collection of articles on serious problems that can happen with deep meditation
⚠️warning: In my opinion, the 3 min slideshow is pretty tame, but the animated GIF of a real time lapsed corpse at the bottom of the article may be diffficult for the faint of heart. Proceed at your own risk.
(3 min. video)
Five stages of body decomposition (short video, slideshow with pig pictures):
Puna ca-paraį¹, bhante, bhikkhu | Again **-further, venerable-sir, the-bhikkhu |
seyyathÄpi | just as |
passeyya sarÄ«raį¹ | (he) should-see a-body |
sivathikÄya chaį¹į¹itaį¹ | in-a-cemetery, cast-away, |
EkÄha-mataį¹ vÄ | One-day-after, or |
DvÄ«ha-mataį¹ vÄ | Two-days-after, or |
TÄ«ha-mataį¹ vÄ | Three-days-after **, |
uddhumÄtakaį¹ | swollen, |
vinÄ«lakaį¹ | (or) Turned-blue, |
vipubbakajÄtaį¹. | (or) festering, |
So imameva kÄyaį¹ evaį¹ upasaį¹harati: | he in-his body thus reflects: |
‘ayam-pi kho kÄyo | my-self-also, indeed, (my) body |
Evaį¹-dhammo | such-(is its)-nature, |
Evaį¹-bhÄvÄ« | such-(it will)-become, |
evaį¹-an-atÄ«to’ti. | such-(it has)-not-gone-beyond. |
1min, squirrel in soil in forest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ5tfdCYqeo
0.5min, armadillo in soil over 4 days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM54X3T9MZQ
https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/45408/to-hell-with-metta-how-to-understand-this/45415#45415
To hell with metta - how to understand this?
Quote from Aį¹ guttara NikÄya 4.125 Paį¹hamamettÄsutta:
Firstly, a person meditates spreading a heart full of metta (friendly kindness)
love[...]
If they abide in that, are committed to it, and meditate on it often without losing it, when they die they’re reborn in the company of the gods of BrahmÄ’s Host. The lifespan of the gods of Brahma’s Host is one eon. An ordinary person stays there until the lifespan of those gods is spent, then they go to hell or the animal realm or the ghost realm. But a disciple of the Buddha stays there until the lifespan of those gods is spent, then they’re extinguished in that very life. This is the difference between an educated noble disciple and an uneducated ordinary person, that is, when there is a place of rebirth.
Why would an ordinary person, a worlding (puthujjano), go to hell after a lot of metta? I cannot believe this. My first guess was that this is probably meant to be a possibility, meaning lots of metta will not 100% prevent descending to lower realms forever. However, as I cannot read Pali, I compared other translations to modern languages, but none of them suggests the possibility. Instead they all seem to agree (at least by their grammar) on this direct chain of results:
(a lot of) Metta -> gods realm -> one of the lower realms
for a householder, at least. Disciples are better off. Grammatically, I fail to see any room left for interpretation as a possibility.
I must be misunderstanding something with this sutta. What is it? Wording, context, translatation, missing background?
Practicing metta correctly leads to rebirth in brahma realm, not to hell. What propels that brahma realm being to hell and animal realm after death, is not the practice of metta, but their previous karma. The sutta is not describing an absolute rule, it's just citing one possibility. For example, other suttas show beings who perform enormous meritorious karma have successive rebirths in many devas realms consecutively. The point of this sutta, is to show that for a skilled disciple of a buddha who is reborn in the Brahma realm, they are very likely to follow up that life with final nirvana at death, whereas a non Buddhist would be propelled to a future rebirth based on their accumulated past karmas, which is most likely to be a step down in rank (human, animals, hell, etc.) after their wholesome karma that led to that Brahma realm rebirth has been exhausted and not replenished with new wholesome karma.
The important general issue you're addressing, namely whether the pali source is actually this vague or imprecise in explanation of Dharma, is unfortunately fairly common. That is, the suttas being memorized teachings in an oral traditions, tend to be terse and not explicit and clear in all its implications when read in isolation. The full meaning has to be drawn out from reading many suttas in the entire collection and connecting the dots.
Where in the canon does the Buddha teach about mindfulness?
https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/questions/45367/where-in-the-canon-does-the-buddha-teach-about-mindfulness/45373#45373
I wanted to know if someone could reference passages from the canon where the Buddha teaches about mindfulness. If such passages exist that is.
I was wondering about it because terms and explanations surrounding mindfulness can sound very modern and almost technical at times, depending on who explains it. Has mindfulness, as practiced in this modern age, any roots in the original teachings of the Buddha (as taught by Himself), or did this arise in more recent times? E.g. Vietnamese Monk Thich Nanh Hanh's school of mindfulness is an entire sect devoted to the practice of mindfulness. But is there any canonical, textual evidence? I couldn't find anything.
There are 56 samyutta's in the SN, the 47'th SN is devoted to the topic of "mindfulness" (sati).
SN 47 Sati-'paį¹į¹hÄna š Saį¹yutta https://lucid24.org/sn/sn47/index.html (disclosure: my website, my translations are derived from B. Sujato)
The first 10 suttas especially are particularly important on the subject. But even reading various English translations of those 10 suttas, you can get quite a different idea of what the practice of sati means. With a bad translation it's easy to arrive at wrong interpretations of 'sati' that totally miss the mark.
So SN 47 should be your first stop for authoritative passages, other suttas are mentioned here, along with brief explanations: https://lucid24.org/sted/8aam/7sati/index.html
A great way to check if your understanding of 'sati' is correct, is with the fortress sutta simile, of AN 7.67. https://lucid24.org/an/an07/an07-0067/index.html
If it's a correct sati, then the wise general who guards the gate is going to be effective. If it's a wrong understanding of sati, like many modern "mindfulness" teachers teach, then the guard is going to let bad guys waltz right into the fortress.
EBT Timeline: important dates related to EBT texts
from dhammawheel forum:
