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Yes. I did say, “but I am still working on trying to see the dangers of sense pleasures and thereby making a convincing case that all we perceive as “pleasures” in the human and dēva realms are in fact CAUSES for future suffering” in that post.
However, I meant more in the sense of results in future lives. For example, one will not be released from the apayas as long as one enjoys hurting others/animals, and one is not released from the “good realms in kama loka” (human and deva realms), as long as one HAS CRAVINGS for normal sense pleasure.
But normally one does not start disliking or developing adverse reactions to eating especially. Remember that the Buddha was offered most delicious foods by Kings. It is just that he never had a craving for such foods.
For example, sugar or cakes taste sweet or lemon will taste sour for an Arahant too. These are called kama guna, and anyone in a given bhava will SENSE THEM the same. Another opposing example is that pigs taste feces, rotting foods, etc and that is a kama guna for pigs. See, “Kāma Guna, Kāma, Kāma Rāga, Kāmaccanda“.
However, there could be some experiences like what Donna (inflib) is experiencing. While I have not developed any dislikes for foods like cakes or anything else, I see a big change in tasting alcoholic drinks. I now simply cannot drink any strong alcohol like whiskey. I used to love to drink beer and have no apatite now. I may be able to drink a beer, but I have not even tried recently. And I cannot stand loud music and have not watched a movie for over probably two years; it seems just a waste of time. I guess I could do some of that if I really wanted to, but the desire is not there.
I am saying all this just to clarify the point that not many will experience the aversions that Donna is experiencing. This is why each person’s experience is unique, even though there are common general trends.
Embodied said: “I’m attracted to Pâli even more than to sanskrit but do i have to use the key words each time i post something ?”
I am not sure what you mean.
We use words to express ourselves. Which words one uses does not matter much, as long as one can convey what one means.However, I find that it is not possible to convey what is meant by key words like anicca or dukkha by one English word or even many English words. For example, some people use “impermanence” to replace anicca, but that is not even close to the true meaning of anicca.
If you can give an example of what you mean, that would be helpful.
@y not: Yes. I knew that you probably had the idea. But I just want to make sure important points like this are not to be missed. My comments are always intended to be general (for all reading these comments).
Yes. I do understand the frustration of Embodied and many others. But as y not says, we all have been born all over the world many, many times. We all have been exposed to Pali in the past, and one can “pick it up” with time. Of course, it will come a bit easier to those who have been exposed in more recent births.
Also, if you have not already see this: “Why is it Necessary to Learn Key Pali Words?“.
Yes, Johnny. That is correct.
Punnabhisankhara (morally good deeds yielding good vipaka) or apunnabhisankhara (morally bad deeds yielding bad vipaka) are done only with javana citta.
Johnny said: “do arahants dream since their minds are always mindful and bright..:
I have no idea whether Arahants dream or not. And it does not matter much anyway. When dreaming, one never generates javana citta (i.e., conscious thinking is not involved). In Abhidhamma language, those citta vithi involved are parittarammana and atiparittarammana citta vithi which do not have javana citta.
– So, dreaming is a “passive state”: one just experiences what is shown in the dream. For example, in bad dream one may see an animal chasing to kill oneself, but one is even unable to run or try to hide.
– However, as one’s gets purified, one will stop seeing such “bad dreams”. That I know by experience. However, whether all dreams stop for an Arahant, I don’t know.
Y not said: “..dreaming in the waking state, fantasizing..”
Fantasizing is not dreaming. This is VERY important to understand. One must stop fantasizing as soon as one becomes aware of it; that is part of Satipatthana.
– When one fantasizes one is consciously thinking about a previous sensual experience or an anticipated future sensual experience. These are part of vaci sankhara that lead to “bad vinnana“, i.e., they are done with javana citta: “Correct Meaning of Vacī Sankhāra“.
Embodied said: “The “sine qua non” condition for not getting attached to a single material thing is not to experience it at all,or is to experience it but without getting attached ?”
This is a very good question.
