The other way to final Nibbāna according to the suttas

Discussion
101

Well, if reading the suttas and only having concepts about the formless realms it is quite logical to make the assumption that during the destruction of the lower realms all the insects end up there……somehow. :wink:

There are of course still ”form beings” left when a universe contracts (”most are heading for the luminous form realms”). Who knew the brahma gods are so benevolent to even put the insects in the dimensions above their own that has even more bliss than their own luminous form realms. :wink:

Bliss is the goal, since contrary to the greedy relishing of perceptions/feelings in arupa loka there is a greater bliss, one that the Buddha called the highest bliss.
Not relishing, until nothing is felt. :wink:

If someone with evil intentions can’t make it pass the first jhana which corresponds with the first luminous form realm - how then can insects end up in the formless by their own effort, if it now isn’t the brahma gods placing them there?

Regarding point 4. Quite the opposite according to the Buddha, a deva is more likely to end up in the lower realms below humans but it is very unlikely an insect will have rebirth as a deva.

So if the rebirth from insect to deva is very unlikely according to the Buddha how can these insects all of a sudden have rebirth in the highest dimensions beyond both kama loka and rupa loka? :wink:

102

Dont agree with this, sorry :slight_smile:

103

Brahma gods don’t regulate rebirth this way

104

My understanding is that the Buddha specifically states that a higher rebirth is NOT the goal. He might suggest that if you are going to stick with the birth/rebirth cycle then a good rebirth is better than a bad one, but he wasnt teaching to help people reach a good rebirth, he was teaching to end it

105

Are you saying that if someone has no experience of these realms they can’t make assumptions regarding these realms based on their concepts?

Isn’t that what many are doing in this thread when they flat out say:

The insects will end up in arupa loka, problem solved. :wink:

This is based on a certain logic.

106

Nobody ends up in the formless real except through their own past efforts, but you are probably right that it would be exceedingly rare to go from hell to a formless realm…I’m just saying I dont know that it is imposible

107

My point here is that the concept of good and bad beings is a construct IMHO. We are all good and bad as we are all ignorant. Its just that the proximate experience is reasonably explained by the karmic forces…but we have all experienced all the different forms of existence, hell, insects, animals, human, lower deva realms and higher deva realms and fall back and elevate and fall back and elevate on and on and on…there are not “good” and “bad” beings that always hang around the good places or the bad places

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108

I know, there are various hells, various animal rebirths or as a hungry ghost instead.

Hell is in all other religions, Yama and his attendants called Yamadutta make sure the evil intentions in beings go away.

Surely Yama got his position from the brahma gods.
The brahma gods have a major role in rebirth.

Are you saying a being felt so much guilt that he or she decided to punish themselves and became a hedgehog, or an giraffe or an octopus? All on their own?

109

Kinda…

Although I wouldn’t put it that way myself! The Buddha’s teaching is (as I understand it) that you are the Master of your existence. Living a life of sila will result in the according effects, living a life of greed hatred and delusion will result in the according effects. “The mind is the forerunner” as the 1st line of the Dhammapada. The Buddha rejected the views of the Yogis at the time (i.e., what we might now call Hinduism) that the Higher beings have a role in all of this…in Buddhism the higher beings are just as much “victims” of this rebirth process as the rest of us (as we WERE those beings in the past and those beings are going right back to hell at some stage in the future, unless the follow the path to extinguishment

110

So since a disciple of the Buddha, Mahā Moggallāna was Mara in a previous existence in the long run there is no good or evil? Last time I checked Moggallāna as Mara ended up in hell with the head of an fish… :wink: I think Mahā Moggallāna learned his lesson and started refraining from doing evil after experiencing hell.

So you see, hell serves a purpose for good! :+1:

Sorry I reject the ”law of karma” or ”karmic forces” 100% - the suttas go against there even being such a law. Kamma only has to do with rebirth: If you are a human and mess up, you end up in a lower non-human rebirth.
If you do kinda good or very good, you come back as a human or as a deva. That is kamma to me.

Regardless of how good ones intentions are and how ethical one is there are still fools out there that would still steal from one, lie to you or even kill you.
Where’s the ”karmic forces” in that?

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111

OK, I think all of this discussion is making much more sense to me now! We are talking from very different starting points here.

