"All is Burning" (The Fire Sermon)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nanamoli/Osbert John S. Moore (Āditta-pariyāya Sutra, Three Cardinal Discourses of the Buddha, Wheel No. 17, BPS.lk)

LA is burning, Springs fire, LA Times cover (Mel Melcon/framework.latimes.com)

Gayasisa, Gaya Head, or Brahmayoni Hill, where the Buddha delivered the Fire Sermon.

.

A world on fire (weakonomics.com)

English speakers might be familiar with the name of this discourse due to T.S. Eliot's titling the third section of his celebrated poem, The Waste Land, "The Fire Sermon." In a footnote, Eliot states that this Buddhist sutra "corresponds in importance to the Sermon on the Mount."

-Alexander W. Allison, Herbert Barrows, Caesar R. Blake, Arthur J. Carr, Arthur M. Eastman, and Hubert M. English, Jr. (1975, rev.), The Norton Anthology of Poetry, NY: W.W. Norton Co., p. 1042, Note 9.

The Sutra

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Gayā, at Gayāsīsa, together with 1,000 monastics. There he addressed them.

“Meditators, all is burning. And what is the 'all' that is burning?

 

“The eye [Note 20] is burning, forms [21] are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact [22] is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact as its indispensable condition, that too is burning!

Woman sets boyfriend on fire (splash)

"Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, burning with the fire of hate, burning with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

 

“The ear is burning, sounds are burning…

 

The Fire Sermon (Wiki graphic)

 “The nose is burning, fragrances are burning…

“The tongue is burning, flavors are burning…

“The body [23] is burning, tangibles are burning…

“The mind [24] is burning, ideas (mental objects) [25] are burning, mind-consciousness [26] is burning, mind contact is burning, also whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact as its indispensable condition, that too is burning.

Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hate, with the fire of delusion. I say it is burning with birth, aging and death, with sorrows, with lamentations, with pains, with griefs, with despairs.

What to do in the face of fire when all (Camarillo) is in flames? (latimes.com)

 
“Meditators, when a noble follower who has heard (the truth) sees thus, that person finds estrangement in the eye, finds estrangement in forms, finds estrangement in eye-consciousness, finds estrangement in eye-contact, and whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with eye-contact as its indispensable condition, in that too one finds estrangement.

 
“One finds estrangement in the ear… in sounds…

“One finds estrangement in the nose… in fragrances…

“One finds estrangement in the tongue… in flavors…

“One finds estrangement in the body… in tangibles…

Brain (mind/heart) on fire (salon.com)

“One finds estrangement in the mind, finds estrangement in ideas (mental objects), finds estrangement in mind-consciousness, finds estrangement in mind-contact, and whatever is felt as pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant that arises with mind-contact as its indispensable condition, in that too one finds estrangement.
 

“When one finds estrangement, passion fades out. With the fading of passion, one is liberated. When liberated, there is knowledge that one is liberated. One understands: ’Rebirth is exhausted, the supreme life has been lived out, what can be done is done, of this there is no more beyond.’”

That is what the Blessed One said. The meditators were glad, and they approved his words.

ENDNOTES

20. EYE [the sensitive portion of the eye], and so on: the six, beginning with the eye and ending with the mind (q.v.), are called the six “Bases for Contact (see Contact) in oneself,” and are also known as the six “Doors” for perception. Their corresponding objects are called “external bases.” (“Sense-organ” is both too material and too objective). This is because the emphasis here is on the subjective faculty of seeing, etc., not the associated piece of flesh seen in someone else or in the looking-glass, which, in so far as it is visible, is not “seeing” but “form” as the “external” object of the seeing “eye in oneself,” and insofar as it is tangible is the object of the body-base in oneself, and insofar as it is apprehended as a “bodily feature” is the object of the mind-base in oneself. Here the eye should be taken simply as the perspective-pointing-inward-to-a-center in the otherwise uncoordinated visual field consisting of colors, which makes them cognizable by eye consciousness, and which is misconceivable as “I.” The six Bases in Oneself are compared to an empty village, and the six External Bases to village-raiding robbers.

