Metaphors for Nibbana in the Pali Suttas
In many parts of these essays I have emphasized the importance of thinking of Buddhist teachings from a concrete, first-person point of view. If the study of Buddhism leaves me with no idea of what it would mean to experience the world as an ideal Buddhist experiences it, or to live my life in the state of nibbana , or having made substantial progress toward this goal, then I would say I have not fully understood the teachings of the suttas .
The present chapter deals with some metaphors for nibbana /Enlightenment offered in the suttas which are very helpful in this respect.
A Prenote on the five khandhas.
Many passages in this essay utilize a five-item schema called “the five khanhdas”. Khandha means “group,” and the use of these five items in the suttas shows that these represent five logical “groups,” five general categories under which can be grouped many phenomena. For example the first khandha rupa or “body” is a general category including all material objects, including the human body. The second khanda vedana “feelings” is a general category including all possible feelings a person can have. Similar things can be said about the remaining three khandhas, sanna “perceptions,” sankhara “conditions,” and vinnana “mind.” To emphasize this point in what follows I will often speak of khandha-phenomena, individual phenomena belonging to one or more of the khandha-categories.
I think no special significance should be attributed to the specific items on this list. This is just one more universalizing device, like the list of four kinds of objects of mindfulness, and the list of six senses. In this case, the five khandhas, taken collectively, represent all possible objects of Clinging or Attachment (they are frequently called panc-upadana-kkhanda, the five Clinging groups.) The practical point constantly made is that the everything belonging to any of these five groups–every possible object of Clinging–is Impermanent, therefore potentially dukkha-causing for anyone who Clings to anything belonging to any of these five groups. I think this is all one needs to know about the five khandhas to grasp the practical point of passages utilizing these five categories. Thus when it comes to practical functioning, the five khandhas function the same way that the list of six sense-regions function (treated in Nibbana as “Escape from the Mind”). Both are simply universalizing devices that include all possible objects-of-perception, which represent also all possible Impermanent and potentially dukkha-causing objects of Craving and Attachment.
All this means that I disagree with later Buddhists, followed by most modern commentors, who regard the five khandhas as an exhaustive list of all components of the makeup of the being of human beings. For convenience, I will call this “the khandhas-only doctrine.” This is intrinsically connected to a metaphysical understanding of the no-self teaching: A doctrine denying the existence of a continuously existing human subject. The assertion that no human “subject” exists, means that human perceptions exist, but no one–no human perceiving subject–perceives these perceptions. Human feelings exist, but no one feels those feelings. Human thoughts exist, but no one thinks those thoughts, and so on. The denial that any continuously existing human subject exists means that that I am not the same being that I remember being yesterday or ten years ago. A previous essay Nibbana as “Escape from the Mind” has already presented some reasons why I think certain aspects of early Buddhist teaching necessarily take for granted the existence of such a continuously existing human subject. In the present essay I will try to show that many passages commented on here, also assume the existence of a human subject, who has the choice to Cling to, or not Cling to Impermanent phenomena included in one or more of the khanda-categories. Many of these passages make no sense without this assumption.
The Burden Sutta.
I begin my detailed commentary with one passage which sutta passage which describes Craving directed at some khandha-phenomena as “taking up a burden.” The cessation of such Craving can then be pictured as “laying down a burden.” But then the passage explicitly asks: What is it that can at one time “take up the burden” and later achieve nibbana by “laying down the burden” represented by the khandhas ?
I will teach you the burden, the carrier of the burden, the taking up of the burden, and the laying down of the burden.
And what….[is] the burden ( katamo ca… bhāro )? It should be said: the five Clinging khandhas ( panc-upadana-khandha )….
And what… [is] the carrier of the burden ( katamo ca bhāra-hāro )? It should be said: the person ( puggalo ), this venerable one of such a name and clan. This is called the carrier of the burden.
And what… is the taking up of the burden? It is this craving ( tanha )… This is called the taking up of the burden.
And what is the laying down of the burden? It is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving ( tanha ), the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, non-reliance on it. This is called “the laying down of the burden.”
The five khandhas are truly burdens,
The burden-carrier is the person ( puggalo ).
Taking up the burden is suffering ( dukkha ) in the world,
Laying the burden down is blissful ( sukha ).
Having laid the heavy burden down
Without taking up another burden,
Having drawn out craving ( tanha ) with its root,
One is without longing ( na-icchato ), having reached nibbana ( parinibbuto ).
Later in Buddhist tradition, this passage played some part in debates between Theravada Buddhists and another now-extinct group called Puggalavadins, because the latter group appealed to the use of the term puggala here in support of their use of this term to refer to an continuously existing human subject, whose existence was denied by Theravadins, but which figures in some Puggalavadin explanations of Buddhist teaching. I would not place great emphasis on the single term puggala used in this passage. It seems that, in ordinary Pali, puggala can just function as a general word for “person” as a whole, with no particular theoretical-ontological overtones.
On the other hand, suppose we assume as many do today that the khandhas represent an exhaustive list including everything that a person might perceive about her own being and potentially Crave and Cling to. Then what this passage says is incompatible with the view that the khandhas also represent an exhaustive list of everything really real in the being of human beings (the khandhas-only doctrine). That is, if we try to clarify what is implied in this passage, it would be immediately evident that it cannot be intending to say that a collection of Impermanent khandha -phenomena at one point “takes up the burden” of this same collection of Impermanent khandha -phenomena, and at a later point lays down the burden of this collection of Impermanent khandha-phenomena.
