Not really! Mercy depends on suffering beings to manifest. Without suffering, there’s no reason for mercy. I want to eradicate suffering, not holding on to the medicine.
Buddha certainly suffered a lot on the Bodhisattva Path. And according to the Mahayana, He is still present in this world for all sake.
Once a Christian friend of mine, when I was in the midst of my practices, told me he thought I’d never reach Enlightenment because I was too afraid of pain. I wasn’t actually, but it seemed that way to him because I was complaining of suffering. I remembered that, and I started to understand there is a purpose in life, over time. Not just, “bye, bye!”
Thank you for your kind words! And as I’ve said elsewhere to @yeshe.tenley, I can only have the highest of respect for those on the bodhisatta path.
For what it’s worth, my foray to Buddhism was through my namesake (Dōgen) and Zen, with a great emphasis on the Bodhisatta path. But then I realised, life can’t be what it isn’t! Ignorance is a condition for enlightenment. Darkness is a condition for light. Whenever there’s ignorance, a Buddha appears and gives voice to Dhamma, relying on nothing but their faculties and conviction.
To those intend on ignorance, not even Buddhas can save them. Those intend on salvation, not even Mara can stop their progress. From this perspective, even Buddhas are superfluous, though perhaps they make the path easier. What matters is our intentions and kamma. No one needs anyone for their salvation, I think that’s the greatest gift and lesson Buddha teaches with his example. Just a pure mind.
Not really on topic, but related, and I was inspired to share so I hope you’ll excuse my blabbering.
You’re very intelligent. The Lotus Sutra Teaches that Bodhisattva Never Disparaging attained Enlightenment in a distant lifetime ago by going to Heaven and hearing millions of verses of the Lotus Sutra. That Bodhisattva eventually became Gautama Buddha. The Lotus Sutra Teaches that it is the only Gateway to Supreme Perfect Enlightenment for Bodhisattvas. So sitting under the Bodhi Tree in Gaya, Buddha had to ascertain the Law of the Dhamma in such a way as well to attain Enlightenment. That’s the key. I know you may differ on Teachings, and I fully respect that. In fact it’s good that you’re going by what fits you. But the Mystery of how one attains Enlightenment is not easily found. Becoming a Buddha who finds the Dhamma themselves is a miraculous feat, to me that means they must have understood the tenants of the Lotus Sutra. I believe they are fully present in the Pali Suttas as well. There’s great worth in the vastness of all of Buddhism. To enter into Enlightenment is to respect all Paths. I’ve already realized for myself I cannot taste the full Bliss of Eternal extinguishment while there is still even one being out there suffering. It just wouldn’t be fair to them. This gives me the true heart of Compassion, and the Realization that there is a Higher extinction than Nibbana in Buddhahood.
"When grasping ceases, continued existence ceases.
That is how this entire mass of suffering ceases.
This is the ending of the world.”
I wish you best of luck on your path! And perhaps your path might not be as endless as some may think. Perhaps one day it’ll be the last day of suffering for all sentient beings, when we can finally drop everything behind and find the peace at the end of the world.
Yes I’m fully aware of this and never claimed any such things.
It was you who took an event after the contraction of the universe as if it is somehow still relevant and applicable to the Rupa Loka realms now.
That the beings there are prone to ”get irritated and annoyed or even have instinctive aversion”.
So when trying to prove your point you quoted something that is clearly taken out of context and I pointed it out.
That is the reason I wanted to show you that this way of taking things out context would be like me saying; ”since people used to live for 80.000 years in the suttas, people are still, to this very day, living for 80 000 years” despite the fact that this is not the case.
Yes you wrote a similar thing earlier:
To which I replied:
It is in Rupa Loka that one directly realises and sees for oneself that: ‘Transmigration has no known beginning. No first point is found of sentient beings roaming and transmigrating, shrouded by ignorance and fettered by craving.”
And what brought one to Rupa Loka to finally see this as a fact - the brahmaviharas.
And now over to the Clinging Aggregates:
My thinking is inline with how claiming that the brahmaviharas are dukkha is just an extreme view, and not the middle way.
This extreme view is the result of a very shallow understanding of Dependent Origination and where all is automatically Anicca, Dukkha & Anatta without taking the middle way approach and reflecting over it.
It is DO that helps practioners let go off the Clinging Aggregates, right?
Anicca, Dukkha & Anatta are not so evident in the grand scheme of death and rebirth, that is why there even is such a view as eternalism.
Also posted this in the thread:
DO is not as plain as can be and The Buddha says:
”It is because of not understanding and not penetrating this teaching that this population has become tangled like string, knotted like a ball of thread, and matted like rushes and reeds, and it doesn’t escape the places of loss, the bad places, the underworld, transmigration.”
So it is not like I’m saying the clinging aggregates are not dukkha, I’m just pointing out that DO is very deep and anicca, dukkha & anatta are not evident and obvious since only a Buddha among billions of beings teaches such things.
Only DO leads to the end of rebirth.
