III. The Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering
SN 56.11 This is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same wanting (wanting related to the five senses, wanting for existence and wanting not to be); the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, never letting it settle enough to grow.
DN 22 Wherever in the world there is anything agreeable and pleasurable; there the cessation of wanting comes about. And what is there in the world that is agreeable and pleasurable? Seeing the world is agreeable and pleasurable; hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and knowing is agreeable and pleasurable, and there this wanting comes to be abandoned, there its cessation comes about.
SN 12.66 Whatever spiritual seekers in the past regarded pleasant and agreeable things in the world as impermanent, as suffering, as non-self, as an affliction, as fearful; they abandoned wanting.
Dependent Cessation of all Phenomena
SN 12.43 But with the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same wanting (taṅhā) comes cessation of fuel (upādāna); with the cessation of fuel, cessation of states of existence (bhava); with the cessation of states of existence, cessation of rebirth (jāti); with the cessation of rebirth, old-age-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, unhappiness, and distress cease. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering. This is the passing away of suffering.
SN 22.30 The cessation, subsiding, and passing away of form … of experience … of perception … of will … of consciousnesses … is the cessation of suffering, the subsiding of affliction, the passing away of old-age-and-death.
Nibbāna with Residue Remaining
AN 3.32 This is peaceful, this is sublime, that is, the stilling (samatha) of all will (saṅkhāra), the relinquishing of all acquisitions, the destruction of wanting, fading away, cessation, nibbāna.
- SN 3.55 When excited by wanting, overcome by wanting …
- When full of aversion, overcome by aversion …
- When deluded, overcome by delusion …
…with mind obsessed by these—you intentionally create problems for yourself, for others, or for both, and you experience mental suffering and depression.
But when wanting, aversion and delusion are abandoned, you do not intentionally create any problems for yourself, for others, or for both, and you do not experience mental suffering and depression.
It is in this way that nibbāna can be experienced directly.
SN 38.1 [Venerable Sāriputta:] The destruction of wanting, the destruction of aversion, the destruction of delusion: this is called nibbāna (with residue remaining).
The Arahant
If one is intent on the end of wanting and clarity of mind: when one sees the arising of any of the six senses, one’s mind is completely free from wanting. For one of peaceful mind, one completely liberated, there’s nothing further to be done, no [need to] increase what has been done.
As a stone mountain, one solid mass, is not stirred by the wind; so no sights, sounds, odours, tastes, touches or mind-objects, desirable or undesirable, stir the stability of the mind. This mind is steady and freed, and you witness the vanishing of the mind.
Sn 1048 And one who has considered all the contrasts on this earth,
And is no more disturbed by anything whatever in the world,
The peaceful one, freed from rage,
From frustration, and from wanting,
This stream of consciousnesses will not be reborn.
SN 5.10 [Māra asks:] “By whom has this being been created? Where is the maker of this being? Where has this being arisen? Where does this being cease?”
[The bhikkhunī arahant, Vajirā, replies:] “Why now do you assume ‘a being?’ Māra, is that your wrong view? This is a heap of saṅkhārā. Here no being is found.”
“Just as with a coming together of parts, the word ‘vehicle’ is used, so, when the five components of existence exist, there is the conventional term ‘a being.’”
“It is only dukkha (suffering) that comes to be, dukkha that stands, and dukkha that falls away. Nothing but dukkha comes to be. Nothing but dukkha ceases.”
SN 48.53 An arahant understands that the six senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, and the mind) will cease completely and totally without remainder and no other senses will arise anywhere in any way. This is another way one knows that there is nothing more to be done (one is an arahant).
