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Readers will please excuse my spelling. my right hand is bandaged; just had a cyst removed.
I have to manage with my left hand, mouse to my left and all.Lal says: (May 28, 2020 at 10:08 am0
–” X had changed his gati after killing Y. Suppose he learned Dhamma and comprehended Tilakhhana. In that case, even though the above scenario will be re-created due to kammic energy, X WILL NOT go through with killing Y again.”
What about thiose who change their gati without ever having heard of Buddhadhamma?. i know of one particular fellow who turned from his ‘playboy lifestyle'(and he was married) to a moral way of life after having ‘converted’ to Jehovah Witnesses. Will he also not go through that decisive
upadana-paccayapbhave step ? Will he also not go through with the deed at the cuti-patisandhi moment? In this respect, how is Buddhadhamma different.? I know it IS different, somehow, but where exactly lies the difference? For he now has come to see that grave consequences would follow. This alone is what stops him bringing the deed to a conclusion. Buddha or no Buddha.
The Buddha expounded the Dhamma; one aspect of the Dhamma is that causes have cinsequenxes. And he has seen that. Jesus tasught the same . Most founders of other religions have taughtn the same.I am all for donations, Christian. Inflib (dona) had made this suggestion of donations once, about the time this Site was set up, or not long after that, but that was to help Lal maintain the Site.
In our case here, it would take someone who knows Sinhalese perfectly, English to a very good degree, and most importantly, have the ‘special knowledge’ of what the individual words are meant to convey AND a more than adequate rendering of that in English words or phrases; and who has the time for it. Not easy, as I see. In that eventuality I too will contribute. Thank you, Christian.
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Lal:You may have misread the intent of my comment when replying “I have only limited time in a day”.
I was not saying that I had once asked you to do this and you did not or refused- rather, you have ALREADY done it in launching and maintaining Puredhamma.net. That is what I meant. For which I, and others I am sure, are forever grateful.
I feel bad when I feel I have been misunderstood, but worse when I suspect that I may have even inadvertently hurt some one in any way. If that is the case, please forgive me.
Thanks Lal,
“I have only limited time in a day” – that is why I said what I did at the end.
I am grateful to you and to whoever did the translation, however. Not knowing Sinhala. I would not have been able to understand a thing.
“the person creating the English subtitles”?? ….the person who accessed the videos in the first place rather, if that be not Christian himself. The translation is horrible in places, unintelligible.
I had once made a similar request to Lal myself, and the reply was that Puredhamma.net IS precisely that – the gist of the Ven. Thero’s discourses.
It was certainly worth it, Christian. Thank you.
Now…how about Part One?
(Call me greedy if you like; in this case I won’t mind!)
“….is absence of suffering happiness ….. I don’t feel so.”
It is not, Mahi. Consider this case. A patient is in pain (suffering). Medics apply medicines and other treatment and the pain goes.(absence of suffering). After that, his wife or gf visits. (happiness).
Now if the pain returns (while the wife or gf, the source of happiness, is still there) at once the happiness is gone. So there can be no lasting happiness where suffering exists or comes to exist at some point. (the 31 realms) .
You say : ‘Happiness is an illusion for me..world doesn’t make me happy..yet I am not unhappy unless of course strong mental or physical vedana arise” So, since you ask what state it is, I say it is the neutral state. But as you have seen yourself “unless of course strong mental or physical vedana arise”; you of course mean strong BAD mental or physical vedana. Not’unless’, Mahi, they WILL surely come, if not sooner then later. So there can be no permanent ‘neutral state’ of neither-happiness-nor-unhappiness either.
So strive for Nibbana. That alone is true happiness.
Thanks Lal,
I am now not trying to get in the way of your getting your new post out, but when you have time to get into this, DN 15 Chapter 4. Attasamanupassanā (despite that sub-title) is largely about Feelings (and its connection or otherwise to ‘a self’)
Taking also other sutta and the posts into account, it is taking the feelings to be the self (I am ‘this’ or ‘that’ feeling’) that is not acceptable. Because feelings are fleeting, impermanent.
Towards the very end we find in this (DN 15) sutta:
“Now, as to those who say:
‘Feeling is definitely not my self. But it’s not that my self does not experience feeling. My self feels, for my self is liable to feel.’
You should say this to them,
‘Suppose feelings were to totally and utterly cease without anything left over.
When there’s no feeling at all, with the cessation of feeling, would the thought “I am this” occur there?’”
“No, sir.”
“That’s why it’s not acceptable to regard self as that which is liable to feel”.Yet, going by MN 59, there appears nothing wrong with holding that feeling is there, as a factor of or ‘accompanying’ happiness, ‘wherever it’s found, and in whatever context’,as long as it is not taken as one’s Self. And as with an Arahant the sense of self (asmi mana) is not there anymore to start with, there cannot be taking it (feeling) to be ‘his’ self… where there is no self in the first place, that is. All others below the Arahant will have a sense of self and may therefore ‘attach’, feeling or sanna or vinnana or sankahara, to that self.
That is what I have been able to make out this far.
Further to what Lal says above (May 18, 2020 at 9:10 am) :
(Many people are misled by the term “Nibbanic bliss” thinking that it is a vedana to be FELT.)
MN 59 ‘The Many Kinds of Feelings – Bahuvedaniyasutta’ is relevant here.
