Flying Monk Talk Show interview with Ajahn Jayasaro

[Edward M]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH4bmi1AIG8

 

Hi all,

 

Good interview here.. he says that there is a tradition that says if a lay person becomes an arahant they have to become a monastic within 7 days or they will die.

 

Can anyone shed any light on this?  

 

Cheers,

Edward

[Taoist Texts]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH4bmi1AIG8

 

Hi all,

 

Good interview here.. he says that there is a tradition that says if a lay person becomes an arahant they have to become a monastic within 7 days or they will die.

 

Can anyone shed any light on this?  

 

Cheers,

Edward

 

 

I havent watch the tape so i cant be sure what he said but, in Buddhism its not "to become a monastic within 7 days or they will die."

 

What was meant initially in Buddhism that an arahant is a lay person who gained some visceral realization of buddhism.

 

Now he is faced with 3 choices.

 

If he dies in that condition he will go to nirvana.

If he keeps living the lay life he will lose it.

If he wants to preserve his realization he must join a monastery. 

 

"If a layman attains arahant-ship, only two destinations await him; either he must enter the Order that very day or else he must attain parinibbàna"

Milindapanha III.19

"You say that if a layman attains arahantship he must either enter the Order that very day or die and attainparinibbàna. Yet if he is unable to find a robe and bowl and preceptor then that exalted condition of arahantship is a waste, for destruction of life is involved in it."

"The fault does not lie with arahantship but with the state of a layman, because it is too weak to support arahantship. Just as, O king, although food protects the life of beings it will take away the life of one whose digestion is weak; so too, if a layman attains arahantship he must, because of the weakness of that condition, enter the Order that very day or die."

Milindapanha III.62

The Milindapanha, which is almost as old as the [rest of (Burmese ed.)] Pali Canon above implies that lay people do/did attain enlightenment. It is just that they all ordained or died within 7 days or less.

[LAOLONG]

When one becomes arahat,he is free from Buddhist doctrine and monastic order

[Seeker of Wisdom]

I fail to see why not wearing robes and living in a monastery would cause a person to lose arhatship. That would be very flimsy arhatship! Renunciation is a matter of the mind, whether there is attachment - it is possible to own things without attachment. Monasticism is just a set of customs which people who are super into this can find helpful.

 

Considering the texts were ultimately written by monastics centuries after the Buddha, I think it isn't hard to figure out where this particular piece of doctrine came from.

[Edward M]

Hi,,  well, if you watch the interview, he is asked about the potential of gaining enlightenment for lay people. His reply is that monasticism is set up to create the conditions for enlightenment, but that lay people have gained enlightenment.  However, lauy people who have become arahants have been killed by being gored by bulls etc, hence the tradition that says if you reach this level you must take monastic vows or you will be killed.

 

I was just wondering if anyone had heard this before and if so, if they knew the reason karmic or practical behind this?

 

Cheers,

Edward

[Spotless]

On a more general level it speaks to the crushing flow of culture and buzz that abounds around us.

 

When you suddenly awaken - and it is not necessarily a completely sudden phenomenon - you are in a state that you are Not prepared for. It is a state that you cannot suddenly explain to your friends and family and it is not a state that even most intense Buddist centers are well prepared for.

 

In a somewhat esoteric sense everything said is true - your awakening can be in quite a fragile state - you can read till the words on the page wear away and you will not be prepared for what takes place.

 

If you see no reason for what was said - you do not see it because nothing in what you have read or know prepares you for it.

 

Luckily it is now fairly easy to find someone to speak to and coach you during the transition - look up Batgap.com and find the names and numbers of Awakened facilitators that can work with you in such an event.

 

In a sense - this message is intended for you who are seeking to be certain you have a teacher, a place in mind to go to, a refuge of some sort because if you are fortunate enough to obtain such grace you would be well informed to have some faint guideposts for what to do or who might really have a clue in helping you.

 

Nothing you have read prepares you in the least.

 

You can have many abilities and years of meditation under your belt.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Spotless

[Spotless]

In general if you are fortunate to awaken, you will at first have no words for what has just happened.

The people you would like to speak to will appear as aliens who could not possibly understand what has happened - and they cannot.

 

You will suddenly be pretty well unable to work for what may be some time - yet if you are not fortunate enough to have money and no commitments our culture does not deal with this to well - meaning that in spite of your good fortune pressures will come to bare on most of us immediately regarding dependents, rent, mortgage, gas, food and a job we were committed to. Possibly a business that up until now could not survive without you.

 

Their are exceptions to everything but if you have read even just a few accounts of those that have awakened you have heard of such things as "spent the next seven years in a cave" "spent two years on a park bench" "could not leave the house for two years without bursting into tears".

 

I have never read an account of someone not skipping a beat that has awoken - unless they were already in a monestery or some semblance of such a life. It is relatively easy if you have money and commitments that can be put on hold immediately and possibly permanently. In a monestery you can simply say you need solitude and they will understand - they will see what has happened.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Spotless

[Kubba]

In general if you are fortunate to awaken, you will at first have no words for what has just happened.

The people you would like to speak to will appear as aliens who could not possibly understand what has happened - and they cannot.

 

You will suddenly be pretty well unable to work for what may be some time - yet if you are not fortunate enough to have money and no commitments our culture does not deal with this to well - meaning that in spite of your good fortune pressures will come to bare on most of us immediately regarding dependents, rent, mortgage, gas, food and a job we were committed to. Possibly a business that up until now could not survive without you.

