[Embodied]

Fas-ci-na-ting Lal. And what a challenge.

[Embodied]

Lal,

It seems that the answers are in the link-content above, as follows, correct me if i’m wrong:

a) the answer might be “Now that lifestream may have kamma seeds for a human, deva, or a brahma too. But none of those got “selected”, probably because they were less potent.(!) So, a butterfly is likely to be born in lower realms for very, very long times, before a less probable “human seed” being picked for a new life in a rare statistical event.” STILL IF A HUMAN HAS GOOD KAMMA SEEDS HE SHOULD REBORN AS HUMAN, NOT AS AN ANIMAL ?

b) the answer might be “Our life did not start on this Earth or in this universe. There have been innumerable universes and there will be innumerable universes according to the inflationary theory on the Big Bang that started our universe.” Meaning that the aggregates/compounds appeared BEFORE the human species ? And who says the aggregates says (the) Mind ?

Thanks

[Embodied]

Hi Tobias,

Indeed,which i started doing some years ago via Chan Buddhism.However thanks to Pure Dhamma (integrating Tilakhanna as mentioned by you and Lal) i made amazing demeanor and insight progresses.The integration of tilakhanna + the formal sessions as you suggested 2 or 3 weeks ago accelerated the “blooming of the flower”.

[Embodied]

Excellent synopsis yours Lal. However many people are not enough aware that they are thinking, what they’re thinking and why, i.e. they are driving and they are thinking about alot of stuff that has nothing to do with driving. And who says driving says other tasks.They live veiled, in a state of constant split between body and mind.
Summing up in order to let’s say stop “in time” unwise thoughts it seems to me that one has to be (ideally…) unceasingly aware of one’s own mindstream.

[Embodied]

Lal, Drs8, all,

“Furthermore, contemplation of the 32 body parts only helps partially in removing sakkaya ditthi. Sakkaya or “sath” + “kaya” means one takes not only one’s body to be “good” but also one’s actions in accumulating things in this world to be “good” and “beneficial”. Kaya can mean body and actions.”
Question 1:does Pure Dhamma agrees that “32 body parts and corpse bhavana” can be a part of Tilakhanna bhavana or not ?

“One becomes a Sotapanna by comprehending the fruitlessness of doing “apayagami immoral things” to gain sense pleasures.”
Question 2:there’s a lot of people refusing to do immoral things to gain sense pleasures, but i suppose such isn’t enough to make them Sotapannas or on the way to become it…?

Yet perhaps more important than the above is that since i started applying Pure Dhamma method through formal sessions + Anicca sanna & Satipatanna all day long, i already got neat results related to demeanor/behaviour which i think it’s fundamental in this path.
And such favorable results are related to a notion that you Drs8 mentioned in your post,that is, “letting go”. Concretely Tilakhanna’s contemplation leads to amazing results in terms of “letting go” – which is a source of peace of mind and even of mental power.

I’m a great “fan” of corpse/death contemplation, when contemplating it one starts feeling light,(yes yes one shouldn’t cling to such feelings…) both physically and mentally. I was going to say that it’s effective for body-disidentifying but in fact it’s more than that , it’s effective for body-psyche disidentifying too…

Thanks

[Embodied]

Y Not,

“and Buddha Dhamma is that only in the latter is found a way out of life’s sufferings.” Which is terribly important, it’s of a vertiginous deepness.

“those Yogis and Gurus resposonsible for these teachings actually retrieved them from fragments of the Buddha Kassapa sasana – of course, with their own views and other additions to it throughout the time since.” Quite probably,yes, i wouldn’t be surprised.

[Embodied]

Lal,

You right as per Buddhist tradition. But seeing that this is the General Forum i said to myself why not post this subject. So in the same line of reasoning the following it’s also very interesting (to me…) :

– “The old Upanishads mention both Brahma in the masculine gender deity “Brahmā”, as well as gender neutral “Brahman” as the impersonal world principle.[37]

According to David Kalupahana, the Upanishads do not strictly distinguish between the two.[38] In contrast, Damien Keown and Charles Prebish state the texts do distinctly present both the male deity Brahma and the abstract Brahman, however, in the Upanishads, deity Brahma is only referred to a few times.[39] The Brahman as the eternal, absolute metaphysical reality – along with Atman (self, soul) – is the predominant and frequent teaching in the Upanishads and other Vedic literature of the Upanishadic period,[40][41] so much so that early Hinduism is also referred to as Brahmanism.[42] The Pāli scriptures, which were written centuries after the death of the Buddha, mention Brahma, but there is no unambiguous mention of the gender neuter Brahman concept.[39]

