Due to impermanance of everything, Are there anything to be happy or sad about ? Even about **dhamma** ? If something seems like to be happy, there are some reasons to not to be happy. 1. It is impermanant for sure. but also, 2. That **happiness make sadness in the future (future includes next lives)** (I need to be sure about this sententce, please mention about this in your answer) Are enlightened people happy ? Or neither happy nor sad ?

Buddhist teachers say things like > Do not expect anything from anyone, and also: > Do everything with good heart and expect nothing in return and you > will never be disappointed. Such a wonderful lines to get peace and never get disappointed. But as a human, it becomes very tough for us to follow this. Can someone throw light on this please? How we can remove the greedy nature? When we do a lot for someone, we at least expect basic thing in return. It is hard to accept disagreements or carelessness in return from whom where you have done/thought a lot for him in past.

Does a state called "Antarabhava" an existence between death and rebirth exist? Traditional Theravada sources, highly respected scholars and texts in Abhidhamma directly decline this as there is no such thing in the Dependant Origination. Arahat Moggaliputta Tissa Thero has also rejected this in the 3rd Buddhist Council. Bhikkus who support the claim that "Antarabhava" exists takes examples from suttas such as Tirokudda Sutta the first few verses, Kutuhalasala Sutta the last paragraph where Buddha states that a being who has left the present body but has not reborn in another body is sustained on craving (Tanha).

How much is the minimal time for practicing Vipassana in daily life for achieving better mindfulness? Is 30 minutes enough? I ask this question because I currently have some trouble being mindful, and (I think) it has become the source of many problems. If 30 minutes is not enough, perhaps you can give some suggestion based on your experience or the suttas.

I have recently given some interest to NDE stories. After reading a hundred of them, it seems pretty credible that people are telling at least some level of truth in their experience. One thing that seems to come back is that they meet their deceased loved ones, they feel a great feeling of peace/love and a huge increase in their consciousness / mental abilities. Its a bit of "lalaland" and I have several issues with that : Most of them seem to imply that death instantly "upgrade" you to a level of well being/ spiritual knowledge / awareness. They also say that the most important thing in life appears to be their relationship, how they treated others (christian term of "love"). That everything is surrounded in love and blabla it's all fine in the end if your life is hellish since when you die everything is fine. Life on earth as a human would be some kind of a choice, an experience to "expend" your consciousness. I would tend to disagree with all of these things. I don't see any point to life and the suffering that goes with except getting over it by increasing your understanding and knowledge of the self, in order to get over those problems. I would never chose freely to incarnate to experience pain and suffering. To me life is a problem you have to solve. Sometimes the problem are pretty down to earth, like with medical conditions. People used to die because of tooth decay. Now they don't. How is that improving you as a being? I tend to have more faith in the buddhists views that beings are stuck in the cycle of existences, and for most of them they experience unpleasant things/realm due to poor mental setups. To me existence is absurd, in the sense that all the pain is something we have to get over and be done with it. How would experienced buddhists view all these NDE stories? What credit would you give to them and how would you reconcile them with the idea of the cycle of existences?

Perhaps with the exception of Laozi, most sages, founders of religion, & great thinkers from virtuous tradition do not leave us books authored directly by them. In most cases what we have is books written by their followers or commentators. Some did say why they don't want to write. Did the Buddha say why he prefers oral transmission? --- Thank you for the responses and historical references, it's hard to believe that the cause for not writing a book to be lack of written script or writing material, India wasn't that lacking, they even had some intriguing advanced mathematics compare to other civilization and writing did exist by the end of the Vedic period which aligns with Buddha time... But perhaps, as @Andrei noted the oral tradition was more advanced and the preferred method. I asked because I thought maybe the Buddha, the same as other thinkers, saw writing as an incorrect way to transmit his message. For example, Socrates compared writing to dead painting as quoted below, but his view is not directly applicable to Buddhism and in a wider sense to Vedic oral transmission, because the method (i.e the oral transmission) is not about dialectic rather repeating the exact word and phrase. So, for an external observer is an excellent candidate for writing. > The painter’s products stand before us as though they were alive. But > if you question them, they maintain a most majestic silence. It is the > same with written words. They seem to talk to you as though they were > intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say from a > desire to be instructed they go on telling just the same thing forever .

