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Saurabh@2110: “Yes, it is really wonderful. I am in fact not empty handed, I have received many benefits.” “…but I am very positive actually. I was not discouraged but in any case your comment is very encouraging!”
Hope this isn’t off-topic, but in try and heap on the encouragement:
I offer in mudita that I, too, share your abundant joy and assurance after FINALLY finding the only Dhamma that has had (I know no better terms) measurable effects on how I feel within and how I behave without. Wish I found and more skillfully followed this site and forum years back! You wouldn’t believe how many times my dad (for example) has told me I’ve “changed for the better” this year, even though I know I’ve barely achieved anything.
I’d be here all day, and I bet you would too, if I were to comprehensively list even a sixteenth-part changes in behavior and belief practicing Buddha Dhamma has had on me in a relatively short time. It’s like I’ve spent my whole life fumbling in the dark without a clue until I stumbled upon the only three gems with enough light to show the way out. I would love to somehow share the fruits of how much I’ve gained with even my novice practicing (and frequent faceplanting!) so that my pain can be somebody’s hope someday.
May we all know the heart’s release, may we all reach the freedom of peace. Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!
Born in a dark class, seeking brighter results.
And thank you again for everything! In particular your advice to try and not dwell on such subjects anymore. I’ve thought deeply about the “occult” and so on my whole life, to the point of one time downloading thousands of PDF scans of such books and instruction manuals I intended to read at some point. But it seems a good idea to delete that huge collection of “animal arts” ASAP so I’m not even tempted! As buddhas_disciple posted a while back, such animal arts would only pull me away from learning and seeing through the illusion.
That and, as you said about philosophers (also a subject I did a few deep dives into for years), such reading and contemplating would only muddy the waters in trying to understand tilakkhana and other important topics. Hard enough without wanting to draw parallels with foreign concepts like “carnal mind of the flesh” and “heteronomy of the soul”.
Also wanted to add that my aunt recounted even more disturbing experiences of her own when I shared the above with some friends and family. Seems we and others in our ancestry might have some latent puñña iddhi? Regardless, I paid forward your advice to not dwell on such events in the hopes she doesn’t, for example, “encourage” any more dreams telling her when people she loves are going to die.
Born in a dark class, seeking brighter results.
Thank you once more for the assurance, as I often ruminate needlessly if I’m doing something wrong.
As for the aforementioned “religious experience”, I now doubt it warrants elaboration. I’m certain it was roughly the same process and result — days, at most a week, of unvarying warmth throughout my whole body, that I convinced myself was “God’s love” — so describing that event, and what lead up to it, more than I have probably wouldn’t be helpful or informative.
Long story short: after decades of searching, I’m done taking any other refuge than the Three Jewels. I can’t thank you enough for .helping guide us to the Buddha’s teachings about the truth of nature and how to permanently solve the problem of suffering!
Born in a dark class, seeking brighter results.
“what do you mean by ‘O Vāsava!’ at the end of your posts?”
I finish most of my chants with the customary “Sādhu! Sādhu! Sādhu!” But any involving Sakka (such as Dubbaṇṇiya Sutta [SN 11:22] and Subhāsitajayasutta
[SN 11.5]) I end with “O Vāsava! O Vāsava! O Vāsava!” to, I suppose, try and feel I’m putting on Sakka’s armor of forbearance and shield of patience against anger and hate. It seems so silly after writing it out, and perhaps I am being silly after examining my reasoning. And maybe it’s not appropriate, also come to think of it?Born in a dark class, seeking brighter results.
“Breath Meditation Is Addictive and Harmful in the Long Run”
Thank you for that. I’m finally seeing how little value there is in “no-mind” like a rock or a brick, and I’m sure not a single stone has attained stream-entry. No matter how good it feels, I bet it would feel much better to seek a permanent solution as many have taught. Thank you again for steering us in the right direction!
As a long-time gym-goer, I see a parallel. Not to say sitting and focusing on a neutral object is anywhere near as harmful as bodybuilding (usually stressing over diets and injuring yourself, often taking dangerous substances, just for another centimeter on your biceps), but it seems it may be about as fruitless in the long run. I’m glad to leave behind both mentalities to learn and contemplate, and only pursue just enough fitness and nutrition to be healthy (mostly mental health!) as long as I can. And I’m even gladder for learning the real purpose of meditation from the sangha.
Born in a dark class, seeking brighter results.
Thank you again very much for your further clarifications! Especially on how the mind fast the mind moves and how tricky the senses really are.
That there are 29 realms entirely out of reach of most human sense-inputs, upon examination, doesn’t seem far-fetched. Even during my religion-rejecting, materialism-absolutist years, it made sense that there’s way more to the world than meets my eye (ear, nose…). After all, it’s humbling to think of how little we perceive and can imagine of what else has already been evidenced to be “out there”: ultra-violet, infrared, sub-sonic vibrations, electro-magnetism, trying to imagine the world of smells known to dogs and sharks… Not to mention the ideas that what we percieve as “solid” is almost entirely empty space, the “coincidental” arrangement of galactic clusters closely mirroring the microscopic world of our brain matter, and so on. And then to contemplate even a little that every perception is not what’s really “out there”, distorted before any input makes it to the first step so to speak. Not to mention that, for example, it takes what we believe to be a sound a relatively long time to reach our ears after traveling through so much “warping” in the air and such as walls anyway, and then there are thought experiments like the famous Boltzmann Brain… but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms!
