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Even a Buddha cannot prevent that his words, behaviour and lifestyle lead to irritation, anger, distress, suffering, regardless his thoughtfullness. In the end we must see and accept that suffering does not arise only due to our actions, but there is the mind of the other person too.
If everybody becomes so reserved before acting, things become unnatural. And when that happens virtue, goodness, withers. Contacts between persons run dry. Happiness dissappears. It leads to suffering, not to happiness. I think we all know this from experience.
Please imagine a world in which there is no spontaniety anymore but everybody reflects on any deed before acting. Well, to be honest, this must be like hell. It is like all people have become politicians.
Even when this constant reflection on actions would lead to some kind of happiness or some kind of peace or some kind of harmony, it is a very forced kind of happiness, peace and harmony.
Siebe
Thanks for the translation lal. It looks quit similar to Bodhi’s, at least the message.
When you say that one is born with fixed set of five faculties what do you exactly mean? I have understood that we can develop and cultivate these five faculties and they can become strenghts. In that sense they do not seem to be fixed?
SN48.12 says, the arahant has completed and fulfilled those five faculties and the other nobel stages in a lesser degree. Most weak are they in a faith follower. They are developed and cultivated SN48.20.
siebe
Can heat in the mind, tapa, be a kamma vipaka or is it Always a samphassa ja vedana, a domanassa vedana?
For me, it feels more like it can be vipaka, a dukha vedana. Like a dukha vedana it is felt like a burning kind of headache. (difficult to explain the sensation, i would say it feels like stressed mind, it feels like the brain/mind is in some way torn).
It can hold on a while and can disappear suddenly. Sometimes i think it also happens because there is to much mental striving, to much thinking. It sometimes looks like it also refers to metabolism or energy flow. I do not know really what is the cause as you see but i do not exclude it is a vipaka of being to much agressive, to much greedy earlier.
What do you think?
SiebeI remember sutta’s who compare purifying mind with purifying gold. Pure gold in itself has certain chararteristics, it shines, it can be processed in jewelry, it is flexible, but adventitious defilements hinder that those qualities become manifest.
The same seems to be the case with purifying mind. The pabhassara nature of mind is not created during purification it only becomes more and more experiencable because the influence of defilements get less and less. Therefor mind also becomes more flexible, better manageable, more peaceful, less heated etc.
If one does not know that mind has this peaceful and luminous nature one will probably start a wrong search for happiness. One does not see that the defilements are the real cause for the suffering.
What do you think, does this make sense?
Siebe
tilakkha:
Siebe all your habitual obsession with the conditioned, please Siebe, it makes you helpless. Really, what do you expact? Siebe, how can anything conditioned last? How can it function as a safe harbour? Siebe, why? Why are you searching this way? What do you think you can find? What do you expact?
Yes Siebe, your sincere longing for safety, for a refuge, for truthful fearlessness, which is not just an attitude, is oke, but please, my friend, look more carefull, you now met the buddha-dhamma. You see. Your eyes are not completely closed anymore. Use your eyes.
Change your habits. Break the ocd habit to find happiness and refuge in the conditioned. All this craving, see, look at it. What does it provide? What can it provide? See? Do not act as a madman anymore? You have done that so many lives that you are up to this day full of madness.
There is no one in the world who can really help you Siebe. All the promises of the world, all it’s advertising of help, of freedom, of happiness, of health, of wealth, it is just Mara’s way of trowing his web on beings. See?
It only feeds craving but certainly not wisdom. Maybe it is not bad intented (sometimes it is) but in the end it only contributes to helplessness.Yes, Siebe, one of the best advices of the Buddha is; make an Island to oneself, a refuge of oneself. Dear Siebe live in this spirit. Break with the habit to make yourself helpless. Weaken and end craving for this or that.
Do not invest and take so much trust in the conditioned, you will suffer.Enter the unconditioned. This is the Path the Budddha showed.
Do not give up.
Siebe to Siebe
I am making a theme on thinking and i came upon AN5.73.
The main message of this sutta (please check) seems to be that it is oke to study, to learn, to talk about dhamma, to think about Dhamma BUT one must not neglect seclusion and one must not forget to devote oneself to internal serenity of mind.
The sutta seems to say, we must not make it a daytimes work, Always busy with dhamma stuff. The sutta makes clear that this is NOT the way to dwell in the Dhamma. We must not make dhamma our new addiction.
Siebe
Hi, do you refer to AN1.51?
Bodhi translates:
“Luminous, bhikkhus, is this mind, but it is defiled by adventitious
defilements. The uninstructed worldling does not understand
this as it really is; therefore I say that for the uninstructed
worldling there is no development of the mind.”Thanissaro translates:
“Luminous, monks, is the mind. And it is defiled by incoming defilements. The uninstructed run-of-the-mill person doesn’t discern that as it actually is present, which is why I tell you that — for the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person — there is no development of the mind.”
Siebe
From studying the sutta’s on the theme thinking/motivation (sankappa) i can share there are mentioned different ways of abandoning and ending wrong thinking or motivation. Just to list them here:
-we have to develop and cultivate right thinking
-we have to develop and cultivate metta (against ill will), karuna (againts cruelty and harming), and uppekkha (againt sensuality).
-we have to establish mindfulness; focus on the breath can be used to cut of thoughts.
-we have to learn to guard are senses
-we have to develop the signless concentration.This last is mentioned in SN22.80 together with mindfulness. What is this signless concentration? Is it a kind of concentration where mind does not see any signs like ‘attractive’ (so no greedy thoughts arise), ‘repulsive’ (so not hateful thoughts arise), ‘control’ (so no delusion arises) etc? Or is it something else?
