I've been going down a rabbit hole trying to understand the core logic of the early Buddhist path from a materialistic/agnostic standpoint, and I've arrived at a conclusion that feels both insightful and perhaps overly simplistic. I wanted to lay out my line of reasoning and see what you all think. My line of thought goes like this: The Goal is Nibbāna: The ultimate goal is the cessation of dukkha (suffering/dissatisfaction) and the end of the cycle of rebirth. Nibbāna and Annihilation: From an outside, secular perspective, Parinibbāna (the final Nibbāna after an enlightened being's death) looks like annihilation. The impermanent aggregation that an atheist/agnostic perceives as the "self" is gone and does not reappear. This taps into our deepest primal fear. The Doctrinal Solution is Anattā: The Buddha's core teaching to resolve this is Anattā (Not-Self). The argument is that it can't be annihilation because there was no permanent, solid "self" to be annihilated in the first place. What we are is an impermanent "congregation" of processes. The Training is Realizing Anattā: The entire meditative training, at its core, is about deconstructing our own experience to see this truth for ourselves—to move from intellectually accepting Anattā to directly realizing it. The Paradox for Both Believers and Atheists This creates an interesting situation. For a person who believes in rebirth, the ultimate goal of non-rebirth can seem frightening. Their instinct is often to desire a better rebirth, not an end to existence altogether. Conversely, for an atheist who already believes there is nothing after death, it might seem like they've already achieved the Buddhist goal of "no rebirth." However, the crucial distinction is psychological. The atheist may still fear the end of their existence out of instinct, while an enlightened person would meet that same end with equanimity. Therefore, for both the believer afraid of cessation and the non-believer afraid of their own mortality, the Buddhist meditative training serves as a tool to become psychologically at peace with the end of the process we call a "self." This leads me to my core idea: Is the entire project of Early Buddhism (and practices like the Thai Forest tradition) essentially just psychological engineering designed to solve the problem of death anxiety? It feels like the fear of personal annihilation is the "final boss" of human suffering, and the doctrine of Anattā is the specific weapon designed to defeat it. By training the mind to see through the illusion of the very "self" we're afraid of losing, the therapy is complete, and the fear is uprooted. I realize this might be a reductionist take. I'm curious how this framing sits with you all. Is this a fair, if incomplete, way to look at the central mechanism of the path? Or does putting too much emphasis on the "death" aspect miss the point entirely? Looking forward to your thoughts.

I read the following on the internet: > Talking about semantics again. I guess you still didn't learn the > definition of the word. Paranibanna and death are synonymous. You are > just being pedantic for the sake of being pedantic... for no reason at > all. Please discuss this.