Phenomenology and Metaphysics of Upādāna in Early Buddhism

The concept of clinging (upādāna) is absolutely central to early Buddhist thought. This article examines the concept from both a phenomenological and a metaphysical perspective and attempts to understand how it relates to the non-self doctrine and to the ultimate goal of Nibbāna. Unenlightened consciousness is consciousness centered on an ‘I’. It is also consciousness that is conditioned by and bound up with a being in the world. From a phenomenological perspective, clinging gives birth to the illusion of self, or what is called the ‘conceit of “I am”’. From a metaphysical perspective, clinging binds consciousness to a worldly being. Seen in the first way, Nibbāna is ‘centerless’ consciousness. Seen in the second, it is unconditioned consciousness. Viewed in either way, Nibbāna is a state of consciousness reached through the eradication of clinging

In the early Buddhist texts, the illusory sense of self is presented as the main obstacle to enlightenment. Dispelling the self-illusion is seen as the culmination of the Buddhist path. At the same time, Nibbāna is achieved through the eradication of clinging (upādāna). What is the relationship between clinging and the sense of self? The best answer to this question, I argue, is that the self-illusion is the conscious manifestation of clinging. This explains why the teaching on non-self (anattā) is almost always presented, not as a metaphysical thesis, but as a meditative practice. To dispel the self-illusion, it is not enough to understand and accept the non-self doctrine. Rather, it is by eradicating clinging that the illusion of self is dispelled, and this is so because the self-illusion arises from clinging. This is not to say that the non-self doctrine is not ‘true’ or, as some writers seem to suggest, that it is only a therapeutic tool for transforming consciousness.1 Rather, its truth is, in a way, beside the point. What matters is what one does with the teaching. Liberation from cyclical existence is won not by understanding the teaching on anattā, but by putting it into practice.

Unenlightened consciousness is consciousness centered on an illusory ‘I’. It is also conditioned consciousness. I experience myself as a being in the world because my conscious life is conditioned by this being’s body and sense faculties (including, in Buddhism, a mental faculty or mind). But Buddhism teaches that my conscious life is not inextricably bound to this being. I have lived before, and in each of my previous lives my conscious life was supported by a different being. This will also occur in future lives. I have thus experienced myself as any number of worldly beings, and this cycle of birth, death, and rebirth will continue indefinitely. But Buddhism also teaches that it is possible to be released from cyclical existence. The key is to understand why consciousness is conditioned. The Buddha’s teaching seems to be that my conscious life is tied to a worldly being because I cling to this being. Clinging is a deeply rooted tendency, and it is unaffected even by death. With the destruction of one basis of support, consciousness is irresistibly drawn to another.2 The result is renewed existence, or rebirth. But if it is clinging that leads to renewed existence, it follows that by eradicating clinging cyclical existence is brought to an end. The result, I argue, is not the extinction of consciousness, but unconditioned consciousness. This is Nibbāna. Because Nibbāna is unconditioned, it is permanent or ‘deathless’. And because it is permanent, it is not liable to suffering. It is ‘the unborn, unageing, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, undefiled supreme security from bondage’ (MN 26.18). In early Buddhism, then, upādāna is a two-sided coin. Phenomenologically, it is clinging that gives birth to the illusion of self, and Nibbāna is attained by eradicating clinging and dispelling the self-illusion. But metaphysically, it is clinging that binds consciousness to a worldly being as a basis of support. Understood from the ‘inside’, we might say, Nibbāna is ‘centerless’ consciousness. Understood from the ‘outside’ it is unconditioned or unsupported consciousness. Seen from either angle, Nibbāna is ‘the liberation of the mind through not clinging’ (MN 106.13).

The Phenomenology of ClingingIn the Theravādin literature, the teaching on anattā is sometimes formulated as metaphysical thesis, that ‘all phenomena are non-self’ (sabbe dhammā anattā). One example occurs at AN 3:136, where the Buddha expounds the doctrine of the ‘three marks’ (tilakkhan: a) of all conditioned phenomena. Yet, a review of the Pāli texts reveals that the Buddha almost invariably presents this teaching as a subject for contemplation. The usual formula for reflection, to be applied to everything ordinarily associated with a self, is: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self’ (n’ etam: mama, n’ eso ’ham: asmi, na m’ eso attā ti).3 For example, at MN 28.4-26 the material-form aggregate (rūpa), or body, is given a reductive analysis in terms of the four elements. Two themes are present. One is that nothing impermanent should be regarded as self or as belonging to self: When even this external earth element, great as it is, is seen to be impermanent, subject to destruction, disappearance, and change, what of this body, which is clung to by craving and lasts but a while? There can be no considering that as ‘I’ or ‘mine’ or ‘I am’.