21. FORMS: the first of the six External Bases, respective objective fields or objects of the six Bases in Oneself (see EYE). The same Pali word rūpa is used for the eye’s object as for the first of the five categories, but here in the plural. Colors, the basis for the visual perspective of the eye (q.v.), are intended primarily. (See also under FORM [materiality]: Pali rupa (what appears, appearance). As the first of five categories (q.v.) it is defined in terms of the Four Great Elements [or material qualities], namely, earth (hardness), water (cohesion), fire (temperature), and air (distension and motion), along with the negative aspect of space (what does not appear), from all of which are derived the secondary phenomena such as persons, features, shapes, etc.: these are regarded as secondary because while form can appear without them they cannot appear without form. It is also defined as “that which is being worn away” (ruppati), thus underlining its general characteristic of instability).

22. CONTACT: the Pali word phassa comes from the verb phusati (to touch, sometimes used in the sense of to arrive at, or to realize), from which also comes the word photthabba (tangible, the object of the Fifth Base in oneself, namely, body-sensitivity). But here it is generalized to mean contact in the sense of presence of object to subject, or presence of cognized to consciousness, in all forms of consciousness. It is defined as follows: “Eye-consciousness arises dependent on eye and on forms; the coincidence of the three is contact (presence), and likewise in the cases of the ear, nose, tongue, body and mind. Failing it, no knowledge, no consciousness of any sort whatever, can arise at all.” This fundamental idea is sometimes placed at the head of lists of things defining Determinations (q.v.).

23. BODY: the Pali word kaya is used both for the physical body and for any group, as the English word “body” is. In Pali it is also used in the sense (a) for the physical frame, namely, “this body with its consciousness” in a general sense, sometimes called “old action,” and then it forms the subject of body contemplation as set forth in the Satipatthāna Sutra, the aim of which is to analyze this “conglomeration” into its motley constituents. Or else it is used in a strict sense, as here, namely (b) that “door” of the subjective body-sensitivity or tactile sense, the perspective-pointing-inwards-to-a-center in the otherwise uncoordinated tactile field of tangibles consisting of the hard, the hot-or-cold, and the distended-and-movable. (See also under EYE).

24. MIND: the Pali word mano belongs to a root meaning to measure, compare, coordinate. Here it is intended as that special “door” in which the five kinds of consciousness, arising in the other five doors (see under EYE), combine themselves with their objective fields into a unitive perspective-pointing-inwards-to-a-center, together with certain objects apprehendable in this mind-door, such as boundlessness of space, etc. (and names, fictions, etc.). Whatever is cognized in this door (see under Consciousness) is cognized as an idea (q.v.) as opposed to the bare objects of the eye uncognized by it as well. Here it makes this otherwise uncoordinated field of ideas cognizable by mind-consciousness (q.v.). And in the presence (with the contact) of ignorance (of the Four Noble Truths) it is misconceived as “I.” It is thus the fusing of this heterogeneous stuff of experience into a coherent pattern, when it also has the function of giving temporal succession and flow to that pattern by its presenting all ideas for cognition as “preceded.” In the Abhidharma, but not in the Sutta Collection, “the (material) form which is the support for mind” is mentioned (implying perhaps the whole “body with its consciousness”), but not further specified. This would place mind on a somewhat similar basis to the eye-seeing, as meant here in its relation to the objective piece of flesh (see under EYE). Later notions coupled it with the heart. Now fashion identifies it with the brain; but such identifications are not easy to justify unilaterally; and if they in any way depend upon a prior and always philosophically questionable assumption of a separate body-substance and a mind-substance, they will find no footing in the Buddha’s teaching where substances are not assumed.