So, by explicitly asking “what” ( katamo ) it is that Craves some khandha-phenomena and takes up the burden of the khandhas , this passage brings this underlying assumption much more closely to the surface. It takes very little reflection to see that this passage is incompatible with the khandhas -only doctrine, assuming as it does the existence of something in a person able to relate to khandha -phenomena in two different ways.
A different issue is worth raising here. This concerns the whole idea that someone would and should regard the entire world out there as a burden. Why would any sensible person regard this entire world as a burden? What would it be like to live in the world feeling this entire world as a burden?
I think that the answer to the first question lies in the perspectival character of the entire Buddhist worldview. An ideal Buddhist is someone who has had some taste of a state of great contentment (sukha ) achieved through liberation from any Craving for connections to the world. This is a person who is wholeheartedly and single-mindedly devoted to achieving this state.
Craving is what it is that gives the world its allure, making it appear as a promising site of personal fulfillment. An aspiring Buddhist is someone who has caught a glimpse of what it would be like to experience a blissful state of non-dependence on anything in the ever-changing world-perceived. It is from this perspective that the ordinarily alluring world would appear instead as a “burden.”
But the passage also invites the realization that this is not a problem inherent in the nature of the world. It is I myself who through Craving have taken up this burden, making the world a burden for me. This then is also what makes it possible for me to lay down this burden. In this case I would still live in the same world I have always lived in, made up of Impermanent phenomena. But I would no longer be a burden-carrier, and the world would no longer be a burden to me.
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Rune Johansson on citta as the site of the change which is nibbana .
I would not lean heavily on the use of the word puggala in the previous passage as proof that the suttas sometimes do give a name to what it is in a human being, different from the khandhas , that might Cling or not-Cling to some khandha phenomena. But I now want to bring up an argument made by Rune Johansson, (in The Dynamic Psychology of Early Buddhism) who also criticizes the khandhas-only doctrine, now by pointing to some suttas which do give a name to what it is that might reach nibbana by ceasing to Cling to anything belonging to the khandhas . Relevant passages he cites use citta, sometimes vīn̄nana, two common Pali words roughly translatable as “mind,” to refer to what changes from Clinging to not-Clinging when nibbana is achieved.
Johansson first says:
In modern books about Buddhist philosophy we are generally told that human personality consists of the khandhā … this is not quite true, since the most important is citta , generally translated “mind.” Citta is the core of personality, the center of purposiveness, activity, continuity, and emotionality. It is not a soul ( atta ) but it is the empirical , functional self…
[ Citta’s ] original state is characterized by the defilements… the emotional imperfections and defilements… The whole gamut of Buddhist methods therefore aims at purifying the citta. If this purification is complete, nibbana is achieved… nibbana is achieved through a transformation of citta . (p. 23-24)
Later in his book (p. 104) Johansson repeats the explanation of the nature of citta given above (“the core of personality” etc.), and says of “the transformation of the citta”:
This is one of the event-definitions of nibbana… Citta attains nibbana .
When Johansson says that citta is “the center of purposiveness, activity… and emotionality,” this seems to reflect a concept of citta close to what I am calling a “human subject,” who it is that engages in purposeful activity, and who feels emotions. Likewise his mention of “continuity” reflects a concept of citta as an enduring human subject.
Johansson calls this enduring center of purposiveness and emotionality an “empirical” self. Peter Harvey also thinks that the suttas do not deny the existence of what he calls an “empirical self,” which he contrasts with what he calls a “metaphysical” self. Johansson may well have in mind something like this same idea when he contrasts assumptions about a “functional, empirical self” with belief in a “soul” or “atta.” An “empirical” self is the “experiential” self, a self whose existence is implicitly taken for granted in the way all normal people experience the world and experience their own existence in the world. By contrast, belief in a “soul” or “ atta ” (Hindu atman ) is a metaphysical or religious belief going beyond anything implied in everyone’s ordinary experience.
I do think, also however, that it is important not to understand “empirical” here to mean that the “empirical self” is something a person might on specific occasions directly (“empirically”) perceive, one more possible “object perceived” among many perceptual objects that a person might perceive. It is important not to object-ify the human subject, to make this subject into one more object. I think this is indeed probably one of the reasons why the suttas in general tend to avoid directly giving a name to this subject. Naming this subject and talking directly about it, risks “object-fying” it, speaking of it as one more entity among many other entities in the world. I realize that this is indeed a problem facing my attempt in these essays, striving for a high degree of analytical clarity in the account I give of early Buddhist teaching. I think this does indeed require talking explicitly about the human subject, which runs the risk of object-ifying this subject. I try to cope with this problem by repeatedly inserting comments to the effect that the “human subject” I am talking about here is not an entity, and by nature never appears as one more object-perceived.
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Citta as what achieves nibbana.
This said, I’d like now to comment further on one specific passage that Johansson brings up to illustrate what he says about citta in the quotes above. This is a passage from the Anicca Sutta (kloc, 16343, 3.22.52.45) . This sutta picks up what another sutta says about a noble disciple “becoming dispassionate” ( virajjati ) toward all khandha -phenomena. This is where it brings in the term citta , picturing citta as what “becomes dispassionate” and by dispassion is “liberated from the taints’ by ceasing to Cling.
When one sees thus as it really is with correct wisdom, then citta , having become dispassionate ( virajjati ), is liberated from the taints by non-clinging ( vimuccati an-upādāya āsavehi ).
Next, the taints ( asavas ) are identified as the five khandhas .
