i dont like the term 'unbound'

Textual analysis and comparative discussion on early Buddhist sects and scriptures.
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salayatananirodha
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i dont like the term 'unbound'

Post by salayatananirodha »

i always change it to [extinguished] or [extinct] when im sharing a translation from ajahn thanissaro.
i've thought to write him about this, but i havent fully read his arguments.
its been my understanding that he doesnt wish for westerners to think nibbāna means annihilation.
but this could be done by carefully explaining that nibbāna is the cessation of existence, rather than non-existence.
i have suspected he holds eternalist views, but i would be glad to know if he did not.
he also seems to paint nibbāna as a mystery. buddha refused to answer the questions about his existence after death because it was an invalid question, not because of some indescribable permanent state. i got his book mind like fire unbound but i havent read it but i have used his monasterys free book list to send out
booklist1706_864388040379540.pdf
(64 KiB) Downloaded 52 times
and im grateful that his translations are widely available and still usually pretty good.

why not be true to the meaning of nibbāna however as such:
https://accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.072.than.html wrote:What do you think, Vaccha: If a fire were burning in front of you, would you know that, 'This fire is burning in front of me'?"

"...yes..."

"And suppose someone were to ask you, Vaccha, 'This fire burning in front of you, dependent on what is it burning?' Thus asked, how would you reply?"

"...I would reply, 'This fire burning in front of me is burning dependent on grass & timber as its sustenance.'"

"If the fire burning in front of you were to go out, would you know that, 'This fire burning in front of me has gone out'?"

"...yes..."

"And suppose someone were to ask you, 'This fire that has gone out in front of you, in which direction from here has it gone? East? West? North? Or south?' Thus asked, how would you reply?"

"That doesn't apply, Master Gotama. Any fire burning dependent on a sustenance of grass and timber, being unnourished — from having consumed that sustenance and not being offered any other — is classified simply as 'out' [(unbound)]."
[how the heck is a flame unbound???]
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SarathW
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Re: i dont like the term 'unbound'

Post by SarathW »

salayatananirodha wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:03 am i always change it to [extinguished] or [extinct] when im sharing a translation from ajahn thanissaro.
i've thought to write him about this, but i havent fully read his arguments.
its been my understanding that he doesnt wish for westerners to think nibbāna means annihilation.
but this could be done by carefully explaining that nibbāna is the cessation of existence, rather than non-existence.
i have suspected he holds eternalist views, but i would be glad to know if he did not.
he also seems to paint nibbāna as a mystery. buddha refused to answer the questions about his existence after death because it was an invalid question, not because of some indescribable permanent state. i got his book mind like fire unbound but i havent read it but i have used his monasterys free book list to send out booklist1706_864388040379540.pdf and im grateful that his translations are widely available and still usually pretty good.

why not be true to the meaning of nibbāna however as such:
https://accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.072.than.html wrote:What do you think, Vaccha: If a fire were burning in front of you, would you know that, 'This fire is burning in front of me'?"

"...yes..."

"And suppose someone were to ask you, Vaccha, 'This fire burning in front of you, dependent on what is it burning?' Thus asked, how would you reply?"

"...I would reply, 'This fire burning in front of me is burning dependent on grass & timber as its sustenance.'"

"If the fire burning in front of you were to go out, would you know that, 'This fire burning in front of me has gone out'?"

"...yes..."

"And suppose someone were to ask you, 'This fire that has gone out in front of you, in which direction from here has it gone? East? West? North? Or south?' Thus asked, how would you reply?"

"That doesn't apply, Master Gotama. Any fire burning dependent on a sustenance of grass and timber, being unnourished — from having consumed that sustenance and not being offered any other — is classified simply as 'out' [(unbound)]."
[how the heck is a flame unbound???]
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Pondera
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Re: i dont like the term 'unbound'

Post by Pondera »

We are bound to the skhandas. When there is no perception or feeling of the skhandas we are “unbound”.

I love this phrase. I find “extinguished” very hard to separate from “annihilated”.

