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In the post: Micca Ditthi, Gandhabba, and Sotapanna Stage, Lal wrote under #3: Translated, the wrong views are: … this world does not exist… there is no special person as a mother… there is no special person as a father…
What do these three wrong views mean? How would someone who thinks this world does not exist account for their experiences in this world?
By a father and mother being special persons, I think it means that we are deeply indebted to our parents for giving us the chance to have a human jati. Is this view correct?
Thank you very much in advance for your answers.
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Firewns,
This is my understanding:
“The world does not exist”
When we dream, we take whatever we are experiencing as real as long as the dream lasts. Only on waking up do we realize it was a dream. I recall on one occasion in my teens or early 20’s the dream felt so real that on waking up it took me some seconds to make the clear distinction which of the two states was the reality.
The ground for those who hold that the world (‘reality’) does not exist is that they equate the waking state (the world, reality) with the dream state as phenomena that arise and fall, that is,that have a beginning and an end, in both states of consciousness. And , if anything, the doubt that ‘the world’ does not exist, or is unreal, occurs to us only when we are awake. Doubts about the ‘reality’ of whatever is experienced never arises FOR AS LONG AS THE DREAM LASTS. Of course we realize that it was all a dream on waking up, and that whatever was experienced there was unreal, but the dream, as an experience, the experiencing, is real enough. We may find ourselves sweating or completely taken by the experience, in a pleasant or unpleasant way, depending on the nature of the dream.
All that in turn arose from the philosophy found in the Vedas that whatever has a beginning and an end is unreal. Now a distinction must be made between what exists/does not exist and what is real/unreal. It goes something like this: a cloud seen in the sky and one seen in a dream are both unreal because in both instances the cloud has a beginning and and end, appears and disappears. Yet it existed, either as condensed water vapour in the sky or ‘formed by the mind’ internally during dream. It exists only as long as it lasts. By this criterion, therefore, existence may be real (lasting, indeed, without beginning or end in time) or unreal (having a beginning and an end),all of which renders everything in the world, indeed, the world itself’unreal’ – and this is, to my mind, what is meant by those who assert that ‘the world does not exist’, because, surely, they are experiencing the world alright (it ‘exists’) but it is held to be unreal. Now, again on this criterion, the only thing that is ‘real’ is Infinite Space: it has neither a beginning nor an end, not only in time (so it is ‘real’) but also in space, cannot come to be, cannot be destroyed, cannot be extended or diminished, does no undergo change in any way whatsoever, is inside and outside of everything, that is, it pervades and encompasses everything,and is at once the container and the contained, without a boundary (and therefore no ‘centre’ can be located anywhere),Itself infinite and containing the infinite. So all objects,all phenomena, all experiences, all that is inside oneself and all that is outside. everything whatsoever is said to ‘not exist in reality’ because all are impermanent, ephemeral; therefore ‘the world does not exist’.
As to the view that ‘there is no special person as father or mother’, I do not see why you ask the question…..yes we are greatly indebted; through them we get the opportunity of a human bhava…think of it, we can attain a deva or brahma bhava solely through our own efforts in opapatika ‘birth’ which requires no father and mother’ but for the extremely precious human bhava we require a father and a mother
y not
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“How would someone who thinks this world does not exist account for their experiences in this world?”
You would be surprised to hear that people have all sorts of weird views. In the Brahmajala Sutta, Buddha listed 62 types of wrong views.
– There are many people even today, who believe that the world around them is all made up by the mind, for example. You can Google “solipsism” and read about it.“By a father and mother being special persons, I think it means that we are deeply indebted to our parents for giving us the chance to have a human jati. Is this view correct?”
Yes. That is correct. Even if one is in human bhava, it is not easy to born with a human body. There are an unbelievable number of human gandhabbas waiting for a mother’s womb.
– For example, in rebirth accounts, there is always a gap of many years in between two adjacent human births. -
Thank you, Lal and y not for your answers.
y not: you wrote that ‘we can attain a deva or brahma bhava solely through our own efforts in opapatika ‘birth’ which requires no father and mother’ but for the extremely precious human bhava we require a father and a mother’.
I believe that we do not need a father and a mother to have a human bhava. A human bhava (existence) is grasped at the cuti-patisandhi moment at the cessation of the previous bhava, if the relevant conditions are present. No father and mother is needed at this point yet.
From then on, a human gandhaba arises and begins to wait for a suitable womb in order to have a human jati (birth). It is only when a suitable father and mother are present will the gandhaba be able to have a human jati by entering the mother’s womb.
The difference in human and animal bhavas and jatis can be explained by the presence of gandhabas. Since the beliefs in gandhabas and paralowas are crucial in eliminating one of the ten micca ditthis, I thought it perhaps important that I point this out.
What do you think, y not?
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Hello firewns:
I went through your post twice to be sure I understand correctly what you are getting at.
True, strictly speaking, we do NOT need a father and a mother to attain a human bhava – as you say, “A human bhava (existence) is grasped at the cuti-patisandhi moment…” I somehow anticipated that the objection, in this case, as it happens, from you, will come up. I will explain:
As is often the case ‘the villain of the piece’ is the distinction between bhava and jati. Even we on here sometimes interchange the two terms, taking it for granted that the distinction is understood IN THE CONTEXT OF WHAT IS BEING STATED. To clarify: jati or a series of jatis is what constitutes a human (or animal) bhava IN ITS MANIFESTATION, for which a mother and a father will be necessary, but the root cause of beings finding themselves in the human or animal realm, the seed, is the bhava as the indispensable precursor to that series of jatis. To wit: what will be the use of all the zygotes brought into existence by the union of (even if not-as-yet) ‘mother and father’, potential jatis, all over the planet if no gandhabbas (the result of one’s abhisankara, gati etc up to that point in time) were not there? Or, put still another way, we DO need a father and a mother for the FULFILLMENT or the working out of our human bhava because that is made up of a series of jatis.
So yes ‘I believe that we do not need a father and a mother to have a human bhava.’ We are at one on this, but now you can see why I said what I did.
I ,as usual, HOPE I have been clear.As to miccha ditthi, I never had a problem with any of them. They struck me as reasonable, even inevitable in the grand scheme of things, the first time I came across them. Thank you, firewns.
much Metta
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Thank you firewns:
As a further illustration of what I meant, take Lal’s post above, where he refers to the WEIRD view that – ‘There are many people even today, who believe that the world around them is all made up by the mind…’ of course, denouncing the idea declared a wrong view by the Buddha.
But we know that in truth all is made up of mind, first nama (intangible)and then rupa (material, gross or fine). And Lal knows that, no need to say. So what he meant was that the ‘weird’ view is such because those people hold, that precisely because all is made up by the mind (which is non-material) then all that is created by it is only imaginary, unreal, illusory.
It is another example where sometimes we inadvertently may give rise to an interpretation we did not intend at all.
Lal please correct if I mis-read you.
Metta
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Yes. Those solipsists think that material things around us do not exist.
The Buddha said that material things do exist, but there is no value in them (because they all exist only for a finite time AND undergo unexpected change during their existence).
If one gets attached to them, one will end up in suffering.
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