Some people are improving, some people are getting worse. But as a whole, are the beings in samsara generally moving in a better or worse direction?
Most of us Buddhists, by practicing the Dhamma, are gradually purifying our minds and improving our morality and wisdom. Also, in general, people learn from their mistakes, so I suppose human beings must be improving with time. Furthermore, advances in areas such as science, technology, and medicine, are contributing to a better world.
So, is samsara getting better, staying the same, or getting worse?
Is samsara getting better?
Re: Is samsara getting better?
Samsara is not a place. Samsara is identifying with the impermanent and expecting it to become permanent and to give permanent happiness . If Samsara " got better" it would not be Samsara. Samsara is a verb-like construction not a noun- like construction.
Last edited by PeterB on Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Is samsara getting better?
OK. Read "sentient beings" instead of "samsara" then.
Re: Is samsara getting better?
_/\_
Last edited by Hanzze on Tue Feb 01, 2011 8:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
Just that! *smile*
...We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos, and the battlefields will become our temples. We have so much work to do. ... Peace is Possible! Step by Step. - Samtach Preah Maha Ghosananda "Step by Step" http://www.ghosananda.org/bio_book.html
BUT! it is important to become a real Buddhist first. Like Punna did: Punna Sutta Nate sante baram sokham _()_
...We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos, and the battlefields will become our temples. We have so much work to do. ... Peace is Possible! Step by Step. - Samtach Preah Maha Ghosananda "Step by Step" http://www.ghosananda.org/bio_book.html
BUT! it is important to become a real Buddhist first. Like Punna did: Punna Sutta Nate sante baram sokham _()_
Re: Is samsara getting better?
By definition sentient life is characterised by Dukkha.Stefan wrote:OK. Read "sentient beings" instead of "samsara" then.
Re: Is samsara getting better?
That's true, but do you guys share my belief that considering economic growth, raising life expectancy and higher average years of schooling we could say that there are more fortunate births in human realm now than there was a few centuries back? Obviously, dukkha continue to characterize those materially happier birth.PeterB wrote:By definition sentient life is characterised by Dukkha.Stefan wrote:OK. Read "sentient beings" instead of "samsara" then.
sorry about my bad english
Re: Is samsara getting better?
I guess it depends on how we measure fortunate births Zoidberg, its arguable that a shorter life with less money and access to the Dhamma would be preferable to a longer life with more money and more distractions.
Re: Is samsara getting better?
Too much of a supposition. Even if it had some overall validity (how would one measure?) the view of a linear up-sloping evolution would be an unwarranted extrapolation from a snapshot view in time. Allowing for cyclical movement, then the perceived "improving" might just be the part of the wheel that is going up rather than down.Stefan wrote:so I suppose human beings must be improving with time.
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
Re: Is samsara getting better?
Technically - circular direction. However, Ledi Sayadaw has this cautionary story from the suttas, presented in Vipassana Dipani:Stefan wrote:Some people are improving, some people are getting worse. But as a whole, are the beings in samsara generally moving in a better or worse direction?
Kanakacchapa-Sutta:
"At one time, the Buddha addressed the disciples thus: 'there is, O Bhikkhus, in the ocean a turtle, both of whose eyes are blind. He plunges into the water of the unfathomable ocean and swims about incessantly in any direction wherever his head may lead. There is also in the ocean the yoke of a cart, which is ceaselessly floating about on the surface of the water, and is carried away in all directions by tide, current and wind. Thus these two go on throughout an incalculable space of time: perchance it happens that in the course of time the yoke arrives at the precise place and time where and when the turtle puts up his head, and yokes on to it. Now, O Bhikkhus, is it possible that such a time might come as is said?' 'In ordinary truth, O Lord,' replied the Bhikkhus 'it is impossible; but time being so spacious, and an aeon lasting so long, it may be admitted that perhaps at some time or other it might be possible for the two to yoke together, as said; if the blind tortoise lives long enough, and the yoke does not tend to rot and break up before such a coincidence comes to pass.'
