Greetings Tilt,
tiltbillings wrote:1. Avijiā-paccayā sankhārā: "Through ignorance are conditioned the sankhāras," i.e. the rebirth-producing volitions (cetanā), or 'karma-formations' .
2. Sankhāra-paccayā viññānam: "Through the karma-formations (in the past life) is conditioned consciousness (in the present life)."
3. Viññāna-paccayā nāma-rūpam: "Through consciousness are conditioned the mental and physical phenomena (nāma-rūpa)," i.e. that which makes up our so-called individual existence.
4. Nāma-rūpa-paccayā salāyatanam: "Through the mental and physical phenomena are conditioned the 6 bases," i.e. the 5 physical sense-organs, and consciousness as the sixth.
5. Salāyatana-paccayā phasso: "Through the six bases is conditioned the (sensorial mental) impression."
6. Phassa-paccayā vedanā: "Through the impression is conditioned feeling."
7. Vedanā-paccayā tanhā: "Through feeling is conditioned craving."
8. Tanhā-paccayā upādānam: "Through craving is conditioned clinging."
Hmmm... well, if I'm to take that as a direct answer to my question about what ceases for the arahant, you're saying that past-life karma formations cease (what about those of this life?). No, it seems you've just copied some text here (not even in cessation mode) rather than contemplate the question put forward.
tiltbillings wrote:Does consciousness cease, literally with the cessation of ignorance in the living arahant?
Conditioned consciousness does - beyond that, it's not for me to say.
sankhara:
(1) bodily function, i.e. in-and-out-breathing (e.g. M.10),
(2) verbal function, i.e. thought-conception and discursive thinking,
(3) mental-function, i.e. feeling and perception (e.g. M.44).
Do these things literally cease, no longer to function in the living arahant?
Is it possible to reframe your question using a term other than "function", that pertains directly to experience? In the meantime, I'll answer as best as I can...
Yes, kāyasankhāro, vacīsankhāro and cittasankhāro all cease for the arahant...
but that is not to say that what you seem to mean by them as physiological "functions" ceases. On matters of physiology I do not wish to speculate because physiology (not being loka) is not dependent upon avijja.
(I have no doubt that will seem unnecessarily oblique, but it is what it is... "realism" as defined earlier included "objectively existing world... not dependent on our minds", and to me, "physiological functions" falls into that category, hence why I asked if you could reframe your question).
tiltbillings wrote:These things cease, I would say, in terms of being defining characteristics for the consciousness/awareness. As consciousness arises it no longer measures itself in those terms, being free of the limitations of having to define itself in terms of grasping after (greed), pushing away (hatred), and misapphrehension of things as they are in terms of self (delusion).
Agreed.
tiltbillings wrote:While the old kamma and conditioning plays itself out
Disagree, but already done to death. I believe our point of difference lies in different understandings of the English word "conditioning" and the Pali word "sankhara" as they pertain to experience.
tiltbillings wrote:there is no further kamma put together, there is no further impetus grasping after the next moment or the next life, impelling one forward.
"When I pushed forward, I was whirled about. When I stayed in place, I sank. And so I crossed over the flood without pushing forward, without staying in place." SN 1.1
Agreed.
Metta,
Retro.
"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."