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  • Soh Wei Yu
    John Tan: "What is important to know in bahiya, Buddha actually included the path, experience and the realization in such a short teaching."
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    William Lim
    But sometimes I find the teachings too short, and too clever. Very few people can get it just reading the sutta as it is. One word can itself be a 2 hour lecture! But then again, maybe it's due to the fact that it was done at a time of oral history. Gotta keep it short for people to remember and pass it down.

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  • Tan Jui Horng
    William Lim The thing was the historical Buddha saw that Bahiya only needed this much to awaken. For those who required elaboration, he did so.
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  • William Lim
    84,000 flavours to choose from 🙂

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  • Tan Jui Horng
    Especially at times when your mind is relatively settled, just keep chipping away at the sutta. Try to feel what the Buddha was pointing to. Whatever comes up, don't just reject it but look even closer at it.
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  • Soh Wei Yu
    Bahiya Sutta triggered my anatta realisation. But without undergoing my previous stages of insights into I AM and nondual and also years of being instilled right view by John Tan, it probably wouldn’t have had that triggering effect as I wouldn’t have been ready.
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  • Soh Wei Yu
    My guess is that Bahiya was at least at the I AM stage when Buddha gave him this teaching:

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  • Soh Wei Yu
    Notes from Leigh Brasington
    1. The bark cloth clothing would most likely mean that Bahiya was a follower of the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad. The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad makes a big deal about trees (personal communication from John Peacock).
    2. Why did the Buddha give this particular instruction to Bahiya? The bark cloth clothing marked him as a serious student of the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad; thus he would be familiar with the teaching found there: "The unseen seer, the unheard hearer, the unthought thinker, the uncognized cognizer... There is no other seer but he, no other hearer, no other thinker, no other cognizer. This is thy self, the inner controller, the immortal...." Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 3.7.23.
    Bahiya would also be familiar with "... that imperishable is the unseen seer, the unheard hearer, the unthought thinker, the ununderstood understander. Other than it there is naught that sees. Other than it there is naught that hears. Other than it there is naught that thinks. Other than it there is naught that understands...." Brhadaranyaka Upanishad 3.8.11.
    The Buddha, as he often does, takes something his questioner is familiar with and gives it a subtle but profound twist: there's no Atman, there's just seeing, just hearing, etc.
    Udana 1.10 - Bahiya Sutta
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    Udana 1.10 - Bahiya Sutta
    Udana 1.10 - Bahiya Sutta
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  • Soh Wei Yu
    Likewise when I translated this into Chinese and gave the person in China it had the similar triggering effect of anatta realisation. He was also at I AM stage
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  • Mr. LZG
    One interesting thing I'd notice from this sutta is that,while Buddha confirmed that Bahiya had reached arhatship upon his death,he never really become Buddhist in the sense of taking refuge in Three Jewels

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  • Soh Wei Yu
    Kyle Dixon's post from years ago: "The true meaning of refuge is recognizing the nature of mind [cittatā]."

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    • Soh Wei Yu
      (Although, unless we are someone like Bahiya who can get into the essence of refuge in the most direct manner, I still recommend people start by going for refuge in a proper ceremony with a proper dharma teacher or monk or nun giving the refuge vows, just as John Tan and I did (received refuge vows) multiple times. For those who wish to follow the Buddha's teachings, of course. I generally avoid trying to convert or convince people 'into my religion'. There is no need to hard sell something valuable like true diamond. You can share about it (after all the Buddha did tell his awakened students to go in different directions to spread the dharma), and those with clear eyes and good karma will be able to see it for themselves, but it is up to each individual to choose their own path.

      Acarya Malcolm Smith just posted recently:
      Malcolm wrote: ↑Sun Nov 21, 2021 10:50 pm
      Anyone who has has Mahayana refuge vows, and understands the procedure for bestowing refuge vows, can bestow refuge vows. There is no special qualification needed other than that one’s own refuge is intact.
      The question is, does one really wish to be granting such vows?
      .....
      One has to know how to properly conduct the rite. If one bestows refuge vows and bodhisattva vows there is no particular responsibility, but I think it can become kind of an ego trip. Even some Tibetan Lamas will incorrectly claim that having bestowed refuge, now the student has samaya with that teacher and so on. I just think it is better to encourage people to receive refuge and bodhisattva vows from qualified lamas, preferably lineage heads, and among those, bhikṣus like HH Dalai Lama are preferable to upasākas. One should recall that among vajramasters, a bhiḳsu with intact vows is supreme, according to Kalacakra. On the other hand, though this is ideal, life is short, and if one does not want to use the rite of administering refuge and bodhisattva vows to oneself, then any qualified teacher who is willing to give them will do.")

