The mystery of human lifespan

[barcsimalsi]

This sites tells earlier Buddhas have different lifespan:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/100483349/Bud ... ng-Facts-2
Can this information be reliable?
And if human at those period can live so long, why it took so long for the world to develop?
Will any scientific theory support those claim?

[Mawkish1983]

Different kalpa, therefore different planet, therefore different race if intelligent sentient beings? I don't know.

[Kim O'Hara]

This sites tells earlier Buddhas have different lifespan:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/100483349/Bud ... ng-Facts-2
Can this information be reliable?
And if human at those period can live so long, why it took so long for the world to develop?
Will any scientific theory support those claim?

As far as I'm concerned, the whole of the early Buddhist cosmology this belongs to can be abandoned without regret, so my answers to your questions are:
1. No
2. They didn't.
3. No.


Kim

[appicchato]

1. No
2. They didn't.
3. No.

+1

[barcsimalsi]

Thanks for all the straight forward answer.
Now, my concern shift to the Jotipala tales which i was told about how Gautama buddha recalled his previous lives and found he was a disciple of Kassapa Buddha. Through there he revised the 4 noble truth he had learned under Kassapa Buddha and became enlightened.
If this whole tales is to be forsaken, can someone please give me a better idea of how Gautama achieved enlightenment.

[David N. Snyder]

Now, my concern shift to the Jotipala tales which i was told about how Gautama buddha recalled his previous lives and found he was a disciple of Kassapa Buddha. Through there he revised the 4 noble truth he had learned under Kassapa Buddha and became enlightened.
If this whole tales is to be forsaken, can someone please give me a better idea of how Gautama achieved enlightenment.

What are Jotipala tales? Did you mean Jataka tales?

The Buddha did not attain enlightenment under Kassapa Buddha according to the Tipitaka. I believe some in the Mahayana believe that he attained enlightenment many hundreds of aeons ago, but that is the Mahayana, not Theravada. The early Buddhist account is that he became enlightened on / around 528 BCE in Bodh Gaya. See Samyutta Nikaya 56.11, the first sermon.

[barcsimalsi]

Now, my concern shift to the Jotipala tales which i was told about how Gautama buddha recalled his previous lives and found he was a disciple of Kassapa Buddha. Through there he revised the 4 noble truth he had learned under Kassapa Buddha and became enlightened.
If this whole tales is to be forsaken, can someone please give me a better idea of how Gautama achieved enlightenment.

What are Jotipala tales? Did you mean Jataka tales?

The Buddha did not attain enlightenment under Kassapa Buddha according to the Tipitaka. I believe some in the Mahayana believe that he attained enlightenment many hundreds of aeons ago, but that is the Mahayana, not Theravada. The early Buddhist account is that he became enlightened on / around 528 BCE in Bodh Gaya. See Samyutta Nikaya 56.11, the first sermon.

I mean Gautama recalled the 4 noble truth which he learned from Kassapa Buddha from his previous life as Jotipala. The tales narrate how Jotipala was invited by his friend gateekara to meet Kassapa Buddha and became his disciple...
And i was also given assumption that Jotipala attained Sakadegami and later took rebirth as Gautama with unbelievable determination to seek the path of enlightenment.
Maybe it is just another misleading tales, i'm not sure and need you guys to verify it.

[Reductor]

I mean Gautama recalled the 4 noble truth which he learned from Kassapa Buddha from his previous life as Jotipala. The tales narrate how Jotipala was invited by his friend gateekara to meet Kassapa Buddha and became his disciple...
And i was also given assumption that Jotipala attained Sakadegami and later took rebirth as Gautama with unbelievable determination to seek the path of enlightenment.
Maybe it is just another misleading tales, i'm not sure and need you guys to verify it.

I don't have access to all the suttas, but from those I have I find only one reference to Jotipala. That's in MN81. He takes the going forth, but then his role in the narration comes to an end, and the focus remains on the potter.

Perhaps you can provide some reference to the stories you are thinking of, or perhaps a hint of where you were exposed to them. This is only a casual interest on my part, so don't stress about it.

EDIT: Ghatikara, the potter and chief support of Kassapa from MN81, became a devata. Perhaps his ascension to that level while a student of Kassapa has been confused with the narration of Jotipala?

[whynotme]

Now, my concern shift to the Jotipala tales which i was told about how Gautama buddha recalled his previous lives and found he was a disciple of Kassapa Buddha. Through there he revised the 4 noble truth he had learned under Kassapa Buddha and became enlightened.
If this whole tales is to be forsaken, can someone please give me a better idea of how Gautama achieved enlightenment.

What are Jotipala tales? Did you mean Jataka tales?

