Nirvana is just annhiliation

As in the strict Theravada interpretation of nirvana. The Buddha described a state that retains zero aspects of what we would call existing, but also said it isn't nonexistence either because it just isn't okay?! Because of this contradiction, to ask what nirvana exactly is would be an unanswerable question. No wonder Theravada is only prevalent among South Asian countries dumb enough to get duped into following a religious practice that literally no one knows the end result will be.

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Nirvana is blowing out the process of grasping in the mind. At paranirvana/final death of cycle of reincarnation, when the body dies, the mind ceases, the conscious ceases, and with your mind no longer grasping anything, the final conclusion is reached.

    The question of "existing" and "non-existing" is silly. To claim "you" "exist" at nirvana is to reify that "you" something in the mind and to give arise to a grasping sense of reality. A person reaching nirvana has no grasping mind, no grasping formations, no grasping notions. Furthermore, to claim that "you" don't exist is to claim there was ever a "you" in the first place, and not just a reified/grasping notion of you.

    The notion of Skandha is a device/tool to explain our grasping mind. A grasping for a notion of selfhood, in every crevice there maybe or the combination of multiple crevices. The notion of Anatta / Annica are means to explain the nature of reality. The question isn't that they're unanswerable in a literal sense, its that they're just not valid questions because they start off with a loaded term. After all the Buddha's teaching, if you're still clinging to these questions, then the problem isn't whether the souls exists/life exist after nirvana/etc, its that you didn't pay attention to the earlier foundational teachings. Hence you're still bringing up these stupid questions.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >to claim there was ever a "you" in the first place
      Then who is grasping? Who is to be liberated from suffering?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        "Who" isn't grasping. The mind/consciousness creates false sense of reality which assumes there must be an essence, a permanence of phenomenas. This is the "grasping." The grasping of essences/permanence, which creates the sense of a permanence self, which is then put on a pedastal as if its the pilot of a vehicle, when these are merely mirages by the grasping mind

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          What experiences rebirth? Is it this grasping mind? It sounds like this mind is what most would consider the self in the barest, most essensial sense.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The mind is tied down to the body. So is the consciousness. The personhoods or the common identities of people are basically relational aspects of the mind/body in relation to other objects, events, persons, phenomenas, etc.

            >What experiences rebirth?
            In a sense, everyone experiences rebirth, a new you is born in a new body with a new consciousness and so on.

            But in another sense, one the body dies, none of that pass to the next body. So what is transferred? The cause-effect. The nature of cause effect of the mind. Mental habits generate causes for next sets of actions, next sets of mental habits, etc. Ofcourse its not all 1:1 relations, others factors influence the next sets of factors as well, along with your own consciousness/mind that has the ability to discern in present moment. Mental habits are one of many that are needed. That mental habit is said to push the next sets of habits/actions/etc that give birth to next sets of rebirth. More accurately, its those mental habits that are created by the grasping mind have continuing /effects/ over time that influence the chain of next birth.

            >If its that abstract, why is it important at all?
            In the same sense that your current mental habits give rise to future (lets say 1 month from now) actions/habits, the "you" that place importance to the next sets of actions/habits in this physical body and in this birth, should in theory have same or similar importance on next rebirth. You could argue, your current state is more important/special because consciousness/mind/body/person, but these are all temporal phenomena and even less temporal than the cause-effects that run deep throughout all rebirths. If you argue from a sense of sense of apparent permanence, then the rational importance is given more towards the conditions which dictate the next rebirth. Ofcourse these arguments won't materialize towards just anyone, and only realized practitioners/scholars would make these argument.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Also "cause effects" and "effects of mental habits" = karma. Kinda wanted to avoid "strange" words to remove the "foreignness" of the idea as it makes other people dismissive or just bring their own sets of mystical assumptions.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            What has the mental habits?

            [...]
            Cont

            >It sounds like this mind is what most would consider the self in the barest, most essensial sense
            The mind and consciousness are both temporal and tied down to physical body. Neither of which could be considered this self that is arguing about. If I we the sentence like "I have a conscious mind and body", there's automatically the assumption that the grasping "I" being separate from the conscious mind and the body. This is the grasping "I" thats the problem.

