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– Buddha
31-08-2010 FREE ONLINE e- Nālandā UNIVERSITY
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LESSON – 16
WISDOM IS POWER
Awakened One Shows the Path to Attain Ultimate Bliss
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The Free e-Nālandā University has been re-organized to function through the following Schools of Learning :
Buddha Taught his Dhamma Free of cost, hence the Free- e-Nālandā follows suit
As the Original Nālandā University did not offer any Degree, so also the Free e-Nālandā University.
Main Course Programs:
I.
KAMMA
REBIRTH
AWAKEN-NESS
BUDDHA
THUS COME ONE
DHARMA
II.
ARHAT
FOUR HOLY TRUTHS
EIGHTFOLD PATH
TWELVEFOLD CONDITIONED ARISING
BODHISATTVA
PARAMITA
SIX PARAMITAS
III.
SIX SPIRITUAL POWERS
SIX PATHS OF REBIRTH
TEN DHARMA REALMS
FIVE SKANDHAS
EIGHTEEN REALMS
FIVE MORAL PRECEPTS
IV.
MEDITATION
MINDFULNESS
FOUR APPLICATIONS OF MINDFULNESS
LOTUS POSTURE
SAMADHI
CHAN SCHOOL
FOUR DHYANAS
FOUR FORMLESS REALMS
V.
FIVE TYPES OF BUDDHIST STUDY AND PRACTICE
MAHAYANA AND HINAYANA COMPARED
PURE LAND
BUDDHA RECITATION
EIGHT CONSCIOUSNESSES
ONE HUNDRED DHARMAS
EMPTINESS
VI.
DEMON
LINEAGE
with
Level I: Introduction to Buddhism
Level II: Buddhist Studies
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Level III: Stream-Enterer
Level IV: Once - Returner
Level V: Non-Returner
Level VI: Arhat
Jambudvipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath scientific thought in
mathematics,
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alchemy,
and
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and Ecology and Environmental Studies
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Rebirth Part IV
http://what-buddha-said.net/drops/Rebirth.htm
The laws of kamma are as inviolable as the law of gravity: SN XLII.6
http://www.cambodianbuddhist.org/english/website/canon/samyutta/sn42-006.html
Samyutta Nikaya XLII.6
Paccha-bhumika Sutta
[Brahmans] of the Western Land
Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
For free distribution only.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn42/sn42.006.than.html
· Tipitaka · Samyutta Nikaya · SN 42
SN 42.6
PTS: S iv 311
CDB ii 1336
Paccha-bhumika Sutta: [Brahmans] of the Western Land
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
On one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Nālandā in the Pavarika Mango Grove. Then Asibandhakaputta the headman went to the Blessed One and on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One: “The brahmans of the Western lands, lord — those who carry water pots, wear garlands of water plants, purify with water, & worship fire — can take [the spirit of] a dead person, lift it out, instruct it, & send it to heaven. But the Blessed One, worthy & rightly self-awakened, can arrange it so that all the world, at the break-up of the body, after death, reappears in a good destination, the heavenly world.”
“Very well, then, headman, I will question you on this matter. Answer as you see fit. What do you think: There is the case where a man is one who takes life, steals, indulges in illicit sex; is a liar, one who speaks divisive speech, harsh speech, & idle chatter; is greedy, bears thoughts of ill-will, & holds to wrong views. Then a great crowd of people, gathering & congregating, would pray, praise, & circumambulate with their hands palm-to-palm over the heart [saying,] ‘May this man, at the break-up of the body, after death, reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world!’ What do you think: would that man — because of the prayers, praise, & circumambulation of that great crowd of people — at the break-up of the body, after death, reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world?”
“No, lord.”
“Suppose a man were to throw a large boulder into a deep lake of water, and a great crowd of people, gathering & congregating, would pray, praise, & circumambulate with their hands palm-to-palm over the heart [saying,] ‘Rise up, O boulder! Come floating up, O boulder! Come float to the shore, O boulder!’ What do you think: would that boulder — because of the prayers, praise, & circumambulation of that great crowd of people — rise up, come floating up, or come float to the shore?”
“No, lord.”
“So it is with any man who takes life, steals, indulges in illicit sex; is a liar, one who speaks divisive speech, harsh speech, & idle chatter; is greedy, bears thoughts of ill-will, & holds to wrong views. Even though a great crowd of people, gathering & congregating, would pray, praise, & circumambulate with their hands palm-to-palm over the heart — [saying,] ‘May this man, at the break-up of the body, after death, reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world!’ — still, at the break-up of the body, after death, he would reappear in destitution, a bad destination, the lower realms, hell.
“Now what do you think: There is the case where a man is one who refrains from taking life, from stealing, & from indulging in illicit sex; he refrains from lying, from speaking divisive speech, from harsh speech, & from idle chatter; he is not greedy, bears no thoughts of ill-will, & holds to right view. Then a great crowd of people, gathering & congregating, would pray, praise, & circumambulate with their hands palm-to-palm over the heart [saying,] ‘May this man, at the break-up of the body, after death, reappear in destitution, a bad destination, the lower realms, hell!’ What do you think: would that man — because of the prayers, praise, & circumambulation of that great crowd of people — at the break-up of the body, after death, reappear in destitution, a bad destination, the lower realms, hell?”
“No, lord.”
“Suppose a man were to throw a jar of ghee or a jar of oil into a deep lake of water, where it would break. There the shards & jar-fragments would go down, while the ghee or oil would come up. Then a great crowd of people, gathering & congregating, would pray, praise, & circumambulate with their hands palm-to-palm over the heart [saying,] ‘Sink, O ghee/oil! Submerge, O ghee/oil! Go down, O ghee/oil!’ What do you think: would that ghee/oil, because of the prayers, praise, & circumambulation of that great crowd of people sink, submerge, or go down?”
“No, lord.”
“So it is with any man who refrains from taking life, from stealing, & from indulging in illicit sex; refrains from lying, from speaking divisive speech, from harsh speech, & from idle chatter; is not greedy, bears no thoughts of ill-will, & holds to right view. Even though a great crowd of people, gathering & congregating, would pray, praise, & circumambulate with their hands palm-to-palm over the heart — [saying,] ‘May this man, at the break-up of the body, after death, reappear in a destitution, a bad destination, the lower realms, hell!’ — still, at the break-up of the body, after death, he would reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world.”
When this was said, Asibandhakaputta the headman said to the Blessed One: “Magnificent, lord! Magnificent! Just as if he were to place upright what was overturned, to reveal what was hidden, to point out the way to one who was lost, or to carry a lamp into the dark so that those with eyes could see forms, in the same way has the Blessed One — through many lines of reasoning — made the Dhamma clear. I go to the Blessed One for refuge, to the Dhamma, & to the community of monks. May the Blessed One remember me as a lay follower who has gone for refuge from this day forward, for life.”
Why not just settle for divine rebirth among the devas?: SN V.7
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn05/sn05.007.than.html
· Tipitaka · Samyutta Nikaya · SN 5
SN 5.7
PTS: S i 133
CDB i 227
Upacala Sutta: Sister Upacala
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation: Bodhi
At Savatthi. Then, early in the morning, Upacala the nun put on her robes and, taking her bowl & outer robe, went into Savatthi for alms. When she had gone for alms in Savatthi and had returned from her alms round, after her meal she went to the Grove of the Blind to spend the day. Having gone deep into the Grove of the Blind, she sat down at the foot of a tree for the day’s abiding.
Then Mara the Evil One, wanting to arouse fear, horripilation, & terror in her, wanting to make her fall away from concentration, approached her & said, “Where do you want to reappear, nun?”
“I don’t want to reappear anywhere, my friend.”
[Mara:]
The devas of the Thirty-three,
the Hours, the Contented,
those who delight in creation,
& those in control:
direct your mind there
and it will enjoy
delight.
[Sister Upacala:]
The devas of the Thirty-three,
the Hours, the Contented,
those who delight in creation,
& those in control:
they are bound
with the bonds of sensuality;
they come again
under Mara’s sway.
The whole world is burning.
The whole world is aflame.
The whole world is blazing.
The whole world is provoked.
The Unprovoked, Unblazing
— that people run-of-the-mill
don’t partake,
where Mara’s
never been —
that’s where my heart
truly delights.
Then Mara the Evil One — sad & dejected at realizing, “Upacala the nun knows me” — vanished right there.
Notes
1.
To reappear = to be reborn.
The preciousness of our human life: SN XX.2, SN LVI.48
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn20/sn20.002.than.html
· Tipitaka · Samyutta Nikaya · SN 20
SN 20.2
PTS: S ii 263
CDB i 706
Nakhasikha Sutta: The Tip of the Fingernail
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Staying at Savatthi. Then the Blessed One, picking up a little bit of dust with the tip of his fingernail, said to the monks, “What do you think, monks? Which is greater: the little bit of dust I have picked up with the tip of my fingernail, or the great earth?”
“The great earth is far greater, lord. The little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail is next to nothing. It doesn’t even count. It’s no comparison. It’s not even a fraction, this little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail, when compared with the great earth.
“In the same way, monks, few are the beings reborn among human beings. Far more are those reborn elsewhere. Thus you should train yourselves: ‘We will live heedfully.’ That’s how you should train yourselves.”
See also: Dhp 174.
· Tipitaka · Samyutta Nikaya · SN 56
SN 56.48
PTS: S v 456
CDB ii 1872
Chiggala Sutta: The Hole
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
“Monks, suppose that this great earth were totally covered with water, and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole there. A wind from the east would push it west, a wind from the west would push it east. A wind from the north would push it south, a wind from the south would push it north. And suppose a blind sea-turtle were there. It would come to the surface once every one hundred years. Now what do you think: would that blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole?”
“It would be a sheer coincidence, lord, that the blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, would stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole.”
“It’s likewise a sheer coincidence that one obtains the human state. It’s likewise a sheer coincidence that a Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, arises in the world. It’s likewise a sheer coincidence that a doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world. Now, this human state has been obtained. A Tathagata, worthy & rightly self-awakened, has arisen in the world. A doctrine & discipline expounded by a Tathagata appears in the world.
“Therefore your duty is the contemplation, ‘This is stress… This is the origination of stress… This is the cessation of stress.’ Your duty is the contemplation, ‘This is the path of practice leading to the cessation of stress.’”
How to gain rebirth as an elephant or a horse: AN X.177
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an10/an10.177.than.html#elephant
· Tipitaka · Anguttara Nikaya · Tens
AN 10.177
PTS: A v 269
Janussonin Sutta: To Janussonin
(On Offerings to the Dead)
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Then Janussonin the brahman went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with him. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there, he said to the Blessed One, “Master Gotama, you know that we brahmans give gifts, make offerings, [saying,] ‘May this gift accrue to our dead relatives. May our dead relatives partake of this gift.’ Now, Master Gotama, does that gift accrue to our dead relatives? Do our dead relatives partake of that gift?”
“In possible places, brahman, it accrues to them, but not in impossible places.”
“And which, Master Gotama, are the possible places? Which are the impossible places?”
“There is the case, brahman, where a certain person takes life, takes what is not given, engages in sensual misconduct, engages in false speech, engages in divisive speech, engages in abusive speech, engages in idle chatter, is covetous, bears ill will, and has wrong views. With the break-up of the body, after death, he reappears in hell. He lives there, he remains there, by means of whatever is the food of hell-beings. This is an impossible place for that gift to accrue to one staying there.
“Then there is the case where a certain person takes life, takes what is not given, engages in sensual misconduct, engages in false speech, engages in divisive speech, engages in abusive speech, engages in idle chatter, is covetous, bears ill will, and has wrong views. With the break-up of the body, after death, he reappears in the animal womb. He lives there, he remains there, by means of whatever is the food of common animals. This, too, is an impossible place for that gift to accrue to one staying there.
“Then there is the case where a certain person refrains from taking life, refrains from taking what is not given, refrains from sensual misconduct, refrains from false speech, refrains from divisive speech, refrains from abusive speech, refrains from idle chatter, is not covetous, bears no ill will, and has right views. With the break-up of the body, after death, he reappears in the company of human beings. He lives there, he remains there, by means of whatever is the food of human beings. This, too, is an impossible place for that gift to accrue to one staying there.
“Then there is the case where a certain person refrains from taking life, refrains from taking what is not given, refrains from sensual misconduct, refrains from false speech, refrains from divisive speech, refrains from abusive speech, refrains from idle chatter, is not covetous, bears no ill will, and has right views. With the break-up of the body, after death, he reappears in the company of the devas. He lives there, he remains there, by means of whatever is the food of devas. This, too, is an impossible place for that gift to accrue to one staying there.
“Then there is the case where a certain person takes life, takes what is not given, engages in sensual misconduct, engages in false speech, engages in divisive speech, engages in abusive speech, engages in idle chatter, is covetous, bears ill will, and has wrong views. With the break-up of the body, after death, he reappears in the realms of the hungry shades. He lives there, he remains there, by means of whatever is the food of hungry shades. He lives there, he remains that, by means of whatever his friends or relatives give in dedication to him. This is the possible place for that gift to accrue to one staying there.
“But, Master Gotama, if that dead relative does not reappear in that possible place, who partakes of that gift?”
“Other dead relatives, brahman, who have reappeared in that possible place.”
“But, Master Gotama, if that dead relative does not reappear in that possible place, and other dead relatives have not reappeared in that possible place, then who partakes of that gift?”
“It’s impossible, brahman, it cannot be, that over this long time that possible place is devoid of one’s dead relatives. But at any rate, the donor does not go without reward.
“Does Master Gotama describe any preparation for the impossible places?”
“Brahman, I do describe a preparation for the impossible places. There is the case where a certain person takes life, takes what is not given, engages in sensual misconduct, engages in false speech, engages in divisive speech, engages in abusive speech, engages in idle chatter, is covetous, bears ill will, and has wrong views. But he gives food, drink, cloth, vehicles, garlands, scents, creams, bed, lodging, & lamps to priests & contemplatives. With the break-up of the body, after death, he reappears in the company of elephants. There he receives food, drink, flowers, & various ornaments. It’s because he took life, took what is not given, engaged in sensual misconduct, engaged in false speech, engaged in divisive speech, engaged in abusive speech, engaged in idle chatter, was covetous, bore ill will, and had wrong views that he reappears in the company of elephants. But it’s because he gave food, drink, cloth, vehicles, garlands, scents, creams, bed, lodging, & lamps to priests & contemplatives that he receives food, drink, flowers, & various ornaments.