A monk’s mind ( citta ), having become dispassionate toward ( virattam ) the rupa -element [the vedanā element, the sān̄na element, the sankhara element, the vīn̄nana element], is liberated from the taints by non-clinging (vimuttam hoti an-upādāya āsavehi ).
Liberated [it is] steadfast ( vimuttattā thitam )
Steadfast, [it is] peaceful ( thitattā santusitam )
Made-peaceful, it is not agitated ( santusitattā na paritassati );
Not agitated, [it] itself [i.e. citta] attains nibbana ( a-paritassam paccattān̄neva parinibbāyati ). (Johansson p. 23-24; kloc, 16343, 3.22.52.45 Anicca Sutta )
Like the English word “mind,” citta in ordinary Pali discourse is not a very precise term. But the present context suggests: If the khandhas represent all perceivable aspects of a person’s being, then the citta which achieves nibbana when it is “released from need” for khandha -phenomena, cannot itself be one more khanda -phenomena, one more perceivable aspect of a person’s being. One could put this point by speaking in first person terms: If I am an aspiring Buddhist, my goal should not be to experience this steady and peaceful citta , but to become a steady and peaceful citta . Put in more analytical language: I-as-perceiving-subject should strive to cease Clinging to any particular conditions in the world of perceptual objects, and in this way become independent of any particular conditions.
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Two meanings of vīn̄nana .
I would like now to go on to comment on some other sutta passages which use not citta but vīn̄nana , another word for “mind,” as what it is that changes when nibbana is achieved.
The term vīn̄nana most often occurs in the suttas as the fifth item on the list of five khandhas , where it is often translated “consciousness.” I think this is not a very suitable English term to refer to something Impermanent a person might Cling to. So when vīn̄nana occurs as the fifth khandha , I advocate translating it instead as “state(s) of mind” or “consciousness-moment(s),” referring to transitory mental states that a person might beome attached to.
But the term vīn̄nana also occurs in a few sutta passages where the context indicates that vīn̄nana is not being used as an Impermanent object-of-Clinging. These passages appear to be using the term vīn̄nana instead as the name of what it is that Clings – as I would put it, a conscious human subject which might Cling, or not Cling, to particular perceptual objects.
One such passage relevant here pictures the unenlightened state as a state in which vīn̄nana “becomes dependent on and Clings to” upekkha “equanimity.” Upekkha “equanimity” figures often elsewhere as a particular state of mind that Buddhist meditators experience in the first stages of jhanha-meditation, but which must be “abandoned and surpassed” to reach higher stages.
The relevant part of this passage reads as follows:
[a monk] attains equanimity” ( upekkha ) and delights in it, welcomes it, remains holding to it. As he does so, his viññana is supported ( nissitam ) by it and clings to it ( tad-upādānam ). A bikkhu with clinging ( sa-upādāna ) does not attain nibbana . MN 15610, [265], cited by Johansson p. 71)
Here vīn̄nana is explicitly pictured as what it is in an unenlightened person which Clings. What vīn̄nana in this passage Clings to and is “supported” by is a particular state of mind called upekkha , “equanimity.” Clinging to equanimity is obviously here an obstacle to nibbana . (The term nissita “supported” figures also in one passage quoted above, and also in another commented on below.
The first four khandhas as “the four stations of vīn̄nana .”
Two other passages are worthy of note here because some parts of these passages also picture vīn̄nana , not as a fifth class of Impermanent objects -of-Clinging, but again as the name of what-Clings, something on the “subject” side of this Clinging relationship. Objects of Clinging are represented in these passages by what are usually listed as the first four khandha-categories only ( rupa, vedanā, sān̄na, sankhara ).
The first of these passages I want to cite uses a metaphor based on the contrast between a “home-dwelling” villager, and a homeless Buddhist bikkhu who has left home to “go about homeless.” This metaphor is greatly extended so as to apply, not to physical homelessness, but to a case in which viññana, “ shackled by lust” for something included under the first four khandha-categories, can be metaphorically pictured as a vīn̄nana “having a home,” consisting in these first four khandhas .
[in the unenlightened person] the rupa [“body”]-element is the home of viññana (rupa-dhātu vīn̄nanassa oko) … the vedana -element is the home of viññana… the sañña -element is the home of viññana … the sankhara -element is the home of viññana ( vīn̄nanassa oko )…
One whose viññana is shackled by lust for the rupa-element ( rupa-dhātu-rāga-vinibandhañca) … the vedana -element… the sañña -element… the sankhara -element, is called one who “goes about in a home” ( okasāri ). [probably oko-asari ]
A second part of this passage then uses the same metaphor of home-dwelling vs. homelessness to describe the state of Enlightenment as a “homeless” state. This is the state of an individual who, having abandoned lust for any khandha-phenomena, now “has no home” in the world of perceptual objects. But this later part of the passage reverts to standard practice of listing vīn̄nana as the fifth khandha .
And how…. does one “roam about homeless”? The desire ( chando ), lust (rago ), delight ( nandi ), and craving ( tanhā ), the engagement and clinging (upaya-upādānā )… and underlying tendencies regarding the rupa -element (rupa-dhatu )… the vedana -element… the sañña -element… the sankhara -element… the viññana- element: these have been abandoned by the Tathagata, cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, obliterated so that they are no more subject to future arising… Therefore the Tathagata is called “[one who] roams about homeless” ( an-okasāri ). (SN 22.1.3; IV [9], 3(3) Haliddakani, Kindle 15856)
One can see that listing vīn̄nana as the fifth khandha in this last part could possibly make for confusion, if the passage had to say that “vīn̄nana has abandoned Craving for the vīn̄nana-element.” This confusion is avoided by saying Craving for rupa, vedanā, sān̄na, sankhara, vīn̄nana have been abandoned, not by vīn̄nana , but “by the Tathagata” (an Enlightened Buddha). We just have to realize what is said here is incompatible with the view that the entire being of the Tathagata consists only and entirely of Impermanent khandha-phenomena.
