Do Arhats experience contact with their sixfold sense media? What about vedanā?

[Coëmgenu]

...The Buddha said that his path was for the cessation of future existence.

"When consciousness is unestablished and does not come to growth, there is no production of future renewed existence. When there is no production of future renewed existence, future birth, aging-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair cease. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering.” - SN 12.38
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This dhamma of yours is a promise of liberation. In your dhamma, realizing the third noble truth only means to realize that the cessation of suffering is possible. Your dhamma is full of expectations and only leads to the arising of suffering, not cessation. Doesn't seem Buddha dhamma.

Traditional Śrāvaka Buddhism is not full of empty promises. It is full of the conviction and experiential knowledge of attaining release, the same knowledge that allowed Ven Śāriputra to knowingly and truthfully proclaim "The cessation of bhava is Nibbāna." He was not full of expectations that only lead to the arising of more subsequent suffering. Having just known, having dwelt in bhavanirodha just moments before, he had the courage of his convictions in a way that a worldling cannot imagine. He knew that future birth, aging, and death was ended; that further acquisition of aggregates, and associated pain and suffering, was ended; and it was blissful for him.

I can reply so some of your other messaging now that I've some time this Saturday.

If there's no metaphor and it has to do with perception, if it's normal sañña according to how the Buddha defined it, an eyeless Arhat would be blind. The Buddha would have been similarly blind. Because you think "the eye" is a metaphor, despite your denials, you can say that Arhats have no eyes. If you don't think "the eye" is a metaphor, "Arhats have no eyes" is a meaningless statement, since they do have eyes and vision.
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The eyes truly cease as the cart truly cease for someone who sees correctly. He's eyeless because the eyes you see and assign as belonging to the Buddha are not appropriated by him and are seen correctly. You are talking about form while I'm talking about conceiving. Everything in DO ceases and this is not a metaphor, this is the real experience of seeing the Truth, i. e. no experience, or no experience as we know it

IMO

Please don't think that I don't note the "IMO." I value humility and try to embody it myself, all the while still engaging in disagreement. I don't think either of us was under the impression that we'd be radically moved to completely discard our previous working definitions, taking on new paradigms as a result of it, but we can share our perspectives and how they intersect with the Pali scriptures all the same and be better off for it.

On terms of me "talking about form," not necessarily. I am open to "the eye" being either the physical "eyeball" organ, with the associated optic nerve, etc., or just "that which allows for vision" regardless if it is a physical organ or not. When you say "he's eyeless," I hear "He can't see," because "eye" is to do with vision in my understanding, which obviously I think was also the understanding of the compilers of the buddhavacana when they preserved the noun phrase "the eye." Earlier, when I described your view of "the eye" as something that is "not [...] something to do with the generation of visual perception itself" I was using this sense. Do you disagree with this? In your view, "the eye" is not something to do with the generation of visual perception itself," but rather it is something that is "made out of something to do with vision." "The eye," to you, it seems to me, in a way not extremely dissimilar from how SDC is framing "contact," strictly refers to something that is appropriated. When vision is not appropriated as "mine," there is "no eye." The eye becomes a metaphor for self-view, because the discarding/ending/cessation of the eye is tantamount to the ending of the appropriation of the eye as "(something that is) mine." Is that your understanding or am I completely off-base? If you don't like the language of "metaphor for self-view," we can substitute in "The eye becomes a resultant of self-view strictly," since in your understanding, as I understand it, with no self-view there is no eye at all.

[Ceisiwr]

This dhamma of yours is a promise of liberation. In your dhamma, realizing the third noble truth only means to realize that the cessation of suffering is possible. Your dhamma is full of expectations and only leads to the arising of suffering, not cessation. Doesn't seem Buddha dhamma.

The cessation of the taints is the cessation of future birth, ageing, death and suffering since those things will now no longer arise. Since they will no longer arise, there is freedom in the present from them. There is also freedom in the present from sorrow, lamentation, anger, loneliness and fear. This isn’t something insignificant. To be free from those emotions is quite something. Quite peaceful. To be free from those emotions and anymore of this

“Good, good, mendicants! It’s good that you understand my teaching like this. The flow of blood you’ve shed when your head was chopped off while roaming and transmigrating is indeed more than the water in the four oceans. For a long time you’ve been cows, and the flow of blood you’ve shed when your head was chopped off as a cow is more than the water in the four oceans. For a long time you’ve been buffalo … rams … goats … deer … chickens … pigs … For a long time you’ve been bandits, arrested for raiding villages, highway robbery, or adultery. And the flow of blood you’ve shed when your head was chopped off as a bandit is more than the water in the four oceans.”

is quite the accomplishment, wouldn’t you agree?

