Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I have translated the full “Vitthāra Sutta (AN 4.162)” that Siebe mentioned above.
You can select the English translation at the Sutta Central site using the top left menu bar. Then you will be able to compare with my translation below:
“Bhikkhus, there are these four modes of practice. Which four? Difficult practice with slow progress, difficult practice with fast progress, easy and pleasant practice with slow progress, & easy and pleasant practice with fast progress.
“And which is difficult practice with slow progress? This is the case where a certain individual is by birth of an intensely sensual nature. He easily experiences distress born of passion. OR, he is by birth of an intensely aggressive nature (quick to get angry). He easily experiences distress born of this aggressive nature. OR he is normally of an intensely ignorant nature (slow witted). He easily experiences distress born of delusion (ignorance). The five faculties of his—the faculty of saddha (faith in Dhamma), the faculty of viriya (effort), the faculty of sati (mindfulness), the faculty of samadhi (to get to tranquility), the faculty of panna (wisdom)—are weak. Because of their weakness, he makes only slow progress on the Path, and takes a longer time to get to Nibbana. This is called difficult practice with slow progress.
“And which is difficult practice with fast progress? This is the case where a certain individual is by birth of an intensely sensual nature. He easily experiences distress born of passion. OR, he is by birth of an intensely aggressive nature (quick to get angry). He easily experiences distress born of this aggressive nature. OR he is normally of an intensely ignorant nature (slow witted). He easily experiences distress born of delusion (ignorance). The five faculties of his—the faculty of saddha (faith in Dhamma), the faculty of viriya (effort), the faculty of sati (mindfulness), the faculty of samadhi (to get to tranquility), the faculty of panna (wisdom)—are strong. Because of their strength, he makes fast progress on the Path, and takes a shorter time to get to Nibbana. This is called difficult practice with fast progress.
“And which is comfortable practice with slow progress? This is the case where a certain individual is by birth of not intensely sensual nature. He does not easily experience distress born of passion. OR, he is by birth of not intensely aggressive nature (quick to get angry). He does not easily experience distress born of this aggressive nature. OR he is normally not of an intensely ignorant nature. He does not easily experience distress born of delusion (ignorance). The five faculties of his—the faculty of saddha (faith in Dhamma), the faculty of viriya (effort), the faculty of sati (mindfulness), the faculty of samadhi (to get to tranquility), the faculty of panna (wisdom)—are weak. Because of their weakness, he makes only slow progress on the Path, and takes a longer time to get to Nibbana. This is called comfortable practice with slow progress.
“And which is comfortable practice with fast progress? This is the case where a certain individual is by birth of not intensely sensual nature. He does not easily experience distress born of passion. OR, he is by birth of not intensely aggressive nature (quick to get angry). He does not easily experience distress born of this aggressive nature. OR he is normally not of an intensely ignorant nature. He does not easily experience distress born of delusion (ignorance). The five faculties of his—the faculty of saddha (faith in Dhamma), the faculty of viriya (effort), the faculty of sati (mindfulness), the faculty of samadhi (to get to tranquility), the faculty of panna (wisdom)—are strong. Because of their strength, he makes fast progress on the Path, and takes a shorter time to get to Nibbana. This is called comfortable practice with fast progress.
“These are the four modes of practice.”
My notes:
– One is born with a fixed set of five faculties. This basically depends on one’s progress made in previous births, and also the strength of the kusala kamma that led to this human bhava.- But one’s response to sense inputs or whether one has an aggressive nature, or whether one is “slow witted” seems to be independent of one’s five faculties.
Therefore, even for someone with “good” five faculties, may have “sensual, aggressive, and slow witted nature” (case 2 above). And someone with “bad” five faculties, may not have “sensual, aggressive, and slow witted nature” (case 3 above).
OK, Eric. I was able to restore your original reply.
Sorry you had to go through so many re-postings.You are absolutely right. Many of the misinterpretations of suttas arise because people just translate suttas word-by-word, mechanically.
