Hi all,
I came across this forum recently. Like the rest of the site, it is greatly educational and particularly timely for me since I recently had a discussion about nibbana with someone, and I’ll call him or her X. I have a few questions, and will phrase them based on a couple of points of discussion I had with X.
1) X said that for a person “in nibbana”, the mind “stops” or “ceases”. Asked to elaborate, X said that for that duration all desires for the mind to grasp at anything in this world are gone, so there is no reason for the mind to exist. I suppose that X meant that there was no citta vithi flowing, but X doesn’t know abhidhamma.
Per our discussion here, I think X must have meant nirodha samapatti, although X doesn’t know these Pali terms, and I now see that this explanation is not adequate: the mind “stops” not just in nirodha samapatti but also in the asanna realm. Thus, the mind “stopping” may nor may not have relationship to nibbana, correct?
2) To X, nibbana is an either/or phenomenon; one is either “in nibbana” or in this world. Again, per our dicussion here, there is a connection between nibbana and this world, in the case of Arahant phala samapatti, i.e. the pabhassara citta (still “this world”) is in contact with nibbana. Is this correct?
Also, elsewhere I have heard of the terms nibbana dhatu. Is nibbana dhatu what is in contact with pabhassara citta during Arahant phala samapatti?
I appreciate any elucidation on these, and I greatly appreciate this forum, since prior to this my view on the nibbana experience was pretty much the same as X’s.
Best,
Lang