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Cessation
PrairieGhost
Veteran
Hi, I'm the Prairie Ghost, and I guess this is just a sigh on the wind.
Ok, I've been thinking about Parinibbana lately, as I can sense my mind letting go of things and entering the way, whether I like it or not really, and I feel my doubts eroding in any case.
I had always had a somewhat Mahayana understanding, believing in further adventures after enlightenment, giving my being over to working for the good of beings, dwelling in emptiness forever and so on. However, I stuck to the Pali Scriptures a great deal, because I also felt that Buddha was right in that speculation about nibbana and parinibbana isn't helpful. I thought he really made no statements about a Buddha after death, and therefore did not deny the Mahayana.
But now I find myself reading a lot of Buddhist exegesis which firmly, and in no uncertain terms interprets the death of a Buddha as oblivion, the end of consciousness, which was never special anyway. Nibbana not being a reality or element, but just a convenient word for leaving life, which was worthless.
And I can understand this point of view. I am coming to the point where it will not matter to me, but in the moments while it still does, I am struck by the awful, incredible, all encompassing sadness of this, indeed of life in this light, should this interpretation be true. I cannot call such salvation a lion's roar at all, it is more like a sigh dissolving on the wind. It was all for nothing, and we must leave as soon as we can.
Is it the only valid interpretation? That we are those who, in avoiding hell, must also forsake heaven? In ending greed and emnity, we must also end generosity and friendship?
Whatever scripture says, whatever people say, my heart seems to know something more. Though I see in this moment that it is not a heart at all, it is fleeting past... impermanence is something beautiful though, that does not deny experience but enriches it, it is like a sculptor finding the grain of the wood. But does that grain, if followed, lead only into darkness?
Ok, I've been thinking about Parinibbana lately, as I can sense my mind letting go of things and entering the way, whether I like it or not really, and I feel my doubts eroding in any case.
I had always had a somewhat Mahayana understanding, believing in further adventures after enlightenment, giving my being over to working for the good of beings, dwelling in emptiness forever and so on. However, I stuck to the Pali Scriptures a great deal, because I also felt that Buddha was right in that speculation about nibbana and parinibbana isn't helpful. I thought he really made no statements about a Buddha after death, and therefore did not deny the Mahayana.
But now I find myself reading a lot of Buddhist exegesis which firmly, and in no uncertain terms interprets the death of a Buddha as oblivion, the end of consciousness, which was never special anyway. Nibbana not being a reality or element, but just a convenient word for leaving life, which was worthless.
And I can understand this point of view. I am coming to the point where it will not matter to me, but in the moments while it still does, I am struck by the awful, incredible, all encompassing sadness of this, indeed of life in this light, should this interpretation be true. I cannot call such salvation a lion's roar at all, it is more like a sigh dissolving on the wind. It was all for nothing, and we must leave as soon as we can.
Is it the only valid interpretation? That we are those who, in avoiding hell, must also forsake heaven? In ending greed and emnity, we must also end generosity and friendship?
Whatever scripture says, whatever people say, my heart seems to know something more. Though I see in this moment that it is not a heart at all, it is fleeting past... impermanence is something beautiful though, that does not deny experience but enriches it, it is like a sculptor finding the grain of the wood. But does that grain, if followed, lead only into darkness?
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Comments
Pretty sure the Buddha says somewhere in both scriptures that after parinirvana a buddha neither exists, nor doesn't exist, both exists and doesn't exist and neither exists and doesn't exist. In effect what that means is any view about a buddha's existence after parinirvana is a mistaken one. So your suffering about this arises based on a mistaken view.
However, I do notice that when I am happy, I do not want to sleep.
-Thich Nhat Hanh from "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching
In the eleventh century in Vietnam, a monk asked his meditation master, 'Where is the place beyond birth and death?' The master replied, 'In the midst of birth and death.' If you abandon birth and death in order to find nirvana, you will not find nirvana. Nirvana is in birth and death. Nirvana is birth and death. It depends on how you look at it. From one point of view, it is birth and death. From another, it is nirvana."
-Thich Nhat Hanh from "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching
But I am looking now at Buddha's Pali teachings, and I am not sure if they support the, admittedly beautiful, Zen view.
Notice how your whole experience is coming and going.
Appearing and disappearing without an agent controlling.
Notice how the self and agent is asserted after the experience.
This body/mind is vividly appearing. as an image, points of sensations, etc all linked by mind. Where is it all happening? Where is it appearing? Who is it appearing to? When is it appearing? Notice that when, where, and who do not apply to experience other than the assumption from the thinking mind.
At what point does the experience cease and at what point does it continue?
Person, I guess I am saying, I understand, I get it, the idea that consciousness is dependent on craving, and that it will simply cease when craving ends. I will not tear at the sky as I dream of falling.