Vinnana has no “settling place.”
The passage above describes the unenlightened state as one in which vīn̄nana “has a home” in something belonging to the first four khandhas . The next passage I want to cite (SN 16469 sn 22.54) uses a similar metaphor, picturing the unenlightened state as a state in which vīn̄nana has found a “place to settle” in something belonging to the first four khandhas . Here the metaphor is followed up also at the end of the passage, which describes the Enlightened state as one in which “vīn̄nana has no settling-place.”
This passage begins with a different metaphor, that of seeds which are dependent on earth and water for their growth.
If there is no earth and water: …. seeds would not come to growth, increase, and expansion.
This plant imagery is then explained as a metaphor for the unenlightened state. In this metaphor, vīn̄nana is pictured as a plant-seed. In its unenlightened state, vīn̄nana is “planted” in “earth” consisting in the four khandhas . “Delight and lust” for the four khandhas is then compared to “watering” a plant, causing it to grow.
The four settling-places of viññana [ catasso vīn̄nāna-thiti, i.e. the first four khandhas ] should be seen as like the earth element. Delight and lust (nandi-rāgo ) should be seen as like the water element.
As the passage proceeds, it becomes evident that the opposite state of Enlightenment is one in which vīn̄nana becomes liberated from, and independent of, the world of perceptual objects. But here the metaphors become somewhat mixed.
On the one hand, the metaphor of an unenlightened vīn̄nana “settling” in the world of perceptual objects (the four khandhas ) is expanded by picturing this vīn̄nana as having an arammana “basis” in the four khandhas .
But other terms build on the metaphor of “growth” due to “watering.” Watering here is represented by vīn̄nana’s “engagement” ( upaya ) with the four khandhas , driven by “lust and delight” (i.e. Craving). The “growth, increase, expansion” of vīn̄nana caused by this watering is obviously pictured here as a negative thing.
A settled viññana becomes settled by engagement with rūpa (rūpa-upayam vīn̄nanam titthamānam tittheyya ) … with vedana… sañña… sankhara .
Based upon rupa (rupa-arammaranam), settled in rupa ( rūpa-patittham ) [in vedana , sañña, sankhara ]
with a sprinkling of delight ( nandi ), it [ vīn̄nana ] might come to growth, increase, and expansion ( vudhhim , virūlim , vepullam ).
Though someone might say: ‘Apart from rupa … vedana … sañña…sankhara , I will make known the going and coming ( āgatim vā gatim vā ) of viññana, its passing away and rebirth ( cutim vā upapattim vā), its growth, increase, and expansion’ ( vuddhim vā , virūlhim vā , vepullam vā) —that is impossible.
Here vīn̄nana’s “growth, increase, expansion” represents mental/emotional activity stirred by upaya “engagement” with perceptual objects. I take “going and coming… passing away and rebirth” to represent the ever-changing character of this kind of mental-activity, as the mind gets involuntarily pulled to and fro in knee-jerk responses to stimuli from perceptual objects.
I think this is best understood in the light of the Conditioned Arising sequence: When a person’s vīn̄nana mind is still in the grip of Craving and Clinging, any phassa “contact” with, or upaya “engagement” with perceptual objects stimulates this mind into involuntary mental/emotional activity driven by this same Craving/Clinging. (This is negative kind of mental activity that is elsewhere called papança mental “proliferation.”)
The line immediately following here reverts to listing vīn̄nana as the fifth khandha (as also occurs in the preceding sutta ). It avoids a confusion possibly caused by saying that “if vīn̄nana … has abandoned lust for… the vīn̄nana-element…” by saying that “if a bikkhu has abandoned lust for… the vīn̄nana -element…”
But after this one line listing vīn̄nana as one class of objects of lust in the unenlightened person, the passage resumes picturing vīn̄nana as what it is that “abandons lust” for the four khandhas, thus making a transition from an unenlightened to an Enlightened state.
Enlightenment is now pictured as a state in which vīn̄nana no longer has any arammana “basis,” and no patittha “settling place,” which it previously had in the four khandhas .
If a bhikkhu has abandoned lust ( rāgo ) for the rupa -element ( rupa-dhātuyā ) [… for the vedana-element , the sañña -element, the sankhara- element, the vīn̄nana -element], with the abandoning of lust the basis ( āramanam ) is cut off: there is no settling-place for vīn̄nana ( patitthā vīn̄nanassa na hoti )
When that viññana is no longer settled ( a-patitthita ), not coming to growth , nongenerative, it is liberated ( vimutta ).
Liberated [it is] settled (vimuttatā thitam )
Become-settled [it is] peaceful ( thittatā santusita );
Made-peaceful [it] is not agitated ( santusitattā na paritassati ).
