Why JHANA (meditative absorption)?

Gary Sanders (Against the Stream), Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha (FFlittleD/flickr.com)

 

(tumblr.com/mbe020whlb1rhekwnol)

The Secular Buddhist and Full Contact Enlightenment seem to like the way I expressed my experience of meditative absorption (jhana) or access concentration. And a reader writes in: 

 

"Good article. [I'm] interested to know how [your] "the Buddha mastered them and found they weren't the 'be all, end all,' so why bother?" thinking came [about] for you... being that the Buddha spoke so highly of jhana and that it is the eighth factor of the Eightfold Path?"

There are two reasons why I previously thought the jhanas weren't all that. And I'm not really sure which came first, or if it even matters.
 

1. Most of the Western teachers I sit with seem to just gloss over the jhanas. It's been my perception that they do not place any real importance on the practice [of tranquility and  deep prerequisite "right concentration," or samma samadhi, the eighth factor, defined by the Buddha as the first four absorptions].

2. I just assumed that the jhanas were another practice the Buddha learned, mastered, and discarded (like other extreme ascetic practices) before going to sit under the Bodhi tree.

 

After reading books and listening to talks from Ayya Khema, Leigh Brasington, Daniel Ingram, and others, I have found great, almost indispensable, value in jhana practice, not just to sharpen the quality of my concentration, but really as part of my path.

 
The Buddha and jhana
Seth Auberon, Dhr. Seven, Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

Deep meditation (mysecretpsychiclife.com)

  

(AlisonRyde/flickr.com)

Having edited the article, I have a different explanation. Siddhartha, who only became "the Buddha" after opening himself to the blissful absorptions, had NOT mastered them. He had rushed through them precisely without gaining mastery or lingering in the supersensual bliss and eventual equanimity they offer. One can move through them rather rapidly like a stone skipping on the surface of a very deep lake.
 

This explanation, which is not my own but that of advanced jhana masters like Ven. Dhammadipa and his teacher, the foremost living expert on Buddhist meditation, Pa Auk Sayadaw, resolves a historical problem.

That problem is understanding why Siddhartha's experience under the Bodhi tree makes it sound as if jhana were a new concept when he must have experienced the jhanas to some degree -- however lightly -- to have become disappointed with the teachings of his former teachers.
  
After all, those teachers called their highest jhanic attainments "enlightenment" and "nirvana" (moksha or "final liberation").

The worlds those rarefied jhanas lead one to be reborn in have staggeringly long average lifespans of as many as 80,000 aeons, or relative "eternities," which is nevertheless nowhere near one actual eternity.
 
Under the Bodhi tree the Bodhisat is said to have remembered a childhood absorption experience. And this led him to wonder why he had been meditating fearing pleasure divorced from sensuality? Problem: Buddhist history is told as if the ascetic Siddhartha had been immersed in the jhanas for years.

After all, had he not already used the first jhana, recalled from childhood, within those other dharmas (the Doctrines and Disciplines of Alara Kalama and Uddaka Ramaputta) to get to the equanimous immaterial (fifth through eighth) jhanas?
  
Technically yes, but not if he just zipped through the material (first through fourth) without mastering them or permitting himself to bask in the bliss they offer.

 

"Mastery" is defined in Buddhism as being able to enter them at will, emerge from them as predetermined, and to choose which to enter and abide in. One may, if one wishes, stay absorbed for seven days, and that can be done without breathing. Although Siddhartha climbed to the seventh and eighth jhanas with his teachers, he was striving toward a goal that was not to be found in these attainments. Those teachers taught that those attainments themselves were the goal -- the consummate accomplishment of liberation (moksha).

But the Bodhisat understood -- due to a great deal of past life experience with the absorptions -- that no jhana is bodhi (enlightenment), nirvana (the end of all suffering), or the final solution to the problem of rebirth (samsara). Jhanas are temporary liberations, not final liberation (moksha).
 
All of the jhanas are heavy good-karma and therefore lead to rebirth within samsara, to destinations corresponding to superhuman worlds beyond the Sensual Sphere.
 