There is a conventional self, so is anything conventionally permanent? Answer from any reputable tradition.

As a lay Buddhist, given that it is terribly difficult to attain to Nimmata or the Jhana and at point when Nirvana seems to be just a wishful thinking able to be attained by superhuman ability and exertion, **how does one motivate oneself to continue?** Every single meditation seems like a postdated cheque in a non-existent bank, how to keep going? I come from a non-Buddhist background and ask myself why should one continue if the path itself is full of suffering?

I came across this interpretation of Buddha's teaching that suggests that the Buddha ultimately sought a dissociative state, rather than one of freedom. > the buddhistic mindfulness meditation does not ... (a) stress genuine freedom, peace and happiness ... and (b) does not eliminate the genetically-encoded instinctual passions of fear, aggression, nurture and desire (the root cause of human bondage, malice and sorrow) ... and (c) does promise a mythical ‘freedom’ in an imaginary life-after-death (‘Parinirvana’) ... and (d) is not a new, non-spiritual method ... and (e) does not produce an actual freedom from the instinctual animal passions, here and now, on earth, in this lifetime ... and (f) does not offer a step by step, down-to-earth, practical progression to becoming actually free of the human condition of malice and sorrow ... to be both happy and harmless. > > More to your point, however, Mr. Gotama the Sakyan’s **mindfulness meditation is primarily about detachment/ dissociation from life** – all existence is Dukkha due to Anicca (impermanence) and Dukkha comes from Tanha (craving) for Samsara (phenomenal existence) – and any meditation technique which stresses involvement with such is anything but what Mr. Gotama the Sakyan taught. So my question is: is anyone that practices mindfulness, as advised by Buddhist teachers, heading towards developing a sort of **dissociation** from their feelings? If not, how can anyone explain the fact of enlightened Buddhists still getting angry without referencing psychological dissociation? **Clarification 1** Some people expressed confusion over that question at the end. My clarification follows. We can agree that Buddhist enlightenment does not guarantee extirpation of emotions (like anger). Thus, feeling angry (for example) does not invalidate someone's enlightenment. Enlightened beings can feel angry. Now, Richard says -- and this has been confirmed by the actually free people -- "I" am "my" feelings, and "my" feelings are "me" (i.e., emotions and self are the same thing). So if enlightened Buddhists claim to be free from illusion of self, and if emotions still remain and occur, how can that be explained as anything but dissociation (i.e., dissociation of a covert part of self from the overt rest of the self)? Hope that is clear enough.

How close is English to Pali? If you look at the etymological pages in wiktionary, for English words, it often includes a "Proto-Indo-European" root, and sometimes mentions Sanksrit too. Take e.g. 'mad' https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mad#Etymology > From Middle English mad, madde, madd, medd, from Old English ġemǣdd, > ġemǣded (“enraged”), past participle of ġemǣdan, *mǣdan (“to make > insane or foolish”), from Proto-Germanic *maidijaną (“to change; > damage; cripple; injure; make mad”), from Proto-Germanic *maidaz > ("weak; crippled"; compare Old English gemād (“silly, mad”), Old High > German gimeit (“foolish, crazy”), Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌼𐌰𐌹𐌸𐍃 (gamaiþs, > “crippled”)), **from Proto-Indo-European *mey- ("to change"**; compare Old > Irish máel (“bald, dull”), Old Lithuanian ap-maitinti (“to wound”), > **Sanskrit मेथति (méthati, “he hurts, comes to blows”**)). Is there anywhere I can read about Pali as a language that has influenced the etymon, development, of English today?

If I have the idea of an "apple" or its taste, - is the idea as real as the apple itself? Specifically - do the objects of the 6th consciousness depend on anything except the 6th consciousness? In normal philosophical terms - does the idea depend on the mind having the idea, in order to exist? I think these are all equivalent questions, because causation is the conventional truth - ideas, the ultimate - no causation, and the middle - the buddha nature or mind-body.

