If you are concerned with results, the view is the most important and not ones intention, plan, will.
Ofcourse we all know this. Good intentions can have very bad results.
So, one can say, if concerned with the welfare of yourself, others and the world, just having good intention is not enough. In a worldly sense we all this, right?
In AN1.319 Buddha talks very lowly and critical about another teacher, Makkhali, who had, according a note the wrong view that beings are without energy and any power to change. According Makkhali there would also be no cause for becoming defiled and purified. (Bodhi, AN, note 175)
The purpose of the dhamma isnât to stop death, or to stop killing, or to stop other people/beings from suffering, which is impossible.
The purpose is to attain peace of mind by escaping samsara, not trying to fix samsara, which is impossible.
The traditional Theravadan interpretation is to escape samsara by stopping rebirth. The more EBT interpretation is to escape samsara by stopping the 3 poisons from manifesting here and now.
In EBT, itâs âvirtue leading to concentrationâ, not âvirtue to stop all deathâ, i.e. the purpose of virtue is to attain concentration. In other words, your actions shouldnât cause your mind to stir up emotions and thoughts that would distract you from attaining jhana. Jhana is happiness here and now, and nibbana is peace here and now.
Furthermore, the mind is disturbed by conceptual relationships, when a mother dies itâs not the death of protein, water, and fat that is her body that saddens you, itâs the concept âmy motherâ. Itâs not the death of a strangerâs mother that saddens you, itâs âmyâ mother. So emotional disturbance is connected to conceit.
How can someone be at peace if theyâre trying to stop the unstoppable, death? They would never be at ease, and anxiety would only grow.
The best pupil is one who is also concerned with others well-being, say EBT. This has nothing to do with fixing samsara. But with wisdom and sensitivity.
Ofcourse one is not totally unable to stop the suffering of others. We can make a difference. For example, if i act immoral, others will grow in distrust and will suffer from that. If i act moral, do not kill, lie, steal, abuse, other beings can relax and feel less suffering.
Furthermore, the idea that the Buddha cannot be emotionally disturbed anymore is, maybe, just a myth, an idea, an ideal, imagery. What do we know about it?
The texts present a Buddha who is, i believe, so passionate about truth, wrong and right views, wrong and right practices that he even calls people fools. The texts also say the Buddha forsaw that it would be wearisome to teach Dhamma, while he forsaw that he was not being understood. That also illustrates, i feel, the Buddha is not some death piece of wood, unimpressible and without any psychological need or always at peace. He must at least felt the need to be understood and feel the burdenof not being understood. I think he also had preferences, for example, for silent Sangha and places.
I think this is obvious in conduct of any true disciple of buddha. These things you mentioned above are actually part of noble eightfold path. What sir thito has talked about is I suppose is about âafterâ doing all the above things(that is after trying all the possible things)âŠwhich are already listed as requirements for someone on the path to attain nibbana.
Off course he is not emotionally disturbed by anything. Lord Buddha is not someone who works for others because he gets emotionally disturbed by problems in the world. Itâs his compassion. I donât think being âemotionally disturbedâ is even a possibility for buddhaâŠbecause compassion can be there devoid of emotional disturbance.
I am sure everyone believes the same. Sir(I donât know your intention) but I think above statement is mixing up many contradictory things here. It is ordinary being who has psychological need. Not someone who is liberated, who is arhat. Yes buddha is compassionate beyond comprehension, and it is proven with the fact that⊠Siddharth Gautama was not the last buddhaâŠthere will be future Samma-sambuddhas as well.
I donât remember which sutta, but I am confident that, in that it is said that, if we think that buddha has thought in his mind that he is liberating other beings, then we are wrong. There is no such thought in his mind. Instead we are right if we say, one is actually understanding only that much which he/she is able to understand out of things which he is teaching. Buddha was lokavidu(knower of world), vijna-charana-sampanna(perfect in knowledge and conduct)âŠso its not his preferences or choices that makes difference, itâs us actually, itâs our preferences and choices which make us either understand his teachings or misunderstand his teachings. Somewhere in certain sutta buddha says that, its not him who argues with world itâs world which argues with him.
