Meaning of sun and moon in the suttas

[form]

Is it a symbolic meaning?

[DiamondNgXZ]

Is it a symbolic meaning?

Which suttas?

Mostly I see not, they seems to be literal.

Devas of sun and moon, those are harder to understand, as it's not easy to fit devas into scientific perspective.

With psychic powers, so powerful and mighty to be able to touch the sun and the moon, that one, I dunno what the psychic powers could be. It's best to assume literal sun and moon. So the way to touch is perhaps having a neutrino body? Then the sun cannot harm the neutrino body. Just wild guesses.

[justindesilva]

Is it a symbolic meaning?

Dutiya suriyapama sutta ( sn. 56.38) explains that when sun and moon does not appear on the whole world is in darkness similar to the state that when a budda does not appear too the world is in darkness of knowledge.

[form]

Is it a symbolic meaning?

Which suttas?

Mostly I see not, they seems to be literal.

Devas of sun and moon, those are harder to understand, as it's not easy to fit devas into scientific perspective.

With psychic powers, so powerful and mighty to be able to touch the sun and the moon, that one, I dunno what the psychic powers could be. It's best to assume literal sun and moon. So the way to touch is perhaps having a neutrino body? Then the sun cannot harm the neutrino body. Just wild guesses.

Like in when one attain psychic power, one touch the sun and the moon. I suspect this has a symbolic meaning. Maybe professor Gombrich and other Indiana culture specalists may have an explanation as sun and moon has various symbolic meaning for different cultures.

[DiamondNgXZ]

Is it a symbolic meaning?

Which suttas?

Mostly I see not, they seems to be literal.

Devas of sun and moon, those are harder to understand, as it's not easy to fit devas into scientific perspective.

With psychic powers, so powerful and mighty to be able to touch the sun and the moon, that one, I dunno what the psychic powers could be. It's best to assume literal sun and moon. So the way to touch is perhaps having a neutrino body? Then the sun cannot harm the neutrino body. Just wild guesses.

Like in when one attain psychic power, one touch the sun and the moon. I suspect this has a symbolic meaning. Maybe professor Gombrich and other Indiana culture specalists may have an explanation as sun and moon has various symbolic meaning for different cultures.

Unless one is on the position that all supernormal powers in the suttas are symbolic of something, I think it's not much of an extension to the superpowers to include being able to touch sun and moon.

Eg. if one think clairaudience that is purified and superhuman, does literally means "hear both kinds of sounds, human and divine, whether near or far.", then it's just a normal power of superman and some other superheroes.

Given the creative imagination of the comic industry, we got superheroes who could survive being thrown into the sun, able to jump from moon to earth (one punch man), etc, so it's less of an impossibility to see Sun and moon as literal and the superpowers really are that super.

[Mr. Seek]

Maybe one has to look into whether they have symbolic meaning for the brahmins.

[Spiny Norman]

They have full-moon pujas in Buddhist monasteries, right?

[sakyan]

Is it a symbolic meaning?

Which suttas?

Mostly I see not, they seems to be literal.

Devas of sun and moon, those are harder to understand, as it's not easy to fit devas into scientific perspective.

With psychic powers, so powerful and mighty to be able to touch the sun and the moon, that one, I dunno what the psychic powers could be. It's best to assume literal sun and moon. So the way to touch is perhaps having a neutrino body? Then the sun cannot harm the neutrino body. Just wild guesses.

Touching the real Sun and Moon is a thing with psychic power. I remember when I was watching a lecture on Youtube on meditation practice by Arhat Ven Sunlun Sayadaw, The Meditation teacher told that before passing into nibbana, during a chanting session Ven Sunlun Sayadaw created a psychic display in which people were able to see him standing in the Sun, The Ven Sayadaw was firmly standing in the Sun while the Sun was shaking and furthermore people could see him chanting in the hall.

[sakyan]

The Sun and Moon devas may not be actual Sun and Moon but can be devas simply named Sun and Moon or devas who have palaces near Sun or Moon or can be guardians of the Sun and the Moon.

[Ontheway]

The Sun and Moon devas may not be actual Sun and Moon but can be devas simply named Sun and Moon or devas who have palaces near Sun or Moon or can be guardians of the Sun and the Moon.

Same thing as we see in Samyutta Nikaya, the forest deities have their abodes near the trees.

https://suttacentral.net/sn9.14/en/suja ... ript=latin

[DiamondNgXZ]

Is it a symbolic meaning?

Which suttas?

Mostly I see not, they seems to be literal.

Devas of sun and moon, those are harder to understand, as it's not easy to fit devas into scientific perspective.

With psychic powers, so powerful and mighty to be able to touch the sun and the moon, that one, I dunno what the psychic powers could be. It's best to assume literal sun and moon. So the way to touch is perhaps having a neutrino body? Then the sun cannot harm the neutrino body. Just wild guesses.

Touching the real Sun and Moon is a thing with psychic power. I remember when I was watching a lecture on Youtube on meditation practice by Arhat Ven Sunlun Sayadaw, The Meditation teacher told that before passing into nibbana, during a chanting session Ven Sunlun Sayadaw created a psychic display in which people were able to see him standing in the Sun, The Ven Sayadaw was firmly standing in the Sun while the Sun was shaking and furthermore people could see him chanting in the hall.

Ok now this claim makes me actually think the opposite, that somehow sun and moon doesn't literally means the astrophysical entities.

1. The sun is so far away, so how can people see so small a human body standing inside the sun?

2. The sun is a giant ball of plasma, it's opaque to light, light requiring many years to travel from the centre out to the surface of the sun, how can people see anything standing inside opaque plasma?

3. The light of the sun are too bright, so that cooler regions which are still hot enough to melt almost anything are seen as black, sun spots. Unless the Ven. was shining brighter than the sun, it's hard to imagine people can see him with the sun as backdrop too.

Unless one explains each of these away with more psychic powers magic, which the simplest one I can see is: powerpoint projector, put the picture of sun as backdrop, stand in front of it using hologram tech, with hologram sun, brightness, size etc, all adjusted. This easy way out has to not take the sun as literally the astrophysical entity.

[cappuccino]

as it's not easy to fit devas into scientific perspective.

such is the flaw with science

[form]

Sun and moon in some culture means everything within the two extreme polarities.

[Bundokji]

Sun and moon in some culture means everything within the two extreme polarities.

This can be demonstrated by having two calender's: solar calendar and lunar calendar. They can be linked to rationalism and empiricism. The sun does not go through phases to the naked eye hence the solar calendar is somehow fixed including having a leap day every four years. The length of the lunar month, on the other hand, has to be investigated empirically, unless you link it to the sun to calculate/predict when it is going to appear to the naked eye.

[2600htz]

Hi:

Uhmm touching and stroking with hands the sun or moon could mean developing some mental body, traveling to those places and touching their surfaces (just like we can touch the ground of this earth). I dont see that different from other psychic powers.

Regards