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Tobias said: “What is brahmavihara (brahma+vihara)?”
I will discuss in the future the misunderstood concept of brahmavihara. I just wanted to introduce it here to get a start (Of course, it is mentioned in the sutta too).
Tobias said: “…one MUST have removed the 10 types of miccā ditthi even to cultivate anāriya jhāna”
That is new to me. Can you please elaborate on this?”This is an important point. This is the reason that most people in the West have a hard time getting into jhana. On the contrary, there are many people in the East who can get to anariya jhanas. This is mainly because those in the West are heavily influenced by modern science and thus dismiss rebirth (and laws of kamma) as nonsense, which of course belong to 10 types of micca ditthi.
– We can think about it this way. Jhanic states are higher lying realms in the 31 realms. We have 11 lower-lying realms in the kama loka. Then we have 16 higher-lying rupavacara realms, and even higher-lying 4 arupavacara realms. Kama loka realms have all five senses, and those beings enjoy kama or sense pleasures.
– Rupavacara beings only enjoy seeing and hearing. They are born there simply because, while being human, they had seen the drawbacks of sense pleasures and HAD CULTIVATED rupa jhanas by either SUPPRESSING or REMOVING the craving for sense pleasures, i.e., they had cultivated anariya or Ariya jhanas.Therefore, both types of jhana (Ariya or anariya) essentially REQUIRES one to believe in the rebirth process and the laws of kamma. EVEN SUPPRESSING the desire for sense pleasures is not an easy task. That is impossible to do without getting rid of the first level of “wrong views” about this world, the 10 types of micca ditthi.
Of course, comprehending Tilakkhana is the removal of the deeper layer of micca ditthi.
Post published: “Pathama Metta Sutta“.
Hello Johnnyd237, and Welcome to the forum!
Johnny asked me the question in an email and I asked him to post it here, so that it can benefit others. I will translate the complete sutta in a couple of days.
Welcome to the forum, kanhlk!
One becomes a Sotapanna by comprehending the real nature of this world of 31 realms (Tilakkhana) by LEARNING that from an Ariya (Noble Person) who himself learnt from such a person. That lineage can be traced back the Buddha Gotama.
On the other hand, one becomes a Buddha by DISCOVERING the real nature of this world by himself.
Once one becomes a Sotapanna, there is no need to figure out the real nature of this world himself. Thus, by definition, a Sotapnna (or one with higher magga phala) CANNOT become a Buddha.
You said: “Jotipala became a monk and delivered Buddhdharma for many of the others person who were there at Kassapa Budhdha Shasana, he had good knowledge
If that is so i really can’t undestand what actually prevent him at least became sothapana during that time ?”
As pointed out above, IF Jotipala attained the Sotapanna stage, he would not be able become a Buddha. Furthermore, one who is making “paramita” to become a Buddha will not “accidentally” or otherwise attain any magga phala on the way.You also asked how one can identify the true Sotapanna stage. There are many posts at the site on that. Do a Search using the Search box at top right with “Sotapanna” and you will get many relevant posts. But here is one: “How Does One Know whether the Sotapanna Stage is Reached?“.
Hi Alay,
There is a very basic fact that comes from Abhidhamma, and one does need to have a good knowledge of Abhidhamma to see this point. There are 7 universal mental factors (cetasika) that arise with ANY citta (thought) of ANY living being: vedana, sanna, cetana, manasikara, phassa, jivitindriya, and ekaggata.
The key point relevant to the question is that not only puppies but all animals (down to fish and ants and amoeba) have feelings (vedana) and perceptions (sanna) at their own levels. They all feel suffering, especially bodily suffering. As part of their strong kamma, the animals cannot show their emotions, so one would even not have pity on them. For example, fish cannot cry (or laugh); their bodies are not designed by kamma to do that. So, just because we cannot see them crying, does not mean they don’t feel pain. At least in fish, the suffering is quite clear: they writhe with pain dangling by those hooks; see, “It’s Official: Fish Feel Pain“.
And they also have sanna (perceptions) about their experience. Obviously the dogs and cats recognize their owners, and as you pointed out, remember those who have harmed them.
The most precious thing for EACH living being is their life. When someone takes care of them, they appreciate it and show it in whatever form they can. Even though some dogs show a trace of “smiling”, some others can show their appreciation only by body language, mostly by wagging their tails. And when get threatened, they show their displeasure by whatever form they can: dogs bark and bit; cats scratch, etc.
The only significant thing animals cannot do is to make plans to make their lives better. My daughter’s dog very much likes to sun bathe in her cot, but when the Sun moves away from her cot she does not realize that she can pull it to the right place easily. We have to do that for her.
