Good day everybody, hope you’re doing fine.
This question arose after I read AN 6:63. (Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s translation)
Your answers and thoughts are appreciated.
Hello,
I’m assuming you’re referring to this passage?
And what is the result of sensuality? One who wants sensuality produces a corresponding state of existence, on the side of merit or demerit. This is called the result of sensuality.
I’d interpret it in a general sense as follows.
If there is attachment to sensuality and one does wholesome deeds, follows the precepts, etc., and that kamma acts as a basis for a future existence, that existence will be in a meritorious sensual realm such as among human beings or some classes of devas.
If there is attachment to sensuality and one does unwholesome deeds, breaks the precepts, etc., and that kamma acts as a basis for a future existence, that existence will be in an demeritorious sensual realm such as among demons, ghosts, animals, or in hell.
How do you interpret it? Thanks.
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That interpretation is great, I like it.
Just one question, why “animals” would represent demeritorious states?
Thanks in advance for your answer.
The bolded part of the sutta below answers that. In our meditation, we can reflect and contemplate on the lived experience of animals to see if this is true for ourselves.
“Mendicants, suppose a person were to throw a yoke with a single hole into the ocean. And there was a one-eyed turtle who popped up once every hundred years.
What do you think, mendicants? Would that one-eyed turtle, popping up once every hundred years, still poke its neck through the hole in that yoke?”
“Only after a very long time, sir, if ever.”
“That one-eyed turtle might poke its neck through the hole in that yoke, but in any case it’d be sooner than a fool fallen to the underworld is reborn as a human being, I say.
Why is that? Because in that place there’s no principled or moral conduct, and no doing what is good and skillful. There they just prey on each other, preying on the weak. Why is that? It’s because they haven’t seen the four noble truths. What four? The noble truths of suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path.
That’s why you should practice meditation …”
-SN 56.47
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