25. IDEA [mind object]: the word dhamma [things, phenomena] is gerundive from the verb dharati (to carry, to remember); thus, it means literally a “carryable, a rememberable.” In this context of the six pairs of Bases it means the rememberables which form the mind’s special object; as distinct from the forms seen only with the eye, the sounds heard with the ear, the fragrances smelled with the nose, the flavors tasted with the tongue, and the tangibles touched with the body, ideas are what are apprehended through the mind-door (see under Eye, Forms and Mind, and also Contact). These six cover all that can be known. But while the first (see FORMS) are uncoordinated between themselves and have no direct access to each other, in the mind-door the five find a common denominator and are given a coordinating perspective, together with the mind’s own special objects. So the idea as a rememberable, is the aspect of the known apprehended by the mind, whether coordinating the five kinds of consciousness, or apprehending the ideas peculiar to it (see Mind), or whether apprehending its own special objects. This must include all the many other meanings of the word dhamma (Sanskrit dharma). Nirvana (nibbāna), insofar as it is knowable — describable — is an object of the mind, and is thus an idea. “All ideas are not-self.” What is inherently unknowable has no place in the Dharma (Teaching).

26. MIND-CONSCIOUSNESS: if it is remembered that each of the six pairs of Bases, the five consisting of eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body, being coordinated by mind, are open to anyone’s self-inspection; and that consciousness is considered here as arising dependently upon each of these six pairs of Bases and in no other way whatsoever (since no other description rejecting all six is possible without self-contradiction); then this notion of mind consciousness should present no special difficulty.

Alan Watts: Karma, Time, Meditation (audio)

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Western Zen teacher Alan Watts "Way Beyond the West" via Mitch Jeserich (KPFA.org, Pacifica Free Speech Radio, Berkeley, California)

Science maps the brain, while Buddhism maps consciousness (thinkprogress.org)

 

"Mind" (citta) is heart

Karma does not mean "cause and effect." That is an unfortunate translation, a misleading oversimplification based on wanting to show that Buddhism is "scientific."

Buddhism is more than scientific. We will not experience most science we are taught, but we can personally experience all the important things Buddhism teaches.

Science class says "cause and effect," and a budding Buddhist says, "Hey, that's like what Siddhartha said!" That's very superficial and separates past from present as if they were separate. They are quite connected and unbroken, like a snake's head and tail.

Cool cats (Dee McIntosh/deemac/flickr.com)

What is the right view on this matter? Karma means "action," based on kri, "doing." What happens is our doing. What is happening to us, we are doing. It isn't happening to us. Our actions are.

• (What comes to fruit in the future and present, like it did in the past, is intentional-action). 

But this is a deep insight fraught with risk as we try to bring it into conventional language: "You mean, I did it? I'm to blame? Yada, yada, yada." Alan Watts explains it beautifully. Karma is action.

• (The tangible karmic-fruit, the phala, and the mental-resultants, the vipaka, are distinguished from the action, the karma, by the Buddha. But this is for the sake of understanding a process; in reality, they are inseparable).

• AUDIO: PLAY (download) (May 15, 2014, 10:00 am, MP3)

Nirvana as Living Experience

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Prof. Lily de Silva, Nibbana As Living Experience, Buddhist Publication Society (Wheel No. 407/408); news inserts by CC Liu

Monastic robe, Songkhla, Thailand (Homam Alojail/flickr/Bird_beckham77/500px.com)

 

Prof. Lily de Silva approaches the age-old question "What is nirvana?" from a fresh angle: “What does the attainment mean in terms of the living experience of one who has reached the ultimate goal?” She discovers in the Pali texts four outstanding attributes of this experience. It is spiritual freedom to be experience here and now. In a second essay she examines the two types of individuals who have realized the ultimate goal, the Buddha and arhat disciples, distinguished by the breadth of knowledge but experiencing the same nirvana and liberation. She is Professor Emeritus of Pali and Buddhism at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and a frequent contributor to scholarly and popular journals as well as the editor of the Pali Text Society's "Long Discourses of the Buddha" (Digha Nikaya).

