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“Someone who uproots all those anusaya only becomes more him/herself.
This is becoming more and more authentic.”Now, with all traces of anusaya, gati, six roots, tanha, avijja and asavas removed – what is left? What is left to differentiate one person from another? We find ourselves landed in the Mahāyāna concepts of emptiness, unconditioned being, undifferentiated consciousness – and ‘authenticity’ would equate with non-distinction (between one being and another).
I too had given a lot of thought to this and could arrive at no satisfactory answer. But when the Buddha says that we have been wandering on, you and I, from a time without a beginning – what does it mean? Not that there is no beginning to a ‘person’? No beginning to that ever-changing stream of consciousness? No beginning to the accumulation of all these sets of conditionings – gati, six roots etc. ?
And does it not follow that some trace of individuality must remain even in Arahants, otherwise there will be no distinction between one Arahant and another and we are back to Mahāyāna concepts. And where could the causes of that individuality be if not in all the experiences throughout sansara – to wit, in all those gati, asavas, anusayas, 6 roots etc.? Where else?
I hope this makes it in time for Lal’s reply to Sybe’s question: ” How does the behaviour of an arahant arise when it is not due to gati, six roots, tanha, avijja, asava and anusaya?”
Metta to all
Hmmm…..
Alright. What is ‘authentic’? What do you understand by the word? To me it means a behaviour pattern or mode that is not made up for the occasion, not artificial – no play-acting, no airs and graces. Just being yourself. But ‘being yourself’ too is a mode of behaviour that distinguishes you from any other person.
It must be the case that it is a result of all that we have acquired during our numberless lives in the past. You distinguish between ‘being yourself’ and ‘showing habitual behaviour (following tendencies)’ But how has that which makes up ‘being yourself’arisen if not through those very behavioral patterns/tendencies?
I am not trying to win you over to my view, Sybe – I am just explaining my understanding of the matter. If it makes you feel any better – ok, I fail to see the distinction. Perhaps others can; then they may take up the matter.
Metta to you and to all beings
Upekkha’s perception of deva lokas as ‘shining traps’ may be justified when it refers of anariya devas there. Upekkha also sees that the case is different for those devas with magga phala. But the pleasures to be had there and the attainment of Nibbana going together is not excluded; indeed, they do go together, or probably the first is followed by the second – and this as a result of the merits the sutta is talking about. Just to substantiate this there is this verse in the Nidhikanda Sutta (Kp 8)-
(It is talking about the REAL savings of dana, sila etc which follow one after death, not the worldly ones which do not but which people value so highly):
Human good fortune,
delight in the world of the gods,
even the ATTAINMENT of Emancipation,
through this merit they receive all.Mānussikā ca sampatti,
devaloke ca yā rati;
Yā ca nibbānasampatti,
sabbametena labbhati.I am not able to tell whether the ‘attainment of emancipation’ will follow ‘the delight in the world of the gods’ in the same deva realm or later , but going by the sequence of the verses (first the human, then the deva loka and thirdly Nibbana mentioned) it would appear the three happen sequentially.
The whole sutta is beautiful, and serves to show the stupidity of holding onto material things.
.Sybe:
If there is that ‘grasping moment, and ….grasped sankara become motivational forces for thinking, speech and acting’, how is it then that they ‘are not really me or mine’ and that it ‘ is a WRONG understanding at that moment they are grasped at as me or mine’? Naturally, ‘me and mine’ are understood as such only as far as our sansaric journey is concerned, as are the effects of those mental formations.
Moreover, I see no clear distinction between your points #1 and 2.
Perhaps you could clarify with illustrations.
The following is my understanding:
-“Why should we invest in states which are impermanent and cannot be maintained as we wish? Why should we invest in the conditioned while the characteristics of the conditioned is that it cannot me maintained, and it is dukkha. It cannot even function as a refuge.”-
Precisely because we see them as permanent and that they can be maintained to our satisfaction (a more common term to use would be ‘that they live up to our expectations, AND that those expectations do not eventually turn into disapojntments)
And the answer is right there in the question too; “How can investing in conditioned states of phenomena, which M U S T be seen as anicca, dukkha and anatta, really be right effort?” We invest there because we are convinced that they in fact are nicca, sukkha and atta, and indeed the whole effort must go into seeing them as anicca, dukkha, anatta.
And there are some (perhaps I should say ‘most’ here) who invest even when they know full well that the satisfaction will be short-lived, the attitude being ‘What the hell! I enjoy now, that is the one thing I know I will get for sure. Tomorrow we’ll see”
Metta to all
Certain is that abortion amounts to killing a human being.That the child cannot be born is not a thing she can help or that she (at least consciously) intended to bring about. So aborting the child would bring a more potent kamma vipaka. In this light, I do not see how accepting her kamma vipaka would in this case equate with suicide.
‘Those factors relating to former lives’,’information from former lives’ are, as I see, what Lal is refering to, in Dhamma terminology, as ‘sansaric gathi’, or, embedded in the sansaric gathi.
So then, a new-born’s character will be overwhelmingly influenced by its own gathi , as well as by its own free will later on in life, and to a lesser degree by the gathi of its parents(lodged in their genetic codes).
Do I have this right?
…sorry Lal, your last post had not yet appeared when I started typing.
