You got me 
You win Venerable, but unfortunately I respectfully disagree. Donât you think the cessation of desire acts as a condition liberation?
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@Green, do you think it not possible to be right (or view others as having gotten something wrong) yet not feel superior? This seems like a wonderful question to explore. Maybe you can open another thread?
So now what do you think what was His goal then ?
I will not be responding to the other comments in this thread for now. Itâs too chaotic to follow it all and try and maintain a coherent discussion. I think it is important we maintain the clarity of discourse, otherwise it falls apart.
- You agreed that dukkha is a term describing the quality of not being able to satisfy.
- You agreed that form [feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness(?)] do not have the inherent quality of being able to satisfy.
This means that the aggregates are dukkha by your definition in at least this sense.
The conversation didnât elucidate, and it cannot elucidate how we âdisagreeâ because I have yet to disagree with you. Iâve asked you about your views with clarifying follow-up questions.
A better conversation representative of this one would seem to be:
Alice: Whatever is not able to satisfy is dukkha. Rocks are not inherently able to satisfy. This is only true when there is desire. When there is no desire, it is no longer true that rocks are not able to inherently satisfy.
Bob: That doesnât follow.
Now, in this case I think I am disagreeing with you, that is, if you are saying that âonly when there is desire is it true that rocks lack inherent satisfactoriness; with the cessation of desire, the quality of lacking inherent satisfactoriness ceases.â
MettÄ
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Buddhaâs teaching are in connection and not something standalone apart from the aggregates .
Here is the logical structure of how you arrived at this:
- The aggregates do not have the inherent ability to be satisfactory.
I have agreed with this. Based upon this agreement you then invoked an axiom:
- The aggregates must either inherently be satisfactory or they must inherently be unsatisfactory.
To arrive at the conclusion:
- The aggregates are inherently unsatisfactory.
But I do not agree with this axiom. It is possible for the aggregates to neither inherently be satisfactory nor for them to be inherently unsatisfactory.
It might be hard to understand how I can reject your axiom and still be doing logic, but I assure you I can. Rejecting your axiom does not make the logic Iâm using contradictory or make it less powerful.
BTW, we can take away the word âinherentlyâ if you wish and proceed from there. The axiom would then be:
- Rocks are either satisfactory or rocks are unsatisfactory
And I would still disagree to this axiom. Rocks are neither satisfactory nor unsatisfactory. Rocks are rocks.
Noted. I apologize for my mistake of assuming disagreement where none has yet been confirmed.
Rocks are not inherently able to satisfy, because are rocks are not inherently anything. Just because they are not inherently satisfactory does not justify the conclusion that they are inherently unsatisfactory without a further axiom stated above which I do not agree to.
Rocks lack inherent satisfactoriness whether or not there is desire. When there is no desire rocks do not become inherently satisfactory.
Demonstrate where I said that.
I said âlacking inherent satisfactoriness.â I did not say âare inherently unsatisfactory.â Recall your definition of dukkha being the absence of satisfactoriness. It is not an affirmation. Itâs merely a negation, a non-affirming negation of sukha, as per the definition even in English of âunsatisfactoriness.â Negating the inherent pleasure in the object means that, when searched for, there is no ultimate pleasure or happiness to be found in the object.
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Okay. I will agree with this definition of dukkha. Glad we agree here then. Letâs continue discussing?
Do you take the traditional first sermon â the Turning of the Wheel of Dharma (SN 56.11 in PÄli) â to be authoritative, as representing the message of the Teacher?
At SN 56.11, âdukkhaâ is defined as follows:
Rebirth is dukkha; old age is dukkha; illness is dukkha; death is dukkha.
Do you think that the empty process known as âillnessâ ceases as soon as desire ceases? Or do you think that the nature of illness as such is the same whether or not there is desire, and only deluded notions of and relations to illness cease with the cessation of desire?
For example, could the Teacher grow ill and be sick, as at passages such as:
At one time the Buddha was staying near RÄjagaha, in the Bamboo Grove, the squirrelsâ feeding ground. Now at that time he was sick, suffering (dukkhito), gravely ill.