Is there poetry in Pali, and where can I read it, in translation and in original? If so, who are the most important Pali poets, and is anyone still writing in it?

Quoted below is from 'A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life' by Shantideva For a western reader, I mean someone familiar with Greek Philosophy, the objective emptiness Shantideva expound with regards to atoms is not new. Zeno of Elea posits exactly the same idea. However, what the Greeks don't say is that 'the mind that reason the emptiness in the visible and the imagined is itself nothing' which Shantideva say @ 103 below and the commentary expounds. For example, Socrates says something like the following about the mind: > the mind is like the eye: when resting upon that on which truth and > being shine, the mind perceives and understands and is radiant with > intelligence; but when turned towards the twilight of becoming and > perishing, then she has opinion only, and goes blinking about, and is > first of one opinion and then of another, and seems to have no > intelligence? > > as the eye was unable to turn from darkness to light without the whole > body, so too the instrument of knowledge can only by the movement of > the whole mind be turned from the world of becoming into that of > being, and learn by degrees to endure the sight of being, and of the > brightest and best of being, or in other words, of the good. So the questions are: Is the samsaric mind the mind when viewing samsara only? Is the knowledge of the unborn accessible to the samsaric mind? Or to put it differently, does an enlightened being samsaric mind access the knowledge of the unborn to guide other sentient beings. I know there is a lot of duality in the above statement, but my question is once the Arhat attains the unborn, how do they descend to human affairs? ---------- A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life' by Shantideva --- 86. Even the parts can be divided into atoms, and an atom itself can be divided according to its cardinal directions. The section of a cardinal direction is space, because it is without parts. Therefore, an atom does not exist. 354. Tibetan:"... Since the cardinal directions have no parts, they are like space. Therefore, atoms do not exist 87. What discerning person would be attached to form, which is just like a dream? Since the body does not exist, then who is a woman and who is a man? 88. If suffering truly exists, why does it not oppress the joyful? If delicacies and the like are a pleasure, why do they not please someone struck by grief and so forth? 89. If it is not experienced because it is overpowered by something more intense, how can that which is not of the nature of experience be a feeling? 90. [Objection:] Surely there is suffering in its subtle state while its gross state is removed. [Madhyamika:] If it is simply another pleasure, then that subtle state is a subtle state of pleasure. 91. If suffering does not arise when the conditions for its opposite have arisen, does it not follow that a "feeling" is a false notion created by conceptual fabrication? 92. Therefore, this analysis is created as an antidote to that false notion. For the meditative stabilizations that arise from the field of investigations are the food of contemplatives. 93. If there is an interval between a sense-faculty and its object, where is the contact between the two? If there is no interval, they would be identical. In that case, what would be in contact with what? 94. One atom cannot penetrate another, because it is without empty space and is of the same size as the other. When there is no penetration, there is no mingling; and when there is no mingling, there is no contact. 95. How, indeed, can there be contact with something that has no parts? If partlessness can be observed when there is contact, demonstrate this. 96. It is impossible for consciousness, which has no form, to have contact; nor is it possible for a composite, because it is not a truly existent thing, as investigated earlier. 97. Thus, when there is no contact, how can feeling arise? What is the reason for this exertion? Who could be harmed by what? 98. If there is no one to experience feeling and if feeling does not exist, then after understanding this situation, why, O craving, are you not shattered? 99. The mind that has a dreamlike and illusion like nature sees and touches. Since feeling arises together with the mind, it is not perceived by the mind. 100. What happens earlier is remembered but not experienced by what arises later. It does not experience itself, nor is it experienced by something else. 101. There is no one who experiences feeling. Hence, in reality, there is no feeling. Thus, in this identityless bundle, who can be hurt by it? 102. The mind is not located in the sense faculties, nor in form and other sense-objects, nor in between them. The mind is also not found inside, nor outside, nor anywhere else. 103. That which is not in the body nor anywhere else, neither intermingled nor somewhere separate, is nothing. Therefore, sentient beings are by nature liberated. *355* 104. If cognition is prior to the object of cognition, in dependence on what does it arise? If cognition is simultaneous with the object of cognition, in dependence on what does it arise? 105. If it arises after the object of cognition, from what would cognition arise? In this way it is ascertained that no phenomenon comes into existence. *335 According to the Panjika, pp. 245-246, the mind that is not in the body nor somewhere else outside the body, that is neither intermingled between those two, the body and outside thing, nor separate from the body and present somewhere else, is ultimately nothing, that is, it does not truly exist. It is only presented by mental fabrication. **The samsaric mind** appears like an illusion because it lacks an intrinsic nature. For that reason, sentient beings are liberated by nature, because the natural nirvana (prakrti-nirvana), which has the characteristic of the absence of intrinsic nature, is always present in the streams of consciousness of all sentient beings.*