Not agitated, [it] in itself attains nibbāna ( a-paritassam paccattaññeva parinibbāyati )
SN 16469 sn 22.54
It is worth noting here the recurring use of Pali terms related to the verb thitati. Thitati is translated in the Pali Text Society Dictionary (PTS) as “to stay, abide; to last, endure, be at rest…to remain in.” Said of the relation between a conscious subject (vīn̄nana ) and perceptual objects (the four khandhas ), it seems to indicate a case in which this conscious subject seeks and temporarily finds a place to settle in and remain. I think “settling” is the best English term that fits most of the contexts here. Hence I translate catasso vīn̄nanassa thiti as “the four settling-places of vīn̄nana .” I translate rūpa-upayam vinnanam titthamānam tittheyya as “a settled viññana becomes settled by engagement with rūpa.” And I translate rūpa-patittham as “settled in rupa .”
But in the final lines of this passage we again meet thita used in a very positive sense. Here we have Enlightenment itself described as the state of “settled” ( thita , thittata ) vīn̄nana . This very positive “settled” state can also be described as “peaceful” ( santisuta , related to santim, a recurrent term used in the Bhagavad Gita to describe the ideal mental state). “Settled” and “peaceful” here are contrasted with a paritassa “agitated” state of vīn̄nana , that is, disturbed mental activity driven by Craving and Clinging for perceptual objects described earlier in this passage.
This suggests a picture in which a conscious subject ( vīn̄nana ) is seeking some place to “settle” in, where it can enjoy satisfying peace. Problems come when this seeking takes the form of Craving/Clinging for something belonging to the world of perceptual objects (the four khandhas ) which are constantly changing (“Impermanent”). Attempting to find a settling-place in this ever-changing world brings about instead “agitated” mental activity, the opposite of “peaceful settling.” This conscious human subject can only really find the deeply satisfying and peaceful settling-place that it seeks, by abandoning this outward-directed Craving and Clinging for something in the world of Impermanent perceptual objects.
In a somewhat rare positive description of the Enlightened state, this sutta implies that abandoning this kind of outward-directed Craving is not mere repression. Abandoning the quest to find satisfaction through engagement with perceptual objects will result in a state in which this conscious subject will reach a settled state free of agitation, finding the satisfaction it seeks by resting peacefully in itself.
Thus this passage is one of several that I cite in support of my argument, that we can only make full sense of claims made about Enlightenment/ nibbana in the suttas, by giving some positive content to the predominantly negative descriptions of nibbana more prominent in the suttas . I put this point earlier by saying that Enlightenment constitutes an alternate way of fulfilling man’s quest for meaning on a completely internal basis, contrasted with the normal case in which people seek to find meaning through some kind of engagement with and connection to the world out there.
This represents a point of similarity and continuity between early Buddhism and some strains of contemporary Hinduism. I noted above that the Hindu Bhagavad Gita also describes the ideal goal of spiritual practice as the achievement of great internal peace of mind ( santusita , santi ). I will treat this topic at greater length in another essay The Pali Suttas and the Bhagavad Gita: Some Hindu/Buddhist Comparisons and Contrasts. Here I just want to point out two major differences between early Buddhism and the Hinduism of the Bhagavad Gita on this point.
First, the Gita pictures this peaceful state of mind as union with a pre-existing supernatural entity, an eternally existing atman . Atman is ultimately identical with Brahman, the Supreme Being. So the experience of great internal peace is interpreted as union with entities always existing in a supernatural realm.
The passage above does picture nibbana/Enlightenment as the state of vīn̄nana “made-peaceful” ( santusitatta ). But this is not pictured as a case in which an individual becomes united with an always existing supernatural entity called vīn̄nana . Rather, vīn̄nana here is the name of an ordinary human subject who might exist in two different states: (1) an agitated state due to Clinging to something in the world of perceptual objects, or (2) a peaceful state when it has ceased such Clinging. Nibbana is just a change taking place in the way a human subject relates to the world of perceptual objects. Nothing to do with any always-existing supernatural realities.
Secondly, for consistency’s sake, it is important that the peaceful mental state referred to here not become one more state of mind among others (a dhamma “mind-object”) that I might Cling to, making it difficult for me to accept and be comfortable with seemingly opposite deeply disturbed states of mind. We already met above the idea that Clinging to a different state of mind, upekkha “equanimity” might become an object-of-Clinging. One way of resolving this problem: The Buddhist ideal is not that I should escape from the agitating external world and withdraw into an internal world where I can experience perpetual peace. It is rather than I should face the world, and engage with conditions in the world, as a deeply peaceful subject. This internal peace should exist on a deeper layer of my consciousness, compatible with mental disturbance on a more surface level.
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Being an “untraceable” Tathagata, invisible even to the Gods.
Next here is a passage in which both citta and vīn̄nana occur as names for what it is that is Enlightened.
Here [a] bhikkhu has abandoned Craving, has cut it off at the root, made it like a palm stump, done away with it, so that it is no longer subject to future arising…..
Here a bhikkhu has abandoned the ‘I-am’ conceit ( asmi-māna ), has cut it off at the root, made it like a palm stump, done away with it so that it is no longer subject to future arising….
When the Gods with Inda, with Brahmā, and with Pajāpati seek a mind-liberated bhikkhu ( vimutta-cittam…. bikkhum ), they do not find: “This [is what] the Tathagata’s vīn̄nana is supported by (idam nissitam tathaggatassa vīn̄nana-ti )”.
Why is this?
The one thus-gone ( tatha-gata ) is untraceable ( an-anuvijjoti ).
