At this stage this is how I rationalise my point.
You are free to disagree with me.
It is just your opinion against mine.

What does any of this actually really mean? This sort of thing certainly is not even remotely found in the suttas, and where is its actual, practical application in one's life? I have seen a fair amount of actual dying processes leading to death, but I have yet to see a jīvitindriya.Dhammanando wrote:Only in the sense that the disjunction between inanimate (aviññāṇaka) rūpa, such as that of a stone or a rotting corpse, and animate (saviññāṇaka) rūpa, such as that of living humans and animals, is conceived as absolute and not merely a matter of degree.clw_uk wrote:So it's form of the vitalist theory?
Other than that the description's not a very comfortable fit. In vitalist theories...
1. The animating principle is usually an immaterial one. Buddhist doctrine posits both a material and a non-material jīvitindriya.
2. The animating principle is usually unitary. In Buddhist doctrine, besides the twofold distinction mentioned above, an instance of the material jīvitindriya is present in every single materiality-cluster (rūpakalāpa) in one’s body, so in effect there are billions of them.
3. The animating principle is either everlasting or at least lasts for the duration of a being’s life. In Buddhist doctrine the jīvitindriya is as ephemeral as any other dhamma.
Why do you want to rationalize your point?SarathW wrote:No.
At this stage this is how I rationalise my point.
You are free to disagree with me.
It is just your opinion against mine.
So, if I have sufficient capacity as a result of bhāvanā I can see, or sense in some way or other, life-faculty? Do the suttas say that?Dhammanando wrote:In the Vinaya (e.g., Vin. iii. 73) and in the Suttas (e.g., D. ii. 305), the life-faculty is that which when it is cut off makes you dead. In the Abhidhamma more precise and technical descriptions are given, but as these are descriptions concerned with fostering insight development, an examination of them for our present purposes would be overkill.tiltbillings wrote:What exactly is a "life-faculty" and how does one become aware/conscious of it?
As to the would-be killer’s awareness of his victim’s life-faculty, except in the unlikely event that he has discerned it through bhāvanā, his knowledge of it will be no more than inferential. That is, he will know of it through its effects: the continuance of vitality in the living being, as manifested in its appearance and behaviour, or else detectable via the medical monitoring devices.
Dhammanando wrote:[If the commentaries are wrong then we must treat death by one’s own hand as being something other than pāṇātipāta, given that the Suttas unqualifiedly declare an arahant to be incapable of the latter. (There is in fact a strong Vinaya case to be made for this, quite independently of any conclusions one might draw from these alleged suicides by arahants).
Perhaps it means that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the North American neo-Sautrāntika school.tiltbillings wrote:What does any of this actually really mean?
In the context of this Ethical Conduct sub-forum its practical application is that it supplies an authoritative dhammic repudiation of claims such as this:This sort of thing certainly is not even remotely found in the suttas, and where is its actual, practical application in one's life?
and this:daverupa wrote:A cat is run over in the road; bisected and dying, not dead yet; incredible, excruciating agony, the look in the cat's eyes...
Ending that life is not killing it; the car did that.
In the Buddha’s Dhamma life’s not over so long as the jīvitindriya’s still there and “soon to be over” doesn’t mean “over”.seeker242 wrote:The thing about this is that's not how it's perceived by the people doing the euthanasia. Not with the veterinarians I worked with anyway. The perception from them was that this being has already been deprived of it's life. The euthanasia not considered "destroying or deprivation of life" to begin with. The animals life is considered to already be destroyed.
But you have surely seen the continuance of vitality in living beings, and in the Suttas the jīvitindriya is stated to be the pavattasīsa or “lord of continuance”.I have seen a fair amount of actual dying processes leading to death, but I have yet to see a jīvitindriya.
Indeed. It is a controlling-faculty after all, and since every controlling-faculty is a potential object of insight (sammasana-dhamma) and a potential object of higher knowledge (abhiññeyya-dhamma), both the Suttanta and Abhidhamma Piṭakas list it among the dhammas to be known.tiltbillings wrote:So, if I have sufficient capacity as a result of bhāvanā I can see, or sense in some way or other, life-faculty? Do the suttas say that?
Jīvitindriyaṃ abhiññeyyaṃ.
“The vitality controlling-faculty is to be known.”
(Paṭisam. i. 7)
No, I wasn't thinking of either of those but of an episode in the Pārājikakaṇḍa (Vin. iii. 82).Sylvester wrote:Bhante, might the Vinaya case be based on Ven Ananda's passing? How about the Buddha's decision to relinquish "His" āyusaṅkhāra?
Thanks Bhante.Dhammanando wrote: It relates that an unhappy bhikkhu, wishing to kill himself, jumped off Vulture's Peak and landed on top of a basket-maker. ...
There are two types of Jivitandriya.Dhammanando wrote:In the Vinaya (e.g., Vin. iii. 73) and in the Suttas (e.g., D. ii. 305), the life-faculty is that which when it is cut off makes you dead. In the Abhidhamma more precise and technical descriptions are given, but as these are descriptions concerned with fostering insight development, an examination of them for our present purposes would be overkill.tiltbillings wrote:What exactly is a "life-faculty" and how does one become aware/conscious of it?
As to the would-be killer’s awareness of his victim’s life-faculty, except in the unlikely event that he has discerned it through bhāvanā, his knowledge of it will be no more than inferential. That is, he will know of it through its effects: the continuance of vitality in the living being, as manifested in its appearance and behaviour, or else detectable via the medical monitoring devices.
Thanks.Dhammanando wrote:In the Buddha’s Dhamma life’s not over so long as the jīvitindriya’s still there and “soon to be over” doesn’t mean “over”.seeker242 wrote:The thing about this is that's not how it's perceived by the people doing the euthanasia. Not with the veterinarians I worked with anyway. The perception from them was that this being has already been deprived of it's life. The euthanasia not considered "destroying or deprivation of life" to begin with. The animals life is considered to already be destroyed.