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      • Soh Wei Yu
        问:什么叫做皈依?
        慧律法师答:皈依分两个角度:一是事相皈依;二是理体皈依。
        首先讲事相皈依:皈依释迦牟尼佛还有十方三世佛叫做皈依佛;皈依三藏十二部经典,依法不依人,叫做皈依法;皈依受过三坛大戒正规的僧,叫做皈依僧。
        其次是理体皈依:就是回归到清净的自性。我们内在的觉性、自性就是佛;开采了内在的觉性和智慧以后,所反射出来的全部都是无上的真理,心中本来就具足三藏十二部经典的法;我们内心里面具大慈悲、和合,人与人之间相处和睦、和谐,内心里面没有情绪、没有乱、没有生灭,完全是和谐,这个叫做自性的僧。自性的觉悟叫做皈依佛宝;自性的真理就是皈依法宝;自性的和谐无争就是皈依僧宝。理三宝和事三宝两种统统要具足。
        。。。。
        皈依三宝的利益
          慧律法师
          皈依三宝的功德利益,可以说在人生中,所得利益总加起来,也不及皈依三宝的功德之大之多。《佛说希有校量功德经》说:皈依三宝所得的功德之大,若具足四事供养,乃至建七宝塔供养舍利的功德,尚不及皈依三宝所获得的功德之百分之一。 “夫三宝者,千生难遇,万劫难逢,皈依者,福增无量;礼念者,罪灭河沙。譬如灵丹之妙药,疗百病而蠲除。冥冥黑夜中,三宝为灯烛;滔滔苦海内,三宝为舟航;焰焰火宅中,三宝为雨泽。”由此可知三宝的功德。
          没有皈依三宝,即使拜佛烧香,也只能算是佛教的尊敬者,不能算做佛教徒,如果是佛教徒,第一具备的条件就是皈依三宝。
          皈依三宝究竟有什么功德利益呢?总结经典中的功德利益有下列十点:
          第一、找到了宇宙间第一伟大的圣者释迦牟尼佛作为老师,成为正式的佛弟子。
          第二、经云: “皈依佛,不堕地狱;皈依法,不堕畜生;皈依僧,不堕饿鬼。”故一旦皈依三宝以后,立刻可以恶道除名,人天有份。
          第三、如顶戴宝冠,身著华服,人身立刻庄严;而皈依三宝,则道德、人格、信仰因而提升。
          第四、能积集广大福德,得大富贵,如为人生前途造了平坦的道路,如苦海茫茫中有了舟航。
          第五、佛陀指示护法龙天、一切善神,在末法时代,要保护、加被所有皈依的三宝弟子。
          第六、能够获得世间大众的尊敬,并以为模范。
          第七、消灾免难,平安吉祥,一切好事,都会成就。
          第八、减少烦恼,得遇善人为友,到处都能得方便。
          第九、有受戒的资格。皈依三宝的人可以受持五戒,参加八关斋戒等。
          第十、终有一天,必定得度。即使没有修行,只要皈依三宝,将来弥勒菩萨龙华三会的时候,也能得度。

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      • Soh Wei Yu
        — as he gave an example, Buddha taught that an arahant does not need to take bhikshu vows, he is a bhikshu [by definition].
        Same principle applies for refuge vows
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    Mr. LZG
    Soh Wei Yu For refuge vows for laypersons,Theravada tradition tends to be less ritualistic compared to,say,Chinese Mahayana or Tibetan tradition.
    Afaik Chinese refuge ceremony is quite elaborate,with the layperson wearing haiqing robe. Tibetan one does it in different fashion with cutting a few strands of hair from the head.
    Whereas in Theravada,it is merely recitation of refuge vows and precepts in Pali. Also no dharma name.Needless to say,no bodhisattva vows in Theravada.
    One exception is late ChNNR,with his interesting take on refuge.

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  • Mr. LZG
    "— as he gave an example, Buddha taught that an arahant does not need to take bhikshu vows, he is a bhikshu [by definition].
    Same principle applies for refuge vows"
    Don't think that applies to Theravada,once one becomes an arhat,one needs to be a bhikshu or bhishukni or else he or she will die in seven days. Strictly speaking,a bhikshu is a man who takes the full pratimokha vows.
    Also even if one enters monkhood as arhat,one still begins as junior monk.

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  • Mr. LZG
    Anyway my point regarding Bahiya is that he got enlightened even before becoming a Buddhist,albeit with Buddha's pithy instructions

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  • Mr. NRJ
    Interesting thoughts on the Refuge Vows. What do you think about the Bodhisattva Vows?

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  • Soh Wei Yu
    I believe, but cannot confirm, that Ven Hui Lu is referring to this young person who became arahat:
    In the final analysis, it is vital to remember that every monastic and saint was a lay person before. The Buddha himself never once said that arhathood could be attained only by the renunciant. On the contrary, the Kathā,vatthu, for example, dealing with the question on whether a layperson may become an arhat, states that the Uttarā,pathakas (―Northerners‖)136 answer affirmatively, mentioning Yasa the layman,
    Uttiya the houselord and Setu the brahmin youth as examples of lay arhats (Kvu 1:268), and its Commen-
    tary (KvuA 4.1/73) quotes the Buddha Word in the Dhammapada:
    Though well adorned [finely clad], if he fares in calmness, At peace, tamed, self-controlled, living the holy life, Having put down the rod towards all beings—
    He is a brahmin, he is a recluse, he is a monk.137
    ——— Bibliography
    Bodhi, Bhikkhu
    2001 ―The Jhānas and the Lay Disciple.‖ In Buddhist Studies in honour of Professor Lily de
    Silva. Ed PD Premasiri. Peradeniya: University of Peradeniya, 2001:36-64. Chakravarti, Uma
    1983 ̳Renouncer and householder in early Buddhism.‘ Social Analysis vol 13, May 1983:70-83.
    1987 The Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987. Chit Tin, Sayagyi U
    2000
    Gethin, Rupert 2001
    ―Being assured of attaining Nibbana‖ in Buddhism As a Way of Life and Other Essays. Online ed. Sayagyi U Ba Khin Memorial Trust, IMC-UK, Splatts House, Hedding, Calne, Wiltshire SN11 0PE, England. http://imc.uk@virgin.net.
    The Buddhist Path to Awakening. [Leiden: E J Brill, 1992.] 2nd ed sb Oxford: Oneworld,
    (Dh 142; Kvu:SR 157 f)
    Imc.uk may be for sale - PerfectDomain.com
    PERFECTDOMAIN.COM
    Imc.uk may be for sale - PerfectDomain.com
    Imc.uk may be for sale - PerfectDomain.com