Kloc 4132 mn] 22.35
Vimutta-citta here indicates again that it is a monk’s citta that is vimutta, “liberated.” But vīn̄nana also figures here as the site of the change which is nibbana . We met above a description of the unenlightened state as one in in which vīn̄nana is nissita “supported by” upekkha , “equanimity.” Here we have the opposite Enlightened state described as one in which vīn̄nana exists not “supported” by anything.
This idea that vīn̄nana might exist “supported by,” or “unsupported by” some perceptual object is probably connected to imagery in the last sutta passage cited above, involving a case in which a vīn̄nana might or might not have a “settling place” ( thita ) some perceptual object, or might or might not have a “basis” ( arammana ) in something belonging to the world-perceived.
This picture of a “ liberated citta ,” and an “un-supported vīn̄nana ” is then connected here to the idea of a person who has become invisible even to all-seeing Gods. This image is probably in turn be connected to one etymological account of the word Tathagata (a common title of the Buddha), as tatha-gata “thus-gone.” As I would put it, an Enlightened person is a subject who is invisible because he is now a conscious subject ( vīn̄nana ) who no longer has any essential connection to anything in the world of perceptual objects, and has thus “gone out” of this world.
I think this idea can also be aptly stated in terms of the quest for “identity” and “identification.” The quest for an identity is the quest to locate myself somewhere in the world perceived, something which will make me a presence in the world worthy of notice and recognition. Giving up this quest indeed requires that I accept being “invisible” in the core of my being, not a noteworthy presence in the world. This is the Buddhist version of “transcending the world,” or “escape from the world” as another passage puts it.
These ideas help resolve a problem which might occur from a too-literal interpretation of the imagery in this passage. That is, concretely, the ideal of being a subject who has “gone out” of the world of perceptual objects cannot mean that I would literally no longer exist in the world, or that I would no longer perceive, or be engaged with, anything in the world. The idea of a subject who has “gone out of the world” has to be understood in a more limited sense: a subject who no longer Craves for any connection to the world, or for some particular identity in the world that would be an essential basis for a sense of self-worth (“conceit”). I suggested in Chapter A4 that this cannot mean never playing any role in the world. In practice, being a subject not identified with anything in the world, means having an indefinite flexibility in the roles that I might play, since I am not Clinging to any particular identity.
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Vīn̄nanassa nirodha , “the stopping of the mind.”
One passage cited above uses the image of plant-growth due to “watering” as an image of a vīn̄nana (“mind”) stirred into activity (“growth, increase, expansion”), pictured there as a negative thing. I suggested that this imagery should be understood in the light of the Dependent Arising sequence, in which the mind in the grip of Craving/Clinging is stimulated into involuntary activity in response to contact with perceptual objects.
I think this is the context also for understanding two other verses occurring in the suttas which center on the ideal of vīn̄nanassa nirodha , “the stopping of the mind.”
One is a verse in which “the stopping of the mind” ( viññanassa nirodha ) is parallel to “the calming of the mind” ( vīn̄nana-upasama ) and is said to result in the elimination of dukkha .
Sabba viññāna-paccayā – Everything is conditioned by viññana .
Viññānassa nirodhena – with the stopping of viññana
Na-atthi dukkhassa sambhavo – There will be no arising of suffering
Dukkha viññāna-paccayā – dukkha [is] conditioned by viññana
Viññāna-ūpasamā, bhikkhu – a bikkhu , [by the] calming of viññana
Na-icchāto parinibbutoti – without longing, reaches nibbana .
( Sutta Nipata 735)
The Pali word nirodha is sometimes translated “cessation,” referring to something ceasing to exist at all (as in dukkha-nirodha , “the cessation of dukkha” ). So, taken by itself, vīn̄nanassa nirodha could refer literally to vīn̄nana ceasing to exist. What tells against this is the fact that vīn̄nanassa nirodha is paralleled here by vīn̄nana-upasama, “ calming the mind.”
So I think Johansson and Harvey are right in translating vīn̄nanassa nirodha as “the stopping of the mind,” that is, the stopping of involuntary and agitated mental activity driven by the mind’s “longing” ( icchata , i.e Craving) for something in the world of perceivables. The absence of such longing will result in the “calming” and “stopping” of this kind of involuntary mental activity, another way of describing nibbana .
Here next is an second verse which also uses the phrase vīn̄nanassa nirodha “the stopping of the mind.” This passage compares the stopping of the mind to the extinguishing of a lamp, playing on one meaning of the Pali word nibbana, as a reference to “blowing out” a fire.
Viññānassa nirodhena – by the stopping of viññana
Tanhā-khaya-vimuttino – freed by the destruction of tanha,
Pajjotasseva nibbānam – [like] the blowing out of a lamp
Vimokkho hoti cetaso ”ti – is mind-liberation. (AN 3.90. Kindle 321. Bodhi 2012, 235)
The imagery used here suggests that vīn̄nanassa nirodha here should again be understood as explained above: The vīn̄nana “mind” of unenlightened person is stimulated into involuntary mental activity driven by Craving for something in the world of perceptual objects. Mind-liberation achieved by tanha-khaya “the destruction of tanha,” can also be pictured as “the stopping of the mind,” compared in turn to the blowing out of a lamp.
The term nirodha also occurs by itself in some descriptions of nibbana in the suttas , where it is often translated “extinction.” Some have cited this in support of a “nihilist” interpretation of Buddhism, which attributes to early Buddhists the idea that literal extinction, completely ceasing to exist, is the ultimate goal. I think this occurrence of nirodha as a description of nibbanais better understood as a very succinct expression of ideas suggested in the two verses commented on above. It refers, not to a case of vīn̄nana ceasing to exist, but to the “stopping” of involuntary mental activity driven by Craving/Clinging – a state which can also be pictured in terms of “going out” of the world – that is, a human subject who through non-Clinging has become completely independent of anything in the world.
