King Asoka

Chandragupta was the father Bimbisara.

He established the North Indian Territory.

Bimbisara

Three sons of different mothers

Eldest Susima

Youngest Tusia

Asoka was the second. 

He was a warrior from young age.

Captured Taxila.

Later Udeni

He fought his brothers and became the King.

Married Devi from the Maurian clan who was Buddhist.

Chakravathi or Kings of Kings was the model then.

Kalinga was a brutal battle.

Instead of being victorious he repented on the carnage that ensued.

The horror and remose made him to change for ever. Educated and very sensitive Asoka sworn not to bear arms again.

Conquer the world through Dhamma was his ultimate message to the world.

He studied Buddhism.

His guru was Bhikku Gupta.

He was accepted to the the Sasana.

He erected Edits all over India.

Law and Order was his message to the people not dictatorial control.

Right not Might was his Goal.

He was pious but was a forceful emperor.

Benevolence to all living beings was his mantra. Sacrifice of animals for food was his name.

Third Buddhist Council was held in Pataliputra.

He sent missions to all over the world including Greece. The name Yona is Greek word for Buddhist converts.

Asoka

Mahinda

Singamitta 

Monks Sona and Uttara were sent by King Asoka from Magada to ? Thailand.

Thai people were originally from China. They move out due to oppression by Chinese Huang King.

They finally reached Thailand.

Thai means to be FREE.

Buddhism came in 1500 after Buddha.

Swarnabhmi

?Cambodia 

?Myanmar 

?Laos

?Thailand

King Kaniska

Mahayana Buddhism reached Sumatra.

But most likely Buddhism reached Thailand from Ceylon.

Therrvara Buddhism was established by Buddhist monks from Ceylon.

Upali and Ariyamuni Theras of Thailand reestablished Buddhist Sangha, Siyam Nikaya in Ceylon in 1753.during King Keerthi Sri Rajasingha. Then, the Buddhism in Ceylon had declined without any Upasampada Bhikkus.

In Thailand King has to be  Buddhist.

Last hereditary King became a dictator and was ousted by a military commander.

The current Kingship was created by this military commander who was devout Buddhist.

Thai people are very disciplined and respect their military. The military never allowed foreign conquer for many centuries.

Thai follow strict Theravada Buddhism.

Rebirth and Dhamma by Bhikku Bodhi

Even though, I have extracted this from Bhikku Bodhi's talk, I have added my own subtle insinuations.

Hence, I am responsible (not Bhikku Bodhi) for this piece and of any inconsistencies contained within.

 

There positions regarding Destiny after Death

1. Materialistic view is  that at Death material form and mind disintegrate leaving behind elements. This view deny existence of life after death or Rebirth.

2. The second belief is that there is one human life here and after death, one is born in either heaven or hell.

3. The third is the belief in Rebirth.

There is a chain of births before and after.

In Hinduism the belief is there is a permanent Soul that transmigrate from one to the other. 

The simile is that the Soul like casting one set of clothes after another, cast one body and get holds with another body.

The Soul remains intact.

In Buddhist teaching is fundamentally different to the Hindu View.

There is chain of events from one birth to the other. There is continuity.

There is Repeated Becoming or repeated existence of life forms. There is however a continuity from one Bhave to the next Bhava.

There is causal link but there is no transmigration of soul form one life to the other. 

This thinking leads to a paradox.

If there is no entity called Soul how one moves from one life to the other.

There are five factors.

One factor is the body formed of five senses.

There other is the four Mental Formations.

These two are intimately bound together and behaves like a single entity.

This is explained by the two currents of existence.

One is the existence of the body form.

Body is not a static entity. It goes through life of being born, childhood, adulthood, disease, disability and death.

Other is the mind form.

The mind is not an entity which is static. Like a stream it moves from one mind object to another mind object. Unlike the body it is fast and very fluid. This rapid transition of thought moments make us to believe that it as a substantial entity or self or soul. 

There is no ego entity.

But this perception is considered wrong but instead it should be viewed as 4 rapidly occurring mental events.

1. Feelings (contact with object of perception)                     Vedana

2. Perception                  Sanna

3. Mental Formations    Sankara 

4. Consciousness          Vinnana 

Better term I use is "Awareness" of the moment to moment change, instead of Consciousness.

Citta and Cetasika

The complication in Abhidhamma is the Cetasikas. 