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  • Soh Wei Yu
    Also from that pdf:
    19 Destiny of the lay arhat
    In the Tevijja Vaccha,gotta Sutta (M 71), when Vaccha,gotta asks, ―Master Gotama, is there any
    householder who, without abandoning the householder‘s fetters,130 when the body has broken up, makes
    128 Gihino vā’ha bhikkhave pabbajito vā sammā,paipada vaṇṇemi. Gihi vā bhikkhave pabbajito vā sammā,- paipanno sammā,paipattdhikaraṇa,hetu ārādhako hoti āya dhamma kusala. Katamā ca bhikkhave sammā,- paipadā, seyyāthda sammā,dihi,,,sammā.samādhi. Aya vuccati bhikkhave sammā,paipadā. Gihino vā’ha bhikkhave pabbajitassa vā sammā,paipada vaṇṇemi.Gihi vā bhikkhave pabbajito vā sammā,paipanno sammā,- paipattdhikaraṇa,hetu ārādhako hoti āya dhamma kusala. S:B omits the second last sentence. Also A 2.4.10/1:69.
    129 (S 12.42,5/2:70), SD 3.3.3(2).
    130 The Kathā,vatthu says that the householder‘s fetters are such that one ―would indulge in sexual relations, cause sexual relations to arise, indulge in a house crowded with children, seek to enjoy sandalwood from Kās, wear garlands, use perfumes and unguents, accept gold and silver [money], acquire goats and sheep, poultry and pigs,
    Piya Tan SD 8.6 Layman Saints
    an end of suffering?‖ the Buddha answers that there is none (M 71.11/1:483). Here, ―householder‘s fet- ters‖ (gihi,sayojana) refers to attachment to the requisites of a householder (such as land, ornaments, wealth, grain, etc, says the Mahā kā).
    The Majjhima Commentary says that even laymen, on becoming arhats, have destroyed all attach- ment to worldly things and thus either went forth as monks or passed away immediately after their attain- ment and also mentions Santati the privy councillor, Ugga,sena the treasurer‘s son, and the boy Vta,soka as examples of layman arhats (MA 3:196). This point about the lay arhat‘s destiny was first discussed in the Milinda,paha:
    There are two destinies for a householder who has attained arhathood: either, that very day, he goes forth or he attains final nirvana. (Miln 264; cf 164)
    The Milinda,paha explains that the lay disciple, upon attaining to arhathood, either ordains that very day or will enter final nirvana. This, Nāgasena argues, is not the defect of arhathood but the defect of being a layperson, just as in the case of someone who has a stomach disorder, ―it is not the defect in the food, but the defect of the stomach‖ (Miln 265). Two famous canonical examples of lay arhats are Yasa and Bāhiya Dārucriya. Yasa joined the order (V 1:17) but Bāhiya died shortly.131
    My own understanding of this interesting situation—that layman arhats must join the order or die within a day—is a dramatic way of saying that on ordaining, they are bound by the Vinaya, so that they have to go on almsround, keep healthy, teach the others and be an example to them. In other words, one of the purposes of the Vinaya is that the monastics live on for the sake of the teaching. The point remains, however, that this well known view (that a layman arhat must ordain the same day or dies then) is only found in the Milinda,pañha (Miln 164) and the Commentaries (eg MA 3:196) but without any aupport in the Canon.132
    The Dharmafarers | Suttas with commentaries (Early Buddhism)
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    The Dharmafarers | Suttas with commentaries (Early Buddhism)
    The Dharmafarers | Suttas with commentaries (Early Buddhism)
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  • Soh Wei Yu
    Mr. NRJAnyone who wishes to follow Buddha’s path and teachings, or even if one is lazy in practice but has faith in Buddha, then such a person should take refuge vows.
    Anyone who wishes to practice the Mahayana or Vajrayana path, aspires to Buddhahood, and has faith in these teachings, then such a person should take bodhisattva vows.

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  • Mr. NRJ
    Soh Wei Yu interesting. Thanks

