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Lal!
Would it be possible to have the Thero’s desanas, or a few of them you deem to be of particular importance and of relevance on here, translated into English? How much would that detract from their impact and usefulness? (if it would). For one thing, he talks VERY fast !
y not
Embodied:
Up until you get a fuller reply from somebody else,and also since there are no other answers yet:
I see no ambiguity myself( it is a deva dwelling in that plane) – unless the context in which you came across this gives rise to it. The Tavatimsa deva loka is the second one UP in the sense spheres excluding the human one. It is also called the Heaven of the 33. Are you sure this is the one you mean? At any rate, the case still holds whichever the realm of that deva.
The only instance I can see where this may not be clear would be when a deva or brahma ‘descends’ to the human realm to listen to a desana – but then it cannot be said that he is ‘reborn’ here.
y not
Tobias!!
I cannot highlight any sentence or phrase there, for the whole of what you say is perfect insight perfectly stated.
No other comment is necessary from me.
y not
Johnny:
True. Except in the case where one has reached this state:
Once a sitting Indian ascetic was confronted by a warrior wielding a drawn sword, shouting: do you realise that in front of you stands a man who can kill you without the blink of an eye ? Without moving a muscle he replied: do you realise that in front of you sits a man who is ready to die without the blink of an eye?
Or, how far must we have travelled to have come to that stage?
y not
Hello All:
It is hard to see the adverse long-term outcome of sense pleasures in this gross material world alone (not considering the finer worlds for the moment,as that requires the belief in those worlds as a precondition). Most do not try at all, the general attitude being: ‘here is this moment, let me enjoy, after all we only live once. And if things turn out wrong, then I will have another throw of the dice, either in the same or in another direction. As long as there is life, there is hope’.
Johnny said: ‘if they did not cause you any adverse effects, would you continue to enjoy them without considering the implications?’ Most people do. Those who see the dangers must have either great intelligence or have experienced the resulting suffering in previous lives, and this last, as I see, could really be the very root of that ‘intelligence’. This may not penetrate to the conscious level in most cases.
This would be even more the case if one gets to consider the conditions in higher kama loka realms. Johnny said: ‘Which implies if we are going to exist in kama loka again to enjoy sense pleasures, we would need to take rebirth, grow old, fall sick, and die.’ But as one is free from sickness and old age in the realms of kama loka above the human, the temptation to enjoy there is even greater: a fine material body, heightened sense pleasures, no pains, no aches, no deseases, no old age….and for over 9 billion years (realm 11)..Wow!! ” Truly I think those who have reached the Sakadagami stage (here; there it will be difficult) can get a glimse of the real dangers there; an anagami anugami would see it. This is what I can make out.
Our difficulty lies in that we can conceive of no blissful state apart from that arising from sense pleasures. I remember when I was about nine or ten years old observing that there was joy in my uncle’s house following the birth of a baby; some time back another uncle had died in Australia. I saw all around that in this world there is both the pleasant and the unpleasant, joy and grief; one follows the other and the other way around. Not only that, the same people who are happy now will be unhappy tomorrow and vice-versa. So, dissatisfied with this state of affairs, with having entered into such a world, knowing that I will be subject to it myself later in life, I said to myself: what if a Being, with the power to deliver, were to give me this choice: ‘Alright, you either suffer the same fate yourself (as is normal with everyone else) or you will never experience anything unpleasant in your life , but for that the price you have to pay will be never experiencing anything pleasant either’ Meaning, either both or neither. Life as you see it or death.I could not answer, because though I did not want all this unpleasantness, I did want the pleasant, and how! No almighty Being is necessary to tell you that there is no one-sided coin anywhere in this world. But that is what we keep hoping for and keep striving hopelessly for.
Then we at last see that there is IN FACT a one-sided coin somewhere, there is indeed the Perfect State – but not in this world. If it were otherwise then all living would be just a long futile endeavour and a cruel one too. I can do no better than quote:
If you lay bound upon the wheel of change
and no way were of breaking from the chain
The Heart of Boundless Being is a curse
The Soul of Things fell Pain. You are not bound!So we strive on -BUT NOW IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION.
y not
Embodied:
Thanks.
Yes, granted that ‘Not all (nowadays there are alot of different schools of thought) western psychologies / psychanalysis (both are Science too…) are incompatible with our Path.’ – but I grew up in the sixties and at that time it was still petty much ‘negative’, not to say condemning. If you liked being alone, then you needed treatment. And someone wrote something (I cannot recall who) to the effect that the first impression of something leaves an almost indelible effect which makes it impermeable to the influence of later developments. These are not the exact words, but I am sure you get it.
So I am wrong in actul fact about my assessment of Western pschology at present. What I said was from my own experience of it.
y not
Embodied:
“…Expectation, craving and attachment, can but be a source insatisfaction / frustation (DUKKHA…
…sooner or later such image (sankata) of ourselves , mainly inspired on body/senses identification (another sankata) will be seriously shaken.”And then?
And then you find that the world works against whoever tries to go into this. Friends and relatives at once give you the ‘snap out of it. Don’t worry, be happy ‘ advice (out of sincere compassion, no doubt) and urge you on with classic cliche’s like ‘ perhaps next time, as long as there is life there is hope, if you fail try and try again’ and similar distractions. You are hardly allowed to go into it.