[mjaviem]

The cessation of the taints is the cessation of future birth, ageing, death and suffering since those things will now no longer arise. Since they will no longer arise, there is freedom in the present from them. There is also freedom in the present from sorrow, lamentation, anger, loneliness and fear. This isn’t something insignificant. To be free from those emotions is quite something. Quite peaceful. To be free from those emotions and anymore of this

“Good, good, mendicants! It’s good that you understand my teaching like this. The flow of blood you’ve shed when your head was chopped off while roaming and transmigrating is indeed more than the water in the four oceans. For a long time you’ve been cows, and the flow of blood you’ve shed when your head was chopped off as a cow is more than the water in the four oceans. For a long time you’ve been buffalo … rams … goats … deer … chickens … pigs … For a long time you’ve been bandits, arrested for raiding villages, highway robbery, or adultery. And the flow of blood you’ve shed when your head was chopped off as a bandit is more than the water in the four oceans.”

is quite the accomplishment, wouldn’t you agree?

Not enough of an accomplishment, I would say. In your dhamma there's incomplete liberation with a remainder of the burden and a certainty that it will totally disappear one day. This is an expectation that things are going to be different someday. In your dhamma there's no full abandoning of craving. In your dhamma suffering can't cease.

[Ceisiwr]

Not enough of an accomplishment, I would say. In your dhamma there's incomplete liberation with a remainder of the burden and a certainty that it will totally disappear one day. This is an expectation that things are going to be different someday. In your dhamma there's no full abandoning of craving. In your dhamma suffering can't cease.

I'm confused why you draw that conclusion, since to be without the āsavā would be to be without craving. I also don't know why you think it is "incomplete"? The Arahant has won his or her freedom from suffering. Now they just have to pay off old debts, until the end of their natural life span. Why do you think suffering can't cease? It's also not "my Dhamma".

[mjaviem]

I'm confused why you draw that conclusion, since to be without the āsavā would be to be without craving. I also don't know why you think it is "incomplete"? The Arahant has won his or her freedom from suffering. Now they just have to pay off old debts, until the end of their natural life span. Why do you think suffering can't cease? It's also not "my Dhamma".

Ok, the dhamma you've been learning. In this dhamma suffering can't cease because the conditions are still present, i.e. the craving and expectation that one day old debts will be paid.

EDIT: It's incomplete because in this dhamma suffering is still present.

[Coëmgenu]

But this craving is just something that you attribute to the Arhats. That you attribute it doesn't mean that they themselves crave Parinibbāna. They've Nibbāna, and they've Nibbāna pretty much whenever they want it, from a traditional POV.

[Ceisiwr]

I'm confused why you draw that conclusion, since to be without the āsavā would be to be without craving. I also don't know why you think it is "incomplete"? The Arahant has won his or her freedom from suffering. Now they just have to pay off old debts, until the end of their natural life span. Why do you think suffering can't cease? It's also not "my Dhamma".

Ok, the dhamma you've been learning. In this dhamma suffering can't cease because the conditions are still present, i.e. the craving and expectation that one day old debts will be paid.

EDIT: It's incomplete because in this dhamma suffering is still present.

They aren't craving and expecting final release. Rather because the āsavā and craving are gone they know there will be final release.

EDIT: It's incomplete because in this dhamma suffering is still present.

Suffering is still present, yes. Total release is at the end of life.

“Bhikkhus, there are these two Nibbāna-elements. What are the two? The Nibbāna-element with residue left and the Nibbāna-element with no residue left.

“What, bhikkhus, is the Nibbāna-element with residue left? Here a bhikkhu is an arahant, one whose taints are destroyed, the holy life fulfilled, who has done what had to be done, laid down the burden, attained the goal, destroyed the fetters of being, completely released through final knowledge. However, his five sense faculties remain unimpaired, by which he still experiences what is agreeable and disagreeable and feels pleasure and pain. It is the extinction of attachment, hate, and delusion in him that is called the Nibbāna-element with residue left.

“Now what, bhikkhus, is the Nibbāna-element with no residue left? Here a bhikkhu is an arahant … completely released through final knowledge. For him, here in this very life, all that is experienced, not being delighted in, will be extinguished. That, bhikkhus, is called the Nibbāna-element with no residue left.

“These, bhikkhus, are the two Nibbāna-elements.”

These two Nibbāna-elements were made known
By the Seeing One, stable and unattached:
One is the element seen here and now
With residue, but with the cord of being destroyed;
The other, having no residue for the future,
Is that wherein all modes of being utterly cease.

