Friends,

I am using this space for making a personal announcement that is very much a part of my Sajha life and which my well-wisher Sajha mates have been inquiring for several months already.

Well, my mini-novel Chaytna Nasakeko Chithiis finally published and a website dedicated to promote it is up and running.

- http://www.dkhadka.com/chithi

I have a long list of Sajhaites to thank. First and foremost, Echoes for an excellent web design and Shree for valuable guidance to web-illiterate person like me. Gokul-jee for a wonderful preface for the book which, let me give a preview, starts with the story of how it all started right here in Sajha some years ago.

I am donating the proceeds from the book to Help Nepal Network. And I have to thank Shirish for making that possible and helping me out in too many things.

I am also grateful to anonymous Sajha artists and models for their precious cooperation during my initial search for a design for the book.

Then all initial readers of the story for their encouragement and following up inquiries regarding its publication.

So, basically, in Sajha had my book it's birth pang and it would not have seen this day without Sajha.

I have been telling to all that Sajha has been a rewarding experience for me. This book is a living proof among many others I can produce.

Thank you Sajha mates ! Thank you Sajha !

Nepe

- http://www.dkhadka.com/chithi

Vishontar-jyu,

I am sure there are many useful and interesting things in Buddha's teachings. Thank you for re-kindling my interest in it. I might not take all of them, however I sure will enrich my understanding.

Talking about "enlightenment", I am curious about one thing. Did Buddha ever answered "I don't know" ?

This query is also similar to the earlier query in it's theoretical aspect. Here it is about specificity. Specific enlightenment or non-specific enlightenment. That's the question. I am sure Buddha claimed only specific enlightenment. However, his followers seem to have presented him as one who actually achieved non-specific enlightenment.

Back to the earlier query. Vishontar-jyu, by your analogy of walk/door, you appear actually to have re-iterated what I was trying to say. There can only be "desire", not "desirelessness". Noble desire/Mundane desire, too many desire/limited desire, acceptable desire/unacceptable desire, but never ever desirelessness. So whatever you achieve is through appropriate desire, not through abandoning the desire itself. You can not abandon desire. Because desire is a fundamental constituent of life.

By teaching to abandon or to extremely limit the desires, Buddha has gone against naturalness of human. Buddha's teachings are, okay appear to me, extreme "engineering" of natural human.

Before I talk about Buddha's specific teachings, my inability to apprehend them withstanding, I would like to bring the fundamental premise from where I look at Buddha or anybody who talks "engineering" human, individually or collectively.

I do not need to explain that I believe in "evolution". That means I believe that the nature of human is natural; it is shaped by nature through it's continuous "selection" over millions of years. So every characteristic of human species is compatible or essential for it's survival.

Now there is one thing. Civilization- the artificial evolution of human society. The question is has it altered the natural human ? Regarding the nature of human, no, not significantly. And if we look at the common sustainable characters of all old and modern civilizations, the conclusion is that civilization is only social management but not transformation of natural human.

So this is where I have difficulty to reconcile with engineering of human. Buddha or Lenin, does not matter.

I hope to have longer conversation with you, Vishontar-jyu. Although we might be busy, some intermittent conversations will do.

Before I go, you said Buddha was not a man of theory. Well he might be less theoretical than teachers from other religions, but he is anyway.

Life before/after life, various "worlds" beside this one are definitely Buddha's "theories".

Best regards.

Nepe

P.S. I sure look forward to reading your review.

Nepe Dai,
Darshan :)!

I will certainly the conversation with you.

Your one question is triggering millions of questions just as one neutron triggers zillions of neutron in a nuclear fission. Your new questions are making things more complex and complicated, however, it will not be clear until I address them. But I won't be able to address every single questions raised by you, you better be your judge.

I feel you have your personal defination of enlightenment. I sense that you are not being able to make any connection between Buddha's teaching and the result of his teaching. You are holding the result and arguing " how can this be possible?". I like to explain things with examples. Here is another one.

