How does Classical Theravada address the problem of nibbana conditioning?

General Theravada topics
21

Suicide is an aversion to present life suffering.

Suicide is not necessarily an aversion.
Here, the meaning I attribute to the word “suicide” is just “action of killing oneself voluntarily”. By “oneself” I don’t mean the idea of Self, but just the fact that a living being takes its own life.

Yes, ultimately the only alternative to samsara is not to be in samsara, not to be reborn. It’s the final death. To be in samsara is to suffer. To not be in samsara is to be free from suffering.

i see, thank you

22

That could be a misunderstanding.

I think the Dhamma doesn’t make us do unusual actions. Really Dhamma is about understanding life as it is: and gradually we see there are 6 worlds.
Today I took my children down to the Ganghes river in Varanasi and we discussed what was real. On the way there were many noises, horns tooting, people speaking very loudly. And these sounds are unpleasant and conditioned by past akusala kamma. There were many different sights and smells and then always thinking immediately after. Some were pleasant, some unpleasant, some hard to tell…
By learning the differences between the different doors it helps to slowly break down the clinging to self view.
When we can see that thinking is just a conditioned dhamma there is less tendency to get disappointed or excited by what is only ephemeral. There can be a seeing through the conceptual situations to get at the actual moments. It helps with acceptance of anything.

So with this understanding why would there be a desire to suicide. It should be the opposite I think: one wants to take the opportunity to learn more about these 6 doors that are arising right now.

2 Likes
23

When there are the conditions for a grass fire the concept “grass fire” is used. When those conditions cease that concept no longer applies. All that applies then is “extinguished”. Where has the fire gone? The question doesn’t make sense. The commentaries say that final nibbana is beyond concepts, so any attempt to pin it down as this or that can’t succeed. When a Buddha or Arahant is alive those concepts apply. When those conditions cease, only “extinguished” applies. Anything else would be conceptual proliferation be it eternal somethingness (usually consciousness is argued for) or eternal nothingness.

3 Likes
24

Thank you very much

1 Like
25

Interesting.

I’ll try to rephrase your point in my own words, tell me if I’m wrong:

« Conceptually, we have the right to say that with parinibbana, the aggregates of the arahant are definitively destroyed, extinguished. But we don’t have the conceptual right to say that the life of the arahant is definitively destroyed, nor do we have the conceptual right to say that the life of the arahant continues: this question is beyond concepts. »

26

Here is the sutta:

https://suttacentral.net/mn26/en/bodhi?lang=en&reference=none&highlight=false
Pāsarāsisutta—Bhikkhu Bodhi

  • Majjhima Nikāya

26. The Noble Search

The Search for Enlightenment

“Bhikkhus, before my enlightenment, while I was still only an unenlightened Bodhisatta, I too, being myself subject to birth, sought what was also subject to birth; being myself subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, I sought what was also subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement. Then I considered thus: ‘Why, being myself subject to birth, do I seek what is also subject to birth? Why, being myself subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, do I seek what is also subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement? Suppose that, being myself subject to birth, having understood the danger in what is subject to birth, I seek the unborn supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna. Suppose that, being myself subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, having understood the danger in what is subject to ageing, sickness, death, sorrow, and defilement, I seek the unageing, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, and undefiled supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna.’.’

1 Like