Ñāṇa wrote: Moreover, even when the nine meditative attainments are given, such as the the sequence from AN 9.47 to AN 9.51, the cessation of perception & feeling isn't equated with nibbāna.
Could you please prvide a link for this suttas? I cant find them in access to insight.
Also how can you comment this definition of the Buddha in Brahma-nimantanika Sutta and the following commentary:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .html#fn-9
"'Consciousness without surface, endless, radiant all around,
has not been experienced through the earthness of earth ... the liquidity of liquid ... the fieriness of fire ... the windiness of wind ... the allness of the all.
Consciousness without surface (viññanam anidassanam): This term appears to be related to the following image from SN 12.64:
"Just as if there were a roofed house or a roofed hall having windows on the north, the south, or the east. When the sun rises, and a ray has entered by way of the window, where does it land?"
"On the western wall, lord."
"And if there is no western wall, where does it land?"
"On the ground, lord."
"And if there is no ground, where does it land?"
"On the water, lord."
"And if there is no water, where does it land?"
"It does not land, lord."
"In the same way, where there is no passion for the nutriment of physical food ... contact ... intellectual intention ... consciousness, where there is no delight, no craving, then consciousness does not land there or grow. Where consciousness does not land or grow, name-&-form does not alight. Where name-&-form does not alight, there is no growth of fabrications. Where there is no growth of fabrications, there is no production of renewed becoming in the future. Where there is no production of renewed becoming in the future, there is no future birth, aging, & death. That, I tell you, has no sorrow, affliction, or despair."
In other words, normal sensory consciousness is experienced because it has a "surface" against which it lands: the sense organs and their objects, which constitute the "all." For instance, we experience visual consciousness because of the eye and forms of which we are conscious. Consciousness without surface, however, is directly known, without intermediary, free from any dependence on conditions at all.
This consciousness thus differs from the consciousness factor in dependent co-arising, which is defined in terms of the six sense media. Lying outside of time and space, it would also not come under the consciousness-aggregate, which covers all consciousness near and far; past, present, and future. And, as SN 35.23 notes, the word "all" in the Buddha's teaching covers only the six sense media, which is another reason for not including this consciousness under the aggregates. However, the fact that it is outside of time and space — in a dimension where there is no here, there, or in between (Ud I.10), no coming, no going, or staying (Ud VIII.1) — means that it cannot be described as permanent or omnipresent, terms that have meaning only within space and time.
Some have objected to the equation of this consciousness with nibbana, on the grounds that nibbana is no where else in the Canon described as a form of consciousness. Thus they have proposed that consciousness without surface be regarded as an arahant's consciousness of nibbana in meditative experience, and not nibbana itself. This argument, however, contains two flaws: (1) The term viññanam anidassanam also occurs in DN 11, where it is described as where name & form are brought to an end: surely a synonym for nibbana. (2) If nibbana is an object of mental consciousness (as a dhamma), it would come under the all, as an object of the intellect. There are passages in the Canon (such as AN 9.36) that describe meditators experiencing nibbana as a dhamma, but these passages seem to indicate that this description applies up through the level of non-returning. Other passages, however, describe nibbana as the ending of all dhammas. For instance, Sn V.6 quotes the Buddha as calling the attainment of the goal the transcending of all dhammas. Sn IV.6 and Sn IV.10 state that the arahant has transcended dispassion, said to be the highest dhamma. Thus, for the arahant, nibbana is not an object of consciousness. Instead it is directly known without mediation. Because consciousness without feature is directly known without mediation, there seems good reason to equate the two.
Also if after parinibbana abolutly nothing remains that would otherwise go beyond time, space, existence, the conditioned and so on why wouldnt it be called annihilation? Why the realisation of nibbana is not equated with annihilation of what we percieve as self.
And how such suttas can be explaned in this connection:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... ml#iti-043
The born, become, produced, made, fabricated, impermanent, composed of aging & death, a nest of illnesses, perishing, come from nourishment and the guide [that is craving] — is unfit for delight. The escape from that is calm, permanent, beyond inference, unborn, unproduced, the sorrowless, stainless state, the cessation of stressful qualities, the stilling of fabrications, bliss.
How can annihilation itself be percieved as calm, permanent, bliss..
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... #fnt-1-113
Now let us consider the last moments of an arahant. As an arahant has no fear whatsoever from any source (akutobhaya), he would not be agitated (na paritassati) as he has no craving for life. He will watch the process of death with perfect equanimity and crystal-clear mindfulness. Further, the Mahaaparinibbaana Sutta, which explains the final moments of the Buddha, states that the Buddha passed away immediately after rising from the fourth jhaana. The fourth jhaana is characterized by purity of equanimity and mindfulness. It is not known whether all arahants attain parinibbaana after the fourth jhaana, but certainly they cannot have a deluded death. As they do not grasp another birth the state they attain after final passing away has to be described as unborn (ajaata) . Similarly it is uncaused (asa"nkhata). As it is no ordinary death it is called the deathless state. It is beyond elemental existence, beyond brahmalokas, neither in this world nor the next, beyond the radiance of the sun and moon. It is beyond what we know of in the three worlds of kaama, ruupa, and aruupa . Therefore, as it is beyond the ken of ordinary human understanding, any attempt to define the state is bound to end in failure. The course of liberated ones cannot be traced like that of birds in the air.
Also why in so many places nibbana is describes as a state, or sphere, or dimension(beyond time, space and the conditioned nama/rupa).
If it's mere annihilation then it wouldnt be called a state beyond all that, it wouldnt be a state at all.
"The course of liberated ones cannot be traced like that of birds in the air." Here is the same, if a noble one is just annihilated after parinibbana and nothing of 'him' go beyond time/space then there wouldnt be any course for him.
Also the metaphor is "like birds in the air", now birds may not leave any trace during a flight but not leaving a trace doesnt mean you perish completely.
Also that metaphor of the fire that extinguish it's fuel from the article of Thanissaro bhikkhu.
According to the ancient Brahmans, when a fire was extinguished it went into a state of latency. Rather than ceasing to exist, it became dormant and in that state — unbound from any particular fuel — it became diffused throughout the cosmos. When the Buddha used the image to explain nibbana to the Indian Brahmans of his day, he bypassed the question of whether an extinguished fire continues to exist or not, and focused instead on the impossibility of defining a fire that doesn't burn: thus his statement that the person who has gone totally "out" can't be described.
If this is really correct then, since the comparison of extinguished fire and nibbana is very popular among modern world, it could be one of the causes that we believe that nibbana is annihilation and in reality with this metaphore the Buddha could have ment something very different then annihilation.
Can anyone comment if such view about the fire really existed among ancient brahmans?