Western psychology does not help either; in fact I see it as the greatest hurdle to surmount. Directing the attention inward as in retrospection and reflection is termed introversion, a ‘condition’ bordering on mental disorder. One must be outgoing, extrovert, positive.
It is not easy to see that ALL craving eventually leads to disappointment and delusion and for that one must go deep, and deeper still to see it even in future lives, especially in the so-termed ‘states of felicity’, and will be IMPOSSIBLE to see by seeking refuge in entertainment and partying. Once I overheard an English girl saying to a friend who had been moaning about her problems with her boyfriend: ‘Oh, get drunk’ !! I see no soultion, so drown the problem in alcohol. But the problem will be there next morning, and accompanied by a hangover as well.
But we know there there is a State Of Being where one is free of all this, which IS the solution. For that we have striven and strive on, helped on by those who have made it their DUTY, no less, to assist others upon the Path leading to it.
y not
Embodied:
Travelled a road, yes, and for much too long; for since that Road is without beginning, it can only be toooooo long.
As to the knowledge (not so much the use) of Pali, I used to think much as you do,but I have come to see its value. Many words have multiple meanings (to say nothing of those translated wrongly) and we, or I for one, would not have found those out by ourselves, or only partly so, but then with great difficulty, if at all.
I see what you mean and I agree that if the knowledge of Pali were a prerequisite, then all those on the Way would come from the Indian sub-continent – and the Path cannot have such race and geographical restrictions. Moreover, he who has made himself ready to grasp in now has been preparing himself for many many lives, in which he could have been of any race, culture or location. That is why I tried to ‘simplify’ the Pali terms and apply them to English, as far as I am able to, of course. And that is only MY understanding.
So I will be ever grateful to Lal here; besides the learning, I have had to UN-learn some things as well.
y not
Hello Lal:
…”One must stop fantasizing as soon as one becomes aware of it; that is part of Satipatthana”
I have been working on this for years. I should have said:
‘And by dreaming HE meant both dreaming at night during sleep and
dreaming in the waking state, fantasizing etc.’ , the point he wanted to get across being that on Enlightenment illusion stops in both states. I can say nothing about this ,in either case. Only, it is clear that we can address only those thought activities done consciously, as you point out.Thank you
y not
Hi Johnny-Lim:
…and I wonder whether you got this idea by yourself!!
It had never occured to me until I read about it in a book by
a ‘modern master’…who says that ‘on Enlightenment all dreams stop’
And by dreaming is meant both dreaming at night during sleep and
dreaming in the waking state, fantasizing etc.y not
Embodied:
My post (March 9th) attempts to convey my ideas in ‘western’ terms, using the pali words only to connect those ideas with.
HOWEVER, I had not read Lal’s post written 2 hrs or so before mine, which is more comprehensive. I missed the ‘1. Cultivates Anapana (Satipatthana) where one forcefully rejects bad thoughts and cultivates good thoughts’ bit altogether’ in my own assessment, for instance.
This is just to make it clear that I am in no way a teacher and do not pretend to be one on here. What I say are only my ideas, no more than that. I felt I should say this so as not to cause confusion in you, or worse, to deviate you from the Path.
y not
“Embodied said: “The “sine qua non” condition for not getting attached to a single material thing is not to experience it at all,or is to experience it but without getting attached ?”
Is it possible not to experience material things?
You are in a material world, all around and about; your very body is made up of planet Earth. Out of its elements an ovum and a spermatozoa developed giving rise to an organism that you entered. Now without this experiencing (that nothing there can be kept to one’s satisfaction,the realization of their ultimate worthlessness and their repeated arising and destruction) without this delusion – another word, the ‘wordly’ word, for anicca- how could there in time arise the urge to strive to be free of it? A sense of unsatisfactoriness, dukkha,results – and can this dukkha be Utimate Existence,the Perfect State, Atta? This is just one progression,as I see, put in terms more comprehensible in the West.
The solution, as Embodied hinted, is to experience, yes, but without getting attached. But that is the hard bit. The very nature of everything we experience is the nature of that which we are made of – it will be the same in higher realms, finer and finer sense objects for finer and finer sense faculties for finer and finer ‘physical’ bodies, so there is no escape there either. Whichever world we make ourselves fit for, that world we attain.
But all worlds are temporary AND anicca as well. To go beyond all the worlds, beyond all becoming, to attain the Deathless, Nibbana which is Atta, everlasting perfection in all senses , sukkha and nicca. You stop getting attached only when you see and experience time after time the hidden dukkha in all attachment. Then there is no way back possible.
So the field of endeavour is anicca (and asubha).
Lal:
It is all in the post: why-are-tilakkhana-not-included-in-37-factors-of-enlightenment, but I had not read that.
Thanks once again,
y not
Lal:
..’ All these concepts to Upanishads or Hindu Vedas ORIGINATED in the previous Buddha Sasana of the Kassapa Buddha, who was born before the Gotama Buddha’
Ah, I see.
And of course, by implication, the Teaching of Kassapa Buddha was in essence the same one as that of the Buddha before him, and so going back maha-kalpa before maha-kalpa to all the Buddhas in all the universes without beginning – for the Teaching can only be one and the same throughout all time. Reality does not change, so neither can the Teaching.
Thank you
y not