You believe higher beings run the rebirth process and are good
You dont believe in karma other than determining rebirth

I dont believe in “good” or “evil”, just cause and effect. If there is a volitional action x, there immediatly comes into existence a karma-vipaka conequence x. You can say x is good or bad, thats fine and makes discussion much easier, but IMO x just is. If cause x results in effect x and you want effect x then you should do cause x. You dont need to do the next thing of labelling x as “good” but go ahead if you want as I accept that makes it easier to have these discussions. The only problem with that is that we then consider that value judgement label as some form of absolute reality.

Also, in the Buddha’s teaching as I understand it, the moment of rebirth is not that different from the moment after this one during this very life…thats a very different view to ALL other religions and also different to the atheist view.

If I murder someone, my mind is disturbed immediately. I don’t need to wait for my death to “see” the effects of that mind state. Evidence? When soldiers come back from war do they go about their lives happily and at peace exactly as they were before they went to war, or do they experience PTSD? The mind state is constantly being moulded…

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112

Yes, without a Buddha showing up every single being in all realms of existence will have rebirth over rebirth.

Only a Buddha reaches the highest state and can see and teach about anicca, dukkha & anatta.

I now take it that you by ”extinguishment”
mean that ending all the defilements
equals ”cessation/annihilation”?

113

Not exactly, any enlightened being ceases rebirth: Buddhas (there have been and will be many); Pacceka Buddhas (who knows how many); Arahants

114

All enlightened beings can teach, but they might not, a Buddha that teaches is called a Sammasambuddha as against a Pacceka Buddha (they dont teach)

115

cessation and annihilation of ignorance… things (i.e., like us) don’t vanish they just follow the cause and effect laws before and after enlightenment, which is why enlightenment doesn’t make you disappear in a puff of smoke.

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116

Well Yama is also in the old egyptian religion as Osiris, let us just say there are beings that do punish killers, theives, liars, rapists and so on.

My kamma, my intentions have no effect on a fool, this fool would still rob me or kill me. That is why kamma has to do with intentions and deliberate actions. If someone hits me with their car unintentionally it is neither the drivers or my kamma to actually even have the experience in the first place. It did happen, but not due to some ”mystical karmic force” in the universe.

So in that sense I reject the law of karma.

But if Yama is already in other religions under different names but with the same role the death of an buddhist is no different than any other person…

Yes most are disturbed by commiting evil like the soldiers you mentioned. Others can do the most vile evil things to innocent people and still be ”happy” and not care about the consequences, until they die and meet Lord Yama that is…. :wink:

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117

I know I know, I was close to even writing it but since only a Sammasambuddha actually teaches it first and then the arahants teach it, it is a very rare insight.
That’s the whole point. :slight_smile:

118

You may be right, you may be wrong, I hope to know for sure one day!

On this day, I would say that your admission that the soldier is ‘disturbed’ is effectively agreeing with me!

The fact that Yama / Osiris / Devil exist in other religions doesnt mean the being exists and in the Buddha’s teachings the concept of “punishment” is not really there. The suffering consequent of an unwholesome act is inherent in the original unwholesome mental state, its not a secondary thing that happens to punish you.

The way I understand karma is like how physicists understand gravity: mass attracts. A ball will fall to the ground. Not because Brahma pushes it down, but because things with mass attract each other through a universal law called gravity. The ball is always falling. Even when you are holding it in your hand, it is still falling, there is just another force holding it up and preventing it from hitting the ground, but it is still “falling” from the moment of its existence.

Same with karma, as soon as a volitional action comes into existence the karma-vipaka dyad comes into existence. Here the volitional action is the “mass” and the karmic force is “gravity”. Why doesn’t the karmic force manifest immediately? Because its not the only force in the universe…BUT you cant escape it, just as things with mass cant escape gravity. The karmic force isn’t some magical thing, just as gravity isnt some magical thing…they are both just forces of the universe.

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119

But you see, the reason for this quite bizarre thread is that some ajahns and their followers claim that Nibbāna equals permanent 100% unconsciousess, like deep dreamless sleep. Cessation is annihilation.

If anyone who adheres to this type of annihilation could be so kind and answer the following in a satisfying way I will not post anything more about it:

Please explain why in a sutta about Nibbāna, the Buddha explicity says one should give up all such views that leads to being: Repulsed by continued existence and not repulsed by the cessation of continued existence.