I am doing meditation as narrated in following steps by Ajahn Brahma to attain to Jhanas. 1. Present moment awareness 2. Silent Present moment awareness 3. Silent Present moment awareness on the breath 4. Fully sustained awareness on the breath 5. Fully sustained attention on beautiful breath 6. Experiencing the beautiful Nimmita 7. Jhana I have reached the stste of **Fully sustained awareness on the breath** for last couple of days now. But the pitisukha or delightful or beautiful breath is not occuring. Am I lacking ekkagata or concentration? Its getting boring to remain in this state for half an hour. Also, at what stage does the sense of body disappear? Any suggestions?

I doubt that anybody has asked this question before, which is why I thought to write it down. Since I was thirteen-years-old, I have saved a lot of photographs from the internet on the cloud (i.e., like how someone would save 'likes' to their Twitter profile). The reason at the time was that I was trying to find myself as a person. Now, I have spent four years doing this and I know myself better. I have been trying to remove everything unnecessary from my life. I downsized my room and finished writing a manuscript that I began four years ago. Now, I have to go through all of my photos and see which ones are important because a few of the photos do help me to better visualise a healthier lifestyle sort of like iconography. The issue is that, unlike fixing my room or manuscript, I have realised that visual images are a very complex category, both in genre and subject. I feel like this is the last part of my old life that I need to put in check, but I have been trying on and off for 2 months now in quarantine. How do I make sure that I am only saving things that will help my spiritual practice and how do I get rid of unhelpful or unnecessary images that perhaps look nice or so on? I am new and I apologise if I have misunderstood anything, but this seems a bit like a desire and I am wondering about the middle way. Please, do not be shy. Any and all answers would be helpful.

I am asking the Vajrayana/Mahayana view as I already know the theravada view.I heard that Buddhas only have jnana and not vijnana wich means they are inert like rocks but 'act' based on past merit and deeds , > > there is a sutra passage cited in the Yogācārabhūmi viniścayasaṃgrahanī that states: > > "Bhagavān, how should the mental factors of the tathāgatas be known?" > > "Mañjuśrī, the mind (citta, sems), intellect (yid, manas) or > consciousness (vijñāna, rnam shes) of tathāgatas are indeed not > differentiated in discerning wisdom, but the mind of a tathāgata > arises without formations, and should known to be like an emanation." > > "Bhagavān, it being the case the dharmakāya of the tathāgatas is free > from all action of formations, on the other hand, do mental factors > arise without the action of formations?" > > "Mañjuśrī, it is due to past cultivation of method and wisdom. > > Mañjuśrī, one awakens [from sleep] because of the power of past > formations, but though there are no formations for arising in the > concentration on cessation, one arises [from concentration] only > through the power of past formations. Just as like the mental factors > of sleep and the concentration on cessation, the mental factors of the > tathāgatas should be known to be formations of past cultivation of > method and wisdom." > > "Bhagavān, do the emanations of the tathāgatas have minds or not?" > > "Mañjuśrī, Though they do not have minds, they are also not mindless, > because minds are neither independent nor dependent." so they're like robots.How true is this?and if it is true,isn't suffering but existing for all intents and purposes better than not existing and not suffering?.

