In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

not applicable, there is no rebirth, it is annihilation for all
4
2%
no more becoming, non-existence as we know it but not annihilation since there is no self
71
38%
existence in a buddha-field / realm
9
5%
pantheism
9
5%
citta continues in paranibbana
21
11%
a subtle existence that is ineffable, inexpressible
31
17%
don't know or agnostic about it, set-aside for now
42
22%
 
Total votes: 187

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DNS
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In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by DNS »

To accompany the great Nibbana thread, to see where DW posters are on this topic. You can pick up to 3 choices, if you like, since some are similar. And you can change your vote as you gain more Insight and/or enlightenment. :tongue:
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samseva
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by samseva »

Could you give a short description of each, especially 1,3,4 and 5?
Disciple
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by Disciple »

6th option seems the most reasonable.

What option did you vote for, David?
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dhammacoustic
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by dhammacoustic »

2, 5 and 6.

I don't think that nibbāna and parinibbāna are that different.

I believe that even right now, an arahā does not experience time the way we do, because they are already there, fully awake, which means their khandhas are dissolved in their experience, not burning.
Last edited by dhammacoustic on Mon Nov 23, 2015 3:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by DNS »

samseva wrote:Could you give a short description of each, especially 1,3,4 and 5?
Okay, I'll give a shot at a definition of each.
not applicable, there is no rebirth, it is annihilation for all
This refers to the atheist position of the belief that there is no rebirth and this life is all that we have, no prior lives, no future lives.
no more becoming, non-existence as we know it but not annihilation since there is no self
This probably refers to the classical-orthodox position (although opinions vary) that parinibbana is the end of the aggregates, there is no more becoming, there is no existence as we know existence to be on earth. One cannot be called upon or prayed upon in nibbana; no citta, no consciousness.
existence in a buddha-field / realm
Arahants becoming buddhas in a sort of pure land realm, where they exist in bliss and samsaric beings can call upon them.
pantheism
Union with the Divine.
Each mind is like a drop of water entering a Divine ocean. A Tibetan Buddhist saying is "how do you stop a drop of water from drying up? Answer: by placing it in the ocean" (not saying that Tibetan Buddhism is pantheistic, however)
citta continues in paranibbana
Ajahn Boowa, et al.
a subtle existence that is ineffable, inexpressible
Nagarjuna, et al.
don't know or agnostic about it, set-aside for now
agnostic about it
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by DNS »

Disciple wrote: What option did you vote for, David?
I haven't voted yet; don't want to risk skewing any results. Some might purposely vote with me or against me. :tongue:
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by SarathW »

If you can't make up your mind as yet, the following link may some help.
Goodluck!!

http://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=Nibbana" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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samseva
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by samseva »

David N. Snyder wrote:
samseva wrote:Could you give a short description of each, especially 1,3,4 and 5?
Okay, I'll give a shot at a definition of each.

[…]
The fact that we have three choices makes it misrepresentative, since 3, 4, 5 and 6 are similar.

1 is annihilationism or the single-life paradigm; 2 is non-existence and denies annihilation; 3, 4, 5 and 6 is a form of existence in either a realm, "universal consciousness", as citta or as something indescribable. The last one sets the question aside.

That's 4 for eternalism against…
  • 1 annihilationism/single-life
    1 denying the question
    1 ending of existence
The last three, even if they were to be grouped together, are outnumbered!

We demand democracy and equality! :smile:
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by subaru »

I do not know if I articulated (voted) correctly or not..
I believe Parinibbana is analogous to NULL pointer in computing..
it's not Zero,
it's not Infinity,
It's not undeclared,
It;s not random,
It's just NULL

there is a valid usage for it in computing.. but very difficult to explain to non-computing people

so I voted "Don't know" which is the closest to Null, but not exactly what I mean. Can someone help?

my rationale is; zero, infinity, random, undeclared are all conditional, I have faith in Buddha's word that something unconditional exist, and that NULL pointer will be used to point to it, if it can point to it, else it will remain NULL, which I believe is unconditional
:candle:
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tiltbillings
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by tiltbillings »

David N. Snyder wrote:
a subtle existence that is ineffable, inexpressible
Nagarjuna, et al.
Are you sure about that?
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by DNS »

tiltbillings wrote:
David N. Snyder wrote:
a subtle existence that is ineffable, inexpressible
Nagarjuna, et al.
Are you sure about that?
Not 100% since I'm not a Mahamadyika (sp?), but I did find this:

"To say 'it is" is to grasp for permanence. To say "it is not' is to adopt the view of nihilism. Therefore a wise person does not say 'exists' or "does not exist." (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 15.10)