A second theme is that there is no difference between the elements inside and the elements outside the body. Water is simply water, whether inside or outside the body. Air is just air, ‘winds that course through the limbs, in-breath and out-breath’. Therefore, the elements present inside the body, which, in fact, constitute the body, should not be seen as self or as belonging to self: Now both the internal air element and the external air element are simply air element. And that should be seen as it actually is with proper wisdom thus: ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self’. Here and elsewhere the teaching on non-self is presented as a meditative practice. At MN 22.40-41 (also SN 22:33) the Buddha instructs his bhikkhus: ‘whatever is not yours, abandon it’. What is not yours? The five aggregates (khandhas), or constituents of a person, are listed. You are to see ‘yourself’ as just something in the world, no different than grass and twigs. The Buddha asks: If people carried off the grass, sticks, braches, and leaves in this Jeta Grove, or burned them, or did what they liked with them, would you think: ‘People are carrying us off or burning us or doing what they like with us? Grass, sticks, branches, and leaves are just impersonal features of the world, and you are to see the five aggregates no differently. In the Satipat:t:hāna Sutta (MN 10), a bhikkhu is instructed to contemplate ‘the body as a body’. He is to see his body impersonally: not as his body, but simply as a body. He is to contemplate the impermanent nature of the body, ‘its nature of both rising and vanishing’, and he is to abide ‘independent, not clinging to anything in the world’ (MN 10.5). Revulsion (nibbidā, also translated as ‘disgust’ or ‘disenchantment’) plays a key role in counteracting clinging. A bhikkhu is to look upon his body ‘upward from the soles of the feet, downward from the top of the hair, bounded by skin, as full of many kinds of impurities’ (MN 10.10). Reflecting upon our bodies in this way arouses disgust, and so counteracts the attachment we ordinarily feel. Why cling to a sack of skin filled with blood, gore, and other impurities? The ‘charnel ground’ contemplations (MN 10:14-30) have the same effect, but bring home in a powerful way the ephemeral nature of the body. At MN 74.9, the Buddha observes that one’s body is ‘subject to impermanence, to being worn and rubbed away, to dissolution and disintegration’. For this reason, ‘It should be regarded as impermanent, as suffering, as a disease, as a tumor, as a dart, as a calamity, as an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as void, as not self’. The impermanence (aniccatā) of all conditioned phenomena is a fundamental lesson of Buddhism. And understood as a metaphysical thesis, the non-self doctrine is simply an application of this lesson to persons. I conceive of myself as a substantial being that exists over time while undergoing mental and physical changes. But what basis is there for conceiving of myself in this way? Everything about me turns out on examination to be ephemeral and insubstantial. On the Buddhist analysis, a person is a collection of interconnected mental and physical processes, the five aggregates (khandhas). One Pāli text (SN 22.95) compares each of the five aggregates to a lump of foam, a water bubble, a shimmering mirage, the trunk of a plantain tree, and a magical illusion. On investigation, every part of a person turns out to be ‘void, hollow, insubstantial’. Another text suggests that a person, considered as a whole, is only conventionally or nominally real: Just as, with an assemblage of parts, The word ‘chariot’ is used, So, when the aggregates exist, There is the convention ‘a being’. (SN 5.10) We conceptualize a particular assemblage of parts as a chariot, and this is the only sense in which a chariot exists. A chariot is nothing over and above the parts comprising it, and neither is a person. A person is an assemblage of parts—a functional whole consisting of a body, feelings, perceptions, volitional formations, and consciousness—and it is only because we conceptualize this assemblage as a person that a person exists. But this means that persons, like chariots and presumably all other composite things, are conceptually constructed and only conventionally (not ultimately) real. But now the crucial question: If there is no self, why does the notion even arise? Why does an impersonal assemblage of mental and physical processes conceive of itself as a substantial, enduring being—as me? The Buddha locates the immediate cause of this in clinging: It is by clinging, Ānanda, that [the notion] ‘I am’ occurs, not without clinging. And by clinging to what does ‘I am’ occur, not without clinging? It is by clinging to form that ‘I am’ occurs, not without clinging. It is by clinging to feeling … to perception … to volitional formations … to consciousness that ‘I am’ occurs, not without clinging. (SN 22:83) The five aggregates (referred to in this passage) are often called the ‘aggregates subject to clinging’ (upādānakkhandhas). To cling to something is simultaneously to regard it as a substantial, enduring being. Otherwise, what is there to grasp and hold on to? I do not consciously cling to ephemeral or insubstantial phenomena, to water bubbles or shimmering mirages. But I do cling to the name-and-form (nāma-rūpa, a sentient body) that I take myself to be, and in so doing I regard this being as irreducibly real. But more than this, I regard this being as me. The analysis appears to be that whatever I consciously cling to I regard as me or mine, as self (attā) or as belonging to a self (attaniya). Clinging is the act of constructing or ‘building up’ a self,4 of ‘I-making’ (aham: kāra) and ‘mine-making’ (mamam: kāra). And it is this constructive act that creates the illusion that I am, or what is called the ‘conceit of “I am”’ (asmi-māna). Thus, it is by clinging to a worldly being that the illusion of self is born (and, one might add, repeatedly reborn). If this is correct, then the central task of Buddhist practice is to dispel the selfillusion, and relinquishing all attachments is the therapeutic means to this end. A bhikkhu is to understand that ‘attachment is the root of suffering’ and is ‘liberated by the destruction of attachment’ (MN 105.30). To cling to something just is to regard it as me or mine, and it is this way of regarding things that manifests itself as the sense of self. To remove the cause is to remove the effect. Hence, to relinquish all attachments is to dispel the self-illusion, and to dispel this illusion is to be liberated from suffering: The many diverse kinds of suffering that arise in the world [headed by aging-anddeath]: this suffering has acquisition as its source, acquisition as its origin; it is born