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How can you control your rebirth?
The_Fruit_Punch_Wiza
Veteran
I'm confused by people who think that rebirth is somehow under their control and who honestly think they can become a Samyaksambuddha. Since to be reborn you have to really ignore Buddha's teachings. To get a better understanding of what I mean, here's a chart:
Now a reminder, an Arahant cannot return to Samsara, a once-returner returns to Samsara one more time before becoming an Arahant or a Pratyekabuddha (if insight is acquired and enlightenment is acheived without the help of the Dharma teachings) , a non-returner is born one more time in a pure abode, and then returns as a human and is reborn and becomes an Arahant, or a Pratyekabuddha, a stream-enterer is born only 7 more times as a human or in a heaven. So unless someone willfully chooses not to sever the fetters that bind them, they're stuck in Samsara and cannot choose to become a Samyaksambuddha or even a Pratyekabuddha because the Dharma is already revealed.
Now a reminder, an Arahant cannot return to Samsara, a once-returner returns to Samsara one more time before becoming an Arahant or a Pratyekabuddha (if insight is acquired and enlightenment is acheived without the help of the Dharma teachings) , a non-returner is born one more time in a pure abode, and then returns as a human and is reborn and becomes an Arahant, or a Pratyekabuddha, a stream-enterer is born only 7 more times as a human or in a heaven. So unless someone willfully chooses not to sever the fetters that bind them, they're stuck in Samsara and cannot choose to become a Samyaksambuddha or even a Pratyekabuddha because the Dharma is already revealed.
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According to Dr. Phil Schewe from the American Institute of Physics, 10 to the 25th power angels can fit on the head of a pin; although, I've also read that since angels are not spatial, there is an infinite number that could occupy any one point in space.
Oh, now you're just being cheeky.
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But that was awesome!
According to the Mahayana a buddha is liberated from both samsara and nirvana. And according to the Mahayana the buddhas and bodhisattvas call to us from the side of the mandala of awakening. They also manifest. In all 3 kayas.
You can't be liberated from liberation. That's contradictory and back to the prison for yooou!
A lot easier said than done. We can't even bare an itch hehe.
It cannot be done methinks. You either become liberated or you delay it. If you delay it you do not experience it.
Not really if you take into perspective what one has to do to stay in Samsara... To be liberated takes effort and will to change, and to be trapped just means perpetuating the same problems. It's like the doctor metaphor I have used once before.
Metaphor:
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Imagine the whole world is sick and afflicted by a mysterious illness, and a doctor discovers a cure and offers it to everyone in the world. A wise person would take the medicine and be cured and help others by becoming a nurse and distributing the medicine around the world.
Now imagine a different situation the whole world is sick and afflicted by a mysterious illness, and a doctor discovers a cure and offers it to everyone in the world. Instead of taking the medicine, a person declares to the doctor "I want to be the doctor that cures everyone, and until myself and everyone else are doctors I refuse to take that medicine and be well."
Which causes more long term suffering?
To use the medicine analogy, yes nirvana is held out as the cure to suffering but it is not the natural healthy state. Bodhisattvas do take the medicine of the Dharma and achieve the stages and paths, helping all that are connected with them. Were they to say "No thanks, I want to remain confused so that I can help others" then your illustration would be true.
I agree with Dazzle: Past and future lives are really a distraction beyond the possibility of enduring countless more lives of confusion without really practicing in this life. If one hasn't fully investigated one's own mind right now, it is merely presumptuous to think about other lives.
The bodhisattva path overcomes attachment to self among others. By stopping cherishing the self.
So the analogy does not fit the case as the bodhisattva is making a bee line for enlightenment. Tantra even more so and a bit risky.
There is no beyond liberation and non-liberation. It's an axiom that has an excluded middle. You are either enlightened or you are not, because an enlightened person can suffer no longer.
Praise to the Buddha Shakyamuni, praise to the Dharma, praise to my brothers and sisters in the Sangha.
