[Christian]

Interesting sutta (beware of errors in the commentary)

https://static.sirimangalo.org/mahasi/Sammaparibbajaniya%20Sutta.htm

The interesting thing:

If One becomes a deva, one’s body will be clean and clear, and one’s intelligence will be equally clear and sharp. One can remember one’s religious practice in the previous existence, and would possibly gain an immediate enlightenment. So the Buddha said:

“Dandho bhikkhave satuppādo, athakho
so satto khippameva visesabhāgi hoti.”

        "Bhikkhus, memory of the religious practice during the past lifetime may be slow to come, but once it comes, it quickly makes for enlightenment of the person concerned."

[upekkha100]

In my opinion, the best strategy for sansara is:
1) Attain Sotapanna stage or any stage of Nibbana in this very life.

2) If can’t attain stages of Nibbana, then attain jhana so that one can increase the chance of a brahma bhava and maybe become Ariya as a brahma. Billions years of bliss and safety from apayas. Since brahmas have long lifespan, this increases the chance of possibly meeting the future Buddha as well(yes this is my wish haha), and become an Ariya after listening to a desana by him.

3) If can’t attain jhana, then be moral and do sankhara with all 3 good roots alobha/adosa/amoha to increase chances of a tihetuka human bhava.

4) In my opinion, if someone is not an Ariya, the deva realm sounds dangerous and scary. Deva loka would be my last aims. I’d only want to be reborn there if I am certain that I’m an Ariya. Even if one is a tihetuka deva, all the sensual pleasures would be too distracting and cause much tapa(heat in the mind) to cultivate the Path and attain Nibbana

The deva loka, while a safe vacation from the apayas, it sounds like a shiny trap towards the demise of one’s moral character. Sure it has all the tempting pleasures like in Hansel and Gretel, but I feel like most of the kamma beeja devas eventually start accumulating are not of wholesome quality, and under the right conditions these bad kamma beeja will not be the vipaka they would want.

Unless one is an Ariya or someone of extraordinarily strong character, it is hard for me to fathom how the average deva will not eventually get corrupted by the excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures, and not become arrogant, jealous and down right depraved/immoral like some yakkhas/asuras and Mara.

Of course there are variety of devas(good, bad, in between, dvihetuka, tihetuka, and numerous Ariyas as well) just like there are a variety of humans. But this is my general perception of that realm as a whole.

[Tien]

Thanks for the sutta, I haven’t seen it. As usual, I always looking for a dual language interpretation to the suttas I come across, here is it for this sutta: https://suttacentral.net/dn20/en/sujato (enable dual English-Pali display in the Gear icon).

I want to add something maybe helpful.
I remember read a sutta, which I don’t remember its name. In this sutta, a deva is immerse in sense pleasures, playing with 1000 maidens, suddenly, 500 maidens vanish. Using his Divine Eyes, he roams the worlds and found that all of them have been rebirth in the Niraya. After witnessing this, fear and anxiety overcome him, thinking that he too, will end up in Niraya. Then he thinks about asking the Buddha for a solution to end the fear and sufferings.

[y not]

Upekkha’s perception of deva lokas as ‘shining traps’ may be justified when it refers of anariya devas there. Upekkha also sees that the case is different for those devas with magga phala. But the pleasures to be had there and the attainment of Nibbana going together is not excluded; indeed, they do go together, or probably the first is followed by the second – and this as a result of the merits the sutta is talking about. Just to substantiate this there is this verse in the Nidhikanda Sutta (Kp 8)-

(It is talking about the REAL savings of dana, sila etc which follow one after death, not the worldly ones which do not but which people value so highly):

Human good fortune,
delight in the world of the gods,
even the ATTAINMENT of Emancipation,
through this merit they receive all.

Mānussikā ca sampatti,
devaloke ca yā rati;
Yā ca nibbānasampatti,
sabbametena labbhati.

I am not able to tell whether the ‘attainment of emancipation’ will follow ‘the delight in the world of the gods’ in the same deva realm or later , but going by the sequence of the verses (first the human, then the deva loka and thirdly Nibbana mentioned) it would appear the three happen sequentially.

The whole sutta is beautiful, and serves to show the stupidity of holding onto material things.
.

[Lal]

Yes. It is a beautiful verse, y not.

The sutta is about the merits that one receive due to punna kamma (good deeds) sooner or later. That comes from the whole sutta, even though the verse does not say it specifically.

So, I think the meaning of the verse will be more clear this way:

Human good fortune,
delight in the world of the gods,
even the ATTAINMENT of Nibbana,
through this merit they receive from good deeds.

[Author]

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