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The very idea of an omnipotent God is flawed to start with:
Even if this God had the power to create so huge a rock that he himself would not be able to lift it, that would be proof of his lack of omnipotence. Yet, even in that case, it would be he himself who thus makes himself non-omnipotent, so even this non-omnipotence would be HIS doing, so he can still claim to be omnipotent.
It comes to such logical absurdities.
Thank you Tobias.
I share your view about Catholics. I was born and raised and still live in a Catholic country. Up until the 60’s Church attendance was about 95%, now that is about 45%. People are starting to investigate things, no longer feeling bound by dogmas and fear of eternal hells and’fire and brimstone’. That is thanks mainly to the world becoming smaller, all genre of books being available everywhere, not to mention the internet.
When I was still a boy they used to say that babies and infants(who had not yet received baptism) go to a place called limbo. No one seemed to know what that state was exactly. Priests had a hard time handling inquisitive minds. The doctrine has now been abolished!!That is because, as with nearly every other dogma,’truth’ is invented, and can be modified or abolished by a decree of a human being, the pope.
You say : ‘this view is in my eyes totally twisted and sick’ What about prayer then? If prayer were efficacious, no one would be sick for long, no one would die, everyone would pass exams,etc, when relatives pray for you. Some years ago there was this football decider and the tv crew interviewed first a fan of one team, then a fan of the other in front of their clubs in their home town. Their wish? ‘ May baby Jesus bring the trophy here, to this town’ ** Both men believe in Jesus, both expect that he grant their wish. Now what will baby Jesus do? for he cannot grant both their wish. And note, it is an image of a baby they have in mind (in a crib, probably).
What it boils down to really is selfishness.
** Napoleon was once asked: ‘Whose side is God on’? He replied: ‘He is on the side with the heaviest artillery’ !!
He was a butcher, yes, but he was not stupid.2 users thanked author for this post.
Reference : latest post – Wrong View of Creationism (and Eternal Future Life) – Part 1
#5 ‘The Bible never mentions people having a second chance at life or coming back as different people or animals’.
The early ‘Church fathers’, the philosopher-theologians of the day, influenced by the Neo-Platonists in particular and by Greek thought in general, embraced ‘reincarnation’. Only later did the now dogmatic pope-dominated Church stamp out, forcibly at times, the ‘heresy of re-incarnation’.
The compilers of the New Testament in the late 4th Century A.D selected only those books for inclusion in the Bible that accorded with the current accepted tenets of the hierarchy, who were averse, to put it mildly, to the idea of their having been common men or ‘brutes’ in former existences. Many additions, obliterations and alterations were made and kept being made in line with the changing creeds or ‘whims’ of one pope or another. It was easy to do. Since printing had not yet been invented, all hand-written copies in all churches and monasteries were simply ‘corrected’.
So it is difficult to see where Jesus figures in all of this. To my mind, 90% of the whole of it is a fabrication, hundreds of them rolled into one. Yet something of his true teaching surely must have survived even after this mighty butchering and soup-mix of texts. One finds passages that teach compassion, good-will, generosity and point out the conflict between good and evil that each must go through in life.
Perhaps we will never know whether Jesus had indeed been a Buddhist monk during those ‘lost years’ between the ages of 12 and 29, taught the ‘pure teaching’ during his ministry and returned to India after the crucifixion.
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And yet, Lal, when devas visited the Buddha illuminating the place all around (that is to say, in their deva bodies) they bowed, circled the Buddha keeping Him to the right, etc – all distinctive of their retaining a ‘physical presence’ of one sort or another. Conversations took place, not exchanges of thoughts via telepathy, as would be the case if they were present with only their manomayakaya. That is, IF verbal conversations took place.
In other passages in the suttas, devas could assume other forms when contacting humans. And for humans to be even aware of their presence, they (the devas) must have taken on not only a human appearance, but also the type of body, the ‘density’, had to be that which humans are made of. Else, they (the devas) would remain invisible. In some passages, the human in fact asks: ‘Are you (in truth) human or divine? (a deva) ‘
So why cannot it work the other way around as well? When the Buddha or an Arahant visits a deva world, the same courtesies and formalities take place. Is that consistent with the participants in the conversation being in only their manomayakaya body? For if the latter were the case, why bother to go there at all? The ‘contact’ can be made telepathically across space to that deva world. Or can it?
This is why I thought that when visiting a particular realm, the visitor temporarily puts on a body made of the fabric that that realm is made of.
Thank you
Yes Lal. Thank you.