and produced from acquisition. When there is acquisition, ageing-and-death comes to be; when there is no acquisition, ageing-and-death does not come to be. (SN 12:66) Thus we are told not to covet anything that is subject to birth, sickness, old age, and death. We are not to be ‘tied to these things, infatuated with them’ or ‘committed to them’ (MN 26.5-12). I cling to this body. But why? It is subject to old age, sickness, death, and decay. Why cling to it? Why cling to something that is a source of suffering? I cling to external possessions—including other people—but these too are impermanent; they will eventually perish, resulting in suffering. Why cling to them? In one sutta, the Buddha comments to a householder who has lost his son, ‘Sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are born from those who are dear, arise from those who are dear’ (MN 87.3). Although the householder is upset by the Buddha’s words, the meaning is clear: whatever we’re attached to is a source of grief because all things are impermanent. In one way or another, everyone and everything we care about slips from our grasp. And it is not just that attachment eventually results in suffering; it is a source of suffering here and now (cf. AN 4:184). We are haunted by fears and worries precisely because we sense the impermanence of all things. Whatever we cling to will eventually undergo undesired changes. We become sick; we grow old; we die. And the same is true of all those whom we hold dear: Whatever sorrows or lamentations there are, The various kinds of suffering in the world, It is because of something dear that these exist; Without something dear these do not exist. So they are happy and free from sorrow Who have nothing dear anywhere in the world. So aspiring to be sorrowless and stainless Do not hold dear anything anywhere in the world. (Ud 8.8) Eventually, we are separated from everyone and everything we care about. And this realization fills us with terror. But it is terrifying only because of our attachments. It is, in short, foolish to cling to anything, just as it is foolish to cling to a burning coal. The predictable result is pain and suffering. No one is so deluded as to cling to a burning coal. So why do we cling to worldly things? The delusion that underlies clinging is twofold: first, that happiness can be found in acquisitiveness (in acquiring things and holding on to them); and second, that the things we covet are substantial, enduring objects. Because I crave sensual pleasure, I cling not only to external things—the various sense objects that arouse pleasure—but to the name-and-form I cognize as myself; for this human form and its sense faculties condition all the sensual pleasures I experience. My clinging to this particular ‘support’ (patit:t:hā) is conditioned by my craving for sensual pleasure. To let go of this support, I must realize: first, that lasting happiness cannot found in conditioned phenomena; and second, that what I regard as a substantial, enduring being (as my ‘self’) is, in fact, nothing more than a series of ever-changing mental and physical phenomena. Hence, it is by penetrating into the impermanence of all conditioned phenomena that we are liberated from clinging. More precisely, it is by realizing that all conditioned phenomena are suffering (dukkha)—in the sense that clinging to conditioned phenomena inevitably leads to suffering—because they are impermanent that we are brought to the realization that ‘nothing is worth holding on to’. Indeed, the Buddha encapsulated his whole teaching with this statement, explaining that: When a bhikkhu has heard: ‘Nothing is worth holding on to’, he directly knows all things. Having directly known all things, he fully understands all things. Having fully understood all things, whatever feeling he feels … he dwells contemplating impermanence in those feelings, contemplating fading away in those feelings, contemplating cessation in those feelings, contemplating relinquishment in those feelings. As he dwells contemplating impermanence … fading away … cessation … relinquishment in those feelings, he does not cling to anything in the world. Not clinging … he personally attains Nibbāna. (AN 7:61) Three Arguments for the Non-Self Doctrine As a metaphysical doctrine, the anattā teaching amounts to the claim that every possible object of clinging is impermanent and insubstantial. There is literally nothing to grasp or hold on to. It is important to understand this, of course, but an intellectual understanding of the teaching is not enough. To dispel the self-illusion, we must learn how to relinquish our attachments. Seen in this light, the arguments advanced by the Buddha in support of the non-self doctrine are actually analytical tools designed to uproot clinging. With each of these arguments, our attention is brought to the fact that it is foolish to cling to anything because clinging leads to suffering. The strategy is clear: if we fully appreciate the utter foolishness of clinging, we are poised to let go of our attachments. One of the Buddha’s arguments is based on the premise that nothing (or nothing that might be regarded as self) is ultimately under our control. Speaking of the body, the Buddha tells his disciples: [F]orm is non-self. For if, bhikkhus, form were self, this form would not lead to affliction, and it would be possible to have it of form: ‘Let my form be thus; let my form not be thus’. But because form is non-self, form leads to affliction, and it is not possible to have it of form: ‘Let my form be thus; let my form not be thus’. (SN 22:59) My body (form) is not under my control. I cannot will my body to be healthy. I cannot will it to remain young. I cannot will it to live forever. My body is subject to disease, old age, and death. Because it is not under my control, it undergoes undesired changes, and with these changes I suffer. If someone ‘lives obsessed by the notions: “I am form, form is mine” … [then] with the change and alteration of form, there arise in him sorrow, lamentation, displeasure, and despair’ (SN 22:1). The suffering alluded to here is not the suffering associated with disease, old age, and death, but the suffering that results from someone’s failed attempts to control the uncontrollable. Recognizing that such efforts are foolish, I should let go of anything that is not subject to my control. This applies, not only to my body, but to all five aggregates—that is, to anything I might regard as me or mine. Importantly, the implication is that this ‘letting go’, this severing of all attachments, is the same is dispelling the illusion of self. To cling to something just is to regard it as self or as belonging to self. Thus, to let go of everything is simultaneously to dispel the self-illusion. A second argument for the anattā