Yes he had preferences but it was there as a cause of wellbeing of someone/manyonesâŠbut it was not there as some kind of burdon.
In Mahayana tradition they say that buddha is so compassionate that his compassionate activities are always going on in incomprehensible way. Now hereâs catchâŠthis is hard to understand. (Only for the sake of understanding here I am citing this reference)
The identity of Gautama, Siddhartha who became Samma-sambuddha, that identity has attained parinibbana but compassionate activity of tathagata is always going on(proof is that there are future Buddhas as well) and it is not due to any psychological need because psychological need is one type of affliction from which arhats are freeâŠhence it is pure compassionate activity which has liberating nature.
And buddha is not someone who needs to be someone or to be any being in order to carry out this compassionate activityâŠin other words⊠Siddhartha Gautama Buddha need not arise again, because there is maitreya the future buddhaâŠwho will continue this activity.
I remember a series of suttas that he says he doesnât deal with âtruthâ but only stopping suffering. That means his truth isnât a metaphysical truth, itâs the truth relative to stopping suffering, a soteriological truth based on subjective/phenomological experience. Thus even the path and right view is fabricated, for the purpose of stopping suffering for oneself.
I believe Sutta Nipata 4.5 touches on this
He who still abides by a dogmatic view, considering it as the highest in the world, thinking âthis is the most excellentâ and disparaging other views as inferior, is still considered not to be free from disputes.
When seeing, hearing, or sensing something and considering it as the only thing that can bring comfort and advantage to self, one is always inclined to get caught in it and rule out everything else as inferior.
Caught in oneâs view and considering all other views as inferiorâthis attitude is considered by the wise as bondage, as the absence of freedom. A good practitioner is never too quick to believe what is seen, heard, and sensed, including rules and rites.
A good practitioner has no need to set up a new theory for the world, using the knowledge he has picked up or the rules and rites he is practicing. He does not consider himself as âsuperiorâ, âinferiorâ, or âequalâ to anyone.
A good practitioner abandons the notion of self and the tendency to cling to views. He is free and does not depend on anything, even on knowledge. He does not take sides in controversies and does not hold on to any view or dogma.
He does not seek for anything or cling to anything, either this extreme or the other extreme, either in this world or in the other world. He has abandoned all views and no longer has the need to seek for comfort or refuge in any theory or ideology.
To the wise person, there are no longer any views concerning what is seen, heard, or sensed. How could one judge or have an opinion concerning such a pure being who has let go of all views?
A wise person no longer feels the need to set up dogmas or choosing an ideology. All dogmas and ideologies have been abandoned by such a person. A real noble one is never caught in rules or rites. He or she is advancing steadfastly to the shore of liberation and will never return to the realm of bondage.
In other words, donât believe anything that you donât know for yourself. If accidentally killing bugs causes suffering for you, then that is your own personal experience and thereâs no need to extrapolate it into a theory for others to follow, as that would only bring more stress.
I remember another sutta where the Buddha meets a person who has no beliefs, and praises him, and tells him to follow through with that until the end.
In short, the dhamma isnât about objective truth, itâs about subjective/phenomenological truth, seeing for yourself what reduces stress and makes you happy.
Did i do this? No. I only reflected upon the questions:
Can you really say that you kill insects accidently when you choice to drive a car and when you know as a result of that choice many insects will be killed? I feel one fools oneself to pretent one is blameless.
If you work in the garden, and you know that working in the garden also causes stress to other beings, can you really say you do not choose for causing disstress to other beings?
If you buy meat, and even when you have not killed the animal yourself, are you really blameless, totally uninvolved in harming the animal?
If you buy some article of which you know that people are abused while producing it, or the environment is really poluted, are you innocent and blameless?
Such were the questions i raised and i never ever said that accidental killing is to blame.
