Why didn't The Buddha or the arahants reveal an easy method to achieve arahantship?

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acessoaoinsight
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Re: Why didn't The Buddha or the arahants reveal an easy method to achieve arahantship?

Post by acessoaoinsight »

SecretSage wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 2:31 am
Certainly the teacher Gautama and the other arahants must have realized that their are methods for almost anyone to achieve arahantship within a short time-period...but why was the method not revealed? Was it suppressed?
I would consider this understanding as pure delusion. Just see what the Buddha concluded after enlightenment (MN26)...
‘Enough with teaching the Dhamma
That even I found hard to reach;
For it will never be perceived
By those who live in lust and hate.

Those dyed in lust, wrapped in darkness
Will never discern this abstruse Dhamma
Which goes against the worldly stream,
Subtle, deep, and difficult to see.’

Considering thus, my mind inclined to inaction rather than to teaching the Dhamma.

“Then, bhikkhus, the Brahmā Sahampati knew with his mind the thought in my mind and he considered: ‘The world will be lost, the world will perish, since the mind of the Tathāgata, accomplished and fully enlightened, inclines to inaction rather than to teaching the Dhamma.’ .... ‘Venerable sir, let the Blessed One teach the Dhamma, ... There are beings with little dust in their eyes who are wasting through not hearing the Dhamma. There will be those who will understand the Dhamma.’

“Then I listened to the Brahmā’s pleading, and out of compassion for beings I surveyed the world with the eye of a Buddha. Surveying the world with the eye of a Buddha, I saw beings with little dust in their eyes and with much dust in their eyes, with keen faculties and with dull faculties, with good qualities and with bad qualities, easy to teach and hard to teach, and some who dwelt seeing fear and blame in the other world.

‘Open for them are the doors to the Deathless, Let those with ears now show their faith. Thinking it would be troublesome, O Brahmā, I did not speak the Dhamma subtle and sublime.’
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Sadat
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Re: Why didn't The Buddha or the arahants reveal an easy method to achieve arahantship?

Post by Sadat »

cappuccino wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 2:19 pm
SecretSage wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 2:31 am So what happened? Why didn't The Buddha or other arahants reveal a method?
Just understand Dependent Arising


Realize what it’s saying
Why dependent arising but not 4NT?
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Sadat
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Re: Why didn't The Buddha or the arahants reveal an easy method to achieve arahantship?

Post by Sadat »

Pulsar wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 8:30 pm Radix wrote
Because they were really old-fashioned people who believed in the value of hard work.
That is about one of the wisest things you have said on the forum.
I know the method, but O Dear! seriously it is so hard to limit the craving in my mind, at times. My mind craves for things seen, things heard, things sensed, things cognized in the past...and I get entangled in them.. leading to worlds of new identifications.
When Bahia heard those words, he had the heroism to stop all those
cravings immediately it seems. Not only Bahia when Sariputta heard a few words of Dependent Origination, from Assaji, all his cravings ceased, according to Mahavagga of Vinaya Pitaka.
I wish I could. Out of samsara? I don't think there is any other method.
  • Only the old fashioned hard word, of constant mindfulness, not identifying with forms that craving brings about.
Who can live without grasping, the forms that arise in the mind? or block craving from giving rise to forms related to the 6 senses, there you find the stream crosser.
With love :candle:

Hi Pulsar,

I think the key piece in the problem set that you described is developing strong enough samadhi. You can't really stop that stuff by some sort of power of will. I remember reading the sutta where Buddha says that he did not completely abandon the idea of sensual pleasures until he developed samadhi. The mind needs to get to the higher reference point to let go of the lower. What are your thoughts regarding this?
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Sadat
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Re: Why didn't The Buddha or the arahants reveal an easy method to achieve arahantship?

Post by Sadat »

balive wrote: Sun Apr 02, 2023 9:58 am
This most controversial part of this text is of course everything he says about the eternal citta.
This might be the answer to the OP question. The fact that many these days see the idea of eternal citta as controversial explains a lot.
Pulsar
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Re: Why didn't The Buddha or the arahants reveal an easy method to achieve arahantship?