 

Nirvana is freedom for those who practice

Nirvana (Pali nibbana) is the culmination of the Buddhist quest for perfection and happiness. 

In order to understand the meaning of this term it is useful to refer to the verse attributed to Kisa Gotami when she saw Prince Siddhartha returning to the palace from the park on the eve of his great renunciation.

She declared: Nibbuta nuna sa mata, nibbuto nuna so pita, Nibbuta nuna sa nari, yassayam Idiso pati [Note 1]. “Happy (contented/peaceful), indeed, is the mother (who has such a son); happy, indeed, is the father (who has such a son); happy, indeed, is the woman who has such a one as her husband.”

 

LA: Can adults learn to ride bikes?

Nibbuta (from nir + v) is often treated as the past participle of the verb nibbayati, and nibbana is the nominal form of that verb.

It means happiness, contentment, and peace. Nibbayati also means to extinguish, to blow out -- metaphorically, as in the blowing out of a lamp [2]. Nirvana is so called because it is the blowing out of the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion [3].

When these metaphorical fires are blown out, peace is attained. One becomes completely cooled (sitibhuta) [4]. 

It is sometimes conjectured that nirvana is called "cool" because the Buddha preached in a hot and humid country, where cool was appreciated as being much more comfortable. Had he taught in a cold and bitter climate, nirvana might have been described in terms of warmth.

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But it is certain that the term “cool” was chosen to convey a literal psychological reality [5]. Anger makes us hot and restless. We use expressions such as “boiling with anger,” clearly expressing the intensity of aggressive emotion.

When such negative emotions are completely uprooted never to arise again, one's temperament must be described as cool. Nirvana is a state to be attained here and now in this very life [6] not a state to be attained after death.

 

In terms of living experience, nirvana can be characterized by four special attributes: 

1. happiness
2. perfection of virtue
3. realization
4. freedom. 

Happiness

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Looking at these one by one, nirvana is described as the highest happiness, the supreme state of bliss [7]. Those who have attained nirvana live in utter bliss, free from hatred and mental illness among those who are hateful and mentally ill [8].  

Sukha in Pali, being the opposite of dukkha (disappointment, suffering, unsatisfactoriness) denotes both happiness and pleasure. In English, happiness denotes more a sense of mental ease and well being, whereas pleasure denotes physical excitement (pleasant agitation, arousal).

The Pali word sukha extends to both these aspects, and it is [2] certain (as shown below) that mental and physical bliss is experienced by one experiencing nirvana. The experience of supersensual yet physical bliss for limited periods is possible even before the attainment of nirvana through the practice of the meditative absorption (jhana, samadhi).

12-y-o Luke Quezada spreads love of books

The "Fruits of Recluseship" discourse (Samaññaphala Sutta) describes these physical experiences with the help of eloquent similes [9]. When bath powder and water are kneaded into a neat wet ball, the moisture touches every part of the ball but does not ooze out. Similarly, the body of the adept in the first absorption is suffused and drenched with joy and pleasure born of detachment from sense pleasures (viveka-jam piti-sukham). 

The experience in the second absorption is also elucidated: When a deep pool is filled to the brim with clear cool water fed by underground springs, its waters do not overflow, and no part of the pool remains untouched by the cool. Similarly, joy and pleasure born of concentration in the second absorption pervade the body of the meditator. 

 

Former CIA official: No Benghazi politics

The simile for the third absorption is that of a lotus born in water, grown up in water, fully submerged in water, drawing nourishment from water, with no part of it remaining untouched by water. In the same way, happiness/pleasure permeates, suffuses, and drenches the entire body of the adept in the third absorption.

These are the experiences of supersensual pleasure even before the attainment of nirvana. On attainment, more refined supersensual pleasure is permanently established. The "Discourse to Chunky" (Canki Sutta) specifically states that when a monastic realizes the ultimate truth, one experiences that truth “with the body” [10].

