Can someone be literally reborn in lower realms due to unskillful thoughts and emotions?

score:2

Accepted answer

In a prior life, Venerable Mahāmoggallāna was known as Dūsī. Dūsī was prone to negative thoughts. And those negative thoughts led to negative speech:

MN50:12.4: “Come, all of you, abuse, attack, harass, and trouble the ethical mendicants of good character.

And those negative thoughts pursued further led to negative action:

MN50:21.1: Then Māra Dūsī took possession of a certain boy, picked up a rock, and hit Vidhura on the head, cracking it open.

And with that transgression, the gates of hell opened up:

MN50:21.3: Then the Buddha Kakusandha turned his whole body, the way that elephants do, to look back, saying,
MN50:21.4: ‘This Māra Dūsī knows no bounds.’
MN50:21.5: And with that look Māra Dūsī fell from that place and was reborn in the Great Hell.

So negative thoughts pursued relentlessly do open up the gates of Hell--for a very very long time.

MN50:22.3: Then the wardens of hell came to me and said,
MN50:22.4: ‘When spike meets spike in your heart,
MN50:22.5: you will know that
MN50:22.6: you’ve been roasting in hell for a thousand years.’
MN50:23.1: I roasted for many years, many centuries, many millennia in that Great Hell.
MN50:23.2: For ten thousand years I roasted in the annex of that Great Hell, experiencing the pain called ‘this is emergence’.

However, this story is told by Venerable Mahāmoggallāna himself. So that hellish journey did end with the eventual emergence and rebirth of Venerable Mahāmoggallāna. After much pain it did end well.

So we all have a choice to pursue negative thoughts to hellish outcome. But we also have the choice to simply see such thoughts as negative and let them go, thinking, "this is a negative thought and therefore a useless thought." The key here is to know a thought as negative. Thoughts arise on their own, bubbling up as they do. But they are just thoughts and thoughts should be examined:

MN78:9.18: ‘These are unskillful thoughts.’
MN78:9.20: ‘Unskillful thoughts stem from this.’
MN78:9.22: ‘Here unskillful thoughts cease without anything left over.’
MN78:9.24: ‘Someone practicing like this is practicing for the cessation of unskillful thoughts.’

And what is the root of suffering, of negative thoughts?

SN42.11:2.10: ‘All the suffering that arose in the past was rooted and sourced in desire.
SN42.11:2.11: For desire is the root of suffering. the future will be rooted and sourced in desire.
SN42.11:2.12: All the suffering that will arise in the future will be rooted and sourced in desire.
SN42.11:2.13: For desire is the root of suffering.’”

And hell is simply extreme suffering. So the answer is yes.

Upvote:0

What ever thoughts based on wrong view leads downwardly and even if one had lead a generous and virtuoso life, if wrong view at death, evil thoughts based on it, one wouldn't meet much pleasing next. Yet right view, here lead upwardly, even if spend a not so good life, good hpuseholder. And if even right view, of which is a path factor (eg. Noble truth), such would lead toward the track beyond.

Good to mind that and train eager, so stop gaming and youtubing right now.

de-powered by:

enter image description here

Upvote:1

There's the Right View with effluents or taints, according to MN 117 and it's also related to the theme of reflection in AN 5.57, where one should reflect that he or she is the owner and heir of their karma.

So, to think of yourself as a person, with parents, with this world and the next world, and would be experiencing the results of your karma, and would be the owner and heir of your karma, is actually wholesome and skillful, because it promotes virtuous thinking and living, and it will diminish misconduct. It is also in accordance with the Right View with effluents or taints.

In fact, one should not just think about the afterlife. You should remember that the results of your karma can bite you even the very next moment or the very next day.

And yes, someone can be reborn into lower worlds due to unskillful thinking and thoughts. (Without clicking the links, you read the "basic" answer and if you click the links, you get the "advanced" answer).

More post

Search Posts

Related post