So that will be the case even when the Buddha, Ven.’s Moggallana and Sariputta visited the Tavatimsa. For surely devas do not greet and have a conversation with a manomayakaya. Is it to be inferred that when in a deva realm they ‘assumed’ a temporary deva body? However, I cannot see how that will apply also to brahma realms, seeing that brahmas have no aharajakaya anyway.
Is this correct?
Thank you Lal.
That is all quite clear. However, two questions came to mind.
When Ven. Ananda ‘flew through the air’ by abhinna powers to show the Arahants assembled for that first Council at Rajagraha that he had attained the Arahanthood,
– Can not even ordinary yogis and non-Buddhists develop those powers? It is no ‘proof’ of Arahanthood. I can only suppose he did that to get there on time (a seat awaited him, I read elsewhere). Still, the following question remains:
– If He travelled with the manomayakaya as described in the post, how was his physical body transposed to the Assembly? It is not the same case as when travelling to a deva or brahma realm, where one leaves the body behind. I take it that in the case of Ven. Ananda, He indeed flew through the air ‘body and all’. Is that correct?
(P.S. Please excuse my posting in ‘your’ General Information and Updates section. I knew I should not have, but there was no option – and if I delayed, the questions ‘as they hit me’ would have gone. Now…..that I am thinking of it….I could have just typed somewhere as a draft and waited.
Daft!! )
Welcome Serg !
Try this.
Keep coming back to the posts and the forum here, then you will be able to make a comparison. Dhamma is a lifelong endeavour, THE ONE truly worth the while. It is not about occasional ‘excursions’ into meditation for temporary relief from the pressures of life. It is about getting to accept,as a result of reflection and understanding, the message of the Buddha, the elimination of ALL future suffering. Then to apply the Teaching. You will soon enough begin to see a transformation. A PERMANENT one. This is the criterion.
I have found of value also the desanas given by Venerable Wallasmulle Abhaya Thēro and Venerable Battaramulle Amadassana Thēro referred to by Lukas in the post English Pure Dhamma Resources in the General Forum .
May the blessings of the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha guide you on in this, the Noblest of Quests.
hello Axel,
I will comment on only your last para. Lal has addressed the rest.
We must keep in mind that English ‘as she is spoke’ nowadays in not necessarily British English. Most non-native English speakers and those who took their degrees in the US in particular use what has come to be termed as American English, or a mixture of both, not only when speaking but also when writing. For instance, the use of the double comparative, like more sweeter or more subtler is, strictly speaking (or ‘strictly writing’ in this case !),wrong in formal English, but otherwise common and accepted in other forms of the Language.
However, truly glaring errors often encountered with are due to plain ignorance: interchanging its with it’s, for instance No such are to be found in any of the posts. I have gone through the latest post and it is ok. Most errors, and there are many, are obvious mistakes when typing, due, I am sure, to the lack of time at hand to go over the posts again and proofread. This is therefore understandable and for that reason excusable. It becomes serious only when it alters, or when it may alter, the intended meaning. In such (rare) instances, I had to ask for clarification, and I did.
Surely, Lal, you are not saying that all the beings had a human form once back on the physical Earth? This is what I find that may be misleading. As you state later: those “early brhama-like humans”.
“So the statement ‘all beings started out as humans’ could be very misleading.”
“No. That is a correct statement FOR THAT TIME at the beginning of a new maha kappa…”
So now people will imagine the whole of the Earth’s land surface literally covered by humans, trillions of them!! This is what I meant by misleading, humans in physical human form as we know it today.Perhaps we are dealing with two things at the same time here: the state of those beings once they move up to the abhassara realm ,and their appearance or ‘form’ once back ON the Earth. But reading my question and your reply together once again, there are no divergences.
I did not say that those beings moved UP because of their gathi, rather that they moved DOWN because of it, quite in line with what you say.
For the rest, yes, it makes perfect sense.
Thank you cubibobi for putting the question, and Lal for answering that question. The two of you saved my day. I had been going through acute depression since I woke up, totally at a loss. Reading those two posts got me going. At once I was alive, physically and mentally, and am still.
Once again, thank you,
May the Blessings of the Triple Gem be ever with us all.
The way I understand this ‘descent into matter’ of those first ‘humans’ is like this:
I must first regress a bit. When the destruction of the planet took place, all living beings found themselves in the Abhassara realm. Being in that realm, they assumed the qualities of those brahmas, ‘physical’ and mental ; or, to put it another way, they ‘levelled out’ to brahmas, all of them: those who had been human, animals, fishes, insects, ALL living beings. Now, when the descent back to the newly-formed Earth took place, they all started out as humans. The human realm is the one that lies in between the ‘good’ (deva and brahma) and the ‘bad’ (apayas) realms. So it makes absolute sense that beings ‘start all over’ from a mid-way point, with a human MINDSET. (There may be the question here of how all those trillions of beings could fit physically AS HUMANS on the surface of the planet – but remember at this earliest of stages they are still brahma-like in ‘form’, i,e. suddhashtakas, practically formless).
