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Hi Lal,
“Amoha is when one acts without moha; but amoha does not necessarily mean wisdom (panna).”
Does performing punna kamma fall into an Amoha category?
Hi Lal,
“When we CONSCIOUSLY think (vaci sankhara, i.e, whether spoken out loud or just talking to oneself), the javana power emits energy from the mana indriya. That energy can transmit to “ten thousand world systems” like ours.”
I recalled one of your posts which mentioned that according to Buddha Dhamma, we are all alone in this Universe. Is multiverse implied here?
Hi Lal,
“If a Sotapanna attains an Ariya jhana, he/she will be born in a brahma realm and WILL NOT come back to human realm or even deva realm.”
Does this Sotāpanna need to maintain his Ariya jhana until the last moments before death in order to be reborn in Brahma realm? If this Sotāpanna has attained Ariya jhana once in this lifetime and he does not practise meditation anymore for the rest of his life, will he still get reborn into the Brahma realm?
Can a punna kamma be rooted in ignorance even if it is done out of faith? For example, bowing to a Buddha statue (we know there is no sculpture of Buddha during Buddha’s time and that the Buddha does not advocate idol worshipping). The same goes for offering fruits, lights, incense and other offerings to the Buddha statue.
Embodied,
We should try to strive to the best of our ability even as a lay person. I applaud religious lay people who, despite being a family man or woman, have a dedicated room where they can practise meditation and do prayers and chanting. Basically, they treat this room like a cave. They don’t really go out and socialise with people unnecessarily. No party, no movie, no music. Meditate and contemplate. But of course, they would still carry out their family responsibilities dutifully. The Buddha said there are 2 mistakes one can make in the spiritual path: One, is not to embark on this spiritual journey at all. The other is not to go all the way.
y not,
“And the suffering here is only the one we experience now in this life, not the dukkHA that extends into future lives, the contemplation of which strengtens the relevance and meaning of Anatta even more.”
Agreed! We are truly helpless to find a way to end future suffering. We don’t even know such possibility exists until the Buddha arrived.
Hi Lal,
I do get those defiled thoughts from time to time. I will try to ignore them as much as I can. Don’t give them attention and they will usually go away on their own. For those defiled thoughts that are more difficult to deal with, I will perform self-admonishment. I will try to dictate terms with my mind and let it see the grave danger of persistently clinging on to those lustful, angry thoughts.
If I am being insulted, I will just take it as a retribution for something that I had done in my past life and at the same time train my forbearance.
There is nothing she can do. She should contemplate on the danger of clinging to sense pleasures and give up hope on chasing her dream. All worldly things are not worth pursuing.
I would like to add on further by focusing a bit on Anatta. Again on the conjoined twins simile. One of the conjoined twins is yearning to get into a relationship. She sees other girls having boyfriends and feels envious of them. We know that Anatta implies there is no core essence in anything, both mental and physical. So, even if there is cause(s) and condition(s) for this girl to meet someone she likes and get into a relationship, the Anicca nature is going to be cruel to her. The availability (or the lack of) of cause(s) and condition(s) conveys a sense of vulnerability and helplessness to this girl. When there is no fate for her to meet a guy, she suffers. When she finally has the fate to meet someone she likes and fall in love, she suffers in another way. Either way, she suffers. Look deeper into Anatta and we see that she does not reign power over her whims and fancies. Why? Because the evil twin sister Anicca is at work! The love she is yearning for doesn’t come from nothing. It has to come from cause(s) and condition(s). And it is this very reason that all conditioned things must be Anicca as much as being Anatta.
No problem y not! :)
Another of my favourite tag line is that of Tower Records – “No Music No Life”. I cringed at it after I have encountered true dhamma. The spiritual path is the opposite of worldly path. The same message “No Music No Life” can have very different meaning, depending on who is perceiving the message. We can substitute music with any other sense objects/pleasures and the message will always be true.
“It is amazing how people do not see through the game. But life is no game. And the realization that WORSE may be on the way….”
Life is a game we all play to lose.
Embodied,
Loving others or oneself in a worldly sense is done so out of ignorance. I come to realise to cultivate the path, one must be ‘selfish’ as what common-folks perceive it to be. Didn’t Siddhartha Gotama forsake his family, his wife and new born Rahula to seek the deathless path? It seems very selfish on the surface. But didn’t Siddhartha Gotama return to his family as a Buddha to preach Dhamma and facilitate them to become enlightened? Which kind of love is more noble? The answer is clear.
When one is fully enlightened, that is the greatest compassion to all sentient beings. Why? Because there is one less trouble-maker in this world. Before one is enlightened, if we are good, our loved ones will be so attached to us, afraid of losing us. If we are really bad, then we really cause problems to our loved ones. In both ways, the end result is always suffering.
Hi y not,
You mentioned: ‘How can attachment when it is through genuine and unselfish love for some one be of any negative or hindering effect to the giver IN ANY WAY whatsoever?’
We feel that the noblest thing to do is to ‘sacrifice’ ourselves to benefit others. By so doing, it translates to loving someone unconditionally. But this action is just a reflection of our inner desire. If I am not wrong, the Buddha did say the person we love most cannot be anyone else other than we ourselves. The risks are too high to remain in sansara. We should not for the sake of anyone, defer our spiritual practice in this life. Otherwise, there is no difference from the Mahayanists.
I always have this idea that the Buddha lineage follows a tradition whereby a Buddha (e.g Kassapa Buddha) would discern the past up to a certain point where there is no longer a need to trace back any further because His predecessor(s) had already done the ‘screening’. So, in the same manner, Gotama Buddha would have taken similar cue from Kassapa Buddha (via historical records in namagotta) and trace back to the past 91 world cycles where He saw only 6 samma-sambuddhas that appeared. Why not trace back a little further to 109 world cycles? Why not stretch it further to 1,9999 world cycles? The Buddha lineage forms a network which is a very efficient way to discern things that had happened deep in the past. Similarly, the future Metteyya Buddha would be taking similar cue from Gotama Buddha and other historical Buddhas. Of course, that’s just my speculation.
