I believe the Buddha and ancients failed to notice a seventh sense, the balancing function of the inner ear that enables one to be oriented to gravity.
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It could be argued that the vestibular system is just part of the sensation of the body/touch. Indeed, what we consider “touch” consists of multiple different systems that are fairly distinct on a biological level (mechanoreception, innocuous thermoception, nociception, etc.).
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Many thanks for this honest conversation and for also giving the space to raise some concerns. The Dhamma is more than robust to withstand investigation.
I have some points:
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In several suttas, the Buddha refers to himself as “Tathāgata”, which is often translated as “the Perfect One”. Is this a problem with translation into English. Is there such as thing as a “Perfect One”?
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How is that the Buddha – with his psychic powers – not see his brother-in-law, Devadatta coming? The schism nearly disrupted the movement, which was carefully built by the Buddha.
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The use of “ekayanoti ekayanamaggo” – the only way. Do we disregard other ways?
Some clarity would be welcome. Thank you.
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It doesn’t mean “Perfect One”, although translating such epithets is always highly inadequate. The term is mostly explained in terms of truth and reality, that someone has realized the way things are and lives according to that. So I translated it as “Realized One”.
OTOH, I translate arahant as “perfected one”, since they have fully abandoned all defilements.
Indeed, although there is nothing in the suttas that says the Buddha was actually reading the future in that way. It seems to be a lapse in character assessment.
OTOH, as a monk we always want to give people the benefit of the doubt. If you want to argue based on psychic powers, you could equally argue that the Buddha saw that in the future, Devadatta would find redemption.
The phrase ekāyano maggo doesn’t mean “only way”. It means “the way to oneness”, i.e. the path to where all things come together as one. In the context of satipatthana, it means that this is the practice that leads to samadhi, i.e. unification of mind. This was a misunderstanding caused by the fact that it is a term from the Brahmanical Upanishads, which later Buddhists were not familiar with. Note that in the Samyutta Nikaya, the phrase is literally put in the mouth of Brahma.
Again OTOH, the phrase eso va maggo, natthi añño “this is the only path, there is no other” occurs in the Dhammapada. The context there is the noble eightfold path. I dunno, i find it difficult to think of how one could get enlightened without all the factors of the eightfold path. Maybe you might not call it that, but still.
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Wonderful find!
I am not here assuming that the Buddha is wrong about that certain humans can spontaneously reproduce. I would see it as another clue to understand what spontaneously reproduce is.
I had speculated on what could devas be in Physics/ Science fiction. So given that devas are spontaneously reproduced, the various possibilities has to account for how and what spontaneously reproduced means.
What could devas be?: What’s spontaneous reproduction then?
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Aliens: cloning? Since cloning is not womb, egg, or moisture. Since it’s possible to clone humans, it fits the sutta if this is the case. Also, starfish splitting itself into two (asexual reproduction) doesn’t seem to fit in the other 3 modes of rebirth. Who knows future genetically modified humans can also reproduce like starfish?
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Beings from a higher dimension: Entering into our lower 3 dimensional world is considered spontaneous reproduction? Cause it’ll be like appearing from nothing. Anyway, maybe too much of a stretch for this one as it’s more fitting with invisibility than spontaneously reborn.
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Beings from a parallel universe: Entering into our universe considered spontaneously reborn? Again too speculative, but like the previous one, humans, given the right tech maybe able to do the same.
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Advanced intelligence (AI): How can one say codes are born? Typed out one by one. So maybe codes are typed out first, then it becomes a suitable body for that being to be reborn into? If we can upload humans, maybe this can fit in to how certain humans can be spontaneously reproduced.
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Dark matter/ Dark energy beings: We know too little about Dark matter to speculate. However, Dark energy seems to be created with each new space created in expansion, for free. Unknown if humans can ever convert themselves to dark beings. Note: dark here means ignorance (by physicists), not evil.
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We live in simulated universe, devas are simulated or programmers: simulated devas can be coded to be spontaneously reproduced, so too with humans if it comes down to the will of the programmers. As to the world of the programmers, we might be in the dark too on how they reproduce.
And of course the easiest option:
- Devas are magical beings, beyond current known science and science fiction: really magically appear. So too with some humans who practices magic I guess? In (real) magic shows, they keep on conjuring people out of nothing.
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In the Pāli Nāga Saṃyutta SN 29 and Supaṇṇa Saṃyutta SN 30 (= their Chinese version EA 27.8), the Buddha said to monks that there are four types of garuḍa (jinchi niao 金翅鳥) and four types of nāga (dragon): Egg-born, womb-born, moisture-born, and transformation/metamorphosis-born garuḍas/nāgas.
The spontaneous reproduction seems similar to these transformation/metamorphosis-born garuḍas/nāgas.
These two Samyuttas on garuḍas/nāgas together with the other two, Gandhabba Saṃyutta SN 31 (“Connected with Gandhabbas”) and Valāhaka Saṃyutta SN 32 (“Connected with Valāhakas”) are a group of sequential collections about early Buddhist adaptations of Vedic mythical beliefs regarding nāgas “mythical dragons/snakes”, supaṇṇas “mythical birds”, gandhabbas “fragrant plant devas”, and valāhakas “cloud devas” (Choong Mun-keat “A comparison of the Pāli and Chinese versions of Nāga Saṃyutta , Supaṇṇa Saṃyutta , and Valāhaka Saṃyutta , early Buddhist discourse collections on mythical dragons, birds, and cloud devas”, Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies , 2020 (18), pp. 42-65).
