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Lal:
It appears we were typing at the same time!
“Those are 14 jati, and not bhava.”
This had occurred to me. Still, as I see, the text allows for those 14 ‘lives’ to be bhavas not only jatis. For one thing ( or better for HALF a thing, in this case) bhava and jati mean the same in deva realms. (It is only ‘the small matter’ of the difference in duration between 7 and 49, at most, human jati!)
Please correct me if that is not so
Metta
Akvan:
He does not say that he transmigrated in those 14 as a Sotapanna. He was NOT a Sotapanna back then.
In fact, is is only ‘now’ (i,e. in that life as King Bimbisara when he attained stream-entry under Buddha Gotama) that he became able to become a king of non-humans.’ (before he only ‘resided’ there) and likewise ‘but that I (he) still hope(s) to become a once-returner.’, not before in any of those previous lives . So I see no contradiction here.
That is my understanding.
Metta
Re Lal’s and my own post Oct 23 about how news reached the other realms,
“…..and notified their higher-lying main realm….the news progressively propagated to higher-lying realms” . “The Buddha did not have to assist them”From: Great Chronicle of Buddhas: Mahabuddhavamsa by Ven. Mingun Sayadaw,
link forwarded by SengKiat (October 28, 2018 at 3:20 am) in the post:
-What is the significance of these 4 moon days in Buddha Dhamma?- Chp.9, p.359:“No sooner had the Buddha uttered this sentence of “Dve’me bhikkhave ante” than the sound that had appeared spread all over the ten-thousand world systems reaching Bhavagga,the highest of the arupa worlds above and avici, the lowest of the hells below.” So this must be how the beings in the other realms were ‘alerted’ – and yet not ‘violating’ the general rule that beings from a lower realm cannot of themselves communicate with those of a higher one.
This makes for consistency throughout.
I thank SengKiat heartily for the link. Immensely interesting book. It will take me weeks to just read through it.
Metta to all beings
Is it the case that ‘once a tihetuka, always a tihetuka’ ?
That is, once a tihetuka no future bhava will be either dvihetuka or ahetuka?
(Parallel with the case that when one attains magga phala there is no going back?)Metta
How has birth been taken in the sense of’ Does one suffer when a baby is born to the family?’ etc. and the suffering taken in regard to those not experiencing birth? The sutta just says ‘birth’, the event, the occurrence of birth,i,e. in relation to, or from the standpoint of, those who experience it.
For, by the same reasoning(that suffering is also happiness for the enemies of those experiencing suffering, and the other way round), every quality will have its opposite included in its definition, and a quality and its opposite will in fact become interchangeable:
Famine is suffering. Can famine then be said to be also happiness just because across the border a rival people are happy that famine is reducing the population of their enemy? Clearly, by ‘famine is suffering’ is meant famine is suffering to those who experience it. Likewise, birth is suffering to those who experience it.
True, birth in NOT suffering to the other members of that family, and famine or epidemics or wholesale extinction is NOT suffering to a rival people or tribe across the border. But why has this implication of the opposite quality existing AWAY from the experiencer(s) been brought in? And ‘birth’ of something liked etc . . . . ‘birth’ in the sense of something coming to be?
…We may not remember, but birth is a traumatic event, just like the dying moment. Coming out of the birth canal is a traumatic event for both the mother and the baby.- Birth is suffering.
metta to all
October 23, 2018 at 2:31
y not
“…..and notified their higher-lying main realm. Section 11 lists how the news progressively propagated to higher-lying realms and eventually devas from all those 21 realms came to listen to the desana.”
Elsewhere it is stated that, AS A GENERAL RULE, beings in a lower realm cannot communicate with those in higher ones – I cannot remember whether they are also even as much as aware of those higher realms. And – do not beings in higher realms see (IF THEY SO WISH TO) the realms below them? what need is there of them being informed by those from lower realms? In the latter case, although they CAN see, i.e they have the ability to see, but were ‘caught unaware’ – I can only assume that they (the lower devas) were ‘assisted’ by the Buddha himself in this extraordinary and supremely important event.. But I’d better not assume anything.
Can you please clarify this?
Excellent post, Lal. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Thank you.
ever so grateful
Upekkha:
As far as I can see:
1) Would those Brahmas not be ones with magga phala ?
