[sybe07]

I find Nibbida still an interesting subject. I think becoming fed up is not very bad as a translation, what do you think?

One must often see the danger, the disadvantages, the deludedness, the meaninglessness of something to become fed up with it and turn away from it. It looses it’s sign of attractiveness. It becomes unattractive.

I think becoming fed up is not really a reaction of aversion. It is deeper, i think less emotional, more connected with wisdom.

Becoming fed up with some things is oke, not bad, don’t you think so?

One can look at teenagers drinking to much, and one remembers the time one was a teenager oneself, drunk and sick, acting as an idiot. One does not feel revulsion or aversion but has become fed up with it, no interest anymore in all this drinking, becoming intoxicated.

Becoming fed up with certain things is quit intelligent.

Siebe

[sybe07]

Thanks Lal,

Those pannavimutti Arahants do they really not need jhana? In which sutta is this explained? Until know i understood they do not attain arupa jhana, the immaterial jhana (5-8).

Siebe

[sybe07]

Hi firewns,

Everybody has his own personal history and stuff to deal with, right. I experience trust or faith is very important to develop. Without faith one will fear life and death. Thinking about dying is very important because one can imagine that one has overcome a lot of kilesa’s, but at time of death, things can turn out to be differently. Strong forces (anusaya) will probably take over.

But faith is not easy to develop and is lost easily. There are a lot reasons to loose faith. Faith in people, faith in life, faith in your own mind, faith in institutions, faith in body etc. Loosing faith in ones own mind is very difficult to overcome is my own experience. I keep practising and do not give up taking refuge in Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha.

siebe

[sybe07]

Do i see the roots of anxiety, stress, fears?

I am not ready with this. But what do you see as the root Yeos?

kind regards
Siebe

[sybe07]

Yeos asked: “And so on relatively to forms, consciousness, the aggregates…etc; meaning that which arises and falls away can never be considered as the “Self” ? And if so – why ? Or in other words one might also envisage a Self which is unceasing metamorphosis ?

The sutta’s teach all conditioned phenomena to see like this: ‘this is not mine, not who i am, no myself’.

Yes, whatever arises and ceases can never be self. For example, if thoughts (inner verbal talk) would be self than you would cease when thoughts cease. This is not the case. The same with gati, anusaya, asava, tanha, lobha, dosa, moha etc. It cannot be ourselves. When it ceases we do not cease.

So how can we be what arises and ceases in our experience?

Siebe

[sybe07]

I belief understanding tilakkhana, at least to a beginners level, means one has become more realistic, less dreaming, with less high expactations of life. It is like one discards the inner childishness. The inner childishness, the naif part of our understanding of life.

When the Buddha saw the messangers, the death person, the sick person, the old person, his naif understanding of life was suddenly challenged. This is what the messangers do with people today too.
But often there is the attitude we have to go further with life and our ambitions, plans and forget the messangers.

Anyway with a basis understanding of tilakkhana, i feel, one also understands that craving can never ever be helpful. One understands that all those present habitual forces of mine-making, greed, of hate, of conceit, jaloesy, etc. it is of no use at all. Still, it is there so one has to deal with it in a wise manner.

-Seeing permanence in the impermanent can be seen when we think we are in controll. Everything is like we wishes it to be. The computer functions. The body is not ill. The car has no defects. One feels like everything goes well and all is under control. At that moment one sees permanence in the impermanent. One has a sense of safety while in fact there is still unsafety. This is a very common tendency, right? But it will all end, also this status quo will change. The body will become ill, the computer will crash etc. But one cannot denie that the deluded view of being in controll comes with a nice feeling of happiness.

We like things to be permanent and stabel. No crashes of computer, no illnesses of the body, no problems. This tendency is very strong with me.
I am frightened of how life is. During the years, i have become more and more frightened because i have experienced nothing can really be trusted or relied upon. One has to find a mode in which one does not resist this fact of life. No one can help you with this, is my experience, because everybody in the world is denying this fact of life of tries to comfort you and tries to let you see it is not that bad. The Buddha does not. He saw that it is indeed the truth that there is no refuge in this world of conditioned phenomena. There is no safety to be found. So, the anxiety, stress, fears are not bad messangers. It shows there is understanding, but still limited ofcourse, because the refuge is still not yet seen or found. That’s the work to do.

Seeing self in what is not -self is, for example, when one sees feelings, the body, energy, habitual forces, odeurs, tastes, visuals, etc. mental formations etc as “this is mine, this is who i am, this is my self’.

Seeing attractiveness in what is not attractive can be seen when we think something will make us happy while it can’t. A nice picture Lal uses is that of bait. We do not see the hook. Therefor it looks attractive but in fact it is very unattractive. The happiness of sense-pleasure also look very attractive when you suffer. For one suffering the happiness that come with drug, liquor, porn, computergames, candy etc look very attractive. The Buddha did not denie this according the sutta’s. It is because there is happiness in experiences that beings become stained. But ofcourse, those things are not really attractive, they only look that way. It’s gonna turn out bad when we take the bait.

Seeing happiness in what is suffering can relate to the former, but i think it can also relate to any existence. Some will see happiness in deva existence, but probably others will see suffering in any existence. That i have lived many lives, and have shed many tears and blood, left many bodies is not really appealing to me (yet). I know, some students become motivated to escape samsara when they think about such matters, but i notice, to be honest, it is not in my system.

Siebe

[sybe07]

Thanks Lal,

There is a list of wrong views, for example in MN117

5. “And what, bhikkhus, is wrong view? ‘There is nothing
given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed; no fruit or result of
good and bad actions; no this world, no other world; no mother,
no father; no beings who are reborn spontaneously; no [72] good
and virtuous recluses and brahmins in the world who have
realised for themselves by direct knowledge and declare this
world and the other world.’ This is wrong view.
This is from the translation of Bodhi.