I happened to be reading through AN
AN 10.237 has PAHANAsaññā, virāgasaññā, nirodhasaññā— in addition to the usual seven starting with asubhasanna..etc. The translation for pahana(sanna) is given as ‘giving up’ which I understand as closely connected to ‘getting fed up’, this last being the very ground or reason for ‘giving up’
Upekkha,
Yes – that is what I meant. Like Yeos, I think Brahmas are asexual (sexless). Because if they were androgynous, the attraction between male and female would still be there: androgynous creatures still reproduce in the human realm.
In contrast, devas still enjoy pleasures arising from the male-female attraction as all the five senses persist but no reproduction process is involved there; while brahmas have only the senses of sight and sound left, (therefore no sense of touch, smell or taste).
Lal:
Thank you for your endeavors on Dhamma Wheel as well.
Yeos.
You mean asexual?
However, what Lal is here making reference to are rather androgynes (hermaphrodites or bi-sexuals), simultaneously male and female, but in the psychological sense. There are species that are physically androgynous in the animal kingdom (snails for instance).
There are records in some esoteric teachings that even humans were once androgynous, and that that state is the normal one for a humanity on acquiring a dense material body* To my mind, The Jewish legend of ‘God’ taking a rib from Adam to make a female is the symbolism of this ‘seperation of the sexes’, which I read as an extraterrestrial humanity having ‘quickened’ the, if left to itself,natural transition of an androgynous humanity to a male-and-female one here. *That all beings return from the Abhassara realm once the Earth is reformed may be relevant here. (I had not thought of that)
These fragments relating to the former states and physical structure of the humanity on this planet are found here and there in the world. They may be approximations, or distortions in some cases, of real facts from former Buddhas sasanas. Lal once pointed this out, but in reference to another subject altogether.
Like yourself, I feel that Brahmas have gone beyond sex altogether — in the physical, mental and emotional sense ,all, since they have made an end of kama raga.
Tien,
Yes, it is.
Thank you. I did not know for a fact that the details were not supported by Tipitaka evidence.
At any rate, I am no longer into such matters, as I said.
(The page I quoted from, p.33, has since ‘become unavailable’ )I will forward you references should I happen to stumble upon anything related to the matter.
Thank you once again.
Tien,
In: Forums › Questions About Puredhamma Posts › Saddharma Pundarika Sutra (Lotus Sutra) – A Focused Analysis – July 2, 2018 at 9:31 am – I quoted something from the book ‘Theories of Nature and the Universe: Comparison of Pure Buddhist Philosophy’,by Muditha Champika.
What I quoted had to do with the number of ‘world systems’ in ever-increasing coglomerations, closing with ‘up to 1000 x10 ^99 (!!!) world systems, Sata-Sahashri-Loka-datu.’ This is just to indicate the extent of range of it. I have just tried to relocate the book online for you and failed, but the book may well deal with the duration of the various kalpas as well, I do not know. Just something you could look up yourself.
You will please excuse my not contributing to the discussion itself. My concerns have become exclusively the immediate ones.
Metta
In my mind sprang this contrast:
(I have been reflecting on it since my last post):
1) the case of fishermen and hunters, on the one side
2) the case of a man who HAS to step on a cockroach because his wife has gone hysterical at the sight of it, on the other.In the first case the fishing and hunting is done with moral wrong view, is done with joy and unprompted.
In the second case,the action of the man is done even if he has right moral view (he is compelled), is thus done very reluctantly and is prompted.Clearly there is much more kammic weight in the first case than in the second.
Thank you Lal
“the more he’ll feel unsettled about his deed worse will be the kammic outcomes?”
This is so. Yet, if he is feeling unsettled, is that not an indication that there already is remorse hidden somewhere? – lying underneath, below the conscious level. And will not the possible kammic outcomes be still worse if he has an altogether wrong view about what is moral – i.e if he feels ‘settled’ in performing the deed, and does it with joy?
I am writing only for the sake of Yeos, so that he may get a fuller answer. I myself will ask no more questions. Contemplating on the possible outcomes of my actions on myself and on others will do for me.
Metta to all
“First, you need to see how your mind attention moves from one thought to another.”
So there are three factors here: 1) YOU (who needs to see) 2) YOUR MIND (attention) and 3) the THOUGHTS that arise one after another. Besides the distinction between brain and mind.
We are all familiar with ‘watching our thoughts’ and so may engage in Anapanasati and Satipatthana. We fail at times and the attention of the mind remains riveted on a particular thought we know we should discard. Then we have failed in only one thing : diverting our attention (because the undesired thoughts are at that time one with the mind, they ARE the mind); so it is the temporarily contaminated mind we are in a struggle with. That simplifies matters somewhat.
Now if it is the gandhabba (where the seat of the mind is) that is involved in doing Anapanasati and Satipatthana, controlling the mind, then the mind must be other than the gandhabba. Or gandhabba and mind will be synonymous,and it will be the gandhabba (the mind) that is trying to control and in time change its own gati. Moreover, on the logical and reasoning plane, the work is done through the medium of the brain, which ‘feeds’ the conclusions to the hadaya vatthu in the gandhabba, where all that is done for better or for worse is registered and which will in time determine one’s destination after death.
And if this were not enough, whoever it is who controls the mind, is, in the final analysis, anatta, a boat to be discarded on reaching the other shore.
