retrofuturist wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 9:53 pm
FYI, the PTS Dictionary explicitly rejects that claim. I'm not saying you have to agree with the PTS, as it's not Buddhavacana, but it's worth noting the deviance.
In the PTS Dictionary we find the following
āyatana (neuter)
- sphere of perception or sense in general, object of thought, sense-organ & object; relation order
For the PTS Dictionary the 6 āyatana then are the sense organs. The eye, ear and so on. If we were to make the āyatana and indriya into two separate and distinct things, it would be with the āyatana as the sense organ of the eye and the indriya as the vision.
The "origin, ending" have been explained by MN 43, and the "gratification, drawback, and escape" must be discerned via idappacayata, because as you correctly go on to explain...False.
It is explicitly shown above in MN 43 what the faculities depend on, and it has nothing to do with avijja, thus nothing to do with paticcasamuppada.
Salayatana on the other hand are indeed described as "part of dependent origination", as dependent upon avijja, hence the abject folly in trying to pretend they are one and the same thing as indriyani...You can come to whatever conclusions you like, of course, as is your prerogative, but we come to no such conclusion.
You have misunderstood the implications of the sutta I quoted.
“Mendicants, there are these six faculties. What six? The faculties of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. A noble disciple comes to truly understand these six faculties’ origin, ending, gratification, drawback, and escape. Such a noble disciple is called a stream-enterer, not liable to be reborn in the underworld, bound for awakening.” - SN 48.26
The insight that makes one a sotāpanna is insight into dependent origination. Here the sutta states that part of the sotāpanna's awakening is insight into the origin etc of the faculties. Therefore, the faculties are included within dependent origination. If the faculties were something apart from paṭiccasamuppāda then the sotāpanna-to-be would not investigate them. That the sotāpanna-to-be does investigate them and becomes a sotāpanna means that the faculties are dependently arisen, in the 12-link scheme.
The Buddha does not generate "conditioned dhammas" (sankhata-dhammas). It is said in the discourses that from the cessation of avijja, comes the cessation of sankharas, so from whence would these sankhata-dhammas arise for The Blessed One?
They do not fabricate fear, or grief, or anger on account of the conditioned dhammas of form, mental ideas and thoughts, on account of any type of vedanā and they do not construct future form, vedanā, consciousness etc. On account of this they are free from emotional dukkha now, and are free from all dukkha at the end of life. What remains is the mental and physical pain of the 1st dart and the dukkha of what is pleasant and equanimous. When ignorance is no more, there is no kamma. There being no kamma, there will be no consciousness and so on. Ignorance however is the condition for kamma, which is a condition for mind and body. Having had a life before his last one, there was ignorance and kamma. As such, there had to be a mind and body in his last life. This entails the 1st dart of pain, as well as the dukkha of what is pleasant and neutral. The conditioned dhammas which the Buddha still experienced as his mentality and physical form, as his consciousness and vedanā & sañña, had ignorance as a condition. Natural laws, as ever, must be obeyed even by perfectly awakened Buddhas.
Therefore, if your statement that "the dukkha is the conditioned dhamma itself" is to be taken as true, then the Buddha, who is free from avijja, is likewise free of conditioned dhammas, and is therefore free from dukkha. Per your very own words, "the cessation mode means those links never arise again".
Addressed above.