"Nagarjuna attempts to explain how the answer does not lie in any of the four possibilities listed above. The language we use frames our conventional reality. Beneath that there is an ultimate reality, such as the condition of the enlightened dead person. One can experience this directly in certain meditative states, but one cannot describe it. To say anything about it would merely succeed in making it part of our conventional reality; it is, therefore, ineffable. In particular, one cannot describe it by using any of the four possibilities furnished by the catuskoti (four possibilities)."
(Graham Priest. Beyond true and false. aeon magazine, May 2014)
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dhammacoustic
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by dhammacoustic »

“Nirvāṇa is not existence
Nirvāṇa is not non-existence
We call nirvāṇa the cessation
Of every thought of existence and non-existence.”

--

Examination of Nirvāṇa {Nāgārjuna}

If everything is relative,
No real origination, no real annihilation,
How is nirvāṇa then conceived?
Through deliverance or annihilation of what?

Should everything be real in substance,
No new creation, no new destruction,
How would nirvāṇa then be reached?
Through deliverance or annihilation of what?

What neither is released, nor is it ever reached,
What neither is annihilation, nor is eternality,
What never disappears, nor has it been created,
This is nirvāṇa, it escapes precision.

Nirvāṇa, first of all, is not a kind of being,
It would then have decay and death.
There altogether is no being
Which is not subject to decay and death.

If nirvāṇa is being,
It is produced by causes
Nowhere and none the entity exists
Which would not be produced by causes.

If nirvāṇa is being,
How can it lack substratum;
There whatsoever is no being
Without any substratum.

If nirvāṇa is not a being
Will it then be a non-being?
Wherever there is found no being,
There neither is a corresponding non-being.

Now, if nirvāṇa is a non-being,
How can it then be independent?
For sure, an independent non-being
is to be found.

Co-ordinated here or caused are separate things:
We call this world phenomenal;
But just the same is called nirvāṇa,
When from causality abstracted.

The Buddha has declared
That being and non-being should be both rejected.
Neither as being or as non-being
Nirvāṇa therefore is conceived.

If nirvāṇa were both being and non-being,
Final deliverance would be also both,
Reality and unreality together.
This never could be possible.

If nirvāṇa were both being and non-being,
Nirvāṇa could not be uncaused.
Indeed both being and non-being
Are dependent on causation.

How could nirvāṇa represent
A being and a non-being together?
Nirvāṇa is indeed uncaused,
Both being and non-being are productions.

How could nirvāṇa represent
The place of being and non-being together?
As light and darkness in one spot
They cannot simultaneously be present.

If it were clear, indeed,
What a being means, and what a non-being,
We could then understand the doctrine
About nirvāṇa being neither being or non-being.

If nirvāṇa is neither being nor non-being
No one can really understand
This doctrine which proclaims at once
Negation of them both together.

What is the Buddha after his parinirvāṇa?
Does he exist or does he not exist,
Or both, or neither?
We will never conceive it.

What is the Buddha then at lifetime?
Does he exist, or does he not exist,
Or both, or neither?
We will never conceive it.

There is no difference at all
Between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra.
There is no difference at all
Between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa.

What makes the limit of nirvāṇa
Is also then the limit of saṃsāra.
Between the two we cannot find
The slightest shade of difference.

Insoluble are antinomic views
Regarding what exists beyond nirvāṇa,
Regarding what the end of this world is,
Regarding its beginning.

Since everything is relative, we do not know
What is finite and what is infinite,
What means finite and infinite at once,
What means negation of both issues.

What is identity, and what is difference?
What is eternity, what non-eternity,
What means eternity and non-eternity together,
What means negation of both issues?

Bliss consists in the cessation of all though,
In the quiescence of plurality.
No separate dharma was taught at all,
Nowhere and none by a Buddha.
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tiltbillings
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by tiltbillings »

David N. Snyder wrote: To say anything about it would merely succeed in making it part of our conventional reality; it is, therefore, ineffable. In particular, one cannot describe it by using any of the four possibilities furnished by the catuskoti (four possibilities)."
(Graham Priest. Beyond true and false. aeon magazine, May 2014)
let me quote something I wrote a number of years ago:
    • The "two truths" is not at all about one truth for beginners and another
      truth for initiates. That is not simply a gross distortion of the two truths,
      it is simply wrong. It is about different ways of talking about the same
      thing, and neither is more true or less true than the other.

