All the tears your Kandhas cried in past existences (Dickens included) make up the oceans of the world. Time to do something about it? Great Expectations indeed.
Exactly, there is no indication that the Buddha is addressing stream-enterers, otherwise I suspect the content of the discourse would be different.
OK, I see your point now. Sorry I didnât fully get it earlier. ![]()
Let me ask in return: Why do you eat? Itâs all just hungry aggregates, after all, no hungry self⊠![]()
Suffering matters even if there is no self who suffers. Thatâs also why even enlightened ones still have compassion. Itâs not compassion for some individual self but for suffering itself. Or for mere aggregates, you could say.
And if someone would reply that they eat because suffering of this life does matters, but not that of future lives, then Iâd say they are missing exactly the point the Buddha is making in such suttas on the length of samsara: that we have to consider rebirth to matter. ![]()
The fact that âitâs all just aggregatesâ is exactly why samsara is all just suffering. These are not separate concepts. Seeing that there is only suffering, no self, and hence nothing worth holding on to, the aggregates will get âdisillusioned, dispassionate, and freed regardingâ themselvesâif you want to put it like that.
Thatâs why many suttas indicate that right view leads to disillusionment. For example AN11.2:
If you know and see things in line with reality, you do not have to intend to become disillusioned. It is natural to become disillusioned if you know and see things in line with reality. If you are disillusioned, you do not have to intend to become dispassionate. It is natural to lose become dispassionate if you are disillusioned. If you become dispassionate, you do not have to intend to know and see liberation. It is natural to get to know and see liberation if you lose desire.
Note that here we have the three terms: disillusioned, dispassionate, and liberation/freedom. They are natural results of right view.
Likewise, SN15.3 says that the knowledge that samsara has no discernible beginning âis quite enough for you to become disillusioned, dispassionate, and freed regarding all conditions.â This knowledge about samsara is not something noble ones take on faith from the Buddha. It is a direct understanding they have (see also SN48.50).
So I agree that suttas like SN15.3 are still addressing sotapannas; however, the insight of sotapannas is different from (to paraphrase) âitâs all just aggregates, so suffering in past and future lives doesnât matterâ. ![]()
Thatâs how I understand these suttas. Maybe that helps you as well.
In other suttas, the Buddha also uses some expressions to describe suffering in samsaraâŠ
Perhaps those who have little dust in their eyes can seeâŠ
Do you want me to draw it for you to understand better? it has this expression
A Fingernail
NakhasikhÄsutta
SN 13.1
For someone who has seen the truth, the suffering eliminated is like the great earth; what remains is like the dirt under a fingernail.
A Heap of Bones
Aáčáčhipuñjasutta
Iti 24
In this course of transmigrating, one person would leave behind a heap of bones as large as a mountainâif there were someone to collect the bones and the collection were not destroyed
âIf the bones of a single individual
for a single eon were gathered up,
theyâd make a pile the size of a mountain:
so said the great seer.And this is declared to be
as huge as Mount Vepulla,
higher than the Vultureâs Peak
near the Mountainfold of the Magadhans.
Of course, these suttas contain many other insights; we may be missing something.
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Let me just share my reflections when I reflect on SN 15 as a whole.
If I want to do something to experience certain kinds of happiness in the world, I can reflect that over countless past lives, I had already experienced those types of happiness, is it helping me now? No. Did it end my suffering forever? No. No worth pursuing then. Let it go.
If I want to marry a certain person: âOh, that person is so beautiful, and she proposes to me! What a rare chance!â Then I reflect that over countless past lives, I already married all the beautiful ladies in the world of all sorts of appearance, even differing by just an atom. Thereâs no lasting happiness from marrying such people. Enough. Let it go.
If I want a certain person to be my family, parents, siblings, I just reflect that over many past lives, I already was related to that person in some way or another, why repeat the same pattern again and again, pointless. Let it go.
If a certain family member died, and I wish to reunite with them in the next life, I can just look at some random person I have no emotional connection with and I reflect that that person was my parents/ sibling/ partner etc in a past life, now I have no emotional connection or memory of that person, why be attached to this lifeâs family member? They will also be forgotten.
If I think that I donât suffer enough, I want to experience more suffering, then I just reflect that over countless past lives, I have suffered all sorts of suffering, itâs enough to let go and be disappasionate over this. Enough is enough, no point in doing anything other than walking the path to liberation.
This is how SN15 is to be reflected upon to motivate one to walk the path.
Outstanding postâvery down to earth, very accessible. This ^^ is another thing I like about Buddhism. Itâs not giving up pleasure/attachment because someone in a big chair mandates it, instead itâs recognizing the actual drawbacks with clear vision.
I started a reply to the OP yesterday, but discarded because I suspect most will not follow my reasoning. Here it is anywayâŠ
There was a post a while back which asks a seemingly different question. @Ravi was asking why bother about the fruits of good karma as he wonât know future lives. @levelquest is asking why bother about suffering in past lives. To me theyâre somewhat the same question because both can be reformatted as âWhy bother about non-equanimity in the non-present life?â.
One more.
I am a virgin in this life. Maybe the pull of sexual curiousity is very strong. Like some people doesnât want to die a virgin. Or some people doesnât want to ordain as a virgin. Then I just need to reflect that over countless past lives, I already had all sorts of sex in all sorts of manner with all sorts of partners or even non-partners, in any number.
If I want to re-experience that, then just meditate to get the ability to recall past lives, then recall those sexual episodes. Thatâs better than obsessing over sex in this life, so much trouble from sex, having to get married, cannot be a celibate monastic etc.
This is a variant of Buddha using heavenly nymphs to motivate Ven. Nanda.
Iâd suggest two things that may help in finding whatâs missing.
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Reflect and meditate on dependent origination. âThis being, that becomes. With the arising of this, that arises. This not being, that does not become. With the cessation of this, that ceases.â As well as the standard formula. Train the mind to see all phenomena in terms of dependent origination instead of in terms of I/me/mine/myself.
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Cultivate the brahmaviharas along the lines the suttas instruct. As they develop in this way, the barriers between self and other begin to break down.
They meditate spreading a heart full of love to one direction, and to the second, and to the third, and to the fourth. In the same way above, below, across, everywhere, all around, they spread a heart full of love to the whole worldâabundant, expansive, limitless, free of enmity and ill will.
-AN 3.65