Nibbana

A forum for beginners and members of other Buddhist traditions to ask questions about Theravāda (The Way of the Elders). Responses require moderator approval before they are visible in order to double-check alignment to Theravāda orthodoxy.
teacup_bo
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Re: Nibbana

Post by teacup_bo »

Element wrote:I think it is always both useful and truthful to ask oneself: "I am here to teach when I should be learning given I am only a learner?"
But if that were true, why are you still trying to teach? Your quoting of sutras all day is like people who repeat the Bible but do not practice one ounce of goodwill.
Element

Re: Nibbana

Post by Element »

teacup_bo wrote:But if that were true, why are you still trying to teach? Your quoting of sutras all day is like people who repeat the Bible but do not practice one ounce of goodwill.
Dear Abu

The one teaching the right way, the discernable way, the possible way, has goodwill.

Nibbana comes from Right View and not from goodwill. Goodwill is a mundane dhamma.

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Ceisiwr
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Re: Nibbana

Post by Ceisiwr »

"Comprehending the parable of the raft monks, you have to eliminate ethical things too, let alone unethical things" Majjhima Nikaya.

...Extinction, Nibbana, is cessation of ethics.


Nanavira Thera - "Clearing the Path"

Good Will, as stated by Element, is mundane. This is because it involves volitional action, so it involves "What should I do ".
Nibbana is the end of goodwill because there is no more thinking in terms of "I" so there is no "what should I do".

Nibbana is beyond concepts of goodwill and badwill.
“The teacher willed that this world appear to me
as impermanent, unstable, insubstantial.
Mind, let me leap into the victor’s teaching,
carry me over the great flood, so hard to pass.”
Element

Re: Nibbana

Post by Element »

clw_uk wrote:Nibbana is beyond concepts of goodwill and badwill.
Buddha said:
And what is right resolve? Right resolve, I tell you, is of two sorts: There is right resolve with effluents, siding with merit, resulting in the acquisitions [of becoming]; and there is noble right resolve, without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.

And what is the right resolve that has effluents, sides with merit & results in acquisitions? Being resolved on renunciation, on good will, on harmlessness. This is the right resolve that has effluents, sides with merit & results in acquisitions.

And what is the right resolve that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path? The thinking, directed thinking, resolve, (mental) fixity, transfixion, focused awareness & verbal fabricators of one developing the noble path whose mind is noble, whose mind is without effluents, who is fully possessed of the noble path. This is the right resolve that is without effluents, transcendent, a factor of the path.

MN 117
Element

Re: Nibbana

Post by Element »

kowtaaia wrote:Yam kinci vedayitam, tam pi dukkhasmim.

Whatever sensations one experiences, all are suffering.
Kowtaaia

The understanding above is wrong understanding. Experiencing sensations is not suffering. However, sensations themselves do have the characteristic of dukkha, in that they are impermanent, unstable, unreliable and unsatisfactory.

I conveniently prepared you about "cotton wool" Nibbana. Below is some more "cotton wool nibbana" from the Vipassana Newsletter. This is tranquilising sensations by awareness rather than the cessation of defilement by wisdom & insight. The Buddha did not declare the end of vedana is the end of suffering. Nor did Buddha teach vedana were bondage. However, the old habit of relishing vedana and clinging to vedana is bondage and suffering.
A pleasant sensation appears to be pleasant but it is really suffering because it enmeshes one in the old habit of relishing it, of clinging to it. It is dukkha, it is bondage. As the Buddha said, "Yaṃ kiñci vedayitaṃ, taṃ pi dukkhasmiṃ Whatever sensation one is experiencing, it is actually dukkha, dukkha, dukkha."

As long as there is vedanā, there will be dukkha, because the process of multiplication of misery is operating. The fire is burning, and you are giving it fuel. Let the fire be extinguished. Then you will come to the end of vedanā, the end of suffering.
It is ignorance & craving that "enmeshes one in the old habit of relishing it, of clinging to it". Vedana does not emesh. Blaming vedana for emeshment is the same as blaming other for breaking one's heart.

With goodwill,

Element
Element

Re: Nibbana

Post by Element »

More from the Vipassana Newsletter:
Thus whenever the term vedanā is used in relation to the practice of Dhamma, it conveys the sense of dukkha...the Buddha correctly used the word vedanā as a synonym for dukkha.
teacup_bo
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Re: Nibbana

Post by teacup_bo »

Element wrote: Dear Abu

The one teaching the right way, the discernable way, the possible way, has goodwill.

Nibbana comes from Right View and not from goodwill. Goodwill is a mundane dhamma.

Image
There is a reason the Buddha asked only those who had genuine realisation to teach. [EDIT: Ad-hominem attack on Element removed - Retro.] For those with a genuine intent in liberation however, relinquishing selfishness is key.

