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I find it confusing. It seems like Nibbana can refer to the cognitive proces freed from the six roots. That is something personal and of this world. On the other hand Nibbana is also refered to as not-of-this-world, or even unmade, unbecome and unconditioned. A cognitive proces is not unmade and not unconditioned and of this world. So, how can a cognitive proces ever refer to Nibbana?
I still find it a strange and unstatisfying idea that there have always been a certain number of lifestreams without any origin. They just have been always there. I have to digest this some way.
Lal, do i understand you correct that you teach that Nibbana is something individual, personal and local? It is just the cognitive proces (or mind) definitely freed from lobha, dosa, moha, alobha, adosa and amoha?
It is not beyond space and time like some say?
Another question: Why does a personal lifestream have no beginning? It is has an end why does it not have a beginning?
The sutta’s also talk about: …” an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned” (Udana 8.3)
Does this not go against causality?
Some teach (i think correctly) that this unmade is from beginningless time the real nature of mind once freed from any greed, hate and delusion. In others words, it is only the natural effect of hate, greed and delusion due to which we identify with the conditioned domain (khandha’s) and start believing we are humans, living beings, and do exist in some personal way.
All such views as…’I am this or that’…I am a living being… I am a human… only arise due to (wrong) identification with khandha’s, not without. That’s why ‘being a human or living being’ is not absolute truth.
I belief, the real issue is: seeing that personal-existence does start any moment and ends any moment, due to causes and conditions (lobha, dosa, moha).
I have a friend who has MS. If you have that illness and you still are very passionate, still wanting/demanding that you can walk, eat everything, urinate, drink, etc. you live a nightmare. Strong Tanha makes us demanding. Becoming demanding life becomes a nightmare because reality does not listen to our demands.
Somehow she manages it to deal with the fact she cannot walk anymore, not use her right arm, not urinate (she has a catheter) etc. Recently she is only allowed to swallow drinks which are thickened, like cream-structure. Even coffee she eats with a spoon. She keeps surprising me, because she does not feel aversion to all this. She enjoys the coffee eating with a spoon. I am very glad about this. Being sick is one thing, but being in constant conflict with reality is even worse to see.
It is amasing how she deals with all this. Now for more then 20 years. I think i would have become mad or very depressed. Ofcourse that worries me, because i am of the nature of decay and loss too.
It also shows how tanha starts working against you. The stronger tanha is, the more you suffer. Tanha in essence comes down to conflict with reality.
We are happy when things are under controll and go according wish and plans. I think this is 90% of our happiness. And almost all of us become frustated when it does not.
One day one sees the danger in this demanding mentallity. One sees the danger of tanha.
Even when one does not belief in rebirth one can see how tanha is cause of suffering.Siebe
Now, after some time, i think the clue of sakkaya ditthi is that whatever kind of identity views we have in regard to the khandha’s, it will only lead to suffering.
The most obvious views for me are full identification…”i am rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara and vinnana”. And…mine-making: rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara and vinnana are ‘mine’.
Those i recognise best. I am not freed of them.But today i realised (yes it is possible i realise things) there is another serie of sakkaya ditthi mentioned in MN44 which i now recognise. It are views like…a sound, a form, a smell, a feeling, a moment of will, pain, thoughts etc. happen or arise in Me.
So one postulates a Me or Self which is static, unchanging, and the other things one experiences are dynamic. So it is like a static self in which dynamic phenomena arise, exist a while and cease. This is also sakkaya ditthi.
I now think this is the way i often see things.
Surely i am not freed of sakkaya ditthi.
Thanks Siebe
Your welcome Siebe
In Patisambhidamagga, Treatise on Liberation, it is explained that dependend on ones abilities one will be naturally attracted to contemplating or on anicca, or on dukkha or on anatta.
Contemplating anicca is related to strong faculty of faith.
Contemplating dukkha is related to strong faculty of concentration.
Contemplating anatta is related to great wisdom faculty.Contemplating anatta is the same as contemplating sunnata (also ToL, Patisambhidamagga).
By the way Nanamoli translated anatta as not-self, anicca as impermanence and dukkha as pain.The effect of those contemplation is that one turns the mind away from the conditioned. Passion in regard to conditioned phenomena and states weaken. If this happens cognizance enters the signless, wishless, emptiness principle.
I think those are names for the unconditioned?
Siebe
Rishi said” Either way, there is no logical reason to punish him if he is already an arahant. He is no harm to anyone at all. ”
But imagine Angulimala would live in your own homwtown nowadays. He would allready have killed 989 people. People are very afraid. Woman do not enter the park. People do not walk alone anymore. Angulimala has caused terror in town. People are very afraid. He has traumatised them. For a very long time this mass killing is going on. One day your own mother does not come home. You are very worried because of these murders. And yes, it is true. She is found killed, cut of fingers, murdered.
Would you really still reason the same way seeing Angulimala living as a free man?
Siebe
Rishi said: “Refering back to lals example of angulimala who killed thousands before attaining arahathhood it was his mindset of being a arahath that stoped all the kamma vipaka”.
Angulimala did according to tradition suffer from stones being thrown at him while he went to villages. Ofcourse, people did hate the man who killed their beloved ones.
There will be few persons, i think, who do not think that such crimes do not need public retaliation and imprisonment. I do not understand why Angulimala was not imprisoned. I find it strange there is so little concern for the welfare of those killed and those family-members of the killed ones.
I remember the Buddha advised Angulimala to bear this trowing of stones. I also have seen Lal teaches that the mindset of an arahant or even a Budddha does not stop all kamma-vipaka in this life.