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A "Boddhisattva" is supposed to be a "Samyaksambuddha", and upon hearing the Dharma from the Buddha they can no longer be a Samyaksambuddha. In that case they can only become an Arahant or Śrāvakabuddha then. As I said someone who takes the medicine cannot become a Doctor, but a nurse. They cannot recieve the cure and become a doctor. They can only refuse the cure and become doctors or take the cure and become a nurse.
But that is exactly what happens. If you cut the fetters tying you to Samsara using the Buddha's teachings, you do not become a Samyaksambuddha. You automatically become a Śrāvakabuddha.
True indeed.
My teacher says that reciting the samantrabadracharya awakens karma to be born again in a world the buddha has touched. Of course the buddha permeates everywhere so that isn't saying too much haha! At least it seems.
But how can you do that if you are a no-returner, a once returner or an Arahant? Maybe a stream-enterer has a chance if rebirth happened in the pure abodes for a long long time giving the Dharma time to no longer be present on Earth or another planet, but in this lifetime it is impossible because there can be only one Samyaksambuddha until the decline of the Dharma to the point where it is no longer in the world.
How many buddhas and arahants do you know personally and how are you certain that teachers and scripture is correct? Not to dislodge you from faith in your tradition because I feel it can draw you to some good people and ideas. However I am pointing out there is little that I have realized personally regarding buddhas.
I had this question. The dharma is the buddhists teaching and we see that. The sangha are the students. But what does it mean to take refuge in buddha?
About how Nirvana works or how Samsara works, or how either works, just so I'm sure?
I don't believe any teachers or scriptures unless they conform to the experiences I have in reality.
All my beliefs are tentatively held. I have learned personally not to learn from teachers or scriptures, rather than my own personal practice.
Imagine a wooden man. you draw a single pencil dot on his forehead, and that is the whole I knew of Buddhas, before I undertook personal investigation without a teacher. now take the head and paint it red, and that is what I learned when I made the sutras my teacher.
To have faith that the Dharma that the Buddha taught us was truthful. This is a very good set of questions.
I have a good idea of what Theravada teaches, but I can't say the same for how Mahayana is taught in relation to what is taught in Theravada. What am I confounding?
That's because they are really just pedagogical devices. When one clings to apparent phenomena, rangtong is taught. When one clings to emptiness, shentong is taught. The reality underlying all conceptual viewpoints is neither rangtong or shentong.
Fact is, assuming there are such things as once-returners and stream-enterers, you can't know which you are, and no-one else can tell you which you are either. So, you may as well practice as though you were already an arahant - this life is precious, assume it's your last.
Constant debate will probably not give anyone a good rebirth.
Following the 5 precepts is unforunetly not easy.
I heard Bodhisattvas and Arhant can control the actual rebirth upon certain levels of spritual enlightenment. But I don't believe thats relevant to most of us on here. Otherwise, we wouldn't be on this forum.
As a (newly minted with perhaps limited understanding) Theavada buddhist, I really get the feeling a lot of people put a lot of faith in unfounded superstitions espoused by teachers, instead of reading the Dhamma as expounded in the sutras. As others have said in this thread, it is through personal experience and understanding that one should learn the Dhamma. These are the words of the Buddha. One cannot achieve wisdom through adherence to teachers and unreasoned faith without personal understanding.
And, you cannot control your rebirth, you can only make certain kinds of kamma. There are four kinds; bad, good, bad-and-good, neither-bad-nor-good. If the predominant kamma in the last consciousness of death is bad, then you are destined to the woeful planes (Niraya- hell, Tiracchana- animals, Pettivisaya- hungry ghosts, Asurayoni- demons). Good kamma leads you to the sensual heavens (six). Predominantly bad-and-good kamma leads to the human plane yet again, but through kammic equilibrium you may experience very good or very bad conditions throughout life. Neither-bad-nor-good kamma leads to the cessation of kamma, or Nibbana, which would mean one of the four stages of Enlightenment (above).
To attain the Form planes one must make achievements in the four jhanas (simplified). To attain the Formless (immaterial) planes one must make achievements in the four formless jhanas (simplified, beings here live for unfathomably long--but defined--periods, and pass away into lower planes upon the depletion of this meditative merit.