– While birds have been building nests for billions of years, their “designs” have not changed at all.So, the bottom line is that animals do have lobha,dosa, moha. But they are mostly robots, even those some higher animals have minor planning capabilities.
– But they can kill out of anger, greed, and of course moha too. Especially “higher animals” can show those when they fight for food, territory, mates, etc. But lower animals like amoeba “just have to take much of the sufferings come their way”. Of course, those in the niraya (hell) have no options at all. They just suffer without having any ability to respond or to lessen the suffering.Hi Lang,
Doubt is entirely different from vicikicca. Let us take a couple of examples form the Tipitaka to illustrate.
Even Sotapannas or an Arahant may have doubts or “unresolved issues” about somethings. For example, Mahanama was a wealthy person, who had attained the Sotapanna stage, and had full faith in the Buddha. As we know, one does not significantly get rid of the tendency to “get angry” until the Anagami stage. Mahanama had many businesses, and when he visited those places he could see people doing “stupid things” and he would get really mad at them. Later on, he would become upset about getting angry, and would wonder whether he would be born in the apayas if he died at such a moment. So, he went to the Buddha and told about his concerns. The Buddha told him that he had attained the Sotapanna stage, and thus it is not possible for him to be born in the apayas.
Mahanama went back and sometime later had another experience like that. He went to the Buddha told again that he is still worried that because of how angry he got; maybe it is still possible that he would be born in the apayas. Three times he did that, and only at the third time he accepted the word of the Buddha.
So, it is clear that Mahanama still had “doubts” about something the Buddha clearly stated.
Even more importantly, we can take the following account about Ven. Moggallana. The Buddha has specifically stated that it is not possible for a human to fully understand how vast the universe is, and had warned bhikkhus not to investigate such things (there were 5 such “acinteyya” or unthinkables, as we discussed recently).
Anyway, one day Ven. Moggalana, who was only to second to the Buddha in supernormal powers, decided to “take a look” at how vast the universe is. He got lost, and had to be “rescued” by the Buddha.
If someone knows the two suttas, please post links to them. I do not remember the names of the suttas.
So, the point is that even an Arahant may have “doubts” about certain things. But once one becomes a Sotapanna, one would not engage in “really foolish things” like committing apayagami actions; those are the actions that are “unwise”.
Vicikicca is an akusala, that can lead to rebirth in the apayas. But anyone except a Buddha can have doubts.
There is another related term, khanka vicikicca, which is even worse. Khanka or “kha” + “anka” literally means “outright rejection done with disdain” (i.e., rejecting as utter foolishness). It is easier to get the phonetic meaning in Sinhala (“ganan ganne naha” or “ගණන් ගන්නේ නැහැ”; “anka” means “number”). For example, those who reject rebirth as hogwash or nonsense have khanka vicikicca.
When one is on the mundane path, one takes Buddha Dhamma seriously, and would not have khanka vicikicca. One believes in the rebirth process and laws of kamma, for example. But until one comprehends Tilakkhana and gets on the Noble Path, one will have vicikicca, and may do apayagami actions “under pressure”, i.e., when coming across a very tempting situation. For example, we know that “highly moral” people are sometimes charged with serious crimes such as bribery or even rape, and people say “we cannot believe that he/she was capable of doing such a thing”. Such things are possible for anyone below the Sotapanna stage.
Y not asked: “..why is an Anagami (non-returner) called such when he does return (to any of those realms reserved for Anagamis)? Only an Arahant does not return anywhere.”
It seems to me what you are really asking is: “ why is an Anagami called a non-returner? Only an Arahant does not return anywhere.”.
The word Anāgāmi comes from “na” + “āgāmi” or “not coming back”: “na” + “āgāmi” rhymes as “anāgāmi”. It means “not coming back to the kama loka”.
– He/she will attain Nibbāna from those brahma realms.By the way, this is another word the meaning of which comes only by analyzing phonetically, not grammatically, just like the word “ānantariya”, that we discussed above.
@inflib (Donna): Dealing with people could be unsettling, but of course it is impossible to avoid. So, one just do the best one can. I think you are doing the right thing. If you try to “reason out”, it may lead to aggravation and escalation.
You said: “I’m concerned that silent may cause the niyata micca ditthi person to act out even more, but I do not want to lie just to make that person stop.”
In Buddha Dhamma, the true intention (cetana) overrides anything defined in the conventional sense. “Musavada” in Buddha Dhamma is NOT “lying” in its literal sense.
During the Nazi terror in Germany, many Germans “lied” to the Nazi’s that they were not hiding Jews in their houses; of course the intention was to save human lives and thus it was the right thing to do and it was NOT musavada. They acquired good kamma for protecting lives.
