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Nature of Nirvana
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The direct route is just the Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path, without clinging to conceptions that lend themselves to views of self or eternalism. Admitting that the aggregates are not-self but then turning Nirvana into a self is unhelpful in removing this clinging from the mind. It just displaces the view of self rather than eradicating that view.
Or the very suchness of the dependently arisen phenomena.
This too cannot be established as self, me, mine, or I. It cannot be established at all.
It is beyond all designation of existence, non-existence, both, or neither.
Atman is an incorrect view. Establishing any sort of source or self is an incorrect view.
Why? Because it is all ungraspable, unfindable, unestablished.
Atman is usually posited as a one mind or consciousness behind or beyond the five skandhas.
The Atman is unestablished. Thus how can it be self or source?
Maybe I am profoundly misinterpreting what you're getting at. Please clarify.
Where we do posit Rigpa or the natural state. But such natural state isn't established either. It too is empty of inherent existence.
But if you're using self as a conventional label that refers to no "thing" other than its own assertion of a "thing" apart from the skandhas then thats fine.
But to assert buddha nature as Atman is incorrect. And most of Buddhism fails on that accord. Buddha nature is the dynamic interdependent reality. It is emptiness in function.
rather to say its straight up an illusion.
trust me there is a difference hahahhaa.
As long as one doesn't make the mirror apart from the appearances then that is non dual presence/awareness.
It reminds me a talk I recently heard.
Usually consciousness is a consciousness of "something".
But in this sense its better to say it is just consciousness. or rather consciousness that establishes nothing.
We complicate things, looking for something special instead of looking to see how things really are and transcending our attachments. It's unfortunate that we're still in the grip of self-view as worldlings, and this can distort the true teachings in so many ways and leave us fighting against ourselves. We'll see things in a way that caters to the false self, to the craving for continued existence, and obstructs our own progress on the path.
A real enlightened teacher can be the best thing to help us overcome these obstructions, one that we'd trust to tell us when we're off-track and to guide us back to the path. Teachers tell us to meditate to see things as they are: impermanent, not-self, unsatisfactory. They don't tell us to look for Nirvana, because they know Nirvana is the result of fully penetrating the characteristics of our worldly existence. It's not complicated, we just don't want to look at (or deal with) "this"... we think we can skip to enlightenment. We so crazy.
:thumbsup:
Now, imagine a water tap, there is a stream of water coming out of it. I close the tap. Did I annihilate anything similar to what the magician did?
I didn't, because nothing just disappeared. I only stopped a process of water flowing. This is cessation. This is so because a stream is not a solid thing. It's a process, a changing phenomena.
Nibbana similarly is not annihilation because there is no self. There is nothing that is a self, only in our mind there is something we call a self. Now, the mind is the real magician because it can make you see things that aren't here. If we look deeper, we see that just like the stream is not really a solid thing, we are not really a we.
Metta!
Saber
Now you don't feel like watching anymore, so you switch off the TV. Is the program now annihilated?.. It's a strange thing to say, isn't it? But this is just as strange as saying nibbana is annihilation. You can't annihilate anything by turning off a TV.
Now this confusion is easy to make and hard to see through. People with similar wrong ideas were already there at the time of the Buddha. But those who say that nibbana is annihilation or extinction make the same mistake as was made in that time.
The Four Noble Truths in a nutshell, of sorts.
The effect is that rather than suffering continuing... there's a space of peace that opens up in its place. This helps everyone, regardless of whether we're practicing for ourselves or others. In the end there's no separation whatsoever between self and other, so our distinctions about the Buddhist "vehicles" are not so important as we might think!
These are the tough teachings, here above. But the Buddha was not afraid to pass them on, so I'm not afraid to share them too.
Metta to ya!
The issue of consciousness would be more having to do with the causal link between lives because consciousness is a defining characteristic of "life", and so its re-arising would be an indication of that causal link.
To clarify:
I was talking about when a Buddha (or enlightened in general) dies, the will to be reborn is not there. For others, there is will to create further consciousness.
But when enlightened ones are still alive, of course there is still consciousness, but that's the remainders. So I think we agree as far as I understand.
But one thing, "Consciousness without feature" is a Brahman thing messed up in the suttas, I think. Consciousness always has a feature. But that's another matter. If you wish to discuss it further, feel free to, but I guess that was not your main point so I will not go into it.
As for the consciousness without feature, I think that's used in Buddhism too, and is meaning non-discriminative awareness (that's not identified with or attached to the aggregates, is not creating a "self" and "other" duality etc.). I could be wrong!
After all, the suttas contain errors, so we have to be careful not to take one line and take it totally out of context. Especially not when it is such a vague and debatable description as "consciousness without feature".
Also, there is the very apparent contradiction in this verse: Doesn't make sense.. unless of course, when you ascribe the last line to the Buddha and the rest to the Brahma as I suggested.
This is my opnion. I think it makes sense, but I'm not a pali scholar. For a more detailed analysis, would you be interested:
http://sujato.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/vinnaṇa-is-not-nibbana-really-it-just-isn’t/
http://sujato.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/nibbana-is-still-not-vinnaṇa/
Metta!
(BTW that first "without end" may not mean end in regards to continued existence, but more like "without limit".)
