Re: First and Third Noble Truth
Unread post by Dhammanando »
Kalama wrote:Interesting, Bhante, would you mind to share?T., a rascally teenage American samanera in a kuti near to mine, was whittling a piece of wood the wrong way, drawing the knife towards his body rather than away from it. I showed him how to do it properly, but he was a know-all and didn’t like taking orders, so as soon I was out of sight he went back to his former way of doing it. At one point the knife stuck fast in the wood and the samanera continued to press the blade forward instead of pulling it back. I then heard a loud scream coming from his hut. When I went to investigate I saw that his inept craftsmanship had resulted in a deep, 5-inch long wound in the forearm, with probably one or two tubes severed to judge from the fountain of blood that was spurting out. I staunched the bleeding with a tourniquet and then requested permission to take the samanera to hospital to get him stitched up. Permission was denied. The abbot said that no stitches were necessary and he would deal with it himself. He then took hold of T’s arm and spent the next quarter of an hour chanting the Bojjhaṅgaparitta, the Rājato, and an abridged version of the northern Thai Seub Jātā paritta cycle, occasionally pausing to blow on the samanera’s arm. When he’d finished and the tourniquet was removed the bleeding had stopped. When the blood was washed away there was no longer a wound on the arm at all. Where the wound had been there was now just collagenous scar tissue that bore a faded look as if the injury had happened years before.
This is probably the most persuasive example I can think of, inasmuch as it involves something that cannot very plausibly be explained away as a placebo effect, especially considering that the impetuous young American was anxious to get to the hospital and throughout the chanting kept glancing at the clock, rolling his eyes and clenching his fists in exasperation. And so it was palpably clear that he had no confidence whatever in the paritta’s or the abbot’s power to heal him.
Incidentally, some might think that this occurrence calls into question the Milindapañha’s statement that the efficacy of parittas is impeded by obstructive past kamma, by mental defilement and by disbelief, for in this case the paritta seems to have worked even though it was quite obvious that the samanera was both unbelieving and afflicted with defilement. However Nāgasena’s discussion of parittas seems to be concerned only with their use in averting imminent death, so perhaps there is no contradiction.
Re: Bojjhangaparitta and healing
Dhammanando wrote: ↑Thu Dec 17, 2020 6:31 pmVen. D.,simsapa wrote: ↑Thu Dec 17, 2020 6:14 pmHave people found that these sort of things actually have healing power?Yes
I don't doubt that the details of the story happened in your first hand account, but I seriously doubt it had anything with the inherent power of the bojjhanga paritta itself,
but was actually a result of the combination of:
1) supernormal powers of the healer monk
2) healing powers of helpful devas doing the actual healing.
3) strong good karma of the healer monk, which would attract helpful devas
If bojjhanga paritta, angulimala paritta, or any paritta has the superstitious powers they claim, then many people should be able to demonstrate with witnesses its efficacy, not just a few rare instances like the incident you witnessed.
I suspect the monk could have chanted anything, even sang the alphabet song and gotten the same healing result.
IMO,
Rather than waste any time believing in parittas and figuring out which one is good for what type of situation, really we should be focused on developing samadhi and being a good person. The better you are at that, the larger base of friends, helpful devas, and more influential and powerful devas that you'll attract in proportion to your samadhi and sila.
Ven. D. responds:
Re: Bojjhangaparitta and healing
Unread post by Dhammanando »
frank k wrote: ↑Fri Dec 18, 2020 8:19 amVen. D.,Personally I'm quite openminded and undoctrinaire about the causes of parittas' efficacy.
I don't doubt that the details of the story happened in your first hand account, but I seriously doubt it had anything with the inherent power of the bojjhanga paritta itself,
but was actually a result of the combination of:
1) supernormal powers of the healer monk
2) healing powers of helpful devas doing the actual healing.
3) strong good karma of the healer monk, which would attract helpful devas
If bojjhanga paritta, angulimala paritta, or any paritta has the superstitious powers they claim, then many people should be able to demonstrate with witnesses its efficacy, not just a few rare instances like the incident you witnessed.