2) not deva/brahmas who attained ARIYA jhanas, rather than anariya jhanas? – since that ‘optimal state of mind’ is a fleeting one for anariyas.
Metta
Thank you Lal,
There are no issues, not for me at least. Even with what you say above, nothing I was not aware of there, except your reference to the historical detail that “During the lifetime of the Gotama Buddha, MILLIONS of people attained the Arahant stage.” (And ARAHANT Stage ! ) I thought the number, PARTICULARLY of Arahants, would be much less, seeing the absence of rapid means of transportation and telecomunication in those days, to say nothing of the printed word. (What about today, in our age, with all those plus-points to our advantage, I ask myself. Even though the first gem is absent, the second and third are there. What do you say, Lal? )
The point that I contended was Akvan’s ‘ Hence a sakadagami would attain nibbana before a sotapanna (ekabiji and kolankolo)’ So, no, no more related issues. Thank you.
with Infinite gratitude
Thank you Akvan and the others,
The whole question has arisen because it is said that it is the Sotapanna who makes an end to suffering – which is not so at all. No Sotapanna has reached that state, can ‘make an end to suffering’ when at the level of a Sotapanna.
I see it now. It means that there are Sotapannas (who, through different gati, among other things) attain the Arahanthood in one human bhava (or even in one life), in 2 or 3 human bhava, or at most within 7 bhava. But by the stage when they ‘make an end to suffereing’ they are no longer only Sotapannas, but Arahants. Only in the last case (satthakkhattha) can one die as a Sotapanna, a Sakadagami or an Anagami and attain a deva or brahma existence.
And yet, Akvan:
“..and hence a sakadagami should attain arahanth before a sotapanna.” and
“A human “bava” is a longer time frame than a human “life time”. Hence a sakadagami would attain nibbana before a sotapanna.”I cannot see how that can be so in the case of ekabji and even kolankolo Sotapannas. A human bhava is a few thousand years, at most several thousand years, while for a Sakadagami in even the lowest deva realm, it is just over 9 million years. In your post of October 18, 2018 at 8:33 pm: .The explanation is based on the time frame that each person attains nibbana, rather than the reason a person is a specific type.’ So it will be as you say only for satthakkhattha through to ekabiji Sotapoannas ,in ascending order.
A Sakadagami enjoys a deva existence, true, but the pleasure is useless in the long run, and only lenghtens his stay in sansara. An ekabiji Sotapanna does it all in the shortest term, foregoing the pleasures to be had in a deva realm. Both ekabiji and kolankolo Sotapannas attain Release from one to three ‘short’ human bhavas, unlike Sakadagamis and Anagamis who spend millions or billions of years in maybe several successive deva and/or brahma bhavas unless they work for immediate Release on the way at any stage.
I have found all this to be very instructive and braodening.
Thank you all
Comments please
Metta to all
I too had post deleted (or that did no show at all)in the past, but cannot remember whether it had been for trying to revise or for some other reason.
Hpwever that may be, my tack since has been to write my posts in my mail draft folder, then copy and paste onto here.(There the post is automatically saved even as you write) That way, if the post does not show I can always go back to the saved draft and try to re-send later.
Metta
“It is simply the level of understanding of them (Tilakkhana), that one is categorised as a sotapanna or sakadagami etc.”
Then, for it to make sense, ekabiji and kolankolo Sotapannas have a better understanding (of Tilakkhana) – and, by extension, have lower levels of greed and hate – than a Sakadagami (!) . And that cannot be the case.
DESIGNATION OF HUMAN TYPES (PUGGALA-PANNATTI) -Bimala Charan Law, M.A., B.L.-Pali Text Society (p. 23-24):
- What sort of person is he who undergoes re-birth (not more than) seven times ? – he running on and transmigrating seven times amongst devas and men makes an end of suffering.
- What sort of person is he who transmigrates from family to (good) family ? – he running on and transmigrating through two or three (good) families makes an end of suffering.
- What sort of person is ‘ single-seeded ’ ? – he having returned to the state of human existence makes an end of suffering.
- What sort of person is a ‘ once-returner ’ ? – having weakened passions, hatred and delusion, becomes a once-returner; coming back once only to this world, he makes an end of suffering.
In verses 47-48 the ways in which stream-attainers and once-returners work are given as : the first, by ‘putting away the three fetters’,the second by ‘ the destruction of attachment to sensual pleasures and malevolence’ (obviously in addition to the three fetters).