My conclusion is that in all above cases one is not blameless. I do not feel that way.
I personally have seen that anyone who is really concerned with the welfare of other beings,
will automatically search for true knowledge. Because otherwise one is clueless how to help others.
One needs knowledge, insight in how things work in life. Good intent is not enough.
Also when one wants to escape samsara one needs knowledge about its workings.
Please be careful, the suttaâs (in MN) clearly state that as a fact there is kamma and fruit of kamma, as a fact there is an afterlife, as a fact there is rebirth, etc. I feel, Buddhaâs teachings are based on an objective reality as inâŠthis is how things work in life. I feel, one cannot reduce Buddha-Dhamma to a mere Phenomenology.
About this and psychological need. How do you understand these fragments in that light?
MN75, words of the Buddha: "Magandiya, suppose there was a man born blind who could not see dark and light formsâŠor the sun and moon. Then his friends and companions, his kinsmen and relatives, would bring a physician to treat him. The physician would make a medicine for him, yet by means of that medicine the manâs vision would not arise or be purified. What do you think, Magandiya, would that doctor reap weariness and disappointment?" - âYes, Master Gotama.â - âSo too, Magandiya, if I were to teach you the Dhamma thus: âThis is that health, this is that Nibbana,â you might not know health or see Nibbana, and that would be wearisome and troublesome for me.â
And,
MN125: Words of Aggivessana, called a master: "I cannot teach you the Dhamma, prince, as I have heard it and mastered it. For if I were to teach you the Dhamma as I have heard it and mastered it, you would not understand the meaning of my words, and that would be wearying and troublesome for me."
MN26, words of the Buddha: âThis Dhamma that I have attained is profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experienced by the wise.But this generation delights in worldliness, takes delight in worldliness, rejoices in worldliness. It is hard for such a generation to see this truth, namely, specific conditionality, dependent origination. And it is hard to see this truth, namely, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all attachments, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, Nibbana. If I were to teach the Dhamma, others would not understand me, and that would be wearying and troublesome for me.â
Yes, that is mundane right view, which is not unique to the Buddha Dhamma. But the kamma vipaka of Supermundane right view is that improper attention results in improper action, which results in suffering. The kamma of Supermundane right view has the 5 hindrances and dukkha as its vipaka.
To see what is and isnât improper attention read mn2
âMendicants, I say that the ending of defilements is for one who knows and sees, not for one who does not know or see. For one who knows and sees what? Proper attention and improper attention. When you pay improper attention, defilements arise, and once arisen they grow. When you pay proper attention, defilements donât arise, and those that have already arisen are given up.
Some defilements should be given up by seeing, some by restraint, some by using, some by enduring, some by avoiding, some by dispelling, and some by developing.
So from the ariyan perspective kamma results in increase of defilements (i.e. emotional disturbance), here and now.
The Buddha says multiple times, he is only concerned with suffering and the ending of suffering.
âBhikkhus, both formerly and now what I teach is suffering and the cessation of suffering. If others abuse, revile, scold, and harass the TathÄgata for that, the TathÄgata on that account feels no annoyance, bitterness, or dejection of the heart. And if others honour, respect, revere, and venerate the TathÄgata for that, the TathÄgata on that account feels no delight, joy, or elation of the heart. If others honour, respect, revere, and venerate the TathÄgata for that, the TathÄgata on that account thinks thus: âThey perform such services as these for me in regard to this which earlier was fully understood.â
MN 22
The Buddha does not seem to care if you understand him or praise him or not. Heâs teaching you how to remove a splinter from your heart, the reward and punishment (vipaka) is purely your own. If you donât understand, you still have the splinter, and if you do understand, you will feel better. Both consequences (kamma-vipaka) are your own, and not his. Heâs already escaped samsara and removed the splinter, what difference does it make to him if you want to suffer or not. Itâs irrelevant to him if you understand the universe or not, so heâs not teaching about the universe. Heâs teaching you how to stop suffering for yourself, not for himself and not to save the world or fix samsara.