It's just that, well, the idea I had formed for the goal of Buddhism seemed quite wonderful to me, and I had not really questioned it, but after meditating for a few years I have finally been brave enough not to skim over the Pali writings on cessation, to take them at face value. And they do seem, in one reading at least, unutterably sad.
dualistic nirvana is really sad.
too bad its incomplete. we are all in this together. infinitely over and over and over and over and over and over again.
the only way one escapes suffering is to end the causes/conditions for suffering.
if one where to end the causes and conditions for suffering then what is left? cessation.
cessation of what? suffering.
so how does Mahayana deconstruct nirvana without remainder?
It seems to me as if every other Dharmic system, e.g. Vedanta, Mahayana, posits an eternal conscious abiding. The Buddha seems, I only say seems, because there are a lot of different views, a veritable thicket, to be the only teacher who teaches that consciousness cannot be eternally happy, is impermanent, and can therefore be ended, leaving no residue.
dualistic nirvana is really sad.
taiyaki, I don't understand you here.
This isn't something one takes lightly. I have been clinging to this for days, but the clinging is dissolving gradually.
see, all of us are filled with this nonsense...including me.
somebody says something and we got the "knowledge" and from that knowledge the "experience" comes. Continuation of thoughts...there is nothing authentic - all fake and fabricated...
Our consciousness, awareness, feelings and all mental qualities including our idea of self is only a thought carried out/in by energy. It is just a thought.
You have an idea that you are alive and an idea that you will die. This knowledge is given to you by others. Based on their saying you built up all the phenomena...Knowledge transffered from one to another under a spell like a black magic...
If we never given this knowledge at the first place, we wouldn't be even experiencing anything at all..
Now you have the knowledge, now you are looking something more - the ultimate happiness of enlightenment...And you will find something...but enlightenment is just another thought.
Some people are deluded and looking for that space between thoughts...that space itself is a thought of silence...because your very existence is thought, you cannot go beyond it. Thats where you stuck...
I have taken a big journey into my psyche, I have seen so many incredible things and now I come to a conclusion that there is nothing there other than "knowing" manifesting itself as thoughts...That "knowing" is a deluded idea...How could you possibly know anything...?
If you carefuly look at this moment - which is very simple to see - the fact that some people promised enlightenment is the basis of your search but you are only searching somebody's dream. And from that belief - as a form of thought - there comes all other mental fabrications and suffering.
If only you can realize that you don't exist other than thought, then you will keep your unknowing mind at all times (no meditation or yoga or any other nonsense)...But you don't want to accept this idea. So you search...you search and you fabricate a reality which is neouratic, which is psyche driven...and you got uncomfortable and ask this question.
You are the question - you are not asking the question - you are the question. And this question wants to survive by jumping to and becoming an answer which will become another question later on...and this will continue forever...
is there an end to thoughts...I don't know...if there is, I will not be there to see, then that will be the cessation...
but when you can keep an unknowing mind, you are already free...there is nothing wrong in this moment...no search for enlightenment...no neuratic psyche...
My original view of Buddhism is that this is the best of possible worlds. That ignorance is necessary for realising nibbana, everyone gets to nibbana, that nibbana is uncaused and unconditioned, without limits. That it's what's meant to be, an ultimate affirmation, the lifestream finding the grain, the tao, and running with it instead of struggling to carve a path against it. Me saying yes, not my will but thine... without needing to cling to a view of what my or thine point to.
But some Theravadans tend to say the above is meditational delusion, and that the Buddha's radicalism was in his pointing to complete cessation as the only true end of suffering. And I want to go with the former view, because it's wonderful, but I will not fight against the cessation of wonders.
I think I stated this at the beginning of the thread. I know I'm just whinging, but this is a Buddhist forum and is the place for it.
But it wasn't Buddha who offered me eternal life, I've never believed in oblivion. I always thought, since all we know is awareness, that it was just a mental construct, and thus should not be considered the default position but should require proof. So it was Buddha who took it away lol. And it is sad, (as stories go, if you need me to show that I know I am speaking relatively.) The idea that we live and die for so many lifetimes, loving and fighting and suffering and laughing and dying, and that the purpose is to end that, and then blow away on the breeze.
Exactly. And the practice is for ending the process, not just ending thought clinging to the next thought, but doing the same with consciousness, so that when the energy of this lifetime is used up, we do not leap for a new moment of life, we just fizzle out like a candle. As I say, if this is the end of suffering, well, I understand it, that even heaven is suffering, nibbana is pleasurable because nothing is felt, there is no actual pleasure in this world, only degrees of relief from suffering, ok, ok, I get it Buddha, and thanks. But it deserves a tear or two, not a lion's roar.