Each jhana has three rebirth-levels corresponding to the level of mastery attained. Full mastery of the first jhana, for example, leads to a "heaven" or space plane called Great Divinity (the plane of Maha Brahma), whereas merely touching that jhana leads only to rebirth (if held at the dying moment) to rebirth in "7th Heaven" called Brahma's Retinue, a world of shining ones in space (parisajja brahma akasha deva loka, Large Chart: 31 Planes of Existence, p. 80).

Right Concentration

Moreover, in answer to your question, we are rarely taught that the Buddha "spoke highly of the absorptions." In fact for a few centuries now, Theravada teachers fearfully dissuade practitioners from taking up a serenity practice (samatha). They seem to suffering from the same obstacle Siddhartha faced that blocked his attainment of enlightenment. Who thinks jhanic bliss is a trap?
 
The fear is that meditators will become attached to the joy and cling detrimentally to the conditioned phenomena of meditative experience.

What is more important, samadhi or vipassana, concentration or insight? The question is misleading because suggests a false dichotomy. It is not one OR the other.

There is no mindfulness without concentration, no concentration without mindfulness. And without mindfulness there can be no insight. Mindfulness helps everything, but it is concentration, whether as access or absorption, that purifies and intensifies heart/mind to breakthrough.

What is more important, the top half of the pyramid or the bottom half?

The top half, obviously! Is it "obvious"? No, the top half! What top without a bottom, what height without a foundation, what upstairs access without a firm downstairs? There is no elevated part without a supporting foundation part, except in the abstract. In practice, no one gets to liberating-insight without a necessary and sufficient amount of concentration. The weaker the mind/heart's ability to focus and stay on the object of insight, the less likely any breakthrough is to be expected.

But here's the thing. Getting to the pinnacle of insight does not technically take mastery in absorption, although mastery in absorption certainly makes it much more likely!
 
Without mastery up to the fourth absorption, the sustained practice of Dependent Origination (going backward from current circumstances to their origin rooted in karma and past lives) or seeing existential phenomena such as particles and mind-moments (kalapas and cittas) is very difficult and unsustainable.

 

Can it happen, can it be accomplished? Yes. As unlikely as it is, it can. Access concentration, which is inferior to full absorption even to the weakest level of the first jhana, is enough. This is a technical point; however, it is taken as gospel. No one is allowed a choice. Access is all that is offered nowadays as if absorption were impossible.

Although access is technically enough, it does not mean most meditators will succeed; it only means that at least one person has succeeded.

For example, a person may win a battle against a titan with just a sling and a single stone. But every human who embarks on such a battle would be wise to arm him or herself far better than that!
 
Fear of what jhana might be or lead to with no actual experience of it is like a sinister plot to make sure no one succeeds in reaching stream entry. In a popular misconception of Mahayana, this might seem a welcome thing. Gawd forbid anyone actually enter upon becoming enlightened before having "saved" everyone else.
 

Mara Devaputra, the arch-angelic Cupid/Lucifer figure residing in the highest Sense Sphere world, known as Brahma's Retinue, wants no one to attain stream entry or jhana. For that entails escape from samsara and his influence, be it temporary (by higher rebirth) or permanent (by making an end of rebirth).

Since the jhanas lead to rebirth beyond the Sense Sphere, in the Fine Material and Immaterial Spheres, Mara does not want anyone attaining jhana. Strangely, Mahayana speaks only of six planes of existence when the historical Buddha spoke of 31 such planes, most of them deva worlds of light.
 
The six planes Mahayana teaches are merely those within the Sense Sphere. Why is that?

And within Theravada meditation circles, why are various monastic communities and communities of practitioners still opposing the Buddha's teachings and his urgings that we establish ourselves in at least the first four absorptions? It is one of the bases of success.
 

Parable of the Raft

(Mark Downey/danitadelimont.com)

  
In the "Parable of the Raft," the Buddha says that if one wants to cross over from this shore fraught with dangers over to a further shore beyond danger, one should gather just enough wood and material for a raft and strive diligently with just the strength of one's paddling limbs to get across. That might be enough. That would be viriya, a "virile" effort and exertion. Such outbursts are rarely fruitful. Instead, persistent balanced-effort is the gradual path the Buddha taught. Or one might die trying by such an outburst. One might find that poorly fabricated raft is not nearly enough to cross over the great flood (ogha, samsara). Yes, "enough" concentration is enough, but more is safer and gives one greater certainty that the goal will be reached.
 

