Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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SDC
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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

Post by SDC »

pegembara wrote:A more relevant question - Who "created" the earthly realm? Or how is the earthly realm created?
Yet it is just within this fathom-long body, with its perception & intellect, that I declare that there is the cosmos, the origination of the cosmos, the cessation of the cosmos, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of the cosmos."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
:thumbsup: One of my favorite suttas.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
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lyndon taylor
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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

Post by lyndon taylor »

SDC wrote:
lyndon taylor wrote:In the scripture, the buddha clearly taught the other realms as being literal places of alternative planes of existence, not states of mind...
Actually he clearly taught neither. Save your fingers, LT, I say this only for the information of others and will not respond to anything you say.
lyndon taylor wrote:Back in the real world, Jason, your forum where you're moderator is being used to promote drug use by practitioners, just thought that might be a more pressing concern to be worrying about.
A PM would've been more appropriate. Call outs like this are bad for the community.
BS about the Buddha not saying things he clearly did in many places in the scripture is bad for the community as well........
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

http://trickleupeconomictheory.blogspot.com/
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Jason
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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

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lyndon taylor wrote:In the scripture, the buddha clearly taught the other realms as being literal places of alternative planes of existence, not states of mind, You are free to disagree, just stop trying to get the Buddha to back you up on it.
To me, the suttas are clearly more nuanced and rich in meaning in this regard. I've already given what I feel to be a relatively explicit example above. YMMV, of course.
lyndon taylor wrote:Back in the real world, Jason, your forum where you're moderator is being used to promote drug use by practitioners, just thought that might be a more pressing concern to be worrying about.
Not sure what the relevance of this is to the discussion. All I get out of it i I shouldn't bother participating here because somebody on another webforum (which isn't mine, by the way) is talking about drug use and meditation (which doesn't violate forum policy).
"Sabbe dhamma nalam abhinivesaya" (AN 7.58).

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Jason
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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

Post by Jason »

lyndon taylor wrote:
SDC wrote:
lyndon taylor wrote:In the scripture, the buddha clearly taught the other realms as being literal places of alternative planes of existence, not states of mind...
Actually he clearly taught neither. Save your fingers, LT, I say this only for the information of others and will not respond to anything you say.
lyndon taylor wrote:Back in the real world, Jason, your forum where you're moderator is being used to promote drug use by practitioners, just thought that might be a more pressing concern to be worrying about.
A PM would've been more appropriate. Call outs like this are bad for the community.
BS about the Buddha not saying things he clearly did in many places in the scripture is bad for the community as well........
Is this imply that I'm somehow bad for the community?
"Sabbe dhamma nalam abhinivesaya" (AN 7.58).

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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

Post by lyndon taylor »

Misrepresenting what the scriptures say is bad for the community, not saying you're doing that, but you need to look at the body of scripture not one isolated text.
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

http://trickleupeconomictheory.blogspot.com/
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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

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lyndon taylor wrote:Misrepresenting what the scriptures say is bad for the community, not saying you're doing that, but you need to look at the body of scripture not one isolated text.
I have, which is why I also included a number of suttas where I believe the term loka (world/realm) is used as a metaphor for the five aggregates, the six sense spheres, and/or the internal world of fabricated experience to help further support my view that the psychological aspects aren't as divorced from the cosmological as many assume. I'm not saying that's the case in every circumstance, mind you, but certainly some in my opinion.
"Sabbe dhamma nalam abhinivesaya" (AN 7.58).

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lyndon taylor
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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

Post by lyndon taylor »

I suggest studying what the Buddha taught and coming to an understanding of how he saw things, whether you agree or not. Instead of having your own beliefs and approaching the Buddha scriptures to twist them around to make them agree with your own beliefs, whether they do or not, case in point.
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

http://trickleupeconomictheory.blogspot.com/
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Jason
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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

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lyndon taylor wrote:I suggest studying what the Buddha taught and coming to an understanding of how he saw things, whether you agree or not. Instead of having your own beliefs and approaching the Buddha scriptures to twist them around to make them agree with your own beliefs, whether they do or not, case in point.
And what makes you think that's not what I've done? Just because I have a different understanding of certain suttas than you doesn't mean that I'm simply twisting the scriptures around to make them agree with my beliefs. If you take the time to read the things I've written, both here and elsewhere, I think you'll see I've put a fair amount of time and effort into studying the suttas and formulating my own ideas about them, sometimes in agreement with Theravadin orthodoxy and sometimes not. If you have a different take on the matter and want to present it in contrast to mine, then by all means, go through the examples I've given and supporting arguments I've made and make your own case for why you think I'm mistaken. But please don't just repeatedly insinuate that I'm misrepresenting the suttas or twisting them around to make them agree with my beliefs. That's a pretty cheap way to try and win a debate. Show your work, as they say.
"Sabbe dhamma nalam abhinivesaya" (AN 7.58).