Yes, give up ALL those wrong views…

This is what I want to know, if Nibbāna truly is the cessation they claim it is why doesn’t the Buddha then instead encourage the view? Why the need to give it up?

And please let us just drop everything that has to do with ”the self” for a moment and only focus on why the Buddha rejects annihilationism in a sutta about Nibbāna? :pray:

If no one is willing to answer this simple question I’ll probably end up hearing the crickets in arupa loka… :sweat_smile:

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120

I think AN 10.29 Paṭhamakosalasutta already shown the answer you need. At the end of the sutta, the Buddha explicitly said his assertation and statement, I have highlighted in bold for you:

There are some ascetics and brahmins who advocate ultimate extinguishment in this very life. This is the best of those who advocate extinguishment in this very life, that is, liberation by not grasping after truly understanding the origin, ending, gratification, drawback, and escape of the six fields of contact. Though I state and assert this, certain ascetics and brahmins misrepresent me with the false, hollow, lying, untruthful claim: ‘The ascetic Gotama doesn’t advocate the complete understanding of sensual pleasures, forms, or feelings.’ But I do advocate the complete understanding of sensual pleasures, forms, and feelings. And I advocate complete extinguishment by not grasping in this very life, wishless, extinguished, and cooled.”

Also in Paṭhamakosalasutta AN 10.29, if you look more carefully, the reason that he didn’t encourage “convictions of outsiders” is because:

Some sentient beings have such a view. But even the sentient beings who have views like this decay and perish.

In other words: “decay and perish” just like among the list of other kinds of sentient beings mentioned above at the upper part of the sutta.

In other words: such view is also wrong view that is not within the Noble Eightfold Path (which includes Right View instead).

After he rejects such “convictions of outsiders” which links to “you can expect that they will be repulsed by continued existence, and they will not be repulsed by the cessation of continued existence”, he moved on to reject “advocates of the ultimate purity of the spirit” which links to “dimension of neither perception nor non-perception”. He encouraged instead “ultimate extinguishment” (which is another word for Nibbāna).

So, “repulsed by continued existence and not repulsed by the cessation of continued existence” is NOT the same as “ultimate extinguishment”. However, when compare to “not repulsed by continued existence and not repulsed by the cessation of continued existence”, the other one is still closer to “ultimate extinguishment”. That’s why it’s still considered as “the best of the convictions of outsiders”.

The critical part is: Why it is wrong view?

My answer (without invoking “atta”) is: It is wrong view because this view got clinged on without truly understanding and realizing “ultimate extinguishment”. Further clarification: When someone truly understands and realizes “ultimate extinguishment”, it is not correct to say “exist” (“more of existence” is not attractive), it is not correct either to say “not exist” (“no more of existence” is not attractive either). And why it is not correct to say “exist” or “not exist” or “exist and not-exist” or “neither exist nor not-exist”? Further clarification: “ultimate extinguishment” is outside of phassa (contact) while such “exist” and “not exist” can only be defined through phassa.

I think you are aware of the quite famous Yamakasutta SN 22.85 too.

The following is an illustration: Someone heard of the mountain Everest. He got a view that this mountain Everest is the highest point on the planet, a very cold place, a very famous place. He clings on this view so he will never be at ease and inevitably gets into debate when someone else says something like “No, you are wrong, mistaken. This Mauna Kea is truly the highest mountain”. As Everest is a conditioned dhamma, there will inevitably be a time that his clinging view will be challenged. In other words, he can’t be at ease. It’s worth noting here, the “experience” that the person got such as climbing the Everest himself will actually makes the clinging even stronger as “I myself-nobody-else experienced my-climbing-of-Everest”.

So, how can he be at ease with this Everest matter? By realizing that not only Everest but his view about Everest and also his “experience” with Everest are all conditioned dhamma. Therefore, he stops the clinging with Everest, the clinging with his view about Everest, the clinging with his own “experience” with Everest.

And how can he be at ease with anything? By realizing the “ultimate extinguishment of all conditioned dhamma” through “not grasping after truly understanding the origin, ending, gratification, drawback, and escape of the six fields of contact”

Hope that this explanation can be of useful.
:pray:

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