(stepoutsidenow)

Sadly, not everyone can attain absorption, so access concentration becomes the only route available. But this is no reason to disparage absorption or dissuade others from following the gradual path the Buddha taught. If someone only has a flimsy foundation, one may try to use it. Or it may be wiser to make it more stable before trying, and failing, and giving up. A human life is an extraordinarily rare opportunity to reach the goal. Maybe that is why some of us were reborn here. It is easier to glimpse nirvana from the lower deva worlds, BUT it is less likely that one will have the impetus to strive for it. Who needs "the end of suffering" when living on a plane without much overt suffering. Obvious suffering in the human world reminds us of the true nature of samsara (that all things are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and impersonal) and the great danger inherent in it. Danger? Until stream entry there is an ever-present danger of falling into unfortunate realms (rebirth destinations) for indeterminate periods of time during which one forgets the goal because one is simply trying to survive and endure the misery. Then one neglects the goal when reborn in fortunate superhuman worlds, so that it can be aeons before one gets back to any vision of freedom through enlightenment and nirvana.

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Inner-Space Worlds

Dhr. Seven and CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly, based on Ven. Nyanatiloka Mahathera (anupubba-nirodha) from A Buddhist Dictionary: A Manual of Pali Terms and Buddhist Doctrines 

The nine "successive extinctions" are the eight extinctions or sublime temporary-liberations reached through the eight meditative absorptions known as jhanas.

  
In addition, there is a more profound and exclusive meditative accomplishment known as nirodha-samapatti or the "extinction of feeling and perception." [It is exclusive in that only non-returners and arhats can attain it.] It is not actual extinction of suffering.

As it is said in A. IX, 31 and D. 33: 

1. "In one who has entered the first meditative absorption, sensual perceptions (kama-sañña) are extinguished. [That is, the meditator is blissfully but temporarily liberated from their oppression.]

2. Having entered the second absorption, thought-conception (vitakka) and discursive-thinking (vicára) are extinguished. 

3. Having entered the third absorption, the supersensual rapture (piti, joy, pleasant sensations) of the previous absorptions is temporarily extinguished. 

4. Having entered the fourth absorption, in-and-out breathing (assása-passása) are both temporarily extinguished. 

• "In-and-out breathing" are corporeal or physical functions or "formations" (kaya-sankhara), whereas thought-conception and discursive-thinking are called verbal functions or formations (vaci-sankhara). They are one of the six aspects of the motion-element. (Vayo-dhatu, translated as "wind-element," refers to the qualities of movement, support, strength, etc.)

On the edge of knowing (Glowing Star/flickr.com)

5. Having entered the plane of boundless space (akasha-nañca-ayatana), corporeality (rúpa) perceptions are extinguished.

[Numbered accordingly, entering upon this base is called the fifth absorption as are the three remaining immaterial absorptions.]

6. Having entered the plane of boundless consciousness, the perception of the plane of boundless space is extinguished. 

7. Having entered the plane of nothingness, the perception of the plane of boundless consciousness is extinguished.

8. Having entered the plane of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, the perception of the plane of nothingness is extinguished.

9. Having entered the extinction of perception and feeling, perception and feeling are temporarily extinguished."

Buddhist Cosmology
Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

Breathing in, breathing out, nivarana, nimitta, jhana, piti, upekkha, rupa, arupa, nirodha

 

31 Planes of Buddhist Cosmology (Inward Path)

The Buddhist description of outer space in the physical universe corresponds to inner states of consciousness.
 
Ordinary states (semi-conscious, beset by lust, annoyance, and delusion) limit us to the Sensual Sphere.
 
This is the lowest of a threefold division of our "world-system," which we can think of as our galaxy.

The worlds of sensuality (kama-loka) are bound in a sphere that includes sensuous "heavens," or superhuman worlds in space, as well as all the miserable worlds inferior to the human plane. And there are lots of them. For instance, although naraka (the Great Waste or purgatory-hell) is spoken of as one plane, it is classified as having at least 16 increasingly miserable levels -- the worst one of which is not even counted.
 