Suppose an illitrate farm boy from very remote village of Nepal happened to be your guest in Kathmandu. As he found you almost always infront of a lighting box (computer), he couldn't resist his curiosity and bravely asked:

What was is this?

You explained the computer by it's applications. You showed him movies. You demonstrated the messenger talk with webcamera by talking to your friend abroad. You took his picture/movie. You demonstrated every possible thing he could understand. He was amazed and couldn't believe in his eyes. The little box like machine astonished him.

Then he asked another question:

What is this made up of and how does it work?

You said, "it is mostly made up of Silicon, literally sand. It works by on and off of switches, just like the switch of this tube light".

It will be hard for him to believe because he can not imagine that such an amazing machine is made by sand and it works just by switching on and off. He can not make connection between result and the root; the very problem you are facing in Buddha's teaching. It appears you have heard of basic teaching and you have heard of the result. You are not being able to make connection between cause and result.

However, if you give some time and teach the farmer boy all semiconductor physics and digital electronics, he will say:


Oh yes! This machine is made up of sand and works on on-off of switches.

I want you to do that, I want you to experience Buddha's teaching, follow it and then know what enlightenment is. Right now, I doubt that you know what Buddha mean by enlightenment :). Tell me what do you mean by Buddha's enlightenment and I will try to clearify whether your defination is matching with his defination. I am sure I can do at least this much theory :).


I urge you to learn entire teaching of Buddha, as the boy learned semiconductor physics and digital electronics. And then I want you to say "oh yes this is what enlightenment means and this is how it can be achieved!", as the boy said "oh yes this is how this machine is made up of and this is how it works!"

First of all I want you to make make sure you understood the meaning of enlightenment.

Nepe jee,
actually i ended up buying only two and not three like i said!! :)
i will post something about the book soon hai?? :) and what i thought ke!! :)
you see, i am actually having someone read it to me ke!! we'll see how that goes ke!! haha! :) :)

Nails,

So, a second hand reading of the book.That's a luxury :-)


*** **** **** **** ***

Vishontar-jyu,

You rightly speculated my fragmented and second hand knowledge regarding Buddha's teaching. Although I will need a serious study before I make conclusions, it looks like I can benefit from this conversation with you. You have a great style of elaborating things with examples.

Regarding your question regarding "enlightenment", I was led to use it when you used the word for Buddatwa. So I particularly do not have a specific meaning about it. In fact, I think it's a ceremonial/qualitative word rather than a scientific (amenable to exact measurement) one. So it's quite a flexible word used to mean just about anything related to "knowing".

In any case, Buddha's knowledge was limited. Mind that there are infinite number of things to "know" in this universe. So I will use the word accordingly.

I hope I sound a reasonably skeptic and curious pupil to you :-)

Nepe

Correction:
Please read my first sentance as " I will certainly enjoy the conversation with you"

You wrote
By teaching to abandon or to extremely limit the desires, Buddha has gone against naturalness of human. Buddha's teachings are, okay appear to me, extreme "engineering" of natural human.

My doubt level is going up that you know Buddha's teaching.

I do not need to explain that I believe in "evolution". That means I believe that the nature of human is natural; it is shaped by nature through it's continuous "selection" over millions of years. So every characteristic of human species is compatible or essential for it's survival.

Buddha's teaching is not against evolution. I will come to this point later.

Life before/after life, various "worlds" beside this one are definitely Buddha's "theories".

There are many truths beyond the reach of modern civilization. The truths, which are yet to be discovered, can not be ignored. If you don't know, many laws of science wich were rediscovered in 17th/18th/19th centuries were already discovered in thousands of years ago in Egypt, Greek or Mesopotamia.

Einstien didn't get noble prise for his relativity theory because it couldn't be proved. It didn't mean that relativity was not true. Same is true right now for string theory.

He challenged to everybody that every individual can see before/after life provided one has to follow the teaching discovered by him. There could be people right now who can see beyond life. Since the experience is personal and it can not be videorecorded for others there is no way to test. There is no way to sense your experience by me.