There are 52 Cetasikas. Any open enquirer gets bog down in this scenario.

Citta is translated as thought and supposed to be having 7 Cetasikas, two of them are Vedana and Sanna.

Vedana and Sannna are taken as separate components while other Cetasikas are described in relationship to Kamma (Kusal or Akusal good or bad) or the effect on the bearer.

Passsa                Contact

Cetana                Volition 

Ekaggata.           One pointedness 

Jivathindriya      Mental Life

Manisikara          Attention 

Yoniso Manisikara means proper attention

Vicaya means Investigation, it often used with Dhamma Vicaya.

Vichara means deliberation.

I hate the word subconscious.

Even in sleep mode the mind is very active not at rest as implied in the word subconscious.

These four aggregates arise, persists for a brief period and vanishes without leaving behind any trace.

Uppada arising

Chitti persisting for brief moment 

Banga vanishing

Collectively it called Chittha.

When one Chittha breaks down another Chittha begins in rapid succession.

It is called Chittha Santana.

Because of the continuity of the Chittha Stream we grab hold it as one entity, self, or ego but there is no substantial entity as such. It is an illusion of some sort but this firm bondage to the Mental Formations is the energy that drives us to through Sansara.

At death the Chittha cannot sustain and death consciousness (Chuthi Chittha) moves to another life form instantaneously as the Rebirth Consciousness (Patisanshi Chittha).

It is a process and it is called Rebirth in Buddhism.

This Patisanshi Chittha carries all the experiences of the life just ceased and all the impressions of past lives before that as a continuum. 

Therefore, all the good and bad Kamma of the life continuum is inherited by his or her owner.

Stream of consciousness is not a single entity but a continuous process.

Rebirth is like flame of a candle just wanig off at the bottom of a candle lighting another candle. Flame or the light passes from one candal to another. Life stream or consciousness passes leaving behind the dead body.

No Cha So Nacha ancho.

Not the same but not so different.

That is the essence of Buddhist Teaching.

Hypnotist with a Strong Man

Posted on June 5, 2011
Hypnotist with a Strong Man

 
This is just to illustrate even a Hypnotist cannot down a strong man.

But a weak man with legs across the aisle can down a top actor / hypnotist down to the level of concussion.
He was not mindful of himself and how could a man like him help others to be mindful?
That is my opening question.

But to make Micky out of all hypnotists, below is a true story acted by none other than 1st year Medical Students of the yesteryear.
Today’s students would take a leaf out of this story, who go for some bizarre training, without critical thinking.

My friend who succumbed to this indignation  is now in Australia in full retirement, if he sees these few lines of recollection, hope he gives me permission to bare the facts but the name withheld by consensus.

He was a dignified soul in our batch and was not in our halls of residence.

He was our batch representative popularly elected without a challenge.

I was the go between in the plot with diplomatic astute to convince the guy that one of our batch mates could hypnotize anybody with a strong mind.

We practice this in our halls of residence when everybody else is  in sleep and the time was well past midnight.
Suffice to say most of the strong guys in our hall of residence went through this ordeal.

On the day we prepared a room (not mine) for our show.

One of us went and pulled the main plug supplying electricity when the go signal was given.

Slowly but surely show went on.

We were dressed in trousers to begin with unlike today and one by one we changed to sarongs surreptitiously and our strong man was in a corner with hands clasped in the warship mode.
Since this was the last show of hypnotism we took unusually a long time with lot of blah blah form the performer.

Then the final signal was given to switch on the electricity.

He was not happy at all even though the performer could not hypnotize him.

Why?

He had being worshiping our backside (sarong raised up) for nearly half an hour in the darkness and he realized only when we switched on the lights.

(We all had raised our sarong showing our back to him and he was not at all pleased).

He controlled his anger in good stead and we promised him that we will never tell the story to our female medical students and told him he was not the only one who went through this ordeal.

In other words he was baptized in the real world like Japanese karate men who never take the eye off from the focus of attention.

My apology above is if any of my female batch mates sees this now will guess who the guy was but he was not the only guy who was baptized (not hypnotized).

So anybody who closes one’s eye for the wish of any gullible performer would go through this indignation by his or her will.

I wish I could perform this to some of our TV showmen / women and politicians in power who are blinded with ego.

I hope the hypnotist who was the Fall Guy and not mindful to his own steps got the message wide / wild and clear and not to be a SHOWMAN to poor souls with weak minds.