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  • Soh Wei Yu
    I am not sure if Sim Pern Chong formally took refuge vows before realising anatta.
    2007:
    (12:13 PM) Thusness: That is just the first step.
    (12:13 PM) Thusness: this is a form of practice like vipassana
    (12:13 PM) Thusness: however the true insight does not arise yet.
    (12:14 PM) Thusness: it is just like practicing insight meditation does not equal the arising of non-dual insight.
    (12:14 PM) AEN: icc..
    (12:14 PM) Thusness: but once u r truly non-dual, then u know it is like that. 🙂
    (12:14 PM) Thusness: just like longchen (sim pern chong), given enough time, whatever he said will be like Buddha.
    (12:14 PM) Thusness: but he need not read what that is taught by Buddha.
    (12:15 PM) AEN: oic..
    (12:15 PM) Thusness: however by reading it, it may help him and speed up his progress.
    (12:15 PM) AEN: icic
    (12:15 PM) AEN: u got ask him to read the sutras? 😛
    (12:15 PM) Thusness: the difference is he does not like to be labelled.
    (12:15 PM) Thusness: nope
    (12:15 PM) AEN: oic
    (12:15 PM) AEN: labelled as a buddhist?
    (12:15 PM) Thusness: anything
    (12:16 PM) Thusness: as for me, i don't mind...ehehe
    (12:16 PM) AEN: lol
    (12:17 PM) AEN: btw u read jean klein b4?
    (12:17 PM) Thusness: no
    (12:17 PM) Thusness: but i think someone posted some posts b4
    (12:17 PM) AEN: oic where
    (12:17 PM) Thusness: dunno...i thought it is in ur forum?
    (12:17 PM) Thusness: if it is not in ur forum, then i don't know..
    (12:17 PM) Thusness: maybe not.
    (12:17 PM) Thusness: lol
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  • Soh Wei Yu
    Session Start: Tuesday, 10 July, 2007
    (11:35 AM) Thusness: x last time used to say something like we should rely on awareness and not rely on thoughts bcos awareness is everlasting, thoughts are impermanent... something like that
    (11:35 AM) Thusness: this is not right.
    (11:35 AM) Thusness: this is advaita teaching.
    (11:35 AM) AEN: oic
    (11:36 AM) Thusness: now what is most difficult to understand in buddhism is this.
    (11:36 AM) Thusness: to experience the unchanging is not difficult.
    (11:36 AM) AEN: icic..
    (11:38 AM) Thusness: but to experience impermanence yet know the unborn nature is prajna wisdom.
    (11:38 AM) AEN: oic
    (11:38 AM) Thusness: it would be a misconception to think that Buddha do not know the state of unchanging.
    (11:38 AM) Thusness: or when Buddha tok about unchanging it is referring to an unchanging background.
    (11:39 AM) AEN: icic..
    (11:39 AM) Thusness: otherwise why would i have stressed so much about the misunderstanding and misinterpretation.
    (11:39 AM) Thusness: And of course, it is a misunderstanding that I have not experienced the unchanging. 🙂
    (11:39 AM) AEN: oic
    (11:42 AM) Thusness: what u must know is to develop the insight into impermanence and yet realised the unborn.
    (11:42 AM) Thusness: this then is prajna wisdom.
    (11:42 AM) Thusness: to 'see' permanence and say it is unborn is momentum.
    (11:42 AM) Thusness: when buddha say permanence it is not referring to that.
    (11:42 AM) AEN: icic..
    (11:43 AM) Thusness: to go beyond the momentum u must be able to be naked for a prolong period of time.
    (11:44 AM) Thusness: then experience impermanence itself, not labelling anything.
    (11:44 AM) Thusness: the seals is even more important than the buddha in person.
    (11:44 AM) Thusness: even buddha when misunderstood it becomes sentient. 🙂
    (11:47 AM) Thusness: longchen (sim pern chong) wrote an interesting passage
    (11:47 AM) Thusness: on closinggap
    (11:47 AM) AEN: which one
    (11:47 AM) Thusness: reincarnation.
    (11:47 AM) AEN: oh ya i read it
    (11:48 AM) Thusness: the one he clarify kyo's reply?
    (11:50 AM) AEN: ya
    (11:50 AM) Thusness: that reply is a very important reply
    (11:50 AM) Thusness: and it also proves that longchen has realised the importance of transients
    (11:50 AM) AEN: oic..
    (11:50 AM) Thusness: and the five aggregates as buddha nature
    (11:50 AM) Thusness: time for unborn nature
    (11:51 AM) AEN: icic
    (11:51 AM) Thusness: u c, it takes one to go through such phases, from "I AM" to Non-dual to isness then to the very very basic of what buddha taught...
    (11:51 AM) Thusness: can u see that?
    (11:52 AM) AEN: yea
    (11:52 AM) Thusness: the more one experience, the more truth one sees in what buddha taught in the most basic teaching.
    (11:53 AM) Thusness: whatever longchen experience is not because he read what buddha taught, but because he really experience it.
    (11:54 AM) AEN: icic..

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  • Soh Wei Yu
    Clearly Buddha had the wisdom and omniscience to discern that Bahiya had the capacity and potential to wake up right there to be giving such a short and pithy instruction to him. And also Bahiya basically requested for such a short pithy teaching.
    Instead of a gradual path from formally taking refuge to developing sila, samadhi and prajna step by step. Which is the path most people take.
    But those who have capacity to take the Bahiya instructions to heart, will automatically develop all the eightfold path from just practicing the essence. They are also practicing the essence of refuge if they can realise and actualise the cittata or nature of mind or non-arising nature of mind aka the anatman realisation. Many people have formally taken refuge vows but their everyday behaviour shows they are always “taking refuge” in their delusion and kleshas rather than wisdom or jnana. Even then, the formal act of taking refuge has planted very important seeds that ripens into awakening in time.
    Those who cannot grasp the essence may have to take a more gradual approach. Which means generally all of us. Because as Kyle Dixon said in 2013, “99% of individuals require integration and familiarization. The non-gradual individuals [cig car ba's] are said to be as rare as stars in the day time, and the Dalai Lama attests that there hasn't been a cig car ba for centuries.”
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  • Soh Wei Yu
    Updated my reply above

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    • Mr. LZG
      Soh Wei Yu Should have laid out the context of my answer earlier for clarity.
      As Buddhist meditation of various forms has reached the world populace at large,there is a trend of a more secular form of 'Buddhist' meditation,and it also attracts a crowd that is purportedly non-Buddhist(or claim to be so).
      Most salient example would be Zen meditation,but also most Theravada meditation schools(Goenka's 10-days retreat comes to mind). Even Sam Harris had had experienced in Dzogchen.
      So upon reading Bahiya Sutta,what piques my curiosity is if there is any so-called non-Buddhist/ practitioner has attained any level of awakening,from anatta onwards. Considering Bahiya had attained full arhatship despite while technically not being a Buddhist.
      And if Pern Chong had attained anatta despite not having taken refuge.
      Funnily ChNNR's exposition of refuge is close to Pern Chong' and Kyle Dixon's,so initially I was fumbling over where was "Namo Buddhya,Namo Dharmaya,Namo Sanghaya" in ChNNR's practice lol. I recall Theravada sutta mentioned smth similar but can't remember the name of the said sutta.
      The other thought is if non-Buddhist meditation would be beneficial as precursor to Buddhist meditation. Inferring from your 7 Stages of Enlightenment and Bahiya's speculated background as follower of Brhadaranyaka Upanishad. So the corollary is that it does,depending on stage of awakening.
      Hence I agree that "Buddha had the wisdom and omniscience to discern that Bahiya had the capacity and potential to wake up right there to be giving such a short and pithy instruction to him",Bahiya was not attaining arhatship via sudden path as he likely had extensive ascetic training beforehand. As were the first five Buddha's disciples in Sarnath.
      And yes,taking refuge without understanding does not clear one of delusion and kleshas,though it doesnt plant a seed for the future.