Having understood the unconditioned state,
Released in mind with the cord of being destroyed,
They have attained to the Dhamma-essence.
Delighting in the destruction (of craving),
Those stable ones have abandoned all being.

https://suttacentral.net/iti44/en/ireland

[Ceisiwr]

“Bhikkhus, for the fool, hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving, this body has originated. For the fool that ignorance has not been abandoned and that craving has not been utterly destroyed. For what reason? Because the fool has not lived the holy life for the complete destruction of suffering. Therefore, with the breakup of the body, the fool fares on to another body. Faring on to another body, he is not freed from birth, aging, and death; not freed from sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair; not freed from suffering, I say.

“Bhikkhus, for the wise man, hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving, this body has originated. For the wise man that ignorance has been abandoned and that craving has been utterly destroyed. For what reason? Because the wise man has lived the holy life for the complete destruction of suffering. Therefore, with the breakup of the body, the wise man does not fare on to another body. Not faring on to another body, he is freed from birth, aging, and death; freed from sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair; freed from suffering, I say.

“This, bhikkhus, is the distinction, the disparity, the difference between the wise man and the fool, that is, the living of the holy life.”

https://suttacentral.net/sn12.19/en/bodhi

[mjaviem]

But this craving is just something that you attribute to the Arhats. That you attribute it doesn't mean that they themselves crave Parinibbāna. They've Nibbāna, and they've Nibbāna pretty much whenever they want it, from a traditional POV.

I attribute to the arahats the accomplishment of the remainderless cessation of suffering. The dhamma learned by you and Ceisiwr attributes to the arahant the knowing with certainty that remainderless cessation of suffering is possible to achieve one day. This is not a direct knowing of the cessation of suffering, it is only an expectation, a projection into the future from seeing something that is correlated is not present anymore and is ended. And since it is a conviction it is full of expectation. Extinguishment means no expectations of any kind. As long as there is expectation there is suffering.

[mjaviem]

They aren't craving and expecting final release. Rather because the āsavā and craving are gone they know there will be final release.

Suffering is still present, yes. Total release is at the end of life.

If they know there will be final release they expect it because it hasn't come yet.

[Coëmgenu]

But this craving is just something that you attribute to the Arhats. That you attribute it doesn't mean that they themselves crave Parinibbāna. They've Nibbāna, and they've Nibbāna pretty much whenever they want it, from a traditional POV.

I attribute to the arahats the accomplishment of the remainderless cessation of suffering. The dhamma learned by you and Ceisiwr attributes to the arahant the knowing with certainty that remainderless cessation of suffering is possible to achieve one day.

Me and Ceisiwr have learned vastly different kinds of Buddhism. I think it would be more correct to say that, in traditional Śrāvaka Buddhism, Gnosis of the end of suffering is the end of suffering in the here-and-now. Arhats do not "await" Parinibbāna.

This characterization is problematized by several supposed Arhats in the Pāli Canon who kill themselves to avoid suffering. Buddhist scriptures are not "neat and tidy," however much various sects and pseudo-sectarian ideologies would like that to be so.

[Ceisiwr]

They aren't craving and expecting final release. Rather because the āsavā and craving are gone they know there will be final release.

Suffering is still present, yes. Total release is at the end of life.

If they know there will be final release they expect it because it hasn't come yet.

Rather they know it won't come, because there is nothing within them via which they might be reborn. They do not incline towards either existence or non-existence. The taints which propel consciousness to this state or that are gone. All that is left are embers, slowly growing cold.

[mjaviem]

Rather they know it won't come, because there is nothing within them via which they might be reborn. They do not incline towards either existence or non-existence. The taints which propel consciousness to this state or that are gone. All that is left are embers, slowly growing cold.

What is the realization they make about the third noble truth?

[Jack19990101]

Arahants do have contact or sense consciousness - otherwise they won't need glasses or alike. The thing is that the activities they carry out, is not under spell of dependent origination. They do have feelings too but it is not accurate to consider all feelings are under avijja's spell.

All feelings would have ignorance as a prior condition.

Scholaristically and historically, yes. But in context of immediacy, we only concern about kamma, not kamma vipaka.

[Ceisiwr]

Rather they know it won't come, because there is nothing within them via which they might be reborn. They do not incline towards either existence or non-existence. The taints which propel consciousness to this state or that are gone. All that is left are embers, slowly growing cold.

What is the realization they make about the third noble truth?

Emptiness, Nothingness and Signless.