AN 10.177 With Janussoni

Well I guess I can only speak for myself.

As a human being, reborn into this current life, I am definitely NOT a stream winner :joy:

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There are more bro
Please see the Below sutta

Mn117
In this context, right view comes first. And how does right view come first? When you understand wrong view as wrong view and right view as right view, that’s your right view.

And what is wrong view? ‘There’s no meaning in giving, sacrifice, or offerings. There’s no fruit or result of good and bad deeds. There’s no afterlife. There are no duties to mother and father. No beings are reborn spontaneously. And there’s no ascetic or brahmin who is well attained and practiced, and who describes the afterlife after realizing it with their own insight.’ This is wrong view.

And what is right view? Right view is twofold, I say. There is right view that is accompanied by defilements, has the attributes of good deeds, and ripens in attachment. And there is right view that is noble, undefiled, transcendent, a factor of the path.

And what is right view that is accompanied by defilements, has the attributes of good deeds, and ripens in attachment? ‘There is meaning in giving, sacrifice, and offerings. There are fruits and results of good and bad deeds. There is an afterlife. There are duties to mother and father. There are beings reborn spontaneously. And there are ascetics and brahmins who are well attained and practiced, and who describe the afterlife after realizing it with their own insight.’ This is right view that is accompanied by defilements, has the attributes of good deeds, and ripens in attachment.

And what is right view that is noble, undefiled, transcendent, a factor of the path? It’s the wisdom—the faculty of wisdom, the power of wisdom, the awakening factor of investigation of principles, and right view as a factor of the path—in one of noble mind and undefiled mind, who possesses the noble path and develops the noble path. This is called right view that is noble, undefiled, transcendent, a factor of the path.

Further information about supramundane right view below

Mn9
A noble disciple understands in this way suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the practice that leads to its cessation. They’ve completely given up the underlying tendency to greed, got rid of the underlying tendency to repulsion, and eradicated the underlying tendency to the view and conceit ‘I am’. They’ve given up ignorance and given rise to knowledge, and make an end of suffering in this very life. When they’ve done this, they’re defined as a noble disciple who has right view, whose view is correct, who has experiential confidence in the teaching, and has come to the true teaching.”

Furthermore I infer that supramundane right view is synonymous with understanding or knowledge thus only an arahant can have supramundane right view based on this below sutta

Mn9
And what is the skillful? Avoiding killing living creatures, stealing, and sexual misconduct; avoiding speech that’s false, divisive, harsh, or nonsensical; contentment, good will, and right view. This is called the skillful.

And what is the root of the skillful? Contentment, love, and understanding. This is called the root of the skillful.

Here love is the root of good will, while understanding is the root of right view
But the formula becomes right view = understanding = knowledge when we consider this below sutta

An3.66
What do you think, Sāḷha? Is understanding real?”

“Yes, sir.”

“‘Knowledge’ is what I mean by this. A person who understands and knows doesn’t kill living creatures, steal, commit adultery, lie, or encourage others to do the same. Is that for their lasting welfare and happiness?”

“Yes, sir.”

I infer that right view alone may not help without actions based on that right view based on this below sutta

Mn130
These dear beings did good things by way of body, speech, and mind. They never spoke ill of the noble ones; they had right view; and they chose to act out of that right view. When their body breaks up, after death, they’re reborn in a good place, a heavenly realm, or among humans.

I infer that we need to bold this part “they had right view; and they chose to act out of that right view” ,this is an “and” logic meaning if one is wrong then the statement is wrong for example when one have right view but one doesn’t act based on it because of laziness and others one may not go to heaven or human plane after death

So only beings that had right view or understanding and acted out of that view too that can reborn as human

I don’t infer that animal can have wrong view Or right view and act out of that view so they are excluded from this rule so the only way they can become human is by experiencing their deed as animal based on this below sutta

An10.219
“Mendicants, I don’t say that intentional deeds that have been performed and accumulated are eliminated without being experienced. And that may be in the present life, or in the next life, or in some subsequent period. And I don’t say that suffering is ended without experiencing intentional deeds that have been performed and accumulated.