“Unbound” is also similar to “released” in a way that “extinguished” cannot capture or relate.
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Eko Care
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Re: i dont like the term 'unbound'

Post by Eko Care »

robertk wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:14 am Awful word : unbound.
salayatananirodha wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:03 am its been my understanding that he doesnt wish for westerners to think nibbāna means annihilation.
but this could be done by carefully explaining that nibbāna is the cessation of existence, rather than non-existence.
i have suspected he holds eternalist views, but i would be glad to know if he did not.
See below.
https://www.dhammawiki.com/index.php?title=Pudgalavada
Pudgalavada
The Pudgalavādins asserted that while there is no ātman, there is a pudgala or "person", which is neither the same as nor different from the skandhas (aggregates). The "person" was their method of accounting for karma, rebirth, and Nirvana. Other schools held that the "person" exists only as a label, a nominal reality.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
"If there's no self, what's the purpose of a spiritual life? Many books try to answer these questions, but if you look at the Pali canon — the earliest extant record of the Buddha's teachings — you won't find them addressed at all. In fact, the one place where the Buddha was asked point-blank whether or not there was a self, he refused to answer."
Someone may understand the cause of the origination of this view related to individual's deviation from the Classical Theravada.

Classical Theravada followers had the interpretation of the word "Thatagata" as the "Being/Satta/Atta" in those(Abyakata Vagga) specific suttas's commentaries.
Therefore, most of the non-classical Theravadins who disrespect the commentaries, have the risk of being trapped in to "Puggala Vada".
JohnK
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Re: i dont like the term 'unbound'

Post by JohnK »

"Unbound" works well with "the fetters." Fetters bind, overcoming them = unbound.
salayatananirodha wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:03 am ...i got his book mind like fire unbound but i havent read it...
[how the heck is a flame unbound???]
Ah, reading the book may help you understand -- you may still not like the term.
:anjali:
Those who grasp at perceptions & views wander the internet creating friction. [based on Sn4:9,v.847]
plabit
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Re: i dont like the term 'unbound'

Post by plabit »

salayatananirodha wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:03 am [how the heck is a flame unbound???]
In Indian metaphysics the localized fire is a manifestation of Agni and when it goes out it is unbound from manifestation here and returns to Agni's dimension. Everyone doesn't know this?
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Re: i dont like the term 'unbound'

Post by cappuccino »

salayatananirodha wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:03 am i have suspected he holds eternalist views, but i would be glad to know if he did not.
eternity is not the same as eternalism
salayatananirodha wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:03 amits been my understanding that he doesnt wish for westerners to think nibbāna means annihilation.

but this could be done by carefully explaining that nibbāna is the cessation of existence, rather than non-existence.
cessation of existence is not annihilation


simply the cessation of existence as we know it
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cappuccino
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Re: i dont like the term 'unbound'

Post by cappuccino »

sam·sa·ra
noun
the cycle of death and rebirth to which life in the material world is bound.


:candle:
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Re: i dont like the term 'unbound'

Post by DooDoot »

salayatananirodha wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:03 am is classified simply as 'out' [(unbound)]."
the Pali is nibbuta, which appears to not men 'unbound'

'unbound' sounds like Hinduism, where the Self is unbound with Brahman
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Post by sunnat »

In front of you : becoming (fire) is dependent on (bound to) a sustenance of a tendency to grasp (fuel). When the fuel is exhausted (no longer nourished, just watched) the fire goes out and one is liberated (unbound) from the conceit that one is the fire.
pegembara
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Re: i dont like the term 'unbound'

Post by pegembara »

Pondera wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 8:26 am We are bound to the skhandas. When there is no perception or feeling of the skhandas we are “unbound”.

I love this phrase. I find “extinguished” very hard to separate from “annihilated”.

“Unbound” is also similar to “released” in a way that “extinguished” cannot capture or relate.
I like cooled down or quenched.

Extinguished sounds like "Grandma has died".
Unbound is more akin to "Grandma has gone to heaven" or "released".

Any way you put it, "Grandma" is veering towards annihilation or eternalism.

The same event is seen through different lenses as it were.
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Lucas Oliveira
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Re: i dont like the term 'unbound'

Post by Lucas Oliveira »

Nibbana
by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu

We all know what happens when a fire goes out. The flames die down and the fire is gone for good. So when we first learn that the name for the goal of Buddhist practice, nibbana (nirvana), literally means the extinguishing of a fire, it's hard to imagine a deadlier image for a spiritual goal: utter annihilation. It turns out, though, that this reading of the concept is a mistake in translation, not so much of a word as of an image. What did an extinguished fire represent to the Indians of the Buddha's day? Anything but annihilation.