Then the Buddha said, 'O Bhikkhus, the occurrence of such a strange thing is not to be counted a difficult one; for there is still a greater, a harder, a hundred times, a thousand times more difficult than this lying hidden from your knowledge. And what is this? It is, O Bhikkhus, the obtaining of the opportunity of becoming a man again by a man who has expired and is reborn once in any of the four realms of misery. The occurrence of the yoking of the blind tortoise is not worth thinking of as a difficult occurrence in comparison therewith. Because those who perform good deeds and abstain from doing bad alone can obtain the existence of men and Devas. The beings in the four miserable worlds cannot discern what is virtuous and what vicious, what good and what bad, what moral and what immoral, what meritorious and what de-meritorious, and consequently they live a life of immorality and demerit, tormenting one another with all their power. Those creatures of the Niraya and Peta abode in particular, live a very miserable life on account of punishments and torments, which they experience with sorrow, pain and distress. Therefore, O Bhikkhus, the opportunity of being reborn in the abode of men is a hundred times, a thousand times harder to obtain than the encountering of the blind turtle with the yoke."
According to this Sutta, why those creatures who are born in the miserable planes are far from human existence is because they never look up but always look down. And what is meant by looking down? The ignorance in them by degrees becomes greater and stronger from one existence to another; and as the water of a river always flows down to the lower plains, so also they are always tending towards the lower existences; for the ways towards the higher existences are closed to them, while those towards the lower existences are freely open. This is the meaning of "looking down". Hence, from this story of the blind turtle, the wise apprehend how great, how fearful, how terribly perilous are the evils of the -- Puthujjana-gati, i.e. "the dispersion of existence."
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global Relief • UNHCR
e: [email protected]..
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Re: Is samsara getting better?
NoStefan wrote: is samsara getting better
Re: Is samsara getting better?
_/\_
Last edited by Hanzze on Tue Feb 01, 2011 8:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
Just that! *smile*
...We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos, and the battlefields will become our temples. We have so much work to do. ... Peace is Possible! Step by Step. - Samtach Preah Maha Ghosananda "Step by Step" http://www.ghosananda.org/bio_book.html
BUT! it is important to become a real Buddhist first. Like Punna did: Punna Sutta Nate sante baram sokham _()_
...We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos, and the battlefields will become our temples. We have so much work to do. ... Peace is Possible! Step by Step. - Samtach Preah Maha Ghosananda "Step by Step" http://www.ghosananda.org/bio_book.html
BUT! it is important to become a real Buddhist first. Like Punna did: Punna Sutta Nate sante baram sokham _()_
Re: Is samsara getting better?
Without pain there is no pleasure, without evil there is no good. How would we know if someone did something evil if we had nothing to compare it against? There will always be bad and good. However, nibbana is neither evil nor good, it is the escape from duality, the escape of this cycle.
Someone who is good, can become evil, and vise versa. Conditions create good and evil. Buddhism is not about "being good" the sila or virtue, is to help you get to nibbana, which is neither good nor evil, it is nothingness, the end of duality. Bad goes to hell, Good goes to heaven, this is the world of duality, beyond duality there is Nibbana.
So no, the world in whole is not purifying, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. This is also why there are many Buddhas, because the world goes through the cycle of good and bad, like a pendulum swinging back and forth.
Someone who is good, can become evil, and vise versa. Conditions create good and evil. Buddhism is not about "being good" the sila or virtue, is to help you get to nibbana, which is neither good nor evil, it is nothingness, the end of duality. Bad goes to hell, Good goes to heaven, this is the world of duality, beyond duality there is Nibbana.
So no, the world in whole is not purifying, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. This is also why there are many Buddhas, because the world goes through the cycle of good and bad, like a pendulum swinging back and forth.
Re: Is samsara getting better?
The human world in general is experiencing increasing difficulties, increasing attachments to ease and pleasure and technologies; self-sufficiency and contentment with little is on the decline. Fortunately an increase in dukkha is beneficial, in that it leads one to the seeking of a means to end suffering.
Re: Is samsara getting better?
Is this really the case?budo wrote:... without evil there is no good. How would we know if someone did something evil if we had nothing to compare it against?
Dhp. 67-68That deed is not well done, which, having been done, brings remorse, whose reward one receives weeping and with a tearful countenance. But that deed is well done, which, having been done, does not bring remorse, whose reward one receives delighted and happy.
Re: Is samsara getting better?
There is increased air traffic into London Heathrow....is gravity getting better ?