Nothing else.
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My whole approach is the middle way, to the best of my ability. This way I avoid all extreme views, like: ”the brahmaviharas are dukkha” ” there is no self” etc.
The problem is that this middle way approach always result in someone in return applying extreme views on to me that I don’t have:
So you do agree that all conditioned phenomena including the brahma realms are dukkha, you’re just putting in the effort to say that it needs deep reflection.
What we heard is that you’re trying to find a piece of Nibbāna in the conditioned and denying the 3 universal characteristics.
The very fact that it needs deep reflection is why we need to boldly say what doesn’t seem like dukkha is actually dukkha. To put it in your face to force such reflection or at least mindfulness of it next time someone having the tendancies to attach to the brahma realms.
Really it also sounds like you’re still attaching to the notion of dukkha as must include mental suffering.
When we say all conditioned things are dukkha, it doesn’t mean that they create dukkha. The noble 8fold path leads to ending of dukkha, but because they are conditioned, being manifested in the world via sentient beings, it is dukkha.
Eg. right view needs the condition of Buddha teaching, and the view gets written down, passed down to us. Right thoughts needs intention and right view. Right action needs right view, right intention, a body etc… and so on.
Even the path leading out of dukkha is itself dukkha. Why? Because of the fact that we need to cultivate it in the first place. Conditioned they are. If they are unconditioned, we can just snap and have all of them and become enlightened in a fingersnap.
Again, for those who are prone to misunderstanding, dukkha doesn’t mean to be avoided. This is the usual subprogramming of the mind not understanding what to do with regard to 1st noble truth: to understand dukkha, not to avoid dukkha. That’s why it’s important to understand even the path leading out of dukkha is dukkha.
Like Ajahn brahm said, there’s single person suffering, married person suffering and monk suffering. What matters is to choose the suffering which ends all suffering.
So by saying the noble 8fold path, 4 brahma viharas are dukkha, it is not asking people to avoid practising them. It is to ask people to understand them, not to be attached to the dhamma, but use it as a raft and let go when needed (near the end or getting into the Jhānas).
The function of reflection of dukkha is to produce disillusionment and dispassion. If one sees that it produces depression, or aversion to the path, then it’s wrongly understanding what is being said. One should reflect on the automatic programming of how one reacts to dukkha and whether one always associate dukkha that it must have mental suffering.
Oke, but what is exactly that yourself we care for? Most of the time that is or the body or ego.
And i feel, it is only quality, wisdom, greatness if one really senses that this is not blameless.
We can try to make this regret and remorse vanish with thoughts, compensate it with ideas, but i feel it is much better to really listen to it. Probably one must make changes. For example, have a different livelihood or make other choices in life.
Regret and remorse, shame, it is not nice to feel but as message from reality i feel one must not try to remedy it with ideas about this or that. I think it is sign that one must make changes.
It is relative. We all need other people too. Parents that raise us, feed us, teach us. Teachers on school who learn us many things. Friends. People who make our clothes, build our houses, make our medicine, grow our food. There is no such things as ones own merit if you think about it. All depends on others, relies on other people. I think christians see this more wise.
In buddhism there is still that illusion that all is due to ones own efforts. I think this is to extreme and still too ego-centric.
Yes. and is it really true that a Buddha finds the Dhamma himself?
Ultimately, at the moment of Enlightenment, we will all find the Dhamma ourselves in a certain way. We can be shown the way, lead on the Path, given the precepts and understood instructions. But it is our own mind that understands Awakening at the moment of Awakening, and that is the merit of becoming Enlightened.
Yes, oke, but sometimes i wonder, where do certain plans, choices, flashes, insights come from?
Have you never had that feeling that things are a bit to accidental?
Do not take this to literally but sometimes i wonder about guidance. It is always easy to belief that all these flashes of insight, decisions, inspirational moment, are are our own…Yes we are used to see it like that… because we immediately make them our own. And then they feel that we have created them. But in a sense we cannot know nor see where it all comes from. To say…it all comes from mind is laziness. Because, what does it even mean?
But for an artist, a poet, a writer, he/she knows that there is something weird going on. I do not want to mystify all this but the idea that all is ours and our own merit, result of our own efforts etc. is, i feel, to extreme.
I agree, but from the perspective of duration since impermanence there is not so evident.
Since all conditioned phenomena involve feelings while Nibbāna does not involve feelings I don’t see why anyone would think I deny anicca, dukkha & anatta.
There is still engagement and relishing in the blissful feelings.
But I take it from this angle - instead of seeing the brahmaviharas as dukkha: It is thanks to the brahmaviharas and the plesant contacts in Rupa Loka that one can finally realise:
”with their mind immersed in samādhi will understand this: ‘Transmigration has no known beginning. No first point is found of sentient beings roaming and transmigrating, shrouded by ignorance and fettered by craving.”
Yes The Buddha had a way of really rousing up those listening, especially when some came to foolish and wrong conclusions - so The Buddha put in extra effort just to make sure listeners actually understood.
