the great Nibbana = annihilation, eternal, or something else thread

[aflatun]

If you can't pinpoint anything at all , how could anything being said arises or as being solid substance or being empty .

That's the million dollar question

(Nagarjuna)
“The Transcendent Conqueror has taught
That all deceptive phenomena are false.
All conditioned phenomena are deceptive,
And, therefore, they are false. [XIII.1]

If a phenomenon that is deceptive is also false,
Then what is it that deceives?
With this, the Transcendent Conqueror
Has fully revealed emptiness. [XIII.2]


(Opponent)
Things are devoid of essence
Because they are perceived to change.
There are no entities without essence
Because entities possess emptiness. [XIII.3]


(Nagarjuna)
If there is no essence,
To what does change pertain?
If there were essences,
How could there be change? [XIII.4]

Change is not in that itself,
Nor is it in something else,
Because the young do not age,
And because the aged do not age. [XIII.5]

If that itself changes,
Then milk itself is yogurt.
What, other than milk,
Would turn into yogurt? [XIII.6]

If there were a bit of something that is not empty,
There could be a bit of something that is empty.
As there is not a bit that is not empty,
How could there be anything that is empty? [XIII.7]

The Victorious Ones have taught emptiness
As a deliverance from all views.
“For those whose view is emptiness, they teach,
Nothing can be accomplished. [XIII.8]”

Mabja Jangchub Tsondru. “Ornament of Reason: The Great Commentary to Nagarjuna's Root of the Middle Way.”

[aflatun]

Perhaps neither the classical Theravadins nor the suttanta Theravadins can be generalized to a specific view on nibbana. There is a wide range of views in all of them. I was familiar with Buddhaghosa not accepting the nihilist view, but I had thought most classical Theravadins today were of the atheist-death view for parinibbana (with rebirth up to that point).

With respect to the suttanta camp I would agree, its a wide playing field. But regarding the former I'm not so sure. I guess it depends on how we define classical! If we mean commentarial tradition up to and including Burmese Vipassana, then I'm not aware of any significant departure from Buddhaghosa's general understanding, but I'm happy to be corrected on this if anyone has historical sources that imply otherwise.

For me this view is sharply distinct from those of specifically "Buddhist nihilism" (because despite all aggregates ending Nibbana is an unconditioned ultimate reality) and suttanta style "Buddhist eternalism" (because all aggregates end which rules out sentience). But I would still classify it as a form of "Buddhist Eternalism"...

The only thing I'm aware of that smacks of "absolute death, nothing else" aside from a few modern monks is the Sautrantikas, and I don't know their literature well enough to confirm this. I wouldn't be surprised to find more sublety there, similar to Bhante Sujato.

And so as a hypothesis-which is subject to revision!-my current understanding is that aside from the (maybe) Sautrantikas, this is an entirely modern phenomenon. Of course that doesn't make it wrong by default. But personally I have come to regard it as an aberration and an innovation.

Buddhism, especially Theravada does seem to have an appeal to nihilists. Perhaps it is because nibbana gets mistaken as annihilation.

I believe you have nailed it, good sir

Just to add another piece of data in support of my hypothesis above, it appears Lance Cousins held a similar opinion regarding the uniqueness of the Sautrantika position, i.e. Nibbana without residue is non existence, a non implicative negation, the unconditioned is merely the absence of the conditioned, etc.

It seems clear that although lists of unconditioned dharmas varied among the schools to some extent, they were all agreed that there were unconditioned dharmas were not the mere absence of the conditioned. Only the sautrantikas and allied groups disputed this last point. It seems clear that their position is a later development based upon a fresh look at the Sutra literature among groups which did not accord the status of authentic word of the Buddha to the abidharma literature.

...