doctrine proceeds in one step from impermanence to non-self. In MN 148, we read that the body (or whatever else might be identified as self) is non-self because it is impermanent. ‘Its rise and fall is discerned’. Therefore, it cannot be self. Taken at face value, this argument presupposes that nothing can count as a self unless it is permanent. This is the view of the ‘eternalist’ (who maintains that the self is eternal), but not the ‘annihilationist’ (who maintains that the self perishes at death). But, obviously, we cannot take the eternalist view for granted. Why shouldn’t I think that I came into being and that I will eventually perish? Now, it may be, as some scholars suggest, that lying in the background of this argument is the notion of an ideal self. Drawing on early Theravādin interpretative texts, Peter Harvey argues that the Self-ideal that early Buddhism worked with was of an unconditioned, permanent, totally happy ‘I’, which is self-aware, in total control of itself, a truly autonomous agent, with an inherent substantial essence, the true nature of an individual person. (1995, p. 51) Rune Johansson makes the same point, arguing that the doctrine of self criticized by the Buddha assumed that ‘the real self must be a permanent, undying essence and must have characteristics like perfection, happiness and unlimited power’ (1979, p. 165). If this is correct, then anything that is impermanent, such as the body, is non-self because it falls short of this ideal. Yet, understood in this way, the Buddha’s second argument does not rule out the existence of a self but only the existence of an ideal self, and this raises an obvious objection. Rather than concluding that nothing is self, why shouldn’t I accept the annihilationist’s doctrine of an impermanent self? Presumably, the Buddha was not only arguing against the doctrine of a perfect, permanent, happy self; he was arguing against any doctrine of self, even an imperfect, impermanent, suffering self. An alternative reading of the argument, which circumvents this objection, is that it is foolish to identify oneself with anything unless it is permanent. In one sutta, the Buddha describes someone who misunderstands his teaching on anattā as lamenting: ‘“So I shall be annihilated! So I shall perish! So I shall be no more!” Then he sorrows, grieves, and laments, he weeps, beating his breasts and becomes distraught’ (MN 22.20). Because the body (or whatever else might be identified as self) is impermanent, it is foolish to regard it as self, because this leads to suffering. Indeed, the Buddha declared that he knew of no ‘doctrine of self that would not arouse sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair in one who clings to it’ (MN 22.23). If there is a self, there are only two possibilities: either this self is eternal (eternalism) or it is not (annihilationism). If I cling to a doctrine of self, I am forced to accept one of these two options. Either I will endure forever or I will eventually perish; and accepting either one of these options arouses suffering. But why? As brought out above, it is clear why the Buddha believed that the prospect of annihilation arouses ‘sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair’. But why should the prospect of immortality have the same outcome? A possible explanation is provided by Karen Armstrong. She writes that the prospect of living one life after another filled Gotama, like most other people in northern India, with horror…. [W]hat preoccupied Gotama and his contemporaries was not so much the possibility of rebirth as the horror of redeath. It was bad enough to have to endure the process of becoming senile or chronically sick and undergoing a frightening, painful death once, but to be forced to go through all this again and again seemed intolerable and utterly pointless. (2001, pp. 8–9) The existential problem that motivated the Buddha’s quest for enlightenment was the problem of saṁsāric suffering. If the self is eternal, then, within the saṁsāric worldview, this implies that one is forever bound to cyclical existence with no possibility of escape. It implies that there is no solution to the problem, no ‘ending of this whole mass of suffering’ (MN 67.16). But so long as I conceive of myself as a self, how else can I imagine liberation from cyclical existence other than as the extinction of this self? If I cling to a self-doctrine, I am caught in the horns of an existential dilemma. Either I will endure forever or I will eventually become nothing, and accepting either horn of the dilemma arouses ‘sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair’. Thus, it is utterly foolish to cling to a doctrine of self. Recognizing this, I should abandon any such doctrine. A third argument for the non-self doctrine proceeds from impermanence, to suffering, to non-self. This would appear to be the main argument for doctrine, given how frequently it occurs in the Pāli texts (surely dozens of times). In the Son: a Sutta (SN 22:49), the argument is presented in the form of a dialogue: ‘What do you think, Son: a, is form permanent or impermanent? … Is feeling permanent or impermanent? … Is perception permanent or impermanent? … Are volitional formations permanent or impermanent? … Is consciousness permanent or impermanent?’—‘Impermanent, venerable sir’.—‘Is what is impermanent suffering or happiness?’—‘Suffering, venerable sir’.—‘Is what is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change fit to be regarded thus: “This is mine, this I am, this is my self?”’—‘No, venerable sir’. The reasoning is obviously compressed (and compressed even further, we might speculate, into the doctrine of the three marks of all conditioned phenomena). Why should we think that whatever is impermanent is suffering, and that whatever is suffering is not ‘fit’ to be regarded as self? One possibility, often encountered in the literature, is that the argument draws upon the conception of a ‘self-ideal’ mentioned earlier. Commenting on this argument, Bhikkhu Bodhi writes: [Because] the aggregates are impermanent and unsatisfactory, they cannot be taken as self. If they were self, or the belongings of a self, we would be able to control them and bend them to our will, to make them an everlasting source of bliss. (2000a, p. 113) And yet, far from being a source of bliss, the aggregates are a source of suffering. It follows that they are ‘anattā: not a self, not the belongings of a self, just empty ownerless phenomena occurring in dependence on conditions’ (pp. 113–114). Peter Harvey offers a more detailed analysis. According to Harvey, a real self ‘would have to be: permanent, not liable to arise and fall; entirely free of dukkha; unconstructed and not conditioned by anything’ (1995, p. 46).5 Of these three criteria, being free