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I see, thank you!
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With that in mind, in Pannāvimutti – Arahanthood without Jhāna we discussed how jhana is not required for arahanthood. However, this sutta seems to place an importance in cultivating jhana (I assume they are talking about ariya jhana).
In the later part of the sutta, Sāriputta explains sammāsamādhi as going through the four jhanas. That means that jhanas are part of the 8 fold path! Should we place more emphasis on formal meditation for ariya jhana? Of course, after obtaining right view.
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Thank you. I just found it strange that he experiences neutral vedana (neither pleasant nor unpleasant) but finds it pleasant from sañña. I thought that whether we feel something is pleasant or unpleasant is from vedana itself. I will need to re-read the posts on distorted sañña and investigate.
Yes, I agree that the arahant can taste sweetness, it is part of distorted sanna. I am asking if he perceives it to be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.
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In Vedana (Feelings) Arise in Two Ways
It is stated in point 4 that Samphassa-ja-vedana “do not arise in an Arahant”
Since
- We only experience vedana from either vipaka or samphassa-ja-vedana.
- We experience pleasant and unpleasant sensations from vedana
- Arahant has no samphass-ja-vedana
- “All vedanā initially coming through the other five sense faculties are neutral, i.e., adukkhamasukha vedanā.”
Then we can conclude that the arahant does not experience pleasant or unpleasant feelings from an ice cream or rotten meat. However he will still taste ice-cream to be sweet, rotten meat to be sour.
Lal: Even an Arahant tastes ice cream to be tasty/sweet.
Can I clarify that the Arahant will not taste it to be pleasant but netural, because Samphassa-jā-Vedanā do not arise in an Arahant, and Vedanā from sensory inputs other than touch are neutral? That means he would react the same towards ice cream and rotten meat (if it had to be eaten), but he would taste ice cream as sweet and rotten meat as sour, just that he does not find them pleasant or unpleasant.
I had the same misconception that the 9 stages refer to the stages that a single citta goes through.
In Citta Vithi – Processing of Sense Inputs
Does it mean that the later steps of the citta vithi – Vottapanna, Javana, corresponds to the viññānakkhanda stage? And each of the 17 cittas in a citta vitthi can be somewhat mapped to the 9 step citta evolution?
Lal: The total number of “beings” in our cakkavāla centered around the Earth remains constant, except when Arahants attain Parinibbana at their death and leave this world.
Are beings able to be reborn in other solar systems/ other parts of the star cluster?
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“that is covered if one can see the truth in the current version of the Tipitaka.“
Do you mean the truth of Buddha Dhamma?
What I meant was not on the teachings itself, but rather the historicity, whether such events did happen, and whether the tipitaka is faithful to historic events. I believe that sharing of such evidence will be helpful for building faith. For example, if we hypothetically have someone come up to us and say “I indeed heard and saw the Buddha speak to Mogallana on pretas”, will it not help build confidence about the 31 realms? Again I reiterate that this may be impossible to find, but nice to have.
Also we have some scientific discussions that we share to build faith in the dhamma and science forum, such as discussion about humans living much further in the past, evidence of rebirth etc. These are helpful to build faith too. For example with the post on “Evidence of Rebirth”, it becomes easier to believe the wider world view which includes rebirths. If I am a materialist who believes that nothing happens after death, then posts like this can be helpful for developing a more open mind towards rebirths, we no longer have to accept it by faith alone, and we can see for ourselves that rebirth is indeed possible.
But you’re right that we may never be able to prove his teachings to everyone.
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You’re right, what matters ultimately is the effectiveness of the teaching itself. We could get trapped and waste too much time finding evidence. To know the effectiveness of the doctor, it is not the clinic, the nurse, the awards that are most important but the effectiveness of the treatment itself.
Of course, these evidence would still be helpful to build faith which makes it easier to absorb the teachings, and I still welcome the rest to share and discuss such evidences if they come across it.
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“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 I mean is evidence outside the tipitaka to corroborate its validity, eg external accounts, archeological evidence that the first Buddhist council did occur.
Perhaps I can give the following simile to illustrate my point.
Let’s say in the Russian-Ukraine war, in the Russian media they would promote the narrative that the Ukrainians started the war, they attacked first. As a Russian, if I only have access to Russian media, I would believe this to be true. It is also possible that the media can try to make everything internally consistent. Given access to limited information, the Russians themseleves may find it hard to prove against this.
However, if I were to watch it from the outside, we have other means of corroborating and discovering the truth, eg looking at satellite images, looking at accounts from both russian and ukraine side, accessing military documents.
Another simple illustration: there are accounts of Jesus’ resurrection in the Bible, would you take that to be true? How will you investigate it? You will try to see if there are non-christian sightings of Jesus after his crucification etc.
Likewise, we now only have one source, the tipitaka, and from the tipitaka we try to figure out whether it is true based on its consistency and based on whether it corroborates with what we know today. However, we do not have aracheologic, third party evidence to say that what they wrote were indeed, factual and words of the Buddha. For example, a strong evidence would be texts or inscriptions of non-buddhist saying “this indeed happened, this conversation indeed took place, the tipitaka does include factual accounts”. Now we have a non-biased source to improve its validity. In history, to prove the validity of an event, it is good to have multiple, non-biased sources.
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- Analyzing the self-consistency
- Examining the consistency with observed facts
- Using one’s direct experience
This is what we have been doing so far, and I agree that it is helpful. But if we know of these unbiased, third party evidence outside the tipitaka, it would be immensely helpful in building credibility as well. Otherwise we can only use logic and deduction from looking at the tipitaka for its validity. Of course, such evidence could well be impossible to find.
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Hi TripleGemStudent
Yes, that is what I initially thought as well. However, I found that dosakkhayo’s point makes sense as well: “Anicca signifies the discrepancy between the natural law and our distorted expectation that things will unfold as we desire”
If we take anicca to be “not icca/ not to our liking”, then it implies that we have icca for it in the first place. But do we have icca for everything? Would we ever think of a puddle of water as either nicca or anicca? If we do not cling to the puddle of water, it is neither nicca or anicca to us. Since anicca, dukkha, and anatta are linked (Yadaniccaṁ taṁ dukkhaṁ, yaṁ dukkhaṁ tadanattā – whatever is anicca is dukkha, whatever is dukkha is anatta) if the puddle of water does not cause dukkha to us, then it would not be anicca too by the logical statement. The puddle of water will only cause dukkha if we attach to it. Which is why I think it can be helpful to think of anicca with respect to clinging/ panca upadana khanda, on top of how things are conditioned, and not that every single thing is anicca.
Yes, I did! To summarise the points relevant for this discussion:
Tipiṭaka – The Uniqueness of Buddha Dhamma
- The uniqueness of the dhamma
- This I agree, if it is unique, it is less likely to be made up by someone or groups of people
Pāli Canon Is Self-Contained but Requires Detailed Explanation
- Reliability of oral and written transmission
- This I do not doubt. However that still does not prove that the first version of the tipitaka to be factually and historically true, it only means that the tipitaka we have now is very close to the tipitaka they first drafted
Introduction – A Scientific Approach to Buddha Dhamma
- Using Buddha Dhamma as a working hypothesis and theory to explain reality and see if it is true
- Yes, this is what we have been doing to prove point 2, whether the words of the Buddha are true
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, there is also skepticism among scholars whether it happened (Buddhist councils).
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.I would also understand that such factual information would be hard to come by, then we will have to use our own logical reasoning to think and see for ourseleves whether the teachings are true or not.