            Very few would seperate the I from the conscious mind. I is the consciousness, and to say I have a consciousness is turn of phrase for saying I exist at all.
            It really does just sound like it's the mind is being rebirth, just stripped of it's previous sense of idenity. There is a single string of perception, regardless of what you want to call it, that is subject to karma and to the cessation of nirvana. For you to deny that at least is to deny any point to Buddhism at all. If "I" am completely gone after death then why should care about the next holder of "my" karma, if "I" didn't become said next holder (in that I share their perception).

            Also "cause effects" and "effects of mental habits" = karma. Kinda wanted to avoid "strange" words to remove the "foreignness" of the idea as it makes other people dismissive or just bring their own sets of mystical assumptions.

            Karma isn't "cause and effect", it's arbitrary moral point keeping.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >What has the mental habits?
            If you want to say "has" as an ownership, I guess it would be the body? But the ownership is tied to agency, which makes no sense in context. But to answer it, more liberally, its the mental habits are part of the mind. Just like perception/cognition of events are part of the mind, memories are part of the mind, consciousness is part of the mind, thoughts are part of the mind, etc. In so far that mind is merely a reference for a collection of mental activities, it suffers from the same problem of the grasping "self" we're discussing. The problem of grasping is all the up and all the way down. Thats the nefarious nature of grasping phenomenas that we're stuck with in trying to explain the problem.

            >Very few would seperate the I from the conscious mind
            True, but the point isn't its separate, its the notion, the grasping self is the one thats attributed to having ownership. "I have a body, a mind, a consciousness, a car, a house, a dog, a girlfriend, I'm having sex, I'm living this life, I'm watching a movie, I'm typing" etc. The grasping self is that which is attributed to having an existence, is given an ownership of all things. It doesn't have to make sense, its just a notion, put on pedastal by the mind.

            >If "I" am completely gone after death then why should care about the next holder of "my" karma, if "I" didn't become said next holder (in that I share their perception).
            Read the last paragraph on the "why is it important at all"

            The mind is tied down to the body. So is the consciousness. The personhoods or the common identities of people are basically relational aspects of the mind/body in relation to other objects, events, persons, phenomenas, etc.

            >What experiences rebirth?
            In a sense, everyone experiences rebirth, a new you is born in a new body with a new consciousness and so on.

            But in another sense, one the body dies, none of that pass to the next body. So what is transferred? The cause-effect. The nature of cause effect of the mind. Mental habits generate causes for next sets of actions, next sets of mental habits, etc. Ofcourse its not all 1:1 relations, others factors influence the next sets of factors as well, along with your own consciousness/mind that has the ability to discern in present moment. Mental habits are one of many that are needed. That mental habit is said to push the next sets of habits/actions/etc that give birth to next sets of rebirth. More accurately, its those mental habits that are created by the grasping mind have continuing /effects/ over time that influence the chain of next birth.

            >If its that abstract, why is it important at all?
            In the same sense that your current mental habits give rise to future (lets say 1 month from now) actions/habits, the "you" that place importance to the next sets of actions/habits in this physical body and in this birth, should in theory have same or similar importance on next rebirth. You could argue, your current state is more important/special because consciousness/mind/body/person, but these are all temporal phenomena and even less temporal than the cause-effects that run deep throughout all rebirths. If you argue from a sense of sense of apparent permanence, then the rational importance is given more towards the conditions which dictate the next rebirth. Ofcourse these arguments won't materialize towards just anyone, and only realized practitioners/scholars would make these argument.

            .

            >Karma isn't "cause and effect", it's arbitrary moral point keeping.
            Other way around. Its cause and effect, not an arbitrary moral point keeping. Those casually looking at Buddhism would say its a moral point keeping, but its actually completely alien and moral calculations cannot be done except by those who are enlightened. So moral and good people can go to hell, immoral and evil people can go to heaven, putting aside the problem of heaven/hell. Technically speaking.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >Read the last paragraph on the "why is it important at all"

            The mind is tied down to the body. So is the consciousness. The personhoods or the common identities of people are basically relational aspects of the mind/body in relation to other objects, events, persons, phenomenas, etc.

