Hi all,
A couple of points in this discussion resonate with me due to some recent experiences and discussions I had with some people around me. I’d like to share them, and have question at the end.
@Lal
“Fear is two kinds:
1. Fear of losing things in this life, fear of getting sick, losing loved ones, of ghosts, of bad dreams, etc etc. What we can call “mundane fears”.
2. But one should fear most is the possible birth in the apayas. Such a suffering will not be limited to a mere 100 years.”
I do have my share of “mundane fears” and phobias, and they are limiting and debilitating when they get out of hand.
More recently, the fear of birth in the apayas is taking over more, and interestingly, it’s not debilitating at all. On the contrary, it serves to motivate to work for the sotapanna stage.
My fear of rebirth in the apayas is getting stronger because I am more and more convinced of rebirth, due mainly to two reasons:
1) I spent more time reading reincarnation (a more commonly used term) accounts — writing by Brian Weiss, Carol Bowman, Walter Semkiw, Edgar Cayce, etc.
2) I realized that alternative views of rebirth — an eternal state somewhere, or nothingness — are ridiculous since they are contrary to the law of kamma.
At the same time, I came across another view by some buddhists: there’s no need to consider the afterlife; what’s important is the “here and now”. You take care of the “here and now”, and you don’t waste energy worrying about the afterlife. Elsewhere I’ve seen the term “secular buddhism”, and I think this view is related to that. Personally, I find this view uninspiring.
@Lal
“…When such thoughts creep into the mind, one should immediately get rid of them. That is the basis of Anapana and Satipatthana.”
@sybe07
“I know there are schools, like dzogchen, who teach we do not have to change anything which arises in the mind. The idea is: If we understand that thoughts are mere thoughts, they come and go, we do not have to dispel them. They liberate themselves, they go without a trace.”
I recently listened to a teaching of exactly this: mere observation of phenomena, including thoughts. It wasn’t dzogchen but a Satipatthana teaching. dhammanupassana was taught as mere observation of dhamma (translated as “mental content”) to see them come and go in order to realize the transient, impersonal nature of them.
As an aside, Kāyānupassanā was taught as mindfulness of the body, for example, of walking (lifting a foot, putting it down, lifting the other foot, etc.); breath meditation was taught as anapana as a subsection of Kāyānupassanā.
I did practice this way for quite some time, and did watch things “come and go”, but my problem was the “come” part. Bad thoughts did “go”, but they also “come” again. I did not reach the stage of “…They liberate themselves, they go without a trace.”
So, just a few input, but I do have a question:
For the view of “not caring whether or not there is rebirth”, sort of “taking the 5th on rebirth”, is it a micha ditthi?
Thank you all,
Lang