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Scientific discoveries and hypotheticals aside, I absolutely believe in the likes of what westerners usually call ghosts and demons — even as far back as my atheist adolescence! That’s because (I don’t know why) I have repeatedly experienced chilling and seemingly inexplicable events. Such events could have been auditory-visual hallucinations (sleep paralysis? a touch of undiagnosed schizophrenia?), or that I at least personally encountered the likes of gandhabba several times throughout my life. Others in my family, too, have many personal “paranormal” stories. Like when my ‘psychically-sensitive’ mother had a near-death experience mid-surgery where she “saw herself from above the operating table”, “rose up towards a ‘white light’ meeting her dead grandparents”, and such; and that time my brother saw what looked like a walking corpse in his closet with glowing red eyes and shining fangs that nearly 30 years later my sister’s husband was woken up by an entity (I think he ran out of bed screaming) and from his description this entity exactly matched what my brother saw as a child, in that same bedroom.
Reading your descriptions of manomaya kaya often elicits lightbulb moments: “That was a gandhabba. What I (and my family) saw, and heard, were gandhabbas, or maybe petas or yakkhas. I’m convinced there is no other rational explanation.” I’m considering writing to another thread, detailing several such terrifying events throughout my life for your and others’ examination, contemplation, and perhaps sharing their own experiences if they wish. While I’m sure only a Buddha could definitively confirm or deny such happenings, personal accounts of such experiences may help others accept the existence of “otherworldly beings” across the 31 realms. I’m not so fortunate to avoid personally witnessing such beings (?) in this life, but maybe my horror can be somebody’s hope someday?
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Other than yet more navel-gazing and info-dumping on my part (sorry, bad habit), I’m unsure how to respond elsewise, but to be gracious for your continued gifts of Dhamma for us all to learn and take great time to consider! My personal notes document of posts, pages, conversation snippets, and my own “diary entries” has reached over 450 pages and counting (to be exact: 31,853 words across 198,359 characters). But I realize I’m much more inclined to thinking than doing, so I’m trying to really put what I’ve learned into practice these days — much more than what I’ve mostly done so far with the likes of philosophy and general spirituality: as “brain-candy”.
But with all I’m cramming into my head from Noble Friend after Noble Friend, on top of personal experiences related to such knowledge that I’ve personally verified, I hope I too one day may be able to share such gifts! But for now I am gladdened by the likes of food pantry donations or going out of my way to make a shelf-stocker or cashier “feel seen”. Such actions and urges for most my life I gave even a first thought! But with learning Dhamma from here and elsewhere I feel a strange compulsion to be kind, to apologize even for long past wrongs and reconnect with old friends with whom I’d long burnt our bridges, and the like.
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I don’t say any of this to brag, but to share how well the Dhamma has helped me, how much hope it’s given me unlike anything else, and in turn is helping me help others in even the littlest ways (so far?). And to attempt to give back even a sixteenth-part of the thanks for you and all Noble Friends for this flickering candle I find myself holding that I one day hope to light for others.
Born in a dark class, seeking brighter results.
Thank you VERY MUCH for your overview! I’ve read many pages of Pure Dhamma over the years, and I’m doing my best to understand (trying to comprehend deeper than mere book-knowledge, though I suppose we all have to begin somewhere) what I’m reading, and your summary is yet another excellent addition of clarification.
And I like your idea of rewriting the above to “weakening the fetters”, as that by coincidence matches up to my very first kammaṭṭhāna. That one ended up becoming a mashup of Mettāsutta [AN 8.1], another Mettāsutta [AN 11.15], and Mettābhāvanāsutta [Iti 27]. I spent countless hours, little by little, cross-referencing multiple English translators and looking up definitions of the original Pali (hoping to understand what terms like “heart’s release by love” and “mind liberated by metta” really meant) and putting my own little spins on certain phrases and words with a thesaurus in my other hand because I find amateur attempts at storytelling and poetry (or maybe just overthinking) fun. But I digress.
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I admit I’m having difficulty wrapping my head around Paticca Samuppada. And as well, phrases like “the mind moves to the ‘kama loka‘” sounds like it’d take me a whole mental paradigm shift to comprehend! It sounds similar to I read (I forget exactly where) that when one enters a jhana their mind somehow “becomes” the mind of a brahma during that jhana. This is a subject which is clearly way over my head right now, as I still have a simplistic ‘sci-fi/fantasy fiction’ concept (“spirit worlds” … “dimensional planes” …) I need to uproot and discard somehow. However, what I vaguely (VERY vaguely) understand of PS and related, from your above summary and dozens of pages I’ve studied (often many times each) over the years — at least, I hope I kinda-sorta get it, please correct all misunderstandings:
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No one — though for arahants, if I recall correctly, they don’t have any samyojana left with which to attach at all! — has any hope of stopping a “vicious circle” of Paticca Samuppada after it begins. A cycle of which initiates within a nanosecond, or some other absurdly tiny timeframe only a Buddha has the sharpness of wisdom to perceive. And we are attached (tanha) multiple times across many steps based on one’s gati and samyojana at those tiny timeframes within one’s “subconscious”, though calling it that is probably a gross oversimplification!
