Hi Ontheway:Ontheway wrote: ↑Thu Oct 14, 2021 3:27 pmHi.2600htz wrote: ↑Thu Oct 14, 2021 11:47 am Hi:
No idea if that gandhabba concept is right or wrong, but i think Lal is saying that the 5 aggregates of humans can remain in a subtle body even after death of the physically dense one. And that subtle body still is not eternal or to be classified as a soul. Eventually that subtle body ends his lifespan and that is when those 5 aggregates are destroyed and a next existence is fueled by old kammic energy and this new "rebirth consciousness".
Regards
No Sutta support this idea of subtle body. If one understands the five aggregates as it is from Suttanta texts, one surely cannot say that any of those aggregates are of those forms. Wasn't the Buddha said: "Yamkinci samudaya Dhammam, sabbam tam Nirodha Dhammanti"? Since these five aggregates are subject to arising, they are too subject to ceasing. If that is the case, how is it possible to have remnant of five aggregates in such state after ceasing? That's is not coherent with the Dhamma.
And "Gandhabba" in Pali language dictionary, defined in this way:
gandhabba : (m.) 1. a musician; a heavenly musician belonging to the demigods; 2. a being ready to take a new existence.
https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/gandhabba
It is not refer to a Soul-like state of subtle body.
Quote:
"i think Lal is saying that the 5 aggregates of humans can remain in a subtle body even after death of the physically dense one. And that subtle body still is not eternal or to be classified as a soul. Eventually that subtle body ends his lifespan and that is when those 5 aggregates are destroyed and a next existence is fueled by old kammic energy and this new "rebirth consciousness"."
If what you said is true, then it is a contradiction. Since you said there is a subtle body remained, how come there is no sutta refer to this explicitly?
If this so-called subtle body to be called a soul, that will be Sassatavada. If that subtle body wasn't a soul, then what does it called? Aren't this an endless Papanca? Endlessly eel-wriggling. And our great master the Buddha never act like that.
If you said that particular subtle body "ends his lifespan", you are classifying such subtle body as a definite living being. And this presents another contradiction. Aren't the Buddha taught us about Pancagati (Heavenly realms, Hellish realms, Human world, Ghost world, Animal realm) ? To which ever Buddha classifies those "subtle body" of dead person into? There absolutely no such teaching in the Suttas.
Lal got his idea about Patisandhi Citta wrongly. If Lal equates Patisandhi Citta as if it is a soul-like thing, then it is clearly a wrong view.
Quoting Piyadassi Thera's The Buddha's Ancient Path (1979) :
"One with an inquiring mind may ask, if there is no transmigrating permanent Soul or Self to reincarnate, what is it that is reborn? The answer is that there is no permanent substance of the nature of Self of Soul (Atman) that reincarnates or transmigrates. It is impossible to conceive of anything that continues without change. All is in a state of flux.
What we call life here is the functioning of the five Aggregates of Grasping which we have discussed earlier, or the functioning of mind and body which are only energies or forces. They are never the same for two consecutive moments, and in the conflux of mind and body we do not see anything permanent. The grown-up man is neither the child nor quite a different person; there is only a relationship of continuity. The conflux of mind and body or mental and physical energy is not lost at death, for no force or energy is ever lost. It undergoes change. It resets, re-forms in new conditions. This is called rebirth, re-existence or re-becoming (punabbhava).
Karmic process (kammabhava) is the energy that out of a present life conditions a future life in unending sequence. In this process there is nothing that passes or transmigrates from one life to another. It is only a movement that continues unbroken. The ‘being who passes away’ here and takes birth elsewhere is neither the same person nor a totally different one (na ca so, na ca anno). There is the last moment of consciousness (cuti citta or vinnana) belonging to the immediately previous life; immediately next, upon the cessation of that consciousness, but conditioned by it, there arises the first moment of consciousness of the present birth which is called a relinking or rebirth-consciousness (patisandhi vinnana). Similarly the last thought-moment in this life conditions the first thought-moment is the next. In this way consciousness comes into being and passes away yielding place to new consciousness. Thus this perpetual stream of consciousness goes on until existence ceases. Existence in a way is consciousness--the will to live, to continue.
According to modern biology, ‘a new human life begins in that miraculous instant when a sperm cell from the father merges with an egg cell or ovum within the mother’. This is the moment of birth. Science speaks of only these two physical common factors.
Buddhism, however, speaks of a third factor which is purely mental. According to the Mahatanhasamkhaya-sutta, ‘by the conjunction of three factors does conception take place. If mother and father come together, but it is not the mother’s proper season, and the being to be reborn (gandhabba) does not present itself, a germ of life is not planted. If the parents come together, and it is the mother’s proper season, but the gandhabba is not present, then there is no conception. If the mother and father come together, and it is the mother’s proper season and the gandhabba is also present, then a germ of life is planted them.’
The third factor is simply a term for the patisandhi-vinnana, rebirth-consciousness. It should be clearly understood that this rebirth-consciousness is not a Self or a Soul or an Ego-entity that experiences the fruits of good and evil deed. Consciousness is also generated by conditions. Apart from condition there is no arising of consciousness.
We give names, such as birth, death, thought-processes and so on, to a stream of consciousness. There are only thought-moments. As explained above, the last thought-moment we call death, and the first thought-moment we call birth; thus births and deaths occur in this stream of consciousness, which is only a series of ever continuing thought-moments. So long as man is attached to existence through his ignorance, craving and clinging, to him death is not the final end. He will continue his career of whirling round the ‘Wheel of Existence’. This is the endless play of action and reaction kept in perpetual motion by karma concealed by ignorance propelled by craving or thirst. As karma, or action, is of our own making, we have the power to break this endless chain. It is through the eradication of ignorance (avijja) and of this driving force, craving, this thirst for existence, this will to live (tanha), that the Cycle of Existence (samsara) ceases."
Page 64 - 66
Just to be clear, you are saying gandhabba is a term used in suttas to talk about "rebirth consciousness" ?. Could you mention sutta reference?.
Also two minor questions:
-the point Lal makes of people remembering very close in time past lifes as humans seems to add weight to his statements, any comments on that?.
-kinda offtopic, but when people with supernatural abilities create mind made bodies and travel to other realms. Would you consider that mind made body part of the human realm?.
Regards