While This below sutta is about hell beings but based on inference we can conclude that it applies to animals too

An3.36
Then, after grilling them about the third messenger of the gods, King Yama falls silent. Then the wardens of hell punish them with the five-fold crucifixion. They drive red-hot stakes through the hands and feet, and another in the middle of the chest. And there they suffer painful, sharp, severe, acute feelings—but they don’t die until that bad deed is eliminated.

I infer that there’s no obligation to them sis see this below sutta

An3.118
And what is failure in view? It’s when someone has wrong view, a distorted perspective, such as: ‘There’s no meaning in giving, sacrifice, or offerings. There’s no fruit or result of good and bad deeds. There’s no afterlife. There’s no obligation to mother and father.

Based on all these suttas we can infer that one becomes human either with good deeds or by experiencing bad deeds and both work

I don’t understand English much so please forgive me :pray::pray:

Thanks
Much Love

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That might be the answer too I guess. There definitely have been saintly people who were Christians or Muslims who would not have known anything about the four noble truths and hard to believe they would have been heading downwards in terms of karma! :slight_smile: Yes, maybe it’s referring to a vaguer ethically upright notion of right view. :man_shrugging:

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HaHa. I wasn’t trying to get any such declarations! :slight_smile: Well, you’re in the same ordinary mere worldling boat as me then! Better set the bar low but aim high I guess (no pressure :wink: ).

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Here we are:

And what is right view? Right view is twofold, I say. There is right view that is accompanied by defilements, has the attributes of good deeds, and ripens in attachment. And there is right view that is noble, undefiled, transcendent, a factor of the path.

And what is right view that is accompanied by defilements, has the attributes of good deeds, and ripens in attachment? ‘There is meaning in giving, sacrifice, and offerings. There are fruits and results of good and bad deeds. There is an afterlife. There are duties to mother and father. There are beings reborn spontaneously. And there are ascetics and brahmins who are well attained and practiced, and who describe the afterlife after realizing it with their own insight.’ This is right view that is accompanied by defilements, has the attributes of good deeds, and ripens in attachment.

And what is right view that is noble, undefiled, transcendent, a factor of the path? It’s the wisdom—the faculty of wisdom, the power of wisdom, the awakening factor of investigation of principles, and right view as a factor of the path—in one of noble mind and undefiled mind, who possesses the noble path and develops the noble path. This is called right view that is noble, undefiled, transcendent, a factor of the path.
SuttaCentral. MN117

My confusion is eliminated by the inclusion of the phrase “duties to”. :slight_smile:

And my notion (wonder where it came from) that mundane and transcendent are distinctions from the Visuddhimagga (800 years later) is exploded.

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I’ve heard this too, but I don’t think this is correct. MN 136 makes it clear that some people can perform bad deeds and still end up in a good rebirth. AN 8.36 says that someone with a small amount of virtue/generosity will end up as a disadvantaged human, while moderate virtue/generosity leads to an advantaged human….I would imagine this still leaves room for precept breaking.

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I take it more like, to ensure minimum human rebirth, keep the 5 precepts well. It doesn’t mean necessary condition, but sufficient condition.

Buddhists can aim higher than human rebirth too, easily with many virtues, meditation, aim for the heavens, in consideration of the global warming destroying civilization.

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I don’t think five precepts are sufficient, either, since one could end up with a bad rebirth after committing more subtle forms of wrong speech (divisive, harsh, nonsensical speech) and/or bad mental deeds (wrong view, maliciousness, covetousness). At least that’s what MN 136 indicates, as well as the sutta AdrianMagno quotes in the original post. Maybe the 10 virtues are more “sufficient” than the 5-precepts when determining the afterlife.

Perhaps it’s best to say that the 5-precepts are conducive to a good rebirth. In the AN book of ones there are a series of suttas that it is impossible for one with good conduct in body/speech/mind to end up with a bad rebirth for that reason alone…and that say it’s impossible for one with bad conduct to end up in a good rebirth for that reason alone. Good leads to good, bad leads to bad, but there is no magical formula to make any guarantees (until one is a stream winner, I guess).