“Then there is the case where a certain person takes life… has wrong views. But he gives food… lamps to priests & contemplatives. With the break-up of the body, after death, he reappears in the company of horses… in the company of cattle… in the company of poultry. There he receives food, drink, flowers, & various ornaments. It’s because he took life… and had wrong views that he reappears in the company of poultry. But it’s because he gave food, drink… & lamps to priests & contemplatives that he receives food, drink, flowers, & various ornaments.
“Then there is the case where a certain person refrains from taking life, refrains from taking what is not given, refrains from sensual misconduct, refrains from false speech, refrains from divisive speech, refrains from abusive speech, refrains from idle chatter, is not covetous, bears no ill will, and has right views. And he gives food, drink, cloth, vehicles, garlands, scents, creams, bed, lodging, & lamps to priests & contemplatives. With the break-up of the body, after death, he reappears in the company of human beings. There he experiences the five strings of human sensuality [delightful sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations]. It’s because he refrained from taking what is not given, refrained from sensual misconduct, refrained from false speech, refrained from divisive speech, refrained from abusive speech, refrained from idle chatter, was not covetous, bore no ill will, and had right views that he reappears in the company of human beings. And it’s because he gave food, drink, cloth, vehicles, garlands, scents, creams, bed, lodging, & lamps to priests & contemplatives that he experiences the five strings of human sensuality.
“Then there is the case where a certain person refrains from taking life… and has right views. And he gives food, drink, cloth, vehicles, garlands, scents, creams, bed, lodging, & lamps to priests & contemplatives. With the break-up of the body, after death, he reappears in the company of devas. There he experiences the five strings of divine sensuality [delightful sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations]. It’s because he refrained from taking what is not given… and had right views that he reappears in the company of devas. And it’s because he gave food, drink, cloth, vehicles, garlands, scents, creams, bed, lodging, & lamps to priests & contemplatives that he experiences the five strings of divine sensuality. But at any rate, brahman, the donor does not go without reward.”
“It’s amazing, Master Gotama, it’s astounding, how it’s enough to make one want to give a gift, enough to make one want to make an offering, where the donor does not go without reward.”
“That’s the way it is, brahman. That’s the way it is. The donor does not go without reward.”
“Magnificent, Master Gotama! Magnificent! Just as if he were to place upright what was overturned, to reveal what was hidden, to show the way to one who was lost, or to carry a lamp into the dark so that those with eyes could see forms, in the same way has Master Gotama — through many lines of reasoning — made the Dhamma clear. I go to Master Gotama for refuge, to the Dhamma, & to the community of monks. May Master Gotama remember me as a lay follower who has gone to him for refuge, from this day forward, for life.”
Notes
1.
The Vinaya counts as one’s relatives all those related back through seven generations past one’s grandparents — in other words, all those descended from one’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents.
2.
Apparently, “ornaments” for poultry would consist of brilliant plumage. Similarly, “ornaments” for elephants, horses, & cattle might consist of attractive markings.
3.
For some reason, the PTS translation of this sutta cuts off right here.
See also: MN 135; MN 136; SN 42.6; SN 42.8; Khp 7.
What’s so bad about being reborn?: SN V.6
· Tipitaka · Samyutta Nikaya · SN 5
At Savatthi. Then, early in the morning, Cala the nun put on her robes and, taking her bowl & outer robe, went into Savatthi for alms. When she had gone for alms in Savatthi and had returned from her alms round, after her meal she went to the Grove of the Blind to spend the day. Having gone deep into the Grove of the Blind, she sat down at the foot of a tree for the day’s abiding.
Then Mara the Evil One, wanting to arouse fear, horripilation, & terror in her, wanting to make her fall away from concentration, approached her & said, “What is it that you don’t approve of, nun?”
“I don’t approve of birth, my friend.”
[Mara:]
Why don’t you approve of birth?
One who is born
enjoys sensual pleasures.
Who on earth
ever persuaded you:
‘Nun, don’t approve of birth’?
[Sister Cala:]
For one who is born
there’s death.
One who is born
sees pain.
It’s a binding, a flogging, a torment.
That’s why one shouldn’t approve
of birth.
The Awakened One taught me the Dhamma
— the overcoming of birth —
for the abandoning of all pain,
he established me in
the truth.
But beings who have come to form
& those with a share in the formless,
if they don’t discern cessation,
return to becoming-again.
Then Mara the Evil One — sad & dejected at realizing, “Cala the nun knows me” — vanished right there.
Nālandā: A pleasant project
The passage of the Nālandā University Bill by Parliament is a firm indication that Jambudipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath is moving in the direction of a pleasant power on Asia and the world. This is reinforced by the efficient completion of the South Asian University project under SAARC and Jambudipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath’s decision to open up its higher education sector to global inputs and competition. Initially, Nālandā University was to be launched in 2009, but the question of funding and the defining of its basic structure took more time than expected. The idea of reviving it as a centre of excellence in the creation and dissemination of knowledge in Asia was first mooted by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in February 2006 during his official visit to Singapore. He then elaborated on it while addressing the Bihar Assembly.
Both Bihar and Singapore got motivated to translate the idea into a concrete project. The Assembly passed a bill in 2007 to establish Nālandā University, acquired land for it but handed over the project to the government of India in view of its emerging international character. Singapore pursued the idea more vigorously than even India did in some respects and to propagate it in East Asia organised a “Nālandā Symposium” in November 2006. As a result, it succeeded in enlisting the support of East Asian countries, especially China, Japan and Korea, for the project. Singapore has also joined hands with Japan in mobilising funds for giving shape to the project and executing it.
As a result of all these efforts, the East Asia Summit (a grouping of ASEAN plus six countries — China, Japan, Jambudipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath, Korea, Australia and New Zealand) not only spontaneously endorsed the project in 2007 but in 2009, at its fourth summit, called upon all its members to make “appropriate funding arrangements on a voluntary basis from government and other sources including public-private partnership” for this “non-state, non-profit, secular and self-governing international institution.”
Nālandā University is destined to emerge as a strong instrument of a pleasant power at two levels; for the rising Asia in relation to the West and for Jambudipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath in relation to Asia. As the project recaptures its past glory and élan, it will boost Asia’s confidence in its intellectual and academic capacities and dent the heavy reliance that exists today on the western universities like Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard for Asian scholars’ professional credibility and recognition. This is underlined by Amartya Sen, chairman of the Nālandā Mentor Group (NMG), in his pointer that “Oxford was rising when Nālandā was declining” and now the new Nālandā should reflect Asia’s re-emergence. Defining the link between the Nālandā project and Asia’s rise, Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo, who is also an NMG member, described the project as the “icon of Asian Renaissance” adding, “as Asia re-emerges on the world stage this century, its civilisational origins will become a subject of intense study and debate. Asians will look back to their own past and derive inspiration from it for the future.”
A senior Jambudipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath official after the New York meeting of the NMG in May 2008 said the objective of Nālandā was “to emphasise the importance of eastern intellectual endeavour and ensure that human aspiration is not being dominated by the western imprint.” Nālandā will build itself in the course of time as a vehicle for propagating the constructive and creative dimensions of oriental thought and knowledge systems based on Asian philosophies, experiences and practices that seldom find adequate place in contemporary western curricula.
The revival of Nālandā University is a multinational project, in partnership with Asian countries. The NMG member, Professor Wang Bangwei of Peking University, emphasised that “Nālandā belonged to not only India but all Asian Buddhists.” It will spurt activities and processes towards building an Asian community and cannot be used as an instrument of competitive diplomacy in the region. While participating in the 2006 symposium in Singapore, Professor Wang Dehua of the Shanghai Centre for International Studies referred to India-China relations in the context of Nālandā saying: “Let us forget about the 1962 incident. This project will symbolise the rebuilding of our old friendship and understanding. In the future, we will be able to reach the dream of an Asian community with a project like this.”
Other scholars at the symposium like Professor Tan Chung from Jambudipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath also elaborated on this theme, recalling that when the Han dynasty was on the verge of collapse in the sixth century, the spread of Buddhism from Nālandā helped China revive. The message is loud and clear — Nālandā should bring Jambudipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath and China, as also other Asian countries, closer.
Without invoking any competitive drive with its Asian neighbours, Nālandā would help Jambudipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath consolidate its position in the region. Since the university is based in Jambudipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath, scholars and students going out of Nālandā would become Jambudipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath’s goodwill ambassadors in their countries, generally at the critical levels of decision-making. Through the Nālandā alumni, Jambudipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath will also be able to showcase its cultural richness, democratic commitments, secular ethos and innovative strength in the frontier areas of knowledge. The boost in tourism and marketing of knowledge and cultural products in Asia would be a bonus for Jambudipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath, as also for other countries.
The completion and further expansion of the Nālandā project will not be without challenges. It will have to be insulated from the strong undercurrents of competitive strategic moves among its Asian stakeholders. Jambudipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath will also have to ensure that its bureaucratic processes do not intervene and erode the efficiency of this all-Asian project.
Funding the project would indeed be a formidable challenge, even as a public-private
enterprise. The present target is to create an endowment of $1 billion. Harvard University’s endowment is $35 billion. The funding constraint restrained the NMG from opening faculties in hard sciences and frontier areas of knowledge. This will handicap Nālandā in becoming a real centre of excellence in knowledge creation and thus in competing with the well endowed western Universities. The stakeholders of the project seem to be acutely aware of these challenges. It is hoped that they will be overcome as the project unfolds.
GOOD GOVERNANCE
Press Information Bureau
(C.M. Information Campus)
Information & Public Relations Department, U.P.
Central Governments led by Congress and BJP and other parties responsible for poor plight of farmers
BSP against forced acquisition of agricultural lands of farmers in the country
BSP to support farmers’ proposed August 26 siege of Parliament
Lucknow : 22 August 2010
The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Ms. Mayawati, while holding
the Congress led UPA Government and also the BJP and other
parties led Central Governments responsible for the sad plight of
the farmers and also for the problem of naxalism, said that owing
to the flaws of the land acquisition law of the Central Government
the farmers were forced to take to the roads to solve their
problems. She said that owing to the misuse of the Land
Acquisition Act and also because of the mentality of grabbing
farmers’ land, this situation had emerged at present. She said that
since 1894 the farmers had been demanding change in this law
and to define the ‘public purpose’ as well. But, the anti-farmer and
pro-industrialist Central Governments did not pay any attention in
this regard during the last 6 decades.
Ms. Mayawati said that it was very unfortunate that on one
hand the farmers demanded amendment in the Land Acquisition
Act, while on the other and the Congress led UPA Government
ignored their demands and gave away 50000 hectare land of the
farmers to industrialists in the name of SEZ so that they can
become billionaires. She said that the farmers of the country were
angry because of the anti-farmer policies of the Centre.
The CM said that the forest dwellers were also facing similar
situation. She said that for years the lands of the forest dwellers
were given away to the industrialists in the name of
industrialisation and lakhs of forest dwellers were rendered
landless and because of it they had now resorted to naxalism. She
said that it was very unfortunate that the Congress led UPA
Government instead of solving the basic problem, was taking
police action against the forest dwellers. She said that the problem
of naxalism could not be solved through bullets. This problem could be solved by changing the conditions, she pointed out. She
further said that as soon as the mentality of grabbing forest
dwellers’ land was checked, the problem of naxalism would be
solved.
Ms. Mayawati said that the NDA Government led by BJP was
also responsible for the land acquisition related problems of the
farmers. She said that the NDA Government ruled the country for
6 years and during that period it did not solve the problems of the
farmers and effected any change in the land acquisition laws. She
said that the BJP should pressurise the Central Government to
amend the Land Acquisition Act 1894.
Ms. Mayawati said that by amending the Land Acquisition
Act, the mentality of forcible acquisition of land of the farmers
could be changed. She said that BSP was always of the opinion
that the land of the farmers should be taken with their consent. In
the year 2007, the BSP Government formulated a new policy to
protect the interests of the farmers at the time of land acquisition.
Under it, the land of the farmers would be taken under the
agreement rules. She made it clear that the State Government
was totally against the forcible acquisition of land of the farmers.
Ms. Mayawati said that she supported farmers’ proposed
August 26 siege of Parliament. The farmers of the country have
decided to gherao the Parliament to enforce amendment in the
Land Acquisition Act, so that their problems could be solved.
Showing her agreement with the demand of the farmers to amend
this act, she said that she would take all possible steps in this
regard.
The CM said that as far as the land related problems of the
farmers of the Aligarh and Agra were concerned, they had been
solved. She said that the anti-government elements were trying to
worsen the law and order or the state under its pretext. She said
that the politicians visiting these districts should pressurise Central
Government to amend the Land Acquisition Act.
******
Carry out relief and rescue works on war-footing in flood affected areas —C.M.
Rs. 10 crore released for flood relief works
Rs. Two crore for repair works of
damaged roads and culverts
Lucknow: 28 August 2010
The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Ms. Mayawati has directed the
officers to carry out relief and rescue works on war-footing. She has
directed the officers to make necessary arrangements in flood affected
districts, so that affected people could reach in relief camps at earliest
and they should be provided relief materials and medical facilities. Any
laxity in relief and rescue works would be severely dealt with, she
warned.
Ms. Mayawati was reviewing flood relief works at a high-level
meeting at her official residence here today. She said that the State
Government had released Rs. 10 crore for flood relief works so far and
all districts had got the required amount. She said that Rs. Two crore
had been given for repair works of damaged roads and culverts.
Besides, an amount of Rs. 2.5 crore had been made available to P.A.C.
for making arrangements of 33 new rubberised boats, motor-boats
and other necessary life saving equipments.
The C.M. said that the flood affected people should be
immediately provided the facilities of boats, motor boats, food articles
and medicines. She has also directed the officers to make special
security arrangements in flood affected areas. She said that there was
no lack of money for flood relief works.
Ms. Mayawati said that on her directives, Mr. Nasimuddin
Siddiqui had reviewed the relief works in flood affected districts of
Bijnor, Kanshiram Nagar, Ballia, Gonda and Bahraich. She said that following her directives, the Chief Secretary had reviewed flood relief
and rescue works at Government level on Aug. 25 last. She had
directed the senior government officers for regular monitoring of relief
and rescue works in flood affected areas, besides making necessary
arrangements.
The C.M. has also directed that monitoring of embankments
should be done continuously. She directed that repair work of Charsari
embankment damaged in Parsawal village situated on the border of
Barabanki-Gonda district should be done on war-footing. She directed
the Irrigation Minister to gauge the situation arising out of damaged
embankment by immediate aerial survey. She also directed the
officers for immediate relief and rescue works for flood affected village
people. She said that special attention should be given on
maintenance of embankments.