Was the Buddha a bodhisattva before his awakening? Are there references from the suttas which point to when (possibly in past lives)? > Bodhisattva is the Sanskrit term for anyone who has generated > Bodhicitta, a spontaneous wish and compassionate mind to attain > Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. The following appears to suggest that the *four immeasurables* may have been present in the Buddha's past lives: > The early Buddhist texts assert that pre-Buddha ancient Indian sages > who taught these [four immeasurables ] were earlier > incarnations of the Buddha. > I apologize if the answer is obvious, but I haven't found a direct answer from the suttas.

The Buddha taught that he was the Bodhisattva Śvetaketu who resided in the Tushita heavans, before being born as the human Prince Gautama. where is this passage coming from?

Does 'karma' mean that everything that happens to us is under our control, or only that we are responsible for it? I thought that only substantial beings could be completely in control of everything that happens to them, and not just because things are impermanent. Also, conditioned things are a result of past karma, which is often said to be an unconscious process of seeds becoming ripe. So surely it would only be under out control over the course of very many lives, at least? The Points of Controversy -- theravada -- refute the claim that everything is from karma, including karma, of the rajagirikas and siddhatthikas. But it does not show that for anything but new karma. The sautrantikas taught that there is no life faculty sustaining events between life and death, because karma alone is "sufficient" to account for all destinies. > this is accepted by all Buddhists... theravada or mahayana The Lioness in Bloom, p33 Further, Bodhidharma exhorted > the practice of following conditions, sentient beings lack a self and > are all whirled around by conditions and karma; **suffering and joy are > to be equally accepted, for both arise from conditions. If I > encounter excellent karmic recompense, such as honor and so forth, it > is in response to causes in my past lives**. Even if I should encounter > such recompense in the present, the necessary conditions for it will > exhaust themselves, and it will again cease to exist. What is there > to be joyful about in its existence? Gain and loss follow conditions. > Mind has neither increase nor decrease. Unmoved by the winds of joy, > one is mysteriously in accordance with the path. Therefore, it is > called the practice of following conditions. - Bodhidharnma, *Two Entrances*

(I know there have been some questions about this same topic but each one is a particular issue) I have started taking the buddhist path not long ago, less than three years. Life felt too heavy and it felt like it was pushing me towards not wanting to *play the game* anymore. So buddhism seemed like the way to go. I was pretty excited about it for quite some time, hearing about the mystic expeciences, the idea of feeling the float from releasing from ego and the satori experience itself - but only as long as it was a distant, remote possibility. As soon as I started digging deeper into this reality, investigating it for what it **really** is, things changed. I started feeling afraid of it and then terribly afraid. I can't forget the first time I faced the idea of vanishing from this existence forever, the true death; never being able to come back once I 'saw it'. Nevertheless I kept investigating. Then I contemplated the idea of being trapped in this. Existence has no way out, anywhere you go there is still existence. In other words 'What if it has been like this for millions, billions of years, maybe even for eternity? What if I am stuck in this illusion, completaly alone, unable to get anything out of it, for the eternity, and this is what the whole, me, ultimately is?'. Having seen this brought me to an unforgettable state of total dispair. Some months have passed and now the whole thing feels weird. The more I look at reality, the more weird it gets and if I look hard enough it becomes dreadful. How strange is this thing we call death, or enlightenment, or time or self. I can't put in words how weird life feels for me. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning there is a strong sense of feeling weird to have hands and to move and to be in a body. Indeed, the **I** does not make sense, nothing makes sense. And I am afraid of being stuck in this forever. But if enlightenment is the only scape, I am afraid of never being able to come back. I am afraid everything is just an illusion, that there aren't others, just images and I'm alone. Sometimes I fear there isn't even enlightenment to save me. My question is: Am I going crazy? Am I getting it all wrong? I just wanted some light. Also, I am asking here because I know other people won't understand what I am talking about. Sorry for the long question.