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Thank you for replying, Lal and Christian. Regarding Jhana, do we must stay away from all heavy sensual activities like sex, substance, etc.? If so, is there anything else that you guys would recommend to someone who’s not yet ready to live an ascetic type lifestyle? I still find myself often conflicted on whether pure materialism is correct (that consciousness is an emergent property of neuronal activities of the brain) or if there is something else going on. I don’t want to adamantly reject any possibility but I’m desperate to know how it works.
Lal:
I am not sure about what happens there. It is possible that a Human gandhabba can only see the immediate environment that they are interested in seeing. It is a mechanism that we cannot visualize/imagine. It involves only cakkhu pasada rupa and hadaya vatthu.
- When we see using our physical eyes, anything that reflects (or self-generates) light can be seen.
This is quite nuanced but this interpretation seems correct to me, especially with my examination of the other suttas that describe the contents of the universe. For example, in Culanika Sutta, Buddha puts the moon, sun, and the earth (with all its craziness) in a single system and groups the various clusters of these systems that are located throughout the universe. So a world system does not include the stars and constellations. This supports the interpretation that while stars were not visible (or identifiably visible?) to the beings in the early earth, they would be identified after they lose their self-luminosity. Same with days/nights and months/seasons.
Excerpt of Culanika Sutta from Sutta Central:
Ānanda, a galaxy extends a thousand times as far as the moon and sun revolve and the shining ones light up the quarters. In that galaxy there are a thousand moons, a thousand suns, a thousand Sinerus king of mountains, a thousand Black Plum Tree Lands, a thousand Western Continents, a thousand Northern Continents, a thousand Eastern Continents, four thousand oceans, four thousand great kings, a thousand realms of the gods of the four great kings, a thousand realms of the gods of the thirty-three, of the gods of Yama, of the joyful gods, of the gods who love to imagine, of the gods who control what is imagined by others, and a thousand realms of divinity. This is called a thousandfold lesser world system, a ‘galaxy’.
A world system that extends for a thousand galaxies is called a millionfold middling world system, a ‘galactic cluster’.
A world system that extends for a thousand galactic clusters is called a billionfold great world system, a ‘galactic supercluster’.
If he wished, Ānanda, a Realized One could make his voice heard throughout a galactic supercluster, or as far as he wants.”