            >What experiences rebirth?
            In a sense, everyone experiences rebirth, a new you is born in a new body with a new consciousness and so on.

            But in another sense, one the body dies, none of that pass to the next body. So what is transferred? The cause-effect. The nature of cause effect of the mind. Mental habits generate causes for next sets of actions, next sets of mental habits, etc. Ofcourse its not all 1:1 relations, others factors influence the next sets of factors as well, along with your own consciousness/mind that has the ability to discern in present moment. Mental habits are one of many that are needed. That mental habit is said to push the next sets of habits/actions/etc that give birth to next sets of rebirth. More accurately, its those mental habits that are created by the grasping mind have continuing /effects/ over time that influence the chain of next birth.

            >If its that abstract, why is it important at all?
            In the same sense that your current mental habits give rise to future (lets say 1 month from now) actions/habits, the "you" that place importance to the next sets of actions/habits in this physical body and in this birth, should in theory have same or similar importance on next rebirth. You could argue, your current state is more important/special because consciousness/mind/body/person, but these are all temporal phenomena and even less temporal than the cause-effects that run deep throughout all rebirths. If you argue from a sense of sense of apparent permanence, then the rational importance is given more towards the conditions which dictate the next rebirth. Ofcourse these arguments won't materialize towards just anyone, and only realized practitioners/scholars would make these argument.(You).
            Also to be more clear on this, the argument goes something like this.

            If you consider your future self's lives as important, even knowing the self doesn't exist in any sense but relational connections, then the future rebirth should be just as important. If you try to cling to the "relational connections" then consider that relational connections are ever changing and dynamically changing so that there is no aspect of it that's really "there there" other than the nature of relations itself. The same is argued for other aspects that you may consider as "important" but really nothing is "there there." Hence the most important aspect is the causal connections that tie from past to future, regardless of number of rebirths.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            You are arguing in circles at this point. You cannot explain how these mental habits are shared between bodies/persons/consciousnesses/whatever without admitting a commonality that all being share that couldn't be identified as the real self.
            >Read the last paragraph
            >you could argue that your current state is more important/special because consciousness/mind/body/person
            That would be the logical conclusion. There is no reason for me to care about whatever thing is subject to the karma I generate in this life. It is not comparable to me 1 month from now, as we would share the continuity of perception and memory. This temporality argument is functionally no different than the "all turns to dust" argument atheists make.
            >so moral and good people
            By what standard are people with nonexistent selves good?

            yeah buddhism is not for normies who just want to coom like a generic atheist roastie

            >normie
            >oom
            >roastie
            Buddhism is for failed normalgays who found out about IQfy post-2016, got it.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >You cannot explain how these mental habits are shared between bodies/persons/consciousnesses/whatever without admitting a commonality that all being share that couldn't be identified as the real self.
            Mental habits aren't shared. Mental habits influence the next sets of actions and habits. The commonalities is the long chain of cause-effect, in same way your mental habits of the baby you is not shared across time, but rather chain of causations that effect the next sets of actions/habit formations/etc.

            >It is not comparable to me 1 month from now, as we would share the continuity of perception and memory
            The special importance of consciousness/mind/body/person doesn't make sense over continuity of causal chains. There is no entity (soul) that owns them, hence the specialness to them personally is irrelevant. You might as well argue the bed is just as important as your body. Or the clothes you wear, or the car you drive, or the home you live in. Without an owner to bind them, these are all irrelevant. With an owner, all that matters is the owner, not the other stuff. So inspite of an owner, what you've got is the continuity of causal chains/karma, which is what really binds your body/mind/consciousness/etc.

            >all turns to dust argument
            They're right, partially. However, this ignores the current conditions of the body/consciousness/etc. Which while those are relevant, you have to keep in mind, the body/consciousness/etc are temporal in that they do not have real existence beyond the temporal functions. Our bodies/mind/memories/consciousness/etc being temporal isn't just applicable to the final death of the body, its applicable to the current living body as well. The timeframe of these changes can vary from moment to moment/month to month/year to year/etc. With them lasting so long, it means even in the same lifetime, there is no specialty to body/mind/consciousness/memory such that you would prioritize your future/past self after certain time frame.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            You still haven't explained why I should care.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            If you care about future/past you in this current lifetime, then its the same for future/past rebirth. Whatever sense of "permanance" you seek in this life, is not there. Only remaining "constance" is the continuity, which is what ties past/future rebirths.

