Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Automatic dark mode is working well, thank you for adding. Instead of having a floating icon appear all the time, is it possible to replace the floating icon with a static icon on the bottom of the page or add the floating icon only to the homepage? If not, it is no matter.
Yes, my first set of questions was overly speculative. But do you know how to explain what seems to me to be a contradiction between the claim that a Buddha is limited to a dasasahassi lokadhātu and the fact that nama loka has no space dimension along with the sutta I quoted that says a Buddha can make his voice heard as far as he wants?
Dhammacakkappavattanasutta:
Itiha tena khaṇena tena layena tena muhuttena yāva brahmalokā saddo abbhuggacchi. Ayañca dasasahassilokadhātu saṅkampi sampakampi sampavedhi, appamāṇo ca uḷāro obhāso loke pāturahosi atikkamma devānaṁ devānubhāvanti.
English: Thus at that moment, at that instant, at that second, the cry spread as far as the brahma world, and this ten thousandfold world system shook, quaked, and trembled, and an immeasurable glorious radiance appeared in the world surpassing the divine majesty of the devas.Is the above sutta the source for the claim that a Buddha cannot travel beyond a 10K world-system (dasasahassi lokadhātu)?
Cūḷanikāsutta:
Ākaṅkhamāno, ānanda, tathāgato tisahassimahāsahassilokadhātuṁ sarena viññāpeyya, yāvatā pana ākaṅkheyyā”ti.
English: If he wished, Ānanda, a Realized One could make his voice heard throughout a galactic supercluster, or as far as he wants.A world-system must necessarily support life to be counted within this 10K planetary system group? If there is no life in the Alpha Centauri system, then it would not be counted amongst the 10K? Must it be currently inhabited or could it have been in the past to be counted? Theoretically all planet systems could be inhabited through the colonization of a sufficiently advanced spacefaring civilization (maybe in the future homo sapiens are able to colonize planets in the the Alpha Centauri system). Must life originate indigenously in a planetary system for it to be counted?
8. […] The Buddha could travel anywhere among the 10,000 “world-systems” (dasasahassi lokadhātu).
What is the obstacle that prohibits a Buddha from travelling beyond this set of 10k systems?
I still don’t understand why it would not be possible, since there is no dimension of space in nama loka.
According to my understanding of this sutta, a Buddha has no limit to his ability to communicate with his mind. So a Buddha from one dasasahassi lokadhātu could communicate with a Buddha from another dasasahassi lokadhātu, or any being, anywhere in the universe, that is receptive.
If there are an infinite amount of Buddhas in the universe at any given time, does this mean that someone with iddhi powers could theoretically communicate with one of them?
That english translation you quoted is from 1951. There is a more recent Bhikkhu Brahmali translation on that same SuttaCentral that seems adequate.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu also has an english translation on dhammatalks
I generally prefer his english translations to the ones available on SuttaCentral.
I found this annoying. Everything we highlight on this site causes the balloon to pop up. Also seems like a redundant feature since on the bottom of every post there are buttons to share to other sites (including Twitter).
“There is an ending to ignorance. – That is called Nibbana, attained at the Arahanthood.”
I meant for all beings who are part of this world. There will always be beings trapped in samsara. The arahant no longer is part of the “world” after death.
I guess I asked the question from a wrong perspective. Due to dependent origination, when the conditions for ignorance ceases to exist, ignorance ceases to exist. In the same way that life has no beginning, ignorance can’t begin from “nothing”. This is why the rebirth process has no discernible beginning (which is a logical concept but not very intuitive at first). When I asked the question I was thinking about citta as being separate phenomenas.
Lal, would it be correct to say there is no discernible ending to ignorance in the world? There must be an infinite amount of lifestreams. If there was a specific, limited amount of lifestreams, then everyone would already have reached nibbana, since life had no beginning and sammāsambuddhas appear periodically.
I found this explanation interesting. In order to remember memories, this person says he remembers it like we remember facts we read from a book:
What did you do today?
I don’t know. I don’t know what I did today.
Answering questions like this requires me to “do mental work,” the way you might if you’re struggling to recall what happened in the Battle of Trafalgar. If I haven’t prepared, I can’t begin to answer.
He does have access to past information:
So you don’t know what I look like?
I know facts about the characteristics of your face. If you have radiant blue eyes, I may have stored that information. I know the “essence” of your face, but I’m unable to project it visually in my mind because there’s no screen.
But his sensory recall is limited:
I do have the ‘milk voice’—that flat, inner monologue that has no texture or sound, which we use to tell ourselves: “Remember to pick up milk.”
[…]
More generally, I have no sensory experience in my mind of any discernible nature.