To summarize the kind of evolution suggested here: We may say that the main force of the nikayas is to discount speculation about nibbana. It is the summum bonum. To seek to know more is to manufacture obstacles. Beyond this only a few passages go. No certain account of the ontological status of nibbana can be derived from the nikayas. It cannot even be shown with certainty that a single view was held. By the time of the early abidhamma the situation is much clearer. The whole Buddhist tradition is agreed that nibbana is the unconditioned dhamma, neither temporal nor spatial, neither mind (in its usual form) nor matter, but certainly not the absence or mere cessation of other dhammas. The uniformity is certainly a strong argument for projecting this position into the nikayas and even for suggesting that it represents the true underlying position of the suttas.

Nibbāna and Abhidhamma

[cappuccino]

By seeking the other shore, you won't fall off the edge
of the earth…

[Lucas Oliveira]

The Fish and the Turtle (Is Nibbana Nothingness?)

Once upon a time there was a fish. And just because it was a fish, it had lived all its life in the water and knew nothing whatever about anything else but water. And one day as it swam about in the lake where all its days had been spent, it happened to meet a turtle of its acquaintance who had just come back from a little excursion on the land.

"Good day, Mr. Turtle!" said the fish. "I have not seen you for a long time. Where have you been?"

"Oh", said the turtle, "I have just been for a trip on dry land."

"On dry land!" exclaimed the fish. "What do you mean by on dry land? There is no dry land. I had never seen such a thing. Dry land is nothing."

The-sea-turtle.jpg
"Well," said the turtle good-naturedly. "If you want to think so, of course you may; there is no one who can hinder you. But that's where I've been, all the same."

"Oh, come," said the fish. "Try to talk sense. Just tell me now what is this land of yours like? Is it all wet?"

"No, it is not wet," said the turtle.

"Is it nice and fresh and cool?" asked the fish.

"No, it is not nice and fresh and cool," the turtle replied.

"Is it clear so that light can come through it?"

"No, it is not clear. Light cannot come through it."

"Is it soft and yielding, so that I can move my fins about in it and push my nose through it?"

"No, it is not soft and yielding. You could not swim in it."

"Does it move or flow in streams?"

"No, it neither moves nor flows in streams."

"Does it ever rise up into waves then, with white foams in them?" asked the fish, impatient at this string of Noes.

"No!" replied the turtle, truthfully. "It never rises up into waves that I have seen."

"There now," exclaimed the fish triumphantly. "Didn't I tell you that this land of yours was just nothing? I have just asked, and you have answered me that it is neither wet nor cool, not clear nor soft and that it does not flow in streams nor rise up into waves. And if it isn't a single one of these things what else is it but nothing? Don't tell me."

"Well, well", said the turtle, "If you are determined to think that dry land is nothing, I suppose you must just go on thinking so. But any one who knows what is water and what is land would say you were just a silly fish, for you think that anything you have never known is nothing just because you have never known it."

And with that the turtle turned away and, leaving the fish behind in its little pond of water, set out on another excursion over the dry land that was nothing.

Source: "The Buddha and His Teachings" by Maha Thera Narada.

http://www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.co ... ngness%3F)

[dylanj]

http://seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-conte ... NMS_LE.pdf

Bhikkhu Ñāṇananda points out the absurdity of this argument on page 419-421

[Caodemarte]

The Fish and the Turtle (Is Nibbana Nothingness?)....

Great story!

[boundless]

Perhaps neither the classical Theravadins nor the suttanta Theravadins can be generalized to a specific view on nibbana. There is a wide range of views in all of them. I was familiar with Buddhaghosa not accepting the nihilist view, but I had thought most classical Theravadins today were of the atheist-death view for parinibbana (with rebirth up to that point).

With respect to the suttanta camp I would agree, its a wide playing field. But regarding the former I'm not so sure. I guess it depends on how we define classical! If we mean commentarial tradition up to and including Burmese Vipassana, then I'm not aware of any significant departure from Buddhaghosa's general understanding, but I'm happy to be corrected on this if anyone has historical sources that imply otherwise.

