End of suffering ?

[Microdose]

When siddharta awakened to buddha, he spoke about his path being the end of suffering

Yet he experiences old age, sickness and death

The things he said were suffering

How did the buddha go through these things without suffering

[Ceisiwr]

When siddharta awakened to buddha, he spoke about his path being the end of suffering

Yet he experiences old age, sickness and death

The things he said were suffering

How did the buddha go through these things without suffering

Those are dukkha itself. Whilst alive he was free from emotional dukkha. At death, all of it.

[pegembara]

In a nutshell by the realisation that the "person" that was born, ages and eventually dies was a fiction.

“And further, a sage at peace is not born, does not age, does not die, is unagitated, and is free from longing. He has nothing whereby he would be born. Not being born, will he age? Not aging, will he die? Not dying, will he be agitated? Not being agitated, for what will he long? It was in reference to this that it was said, ‘He has been stilled where the currents of supposition do not flow. And when the currents of supposition do not flow, he is said to be a sage at peace.’ Now, monk, you should remember this, my brief analysis of the six properties.”

https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN140.html

[Pasindu]

When siddharta awakened to buddha, he spoke about his path being the end of suffering

Yet he experiences old age, sickness and death

The things he said were suffering

How did the buddha go through these things without suffering

16. The Feelings of an Arahat (II,4)

King Milinda said: “Revered Nāgasena, does he who does not take rebirth feel any painful feeling?”
“He feels some, some he does not feel.”
“What does he feel, what does he not feel?”
“He feels bodily feelings, sire, he does not feel mental feelings.”
“Why is it so, sire?”
“It is from the non-termination of the cause and condition for the uprising of a painful bodily feeling that he feels a painful bodily feeling; but it is from the termination of the cause and condition for the uprising of a painful mental feeling that
he feels no painful mental feeling. And this, sire, was said by the Blessed One:
‘He feels one feeling: the bodily, not the mental.'

“Revered Nāgasena, why does he who does not feel a painful feeling not attain complete Nibbāna?”
“Sire, arahats have neither approval nor repugnance; nor do arahats destroy what is unripe; wise men wait for full maturing. And this, sire, was spoken by the Elder Sāriputta, the General of the Dhamma:

I delight not in dying, I delight not in living,
But I wait for the time, as a hireling his wages.
I delight not in dying, I delight not in living,
But I wait for the time, clearly conscious and mindful.”

“You are dexterous, revered Nāgasena.”

Milindapanha-
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... EOfFORUAiL

[Pondera]

Detached

[Spiny Norman]

In a nutshell by the realisation that the "person" that was born, ages and eventually dies was a fiction.

“And further, a sage at peace is not born, does not age, does not die, is unagitated, and is free from longing. He has nothing whereby he would be born. Not being born, will he age? Not aging, will he die? Not dying, will he be agitated? Not being agitated, for what will he long? It was in reference to this that it was said, ‘He has been stilled where the currents of supposition do not flow. And when the currents of supposition do not flow, he is said to be a sage at peace.’ Now, monk, you should remember this, my brief analysis of the six properties.”

https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN140.html

[justpractice]

How did the buddha go through these things without suffering

Do you suffer on account of a random person across the world growing old, sick, and dying? Unless one's attachment to the world is unusually proliferated, most would answer "no," because that random person has no emotional relevance to one's experience. That random person is not assumed as "mine," thus the aging, sickness, and death of that person is experienced dispassionately, without suffering.

If one were eventually to be able to understand - through practicing the noble eightfold path - that their own body could not be appropriated, their attitude in regard to that body's inevitable aging, sickness, and death would lose its emotional significance. The Buddha had completely uprooted his appropriation of the five aggregates and thus did not suffer when those aggregates manifested as old age, sickness, and death. He no longer suffered amidst the things that cause suffering.

From SN 22.33:

“Suppose, bhikkhus, people were to carry off the grass, sticks, branches, and foliage in this Jeta’s Grove, or to burn them, or to do with them as they wish. Would you think: ‘People are carrying us off, or burning us, or doing with us as they wish’?”

“No, venerable sir. For what reason? Because, venerable sir, that is neither our self nor what belongs to our self.”

“So too, bhikkhus, form is not yours … consciousness is not yours: abandon it. When you have abandoned it, that will lead to your welfare and happiness.”

[pegembara]

How did the buddha go through these things without suffering

Do you suffer on account of a random person across the world growing old, sick, and dying? Unless one's attachment to the world is unusually proliferated, most would answer "no," because that random person has no emotional relevance to one's experience. That random person is not assumed as "mine," thus the aging, sickness, and death of that person is experienced dispassionately, without suffering.

If one were eventually to be able to understand - through practicing the noble eightfold path - that their own body could not be appropriated, their attitude in regard to that body's inevitable aging, sickness, and death would lose its emotional significance. The Buddha had completely uprooted his appropriation of the five aggregates and thus did not suffer when those aggregates manifested as old age, sickness, and death. He no longer suffered amidst the things that cause suffering.