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    • Mr. LZG
      Cant go wrong with Piya Tan's scholarship.👍
      Arhatship(or stages of awakening for that matter) was disputed even in the early Buddhism schools,such as if arhats could regress. And some schools even mentioned layman arhats(also quoted in sutta according to Piya Tan's work).
      So the one-day ultimatum for layperson to be a monk/nun upon reaching arhatship is likely modern Theravada's(actually descended from Vibhājyavāda,an offshoot of original Theravada school) interpretation based on Nagasena's work.

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    • Soh Wei Yu
      The intention is more important than the formality or ceremony.
      Bahiya had very strong intention to rely on Buddha’s teachings to attain liberation. In a sense that is the key of refuge. It is not just a formality but a very strong genuine intention to rely on the triple gems to attain liberation. That is the kind of “taking refuge” one must awaken in oneself. That paves the way to liberation. If one simply attends a refuge ceremony half heartedly, like going through the motions, it is still a positive act that creates a good karmic connection with the triple gems for this life and the next, but may not be as effective as the earnest desire of Bahiya to take refuge in Buddha and his instructions to attain liberation as soon as possible.

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    • Soh Wei Yu
      "The other thought is if non-Buddhist meditation would be beneficial as precursor to Buddhist meditation. Inferring from your 7 Stages of Enlightenment and Bahiya's speculated background as follower of Brhadaranyaka Upanishad. So the corollary is that it does,depending on stage of awakening."
      Non-Buddhist traditions can lead to shamatha and awakening the clarity aspect of mind/consciousness. But all these still belong to the shamatha aspect, not Buddhist vipashyana which concerns the insight into cittata (non-arising, anatman, shunyata nature of consciousness/mind):
      Kyle: "We don’t have any misunderstanding. Again this is rhetoric versus reality, up until the third vision, “emptiness” is obscured and therefore at the time of direct introduction it is merely rhetorical. The nature of mind, as non-dual clarity and emptiness is not truly known until the third vision, again per Longchenpa, per Khenpo Ngachung, etc., not something I have made up. What do we generally recognize in direct introduction? We recognize clarity [gsal ba], and the aspect of vidyā that is concomitant with that clarity. Vidyā is then what carries our practice, but vidyā is not the citta dharmatā, the nature of mind.
      This is why the first two visions are likened to śamatha, and the last two are likened to vipaśyanā."
      The Degrees of Rigpa
      AWAKENINGTOREALITY.COM
      The Degrees of Rigpa
      The Degrees of Rigpa

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    • Mr. LZG
      Soh Wei Yu Yes,this explanation wrt Triple Gem refuge makes sense,and amen that vipassana/vipashyana is unique to Buddhism.

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Soh

Also See: The Trouble With Agency (Newer Version)

