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“Things will be taken care of naturally”: It is not that those attachments need to be severed or loosened IN ORDER to advance on the Path; rather, progress on the Path itself will see to that. And the elimination or the weakening of attachment will itself be an indication of that progress. Yes. I see.
Now, any defilement is a form of either greed, hate or delusion, or any pairing of the three, or of all three, to varying degrees. Would attachment then fall under a combination of mild greed/delusion? I am asking this because that has to do with those samyojanas that are weakened at the Sakadagami stage. This is what it is all about. Hate is of course out of the question. There is none of that.
I see these attachments arising more out of delusion than greed. (Leaving aside in this context all considerations about the paying back of debts).
Thank you
Thank you for the overview.
By emotional attachment I mean to individual persons.
Where there is emotional attachment there is love of one kind or another. Let us leave romantic love aside, since that is a product mostly of Western culture that has been made much of, unrealistically so too.
Consider love for sons and daughters. That is universal. Here love and attachment are one. If attachment be a subtle form of greed, do we conclude that love is a form of greed? ! For, when one considers that that attachment, that love, also gives us pleasure – it is a pleasant feeling to love and be loved – is that love not also a means towards a pleasant feeling, pleasure? Is it therefore a subtle form of greed ?
I am not talking about Arahants or Anagamis.
“One first gives up (voluntarily) those activities related to hatred and excess greed.”
Those are gone, Lal. That goes for envy as well. With hatred, I had to work on those isolated instances where I have been hard done by, and a few lingering ‘ghosts’ about racism and class distinctions. The Dhamma came to my rescue there. BUT:
One thing where I am stuck is emotional attachments. What is more, I cannot see myself letting go of those. Is this a very subtle form of greed?
It augurs well, Lvalio.
With me it is a little different. I still turn on the tv for the news,for instance. Or for a football match. But I am not interested. I cannot ‘engage’ there at all. I do it just out of habit. Dhamma is always ‘on the back burner’. And that is the reason why I cannot engage in hardly anything mundane.
Then, with effort,sometimes days of effort, I manage to push myself in going into Dhamma actively.Like now. Once there, hours pass unnoticed. Not ‘lost’ anymore about what to do next that is meaningful and absorbing.
May you progress on the Path
“Actually, there is an account in the Tipitaka where a seven-year-old attained Arahanthood”,
Lal (April 24, 2020 at 3:48 pm).Dhammapada Verse 110
Samkiccasamanera VatthuJust came across this verse here:
“With the bhikkhus, there was also a young samanera by the name of SAMKICCA, who was sent along with them by Thera Sariputta. This samanera was only seven years old, but had already attained arahatship”
(Now it looks it was not just the odd one, though still very rare by all accounts !! )
The approach of the Supreme One was a direct one- at once inviting attention, inspection and reflection. I do not read of any other approach in the whole of the Tipitaka. What better example to follow? Ven. Nagasena’s was the same in answering King Milinda’s questions. Is there any need of looking for alternatives?
Can you imagine the Lord Buddha cracking jokes?! There are many types of ‘theros’ (lower case intentional), and so-called ‘masters’ (again).
“to keep the audience entertained (and thus attentive”)?? I do not get it.
Should the intention of the listeners, to be AT LAST FREE FROM ALL FUTURE SUFFERING, not be enough incentive to maintain attention? Or else, they are not fully aware of that.
Bonjour, Grenier!
Besides in the sense of fun or amusement, the word humour may also carry the meaning of a state of feeling, a ‘mood’, like in ” You seem to be in good humour today”. That does not mean, or even imply any notion of, amusement or merriment.
When in a good mood, there is an agreeable (and so a non-conflicting) attitude. In the instance that you quote, ”learning how to maintain good humour around the practice.” should be taken in this sense: with calm and composure, realistically, with equanimity. If there is hunger and tiredness today and no practice is possible, the right conditions will be there soon, perhaps even tomorrow. Where is the fun, the ‘humour’ here? There are days at a stretch when I cannot apply myself either to reading Dhamma or participating at the Forum, though maintaining mindfulness all the while. The energy is just not there.
The sutta you are quoting Thanissaro on is Kusīta-Ārabbhavatthu Sutta (AN 8:95). It is so, is it not? However, Suttacentral lists this as AN.80: Grounds for Laziness and arousing Energy. I cannot see how the Bhikkhu can read humour in the conventional sense here at all.
What the Buddha is saying is that all those excuses (though REAL) should be overcome by constantly reminding oneself of the Goal . “They rouse energy for attaining the Unattained, achieving the Unachieved, and realizing the Unrealized.” (Capitals mine). Again, no hint of fun or hilarity here at all. Who knows whether any bhikkhu, or lay person, you or me or anyone else will still be alive in 1 hour’s time, in 5 seconds time? It is not a humorous situation at all.However, there is a sutta where the Buddha actually smiles. It is when He saw some cows in the distance. I have been unable to trace the sutta for reference, so if you come across it you may read it for yourself. It will be worth it in distinguishing between the ways of a Buddha and those of ordinary humans.
A bhikkhu asked the Buddha: ” Lord, why have you smiled”. Now an ordinary person would smile on seeing cows either condescendingly, looking down on them, thinking: ‘Oh, poor cows. But I am human’ ,or, which is better, fondly: “What peaceful animals”. Or, if it is a cowman, their owner “Their milk is mine, their meat is mine, I own their lives” .
But the Buddha replies that each of those cows had been a King of the Devas. Now, if one pauses at this sentence before reading the next, one may think that the Buddha was showing compassion (Karuna) for the cows. But then He concludes that none of the bhikkhus there would ever be born a cow again (meaning they all had attained at least the Sotapanna Stage). So in fact, what that smile ‘gave away’ was the sympathetic joy, Mudita, for the bhikkhus.