This desolate and abysmal hell is called "interstitial" because it is a kind of exile outside the multiverse into the spaces between bubble-like world-systems. (If there is only one universe, then we may think of world-systems as the countless galaxies in it). Like hyperspace, there is no light in those places, and beings reborn there feel utterly alone.

Hyperspace is no more static than this tesseract

  
The animal world, another plane, is so incredibly diverse as to easily constitute a million planes: Think of the life of an ant compared to that of a cow, or the existence of an apartment dog compared to that of a frigid penguin, or a lake amoeba compared to that of a kinkajou... or the countless species we have yet to discover and describe here and on other planets.

The 31 Planes of Existence are general types of worlds within a world-system. They can be reached from here. That may be because there are waves that make limitations in the speed of light irrelevant or may be due to the fact that whatever can be known exists interdependent with consciousness, that is, the knower.

And a knower can gain awareness and therefore verify the reality of these other worlds by success in meditation. What is "success"? First of all one lets go and thereby attains a natural state of relaxation and sharp awareness not distracted by personalizing or identification with impersonal phenomena.

Artist's rendition of cycling through 6 sensual planes

Of course, all of these worlds are ultimately in flux, unsatisfying, and impersonal. Therefore, one may speak of "escape" or "final liberation" from the transient, disappointing, egoless phenomenal world. Where, what, how!?

It is not possible to say "where" anymore than it would be possible to say where a flame goes when it is extinguished -- right, left, north, south? These terms do not apply.

What does apply is the unsatisfactory explanation that whatever there was before, in this case the fire, was utterly dependent on constituents -- fuel, oxygen, heat, and so on -- and when one or more of the constituents was exhausted, the phenomenon ceased.
 
How? How can we escape the illusion, escape to reality? Success in self-development or cultivation (bhavana), also known misleadingly as "meditation," provides a way.

For scaling these heights in meditation, namely moving through the eight absorptions, opens up the possibility of developing liberating-consciousness or insight. Such wisdom undoes the painful illusion, our existence beset by suffering, impermanence, and emptiness (egolessness).

And even prior to actual liberation, attainment of any of the temporary absorptions is weighty good karma coming to fruition in the future as rebirth in excellent Fine-Material Sphere (rupa loka) planes. So inner-space quite literally becomes outer-space.

And even aspects of Sense Sphere "heavens," where beings enjoy much greater and long-lasting pleasures than can be found on the human plane, are described as coming into being on the power of one's former deeds.

Play!
But out of fear and aversion (to the unfamiliar), out of ignorance, out of craving, we want to stay. We want to play! We don't want to lose the familiar.
 
Know with certainty that it is a game. But also know that most of the "game" is spent playing in ignorance with NO idea that it is a game, or that it is unreal, or that there is an escape. When the game sours, all most of us are left with is "escapism," which is the antithesis of actual escape.

Growing up in a horrific situation where one is being molested, oppressed, or bored to near death, one often resorts to escapism in the form of violence, acting out" (as in the game of Charades when one is unable to speak so one enacts as the only means of communicating what is going on), drug abuse, alcoholic obtunding, sexual compulsion or addiction, self-mutilation, or suicide. So know that it won't be funny then.

But it will nevertheless be unreal. Isn't wisdom preferable? Intensive sitting meditation may seem boring or hard, but it is a portal to remarkable worlds of supersensual bliss, equanimity, peace, and knowledge-and-vision worthy of the noble ones.

Why is the Buddha always happy, always smiling, always balanced?

The World is Always Ending
Ven. Nanajivako (Buddhist Publication Society, Wheel No. 186)

The idea of impermanence and of ceaseless change, due to the never-ending "chain" of causes and effects has, in its broad meaning, become one of our stereotyped and oversimplified truisms, reduced, both in its formal and substantial significance, to a mere rudiment of conventional word-meaning.

As such, it may still have impressed us on the level of nursery rhymes and even of some grammar-school classics in the history of literature. (If I had to choose a deeper [poetic equivalent], I would not hesitate to select the lines from T.S. Eliot's Quartets: More

Ash on an old man's sleeve

Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.

Dust in the air suspended

Marks the place where a story ended. 

Dust inbreathed was a house --

The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,

The death of hope and despair,

This is the death of air.

