SarathW wrote:Hi all
Thanks for your valuable input.
I have a question re following passage. I thought it is better to include here rather than raising a new question.
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Other passages mention a consciousness in this freedom — "
without feature or surface, without end,
luminous all around" — lying outside of time and space,
experienced when the
six sense spheres stop functioning (MN 49). In this it differs from the consciousness-khandha, which depends on the six sense spheres and can be described in such terms as near or far, past, present, or future. Consciousness without feature is thus the awareness of Awakening. And the freedom of this awareness carries over even when the awakened person returns to ordinary consciousness. As the Buddha said of himself:
"Freed, dissociated, & released from form, the Tathagata dwells with unrestricted awareness. Freed, dissociated, & released from feeling... perception... fabrications... consciousness... birth... aging... death... suffering & stress... defilement, the Tathagata dwells with unrestricted awareness."
— AN 10.81
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... andha.html
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My questions:
a)How consciousness be luminous all around if it hasn’t got features?
b)How consciousness can be experienced if there is no six sense spheres?
C) Is Ven. Thanissaaro talking here about a living Arahant?
I happened upon a sutta which seems to address the question of how consciousness can be experienced if there is no six sense spheres.........
SN22.55
"If a monk abandons passion for the property of consciousness, then owing to the abandonment of passion, the support is cut off, and there is no base for consciousness. Consciousness, thus unestablished, not proliferating, not performing any function, is released. Owing to its release, it stands still. Owing to its stillness, it is contented. Owing to its contentment, it is not agitated. Not agitated, he (the monk) is totally unbound right within. He discerns that 'Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'
This excerpt comes from very nearly the end of the sutta and it might be good to read some or all of what precedes.
Also, isn't there some other thread where unestablished consciousness was being discussed? If someone remembers where it is can they post that info here?
chownah