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Here next is another passage (MN 72.17) which also plays on the meaning of nibbana as the “blowing out” of a flame. Here the question is also explicitly raised about whether indeed an Enlightened person upon his death will literally cease to exist.
In this passage the wanderer Vacchagotta asks:
A mind-liberated ( vimutta-citto ) bikkhu, where ( kuhim ) is he reborn (upapajjhati )?
The Buddha answers
“Reborn” ( upajjhati-ti ) does not apply ( na upeti )
Then the Buddha denies what seems to be all four possibilities here:
– “He is reborn” does not apply.
– “He is not reborn” does not apply
– “He is both reborn and not reborn” does not apply
– “He is neither reborn nor not reborn” does not apply
When Vaccha then says that all this has “thrown me into confusion,” this is when the Buddha appeals to the metaphor of “extinguishing a fire” which we met in a passage quoted above. Suppose someone asks Vaccha about a fire he saw being extinguished:
When that fire you see before you was extinguished ( nibbuto ), to which direction did it go: to the east, the west, the north, or the south?
That does not apply ( na upeti ), Master Gotama. The fire burned in dependence ( paticca ) on its fuel ( upadana ) of grass and sticks. When that is used up, if it does not get any more fuel, being without fuel, it is reckoned as extinguished ( nibbutotveva )
This passage also plays on another meaning of the Pali word upadana , usually translated as “Clinging.” PTS (p. 149) gives the root meaning of upadana as “that substratum by means of which an active process is kept going” which here applies to the case of a fire kept going by fuel of grass and sticks.
Now the passage applies this idea of a fire deprived of fuel to the case of an Enlightened Tathagata. When he “abandons” (i.e. ceases to Cling to) the five khandhas , he becomes “liberated by the destruction ( sankhaya-vimutto )” of the five khandhas as “fuel,” which is what has made it possible for one describing the Tathagata to describe him.
So too, Vaccha, the Tathagata has abandoned ( pahinam ) that rupa [vedanā, sān̄na, sankhara, vīn̄nana ] by which one describing the Tathagata might describe him; he has cut [all these] off at the root, made [them] like a palm stump, done away with [them] so that they are no longer subject to future arising.
The Tathagata, liberated-by-the-destruction ( sankhaya-vimutto ) of rupa [vedana , sañña , sankhara , viññana ] is profound, immeasurable, hard to fathom like the ocean.
‘He is reborn’ does not apply; ‘he is not reborn’ does not apply; ‘he is both reborn and not reborn’ does not apply; ‘he is neither reborn nor not reborn’ does not apply.
A fire deprived of fuel ceases to exist. But does this analogy apply to the case of a liberated Tathagata who dies? No. Whereas other unliberated individuals, on dying, are then reborn, the liberated Tathagata is not born anywhere else. But neither is it true that he is not-reborn, and ceases to exist. Neither “reborn” nor “not-reborn” apply to him. This passage clearly wants to avoid saying that literally ceasing to exist is the ultimate goal of Buddhism.
How can we make sense of the imagery here, the state of a person who after death cannot be said to be reborn into some other world, but also cannot be said to not exist at all? A full explanation of these ideas regarding rebirth will have to await fuller treatment in another essay (Demythologizing Buddhist Afterlife Beliefs) on what I will call there “Buddhist afterlife mythology.” The basic idea here is that religious beliefs about an afterlife typically in some way reflect believers’ concepts of ideals they value in this life. So I suggest this should also guide our understanding of the present passage, as follows:
What we ordinarily consider “the world,” is made up of what are more precisely described as “perceptual objects” – entities, conditions, and events which we as perceive subjects perceive to be the world surrounding us. Buddhist imagery in several passages treated in this chapter generally assumes that a person only exists as a “visible” or “describable” entity if that person exists in some essential and definite relation to something in this world of perceptual objects. An earlier passage cited above envisions the case of a liberated Tathagata who has become invisible because he is a conscious subject (a vīn̄nana ) disconnected from the world of perceptual objects and thus has “gone out” of this world. We should understand in a similar way what the present passage says about a Tathagata who has “abandoned” the five khandhas , that is the entire “world” made up of perceptual objects. The passage says that abandoning this world also leaves a Tathagata with nothing “by which one describing the Tathagata can describe him.” As I would say, he still exists as a human subject, but it is difficult to imagine or describe his existence in any definite way, because to do so one would have to imagine him as located in some definite relation to some definite “world.”
Insofar as all this reflects the Buddhist concept of an ideal to be achieved in this life, the imagery here cannot be understood literally to refer to a human subject who no longer lives in a world – no longer perceives the world of perceptual objects and no longer interacts with this world. It is just that the Enlightened person no longer Clings to any relational identity defining who-he-is in some essential relation to some particular perceptual objects making up his world.
When it comes to a (“mythological”) picture of the afterlife status of the Enlightened Tathagata, this passage reflects this image of the Buddhist ideal when it confines itself to saying: There is something misleading about saying that a Tathagata “continues to exist” in some world, but also something misleading to say that “he ceases to exist” in any world.
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Escape from the six regions.