Ms. Mayawati has directed the officers to make proper
arrangements of medical facilities and ensure the prevention of
infectious diseases. It may be recalled that the Chief Minister had
directed to nominate senior departmental officers for the proper
functioning of health services in flood affected areas. Following her
directives, additional health directors had been assigned the
responsibility of management and monitoring of medical facilities in
flood relief camps in Bahraich, Sitapur, Lakhimpur-Kheri, Pilibhit,
Kanshiram Nagar, Meerut and Barabanki districts.
The Chief Minister has directed the District Magistrates of flood
affected districts to make flood control rooms more effective and take
immediate action on the information received there. She said that
repair works of damaged roads and bridges should be done
immediately. She said that concerning District Magistrates and
Divisional Commissioners had been given the powers to start
immediate repair works by taking decisions at their own level, so that
repair works could not get delayed. She has also directed the officers
to ensure the availability of fodder and vaccines for cattle in flood
affected areas.
Drive against adulterators to continue
Complain against milk and milk product adulteration
at telephone no. -0522-2258103 and 9454400201
Lucknow : 25 August 2010
As many as 304 FIRs were lodged and 196 out of 429 named persons
were arrested in a drive launched against the food adulterators on the directive
of the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Ms. Mayawati from 1 June to 25 August
2010. Likewise, in a drive launched against the spurious and below standard
drugs, 186 FIRs were registered and 165 out of 233 named persons were
arrested during the drive. During this drive, articles worth Rs. 1.87 crore were
seized and spurious and below standard drugs worth Rs. 2.09 lakh were also
captured.
Giving this information here today, a Food and Drug Administration
Department spokesman said that the Chief Minister had directed the officers to
carry out this drive in the State till the problem of food adulteration and
spurious drugs was fully rooted out. The spokesman said that a drive launched
against the adulteration in milk and dairy products like paneer, ghee, khoya
etc. had been launched from 19 August. As many as 66 persons had been
named in 50 cases of adulteration caught in the raids. Out of these, 39 persons
had been arrested. During the drive, 60 quintals of khoya, 20 quintals of
adulterated ghee, 5 quintals of adulterated paneer and 2.85 lakh litres of
adulterated milk was captured and destroyed.
The spokesman said that 5 milk testing mobile vans had been pressed
into service in Lucknow district during the drive launched against adulteration
of milk. Trained milk analysts accompanied the van and provided on the spot
milk test reports to the people residing in various parts of the city. The
spokesman said that this experiment had given encouraging results as
preventive measures were taken against the erring milk suppliers.
The spokesman said that the people could lodge their complaints
regarding adulterated milk and dairy products on the telephone no. 0522-
2258103 and mobile no. 9454400201 which belong to Additional Commissioner
Enforcement, so that the adulterators could be punished severely. The
spokesman said that there was provision of life imprisonment for the
adulterators and warned them to desist from food adulteration.
The spokesman said that owing to the drive launched on the directives of
the CM, the problem of adulteration would be rooted out from the State very
soon.
State Medical and Health Minister demands Rs. 10 lakh assistance for family members of vaccine victims
Requests to provide sample test report at earliest
Lucknow: 24 August 2010
The Uttar Pradesh Medical and Health Minister Mr. Anant
Kumar Mishra has written a letter to the Union Health Minister to
provide Rs. 10 lakh assistance to the family members of the each
deceased child, who died in the immunisation incident that occurred
in Mohanlalganj area recently. He said in his letter that the
circumstances suggested that there was some problem with the
vaccine owing to which this incident occurred. He said that though
the C.M. had sanctioned Rs. 50,000 assistance for the family
members of each deceased, but the Central Government should also
provide them assistance in the interest of the immunisation drive. He
demanded that the quality of the vaccines being supplied in the State
should be given special focus.
Mr. Mishra said that the Food and Drug Administration
Department of the State Government had already sent the samples
of the vaccine to the Central Drug Laboratory, Kasauli, Himanchal
Pradesh for testing. He said that the report of the samples should be
provided to the State Government at the earliest as the Dr. G.K.
Malik Committee set up to investigate the incident could draw any
conclusion thereafter.
The Medical Health Minister, in his letter, said that the
Government of India supplied measles vaccines, syringes and vitamin
A syrup to the State. He said that the Dr. G.K. Malik Committee set
up by the State Government believed that the quality of vaccines,
syringes and vitamin A syrup should be checked, so that the incident
could be properly investigated.
Mr. Mishra said that the U.P. Chief Minister had taken the
incident very seriously and provided Rs. 50,000 assistance to the
family members of the deceased children from C.M.’s discretionary
fund. Besides, the guilty were suspended and the Dr. G.K. Malik
Committee had also carried out ‘Death Audit’.
Five health workers including a doctor suspended in Mohanlalganj vaccination incident
Rs. 50,000 aid provided to parents of deceased children
Magistrate inquiry ordered into incident
Lucknow : 21 August 2010
Taking serious note of the death of four children who died, when
they were administered vaccines yesterday, the State Government
ordered magistrate inquiry into the incident. The children belonging to
Bindauwa, Padminkhera and Ramgarhi villages under the Mohanlalganj
(Lucknow) CHC, died after they were vaccinated. The Government has
also ordered test of the vaccine. The parents of the deceased children
would be provided Rs. 50,000 assistance each through the Chief
Minister’s Discretionary Fund.
A spokesman said that five health personnel including one doctor
and four para-medical staff working under the Mohanlalganj CHC were
suspended and the Superintendent of the CHC Dr. K.S. Trivedi has been
asked to explain his conduct on slack administrative control. The
suspended health personnel included Dr. K.P. Upadhyaya Medical Officer
PHC Nigoha, Shri C.P. Yadav In-charge Cold Chain, A.N.M.s Christina
Charan, Akhtari Bano and Usha Verma have been placed under
suspension. All of them work under CHC Mohanlalganj. Departmental
inquiry has been ordered against them.
The Spokesman said that the Principal Secretary Medical Health
and Family Welfare Mr. Pradeep Shukla directed the D.G. Family Welfare
Dr. S.P. Ram and Chief Medical Officer Dr. A.K. Shukla to go to the
incident site along with their team. The team visited the villages and
inquired about the incident.
The Spokesman said that the vaccination programme would
remain suspended till the investigation is completed. He said that the
‘Death Audit’ of the deceased children was being conducted by the team
led by the HOD of the Paediatrics Department, Chhatrapati Shahuji
Maharaj Medical University to ascertain the cause of death.
The Spokesman said that the D.G. Family Welfare had been
directed to take full precautions in the vaccination programme, so that
such incidents were not repeated again. The spokesman appealed the
people not to feel any fear from this vaccination drive as the children
were being protected from six deadly diseases and it was being
conducted from earlier. He said that the mother-child protection drive
would continue in future as well.
******
Name - Mayawati, known as or called as Bahanji’ (Sister)
Political party - Bahujan Samaj Party The party’s political symbol is an Elephant.Mayawati has been National President of the BSP since 2003.
She follows Buddhist traditions and customs.
Education –
1. B.A. from Kalindi College, Delhi University,
2. B.Ed. BMLG College, Ghaziabad, Meerut University,
3. Law Degree from the Delhi University
Father’s name - Mr. Prabhu Das, who retired from the Indian Government’s Postal Department as a section head.
Mother’s name - Mrs. Ramrati (housewife) not educated.
Date of Birth - 15 January, 1956
Place of Birth - Shrimati Sucheta Kriplani Hospital (formerly known as Lady Harding Hospital), New Delhi
Relatives - Six brothers and two sisters (besides herself)
Marital Status – She is not married and has taken a vow to remain unmarried
Permanent Address - C-57, Indrapuri, New Delhi-110012
Present Address - 14, Gurudwara Rakab Ganj Road, New Delhi-110001
Foreign Travels –
Visited Canada, Denmark, France, Japan, Switzerland, Korea and Taiwan in the capacity of the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.
London : To inaugurate the Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar Memorial Community Centre as Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) National Vice-President.
As a representative of India, addressed the UN General Assembly while participating in an international seminar on the topic, “Democracy through Partnership between Men and Women”, organized by the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) on 7th June, 2000 in New York, USA.
In 1995, Ms. Mayawati created history by becoming Indian’s first Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa,i.e,PraBuddha Bharath (Untouchable or Scheduled Caste) woman chief minister
She is an Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudipa,i.e,PraBuddha Bharath (Scheduled caste Jatav sub-caste of the Chamar community).
She worked as a teacher in Delhi
In 1977, Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa,i.e,PraBuddha Bharath (Untouchable or Scheduled Caste) politician Kanshi Ram and Mayawati became his follower.
In 1984 Kanshi Ram founded Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Mayawati joined his core team. Kanshi Ram founded BSP to represent Aboriginal Inhabitant of Jambudvipa,i.e,PraBuddha Bharath (Untouchable or Scheduled Castes/Trobes/OBCs) and Buddhists people of Jambudvipa,i.e,PraBuddha Bharath.
Thus Mayawati changed her career path and joined politics.
Mayawati won for the first time in the Lok Sabha elections of 1989 from Bijnor.
April 1994 - Elected to the Rajya Sabha from Uttar Pradesh
In 1995, while a member of the Rajya Sabha (Upper House), she became a Chief Minister in a short-lived coalition government
Became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh 4 times –
(1) 1995 : 3rd June, 1995 to 18th October, 1995
(2) 1997 : 21st March, 1997 to 20th September, 1997
(3) 2002 : 3rd May, 2002 to 26th August, 2003
(4) 2007 : 13th May, 2007 to till date
15th December, 2001 – BSP founder Kanshi Ram declared her as the sole heir and political successor of him and the “Bahujan Movement” at a grand rally in the Lakshman Mela ground on the bank of river Gomti in the Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow.
At Kanshi Ram’s funeral ceremonies in 2006, Mayawati said they had both been following Buddhist traditions and customs. She performed the last rites as Buddhist of Kanshi Ram. As per customs Females are not allowed to do last rites of dead person.
She said that she will convert to Buddhism after getting an absolute majority at the Centre
2007 –
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has been listed as one of the top eight woman achievers by the Newsweek magazine.
As a Chief Minister, Mayawati erected number of statues of Buddhist and SC/ST/OBC icons like Bhimrao Ambedkar, Shahuji Maharaj, Gautam Buddha, BSP founder Kanshi Ram and of herself.
In February 2010, Mayawati’s government approved a plan for a special police force to protect the statues.
Became Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh 4 times –
(1) 1995 : 3rd June, 1995 to 18th October, 1995
(2) 1997 : 21st March, 1997 to 20th September, 1997
(3) 2002 : 3rd May, 2002 to 26th August, 2003
(4) 2007 : 13th May, 2007 to till date
She said that she will convert to Buddhism after getting an absolute majority at the Centre
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has been listed as one of the top eight woman achievers by the Newsweek magazine.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati says Central Bureau of Investigation continuing the probe in the assets case against her under political pressure.And investigation was being conducted illegally.
At the last hearing in April, the Centre said it would reconsider the disproportionate assets case in view of Ms. Mayawati’s fresh representation to the CBI. Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati then said: “The representation was received only a few days ago, and some more time is required to reconsider the whole case.”
In her application, Ms. Mayawati said income tax authorities had found her income (for the relevant period) bona fide through various orders, including the latest one on April 19, and hence no case remained to be investigated by the CBI.
Ms. Mayawati alleged that she was being discriminated against, pointing out that the CBI decided not to file an appeal against the order of a Patna special judge exonerating the former Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad, in a wealth case on the basis of the findings of income tax authorities.
Furthermore, the then Solicitor-General gave an opinion in favour of the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mulayam Singh, not to include the income of his family members for purposes of a disproportionate assets case against him. Ms. Mayawati said the same yardstick should be applied to her.
CBI should drop the case in view of the order passed by the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) giving her a clean chit.
Every year all the citizens Income Taxes are assessed and cleared by Income Tax authorities. How can the CBI find fault with them only in Ms Mayawati’s case? Does it mean that all that is being done ny the authorities are not genuine and only what CBI doing is genuine?
This is nothing but the very old traditional, venomous, caste based discrimination.
Interestingly, Mayawati had raised the ITAT decisions of April 5 and April 19 this year to allege double standards against the Centre, claiming the CBI had let them (Mulayam Singh and Lalu Prasad) off on the basis of Income tax clean chit.
In the case of Lalu, the CBI refused to appeal against the order of the Special CBI Judge acquitting him in the DA case. When the State Government filed an appeal, the CBI challenged it all the way to the Supreme Court. On the other hand, Mulayam got a favourable legal opinion from a top law officer that forced the CBI to move an application to withdraw further prosecution against him.
Mayawati had cited that Income tax department held that the entire gifts and receipts of her income for the assessment years 1999-2000 and 2004-05 were genuine. The Income Tax authorities have moved an appeal before the Allahabad High Court to set aside these findings.
Mayawati had cried hoarse over being harassed by the Centre, which was using the CBI as a political tool to target her. In this context, she wrote a representation to the CBI Director on April 20, seeking parity with her political counterparts Lalu and Mulayam.
Although the Government had assured the apex court to look into her representation, the affidavit makes it clear that the agency is determined to pursue against her.
Mayawati, in her reply affidavit filed earlier, had said, “The CBI cannot discriminate between two individuals merely on the basis of its whims or choice as the same would be liable to be struck down in view of Article 14 read with Article 21 of the Constitution.”
Terming CBI as a “super statutory authority”, the affidavit by Mayawati had stated, “CBI being an authority created under the 1946 Act is bound by the finding of the fact recorded by another statutory authority under the I-T Act 1961.” She even cited a Supreme Court decision that held in 2007 that a finding arrived at by the I-T Appellate Tribunal is binding even on Supreme Court.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati says Central Bureau of Investigation continuing the probe in the assets case against her under political pressure.And investigation was being conducted illegally.
At the last hearing in April, the Centre said it would reconsider the disproportionate assets case in view of Ms. Mayawati’s fresh representation to the CBI. Attorney-General G.E. Vahanvati then said: “The representation was received only a few days ago, and some more time is required to reconsider the whole case.”
In her application, Ms. Mayawati said income tax authorities had found her income (for the relevant period) bona fide through various orders, including the latest one on April 19, and hence no case remained to be investigated by the CBI.
Ms. Mayawati alleged that she was being discriminated against, pointing out that the CBI decided not to file an appeal against the order of a Patna special judge exonerating the former Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad, in a wealth case on the basis of the findings of income tax authorities.
Furthermore, the then Solicitor-General gave an opinion in favour of the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mulayam Singh, not to include the income of his family members for purposes of a disproportionate assets case against him. Ms. Mayawati said the same yardstick should be applied to her.
