What the Buddha got wrong?

[dougsmith]

@Danamitra

Hi Doug! Pleasure to see you here, I wanted to tell you I loved your video on Sariputta.

Thanks @Danamitra ! I have a new video out on Ānanda as well just now …

@Danamitra

Using the equivalent states of matter is a good comparison but it’s not quite right. Mostly because the elements way of organizing matter was in a much broader range than our modern physics.

Yes one could make similar apologia about most ancient cultures’ usages of natural terms like the classical elements. That is, folks back then weren’t foolish, they were looking at the phenomena around them and finding useful generalizations that had some truth to them. But as our experimental techniques have become more refined we have essentially come to realize that those earlier generalizations, while useful and perhaps even true in a broad sense, aren’t really correct as regards what’s really going on. That is, the material world isn’t really made up of four kinds of things.

Now, the Buddha wasn’t interested in constructing a comprehensive theory of matter; he was interested in ending dukkha, and whether there are four elements or a hundred eighteen doesn’t really make a difference to the ending of dukkha. So all this establishes is that he wasn’t literally omniscient, which we already know from other examples listed in the above thread.

[Snowbird]

@thomaslaw

How about fishermen who make a living by killing fishes? Does the Pali tradition also consider fishermen carrying out bad kamma?

So, this whole thing is off topic. However, obviously fishermen are killing, therefore committing bad karma. I can’t understand why you would think this is any different than hunting. They are hunting and killing fish. Just so happens we have a different name for it. But since it’s totally off topic, could you please start a new thread if you still have doubts.

[sabbamitta]

I have always been wondering if it was a good idea of the Buddha to explain to king Ajātasattu’s minister Vassakāra the particular reasons for the strength of the Vajjis, so that the king knew how to undermine their strenght and defeat the Vajjis. Would it not have been a better idea to try to convince him not to make a war?

AN7.22:1.1: So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Rājagaha, on the Vulture’s Peak Mountain. Now at that time King Ajātasattu Vedehiputta of Māgadha wanted to invade the Vajjis. He declared: “I shall wipe out these Vajjis, so mighty and powerful! I shall destroy them, and lay ruin and devastation upon them!”

[NgXinZhao]

@sabbamitta

I have always been wondering if it was a good idea of the Buddha to explain to king Ajātasattu’s minister Vassakāra the particular reasons for the strength of the Vajjis, so that the king knew how to undermine their strenght and defeat the Vajjis. Would it not have been a better idea to try to convince him not to make a war?

Maybe Buddha didn’t simply use his mind reading powers on everyone. The sutta anyway is useful for the 7 factors of non decline for the monks.

Like I can teach you nuclear physics, you can use the knowledge to build a nuclear power plant, or nuclear bomb. What you do is on you.

@Danamitra

Mostly because the elements way of organizing matter was in a much broader range than our modern physics.

EARTH: Solid or attractive forces fall under here.
WATER: Liquid or forces of relative motion fall here.
AIR: Gases typically, repulsive and expansive forces fall here.
FIRE: Heat and energy, anywhere energy is in prominence falls here.

Since you mentioned physics… I totally would map this another way.

EARTH: element of solidity, hardness, softness, roughness, etc. Solidity in physics is due to electromagnetic repulsion between electrons for atoms to atoms. Going down to subatomic world, solidity (for fermions) is due to Pauli’s exclusion principle (no two same quantum states, including same location can exist together). Examples of fermions are electrons, and bosons (the other category) are not subject to Pauli’s exclusion principle so light, photon, an example of a boson can pass through each other and gather together into a laser.

WATER: element of cohesion. This I take it to mean the 4 fundamental forces in physics. If we examine what cohesion in water is due to, it’s due to hydrogen-oxygen bond between different water molecules. That’s basically back to electromagnetic forces. I added in the other 3 forces just cause the others doesn’t seem to be able to fit them.

AIR : element of motion. Due to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, even if we can cool something down to 0 kelvin, there’ll still be motion. It’s also the capturing of the concept of kinetic energy, momentum, etc.

FIRE : element of heat. Temperature is able to be measured everywhere, and hear flows from hot to cold. At the very least, electromagnetic radiation of stuffs, even of the cosmic microwave background radiation gives everything a temperature. Also kinetic theory of gasses confirm that heat is motion of molecules. So it’s very hard to make a clear distinction between the elements once we bring in physics.

[thomaslaw]

@Snowbird

So, this whole thing is off topic. However, obviously fishermen are killing, therefore committing bad karma.

Yes, indeed.

@Snowbird

I can’t understand why you would think this is any different than hunting. They are hunting and killing fish

They are fishing, which is catching or killing fish, not hunting. Hunting is searching for wild animals or birds with the intention of killing or catching them.