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Thanks for the extra sutta references @TheSynergist , always happy to be better informed :anjal:

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I just read MN 136 and it made a lot more sense in terms of how to NOT generalize certain results and saying “well if you do this, then you can expect this particular outcome”. So thank you once again @TheSynergist :anjal:

I’m curious about AN 10.177, is it perhaps a later addition to the canon? It does not seem ‘flowery’ with regards to it’s language used but after having read MN 136 I am a little doubtful now about it.

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I don’t think it’s necessary to believe that AN 10.177 is a late addition. It’s just saying in general terms that doing bad things tends to lead to a bad rebirth, and vice versa….at least that’s how I’d read it. It’s not uncommon for one sutta to make a general statement that is clarified/qualified elsewhere. The MN and DN often elaborate upon concepts laid out in the SN/AN.

AN 10.177, as I read it, is mostly about the merit/efficacy of donating food to ancestors, not the nitty-gritty details about the exact workings of Kamma.

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Fair enough, thank you :anjal:

I remember being struck by the division of the eightfold path into a mundane and transcendental version when I first came across this sutta. It brought out something that wasn’t made clear in other suttas. However, according to this article on Buddha-Vacana.org (who’s the author?) there are several indications that this is a late sutta, having been influenced by commentarial material.

So this division (not the division between worldly and supra-worldly itself, but the two-fold version of the path) probably doesn’t represent what the Buddha taught. I wonder what problem the editors/writers were trying to solve in coming up with this distinction?

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I’ve heard this too, regarding MN 117. Though come to think of it, I’m not sure what difference it makes in practice? I mean, the suttas are clear enough elsewhere that the things that lead to heaven/good karma are not enough for liberation (e.g., SN 35.74). I guess maybe it makes some difference in terms of how one starts their practice, maybe?

Come to think of it, this discussion reminds me of the controversy involving MN 44, discussed on this thread. Basically, there is controversy about whether the wisdom (“paññā”) part of the path is at the very beginning (i.e., right view and right intention) or at the end (after the 8 fold path, with the “right insight” and “right liberation”).

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Thanks for that info and the reference @Bodhipaksa.

yes. … and this can lead to putting less emphasis on generosity and the precepts

I don’t think it does make a difference to traditional Buddhists so much (tho what would I know, because I’m not one). I think it makes a great difference to those (incl myself) who were brought up in materialist Western culture and got taught “how to meditate” without a thorough grounding in generosity and siīa.

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Interesting that that’s been your experience. I started with super mundane right view, basically…a focus on anatta in particular. Then I started meditation, then found that ethics/generosity kinda flowed naturally from that. I would have never started practicing meditation if I had to take precepts first.

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For a lot of Buddhists in Malaysia and Singapore, ask them to keep precepts is far easier than to ask them to go for meditation retreats.

Is it the no alcohol rule?

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Interesting. Yeah, it seems like convert vs. non-convert Buddhists are quite different in this regard. I think a lot of Westerners turn to meditation/Buddhism as a way of “fixing” an underlying psychological issue rather than wanting to adopt a full-fledged lifestyle.

For me, it pretty much was that. Alcohol didn’t really interfere with my meditation at first, and even arguably was conducive to the flow of rapture . But it eventually compromised my development of equanimity and mindfulness. So I quit.

I guess I also stopped squishing bugs after I started meditating w/ metta. I would have laughed at the idea of not squishing bugs before I starting meditating….

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I agree @Gillian, I started out meditating as way to ease the difficulty I was going through in life at the time and later took up the precepts and eventually started practicing the Buddhist path. It’s so nice to see traditional Buddhists have a good grounding in the generosity aspect, that is definitely something I had to work on, and still ongoing :grinning:

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I imagine it could. But based on MN 117 I’ve tended to think of paññā as including things like understanding that it’s beneficial to practice generosity and live by the precepts, so that in a way wisdom does come first. But I’m not sure if paññā can legitimately been interpreted that way.

Generally, the way I think of the 8-fold path and three trainings is that they’re not really sequential. The eight-fold path is kind of like an eight-lane highway, with various parts of you in each of the lanes (still connected to each other), so that you need to be working on ethics, meditation, and wisdom more or less at the same time.

Maybe ethics and generosity are akin to the slower lanes. I don’t mean that in a derogatory sense, but to indicate that these factors are foundational. If those aspects of our practice are moving slowly, that puts a limit on our overall progress.

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