the great rebirth debate

[reflection]

A problem here is people talking/thinking in terms of "the Buddha does not experience suffering" or "for him it is not suffering". But it makes the distinction between some entity that would be "the Buddha" and the suffering. But as I understand it, in reality there are just the khandhas, nobody that experiences them. This is an essential difference that makes it that suffering is not in the eye of the beholder, or a personal point of view. Instead it is something integrated in all that is created (sankhara). The point is however, that awakened ones don't create new suffering: ie no new birth, as birth is the direct cause of suffering. But suffering created in the past will still be there, primarily this body aging and the inevitable death.

There are quotes in the texts that point to this: an arahant saying: "I await my time". Or the mahaparinibbana sutta, after the Buddha died: "His mind, like a flame extinguished, finds release." Or "He knows without doubt or hesitation that whatever arises is merely dukkha that what passes away is merely dukkha" (SN 12.15). So even the jhanas, even though the Buddha called a peaceful abiding, and he went in them to escape his bodily pain, are still a form of dukkha.

[Alex123]

A problem here is people talking/thinking in terms of "the Buddha does not experience suffering" or "for him it is not suffering".

This is a very good point.

I would like to add this question:

• How do we really know what the Arahant or Buddha experiences or not?

[reflection]

By understanding dukkha.

(Still the "experiences" thing comes back in your question, but ok. We have to communicate conceptually.)

[tiltbillings]

. But suffering created in the past will still be there, primarily this body aging and the inevitable death.

Which, however, has ceased to have any sort of hold on the arahant/tathagata, and that is why: "Although, for an arahant, there is nothing further to do, and nothing to add to what has been done, still these things — when developed & pursued — lead both to a pleasant abiding in the here-&-now and to mindfulness & alertness" (A iii 443). In other words dukkha, based upon grasping after what reinforces the sense of self, pushing away what threatens the sense of self, and the delusion that there is an unchanging self-agent at the center of it all, has ceased.

[BlackBird]

It would seem my quote about contacts not contacting a groundless one has been thoroughly ignored.

But you would all profit from listening to Tilt. There is no dukkha for an arahant. There is strictly speaking - Nobody there to experience it, craving is the source and cause of Dukkha and there is no craving in an arahant. It's all very simple, and those who are suggesting that there is dukkha for an arahant are getting tangled in a thicket of views of their own creation.

Nibbana is the going out of the flame, there is nothing there that could possibly cause a burn.

[nowheat]

It would seem my quote about contacts not contacting a groundless one has been thoroughly ignored.

No ignoring here, just way behind.

An arahant does not have dukkha. The Buddha answers this one categorically and to state otherwise is a serious misrepresentation of his teaching.

Phusanti phassā upadhim paticca
Nirūpadhim kena phuseyyum phassā
Contacts contact dependent on ground—
How should contacts contact a groundless one? Udāna ii,4 <Ud.12>

Quite simply put: There's nobody there to experience dukkha. Hence the Buddha's epithet: Tathagata - The one thus gone.

It must, of course, be remembered that phassanirodha in the arahat does not mean that experience as such (pañcakkhandhā) is at an end. But, also, there is no experience without phassa. In other words, to the extent that we can still speak of an eye, of forms, and of eye-consciousness (seeing)—e.g. Samvijjati kho āvuso Bhagavato cakkhu, passati Bhagavā cakkhunā rūpam, chandarāgo Bhagavato n'atthi, suvimuttacitto Bhagavā ('The Auspicious One, friend, possesses an eye; the Auspicious One sees visible forms with the eye; desire-&-lust for the Auspicious One there is not; the Auspicious One is wholly freed in heart (citta)' (Cf. ATTĀ [c].)) (Salāyatana Samy. xviii,5 <S.iv,164>)—to that extent we can still speak of phassa. But it must no longer be regarded as contact with me (or with him, or with somebody). There is, and there is not, contact in the case of the arahat, just as there is, and there is not, consciousness.

This is what I'm saying: you have the field (the where) and you have what's happening in DA (the what). An arahant has stopped doing the what, but still has the where. The same is true of dukkha as "all forms of suffering" (the where) vs the dukkha that is being discussed in the 4NT (the what); and the khandha: as long as life continues there is form, feeling, perception, drives, consciousness -- it's the "what" that's going on there that the arahant has given up (the clinging to them as self), not the field they occur in (having form, feeling, etc).

So as you are saying, Blackbird, that there is still contact, I'm saying yes, there is, it is just not contact regarding the self; there is still consciousness, it is just not consciousness regarding the self. The field remains, the "what" (that is going on in DA) ceases.

[BlackBird]

It would seem we are on more or less the same page. I shall have to review your posts later on to confirm this.

[reflection]

The contact quote is about contact creating further mental suffering (or clinging for the pleasurable for that matter). This we can see if we see the first part of this verse:
"Affected by pleasure and pain in the village or wilderness,
you should certainly not consider it as due to oneself or another"
As we see in the Arrow sutta, this further creating of mental pain does not happen for arahants. But that does not mean there is no initial pain (dukkha) in the body.