Regarding the experience of the arhat, the oldest discourses (Sutta Nipata) state that by the undoing of all feelings/sensations [through insight], one lives desireless and at peace [11].

  

I see you made an effort (Gurwitch)

Once Sariputra, the Buddha's chief male disciple foremost in wisdom (counterpart to the nun Khema), was asked what happiness there can be when there is no feeling/sensation [12]. He explained that the absence of feeling/sensation itself is happiness (contentment/peace/ease) [13].

It is relevant to note here that the Buddha states that he does not speak of happiness only with reference to pleasant feelings/sensations. Wherever there is happiness and pleasure, he recognizes that as happiness and pleasure [14]. More

• NOTES: (1) J I 60. (2) Nibbanti dhira yathayam padipo: Sn 235. (3) S IV 19. (4) Sn 542, 642. (5) A I 138, III 435. (6) D I 156, 167. 18 (7) Nibbanam paramam sukham: Dh 203. (8) Susukham vata jivama verinesu averino/aturesu anatura: Dh 197-99. (9) D I 74. (10) Kayena c’eva paramasaccam sacchikaroti: M II 173. (11) Vedananam khaya bhikkhu nicchato parinibbuto: Sn 739. (12) Kim pan’ettha n’atthi vedayitan ti: A IV 415. (13) Etad eva khv’ettha sukham yad ettha n’atthi vedayitam. (14) S IV 228.

"We Are Miracles" HBO (Sarah Silverman)

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly; Sarah Silverman (FunnyOrDie.com); NPR.org

We Are Miracles

Sarah Silverman's - We Are Miracles HBO Special (Sarah Silverman) airs on Saturday, Nov. 23, 10:00 pm on HBO, or watch it on HBO GO. See the promo. Silverman is America's funniest, most incisive and satirical comedienne.

Serving up Divine Comedy

(NPR.org) Sarah Silverman is funny -- sweet, bawdy, innocent, outrageous, Emmy-winning, milk-through-your-nose funny. And her new comedy special, We are Miracles, debuts tonight on HBO. Performing in front of a live audience [of 39], the comedian takes on religion, pornography, childhood, politics, and stereotypes, and no one's left standing. (No really: One punchline involves Hitler being assigned "Heil Marys" as penance). Silverman tells NPR's Scott Simon that she thinks good comedy comes from "some kind of childhood humiliation or darkness." And yes, she says, lots of jokes just don't work at first. More

WARNING: Offensive, full-length satire! Ironic racism, sexism!

Profanity! Vulgar adult themes! Movie: "Jesus is Magic"

"Letting Go" with Thich Nhat Hanh (video)

Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Source of Light Monastery; plumvillage.org (donate)

Thay ("teacher")

To preserve some of Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh's previous lectures, some of his older lectures are being uploaded by Source of Light Monastery as they become available.

Here Thay, as he is affectionately known, discusses what he calls the most important practice in Buddhist meditation -- the practice of letting go or "throwing away."

Wrong ideas, misperceptions, and false notions (moha, delusion, ignorance) are at the root of our suffering: They are the ground of all afflictions whatsoever. Cravings and aversions never stand without the support of ignorance.

 

In order for us to touch happiness in the here and now, we need to throw away the strong ideas and subtle notions that prevent us from learning and growing. 

Mahayana Buddhism's Diamond Sutra suggests four notions that should be thrown away: self, human being, living being, and life span. The main portion of this talk is dedicated to elaborating on these notions as well as our attachment to views, pairs of extremes, as well as "rules and rituals" we expect can lead to enlightenment. 

• Free Buddhist eBooks: sourceoflightmonastery.com

Thich Nhat Hanh on Oprah's OWN

Explaining the "Parable of the Raft"

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ven. Karunananda, Ph.D., Wisdom Quarterly

Siddhartha was an ascetic under trees in search of freedom from samsara's seas (Hokusai)

 

Ascetic Sid, Mes Aynak (livescience.com)

According to the historical Buddha, the "Sage who came from the Shakya clan," if we want to cross over from this shore (samsara) full of danger to the further shore (nirvana) beyond all danger, we need to put together a "raft" (a sufficient understanding of the practice).
 