But it’s at the vaci sankara stage where one begins to “talk to themselves inside their own head” in response to an initial sensory input (I believe the strength of one’s response, and their conscious thinking springboarding from that, depends on the javana cittā involved and/or initiated?) — which is based on one’s built-in misinterpretation of reality anyway via disorted sanna (both you and bhante Waharaka Thero have done excellent jobs elaborating this and many other complicated points!), the implications thereof making committing foul acts and their consequences all the more tragic.
Is this right? I tried but couldn’t find your two or more flowcharts detailing all the steps between “sensory input” (aramanna, was it?) to “the whole mass of suffering” if one doesn’t maintain what is conventionally termed “mindfulness” — though I’m trying to move away from terms I picked up along the way, especially from my introduction to the Teaching which, like with most of us westerners especially ones with strong interest in Japanese entertainment, was “pop culture” Zen.
But if what I think I get is at least vaguely correct, it seems like the step of vaci sankhara is where it’s most critical to “watch your thoughts…” So it’s at vaci sankhara where, say, one should throw up “road blocks” against the likes of malicious meanderings by redirecting one’s mind towards thoughts of good will (same tactic against greedy thoughts, like recalling how bad I feel when wound up by lust, and how good it feels to not be inundated by sense-pleasures). And to do such things ASAP, before it’s too late and damage is done, even if that damage is continuing to build up malice little by little until I’m wound up and ready to spit wordy warfare at the next guy who looks at me sideways (guilty…).
That is, until my habits, then character, slowly increase its “natural” inclination towards good will (or renunciation/contentedness), which should help me feel calmer and want to help and be kind (or satisfied with what I have without needing “more” or that I’m “missing out” on shiny toys or whatever) in general. I admit I’m already noticing such changes most the time, how good it feels to do kind things and help others out in general, how bad it feels to do such things as insult anyone when for most of my life I was perfectly fine with being nasty and spiteful if I could justify it to myself, and how I’m far less urged to bodybuild for looks and pride (I’m much more concerned with cardiovascular exercise now, as one’s heart is the most important muscle for bodily health and longevity!).
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But so long as I’ve yet to reach even the “junior stream-winner” stage I’ll remain trapped even by neutral inputs (already contaminated!). But until then I need to keep working on where I am, no skipping grades! And where I am seems to be — which is where I’m feeling like I’m somewhat plateau’ing, to borrow gym lingo for when one’s progress in increasing the weights on a barbell has stalled — is something like,
“I have plenty of ‘book-knowledge’ of what I need to do and why, and I’ve been feeling many subtle but positive changes within after already after barely half a year even if I only vaguely understand what’s going on. These subtle changes are very encouraging, they indicate I’m headed the right way and make me want to keep going to see what more is around the corner. But I’ve been struggling lately with ideas and annoyances I never noticed before, like the aforementioned “uncomfortable heat-up” when listening to loud and fast music (especially with female singers) despite craving sensory extremes of many kinds since my earliest teens! And so I’m trying to double-down on getting my mind to chill out (especially my tendency to have a VERY loud and chaotic mind, I used to get drunk to help quiet the noise from the back of my head!) so I can continue with my studies and practices — like trying to retain what I’ve heard from hours of speeches on Tilakkhana on this YouTube channel full of bhante Waharaka’s recordings.” (Man, do I need to start learning Pali and Sinhala sooner rather than later!)
Hopefully I’ve got the basic knowledge right, and on the way towards putting it to practice! Though I admit I may be jumping the gun trying to study the likes of Tilakkhana yet, and should probably focus on cultivating metta, karuna, and so on for the time being so my mind is not continually bedeviled by malice and sensuality. Though I admit of what little I think I might get, the implications are beginning to deeply unsettle me: that all is vexatious and cannot be kept to our liking or kept at all (not even our bodies or minds), not understanding this leads to drinking poison after poison (“eating the world” through all our senses, as bhante Waharaka so colorfully put it) in vain struggles to be happy, leading us to become helpless so long as we’re bound by birth and death — which happens by defiling ourselves with the poisonous but addictive world; perhaps something like this is what is meant by “the mind moves to the ‘kama loka‘”?
Thank you again! And yeah, I was surprised by the HTML for line breaks that I’ve barely seen since when I enjoyed basic webpage editing in the early to mid-00’s. So it was bugging me that I couldn’t seem to get rid of them. The Web is so different now, thank you for your up-to-date knowledge on modern coding!
Born in a dark class, seeking brighter results.
