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1. It is a lengthy process to be able to cultivate the Enlightenment factors. One must understand the futility of the “sensory pleasures” to understand the value of cultivating the Enlightenment factors. I will summarize the steps briefly below.
- First, one must live a moral life, abstaining from the dasa akusala as much as possible. See “Ten Immoral Actions (Dasa Akusala).”
- Trying to adhere to the five precepts will help: “The Five Precepts – What the Buddha Meant by Them“
- More posts on the fundamentals in the following section: “Moral Living and Fundamentals“
- You don’t need to read all. Just read those that you think could be helpful.
2. Once the fundamentals are understood, only then can one start understanding the deeper concepts.
- The following section may be helpful in the transition: “Transition to Noble Eightfold Path.”
- More relevant posts in “Living Dhamma.”
3. Please feel free to ask questions as you go through the suggested posts. It may seem overwhelming first, but it is better to take the time and grasp the fundamentals.
Very good. Yes. You are correct, and I just revised it as follows:
“This is the first stage of cakkhu viññāṇa (the same as “bahiddha viññāṇa,” which is immediately elevated to “ajjhatta viññāṇa”);..”
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Thank you very much for sharing your work with us.
- Please don’t hesitate to ask questions as you navigate through the links I’ve pointed out.
- Our goal is to comprehend the “previously unheard teachings of the Buddha” to the best of our capability. They have been hidden for centuries, and now we are starting to recover them, thanks to the efforts of Waharaka Thero.
- However, I believe there is still much more to be done to refine our understanding. This has been an amazing experience for me, and my hope is that many more will be interested in Buddha’s teachings as we uncover deeper aspects. Your work could get more people exposed to the teachings.
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I appreciate your efforts to incorporate the issue of an Arahant into your model.
1. While reading your paper, I realized the following: the root problem I have is with the original theory of Quantum Immorality, grounded in the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
- Quantum mechanics (QM) — in any form whatsoever — will never be able to describe the world. The reason is that all theories of QM are based on theories that attempt to describe the world in terms of elementary particles of matter.
- In contrast, according to Buddha’s teachings, all phenomena have mental activities as their precursor.
2. I have discussed this in several posts on the website.
- See, for example, “The Double Slit Experiment – Correlation between Mind and Matter?” and “Views on Life – Wrong View of Materialism.”
- Those are two posts in the sections, “Buddhism – Inconsistencies with Science” and “Origin of Life.”
3. I think you have done a good job of trying to incorporate the issue of an Arahant into your model per the other QM theories out there. So, the other reviewers are likely to accept it.
- But it may not be a good idea to put me as a reviewer due to the above reasons.
- To emphasize, my key issue is the following: QM adopts a mathematical formulation (wave functions) to describe the motion of particles. Thus, QM at its core is trying to view the world as composed of particles. However, the Buddha taught that all material phenomena arise based on mental processes. This is also discussed in the new series, “Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta – New Series.” In other words, mental processes cannot be expressed in terms of wavefunctions.
Thank you, TGS. I will read it at leisure. But you had emailed me some of this a while back.
- Thank you for putting it all together.
Thank you. I have replaced your links with an easy-to-download link.
- I will try to read it ASAP.
P.S. To minimize reading time, could you please provide the page numbers where the questions I raised are addressed?
It is good to contemplate the question: “So it means that we have never really experienced the external world in its absolute form? ”
- The world we experience is exactly the way it is supposed to be (i.e., supposed to arise via Paticca Samuppada).
- Until the death of their physical bodies, Arahants also live in that world in their daily lives (because their physical bodies also arose via Paticca Samuppada). They experience the same saññā as a puthujjana. For example, they taste honey to be sweet or a rose to smell good. The world is designed (via Paticca Samuppada) to provide such (distorted) saññā.
- However, such a world only provides an illusion of sukha in the ultimate reality. The “taste of honey” is what keeps us bound to the sansara (rebirth process). An Arahant has fully grasped that, and thus is not fooled by that taste to attach to it. See posts related to this issue, such as “Fooled by Distorted Saññā (Sañjānāti) – Origin of Attachment (Taṇhā),” “Saññā Nidānā hi Papañca Saṅkhā – Immoral Thoughts Based on “Distorted Saññā”,” etc.
