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Yes. Lang is right. You have come a long way, Jorg.
Please don’t hesitate to ask questions. Your approach to writing things down is good. It makes one think through. Post a revised version when you are ready.
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Yes. Some of those posts are old and need a bit of revision.
1. I just revised the first post quote as follows:
- “The baseline state of mind, i.e., when it is not looking at an external object or thinking about it, is called “bhavaṅga.” Here we do not “feel” anything, for example, when we are in a deep sleep. The mind falls back to the bhavaṅga state even in between pancadvāra citta vithi.”
2. The second was also revised as follows:
- Of course, a citta does not arise by itself. It is in a citta vīthi involved in “sensing the outside world.” That can occur via one of the six senses. Such a citta vīthi has either 17 cittā (for those sensing events involving the five physical senses) or about ten cittā in citta vīthi involving only the mind. In between those, the mind is in the “bhavaṅga” state.
- There is a “bhavaṅga” state associated with each “bhava.” Upon transitioning to a new bhava, a new “bhavaṅga state” will be associated with that new bhava. That is because the “seat of the mind” (hadaya vatthu) is unique to each bhava.
- However, we do not “feel” the “bhavaṅga state.” For details, see “State of Mind in the Absence of Citta Vithi – Bhavaṅga.”
3. It is correct. The phassa cetasika (one of the seven universal cetasika in a citta) makes it possible for the seat of the mind (hadaya vatthu) to make contact with the “rupa” coming to one of the five pasada rupa.
- For example, “cakkhuñca paṭicca rūpe ca uppajjāti cakkhuviññāṇaṃ” would not take place without the phassa cetasika arising. However, it is just a technicality. One could say that cakkhu pasada rupa makes contact with the hadaya vatthu and transfers the “rupa rupa” (or “vanna rupa“) that came in. But the resulting cakkhu vinnana will not arise without the phassa cetasika.
P.S. “Bhvanga citta” arise arise only WITHIN a citta vithi. In between citta vithi, the mind is in a “bhavanga state” – there are no bhavanga citta arising outside citta vithi. See “State of Mind in the Absence of Citta Vithi – Bhavaṅga.”
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Good catch!
1. It must be a printing error, but it is in the Buddha Jayanthi (Pali-Sinhala) edition, too (p.178 for those who may have access to it.)
- “Viveka” means “stress-free” in both Pāli and Sinhala languages.
2. The correct application of vivekaṭṭho is in the following verse, for example: “Nirodhassa nissaraṇaṭṭho, vivekaṭṭho, asaṅkhataṭṭho, amataṭṭho—”
- Thus, it should be associated with Nibbana (Nirodha).
- That verse is in the “2.2. Saccakathā” section of the Tipitaka Commentary, “Paṭisambhidāmagga.”
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Yes. Quite true.
But it is important to note that only the “wrong view of a ‘me'” (sakkāya diṭṭhi) is removed at the Sotapanna stage. The “wrong perception of a ‘me'” (asmi māna) goes away only at the Arahant stage.
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“He explained that “saṅkhāra are like banana tree wood because just as banana tree has no strong heart wood, all akusala saṅkhāra have no essence or value. They don’t lead to anything useful or fruitful.”
Yes. That is easy to see.
- We do kamma with (abhi)saṅkhāra with high expectations because of avijjā: “avijjā paccayā saṅkhāra.”
- However, that leads only to “ jāti paccayā jarā, marana, soka-paridēva-dukkha-dōmanassupāyasā sambhavan’ti” or “only to eventual suffering.”
- In the process, we are subjected to three types of suffering:”saṅkhāra dukkha, dukkha dukkha, and viparināma dukkha. “Introduction -2 – The Three Categories of Suffering“
LayDhammaFollower wrote: “So, we behave like donkey pulling cart (bearing painful PañcakKhanda), except not only carrot is not reachable but carrot in not there in the first place! “
1. That is true in a more profound sense. We have what is called “ghana saññā” or “perception of dense matter.” Here, “ghana” means “thick/solid/dense,” not to be confused with “ghāna,” meaning the “ghāna pasāda rupa” responsible for smelling.
- I just tried to look for a sutta on “ghana saññā” at Sutta Central, but nothing shows up. But “ghana saññā” is another form of “wrong perception” we have about material objects.
- We think our physical bodies are dense and that steel is highly dense.
