Hi Element,
Only clinging is dukkha.
Well, that's a novel claim. But nothing in the rest of your post supports it.
Dukkha-dukkhatā is not dukkha. Dukkha-dukkhatā is dukkha for putujanas:
But when the Blessed One had entered upon the rainy season, there arose in him a severe illness, and sharp and deadly pains came upon him. And the Blessed One endured them mindfully, clearly comprehending and unperturbed. (DN 16)
But the passage you cite doesn't show that "dukkha-dukkhatā is dukkha for puthujjanas." Quite the contrary, since dukkha-dukkhatā is bodily pain, and since the passage describes such pain as arising in an arahant, clearly dukkha-dukkhatā is
not confined to puthujjanas. All the passage shows is that
one ariyan, the Buddha, was able to endure bodily pain with mindfulness and equanimity. But other ariyans were not thus able and needed encouragement from the Buddha or other bhikkhus.
- Now at that time Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī became ill. Monks who were elders approached Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī, and having approached they spoke thus to Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī:
“Gotamī, we hope you are bearing up, we hope you are getting better.”
“Venerable sirs, I am not bearing up, I am not getting better. Please, venerable sirs, teach me the Dhamma.”
(Vin. iv. 56)
See also the Khemaka Sutta (SN. iii. 126-32), the three Gilāna Suttas (SN. v. 79-81),and the Phagguna Sutta (AN. iii. 379-83).
Saṅkhāra-dukkhatā and dukkha lakana are not dukkha. They are also dukkha for putujanas:
278. "All conditioned things are dukkha" — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering. This is the path to purification. (Dhammapada)
But the passage you cite doesn't show that "saṅkhāra-dukkhatā is dukkha for puthujjanas." Quite the contrary, it states that "all conditioned things are dukkha," with no qualification. I would guess you have been misled by the translation "one turns away from suffering," which might be taken as implying that one no longer has any relationship at all to the thing in question. But the Pali won't support such a reading:
- “sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā” ti, yadā paññāya passati.
atha nibbindati dukkhe, esa maggo visuddhiyā.
The verb 'nibbindati' (the source of the noun 'nibbidā') means "to turn away" in the sense of becoming disgusted or disillusioned with something. It does not mean that one is at once freed from the thing in question. All saṅkhāras are dukkha in the sense of being oppressed by rise and fall (udayavaya-ppaṭipīḷana) and they continue to be so whether they arise for a puthujjana, a sekha or an asekha. Hence the saying: "Whatsoever is felt, all that is included in dukkha."
Only upadana dukkha is real dukkha.
It may be more vivid or palpable, but that doesn't make it more "real". Moreover, given that it is seeing saṅkhāra-dukkha that liberates, and given that the four noble truths are "profound, hard to see... etc.", we shouldn't expect saṅkhāra-dukkha to be something terribly vivid or palpable.
The Third Noble Truth is about dukkha nirodha. 'Nirodha' here is permanent nirodha (as distinct from atungkama). The Buddha has said this dukkha nirodha is to be 'realised'. To 'realise' something requires a mind. Realisation or experience cannot occur when there are no aggregates. Therefore, the Mahavihara retort is not in accord to the Lord Buddha's teaching itself.
Well, neither of us is likely to persuade the other on this, for our disagreement is rooted in markedly different conceptions of what the problem of dukkha consists in. But for those readers who take saṃsāra seriously, here's how
nirodha is understood in the classical Theravāda:
- Nirodha (cessation): the word ni denotes absence, and the word rodha a prison. Now the third truth is empty of all [post-mortem] destinies and so there is no constraint (rodha) of suffering here reckoned as prison of the round of rebirths.
Or, when that cessation has been arrived at, there is no more constraint of suffering reckoned as the prison of the round of rebirths. And being the opposite of that prison, it is called dukkha-nirodha.
Or alternatively, it is called 'cessation of suffering' because it is a condition for the cessation of suffering consisting in non-arising.
[...]
Also cessation is of one kind, being the unconditioned element.
But indirectly it is of two kinds, as "with result of past clinging left" and as "without result of past clinging left."
And of three kinds, as the stilling of the three kinds of becoming.
And of four kinds, as approachable by the four [ariyan] paths.
And of five kinds, as the subsiding of the five kinds of delight.
And of six kinds, classed according to the destruction of the six groups of craving.
(adapted from Path of Purification XVI 18, 63, 94)
Further, in the Third Noble Truth, the Lord Buddha has advised dukkha nirodha is solely the cessation of craving.
It is the fruit of the abandoning of craving. The abandoning of craving partly yields its effect at the time of the attainment of arahatta-phala, for example, by cutting off a variety of afflictive mental factors for the remainder of the arahant's life. It wholly yields its effect at the time of nibbāna without remainder. To assert otherwise is to ignore the fact that the first truth includes aging, sickness and death, to which an arahant is still subject. The first noble truth doesn't say "Aging, sickness and death are only dukkha if you're a puthujjana."
Best wishes,
Dhammanando Bhikkhu