It Was Inevitable That Science Would Declare We Have No Free Will
Great Responsiveness Explains How Recognition Of Our Acts Come Only After Our Desire To Do Something Has Already Commenced The Action Desired
StillJustJames
StillJustJames
Nov 11·17 min read
Book Contents 📖 TOC | PROEM | TRADITIONS | PRACTICES | INSIGHTS | DISCUSSION | BACK MATTER
Scientists have grown increasingly bolder in their claim that all human behavior can be explained through the mechanistic laws of strict cause-and-effect.
What this means is that scientists develop their theories, and confirm those theories, only through this single structural understanding. So when scientists observe their experiments, while their observations are facts, how those facts are interpreted is strictly through a deterministic lens.
That being so, given a focus on our daily experiences of free will, it was inevitable that Science would declare that we, in fact, do not have free will, because the mechanistic laws of strict cause-and-effect (determinism) have no room for the kind of indeterminacy that free will implies.
“Unmasked” by Autumn Skye (with permission)
Until the 1980’s the belief that we have free will was a fundamental personal and social assumption in our systems of Ethics, Morals, and Law, but it started to change when Benjamin Libet, a researcher in the physiology department of the University of California, San Francisco USA, did an experiment that, he claimed, showed that our assumption that we freely will our actions was false. A short video explaining his experiment can be seen here. In 2003, Libet was the first recipient of the Virtual Nobel Prize in Psychology from the University of Klagenfurt, “for his pioneering achievements in the experimental investigation of consciousness, initiation of action, and free will.”
Apparently, his research showing that we do not scientifically have free will, was something to cheer about, even though it reduced us all to deterministic mechanisms being entertained by baseless fantasies of our own moral and ethical agency. The phenomenon that his experiment exposed is now called “Libet’s Delay” in honor of the man’s research findings.
The delay in question in these experiments is the difference in the onset of a skin sensation and the reported consciousness of that sensation, or, as in the video linked above, in the initiation of a movement and the consciousness of the decision to make the movement. In both these cases, there is a delay between the brain responding and consciousness of that response arising, either as a decision, or merely an impression. The important point to remember here, is that, Science has not been able to establish what consciousness is, nor how it works; but Libet interpreted the reported delay as evidence that our conscious activity is not involved in the initiation of our physical activity or sensations — and it was inevitable that he would do so, given the strictly causal mechanistic understanding within which he worked. I will explain below how the delay is not unexpected, nor exclusionary to our having free will.
I witnessed an event some years ago at my university that sent chills down my spine. This event was similar to the Libet story in being that of a well-known scientist presenting a dénouement of our moral and ethical agency. It was during a talk by Patricia Churchland, a “neuro-philosopher” as she calls herself, that she gave at Stony Brook University (State University of New York) in February 2008. Her argument was to the effect that individuals with a body-chemistry associated — by neuroscientists — with violent or destructive behavior should be separated from the rest of society before they harmed themselves or others, or gave any indication that they were inclined to do so, since their body-chemistry effectively determined that they would do so at some point.
This included, she said, infants at birth who tested positive for the “violent or destructive behavior body-chemistry,” who should be separated from their parents and raised institutionally, because they were destined to be violent or destructive!
What was on display in her talk was the mereological reduction of the potential actions of a class of human beings to the chemical “makeup” of their bodies.
And she wasn’t laughed out of the auditorium! She received a standing ovation from many of the scholars in the audience.
According to a mainstream article in Psychology Today magazine:
The denial of free will is one of the major principles of the materialist worldview that dominates secular western culture. Materialism is the view that only the physical stuff of the world — atoms and molecules and the objects and beings that they constitute — are real. Consciousness and mental phenomena can be explained in terms of neurological processes.
Materialism developed as a philosophy in the second half of the nineteenth century, as the influence of religion waned. And right from the start, materialists realised the denial of free will was inherent in their philosophy. As one of the most fervent early materialists, T.H. Huxley, stated in 1874, “Volitions do not enter into the chain of causation…The feeling that we call volition is not the cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that state of the brain which is the immediate cause.”⁠¹
Modern Science opens up many technological avenues, which importantly, have quickly brought us to the ruination of society, culture, and our planet, after little more than 150 years. In general, scientists disavow any moral considerations upon their pursuit of knowledge, claiming that knowledge isn’t the problem, instead it is how that knowledge is sometimes used that is at fault, and scientists don’t determine the uses, they say.
Ok, but it’s a bit disingenuous given where a significant part of their funding comes from, and their acquiescence to find useful knowledge for their benefactors to use in pursuit of their oftentimes troubling goals, but let’s skip the interminable debate and respond to their defense: We are better off without the kind of knowledge you look for. Unfortunately, consideration of our concerns does not enter into the ruminations of the Scientific Workshop, or if it does, it is a private matter of some concerned scientists only, and not a collective concern.
Given the mounting evidence that consciousness of our actions follows the commencement of our actions, which are already in motion before we decide to do them, and the positive and negative determinacy of our body chemistries, it was inevitable that scientists would declare we have no free will, no matter the moral consequences of convincing society at large that they were deterministic zombies completely driven by mechanisms in their body to do the things they did.
And the result of that? According to ​Stephen Cave, PhD, a philosopher, diplomat, and writer, who earned his PhD in philosophy from the University of Cambridge:
This research and its implications are not new. What is new, though, is the spread of free-will skepticism beyond the laboratories and into the mainstream. The number of court cases, for example, that use evidence from neuroscience has more than doubled in the past decade — mostly in the context of defendants arguing that their brain made them do it. And many people are absorbing this message in other contexts, too, at least judging by the number of books and articles purporting to explain “your brain on” everything from music to magic. Determinism, to one degree or another, is gaining popular currency. The skeptics are in ascendance.
This development raises uncomfortable — and increasingly non-theoretical — questions: If moral responsibility depends on faith in our own agency, then as belief in determinism spreads, will we become morally irresponsible? And if we increasingly see belief in free will as a delusion, what will happen to all those institutions that are based on it?⁠²
I wonder, do scientists themselves accept the implications of this paradigm of determinacy that they impose on all of us? The title I chose for this article makes clear the implication for scientists as well — they have no choice in what they do, so, given the structural limitations of their working paradigm, they had to come to the conclusion that we do not have free will. It was the inevitable conclusion — and its inevitable result is the reduction of humans to no better than zombies, and the ruination of the world. QED, Modern Science will be the end of us all.