CBI should drop the case in view of the order passed by the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) giving her a clean chit.
Every year all the citizens Income Taxes are assessed and cleared by Income Tax authorities. How can the CBI find fault with them only in Ms Mayawati’s case? Does it mean that all that is being done ny the authorities are not genuine and only what CBI doing is genuine?
This is nothing but the very old traditional, venomous, caste based discrimination.
Mayawati had cited that Income tax department held that the entire gifts and receipts of her income for the assessment years 1999-2000 and 2004-05 were genuine. The Income Tax authorities have moved an appeal before the Allahabad High Court to set aside these findings.
Mayawati had cried hoarse over being harassed by the Centre, which was using the CBI as a political tool to target her. In this context, she wrote a representation to the CBI Director on April 20, seeking parity with her political counterparts Lalu and Mulayam.
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Be vigilant; guard your mind against negative thoughts.
– Buddha
30-08-2010 Rebirth Part III LESSON – 15
WISDOM IS POWER
EDUCATE (BUDDHA)! MEDITATE (DHAMMA)! ORGANISE (SANGHA)!
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AWAKEN-NESS
BUDDHA
THUS COME ONE
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II.
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FOUR HOLY TRUTHS
EIGHTFOLD PATH
TWELVEFOLD CONDITIONED ARISING
BODHISATTVA
PARAMITA
SIX PARAMITAS
III.
SIX SPIRITUAL POWERS
SIX PATHS OF REBIRTH
TEN DHARMA REALMS
FIVE SKANDHAS
EIGHTEEN REALMS
FIVE MORAL PRECEPTS
IV.
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MINDFULNESS
FOUR APPLICATIONS OF MINDFULNESS
LOTUS POSTURE
SAMADHI
CHAN SCHOOL
FOUR DHYANAS
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V.
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MAHAYANA AND HINAYANA COMPARED
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EIGHT CONSCIOUSNESSES
ONE HUNDRED DHARMAS
EMPTINESS
VI.
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Rebirth Part III
http://what-buddha-said.net/drops/Rebirth.htm
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.22.than.html#310
· Tipitaka · Khuddaka · Dhammapada
Dhp XXII
PTS: Dhp 306-319
Nirayavagga: Hell
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation: Buddharakkhita
306
He goes to hell,
the one who asserts
what didn’t take place,
as does the one
who, having done,
says, ‘I didn’t.’
Both — low-acting people —
there become equal:
after death, in the world beyond.
307-308
An ochre robe tied ’round their necks,
many with evil qualities
— unrestrained, evil —
rearise, because of their evil acts,
in hell.
— glowing, aflame —
than that, unprincipled &
unrestrained,
you should eat the alms of the country.
309-310
Four things befall the heedless man
who lies down with the wife of another:
a wealth of demerit;
a lack of good sleep;
third, censure;
fourth, hell.
A wealth of demerit, an evil destination,
& the brief delight of a
fearful man with a
fearful woman,
& the king inflicts a harsh punishment.
So
no man should lie down
with the wife of another.
311-314
Just as sharp-bladed grass,
if wrongly held,
wounds the very hand that holds it —
the contemplative life, if wrongly grasped,
drags you down to hell.
or defiled observance,
or fraudulent life of chastity
bears no great fruit.
then work at it firmly,
for a slack going-forth
kicks up all the more dust.
It’s better to leave a misdeed
undone.
A misdeed burns you afterward.
Better that a good deed be done
that, after you’ve done it,
won’t make you burn.
315
Like a frontier fortress,
guarded inside & out,
guard yourself.
Don’t let the moment pass by.
Those for whom the moment is past
grieve, consigned to hell.
316-319
Ashamed of what’s not shameful,
not ashamed of what is,
beings adopting wrong views
go to a bad destination.
Seeing danger where there is none,
& no danger where there is,
beings adopting wrong views
go to a bad destination.
Imagining error where there is none,
and seeing no error where there is,
beings adopting wrong views
go to a bad destination.
and non-error as non-,
beings adopting right views
go to a good
destination.
Behaviour determines the destination after death: Dhp 17, Dhp 18, Dhp 240
· Tipitaka · Khuddaka · Dhammapada
Dhp I
PTS: Dhp 1-20
Yamakavagga: Pairs
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation: Buddharakkhita
1-2
Phenomena are preceded by the heart,
ruled by the heart,
made of the heart.
If you speak or act
with a corrupted heart,
then suffering follows you —
as the wheel of the cart,
the track of the ox
that pulls it.
Phenomena are preceded by the heart,
ruled by the heart,
made of the heart.
If you speak or act
with a calm, bright heart,
then happiness follows you,
like a shadow
that never leaves.
3-6
‘He insulted me,
hit me,
beat me,
robbed me’
— for those who brood on this,
hostility isn’t stilled.
hit me,
beat me,
robbed me’ —
for those who don’t brood on this,
hostility is stilled.
through hostility,
regardless.
Hostilities are stilled
through non-hostility:
this, an unending truth.
Unlike those who don’t realize
that we’re here on the verge
of perishing,
those who do:
their quarrels are stilled.
7-8
One who stays focused on the beautiful,
is unrestrained with the senses,
knowing no moderation in food,
apathetic, unenergetic:
Mara overcomes him
as the wind, a weak tree.
One who stays focused on the foul,
is restrained with regard to the senses,
knowing moderation in food,
full of conviction & energy:
Mara does not overcome him
as the wind, a mountain of rock.
9-10
He who, depraved,
devoid
of truthfulness
& self-control,
puts on the ochre robe,
doesn’t deserve the ochre robe.
of depravity
endowed
with truthfulness
& self-control,
well-established
in the precepts,
truly deserves the ochre robe.
11-12
Those who regard
non-essence as essence
and see essence as non-,
don’t get to the essence,
ranging about in wrong resolves.
essence as essence,
and non-essence as non-,
get to the essence,
ranging about in right resolves.
13-14
As rain seeps into
an ill-thatched hut,
so passion,
the undeveloped mind.
a well-thatched hut,
so passion does not,
the well-developed mind.
15-18
Here he grieves
he grieves hereafter.
In both worlds
the wrong-doer grieves.
He grieves, he’s afflicted,
seeing the corruption
of his deeds.
he rejoices hereafter.
In both worlds
the merit-maker rejoices.
He rejoices, is jubilant,
seeing the purity
of his deeds.
he’s tormented hereafter.
In both worlds
the wrong-doer’s tormented.
He’s tormented at the thought,
‘I’ve done wrong.’
Having gone to a bad destination,
he’s tormented
all the more.
he delights hereafter.
In both worlds
the merit-maker delights.
He delights at the thought,
‘I’ve made merit.’
Having gone to a good destination,
he delights
all the more.
19-20
If he recites many teachings, but
— heedless man —
doesn’t do what they say,
like a cowherd counting the cattle of
others,
he has no share in the contemplative life.
but follows the Dhamma
in line with the Dhamma;
abandoning passion,
aversion, delusion;
alert,
his mind well-released,
not clinging
either here or hereafter:
he has his share in the contemplative life.
Dhp I
PTS: Dhp 1-20
Yamakavagga: Pairs
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation: Buddharakkhita
235-238
You are now
like a yellowed leaf.
Already
Yama’s minions stand near.
You stand at the door to departure
but have yet to provide
for the journey.
Work quickly! Be wise!
With impurities all blown away,
unblemished,
you’ll reach the divine realm
of the noble ones.
right at the end of your time.
You are headed
to Yama’s presence,
with no place to rest along the way,
but have yet to provide
for the journey.
Work quickly! Be wise!
With impurities all blown away,
unblemished,
you won’t again undergo birth
& aging.
239
Just as a silver smith
step by
step,
bit by
bit,
moment to
moment,
blows away the impurities
of molten silver —
so the wise man, his own.
240
Just as rust
— iron’s impurity —
eats the very iron
from which it is born,
so the deeds
of one who lives slovenly
lead him on
to a bad destination.
241-243
No recitation: the ruinous impurity
of chants.
No initiative: of a household.
Indolence: of beauty.
Heedlessness: of a guard.
In a woman, misconduct is an impurity.
In a donor, stinginess.
Evil deeds are the real impurities
in this world & the next.
More impure than these impurities
is the ultimate impurity:
ignorance.
Having abandoned this impurity,
monks, you’re impurity-free.
244-245
Life’s easy to live
for someone unscrupulous,
cunning as a crow,
corrupt, back-biting,
forward, & brash;
but for someone who’s constantly
scrupulous, cautious,
observant, sincere,
pure in his livelihood,
clean in his pursuits,
it’s hard.
246-248
Whoever kills, lies, steals,
goes to someone else’s wife,
& is addicted to intoxicants,
digs himself up
by the root
right here in this world.
that bad deeds are reckless.
Don’t let greed & unrighteousness
oppress you with long-term pain.
249-250
People give
in line with their faith,
in line with conviction.
Whoever gets flustered
at food & drink given to others,
attains no concentration
by day or by night.
cut through
up- rooted
wiped out —
attains concentration
by day or by night.
251
There’s no fire like passion,
no seizure like anger,
no snare like delusion,
no river like craving.
252-253
It’s easy to see
the errors of others,
but hard to see
your own.
You winnow like chaff
the errors of others,
but conceal your own —
like a cheat, an unlucky throw.
If you focus on the errors of others,
constantly finding fault,
your effluents flourish.
You’re far from their ending.
254-255
There’s no trail in space,
no outside contemplative.
People are smitten
with objectifications,
but devoid of objectification are
the Tathagatas.
no outside contemplative,
no eternal fabrications,
no wavering in the Awakened.
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29-08-2010 Rebirth Part II LESSON – 14
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SIX PARAMITAS
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REBIRTH Part II
Regarding Transmigration:
http://what-buddha-said.net/drops/Rebirth.htm
Causes of favorable or painful rebirth: MN 135
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.135.than.html
I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Savatthi in Jeta’s Grove, Anathapindika’s monastery. Then Subha the student, Todeyya’s son, went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with him. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there, he said to the Blessed One: “Master Gotama, what is the reason, what is the cause, why baseness & excellence are seen among human beings, among the human race? For short-lived & long-lived people are to be seen, sickly & healthy, ugly & beautiful, uninfluential & influential, poor & rich, low-born & high-born, stupid & discerning people are to be seen. So what is the reason, what is the cause, why baseness & excellence are seen among human beings, among the human race?”
“Students, beings are owners of kamma, heir to kamma, born of kamma, related through kamma, and have kamma as their arbitrator. Kamma is what creates distinctions among beings in terms of coarseness & refinement.”
“I don’t understand the detailed meaning of Master Gotama’s statement spoken in brief without explaining the detailed meaning. It would be good if Master Gotama taught me the Dhamma so that I might understand the detailed meaning of his brief statement.”
“In that case, student, listen & pay close attention. I will speak.”
“As you say, Master Gotama,” Subha the student responded.
The Blessed One said: “There is the case, student, where a woman or man is a killer of living beings, brutal, bloody-handed, given to killing & slaying, showing no mercy to living beings. Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death, he/she reappears in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, hell. If, on the break-up of the body, after death — instead of reappearing in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, hell — he/she comes to the human state, then he/she is short-lived wherever reborn. This is the way leading to a short life: to be a killer of living beings, brutal, bloody-handed, given to killing & slaying, showing no mercy to living beings.
“But then there is the case where a woman or man, having abandoned the killing of living beings, abstains from killing living beings, and dwells with the rod laid down, the knife laid down, scrupulous, merciful, & sympathetic for the welfare of all living beings. Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death, he/she reappears in a good destination, in the heavenly world. If, on the break-up of the body, after death — instead of reappearing in a good destination, in the heavenly world — he/she comes to the human state, then he/she is long-lived wherever reborn. This is the way leading to a long life: to have abandoned the killing of living beings, to abstain from killing living beings, to dwell with one’s rod laid down, one’s knife laid down, scrupulous, merciful, & sympathetic for the welfare of all living beings.
“There is the case where a woman or man is one who harms beings with his/her fists, with clods, with sticks, or with knives. Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death, he/she reappears in the plane of deprivation… If instead he/she comes to the human state, then he/she is sickly wherever reborn. This is the way leading to sickliness: to be one who harms beings with one’s fists, with clods, with sticks, or with knives.
“But then there is the case where a woman or man is not one who harms beings with his/her fists, with clods, with sticks, or with knives. Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death, he/she reappears in a good destination… If instead he/she comes to the human state, then he/she is healthy wherever reborn. This is the way leading to health: not to be one who harms beings with one’s fists, with clods, with sticks, or with knives.
“There is the case, where a woman or man is ill-tempered & easily upset; even when lightly criticized, he/she grows offended, provoked, malicious, & resentful; shows annoyance, aversion, & bitterness. Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death, he/she reappears in the plane of deprivation… If instead he/she comes to the human state, then he/she is ugly wherever reborn. This is the way leading to ugliness: to be ill-tempered & easily upset; even when lightly criticized, to grow offended, provoked, malicious, & resentful; to show annoyance, aversion, & bitterness.
“But then there is the case where a woman or man is not ill-tempered or easily upset; even when heavily criticized, he/she doesn’t grow offended, provoked, malicious, or resentful; doesn’t show annoyance, aversion, or bitterness. Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death, he/she reappears in a good destination… If instead he/she comes to the human state, then he/she is beautiful wherever reborn. This is the way leading to beauty: not to be ill-tempered or easily upset; even when heavily criticized, not to be offended, provoked, malicious, or resentful; nor to show annoyance, aversion, & bitterness.
“There is the case where a woman or man is envious. He/she envies, begrudges, & broods about others’ gains, honor, respect, reverence, salutations, & veneration. Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death, he/she reappears in the plane of deprivation… If instead he/she comes to the human state, then he/she is not influential wherever reborn. This is the way leading to not being influential: to be envious, to envy, begrudge, & brood about others’ gains, honor, respect, reverence, salutations, & veneration.
“But then there is the case where a woman or man is not envious. He/she does not envy, begrudge, or brood about others’ gains, honor, respect, reverence, salutations, or veneration. Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death, he/she reappears in a good destination… If instead he/she comes to the human state, he/she is influential wherever reborn. This is the way leading to being influential: not to be envious; not to envy, begrudge, or brood about others’ gains, honor, respect, reverence, salutations, or veneration.
“There is the case where a woman or man is not a giver of food, drink, cloth, sandals, garlands, scents, ointments, beds, dwellings, or lighting to priests or contemplatives. Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death he/she reappears in the plane of deprivation… If instead he/she comes to the human state, he/she is poor wherever reborn. This is the way leading to poverty: not to be a giver of food, drink, cloth, sandals, garlands, scents, ointments, beds, dwellings, or lighting to priests or contemplatives.
