Nibbana

[Element]

Yam kinci vedayitam, tam pi dukkhasmim.

Whatever sensations one experiences, all are suffering.

What, bhikkhus, is the Nibbana-element with residue left? Here a bhikkhu is an arahant, one whose taints are destroyed, the holy life fulfilled, who has done what had to be done, laid down the burden, attained the goal, destroyed the fetters of being, completely released through final knowledge. However, his five sense faculties remain unimpaired, by which he still experiences what is agreeable and disagreeable and feels pleasure and pain. It is the extinction of attachment, hate, and delusion in him that is called the Nibbana-element with residue left.

Nibbana element

[tiltbillings]

Kowtaaia,

Repeating a ***** request, does not magically alter the fact that it was a ***** request to begin with.

In response to "It (the unconditioned) is when conditioning comes to an end."

...you asked: "What sort of conditioning...?"

...the response was: "Conditioning, period."

To repeat, your request for citation, doesn't make sense

*****? Not really. The Buddha was very specific as to what sort of conditioning he was referring to, and I am simply wondering what you might be meaning by "Conditioning, period," which really does not tell us anything, yet. And I am wondering how what you are claiming of the Buddha’s teaching is actually congruent with the Buddha’s teaching. So, asking for a citation is hardly *****. It is simply part of the give and take of dialogue, which is the purpose of the this forum.

[Element]

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."

Dhammanando

Understanding language, conventional & ultimate, is essential. Maybe you could possibly kindly post some quotes about language for the forum?

"'He has been stilled where the currents of construing do not flow. And when the currents of construing do not flow, he is said to be a sage at peace.' Thus was it said. With reference to what was it said? 'I am' is a construing. 'I am this' is a construing. 'I shall be' is a construing. 'I shall not be'... 'I shall be possessed of form'... 'I shall not be possessed of form'... 'I shall be percipient'... 'I shall not be percipient'... 'I shall be neither percipient nor non-percipient' is a construing. Construing is a disease, construing is a cancer, construing is an arrow. By going beyond all construing, he is said to be a sage at peace.

"Furthermore, 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 construing do not flow. And when the currents of construing do not flow, he is said to be a sage at peace.'

Dhatu-vibhanga Sutta

[Cittasanto]

I was reading the Sabba sutta yesterday and in the footnotes it had something interesting with regard to this topic so here is all the footnote

1. The Commentary's treatment of this discourse is very peculiar. To begin with, it delineates three other "All's" in addition to the one defined here, one of them supposedly larger in scope than the one defined here: the Allness of the Buddha's omniscience (literally, All-knowingness). This, despite the fact that the discourse says that the description of such an all lies beyond the range of explanation.

Secondly, the Commentary includes nibbana (unbinding) within the scope of the All described here — as a dhamma, or object of the intellect — even though there are many other discourses in the Canon specifically stating that nibbana lies beyond the range of the six senses and their objects. Sn 5.6, for instance, indicates that a person who has attained nibbana has gone beyond all phenomena (sabbe dhamma), and therefore cannot be described. MN 49 discusses a "consciousness without feature" (viññanam anidassanam) that does not partake of the "Allness of the All." Furthermore, the following discourse (SN 35.24) says that the "All" is to be abandoned. At no point does the Canon say that nibbana is to be abandoned. Nibbana follows on cessation (nirodha), which is to be realized. Once nibbana is realized, there are no further tasks to be done.

Thus it seems more this discourse's discussion of "All" is meant to limit the use of the word "all" throughout the Buddha's teachings to the six sense spheres and their objects. As the following discourse shows, this would also include the consciousness, contact, and feelings connected with the sense spheres and their objects. Nibbana would lie outside of the word, "all." This would fit in with another point made several times in the Canon: that dispassion is the highest of all dhammas (Iti 90), while the arahant has gone beyond even dispassion (Sn 4.6; Sn 4.10).

This raises the question, if the word "all" does not include nibbana, does that mean that one may infer from the statement, "all phenomena are not-self" that nibbana is self? The answer is no. As AN 4.174 states, to even ask if there is anything remaining or not remaining (or both, or neither) after the cessation of the six sense spheres is to differentiate what is by nature undifferentiated (or to complicate the uncomplicated — see the Introduction to MN 18). The range of differentiation goes only as far as the "All." Perceptions of self or not-self, which would count as differentiation, would not apply beyond the "All." When the cessation of the "All" is experienced, all differentiation is allayed.

