I understand that the five khandha’s do not arise anymore after Parinibbana.
But what does that mean, knowing the Budddha said in his life as a teachers that we are in this life not the khandha’s?
He transmitted this important message to his students. We, as his students, must see it as it actually is: “this experienced body and rupa’s, these feelings, these perceptions, these mental formations, these six kinds of conciousnesses, that’s not mine, not who i am, not myself”.
I belief, this includes also all those abhidhamma stuf about citta’s, citta vitthi’s, cetasika’s, rupa’s, gati’s, anusaya, cravings etc. It does not deal with our real identity. Cetasika’s are just mental formations, not mine, not I, not myself. This is also true for rupa’s, and citta’s and gatis etc.
The basic misunderstanding is to treat all this stuff as mine, as who we are, as ourselves. Does the Budddha say we are all that stuff? No.
One must not loose oneself in the images in the mirror. All this stuff is image in the mirror.
An unenlightend person who has not seen as it actually is that he/she is not the khandha’s, keeps identifying, for example with conciousness. He/she lives with the belief (unware that it exist in his/her mind), ‘i experience Visuals, smells etc, so i am’. Or, ‘i experience a body, so i exist’ etc.
This process is constantly going on, unconsciously. Most people do not know.
This is a deeply ingrained habit. Peope do not know it is there, but i have seen it. It is at the basis of attachment, grasping.
One who beliefs that his/her existence (“I am, I exist”) depends on the experience of a body, of feelings, perceptions, mental formations, consciousness, of whatever kind of experience, for such a person, cessation becomes fearful.
In fact this is the real obstacle we have to face while doing breath-meditation. Formations can cease, and we must see this with wisdom, not fear it, and that is by knowing whatever can cease, that we are not. But this is not easy because it is against our deeply ingrained habit.
“I am not the khandha’s”, became sure for the Buddha due meditation. For him it was no theory, no idea, thought, but an existential fact.
Did he had another, alternative, identity-view? I do not belief in the sense of a new identity-view.
From the first to the last breaktrough in Buddha_Dhamma, it is all about identity! The first breaks down identity-views, sakkaya-ditthi, and the last breaks down the conceit ‘I am’.
Anyway, because we are in this same life not the khandha’s, what does the ending of the khandha’s mean for us at Parinibbana? Is it is really our extinction or just the extinction of things we never were at the first place?
I feel, first of all we have to know who we really are, now, in this live and see this in a completely non-intellectual, non-reasoning, not contemplating way.
Siebe