from suffering (dukkha) is critical. A real self would be totally free from suffering and have the opposite quality: happiness or bliss (sukha). This is tied to the other two criteria. Whatever is impermanent is a source of suffering, and whatever arises from conditions is impermanent because these conditions are themselves impermanent. This last argument, then, can be understood to mean that the five aggregates, taken individually or collectively, are anattā because, being impermanent, they are liable to suffering, and nothing that is liable to suffering qualifies as self. Understood in this way, the conclusion that nothing (or none of the five aggregates) is ‘fit’ to be regarded as self means that on examination everything falls short of the selfideal. But, as with the other arguments we have encountered, this analysis seems to miss the point. The Buddha not only rejected the notion of an ‘ideal’ self but of any self whatsoever. Consistent with the pragmatic strategy employed elsewhere, the Buddha’s third argument would appear to be simply this: Whatever is impermanent is suffering in the sense that clinging to anything that is impermanent produces suffering, and whatever is suffering is not ‘fit’ to be regarded as self because it is foolish to cling to something if this leads to suffering. Recognizing this, we should cling to nothing. As brought out earlier, the illusion of self forces upon us an existential dilemma: either this self endures forever or it eventually perishes, and accepting either horn of the dilemma leads to suffering. The Buddha’s solution to the problem steers a middle course between the extremes of eternalism and annihilationism. If the existential dilemma is predicated on the self-illusion, then by dispelling this illusion the problem dissolves. There is no longer a question of whether I am forever bound to the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, or whether I will eventually perish because there simply is no ‘I’. Unenlightened consciousness is consciousness conditioned by clinging. I am a being in the world only in the sense that I experience myself as a being in the world, and I experience myself in this way only because I cling to and, hence, identify with a worldly being. Whatever I cling to I regard as me or mine, and the illusion that I am consists in regarding things in this way. But this illusion can be dispelled. Nibbāna is an experiential possibility that can be realized by deconditioning consciousness, and the anattā teaching is a tool for accomplishing just this. ‘One who perceives non-self eradicates the conceit [of] “I am,” [which is] Nibbāna in this very life’ (AN 9:1). Dispelling the self-illusion brings about a fundamental shift in consciousness, a shift from a self-centered to a ‘centerless’ consciousness. The Aggivacchagotta Sutta (MN 72) analogizes this to the extinction of a fire. In a conversation with Vaccha, the Buddha points out that a fire burns in dependence on grass and sticks. When this fuel is exhausted, the fire is extinguished. He then asks Vaccha: If someone were to ask you, Vaccha: ‘When that fire before you was extinguished, to which direction did it go: to the east, the west, the north, or the south?’—being asked thus, would you answer? To this strange question, Vaccha can only reply that, having exhausted its fuel, the fire is extinguished. ‘The fire’ refers to nothing. The referent is gone, but gone nowhere. In the same way, ‘the Tathāgata’ (an epithet for the Buddha) refers to nothing because the Tathāgata has abandoned that material form … that feeling … that perception … those formations … that consciousness by which one describing the Tathāgata might describe him. The Tathāgata is, literally, ‘thus gone’. One cannot identify anything to fix the reference of the expression because the Tathāgata clings to nothing. The Tathāgata ‘has abandoned that material form by which one describing the Tathāgata might describe him’, and the same for the other aggregates. Hence, ‘he is deep, immeasurable, hard to fathom, like the great ocean’. Because he has abandoned everything, because there is nothing in the world that the Tathāgata regards as self or as belonging to self, there is nothing, no one that is him: Therefore, I say, with the destruction, fading away cessation, giving up, and relinquishing of all conceivings, all excogitations, all I-making, mine-making, and the underlying tendency to conceit, the Tathāgata is liberated through not clinging. The same point is made in a different way in SN 22:85, where Sāriputta chastises Yamaka for holding the ‘pernicious view’ that an arahant ‘is annihilated and perishes with the breakup of the body’. The point is not that an arahant survives death, but that it does not ‘fit the facts’ either to affirm or to deny the postmortem existence of one who is ‘thus gone’. ‘The Tathāgata is not apprehended by you as real and actual here in this very life’, Sāriputta argues, so there is no question of whether he exists or does not exist after death. There is simply no one about whom the question can be raised.

Two Views of Nibbāna
In the Mahātan: hāsankhaya Sutta (MN 38), the Buddha emphasized that consciousness (viññān: a) is ‘dependently arisen’ and that ‘without a condition there is no origination of consciousness’. Here the Buddha was responding to Sāti’s ‘pernicious view’ that ‘it the same consciousness that runs and wanders through the round of rebirths, not another’. Elsewhere the Buddha instructs his disciples: ‘This body of mine … is subject to impermanence, to being worn and rubbed away, to dissolution and disintegration, and this consciousness of mine is supported by it and bound up with it’ (MN 77.29). If my consciousness is supported by my body and bound up with it, then it is not the same consciousness that ‘runs and wanders through the round of rebirths’. A consciousness supported by and bound up with a different body would be a different consciousness. This suggests that consciousness is a dependent phenomenon, like a fire. A fire cannot exist without something that produces and sustains it, and neither can consciousness. But in MN 38, the point seems to be that every specific form of consciousness is a dependent phenomenon. Thus we read: When consciousness arises dependent on the eye and forms, it is reckoned as eyeconsciousness; when consciousness arises dependent on the ear and sounds, it is reckoned as ear-consciousness; … when consciousness arises dependent on the mind and mind-objects, it is reckoned as mind-consciousness. (MN 38.8) Should we conclude from this that consciousness itself is a dependent, conditioned phenomenon? If so, then final Nibbāna (or Parinibbāna), which is unconditioned, is not a state of consciousness. Rather, it is reached when, like a fire that has exhausted its