[Ficus]

A friendly reminder to kindly stay on topic

Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream

If you feel some aspect of a particular thread is worth further discussion, start a new thread. This can be quickly done by using the ‘Reply as linked topic’ option.

[arturovm]

@stu

One thing I thought of was breathing stopping in 4th jhana and the mediator ‘breathing’ through the skin. Not the ‘perception of breath’ (that disappears before jhana I think), but the actual breath.

I wanted to come back to this, having read Grzegorz Polak’s Reexamining Jhāna. This does not seem to be a mistake of the Buddha, but an error made by the Sutta compilers.

According to him, this has all the marks of a later addition, during an era in Early Buddhism when monks had problems interpreting the Buddha’s meditative teachings. He makes a very convincing case that this (among other things said about Jhāna) is the result of outside influence. Hindu Yoga was the predominant practice during that time, with Buddhism being more of a fringe school of thought, and in Hindu Yoga, one of the highest goals is the complete cessation of bodily activity and consciousness, including the breath. It’s even mentioned explicitly in some Upaniṣads quoted in the book.

So it makes sense that later Buddhists interpreted the Buddha’s teachings from what was the common frame of reference at the time. The Buddha was, after all, a great innovator, both in his time and ours.

[Gabriel]

@arturovm

Hindu Yoga was the predominant practice during that time, with Buddhism being more of a fringe school of thought, and in Hindu Yoga, one of the highest goals is the complete cessation of bodily activity and consciousness, including the breath. It’s even mentioned explicitly in some Upaniṣads quoted in the book.

It’s all quite murky. Polak writes:

The earliest Upanisads like the Brhadāranyaka Upanisad or the Chāndogya Upanisad do not contain any detailed descriptions of the meditative techniques.

Which is correct. So how can it be a compelling case? You’d have to argue that much later upanisads are still earlier than jhana suttas, which I can guarantee can not be done with certainty.

[arturovm]

To be quite honest, I got a bit lost between the Jains and all the other schools he mentions in the book. Maybe it’s not the Upanishads? Or maybe they are?

In any case, regardless of meditative techniques not being described, the soteriogy doesn’t appear to have changed much, if at all. Kamma was regarded as what keeps one’s soul stuck to this existence, so the only way to become unstuck is by stopping all actions, and stopping consciousness.

That aim is quite different from the aim of Buddhism. In the Suttas it’s always some insight that has soteriological value, and the Jhānas are usually portrayed as the means through which that insight is achieved.

(Posted again because I’m not sure I replied to the right post the first time)

[thomaslaw]

@Gabriel

Polak writes:

The earliest Upanisads like the Brhadāranyaka Upanisad or the Chāndogya Upanisad do not contain any detailed descriptions of the meditative techniques.

@arturovm

between the Jains and all the other schools he mentions in the book. Maybe it’s not the Upanishads? Or maybe they are?

For detailed description of Hindu meditative techniques, one should read the Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali. It was compiled sometime between 500 BCE and 400 CE (?) by Patanjali in India who organised knowledge about yoga and its meditative techniques from much older traditions.

[RobynG76]

Bhante @Sujato, I wonder on what grounds he would/could have been excluded.
Obviously, the Buddha gave consideration to types of people inappropriate to ordain.

Isn’t it the case that Devadatta started out a good monk but just became too big for his britches (so to speak)?

How could the Buddha have created a category which would exclude people who might later become a problem for the sangha? How would later preceptors make the determination? Did even the Buddha have the power to predict the future?

[sujato]

@RobynG76

I wonder on what grounds he would/could have been excluded.
Obviously, the Buddha gave consideration to types of people inappropriate to ordain.

Excellent points! Even if one were to full know what would happen in the future, at the time of ordination, Devadatta had done nothing wrong.

[Khemarato.bhikkhu]

@RobynG76

How could the Buddha have created a category which would exclude people who might later become a problem for the sangha? How would later preceptors make the determination? Did even the Buddha have the power to predict the future?

There is the example of Angulimala, whom the Buddha foresaw had spiritual potential. He personally ordained him, but explicitly forbade the monks in the future from using that as a precedent, insisting that, as a general rule, notorious serial killers shouldn’t be ordained.

[Dana]

In the MN 64 the Buddha converses with mendicants:

“Mendicants, do you remember the five lower fetters that I taught?”
“dhāretha no tumhe, bhikkhave, mayā desitāni pañcorambhāgiyāni saṁyojanānī”ti?

When he said this, Venerable Māluṅkyaputta said to him,
Evaṁ vutte, āyasmā mālukyaputto bhagavantaṁ etadavoca:
“Sir, I remember them.”
“ahaṁ kho, bhante, dhāremi bhagavatā desitāni pañcorambhāgiyāni saṁyojanānī”ti.