We gather just enough material then we strive diligently and consistently. We exert just enough effort (viriya), paddling with every limb we have, to cross over to nirvana.

• The Parable of the Raft

Persistent balanced-effort is the gradual path the Buddha taught, or we risk exhausting ourselves and giving up long before we reach the goal. Or we die trying by the legendary exertion that gets all the attention (in the story of the Buddha, of forest dwelling monastics, of patriarchs in later schools) in spite of the fact that it does not work to overdo it. Paradoxically, sometimes the "effort" required is allowing, that is, accepting, non-doing, abandoning the detrimental, letting go of clinging.

Under a sprawling Bodhi tree

Siddhartha persists but with ease and balance accessing the wealth of the jhanas.

 

Bodhi tree shrine, India (Themeplus)

Siddhartha did not succeed under the Bodhi tree because he tried so hard: So long as he was trying that hard, he could not succeed. He succeeded because he eased off, first accepting help from the maiden Sujata then realizing that jhanas (blissful and equanimous meditative absorptions) were the way. As an austere ascetic, he had been so afraid of pleasure and of becoming attached to it that he had avoided

A sufficient raft is all we need. Even a poorly fabricated raft is enough to get across over the flood (ogha), this sea of samsara. "Enough" concentration is enough, enough insight is enough. The goal exists.
 

Whether or not we achieve (patiently allow) absorption, access concentration may be enough. It becomes the route we take, the one now available to us. The Buddha's gradual path takes us from virtue to calm (samatha) to effortless-concentration (samma-samadhi). 

 

Even a flimsy foundation may be just enough support to successfully practice mindfulness (four foundations or bases) that support wisdom. Liberation depends on it.

The swirling, whirling, sucking sea

If there is time and a suitable teacher, a more stable platform is helpful. A human life is extraordinarily rare. It's a terrible thing to waste and a wonderful thing to utilize to finally see nirvana. If all one reaches is absorption (jhana), which is purifying by suppressing the defilements, that will lead to a very welcome rebirth.

But the end of all rebirth and suffering is the goal for those who have understood what the Buddha taught. So beyond calm, there is liberating-insight to strive for. This breakthrough is accomplished by practicing the factors of Dependent Origination. One thereby sees and undoes suffering. It is only by knowing-and-seeing the Path (magga-phala, "path-and-fruition" consciousnesses) that one awakens to unending peace.

The world is the world is the world

O, spirit, where shall I sit? - Try that tree (Deen406)

From this world, it is easy to see dukkha (suffering, disappointment, woe, lack of fulfillment from our many endeavors).

 

It is also visible from the lower Sensual-Sphere deva worlds, but on this plane we have drive due to there being reasons to strive constantly on our heels, urging and reminding us of the dangers: aging, sickness, ignominy, death, rebirth. The threat of defamation and infamy are very real as we face Eight Worldly Conditions:

• success and failure (gain and loss),
• fame and obscurity, 
• praise and blame, 
• pleasure and pain.

Who needs "the end of all suffering"? We all would IF we understood what the Buddha meant by dukkha. Some say, "All life is suffering." That is completely wrong -- unless one grasps what "suffering" means as a translation of dukkha. All the Buddha ever taught, according to him, was suffering and the end of suffering, disappointment and the end of disappointment, dukkha and nirvana. 

The way to nirvana is enlightenment (bodhi). And the way to enlightenment is mindfulness (as set up moment to moment and actively developed through contemplative themes outlined in the Maha Satipatthana Sutra). And the way to mindfulness is "meditation" (calm, zen, jhana, serenity, samatha, unification, singlemindedness, absorption, nondistraction, and samma-samadhi or "right concentration"). And the way to meditation is virtue (sila), which imparts peace of mind and non-remorse.

