User1249x wrote: ↑Mon Jun 18, 2018 3:52 pmI think that whether one believes in the possibility of a realm populated by deceased Buddhas or doesn't matters for the prospect of attaining path and fruition.Pseudobabble wrote: ↑Mon Jun 18, 2018 11:18 am Why worry about it? There will be people who get it among the Mahayana, just like there are people who don't get it among the Theravada. The label a person applies to themself has almost nothing at all to do with whether they are 'ariya'.
How? Maybe it does, I don't know. My favourite sutta covers it, as far as I am concerned:
The pattern is: does [X beyond phenomenal experience] exist or not? Eternal/not-eternal, finite/infinite, x=y/x=|=y, its all conceptual dichotomy beyond the range of phenomenal experience.Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta wrote: Then Vacchagotta the wanderer went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with him. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there, he said to the Blessed One, "Now then, Master Gotama, is the cosmos eternal?"
"That has not been declared by me, Vaccha: 'The cosmos is eternal.'"
"Well then, Master Gotama, is the cosmos not eternal?"
"Vaccha, that too has not been declared by me: 'The cosmos is not eternal.'"
"Then is the cosmos finite?"... "Is the cosmos infinite?"... "Is the body the same as the soul?"... "Is the body one thing, and the soul another?"... "Does the Tathagata exist after death?"... "Does the Tathagata not exist after death?"... "Does the Tathagata both exist and not exist after death?"... "Does the Tathagata neither exist nor not exist after death?"
"Vaccha, that too has not been declared by me
...
The answer is given pretty explicitly in another discourse with Vacchagotta:
As I read it, that says: 'Don't concern yourself with metaphysical questions which don't have a direct bearing on your Right View and practice'. The part I bolded in particular, can be read as discouraging a scholastic, letter of the law approach, in favour of practice and letting 'there be in the seen, only the seen, in the heard, only the heard, etc'.Vacchagotta Sutta wrote:"Does Master Gotama have any position at all?"
"A 'position,' Vaccha, is something that a Tathagata has done away with. What a Tathagata sees is this: 'Such is form, such its origination, such its disappearance; such is feeling, such its origination, such its disappearance; such is perception...such are fabrications...such is consciousness, such its origination, such its disappearance.' Because of this, I say, a Tathagata — with the ending, fading away, cessation, renunciation, & relinquishment of all construings, all excogitations, all I-making & mine-making & obsessions with conceit — is, through lack of clinging/sustenance, released."