This state of affairs continued until the planet evolved air, vegetation, and so on, and could support living physical forms. Depending of the natural conditions, those beings then started to assume physical forms in accordance with their predominant gathi up until that time. And as we know that beings spend most of their time in sansara in the apayas, the gathi of most of them would consign them to the apayas. From the geological standpoint ,the various hells would have formed first. Now if we also keep in mind that a human birth is very rare (certainly the Buddha was not referring to all those ‘humans’ who started out on the newly-formed Earth) there would be only a very few, relatively, who actually take on a human form.
We talk about this event happening ‘in the deep past’. But in fact it is only the one that has happened most recently, because this has been going on from a time without beginning.
So the statement ‘all beings started out as humans’ could be very misleading.
Axel,
The reference IS the Tipitaka itself. There, all who attained the Sotapanna stage listened. I cannot know whether during the times of previous Buddhas written (not to say printed) copies of desanas were made available, so I cannot assume that they were, but neither can the possibility be excluded.
I for one feel more at home and more enriched reading than listening, but that may be because I can ‘manage’ the content better that way : giving more time to stop and reflect on key words and phrases and so on.
During the time that I have been typing I see that Lal has replied. Still, I felt like sharing this with you.
metta
It is not necessarily incorrect, either. As stated there, those powers are ‘gained’ and the ‘ability’ to see is gained; does not mean those powers have to be exercised. Like I learned French at school, but I do not bother to use it now, because there is no purpose for it.
Or,some have developed the power to read the minds of others, but will not exercise that power (unless it is for the benefit of the others), seeing it as intrusion, invading their privacy and highly immoral.
Upekkha,
To add to what Lal, Tobias and firewrns said:
In my life I have taken only one single pill prescribed by a psychiatrist, an anti-depressant, and flushed the rest in the toilet. The effect on my brain was..heat at the temples and an almost uncontrollable restlessness of mind and body, wanting to eject myself out of my body. No voices, visions and hallucinations, though. The case is different from what you describe, but……
I have always mistrusted all oral medication. Not that they are not beneficial, most of them are, at least in the short run. But keep in mind that medicines are an industry. The primary aim is profit; even when the possibility of adverse side-effects is admitted, the product is put on the market nevertheless. When then it is announced that there are indeed side-effects, the product is immediately replaced by another one, so the business goes on. But it is you who has to go through those side effects.
So first thing I would stop taking all medication. Then, as suggested by the others above, concentrate on Dhamma in its various aspects. Unless something mundane takes priority at a given moment, for the rest of the time be mindful of the Buddha the Dhamma and the Sangha.
May the blessings of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha be with you always!
One other point deserves attention –
Though the sutta starts off with the merits of giving (in the literal sense) in increasing order as Lal has them in his comments, they are exceeded by those purely inward ones done with insight and meditation – and Metta too is listed in between taking Refuge and undertaking the 5 precepts.
All except the last one, the cultivation of anicca sanna, are directly or indirectly connected to giving in one sense or another. For instance, going for Refuge gets one to the 5 precepts, the first of the 5 precepts is refraining from killing and from harming in the wider sense – hence non-stealing, not lying, no harsh or empty talk, no sexual misconduct, no intoxication with drink, wealth, fame etc – all of which is really giving security, freedom from fear and from harm of any sort to all beings. And with Metta one is prevented from doing harm to others. It is all about the welfare of others.
So it is anicca sanna that stands out as the one which brings benefits to oneself alone – it would appear! Because if one looks further, one who has developed the anicca sanna to whatever degree and becomes the inspiration to others to do the same would be giving a gift that is far greater than all those merits, from Velama’s material donations to “all of these things, including developing a heart of love for as long as it takes to pull a cow’s udder.” (Sujato)
So thank you Lal
Hello Tobias,
It seems to me that in the absence of ‘me-view or self-view’ (mana) ,sakkayaditthi (identity-view) would have no ground or basis to get established and nurtured. So even when sakkayaditthi is eliminated at the Sotapanna stage, only the so-to-speak ‘gross’ and even the less gross aspects of the mindset that ‘it is worthwhile and therefore beneficial to acquire things and attributes for oneself’ are eliminated – the much subtler desires for continued existence in the rupa and arupa lokas are not eliminated.
I have not gone deep enough into this before I started typing, but that was my initial reaction. Certainly, there must be more to it.
Metta