Edit:
That could also mean that he doesnât want to engage in pointless discussion and arguments with people and only wants to teach the dhamma to those capable of understanding it. Thereâs a sutta where he states not everyone is capable of accepting or understanding the dhamma. So he may see it as a wasted effort that has no upsides. In other words, he only wants to teach the dhamma to those who can understand it. He knows who can understand the dhamma, like suppabuddha the leper, or the prince who he waited for outside his castle. He uses his psychic powers to survey who can understand him. Maybe he doesnât even appear to people who are incapable of understanding him.
Then the Blessed One, having understood Brahmaâs invitation, out of compassion for beings, surveyed the world with the eye of an Awakened One. As he did so, he saw beings with little dust in their eyes and those with much, those with keen faculties and those with dull, those with good attributes and those with bad, those easy to teach and those hard, some of them seeing disgrace and danger in the other world. Just as in a pond of blue or red or white lotuses, some lotuses â born and growing in the water â might flourish while immersed in the water, without rising up from the water; some might stand at an even level with the water; while some might rise up from the water and stand without being smeared by the water â so too, surveying the world with the eye of an Awakened One, the Blessed One saw beings with little dust in their eyes and those with much, those with keen faculties and those with dull, those with good attributes and those with bad, those easy to teach and those hard, some of them seeing disgrace and danger in the other world.
Originally he didnât want to teach the dhamma until Brahma Sahampatti begged him, so now he uses his psychic powers to know who to teach. Thatâs being pragmatic.
@Thito, i know you study the EBT, and i do too, but i make other judgements, other interpretations, do not come to the same conclusion like you. If you can respect this, we can discuss respectfully, maybe.
Are you sure that all Buddha said about samsara, how this works, all those different states, their impermanence etc. was allready known in the times before and during the Buddha? Or did he teach sometimes unknown and unique? I have seen teachers had very different ideas then the Buddha.
The reality is, we have accumulated many bad kamma, and like the Buddha says ,as it really is, for most people doing good costs a lot of effort, and doing bad hardly any effort. I recognise this.
So, our thinking, our speech, our deeds all tend naturally to become corrupted. That is reality. We need merit, we need effort, we need to develop good habits to withstand these wrong Path the mind takes otherwise we will naturally only create more bad kamma. Our lives become more balanced when we accumulate merit and do good. We must work with these circumstances.
I think a lot of people have Jain beliefs and think theyâre Buddhist beliefs.
The Buddha would ask you, if you knew for yourself what bad kamma you did in the past, that you have âaccumulatedâ. The Buddha does not expect you to act on things you donât know for yourself, as that would be dogma and ritualism.
Thereâs a sutta where the Buddha talks to jains who stand still all day believing they have to burn off old kamma, and he purposely goes against this and tells them that his teachings arenât about the past but about here and now
The Blessed One said, "Monks, there are some brahmans & contemplatives who teach in this way, who have this view: âWhatever a person experiences â pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain â all is caused by what was done in the past. Thus, with the destruction of old actions through asceticism, and with the non-doing of new actions, there will be no flow into the future. With no flow into the future, there is the ending of action. With the ending of action, the ending of stress. With the ending of stress, the ending of feeling. With the ending of feeling, all suffering & stress will be exhausted.â Such is the teaching of the Niganthas.