[Element]

Well, that's a novel claim. But nothing in the rest of your post supports it.

Dhammanando

I trust MN 37 & 38 support it and many more suttas:

On seeing a form with the eye, he is not passionate for it if it is pleasing; he is not angry at it if it is displeasing. He lives with attention to body established, with an immeasurable mind and he understands realistically the deliverance of mind and deliverance by wisdom wherein those evil unwholesome states cease without remainder. Having abandoned favouring and opposing, whatever feeling he feels - whether pleasant or painful or neither-pleasant-nor-painful - he does not delight in that feeling, welcome it, or remain holding to it. As he does not do so, delight in feelings ceases in him. From the cessation of his delight comes cessation of clinging; from the cessation of clinging, the cessation of becoming; from the cessation of becoming, the cessation of birth; from the cessation of birth, ageing-&-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair cease. Thus is the cessation of this entire mass of suffering.

Mahàtanhàsankhaya Sutta

But the passage you cite doesn't show that "dukkha-dukkhatā is dukkha for puthujjanas."

Dhammanando

My post is merely word play, a play with words.

Are you saying the Lord Buddha was not free from dukkha even though his mind experienced dukkha vedana (painful feelings)?

Are you saying the Buddha did not quench the entire mass of suffering?

Are you saying the world requires a Sammasambuddha to advise it dukkha vedana is dukkha?

• 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)

For me, the above quote is irrelevent. Indeed, Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī was getting sicker and sicker, more pained and more pained. However, I trust her mind was liberated from psychological dukkha.

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.

All things are indeed dukkha. A motor car is an example. For one with wisdom, a motor car is dukkha because it is impermanent and subject to breaking down and decay. This dukkha is the car is unsatisfactory, it is imperfect. It cannot be relied on. These qualities are dukkha.

Thus the more a wise person realises the dukkha of a motor car, the more their mind is liberated from suffering. The motor car is dukkha but the mind of the wise being is not dukkha.

However, for a putajana, the dukkha motor car is dukkha. The putujana becomes aggreived when the car falls apart and spends their time craving for a better car that will never fall apart.

For the putujana, the characteristic of dukkha manifests as dukkha. Whereas for the wise person, the characteristic of dukkha manifests as freedom from dukkha.

The verb 'nibbindati' (the source of the noun 'nibbidā') means "to turn away" in the sense of becoming disgusted or disillusioned with something.

Yes. When dukkha is fully comprehended the mind becomes free from dukkha due to 'nibbindati'.

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.

A rock or block of cement is a saṅkhāras. It is subject to dukkha but does not experience dukkha because a block of cement has no mind. Thus a block of cement does not experience "oppression". Only a mind can experience oppression.

Hence the saying: "Whatsoever is felt, all that is included in dukkha."

Clearly, the many suttas contradict this, as I have quoted. Whatever the intention if these words, the translation appears misinterpreted. The Lord Buddha felt experiences but was free from all dukkha.

Only upadana dukkha is real dukkha.

Indeed. Only upadana is real dukkha. Buddha said this in the First Noble Truth, when he said: "In brief, attachment to the five aggregates is dukkha".

The words "in brief" or "in essence" means the subject is addressed in its fullness and completion in merely a few words.

But for those readers who take saṃsāra seriously, here's how nirodha is understood in the classical Theravāda:

This is a Modern Theravada forum.

• 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.

The word Nirodha means the quenching or extinguishing of the fires of greed, hatred and delusion. Buddha has explained nirodha in the Third Noble Truth and elsewhere. It is the cessation of craving.

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.

A Sammasambuddha is not required to reveal to the world that birth, old age, disease, death, pain, grief, separation, etc, are dukkha. Most ordinary people understand these things. The First Noble Truth is a gradual teaching. The Buddha listed conventional or putujana dukkha then the dukkha of ultimate truth. In ultimate truth, only attachment is dukkha. Birth, old age, disease, death, pain & separation are what ordinary people mistaken for dukkha.

Best wishes,
Element

[teacup_bo]

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]

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.

[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.

[Element]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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.

[retrofuturist]

[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.

[Element]

There is a reason the Buddha asked only those who had genuine realisation to teach.

The suttas are genuine realisation.

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.

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