Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Lal,
Quite fortuitously, the discussion at ‘Kamma and Kamma Vipāka › Vipaka Sapa from Dhamma Loka’ is relevant here as well. There it is stated:
“Vedana coming through the other four physical sense inputs are neutral. Any pleasant or unpleasant vedana that we may experience are ALL mind-made, and NOT due to kamma vipaka,” and:
“Whatever somanassa/domanassa vedana that we make on our own are due to our gathi (or gati)… There are some kamma vipaka due to mano sankhara that arise even with vipaka vinnana. But they cannot bring rebirth”.Now going back to the instance of that brahmin and his wife, surely their exclamation, on SEEING the Buddha ‘where have you been, my son, all this time’ was made with vedana, and very strong vedana at that (somanassa, in this case). And the connections via relation lay in the deep past (vipaka) – the furthest as far back as 1,500 lifetimes, if the ones when they had been uncle/aunt and grand-father/mother are included. This does not accord with : “Vedana coming through the other four physical sense inputs are neutral. Any pleasant or unpleasant vedana that we may experience are ALL mind-made, and NOT due to kamma vipaka”. In fact, it clashes with this at all three points: that vedana was NOT neutral, it was NOT mind-made, and WAS due to kamma vipaka. Even if the records of all that are in nama loka, and it is the mana indriya that ‘recovers’ the event, once recovered it is then experienced as vedana.
And, “Yes. Those are the past pancakkhandha (memories about past rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara, vinnana).” So the pancakkhanda would be the ‘personal storehouse’ of a bieng’s past, and nama loka the collective, the mega repository of all pancakkhandhas of all beings? In that case, the pancakkhandha would suffice to account for the re-arising of feelings from the past from the vedanakkhanha alone; no need to bring the nama loka in at all.
-“Vedana coming through the other four physical sense inputs are neutral”- But it is clear that even rupakkhandha can NOT be neutral.It was on SEEING the Buddha that the brahmin and his wife were overjoyed. The sight of Him was the trigger. Here both form, rupa (that of the Buddha) and the faculty of sight (of the brahmin and his wife) were there .Ja 68 Saketa jataka:
– The man thy mind rests on, with whom thy heart
Is pleased at first SIGHT,—place thy trust in him.-We have all experienced this immediate attraction or repulsion on first meeting certain people.
Also the nama loka would only ‘register’ an event, an event where a particular feeling or feelings arose, then once located by the mana indriya, the vedana would be experienced; while the ruppakkhandha would have the feeling itself, intact, as it was experienced, it is immediate, it is ‘carried along’at all times in the being. This is NOT a statement, Lal. I need to get to the bottom of this.
In Ja237. Saketa Jātaka : “Both the circumstances that suggested the story and the story itself have already been given in the First Book ” ( where the incident of the Buddha meeting the brahmin and his wife is given) . Ja237 goes on:
– Why are hearts cold to one – O Buddha, tell! –
– And love one another so exceedingly well? –
The Master explained the nature of love by the second stanza:
– “Those love they who in other lives were dear,
– As sure as grows the lotus in the mere.”with infinite Gratitude,
Thank you Lal.
Taking all that in as well, now it makes perfect sense.
Incidentally, the very last sentence in your reply brought to mind what I read in some commentary, namely:
that the deva realms, the higher ones in particular (to say nothing of the brahma realms!) lie at distances which, I made out, would place them somewhere beyond the orbits of Mars and the gas giants.
Are these estimates trustworthy at all? For then those deva realms would come within the gravitational pull of those nearer(to them) planets during the course of their orbits around the Sun rather than that of the Earth.
with deep Gratitude
Re my post July 29, 2019 at 2:45 pm:
– This is why I thought that when visiting a particular realm, the visitor temporarily puts on a body made of the fabric that realm is made of- ….and all that preceded.
an8.69/en/sujato” Assemblies is relevant:
“I recall having approached an assembly of hundreds of brahmins, householders, ascetics, the gods under the Four Great Kings …the gods under the Thirty-Three …Māras …Brahmās. There too I used to sit with them, converse, and engage in discussion. AND MY APPEARANCE AND VOICE BECAME JUST LIKE THEIRS.”