      And it is why in the two truths as
      spelled by Nagarjuna, who was doing naught more than drawing out
      what was already in the Buddhist teachings. He clearly states:
      10. Without a foundation in the conventional truth
      The significance of the ultimate cannot be taught.
      Without understanding the significance of the ultimate,
      Liberation is not achieved.
      *

      When later Buddhism talks about two truths, sometime referred to as the
      "relative" and the "absolute," it is misleading, however, to make a neo-
      platonistic assumption here that one is "merely relative" and the other a
      higher, an absolute truly true truth. Both are true. The one is the truth that
      things exist as the result of causes and conditions, i.e., relatively, and the
      other is that things do not exist in any absolute sense, i.e., they are empty of
      any permanent, absolute, unchanging reality.

      The Buddha's notion of "ultimate reality" is that there isn't one beyond or
      behind what is our experience. There is no need to appeal to something
      supposedly more real behind or beyond what we experience. Buddhism does
      not subscribe to that sort of neo-platonism that this is somehow an illusion
      and behind it or beyond it is something more real or truly real. What is
      "ultimately real" for the Buddha is in the rise and fall of the seen, the heard,
      the touched, the smelled, the tasted and the cognized. It is directly accessible
      and human, but we are lost in our assumptions about what is real. Here the
      Buddha pointed out that we can find our own way out of these assumptions
      without recourse to something bigger and beyond what we in fact are.
      Finding our own way does not depend upon some sort of absolute or
      adherence to some dictum from an absolute; it is, rather, a matter being open
      to what is as it arises and passes away. What is going to happen next? Don't
      know. What is happening now? The rise and fall of just six things -- touch,
      taste, smell, sound, sight, and mental events (thoughts, feelings, emotions,
      moods). The Buddha provides the directions and it is from that we fashion
      our raft out of what we are which is be used to cross the flood.
      * Nagarjuna said (MMK 24:8-11)
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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tiltbillings
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by tiltbillings »

David N. Snyder wrote: To say anything about it would merely succeed in making it part of our conventional reality; it is, therefore, ineffable. In particular, one cannot describe it by using any of the four possibilities furnished by the catuskoti (four possibilities)."
(Graham Priest. Beyond true and false. aeon magazine, May 2014)
let me quote something I wrote a number of years ago:
    • The "two truths" is not at all about one truth for beginners and another
      truth for initiates. That is not simply a gross distortion of the two truths,
      it is simply wrong. It is about different ways of talking about the same
      thing, and neither is more true or less true than the other.

      And it is why in the two truths as
      spelled by Nagarjuna, who was doing naught more than drawing out
      what was already in the Buddhist teachings. He clearly states:
      10. Without a foundation in the conventional truth
      The significance of the ultimate cannot be taught.
      Without understanding the significance of the ultimate,
      Liberation is not achieved.
      *

      When later Buddhism talks about two truths, sometime referred to as the
      "relative" and the "absolute," it is misleading, however, to make a neo-
      platonistic assumption here that one is "merely relative" and the other a
      higher, an absolute truly true truth. Both are true. The one is the truth that
      things exist as the result of causes and conditions, i.e., relatively, and the
      other is that things do not exist in any absolute sense, i.e., they are empty of
      any permanent, absolute, unchanging reality.

      The Buddha's notion of "ultimate reality" is that there isn't one beyond or
      behind what is our experience. There is no need to appeal to something
      supposedly more real behind or beyond what we experience. Buddhism does
      not subscribe to that sort of neo-platonism that this is somehow an illusion
      and behind it or beyond it is something more real or truly real. What is
      "ultimately real" for the Buddha is in the rise and fall of the seen, the heard,
      the touched, the smelled, the tasted and the cognized. It is directly accessible
      and human, but we are lost in our assumptions about what is real. Here the
      Buddha pointed out that we can find our own way out of these assumptions
      without recourse to something bigger and beyond what we in fact are.
      Finding our own way does not depend upon some sort of absolute or
      adherence to some dictum from an absolute; it is, rather, a matter being open
      to what is as it arises and passes away. What is going to happen next? Don't
      know. What is happening now? The rise and fall of just six things -- touch,
      taste, smell, sound, sight, and mental events (thoughts, feelings, emotions,
      moods). The Buddha provides the directions and it is from that we fashion
      our raft out of what we are which is be used to cross the flood.
      * Nagarjuna said (MMK 24:8-11)
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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tiltbillings
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Re: In your view, understanding, Parinibbana is:

Post by tiltbillings »

David N. Snyder wrote:To accompany the great Nibbana thread, to see where DW posters are on this topic. You can pick up to 3 choices, if you like, since some are similar. And you can change your vote as you gain more Insight and/or enlightenment. :tongue:
You need to add a "None of the above" option.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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