2. However, the atoms that makeup everything in our external physical world are mostly empty space!
- The average atomic radius is about 100 picometers (pm), about 10^-10 meters. The size of the nucleus, on the other hand, is much smaller than the size of the atom. The average size of a nucleus is about 5 to 10 femtometers (fm), which is about 10^-15 meters. Thus, a nucleus is about five orders of magnitude smaller in “radius” and volume-wise unimaginably tiny compared to an atom.
- On the other hand, 99+% of the mass of an atom is in the nucleus!
- That is why an atom is almost “void of matter”!
3. Yet, we perceive our bodies and everything around us to be “solid” and “dense.” That is the wrong perception of “ghana saññā.” But I have not seen any discussion on that in any English texts.
- So, LDF ‘s “hunch” is entirely accurate.
4. To understand how “empty” an atom (or a physical object) is, we can ask the following question: “If all atoms on the earth are collapsed to the nuclear dimension what would be the earth’s radius?”
- The radius of the Earth is about 6,371 kilometers (km). If all the atoms making up the Earth collapsed to their nuclear dimension, the radius of the Earth would be only 64 meters! That is smaller than a city block!
- I asked the ChatGPT to do this calculation, and it got confused first; see my chat on December 27, 2022, at 11:32 am: “Debunking the Great AI Lie – Video.”
5. The Buddha called the elementary unit of matter a “bhuta” or a ghost for that reason. At that level, it is impossible to detect, just as it is impossible to see a ghost.
- I mentioned this briefly in the post “The Origin of Matter – Suddhāṭṭhaka“; see, especially #10.
- Scientists tried to pin down the “smallest unit of matter,” but it (Higgs boson) turned out to be a “packet of energy.” Per the Wikipedia article, “Higgs boson,”: “After a 40-year search, a subatomic particle with the expected properties was discovered in 2012 by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva, Switzerland.”
- Thus, science has again confirmed the worldview of the Buddha!
6. Therefore, all our mental impressions about rupa are “distorted.” Viññāṇa (including vipāka viññāṇa) is a magician; it presents a “distorted version” of the world. Understanding that is “yathābhūta ñāna.”
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Thank you, Ravi. I will listen when I get some time.
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No, but they are related.
We could say that anāgata (future) rupa are based on “rupa upadanakkhanda.”
- An analogy: Someone spends time making a plan for a house (“rupa upadanakkhanda“) and ends up with a plan (blueprint). That blueprint is like anāgata (future) rupa. Of course, the blueprint will keep changing as that person keeps making new efforts with abhisankhara.
I am not sure about the meaning of the word “Sahampati.”
However, Brahma Sahampati is an Anagami. He became an Anagami in a previous Buddha Sasana.
- But he visited Buddha Gotama several times, and had conversations with him. The first time was just after the Buddha attained the Buddhahood.
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I see. Thank you, Lang.
I am not sure why you could not remove those extra “<br />” stuff. I just edited your post to remove them.
I will try to contact the plugin author to see why it happens.
- If you are unable to remove them, please leave them. I can remove them.
Thank you, Tobi!
Yes. I also heard about the Netflix series and it seems popular. There are also various YouTube videos on discussion with Graham Hancock about this issue. He has written several books on the subject too.
Thank you, Tobi, for sharing your thoughts!
I thought you were trying to highlight some sentences and I did that for you. I hope that is what you wanted done.
The following post could be helpful in formatting a comment: “Formatting a Post“
You are welcome, Jorg.
1. Also, I had the following under #2 in my comment above: “(that transmits audio signals from radio stations)”. I just now took it out. I was going to give a different example and revised it. Forgot to remove that part. I hope it did not confuse some.
- Visible range photons are NOT involved in radio transmission.
2. It is really a good idea to contemplate how unimaginably tiny a gandhabba is.
- All our capabilities (thinking, seeing, hearing,..) all in that “mental body”!
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No problem. Please take the time to make sure it is to your satisfaction.
Thank you for your efforts and much merit to you and your family!
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Dosakkhayo wrote:
“2. The Internet site discussion board influences the selection of the Pure Dhamma post’s topic.
It can lead to Pure Dhamma becoming controversial and wasting time dealing with essential topics in over-local and complicated matters.”Are you referring to the forum on puredhamma.net or some other forum?
- I don’t decide to write posts based solely on discussions at forums. But sometimes, I do when I see the need to clarify an issue.
Dosakkhayo’s second post with the two videos:
I am not sure what you are suggesting. Should I be making YouTube videos?
- May be you should make an example post/video of the type you suggest.
