but without disclaimer when you say things like khandas are not dukkha, dukkha is not absolute, you are being an irresponsible arhat. they don’t apply to us and it is not in line with practical teachings. dukkha is illusion like in a simulation(video game). everything inside that box is dukkha (both happiness and suffering) - only exception is if you are inside but you are very close on your way out with a guarantee.

56

I am not an arhant. For me it is not clear that change or impermanence is suffering, nor the khandha’s. That’s all. Is this irresponsible? I just do not understand it.

57

maybe you are thinking in terms of good/bad mentality. aniccha=good, dukkha=bad, khanda=good, me/mine=bad. yesterday you were feeling bad; today you feel good wow anicca is great, how can it be dukkha?
doesn’t mean you have to feel bad/wrong for having a good day because it is aniccha. just enjoy the day or whatever is there to enjoy without guilt. they are few drops in the ocean of dukkha, is not going to make waves, unless you break sila. apply mindfulness to your enjoyment, observe the arising passing of sukkha and attachment.

dukkha, aniccha, anatta are ultimate truths. they are experiences of those who have gone beyond and they are beyond good/bad dichotomy and ordinary logic. anicca=dukkha because everything is dukkha on the ultimate level. anicca is also different from dukkha. second and third noble truth (dukkha rise and dukkha pass) that is aniccha. aniccha is oscillation like a machine goes up/down, on/off, round and round(samsara) where we are all entangled.

58

“Annicha” always reminds me of Waharaka-ism.

(Desanitizing Pure Dhamma - #5 by prabhath)

59

Pending mod deliberation

62

Why? If dukkha is an ultimate truth how can there be an escape to dukkha?

I think in the context of contemplation anicca, dukkha and anatta also relate to value-judgements who are able to remedy passion, which is also related to value-judgements.

I am thinking about:

anicca…which might also have a connotation of unreliabe, unstable, insecure
dukkha…which might have also a connotation of not-safe, not-protective, no-refuge, no-shelter
anatta…which might also have a connotation of vain, idle, empty, void, valueless

63

Indeed. If dukkha were an ultimate truth, then there would be no escape from it, and no possibility of attaining Nibbana.
Saying that dukkha is a characteristic of conditioned experience seems nearer the mark.

As for anicca, I take it to mean impermanence and inconstancy.

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64

Logically, impermanence is only a source of suffering if one craves permanence. This conclusion is supported by the Second and Third Noble truths, where cessation of craving results in cessation of suffering.

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65

That is also how i tend to see it. But some say that just the arising and cessation of formations, such as thoughts, sense-vinnana’s and vedana’s, is a kind of agitation of the mind, a kind of mental suffering. What do you think about that?

66

As I understand the suttas, mind objects and sense-impressions are only a source of suffering when one identifies with them as “me” and “mine”.

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67

Nekkhamma is the first samma sankappo and the third paramita. we can’t renounce everything right away but an aspiration and effort to gradually renounce, retire, retreat, exit from mundane world and eventually from nama-rupa is part of the practice.
we don’t want pain and that is the easy part to solve. we have to give up pleasure too which is more tricky. all salayatana and khandas are pleasurable on a deeper level(read satipatthana -samudayasacchaniddeso/nirodhasacchaniddeso). you have to recognize it as pleasure and admit to cravings(no denial). pleasure is the cause of suffering but simultaneously an opportunity to remove suffering. you have to observe the rising -passing(intensity) of your craving moment to moment. there will be moments of no craving and it is great but it is also temporary and brief only during deep meditation. otherwise our subconscious mind is craving all the time more or less weather we like it or not. you have to fulfill all paramitas and you can root out craving in higher phala stages. so dukkha is the ultimate truth in the nama-rupa lokas. you escape nama-rupa you escape dukkha. to know what is outside nama-rupa have to become arhat first.

68

For me, the message of the buddha is that he has re-discovered that ego/self is not the nature of mind but knowing is. And that knowing does not suffer. Suffering arises due to the defilments which mix up with this knowing, and create the illusion that the knowing is done by a person, a Me, a ego or self.
In this the mind becomes burdened.

Maha Boowa even said that for this purely knowing, feeling is just feeling and there is not such a things as unpleasant feeling. Unpleasant is a judgement only in relation to a knower (ego who feels) and does not exist in relation to knowing. Oke…

I think it is very exceptional to dig into the nature of mind this deep but for me this is what the Buddha did. He reveals the nature of mind which has no dukkha because there is not me nor mine.

69

I’m not sure I understand Maha Boowa’s interpretation of feeling (vedana). For example, isn’t toothache objectively unpleasant? Isn’t the first arrow (bodily pain) an inevitability?

70

Hi @Martin,

Venerable Maha Boowa describes how his body was some day full of pain and how he made a resolution to meditate until he clearly understood the nature of this pain. He describes this in the pages 19-23 in arahattamagga/phala (book is a download on forestdhamma.org).

At a certain moment he …“saw clearly that it was the citta that defined feeling as being painful and unpleasant. Otherwise, pain was merely a natural phenomenon that occurred. It was not an integral part of the body, nor was it intrinsic to the citta. As soon as this principle became absolutely clear, the pain vanished in an instant. At that moment, the body was simply the body—a separate reality on its own. Pain was simply feeling, and in a flash that feeling vanished straight into the citta. As soon as the pain vanished into the citta, the citta knew that the pain had disappeared. It just vanished without a trace. In addition, the entire physical body vanished from awareness”.

He apparantly saw vedana, citta (knowing nature of mind) and rupa as seperate realities. In our lives, with craving, craving functions as the seamstress which sews all together whereby it looks like one inseperable realtity. But apparantly he saw that ‘unpleasant’ is a kind of judgement ( the citta defined feeling as being painful).