How can a lower phala with more defilements to eliminate lead quicker to Nibbana than a higher phala with fewer ones? The fruit as such (Nibbana) is of course one and the same, but here we have a case where ekabiji and kolankolo Sotapannas attain It in very much the shorter term than do Sakadagamis. In short, where is the incentive to strive for the Sakadagami stage at all when one can attain Nibbana at or from a lower phala? Unless it be that a Sakadagami has the ‘reward’ of a deva realm.
Nevertheless, it MUST be worthwhile to work for higher phala. Of this there can be no doubt. Hence my question.
Metta to all beings
This is also stated in AN 9.12 – Saupadisesasutta (with something left over/those who pass away with a residue remaining).
In this Sutta Ven. Sariputta is an attendance when a conversation is taken up by a group of wanderers to the effect that those who pass away ‘with something left over’, i.e. who have not destroyed all 10 fetters, are not free from the apayas.
Ven. Sariputta takes no stand but resolves to refer the matter to the Buddha. The Buddha rebuts the claim of the wanderers, and explains that there are 9 people who ‘have fulfilled ethics and immersion, but have limited wisdom’or ‘have fulfilled virtuous behavior and concentration but cultivated wisdom only to a moderate extent’. The first five refer to the destination of Anagamis,the sixth to Sakadagamis and the last three to:
three different destinations of Sotapannas: (they have destroyed the first three fetters)
-those who are one-seeders (ekabiji ) – They will be reborn just one time in a human existence (ekaṃyeva mānusakaṃ bhavaṃ)
– those who go family-to-family (kolankolo) – They will transmigrate between two or three families( dve vā tīṇi vā kulāni )
-those who have at most seven births (sattakkhattuparamo) – They will transmigrate at most seven times among gods and humans.(sattakkhattuparamaṃdeve ca manusse )….’then make an end of suffering’ follows in all three cases. So, the
question arises:
WHAT DETERMINES IN WHICH CLASS OR AT WHAT LEVEL OF SOTAPANNA ONE IS AT? or, WHAT DISTINGUISHES ONE SOTAPANNA FROM ANOTHER?(The ‘road ahead’ is longer progressing from the 7th to the 9th; the seventh -ekabiji- path, and the eight to a lesser degree, are more time-economical or efficient than that of a Sakadagami in attaining Nibbana – sacrificing the pleasures to be had in a deva existence ‘taken in the bargain’).
Metta to all
Siebe:
I do not know whether you are addressing me specifically here. Be that as it may,yes, of course, I personally am not free of asmi mani (far from it, in fact). Arahants Anugami are at the Stage to struggle with that.
Also, you may have misinterpreted what I meant by ‘I hope I have been clear.’ I meant exactly that (that I left no room for misunderstanding), not in the sense when a teacher admonishingly tells a classroom of pupils sternly ‘I hope I have been clear’ (‘be sure to do as I say’; ‘do not come up with excuses later’)
In fact, these last two days I have been subjected to such mood swings that I found myself asking: so which one is the real me? that of 8 hours ago, that of 2 hours ago, that of now? This is where the no self, no no-self doctrine came in. I could not tell which. So where is ‘this one’ that does not change?
Yet, there is still a sense of a ‘me’. I give an instance from personal experience:I must have been in my teens or early twenties. When I woke up I could not identify anything around me. MY name even I could not remember. What family name, what town, what country? Nothing. I was aware only that I was aware. ‘Of what’ has no sense. I was just aware. This was the ‘I’ stripped of all qualities, of all attributes; so what difference could there be between this ‘I’ that is ‘me’ and those ‘I’ s of all others? Because ‘I’ still wanted to know who ‘I’ was.
‘Please, do not ignore the fact that there is a sense of me which is constant over time’ As you see, I am not ignoring that.
More importantly, I sense that you you have taken offence (‘ and do not suggest i am the only deluded person’) either with the last sentence in my post, or with something else I said. And as this is not the first time this has happened (not with regard to you), I am seriously considering opting out of the Forum because, take my word for it, to give offence or hurt another in any way is never my intention. For another thing, I have long been aware that I am easily misunderstood (in life, not only on here)despite all the pains I take to prevent it – and even THAT is at times misunderstood as unnecessary detail obscuring the issue and as causing the very misunderstanding.
I hope(?) I have been understood.
Much Metta to all