Eric said: “Starting out. Yeah. I’m still looking for the mundane Path,..”.
I am glad to hear that honest assessment. Not many people are willing to admit that, and I can see that they just go around in circles.
Let me add to the statement by Tobias to make it a bit better; the additions are in bold (I am sure he meant this part too):
“Niramisa sukha arises from understanding and living according to the wider worldview of the Buddha and tilakkhana. One cannot be forced to calmness. Learning and grasping the Dhamma and living a moral life according to the Dhamma will bring progress. As one learns deeper Dhamma, one’s sila or moral conduct will get better and the niramisa sukha will increase too.”Let me expand a bit more.
The root causes of ALL kinds of sufferings are associated with dasa akusala. But there are various levels of them. One needs to start dealing with the strongest ones first.
Those are the ones that one does with the bodily activities and speech, which I call “the big eight”. These are discussed in “2. The Basics in Meditation“.
It is useless to try to comprehend deeper aspects like Tilakkhana, until one’s mind can see that such actions and speech can lead to a high level of stress in the mind. Those actually have origin in abhijja (excess greed) and vyapada (excess anger), and micca ditthi (10 types of wrong views) in one’s mind.
When one controls those bad actions and speech, abhijja and vyapada will GRADUALLY REDUCE from one’s mind. When one learns Dhamma and contemplate on them, wrong views will be corrected too. It may take some time. (But most people want to see the results right away, JUST by reading posts at the website. That is unlikely to happen).
I am not speaking to anyone specific, because I do not know the mindset of each person. Each person would know whether he/she is committing immoral actions/speech, AND what types of micca ditthi one has; micca ditthi can be removed only by learning and contemplating, not by sheer will power.
The “cooling down” (or niramisa sukha) will be proportional to how much of a load has been removed from one’s mind. One may not even realize, but dasa akusala are burden to the mind. Most times, one will realize it only when one gets rid of that burden. Then one can look back and realize the “cooling down”. For example, a laborer working out in the hot sun may have done it for years without really feeling how hard that work is. But if he gets a job inside an air-conditioned office, he will now see the suffering that he went through all those years.
In any case, this “basic foundation” is exactly what the Buddha explained to the young Rahula bhikkhu (who had become a bhikkhu only recently) in the Ambalatthika Rahulovada Sutta that you referred to under the topic, “Instructions to Rahula – Ambalaṭṭhikarāhulovāda Sutta“.
Please read my post under that topic, which I just posted. I was glad to see that answer to this question could be found in that sutta, which you yourself referred to.
This is a VERY important sutta. Evreyone should read it.
In this sutta, the Buddha described in detail these “basics” that one should first undertake, pointing out the bad outcomes of lying, etc, which are nothing other than dasa akusala.
Here is the link to a translation and the Pali versions side-by-side, at the same website that you referred to:
“Advice to Rāhula at Ambalaṭṭhika“.Translations of some verses are not that good, but the general idea comes through, especially if you take into account the following. Two especially bad translations are for akusala as “unskillful” and kusala as “skillful”. It would be much better to translate them as “immoral” and “moral”. One does not get rebirth in the apayas with unskillful actions, but rather immoral actions.
I just discussed the importance of this sutta under the topic, “Basic mindfulness & sense-pleasures for niramisa sukha?“. You may want to read that too.
I do not know anything about the Nāgānanda International Institute for Buddhist Studies. But I guess it could not hurt.
You said: “There are a few women monasteries in Sri Lanka, but it seems all are Theravada.”
You sound like Theravada is bad. But Theravada is the only major sector that takes Tipitaka as the basis. It is just that most CURRENT Theravada bhikkhus do not actually follow the Tipitaka, but Buddhaghosa’s Visugghimagga. What the Waharaka Thero did was to point out that key interpretations in the Visugghimagga are not correct. There is nothing wrong with the Tipitaka.
