[puthujjana]

Ok, let me finish read up https://puredhamma.net/forums/topic/four-conditions-for-attaining-sotapanna-magga-phala/ before other questions.

Thanks Lal.

With Metta

[puthujjana]

Not annihilation, so does that means that there are still “something” exists after an Arahant had passed away? Or there is “nothing” left at all? No dukkha, but no sukkha ad well, since there is “nothing” left?

A puthujjana will crack his head trying to figure out what’s is it like after an Arahant had passed away, but he will continue cracking his head forever…if he remains as a puthujjana!

Dhammapada verse 92:
Arahats do not hoard (anything); when taking food they reflect well over it (i.e., in accordance with the three parinnas). They have as their object liberation from existence, that is, Nibbana which is Void and Signless.
Their destination, like the course of birds in the air, cannot be traced.

Maybe the following text can shed some light for a puthujjana…

A plausible explanation is necessary for the traditional silence regarding the state of the arahant after death. Existence in the world implies time and space. One exists within a particular period in a particular space or locality. If one passes beyond time and beyond space, it is not possible to speak of existence with reference to such a one. To speak of both time and space one needs a point of reference, e.g. A is 50 years old. This means 50 years have passed since the event of A’s birth. If A is not born, it is impossible to speak of “time” or existence with reference to him. Similarly with space. Without points of reference it is not possible to grasp space. There is a definite distance between any two specific points. Nor can one speak of direction without a point of reference. When the notion of “I,” which is the point of personal reference, is eradicated, one goes beyond time, beyond space, and beyond causality. Therefore it is not possible to speak of the liberated being as existing or not existing.

Here we are reminded of a statement made by Fritjof Capra in his Tao of Physics relevant to our present context. He states: “Physicists can ‘experience’ the four dimensional space-time world through the abstract mathematical formalism of their theories, but their visual imagination, like everybody else’s, is limited to the three-dimensional world of the senses. Our language and thought patterns have evolved in this three-dimensional world and therefore we find it extremely hard to deal with the four-dimensional reality of relativistic physics.”[99] Thus, when the four-dimensional reality too eludes the perceptual experience of the average man, how can Nibbana, which transcends all these four dimensions, come within mere verbal experience? Therefore it is impossible to speak of the arahant’s state in terms of existence or non-existence.

From: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/desilva/wheel407.html

[puthujjana]

Hi Lal, thanks for your long and detail essay “Is It Necessary for a Buddhist to Eliminate Sensual Desires?”!

With Metta

[puthujjana]

As a puthujjana, instead of seeing the five khandhas as a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien… one perceive them as a wellness, a blessing, a shield, a comfort, an advantage, dear. Why? One of the main reason is because a puthujjana is addicted to sensuality, bound to sensuality.

Christian:

like person who put hand into fireplace and his hand automatically draw back or as person who grabs coal in hand one drops it the moment one feel the burning

However, a puthujjana just love to being burn by fire! From an ariya point of view, a puthujjana is like someone with skin disease, with no medicine and doctor, all he can do is to burn his skin with fire to get some comfort. As mentioned by Lord Buddha in https://suttacentral.net/mn75/en/bodhi:

“Suppose, Māgandiya, there was a leper with sores and blisters on his limbs, being devoured by worms, scratching the scabs off the openings of his wounds with his nails, cauterising his body over a burning charcoal pit; the more he scratches the scabs and cauterises his body, the fouler, more evil-smelling and more infected the openings of his wounds would become, yet he would find a certain measure of satisfaction and enjoyment in scratching the openings of his wounds. So too, Māgandiya, beings who are not free from lust for sensual pleasures, who are devoured by craving for sensual pleasures, who burn with fever for sensual pleasures, still indulge in sensual pleasures; the more such beings indulge in sensual pleasures, the more their craving for sensual pleasures increases and the more they are burned by their fever for sensual pleasures, yet they find a certain measure of satisfaction and enjoyment in dependence on the five cords of sensual pleasure.

With Metta

1 user thanked author for this post.

Jittananto

[puthujjana]

sybe07:

Buddhism would be an extremely negative religion if it would aim at stopping the khandha’s to arise, while at the same time you and i would be nothing more than those five khandha’s.

I think Lord Buddha never define a “self” or “I”, he never said “you and i would be noting more than those five khandha’s”. Instead, he asked us to drop those useless questions of ‘Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where will it go?’ https://suttacentral.net/mn2/en/bodhi

And regarding the five khandha, as Ven Sariputta mentioned that whether you are just a monk (or even layman I suppose), or a stream entry, up to even an arahant, we should “attend in an appropriate way to these five clinging-aggregates as inconstant, stressful, a disease, a cancer, an arrow, painful, an affliction, alien, a dissolution, an emptiness, not-self.” https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.122.than.html

sybe07:

The most obvious views for me are full identification…”i am rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara and vinnana”.

Would you want to associate something like disease or cancer as yours? Definetly I think you will not want to, right? However, even if you want to, you can’t, because they are not your properties! Can you ask your body not to get old, sick and die? Can your ask your feeling not to feel bad ( after reading some disagreedable posts here in the forum :) )? Can you ask your memory to remember this and forget that, or forget this and remember that? In https://suttacentral.net/mn35/en/sujato, Lord Buddha give a smilie of why these five khandha cannot be assume to be our properties, cause we have no full say in them!

With Metta

1 user thanked author for this post.

Jittananto

[Author]

Posts