From SN 22.33:

“Suppose, bhikkhus, people were to carry off the grass, sticks, branches, and foliage in this Jeta’s Grove, or to burn them, or to do with them as they wish. Would you think: ‘People are carrying us off, or burning us, or doing with us as they wish’?”

“No, venerable sir. For what reason? Because, venerable sir, that is neither our self nor what belongs to our self.”

“So too, bhikkhus, form is not yours … consciousness is not yours: abandon it. When you have abandoned it, that will lead to your welfare and happiness.”

You suffer because you give thought to things that happen. What you think about has meaning to you.

Which gives you more pain? Your favorite sports team losing or another refugee boat sinking in the Mediterranean?

The Buddha doesn’t have any mental proliferation and is therefore able to “accept” what happens with perfect equanimity.

Nippapanca

Awakening means a fundamental shift takes place. It is a shift from looking for ourselves outside in the ten thousand things to recognizing that our true nature is beyond definition. That transformation of understanding is the work of wisdom, the essential quality of heart that carries us across the turbulent sea of suffering to safety and ease. The Buddha refers to this liberating activity as Yoniso manasikara. It is often translated as “wisely reflecting.” Yoni means “womb” and manas refers to the mind. Taken as a whole we can interpret the phrase as “placing the mind and its activities in the womb of awareness.” Wise reflection does not stop at the superficial cognition of the world, but it plumbs the depths of awareness, exploring the unmoving ground of “knowing” within which all the apparent differences of life manifest. I like the English translation “radical reflection” for this significant term, since it echoes the “re-membering” of all phenomena to its source, the matrix of awareness that makes all experience possible. The word radical has its etymological connection to root. Radical reflection contemplates the root, the origin, the place where all things merge.

https://tricycle.org/magazine/tangled-thought/

[justpractice]

You suffer because you give thought to things that happen. What you think about has meaning to you.

One suffers because one takes that which is impermanent and suffering as mine. Thoughts are there as long as mind is there, and they are not the problem. Taking those thoughts to be mine (i.e. assuming the mind as permanent) is the problem. Taking those thoughts to be mine, to be personal, is the only reason one could ever be emotionally affected by certain thoughts over others.

[pegembara]

You suffer because you give thought to things that happen. What you think about has meaning to you.

One suffers because one takes that which is impermanent and suffering as mine. Thoughts are there as long as mind is there, and they are not the problem. Taking those thoughts to be mine (i.e. assuming the mind as permanent) is the problem. Taking those thoughts to be mine, to be personal, is the only reason one could ever be emotionally affected by certain thoughts over others.

Thoughts are the problem.
It’s not I think therefore I am.
It’s I think, therefore I think that I am.

When things happen, you think they happen to you. You are whatever you think you are. Truly.

You are not a thought or mind. Assuming them to be you is the problem. Thinking that they are yours is the same.

The truth is still and has no voice, things that speak are not the truth

Ajahn Dtun

[pegembara]

You suffer because you give thought to things that happen. What you think about has meaning to you.

One suffers because one takes that which is impermanent and suffering as mine. Thoughts are there as long as mind is there, and they are not the problem. Taking those thoughts to be mine (i.e. assuming the mind as permanent) is the problem. Taking those thoughts to be mine, to be personal, is the only reason one could ever be emotionally affected by certain thoughts over others.

Thoughts are the problem.
It’s not I think therefore I am.
It’s I think, therefore I think that I am.

When things happen, you think they happen to you. You are whatever you think you are. Truly.

“You” are not a thought or mind. Assuming them to be you is the problem. Thinking that they are yours is the same.

The truth is still and has no voice, things that speak are not the truth

Ajahn Dtun

[justpractice]

Thoughts are the problem.

Assuming them to be you is the problem.

Which one is it?

When in doubt, we can always see what the Buddha had to say. In AN 6.109, he says sensual, malicious, and cruel thoughts (i.e. thoughts that require the assumption of ownership) are to be given up.

“Mendicants, there are these three things. What three? Sensual, malicious, and cruel thoughts. These are the three things. To give up these three things you should develop three things. What three? You should develop thoughts of renunciation to give up sensual thoughts, thoughts of good will to give up malicious thoughts, and thoughts of harmlessness to give up cruel thoughts. These are the three things you should develop to give up those three things.”

If all thoughts were the problem, I don't think the Buddha would have encouraged us to make effort to develop the right kind of thoughts. The thought that "all thoughts are the problem" is throwing out the baby with the bath water, as they say. It's denying too much, and consequently denies the access to practicing rightly.

[pegembara]

Thoughts are the problem.

Assuming them to be you is the problem.

Which one is it?