Follow his teaching step by step and if you couldn't see your before lives, then conclude that he is wrong and declear him as a theoritical person. Otherwise your belief doesn't matter, it is same as the belief of those who believe there is life after/before. You have choice not to believe you can not prove that it is wrong. It is worth trying though :). It will be one of the greatest experiments for the scientist like you :). Please don't hesitate to contact me if you decide to go for it. I really encourage you, join the club :).

I don't believe in all the Buddhist scriptures, however, I have no doubt about the path he has discovered. I have walked in it and tested it for more than a decade.

You rightly speculated my fragmented and second hand knowledge regarding Buddha's teaching. Although I will need a serious study before I make conclusions, it looks like I can benefit from this conversation with you. You have a great style of elaborating things with examples.

,b>Nepe Dai, I bow down to your humbleness! I don't lie and I don't flatter, I always speak truth. You are a humble person and you deserve my respect.

I am slave of good qualities.

Vishontar-jyu,

Thank you for your reply and those compassionate words. Your compassion is simply disarming.

Having said that, I am still armed with my set of skepticism regarding Buddha's teachings. I do hope to hear and learn more from you.

I am sure you have thousands of things to tell and you don't know where to start from. And many things require elaborate elaboration that is not possible in a forum like this one.

So let's do whatever is possible and convenient. I not only want to learn about Buddha's teachings, but also about your own personal views. In fact, the later is more interesting to me at this point.

I mentioned some of my skepticism and the basis/source of them in my earlier postings. I will add that these skepticisms do not have to be resolved. Life goes on with too many things unresolved. So we can live with that. What I mean is that if I failed to understand what you have understood/experienced, that is still fine.

So, I will put the issues of "life after life" and "other worlds" Buddha talks about unresolved for now.

As you know, I don't believe in independent soul (praana). Consciousness (praana, soul or whatever name we give) is nothing but a property of a living body, activity of the nervous system of the body, so to speak. No body, no praana.

Before you tell me that there are many truth we, or science of today for that matter, don't know, I would like to comment on the word "truth", and particularly the sense that you have used. Kind of a note of objection :-)

Let me put it this way- unless it is both proven and verifiable, no fact is "truth" yet. A fact (I mean the statement) that has a possibility of being untrue, no matter what, must not, must not dared to, call the "truth".

How can something be "truth" before we are 100% sure that it is. "Truth" does not exist BEFORE verification. Only "possibility" does. So please do not use the term "truth" for "possibility". My humble request.

(I remember my similar objection to your use of the term "scientific" to Buddha teachings. I know what you meant, or at least, what is more appropriate, to say was that Buddha's teachings are LESS UNSCIENTIFIC than other religious Guru's teachings. However, "less unscientific" is not the same as "scientific" !)

I think I am talking in rather harsh terms here. But I do hope that you understand that I am saying all these in good faith.

If you trust me on this, then the next that I am going to say is a bit harsher than this one.

I think there is a strong possibility that what Buddha was talking about the state of Nirvana ( I hope this is the ultimate state you reach through meditation, not after one's death), is nothing but a hallucination. What are the basis not to suspect that it is not ?

I would like to hear your personal view.

Binit

Nepe

Nepe Dai,

I am sorry for understimating you. I thought you wanted to drag me in unnecessary, non-productive philosophical debate (which I most dislike). That was the reason why I was using strong words against you. My hard words against you were carrying two messages. One, why do you think that I am dumb and two, this is the time for you to listen. Please accept my sincere apology; your second last posting has ashamed me.

Dedicated to you:


कतराते कतराते हम उनके महफिलमे आये।
कतराते ही रहे जव वह हमसे मिले।।

खता हुई हमसे ...अब हम ये कैसे जान पाये ?
के शिशेकी दुकानपे हमे कोइ हिरा मिले।।

I love skeptisism; I don't like gullible people. Be skeptic but open minded. I am going to tell Buddha's teaching in your language (language of science). Hope you will understand. The most important thing is you should keep your mind open.

Since, stories make things clear, here is one story for you.