Perhaps my point is clearer now.
Thank you.
– “3. It is rare for any living being to “transfer” from one cakkavāla to another.
– But those with well-established miccha ditthi could be born in other cakkavāla.” – August 14, 2019 at 4:05 pmQ: Why only any living beings with well-established miccha ditthi ? And not those with well-established samma ditthi as well?
As you state it, Lal, it suggests to me that those with well-established miccha ditthi would find a ‘more fitting’ place to work out their kamma vipaka in the conditions of another planet. Conversely (if this ‘inter-planetary migration’ applies also for those with well-established samma ditthi) this would afford them a better place to progress, one ‘more in line with their gathi’ and with the conditions there (in the ‘new’ planet’s realms).
So it is that we all have relatives in other cakkavalas, (and those relatives of ours do not necessarily have to be in human bodies there right now.) The ‘transfer’ from one cakkavala to another can be done in a deva or brahma ‘body’, even if it rarely occurs, but I do not see how it can apply to human gandhabbas.
Thank you.
P.S. I am aware that you did not say that human gandhabbas transfer. Just to remove any doubt that may arise.
“…………and wrong terms used in English.”
To his credit, Thanissaro translates anicca as ‘inconstant’ (which implies the inherent viparinama nature) rather than the more obvious and common ‘impermanent’ (must come to an end). Anicca, of course, is both, and more, depending on how much one is able to see into it.
This is in fact what the sutta is saying, applied to the five aggregates; on that will depend the level of attainment: Sotapanna, Sakadagami, and so on.
Thank you Christian,
Thank you Lal.
Further to king Yama and the Sotapanna stage, I read or heard a desana (not on here) that he actually aspires to attain a human birth specifically for that purpose. Moreover, it seemed to me that it was more of a resolve, a very strong determination rather than a mere aspiration.
He should know about the suffering hell-beings must go through more than most – so it makes sense that he is so bent on freeing himself forever of the tortures there.
Sybe:
Perhaps this will help you in reviewing your question:
Nibbana as Nibbana can have no beginning, and, of course, no end as well. An infinite number of beings have attained it (in the past), and an infinite number will attain it in the future. It was always there to be attained, though for any particular being ‘It does not exist’ until attained. So, It has a beginning only as far as any being in particular is concerned.
I leave to Lal the fuller explanation as well as your last question.
Metta
Lal,
–”One may question whether my recent posts on the origin of life are relevant to get rid of suffering” . Well, per se they are not, on your own admission and the Buddha’s word. I was a bit surprised that you intend to dedicate a whole series of posts to the subject – hence my venturing to contribute to the discussion(s).
But: “That broad picture or world view can help one get rid of the sakkaya ditthi.” Indeed.
with deepest Gratitude,
P.S. Perhaps a more clear idea of what I have been trying to say is that the ‘Infinite Monkey Theorem’ does not hold. Just because there is an infinite time ahead available does not mean that a monkey will eventually hit all the right keys on a typewriter to produce the text of any given book, likewise a being does not of neccessity attain Nibbana in the infinite future. This topic about the Infinite Monkey Theorem was touched upon at the very time when you set up the Forum, or thereabouts if I remember correctly.
Lal,
I was asking for Tipitaka reference that a being’s stay in sansara can last forever – i.e, that it may be that Nibbana is never attained, despite an eternity of time in the future to attain It:
-“Is it inevitable that a being eventually attains Nibbana? Or can some or many or most – I do not know- linger on in sansara indefinitely? “- ….and following.
I of course refute the opening quotation; it only leads to the question via connection.
thank you
“Every blade of grass eventually attains ‘Enlightenment’ “.
As we know, the various Mahāyāna schools contain tenets that are contradictory to Buddhadhamma, but, at the same time, they retain and at least profess to abide by, what is in the Tipitaka as well.
I ask this because, seeing that Nibbana has a beginning but no end, I was not sure whether to continue ‘… and sansara has no beginning but has an end’
Now a blade of grass is not a sentient being. But what about sentient beings? Is it inevitable that a being eventually attains Nibbana? Or can some or many or most – I do not know- linger on in sansara indefinitely?