In fact the above wrong views are the views of Ajita Kesakambali, a teacher who lived at the same time as the Buddha. He was considered to be a materialist.

Then there are listed 62 wrong views in DN1

There are also wrong view of other teachers who lived at the time of the Buddha, like, Makkhali Gosala, Kaccayana, Kassapa, Belathiputta, and Jain founder Nigantha Nataputta.

But can’t we say that seeing happiness in what is suffering, seeing attractiveness in what is repulsive, seeing self in what is not self (like the body seeing as ‘I am this body’) and seeing permanence in what is impermanent is in fact wrong view too? Vibhanga seems to say this is careless attention, but isn’t it wrong view too? Isn’t this kind of misunderstanding of the characteristic of life the most important kind of wrong view?

Siebe

[sybe07]

I read this verse in Therigatha:

I.17 — Dhamma {v. 17}

Wandering for alms —
weak, leaning on a staff,
with trembling limbs —
I fell down right there on the ground.
Seeing the drawbacks of the body,
my mind was then set free.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/thig/thig.01.00x.than.html#sutta-1

Can we really know the conditions for such breaktrough moments?

Sieb

[sybe07]

Again very interesting. Thanks!

siebe

[sybe07]

The sutta’s do sometimes describe a Mara who possesses someone but in a more metaphorical sense, Mara’s influence on us can be seen in our own attachment. Mara influence on us is by way of our own avijja, tanha, anusaya, samyojana, asava, upadana, all those causes and conditions that fetter.

Also the celestial bond is still a bond. Anywhere there arises this binding effect, there is, in a metaphorical sense, a possession by Mara, a binding by Mara. In that sense only Buddha’s and arahants, who have crosses any realm of existence (mara’s domain) have really escaped Mara.

Siebe

[sybe07]

some info from the sutta’s:

“Feeling, perception, and consciousness, friend – these states
are conjoined, not disjoined, and it is impossible to separate each
of these states from the others in order to describe the difference
between them. For what one feels, that one perceives; and what
one perceives, that one cognizes. That is why these states are conjoined, not disjoined, and it is impossible to separate each of
these states from the others in order to describe the difference
between them.” MN43§9 (translation Bodhi).

so, maybe from a theoretical kind of perspective these states can be seperated and treated like they exist disjoined.

[sybe07]

Regarding the arising of feeling there we three ideas in the time of the Buddha. The sutta’s threat those ideas:

-they are all results of past deeds. All feeling is kamma-vipaka. This was the position of Jain leader Nigantha Nataputta. The soul most be freed from these karmic bonds due to painful practices.
-feelings arise due to the creative activity of God
-feeling do not arise because of causes and conditions. Some teachers believed feelings of pain and pleausure were measured out from the beginning. Live with it’s pleasure, pain and neutral feeling just unfolds like the unwinding of a ball of string. A kind of fatalism.

See AN3.61 for these three positions: https://suttacentral.net/an3.61/en/bodhi

What was the position of the Buddha?

I think, please correct me if i am wrong, that he rejected God as cause and he also rejected that feeling do arise without cause and are destined, measured out. Such views come with fatalism that does not encourage to live the holy life like the Buddha meant it.

His position regarding the cause of feelings was, i think:
1. Feeling can arise as a result of the ripening of earlier moral or immoral deeds, kamma-vipaka. These kind of feelings we have to deal with in an intelligent way. Once ripened we have to bear those feeling without any aversion when they are painful and without any greed when they are nice. Even Buddha’s and arahants have those kind of feeling due to the ripening of earlier deeds in this or former lives. Some feelings are kamma-vipaka. We must learn that feelings are not mine, not me, not who i am. In stead of going out of contact of unpleasant feeling we must learn to contact them mindfully. Our ingrained aversion to unpleasant feeling must change. We have to develop an intelligent or wise relationship with unpleasant en pleasant feeling.

1. Feelings also arise in reaction on feelings which are kamma-vipaka. For example, when pain arises as a result of kamma (earlier immorel deeds), that is a painful feeling, but when aversion starts that state of mind is also accomponied by unpleasant feeling. This is another mechanism of the cause of feeling.

Another sutta who deals with causes for feeling is SN36.21. In that sutta you can see that kamma (i think as deeds in the past) as a cause is just one of the possible causes. So the Buddha also rejected the view of Jain leader Nigantha Nataputt that all feelings are due to past deeds. He also rejected the idea that one can wear away bad kamma due to painful practices.
https://suttacentral.net/sn36.21/en/bodhi

Siebe

[sybe07]

I still find it difficult to grasp the meaning of bhavanga.

In the above post Lal refers to, it is said:
-“When in a bhavanga state, there are no citta vithi running, so there are not even universal cētasika present. One just knows that one is living, but there is no thought object (ārammana)”.

To know that one is living does’t that need citta vitthi’s running?

I learned bhavanga is also the state in which we are when we are in deep dreamless sleep. Is this correct? At that moment there is not a knowing that one is alive? So i find it hard to graps what bhavanga really means.

Siebe

[sybe07]

Thanks Lal,

Bhavanga is sometimes translated as lifecontinuum but this seems to me misleading when bhavanga can end.

In the post you refer to you write: “First, it is important point to remember is that life is maintained by kammic energy, not via citta vithi”.

I did not realise this. I always thought that life is somehow maintained by this continuum of citta’s from one life to the other.

Siebe

[sybe07]

When the mind is without sanna and vedana, in sanna-vedayita-nirodha is mind at that moment in it’s stationary state of natural bhavanga?

Siebe

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