We need to realize that “lying” — as meant in as “musāvāda” in the five precepts — really means the “intention” involved: “Musā” means “wrong or incompatible with morals” and “vāda” means “speech”.
-Therefore, even though they were literally lying, their intention was not a “musāvāda“, but actually a “good deed”.Let me give an example from the Tipitaka.
The Buddha asked his brother-in-Law Nanda to become a bhikkhu on Nanda’s wedding day, before the wedding. Prince Nanda was to get married and become a King too, the same day. Nanda could not say “no” to the Buddha out of respect. After becoming a bhikkhu, Nanda kept thinking about all that he “missed out”. Then the Buddha took him to a deva world and showed him the female devas, and asked whether his bride was better looking than them. Nanda replied that his bride looked like a “burned monkey” compared to the female devas. So, the Buddha said Nanda could get access to such devas, if he followed Buddha’s instructions. Nanda agreed, and soon attained the Arahanthood. Of course, he realized well-before that nothing in this world was better than Nibbana.
The point is that the Buddha saw Nanda’s ability to attain Arahanthood. If he got married and became King, he would never attain Arahanthood. Rather, a king is very likely to be reborn in the apayas, because of the things that a King has to be involved with. So, what the Buddha did was to save Nanda from all that suffering.
A Buddha, by definition, cannot utter a musavada.
So, I hope you get the point from this story. One needs to act wisely according to the situation at hand. Obviously, the Buddha handled the situation that way, because he saw the potential of Nanda to attain the Arahanthood. Also see: “Right Speech – How to Avoid Accumulating Kamma“.
By the way, what Tobias is saying about “heat in the mind” is tāpa, which is addressed in the Satipatthana Sutta: “Satipatthāna Sutta – Structure“.
A detailed explanation on anantariya kamma can be found in the new post that was just published: “Ānantariya Kamma – Connection to Gandhabba“, which elaborates on my comments above.
Just published a new post “Ānantariya Kamma – Connection to Gandhabba“, which elaborates on my comments above.
Akvan said: “According to this sutta, the bodily pain is referred to as duka vedana. Both the ariya and anariya will feel this duka vedana. But there is second duka that an anariya will feel, and that I think is the dukka dukka.”
The sutta says that a normal human will feel both bodily and mental suffering, and that a Noble Person will only the bodily suffering (of course, the mental suffering gradually reduces with higher magga phala and is totally eliminated only at the Arahant stage).
So, the suffering that is common to both is the bodily suffering and that is the dukkha dukkha. For an Arahant, that also is stopped at Parinibbana.
This is very clear in the sutta in the verse that comes right after the last verse you quoted, which says: “Seyyathāpi, bhikkhave, purisaṃ sallena vijjheyya. Tamenaṃ dutiyena sallena anuvedhaṃ na vijjheyya. Evañhi so, bhikkhave, puriso ekasallena vedanaṃ vedayati. Evameva kho, bhikkhave, sutavā ariyasāvako dukkhāya vedanāya phuṭṭho samāno na socati, na kilamati, na paridevati, na urattāḷiṃ kandati, na sammohaṃ āpajjati. So ekaṃ vedanaṃ vedayati—kāyikaṃ, na cetasikaṃ“.
Translated, not word by word, but to give the idea: “Bhikkhus, Suppose a man were to be shot with a spear. In addition to the physical pain, he would become distraught by the injury and suffer mentally too. That is like being pierced by the spear twice. A Noble Person pierced by the same spear will have only that bodily suffering, and no mental suffering”.
The difference is that the Noble Person would realize that the bodily injury is due to a kamma vipaka, and there is nothing one can do, but to take steps to heal it. There is no point in worrying about it.
The mental suffering that will be stopped totally at the Arahant phala moment is also called “samphassa ja vedana“; see, “Vēdanā (Feelings) Arise in Two Ways“.
Hi Eric,
Thank you for sharing your diary with us. It may help you get things off your chest, and hopefully we can see improvement over time.
However, don’t expect quick results. Keep taking the medication and hopefully you can reduce the dose over time, and eventually become free of medication.
As I mentioned before, each one of has health or other personal issues that are due to kamma done in previous lives. Once those kamma vipaka start, all we can do is to try to deal with their effects. Yours is something that actually can be overcome, since the actual abuse was in the past. The mind CAN heal.
By the way, I am not sure whether you the post by Donna where she recommended the book: The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity, by Norman Doidge. You may want to read that. It is compatible with some things that we have discussed based on Buddha Dhamma. After all these years, psychologists are re-discovering some key issues on how the human mind works.