Y not,
An arahant does feel pain as a burden because he/she does not experience it as me and mine anymore. Therefor the pain does not become a burden. Yes, in a sense an arahant is dissociated from the pain when there is no more I and mine-making of the pain. Meditation masters tell this from their own experience. One can experience intense pains without any re-action in mind. One can be totally unshaken with intense pains.
In a certain sense this is a kind of dissociation from the pain, but not in a sense one does not feel the pain. One is dissociated from the pain because everything that causes association with the pain, i.e. avijja, tanha, ditthi and mana, do not arise anymore.
One of the most important ways of assocation with whatever we experience is sakkaya ditthi . These must end first.
If, like an arahant, there is no association anymore with whatever is experienced, then at that moment, it becomes perfectly clear that mind, as that which experiences, and object of mind, as that what is being experienced, do not really mix.
The causes for mixing up mind and mind-objects are gone.
Siebe
Hi Lal,
What really matters to me is that an arahant in this very life is immeasurable, unfathomable like the ocean. That’s the way a fully enlightend one talks about his real nature (MN72 and others). Arahants know this too.
What the Buddha discovered is that the khandha’s (or conditioned arising phenomena) are only the waves off that unfathomable ocean. Mind immersed in ignorance does not know or see its own immeasurable and unfathomable nature because it is obsessed by the waves.
Because no arahant or Tathagata is the khandha’s, the Buddha resisted to say that after death an arahant or Tathagata does not exist anymore. But because the unfathomable nature of the Tathagata does not arise, it cannot be said to exist too. It cannot be described in terms of the world. This makes sense to me.
Siebe
I am not really satisfied. I want to share this with you:
For me the clue is that an arahant or Tathagata, even while living, cannot be reckoned to be the khandha’s. One cannot say anymore that an arhant is rupa, vedana etc or some combination of those.
This is told in MN72
20. “So too, Vaccha, the Tathagata has abandoned that material form by which one describing the Tathagata might describe him; he has cut it off at the root, made it like a palm stump, done away with it so that it is no longer subject to future arising. The Tathagata is liberated from reckoning in terms of material form, Vaccha, he is profound, immeasurable, unfathomable like the ocean. The term ‘reappears’ does not apply, the term ‘does not reappear’ does not apply, the term ‘both reappears and does not reappear’ does not apply, the term ‘neither reappears nor does not reappear’ does not apply”
The same is said about vedana, sanna, sankhara and vinnana.
Maybe some think the Buddha talks about the future but that makes not sense for me. The Buddha talks about the present. Even while living a Tathagata (and arahant) cannot be reckoned anymore in terms of the khandha’s. And this is also true for us, but sakkaya ditthi, sets the trap that we think we are rupa, vedana etc.
Also SN22.85 has the same thema:
“What do you think, friend Yamaka, do you regard form as the Tathagata?” – “No, friend.” – “Do you regard feeling . . . perception .. . volitional formations … consciousness as the Tathagata?” – “No, friend.” “What do you think, friend Yamaka, do you regard the
Tathagata as in form?” – “No, friend.” – “Do you regard the Tathagata as apart from form?” – “No, friend.” – “Do you regard the Tathagata as in feeling? As apart from feeling? As in perception? As apart from perception? As in volitional formations? As apart from volitional formations? As in consciousness? As apart from consciousness?” – “No, friend.”
“What do you think, friend Yamaka, do you regard form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness [taken together] as the Tathagata?” – “No, friend.”
“What do you think, friend Yamaka, do you regard the Tathagata as one who is without form, without feeling, without perception, without volitional formations, without consciousness?” – “NO, friend.”
“But, friend, when the Tathagata is not apprehended by you as real and actual here in this very life; is it fitting for you to declare: ‘As I understand the Dhamma taught by the Blessed One, a bhikkhu whose taints are destroyed is annihilated and perishes with the breakup of the body and does not exist after death?”When a arahant or Thatagata is only rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhare and vinnana, apart or all taking together, and nothing else, then is is quit clear a Tathagata does not exist after death.
The clue seems to be that even while living an arahant and Tathagata cannot be reckoned this way anymore.Thanks Lal, can you please comment on the following that is bothering me for some time:
IF a being is nothing more than rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara and vinnna and after death of that being (for example an arahant) rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara and vinnana do not arise anymore, then that can only lead to the conclusion that an arahant does not exist after death. He/she just goes out like a flame, with nothing remaining.
I see two problems:
-according the sutat’s the buddha did not teach an arahant does not exist anymore after death. He also did not teach he does exist, nor did he teach that he both exist and not-exist, nor did he take the stand of nor-existing nor not-existing.
-striving for ones non-existence after death does not seem as a noble goal. striving for truth is. Striving for non-existence, fearing suffering, that looks very much like vi-bhava tanha. That is no good motivation.
Siebe
Lal, I have read your answers and the post you refer to. And a question arose.
You say that there is no “fixed” mind in the reply above. Mind is just citta’s arising.
In the post you refer to you say for an arahant: “Since there is no rebirth, there is no future suffering. The mind is forever released from the material body that CAN AND WILL impart suffering to those who remain in the sansara, the cycle of rebirths.If mind can get released from a material body after death of an arahant, then this looks very much like a soul who is for ever released? Do you mean that mind- as citta’s arising- still continue after death of an arahant? What kind of mind gets released?
Sakkaya ditthi is also described in the sutta below. It also describes how does sakkaya ditthi leads to affliction and how ending of sakkaya ditthi leads to the end of affliction.
https://suttacentral.net/sn22.1/en/sujato
It is exactly like i say. That is not really important, but is not oke to become so judgemental and suggest Siebe does phantasize his own Dhamma or even hinduism.
Most important, what is said here in this sutta can be verified by ones own experience. One can really understand from this sutta why breaking with the habit of sakkaya ditthi is so important.
Siebe