“But how do you remember them?”
“Yathā kathaṁ pana tvaṁ, mālukyaputta, dhāresi mayā desitāni pañcorambhāgiyāni saṁyojanānī”ti?

“I remember the lower fetters taught by the Buddha as follows: identity view,
“Sakkāyadiṭṭhiṁ kho ahaṁ, bhante, bhagavatā orambhāgiyaṁ saṁyojanaṁ desitaṁ dhāremi;
doubt,
vicikicchaṁ kho ahaṁ, bhante, bhagavatā orambhāgiyaṁ saṁyojanaṁ desitaṁ dhāremi;
misapprehension of precepts and observances,
sīlabbataparāmāsaṁ kho ahaṁ, bhante, bhagavatā orambhāgiyaṁ saṁyojanaṁ desitaṁ dhāremi;
sensual desire,
kāmacchandaṁ kho ahaṁ, bhante, bhagavatā orambhāgiyaṁ saṁyojanaṁ desitaṁ dhāremi;
and ill will.
byāpādaṁ kho ahaṁ, bhante, bhagavatā orambhāgiyaṁ saṁyojanaṁ desitaṁ dhāremi.
That’s how I remember the five lower fetters taught by the Buddha.”
Evaṁ kho ahaṁ, bhante, dhāremi bhagavatā desitāni pañcorambhāgiyāni saṁyojanānī”ti.

“Who on earth do you remember being taught the five lower fetters in that way?
“Kassa kho nāma tvaṁ, mālukyaputta, imāni evaṁ pañcorambhāgiyāni saṁyojanāni desitāni dhāresi?
Wouldn’t the wanderers who follow other paths fault you using the simile of the infant?
Nanu, mālukyaputta, aññatitthiyā paribbājakā iminā taruṇūpamena upārambhena…

BUT in AN 10.13 discourse the Buddha explained the fetters very briefly as well, only as:

“What are the five lower fetters?
Katamāni pañcorambhāgiyāni saṁyojanāni?
Identity view, doubt, misapprehension of precepts and observances, sensual desire, and ill will.
Sakkāyadiṭṭhi, vicikicchā, sīlabbataparāmāso, kāmacchando, byāpādo—
These are the five lower fetters.
imāni pañcorambhāgiyāni saṁyojanāni.”

Q: Why did then the Buddha reprimand Mālunkyāputta for giving Him just a concise reply?
Did the Buddha forget what He said previously, or is the AN10.13 an abridged version of the Buddha’s original full discourse on the fetters found in other collections?

[thomaslaw]

@Dana

Q: Why did then the Buddha reprimand Mālunkyāputta for giving Him just a concise reply?
Did the Buddha forget what He said previously, or is the AN10.13 an abridged version of the Buddha’s original full discourse on the fetters found in other collections?

MN 64 (= MA 205), and AN10.13 are just texts, not the actual words of the Buddha.

The extant all early Buddhist texts, some being compiled early, some later, are sectarian texts, and not entirely based on oral tradition. The texts are also artificial creation in both structure and content after being written down, or during writing process.

[Dana]

But what about even the earliest suttas, earliest teachings by the Buddha recorded in the ‘Heart’ of Tipitaka -Vinaya Mahākhandhaka Vagga? And the brief discourse to Mahapajapati recorded in AN8.53? In Pali originals, though perhaps in a different dialect, aren’t those authentic words of Buddha and his attendants?

Still, I find them very beautiful and helpful for the Dhamma practice and living in peace and harmony.

[Dana]

I came across this discourse in SN about Channa killing himself - SN35.87.

Is there a commentary connected with it about what illness he suffered from? is that discourse consistent with the Vinaya?

[Bodhipaksa]

I think “energy” would be a closer modern equivalent to how the Buddha saw the fire element.

“And what is the interior fire element? Anything that’s fire, fiery, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual. This includes — that which warms, that which ages, that which heats you up when feverish, that which properly digests food and drink, or anything else that’s fire, fiery, and appropriated that’s internal, pertaining to an individual.” (MN 140)

It’s actually fascinating and a little surprising that ancient Indians recognized that the energy in fire was the same thing as the energy within the human body.

The four elements of earth, water, air, and fire thus correspond to our everyday experience of solid, liquid, gas, and energy (rather than plasma). Really, it’s a pretty decent pre-scientific attempt to make sense of the material world.

[Adutiya]

@Bodhipaksa

It’s actually fascinating and a little surprising that ancient Indians recognized that the energy in fire was the same thing as the energy within the human body.

I wonder what the Pali word for heartburn is? After all, the digestive acids are very strong fires indeed.

[Ceisiwr]

@thomaslaw

They are fishing, which is catching or killing fish, not hunting. Hunting is searching for wild animals or birds with the intention of killing or catching them.

Fish are classed as animals.