SN 46.16
If so, you agree that illness does not immediately cease when desire ceases.
If so, dukkha does not immediately cease in the absence of desire. See premise #1, where the definition of âdukkhaâ as âillnessâ is taken as authoritative Dhamma.
Do you regard the Shorter Discourse on Emptiness (MN 121 in PÄli) and its parallels in Tibetan, Chinese, etc. to be authoritative, as representing the message of the Teacher?
How do you interpret the following passage from the Shorter Discourse on Emptiness?:
They understand: âHere there is no stress due to the defilements of sensuality, desire to be reborn, or ignorance.
There is only this modicum of stress, namely that associated with the six sense fields dependent on this body and conditioned by life.â
They understand: âThis field of perception is empty of the perception of the defilements of sensuality, desire to be reborn, and ignorance.
There is only this that is not emptiness, namely that associated with the six sense fields dependent on this body and conditioned by life.â
Do you agree that an arahant who is said to be free from the defilements is free of desire?
Do you agree that this passage says that there is âstressâ (daratha, being a synonym of âdukkhaâ) even in the absence of defilement or desire?
If so, you agree that dukkha does not immediately cease with the cessation of desire.
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You didnât. I thought it was an unstated assumption in your definition of dukkha, but if you wish to define dukkha as âlack inherent satisfactorinessâ we can proceed!
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Great, yes based on what I mentioned above, I take your statements about dukkha to conclude that this is the definition. And Iâm happy to agree with that. 
We havenât exhausted the topic yet though as there are other dimensions of dukkha to discuss I think.
(I think itâs important to note here that I have not simply decided to define âdukkhaâ as such; rather, Iâve taken your statements and brought them to their conclusions with cross-questioning to arrive at a definition you hold, which Iâve then ceded. This leads to a contradiction in the prior definition of dukkha arising only with desire. We should note that that notion, unless defended further, has fallen apart here.)
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Is what you are saying:
The world is good or at least not inherently bad?
All the suffering just comes from ignorance?
But if ignorance subsided, everything would be hunky-dory?
Cheeseburgers in Paradise?
I have great faith in this sutta, yes.
Which with our new agreed upon definition becomes:
- Rebirth lacks inherent satisfactoriness.
- Old age lacks inherent satisfactoriness.
- Illness lacks inherent satisfactoriness.
No.
Illness is illness whether desire is present or not.
Agreed.
No, it does not.
I have great faith in this sutta, yes.
I donât particularly 
Agree.
So youâre saying - again based on your definition of dukkha (âthe lack of inherent satisfactorinessâ) - this passage is saying even in the absence of defilement or desire that the lack of inherent satisfactoriness can be found. Iâve agreed that this conclusion follows.
With your definition dukkha never seemingly ceases; there never is a time (past, present, or future) where we can find anything with inherent satisfactoriness; whether there is desire or not. You think there is something out there where we can find inherent satisfactoriness? What is it? Where is it?
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Ahh! It seems weâve come at a crossroads with each assigning the other the meaning of âdukkha.â But I never said dukkha was the lack of inherent satisfactoriness 
It is true that rocks lack inherent satisfactoriness. I agree with this. But it isnât the case that this lack of inherent satisfactoriness is what causes dukkha to arise nor is it dukkha itself.
Dependent upon the desire for that which lacks inherent satisfactoriness to be other than it is, dukkha will arise.
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Do you agree that NibbÄna is defined as the absence of dukkha?
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The cessation of dukkha, yes.
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If all that is characterized by the lack of inherent satisfactoriness ceases, can the quality of lacking inherent satisfactoriness persist in experience?
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The world is not inherently bad! It isnât inherently anything.
No. I donât think it could.
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Our conversation went well then, I think (oh wait⌠itâs not satisfying 
)! It seems that we both agree that experiences lack inherent satisfactoriness whether or not there is desire. The cessation of dukkha would be the cessation of the persistence of this lack of inherent satisfactoriness. And so in order for the lack of inherent satisfactoriness to vanish, the things characterized by it (the aggregates, the six senses, illness, etc.) would have to cease.
Thoughts?
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Are you referring to the concept of emptiness?
So how can an empty world be full of things?