Paccekabuddhas attain Nibbana on their own, but are not Fully Enlightened and do not teach the Dhamma.
Arahants (which are referred to in the commentaries only as Savakabuddhas) are beings who attain Nibbana through hearing the Dhamma from a Buddha, or disciples.
That is interesting and stinging how the Mahayana seems to you. Wisdom in mahayana is seeing and noticing the 8 worldly dharmas and seeing that they are unrewarding. To stop looking in the wrong places. The guru in watching them. Rather than reading sutras. The guru is buddha (from a vajrayana realization) Freed from the 8 worldly dharmas and bodhicitta to wait for all beings to awaken their heart. Bodhicitta is said to be the only fire that when it goes out it scatters its ashes to the winds in compassion. Perhaps like a hologram. No. Non-conceptual awareness free of stain. The guru is the dharma and the sangha embodying the realization that suffering is illusory, but still connect to all beings and go into the suffering with a brave tender heart.
I hope my miserly and miserable stupidity will plant seeds of awakening in all beings.
by accessing the 8th conciousness... done when { } was an un-"enlightened" bodhisattva (in { } past life)
Try to analyse each terms of paticca-samuppada in your own capacity
Try to understand paticca-samuppada with your own experiences
(paticca-samuppada happens within split seconds each and every time we experience anything, but at the beginning we can slow down our experience and analyse the experience according to paticca-samuppada)
Ex: you hear something (within a split second paticca-samuppada activated and you re-linking consciousness caught up with form or perception or feeling or sankhara)
at the beginning you can forget that process and take your hearing and put that hearing experience into the total 12 links and see how it works
likewise take another experience and try to put it into the 12 links and try to understand it
by degrees you will learn (not know but learn better) what is Dependent Origination
once you have learnt the links in your own terms then you can put it into practice
oneday you will know what Dependent Origination means exactly
then begins the actual practise and getting control of re-birth
until then Do Good that will help to have a comfortable life for your practice
breath can last longer than ~3 seconds; usually equals a heart beat.
7/8 = 3/8 air in, 1/8 rest, 3/8 air out.
anapanasati... maybe jhåna required.
bodhisattva vows expedits the process.
what we are trying at the beginning is to understand how paticca samuppada works with our experiences
so we have to slow down our experiences (take one experience at a time and analyse it and let go of all other experiencs we get after the one we are trying to analyse)
for ex:
we hear something
because of our ignorance (link 1)
we think it is a dog barking (link 2)
because of that we think there is a dog (link 3)
because of that we think the dog is a tangible thing -RUPA (apo, thejo, vayo, patavi)and there is feeling, perception etc,-NAMA (link 4)
because of that there is six sense bases (link 5)
etc. etc.
when you are analysing the 'hearing you got' there is no time for any other experience to happens (you are at vipassana)
before begins this type of analysis you have to get clear understanding of what is ignorance, what is kamma formation (sankhara), what is vinnana (consciousness) etc.
hope this will help
hmm... born a srotapanna.
thejo = fire
vayo = air
patavi = earth
Rupa = form
so that rupa, reforms...
anyway, since you asked,
where there is too much hate, then there is apo (water) distruction
where there is too much greed, then there is thejo (fire) distruction
as an advice, better stop taking this turn (relationship of Four Elements with the worldly experiences, cyclones, tsunami etc.) at the momenta
at a later stage you can turn to it and get the answers by yourself
best advice would be 'to concentrate on Five Aggregates, Dependent Origination, Six sense bases because they helps to get the Right View
Getting the Right View is the main and most important hurdle
this life : "born here"
prior life : born in deva namanarati (pleione, pleadi)
life before prior life : born in sermide, italia
destruction by apo (water) is my guess... in this era... if it will end... soon.
Since I have never knowingly met a Bodhisattva or a Buddha face-to-face, it has to be in the area of faith. Of course, it may be mistaken, but as it helps my practice tremendously, I am pretty confident in it.
Besides, ultimately all concepts are Empty. Tibetans build one raft to cross the river, Theraveda another.