Question about 31 planes of existence.

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SarathW
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Question about 31 planes of existence.

Post by SarathW »

Question about 31 planes of existence.

Does Theravada teach that there are many other 31 planes of existence? (ie multiverse universe)
Could you provide the Sutta reference?

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dha ... /loka.html
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cappuccino
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Re: Question about 31 planes of existence.

Post by cappuccino »

SarathW wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 10:23 pm Does Theravada teach that there are many other 31 planes of existence?
Buddha said… everywhere it's the same 31 planes
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Re: Question about 31 planes of existence.

Post by coconut »

This is the closest thing to a "multi-verse" in the suttas
“Ānanda, a galaxy extends a thousand times as far as the moon and sun revolve and the shining ones light up the quarters. In that galaxy there are a thousand moons, a thousand suns, a thousand Sinerus king of mountains, a thousand Indias, a thousand Western Continents, a thousand Northern Continents, a thousand Eastern Continents, four thousand oceans, four thousand Great Kings, a thousand realms of the Gods of the Four Great Kings, a thousand realms of the Gods of the Thirty-Three, of the Gods of Yama, of the Joyful Gods, of the Gods who Love to Create, of the Gods who Control the Creations of Others, and a thousand Brahmā realms. This is called a thousandfold lesser world system, a ‘galaxy’.
https://suttacentral.net/an3.80/en/sujato

It reminds me of the animatrix, how it zooms into a reality universe (from 1:30 to the deva touching the body and then it zooms out into all the realms)

Last edited by coconut on Wed Jan 13, 2021 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Question about 31 planes of existence.

Post by cappuccino »

coconut wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 11:48 pm It reminds me of the Animatrix
this is not a simulation


at least it brings suffering to think so


which is my reason to not think so
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Re: Question about 31 planes of existence.

Post by coconut »

cappuccino wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 11:59 pm
coconut wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 11:48 pm It reminds me of the Animatrix
this is not a simulation


at least it brings suffering to think so


which is my reason to not think so
I never said it was a simulation, I just said it reminded me of the part where it zooms into one universe of the many in the multi-verses which is shown in the beginning and end of the first clip.
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Re: Question about 31 planes of existence.

Post by SarathW »

coconut wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 11:48 pm This is the closest thing to a "multi-verse" in the suttas
“Ānanda, a galaxy extends a thousand times as far as the moon and sun revolve and the shining ones light up the quarters. In that galaxy there are a thousand moons, a thousand suns, a thousand Sinerus king of mountains, a thousand Indias, a thousand Western Continents, a thousand Northern Continents, a thousand Eastern Continents, four thousand oceans, four thousand Great Kings, a thousand realms of the Gods of the Four Great Kings, a thousand realms of the Gods of the Thirty-Three, of the Gods of Yama, of the Joyful Gods, of the Gods who Love to Create, of the Gods who Control the Creations of Others, and a thousand Brahmā realms. This is called a thousandfold lesser world system, a ‘galaxy’.
https://suttacentral.net/an3.80/en/sujato

It reminds me of the animatrix, how it zooms into a reality universe (from 1:30 to the deva touching the body and then it zooms out into all the realms)

Thanks.
It appears there are thousands of Brahama etc.
Can we say that this can be extended to thousands of human realms and Apaya etc.?
If that is the case we can assume there are thousands of 31 planes of existence.
Last edited by SarathW on Wed Jan 13, 2021 2:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Question about 31 planes of existence.

Post by DooDoot »

SarathW wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 10:23 pm Question about 31 planes of existence.
My goal is to heedfully avoid the many hell realms rather than heedlessly lust for the many heavenly realms.
There is always an official executioner. If you try to take his place, It is like trying to be a master carpenter and cutting wood. If you try to cut wood like a master carpenter, you will only hurt your hand.

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Re: Question about 31 planes of existence.

Post by cappuccino »

DooDoot wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 1:39 am My goal is to heedfully avoid the many hell realms …
right view leads in the right direction


I tell people to heed the right view


yet I (perhaps) seem foolish or irrelevant


whereas I hold the sole wisdom and relevance


which to them is something to ignore, I guess


hence they are learning the hard way


(may I, therefore, heed the right view)
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Re: Question about 31 planes of existence.

Post by coconut »

SarathW wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 1:29 am
coconut wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 11:48 pm This is the closest thing to a "multi-verse" in the suttas
“Ānanda, a galaxy extends a thousand times as far as the moon and sun revolve and the shining ones light up the quarters. In that galaxy there are a thousand moons, a thousand suns, a thousand Sinerus king of mountains, a thousand Indias, a thousand Western Continents, a thousand Northern Continents, a thousand Eastern Continents, four thousand oceans, four thousand Great Kings, a thousand realms of the Gods of the Four Great Kings, a thousand realms of the Gods of the Thirty-Three, of the Gods of Yama, of the Joyful Gods, of the Gods who Love to Create, of the Gods who Control the Creations of Others, and a thousand Brahmā realms. This is called a thousandfold lesser world system, a ‘galaxy’.
https://suttacentral.net/an3.80/en/sujato

It reminds me of the animatrix, how it zooms into a reality universe (from 1:30 to the deva touching the body and then it zooms out into all the realms)

Thanks.
It appears there are thousands of Brahama etc.
Can we say that this can be extended to thousands of human realms and Apaya etc.?
If that is the case we can assume there are thousands of 31 planes of existence.
Actually there is infinite 31 planes of existence. A galaxy has a thousand 31 planes of existence, but a "middling" world galaxy has thousands of galaxies. And then there are thousands of "middling world systems"

So basically there is infinite 31 planes of existences.