“But then there is the case where a woman or man is a giver of food, drink, cloth, sandals, scents, ointments, beds, dwellings, & lighting to priests & contemplatives. Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death, he/she reappears in a good destination… If instead he/she comes to the human state, then he/she is wealthy wherever reborn. This is the way leading to great wealth: to be a giver of food, drink, cloth, sandals, garlands, scents, ointments, beds, dwellings, & lighting to priests & contemplatives.
“There is the case where a woman or man is obstinate & arrogant. He/she does not pay homage to those who deserve homage, rise up for those for whom one should rise up, give a seat to those to whom one should give a seat, make way for those for whom one should make way, worship those who should be worshipped, respect those who should be respected, revere those who should be revered, or honor those who should be honored. Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death, he/she reappears in the plane of deprivation… If instead he/she comes to the human state, then he/she is low-born wherever reborn. This is the way leading to a low birth: to be obstinate & arrogant, not to pay homage to those who deserve homage, nor rise up for… nor give a seat to… nor make way for… nor worship… nor respect… nor revere… nor honor those who should be honored.
“But then there is the case where a woman or man is not obstinate or arrogant; he/she pays homage to those who deserve homage, rises up… gives a seat… makes way… worships… respects… reveres… honors those who should be honored. Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death, he/she reappears in a good destination… If instead he/she comes to the human state, then he/she is highborn wherever reborn. This is the way leading to a high birth: not to obstinate or arrogant; to pay homage to those who deserve homage, to rise up… give a seat… make way… worship… respect… revere… honor those who should be honored.
“There is the case where a woman or man when visiting a priest or contemplative, does not ask: ‘What is skillful, venerable sir? What is unskillful? What is blameworthy? What is blameless? What should be cultivated? What should not be cultivated? What, having been done by me, will be for my long-term harm & suffering? Or what, having been done by me, will be for my long-term welfare & happiness?’ Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death, he/she reappears in the plane of deprivation… If instead he/she comes to the human state, then he/she will be stupid wherever reborn. This is the way leading to stupidity: when visiting a priest or contemplative, not to ask: ‘What is skillful?… Or what, having been done by me, will be for my long-term welfare & happiness?’
“But then there is the case where a woman or man when visiting a priest or contemplative, asks: ‘What is skillful, venerable sir? What is unskillful? What is blameworthy? What is blameless? What should be cultivated? What should not be cultivated? What, having been done by me, will be for my long-term harm & suffering? Or what, having been done by me, will be for my long-term welfare & happiness?’ Through having adopted & carried out such actions, on the break-up of the body, after death, he/she reappears in a good destination… If instead he/she comes to the human state, then he/she is discerning wherever reborn. This is the way leading to discernment: when visiting a priest or contemplative, to ask: ‘What is skillful?… Or what, having been done by me, will be for my long-term welfare & happiness?’
“So, student, the way leading to short life makes people short-lived, the way leading to long life makes people long-lived; the way leading to sickliness makes people sickly, the way leading to health makes people healthy; the way leading to ugliness makes people ugly, the way leading to beauty makes people beautiful; the way leading to lack of influence makes people uninfluential, the way leading to influence makes people influential; the way leading to poverty makes people poor, the way leading to wealth makes people wealthy; the way leading to low birth makes people low-born, the way leading to high birth makes people highborn; the way leading to stupidity makes people stupid, the way leading to discernment makes people discerning.
Beings are owners of kamma, heir to kamma, born of kamma, related through kamma, and have kamma as their arbitrator. Kamma is what creates distinctions among beings in terms of coarseness & refinement….
When this was said, Subha the student, Todeyya’s son, said to the Blessed One: “Magnificent, Master Gotama! Magnificent! Just as if he were to place upright what was overturned, to reveal what was hidden, to show the way to one who was lost, or to carry a lamp into the dark so that those with eyes could see forms, in the same way has Master Gotama — through many lines of reasoning — made the Dhamma clear. I go to Master Gotama for refuge, to the Dhamma, and to the Community of monks. May Master Gotama remember me as a lay follower who has gone to him for refuge, from this day forward, for life.”
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.than.html
Translator’s note:
Although this discourse is often cited as the Buddha’s carte blanche for following one’s own sense of right and wrong, it actually says something much more rigorous than that. Traditions are not to be followed simply because they are traditions. Reports (such as historical accounts or news) are not to be followed simply because the source seems reliable. One’s own preferences are not to be followed simply because they seem logical or resonate with one’s feelings. Instead, any view or belief must be tested by the results it yields when put into practice; and — to guard against the possibility of any bias or limitations in one’s understanding of those results — they must further be checked against the experience of people who are wise. The ability to question and test one’s beliefs in an appropriate way is called appropriate attention. The ability to recognize and choose wise people as mentors is called having admirable friends. According to Iti 16-17, these are, respectively, the most important internal and external factors for attaining the goal of the practice. For further thoughts on how to test a belief in practice, see MN 61,MN 95, AN 7.80, and AN 8.53. For thoughts on how to judge whether another person is wise, see MN 110, AN 4.192, and AN 8.54.
I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One, on a wandering tour among theKosalans with a large community of monks, arrived at Kesaputta, a town of the Kalamas. The Kalamas of Kesaputta heard it said, “Gotama the contemplative — the son of the Sakyans, having gone forth from the Sakyan clan — has arrived at Kesaputta. And of that Master Gotama this fine reputation has spread: ‘He is indeed a Blessed One, worthy, & rightly self-awakened, consummate in knowledge & conduct, well-gone, a knower of the cosmos, an unexcelled trainer of those persons ready to be tamed, teacher of human & divine beings, awakened, blessed. He has made known — having realized it through direct knowledge — this world with its devas, maras, & brahmas, its generations with their contemplatives & priests, their rulers & common people; has explained the Dhamma admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, admirable in the end; has expounded the holy life both in its particulars & in its essence, entirely perfect, surpassingly pure. It is good to see such a worthy one.’”
So the Kalamas of Kesaputta went to the Blessed One. On arrival, some of them bowed down to him and sat to one side. Some of them exchanged courteous greetings with him and, after an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, sat to one side. Some of them sat to one side having saluted him with their hands palm-to-palm over their hearts. Some of them sat to one side having announced their name & clan. Some of them sat to one side in silence.
As they sat there, the Kalamas of Kesaputta said to the Blessed One, “Lord, there are some priests & contemplatives who come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. And then other priests & contemplatives come to Kesaputta. They expound & glorify their own doctrines, but as for the doctrines of others, they deprecate them, revile them, show contempt for them, & disparage them. They leave us absolutely uncertain & in doubt: Which of these venerable priests & contemplatives are speaking the truth, and which ones are lying?”
“Of course you are uncertain, Kalamas. Of course you are in doubt. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born. So in this case, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering’ — then you should abandon them.
“What do you think, Kalamas? When greed arises in a person, does it arise for welfare or for harm?”
“For harm, lord.”
“And this greedy person, overcome by greed, his mind possessed by greed, kills living beings, takes what is not given, goes after another person’s wife, tells lies, and induces others to do likewise, all of which is for long-term harm & suffering.”
“Yes, lord.”
“Now, what do you think, Kalamas? When aversion arises in a person, does it arise for welfare or for harm?”
“For harm, lord.”
“And this aversive person, overcome by aversion, his mind possessed by aversion, kills living beings, takes what is not given, goes after another person’s wife, tells lies, and induces others to do likewise, all of which is for long-term harm & suffering.”
“Yes, lord.”
“Now, what do you think, Kalamas? When delusion arises in a person, does it arise for welfare or for harm?”
“For harm, lord.”
“And this deluded person, overcome by delusion, his mind possessed by delusion, kills living beings, takes what is not given, goes after another person’s wife, tells lies, and induces others to do likewise, all of which is for long-term harm & suffering.”
“Yes, lord.”
“So what do you think, Kalamas: Are these qualities skillful or unskillful?”
“Unskillful, lord.”
“Blameworthy or blameless?”
“Blameworthy, lord.”
“Criticized by the wise or praised by the wise?”
“Criticized by the wise, lord.”
“When adopted & carried out, do they lead to harm & to suffering, or not?”
“When adopted & carried out, they lead to harm & to suffering. That is how it appears to us.”
“So, as I said, Kalamas: ‘Don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, “This contemplative is our teacher.” When you know for yourselves that, “These qualities are unskillful; these qualities are blameworthy; these qualities are criticized by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to harm & to suffering” — then you should abandon them.’ Thus was it said. And in reference to this was it said.
“Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.
“What do you think, Kalamas? When lack of greed arises in a person, does it arise for welfare or for harm?”
“For welfare, lord.”
“And this ungreedy person, not overcome by greed, his mind not possessed by greed, doesn’t kill living beings, take what is not given, go after another person’s wife, tell lies, or induce others to do likewise, all of which is for long-term welfare & happiness.”
“Yes, lord.”
“What do you think, Kalamas? When lack of aversion arises in a person, does it arise for welfare or for harm?”
“For welfare, lord.”
“And this unaversive person, not overcome by aversion, his mind not possessed by aversion, doesn’t kill living beings, take what is not given, go after another person’s wife, tell lies, or induce others to do likewise, all of which is for long-term welfare & happiness.”
“Yes, lord.”
“What do you think, Kalamas? When lack of delusion arises in a person, does it arise for welfare or for harm?”
“For welfare, lord.”
“And this undeluded person, not overcome by delusion, his mind not possessed by delusion, doesn’t kill living beings, take what is not given, go after another person’s wife, tell lies, or induce others to do likewise, all of which is for long-term welfare & happiness.”
“Yes, lord.”
“So what do you think, Kalamas: Are these qualities skillful or unskillful?”
“Skillful, lord.”
“Blameworthy or blameless?”
“Blameless, lord.”
“Criticized by the wise or praised by the wise?”
“Praised by the wise, lord.”
“When adopted & carried out, do they lead to welfare & to happiness, or not?”
“When adopted & carried out, they lead to welfare & to happiness. That is how it appears to us.”
“So, as I said, Kalamas: ‘Don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, “This contemplative is our teacher.” When you know for yourselves that, “These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness” — then you should enter & remain in them.’ Thus was it said. And in reference to this was it said.
“Now, Kalamas, one who is a disciple of the noble ones — thus devoid of greed, devoid of ill will, undeluded, alert, & resolute — keeps pervading the first direction [the east] — as well as the second direction, the third, & the fourth — with an awareness imbued with good will. Thus he keeps pervading above, below, & all around, everywhere & in every respect the all-encompassing cosmos with an awareness imbued with good will: abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.
“He keeps pervading the first direction — as well as the second direction, the third, & the fourth — with an awareness imbued with compassion. Thus he keeps pervading above, below, & all around, everywhere & in every respect the all-encompassing cosmos with an awareness imbued with compassion: abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.
“He keeps pervading the first direction — as well as the second direction, the third, & the fourth — with an awareness imbued with appreciation. Thus he keeps pervading above, below, & all around, everywhere & in every respect the all-encompassing cosmos with an awareness imbued with appreciation: abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.
“He keeps pervading the first direction — as well as the second direction, the third, & the fourth — with an awareness imbued with equanimity. Thus he keeps pervading above, below, & all around, everywhere & in every respect the all-encompassing cosmos with an awareness imbued with equanimity: abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.
“Now, Kalamas, one who is a disciple of the noble ones — his mind thus free from hostility, free from ill will, undefiled, & pure — acquires four assurances in the here-&-now:
“‘If there is a world after death, if there is the fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then this is the basis by which, with the break-up of the body, after death, I will reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world.’ This is the first assurance he acquires.
“‘But if there is no world after death, if there is no fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then here in the present life I look after myself with ease — free from hostility, free from ill will, free from trouble.’ This is the second assurance he acquires.
“‘If evil is done through acting, still I have willed no evil for anyone. Having done no evil action, from where will suffering touch me?’ This is the third assurance he acquires.
“‘But if no evil is done through acting, then I can assume myself pure in both respects.’ This is the fourth assurance he acquires.
“One who is a disciple of the noble ones — his mind thus free from hostility, free from ill will, undefiled, & pure — acquires these four assurances in the here-&-now.”
“So it is, Blessed One. So it is, O One Well-gone. One who is a disciple of the noble ones — his mind thus free from hostility, free from ill will, undefiled, & pure — acquires four assurances in the here-&-now:
“‘If there is a world after death, if there is the fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then this is the basis by which, with the break-up of the body, after death, I will reappear in a good destination, the heavenly world.’ This is the first assurance he acquires.
“‘But if there is no world after death, if there is no fruit of actions rightly & wrongly done, then here in the present life I look after myself with ease — free from hostility, free from ill will, free from trouble.’ This is the second assurance he acquires.
“‘If evil is done through acting, still I have willed no evil for anyone. Having done no evil action, from where will suffering touch me?’ This is the third assurance he acquires.
“‘But if no evil is done through acting, then I can assume myself pure in both ways.’ This is the fourth assurance he acquires.
“One who is a disciple of the noble ones — his mind thus free from hostility, free from ill will, undefiled, & pure — acquires these four assurances in the here-&-now.
“Magnificent, lord! Magnificent! Just as if he were to place upright what was overturned, to reveal what was hidden, to show the way to one who was lost, or to carry a lamp into the dark so that those with eyes could see forms, in the same way has the Blessed One — through many lines of reasoning — made the Dhamma clear. We go to the Blessed One for refuge, to the Dhamma, and to the Sangha of monks. May the Blessed One remember us as lay followers who have gone to him for refuge, from this day forward, for life.”
Behaviour determines the destination after death: Dhp 17
Dhp 18, Dhp 240
The laws of kamma are as inviolable as the law of gravity: SN XLII.6
Why not just settle for divine rebirth among the devas?: SN V.7
The preciousness of our human life: SN XX.2, SN LVI.48
How to gain rebirth as an elephant or a horse: AN X.177
What’s so bad about being reborn?: SN V.6
http://www.mahabodhi-ladakh.org/
Welcome to Mahabodhi International Meditation Centre
The Mahabodhi International Meditation Centre (MIMC) is a great example of one man’s vision turning into reality. Venerable Bhikkhu Sanghasena established the Mahabodhi International Meditation Center in 1986 to offer both spiritual instructions as well as desperately needed humanitarian services to impoverished people in the remote land of Ladakh.
A dedicated team of social workers, teachers, doctors, monks, nuns, community leaders and care-providers have created an integrated community at Devachan in Ladakh which provides comprehensive care to all segments of society: children, elderly, special needs individuals, monks & nuns, the sick, as well as those seeking spiritual development. The community has become a model for the region through sustainable, ecological development. With the support of our sponsors we hope to be able to contribute our part to this goal by serving the people of Ladakh. You are most welcome to join us in this effort.