The goal is to eventually “be able to experience it but without getting attached”.
It is important to realize that this CANNOT be accomplished directly by will power alone, even though sheer will power should be used to prevent obviously immoral actions.
One will be able to accomplish it over time, when one does two things:
1. Cultivates Anapana (Satipatthana) where one forcefully rejects bad thoughts and cultivates good thoughts.
2. Cultivates anicca sanna over time.1 and 2 depend on each other and feed on each other.
This is the key. There is a lot to think about it, and that is what I tried to do emphasize with the 5 sets of discourses on Tilakkhana. I am not sure how many are able to grasp this.
The Buddha followed the following 4 guidelines and advocated others to do the same.
1. If you know something that is not helpful and is untrue, then do not say it
2. If you know something that might be helpful, but is untrue, do not say it
3. If you know something that is not helpful and is true, do not speak about it
4. If you know something that is helpful and is true, then find the right time to say it.We must be careful about humor, since it may fall into the “empty speech” (samppapalapa) category, which is a dasa akusala.
Hi Donna,
Thanks for pointing out the omission. I have fixed it, and the 9 types of vedana are highlighted in red.
Hi Johnny, please keep the questions open so everyone can answer.
Yes. That is correct.
However, some of those are “secondary rupa”. The root cause is always the mind. So, javana citta are the one’s that really cause the whole world to arise, and it needs a deep analysis to cover fully. However, this is what is discussed at the “Nāma & Rūpa to Nāmarūpa” subsection.
However, here are the key points:
1. Cittaja rupa are the rupa or energies created by the mind in javana citta.
2.Those energies remain in the nama loka for a very long time, until their energies slowly run out. If suitable conditions appear they then bring vipaka via kammaja rupa. For example, at the cuti-patisandhi moment the hadaya vatthu and pasada rupa created are such kammaja rupa (kammaja means generated via kamma).
3. Cittaja and kammaja rupa give rise to utuja rupa. Utuja rupa have nothing to with “temperature” though. These are basically those rupa that we experience (material things).
4. Aharaja rupa are those created by a body during digestion, for example.
Therefore, kammaja, utuja, aharaja rupa all have true origins in cittaja rupa. This is why it is said that “mano pubbangama dhamma..” or “mind is the precursor..”.Hi Allay,
Please don’t address questions to just to me. Keep them open. I encourage everyone to participate.1. Gandhabba cannot make decisions on that. Only gandhabba’s of people who have developed abhinna powers can come out of the body at will.
– Actually, some people with “punna iddhi” (as vipaka of good kamma) have the ability to get the gandhabba or the mental body out of the physical body at will. Also, during heart operations, they may be ejected too. See, “Manomaya Kaya and Out-of-Body Experience (OBE)“.
– Some other people with another type of punna iddhi can see some “dense gandhabbas“.
– I hope some of them will volunteer to discuss their experiences at the forum.2. Even if the physical body is failing the gandhabba inside is fine. It just does not get any inputs from outside if the brain is failing (because the mana indriya is not working and “dhamma” from the mano loka are not coming in); see, “What are rūpa? – Dhammā are rūpa too!“.
-Now, the death of the physical body does not necessarily mean it is the cuit-patisandhi moment. That happens when the kammic energy for the bhava runs out. So, when the physical body dies, gandhabba is ejected and has to wait for another womb; see, “Bhava and Jati – States of Existence and Births Therein“.3. This is a difficult personal decision for the one who has the authority to initiate the “shutdown process”. It is taking a life, but his/her compassion for the dying person may mitigate some of the bad consequences.
– Let me mention the following account from the Tipitaka. One time the Bodhisatva was a captain of a ship. During a voyage, part of the crew plotted to kill him and most of the crew to take over ship. The Bodhisatva found out about the plot and killed the coup leader. That avoided a conflict which could have led to the loss of many lives. However, the vipaka for killing that person cannot be avoided.