For me this view is sharply distinct from those of specifically "Buddhist nihilism" (because despite all aggregates ending Nibbana is an unconditioned ultimate reality) and suttanta style "Buddhist eternalism" (because all aggregates end which rules out sentience). But I would still classify it as a form of "Buddhist Eternalism"...

The only thing I'm aware of that smacks of "absolute death, nothing else" aside from a few modern monks is the Sautrantikas, and I don't know their literature well enough to confirm this. I wouldn't be surprised to find more sublety there, similar to Bhante Sujato.

And so as a hypothesis-which is subject to revision!-my current understanding is that aside from the (maybe) Sautrantikas, this is an entirely modern phenomenon. Of course that doesn't make it wrong by default. But personally I have come to regard it as an aberration and an innovation.

Buddhism, especially Theravada does seem to have an appeal to nihilists. Perhaps it is because nibbana gets mistaken as annihilation.

I believe you have nailed it, good sir

Just to add another piece of data in support of my hypothesis above, it appears Lance Cousins held a similar opinion regarding the uniqueness of the Sautrantika position, i.e. Nibbana without residue is non existence, a non implicative negation, the unconditioned is merely the absence of the conditioned, etc.

It seems clear that although lists of unconditioned dharmas varied among the schools to some extent, they were all agreed that there were unconditioned dharmas were not the mere absence of the conditioned. Only the sautrantikas and allied groups disputed this last point. It seems clear that their position is a later development based upon a fresh look at the Sutra literature among groups which did not accord the status of authentic word of the Buddha to the abidharma literature.

...

To summarize the kind of evolution suggested here: We may say that the main force of the nikayas is to discount speculation about nibbana. It is the summum bonum. To seek to know more is to manufacture obstacles. Beyond this only a few passages go. No certain account of the ontological status of nibbana can be derived from the nikayas. It cannot even be shown with certainty that a single view was held. By the time of the early abidhamma the situation is much clearer. The whole Buddhist tradition is agreed that nibbana is the unconditioned dhamma, neither temporal nor spatial, neither mind (in its usual form) nor matter, but certainly not the absence or mere cessation of other dhammas. The uniformity is certainly a strong argument for projecting this position into the nikayas and even for suggesting that it represents the true underlying position of the suttas.

Nibbāna and Abhidhamma

Hi,

to give further evidence for your hypothesis I found this section of the "Kathavatthu" (Abhidhamma) https://suttacentral.net/en/kv1.6:

Theravādin: If you assert that the material-aggregate retains its materiality, you must admit that the material-aggregate is permanent, persistent, eternal, not subject to change. You know that the opposite is true; hence it should not be said that materiality is retained.

Nibbāna does not abandon its state as Nibbāna—by this we mean Nibbāna is permanent, persistent, eternal, not subject to change. And you ought to mean this, too, in the case of material-aggregate, if you say that the latter does not abandon its materiality.

It seems that the view of the "permanent Nibbana" was well estabilished when (at least this part of) the Abhidhamma was written.

Of course there were many schools and hence many views and many opinions. Personally I think that the "non-existence" view is mistaken since it seems too reductionistic!

Regarding Nagarjuna personally I have a very hard time to understand him.

However I have a veryhard time to understand a lot of things but also it is true that:

[The Blessed One]: "This Dhamma that I have attained is deep, hard to see, hard to realize, peaceful, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise..." //www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn06

[Dhammarakkhito]

read dīghanikāya 1 https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .bodh.html

[aflatun]

Hi,

to give further evidence for your hypothesis I found this section of the "Kathavatthu" (Abhidhamma) https://suttacentral.net/en/kv1.6:

Theravādin: If you assert that the material-aggregate retains its materiality, you must admit that the material-aggregate is permanent, persistent, eternal, not subject to change. You know that the opposite is true; hence it should not be said that materiality is retained.

Nibbāna does not abandon its state as Nibbāna—by this we mean Nibbāna is permanent, persistent, eternal, not subject to change. And you ought to mean this, too, in the case of material-aggregate, if you say that the latter does not abandon its materiality.