@Akvan and @Siebe:
The key here is understand the difference between vedana that arise due to kamma vipaka and “samphassa ja vedana“.An Arahant has those vedana of the first kind until death of the physical body. But an Arahant has no “samphassa ja vedana” once the Arahanthood is attained.
So, both types of vedana will cease at the Parinibbana of an Arahant.
Please read carefully the post, “Vēdanā (Feelings) Arise in Two Ways“.
Y not said: “So the beings are not the hadaya vatthu. They only have it. Is that what is meant? In that case, by what other names or descriptions are the beings themselves, as distinct from and beyond the hadaya vatthu, refered to in Buddhadhamma?”
How can a being be its hadaya vatthu? Hadaya vatthu is just a suddhashtaka, which is even smaller than an atom in modern science.
A human has an inert body that weighs tens of kg or hundreds of pounds.
Obviously that body is not the human, because at death it becomes inert and the gandhabba comes out. So, is gandhabba the “person”?But a gandhabba essentially has a hadaya vatthu and five pasada rupa, where those pasada rupa are also suddhashtaka. So, in essence, that human can also be reduced a set of six rupa smaller than an atom.
That set of hadaya vatthu and five pasada rupa are NOT fixed or NOT unchanging. They decay and a new set arises due to kammic energy at a very fast rate.
This is why it cannot be said that there is a “self”.
However, one’s pancakkhandha (and panca upadanakkhandha and gati) remains accessible with that hadaya vatthu; of course there are NOT fixed and keep changing too. That is why it cannot be said that there is “no self”.
I am re-stating this basic picture because it is critical to understand. See, “What Reincarnates? – Concept of a Lifestream“.
Embodied is referring to the post: “Citta, Manō, Viññāna – Stages of a Thought“, which is an advanced post.
Here is #16 from that post:
Aṅguttara Nikāya 1; Accharāsaṅghātavagga; Sutta #51 is a very short sutta. Here is the complete sutta: “Pabhassaramidaṃ, bhikkhave, cittaṃ. Tañca kho āgantukehi upakkilesehi upakkiliṭṭhaṃ. Taṃ assutavā puthujjano yathābhūtaṃ nappajānāti. Tasmā ‘assutavato puthujjanassa cittabhāvanā natthī’ti vadāmī”ti.
Translated: “Bhikkhus, a (pure) citta has pabhassara nature. That citta is contaminated by defilements (keles or klesha). A normal human who has not heard my Dhamma (assutavā puthujjano) is not aware of this true nature. I do not recommend citta bhāvana to them“.
The citta bhavana referred to here is the same as anywhere else: It is always the Anapanasati/Satipattahana. One needs to be mindful always, and cultivate good thoughts that come to the mind and reject bad thoughts.
That becomes really effective only when one starts comprehending Tilakkhana. Anyone who has not, is an assutavā puthujjano. Then they do it at the mundane level. One who is doing “breath meditation” is even below that, because that does absolutely nothing to purify the mind.
Those are the realms #28 through #31, the arupavacara realms:
“31 Realms of Existence“.Only a trace is matter (rupa) exists there: the hadaya vatthu of those beings. Not even a single pasada rupa exists for that living being, who is called an arupavacara brahma; they can only think.
If a human cultivates arupavacara jhana, he/she would experience that too, i.e., no other sense faculty will function in those jhana. Of course his/her whole body will be kept alive.
First of all, welcome to the forum, Eric!
Frivolous talk is speech that does not contribute any value, either in the mundane sense or in the lokottara sense (helpful towards Nibbana).
The example you gave about weight loss is not frivolous talk; that information could be beneficial to someone who is trying to lose weight. So, that is beneficial in the mundane sense. When we meet a friend after some time, we ask about one’s health and one’s family and that is not frivolous talk.
You asked: “ If I “make conversation” with a customer about sports and the weather, is this frivolous talk?”
No. That is part of your responsibility (and courtesy) as a salesman in order to win the customer’s confidence and sell merchandise. Of course, you would not want it to be dragged into a lengthy conversation about weather or sports; that would be frivolous. So, you need to make a judgement about that.Frivolous talk is when people get together and talk gossip or crack jokes about others for hours. In general, talking at length about things that are not conducive to the benefit of anyone is frivolous talk.