"Going to Niganthas who teach in this way, I have asked them, âIs it true, friend Niganthas, that you teach in this way, that you have this view: âWhatever a person experiences â pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain â all is caused by what was done in the past. Thus, with the destruction of old actions through asceticism, and with the non-doing of new actions, there will be no flow into the future. With no flow into the future, there is the ending of action. With the ending of action, the ending of stress. With the ending of stress, the ending of feeling. With the ending of feeling, all suffering & stress will be exhaustedâ?â
"Having been asked this by me, the Niganthas admitted it, âYes.â
"So I said to them, âBut friends, do you know that you existed in the past, and that you did not not exist?â
"âNo, friend.â
"âAnd do you know that you did evil actions in the past, and that you did not not do them?â
"âNo, friend.â
"âAnd do you know that you did such-and-such evil actions in the past?â
"âNo, friend.â
"âAnd do you know that so-and-so much stress has been exhausted, or that so-and-so much stress remains to be exhausted, or that with the exhaustion of so-and-so much stress all stress will be exhausted?â
"âNo, friend.â
"âBut do you know what is the abandoning of unskillful mental qualities and the attainment of skillful mental qualities in the here-&-now?â
"âNo, friend.â
"'So, friends, it seems that you donât know that you existed in the past, and that you did not not exist⊠you donât know what is the abandoning of unskillful mental qualities and the attainment of skillful mental qualities in the here-&-now. That being the case, it is not proper for you to assert that, âWhatever a person experiences â pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain â all is caused by what was done in the past. Thus, with the destruction of old actions through asceticism, and with the non-doing of new actions, there will be no flow into the future. With no flow into the future, there is the ending of action. With the ending of action, the ending of stress. With the ending of stress, the ending of feeling. With the ending of feeling, all suffering & stress will be exhausted.â
"'If, however, you knew that you existed in the past, and that you did not not exist; if you knew that you did evil actions in the past, and that you did not not do them; if you knew that you did such-and-such evil actions in the past; you donât know that so-and-so much stress has been exhausted, or that so-and-so much stress remains to be exhausted, or that with the exhaustion of so-and-so much stress all stress will be exhausted; if you knew what is the abandoning of unskillful mental qualities and the attainment of skillful mental qualities in the here-&-now, then â that being the case â it would be proper for you to assert that, âWhatever a person experiences â pleasure, pain, or neither pleasure nor pain â all is caused by what was done in the past. Thus, with the destruction of old actions through asceticism, and with the non-doing of new actions, there will be no flow into the future. With no flow into the future, there is the ending of action. With the ending of action, the ending of stress. With the ending of stress, the ending of feeling. With the ending of feeling, all suffering & stress will be exhausted.â
That last paragraph is important, he basically telling him, if you did in fact have psychic powers or amazing memory then you would not be acting dogmatically and ritualistically and having views that were ritualistic and dogmatic.
The Buddhaâs teaching is not dogmatic, it is verifiable for oneself here and now, here he says the same to someone who tells him he has no psychic powers, why should he believe the Buddha, and the Buddha asserts that the dhamma doesnât require psychic powers, itâs verifiable here and now visibile for anyone to see who is eager to see.
Well sir, I canât even recall with features and details what Iâve undergone in this incarnation. How should I possibly recollect my many kinds of past lives with features and details, like the Buddha? For I canât even see a mud-goblin right now. How should I possibly, with clairvoyance that is purified and superhuman, see sentient beings passing away and being reborn, like the Buddha? But then the Buddha told me, âNevertheless, UdÄyÄ«, leave aside the past and the future. I shall teach you the Dhamma:
âWhen this exists, that is; due to the arising of this, that arises. When this doesnât exist, that is not; due to the cessation of this, that ceases.ââ
MN 79
In other words mundane right view is not visible here and now, but Supermundane right view is, one merely needs to be aware of the 5 hindrances and 3 poisons.
ââThe Dhamma is visible here-&-now, the Dhamma is visible here-&-now,â it is said. To what extent is the Dhamma visible here-&-now, timeless, inviting verification, pertinent, to be realized by the wise for themselves?â
âVery well, then, Sivaka, I will ask you a question in return. Answer as you see fit. What do you think: When greed is present within you, do you discern that âGreed is present within meâ? And when greed is not present within you, do you discern that âGreed is not present within meâ?â
âYes, lord.â
"The fact that when greed is present within you, you discern that greed is present within you; and when greed is not present within you, you discern that greed is not present within you: that is one way in which the Dhamma is visible in the here-&-now, timeless, inviting verification, pertinent, to be realized by the wise for themselves.