There is this debate between Pancakanga and Upali on whether the Buddha has spoken of two or of three feelings (pleasant, unpleasant, and including or excluding neutral feeling) After saying that both are actually right, the Buddha then stated that he ‘on one explanation I’ve spoken of two feelings. In another explanation I’ve spoken of three feelings, or five, six, eighteen, thirty-six, or a hundred and eight feelings’
“There are those who would say that the pleasure (arising from pañca kāmaguṇā) is the highest pleasure and happiness that sentient beings experience. But I don’t grant them that.” The Buddha then lists eight other pleasures higher than the sensual pleasures: those arising from the four jhanas, and the 4 inherent in the four arupa realms.
‘The ascetic Gotama spoke of the CESSATION of perception and feeling, and he INCLUDES it in happiness. What’s up with that?’
‘When wanderers who follow other paths say this, you should say to them, ‘Reverends, when the Buddha describes what’s included in happiness, he’s not just referring to pleasant feeling. THE REALIZED ONE DESCRIBES PLEASURE AS INCLUDED IN HAPPINESS WHEREVER IT’S FOUND , AND IN WHATEVER CONTEXT.’”‘wherever it’s found, and in whatever context.’ would here include Nibbana. Is that correct?
It is the Dhamma which is ever there, the unchanging ‘Norm of Existence’.
Buddhas come and go. Any particular Buddha only discovers and proclaims It. In fact the Buddha started with the Dhamma in the first verse quoted. Once one sees the Dhamma (a dhammanusari)then one sees the Buddha. Once one sees the Buddha (sadddhanusari) then one sees the Dhamma.
In my case, the general drift of the Teaching was already there in me. Only the details were missing.Then having grown in the Dhamma and having seen how it all makes absolute sense, that is where confidence in the Buddha happened. It can be the other way around with others. But in the end one becomes the other as well, depending on the disposition, or the gati, we may say.
“The Buddha never promised a “happiness” in the sense of a “kama assada” or “sensual pleasures.”
– In fact, he showed it is our tendency for upadana for sensual pleasures that keep us bound to the rebirth process (samsara.)”.This is what one must in the end come to see.
It is impossible for us to contemplate a ‘good state’, however sublime, where feeling does not figure. Everything that we treasure inwardly is intimately connected with a deep-seated emotion. The trouble is that emotions are not constant.
If I were to say: ‘I will have a deva existence one after another, times without number. That way I will forever experience pleasant feelings, one life after another without end. The ‘only’ price I will have to pay is the ‘limited anguish’ each time I am approaching death. That is insignificant compared with the millions, perhaps billions of years spent there. I am willing to pay such a small price’. Now this is an impossible dream (besides being a wrong view) because there can be no guarantee of a next ‘happy’ existence if one is not on the Path (in fact, most will be in the apayas); and if one is ON the Path, those ‘happy existences’ will come to an end as a matter of course.
Not having EXPERIENCED Nibbana is the problem. When it is said that kama assada is not there, we equate that State with a ‘neutral one’, one of neither pleasure nor pain. That will simply not do. We do not crave a ‘neutral’ existence, one merely ‘free of suffering’, we crave a positive, a pleasant existence. It is like this: some one is feeling pain, another is enjoying, and a third is just sitting doing nothing. Not knowing what Nibbana is, we automatically equate Nibbana with the third state. Certainly not as anything positive and therefore ‘worth to be experienced’.
In life we see that we can enjoy the pleasant, but have to pay for that by experiencing the unpleasant as well. It is the two sides of a coin. You must accept the unpleasant in order to have the pleasant. Nibbana would here equate with rejecting both – throwing away the coin. Free of the unpleasant, yes, but at the price of giving up on the pleasant.
I remember an instance when I was a boy, about 9 or 10 years old. This thought occurred: ‘What if some supreme being appeared now and told me : You have a choice! You see what trouble grow-ups have to go through. You will be free of all that, but you will not experience one happy moment either. That or the same as it is with everyone else. Choose” I was unable to choose. When I related this to others later on in life, no one seemed to know what I meant. “SO? That is how it is. Enjoy as much as you can. What’s the problem?” Now I find myself pondering the question again.
Now this is where aveccappasada in the Buddha comes in. I have no doubt that Nibbana exists … there MUST be such a state as Nibbana, there MUST be a state that excels any known ‘in this world’. It is only that I know nothing ABOUT it, I only know OF it, and that because of confidence in the Buddha. What?…all those Buddhas, Paccekabuddhas, Arahants, an infinite number of them, the Ones who made it to the Highest Goal, were they….?
What Nibbana IS NOT, that it is NOT suffering, that I can see. What it IS I cannot know until I get there.
I have no idea, Aniduan. There are no ‘live’ sessions now due to social-distancing.
The Thero just posts the sessions onto YouTube and one other site for people to listen when they please. I myself tried to look for a way to ask questions, but got nowhere.
If you yourself find out how to go about that, please let me know.
They are a bit too long Aniduan.
4 hours or so. Only since there can be no attendance because of CV-19 has that come down to 2 hours or so. Even so he is too long-winded at times, giving more examples than would appear necessary to get a point across. But that may also be due to his concern and compassion for his listeners, live or online; he can possibly have only a very vague idea of the mental capacity of each, and none at all of any stage of magga phala attained, so he must assume that none has. Besides the diversions.
Still, they are the best I have come across.
I am glad that you have come to see that ‘they are really good’.
may you progress on the Path.
Hello Aniduan,
Kāyānupassanā is one of the foundations of mindfulness.
Listen again starting from 30’10”: ‘The reason we are doing this meditation is to discover where is the self; the self that we have so got used to’ (33’17”). During the course of that time he also makes it clear the aim of the meditation is with Nibbana as the goal, not merely as a means towards relaxation and a feeling of general well-being.
I have listened to quite a few of these sermons now several months. Not once did I find anything out of line with pure Dhamma.