With a Buddha even so much as a smile has great significance. Every act by body, word or mind is out of compassion. Teaching the Dhamma is no lighthearted matter. Much, much less a humorous one.
May the Blessings of the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha guide you to final Liberation.
The first perception that struck me about the word:
Sustained preoccupation with the bad (papa = pa) five (panca), and the resultant adverse consequences as a prolonged mental state of being. The five being, of course, the five sense doors to start with, their respective ayatana, then vaci sankhara…a kind of enforced and unpleasant type of vinnana, but a very persistent one.
I can make nothing specific of the saṅkhā part of the word except for the automatic connection to sankhara in some way, but approaching vinnana. A combination of (vaci) sankhara/vinnana would come close to what I mean.
The deva planes need not be feared by those who have attained Sotapanna or Sakadagami Stage. True, there will be death there as well, but there is no other way, unless they attain the Arahanthood here in this life – or else through attaining Anagami Stage and bypassing the kama loka altogether.
Attaining a HUMAN birth is to be feared. One should strive to make this human birth the last one. Once the suffering is seen and experienced; and once its SUPREME VALUE has been shown through the compassion of an Ariya or Ariyas, one need not come back to such a gross material, disgusting existence.
The Buddha, while ever reminding us of the reality of falling back to the apayas and the ultimate futility in pursuing a deva existence as an aim in itself, recognized its value for those on the way to Nibbana.
Lal,
I had not thought of the “to bear” meaning.
So we have:
– Dhamma in the sense of the Teaching.
– Dham-ma as ‘transcending the world’
– Dhamma as the things to be borne.
– Dhammā (created by the mind.)I made reference to a Vedic term (Rta, not Dhamma) only so that those who are familiar with that may get the idea at once. That it all dates back to previous Buddhas is one thing I am so grateful that I have learnt.
It is wonderful how much a word may reveal. These are terms used by a Buddha. Alas, my knowledge(?)of Pali is only as much as I have been able to grasp thanks to you.
–As far as I read, the Buddha allowed the eating of meat – as long as the kill was not carried out specifically for Him or the Bhikkhus. When the meat is there ready for consumption, the deed has already been committed.
But this needs going into a bit further. If there were no killing of animals – no slaughterhouses, no fishing, no hunting -many communities on the planet would die of starvation. A counter argument by the ‘pro-life’ activists goes: if everyone started refraining from eating meat as from tomorrow, the demand would not be there, so eventually neither will be the supply. End of the problem.
Yet the Dhamma takes Reality into account. It is in fact an account of Reality. People kill, even other humans. People steal, lie etc. So the Precepts address that which is real. Any kind of evil will always be around, as long as humans are around. That is, for ever. But Nature or Existence wastes nothing: it works even with the evil of humans to sustain them, bringing about kamma vipaka to those animals and paying back debts to the consumers in the process. And there must be other factors as well, of which I am altogether ignorant.
Axel,
I too am for all that you say there.
Yet the fact remains that all those who attained during the Buddha’s time, and even afterwards, did so on listening to a desana. The uncertainty that we face is because at that time the Tipitaka had not yet been committed to writing, to say nothing of printing. There were no options to compound the issue. No wonder the suttas are silent on the matter – the question simply could not arise.
But what about previous Buddha sasana (pl.)? It is altogether possible that writing, printing and other forms of communication had been developed in this and previous kalpas during a Buddha sasana. In such a case, a jati-Sotapanna who has developed the power to see into that past life could help!
A pertinent question has just come to mind.
It concerns those who want to attain the Sotapanna stage. It has all but been firmly established that for that to happen listening is necessary.
Now someone playing (I must put it that way, I will show why) a recorded desana discourse delivered in Sinhala (with a liberal incorporation of Pali terms) is only hearing the desana (not listening to) when the understanding comes only from reading the transcription in English.
I feel the ‘Ariya effect’ (even when recorded) still contributes to the impact on the ‘hearers'(if not ‘listeners’) – but to what extent?
For the benefit of those who have not yet had the time to listen to, or read, the most recent Waharaka Thero discourse made available by Christian, at “waharaka-thero-english-subs-discourse” Forum topic, here are the Thero’s words, starting at 24′.00″ up to 24′.33″, explaining what anicca is:
Universal Truth Exposure | Episode 01 – Know the Thilakuna
“…Now we don’t have to go after (by) anyone’s definitions. We have the exact idea as disclosed by the Buddha as to what anicca is. We only have to understand this (This only is as much as we have to understand).
” Ananda, if a Bhikkhu sees the nature of suffering on (in) all sankhara, the shameful and disgusting nature of sankhara, this is what is called the anicca sanna.
” THIS IS HOW THE ENLIGHTENED ONE HAS EXPLAINED THE ANICCA SANNA”.The entire duration of the video is a treasure! Most of us are familiar (via English) with what the Thero is saying alright, thanks to Lal and others on the Site, but the way the Thero presents the whole has a distinctive ring to it, coming from such a One, even for those who, like myself, can only grasp single Sinhala words here and there uttered by the Thero.
Once again, much merits to Christian.
“Comprehension of the anicca nature is different”
That would ‘cover’ all deeds done in the past at the cuti-patisandhi moment, not just the act of adultery (in the instance I have given). I had the feeling that this is what makes all the difference. And here is where the removal of the hidden anusaya comes in.
Thank you Lal. Much merits to Christian, yourself and the others who have in any way contributed to the Thero’s discourse translations into English.