Kamma most of the time just refers to the volition potential that you have accumualed over many lifes. This potential is like seed. It represents the potential to do good and bad. We all have such seeds. If, for example, anger arises and you act upon that anger, you feed the potential to become angry. When you feed this angry vinnana, and this kamma seed becomes stronger and stronger, you will notice this in the sense that you become very easily angry. A kamma seed is in fact a vinnana with a certain energy. Making that specific vinnana strong, is the same as accumulating kamma. It is not some dark principle .
To understand ourselves we need, at least, to believe in the results of actions in former lives which have shaped our body and mind. We are not born as tabula rasa. I think this is also why the Buddha sees the body as old kamma.
Buddha was very subtle on this point. He teaches that kamma, if ripening, must be beared, and by bearing it wears away. But he does not teach, like Jains, that we engage in austere practices to destroy old bad kamma. In the end the destruction of kamma comes with the destruction of tanha.
To some degree. There are many suttaâs that teach that practicing Dhamma can be difficult and one can suffer from controlling strong anger, greed, and delusion. But Buddha seemed to have taught that although there are present painful results by controlling anger etc, the future will be pleasurable.
One cannot say that all is immediately verifiable here and now.
This is your personal conclusion. I know others teach one must first have mundane right views, like believing in rebirth and kamma, to even enter the noble Path. If one has no mundane right view of the Buddha, such as faith in rebirth and kamma, one has probably only the perspective of this one life. One is at that moment clueless what suffering means in Buddha-Dhamma. For example, the first noble truth is not about humans only. Buddha describes the truth of suffering for all beings.
The idea of endless births etc is also mundane view.
I never said it was easy, so I donât see the relevance. I said it was not dogmatic, and it is verifiable for oneself, nowhere there did I make a statement about easy or hard.
Itâs not my personal conclusion, itâs in the suttas. Only Supermundane view is a factor of the path according to the great forty sutta. Thereâs also another sutta that says someone who has right view need not wish to have good virtue, itâs only natural that they do.
What I take this to mean is that being aware of the 5 hindrances and 3 poisons (i.e. Supermundane right view) and stopping them from arising naturally stops bad kamma so it covers the mundane view. One doesnât need psychic powers or to believe in things they canât confirm if one is acting wholesome. This is a form of pascal wagers which you see in the suttas all the time, like the Buddha saying something along the lines of âif there is a God, then thereâs nothing Iâve done to upset him, and if there is no God, I still havenât done anything bad so thereâs nothing to worry aboutâ.
In other words, someone who is good here and now need not worry about the future, their bases are covered. Thatâs the point the Buddha was making to the Jains, not some theory about seeds. That one doesnât need psychic powers to know their past if one is good here and now:
But do you know what is the abandoning of unskillful mental qualities and the attainment of skillful mental qualities in the here-&-now?â
He also says âlet the past stay in the past, and the future has not yet comeâ meaning you donât need to be a fortune teller or a historian, just learn to be good here and now, and you know how to do that by being aware of the 3 poisons
As they sat there, the Kalamas of Kesaputta said to the Blessed One, âLord, there are some brahmans & contemplatives who come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. And then other brahmans & contemplatives come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. They leave us absolutely uncertain & in doubt: Which of these venerable brahmans & contemplatives are speaking the truth, and which ones are lying?â
"Of course you are uncertain, Kalamas. Of course you are in doubt. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born. So in this case, Kalamas, donât go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, âThis contemplative is our teacher.â When you know for yourselves that, âThese qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to sufferingâ â then you should abandon them.
He is even saying in that last paragraph not to simply follow him because heâs your teacher but to know and see for yourself what qualities are skillful.
He then teaches them about the 3 poisons and how they lead to breaking the precepts
And this deluded person, overcome by delusion, his mind possessed by delusion, kills living beings, takes what is not given, goes after another personâs wife, tells lies, and induces others to do likewise, all of which is for long-term harm & suffering."