However it is understood that everyone can only understand as they are able. :pig:
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retrofuturist
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Re: Nibbana

Post by retrofuturist »

:focus:
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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tiltbillings
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Re: Nibbana

Post by tiltbillings »

Posts that are off topic and personally directed and which cannot be reasonably edited by the moderators will disappear, consigned to the ether. While we want encourage a freedom and latitude of expression, it works best when it is civil and considerate.

Please stay on topic, and please avoid pointy personal comments, even indirect ones.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Element

Re: Nibbana

Post by Element »

teacup_bo wrote:There is a reason the Buddha asked only those who had genuine realisation to teach.
The suttas are genuine realisation.
teacup_bo wrote:For those with a genuine intent in liberation however, relinquishing selfishness is key.

Unselfishness is another mundane dhamma. It is for husbands and wives. My mother is highly unselfish but not liberated nor does she know Nibbana.

Unselfishness is merely reproductive instinct. It is often need, lust, affection and instinctual love in disguise. It is not something noble.

For those with a genuine intent on liberation, unselfishness is a moral virtue but potentially very harmful. Practitioners can lose the way by unselfishness.
teacup_bo wrote:However it is understood that everyone can only understand as they are able.

Understanding is not something intellectual. Understanding is realisation or experience.

Buddha did not teach the path the Nibbana for everyone. Buddha also taught the way to heaven, which begins with goodwill and unselfishness.

Unselfishness is the first parami.

With metta

Element
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Boris
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Re: Nibbana

Post by Boris »

Bhante Dhammanando:
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
I cannot find your arahat, Bhante :( . So please show me this arahat who is subject to death. Do you recognise him as a body?
The man who wants to avoid grotesque collapses should not look for anything to fulfill him in space and time.

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cooran
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Re: Nibbana

Post by cooran »

Hello Boris,

First post on Dhamma Wheel? Welcome ~ tell us a little about yourself?

metta
Chris
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
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Re: Nibbana

Post by Boris »

Chris wrote:Hello Boris,

First post on Dhamma Wheel? Welcome ~ tell us a little about yourself?

metta
Chris
As to myself, I don't think that Tathagata is subject to death :tongue:
The man who wants to avoid grotesque collapses should not look for anything to fulfill him in space and time.

Nicolás Gómez Dávila
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Dhammanando
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Re: Nibbana

Post by Dhammanando »

Hi Boris,

Welcome to Dhamma Wheel.
boris wrote:I cannot find your arahat, Bhante :( .
I'm not in fact the owner of any arahants. But suppose I were, why would you want to find him?
So please show me this arahat who is subject to death.
As far as I know they're all subject to death and the Buddha had no qualms about speaking of them as such.
  • "If, Aggivessana, a king's elephant dies in old age, well tamed, well trained, the king's old elephant that has died is reckoned as one that has died tamed. And so, Aggivessana of a king's elephant that is middle-aged. And too, Aggivessana, if a king's elephant dies young, well tamed, well trained, the king's young elephant that has died is reckoned as one that has died tamed. Even so, Aggivessana, if a monk who is an elder dies with the cankers destroyed, the monk who is an elder that has died is reckoned as one that has died tamed. And so, Aggivessana, of a monk of middle standing. And too, Aggivessana, if a newly ordained monk dies with cankers destroyed, the newly ordained monk that has died is reckoned as one that has died tamed."
    Dantabhumi Sutta, Horner trans.
Best wishes,
Dhammanando
Rūpehi bhikkhave arūpā santatarā.
Arūpehi nirodho santataro ti.


“Bhikkhus, the formless is more peaceful than the form realms.
Cessation is more peaceful than the formless realms.”
(Santatarasutta, Iti 73)
Boris
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Re: Nibbana

Post by Boris »

I'm not in fact the owner of any arahants. But suppose I were, why would you want to find him?
Bhante, in order to be I have to identify my self with something and ideas I was born, I will die are possible only when there is identification with a body. So you are owner of your imaginary arahat whom you put to death - first accusing him of being born. Jim Morrison did not remember such an event as being born. Neither I do. But Jim Morrison explained that it happened during one of his black out. I think this is a mistake :smile: It has never happened.
Birth and death are members of dependent arising and as such are structurally dependent on ignorance and can be present only as long ignorance is present.

So you have your quotations, Bhante, I have my quotations that about Tathagata which is not to be found even now and here.

The Buddha asked me to see the body : this is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self. I just have no choice, I have to reject such ideas as "I was born" and "I will die".
The man who wants to avoid grotesque collapses should not look for anything to fulfill him in space and time.

Nicolás Gómez Dávila
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