Firewns said: “When we think of an enduring ‘X’ which is still ever-changing, we risk conceptualising the self-identity as having a permanent core with only its outer aspects or manifestations changing.”
You are correct that, in the ABSOLUTE sense, there is no “permanent core”.
But ALL humans below the Arahant stage are operating AS IF there is a “permanent core”.We can look at it this way: The sense of having a “permanent core” (which is best to be called “sense of me or self”) is very strong for a normal human. If one is not even aware of/ does not believe in laws of kamma, one could do strong immoral acts for the benefit of “me”.
By the time one gets to the Sotapanna Anugami/Sotapanna stages, one realizes that it is not worthwhile AND dangerous to do such “apayagami immoral actions” for the benefit of “me” (mostly for sense pleasures).
Then when one goes through the Sakadagami/Anagami stages, one realizes that even engaging in “harmless sense pleasures” is dangerous. By the Anagami stage, one AUTOMATICALLY loses craving for ALL sense pleasures.
– For a normal human, even this stage is hard to fathom, i.e., one cannot even believe that such a state will be possible. For many people, the question could be: “why would one want to lose craving for sense pleasures?”.However, even an Anagami has the “sense of me”, and thus could be offended or at least perturbed (but not generate anger) by harsh criticism. One still wants to live in this world of 31 realms (actually only in mental states corresponding to those realms above the kama loka).
The fruitlessness AND danger in even that will only be realized at the Arahant stage. That is when one finally gives up the “sense of me” or the “permanent core”. This is even more worse situation than the Anagami stage in the minds of most humans: “Why would I want to do that? I always want to live”.
This is why I say that one needs to go step-by-step. Don’t even contemplate on the Anagami stage, until getting to the Sotapanna stage. It is likely that some of you CAN imagine the benefits of the Anagami stage, and may be getting there (or already there). In any case, one will KNOW when one gets there; no one else can know that.
Therefore, the bottom line is that we are far from actually BELIEVING that there is no “permanent core”. It is truly comprehended ONLY at the Arahant stage.
Put it in another way: Both views that “there is an unchanging self” and “there is no self” are wrong for any human who has not yet attained the Arahanthood. Only at the Arahant stage, that one truly realizes that “there is no point (and one will be subjected much suffering) in having a sense of self”. That “self” who undergoes suffering will cease to exist in this suffering-filled world of 31 realms at Parinibbana. Then that particular “self” will no longer exist in this world; he/she would be merged with Nibbana, which is permanent and without suffering.
I hope everyone will read the above carefully.
OK, y not. It seems that you don’t have further questions on this issue. I am glad to hear that. It is not always clear to me exactly what a given person is asking.
I am sure it works the other way too, i.e., my explanations may not be clear (or I am not really addressing the specific question/comment of a given person).
Hi Akvan,
The full sutta that quoted is: “Tisso imā, bhikkhave, dukkhatā. Katamā tisso? Dukkhadukkhatā, saṅkhāradukkhatā, vipariṇāmadukkhatā—imā kho, bhikkhave, tisso dukkhatā. Imāsaṃ kho, bhikkhave, tissannaṃ dukkhatānaṃ abhiññāya pariññāya parikkhayāya pahānāya … pe … ayaṃ ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo bhāvetabbo”ti.”
Translated: “Bhikkhus, there are these three kinds of suffering. What three? Dukkhadukkhatā, saṅkhāradukkhatā, vipariṇāmadukkhatā, which are the three kinds of suffering. The Noble Eightfold Path is to be developed for comprehending of these three kinds of suffering, for their utter destruction, for their removal.”
That does not mean ALL THREE types of sufferings are stopped at the Arahanthood.
Didn’t the Buddha get injured (by Devadatta)? Didn’t he have back pains? Didn’t he have a painful episode after the last meal? Therefore, even the Buddha was subjected to dukkha dukkha UNTIL Parinibbana.
The sutta means stopping of all three sufferings are at Parinibbana.
I discussed this in detail on May 30, 2018 under the topic, “Anantariya Kamma, Euthanasia and Assisted Suicides“. Please read that carefully.
– To make a connection to that post: Both sankhara dukkha (suffering associated with “effort and suffering associated with trying to get long-lasting happiness in this world”) and viparinama dukkha (being subjected to mental suffering when that does not work), are BOTH stopped at the Arahant phala moment. Thus, a living Buddha or an Arahant would NOT have those TWO.
– But dukkha dukkha is due to kamma vipaka, and as long as the physical body is alive, those could bring BODILY suffering.If you have further questions, we can discuss it here or there.