Samsara is impermanent (ever changing), unsatisfactory (disappointing), and impersonal. There is great danger inherent in it for the unenlightened. So we should get enlightened or into the stream certain to take us to enlightenment as soon as possible. Danger, what danger?

Until stream entry there is an ever-present danger of falling into unfortunate realms (rebirth destinations) for indeterminate periods of time. Then, during those times, one forgets the goal, forgets even the possibility of there being freedom from suffering, the possibility of awakening from this miserable dream with nightmare aspects. Continued: Who am I?

Who am I?

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Ven. Karunananda, Ph.D., Wisdom Quarterly

But I am. I am this I am! "I think; therefore, I am"! I am my thinking, no, the Thinker, right?

 

Continued from Explaining the Parable of the Raft. All we see is an illusion, seeming to be what it is not: seeming to be stable, seeming to be able to satisfy/fulfill us, seeming to be a thing (when it is really a composite).

A composite? Things are not single-things but amalgamations of things. We can see it all around us, as things fall apart. So long as they seem solid, we repeatedly forget that they are something else.

 

But what we never see, never dream, are never told, are never taught except that a buddha rediscovers and teaches the world is that ALL things are impersonal. "I" is an aggregate-thing, "ego" is a thing, "self" ("soul") is a thing. What is it composed of?

 

Self/No-self (gingernutdesigns/flickr.com)

It is composed of FIVE HEAPS of things (and those things themselves are things, dharmas, composite-aggregates of other things). 

1. Forms, 2. sensations, 3. perceptions, 4. formations, and 5. consciousnesses are the categories of heaps, things, bundles of phenomena that keep giving rise to the illusion, "SELF," the idea or assumption that there is a "self" and, likewise, that there are others. And we never see, or more correctly, and never is seen. What is not known-and-seen? We never awaken to what is real. Nirvana is real.

Why do we neglect the highest good, the ultimate goal of knowing-and-seeing? There are many reasons, which seem private and idiosyncratic. But for all they come down to the defilements (āsavas, the inflows and outflows that swirl in samsara). So why are we surprised that we feel disappointed, empty, unfulfilled, desperate, miserable, alone, out of control? All of that is dukkha.
 

Budai (Hotei) hears, sees, speaks no harm.

The "defilements" are of different kinds: taints of [clinging to] sensuality, being, views, and delusion. The Buddhist scholar Isaline Horner translates the original terms kāmā-, bhavā-, diṭṭhā-, and avijja-āsava -- quoted by Padmasiri De Silva in An Introduction to Buddhist Psychology (2000) -- as the "cankers" of "sense-pleasure, becoming, false views, and ignorance." The word canker suggests something that corrodes or corrupts slowly. These figurative meanings perhap describe facets of the Buddha's conceptual teaching of āsava: kept long in storage, oozing out, [seeping in], taint, corroding, and so on.

• Cher, is Sonny Bono in hell?
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"Ode to Failure" (short film)

Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly and Tamara Levitt (BeginWithin.ca)

Written, illustrated, produced by Tamara Levitt with audio recorded by Peter Willis, digital painting by Natalia Shevcun and Tamara Levitt

 

BeginWithinTV

Imagine a short film that involved themes of acceptance, compassion, and self-awareness. How lovely to share an "Ode to Failure" with all who strive, those who have fallen, those who have yet to fall. Who among us will be getting up again? Worldly success, meditative success, ego accomplishments, selfless accomplishments, there are many things to move toward energetically. Gratitude can follow failure, just as expectations are likely to be followed by resentments. We try and we try, muscling it rather than enjoying effortful-ease (sthirasukha, strong-flexibility, soft-strength) all the time forgetting that Happiness Doesn't Come from Headstands.