The word Brahma is standardly used in Buddhist suttas to mean “best”, or “supreme”.[47][48] Brahman in the texts of Advaita Vedanta and many other Hindu schools, states Nakamura, is a concrete universal, manifesting itself as phenomenal reality which is not illusory and nondual.[49]

In the earliest Upanishad, the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the Absolute, which came to be referred to as Brahman, is referred to as “the imperishable”.[50] The Pāli scriptures present a “pernicious view” that is set up as an absolute principle corresponding to Brahman: “O Bhikkhus! At that time Baka, the Brahmā, produced the following pernicious view: ‘It is permanent. It is eternal. It is always existent. It is independent existence. It has the dharma of non-perishing. Truly it is not born, does not become old, does not die, does not disappear, and is not born again. Furthermore, no liberation superior to it exists elsewhere.” The principle expounded here corresponds to the concept of Brahman laid out in the Upanishads. According to this text the Buddha criticized this notion: “Truly the Baka Brahmā is covered with unwisdom.”[51]

The Buddha confined himself to both ordinary empirical sense experience and extrasensory perception enabled by high degrees of mental concentration.[52][53] The Upanishadic scholars, according to Francis X Clooney and other scholars, assert their insights as a combination of intuitive empiricism, experimentalism, and inspired creative perception.”

Please tell me if there is something not correct in the content above concerning the Buddhist side.

Thanks

[Embodied]

The way you commented shows too much tanha/reactivity…why ? And your reading was pervaded by the same emotions: as I clearly stated Brahman it’s different from Brahma, the latter being a “mere” deva, the former “being” the Absolute.
As far as i know it’s one of the rare subjects that the Buddha preferred not to answer to – which i perfectly understand…
Personally i don’t fall into the trap of taking sides – i rather choose suspension of judgement. My practices are mainly based upon the Dhamma yet historically/ culturally speaking i find the subject interesting.

Did you or any other sangha fellow here watch the movie Life of Pi ?

[Embodied]

Lal,

Fine input to my personal condensed phrase on Anatta for bhavana purposes.

Thanks

[Embodied]

Hi

Indeed y not.

“Life is all around, and Anicca is there” – yes which includes “me”.

[Embodied]

Hi,

@Y Not : “So, as Lal has pointed out here and in other posts……..etc til : without bothering about Pali words at all”.

Despite de obvious pertinence of the key-sentences that Lal and you are proposing,the kind of definition that, as you said, “embodies my experience and reflections on life” , would be :
– ANICCA : continuous change of condition, realising the evanescence in the 5 aggregates of attachment.

As for Anatta and Dukkha i’m still working on it.
I had already reasonably (i think…i hope) posted here my insight on Tilakhanna through a “long” text but right now, i’m looking for condensed “stuff” for bhavana purposes.

[Embodied]

HI…Reshaping my previous question.

When reading on Tilakkhana in Pure Dhamma PDF book i get the impression that Anicca and Anatta meanings share alot of commonalities which is fine and to be expected.
But if one had to circumscribe separately Anicca and Anatta with no more than say 3 to 5 key-words for each one what would these words be ?

Because it might be quite useful for Bhavana purposes.

Thanks

[Embodied]

Hi,

Tobias :”How can a being get a birth in a good realm when the “main gathi” includes aggression or anger or “creating conflicts” like the asura devas?”

Lal: “Human realm is also a good realm. Think about that.”

Meaning that some asuras reborn here, among us ? And if i’m right their gandhabba keeps looking like when it was an asura?

Thanks

[Embodied]

Johnny,

Enjoyed alot your last paragraph.

You said :”…thereby altering the characteristic of its original form.”
Original or previous? Because “original” suggests core essence.

Lal,

I hope you don’t mind if i insist on the following : when i started formal practice some years ago it didn’t take long to notice by myself that something was wrong (or at least incomplete) with the way of practising Insight Meditation, Vipassana, whatever. Call it intuition, i don’t know. Then a bit later in my practice when i discovered Satipattana Sutta i glimpsed the possibility of practising what i called at that moment something like “guided contemplation on vital buddhist themes” – as we are doing here but less structured…
AS for the 5 discourses yes i read them all and because i read them all i question again :
– What’s exactly the difference…if any… between Anicca and Anatta ?

Thank you

[Embodied]

Lal,

Yes,Sakka… until now I have not been sufficiently interested in Siddartha’s cosmogony mainly because i had the wrong idea that he never cared about the “gods”. But the more i read the more i’m captivated by his relationship with them.

thanks again for the precious info.

[Author]

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