Check out this guys NDE experience which he dies and then moved to another existence, he says a huge wheel came and moved him into a new reality, a lot of people report seeing this wheel. It's like the wheel of samsara.

https://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1wilson_fde.html
But some sense of it can be had by imagining that in the space of each 'paddle' there was a kind of spinning film of water, like a waterfall on its side. Imagine a film of water being thrown outward from the wheel in each slot, as if by centrifugal force. Imagine being slapped or splashed by each of these films as you collide with it and pass through it to the next one. This is what was happening. Except these weren’t just films of water. They were (for want of a better term) possible realities or what we might think of as universes or worlds. Again, our world, our entire universe as we normally think of it, was simply one among an infinite number of these. How did I know that there was an infinite number? I just did. A kind of knowing came with the event, and there was no doubting this knowing. It WAS so, and I knew it was so.

And because I had knowledge and understood what was happening in ways I can no longer communicate, I was afraid. I understood that I was about to be subject to the process that humans approximated with the term 'reincarnation.' This was why the wheel had come. I represented a kind of discrepancy that had to be fixed. The event, or perhaps the imminent event, on the highway had caused me to slip out of or fall between the paddles on the wheel. This structure had some kind of cosmic purpose of sorting things into their correct natural place. I was afraid and resisted being 'sorted' so the wheel stepped up its aggressive attempts to 'sort' me correctly.

With this came another understanding that frightened me even more. I knew that unless I soon selected one of these realities to slide back into, that the wheel would coerce the situation by deciding for me. One way or another, I WOULD be 'sorted' whether I liked it or not. If I didn’t choose for myself, I would simply be fitted into place at some nearest position on the wheel to the point where I failed to make the decision; if that makes sense. I was aware of having a limited ability to choose, but not much. Even that limited ability wasn’t much use because each reality slammed against me and through me before I could make much sense of what it contained.

Even I did not remain the same from one slot in the wheel to the next. It was as if when each film broke over me, I was destroyed and made again from the ground up as a completely new self. There was no continuous 'me' that traveled unaltered through that wheel and can somehow report back on this experience. This is just one of the many things that is so very hard to explain. The very idea of a continuous self was contradicted by this experience.
the post is much longer, you can read the rest at the link above
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Re: Question about 31 planes of existence.

Post by confusedlayman »

coconut wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 10:10 am
SarathW wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 1:29 am
coconut wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 11:48 pm This is the closest thing to a "multi-verse" in the suttas



https://suttacentral.net/an3.80/en/sujato

It reminds me of the animatrix, how it zooms into a reality universe (from 1:30 to the deva touching the body and then it zooms out into all the realms)

Thanks.
It appears there are thousands of Brahama etc.
Can we say that this can be extended to thousands of human realms and Apaya etc.?
If that is the case we can assume there are thousands of 31 planes of existence.
Actually there is infinite 31 planes of existence. A galaxy has a thousand 31 planes of existence, but a "middling" world galaxy has thousands of galaxies. And then there are thousands of "middling world systems"

So basically there is infinite 31 planes of existences.

Check out this guys NDE experience which he dies and then moved to another existence, he says a huge wheel came and moved him into a new reality, a lot of people report seeing this wheel. It's like the wheel of samsara.

https://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1wilson_fde.html
But some sense of it can be had by imagining that in the space of each 'paddle' there was a kind of spinning film of water, like a waterfall on its side. Imagine a film of water being thrown outward from the wheel in each slot, as if by centrifugal force. Imagine being slapped or splashed by each of these films as you collide with it and pass through it to the next one. This is what was happening. Except these weren’t just films of water. They were (for want of a better term) possible realities or what we might think of as universes or worlds. Again, our world, our entire universe as we normally think of it, was simply one among an infinite number of these. How did I know that there was an infinite number? I just did. A kind of knowing came with the event, and there was no doubting this knowing. It WAS so, and I knew it was so.

And because I had knowledge and understood what was happening in ways I can no longer communicate, I was afraid. I understood that I was about to be subject to the process that humans approximated with the term 'reincarnation.' This was why the wheel had come. I represented a kind of discrepancy that had to be fixed. The event, or perhaps the imminent event, on the highway had caused me to slip out of or fall between the paddles on the wheel. This structure had some kind of cosmic purpose of sorting things into their correct natural place. I was afraid and resisted being 'sorted' so the wheel stepped up its aggressive attempts to 'sort' me correctly.

