Saṃsāra
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Buddhist Cosmology forms the cornerstone of Mundane Right View.
The Bhavacakra depicts how Yama (the god of death) holds all beings (from heaven to hell) within the "round" of rebirth. Only the Buddhas stand outside Saṃsāra pointing the way to Nibbāna, here represented by the moon.
Table of Contents
- Books (13)
- Canonical Works (66)
- Readings (38)
- Audio/Video (26)
- Reference Shelf (1)
- Related Topics (4)
Books (13)
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Our daily lives in the vast universe are integrally related to and can never be separated from time and space. How successful a person is and how effective one handles one’s affairs depend on one’s management of interpersonal relationships, one’s utilization of time, and one’s allocation of space.
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Canonical Works (66)
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⭐ Recommended
But the single mass of water at that time was utterly dark. The moon and sun were not found, nor were stars and constellations, day and night, months and fortnights, years and seasons, or male and female. Beings were simply known as ‘beings’. After a very long period had passed, the earth’s substance curdled in the water. It appeared just like the curd on top of hot milk-rice as it cools. It was beautiful …
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is one a brahmin due to birth,
or else because of actions? -
Thought is the source of desire.
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The wardens of hell punish them with the five-fold crucifixion. They drive red-hot stakes through the hands and feet, and another in the middle of the chest. And there they feel painful, sharp, severe, acute feelings—but they don’t die until that bad deed is eliminated.
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When those seven days have passed, having emerged from their hiding places and embraced each other, they will come together and cry in one voice, ‘Fantastic, dear foe, you live!’
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Just as I must eventually forsake this life,
So too must I take leave of relatives and friends.
When I must go alone on death’s uncertain journey,
What concern to me are all these enemies and allies? -
Then Māra came up out of Moggallāna’s mouth and stood against the door
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Good man, didn’t you see the third divine messenger that appeared among human beings?
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At a time when a great wind blows, it stirs the water, and the water stirs the earth.
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‘When Master Gotama teaches in this way, is the whole world saved, or half, or a third?’ But when he said this, the Buddha kept silent.
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But does this gift really aid departed relatives and family? Do they actually partake of it?
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The ten kinds of bad deeds that lead you to hell and the ten good deeds that lead to heaven.
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Mendicants, there are eight lost opportunities for spiritual practice.
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On the eighth day of the fortnight, mendicants, the ministers and counselors of the Four Great Kings wander about the world…
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Ānanda gets the Buddha to talk about the scale of the universe.
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… when the teachings have been followed by ear, recited by speech, examined by mind, and well penetrated by view, four rewards can be expected
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When a deva is due to pass away from a company of devas, five prognostic signs appear…
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Just now, reverend, as I was descending from Vulture’s Peak Mountain I saw a skeleton flying through the air.
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Again & again one wearies & trembles.
Again & again the dullard goes to the womb. -
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… the suffering that’s over and done with is more, what’s left is tiny.
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The grass, sticks, branches, and leaves of India would run out before that person’s mothers and grandmothers.
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What do you think, mendicants? Which is more: the little bit of dirt under my fingernail, or this great earth?
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There are some things no-one can guarantee.
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Yet it is just within this fathom-long body, with its perception & intellect, that I declare that there is the cosmos, the origination of the cosmos, the cessation of the cosmos, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of the cosmos.
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Six things rare to find in the world.
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The accumulation
of a single person’s
bones for an eon
would be a heap
on a par with a mountain -
They do not know bliss
Who have not seen Nandana -
‘All exists’: this is the oldest cosmology, brahmin.
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Bhikkhus, based upon the Himalayas, the king of mountains, the nagas nurture their bodies and acquire strength.
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Still, bhikkhus, the gross creatures in the ocean would not be exhausted even after all the grass, sticks, branches, and foliage in Jambudipa had been used up and exhausted. […] So vast, bhikkhus, is the plane of misery.
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But, bhikkhus, when a Tathagata arises in the world, an Arahant, a Perfectly Enlightened One, then there is the manifestation of great light and radiance; then no blinding darkness prevails, no dense mass of darkness…
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I happily offered alms to that Arahant monk with my own hands. Because of this meritorious deed, I have been born as a very beautiful devata
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Readings (38)
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This work is an annotated translation of the Yakṣa-saṃyukta as contained in an incomplete Chinese version of the Saṃyukta-āgama and is compared with its Chinese, Pali, and Sanskrit parallels. Containing a short introduction, discussions throughout, and an appendix about possible school affiliations, this work provides a solid study of the Yakṣa-saṃyukta. One particular point of interest is the discussion of the terms yakṣa and devatā, explaining their meaning and how they came to be viewed very similarly over time.
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In the canonical account there is no indication that for the bhikkhu to become female is the result of bad karma, or that for the bhikkhuni to change into a male is the result of good karma.
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In this essay, I examine the intertwining concepts of merit, power, Buddhist virtue, and the moral rendering of the physical universe apparent in late nineteenth-century Khmer vernacular texts.
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Having heard what was said by the Completely Awakened One, I shall now speak briefly about deeds good and bad to be done or to be eschewed by you.
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A short teaching on the deathlessness of the mind and the effects that merit and demerit have on the mind’s many rebirths. The teaching is followed by a short question and answer session that clarifies some of the points given in the talk.
23 pages -
For people trying to make sense of a religious perspective or simply questioning materialism, you should be looking at the missing heritability problem.
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I feel it’s really important to reach the heart, because people have got to change from within. They’ve got to change because they want to change. And if you batter at them and try to blind them with science, they don’t want to listen to you. But if you can quietly tell a story, then you may reach the heart. And that’s when people change.
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The resulting synthesis leads to a worldview based on information that overcomes limitations of the currently dominating physics-based worldview.
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Calling a galaxy a “wheel” is certainly appropriate for as we know from modern astronomy a galaxy is like a huge Catherine wheel revolving round a centre or hub.
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This paper explores early Buddhist views on metaphyics. In particular, it compares these ideas to those found in the Upanishads as well as the misconceptions of past Indian and Western scholars.
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The teaching of rebirth crops up almost everywhere in the Canon, and is so closely bound to a host of other doctrines that to remove it would virtually reduce the Dhamma to tatters.
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Whenever we perform an action with intention, such action deposits a “seed” in the mind, a seed with a potency to bring about effects in the future.
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Within the framework of experience, there is no quantum enigma; the boxed cat, being outside of one’s experiential frame of reference, doesn’t exist. Once I observe the cat, then it exists
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Pray to your master and to the Three Jewels,
and strive to be wholesome – physically, verbally and mentally. -
The early Buddhist idea of a paradisiacal human society.
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Audio/Video (26)
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⭐ Recommended
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Kamma gives us opportunities to learn.
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🥇 Best of
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6 min -
You know how it goes. You love something dearly…
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Reference Shelf (1)
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Reference charts that map out the realms of rebirth as understood by the Theravada Tradition.