The Buddha did not attain enlightenment under Kassapa Buddha according to the Tipitaka. I believe some in the Mahayana believe that he attained enlightenment many hundreds of aeons ago, but that is the Mahayana, not Theravada. The early Buddhist account is that he became enlightened on / around 528 BCE in Bodh Gaya. See Samyutta Nikaya 56.11, the first sermon.

I mean Gautama recalled the 4 noble truth which he learned from Kassapa Buddha from his previous life as Jotipala. The tales narrate how Jotipala was invited by his friend gateekara to meet Kassapa Buddha and became his disciple...
And i was also given assumption that Jotipala attained Sakadegami and later took rebirth as Gautama with unbelievable determination to seek the path of enlightenment.
Maybe it is just another misleading tales, i'm not sure and need you guys to verify it.

I remember your sutta, but Jotipala didn't attained anything in that sutta. He learned 4 noble truths but he didn't achieve anything and then forgot it all in his last life, so he must rediscovery the 4 noble truths. Look at this simile, in previous life you maybe already knew how to read and write, but in this life, you forget it all and your current skill of reading and writing is learnt in this very life. Gautama discovered the 4 noble truths in his last life, not from his previous life.
Also there is difference between learning and actual understanding, when he was Jotipala, he had only learning, but when Gautama discovered 4 noble truths, he had actual understanding, actually saw the truth. Normal people can know 4 noble truths, but they don't see it.

Regards

[barcsimalsi]

Perhaps you can provide some reference to the stories you are thinking of, or perhaps a hint of where you were exposed to them.

Please download and listen to this audio "33-MN 79-Culasakuludayi, 80-Vekhanassa, 81-Ghatikara (2010-08-21)" link below:
http://www.vbgnet.org/resource-audio.as ... nSubmit=Go

The sutta is read and interpret by a respected Theravada monk. He speak English with his local accent.
MN 81 will start around 00:45:00
Around 1:04:00 to 1:10:00 he tells about how the enlightenment of Gautama is highly related to the recollection of his past.
Some of his interpretation are based on his personal assumption therefore i need more opinions to testify it.

I remember your sutta, but Jotipala didn't attained anything in that sutta....

Please download and listen to the mp3 in the link above and give your opinion.

[daverupa]

can someone please give me a better idea of how Gautama achieved enlightenment.

MN 85 offers an early description. Note the utter lack of talk of previous lives.

[mikenz66]

Hi Dave,

can someone please give me a better idea of how Gautama achieved enlightenment.

MN 85 offers an early description. Note the utter lack of talk of previous lives.

Are you sure you linked to the sutta you thought you did?

When the mind was concentrated, pure, free from minor defilements, malleable workable not disturbed, I directed the mind for the knowledge of previous births.I recollected the manifold previous births, one birth, two births, three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred births, a thousand births, a hundred thousand births, innumerable forward cycles of births, innumerable backward cycles of births, innumerable forward and backward cycles of births. There I was of such name, clan, disposition, supports, experiencing such pleasant and unpleasant feelings and with such a life span. Disappearing from there was born there with such name, clan, disposition, supports, experiencing such pleasant and unpleasant feelings, with such a life span, disappearing from there, is born here. Thus with all modes and all details I recollected the manifold previous births. Royal prince, this is the first knowledge I attained in the first watch of the night, ignorance dispelled, knowledge arose, as it happens to those abiding diligent for dispelling. .

Mike

[daverupa]

Oh, I'm sure.

The point is the narration of his becoming a wanderer, the two teachers, the rose-apple tree, and the time spent practicing his newly-discovered jhanas after recuperating for days/weeks/??? with rice gruel, etc. The three knowledges are easily a later hagiographical addition, and largely missing from the Chinese Agamas, so I have no problem setting the first two of them aside as irrelevant. The point is the destruction of the asavas.

(Off-topic, sort of: I mean, sure it's in the texts - but so is misogyny. So is Buddha-poo smelling like sandalwood. The Mulasarvastivada Vinaya even has 'the Buddha' giving rules about inheritance law for monks and how to draw up a contract such that monks can make loans and collect interest. The three-knowledges strike me as of a kind; somewhat old, but tangential additions designed to build up the Buddha in a certain cultural context.)

So, past lives are there I suppose, but in a stock phrase with no reference to previous Buddhas or prior dispensations (per the OP).

[mikenz66]

Hi Dave,

Thank you for the clarification. When you said " Note the utter lack of talk of previous lives" I guess I should have read: "Note that I disregard the talk of previous lives as later additions."?


Mike

[daverupa]

I don't see past lives, in that Sutta, playing anything like an important role, so I meant that the utter lack was with respect to previous dispensations and such, per the OP.



Sloppy text, either way. I hope things are clear now.

[mikenz66]

Sloppy text, either way. I hope things are clear now.

Mike