dhammacoustic wrote:Most arahants are able to recollect past lives as well.

SN 8.7 mentions the distribution of "achievements" of 500 arahats. If this Sutta is representative of arahats in general, then the majority is "just" liberated by wisdom and not able to recollect past lives.

Does space represent something eternal in a world full of impermanent things? From a footnote of Ven. Ñāṇavīra Thera's note on Rūpa : This discussion, it will be seen, makes space a secondary and not a primary quality (see NĀMA [d] ): space is essentially tactile (in a wide sense), and is related t...

[...] the answer is simply that it's evolutionarily more advantageous to have a mind than to be a zombie. Perhaps it is. But that doesn't mean that it is valid to explain ("justify") mind in terms of its "evolutionary advantages". The latter are manifest once mind is there . To ...

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Tom wrote:Can a Bodhisatta go to hell?

Is a bodhisatta a puthujjana?

Mr Man wrote:Thanks for the quote theend. So do you think that the recollection of past lives is a function of memory?

Hello,

Yes, memory rather than "vision".

I wonder if the "higher power" to "remember past lives" is related to memory as we understand memory or if it possibly something completely different. I could envisage it as a widening of perspective rather than a process of recollection. "Great king, suppose a man were to ...

A possible answer: "But when internally the mind is intact and external mind-objects come into its range [...]" (MN 28) In other words: mind-objects are "stored" externally, similar to forms, sounds etc. We cannot understand the suttas in terms of views which are not supported by...

SarathW wrote:Sotapanna is more than enough for me.
I can enjoy the celestial realms for seven lives and then will assure the Nibbana.
You can eat the cake and have it too!

"I wish I could have an eighth one."

I'm inclined to think that most of us have too much to lose in becoming enlightened. I think it all boils down to: "Only in a vertical view, straight down into the abyss of his own personal existence, is a man capable of apprehending the perilous insecurity of his situation; and only a man who...

Does anyone know whether Ven. Ñanavira wrote Fundamental Structure after his "attainment", or was it something he was working on while still grappling with the Suttas? I don't know the answer, but in the preface (written on 14th September 1964) to the Notes, he says that "not everybo...

Can't people delude themselves into thinking they've eliminated certain fetters like self-view when in reality they haven't? The important point is the unmistakable "release of the central tension", as Ven. Nanavira Thera called it, which is permanent and does not need any effort to maint...

Also, I am still sort of wondering why these monks needed the pep talk to get them to do for uposatha the things that they should be doing every day anyway. I think it is quite obvious that the Buddha does not talk about the monks. The "noble disciples" are laypeople. For them , upholding...

I want to point out that it is not the buddha making the statement about what an arahant would not do. It is a noble disciple who is making the statements..... The Buddha is making a statement about how a noble disciple (not a Buddhist puthujjana) should reflect. As I understand the sutta, the Budd...

Perhaps AN 8.41 is worth adding to the list of suttas mentioned: Thank you! I think, it could be this very sutta, which Modus.Ponens was referring to. So the suttas seem to differentiate between "lifelong abandonment and abstention" and "impossibility". Edit: Since my list refer...