If however we are lowering ourselves to personal charges in the sense of "who disagree with me have the wrong view", I'm sorry but I'm not willing to continue such conversation.

[reflection]

. But suffering created in the past will still be there, primarily this body aging and the inevitable death.

Which, however, has ceased to have any sort of hold on the arahant/tathagata, and that is why: "Although, for an arahant, there is nothing further to do, and nothing to add to what has been done, still these things — when developed & pursued — lead both to a pleasant abiding in the here-&-now and to mindfulness & alertness" (A iii 443). In other words dukkha, based upon grasping after what reinforces the sense of self, pushing away what threatens the sense of self, and the delusion that there is an unchanging self-agent at the center of it all, has ceased.

Hi,

Dukkha created by a sense of self, that certainly has been ceased, to that we can all agree. However, is that all dukkha? I don't think so. For example one can feel pain without having a sense of self or mine there. But then still the pain is not a pleasurable experience, so fitting to be called dukkha.

The quote you gave "lead to a pleasant abiding" speaks about the jhanas. Why would the Buddha and other arahants still practice the jhanas if they had no suffering? Why speak of a pleasant abiding if there is no dukkha to mirror this pleasant abiding? In my eyes it is clear. The Buddha went into the jhanas to escape bodily pains. The quote you gave even speaks of the arahant reflecting on things as dukkha.

Then there is also the inherent dukkha in all the conditioned, that includes the jhanas. In the nibbana sutta Sariputta explains how reflecting on the jhanas as dukkha leads one to understand nibbana.

But we are both starting to go in circles. I've said before I would leave this discussion, but failed to do so. And I'm sure you'll bring up some nice arguments again, but either way I'll leave this discussion for real now. May our practice both bring us all to arahantship whether it is suffering or not.

[BlackBird]

Painful feelings bound up with the body and the Dukkha that we are trying to put an end to are two separate things. One couldn't argue that an arahant's body does not give off feelings that are painful. But honestly those painful feelings bound up with the body are irrelevant as they cause no anguish to the Arahant, they do not lead to craving that seeks to be seperated from the painful feeling, they do not lead to craving which seeks to distract one from the painful feeling. No, a painful feeling is experienced with utter equanimity by the arahant, exactly the same as he or she would experience a pleasant feeling or a neutral feeling - There is fundamentally no difference to the arahant. Quite unlike you and I.

The Arahant is free of dukkha.

[reflection]

HI,

You are distinguishing the arahant from the body. But if we want to speak in terms of 'the arahant', (s)he is best defined as the whole body and mind process. So, 'the arahant' is partly the body itself to speak like that. (this goes for anybody, not just arahants) So if the body is suffering, 'the arahant' is suffering. It is exactly the sense of no self that they don't see themselves as a being apart from the body, or a being observing the body for that matter. Body is just as much 'the arahant' as the mind is.

So it is right there is no mental pain as a result of bodily pain, but this doesn't mean 'the arahant' is not suffering as there is an initial bodily pain which is just as much "the arahant" as any mental object. So if you were to say 'an arahant' does not suffer you have to say (s)he does not experience pain, which is not true as you acknowledge, or to say pain is not suffering, which directly goes against the definition in the suttas - and in my eyes against any logical definition of dukkha.

ow what, friends, is the noble truth of stress? Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful;

"And what is pain? Whatever is experienced as bodily pain, bodily discomfort, pain or discomfort born of bodily contact, that is called pain.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dham ... ukkha.html

(last post now for real, I have more things to do with my time )

[tiltbillings]

HI,

You are distinguishing the arahant from the body. But if we want to speak in terms of 'the arahant', (s)he is best defined as the whole body and mind process. So, 'the arahant' is partly the body itself to speak like that. (this goes for anybody, not just arahants) So if the body is suffering, 'the arahant' is suffering.

No, the arahant/tathagata is not suffering. By definition, which has been gone through here at length, the arahant/tathagata is free of suffering, otherwise, what would be the point of the Dhamma? That an arahant/tathagata may experience physical discomfort is not in dispute, but given that the arahant/tathagata no longer relates to the physical discomfort in terms of clinging, in terms of self -- the dukkha that is driven by greed, hatred, and delusion, which for the arahant/tathagata is longer there. And that is the only dukkha that really matters in terms of the Dhamma, given that it is THAT dukkha the Dhamma is geared to eliminate.

[BlackBird]

HI,

You are distinguishing the arahant from the body. But if we want to speak in terms of 'the arahant', (s)he is best defined as the whole body and mind process. So, 'the arahant' is partly the body itself to speak like that. (this goes for anybody, not just arahants) So if the body is suffering, 'the arahant' is suffering.