Flash Floods hit Ladakh
Please visit:http://www.mahabodhi-ladakh.org/ for
Himalayan Oasis - A Short Video on Mahabodhi
(Courtesy Robert Gravenor and Tina Kyi)
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Beings are owners of their action, heirs of their action.
– Buddha
28-08-2010
LESSON –13
WISDOM IS POWER
EDUCATE(BUDDHA)! MEDITATE(DHAMMA)! ORGANISE(SANGHA)!
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The Free e-Nālandā University has been re-organized to function through the following Schools of Learning :
Buddha Taught his Dhamma Free of cost, hence the Free- e-Nālandā follows suit
As the Original Nālandā University did not offer any Degree, so also the Free e-Nālandā University.
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BUDDHA
THUS COME ONE
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EIGHTFOLD PATH
TWELVEFOLD CONDITIONED ARISING
BODHISATTVA
PARAMITA
SIX PARAMITAS
III.
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SIX PATHS OF REBIRTH
TEN DHARMA REALMS
FIVE SKANDHAS
EIGHTEEN REALMS
FIVE MORAL PRECEPTS
IV.
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Rare is Human Rebirth! 
What moves at death to the next life? Is it consciousness?
No! since consciousness arise & cease right here, it cannot move anywhere!
It is not continuous, but contiguous discrete mental states as pearls on a string.
The prior moment of consciousness contains the properties that conditions the
arising of the next moment of consciousness! These inherent properties are
mainly craving for (conscious) sensing and craving for becoming into new being.
If these cravings are present in the rebirth-linking moment of consciousness, then
the next moment of consciousness will arise immediately after the death moment,
but now in another location and body, which qualities (or lack of) indeed also are
conditioned by properties within the rebirth-linking moment of consciousness…
Example: If deluded ignorance is dominant in the rebirth-linking moment of consciousness,
then an animal rebirth is to be expected. If harmonious peace and well earned settled
mental calmness based on a long life of doing good are the dominant factors right in the
rebirth-linking moment of consciousness, then a divine deva rebirth is to be expected.
If anger, hostile enmity, envy and hate are dominant in the rebirth-linking moment of
consciousness, rebirth in hell is to be expected…
So what actually passes on is CAUSALITY: That is conditioning factors or forces!
Nothing more! No form, feeling, perception, construction, or consciousness passes on.
No “Self, I, Me, Body, Identity, or Ego” passes on, because they never really existed
in the first place, so how can they ever then pass on?!?
The classic example is the 2 candles:
Candle A is in flame. (=Dying individuality)
This is then used to light or ignite Candle B (=Reborn individuality).
By this very ignition the flame of Candle A is extinguished…
Only candle B is now burning: What was now passed on!?!
Is the flame of Candle B now the SAME, as the flame of Candle A?
Not so. Candle B burns by its own flame, but it was turned on by flame A!
Is the flame of Candle B now DIFFERENT from the flame of Candle A?
Not really so either. Since Candle B started burning from the flame A!
What is Reborn?: Neither the SAME nor ANOTHER!
What am ‘I’ & ‘Person’?: Neither the SAME nor ANOTHER!
Not a fixed entity, but a streaming process of ever renewed
arisings and ceasings of impersonal mental and physical states…
Just moments of name-&-form passes on!
In brevity:
Question: What passes on at death?
Answer: The forces or streams of: Ignorance, Greed, & Hate,
and derivatives thereof, passes on at death and also in every
moment of this life! One is reborn not only at death, but at
every conscious moment of life itself also…
Re-arising millions of times per second!
Neither as the same, nor as another…
Rebirth-Linking Transmigration!
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_46.html
Does Rebirth Make Sense?
by
Bhikkhu Bodhi
Newcomers to Buddhism are usually impressed by the clarity, directness, and earthy practicality of the Dhamma as embodied in such basic teachings as the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the threefold training. These teachings, as clear as day-light, are accessible to any serious seeker looking for a way beyond suffering. When, however, these seekers encounter the doctrine of rebirth, they often balk, convinced it just doesn’t make sense. At this point, they suspect that the teaching has swerved off course, tumbling from the grand highway of reason into wistfulness and speculation. Even modernist interpreters of Buddhism seem to have trouble taking the rebirth teaching seriously. Some dismiss it as just a piece of cultural baggage, “ancient Indian metaphysics,” that the Buddha retained in deference to the world view of his age. Others interpret it as a metaphor for the change of mental states, with the realms of rebirth seen as symbols for psychological archetypes. A few critics even question the authenticity of the texts on rebirth, arguing that they must be interpolations.
A quick glance at the Pali suttas would show that none of these claims has much substance. The teaching of rebirth crops up almost everywhere in the Canon, and is so closely bound to a host of other doctrines that to remove it would virtually reduce the Dhamma to tatters. Moreover, when the suttas speak about rebirth into the five realms — the hells, the animal world, the spirit realm, the human world, and the heavens — they never hint that these terms are meant symbolically. To the contrary, they even say that rebirth occurs “with the breakup of the body, after death,” which clearly implies they intend the idea of rebirth to be taken quite literally.
In this essay I won’t be arguing the case for the scientific validity of rebirth. Instead, I wish to show that the idea of rebirth makes sense. I will be contending that it “makes sense” in two ways: first, in that it is intelligible, having meaning both intrinsically and in relation to the Dhamma as a whole; and second, in that it helps us to make sense, to understand our own place in the world. I will try to establish this in relation to three domains of discourse, the ethical, the ontological, and the soteriological. Don’t be frightened by the big words: the meaning will become clear as we go along.
First, the teaching of rebirth makes sense in relation to ethics. For early Buddhism, the conception of rebirth is an essential plank of its ethical theory, providing an incentive for avoiding evil and doing good. In this context, the doctrine of rebirth is correlated with the principle of kamma, which asserts that all our morally determinate actions, our wholesome and unwholesome deeds, have an inherent power to bring forth fruits that correspond to the moral quality of those deeds. Read together, the twin teachings of rebirth and kamma show that a principle of moral equilibrium obtains between our actions and the felt quality of our lives, such that morally good deeds bring agreeable results, bad deeds disagreeable results.
It is only too obvious that such moral equilibrium cannot be found within the limits of a single life. We can observe, often poignantly, that morally unscrupulous people might enjoy happiness, esteem, and success, while people who lead lives of the highest integrity are bowed down beneath pain and misery. For the principle of moral equilibrium to work, some type of survival beyond the present life is required, for kamma can bring its due retribution only if our individual stream of consciousness does not terminate with death. Two different forms of survival are possible: on the one hand, an eternal afterlife in heaven or hell, on the other a sequence of rebirths. Of these alternatives, the hypothesis of rebirth seems far more compatible with moral justice than an eternal afterlife; for any finite good action, it seems, must eventually exhaust its potency, and no finite bad action, no matter how bad, should warrant eternal damnation.
It may be the case that this insistence on some kind of moral equity is an illusion, an unrealistic demand we superimpose on a universe cold and indifferent to our hopes. There is no logical way to prove the validity of rebirth and kamma. The naturalist might just be right in holding that personal existence comes to an end at death, and with it all prospects for moral justice. Nevertheless, I believe such a thesis flies in the face of one of our deepest moral intuitions, a sense that some kind of moral justice must ultimately prevail. To show that this is so, let us consider two limiting cases of ethically decisive action. As the limiting case of immoral action, let us take Hitler, who was directly responsible for the dehumanizing deaths of perhaps ten million people. As the limiting case of moral action, let us consider a man who sacrifices his own life to save the lives of total strangers. Now if there is not survival beyond death, both men reap the same ultimate destiny. Before dying, perhaps, Hitler experiences some pangs of despair; the self-sacrificing hero enjoys a few seconds knowing he’s performing a noble deed. Then beyond that — nothing, except in others’ memories. Both are obliterated, reduced to lifeless flesh and bones.
Now the naturalist might be correct in drawing this conclusion, and in holding that those who believe in survival and retribution are just projecting their own wishes out upon the world. But I think something within us resists consigning both Hitler and our compassionate hero to the same fate. The reason we resist is because we have a deep intuitive sense that a principle of moral justice is at work in the world, regulating the course of events in such a way that our good and bad actions rebound upon ourselves to bring the appropriate fruit. Where the naturalist holds that this intuition amounts to nothing more than a projection of our own ideals out upon the world, I would contend that the very fact that we can conceive a demand for moral justice has a significance that is more than merely psychological. However vaguely, our subjective sense of moral justice reflects an objective reality, a principle of moral equilibrium that is not mere projection but is built into the very bedrock of actuality.
The above considerations are not intended to make belief in rebirth a necessary basis for ethics. The Buddha himself does not try to found ethics on the ideas of kamma and rebirth, but uses a purely naturalistic type of moral reasoning that does not presuppose personal survival or the working of kamma. The gist of his reasoning is simply that we should not mistreat others — by injuring them, stealing their belongings, exploiting them sexually, or deceiving them — because we ourselves are averse to being treated in such ways. Nevertheless, though the Buddha does not found ethics on the theory of rebirth, he does make belief in kamma and rebirth a strong inducement to moral behavior. When we recognize that our good and bad actions can rebound upon ourselves, determining our future lives and bringing us happiness or suffering, this gives us a decisive reason to avoid unwholesome conduct and to diligently pursue the good.
The Buddha includes belief in rebirth and kamma in his definition of right view, and their explicit denial in wrong view. It is not that the desire for the fruits of good karma should be one’s main motive for leading a moral life, but rather that acceptance of these teachings inspires and reinforces our commitment to ethical ideals. These twin principles open a window to a wider background against which our pursuit of the moral life unfolds. They show us that our present living conditions, our dispositions and aptitudes, our virtues and faults, result from our actions in previous lives. When we realize that our present conditions reflect our kammic past, we will also realize that our present actions are the legacy that we will transmit to our kammic descendants, that is, to ourselves in future lives. The teaching of rebirth thus enables us to face the future with fortitude, dignity, and courage. If we recognize that no matter how debilitating our present conditions might be, no matter how limiting and degrading, we can still redeem ourselves, we will be spurred to exercise our will for the achievement of our future good. By our present actions of body, speech, and mind, we can transform ourselves, and by transforming ourselves, we can surmount all inner and outer obstacles and advance toward the final goal.
The teachings of kamma and rebirth have a still deeper ethical significance than as simple pointers to moral responsibility. They show us not only that our personal lives are shaped by our own kammic past, but also that we live in an ethically meaningful universe. Taken in conjunction, they make the universe a cosmos, an orderly, integrated whole, with dimensions of significance that transcend the merely physical. The levels of order that we have access to by direct inspection or scientific investigation do not exhaust all the levels of cosmic order. There is system and pattern, not only in the physical and biological domains, but also in the ethical, and the teachings of kamma and rebirth reveal just what that pattern is. Although this ethical order is invisible to our fleshly eyes and cannot be detected by scientific apparatus, this does not mean it is not real. Beyond the range of normal perception, a moral law holds sway over our deeds and via our deeds over our destiny. It is just the principle of kamma, operating across the sequence of rebirths, that locks our volitional actions into the dynamics of the cosmos, thus making ethics an expression of the cosmos’s own intrinsic orderliness. At this point ethics begins to shade into ontology, which we will examine in the next part of this essay.
The teaching of rebirth, taken in conjunction with the doctrine of kamma, implies that we live in a morally ordered universe, one in which our morally determinate actions bring forth fruits that in some way correspond to their own ethical quality. Though the moral law that links our actions with their fruits cannot be demonstrated experimentally in the same way that physical and chemical laws can be, this does not mean it is not real. It means only that, like quarks and quasars, it operates beyond the threshold of sensory perception. Far from being a mere projection of our subjective ideals, the moral law locks our volitional deeds into an all-embracing cosmic order that is perfectly objective in that it functions independently of our personal desires, views, and beliefs. Thus when we submit our behavior to the rule of ethics, we are not simply acting in ways that merit moral approval. By conforming to the principles of ethics we are doing nothing less than aligning ourselves with the Dhamma, the universal law of righteousness and truth which stands at the bedrock of the cosmos.
This brings us to the ontological aspect of the Buddhist teaching on rebirth, its implications for understanding the nature of being. Buddhism sees the process of rebirth as integral to the principle of conditionality that runs through all existence. The sentient universe is regulated by different orders of causation layered in such a way that higher orders of causation can exercise dominion over lower ones. Thus the order of kamma, which governs the process of rebirth, dominates the lower orders of physical and biological causation, bending their energies toward the fulfillment of its own potential. The Buddha does not posit a divine judge who rules over the workings of kamma, rewarding and punishing us for our deeds. The kammic process functions autonomously, without a supervisor or director, entirely through the intrinsic power of volitional action. Interwoven with other orders in the vast, complex web of conditionality, our deeds produce their consequences just as naturally as seeds in a field bring forth their appropriate herbs and flowers.
To understand how kamma can produce its effects across the succession of rebirths we must invert our normal, everyday conception of the relationship between consciousness and matter. Under the influence of materialistic biases we assume that material existence is determinative of consciousness. Because we witness bodies being born into this world and observe how the mind matures in tandem with the body, we tacitly take the body to be the foundation of our existence and mind or consciousness an evolutionary offshoot of blind material processes. Matter wins the honored status of “objective reality,” and mind becomes an accidental intruder upon an inherently senseless universe.
From the Buddhist perspective, however, consciousness and the world coexist in a relationship of mutual creation which equally require both terms. Just as there can be no consciousness without a body to serve as its physical support and a world as its sphere of cognition, so there can be no physical organism and no world without some type of consciousness to constitute them as an organism and world. Though temporally neither mind nor matter can be regarded as prior to the other, in terms of practical importance the Buddha says that mind is the forerunner. Mind is the forerunner, not in the sense that it arises before the body or can exist independently of a physical substratum, but in the sense that the body and the world in which we find ourselves reflect our mental activity.
It is mental activity, in the form of volition, that constitutes kamma, and it is our stock of kamma that steers the stream of consciousness from the past life into a new body. Thus the Buddha says: “This body, O monks, is old kamma, to be seen as generated and fashioned by volition, as something to be felt” (SN XI.37). It is not only the body, as a composite whole, that is the product of past kamma, but the sense faculties too (see SN XXV.146). The eye, ear, nose, tongue, body-sense, and mind-base are also fashioned by our past kamma, and thus kamma to some degree shapes and influences all our sensory experience. Since kamma is ultimately explained as volition (cetana), this means that the particular body with which we are endowed, with all its distinguishing features and faculties of sense, is rooted in our volitional activities in earlier lives. Precisely how past volition can influence the development of the zygote lies beyond the range of scientific explanation, but if the Buddha’s words are to be trusted such an influence must be real.