In general, the following can be used as a guide:
– If you know something that is not helpful and is untrue, then do not say it
– If you know something that might be helpful, but is untrue, do not say it
– If you know something that is not helpful and is true, do not speak about it
– If you know something that is helpful and is true, then find the right time to say itOf course, discussing Dhamma is the best type of talk, since that will help everyone immensely not only to elevate “the quality of life” in this life, but also to work towards getting rid of samsaric suffering and attaining permanent happiness (Nibbana).
Siebe said: “I tried to explain to myself the difference between vyapada sankappa, often translated as ill will and vihimsa sankappa often translated as the thought of harming or cruelty.”
Yes. There seems to be just a subtle difference between the two. But the difference is significant.
Himsa (or vihimsa) applies mostly in the case of hurting someone or especially animals. Avihimsa is not to have that tendency, and to have compassion for all beings.
Vyapada is the tendency to generate lot of “angry” thoughts or vaci sankhara about an enemy. When one cultivates such vaci sankhara, one’s mind get defiled and one is on a downward path (vyapada comes from “vaya” + “pada” or “towards one’s own destruction”).
– Vera (වයිර in Sinhala) is another word used to give the same meaning of enmity.
– Of course, avyapada and avera (අවයිර in Sinhala) are the opposites, basically meaning loving kindness.We can take some examples to clarify.
We see some people (especially children but adults too), habitually like to verbally abuse and laugh at others and enjoy that. In the case of animals, they like to hurt or even kill animals for no reason and to enjoy that without any remorse (for example those who like to watch cock-fighting). These are vihimsa sankappa.
On the other hand, one can form a long-lasting enmity with another PERSON, if one perceives that person has done something bad to oneself or to someone that one loves. Unlike in the previous case, this enmity can last a long time, even through rebirths, if one keeps thinking bad thoughts (vaci sankhara) about that person day in and day out. These are vyapada sankappa.
Those who tend to cultivate vyapada sankappa can use the following meditation verse:
Aham avero homi, avyāpajjho homi,
Anīgho homi, sukhī attānam pariharāmi.May I be free from enmity; may I be free from ill-will;
May I be free from anger; May I keep myself at peace.I am not sure how many of you understand that pancakkhadha is ALL MENTAL.
The following is an old post, but a very important post. I hope you all read and ask questions if somethings are not clear. Understanding this post will help clarify some other concepts as well:
“Pancakkhandha or Five Aggregates – A Misinterpreted Concept“Akvan said: “If you take the example of the man who was born into the wealthy family and lived a fulfilling life, can you say that he wasn’t sad or unhappy even for a second during his life..”
No. I was merely out that in that case there is no real dukha experienced by that person, and he was definitely not in the anatta (totally helpless) state during his life.
If you want to see real dukha and real anatta, please watch the video “Earthlings” at this site:
http://www.nationearth.com/I must warn that there are very disturbing scenes after about 10-15 minutes.
@Embodied: I am assuming that this is your description of Tilakkhana in the “mundane sense”, that you promised to do under another topic.
So, you do not believe in rebirth, but are trying to explain Tilakkhana within that framework.Now think about the following situation. One is born healthy into a wealthy family. He lives for, say about 50 years, and dies in a sudden heart attack. During his life, he enjoyed a “full life” and also did not engage in any immoral activities (there was no need; he could have whatever he wanted and he did not need to make money). He of course enjoyed all sense pleasures approved by the norms of the society (good food, had a good married life, had good children, no illnesses, etc).
So, if he now dies suddenly, there is no more suffering for him, other than possibly some discomfort at the moment of death (because within your framework, there is no rebirth). So, within your framework, can you describe the anicca, dukkha, anatta that was experienced by this person? Please use simple terms.There is no need to use philosophical phrases that are meaningless.
