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Which topics are unbeneficial to talk about according to Buddha?
jll
Veteran
Potthapada sutta DN9.
Now on that occasion Potthapada the wanderer was sitting with his large following of wanderers, all making a great noise & racket, discussing many kinds of bestial topics of conversation: conversation about kings, robbers, & ministers of state; armies, alarms, & battles; food & drink; clothing, furniture, garlands, & scents; relatives; vehicles; villages, towns, cities, the countryside; women & heroes; the gossip of the street & the well; tales of the dead; tales of diversity, the creation of the world & of the sea; talk of whether things exist or not. Then Potthapada the wanderer saw the Blessed One coming from afar, and on seeing him, hushed his following: "Be quiet, good sirs. Don't make any noise. Here comes Gotama the contemplative.
Now on that occasion Potthapada the wanderer was sitting with his large following of wanderers, all making a great noise & racket, discussing many kinds of bestial topics of conversation: conversation about kings, robbers, & ministers of state; armies, alarms, & battles; food & drink; clothing, furniture, garlands, & scents; relatives; vehicles; villages, towns, cities, the countryside; women & heroes; the gossip of the street & the well; tales of the dead; tales of diversity, the creation of the world & of the sea; talk of whether things exist or not. Then Potthapada the wanderer saw the Blessed One coming from afar, and on seeing him, hushed his following: "Be quiet, good sirs. Don't make any noise. Here comes Gotama the contemplative.
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Comments
how much of it is beneficial? What do you think?
Looking back, what a doooooofus. But in a very real sense I am very glad I went through that dukka-swamp because I learnt lots from it, especially about how idiotic dogmas are, whether being peddled by myself of another.
This is one of the reasons I am against the censorship that can happen here - everyone should be allowed to dance like a fool:)
The following sutta outlines four of them:
AN 4.77 Acintita Sutta: Unconjecturable
"There are these four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about them. Which four?
"The Buddha-range of the Buddhas is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it.
"The jhana-range of a person in jhana...
"The [precise working out of the] results of kamma...
"Conjecture about [the origin, etc., of] the world is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it.
"These are the four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about them."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.077.than.html
Could you tell specifically who you personally know that has actually gone "mad" thinking about those topics?
An example is thinking about karma.. that I experience.. all the turmoil of guilt and anger and fear? It doesn't always happen sometimes its a deadening and blankness. But obviously its hard to get a clarity, a samadhi, regarding all of the myriad karmic connections.
When one has an ego filled mind, its simple because our questions bounce off each other and are without real concentrated power... like children looking at the walls of a house. With an unfettered mind, we can follow the edges of the question to see its answer, like tracing a geometric form on a peice of paper.
Most questions are like a square or circle, with easily defined limits. Some are more like fractals, where if you press into them, they are bottomless.
I think the key word is vexing.. i am not sure they had a concept of psychiatric illness 2500 years ago.
One of them I lost contact with. One is slowly recovering as he learns to let go of questions like that. His affliction was falling into close examination of karma, and madness is exactly how he described the webbed world he saw. Luckily, some of us interceded and helped him focus elsewhere.
Buddha was not eternalizing a state of persisting madness... that would be silly (anicca).
to the path. But of course, we are ordinary people living a mundane life.
btw, these are not just arbitrary rules laid down by an authority - there are good reasons for this advice. these kinds of speech tend to linger in the mind and cause mental distraction/emotional reverberation .. eliminating them leads to a much simpler basic mental environment in which it is much easier to develop samaadhi (nice, peaceful, clear focus ..) and begin to "see things as they are".
from my own perspective, i strive to follow this not because i "should" or because it makes me more moral or "good" but because it works. however, right thought includes not deriding others if they chose not to subscribe - that is their right, so it is not something to push on people or criticize them for (unless they happen to be your student, in which case you better!).
my thoughts