Just to remind you though, that I think that it is helpful to recognise that there are concepts (an extreme is "1+1=2") that clearly don't "arise and cease" in the same sense that thoughts about them arise and cease. In that sense they are not sankharas in the sense of having the three characteristics. The Classical interpretation is that concepts such as "self" are also not dhammas, and that's why "my self" is imagined to be something permanent and distinct. When we learn to just observe stuff as phenomena arising and ceasing that "self concept" turns out to be an illusion. Now, it's undeniable that there are many suttas about the wrong view of taking various things (basically anything) to be "self". Whether you think this partitioning into "concepts" (self, body, etc) and "non-divisible" (the deepest level of arising and ceasing phenomena) is useful is, I think, a matter of taste, rather than Dhamma.retrofuturist wrote: For a topic on the Dhamma eye that sees "whatever arising-dhamma cessation-dhamma", there seems to be a lot of resistance to actually discussing it. To quote Mike from his OP, "Whether one agrees with the exact conclusion regarding how arising-and-ceasing is experienced, it seems undeniable that the mundane observation that "things arise and cease" is not what is being talked about in these sutta passages." Rather than set up base camp where we are, perhaps we should consider and take upon the challenge that Mike has kindly presented us.
Mike