Post on “Jāti – Different Types of Births”

Yes. This is a bit complex for human and animal jati, as I tried to explain in that post.

1. For Brahmas and Devas, it is simple. As explained in #5, “bhava paccaya jati” leads to just one type of jati. Then “jati paccaya jara, marana” is the end of that jati (birth) as a Brahma/Deva.

2. For humans and animals, there are “jati” within “jati.” In #6 and #7, I explained that process for humans.
– First, “bhava paccaya jati” leads to birth (jati) as a human gandhabba.
– That gandhabba is then “born with a physical human body” many times. That is the “khandhānaṃ pātubhāvo” stage, as stated in #6:
“(v) When all body parts are formed that is the khandhānaṃ pātubhāvo stage and a baby then comes out of the womb. That last stage is what we commonly call a “birth.””
– That process can happen many times for that human gandhabba.
– The “jati paccya jara,marana..” step in Paticca Samuppada refers to the death of the gandhabba.

3. Of course, “jati paccya jara,marana..” step also happens to a birth with a physical human body too. That can be called “type 2 jati” where the gandhabba is born with a physical human body. After the death of that physical body, the same gandhabba can be born with different physical bodies many times.
– Thus, there will be many such “type 2 jara, marana..” for physical bodies acquired by the same gandhabba.
– But the human existence ends only with the death of the gandhabba.

Please feel free to ask questions.
– Again, those additional steps are there mostly for humans and animals only.

On many occasions the Buddha, after enumerating the various akusala actions (the breaking of any or a number of the 5 precepts) said that what will follow will be a birth in the apayas; in contrast, a happy destination awaits those who engage in kusala actions (the keeping of the precepts):

In both instances, that is preceded by “…at the BREAKUP OF THE BODY, after death” (kāyassa bhedā paraṁ maraṇā). It is natural to imagine that his listeners could have thought of no other body involved than the present physical one – param marana – after the death of the present body (surely not of the mental body, the manomaya kaya). And that would mean that the vast majority of humans go to the apayas at the very first jati in a human bhava. Now the Buddha has said that most human ‘births’, understood as ‘bhava’, are in the apayas. Accepted. But if most humans did in fact go to the apayas, as it would appear, after the death of the present physical body, how to account for children, especially children, being able to remember their last birth, in some cases even recent births? It would be impossible for them to do so, for they would not have returned here to tell us about it in the first place.

So how does it come about that the the phrases ‘kayassa bheda’ and ‘param marana’ are employed in this context? (to clarify: …and not something like ‘manomayakaya bheda’,or ‘param manussabhava marana’ ,if you would excuse my fragmentary ‘knowledge’ of Pali !

Metta and Merit to all Beings

y not:

1. Birth in the human realm starts with the birth of the gandhabba.
– That “human existence” can last for thousands of years, i.e., the lifetime of the gandhabba can be many thousands of years.

2. To be born with a human body, that gandhabba needs to be pulled into a womb. Then after 9 months, a baby is born.

3. That baby grows to be an adult and dies within about 100 years or so. But the gandhabba does not die. It comes out of the dead body and could stay in that state for many years until pulled into another womb.
– That leads to another birth with a physical human body, which in turn dies after around 100 years.

4. That process continues until the gandhabba dies at the end of its lifetime.

5. At that point the “lifestream” grasps a new existence (Deva, Brahma, animal, hell-being, etc.)

All that is in the posts, Lal.

Thank you.

y not wrote: “All that is in the posts, Lal.”

OK. I read your comment a bit more closely.

I see your misunderstanding could be in the bolded statement: “…at the BREAKUP OF THE BODY, after death” (kāyassa bhedā paraṁ maraṇā). It is natural to imagine that his listeners could have thought of no other body involved than the present physical one – param marana – after the death of the present body (surely not of the mental body, the manomaya kaya).

– “Kayassa bheda” there does not mean the death of the physical body there. It DOES mean the breakup of the kāya that arose at the beginning of the human bhava, the manomaya kāya or the gandhabba.
– It is a common mistake to take “kaya” as the physical body in ALL cases.
– The meaning of “kāya” is a collection. The manomaya kāya is a collection of hadaya vatthu and 5 pasāda rupa. That is why it is also a kāya.

Remember that “bhava paccaya jati” step refers to the birth of the manomaya kaya and NOT the birth of the physical body in the human existence or human bhava.
– Thus “at the end, “jati paccaya jara, marana” refers to the death of the manomaya kaya or the gandhabba.

That is why we need to think in terms of context, as I mentioned several times in the post.

I now realize I have not been reflecting properly on “bhava paccaya jati”, taking bhava to be the taking up of, the grasping of a human existence at the death moment as a result of gati and abhisankhara -so as yet all this was purely mental ; and the jati the physical birth following. But that does not make sense when it comes to deva and brahma existences, where the two, bhava and jati, are one. With this there was no problem.

But my question arose because I could not see how the distinction between jati and bhava can be so easily swept aside – merely through a word, moreover a word in translation, even if the word in the original be attributed to a Buddha.

So, as ever,

Infinitely grateful