- Since they no longer attach to those sukha vedana (which are illusions in ultimate reality but are “real” in the mundane sense), minds of Arahants no longer initiate new Paticca Samuppada processes, i.e., no “avijjā paccayā saṅkhāra” and thus no bhava paccayā jāti, jāti paccayā jarā, marana, soka-paridēva-dukkha-dōmanassupāyasā sambhavan’ti.” That is the end of suffering!
- It can be said that avijjā is not realizing how attachment arises via (distorted) saññā, which in the kāma loka is kāma saññā.
P.S. One realizes how san (raga, dosa, moha) arise via kāma saññā when becoming a “Sandiṭṭhiko“: “Sandiṭṭhiko – What Does It Mean?.”
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The new post will hopefully be helpful to clear the above issues:
Paṭicca Samuppāda Creates the External World, Too!
- Feel free to ask questions to clarify any remaining issues.
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Have a safe trip and a productive time learning Dhamma!
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Also see “Sīla, Samādhi, Paññā to Paññā, Sīla, Samādhi.”
- Some of the difficulties in maintaining a calm mindset can be eliminated by abstaining from dasa akusala. The first step is to keep the five precepts.
- More suggestions in “Key to Calming the Mind – The Five Hindrances”
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I am beginning to think that a main reason that many people have difficulty in understanding the “distorted sanna” (“kama sanna,” in kama loka) could be one of the following two reasons:
- They had not realized that for “distorted sanna” to arise, not only must living beings’ bodies (both manomaya kaya and the physical body) but also the external world must arise via Paticca Samuppada.
- Some may have seen #1 above in my explanations, but they cannot believe it to be true.
I am glad that Yash asked the above questions. His questions made me realize the possibilities mentioned above. If those are relevant issues, please let me know, and I can provide further clarification. If you have doubts, the only way to proceed is to get them clarified.
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“So it means that we have never really experienced the external world in its absolute form? “
- Yes. Even though that is how the world operates (to provide the “distorted sanna“), that operation is ultimately based on a deeper reality, rooted in Paticca Samuppada.
- That is why Buddha Dhamma is called “paramatta Dhamma,” where “parama atta” means “ultimate truth.”
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“So we have never really seen, smelt, tasted, touched and heard any external thing?”
- No. As I mentioned above, even Arahants, or the Buddha himself, perceived the world in this way, because the external world and our bodies are designed this way via Paticca Samuppada. They also taste honey to be sweet, or a particular woman to be attractive compared to others, for example. However, their minds have fully comprehended how that “distorted” perception (sanna) originates and thus do not attach to it.
- This is the issue to be grasped to understand Buddha’s teachings at the deepest level. I have been trying to explain this for the past three years in several different ways.
- Everyone knows that avijja (ignorance) means “not to comprehend the Four Noble Truths, or alternatively, Paticca Samuppada.” This is where one can truly understand them and start dispelling the remaining avijja and the tendency to attach to the “distorted” perception (sanna).
- This “distorted” perception (sanna) is so deeply embedded in our minds that even after “seeing it” at a basic level (at the Sotapanna stage), it takes an effort to overcome it. That is where one needs to cultivate the second stage of Satipatthana (“kama sanna,” which is the “distorted sanna” relevant to kama loka, is overcome at the Anagami stage). I have provided an overview in the current post: “Satipaṭṭhāna – What Does It Mean?“
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Yash wrote: ” I know that even monkeys like fruits just like us but why is it so with the Devas? They don’t have a physical body to eat the fruit and gain nutrition so why do they experience good Sanna for these things?”
- These must be Devas in the lowest realm. They live among us, i.e., on the Earth’s surface, unlike higher Deva realms far above. There is not much information about them in the suttas, so we don’t know enough details. They probably have physical bodies denser than other Devas, but subtler than ours.
P.S. Note that it does not say they eat fruits; they absorb the aroma of fruits. Even those Devas do not have a digestive system like ours. They just absorb the aroma.
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Yes. You got the basic idea!
- The sanna generated depends on both the specific species (human, lion, cow, insect, etc.) and the external object.
- All of these are made with suddhatthaka, which consists of eight components: pathavi, apo, tejo, vayo, vanna, gandha, rasa, and oja. See “The Origin of Matter – Suddhāṭṭhaka.”
- It is the matching of those pairs that provides specific sanna for a specific species.