It seems that the view of the "permanent Nibbana" was well estabilished when (at least this part of) the Abhidhamma was written.

Of course there were many schools and hence many views and many opinions. Personally I think that the "non-existence" view is mistaken since it seems too reductionistic!

Regarding Nagarjuna personally I have a very hard time to understand him.

However I have a veryhard time to understand a lot of things but also it is true that:

[The Blessed One]: "This Dhamma that I have attained is deep, hard to see, hard to realize, peaceful, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise..." //www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn06

Welcome boundless, and thank you for sharing the great find!

[DCM]

Here is an excerpt from a discussion between B. Bodhi and A. Wallace, titled ‘What Happens to an Arahant at Death?’.
http://www.sbinstitute.com/sites/defaul ... evised.pdf

Bodhi is here commenting on ‘Some modern interpreters—including a number of prominent Western bhikkhus’.
BB: This isn’t my position, but their position. They would say that annihilationism is the doctrine that there is a substantial self that perishes at death, but with “right view” one sees that it is only the procession of self-less aggregates that ceases and beyond this there is nothing. For them, nibbāna is total extinction. It seems to me that on this position, what happens to the arahant at the time of death is exactly what happens to every living being at the time of death from the perspective of philosophical materialism. The only difference would be that the Buddhist posits rebirth for those who are non-arahants while the materialist posits “final nibbāna” for everyone.

This is something that has been bothering me for a while. If Nibbana is the cessation of everything, then what’s the result of the spiritual quest? Existence?

I’m insterested to hear from people who hold this view in bold, and unless your an Ariya and have experienced Nibbana, are you taking what’s said in the Nikayas on faith alone?

A philosophical materialist would say there is no difference between what happens at an Arahants death and what happens to every other living being at death. Annihilism.

Hopefully this won’t turn into ‘Bodhi is now Mahayana’, etc and I am not interested in that.

[Lucas Oliveira]

The Fish and the Turtle (Is Nibbana Nothingness?)

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=31162

[User1249x]

and unless your an Ariya and have experienced Nibbana, are you taking what’s said in the Nikayas on faith alone?

Imho, You should be careful because i imagine a lot of people will adhere to doctrines of Nibbana in the here and now or similar and will claim Ariyahood on that ground along with Complete Annihilation of the system for Parinibbana.

[cappuccino]

This is something that has been bothering me for a while. If Nibbana is the cessation of everything, then what’s the aim of the spiritual quest? Nothingness?

Nothingness is a jhana, a realm of existence, not Nirvana.

Annihilation is nothing, not Nirvana.

[User1249x]

At
the same time, unless my memory misleads me, there is a statement in the Pāli canon in which
the Buddha states that without nibbāna there would be no saṃsāra. Can you identify that
statement for me? Some might interpret that as implying that nibbāna does indeed have a
cosmological function, though it does not give rise to a creator God.

BB: I don’t recall any such statement in the Pali Canon, and it would be inconsistent with
everything else that is said there.

i can recall one

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html
"'All phenomena are rooted in desire.[1]

"'All phenomena come into play through attention.

"'All phenomena have contact as their origination.

"'All phenomena have feeling as their meeting place.

"'All phenomena have concentration as their presiding state.

"'All phenomena have mindfulness as their governing principle.

"'All phenomena have discernment as their surpassing state.

"'All phenomena have release as their heartwood.

"'All phenomena gain their footing in the deathless.

It is very awesome what the Tathagata did there but it is hard to understand for people not trained in general semantics.

[cappuccino]

BAW: there is a statement in the Pāli canon in which the Buddha states that without nibbāna there would be no saṃsāra.

BB: I don’t recall any such statement in the Pali Canon, and it would be inconsistent with everything else that is said there. Perhaps you are thinking of the well known passage in the Udāna §73, which says that “if there were no unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, no release from what is born, come to be, made, and conditioned would be discerned here, but because there is an unborn (etc.) a release from what is born (etc.) is discerned here”