[sybe07]

In these serie post there must be a reply of Vince, but for some unknown reason i do not see this. Typical example of the bad kamma of Siebe…or was it Vince evil kamma:-)

Siebe

[sybe07]

Our views and intentions and deeds have results for ourselves, but ofcourse also for other beings.

For example, our lifestyle has led to climate-change. Animals and people in certain regions suffer due to this change of climate. We in Holland do not suffer from climate change, yet. But their regions animals and people allready suffer due to climate-change.

Our materialistic greedy, over-consuming, comfort-oriented lifestyle in the west (and elsewhere) has led to the destruction of habitats for animals and also indigenous people in Africa, Indonesie etc.

Can we say these aninmals and people reap only the fruits of their own views, intentions and deeds? No, i belief not. We are in fact responsible for a lot of suffering that other beings have to endure.

I think it is not reasonble to belief that all the suffering is due to ones own views, own intentions and own deeds.

siebe

[sybe07]

Hi Akvan,

Your position is clear. I come and join you there:-)

Thanks for your contribution. At the moment i let it rest.

kind regards,
Siebe

[sybe07]

Yes, niyama’s. I heard of them before.

Still, how to deal with them? Are they really helpful to decide if suffering is due to bad deeds in this or former lives? Are they helpful to decide whether all suffering is due to kamma?

If you can explain an bad harvest using all kind of meteorological explanations, talking about climate-change, desertification etc. does that mean the people and animals who die rf suffer because of that bad harvest do not die and suffer due to their bad deeds in this or former lives?

It cannot be disprooved, at least i do not see how.

Siebe

[sybe07]

Hi Lal,

Another question came to mind. why is this vinnana called infinite? It cannot be infinite in time right, because it can end. Is it infinite in space? But cakkhu vinnana is arising locally, or not? Why is vinnana called infinite?

Siebe

[sybe07]

Thanks Lal, yes, every translation i have seen in English and also the Dutch one (the translaters translate from the Pali text into Dutch) translate something different then you do. They all translate (in some way or the other) that there is a vinnana, called anidassanam vinnana, that is invisible, boundless and all-luminous. There the great element etc find no footing.

They all seem to suggest that this is a special kind of vinnana.

No translation i know does even mention…’leads to the rebirth proces for all’. No author seems to see this in the text.

Your translation seems deviating and all other more or less alike, but i do not say you are wrong. Again i cannot Judge this. The message of your translation seems to be consistent with the teachings.

Hmm…

Is it not possible that this vinnana anidassanam experiences the cessation of perception and feeling? If not, what does experience that state?

kind regards,
Siebe

–

[sybe07]

Oke thanks.

kind regards
Siebe

[sybe07]

Hi Akvan, thanks for the reference and your detailled reaction.

Interesting to read. It would not surprise me if kamma, in some way or the other, is the primary cause for sufferings, although i do not see nor understand this. But i know, when the Buddha explains pains, suffering, situations, he also uses former deeds as explanation. Apparantly also his wounded foot and ascetic painful period.

Still i am not satisfied yet. How do you judge the following situations?

Suppose almost all (big) animal and human live would end here on earth because, again, a enormous rock would hit this earth. Is it really the kamma of all those beings? Does nothing happen by change?

If the sun comes to the end of its lifecycle, ofcourse this of influence on life on earth but is it the kamma of beings to suffer upon this of even die?
Is in those cases kamma a main cause or some external agency?

kind regards,
Siebe

[sybe07]

Thanks a lot Lal. If mind at parinibbana becomes free of rupa and is instantaniously released from the 31 realm, for me, that does not sound as going out like a lamp or flame or extinction. Formulated this way it sounds like a really nobel goal.

Lal, do you belief it is possible that one can deliberately come back to ‘this world, the 31 realms of samsara, while one is totally freed from samsara, to help other beings?

kind regards,
Siebe

[sybe07]

Hi Johnny_Lim, i can agree that Dhamma does learn us to see the big picture of the hardships of continuing rebirth-proces. But what i, at the moment, do not belief, is that Buddha-Dhamma is some kind of nihilism, which aims only at ending rebirth-process, going out like a flame…pffff….nothing remaining. Sorry, i cannot see this as a nobel goal. I repeat myself.

I also do not belief it is a doctine or a strategy of the Buddha to teach we are not the khandha’s. It is like it actually is. That is core message of the Budddha, i belief.

And knowing this, really seeing this that we are not the khandha’s, is the essence of stream-entry.

But unenlightend mind lacks this kind o understanding. That’s why there is so much suffering. As long as we see in our own life the tendencies to I-making (i am the body, feeling, i am what i experience, in short identification-tendency) and as long there is mine-making (‘whatever i experience is mine’) there is no stream-entry yet. That’s what i have understood from studying the sutta’s. Stream-entry is therefor an enormous breaktrough in our understanding of ourselves. Ending sakkaya ditthi in a practical sense means one attains that kind of understanding which eliminates identification with whatever one experiences and ends the tendency to see that as ‘mine’, mine experiences. It does not end the overall impression “I am”.

But to return to your point, i do not belief it is only a doctrine that we are not the khandha’s. For the enlightend mind this is prooven to be truthful, as it really is. That’s what i belief.