Siebe
Thanks you very much Lal, it is clear to me. It is sometimes shocking to see what kind of bad habitual kind of thinking there is, in myself and others too. Happily there are good thoughts too.
The sutta’s emphasize also to be not lazy and to strive energetic for the abandonment, the dissappearance of all bad kinds of thoughts or motivation.
I know for myself i did not give this to much attention and the bad results i have to experience know. It is not like i am a monster, or a demon, but i can see there are bad tendencies which have not been treated correctly.
Siebe
Hi Akvan,
Can bad kamma not ripen as mental pain, unhappiness, distress, like a mind that is: heated up, irritated, stressed, tense, dark, rigid?
Siebe
Hi y not,
I agree with you that it is better to focus on the task. I only want to share with you that what i said is not Mahāyāna only, it was also the experience of, for example, theravada thai forest master venerable Maha Boowa. He was considered to be an arahant. In a book called arahattamagga, arhattaphala, the path to arahatship, (you can find this on the internet) his experiences can be read. A fragment to give an impression (page 31):
“I saw with unequivocal clarity that the essential knowing nature of the citta could never possibly be annihilated. Even if everything else were completely destroyed, the citta would remain wholly unaffected. I realized this truth with absolute clarity the moment when the citta’s knowing essence stood alone on its own, completely uninvolved with anything whatsoever. There was only that knowing presence standing out prominently, awesome in its splendor. The citta lets go of the body, feeling, memory, thought and consciousness and enters a pure stillness of its very own, with absolutely no connection to the khandhas. In that moment, the five khandhas do not function in any way at all in relation to the citta. In other words, the citta and the khandhas exist independently because they have been completely cut off from one another due to the persistent efforts of meditation” (venerable Maha Boowa)
Siebe
“Now the Buddha could not see a beginning to sansara, that is, He could not see a time in the past when beings were free of, or existed independently, of the khandhas” (ynot).
Hallo ynot,
I think this is true and taught by the Buddha:
Mind can be detached from the khandha’s (AN10.81), yes, in this same live, because craving, and therefor attachment to khandha’s, can end totally.
This state of complete detachment cannot be expressed in words, but an arahant knows this state.
This completely detached state of mind cannot be called ‘a being’ anymore, it is beyond the sphere of personal existence. It is also not ‘a being’ who experiences this state. It is the nature of mind which does.
I think, beings cannot be without khandha’s but mind can detach from khandha’s.
Siebe
Hi Embodied,
Yes, the khandha’s are helpful in this way. If the Buddha had no body, no mouth, no consciousness etc, we would not have heard the teaching, at least not verbally.
At this moment i do not belief that what we are per buddha-dhamma, is forever momentaneous. Whatever is momentaneous, such as the khandha’s, in the end, that we are not. But since beginningless time our sense of identity is associated (in a deluded way) with those fleeting conditioned processes.
We do not see and know our most subtle and deepest unconditioned nature. What do you think about this?
Siebe
In reply to Akvan,
I think dukkha can also be of the nature of kamma vipaka. I think this can also be true for phenomena like irritation, tension, fire in the mind. My impression is this can be of the nature of kamma vipaka too.
Sometime their seems to be no direct reason to be irritated or heated up. There are no direct circumstances, no frustrated desires etc. But still, mind can be in an irritated heated up state.
In my own life i can see a lot of dukkha that is of the nature of kamma vipaka. Lal also emphasizes this. If we do not stay away from immoral deeds, mind will heat up. This is true.
What also is true, even when one stays away from dasa akusala one can still experience old negative kamma ripening. It is my experience this will happen. Staying away from dasa akusala helps preventing future suffering but it does not stop kamma vipaka from arising.
The sutta’s teach we must contact that ripening kamma and wear it out, not react and stay away from making new bad kamma.
Siebe
When we take medicine, we do not see what changes occur in the organs. In the same way we do not see what changes occur in our system of subtle body, chakra’s, nadi’s while acting moral and immoral, mentally, verbally and bodily, but changes occur. At least that’s what i understood.
Like we can talk about changes in the brain due to certain behaviour or kind of thinking , in the same way, traditionally, is spoken about changes that occur in the subtle system of chakra’s etc. due to our activities, way of thinking etc. I am not an expert in this but i think this kind of knowledge is special.
Practising buddha-dhamma leads to changes on this subtle level and that is why we feel more relaxed, open, less stressed, more grounded etc.
Cultivating metta has effects on the heart chakra, for example. Seeing tilakkhana leads to a process of grounding, becoming less dreamy, an effect of sobering up. That we sober up will probably mean our lowest chakra’s are functioning more well. We become more grounded.
Practicing buddhism has effects on this subtle system. An expert can tell much better how this works.
Some buddhist schools have invented special purification practices based upon the understanding of these subtle processes and how they are influenced. Would the Buddha disapprove? I do not know for sure ofcourse, but why would he if they are conducive to the goal of reaching Nibbana?
If such practices would have the effect that a certain person does not stay a way from dasa akusala, then such a practise is useless too. But i think it can be helpfull, especially for people with blockages, trauma, intense experiences in youth which left big impression on the heart, etc. Maybe , for some person it can also be good to reach the goal of Nibbana to do some bodily work like yoga, or walking meditation or just sport.
A main part of practising buddhim, at least for a lot of persons, is dealing with blockages, with hindrances, obstacles and overcoming them in some way of the other.
Siebe