The channel for the transmission of kammic influence from life to life across the sequence of rebirths is the individual stream of consciousness. Consciousness embraces both phases of our being — that in which we generate fresh kamma and that in which we reap the fruits of old kamma — and thus in the process of rebirth, consciousness bridges the old and new existences. Consciousness is not a single transmigrating entity, a self or soul, but a stream of evanescent acts of consciousness, each of which arises, briefly subsists, and then passes away. This entire stream, however, though made up of evanescent units, is fused into a unified whole by the causal relations obtaining between all the occasions of consciousness in any individual continuum. At a deep level, each occasion of consciousness inherits from its predecessor the entire kammic legacy of that particular stream; in perishing, it in turn passes that content on to its successor, augmented by its own novel contribution. Thus our volitional deeds do not exhaust their full potential in their immediately visible effects. Every volitional deed that we perform, when it passes, leaves behind a subtle imprint stamped upon the onward-flowing stream of consciousness. The deed deposits in the stream of consciousness a seed capable of bearing fruit, of producing a result that matches the ethical quality of the deed.
When we encounter suitable external conditions, the kammic seeds deposited in our mental continuum rise up from their dormant condition and produce their fruits. The most important function performed by kamma is to generate rebirth into an appropriate realm, a realm that provides a field for it to unfold its stored potentials. The bridge between the old existence and the new is, as we said above, the evolving stream of consciousness. It is within this stream of consciousness that the kamma has been created through the exercise of volition; it is this same stream of consciousness, flowing on, that carries the kammic energies into the new existence; and it is again this same stream of consciousness that experiences the fruit. Conceivably, at the deepest level all the individual streams of consciousness are integrated into a single all-embracing matrix, so that, beneath the surface of events, the separate kammic accumulations of all living beings crisscross, overlap, and merge. This hypothesis — though speculative — would help account for the strange coincidences we sometimes meet that prick holes in our assumptions of rational order.
The generative function of kamma in the production of new existence is described by the Buddha in a short but pithy sutta preserved in the Anguttara Nikaya (AN III.76). Venerable Ananda approaches the Master and says, “‘Existence, existence’ is spoken of, venerable sir. In what way is there existence?” The Buddha replies: “If there were no kamma ripening in the sensory realm, no sense-sphere existence would be discerned. If there where no kamma ripening in the form realm, no form-sphere existence would be discerned. If there were no kamma ripening in the formless realm, no formless-sphere existence would be discerned. Therefore, Ananda, kamma is the field, consciousness the seed, and craving the moisture for beings obstructed by ignorance and fettered by craving to be established in a new realm of existence, either low (sense-sphere), middling (form-sphere), or high (formless-sphere).”
As long as ignorance and craving, the twin roots of the round of rebirths, remain intact in our mental continuum, at the time of death one especially powerful kamma will become ascendant and propel the stream of consciousness to the realm of existence that corresponds to its own “vibrational frequency.” When consciousness, as the seed, becomes planted or “established” in that realm it sprouts forth into the rest of the psycho-physical organism, summed up in the expression “name and form” (nama-rupa). As the organism matures, it provides the site for other past kammas to gain the opportunity to produce their results. Then, within this new existence, in response to our various kammically induced experiences, we engage in actions that engender fresh kamma with the capacity to generate still another rebirth. Thereby the round of existence keeps turning from one life to the next, as the stream of consciousness, swept along by craving and steered by kamma, assumes successive modes of embodiment.
The ultimate implication of the Buddha’s teaching on kamma and rebirth is that human beings are the final masters of their own destiny. Through our unwholesome deeds, rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion, we create unwholesome kamma, the generative cause of bad rebirths, of future misery and bondage. Through our wholesome deeds, rooted in generosity, kindness, and wisdom, we beautify our minds and thereby create kamma productive of a happy rebirth. By using wisdom to dig more deeply below the superficial face of things, we can uncover the subtle truths hidden by our preoccupation with appearances. Thereby we can uproot the binding defilements and win the peace of deliverance, the freedom beyond the cycle of kamma and its fruit. This aspect of the Buddhist teaching on rebirth will be explored more fully in the third part of this essay.[1]
http://www.aryaveda.com/aryaveda/dhyana/What%20Buddha%20Taught%20II.pdf
With release, there is the knowledge, ‘Released.’ He discerns that ‘Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There’s nothing further for this world.’ Just as if there were a pool of water in a
mountain glen — clear, limpid, and unsullied — where a man with good eyesight standing on the bank could see shells, gravel, and pebbles, and also shoals of fish swimming about and resting, and it would occur to him, ‘This pool of water is
clear, limpid, and unsullied. Here are these shells, gravel, and pebbles, and also these shoals of fish swimming about and resting.’
What Buddha Taught
Sutta Commentaries II
www.sukhayana.com
Version 1; Feb 23, 2010
Dvedhavitakka Sutta:
Two Sorts of Thinking
Here is another one of the suttas written by
common monks, which contains another silly method for gaining entry into the dhyanas. It as laughable as the one that said having eight special thoughts gets you into dhyana, but this sutta contains one of the most profound, earth shattering analogies I have ever seen. In this one analogy, Buddhas foretells and shows you exactly how Mara will destroy his teachings. It is really unbelievable, and it is one of the reasons I love Buddha.
“”Monks, before my self-awakening, when I was still just an unawakened Bodhisatta, the thought occurred to me: ‘Why don’t I keep dividing my
thinking into two sorts?’”
Here the sutta claims Buddha started separating good thoughts from bad thoughts, then destroyed the bad thoughts. When he had good thoughts, the author claims it “promotes lack of vexation and
leads to Unbinding”. Then, as if one thing leads to the other, the standard dhyana liturgy is repeated. How many millions of people have practiced positive thinking in body, mind, and deed? It is an old theory for a happy life, happy kamma. No one
but this author says that this is the way to end rebirth. The Christians have this as their mainstay, and they say it leads to a rebirth in heaven. I think If you ask 1,000 Buddhists what happens when you only think good thoughts, I think they would say it will promote good karma, great merit, happy rebirth. How many Buddhists believe that they can think there way to Nirvana? I think there must be millions. Millions and millions of people “mindful of mental qualities”, listening and watching there
thoughts, wanting liberation from rebirth by
thinking. Then in this unremarkable sutta appears an anlogy from Buddha, untouched! The sutta has been massively changed. The sutta is about two sorts of
thinking, good and bad.
“He [Mara] would close off the safe, restful paththat led to their rapture, and would open up a false path, set out a male decoy, place a female decoy, and thus the large herd of deer…would fall
into ruin & disaster. Then suppose that a certain man [Buddha] were to appear to that same large herd of deer, desiring their benefit, desiring their welfare, desiring their rest from bondage. He
would open up the safe, restful path that led to their rapture, would close off the false path, take away the male decoy, destroy the female decoy, and thus the large herd of deer…would come into
growth, increase, & abundance.
The analogy is about evil people leading you down the wrong path with two phoney decoys, and Buddha removing and destroying the decoys. The sutta is about two types of thinking, good and bad.
These must be the two phoney decoys of the false path which Buddha says is Mara’s game!
This is about Buddha’s enlightenment day. Wouldn’t he be talking about what he rejected or withdrew from to attain enlightenment. And here is his analogy of the false path with two phoney decoys.
And what are the phoney decoys he talks about, good and bad thoughts.
Further, the real Buddha says he takes away and destroys the phoney decoys. So if you follow the analogy, not the common people (Mara) who have edited this sutta to mean it’s opposite, you see Buddha saying: “We have all been taught since our youth about what is good and bad. We are told
there are good thoughts and bad thoughts. If you are serious about meditation and liberation, you don’t follow the worldly ways you have been taught and divide everything into good and bad. It is all just one thing. It is all karma, it is all thinking. Liberation is not liberation from evil, it is liberation from thinking and karma. You have to go in a
different direction. Buddha might say, “When I realized this truth for myself, I could see the game that I had been playing was just a mind-game. It was not a good mind-game and a bad mind game, it
was just a mind-game. I totally withdrew from the mind-game, and saw that it was the mind-game itself, which was suffering and the cause of suffering. As I withdrew, I found the blissful dhyanas, and insight.” That is how Buddha passed the night, withdrawing from the entire game.
What is incredible about this sutta is that Mara has left the analogy intact, but destroyed the sutta. And how has Mara destroyed the sutta? The sutta now
teaches exactly what Buddha’s analogy says is the false path! In other words, it is as if Buddha knew his meaning was going to be destroyed by Mara, so he made an analogy telling you how Mara was going to destroy the meaning. Do you see how
incredible this is? The Buddha once said some meaningful things, but he knew Mara was going to destroy it and make it false. So he makes an analogy, telling you how the lies will be told. This is why I love Buddha. Where in any literature do
you find such tremendous jokes, such tremendous wisdom. Mara has done a very good job, and has fooled billions of people with his lies, but here Buddha can have the last laugh.
Samadhanga Sutta:
The Factors of Concentration If had only one sutta to read forever, this sutta
would be one at the top of the list. A proper subtitle of this sutta should be the “Five Levels of Samadhi”. It has all the great topics, which I have found worthy of understanding, plus one extra exciting analogy, which I have not heard before in
the suttas, samadhi #5. The Buddha gives the four dhyana samadhis and then adds a fifth samadhi, which I have always considered fourth dhyana, but here he breaks it out as a new fifth level of samadhi, which has it’s own very special Buddha
analogy. Whatever the Pali word used here, translating it as “concentration” is completely erroneous. To accurately translate, you have to know the meaning
of the words, not just a dictionary understanding. “Samadhi” is probably the best way to translate it, because it is an unearthly state beyond focus, attention, concentration, and mind-consciousness.
This sutta’s commentary requires a separate booklet, so go to that booklet for detailed analysis. The only major thing missing from this sutta is “How” to do it, advanced samadhi, and the discovery of the timeless Buddha.
Maha-Assapura Sutta
The Greater Discourse at Assapura
Much of the liturgy of this sutta has been
commented on in other books, so I will select new significant discoveries.
With release, there is the knowledge, ‘Released.’ He discerns that ‘Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There’s nothing further for this world.’ Just as if there were a pool of water in a mountain glen — clear, limpid, and unsullied — where a man with good eyesight standing on the bank could see shells, gravel, and pebbles, and also shoals of fish swimming about and resting, and it would occur to him, ‘This pool of water is clear, limpid, and unsullied. Here are these shells, gravel, and pebbles, and also these shoals of fish swimming about and resting.’
The sutta is describing what is alledged to be the super-power of ending fermentations and thus realizing the ending of re-birth, fulfilling the holy life. What we really have is an analogy, so we are fairly confident that Buddha may have used a similar analogy. That is the only thing factual in the sutta. Notice the verbiage surrounding this image is just descriptions, and nowhere is there any “How to do it”. I would ignore everything but the analogy. It
appears that at least three times someone added their beliefs. The entire sutta is usually in the analogy, and the rest is just common people telling you a bunch of nonsense. Such is the case with this sutta. I will explain how you can know the verbiage in this sutta is false. This is not a story of Buddha talking about the fulfillment of the holy life, and ending reincarnation. To understand logically, you may need a little logical understanding of what Buddha
taught from my other booklets, but I will also be as descriptive as possible. I hope you will be able to understand the simple logic provided here. Buddha describes a pool of water in a mountain glen. Well, in the 4th dhyana, this is a common vision. It has been described in several of my booklets. This is a vision in the mind’s eye, inside the brain. The Soul has entered the 4th dhyana and everthing of this world has been left behind. But there is a connection between the Soul and the body. The mind’s eye in the brain develops a vision to account for what the souls is experiencing. Many such visions occur, but they are in the brain, not in the experience of soul. I hope this is clear. What is slightly unclear is what the soul knowledge is which is creating this vision. While this vision is very similar to beginning fourth dhyana visions, it has a twist. The twist is that his vision has a man
standing on the bank of this pool, who is seeing sand, gravel, shells, and shoals of fish swimming and resting. In my opinion, this is not going to be a typical vision in the mind from the beginning of the fourth dhyana. While the pool of water can be a
vision in his mind’s eye, the rest of it can be very different. It may still be visions in the mind’s eye, but it is more likely that this is slightly more advanced. Here is how it works. When the soul exits the container of consciousness in beginning 4th dhyana, you get mental visions of what your soul is
experiencing. There are no pools of water above your head, and no lotus blossoms are opening up above your head. These are visions in your mind’s eye. Buddha had visions of a lace cloth covering his body-mind below him. So in 4th dhyana your
soul has escaped the body-mind-world. So a fourth dhyana practitioner may try to get his bearings. He doesn’t exactly know where he is, and his soul may not have vast in depth vision. When he initially moves around to see where he is, he can get visions or soul experiences. Everyone knows they have a body-mind. We don’t
think about it very much, but we are always on this earth. When someone does 4th dhyana, they leave the body-mind-world, the container of consciousness. Then what? Isn’t it logical as the soul gains insight that he discovers the earth very
close by? If the soul is now outside the body, shouldn’t the earth be the next thing discovered? I think so. I hope you follow the logic. So, in my opinion, as Buddhas soul gained the ability to withdraw, he saw visions or soul knowledge of the earth from very close proximity. His soul went to a place on earth, where He felt himself at the edge of a pool of water, and He saw
the shore had sand, pebbles, and shells beneath Him. Then his soul directed itself to the water and saw the life forms under the water. I have had many similar insights, and from my personal explorations, I have seen the same things, and they are visions or knowledge of the earth from explorations at the beginning of the 4th dhyana. The common people’s claim in the sutta of this
being the ending of reincarnation and the ending of the path is a bit exaggerated. What you do know is that you are outside of this life, but that visions occur in the brain imitating what your soul experiences. In my opinion, this is not breaking rebirth. It gives you the ability to choose perhaps.
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Buddhist Revival-PART IV
WISDOM IS POWER
EDUCATE(BUDDHA)! MEDITATE(DHAMMA)! ORGANISE(SANGHA)!
27-08-2010
LESSON – 12
27810 Free Online e-Nālandā University
Awakened One Shows the Path to Attain Ultimate Bliss
Anyone Can Attain Ultimate Bliss
Just Visit:
COMPUTER IS AN ENTERTAINMENT INSTRUMENT!
INTERNET!
IS
ENTERTAINMENT NET!
TO BE MOST APPROPRIATE!