When in doubt, we can always see what the Buddha had to say. In AN 6.109, he says sensual, malicious, and cruel thoughts (i.e. thoughts that require the assumption of ownership) are to be given up.

“Mendicants, there are these three things. What three? Sensual, malicious, and cruel thoughts. These are the three things. To give up these three things you should develop three things. What three? You should develop thoughts of renunciation to give up sensual thoughts, thoughts of good will to give up malicious thoughts, and thoughts of harmlessness to give up cruel thoughts. These are the three things you should develop to give up those three things.”

If all thoughts were the problem, I don't think the Buddha would have encouraged us to make effort to develop the right kind of thoughts. The thought that "all thoughts are the problem" is throwing out the baby with the bath water, as they say. It's denying too much, and consequently denies the access to practicing rightly.

Thoughts are the problem and the solution.
You work with what you have.
There is no other way.

One has to hold onto the raft properly in order to cross the river. Only when one has reached the safety of the further shore can one let go.

"Monks, I will teach you the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding onto. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak."

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html

You thought the same thing yourself. Having unwholesome or wholesome thoughts doesn't make you the devil or a saint. For you are neither. Therefore thoughts are the problem and a temporary solution/raft.

Taking those thoughts to be mine, to be personal, is the only reason one could ever be emotionally affected by certain thoughts over others.

[justpractice]

Thoughts are the problem.

Assuming them to be you is the problem.

Which one is it?

When in doubt, we can always see what the Buddha had to say. In AN 6.109, he says sensual, malicious, and cruel thoughts (i.e. thoughts that require the assumption of ownership) are to be given up.

“Mendicants, there are these three things. What three? Sensual, malicious, and cruel thoughts. These are the three things. To give up these three things you should develop three things. What three? You should develop thoughts of renunciation to give up sensual thoughts, thoughts of good will to give up malicious thoughts, and thoughts of harmlessness to give up cruel thoughts. These are the three things you should develop to give up those three things.”

If all thoughts were the problem, I don't think the Buddha would have encouraged us to make effort to develop the right kind of thoughts. The thought that "all thoughts are the problem" is throwing out the baby with the bath water, as they say. It's denying too much, and consequently denies the access to practicing rightly.

Thoughts are the problem and the solution.
You work with what you have.
There is no other way.

One has to hold onto the raft properly in order to cross the river. Only when one has reached the safety of the further shore can one let go.

"Monks, I will teach you the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding onto. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak."

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html

You thought the same thing yourself. Having unwholesome or wholesome thoughts doesn't make you the devil or a saint. For you are neither. Therefore thoughts are the problem and a temporary solution/raft.

Taking those thoughts to be mine, to be personal, is the only reason one could ever be emotionally affected by certain thoughts over others.

We'll more than likely have to agree to disagree. Thoughts clearly arose for the Buddha after enlightenment (how could he have taught us otherwise?), yet he no longer suffered. Arahants, who have crossed to the far shore using the Dhamma as a raft (to reference MN 22), still think and operate in the world despite abandoning the raft. Nothing in my experience or the Buddha's teaching leads me to consider all thoughts being the problem.

Just like practitioners aren't instructed to consider all sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and touches as being the problem, nor are they instructed to consider all thoughts being the problem. It's the uprooting of the fundamental ownership of that which thoughts depend on that will end suffering. No need to try and uproot thought itself.

[pegembara]

We'll more than likely have to agree to disagree. Thoughts clearly arose for the Buddha after enlightenment (how could he have taught us otherwise?), yet he no longer suffered. Arahants, who have crossed to the far shore using the Dhamma as a raft (to reference MN 22), still think and operate in the world despite abandoning the raft. Nothing in my experience or the Buddha's teaching leads me to consider all thoughts being the problem.

Just like practitioners aren't instructed to consider all sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and touches as being the problem, nor are they instructed to consider all thoughts being the problem. It's the uprooting of the fundamental ownership of that which thoughts depend on that will end suffering. No need to try and uproot thought itself.

The last I checked, there was only the statement that thoughts are a problem. Not all thoughts. If that were so, there would have been no teachings possible.

The Buddha would have to use thoughts to communicate with the world but I highly doubt that he would be thinking all the time about saving the world. The world on the other shore is free from thoughts but in order to bring others to the further shore, there is a need to use thought.

In other words, the deathless realm is thought-free but those who have crossed will need the raft again to cross back to the near shore to bring others over as it were.

That is why nippapanca is the natural state of the awakened ones. Thoughts are not a problem for them. As for the rest of us, thoughts are a problem.

After all the "I, me and mine" are just thoughts.

"This is how he attends inappropriately: 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?' Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?'

"This is how he attends inappropriately: 'Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what, what shall I be in the future?' Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: 'Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?'

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html

"The mind is burning, ideas are burning, mind-consciousness is burning, mind-contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact for its indispensable condition, that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .nymo.html