Still, with regard to the part I've bolded, the hypothesis of there being some inherent power in the words (or the sounds or the meaning) of the parittas themselves wouldn't actually be falsified by the fact that paritta-chanting is sometimes efficacious and sometimes not. The inconsistent results could be accounted for by the hypothesis that you yourself have proposed, namely, that the efficacy of parittas is a synergetic phenomenon. If you're right about that, then it can't be ruled out a priori that an inherent power in the paritta's words is one component in that synergy, but that it will not be efficacious in the absence of the other component(s).
Alternatively, it could by accounted for Milindapañha-style: parittas are inherently powerful and when they fail it's because their power is blocked by obstructive kamma in the paritta's intended beneficiary.
frank k wrote: ↑Fri Dec 18, 2020 8:19 amI suspect the monk could have chanted anything, even sang the alphabet song and gotten the same healing result.Well, maybe, though I would note that this is not what the monk himself believes, for he's committed to the Milindapañha's view and modestly disclaims that his paritta healing feats might have anything to do with the fact that it's he who is doing the chanting. Which leads me to wonder if there might not be a plausible intermediate position here, i.e., that a paritta's efficacy is not dependent on any inherent power in its words, but might be dependent on the chanter believing that there is such a power.
Re: Bojjhangaparitta and healing
Dhammanando wrote: ↑Fri Dec 18, 2020 10:34 pm...I'm all for open mindedness and maintaining a rational amount of uncertainty, but it seems to me bojjhanga parittas and most (if not all) of the parittas fall under superstition rather than Dhamma that would meet the criteria of AN 4.180 four great references.
http://lucid24.org/an/an04/an04-v18/index.html#s180
That the modern sutta collection contains suttas such as SN 46 bojjhanga's SN 46.14-16, does not meet AN 4.180 standard, the same way we can't take what the Bible says is God's word because God said it was in the Bible.
Instead, it should lead us to conclude that these 3 suttas are not the words of the Buddha:
SN 46.14 Gilāna 1 : sick: probably a corrupt sutta. It's not in accordance with the Dharma to chant 7 magic words and expect miraculous healing powers to occur.
SN 46.15 Gilāna 2 : sick: probably a corrupt sutta. It's not in accordance with the Dharma to chant 7 magic words and expect miraculous healing powers to occur.
SN 46.16 Gilāna 3 : sick: probably a corrupt sutta. It's not in accordance with the Dharma to chant 7 magic words and expect miraculous healing powers to occur.
If the Buddha did indeed teach such supertitious parittas with inherent magical healing powers, then why did he ever need to use medicine to deal with illness, or use animitta samadhi to suppress body pain from Devadatta injuring his foot, or any of the great Arahants doing similar things? Why need medicine at all or like Anuruddha teaches in Anuruddha samyutta, use 4sp satipatthana to bear great phyical pain from serious illness, when they can just chant 7 magical words that magically heal illnessness and pain?
How would Milinda explain this?
Did Buddha and Arahants have karmic merit just on certain occasions to use the parittas (as in SN 46), and then suddenly lose merit and not be able to use the paritta on other far more numerous occasions when they could have benefitted from it as well?
It just doesn't make any sense. We have to reject this whole paritta thing as superstition.
The actual miraculous healings people experienced throughout time, most of the time devas (guardian angels) are doing the heavy lifting. Otherwise, how can we explain medically miraculous events occurring with other religions, and even with atheists with no religious intermediary healer?
The common denominator we find in the vast majority of the cases with miraculous healing, with subjects of different religions and atheists, is that they are
1) great people with lots of positive karma accumulated over many lifetimes, and attract of circle of friends that include devas and guardian angels in abundance.
2) or people with very mixed or even net bad karma, but have some karmic debt to collect from a guardian angel who heals, and after their miraculous healing they start doing lots of great positive karmic actions to show appreciation and pay it forward. The devas foresaw that this would happen, and thus lent a hand in transforming their character.
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