also for me. The sutta is pointing out the fact that you can cease aging and death by removing their conditions, being aging and death dependantly arisen.
Hi DooDoot,DooDoot wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 3:34 am The above sound wrong because DN 11 appears to say earth, wind, fire & water cannot cease without remainder; yet the suttas say earth, wind, fire & water are impermanent. In other words, it appears the conditions for earth, wind, fire & water cannot be removed yet these elements remain impermanent.
No-one has found a way to make the four vipers cease without remainder yet or can say something about their beginning or their future without going outside his domain, but still impermanence is a necessary condition for us to have some hope that it can be removed. Some impermanent things (like Dukkha) can be removed, others can't. Luckily, "Aging" and "death" conditions can be removed by the 8fold path.
Btw, re-reading DN 11, the Buddha doesn't say that e,w,f & w "cannot cease". For the Buddha, this is an invalid question (because it is outside of the Sabbe, the six senses I strongly suppose) outside of the domain of even the major gods. The Buddha suggests to look and search instead to something within your experience, inside your domain.
This is the Buddha's answer:
In the same way, after failing to get an answer to this question even after searching as far as the Brahmā realm, you’ve returned to me. Mendicant, this is not how the question should be asked: “Sir, where do these four primary elements cease without anything left over, namely, the elements of earth, water, fire, and air?”
This is how the question should be asked:
“Where do water and earth, fire and air find no footing; where do long and short, fine and coarse, beautiful and ugly; where do name and form cease with nothing left over?”
“Consciousness that’s invisible, infinite, entirely given up: that’s where water and earth, fire and air find no footing;
So we don't have a statement from the Buddha "earth, wind, fire & water cannot cease without remainder". It is outside of the All, no answer can be definitively given being it ouside our domain. But certainly change and alteration (and sometimes the vipers are very altered... but with us!) while standing is evident, so they are still anicca.