Was the Buddha also wrong about these adaptations of Indic mythical beliefs?
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I wonder if mythology falls into the “otherworldly” category.
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Actually, ingesting healthy pop is today medically embrace! It is called [fecal transplants](https://fecal transplants) albeit you fo not actually eat them. As an anthropologist I can tell you albeit rudimental lots of those Ayurvedic remedies have a rationale and some were pointing towards the right solution!
Neurologically speaking even today, that it is not part of the senses.
Thank you, Ajahn Sujato, for taking time to answer my queries. I will study your responses and get back to you.
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My teacher once told (rather humorous) that the Buddha made a mistake of coming to princess Yasodhara’s room to have a last look at her and his son before he left his family. But the Buddha got lucky that his wife didn’t suddenly awake from her sleep to find out about his intention and thus preventing him from going. If she did, then who knows. 
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What will happen if there’s no buddha, how far will history change ?
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Perhaps the Buddha’s biggest mistake was, after his awakening, not just secluding himself in a cave for the rest of his life. Perhaps, in the end, he entrusted his Dhamma to us Earthly humans, who have made something of a mess of it. We have a globe whereby most of the inhabitants practice religions that are simply factually absurd, and/or are the product of delusions on a grandiose scale. We have a globe that is focused on profiteering and war. We have millions of people that align themselves with sociopathic despots like Hitler, Mussolini, and Trump. We have a world that but for Sutta Central, and perhaps a few other sources, has either distorted his teachings, or ignored them completely. Perhaps he should have buried the Dhamma in a time capsule with the hopes that it would be found 4000 years later, after the outer-galactic aliens have already taken over this planet in an effort to save us all from each other.
The above is of course tongue in cheek. But for the Dhamma, what guidance would we have in this world? Perhaps the Buddha at the time of his passing understood what a train wreck we humans are, and without the Dhamma we would be hopelessly adrift in a sea of greed, violence and delusion.
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That reminds me of how the eye catures images upside down and the brain flips the image right side up, a function of the visual process.
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I am more on the camp of don’t dismiss the words of Buddha unless science has clearly shown otherwise. On the size of Mount Meru, assuming the size of yojanas are right, then yes, Mount Meru is too big for earth, one has to interpret them creatively.
On devas, nagas, garudas, etc, I wouldn’t say that science has searched all possible nanometer of all space and picosecond of time in all possible sense inputs (more importantly, mind eye/divine eye) and not found these beings. So the jury’s out on those.
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The Buddha did not make an error by instructing the monks to practise asubha kammaṭṭhāna.
Looking into their past kamma, he knew that those sixty monks were destined to die that day and that nothing could be done to avert it. Recollection of the repulsiveness of the body enabled them to be well-prepared at the moment of death so that they could accept their fate without clinging to the body.
He left strict instructions with the Venerable Ānanda not to be disturbed for the next fortnight. To calm the fears of the other monks who survived, he taught mindfulness of respiration.
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I think it’s better to do experiment rather than to just adopt the current science assumption that all/most bodily heat is by metabolism. One day, when nanobots with high level sensory skills are in most/all human bodies, we might be able to test this out. New physics/ mind laws maybe discovered indeed.
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Bhante 
Are you the English ‘aimwell’ Bhikkhu Pesala? If so, I’m Stu who was the librarian at the Buddhist Society in London when you used to teach there some years ago. Either way, welcome to the forum Bhante!
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Please correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that large numbers in the suttas were not conceptualized like we do now. When numbers such as “a thousand” monks are mentioned, it probably just meant a large number, most likely not a thousand.
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The ordination of Devadatta is one of the dilemmas posed by King Milinda in the Milinda Pañha:
Devadatta’s Ordination
“If the Buddha was both Omniscient and full of compassion why did he admit Devadatta to the Order, since by causing a schism, which only a bhikkhu can do, he was thereby consigned to hell for an aeon? If the Buddha did not know what Devadatta would do then he was not Omniscient and if he knew then he was not compassionate.”
“The Blessed One was both Omniscient and full of compassion. It was because he foresaw that Devadatta’s suffering would become limited that he admitted him to the Order. As a man of influence might have a criminal’s sentence mitigated from execution to the cutting off of hands and feet but would not thereby be responsible for the pain and suffering that that man had to undergo, or as a clever physician would make a critical disease lighter by giving a powerful purgative, so did the Buddha reduce the future suffering of Devadatta by admitting him to the Order. After he has suffered for the rest of the aeon in purgatory Devadatta will be released and become a Solitary Buddha by the name of Aṭṭhissara.”
“Great is the gift bestowed, Nāgasena, by the Blessed One on Devadatta. The Tathāgata pointed out the road to him when he was lost in the jungle, he gave him a firm foothold when he was falling down a precipice. Yet the reason and meaning for this could only have been pointed out by one as wise as you!”
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