Post by Pulsar »

Sadat wrote
Hi Pulsar,
I think the key piece in the problem set that you described is developing strong enough samadhi. You can't really stop that stuff by some sort of power of will. I remember reading the sutta where Buddha says that he did not completely abandon the idea of sensual pleasures until he developed samadhi. The mind needs to get to the higher reference point to let go of the lower. What are your thoughts regarding this?
I am impressed, you appear to have the ability to see what is important.
You wrote
The mind needs to get to the higher reference point to let go of the lower. What are your thoughts regarding this?
Very true.
As long as you are in the lower, trapped by sensual thinking, that talk is only talk, does not get you anywhere. It is true that conceptual thinking is important, but there are levels of it.
There is a sutta in MN I think, where when a disciple consults Buddha on advice given to Prince Jayasena (if I remember right) Buddha replies something like
There is no point in teaching the four stations of mindfulness (which leads to Buddhist Samadhi),
to a Prince immersed in the sensual world.
Why? My conclusion is that all their thinking is influenced by incoming sensory data.
It is in relation to this, that I have struggled to get right Samadhi across on the Dhamma wheel forum. I like it here.
Have you read my Post on Origination of Suffering under Early Buddhism?
That might answer some of your questions.
With love :candle:
Pulsar
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Re: Why didn't The Buddha or the arahants reveal an easy method to achieve arahantship?

Post by Pulsar »

Dear Sadat: I found the sutta I was referring to. It is MN 125 Dantabhumi sutta.
The Grade of the Tamed
The title reminds me of your comment "The mind needs to get to the higher reference point" in other words "The Grade of the Tamed"
In that Prince Jayasena asks the novice " I have heard that a bhikkhu who abides here diligent, ardent, and resolute can achieve unification of mind"
So the prince has an idea, he is not entirely clueless.
Later in the sutta, when the novice consults the Buddha regarding meeting with Jayasena, Buddha replies
"Prince Jayasena is obstructed, hindered, blocked and enveloped
by a still greater mass than this (meaning the mountain), the mass of ignorance.
Thus it is impossible that prince Jayasena, living in the midst of sensual pleasure ...could know, could see, or realize that which must be known by renunciation"
Many interpret renunciation as getting into robes, but the robe does not make one a renunciate.
The true renunciation, the true Going Forth, is found in a correct understanding of the four stations of Mindfulness as found in SN 47.42.
https://suttacentral.net/sn47.42/en/bodhi
That is, in other words giving up the houses where consciousness resides in the sensual world.
I hope you get my drift.
With love :candle:
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Sadat
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Re: Why didn't The Buddha or the arahants reveal an easy method to achieve arahantship?

Post by Sadat »

Pulsar wrote: Tue May 30, 2023 11:40 am Dear Sadat: I found the sutta I was referring to. It is MN 125 Dantabhumi sutta.
The Grade of the Tamed
The title reminds me of your comment "The mind needs to get to the higher reference point" in other words "The Grade of the Tamed"
In that Prince Jayasena asks the novice " I have heard that a bhikkhu who abides here diligent, ardent, and resolute can achieve unification of mind"
So the prince has an idea, he is not entirely clueless.
Later in the sutta, when the novice consults the Buddha regarding meeting with Jayasena, Buddha replies
"Prince Jayasena is obstructed, hindered, blocked and enveloped
by a still greater mass than this (meaning the mountain), the mass of ignorance.
Thus it is impossible that prince Jayasena, living in the midst of sensual pleasure ...could know, could see, or realize that which must be known by renunciation"
Many interpret renunciation as getting into robes, but the robe does not make one a renunciate.
The true renunciation, the true Going Forth, is found in a correct understanding of the four stations of Mindfulness as found in SN 47.42.
https://suttacentral.net/sn47.42/en/bodhi
That is, in other words giving up the houses where consciousness resides in the sensual world.
I hope you get my drift.
With love :candle:
Thanks, Pulsar. Would you be able to provide a simple example of how SN 47.42 is implemented in practice? Lets say someone indulges in a pleasure of romantic relationships. What would it mean to renounce it from the perspective of this sutta?

BTW, it seems to me that a very critical piece in the sutta you shared is "it is impossible that prince Jayasena, living in the midst of sensual pleasure ...could know, could see, or realize that which must be known by renunciation". This reminds of some other suttas where Buddha says that the more people engage in pleasures, the more they want pleasures. So the first step has to be to simply abstain from pleasures. Then one can start building on it further. At least this is my current understanding.
Pulsar
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Re: Why didn't The Buddha or the arahants reveal an easy method to achieve arahantship?

Post by Pulsar »

Dear Sadat: Answer to your question on SN 47.42, can be found here viewtopic.php?p=728163#p728163. I had started discussing SN 47.42 a while ago. There was not much interest in it, so I myself lost interest.
It is nice that you care to understand
  • this critical sutta that links Satipatthana or Four stations of Mindfulness with Dependent origination and sutta on Ahara, Ie Son's flesh.
Any further questions that arise, I can answer those, in the Forum on Early Buddhism.
With love :candle:
form
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Re: Why didn't The Buddha or the arahants reveal an easy method to achieve arahantship?

Post by form »

Easy method is only for those that meet the prequisite. One need to ask themselves very honestly if they possess the criteria before hand.
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