According to the ancient Brahmans, when a fire was extinguished it went into a state of latency. Rather than ceasing to exist, it became dormant and in that state — unbound from any particular fuel — it became diffused throughout the cosmos. When the Buddha used the image to explain nibbana to the Indian Brahmans of his day, he bypassed the question of whether an extinguished fire continues to exist or not, and focused instead on the impossibility of defining a fire that doesn't burn: thus his statement that the person who has gone totally "out" can't be described.

However, when teaching his own disciples, the Buddha used nibbana more as an image of freedom. Apparently, all Indians at the time saw burning fire as agitated, dependent, and trapped, both clinging and being stuck to its fuel as it burned. To ignite a fire, one had to "seize" it. When fire let go of its fuel, it was "freed," released from its agitation, dependence, and entrapment — calm and unconfined. This is why Pali poetry repeatedly uses the image of extinguished fire as a metaphor for freedom. In fact, this metaphor is part of a pattern of fire imagery that involves two other related terms as well. Upadana, or clinging, also refers to the sustenance a fire takes from its fuel. Khandha means not only one of the five "heaps" (form, feeling, perception, thought processes, and consciousness) that define all conditioned experience, but also the trunk of a tree. Just as fire goes out when it stops clinging and taking sustenance from wood, so the mind is freed when it stops clinging to the khandhas.

Thus the image underlying nibbana is one of freedom. The Pali commentaries support this point by tracing the word nibbana to its verbal root, which means "unbinding." What kind of unbinding? The texts describe two levels. One is the unbinding in this lifetime, symbolized by a fire that has gone out but whose embers are still warm. This stands for the enlightened arahant, who is conscious of sights and sounds, sensitive to pleasure and pain, but freed from passion, aversion, and delusion. The second level of unbinding, symbolized by a fire so totally out that its embers have grown cold, is what the arahant experiences after this life. All input from the senses cools away and he/she is totally freed from even the subtlest stresses and limitations of existence in space and time.

The Buddha insists that this level is indescribable, even in terms of existence or nonexistence, because words work only for things that have limits. All he really says about it — apart from images and metaphors — is that one can have foretastes of the experience in this lifetime, and that it's the ultimate happiness, something truly worth knowing.

So the next time you watch a fire going out, see it not as a case of annihilation, but as a lesson in how freedom is to be found in letting go.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/aut ... bbana.html
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Dhammanando
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Re: i dont like the term 'unbound'

Post by Dhammanando »

Eko Care wrote: Mon Apr 12, 2021 1:14 pm Someone may understand the cause of the origination of this view related to individual's deviation from the Classical Theravada.
It may well be that Ajahn Thanissaro's choice of "unbinding" for nibbāna and "unbound" for nibbuta (as opposed to "blowing out" and "blown out") is because this rendering comports better with the Ajahn Mun tradition's consciousness mysticism, to which Thanissaro is strongly committed.

It would not, however, be an instance of his deviation from the classical Theravāda's understanding of the term, for it is in fact based upon one of the classical Theravāda's construals (as the ajahn himself acknowledges when explaining why he chose these renderings). Specifically, his translation is based upon commentarial statements like this one from the Visuddhimagga:
It is called nibbāna because it has gone away from (nikkhanta), has escaped from (nissata), is dissociated from, craving, which has acquired in common usage the name ‘fastening (vāna)’ because, by ensuring successive becoming, craving serves as a joining together, a binding together, a lacing together, of the four kinds of generation, five destinies, seven stations of consciousness and nine abodes of being.
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
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Eko Care
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Re: i dont like the term 'unbound'

Post by Eko Care »

Dhammanando wrote: Tue Apr 13, 2021 2:20 am It may well be that Ajahn Thanissaro's choice .. comports better with the Ajahn Mun tradition's consciousness mysticism, to which Thanissaro is strongly committed.
Bhante, Isn't it a deviation from classical Theravada?
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