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Thank you Inflib,
I just googled the word and when nothing showed up I just permutated
vowels in the word – not that I know anything about it.Lal has provided what you sought.
Metta
Hello Tobias !
For one thing it is more ‘full’ but do not know how more ‘correct’than Dutiyasannasutta ( AN 7.49) where the perceptions are given as just seven – omitting the last two here. I make out that ‘giving up’ is abandoning all hope in sansara to seek Nibbana and ‘fading away’ is that very attainment of Nibbana.
y not
Johnny:
There is more to it. A Sakadagami enjoys pleasures or whatever his heart was set on that was of a sensuous nature, however subtle, for at most 9 billion years ‘only’and pays the price by the suffering he is largely unable to see now. An Anagami is absorbed for 1000 to 16000 mahakalpas in mental bliss IN SOLITUDE, which is deeper than that resulting from contact with anything or anyone outside, so the ‘mental suffering’ that goes with it must be more subtle and therefore more’agonizing’.
So the finer the realm, the more subtle and the more prolonged the experiencing – but that goes for both the enjoyment and the suffering attached to it. As you say, the most ‘efficient’ way would be to attain Nibbana in a human bhava, but that is difficult, to say the least. Also, the ‘going beyond’ of sensuous, if not sensual, pleasures is hard to do. Therefore, as I see at least, the gap or decisive ‘leap’, is not from Sotapanna to Sakadagami, but from Sakadagami to Anagami.
Hmmmm….. I had thought of that.
But then it would be that the future IS set, in some cases at least; or…or, time is not synchronized throughout the different planes of existence: what to us is the present or even the future may be already the past on the deva plane, for instance.
From personal experience I find that this question about determinism is not so clear-cut.
The outcome of events in most cases will be in line with Buddhadhamma WHERE SENTIENT BEINGS ARE CONCERNED, that is, where free will to change the course of events or to minimize their impact comes into play. However in some other cases IT WOULD APPEAR that chance alone is ‘at play’ (literally).
I will make no reference to the experiences of others; three of my own have been ‘seeing’ numbers before they came up in lottery draws, accompanied by a feeling of absolute certainty. One other time I ‘saw’ the numbers on the horses finishing in the first three places at the races – and here the will and therefore the actions of the riders DO come in. Tho odds rule out pure chance,and it in not just one, but several instances. Who or what ‘sees into the future’ and then transmits (if that is what it is) I have no idea.
Has any one had similar experiences?
Akvan:
Thank you. That is it. I am surprised how basic tenets like these (because they follow from others I am aware of and accept) sometimes escape me.
Again, thank you.
firewns,
greetings
In the post you refer to, it is also stated :
.. ’14. When we do abhisankhāra (strong types of sankhāra), that lead to the formation of good or bad kamma beeja, or dhammā. Those strong kamma beeja can lead to the arising of sankata (LIVING BEINGS and even inert things)., Capitals mine.
Is it not that living beings have ‘no discernible beginning’? … that is,that there was never a time when they were not? How is it that here it is said that they ‘come to be’, they being sankata arising from strong kamma beeja, these in turn having arisen from abhisankhara?
As to your question/s, what I see is that since everything arises from Abhisankhara (emphasize ARISES), that is has a beginning, all that results therefrom will ultimately prove to be unsatisfactory and cease to be. Hence my query as far as beings are concerned.
I hope I have been clear.
y not
I said that because sometimes it happens that we hear a word or two, like our name, and ask whoever is besides us ‘Did you speak to me?’ and he/she replies ‘No’
Gurdjieff carried out experiments of this nature – transmitting ‘thought-words’ to colleagues who ‘heard’ him.
y not
Lal:
Hmmm .. yes, but of course. Did not click. But did He not have at least some stage of magga phala while a Boddhisatta in the Tavatimsa? (I am not saying He had) then, out of compassion, descended to the human realm? Or would Boddhisattas then be only lay persons without any magga phala whatsoever?
Thank you
This should be undergone with sentient beings instead of rice grains (say,ants) and at a distance (no close physical contact at all, by transmission of the intention/s alone)
y not
“an Ariya will NEVER grasp a lower bhava”
…if a Buddha be not an Ariya too, and ‘grasp another bhava’ does not apply because He grasps only one jati in that human bhava.
y not
Thank you Lal:
– However, an Ariya will NEVER grasp a lower bhava, because he/she has REMOVED anusaya at that level. For example, a Sakadagmi will NOT be born in the human bhava or the apayas.-
This refutes both 1) and 2) in my post. Of course, a Buddha who takes on a human form after leaving the Tavatimsa is another concept altogether.
No doubt I will ask further questions as they come up
ever grateful
firewns:
You state: ‘ Even if they(Sot. and Sot. Anug’s) attain a deva bhava, they may still go back to a human bhava at the end of the deva bhava, or attain nirvana in the deva realms.’ (Does it necessarily follow that since ‘they attain a deva bhava’ they automatically become Sakadagamis on getting there, or have they got to work towards that in theirSotapanna/Sotapanna Anugami stage?) This may sound confusing; if so, just pass it by.
First of all, if they are still attached to gross-material existence,and that overwhelms any deva bhava they may have developed to whatever (minor) degree, PS would work in that direction; i.e. towards a human bhava. I cannot, at least for now, see how it can be otherwise. And..if that were so,that is, that they can indeed attain a deva bhava, then that will not be consistent with either: ‘When one attains the Sakadāgami stage by REDUCING kāma rāga and patigha, one will be forever released from the human realm and one could be born only in dēva realms of the kāma lōka.'(Seeking-nibbana/dasa-samyojana-bonds-in-rebirth-process #17) or with reason. The Sakadagami stage SPECIFICALLY is mentioned as the one through which the human stage is transcended- though I leave myself open to more light that may be shed on the matter through further reading and contemplation.
Note that the above quote from the post does not specify whether that Sakadagami stage is attained in the human or a deva realm. I am apt to think that it is refering to the attainment of the Sakadagami stage when in the human realm. Further I have reflected for long on what could be the reason or reasons that a Sakadagami ‘descends’ to the human realm when he/she could strive to attain a higher bhava or Nibbana itself from there. Two that came to mind were:
1) He/she realizes that he/she cannot strive for a higher magga phala or Nibbana because for that he /she would have to learn a lesson or lessons he had neglected when in former human bhavas, and the deva realm to which he belongs no longer afford such ‘elementary’ lessons – like when, for instance, you intend to build a telescope and recall that you had neglected the light section in physics when you were in secondary school. Now you must dig into those lessons again, otherwise you are stuck.
2) The motivation to ‘clear debts’ with those still in a human body. These will be those you know you were connected with in the past and who you wish to ‘help on’. It may be likened to someone who leaves the comforts of home and undertakes a tiresome journey to find a friend and get him/her out of distress.
I could go on, but will be content for now with your remarks on this much.
