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I also want to take this opportunity to talk about cakkavāla. If this refers to a planetary system, it would be insane for someone to know this 2500 years ago without a telescope. But does it actually refer to a planetary system? The suttas that I’ve read which discuss the cosmos say that our sun, earth and the moon make up a cakkavāla. Then there are categorizations of a 1000 such systems, 10,000, million and even billions of cakkavāla. This can be interpreted as a collection of planetary systems but the suttas do not mention other planets.
This thought came to me after I saw many religious zealots on the internet claiming that their religious texts contain scientific facts that modern science is only just discovering. For example, many Muslims claim that the Quran accurately describes the formation of human embryo. But if you analyze the details, the similarities are only superficial. The bones form way later than the Quran claims as described by embryogenesis. I noticed similar issues with Hinduism. Some Hindus told me that the Vedas describes the distance of the earth to the sun and even the speed of light, but I found out that these people lie and make up numbers for the term “yojana” to make it consistent with the discoveries of Science. Just left this input here because I think we should not be like these people.
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I don’t have time to watch dosakkhayo’s video right now but will watch it later. Thanks!
Meanwhile, Dr. Lal wrote: “The gandhabba and the physical body are BOTH created by kammic energy to “embed” the “distorted sanna” that the lifestream craved. A human existence is grasped because of a “janaka kamma” (a strong kamma that can give rise to human existence.)”
The physical body’s map is provided by mother and father in the form of zygote, isn’t it? That’s why we observe many similarities between the parents and the offsprings. In some cases, even the traits from grandparents can appear when the part of genetic code supressed in parents get expressed in the offspring. So how can we say that the physical body is created by kammic energy?
So, trying to sort out things by looking at DNA is not a good idea.
Then what is the role of DNA? Genetic Engineering has shown that mutations in DNA can affect the structure of the physical bodies. This would suggest that the blueprint of an organism’s physical structures is stored in the DNA.
Yeah that would be really difficult because the first council took place about 2500 years ago and was attended only by arahants.
“This I agree, if it is unique, it is less likely to be made up by someone or groups of people”
Tipitaka contains different layers of detailed and self-consistent explanations of mental phenomena. We must keep in mind that no other religion, philosophy or even modern science describes the conscious experience to such depth.
“I first came upon this line of thinking when I did a search and did not find strong evidence pointing to the first arahant council”
Not sure what counts as “strong evidence” to you, but the description of the first Buddhist Council is in the Tipitaka itself. Read, Pañcasatikakkhandhaka
“What we have now do not strongly point to whether the contents of the tipitaka are factual or not, eg some would argue if they are made up or exaggerated, especially the mythical phenomenons, eg talking to devas, pretas. Some would also argue if they were made up. Of course, if we were to take the assumption that they were written by arahants, then they should no have lied as well when creating the tipitaka.”
OK, here’s how I approach it. There are essentially 3 ways of determining whether something is “factual” or not:
- Analyzing the self-consistency
- Examining the consistency with observed facts
- Using one’s direct experience
To gain confidence in a teaching, we can use #1 and 2. For example, scientists can’t “see” electrons directly but we are confident that they exist. This is because those models are consistent with observations. Using the same approach in Dhamma, even though we can’t directly see the 29 other realms, we can be confident that they exist. The goal is to treat the fundamental concepts like Rebirth, Laws of Kamma, etc. like foundations/axioms and go through the explanations (based on those axioms) and see if they lead to logical conclusions.
But of course, an even better (the most reliable) way of being confident is by seeing the truth for yourself (#3). Before the sotapanna anugami stage, one experiences the cooling down effect (Niramisa Sukha). An anagami does not crave anything in the sensual realms (kama loka). You can make them watch adult movies, but they won’t generate a trace of lust. Someone with 4th Jhana can willfully come out of their bodies. If they have abhinna powers, they can recall past lives too. Tipitaka recommends walking the path in stages, so until one develops such abilities like seeing beings in other realms (for example), we must rely on #1 and 2 and continue our practice.
Have you read the following posts? Please bring up specific discussions based on them.
“BRAIN
BRAIn.
BRAi..
BRa..
Br…
B….
……
M….
Mi…
MIn..
MINd.
MIND”
“Accept the above model or you’re a religious zealot.”
I believe Yash is not a native speaker of English. So I don’t think he intended to say anything derogatory. What we were discussing was that when it comes to learning the stuff that requires a lot of mental effort (like Dhamma), women end up being a minority by a significant margin. For example, if we look at the Engineering Statistics of Women, only 7.7% of women worked in science and engineering (S&E) occupations in 2021.
But I agree with dosakkhayo, we should not generalize people based on our personal experience. Though we should be mindful of the differences between male and female.
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Even during the time of the Buddha most of the prominent Arahants were males.
Hmm, I am focused more on the teachings than issues like these. However, I would like to share that I have not seen a single female in this website’s forums.
P.S. I shared this stuff with some of my female friends but none of them were interested. One of them even seemed overwhelmed so I decided to stop. I think it will be difficult to learn Dhamma with a “soft” character. While it may not be appropriate to explicitly say this nowadays, but women tend to be more “soft” naturally than men.
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Good point y not! I am impressed that the neuroscientists in the above video have understood that our sensory faculties only detect our subjective reality according to our perceptions which isn’t a fully accurate depiction of how the world is in the objective sense.
If that is true, then it is really petty and I have to say I agree with Lang here. I have described some of my personal experiences in the forum where people rejected Dhamma because they seemed to be too attached to their preconceived views. It would be a total misconduct for Dhamma practitioners to do the same, even worse when they call themselves “Bhikkhus”. Someone who is genuinely seeking the truth wouldn’t fear being wrong if it means their understanding will grow.
I used to wonder why Tipitaka doesn’t explicitly mention the terms like abhisankhara, samphassa, etc. in the traditional PS conditionality chain. Now I am starting to think that even if they were mentioned, puthujjanas would still interpret them wrongly. That’s the tragedy of not having ariyas I guess.
Hello Ravi, I agree with you that we should not spend too much time trying to figure out the details of the origin of universe. But as Dhamma practitioners, we should be aware of the different worldviews of the world. In the absence of a Buddha, there are primarily 2 types of worldviews that exist: Materialism and Creationism (Eternalism). I posted the above video for general information, in a way to highlight how humans argue over 2 extreme views (without Dhamma knowledge):
- Materialism takes precedence over Creationism in the contemporary world because of Modern Science. The theory of Abiogenesis provides a general map of how life might have evolved starting with inert matter. But how complex mental phenomena can arise out of dead matter remains a mystery.
- Creationism suggests that life was created by an almighty God who will grant humans “eternal life” if they have faith in that idea. But due to issues like the lack of evidence, problem of suffering and the unstable nature of the universe, scientists are unwilling to accept this idea. This is why I highlighted that the fact that many scientists (including Professor Dave Explains above) are unwilling to consider anything other than matter in this universe.
One has expectations built up by accumulated kammic energy. However, such kammic energies can automatically bring arammana only if one has samyojana intact. As the number of samyojana goes down, the likelihood of kammic energies automatically bringing sensory inputs (arammana) will diminish.
Whenever I try to sit down in peace, my mind automatically gets bombarded with stressful thoughts about random things (yes, my life is a mess). When I analyze those thoughts, I can see that there is a pattern. Even though I don’t consciously generate them, they also don’t seem random as they involve memories of sensory experiences experienced with abhisankhara. But for an arahant with no samyojana left, are there no subconscious thoughts? In other words, do all thoughts need to be consciously generated by spending energy from food?
Nature is confusing. I’m just gonna focus on the concepts.
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