I just don’t get this same impression at all when it is claimed the brahmaviharas are dukkha, when there is a middle way approach to all phenomena:
Sir, what do you do with a person in training who doesn’t follow these forms of training?”
“In that case, Kesi, I kill them.”
“Sir, it’s not appropriate for the Buddha to kill living creatures. And yet you say you kill them.”
“It’s true, Kesi, it’s not appropriate for a Realized One to kill living creatures. But when a person in training doesn’t follow any of these forms of training, the Realized One doesn’t think they’re worth advising or instructing, and neither do their sensible spiritual companions.
For it is killing in the training of the Noble One when the Realized One doesn’t think they’re worth advising or instructing, and neither do their sensible spiritual companions.” - AN 4.111
Nope, I have pointed out Reverse Dependent Origination 3 or 4 times in this thread: that one happiness can lead to a greater happiness and so on and so on.
One gives up pleasant states for even more pleasant states. This is not based on greed but the insight that there are even more sublime states.
So in no way am I saying the clinging aggregates are not dukkha:
“Whatever exists therein of material form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, he sees those states as impermanent, as suffering, as a disease, as a tumour, as a barb, as a calamity, as an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as void, as not self.
He turns his mind away from those states and directs it towards the deathless element thus: ‘This is the peaceful, this is the sublime, that is, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all attachments, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, Nibbāna.’ - MN 64
There is no separate existing self. We are all interconnected. Individuality is a formation, the strongest one, the one hardest to let go of on the pathway to realizing one’s Emptiness.
But perhaps some conditional old kammic mind patterns arise and cease without reactivity, attachment/aversion, or identification – just like physical pain states arise and cease for arahants.
The Buddha, conceived as a “something” or being, did not experience them but they could nevertheless be experienced.
This is a short essay by Ven. Anālayo on this topic:
By this logic, the non-existent Buddha would also be able to experience hatred, gluttony, jealousy, etc. Because none of them would be a ‘something’ which is the Buddha. Just the impersonal khandhas.
When the Buddha says “will not arise,” I take it literally. I take it that for him greed, hatred, and delusion literally did not arise in his mind after he attained awakening. Just like I don’t think subtle khandhas re-arose for him after his passing due to conditioned old kammic mind patterns.
I think we’d agree neither of those scenarios are very convincing!
Looking at the examples mentioned, none of them need imply irritation or frustration in the Buddha. Someone asking him about the rebirth of hundreds or thousands of people would obviously be a nuisance. It doesn’t mean he would be annoyed or bothered in the sense of defilement. I think “nuisance” makes sense for this word in the context.
Such as monks causing issues or holding up Sangha procedures. It is obviously a nuisance to simple living and harmony. But it doesn’t need to imply that the arahants there were literally irritated or had subtle forms of aversion arising.
I think this is just completely splitting hairs with basic chemical processes that occur in the human body, even if experienced meditators can control them at a huge level.
An example would be Buddha being stalked by Mara up until his very death. This implies that temptation was ever present in his life, even after enlightenment; he just didn’t act on it.
Same as with basic annoyances and petty annoyances. I think you’re literally qualifying the same emotions just experienced at a much smaller scale with a different word to satisfy your understanding of being rid of three poisons. He could be hit by an arrow; but not twice, that’s the point Buddha is making.
Check the vegetable patients hooked up on ICU machines to see people actually completely beyond emotional responses.
We can also do the thought experiment I just ran earlier:
Let’s do a thought experiment. There’s only sukha and neutral feelings. Our feelings range from 0 sukha to infinite sukha
Doing good, eating donuts having sex, these all increase our sukha. 100 sukha, 500 sukha, 1000 sukha. Then once the feeling starts to fade away, back to 500, 200, 50, 0. Well, that’s undesirable, isn’t it? We would rather have all the sukha. Suddenly, 0 sukha, or low levels of sukkha are unsatisfactory, because we’ve tasted more sukha. 1000 sukha is always better than 10 sukha. That’s the definition of 1000 sukha.
So, even if Buddha is rid of all negative emotions, and has only positive emotions; in this case, small amount of positive emotions becomes a dukkha, and you would rather seek more positive emotions. Things like seeking harmony in the sangha. Because by definition, more positive emotions are better.
In the case of beyond both, then you don’t have any sukha or dukkha, nothing makes any difference whatsoever, teaching is the same as not teaching, there’s no distinction to be found for any action.
All in all, I don’t even see why this discussion is relevant to Brahmavihārā being dukkha.
DHP 209
Applying yourself where you ought not,
neglecting what you should be doing,
forgetting your goal, you cling to what you hold dear,
jealous of those devoted to their own goal.
Don’t ever get too close
to those you like or dislike.
For not seeing the liked is suffering,
and so is seeing the disliked.
Therefore don’t hold anything dear,
for it’s bad to lose those you love.
No ties are found in they who
hold nothing loved or loathed.