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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

Post by lyndon taylor »

Because to believe the Buddha was talking figuratively, not literally when he talked at length, over and over about rebirth, other realms, conversation with devas etc etc, you would really have to be twisting around his words from what they plainly say, The Buddha wasn't a secular Buddhist, quite the opposite, why can't you just man up to you disagree with the Buddha, instead of trying to put your modern ideas in his mouth.......and try and make your ideas fit with his.
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

http://trickleupeconomictheory.blogspot.com/
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Jason
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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

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lyndon taylor wrote:Because to believe the Buddha was talking figuratively, not literally when he talked at length, over and over about rebirth, other realms, conversation with devas etc etc, you would really have to be twisting around his words from what they plainly say, The Buddha wasn't a secular Buddhist, quite the opposite, why can't you just man up to you disagree with the Buddha, instead of trying to put your modern ideas in his mouth.......and try and make your ideas fit with his.
I don't recall ever saying the Buddha didn't talk about these things literally/explicitly. In the example I gave, however, I think it's clearly both literal and figurative. I may be wrong about that, but the wording of the translation (since I'm not skilled enough to properly translate the entire sutta myself) seems pretty clear to me in that the psychological and cosmological aspects of kamma and rebirth are being directly compared, illustrating their relationship, i.e., where rearising in an 'injurious world' (abyāpajjhampi lokaṃ upapannaṃ) is analogous to the experience of painful feelings (an aspect of mind) like beings in hell, suggesting to me that hell itself can also refer to an unpleasant mental state as much as it can a literal place one rearises:
  • "And what is kamma that is dark with dark result? There is the case where a certain person fabricates an injurious bodily fabrication, fabricates an injurious verbal fabrication, fabricates an injurious mental fabrication. Having fabricated an injurious bodily fabrication, having fabricated an injurious verbal fabrication, having fabricated an injurious mental fabrication, he rearises in an injurious world. On rearising in an injurious world, he is there touched by injurious contacts. Touched by injurious contacts, he experiences feelings that are exclusively painful, like those of the beings in hell. This is called kamma that is dark with dark result.
While I wasn't so convinced of this at first, other suttas and the opinions of other translators/commentators have since convinced me that the psychological aspects aren't necessarily as divorced from the cosmological as many assume. One of the things that really got me seeing things this way is the fact that the term loka (world/realm) itself is often used as a metaphor for the five aggregates, the six sense spheres, and/or the internal world of fabricated experience (e.g., SN 35.23, SN 35.116, SN 12.44, AN 4.45, etc.). Keeping that in mind, I don't think one should automatically limit the meaning of loka to a 'world' outside of our present experience, as in applying solely to postmortem rebirth rather than the experience of the five aggregates, the six sense spheres, and/or the internal world of fabricated experience.

Hence, when the Buddha says things like "rearising in an injurious world," as in the case of AN 4.235, I think it can mean more than just being reborn into an unpleasant state of experience after death, such rearising into an unpleasant experience in the here and now (like beings in hell) as well as an unpleasant state of experience after death. The two aren't mutually exclusive, especially since the result of kamma is of three sorts, i.e., "that which arises right here & now, that which arises later [in this lifetime], and that which arises following that" (AN 6.63). It seems like you're trying to peg me as someone who views Buddhism in a purely secular way, denying the idea of postmortem rebirth; but if you carefully read what I've written, you'll see that's clearly not the case.

Honestly, I don't see why this is so controversial since, according to the suttas, kamma applies to, and is experienced in, both the present and the future, in both this life and next.
"Sabbe dhamma nalam abhinivesaya" (AN 7.58).

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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

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Well then if you don't deny that the Buddha taught literal rebirth, multiple realms, devas deities, etc as real, then my comments don't apply to you, do they???
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

http://trickleupeconomictheory.blogspot.com/
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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

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lyndon taylor wrote:Well then if you don't deny that the Buddha taught literal rebirth, multiple realms, devas deities, etc as real, then my comments don't apply to you, do they???
No, which is why I don't understand why you keep directing them at me.
"Sabbe dhamma nalam abhinivesaya" (AN 7.58).

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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

Post by lyndon taylor »

I'm actually not directing anything at you specifically, but rather generally aiming at people that wish to rewrite the Buddhas teaching to fit their own view, if the shoe fits wear it. I have no problem accepting that in some instances, hell in the scriptures refers to a psychological state, just not all the time or even most of the time.

It seems to me people in the buddha's time were more superstitious and took, ghost spirits, demi gods, heavens and hells very literally, much more so than today, no matter how much a non superstitious person wants to deny many or all of those things today, he can't go back in history and turn the Buddha into a secular humanist. These things were part of their world, whether real or not, and they needed little faith to believe in this. We learn by accepting that they saw things differently than many do today, not by rewriting history to have a Buddha that agrees with all our pet modern theories or non beliefs.
18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

http://trickleupeconomictheory.blogspot.com/
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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

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Thank you for your calm and reasoned contribution to the discussion, Jason. Its much appreciated.

:anjali:
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Re: Who created the heavenly and hell realms?

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lyndon taylor wrote:Well then if you don't deny that the Buddha taught literal rebirth, multiple realms, devas deities, etc as real, then my comments don't apply to you, do they???

Don't forget about magical snakes and a big mountain in the middle of a flat earth :jumping:



Facts are awkward things
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
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