It is good to contemplate the question: “So it means that we have never really experienced the external world in its absolute form? ”
- The world we experience is exactly the way it is supposed to be (i.e., supposed to arise via Paticca Samuppada).
- Until the death of their physical bodies, Arahants also live in that world in their daily lives (because their physical bodies also arose via Paticca Samuppada). They experience the same saññā as a puthujjana. For example, they taste honey to be sweet or a rose to smell good. The world is designed (via Paticca Samuppada) to provide such (distorted) saññā.
- However, such a world only provides an illusion of sukha in the ultimate reality. The “taste of honey” is what keeps us bound to the sansara (rebirth process). An Arahant has fully grasped that, and thus is not fooled by that taste to attach to it. See posts related to this issue, such as “Fooled by Distorted Saññā (Sañjānāti) – Origin of Attachment (Taṇhā),” “Saññā Nidānā hi Papañca Saṅkhā – Immoral Thoughts Based on “Distorted Saññā”,” etc.
- Since they no longer attach to those sukha vedana (which are illusions in ultimate reality but are “real” in the mundane sense), minds of Arahants no longer initiate new Paticca Samuppada processes, i.e., no “avijjā paccayā saṅkhāra” and thus no bhava paccayā jāti, jāti paccayā jarā, marana, soka-paridēva-dukkha-dōmanassupāyasā sambhavan’ti.” That is the end of suffering!
- It can be said that avijjā is not realizing how attachment arises via (distorted) saññā, which in the kāma loka is kāma saññā.
P.S. One realizes how san (raga, dosa, moha) arise via kāma saññā when becoming a “Sandiṭṭhiko“: “Sandiṭṭhiko – What Does It Mean?.”