There are flood and drouth

Over the eyes and in the mouth,

Dead water and dead sand

Contending for the upper hand.

The parched eviscerate soil

Gapes at the vanity of toil,

Laughs without mirth.

This is the death of earth. 

Water and fire succeed

The town, the pasture and the weed.

Water and fire deride

The sacrifice that we denied.

Water and fire shall rot

The marred foundations we forgot,

Of sanctuary and choir.

This is the death of water and fire.

In the uncertain hour before the morning

Near the ending of interminable night

At the recurrent end of the unending... More

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Apes have "mid-life crises," humans too

Wisdom Quarterly

Balding, flabby, and testosterone-poisoned, that's the crisis at mid-life (WQ)

 
Yet again proving that we humans are simply the most spiritually and intellectually (albeit not necessarily the most socially or emotionally) evolved of the apes, we aren't the only ones to go through a mid-life crisis.

Everything we do, perhaps short of moral reasoning, exists in the animal world: tool-making, language (all animals communicate and some, without adequate voice boxes, manage to mimic our linguistic sounds, e.g. parrots, Mina birds, Beluga whales, howling dogs), promiscuity (bonobos), planned violence, murder, cannibalism, self-injury (most animals in captivity), anorexia (dolphins chuck), bipedalism (all birds walk on two legs in addition to a better way of traveling), smoke (monkey in Tobacco Company studies), drink (under fermenting fruit trees in desert oases), pleasure themselves... The great Noam Chomsky declared chimps could never use abstract language, until Nim Chimpsky proved him wrong.

(NewsyScience) Noc can talk. But marine biologists
discovered whales' human voices back in 1984.

 
Even apes have "midlife crises," study finds

Youth in a tube (cartoonstock.com)

(FOX News) Chimpanzees in a midlife crisis? It sounds like a setup for a joke. But there it is, in the title of a report published Monday in a scientific journal: "Evidence for a midlife crisis in great apes."

  

So what do these apes do? Buy red Ferraris? Leave their mates for some cute young bonobos? Uh, no. "I believe no ape has ever purchased a sports car," said Andrew Oswald, an author of the study. But researchers report that captive chimps and orangutans do show the same low ebb in emotional well-being at midlife that some studies find in people.

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That suggests the human tendency toward midlife discontent may have been passed on through evolution, rather than resulting just from the hassles of modern life, said Oswald, a professor of economics at the University of Warwick in England who presented his work Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A second study in the journal looks at a younger age group and finds that happiness in youth can lead to higher income a few years down the road. More on that later. Let's get back to those apes. Several studies have concluded that... More

"This is one of the great patterns of human life.

We're all going to slide along this U for good or ill."

- Study author Andrew Oswald

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The Buddha: Seclusion for Meditation (sutra)

Based on texts sourced by Theravadin ("How to Really Cleanse Your Mind"); translation by Seven, Ven. Karunananda, Ph.D., and Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly

Scene from the Dhammapada (114) as the Buddha teaches lay and monastic hearers (savakas)

 

“…Meditators, herein [in accordance with this teaching] the ordinary-uninstructed-worldling -- who has neither seen noble [enlightened] ones  nor great persons [those ennobled by their actions, i.e., brahmins], who is neither knowledgeable nor trained in the teaching of noble ones -- does not know which thoughts are wise to think and which unwise.
  

On a lotus pedestal (Peterpribylla/flickr.com)

“So one thinks what is best left unthought and does not think what would be beneficial to think.

  

“Meditators, what thoughts are best left unthought? Such thoughts as arouse sensual cravings not yet arisen and thoughts that develop arisen sensual cravings…

  

“Furthermore, one unwisely thinks these unprofitable thoughts:

• Was I in the past or not?
• What was I in the past?
• Will I be in the future or not?
• What will I be in the future?” (Sabbāsava Sutra)

“…O meditators, one who has heard the Dharma dwells in twofold seclusion -- with body secluded [withdrawn, guarded, able to succeed in meditation] and with mind secluded.

  

“When dwelling secluded one recollects the Dharma [one has studied] and follows it.
  