No, the arahant/tathagata is not suffering. By definition, which has been gone through here at length, the arahant/tathagata is free of suffering, otherwise, what would be the point of the Dhamma? That an arahant/tathagata may experience physical discomfort is not in dispute, but given that the arahant/tathagata no longer relates to the physical discomfort in terms of clinging, in terms of self -- the dukkha that is driven by greed, hatred, and delusion, which for the arahant/tathagata is longer there. And that is the only dukkha that really matters in terms of the Dhamma, given that it is THAT dukkha the Dhamma is geared to eliminate.

[nowheat]

Painful feelings bound up with the body and the Dukkha that we are trying to put an end to are two separate things. One couldn't argue that an arahant's body does not give off feelings that are painful. But honestly those painful feelings bound up with the body are irrelevant as they cause no anguish to the Arahant, they do not lead to craving that seeks to be seperated from the painful feeling, they do not lead to craving which seeks to distract one from the painful feeling. No, a painful feeling is experienced with utter equanimity by the arahant, exactly the same as he or she would experience a pleasant feeling or a neutral feeling - There is fundamentally no difference to the arahant. Quite unlike you and I.

The Arahant is free of dukkha.

I think the problem we* who study the dhamma, especially through suttas, have here is that dukkha in the Buddha's day generally meant one thing -- it did get used to mean physical pain, and the way the body decays through sickness and death -- but in the very specific usage he applies to his particular teachings, it means something much narrower. I like your "anguish" (better than Thanissaro's "stress") because it indicates that it's something one generates oneself.

We all know that the Buddha redefined "karma" -- it's a famous example -- but what I am seeing is that he subtly redefined just about everything. But that there is a pattern, a clue to it provided in the texts, where he quite often defines the field (the where) first, and then goes on to point more and more specifically to what he wants us to see within that field. He starts by defining something the way it is most generally defined -- but this is just the "where" not the "what" -- and then gives more detail. This is the case with the bit reflection refers to:

"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of stress: Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful."

This is what he does with nutriment, also:

"There are these four nutriments for the maintenance of beings who have come into being or for the support of those in search of a place to be born. Which four? Physical food, gross or refined; contact as the second, intellectual intention the third, and consciousness the fourth. From the origination of craving comes the origination of nutriment. From the cessation of craving comes the cessation of nutriment. And the way of practice leading to the cessation of nutriment is just this very noble eightfold path: right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

In the above, he does it at least twice, once defining nutriment, and once defining craving as it relates to nutriment. When we think about "nutriments for the maintenance of beings" of course food is the first thing anyone thinks of. And of course it is required for anything else to happen. But it's not the thing to be done away with. On the other hand, the more specific things to consider are how we make contact in the world, what we want to do in the world, and the way we are thinking about the world.

The second major word that is multi-leveled above is craving. Food becomes food through craving (otherwise it's just stuff growing nearby or animal carcasses), the sort of craving for existence that is natural and normal (food is a requisite, so there is nothing wrong with that very basic desire to eat to sustain life). But the craving he is talking about us needing to really understand is more difficult to see: it's what defines the type of contact he is discussing, what drives intention, what shapes our thoughts.

This style of speaking is found consistently throughout the suttas, and my argument is that it is through mistaking that first generalized definition -- the obvious -- for the Buddha defining what we are supposed to be concerned with, that we have come to believe he teaches literal rebirth, when it seems quite clear to me that he is just using a different style of speech -- a complex, elegant, delicate structure -- that needs to be recognized to be understood.



* With this "we" I am not saying you and/or I, Blackbird, in particular have this problem but "we" as a community.

[reflection]

HI,

You are distinguishing the arahant from the body. But if we want to speak in terms of 'the arahant', (s)he is best defined as the whole body and mind process. So, 'the arahant' is partly the body itself to speak like that. (this goes for anybody, not just arahants) So if the body is suffering, 'the arahant' is suffering.

No, the arahant/tathagata is not suffering. By definition, which has been gone through here at length, the arahant/tathagata is free of suffering, otherwise, what would be the point of the Dhamma? That an arahant/tathagata may experience physical discomfort is not in dispute, but given that the arahant/tathagata no longer relates to the physical discomfort in terms of clinging, in terms of self -- the dukkha that is driven by greed, hatred, and delusion, which for the arahant/tathagata is longer there. And that is the only dukkha that really matters in terms of the Dhamma, given that it is THAT dukkha the Dhamma is geared to eliminate.

And that gets us nicely back on topic, because the Dhamma can eliminate all suffering by ending rebirth (including dukkha of bodily pain & of impermanence, aging and death, dukkha in the aggregates/senses). And that's the final goal of the path - to end suffering by ending rebirth, by ending delusion. The goal is not to create some living experience of "no suffering". Beings who became arahant at the moment of death have just as much reached the final goal as those who stayed alive for a while, like the Buddha. That's why the suttas speak so much of ending birth, ending existence, ending consciousness. If an experience of "being free from suffering" (as a living experience) was the final goal, then this goal itself would have been temporary.

So in short, "being free from suffering" is not the final goal, but ending suffering is.