Obviously, that cannot be the complete truth, and so, the assumptions that scientists work under must be wrong.
But scientists do not apply the same reductive outlook upon the practice of modern science, instead they hedge the application of strict cause and effect by introducing complexity and happenstance (“Chaotic Determinism”), which are the fundamental constituents of the ‘randomness’ that they assert — when it is useful to escape strict determinism — underlies the evolution of forms of life, for example, or the behavior of quantum waves/particles.
Yet, when scientists design their experiments, it is necessarily with the goal of observing strictly causal mechanisms. Why is that? Because there is no useful knowledge to be had of a phenomenon that is not strictly determinate, and thus, no predictions can be made with any assurance of the future manifestations of such a phenomenon. In short, it is a waste of time.
This was the reason that the idea of God had to die — having an intentional agent with unlimited powers behind every and any phenomenon undermined the ability of scientists to forecast anything at all, even if it seemed as if God wasn’t interested in manipulating a wide collection of phenomena that always seemed to operate in a law-like way. The point was: God could change it. And this insight adds a nuance to the rebuke by Albert Einstein that “God does not play dice!” in response to the apparent indeterminacy of quantum-level events.
You can’t calculate indeterminacy, so if physical reality is indeterminate, it is not ruled by mathematics, even if some phenomena can be statistically modeled. Therefore, the tension between classical physics and quantum physics is one between two irreconcilable models of reality, which explains the lack of movement over the past century in the endeavor to find a single comprehensive theory. It also explains the turn towards fanciful theories for which there is no evidence, but simply engender an aesthetic appreciation of their elegance; and, as well, the inevitable anathematization of any scientist, such as David Bohm, who presents a logically coherent theory that makes room for mind-like explanations for the indeterminacy. Desperation is in the air in the Scientific Workshop today — or should be.
Stephen Cave makes the point though, that quantum-level indeterminacy does not liberate anything from the laws of nature as promulgated by modern science. In other words, the evidence does not imply a mind that stands above or outside of these laws. But doesn’t that make these laws the inevitable conclusion of the paradigm scientists work under, and not the evidence?
…some other commentators point out that quantum mechanics demonstrates that the world is not straightforwardly deterministic. In this, they are right: quantum indeterminacy implies that physical reality has an irreducibly probabilistic nature. Other readers have pointed out that even classical physics does not always allow us to accurately predict what will happen: According to chaos theory, any of an incalculably huge number of tiny differences in initial conditions can lead to radically different outcomes. (At least, that’s the excuse weather forecasters use for getting it wrong.) This too is a fair point.
But neither quantum indeterminacy nor chaos theory give us free will in the sense of a special power to transcend the laws of nature. They introduce respectively randomness and unpredictability, but not free-floating minds that cause atoms to swerve, or neurons to fire, or people to act. So you could read instances of the term “determinism” in my article as meaning roughly “the belief that human action is the product of physical laws” and all the points would remain the same.⁠³
It is only when the results, confirmed over-and-over again, show that the mechanism believed to be behind the phenomenon being studied does not match the facts, that problems of misinterpretation occur. And to be completely accurate, many times there is ‘play’ on the part of scientists in which facts will be considered to be verification that the expected mechanism has been correctly hypothesized, so to be confronted with facts that absolutely go against the assumed mechanism should immediately cause a reconsideration of the initial hypothesis of how the phenomenon works, and new ideas, no matter how outlandish should be considered. In technical fields this process is called brainstorming — and it works well.
But the one ‘outlandish’ idea that few scientists seem able to entertain, is that the laws of nature only seem to work, but in reality, there is a different process in play. This is to say, any solution that lies outside of the paradigmatic understanding that undergirds modern science will simply not be entertained.
While the experimental facts don’t lie, their interpretation by scientists can be completely wrong. Whether the facts and theory can align is a matter of the paradigmatic understanding being used to interpret those facts. Modern Science works under a paradigmatic understanding that increasingly cannot encompass the experimental facts being generated, and not just in Quantum Mechanics. For example, the reason why computers have a ‘clock speed’, for example, is because the operation of electronic chips of silicon, no matter how careful the design, are not deterministic in the duration necessary to perform an operation, although they show a ‘preference’, and thus computers need a ‘clock’ that signals the longest designed possible duration for any operation to complete, so that the operations of all the components of the device can be synchronized at the beginning of each cycle — very much like the hortator that gave a rowing drumbeat on the ancient Roman triremes (rowed ships) to synchronize the rowers.
This idea of a paradigmatic understanding in modern science was first suggested by Thomas Kuhn, an American philosopher of Science, in his influential 1962 book, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” Kuhn argued that, rather than progressing through a linear and cumulative process, fields and subfields of science are typically dominated by widely accepted or dominant paradigms that define essential questions until anomalous research evidence leads to a scientific revolution and the emergence of new paradigms. This revolutionary process was put another way by the German theoretical physicist Max Planck in 1950:
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.⁠⁴
This provocative quote from Planck underscores that even the most celebrated scientist of his era understood that the pragmatic success of a scientific theory does not entirely determine how quickly it gains adherents, or its longevity.
An excellent example of this today, which is still ongoing after more than thirty years, is the controversy over the theory that an asteroid impact killed off the dinosaurs, in which an academic, Greta Keller, a professor of Geosciences, who counters the majority opinion with her factual evidence and logical arguments, is vilified, denigrated, slandered, and laughed at by her colleagues, rather than listened to.
In case you feel that Planck was not being fair to scientists and Science in general, whatever his standing in the scientific community may have been, you should know that his statement, and its shorter version: “Science advances one funeral at a time,” were scientifically proven to be true based upon the sudden uptick in papers presenting alternative viewpoints being submitted and accepted for publication — a yardstick for measuring the opening up of discussion of alternative ideas after the literal death of a promenant researcher who had been using their position to squelch those alternative views.
Paradigms are not value free, but incorporate values which work to structure the very foundation of the scientific enterprise. Whether or not these values include something equivalent to “Do no harm” is basically meaningless, much as Google’s corporate slogan of “Do no evil” once was, before being unceremoniously dropped; but Fritjof Capra, an Austrian-born American physicist, systems theorist and deep ecologist, in his review of Kuhn’s work, insists that moral responsibility is an incontestable part of doing scientific research, and presumably whatever paradigm Science adopts should include moral responsibility as a necessary value — although it is missing from the current paradigm.