So thereâs your proof, that being aware of the 3 poisons and 5 hindrances automatically handles the virtue portion of the path, no mundane view is needed. This is also repeated in the samma ditthi sutta.
It is hard to discuss things, i feel, when reading same texts and still making very different choices.
I see we make very different choices.
Personally i feel one must have some bigger picture, a bigger view on life, even to be able to judge what is wholesome and unwholesome in the long run but also to understand the four noble truths.
Doing good here and now, does not mean at all in Buddha-Dhamma one will have a great life here and now nor in the future. This is explained in MN136. It is nonsense that one is safe then. One only reduced the change to be born in a low realm, but there is no guarantee, because one has many seeds that can give birth to lower realms.
This is not at all in line with the majority of texts. Only a noble is safe, but any other being doing good will probably be born after death in some heaven. And after dying there again spend endless lives in lower realms suffering.
It is not Buddhaâs message that by doing good here and now, one is safe and does not have to worry about the future.
Yes, there is, because not worshipping God is the biggest sin according Christians, and Buddha says it is a base art to worship a socalled Creator, Father, Allmighty, Ruler (MahaBrahma, DN1). He even explains this being is deluded. A lot of Christians and Muslims also believe all what happens is Gods plan or will. Buddha has critique on this idea, because it makes people inactive, which is also true i believe. God is also often seen as an eternal being. Also that kind of personal existence the Buddha rejects.
Yes, if there is really this God mainstream Christians believe in, Buddha lived in sinn all the time, and must be in great problems now.
Ofcourse we have to abandon defilements which arise here and now and not accumulate more bad kamma. More fuel for future sufferings.
To be honest your replies are, for me, often quit overwhelming.
Maybe you do not see mundane right views, right intentions etc. as buddha-dhamma and path, but i do. Many teachings of the Buddha are about this mundane path, which is related to merit.
I do not see it this way that only the supramundana path is buddha-dhamma. But i believe that path is about ending kamma and samsara. I think it is good to see the difference.
Regarding mundane views: I think it is not very common that people have no mundane views at all while thinking, speaking, acting, living, making chooses. Probably that does not happen. Even when we buy an icecream there is a view. A view of becomign happy, a view of rewarding oneself, or something like that. Without such a view one does not buy icecream.
Likewise, one can say one has no thoughts about rebirth, nor thoughts about not-rebirth, or one has an agnostic view about rebirth, but probably that just means that in practice one makes decisions and acts and lives like there is no rebirth, there are no lower realms, there is no kamma ad vipaka etc.
None of my decisions have anything to do with the universe or metaphysics.
My decisions come purely from this axiom:
âWill this action increase or decrease pain for me (or another person if theyâre involved)â
Whether there is rebirth, there is gods, heaven/hell, etc⊠is completely irrelevant.
As I told another user, 20 years ago I started âdeprogrammingâ myself of beliefs and removed beliefs and reexamined other beliefs. Like say the word âloveâ what does it really mean? and who loves you the most, so usually itâs your parents, so love canât be something sexual, thatâs lust, so love isnât lust. Then, I thought about the type of love parents have for their children, and itâs unconditional, without condition. That means no matter what happens, the parents still love the child, so that means it canât be âboughtâ or âearnedâ, so itâs not tradeable, itâs not something that can be bartered or sold or manipulated. Then I realized that parents are willing to die for their kids, so then I figured out what is love: love is giving up your own pleasure to prevent someone elses pain. A parent will give up pleasure, like watching TV, to be with their kid in the hospital or to help their kid, thatâs love.
Now if you love yourself, you will give up your own pleasure to prevent your own pain. That means you canât do drugs or eat junk food or anything unwholesome because to be unwholesome is to have more pleasure for more pain, but to be wholesome is to give up pleasure to have less pain. That means eating one meal a day if it makes you healthier and have less pain. That means have right speech, and right action, and not doing unwholesome things that are fun but cause more pain later.