So no thanks, I'll stick to what the Buddha actually taught.
Do what works in your own life and practice. Nothing else matters.
Either you suffer or you don't. End of story folks.
it is profound teaching but given all answers to the above questions
in short, if there is no greed, no hate, no delusion in the mind that is Nirvana
well, one needs to know Exactly what is greed, what is hate, what is delusion and what is mind
Know does not mean that one has read about those things, one has heard about those things, one think one knows about those things
one has to have a concentrated mind and use one's faculties (sadda, viriya, sati, samadhi, panna) and one's six sense bases to nvestigate what one hear, read about those things (dhamma)
what follows is for beginners, not for expert practisionrs
to get a concentrated mind we have to do Concentration meditation (samatha bavana) and
to investigate to Know we have to do Insight meditation (vipassana bavana)
for ex: seeing a person have no shelter in cold winter would make you think that how nice if he would have a blanket (metta)
you give a blanket to him to cover him up ( karuna)
you see that he coverd him up and stay warm (you have joy that he also stays as warm as you (mudita - joy)
still i can not give a good example for upekka
if you are mindful and stay with your gained knowledge of non self (sati sampajanna) you see that you yourself is a perception, and the person outside also a perception
so you help with compassion, but you maintain equianimity in your mind regardless the other person accept or reject your help
thank you again driedleaf
I think the word I would use is freedom.
When the fabrication of the self "me" is seen as nothing more than the mind object it is, in each of it's manifestations. Then grasping and aversion no longer have any purpose and are abandoned. End of suffering.
Whatever arises is meet with acceptance. Whatever ceases is meet with detachment. There is nothing to chase or to run from because everything is simply the way it is. Exactly the way it is.
When the illusion of separation (a separate "me") is removed, compassion and wisdom are what remains.
Compassion for everyone and everything, as they, like my true self, are all just a part of the whole. Interdependently originated. Impermanent. Empty.
Wisdom and awareness to see this in everything in each present moment. Peace of mind, joy, blissfulness result.
As I have not yet realized this total freedom, Nirvana, and continue to stand in my own way part of the time, more practice is called for.
Best Wishes
A verb that can not be seperated from any noun but too elusive to take on a noun?
I believe the delusion can go both ways... Believing in a seperate self and its polar extreme as well... That of believing there is no thing to seperate.
It's in the middle in my honest opinion.
There are just the "appearances" (conventional realities) of things, which in our delusion we take to be something other than they are. If we fully penetrated the nature of conditioned phenomena we'd let go of our clinging/grasping, seeing nothing but suffering in that activity. That's what "form is emptiness" and "emptiness is form" means... you're not to look for some thing to apply emptiness to, but to understand that emptiness is describing what form really is... not-self, transient. Emptiness applies to everything in your experience without exception. Perhaps the idea of "emptiness" is too much a draw on the imagination; just throw it out and look to everything you experience to see that it's all fleeting and selfless.
Maybe I should come at this from a different approach... If all is not-self how could we possibly have a true nature at all?
I agree that all things and beings are empty of a seperate and/or permanent self but the process of dependant origination or causation is something that has always been or else at one point there would have been no potential for anything. It is always in a state of change but it is nonetheless.
So if there is no true seperation, we must be a part of said process. No true birth and no true death.
There's only this "suchness" or "thusness" that is constantly transforming, like a fog that gives way as you move through it. Attaching to it, thinking it's you or yours, is suffering. Buddha-Nature really is Causality itself, the nature of change, but some people react poorly to that because they're grasping for something else. When we continue grasping this results in rebirth of suffering (which is itself descriptive of a process, not a thing).
Reality isn't anything so difficult as we imagine, it's expressing itself all the time... we just aren't satisfied with what's right in front of us. We complicate it.
As long as you think Buddha-Nature or Nirvana is something real you can grasp, or as you put it "a permanent state of experienced bliss", this is really no different from the Hindu belief in becoming one with Brahman. It's not what the Buddha taught, and holding to that view does not lead to liberation. It's still self-view, clinging or grasping to the idea of a self (whether or not you consider it part of the aggregates), and eternalism.
That doesn't mean that the term can't have any value at all as a teaching tool. But we should state very clearly what we think it is or else it gets very easy to misunderstand. Also, more generally, using vague terms and talking in 'riddles', to me is an indicator of not really understanding what one is talking about. If one did know what was the truth, they would say it clearly and to the point, as I think the Buddha did.
Metta to ya!
Sabre
We're not satisfied with the Four Noble Truths, and so not satisfied with the Buddha. We'll look to others who explain it differently, who make it out to be something more like an eternal heaven we're aiming toward, and forget the Buddha's real message. That's really what most people want... and so we don't understand, or purposely misunderstand, what the Buddha taught. We all want peace, to be happy, but we'll turn away from peace out of ignorance. That's profoundly sad, isn't it?
It's all impermanent, all uncertain, all "not sure" as Ajahn Chah would say. The true teachers are going to point us in this direction, toward seeing the insubstantial nature of conditioned phenomena, until we ourselves awaken to the truth and let go. After that we know what we have to do, there's no question about what the teachings mean or how to unbind fully.