Understanding this the bodhisattva has maha compassion. Such confidence is the lions roar. Shed your tears and dance with joy.
taiyaki
I do want to believe you. I can't see life as an error, I don't believe unconsciousness is better than joy. But I have a lot of faith in Gautama Buddha, and a lot of faith that the Pali Canon is fairly close to what he actually said. Ultimately, I will find out, or not, as the case maybe.
My mind doesn't find it easy to commit to erasing conscious existence, that's the problem, and thus the Theravadan views are difficult to embrace, or rather, to practice through. It's difficult enough just allowing the mind to see it isn't a self, without having it thinking it's going through all this work just to be obliterated in the void.
Yes, good point.
Thats pretty much it.
But what if he taught that the process isn't infinite, it's dependently originated and thus must be ended to end suffering?
And there are Theravadans who delight in this... do you see how it's a bigger, more bitter pill to swallow than the Mahayana view?
None of these labels describe reality.
Reality is just what it is.
Cessation is not to be sad about. It's beautiful. But one needs insight to accept it. The reasons people don't agree with it are their attachment and wrong perceptions.
There is suffering in life, there is happiness in life. But even the happiest of all happinesses will not be permanent, for everything is impermanent. And therefore even the sublime happiness is still suffering, or unsatisfying (in my eyes often a better translation of dukkha). The Buddha saw this and stated "Sabbe sankhara dukkha", or "all formations are suffering". And so nirvana is no eternal heaven with bliss forever. Indeed, it's cessation. Nirvana means 'to go out', literally. It's often compared to a flame that goes out. The flame doesn't go anywhere; it's cessated.
First greed, hate and delusion cessate, then the body and mind can totally stop after death.
It can be frightening and unbelievable almost, but this is what the Buddha taught: The ending of suffering. Isn't it amazing? What a wonderful teaching.
With loving kindness,
Sabre
Sabre, Isn't it amazing? What a wonderful teaching.
When people say this, I always hear it through clenched teeth.
Sorry, I don't mean to offend. But why did the Buddha not explain this clearly? Because I didn't understand this when I started practicing, then I got into the stream, now it's too late to change my mind. I meditate automatically now.
Sabre, but we lose the happiness too. We lose the smooth with the rough. We throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Ok, I love dancing, and dancing isn't perfect, but it's better than sleeping forever. It's something, not nothing.
I find it difficult to believe that this version of the Dharma is correct. How sure are you?
Maybe the clenched teeth are what you are projecting onto people. But also, it is not easy to accept, I agree. It needs some insight and calm to be able to embrace it.
Nirvana is called the highest happiness by the Buddha.
You say that you throw the baby out with the bathwater because you think your happiness is somehow yours. But there is the importance of the non-self teaching. Your happiness is not yours. Therefore it's possible to let it go.
It's not sleeping forever. If you say that, than you may think that 'nothing' is actually still something.
How sure I am does not matter here. Sure enough, at least.
With metta,
Sabre
Mind isn't just individual but rather mind includes everything and everyone. This is the non dualistic vision of buddhism.
But I also can sense your calm, and I wonder if it's right, just because you feel cam about it? Should we really be rejecting life?
So, if you don't mind me asking, did you find it hard to accept? And, given that it's not what most people want, what led you into wanting to cease living?
And what do you think about the Mahayana opinions expressed on the thread, which seem more nuanced.
it's much less bitter for me because I want to help others. I don't want to just dissolve as if life was a mistake and there is no resolution of it that includes life.
He looked down from on high, He beheld but five heaps, and He saw that in their own-being they were empty.
Here, O Sariputra,
form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form ;
emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form,
the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness.
Here, O Sariputra,
all dharmas are marked with emptiness ;
they are not produced or stopped, not defiled or immaculate, not deficient or complete.
Therefore, O Sariputra,
in emptiness there is no form nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness ;
No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind ; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind ; No sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to :
No mind-consciousness element ; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to : There is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path.
There is no cognition, no attainment and no non-attainment.
Therefore, O Sariputra,
it is because of his non-attainmentness that a Bodhisattva, through having relied on the Perfection of Wisdom, dwells without thought-coverings. In the absence of thought-coverings he has not been made to tremble,
he has overcome what can upset, and in the end he attains to Nirvana.
All those who appear as Buddhas in the three periods of time fully awake to the utmost, right and perfect Enlightenment because they have relied on the Perfection of Wisdom.
Therefore one should know the prajnaparamita as the great spell, the spell of great knowledge, the utmost spell, the unequalled spell, allayer of all suffering, in truth -- for what could go wrong ? By the prajnaparamita has this spell been delivered. It runs like this :
gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.
( Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, all-hail ! -- )
This completes the Heart of perfect Wisdom.
(Translated by E. Conze)