The state of the Tathagata after death and the extinguished flame

 

The state of the Tathagata after death and the extinguished flame

In the Aggivacchagotta sutta (Majjhima Nikaya, 72), a discourse present in the Pali Canon of the Theravada tradition, there is the following exchange between the Buddha and the disciple Vacchagotta, who is striving to understand the teaching of the Awakened One:

What do you think, Vaccha? Suppose a fire was burning in front of you. Would you know: ‘This fire is burning in front of me’?”

“Yes, I would, worthy Gotama.”

“But Vaccha, suppose they were to ask you: ‘This fire burning in front of you: what does it depend on to burn?’ How would you answer?” 

“I would answer like this: ‘This fire burning in front of me burns in dependence on grass and logs as fuel.’” 

“Suppose that fire burning in front of you was extinguished. Would you know: ‘This fire in front of me is quenched’?”

“Yes, I would, worthy Gotama.”

“But Vaccha, suppose they were to ask you: ‘This fire in front of you that is quenched: in what direction did it go—east, south, west, or north?’ How would you answer?”

“It doesn’t apply, worthy Gotama. The fire depended on grass and logs as fuel. When that runs out, and no more fuel is added, the fire is reckoned to have become quenched due to lack of fuel.”

“In the same way, Vaccha, any form by which a realized one might be described has been given up, cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, obliterated, and unable to arise in the future. A realized one is freed from reckoning in terms of form. They’re deep, immeasurable, and hard to fathom, like the ocean. ‘They’re reborn’, ‘they’re not reborn’, ‘they’re both reborn and not reborn’, ‘they’re neither reborn nor not reborn’—none of these apply.” (MN 72, Bhiikhu Sujato translation, source: https://suttacentral.net/mn72/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin )

As it happens, the discourse itself is very hard to understand, at least to me. Again in the Pali Canon, there is also the following exchange in the ‘Upasiva Sutta’ of the Sutta Nipata:

“As a flame tossed by a gust of wind,” replied the Buddha, “comes to an end and cannot be reckoned; so too, a sage freed from the set of mental phenomena comes to an end and cannot be reckoned.”

“One who has disappeared—do they not exist? Or are they free from disease for eternity? Please, sage, answer me clearly,for truly you understand this matter.”

“One who has disappeared cannot be defined,” replied the Buddha. “They have nothing by which others might describe them. When all things have been eradicated, eradicated, too, are all ways of speech.” (Sutta Nipata, 5.7, Bhikkhu Sujato translation, source: https://suttacentral.net/snp5.7/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin )

If, according to the Buddha, the fire when quenched simply ceased to exist, it is hard to understand the cryptic character of the words attributed to him in these two passages. However, it should also be noted that the same metaphor was used by the Buddha to indicate that the impurities of the mind are ‘extinguished’ upon reaching Awakening (or Enlightenment). So, if the impurities still existed, liberation would be impossible.

And yet, in these two discourses the Buddha hardly seems to follow such a logic when applying the metaphor of the ‘fire’ to the Realized One (Tathagata). “They have nothing by which others might describe them” and “They’re deep, immeasurable, and hard to fathom, like the ocean” hardly seem to me metaphor that would be consistent with an understanding of an ‘extinction’ that simply leaves ‘nothing’ behind. Nibbana (in Pali or Nirvana in Sanskrit) doesn’t seem to be mere ‘non-existence’.

So, here’s the possible explanation: the ‘Tathagata’ cannot be ‘reduced’ to the ‘visible’ phenomena that can be ‘reckoned’ (here ‘visible’ is a rather figurative term, as in Buddhist discourses even the mind is a sense-organ), whatever that means.  If such a ‘reductionism’ was true, the Buddha would have engaged in a rather arbitrary kind of evasiveness. Comparing the Tathagata to an ‘ocean’ or saying that “one who has disappeared cannot be defined” would just be too weird ways to describe a state of mere non-existence. And, indeed, as far as I know, most Buddhist schools in history didn’t think Nirvana/Nibbana as a mere state of non-existence.

But, to be honest, I can’t help but seeing behind these obscure words, a hint that, perhaps, Nirvana/Nibbana is more than ‘not mere non-existence’. And, I would even say that such obscure passages were also used by the Pudgalavada school of Buddhism and some strands in the Mahayana, which seem to come close to describe a theistic worldview. Consider, for instance, this passage from the ‘Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra’, a discourse preserved in the Chinese Mahayana Buddhist Canon (which is, as it happens, rejected by the Theravada):

“Purna said, ‘Gautama, why is the eternal body not east, west, south or north?’

The Buddha said, ‘Son of good family, I will now ask you a question; reply to it as you think best. What is your opinion, son of good family: if a great bonfire were burning before you, while it was burning, would you know that it was burning?’

‘Yes, Gautama.’

‘And when the fire was extinguished, would you know that it was extinguished?’

‘Yes, Gautama.’

‘Puma, if there were someone who asked, “When the fire that was before you was burning, where did it come from, and when it was extinguished, where did it go?” how would you reply?’

‘Gautama, if there were someone who asked me that, I would reply, “When the fire was produced, it depended upon a quantity of fuel; when its original fuel was exhausted and no further fuel was brought to it, the fire was then extinguished.”’

‘And if someone asked further, “When the fire was extinguished, in what direction did it go?” how would you reply? Gautama, I would reply that because the fuel was exhausted, the fire was extinguished; it did not go anywhere.’

Son of good family, so it is also with the Tathagata. If there is physical form which is impermanent [and the other aggregates] up to consciousness which is impermanent, then because of thirst there is burning. The burning is the acquisition of the twenty-five kinds of existence. So while it was burning one could say that the fire was east, west, south or north. But now that the thirst is extinguished, the twentyfive kinds of existence which resulted from it no longer bum. Without the burning, one cannot say that there is any east, west, south or north for him. Son of good family, the Tathagata has extinguished the physical form that is impermanent [and the other aggregates] up to the consciousness that is impermanent, and so his body is eternal. If his body is eternal, it is impossible to say that there is any east, west, south or north for him.” (T374, 59737-21; T375, 845ai5-b2, quoted in ‘Pudgalavada Buddhism, the Reality of the Indeterminate Self’, p. 175, L. Pristley, source: https://www.academia.edu/52996575/Pudgalavada_Buddhism_The_Reality_of_the_Indeterminate_Self )

This passage clearly echoes the one present in the Majjhima Nikaya, 72. And, to be honest, while the phrase ‘eternal body’ doesn’t appear in the Pali Canon text, it isn’t hard to understand why later Buddhist would have taken the simile of the ‘ocean’ as suggesting that.

Regardless of the Pudgalavada and the Mahayana, even the excerpts of the ‘Pali suttas’ alone hardly make sense if the ultimate fate of the ‘Extinguished’ or ‘Awakened Ones’ is mere non-existence. But if it isn’t mere non-existence, what is it?