            If you don't care about past/future you in this lifetime, then you I'd say you're lying.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I care about past and future in this lifetime because of the continuity of perception and memory. If there is no contunity of perception or memory between lives there is no reason for me to care.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            1) There's no perception continuity. Its a stream pf data sets coming from world. Memories are unreliable, constantly being re-written, forgotten, false memories created, etc. If your brain gets damaged, sensory inputs like eyes/ears gets damaged, you wouldn't care about future anymore? Nonsense

            2) There's no real sense of ownership over them, hence personal importance to them is meaningless.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >there's no perception continuity
            >its a stream of data
            Same difference.
            >memories are unreliable
            So?
            >personal importance to them is meaningless
            So why should I care about anything at all?
            Just admit you are an atheist nihilist with weird beliefs sprinkled in so we can call it a night.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >same difference
            Not the same, there's no content thats being continued nothing to hang on to

            >Mems are unreliable: So?
            So it means there's memories are forged back and forth with no real continuity, false memories implanted/crafted as environmental factors fill in the gaps don't lead to credible continuity.

            >So why should I care about anything at all?
            If you can't distinguish then you might as well argue the chair is just as important to you as your memory or your perception.

            And as for the ongoing "why should I care?", reification of the "I" in which importance is given to the "I" maybe clouding the direction of the discussion.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >there is no content thats being continued
            Clearly there must be if we have any sense of time at all.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I'm of the belief the sense of time is merely a physical body, or rather the sensory organ's physical limitations. For example, our eyes capture x mount of light every x millisecond. Photons constantly hit our body and eyes, but its only ever process in batches at a time. If the timeframe is short, then nothing is processed.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            So you are a materialist, got it.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Its called naturalism.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The mind is tied down to the body. So is the consciousness. The personhoods or the common identities of people are basically relational aspects of the mind/body in relation to other objects, events, persons, phenomenas, etc.

            >What experiences rebirth?
            In a sense, everyone experiences rebirth, a new you is born in a new body with a new consciousness and so on.

            But in another sense, one the body dies, none of that pass to the next body. So what is transferred? The cause-effect. The nature of cause effect of the mind. Mental habits generate causes for next sets of actions, next sets of mental habits, etc. Ofcourse its not all 1:1 relations, others factors influence the next sets of factors as well, along with your own consciousness/mind that has the ability to discern in present moment. Mental habits are one of many that are needed. That mental habit is said to push the next sets of habits/actions/etc that give birth to next sets of rebirth. More accurately, its those mental habits that are created by the grasping mind have continuing /effects/ over time that influence the chain of next birth.

            >If its that abstract, why is it important at all?
            In the same sense that your current mental habits give rise to future (lets say 1 month from now) actions/habits, the "you" that place importance to the next sets of actions/habits in this physical body and in this birth, should in theory have same or similar importance on next rebirth. You could argue, your current state is more important/special because consciousness/mind/body/person, but these are all temporal phenomena and even less temporal than the cause-effects that run deep throughout all rebirths. If you argue from a sense of sense of apparent permanence, then the rational importance is given more towards the conditions which dictate the next rebirth. Ofcourse these arguments won't materialize towards just anyone, and only realized practitioners/scholars would make these argument.

            Cont

            >It sounds like this mind is what most would consider the self in the barest, most essensial sense
            The mind and consciousness are both temporal and tied down to physical body. Neither of which could be considered this self that is arguing about. If I we the sentence like "I have a conscious mind and body", there's automatically the assumption that the grasping "I" being separate from the conscious mind and the body. This is the grasping "I" thats the problem.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    annihilation of the soul is a good thing. Imagine wanting to continue being dominated and abused in this moronic hell world

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    yeah buddhism is not for normies who just want to coom like a generic atheist roastie

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    karma an reincarnation are tools that are used for the perfection of the soul, not a punishment

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