In any case, there is no independent ‘medical board’ equivalent for scientific research currently, and thus no mechanism to ensure that moral issues have not been overlooked, or ignored, in the pursuit of scientific research and funding. Capra writes:
Kuhn argued that, while continuous progress is indeed characteristic of long periods of “normal science,” these periods are interrupted by periods of “revolutionary science” in which not only a scientific theory but also the entire conceptual framework in which it is embedded undergoes radical change. To describe this underlying framework, Kuhn introduced the concept of a scientific “paradigm,” which he defined as a constellation of achievements — concepts, values, techniques, etc. — shared by a scientific community and used by that community to define legitimate problems and solutions. Changes of paradigms, according to Kuhn, occur in discontinuous, revolutionary breaks called “paradigm shifts.”
Kuhn’s work has had an enormous impact on the philosophy of science, as well as on the social sciences. Perhaps the most important aspect of his definition of a scientific paradigm is the fact that it includes not only concepts and techniques but also values. According to Kuhn, values are not peripheral to science, nor to its applications to technology, but constitute their very basis and driving force.
During the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century, values were separated from facts (as we discuss in Chapter 1), and ever since that time scientists have tended to believe that scientific facts are independent of what we do and are therefore independent of our values. Kuhn exposed the fallacy of that belief by showing that scientific facts emerge out of an entire constellation of human perceptions, values, and actions — out of a paradigm — from which they cannot be separated. Although much of our detailed research may not depend explicitly on our value system, the larger paradigm within which this research is pursued will never be value-free. As scientists, therefore, we are responsible for our research not only intellectually but also morally.⁵
But there is another way of interpreting the facts Libet and others have obtained through their experiments, when seen through a different paradigm. Having spoken about the Buddhist idea of Great Responsiveness in my earlier “Axiom of Great Responsiveness” article, I now want to show how Free Will works in this responsive reality — our reality in fact — and in such a way that our ‘consciousness’ of a decision is neither the driver of the action, nor an illusory belief in our own agency.
Because we have let go of the idea of a causal determinism in which things happen because something makes it happen, and have replaced it with the idea that the activity that fills our universe is, in fact, a coherent response to extant conditions within each context and the possibilities they engender. So we mustn’t focus upon what our recognition of our acts seem to indicate we did, but rather upon what our desires and focus of attention — preceding the activity — have added to the contextual conditions which define the possibilities in each moment.
This is our free will in action. It is not some mental decision-making before an action, but rather our desire and focus of attention that is what opens the immediate possibility of an action being manifested by the naturing that is called Great Responsiveness.
So it is through our desires and what we pay attention to that our freedom to choose becomes operative before any actual brain activity occurs. The brain activity that arises in the case of sense perceptions, as described in the previous article, “Why Do We Have A Brain If We Also Have A Mind?”, as well as action decisions, whether ‘chosen’ or ‘instinctive’, are recognized as they are being done, so a slight delay for the apperception of the recognition is totally expected, as was explained in the article “Why Awareness Will Never Be Found.”
We have already made our decision by desiring a particular outcome, while focusing our attention on that outcome. Our recognition of the action being performed has nothing to do with decision-making — and we all know this to be true in our lives. We recognize the coherent continuity of our body’s biological activity which is what gives rise to our actions, while our recognition of what is done is our acknowledgement of our ‘decision’, when seen from the perspective of the paradigm of Great Responsiveness.
Thus, scientific observations of nervous system readiness potential already occurring prior to a ‘conscious decision’ are true. But scientists are misled in their interpretation of the meaning of this sequence when they declare ‘free will’ to be false because of their paradigmatic understanding of what ‘should’ be happening.
And this understanding of Free Will is literally ancient, so it’s disconcerting that modern scientists haven’t already given it some credence. As Saint Augustine put it:
… there is nothing that I feel so deeply and strongly as that I have a will, through which I move to enjoy something. I find nothing which I can call my own if the will by which I accept or reject objects of choice is not my own will. Therefore, if I do any wrong through it, to whom but to myself can the wrongdoing be ascribed? Since, indeed, a good God made me, I cannot do any good except by my will. It is quite clear that a good God gave me the will for this purpose. If the movement by which the will is turned this way and that were not voluntary and within our power, we could not be praised when we turn toward higher things, or blamed when, as if on a pivot, we turn toward lower ones…⁠⁶
It was Science that decided that our Free Will had to be something that made things happen in their deterministic mold. And thus it was Science that setup the fall from grace of us all, by trying to convince us that our free will did not exist, once it failed to operate as they had decided it must.
We have a choice between adopting the worldview imposed by the modern scientific community, while trying to fit new phenomena into it that is challenging that worldview, or accept the phenomena as facts, which they are, and adapt a worldview that best supports the facts. And where better to start, than the hard-won wisdom of our ancestors, who, not to make too fine a point here, thrived for untold millennia, while the advent of modern scientific practice has coincided with a rapid descent into impending ruination.
It was an epiphany to realize that there was another starting point; that I didn’t have to wrangle with modern constrained and malformed ideas, just because new phenomena were being documented by adherents to those ideas. The choice is to adopt the worldview and try to explain the facts challenging it, or accept the facts and adapt the worldview to fit the facts. My preference was to stop trying to correct modern scientific misunderstandings, and go back to the great minds and their discoveries with respect and a yearning to understand what they went to such great pains to describe. That was my free will in action.
This is how humanity seems to have always worked in the past — before the institution of the modern Scientific Workshop. Maybe it’s not to late to change.
ཨེ་མ་ཧོ། ཕན་ནོ་ཕན་ནོ་སྭཱཧཱ།
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Footnotes:
¹ “Benjamin Libet and the Denial of Free Will,” Steve Taylor Ph.D., Psychology Today, Posted September 5, 2017
² “There’s No Such Thing As Free Will — But We’re Better Off Believing In It Anyway,” Stephen Cave, The Atlantic, June 2016
³ “Free Will Exists and Is Measurable,” Stephen Cave, The Atlantic, June 2016
⁴ “Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers,” Max Planck, 1949, Philosophical Library
⁵ “The Systems View of Life — A Unifying Vision,” Fritjof Capra & Pier Luigi Luisi, Cambridge Press, 2016
⁶ “On Free Choice And The Will,” Saint Augustine, 1964, pg 88, Bobbs-Merrill The Library of Liberal Arts