“At such times, O meditators, when secluded one remembers and thinks about (contemplates, considers) the Dharma again and again, mindfulness [non-evaluative awareness] as a Factor of Enlightenment has begun... mindfulness as a factor of enlightenment is being cultivated...” (SN, Mahavagga, Sīlasutta).
 
(Relaxing Records) Music for concentration, help with work, studying, and getting focused. Works best with earphones. More

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How to lead a Buddhist life 2: Precepts

Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly (edited from Alankhoo)

Buddha in ancient Siam, Sukhothai, Thailand (JonBauer/flickr.com)

        

(Moonbird/flickr.com)

PART I. Buddhism or the Dharma (the authentic message of the historical Buddha, see Kalama Sutra) is profound and wholesome, for it leads to the highest good.
  
It benefits not only meditators but society. It benefits even those who only, as a result of hearing it, give. The Buddha, having himself experienced and confirmed it, out of compassion taught it in this world.
  
To this day it is freely offered to all, not limited to some special group.
  
Why then does anyone become a monastic with additional precepts? It is only because such a person wants to advance toward the goal more quickly and/or preserve the teaching for others.

FIVE PRECEPTS
The Five Precepts are basic virtue, an expression of our humanity, our wish to get along, our basic goodness. "Original sin" is a Christian concept true to some extent from a Buddhist perspective: No one is actually born "innocent" and karma-free. It may certainly seem that way, staring at a joyous infant without a thought (intention) in its head/heart.
  
But for all that blissful ignorance, babies do not actually come in as "blank slates" (tabla rasas). They are impressionable. They are educable. But they bring karma and karmic tendencies (character as a result of past habits), which is almost a default personality built in previous lives. Still, there is talk of "original goodness," for humans certainly have merit or they would not have been born on this the lowest of the "fortunate" planes of existence.

Indeed, the human plane is the worst world that is still considered a "good and fortunate" place to be reborn. In at least one way, however, it is the best place to be reborn: Here one sees more starkly than anywhere else in the universe pleasure and pain, happiness and suffering, impermanence and the illusion of permanence in almost equal balance.

Animals and ghosts, as a general rule, face many more troubles. And what about that lucky dog who inherited millions from the old millionairess who was his former companion?! (What's a dog going to do with that fortune other than eat out of a nicer bowl?) There are of course exceptions but animals, ghosts (pretas), ogres (yakkhas), titans (asuras), and hellions (narakas) experience far more misery than even the most pathetic human.
   
Moreover, humans have the chance to make merit, which is rare elsewhere.

• Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism narrowly speak only of "Six Realms" or Six Paths of Rebirth. The older Theravada remembers that the historical Buddha taught that there are 32 Planes of Existence. The six spoken of most often comprise only one of Three Spheres, the Sensual Sphere, which has a low celestial (space) realm, the human world, and subhuman realms. But there are vastly superior Fine-Material and Immaterial Spheres where radiant devas live.

Merit causes smiles (baconbabble.com)

Buddhism teaches virtue, concentration, and wisdom -- an ethical/moral code that brings peace of mind for the successful development of a systematic meditative practice that brings serenity and insight (concentration and wisdom, samadhi and prajna). Wisdom is founded on profound concentration called "absorption" (jhana), which is based on peace of mind, joy (piti), and happiness (sukha), which are based on virtue.

  

By observing precepts we not only cultivate moral strength (self-restraint) but also help our fellow beings through the highest service. The Five Precepts are:

1. Refraining from taking life
2. Refraining from taking what is not given
3. Refraining from taking sexual liberties (misconduct)
4. Refraining from taking the truth lightly
5. Refraining from taking intoxicants that occasion heedlessness.

These are basic responsibilities or observances all people everywhere wishing for a good future should cultivate and abide by.

As a result of maintaining and bringing them to perfection one will be reborn along three fortunate courses (or corridors leading straight to brahma, deva, and human planes). And one will be able to avoid three unfortunate states (hell, ghost, and animals). One will be able to enjoy many blessings, happiness, and forms of freedom among humans and devas (literally, "shining ones") here, now, and hereafter.
 

1. NOT KILLING 

A fortunate person deliberately avoids killing living creatures -- either by committing the act, getting others to, or approving of acts of killing. Refraining is respecting others' lives.
  