Reaching "heaven" on a private flight (video)

Amber Larson and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; LiveScience.com; AccessToInsight.org

Dragon (naga) and fairy (lesser deva) in European conception (mobile9.com)

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The Happiest Country

Tia Ghose, LiveScience.com, Sept. 9, 2013

The happiest people in the world may live in [deva-visited] Scandinavia, a new study suggests.  That's according to the United Nations General Assembly's second World Happiness Report...

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Buddhist Heavens in Space

Warrior deva takes a stand (Charest)

In Buddhist cosmology, the heavenly or celestial (akasha) realms are blissful abodes whose present inhabitants (devas, lit. "shining ones") gained rebirth there through the power of their past meritorious karma (actions). 

 

Like all of the living beings still caught in the Cycle of Rebirth (samsara), however, these "deities," "angels," or advanced humanoids eventually succumb to old age, illness, and death. They eventually take rebirth in other realms -- pleasant or otherwise -- according to their deeds (karma). 

 

The devas, light beings, are NOT always especially knowledgeable or spiritually mature. In fact, many are quite intoxicated by their sensual indulgences, finer than human enjoyments but still rooted in sensuality. The devas are not considered worthy of veneration.

 

Nevertheless, the devas and their happy realms stand as important reminders to humans both of the happy benefits that ensue from the performance of meritorious skillful deeds and, finally, of the ultimate shortcomings of sensuality.

A Rare Rebirth

Blinded in this world [kama loka, "sensual sphere"] -- how few here see clearly! Just as birds who escape from a net cast to ensnare them are few, few also are the [number of] people who make it to heaven. — Dhp 174

Seeing for Oneself

"I have seen beings who -- endowed with beneficial bodily, verbal, and mental good conduct, who refrained from reviling noble ones (self-purified beings along the stages of enlightenment), who held right views, and undertook actions under the influence of right views -- at the break up of the body, after death, have reappeared in good destinations, even in the [lower sensual] heavenly world.

"It is not from having heard this from other ascetics and Brahmins that I tell you that I have seen such beings who...at the break up of the body, after death, have reappeared in good destinations, even in the heavenly world.

"Rather, it is from having known it myself, seen it myself, realized it myself that I tell you that I have seen such beings who...held right views and undertook actions under the influence of right views -- at the break up of the body, after death, have reappeared in good destinations, even in the heavenly world." — Iti 71 

Recollecting the Devas

Figurines in China (Jass Xia/jasspierxia/flickr)

"Furthermore, one ought to recollect the devas: 'There are the devas of the [realm of the] Four Great Kings, the devas of the Thirty-Three, the devas of the Hours, the Contented Devas, the devas who delight in creating, the devas who have power over the creations of others, the devas of Brahma's retinue, and the [many] devas beyond them.

"Whatever confidence (conviction, faith, view) they were endowed with when falling away from this life that led them to re-arise there -- the same sort of confidence is present in me!

 

Whatever virtue they were endowed with that when falling away from this life lead them to re-arise there -- the same sort of virtue is present in me!

 

Whatever learning (suta) they were endowed with when falling away from this life leading them to re-arise there -- the same sort of learning is present in me as well. 

 

Whatever generosity they were endowed with when falling away from this life that led them to re-arise there -- the same sort of generosity is present in me.

 

All human beings are potential devas or "light beings" (centraxis)

 

Whatever wisdom they were endowed with when falling away from this life that led them to rearise there -- the same sort of wisdom is present in me!'

 

At any time when a disciple of the noble ones is recollecting the confidence, virtue, learning, generosity, and wisdom found both in oneself and the devas, one's mind is not overcome with passion (greed), not overcome with aversion (hate), not overcome with delusion (e.g., wrong views). 

 

One's mind heads straight, based on the [qualities of the] devas. And when the mind is headed straight, the disciple of the noble ones gains a sense of the goal, gains a sense of the Dharma, gains joy connected with the Dharma.

 

In one who is joyful, rapture (piti) arises. In one who is full of rapture, the body grows calm. One whose body is calm experiences ease. In one at ease, the mind becomes concentrated." — AN 11.12

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