Death vs Birth - Birth & Death of what?

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Death - What dies with death?

Every moment all the 5 aggregates arise and passes away. This can be viewed as momentarily death. Physical deaths (marana) is when the the 5 argerates pass away in one body and arise in another body leaving the residue of corporeal body (rupa) behind.

Clearing the Path by Ven. Ñānavīra further discusses this citations to Suttas. Some of the main citation are Mahā,nidāna Sutta and Nidāna Saṃyutta from the Tripitaka.

Also see: The Buddhist View of Death - An Interview with Bhante Gunaratana by Samaneri Sudhamma and Margot Born

Birth - What is born with birth?

Certainly, the start of life, at conception, is seen as involving the flux-of-consciousness, from a past life, entering the womb and, along with the requisite physical conditions, leading to the development of a new being in the womb:

'Were consciousness, Ananda, not to fall into the mother's womb, would mind-and-body (nama-rupa) be constituted there?' 'It would not, Lord'. 'Were consciousness, having fallen into the mother's womb, to turn aside from it, would mind-and-body come to birth in this present state?'. 'It would not, Lord.' (D. II. 62-3)

Source: The mind-body relationship in Pali Buddhism: A philosophical investigation, Peter Harvey

The quoted Sutta is: Mahā,nidāna Sutta

Can you provide any Sutta / Sutra references.

See above links. Also bibliography of Clearing the Path.

Also the following essay might be of interest: Death: An early Buddhist perspective by Piya Tan

Upvote:2

What dies or is born? What looks like death or birth is just the mind and body changing just like the mind and body are changing right now.

No-self dies , is born or changes.

There is no-self if one is having a near death experience or an out of body experience.

Upvote:2

Conditioned (samsaric) phenomena are subject to birth and death.

It is their very nature to arise and pass away. Samsaric phenomena are compounded and conditioned. They have causes and effects and function as causes for other effects and vice versa.

Conditioned phenomena are in a constant flux. There is no stability or permanence. There is no solidity to be found anywhere. Break up and decay is bound to happen.

Actually, there is only the present moment. It arises and passes away.

One can verify that for oneself, by practicing insight meditation and thereby experience how mental and physical phenomena arise and pass away incessantly.

There is birth and death every moment. A sound, a smell, a feeling, a sight, a taste, a mental formation (e.g. the notion/concept of a body or a Self) arises and passes away constantly.

Birth - What is born with birth?

What arises must eventually pass away, due to the fact that it arose in the first place. Something that comes into existence must also fall away.

"Now, bhikkhus, do ageing and death have birth as condition or not, or how do you take it in this case?

Ageing and death have birth as condition, venerable sir."

-- MN 38: Mahatanhasankhaya Sutta, Bodhi Trans.

Death - What dies with death?

These are the the Buddhas words:

"The passing of beings out of the various orders of beings, their passing away, dissolution, disappearance, dying, completion of time, dissolution of the aggregates, laying down of the body - this is called death".

-- MN 9: Sammaditthi Sutta, Bodhi Trans.

Upvote:4

I think "death" is often described/translation as "dissolution of the aggregates".

So I suppose it's the skandhas which "die" or come to an end, are impermanent.

This reference includes,

  1. And, bhikkhus, what is death? The falling away from existence, the passing away from existence, the dissolution, the disappearance, the end of life, the passing away due to completion of the life-span, the breaking up of the Aggregates, the discarding of the body, the destruction of the life-faculty of various beings in various categories, — this, bhikkhus, is called death.

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