One abandons and avoids depriving living beings of life, which includes bringing about harm to animals. If one were hurt or killed, family and friends would suffer. Harming others is the cause of rebirth in three unfortunate courses of rebirth. The effects of killing harm one over many lives not only the very next life; it is one cause of a short life, ill health, and fear.
  

In observing the first precept, one protects life whenever possible. One cultivates an attitude of loving kindness toward all by wishing that they be happy and free from harm.
 

2. NOT STEALING 

Respecting what belongs to others is refraining from taking what is not given. One abstains from taking by force or fraud. One avoids misusing money and property belonging to the public, the collective, as well as individuals. In a broader sense, the second precept means not evading one’s responsibilities. For example, if an employee is lazy and neglects his/her duties or assigned tasks, that is taking what is not given while not living up to what is expected.

  
In an even broader sense, observing the second precept also means one cultivates the virtue of generosity. One gives to the needy (and even the wanty) as well as the sick because of their need and thereby helps society. One helps the virtuous -- with offers of support for Buddhist monks, nuns, masters, and practitioners -- out of respect for the good they are cultivating.
  
One helps the unvirtuous out of a hope that they be won over to the good by receiving good (that they give up stinginess and stealing by receiving generosity, give up killing by receiving compassion, give up harming by being respected...
   
If one were to hope that they would give these up through more suffering and punishments, one would likely wait a long time: Karma is not so obvious as to teach one that what one engages in now leads to results one meets with right away. Meditation brings about a shorter lag time.

• Most acts (karma) take many lives to ripen, so that it is very unlikely that one will know what one has done. Mystics teach that as one sows (does) one receives (experiences) precisely because it is not obvious. The doer (in this life) is very unlikely to be the receiver (in this life). And when the unwelcome befalls one in the future, one often cannot find a reason why that should be so. One would have to look to previous lives.

Yungang, China (Johntrthome/flickr.com)

As hard as it may be to believe, the strength of our karma is conditioned not only by our intention and the act itself by by WHOM it is done to. The more virtuous the receiver, the much stronger the effects.

Therefore giving to the virtuous (the enlightened), our parents (who provided so much for us however much we may think they left us wanting), teachers, helpers, friends, and well wishers is a great source of merit. Reflecting on the good we receive whether in the form of advice, guidance, kindness, generosity, respect, and so on is also very helpful. The grateful are very rare in the world, whereas the ungrateful are very common.
  

Besides giving material things to the needy and the worthy, Buddhists are encouraged to offer sympathy and encouragement to those who are hurt or discouraged. How? It is said that the best of all gifts is the "Gift of the Dharma" in the form of teachings that encourage virtue, concentration (peace of mind), and wisdom. This is why many Buddhists support the production and distribution of Buddhist books.
  

Greed (a category that includes sensual craving, selfishness, stinginess, indifference towards others' needs, hoarding, craving, discontentedness, etc.) is one of the Three Poisons. It leads to craving, grasping, clinging/attachment...and suffering. The unwelcome (eventual) karmic effects of stealing are poverty, misery, disappointment, and so on. CONTINUED

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Supernatural Science: Between Life and Death

TheDocumentarySite; Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Thousands of people claim to have had near-death experiences. Do these experiences offer proof for the existence of an afterlife? Or do they tell us something about the human brain's response to extreme stress?

Soul and Not-Soul

What is the "soul" (gandhabba) commonly referred to as spirit or ghost? In Buddhism it is a transient phenomenon composed of five "heaps" or aggregates. These factors are functionally-integrated by the mysterious power of karma that can bear results at a time distinct from an action undertaken. What are the five groups?

The first group is labelled "form." It is composed of four heaps, referred to as earth, wind, fire, and air but explained by the Buddha as actually being qualities of materiality: solidity, motion, temperature, and cohesion. Buddhist physics articulated in the Abhidharma go into great deal about these qualities. Moreover, instructions are given for seeing/experiencing them first hand as objects of insight meditation practice. (Success in such meditation is dependent on the depth and strength of concentration -- serenity, absorption, mastery of samadhi -- one has previously developed and has at his or her disposal. The strength of the mind is only available in the absence of hindrances, defilements, and taints.

