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Reverse Jhana
I think I read somewhere that before Buddha died he enter the jhanas in reverse order. Is there any particular reason that he did it in reverse? I don't even see how it's possible to do them in reverse.
*EDIT* Also, on an unrelated note, is it possible to maintain that 'anatta feeling' indefinitely? I realize the paradox in this, but you know what I mean. I've kind of been making it a game lately, when I go through my day I see if I can maintain the 'anatta feeling' while doing every-day things like chores, talking with people, etc.
The reason I'm interested in this is that I find things in my life go a lot smoother when I'm just watching and not doing.
*EDIT* Also, on an unrelated note, is it possible to maintain that 'anatta feeling' indefinitely? I realize the paradox in this, but you know what I mean. I've kind of been making it a game lately, when I go through my day I see if I can maintain the 'anatta feeling' while doing every-day things like chores, talking with people, etc.
The reason I'm interested in this is that I find things in my life go a lot smoother when I'm just watching and not doing.
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Comments
As far as the first question goes, I am unqualified to answer.
Regarding the second question, maybe what you mean by "Anatta feeling" is what the Buddha called "Sampajanna" which is often translated as "clear comprehension".
Ajahn Jayasaro explains further: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpCy9Tb73gw
With Metta,
Guy
Once the bogeyman, the santa claus, is seen to be false - you will never believe in it again.
Before the realisation, we have to maintain mindfulness of the three dharma seals... not always easy in every moment though. It will eventually lead to the arising of insight.
Also it's good to be clear what you mean by 'anatta'... I do not see Anatta as merely a freeing from personality sort of experience (though this is also important); I see it as that a self/agent, a doer, a thinker, a watcher, etc, cannot be found apart from the moment to moment flow of manifestation or as its commonly expressed as ‘the observer is the observed’; there is no self apart from arising and passing. A very important point here is that Anatta/No-Self is a Dharma Seal, it is the nature of Reality all the time -- and not merely as a state free from personality, ego or the ‘small self’ or a stage to attain. This means that it does not depend on the level of achievement of a practitioner to experience anatta but Reality has always been Anatta and what is important here is the intuitive insight into it as the nature, characteristic, of phenomenon (dharma seal).
To put further emphasis on the importance of this point, I would like to borrow from the Bahiya Sutta (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.1.10.irel.html) that ‘in the seeing, there is just the seen, no seer’, ‘in the hearing, there is just the heard, no hearer’ as an illustration. When a person says that I have gone beyond the experiences from ‘I hear sound’ to a stage of ‘becoming sound’, he is mistaken. When it is taken to be a stage, it is illusory. For in actual case, there is and always is only sound when hearing; never was there a hearer to begin with. Nothing attained for it is always so. This is the seal of no-self. Therefore to a non dualist, the practice is in understanding the illusionary views of the sense of self and the split. Before the awakening of prajna wisdom, there will always be an unknowing attempt to maintain a purest state of 'presence'. This purest presence is the 'how' of a dualistic mind -- its dualistic attempt to provide a solution due to its lack of clarity of the spontaneous nature of the unconditioned. It is critical to note here that both the doubts/confusions/searches and the solutions that are created for these doubts/confusions/searches actually derive from the same cause -- our karmic propensities of ever seeing things dualistically.