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Can consciousness experience woeful states?
Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 12:44 am
by SarathW
It is no doubt that there are so many discussions in this forum about achieving higher consciousness
such as meditation absorptions, material realm, immaterial realm and other supermundane consciousness.
The question I have here is whether it is possible that the consciousness be moved in to the woeful states as well?
Are the incidents that people possess by demons etc, the result of this consciousness?
What the courses of such mental states?
Are there any Buddhist stories about this sorts of incidences?
See page 341 of Planes of Existence for further information.
http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/buddh ... gsurw6.pdf
Re: Can consciousness experience woeful states?
Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 1:37 am
by chownah
SaratW,
It seems as if you hold the view that consciousness is a thing and that a woeful state is a place that consciousnesses can go and visit. Is this how you view it?
chownah
Re: Can consciousness experience woeful states?
Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 1:56 am
by SarathW
My answer is "No" to both of your questions. I consider them as states as well as planes.
Not 100% sure of any.
Re: Can consciousness experience woeful states?
Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 1:30 pm
by Mkoll
Consciousness is one of the five aggregates along with form, feeling, perception, and mental formations. There is eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind-consciousness. They are all imperamenent, suffering, and not-self.
Whatever consciousness is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near: That is called the consciousness aggregate.
-"Khandha Sutta: Aggregates" (SN 22.48), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 26 October 2010,
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html . Retrieved on 9 September 2013.
Monks, eye-consciousness is inconstant, changeable, alterable. Ear-consciousness... Nose-consciousness... Tongue-consciousness... Body-consciousness... Intellect-consciousness is inconstant, changeable, alterable.
-"Viññana Sutta: Consciousness" (SN 25.3), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 23 April 2012,
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html . Retrieved on 9 September 2013.
James
Re: Can consciousness experience woeful states?
Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 4:34 am
by hermitwin
in this video, the brain surgeon experienced the woeful states.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=THx5YsAeICY
SarathW wrote:It is no doubt that there are so many discussions in this forum about achieving higher consciousness
such as meditation absorptions, material realm, immaterial realm and other supermundane consciousness.
The question I have here is whether it is possible that the consciousness be moved in to the woeful states as well?
Are the incidents that people possess by demons etc, the result of this consciousness?
What the courses of such mental states?
Are there any Buddhist stories about this sorts of incidences?
See page 341 of Planes of Existence for further information.
http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/buddh ... gsurw6.pdf
Re: Can consciousness experience woeful states?
Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 4:24 am
by SarathW
Not a bad video.
Re: Can consciousness experience woeful states?
Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 2:35 pm
by Dhammanando
SarathW wrote:It is no doubt that there are so many discussions in this forum about achieving higher consciousness such as meditation absorptions, material realm, immaterial realm and other supermundane consciousness.
The question I have here is whether it is possible that the consciousness be moved in to the woeful states as well?
According to the Abhidhamma all of the consciousnesses and mental factors that can arise among beings in the lower realms can arise also in the human realm, with just one partial exception. The exception is the dukkha-vedanā experienced in the hell realms. In no realm outside of hell does any living being undergo painful bodily feeling of comparable intensity for even a single moment. Hence the Buddha’s statement in the Bālapaṇḍita Sutta:
“Were it rightly speaking to be said of anything: ‘That is utterly unwished for, utterly undesired, utterly disagreeable,’ it is of hell that, rightly speaking, this should be said, so much so that it is hard to find a simile for the suffering in hell.”
Re: Can consciousness experience woeful states?
Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 2:44 am
by SarathW
Thanks Bhante
For the benefit of others attached is the link for Balapandita Sutta.
http://palicanon.org/index.php/sutta-pi ... d-wise-men
Re: Can consciousness experience woeful states?
Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 4:57 am
by pegembara
Woeful states can be experienced, yes. The experience itself does not create consciousness nor is there a consciousness waiting for the experience. Consciousness is dependently coarisen. Without experience, there is no experiencer.
Haven't I, in many ways, said of dependently co-arisen consciousness, 'Apart from a requisite condition, there is no coming-into-play of consciousness'?
MN 38
"Then, householder, you should train yourself in this way: 'I won't cling to what is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after, pondered by the intellect; my consciousness will not be dependent on that.' That's how you should train yourself."
When this was said, Anathapindika the householder wept and shed tears. Ven. Ananda said to him, "Are you sinking, householder? Are you foundering?"
"No, venerable sir. I'm not sinking, nor am I foundering.
It's just that for a long time I have attended to the Teacher, and to the monks who inspire my heart, but never before have I heard a talk on the Dhamma like this."
"This sort of talk on the Dhamma, householder, is not given to lay people clad in white. This sort of talk on the Dhamma is given to those gone forth."
"In that case, Ven. Sariputta, please let this sort of talk on the Dhamma be given to lay people clad in white. There are clansmen with little dust in their eyes who are wasting away through not hearing [this] Dhamma. There will be those who will understand it."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html