As far as I can make out, it will depend in each and every case entirely on an individual being’s capacity to understand Dhamma (through persistent effort spanning many a bhava) when the right conditions are there. That there is an infinite time ahead available does not mean that a being MUST attain Nibbana sooner or later as a matter of course.
……already we have spent an infinite time in sansara AS IT IS- and we are still here – a million or multiple billions more bhava in sansara will not make our stay in sansara ‘more’ infinite. This is the basis.
Does the Tipitaka say anything about this?
For Christians, the Creator, the First cause, created everything at a point in time, the Creator himself being of course causeless and timeless.
As a boy I used to ask myself: so what of the eternal time prior to that event? However long creation lasts, even if forever, it cannot be longer than all the time in the past without creation. Both ‘the void’ and creation would be infinite (one-way) in time. As far as duration goes, the work of this God would not surpass the state of non-existence (prior to the act of creation).
And having spent eternity in inactivity, what was it that all at once gave him the urge to create? So that we here, on the one planet in the universe that harbours life (!), 4,000 years after creation, would be saved by his only son! Really?
One of the many charges of heresy levelled against Giordano Bruno by the ‘Holy’ Inquisition was, besides his belief in the ‘transmigration of souls’, even to animals, was his affirmation of the ‘plurality of worlds’ and of an infinite number of inhabited planets in an infinite universe. The trouble with that, as far as the Roman Church was concerned, was that Christ would have to eternally ‘go doing the rounds’, as it were, being crucified time after time, saving one humanity after another endlessly! Bruno was burned at the stake in the year 1600, a martyr to free thought and defiance of dogmatic ecclesiastical authority. He dabbled in occult, mysterious literature – and I wonder where exactly he got his ideas from.
On the change of bhava, a being gets a new set of the khandhas ( temporary, operative for the duration of that bhava alone). So vedana does not travel from life to life.
Then there is phassa and sanphassa, vedana and sanvedana in connection with rupakkhanda and rupaupadanakkhanda. The second in every case is ingrained in one’s gathi and is carried forward from life to life (always with changes along the way):
-“The “picture of that tree” is in our rupakkhandha forever. If we liked that tree for some reason, it may be part of our rupa upadanakkhadha (a rupa that we like and crave for)”-
So would it be correct to say that a being is made up of (a particular set of)the 5 khandhas in the shorter run of one particular bhava, and of the comulative effect of many such series of them (upadanakkhandha- sanphassa and sanvedana) in the longer run during sansara?
I must make a correction.
I used the term ‘cakkavala’ to mean the (our, in this case) ‘10,000 star-system’. Readers will have realized that is incorrect and that the word means our or any other single star-system.
My apologies.
I will get back to question Lal’s first point in #3.
Very good questions, Cubibobi.
1: ‘Nature’ or Existence or Reality works within the framework of eternity. To the human mind, 30 mahakappas are a very long time. But the Buddha said that all the tears we have shed, or the blood we have shed having been slain as animals FROM BEGININGLESS TIME is more than the waters of all the oceans; and that is difficult to come across ANYBODY in life who had not been your mother or father or brother or sister etc. And those are only analogies, to give some idea, a very vague one ,to His listeners. In reality anything that has no beginning will admit of no fitting analogy, only one that is beginingless as well.
So however long it takes to be born a human in a Buddha sasana on this planet (among the many inhabited ones in this cakkavala) is still a VERY SHORT TIME when one knows that once Nibbana is attained ,that state will then last FOREVER.
2: The Budddha himself said that with time the Dhamma would disappear, gradually. And where there is no Dhamma there can be no Sangha to spread that Dhamma. Now how the vestiges of the Dhamma in Kassapa.s sasana came into the hands of the Hindus in the next (Gotama’s) sasana, I do not know.
3. No, apparently not. Only devas and Brahmas can. For if it were otherwise, those gandhabbas from other inhabited planets in this cakkkavala, or some of them at least, would have come to listen to the Buddha as well, but the Tipitaka makes no mention of them.
