nmjojola wrote: ↑Sun Oct 10, 2021 11:04 pm
I'm saying that if the dhamma (thus DO) is akalika, as the suttas state, then "ceases" doesn't apply in the first place in the way that you are using the term. This is the crucial area where you are misunderstanding my point in defending the suttas against the pernicious view that dukkha isn't escapable in the here and now (to the contradiction of countless declarations made by the Buddha and Arahants). It's not an event (i.e. it has nothing to do with "cause and effect"), it's akalika (timeless, atemporal).
I know you are, but I don't think akāliko carries the abstract philosophy that you think it does. Rather, I read it as the following
"When a person is overcome and overwhelmed by greed/hatred/delusion, he intends to hurt themselves, hurt others, and hurt both. They experience mental pain and sadness. When greed/hatred/delusion has been given up, they don’t intend to hurt themselves, hurt others, and hurt both. They don’t experience mental pain and sadness. This is how the teaching is realizable in this very life (sanditthiko), immediately effective (akaliko), inviting inspection (ehipassiko), relevant(opaneyikko) , so that sensible people can know it for themselves (paccattaṃ veditabbo)."
- AN 3.53
Whilst awakening does free one from dukkha, not all dukkha immediately ceases. What is gone in the present is the 2nd dart, but the result of past kamma still has to be felt (the 1st dart) until the end of life. Only then are they totally free.
The presence of objects, feelings, etc.. (pancakhanda) in experience is one thing, the presence of a subject for whom there is feeling (pancupadanakhanda, where dukkha is present) is another entirely.
The absence of a subject doesn't mean an absence of feeling.
And as for the khandas, what he knew and taught was the escape therefrom (nirodha, nibbana, the ending of dukkha) via irrevocable realization of the four noble truths. Again, this is where knowledge of DO comes in. Understanding (the arising and passing away of things) is synonymous with exemption from subjection (to same). Hence avijja being the root of the problem as constantly pointed out in sutta, the issue is not yet having woken up (enlightening to) the nature of things, it's the essential reason there is dukkha, doing away with avijja completely is synonymous with doing away with dukkha completely. To say that the Buddha still had to dukkha is to say that he still had ignorance - this is wholly inadmissible upon any plain familiarity with sutta.
It doesn't mean he has ignorance. It means he still experienced the result of past ignorance.
Fair enough, here's Thanisarro's translation, stylized a bit differently, but the meaning is obviously the same:
Thank you. I looked up Ven. Dhammapāla's commentary to this sutta. The interpretation there has to do with contact's end being final nibbāna.
"Phusanti phassā upadhiṁ paṭicca,"
Touch contacts attachment because of
Contacts touch because of attachment
So, the reason there is contact is because of grasping. Contact depends upon the 6 senses. The 6 senses depend upon nāmarūpa. Nāmarūpa depends upon rebirth-linking consciousness (see DN 15). Rebirth-linking consciousness depends upon existence. Existence depends upon grasping.
Past life grasping > existence > rebirth-linking consciousness > nāmarūpa > 6 senses > contact.
There is contact because of attachment.
Yeah, I get that, but why not when it's bound with the root of the problem of dukkha, which is what the suttas are out to free us from in the first place? It's paramount that they should be read with such contextual framework of approach accordingly. Otherwise you think of the Buddha walking and talking as "an existing person subject to feelings and contact and suffering and so forth", which is full blown sakkayaditthi.
I think until we are awakened fully there will always be a tendency to view things in that way. Regardless however, it is clear from the textual evidence that the Buddha did indeed experience vedanā which, based on his own teaching, meant that he still experienced contact, sense consciousness and so the aggregates. He therefore experienced dukkha. This seems to be the reason why there is a distinction between the 2 darts. If the Buddha didn't experience contact, feeling, sense consciousness etc etc at all then why then make the distinction? There wouldn't be a distinction if your interpretation is true because there wouldn't be either dart for him or the Arahants.
Nope (and here again we come full circle), because it's not an event in the first place to which "stops" (let alone "starts") applies to begin with. It's akalika.
Ultimately I don't think there is such a thing as Buddha, dukkha nor nibbāna. Conventionally however dhammas are structurally ordered and so their cessation too also follows a sequence, even without causality.