The second group is labelled "feelings" -- not emotions but sensations. Emotions are more complex, and while they may be felt in the body, they are more likely categorized under mental/heart formations. There are six sense bases, the ordinary five and mind. Feelings are pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, and may be therefore thought of as 18 (6 x 3) in all. They also serve as objects of insight and are much easier to become aware of in a stable way than the kalapas (particles of perception) in Buddhist physics.

The third group is labelled "perceptions." When the six sense bases apprehend, perceive, or note in accordance with their types of objects (eye sensitivity sees forms, ear sensitivity hears sounds, etc.), perception takes place. Feelings and perceptions are two types of mental/heart formations, but they are so salient and important in our experience, that the Buddha singled them out for special attention. Perceptions arise from the six sense bases. Note that the eye does not see, but rather what sees is that property of the eye -- what might today be called the rods and cones of the retina -- that sends its impulses (mind moments, cittas?) to the nervous system's bulbous processing center we call the brain.

The fourth group is labelled "mental formations" but should not be regarded as exclusive to the brain. Much of the process of being aware actually emanates and returns to the heart, the literal heart area where the "mind door" is located -- a greenish mirror reflecting sensory experience. There is absolutely no need to believe this, for one may experience it directly. Seeing replaces believing, so one should not remain satisfied with an admixture of religious faith and skeptical doubt when investigation and verification are available and urged. The Buddha is famous for saying of the Dharma, of his teachings, "Come see." There are 50 groups under this rubric, in addition to the fact that the two previous groups are also special kinds of mental formations. They serve the important function of conditioning karma as skillful, unskillful, or neutral. See more at sankhara.

The fifth group is labelled "consciousness." Together with the previous three, this group forms what may be referred to as "mind." it is not a tangible thing but an interdependent process. The first group, form, is "body." A body is not limited to gross sensual bodies; fine-material (rupa) bodies, such as those of ghosts and spirits and light-beings (devas) also qualify as form. Not everyone, however, has a body. Ghosts have bodies but they long for sensual bodies. Beings in heavenly worlds have (fine material) bodies and are glad to be done with these dense material frames. The most rarefied beings in the four Immaterial Sphere (arupa loka) planes of existence are formless (arupa). But these four are the only exceptions. Otherwise, these Five Aggregates are always together, just as the qualities of materiality are bound up with one another and only analyzed (dissected, set apart) for the purposes of discussion (analysis) and the development of insight. Consciousness is awareness, which depends and influences the other aggregates.

So it is never correct to say, when conventionally speaking, that there is no self or that the Buddha teaches that there is no soul or no self. There is a soul (atta), there is a self (atta), there is an ego, there is a spirit (a subtle material body we may regard as "light" or ordinary matter in an extraordinary state such as a flux or higher energy state).

Likewise, it is never correct to say, when ultimately speaking, that there is a soul or self. There is NO soul or self. But this must not be taken on faith, for faith may supplant direct experience and lead to absurdities such as making the claim, "There is no soul, no self." Such claims by mystics who have seen is fine. But such claims by lay Buddhists is ridiculous and leads to doubt, scorn, and/or dismissal of Buddhism's philosophy leading to liberation. Philosophy does not lead out, practice does. With practice the philosophy makes perfect sense. With scholarship, it breaks down. So it is more important to practice meditation than to study ideas.

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New views from Mars (photos)

This is a full-circle scene combining 817 images taken by the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.

  

The US space agency NASA is calling it the "next best thing to being" on the Red Planet (AFP).

 

Color adjusted and distorted in the same way, this undated image provided by NASA shows Mars Rover Opportunity catching its own late-afternoon shadow in a view eastward across Endeavour Crater on Mars. 

 

The rover used a panoramic camera between about 4:30 and 5:00 pm local Mars time to record images taken through different filters and combined into this mosaic view. Most of the component images were recorded during the 2,888th Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's work on Mars, which corresponds to March 9, 2012 on Earth.

  

The view is presented in false color to make some differences between materials easier to see [and obscure its stunning similarity to the Earth's surface], such as the dark sandy ripples and dunes on the crater's distant floor. Opportunity has been studying the western rim of Endeavour Crater since arriving there in August 2011 (AP/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State University).

• More photos

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