To love yourself is to sacrifice pleasure to prevent pain.
And thatâs all I need to navigate the world, is to love myself enough to reduce and prevent my own pain. I donât need any ideology or mundane view.
If your parents love you enough to sacrifice their own life and pleasure for you, then the least you could do is honour your parents by continuing to have the same love for yourself they had for you.
Interesting, thanks for sharing. I have had some experiences which have led me to find trust in Buddhaâs worldview of rebirth and other beings than only animals and humans. So, for me it is not irrelevant.
I also have for myself concluded that if i am really concerned with my own well-being and that of others , and really want to be of help, than i really must understand how this world works. Otherwise i am blind. Maybe we have different opinions about this.
About pleasure. I still need it to be honest. Life would become very painful without pleasure, unbearable. If it is the pleasure that some meal, music, nature provides, or having a great friendship, contact, i very much need it to honest. Without it my life becomes unbearable, only stress.
This does not mean that i do not see the wisdom in your words. But i am not ready for this.
I have made some progress, i think, but i have not given up kama tanha.
I think you describe insight in the second noble truth. I think that is all about pleasure. Not only kama tanha but also vibhava and bhava tanha. Vibhava tanha one aims and sees pleasure in becoming non-existent. Bhava tanha means you see pleasure in continued existence. So, i believe that your statement:
is, i feel the second noble truth in other words.
We had some hot days in the Netherlands. What i noticed, again, all my concerns about being comfortable, having a cooled house, a pleasurable time are more burdensome than the heat itself. All that concern for your own pleasure and comfort is indeed painful.
Now, when you think these eight thoughts of a great person and become a person who can attain at will, without trouble or difficulty, these four jhanas â heightened mental states providing a pleasant abiding in the here & now â then your robe of cast-off rags will seem to you to be just like the clothes chest of a householder or householderâs son, full of clothes of many colors. As you live contented, it will serve for your delight, for a comfortable abiding, for non-agitation, & for alighting on Unbinding.
âŠ
your meal of almsfood will seem to you to be just like the rice & wheat of a householder or householderâs son, cleaned of black grains, and served with a variety of sauces & seasonings⊠your dwelling at the foot of a tree will seem to you to be just like the gabled mansion of a householder or householderâs son, plastered inside & out, draft-free, bolted, and with its shutters closed⊠your bed on a spread of grass will seem to you like the couch of a householder or householderâs son, spread with long-haired coverlets, white woolen coverlets, embroidered coverlets, antelope-hide & deer-skin rugs, covered with a canopy, and with red cushions for the head & feetâŠ
I believe there are jhanas that are volitionally produced, temporary. In a sense they are forced by the combination of applying will and concentration. Because of this combination hindrances are temporary suppressed in the mind. These states are described as the 8 jhana in the suttaâs. One enters them and leaves them. They are voltionally produced the sutta say, truthfully.
Another kind of jhana is structural and needs no volition and effort. It is the result of the uprooting of defilements. Defilements are not forcefully supressed by will and concentration, but do not arise anymore because they are uprooted.
The first kind of jhana, called anariya jhana, can be an escape from suffering temporary and serve for a comfortable abiding here and now. But while these jhana state ends, one will suffer again because nothing has really changed. Hindrances come back, defilements.
Supressing defilement is not really the aim of Buddha-Dhamma. Supressing is the nature of anariya jhana while ariya jhana is about a purified mind who feels the constant ease of the absence of hindrances, defilements.
It is not the case that if one is able to enter jhana, one is without defilements or must be at least ariya. Not at all. The 8 anariya jhana was according some known before the Buddha and are all mundane in the Buddha-Dhamma. The kamma of those jhana is meritorious, very strong too, and leads to rebirth in higher realms. It is does not lead to the end of suffering.
Yes, and that is not the same as 8 anariya jhana. There are many people who are able to enter jhana but their mind is not purified. When they leave jhana, after a while they glow from defilements again.
