Suppose there were a file of blind (wo)men each in touch with the next: the first one does not see, the middle one does not see, and the last one does not see. (MN 99)
AN 5.79
Again, in the future there will be bhikkhu(ni)s who are undeveloped in body, virtuous behavior, mind, and wisdom. When those discourses spoken by the Tathāgata are being recited that are deep, deep in meaning, world-transcending, connected with emptiness, they will not want to listen to them, will not lend an ear to them, or apply their minds to understand them; they will not think those teachings should be studied and learned.
But when those discourses are being recited that are mere poetry composed by poets, beautiful in words and phrases, created by outsiders, spoken by disciples, they will want to listen to them, lend an ear to them, and apply their minds to understand them; they will think those teachings should be studied and learned.
Lower heaven realms: similar to the best of the best you’d find on earth and more and more of this progessively let go the further up you go in the material heaven realms.
Higher up: more to do with perceptions/ideas about peace and love and letting go.
You might be wondering “what’s up with the snake-deva”. Back at the time of the Buddha there were many Animistic snake cults, and snake beings held a lot of currency at the time, sort of like how Westerner culture seems to like dragons and unicorns and elves and garden gnomes.
To me “heavenly realms” are just another, somehow fancy corner in Samsara, maybe a bit like a fantasy world.
What you describe as your view of “heaven realms”, the quote from MN 26, has something so much more beautiful to it, so much more peaceful and sublime: This is the very path how to transcend Samsara with all it’s heavenly and other realms, whatever sorts we can imagine…
I used to live in a monastery where there was a Thai Mae Chee (a 10-precept nun), and her title was “Sister”.
Likewise at the monastery where I’m currently staying, even layperson women are called “Sister”, not even on 10 precepts. Our layperson office lady here is called “Sister Visaka.” And the laymen introduce themselves as "Brother so-and-so."
So it’s different from monastery to monastery how the title “Sister” is used.
I just refer to this discussion below about this subject. It is interesting how we get certain perceptions and that’s just the point of this exercise (other than that we get some wonderful Doodles!!!)
Bhikkhus, conditioned phenomena are impermanent; conditioned phenomena are unstable; conditioned phenomena are unreliable. It is enough to become disenchanted with all conditioned phenomena, enough to become dispassionate toward them, enough to be liberated from them.
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