With this came another understanding that frightened me even more. I knew that unless I soon selected one of these realities to slide back into, that the wheel would coerce the situation by deciding for me. One way or another, I WOULD be 'sorted' whether I liked it or not. If I didn’t choose for myself, I would simply be fitted into place at some nearest position on the wheel to the point where I failed to make the decision; if that makes sense. I was aware of having a limited ability to choose, but not much. Even that limited ability wasn’t much use because each reality slammed against me and through me before I could make much sense of what it contained.

Even I did not remain the same from one slot in the wheel to the next. It was as if when each film broke over me, I was destroyed and made again from the ground up as a completely new self. There was no continuous 'me' that traveled unaltered through that wheel and can somehow report back on this experience. This is just one of the many things that is so very hard to explain. The very idea of a continuous self was contradicted by this experience.
the post is much longer, you can read the rest at the link above
mind creates those experience to make us compensate for real life horror that happens during that time.. its a protective mechanism.,..
I may be slow learner but im at least learning...
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Re: Question about 31 planes of existence.

Post by coconut »

confusedlayman wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 11:27 am
coconut wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 10:10 am
SarathW wrote: Wed Jan 13, 2021 1:29 am

Thanks.
It appears there are thousands of Brahama etc.
Can we say that this can be extended to thousands of human realms and Apaya etc.?
If that is the case we can assume there are thousands of 31 planes of existence.
Actually there is infinite 31 planes of existence. A galaxy has a thousand 31 planes of existence, but a "middling" world galaxy has thousands of galaxies. And then there are thousands of "middling world systems"

So basically there is infinite 31 planes of existences.

Check out this guys NDE experience which he dies and then moved to another existence, he says a huge wheel came and moved him into a new reality, a lot of people report seeing this wheel. It's like the wheel of samsara.

https://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1wilson_fde.html
But some sense of it can be had by imagining that in the space of each 'paddle' there was a kind of spinning film of water, like a waterfall on its side. Imagine a film of water being thrown outward from the wheel in each slot, as if by centrifugal force. Imagine being slapped or splashed by each of these films as you collide with it and pass through it to the next one. This is what was happening. Except these weren’t just films of water. They were (for want of a better term) possible realities or what we might think of as universes or worlds. Again, our world, our entire universe as we normally think of it, was simply one among an infinite number of these. How did I know that there was an infinite number? I just did. A kind of knowing came with the event, and there was no doubting this knowing. It WAS so, and I knew it was so.

And because I had knowledge and understood what was happening in ways I can no longer communicate, I was afraid. I understood that I was about to be subject to the process that humans approximated with the term 'reincarnation.' This was why the wheel had come. I represented a kind of discrepancy that had to be fixed. The event, or perhaps the imminent event, on the highway had caused me to slip out of or fall between the paddles on the wheel. This structure had some kind of cosmic purpose of sorting things into their correct natural place. I was afraid and resisted being 'sorted' so the wheel stepped up its aggressive attempts to 'sort' me correctly.

With this came another understanding that frightened me even more. I knew that unless I soon selected one of these realities to slide back into, that the wheel would coerce the situation by deciding for me. One way or another, I WOULD be 'sorted' whether I liked it or not. If I didn’t choose for myself, I would simply be fitted into place at some nearest position on the wheel to the point where I failed to make the decision; if that makes sense. I was aware of having a limited ability to choose, but not much. Even that limited ability wasn’t much use because each reality slammed against me and through me before I could make much sense of what it contained.

Even I did not remain the same from one slot in the wheel to the next. It was as if when each film broke over me, I was destroyed and made again from the ground up as a completely new self. There was no continuous 'me' that traveled unaltered through that wheel and can somehow report back on this experience. This is just one of the many things that is so very hard to explain. The very idea of a continuous self was contradicted by this experience.
the post is much longer, you can read the rest at the link above
mind creates those experience to make us compensate for real life horror that happens during that time.. its a protective mechanism.,..
He says in his post that the imagery of the process is subjective and that an actual wheel probably didn't appear before him.

You didn't read the end of the post..where he's back in his truck and the accident never happens.
I found myself back on the highway in what seemed to be a very short distance back up the road, still approaching the intersection. This is just one of the many mysteries associated with the event that I cannot explain. Did I choose a world which was a version of our universe in which the accident hadn’t quite happened yet, but was just seconds away from happening? I can’t say, because I have no memory of making that decision. I remember the look on that driver’s face as clearly as if it were yesterday. I remember him bracing back on the wheel. But I braked as I reached the intersection and that driver, or his car, were simply nowhere to be seen.
SarathW
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Re: Question about 31 planes of existence.

Post by SarathW »

It appears to me that we are lining in our own 31 planes of existence.
Even a mosquito is living in his own universe.
:mrgreen:
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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