Using such an instrument
The Free e-Nālandā University has been re-organized to function through the following Schools of Learning :
Jambudvipa, i.e, PraBuddha Bharath scientific thought in
mathematics,
astronomy,
alchemy,
and
anatomy
Buddha Taught his Dhamma Free of cost, hence the Free- e-Nālandā follows suit
As the Original Nālandā University did not offer any Degree, so also the Free e-Nālandā University.
Main Course Programs:
I.
KAMMA
REBIRTH
AWAKEN-NESS
BUDDHA
THUS COME ONE
DHARMA
II.
ARHAT
FOUR HOLY TRUTHS
EIGHTFOLD PATH
TWELVEFOLD CONDITIONED ARISING
BODHISATTVA
PARAMITA
SIX PARAMITAS
III.
SIX SPIRITUAL POWERS
SIX PATHS OF REBIRTH
TEN DHARMA REALMS
FIVE SKANDHAS
EIGHTEEN REALMS
FIVE MORAL PRECEPTS
IV.
MEDITATION
MINDFULNESS
FOUR APPLICATIONS OF MINDFULNESS
LOTUS POSTURE
SAMADHI
CHAN SCHOOL
FOUR DHYANAS
FOUR FORMLESS REALMS
V.
FIVE TYPES OF BUDDHIST STUDY AND PRACTICE
MAHAYANA AND HINAYANA COMPARED
PURE LAND
BUDDHA RECITATION
EIGHT CONSCIOUSNESSES
ONE HUNDRED DHARMAS
EMPTINESS
VI.
DEMON
LINEAGE
with
Level I: Introduction to Buddhism
Level II: Buddhist Studies
TO ATTAIN
Level III: Stream-Enterer
Level IV: Once - Returner
Level V: Non-Returner
Level VI: Arhat
Welcome to the Free Online e-Nālandā University
THE BUDDHIST FLAG
A much more recent symbol is the Buddhist flag. It was in designed in 1880 by Colonel Henry Steele Olcott an American journalist. It was first hoisted in 1885 in Sri Lanka and is a symbol of faith and peace, and is now used throughout the world to represent the Buddhism.
The five colours of the flag represent the colours of the aura that emanated from the body of the Buddha when he attained Awaken-ness
Buddhist Symbols
In the earliest centuries of Buddhism, statues of the Buddha were not used. Instead, Buddhist art consisted of images symbolizing the Buddha and his teachings, such as the lotus, the Wheel of the Law, the Bodhi tree and the Buddha’s footprints.
Eventually, the Buddha image became one of the most popular representations in Buddhism, but these early symbols remain important and are frequently used to this day. They are especially important in Theravada Buddhistcountries like Sri Lanka and Thailand.
As Buddhism spread, Buddhist symbolism was enriched by the cultures it came into contact with. This is especially true of Buddhism in Tibet, which has developed a rich symbolic tradition. The central symbols of Tibetan Buddhismare the Eight Auspicious Symbols, known in Sanskrit as Ashtamangala (ashta meaning eight and mangalameaning auspicious). The Eight Auspicious Symbols are printed on Tibetan prayer flags, incorporated into mandalas and thangkas, and used in other forms of ritual art. Another important symbol is the Wheel of Life, a symbolic representation of the universe as understood by Tibetan Buddhists.
Other important types of symbolism in Buddhism include colors, especially the five colors of white, yellow, red, blue and green, and symbolic hand gestures called mudras. The articles in this section explore these Buddhist symbols, providing information on their history, meaning and use in Buddhism today. (For an introduction and quick guide to Buddhist colors, see our Chart of Buddhist Color Symbolism.)
Abhaya MudraBhumisparsha MudraBuddha EyesBuddhapada
Dhyana Mudra
Eight Auspicious Symbols
Endless Knot
Golden Fishes
Lotus
Om Mani Padme Hum
Parasol
Swastika
Tiratna
Varada Mudra
Wheel of Life
Zen Circle
Blue
Black
Green
Red
Buddhist Revival in Mongolia
Faith is returning to Mongolia after decades of Soviet repression, and with it reconstructed monasteries
EG UUR, Mongolia – On the banks of the remote Uur River in northern Mongolia, the Dayan Derkh monastery stands as a testament to Mongolia’s religious revival.
<< The Dayan Derkh monastery. Photo by Ted Wood.
This was one of hundreds of Buddhist monasteries destroyed in the 1930s as the Soviet Union brought Mongolia under its control and effectively banned Buddhism here. For decades, Mongolians had to restrict their faith to secret meetings and their gers – the traditional Mongolian felt tent homes.
Since its return to democracy, Mongolia has rediscovered its strong religious heritage and its Buddhist followers are free to attend the scores of ancient monasteries that have been restored across this vast and nomadic nation.
The rebuilding of the Dayan Derkh monastery was completed in 2006. Since then, it has been looked after by a caretaker called Ragchaa, who grew up in the area and was 12 years old when the original monastery was destroyed in 1938.
“I used to come here and pray as a child,” Ragchaa, who like most Mongolians uses only one name, said as he unlocked the wooden door of the lodge-style monastery to let a visitor in. “I remember when the monks who worked here were rounded up and executed.”
Dressed in a deel, the traditional robe worn by Mongolian men and women, the old caretaker entered slowly, shuffling clockwise around the one-room hall, as is Mongolian custom upon entering any building.
Passing a faded calendar of the Dalai Lama hanging on the wall, Ragchaa stopped at the main altar to light a stick of incense, before solemnly clasping his hands together in front of a statue of Dayan Derkh, whom Ragchaa referred to as the monastery’s 13th-century patron saint. He turned to survey the hall. A dozen or so wooden benches stood scattered around; tapestries of religious figures hung from the ceiling.
“The original monastery was much bigger,” Ragchaa said. “But this is a beautiful place.”
DECADES OF OPPRESSION
The full truth about the persecution of Mongolia’s Buddhists will probably never be known, but mass graves uncovered in recent years illuminate the grim fate that befell thousands of monks in the Soviet-inspired purges, which lasted until the 1960s.
Norov, 83, who lives downstream from the Dayan Derkh monastery, recalled how her uncle, a monk, managed to flee from would-be killers on horseback. But he was never seen again, she said.
“People used to hide prayer wheels and religious texts in their homes and practice their faith in secret,” she said. “We don’t have to do that anymore.”
There are now 200 Buddhist monasteries in Mongolia, with several more under construction.
But the Dayan Derkh monastery is still not operating as planned. For one, there are no monks trained and ready to move in yet.
LAMAS NEEDED
Hundreds of kilometers away, at the Gandantegchinleng monastery in Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, young boys immersed themselves in Buddhist teachings, preparing for moves to monasteries across Mongolia. Among them were six young lamas-to-be being groomed to take over the Dayan Derkh monastery. The oldest, 26-year-old Tseren-ochir, studies at Gandantegchinleng’s associated University of Buddhism.
“I decided to become a lama in 1998, because I wanted to dedicate myself to help the local people and to dedicate myself to all the animals in the world,” Tseren-ochir, dressed in a red and yellow robe, said after a class of reciting ancient Tibetan prayers.
Another of the students bound for Dayan Derkh is Batkhuu, an orphan who said he was inspired to join the church by one of his father’s relatives.
“He was a lama,” said Batkhuu, 15. “I used to come to his house and pretend chanting, even though I didn’t really know how to do it.”
Lamaism, or Tibetan Buddhism, arrived in the 13th century, around the same time Genghis Kahn began his imperial conquests.
Centuries later, one of Mongolia’s leaders, Altan Khan, sanctioned the so-called Yellow Sect of Buddhism and authorized widespread construction of temples, shrines and monasteries. At one point, Mongolia claimed more than 700 temples and 7,000 shrines.
In the 1920s, Mongolia reportedly had 110,000 monks, including children – one-third of the male population. More than 90 percent of Mongols embraced the Lamaist faith, census statistics show. But the campaign of repression, initiated in 1936 by Mongolia’s Communist leader Khorloogiin Choibalsan at the behest of Joseph Stalin, led to the destruction of all the temples except a handful kept as museums and the execution of thousands of monks.
During the decades that followed, many Mongolians simply lost their religious traditions, said the deputy head of the Gandantegchinleng monastery, Vice Humble Lama Amgalan.
“People were taught that religion is bad, and because of that many Mongolians had little faith and in fact viewed religion with suspicion,” he said over milk tea and dried yoghurt in the prayer room of his apartment in Ulaanbaatar. “But the transmission of Buddhist knowledge is coming back. We now have a lot of young monks and lay people who are knowledgeable about our religion.”
There are now 3,000 students training to become monks in Mongolia.
Much of the financial support for the rebuilding of monasteries, meanwhile, has come from Taiwan and other Buddhist countries in Asia.
But the Dayan Derkh monastery was financed by the Tributary Fund, a not-for-profit organization in Montana that has sought to enlist Buddhist leaders in its effort to protect the taimen, the largest salmon in the world, which swims in the Uur River below the monastery. “The lamas bring an ancient cultural tie to nature protection that meets up with modern ecosystem concerns,” said David Gilroy, an American graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has spent years in Mongolia studying the taimen. He also has worked closely with religious leaders here. “They are trying to regain an active community after 80 years of enforced atheism, and in their effort to do that they can partner with international groups to reconstruct what was lost in the 1930s.”
The immediate future of the Dayan Derkh monastery, though, looks slightly less clear. A couple of months after Ragchaa brought his visitor into the reconstructed monastery, the 81-year-old caretaker died.
Gilroy recalled Ragchaa’s contribution to the conservation efforts in an e-mail sent shortly after the old caretaker’s death. “He was the elderly man that consulted on much of the building of the Dayan Derkh monastery and who, in many publications and press interviews, was quoted for his personal memories of the original monastery and the lamas living and teaching there. … I know I will miss his wry sense of humor, his great ‘big fish’ stories, and his rare lack of inhibition to speak honestly about what he thought – maybe something that comes with age.”
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According to highly connected sources, the 76-year-old veteran communist is a frequent worshipper at Buddhist temples and shows a strong personal leaning towards the ancient religion, though it is unclear whether he would yet call himself a Buddhist.
This places Mr Jiang among a growing number of Chinese - some say 100million of the country’s 1.3billion people - who show some affiliation with Buddhism, a religion introduced from India nearly 2000 years ago.
The signs are everywhere. Temples are being restored and reopened, and people come to burn incense and say prayers before Buddha images. More young people are shaving their heads and donning the yellow or grey robes of monks and nuns.
At the Badachu complex of temples near Beijing’s Western Hills, a woman prostrates herself before a pagoda housing a relic said to be a tooth of the original Buddha, Gautama or Sakyamuni, and circles the building with tears in her eyes. A former forestry professor from Harbin, she felt gripped by belief in 1994 and has since given up her academic career and her marriage in her effort to renounce worldly concerns.
“I haven’t yet succeeded, and I feel guilty about it,” she said. “So I am here to ask the Buddha to forgive me. If there are 10 degrees of Buddhist achievements, I think I am only at level two.”
Most followers do not go as far as forsaking worldly comforts. In Beijing’s “dirt market”, where small traders bring old and new artefacts for sale, small statues of the Buddha are among the most popular items - bought for use in home shrines by members of China’s new middle class with cash to spare and thoughts lifting above the struggle for a living.
The revival is being quietly encouraged by the authorities, at the same time as they crack down on religious or mystical trends seen as potentially subversive of their monopoly on power.
At a military-run hotel in Beijing, about 400 abbots, monks and lay Buddhists were meeting for an occasional national convention of the Buddhist Association of China, one of the five officially sanctioned organisations (including for Catholicism, other branches of Christianity, Islam and indigenous Daoism) through which Beijing permits and controls religious activity.
“The Government’s attitude towards Buddhism is more tolerant,” said the scholar. “This is partly because it is so closely incorporated into Chinese culture - in everything from architecture to language - it is inseparable.
People were coming to Buddhism for all kinds of reasons.
“Some have made lots of money, sometimes in nasty ways, since the reforms and they come to the temple for redemption,” the scholar said. “Some high-ranking officials feel insecure, and they want to seek a divine patron.”
The scholar was not sure whether Former President Jiang’s attendance at temples meant a philosophical commitment to the supreme “dharma”, the supreme spiritual law, or a change in life-long political practices. “A person’s life is multi-faceted,” he said.
| Under the able guidance of Ven. Dr. D. Rewatha Thero, Present General Secretary of the Maha Bodhi Society of India, Buddhagaya centre is extending a commendable service to the Society and the Buddhist community around the globe. |
Today the Centre is extending the following activities:-
|
| Free Homeopathic Dispensary: Founded by Lt. Ven. Bulath Singhala Pannarama Thero , the dispensary looks after the needs of the local and needy people by giving them free medicines and treatment. A team of dedicated doctors and staff help in maintaining the proper functioning of the Dispensary. A free School for Children : Started in 1997, the Ambulance service is serving the community by taking the sick peo;oe to hospitals at a minimum cost so that the service is inexpensive and easy to use by less fortunate ,ambulance service the Buddhagaya Centre of the Maha Bodhi Society of India is one of the first to reach the spot of any natural calamity of disaster. Free Educational Sponsorship for the Handicap: The Buddhagaya Centre also provides free sponsorship to the deserving candidates who are physically handicap children and is presently sponsoring few such deserving candidates. |
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Entrance gate to the Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Statue of Anagarika Dharmapala founder of Mahabodhi Society
Statue of Anagarika Dharmapala founder of Mahabodhi Society
Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
May you all be happy with the blessing of Triple Gem, The Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha.
Group of pilgrims taking picture behind Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Buddha first teachings in Sarnath
Buddha’s first Disciples
Golden Buddha statue at the altar, Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Golden Buddha statue at the altar, Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Pregnant Maya, Buddha’s mother mural painting at Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Birth of Buddha in Lumbini, mural painting at Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Wiseman meeting newborn Buddha prophesying His future, mural painting at Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Fasting Buddha and Sujata offering a bowl with milk and rice, mural painting at Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Meditating Buddha under Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya with group of demons trying to disturb, mural painting at Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Group of disturbing demons, mural painting at Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Disturbing demon, mural painting at Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Buddha’s first teaching in Sarnath, mural painting at Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Buddha with disciples meeting with old king, mural painting at Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Buddhist monk collecting alms, mural painting at Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Buddha Parinibbana in Kushinara, mural painting at Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Buddha Parinibbana in Kushinara, mural painting at Mulagandha Kuti Vihar of Mahabodhi Society, Sarnath
Buddhist colorful prayer flag with Wheel of Dhamma
Buddhist swastika
Bell of Dhamma founded by Tarthang Rinpoche