fuel, consciousness is extinguished. This essentially negative view of Nibbāna is the traditional view of Theravāda Buddhism. Bhikkhu Bodhi, speaking for this tradition, writes: Upādāna, ‘clinging’, also designates the fuel of clinging. Thus consciousness continues on in the round of rebirths so long as it is sustained by the fuel of clinging. When the defilements are extinguished, there is no more fuel for consciousness to burn, and thus the bhikkhu without clinging ‘goes out’ by the attainment of Nibbāna. (Ñān: amoli & Bodhi, 2009, p. 1317) It is not difficult to find textual support for this view. In AN 3:90, Nibbāna is equated with the cessation or ‘stopping’ (nirodha) of consciousness and is likened to the extinguishing of a lamp. In the Sutta Nipāta, we read: Whatever misery arises, all that is because of consciousness. By the stopping [nirodha] of consciousness, there is no arising of misery. Knowing this danger, that ‘Misery is because of consciousness’, by the quiescence of consciousness a bhikkhu is without craving, quenched. (Sn 734–735) According to a passage from the Udāna, after Dabba Mallaputta attained final Nibbāna, the Buddha uttered the following verse: The body disintegrated, perception ceased, All feelings became cool, Mental activities were calmed, And consciousness came to an end. (Ud 8.9) Such passages strongly suggest that while final Nibbāna may be a state of being, it is not a conscious state of being. This would explain why Nibbāna is typically (though not always) described in negative terms, as ‘unageing, unailing, deathless, sorrowless’(MN 26.13), as ‘the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all acquisitions, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation’ (MN 26.19). In AN 9:34, Sāriputta describes Nibbāna as happiness, which suggests that Nibbāna at least has an affective or ‘feeling’ tone. But then Udāyi asks: ‘[W]hat happiness could there be here when nothing is felt here?’ To this, Sāriputta replies: ‘Just this, friend, is the happiness here, that nothing is felt here’. In other words, Nibbāna is happiness, but only in the negative sense that it puts an end to feeling and, hence, an end to suffering. Indeed, Nibbāna is said to be without ‘sense objects’ (āramman: as) altogether (cf. SN 12:38). If intentionality is a defining mark of consciousness, this by itself entails that final Nibbāna is not a conscious state. Yet, the traditional view does not accord well with the Buddha’s repudiation of annihilationism. If final Nibbāna is not a conscious state, then there is nothing that it is like to attain it. It is conscious oblivion, an experiential void, nothingness. This is not annihilationism, as Walpola Rahula correctly points out, ‘because there is no self to annihilate’ (1974, p. 37). It is, nevertheless, death as it is commonly imagined. Is this the supreme goal of Buddhism, the ‘supreme noble peace’, the ‘highest bliss’, the ‘sublime’, the ‘far shore’ (SN 43:14)? Against this, a number of scholars, including Peter Harvey (1995, pp. 198–209, 2013, pp. 74–76), Rune Johansson (1969, 1979, pp. 163–164), and Miri Albahari (2002), have argued for a ‘positive’ view of Nibbāna. 6 According to these writers, final Nibbāna should be understood, not simply as a state of being, but as a state of consciousness—‘a radically transformed state of consciousness’, in Harvey’s words (2013, p. 75). In developing a case for the positive view, we might begin by considering the utterly mysterious nature of Nibbāna. All sides agree on this—that Nibbāna is ‘indescribable and ineffable’ (Upadhyaya, 1971, p. 342), that it is ‘beyond ordinary comprehension’ (Rahula, 1974, p. 43), that it is ‘beyond all limited concepts and ordinary categories of thought’ (Harvey, 2013, p. 74). But does not the incomprehensibility of Nibbāna point to the fact that it must be a conscious state? If it is not, if there is nothing that it is like to attain final Nibbāna, then it is no more incomprehensible than death; it is, to use Albahari’s apt description, ‘a blank state of nothingness’ (2002, p. 14). On the other hand, if final Nibbāna is a conscious state, then it is ‘beyond ordinary comprehension’ in the same way in which the experience of color is beyond the comprehension of someone who is blind from birth. To be understood, it must be directly experienced. As the Buddha declared upon first realizing Nibbāna, it is ‘profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable my mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by wise’ (MN 26.19). The negative descriptions of final Nibbāna indicate that it is utterly unlike any mundane state of consciousness. But the positive epithets—the ‘supreme noble peace’, the ‘far shore’, and so on—surely indicate that it is something more than ‘a blank state of nothingness’. There are other considerations that support the positive view. One concerns such passages as MN 106.13, where final Nibbāna is described as ‘the liberation of the mind through not clinging’. The meaning of this is clarified in two discourses. In one, the Alagaddūpama Sutta (MN 22), the Buddha discusses the consciousness of a bhikkhu who has ‘cut off at the root’ the ‘conceit of “I am”’: [W]hen the gods with Indra, with Brahmā, and with Pajāpati seek a bhikkhu who is thus liberated in mind, they do not find [anything of which they could say]: ‘The consciousness of one thus gone is supported by this’. Why is that? One thus gone, I say, is untraceable here and now. (MN 22.36) Another discourse, the Godhika Sutta (SN 4:23), relates the story of a monk, Godhika, who attains final Nibbāna (remarkably, after committing suicide). There appears ‘a cloud of smoke, a swirl of darkness’, moving in all directions. The Buddha explains that the cloud of smoke is ‘Māra the Evil One searching for the consciousness of the clansman Godhika, wondering: “Where now has the consciousness of the clansman Godhika been established?”’ But Māra cannot locate Godhika’s consciousness because ‘with consciousness unestablished, the clansman Godhika has attained final Nibbāna’. According to these texts, a bhikkhu who is ‘liberated in mind’ has an ‘unsupported’ or an ‘unestablished’ (appatit:t:hā) consciousness—a consciousness that is not ‘supported by and bound up with’ a worldly being. In SN 22:53, we read that ‘with the abandoning of lust’ for the five aggregates ‘the basis is cut off: there is no support for the establishing of consciousness. When that consciousness is unestablished … it is liberated’. If it is clinging that binds consciousness to a worldly being, then by eradicating clinging, consciousness is not extinguished but liberated from its worldly bondage. Bhikkhu Bodhi—again, speaking for the tradition—rejects the view that final Nibbāna is an ‘unestablished’ state of consciousness. He writes: When the monk is said to attain final Nibbāna with consciousness unestablished, this should not be understood to mean that after death consciousness survives in an ‘unestablished’ condition … for enough texts make it plain that with the passing away of the arahant consciousness too ceases and no longer exists. (2000b, p. 423) He refers, specifically, to SN 12:51, where we read: ‘When there are utterly not volitional formations, with the cessation of volitional formations, would consciousness be discerned?’ ‘No, Venerable sir.’ ‘When there is utterly no consciousness, with the cessation of consciousness, would name-and-form be discerned?’ ‘No, Venerable sir.’ The Buddha then raises the same questions about the remaining links in the chain of dependent origination, from name-and-form to ageing and death. But the point made here is clearly about the rebirth-consciousness, not about consciousness itself. The rebirth-consciousness, the third link in the chain of dependent origination, is one of the factors necessary for the conception of a new sentient being, and it is conditioned by volitional formations, the second link in the chain. Thus, with the cessation of volitional formations, there is no rebirth-consciousness and so no conception of a new sentient being. (The same observation can be made about other passages, such as Ud 8.9 and Sn 734-735, cited above, which apparently suggest that consciousness ceases upon attaining final Nibbāna.) To understand this it is important to bear in mind that in the Buddhist analysis the aggregates that constitute a person are not ‘things’ but processes. The consciousnessaggregate (viññān: a-khandha) is a person’s conscious stream (viññān: a-sota). When rebirth occurs, the final moment of one person’s conscious stream conditions the first moment of a new person’s (or some other sentient being’s) conscious stream. What perpetuates cyclical existence is the causally conditioned flow of consciousness. It is ‘the unbroken stream of human consciousness’ (viññān: a-sota) that is ‘established both in this world and in the next’ (DN 28.7). It follows that with the ‘stopping’ (nirodha) of the conscious stream, there is no renewed existence; the chain of dependent origination is broken. But this does not mean that consciousness itself— pure, luminous awareness—is obliterated; it means that the conditioned, phenomenal flow of conscious experience ceases. This brings us to another consideration that supports the positive view, and this concerns the meditative experience of Nibbāna. The most intriguing description of this occurs at DN 11.85 (repeated at MN 49.25): Consciousness non-manifesting [viññān: am: anidassanam: ], Boundless, luminous all-around [anantam: , sabbato-pabham: ]. The passage goes on to describe this as a state where the four elements have ‘no footing’, and where all dualities and name-and-form are wholly destroyed. The passage concludes: ‘With the cessation of consciousness [viññān: a] this is all destroyed’. Obviously, the term ‘consciousness’ (viññān: a) is used in two different senses; for it cannot be that the consciousness described as ‘non-manifesting, boundless, luminous all-around’ is the same consciousness as the one that has ceased. This is clear evidence that a distinction was made between aggregate-consciousness (the conscious stream that is ‘established both in this world and in the next’ and that ceases upon attaining Nibbāna) and consciousness itself (pure, luminous awareness). Unlike other forms of consciousness, which arise from contact with worldly phenomena, the Nibbānic experience arises when consciousness is temporarily liberated from all conditioning factors. Presumably, it is this experience that becomes permanent upon attaining final Nibbāna, when consciousness is permanently liberated from all conditioning factors. If this is correct, then not every state of consciousness is conditioned; in particular, the Nibbānic experience is not. And if it is this experience that becomes permanent upon attaining final Nibbāna, then Nibbāna is most definitely an experiential state. What are we to make of the Nibbānic experience? It is described as consciousness (viññān: a), non-manifesting (anidassana, also translated as ‘signless’ or ‘featureless’), boundless (ananta, infinite, endless), and all-around (sabbato, wholly, completely, in every respect) luminous (pabha, shining, lucid, radiant). Clues as to the nature of this experience are provided by other texts. At MN 21.14, the term ‘non-manifesting’ (anidassana) is applied to empty space; it is ‘formless and non-manifesting’. Also, like Nibbānic consciousness, space (ākāsa, also translated as ‘sky’) is boundless or infinite (ananta). In describing the different levels of samādhi (cf. DN 9.14-15), a meditating bhikkhu is said to dwell in the sphere of infinite space (ananta ākāsa) and pass beyond this to the sphere of infinite consciousness (ananta viññān: a). In the enumeration of the six elements (cf. MN 112.7), from the most dense (earth and water) to the progressively more refined and subtle, consciousness (viññān: a) is listed after space (ākāsa), suggesting, as Rune Johansson argues, that ‘viññān: a was felt to be a still more subtle space than ākāsa and corresponding to an inner, conscious space’ (1979, p. 59). Like Nibbānic consciousness, space is ‘unestablished’ (appatit:t:hā). In the Mahārāhulovāda Sutta (MN 62), the Buddha instructs Rāhula: ‘Just as space is not established anywhere, so too, Rāhula, develop meditation that is like space’ (MN 62.17). An interesting passage from SN 12:64 likens unestablished consciousness to a beam of sunlight shining through empty space. With nothing to obstruct it, the light does not become established anywhere. In the same way, by breaking the chain of dependent origination, ‘consciousness does not become established’. It is the essence of light, like consciousness, to illuminate things, to make them appear. But a beam of sunlight shining through empty space is not nothing and, by implication, neither is unestablished (here meaning ‘objectless’) consciousness.7 There are many references to the ‘luminosity’ (pabhā) of consciousness, such as SN 51.11, where a bhikkhu is said to develop a mind ‘imbued with luminosity’, and AN 1:49, where the mind is described as intrinsically ‘luminous’ but sullied by ‘adventitious defilements’. One sutta (MN 140.19) discusses ‘consciousness, purified and bright’. The Buddha asks: ‘What does one cognize with that consciousness?’ And he answers: One cognizes: ‘[This is] pleasant’; One cognizes: ‘[This is] painful’; One cognizes: ‘[This is] neither-painful-nor-pleasant’. In dependence on a contact to be felt as pleasant there arises a pleasant feeling. When one feels a pleasant feeling, one understands: ‘I feel a pleasant feeling’. One understands: ‘With the cessation of that same contact to be felt as pleasant, its corresponding feeling—the pleasant feeling that arose in dependence on that contact to be felt as pleasant—ceases and subsides’. The same comments are made with regard to painful and neither-painful-nor-pleasant feelings. One simply observes with detachment the conditioned or dependent nature of all feelings, their arising and their passing away. By disciplining our minds in this way, we uproot the three ‘defilements’ (kilesas): greed (lobha), aversion (dosa), and delusion (moha). We still experience pleasure, but we do not lust after it. We still experience pain, but we are not averse to it. Because we see whatever arises in consciousness as it really is—as conditioned, impermanent, and ultimately unsatisfactory—we are without delusion. Greed, aversion, and delusion are conditioned tendencies, which, in turn, condition consciousness. But it is possible, through disciplined practice, to decondition consciousness, to purify it of these defilements. Nibbāna is often described in these terms, as the eradication of greed, aversion, and delusion: ‘For this, bhikkhus, is the supreme noble peace, namely, the pacification of lust, hate, and delusion’ (MN 140.28). This is ‘consciousness purified and bright’, a uminous, spacious dimension through which experiences are experienced as streaming, as rising and falling, without clinging or aversion. We might speculate, then, that while early Buddhism viewed aggregateconsciousness (and, hence, the rebirth-consciousness) as a conscious stream (viññān: a-sota), it took a different view with regard to consciousness itself—that is, ‘non-manifesting, boundless, luminous’ awareness. This it viewed as an inner, subjective ‘space’ through which experiences stream, like clouds passing through the sky (ākāsa). If this is correct, then Nibbāna can be understood as the ‘stopping’ (nirodha) of the temporal flow of conscious experience, resulting in an essentially timeless (akāliko) state of awareness. For, understood as an inner dimension, consciousness does not flow; rather, experiences flow through consciousness—again, like clouds passing through the sky. Thus, a ‘noble disciple dwells with a mind entirely like space: vast, exalted, measureless, without enmity and ill will’ (AN 6:26). Of course, before attaining final Nibbāna, an arahant continues to have conditioned experiences. But after the ‘fuel’ (upādi) sustaining his worldly life is exhausted, the stream of conditioned experiences ‘stops’. What remains is unconditioned (asan: khata), luminous (pabha) awareness unobstructed by sense objects (āramman: as), like a bright, cloudless sky. Being timeless, Nibbānic consciousness, unlike all conditioned phenomena, neither arises nor passes away. Hence, it is unconditioned, permanent, and not liable to suffering. It is ‘the unborn, unageing, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, undefiled supreme security from bondage’ (MN 26.18).

In the Dhātuvibhanga Sutta (MN 140), the Buddha tells one of his disciples: ‘I am’ is a conceiving; ‘I am this’ is a conceiving; ‘I shall be’ is a conceiving; I shall not be’ is a conceiving …. By overcoming all conceivings, bhikkhu, one is called a sage at peace. And the sage at peace is not born, does not age, does not die …. For there is nothing present in him by which he might be born. Not being born, how could he age? Not ageing, how could he die? (MN 140.31) According to the doctrine of dependent origination, clinging (upādāna) conditions being (bhava), which, in turn, conditions birth (jāti). Phenomenologically, the being that clinging gives birth to is not a self, but the illusion of a self. I wander in the round of saṁsāra because I experience myself as a wandering being, but I experience myself in this way because of the self-illusion. It is this illusion that is reborn, and it is clinging that gives birth to this illusion. A ‘sage at peace’ has overcome all conceiving in terms of an ‘I’. Hence, ‘there is nothing present in him by which he might be born’, because the self-illusion, which arises from or consists in such conceiving, has been dispelled. Dispelling this illusion thus puts an end to cyclical existence, which is Nibbāna. Metaphysically, clinging conditions rebirth because clinging creates a conscious dependency. In SN 35:118, the Buddha explains how a bhikkhu’s consciousness becomes dependent upon sense-objects: If a bhikkhu seeks delight in them, welcoIf a bhikkhu seeks delight in them, welcomes them, and remains holding on to them, his consciousness becomes dependent upon them and clings to them. A bhikkhu with clinging does not attain Nibbāna. At MN 143.5-14, Sāriputta instructs a dying man to prepare himself for death by letting go of everything. He is not to cling to anything so that his consciousness will not be dependent upon anything: Householder, you should train thus: ‘I will not cling to the world, and my consciousness will not be dependent on this world. I will not cling to the world beyond, and my consciousness will not be dependent on the world beyond’. Such passages forge a tight link between conscious clinging and conscious dependency, suggesting that it is clinging that binds consciousness to a worldly being. When this being is destroyed at death, unless clinging (upādāna) is eradicated, consciousness clings to another being (bhava), resulting in rebirth (jāti). There is thus a dual sense in which clinging conditions rebirth, and so a dual sense in which Nibbāna is ‘liberation through not clinging’ (anupādā vimokkha). Phenomenologically, the illusion of self is the conscious manifestation of clinging. Whatever I cling to I conceive of as me or mine, and the illusion that I am consists in conceiving of things in this way. Hence, by eradicating clinging, by severing all attachments to worldly things, the illusion of self is dispelled. The result is enlightenment, or Nibbānic consciousness, understood as centerless consciousness. Metaphysically, I experience myself as a worldly being because my consciousness is ‘supported by and bound up’ with it. It is clinging that creates this conscious dependency, and unless clinging is eradicated, my conscious stream (viññān: a-sota) remains bound to one worldly being or another. With the destruction of one basis of support, my conscious stream flows from one worldly being to another, resulting in rebirth. By severing all attachments, consciousness is liberated from all conditioning factors. The result is Nibbānic consciousness, understood as unconditioned consciousness. Seen in either way, Nibbāna is ‘the relinquishing of all acquisitions’ (MN 26.19). This is the supreme goal of Buddhism. But to reach this goal, we must learn how to eradicate clinging, and this is precisely what the Buddha taught