Two ants, Mr A and Mr B, were climbing a pile of sugar. Mr A was enjoying the sweetness of the sugar and was repeatedly saying:

"Wow what a sweet! Wow what a sweet"

Where as Mr. B was sad. Instead of sweet he was finding it salty. You know why? Because they were riding on a salt pile the day before and Mr. B was carrying some salt in his mouth.

Similarly, don't carry your strong view with you. If you really want to learn, if you have quest for knowledge, keep your mind open.

I am sure you will taste sweetness of Dhamma if you don't bring your ideas with you. Give me logic, give me reason, if you are not agree. I think I will not give you that chance :)

Keep those words like Nirvan and enlightenment with you right now. I probably won't use those words to expalin Dhamma. They are quite misleading.

:)

Correction:
Please read

Your second last posting has ashamed me as

your second last posting has disarmed me

I like your technique to disarm; it seems you know my weakness :).

Nepe Dai,
Darshan!

I will try my best to explain things as clearly as possible. I may repeat statements so that you don't skip my single sentance. You are a scientist, quite a smart person; however, I will consider you as a naive dumb :). No offence please! This is just a technique to make things clear. The another technique I will use is I will ask questions and will answer them either myself or ask you to answer. This also helps to clearify things.

As you know, it will be very hard to understand Biology just by reading books, no matter how smart you are. Even so, it is difficult to undrstand Dhamma if you don't have practical experience. So, please try to adjust yourself with my simple language:); simplicity is my weakness :).

I really want you to understand Dhamma. I will work hard to make you understand and you will work hard to understand. Agree? I will be responsible for my job and you will be responsible for your job. This way, we both will feel that we haven't wasted our valuable time.

Keep your questions with you right now. I will not go through them individually. I will write Buddha's teaching as per my understanding and I hope you will find answers of many of your questions yourself. However, please don't hesitate to ask questions though if you are not clear. You could have many rational questions beyond my reach, and I will not hesitate to tell you that I don't know. However, whatever I know I will all spill over you. It's up to you how much you can take, and you want to take :).

I don't consider Buddha's teaching as a religion with respect to the world's major religions. I consider it as a science, and I will explain it in detail why.

Vishnotar ji,

I have been a silent reader of your postings for quite some time. I have read bits and pieces about Buddhism, Dhamma, Nirvana etc for some time, but never had the opportunity to read Buddhism comprehensively. As you so righly said, connecting those dots of information is the diificult part for me. Can you please recommend me some book that talks about Buddhism comprehensively?

Rein ji,

Pleasure to hear about your wholesome interest! I read Tipithakas, the direct words of Buddha. They are so sweet like honey :). I would recommend you to read them. However, if you haven't started, you start from " The art of living" and " the life of the Buddha".

http://www.pariyatti.com/

I myself haven't read these books throughly though :), but I have heard that they are good. I believe in practice. Books just give you inspiration. Bookish knowledge will not transform you. I strongly recommend you to learn the teaching in practice if you are interested.

I recommend you to stay with me in this thread as well.

Regards

Nepe Dai,

Here I come to tell you the Dhamma, the sublime teaching of the Buddha.

Let’s start from question answers:

Can you tell me the necessary qualities (not less than three); a person must have to learn something?

Can you tell me the necessary qualities (not less than three); a person must have to do research?

While answering these questions please consider that the learning and researching environment is ideal ie no physical problem at all. Everything is available physically.
Imagine that Bill Gate’s daughter wants to learn something. What qualities she should have to learn? Imagine that she wants to do scientific research. What qualities she should have to be a researcher?

We will proceed after your answers.

(Any silence readers can praticipate. Please feel free to answer these questions. More answers the better)

Vishontar-jyu,

I apologize for not being able to reply promptly if that has kept you. However, I suppose we both shall be taking our time to keep this conversation going.

As for your questions, they are already scaring me. What if I failed to give brilliant enough answer ? I might be losing the few fans I have in Sajha. Hehehe. Don't throw me to a risky test. :-)

I suppose you can push the conversation ahead without my answers. However, if I have to, I would start with sharing my doubts if I understood your questions, rather intention, accurately. So here I go.