One idea prominent in the Pali suttas says that what we normally call “the world” is the world made up of perceptual objects. This idea is made very explicit in Buddhism by the concept of sal-ayatana , “the six regions” (more commonly called “the six sense-bases”. “The six regions” considers the world according to six senses by which we perceive perceptual objects. So there are five external regions (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch), plus another mind-region, mental/emotional conditions in our own internal world, perceived by another sense, introspective mano “mind.”
I also spoke above of one way the Buddhist ideal can be described by saying that an Enlightened Buddhist has “gone out” of the world. I want now to comment on another passage (SN 20917 ) envisioning a similar idea, by picturing the Buddhist ideal as “escape from the six regions.”
This passage goes through each of the six regions, repeating the same formulas about each. For reasons explained below, I will cite here only the last section, dealing with the mind-region.
If there were no gratification ( assado ) in in the mind-region, beings would not become enamored of it. But because there is gratification in the mind-region beings become enamored of it.
If there were no danger in the mind region, beings would not experience revulsion toward it. But because there is danger in the mind-region, beings experience revulsion ( nibbindanti ) toward it.
If there were no escape ( nissarana ) from the mind-region beings would not escape from it. But because there is escape from it, beings escape (nissaranti) from it.
I call special attention here to sections of this passage having to do with the sixth, “mind-region” ( mano-ayatana ), because the implications here are quite startling to think about: What can it mean to “escape from the mental region,” if “the mental region” here consists in all possible mental/emotional conditions and events that I can become introspectively aware of (through introspective mano )? What can it mean to say that the ultimate Buddhist ideal is that I should “escape from my mind.”
This brings to the fore several assumptions central to my account in these essays. Mainly: The world of perceptual objects, which includes self-perceptions of my own inner life, cannot be coextensive with “reality.” The idea of “escaping” from such self-perceptions assumes that “the real world” includes something different from all possible perceptible objects, which is what it is that might escape. Further, if the six regions includes all possible perceptual objects, then what it is that escapes from the six regions cannot itself be one more perceptual object. This supports my argument that early Buddhist spirituality assumes the real existence of a conscious human subject, and that it is in the nature of this subject that it never appears among objects of its own conscious awareness.
Again this passage taken as a whole assumes that it is this subject that changes when nibbana is achieved. What it actually says is that “beings” (satta ) undergo this change. Pleasure found in the mind region causes unenlightened to become enamored of the mind-region. But if these beings realize the danger in the mind-region (which is dukkha-causing because of its Impermanence), they will change from being enamored, to “experiencing revulsion” against the mind region. This enables beings to realize a possibility also inherent their being, the possibility of “escape” from the mind region, one way of describing Enlightenment. Although the passage says that it is “beings” who undergo this change, little reflection will show that it cannot be my embodied “being” as a whole that escapes from the mind region, since everything I can perceive about the mental part of my being is what I want to escape from. It must be me as perceiving subject who undergoes the changes described here.
***
Finally, here are two adjacent sutta passages which sum up many of the points made in passages quoted above in this chapter, using also several terms encountered in these earlier passages as well.
There exists that region ( atthi tad-ayatana ) where there is
– neither earth, nor water, nor heat, nor air;
– neither the region ( ayatana ) of infinite space, nor the region of infinite consciousness, nor the region of nothingness, nor the region of neither-perception-nor-non-perception;
– neither this world ( na ayam loko ) nor another world (na para-loko );
– neither sun nor moon.
There ( tatra )… there is no coming ( na eva agatim ), no going ( na gatim ), no settling ( na thitim ); no passing away ( na cutim ), no being reborn ( na-upapattim ).
This ( etam ) is not-settled ( a-patittham ), not-moving ( a-ppavatam ), without-a-basis ( an-arammanam ). This ( eso ) is the end of dukkha (evanto dukkhassa ). (Ud 8:1; 80)
The overt topic of this passage is a description of characteristics of a “region.” Although nothing explicit is said about who exists in this region, the clear implication is that this is a region in which I would exist if I were Enlightened.
– This region is beyond those regions attained in the fifth through eighth meditative states achieved in jhana-meditation. (“the region of infinite space” [5th region]…. the region of neither-perception-nor-non-perception [8th region] (treated in the essay The Pali Suttas and the Bhagavad Gita: Some Hindu/Buddhist Comparisons and Contrasts).
In the Buddhist conceptual universe, every “world” (loka ) that I might exist in is a world made up of Impermanent and potentially dukkha -causing perceptual objects. By contrast, existing in the region described here is not any such “world.” Unlike every world I could exist in, the region I would exist in would be region in which no changes would occur (there would be “no coming and no going,” “no passing-away and no being-reborn”).
If I existed in this region, I would be beyond being able to be described as either standing still ( thiti , “settled”) or “moving.”
I would be a conscious subject separated from any “basis” ( arammana ) in perceptual objects.
In this region there would be nothing to disturb me. This would be “the end of dukkha.”
All this describes a state elaborating on an image presented in the last sutta passage quoted above: I would have “escaped” from the world of perceptual objects.
Another sutta passage following closely on the one about a special “region,” also describes the ideal state as “escape” ( nissarana ) from the ever-changing world of perceptual objects.
There is, monks, an un-born ( a-jatam ) un-become ( a-bhutam ), un-made (a-katam ), un-constructed ( a-sankhatam ). If… there were no unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, no escape ( nissaranam ) would be discerned ( pān̄nayetha ) from what is born, become, made, conditioned. But because there is an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, therefore an escape is discerned from what is born, become, made, conditioned. (Ud 8:3; 80–81)
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