Siebe

[sybe07]

Lal, just to be sure…when an arhant dies does the mind survive death, even when there is no rebirth somewhere in the 31 realms? Is there in some way a continuing existence? Or does at the moment of parinibbana nothing continue? This is still not clear to me yet (maybe i do not know the concepts well enough), i just ask.

are you refering to MN102§7 (from Bodhi’s translation):
“That any recluse or brahmin could say: “Apart from material form, apart from feeling, apart from perception,apart from formations, I shall describe the coming and going of consciousness, its passing away and re-appearance, its growth,increase, and maturation” – that is impossible”

kind regards,
Siebe

[sybe07]

Thanks Lal,

I once read that the example of a flame was in India a well-known example or simile of an agitated state. I also think this is a very beautiful simile. A flame is, as it were, trying to escape the wood, but it is imprisoned, bounded to that wood. You see its fettered state. It is not free and very agitated it seems in its attempts to escape.

Nibbana is not the exstinguishing of this fire or flame, but it is seen as the state where the flame becomes free from the wood.

Something like this you also seem to say (at least i understood it that way). You say…” Thus an Arahant will not be reborn in “this material world” of 31 realms (see “The Grand Unified Theory of Dhamma”), i.e., one attains Parinibbana. He/she is simply “gone” from “this world” of 31 realms”.
“The suffering stops permanently. The mind become PERMANENTLY pure and be detached permanently from any type of physical body, dense or fine”.

Nibbāna – Is it Difficult to Understand?

So, maybe i understand this wrong, but i understood this in the sense that the mind survives parinibbana and will after death not find any physical, body, dense or fine. So the mind becomes totally free. That’s what i read.

But, apparantly that is not what you mean with above statement? all ends? Nothing remains after Parinibbana, like an extinguished fire?

By the way, I read the links you recommand, but i have ofcourse my own understanding of Buddha-Dhamma too. The translatons i use or post are not mine. I cannot Judge your translations are right, but i have trust in your work.

Siebe

[sybe07]

Hi Johnny_Lim,

Do you really belief extinction is a nobel goal?

I belief buddha-dhamma is something positive, but i cannot see extinction, to vanish like a extinguished flame at parinibbana, is something positive.

i find this very depressing, no gain, also very ungrateful.

Suffering can be bad, oke, people can committ suicide, but even that feels better then conciously working on your own extinction and pretending to do this is a nobel goal. In my mind it feels very dark-minded. Not positive at all. It even feels immoral to act this way.

Is this really buddha-dhamma?

I also cannot understand that Lal sees it as nobel goal to extinguish like a flame.

Siebe

[sybe07]

I understand that the five khandha’s do not arise anymore after Parinibbana.

But what does that mean, knowing the Budddha said in his life as a teachers that we are in this life not the khandha’s?

He transmitted this important message to his students. We, as his students, must see it as it actually is: “this experienced body and rupa’s, these feelings, these perceptions, these mental formations, these six kinds of conciousnesses, that’s not mine, not who i am, not myself”.

I belief, this includes also all those abhidhamma stuf about citta’s, citta vitthi’s, cetasika’s, rupa’s, gati’s, anusaya, cravings etc. It does not deal with our real identity. Cetasika’s are just mental formations, not mine, not I, not myself. This is also true for rupa’s, and citta’s and gatis etc.

The basic misunderstanding is to treat all this stuff as mine, as who we are, as ourselves. Does the Budddha say we are all that stuff? No.
One must not loose oneself in the images in the mirror. All this stuff is image in the mirror.

An unenlightend person who has not seen as it actually is that he/she is not the khandha’s, keeps identifying, for example with conciousness. He/she lives with the belief (unware that it exist in his/her mind), ‘i experience Visuals, smells etc, so i am’. Or, ‘i experience a body, so i exist’ etc.
This process is constantly going on, unconsciously. Most people do not know.

This is a deeply ingrained habit. Peope do not know it is there, but i have seen it. It is at the basis of attachment, grasping.

One who beliefs that his/her existence (“I am, I exist”) depends on the experience of a body, of feelings, perceptions, mental formations, consciousness, of whatever kind of experience, for such a person, cessation becomes fearful.

In fact this is the real obstacle we have to face while doing breath-meditation. Formations can cease, and we must see this with wisdom, not fear it, and that is by knowing whatever can cease, that we are not. But this is not easy because it is against our deeply ingrained habit.

“I am not the khandha’s”, became sure for the Buddha due meditation. For him it was no theory, no idea, thought, but an existential fact.

Did he had another, alternative, identity-view? I do not belief in the sense of a new identity-view.

From the first to the last breaktrough in Buddha_Dhamma, it is all about identity! The first breaks down identity-views, sakkaya-ditthi, and the last breaks down the conceit ‘I am’.

Anyway, because we are in this same life not the khandha’s, what does the ending of the khandha’s mean for us at Parinibbana? Is it is really our extinction or just the extinction of things we never were at the first place?

I feel, first of all we have to know who we really are, now, in this live and see this in a completely non-intellectual, non-reasoning, not contemplating way.

Siebe

[sybe07]

Hi Johnny_Lim, thanks.

So the view is not right that apart from the khandha’s there is not such a thing as ‘a being’? You belief there is? So, when the khandha’s end, that being does not end?

I mostly read the sutta’s, but i feel this is not the message of the sutta’s. What can be designated ‘a being’ if this being is without body, without experiences, without feelings, without volitional activity, without anything which consitutes ‘a being’? How can something like that be called ‘a being’?

I also do not understand, when parinibbana is not the end of a being, why is the Buddha not clear about this in the sutta’s? I have not read this until now. Do you know these?

I know sutta’s in which the Buddha does NOT affirm, for example, that the Tathagata exist after death, nor does he denie. He does not affirm he does not exists etc. If it would be true that a being survives parinibbana i do not understand that this is not often mentioned in the sutta-pitaka.

In the end, would buddhism not be some kind of eternalism when a being survives parinibbana? In what sense does that ‘being’ differ from an eternal soul?

kind regards,
Siebe

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