 

Their are exceptions to everything but if you have read even just a few accounts of those that have awakened you have heard of such things as "spent the next seven years in a cave" "spent two years on a park bench" "could not leave the house for two years without bursting into tears".

 

I have never read an account of someone not skipping a beat that has awoken - unless they were already in a monestery or some semblance of such a life. It is relatively easy if you have money and commitments that can be put on hold immediately and possibly permanently. In a monestery you can simply say you need solitude and they will understand - they will see what has happened.

 

What you wrote here can sound scarry for some people, but when things are comming, some kind of intuition will follow, that will help you to organise your life to receive it more or less adequate way, not harming yourelf or others, but offcourse you can't be sure, hehhe/

You will know that sth will happend, and that you need to find a place to rest or people to receive some transmission that you are yet missing. The place will be found, the people that will help you somehow, even withouth they knowing that they helped also.

 

You might meet some enlightened teachers and receive the transmission withouth even talking directy to them. Things can be recognised withouth direct pointing to anything. It might help with calming you down and feel safe, cause some things you might not be ready to receive, but they are here, so what you can do? hehe

 

Then you will know what is required to balance particullar chakras, and what is the point you are in, and that you need the time. And it can last more than one weekend hahaha. You know the final taste but inderstand too that things need to be fully embodied, but you won't know what will come next, some insights you had before can show the direction, and what more or less wil happend, so you just wait, calming, cleaning.

 

The work and the money part in nowadays society is also crucial part. It's highly possible You will be unable to work, nor exist in your familiar enviroment of familly or friends.

Nowadas it's hard to go and live in forest or a cave for some time (even if you fire up the google map and find some spot, that lies far away form people, there is possibility, that people will ask questions, and telefon will ring. If you cut it, they will start to look for you, worried, not understanding, and you can't expain)

 

In worse case scenario, depanding on the time that is required to finnish the process, you can end up in place for people with some psychological problems. You will be clasified as another crazy guy.

And you will not care too much either about money or work.

I believe, that in the past you might be simply killed by people around you of they notice and start to be curious.

Nowadays its also possible, cause someone can start to "cure you" and you don't know jow it can end up, and there could not be possibility to run away.

 

So places that are proffesionally prepared for receiving you might be cool, and lessen the possibility of your death or any kind of troubles untill you will learn how to live in the world....

Edited June 4, 2015 by Kubba

[Nikolai1]

Spotless - why does it become hard to work for a while?

[Spotless]

Spotless - why does it become hard to work for a while?

I depends on the nature of your particular awakening but for the most part several things occur:

 

The entire world that the "you" has been involved with is no longer "involved". It becomes as distant to you as being a pig rancher 4 centuries ago. It is a time wherein at least for a good while you could get on a plane and fly away and leave it as though it had never happened, a chapter in a book that is now on your bedside in the done pile.

 

You suddenly have no inertia - projects, new inventions, existing inventory that needs marketing (I make and sell things) - it's like stuff in a drawer that you have not opened in a long time.

 

It is no trouble to do something but you actually have to have a calendar with alarms because you do not plan for and you do not remember futures so you do not have anything to do until it must be done and you do not know it must be done because the only things that need doing come to you when they do - and they do but it definitely takes time to settle into this.

 

If you need to pick up your son at school then you need someone or some thing to tell you because it is not in your mind - you do not carry a schedule in your head. The time to pick him up is presented to you when it is time - not hours and hours before and in between.

 

For part of the time you might sit for quite some time having no idea any time has passed and in the middle of speaking with someone unless they have a question you are simply not there for them. Small comforting talk drops from your nature for a good period of time.

 

At stop lights you might want to close your eyes because of the incredible feelings that are taking place - and you will wake up to the sounds of honking - nothing reminds you that you are in a car waiting at a light with others behind you. In elevators you might do this and find you have traveled many floors unintentionally - opening your eyes to a full group of people where there were none before.

 

Sometimes it is impossible not to fill with tears of joy and thankfulness - while you are buying a cup of tea.

 

My son will ask why I am staring at him - it is because he is brand new and beautiful.

 

If you do not allow this transformation to settle in it will walk away from you in the most simple and quiet way. Even in the midst of it you are on your own - nothing you read prepares you for it and so it is not familiar to any set of fall back positions you have ever thought of.

 

Even if you have had many profound awakenings - they are nothing at all compared to this and yet it is natural and continuing and amazing - but profoundly un chartered territory - if it becomes scary because you are faced with big outside pressures - then you lose - it will not take much for you to relinquish it. If it goes to your head then you lose and the shrinks will take you into their arms because you can go mad.

 

You could easily go to work, start a task, be distracted by someone asking you a question and suddenly it is time to go home and you have done nothing since being asked a question. You will need to deliberately move from one toy block to the next because their is no calculating "you" "involved" with what you are doing - their is no plan of action, no future, no inertia.

 

At the outset it may appear you are losing your mind, or have early onset Alzheimer's while at the same time some will also be experiencing ecstasy.

 

Ecstasy is very different from the experience of what I have stated above - they intermix and can be separate and successive parts to the process.

 

Sleep patterns if you still sleep at all are completely disrupted - it is fun to be awake while your body is asleep but it is very different.

Edited June 6, 2015 by Spotless