Although you have used clear words "learning" and "research", I would like to be sure you indeed meant "learning" and "research". I am bringing this up because what I see around in religious/spiritual teaching is that they mean "training" when they say "learning", and they mean "search" (ending in one search and believing in the first finding) when they say "research" (questioning the finding of the first search again and again and again, hence RE-search !).

So, if "training" and "search" were not meant, then I would give a compact answer. Sort of everything in a single capsule.

RATIONALITY is all one needs for learning and research. Once you have rationality, everything will follow.

Cunning answer, No ? ;-)

Nepe

Nepe Dai,
Morning :)!

Nice to hear from you!

Regarding your concern of losing your fans ;), you are quite wrong. You can not win hearts by deceiving people and even if you can it will not be long lasting. You can win hearts through qualities like humbleness. This is unavoidable truth; ie Science :).

As I wrote you earlier, I was understimating you; I really meant it. I was really understimating you; I was thinking that you are the one who give a lot of importance to one's ego and want to engage me in unnecessary, non-productive philosophical questions to prove that you are so learned. I was very defensive and rude to you. I didn't have a lot of respect for you. However, once you showed your humbleness; I melted there. You defeated me, disarmed me, won my heart and made me your fan.

Now I am your ardent fan. You can make real and permanent fans only through wining their hearts and nothing other than good qualities can win the heart.

I am not a sayar :), but you love Sayeri; that's why I wrote few words for you. They may not be good but I am pretty sure they are loaded :). Here I repeat them again which is the summary of what I wrote.

कतराते कतराते हम उनके महफिलमे आये।
कतराते ही रहे जव वह हमसे मिले।।

खता हुई हमसे ...अब हम ये जान कैसे पाये ?
के शिशेकी दुकानपे हमे कोइ हिरा मिले।।

I made mistake .... I didn't know I can find dimond in a glass shop :).

So, don't worry at all about your prestige. Respect is not for your personality but for your good qualities. You have to be worry only if you are not practicing good qualities. If so, your prestige is in danger :).

My questions are very straight forward and I want very straight forward answers. Imagine that you are a high school student, not a scientist. I guess your ego is taking you far away form the real you; it's too bad :). They are very straight forward questions and they are not intended to attack your reputation in Sajha :). I asked them because there is the clue of Buddha's teaching.

Well Rationality is one, go ahead and give me at least two more :).

(My respect for you has increased because you publically said that you care for your fans. I am not dumb :). Whatever I wrote is just to illuminate the point you made)

BTW, don't twist words. I am very straight forward man and I don't use metaphorous languages. Learning is learning. Search is search. There is no difference between search and research. In English world, the word "research" is used where as in French they just use "Search". Let's not play with words! No matter whether it is search or research it should be reproducable, that is necessary and sufficient condition. Please consider research as whatever you understand as a scientist.

What is the difference between training and learning? To me both sounds same. Training is for grasping something and so is the learning. Literally they are same. If you want to consider them different, I am fine with that, please don't argue with me. Just tell me the three necessary qualities a person must have for training and learning.

Regards,
Vishowntar

:-)
Vishontar-jyu ! nice going. I like your way of convincing and draging the people into the den. hehehehe :-) j/k
I am really enjoying your arguments . Enlighten us with the words of Buddha. I am eagerly waiting for your explainations on Dhamma. I can't argue with you, however I'll be a silent reader for sure. Here is one more fan of your writings. :-)

:-)
-Bhaute

just read this thread today what was going on and found it interesting..i like the way vishontar explain..

I found this thread interesting even though I haven't read all postings from the beginning. I'm a silent reader as well and I'm hoping that I don't have to wait too long for it to complete. To speed up the process, if it helps, I'm going to answer Vishontar ji's questions.

To learn/research something, a person must be very disciplined, attentive, and critical. On top of that there must be a favorable environment. Also, willingness to learn and interest in the subject matter is necessary. Okay that's more than three now. :)