– This is another type of suffering associated with life in this world. Some actions have both good and bad kamma vipaka, and it is not easy to decide whether to do it or not.This question really requires the writing of a new post or even several. But I really want to get started on the new project.
Hopefully, someone who is familiar with this topic will answer in detail. But here are some key points:
1. One may even not know who a “Buddha” is when starting this process. As mentioned in the post that Tobias referred to (“Paramita and Niyata Vivarana – Myths or Realities?“), one simply starts cultivating “investigative gati“: one wants to know the real nature of this world, and also wants to find solution to the problem of suffering.
2. That does not happen in a single lifetime or even million lifetimes. It is said that it takes millions of maha kappas (each is many billions of years). It is unimaginable for us.
3. But at some point, it will get “locked in”. At time he/she will definitely become a Buddha in the future. That is the time one gets “niyata vivarana” from a Buddha. (However, when one gets to the Buddhahood, one will be born mostly male. Furthermore, there cannot be a “female Buddha”).
4. Many will of course drop out during that initial phase, before getting niyata vivarana. One’s gati can be drastically changed in a single lifetime if the influence of parents, friends, etc is in the wrong direction.
5. By definition, one will not be able to learn Tilakkhana and comprehend while “locked in”. This is because the determination is to find out by oneself. However, we must remember that very few get “locked in”. Even though there are going to be 5 Buddhas in all in this maha kappa, that is a rare event. Normally, in a given maha kappa, there is only one or none. I mentioned in that post that there were 30 maha kappas before this one where not a single Buddha appeared. So, we must take this opportunity.
By the way, maha kappas is the correct Pali word for the age of a Solar system like ours. maha kalpa is the Sinhala word.Embodied said: ” what is the best way of contemplating a Dhamma concept : images, words or both?”
This is probably an issue of expressing oneself (you and me both).
I think contemplation/thinking/analyzing/seeing whether some idea makes sense, etc. all fit in to that category.
By the way, that is same as the “conscious thinking” component of vaci sankhara: “Correct Meaning of Vacī Sankhāra“.
When one grasp an idea or a concept one’s sanna on that will change according to that. Then that sanna will be in effect automatically.
See, “What is Sañña (Perception)?“.Mahendran asked: “If the gandhabba enters at the time of the application of the electric shock, then, as the percentage of success is low, do we assume that as in the natural process, some gandhabbas will not survive to be a full animal and exit in the womb itself?”
It is not a matter of just gandhabba surviving. It is a matter of getting the conditions right for a gandhabba to be able to use that zygote. Since it is an artificial way of triggering cell division, they may not have it exactly right. For example, the failure rate was much higher initially. It took 720 trials to have success with Dolly.
“Now when we say that when a gandhabba finds a matching zygote, is it a selective process? What will be the matching criteria?”
I already mentioned that it is a gati matching process that happens automatically. No one doing a “selection process”. Gandhabba itself also does not have any control. It is just pulled into the right womb, when a matching womb appears.
“In addition to bhava, is it proportional to the karmic energy in the gandhabba? When the unsuccessful embryo dies, for some reason such as the effects of the environment on the epigenome etc, will the gandhabba has spent some amount of karmic energy as a result of the shot life in the embryo? Or would it start all over again with the same amount of energy as before, because it hasn’t started life as a full grown living being.?”
Unsuccessful embryo may die due to many reasons. We can only guess. As I mentioned, in the other post that I referred to on birth control, selection of the gandhabba depends to the state of the mind of mother at that moment too. So, a good mother may have bad state of mind when the gandhabba is pulled in. If the gandhabba turns out to be very different, it may come out of the womb after days/weeks. This is one reason for some unsuccessful pregnancies. It is not possible to micro-analyze each case. But we can get the basic idea.
A gadnhabba would normally have many hundreds if not thousands of years of kammic energy for that bhava at the beginning of the bhava. But, we don’t know whether a given conception is towards the beginning or the end of that time.P.S. I see that Tobias had answered at the same time, and glad to see the similarity of our answers.
