Moisture-born beings

[ShantiM]

Can anyone help me to clear a doubt I have? There were mentions of moisture-born beings in the sutra... There was a mention that these beings have no parents at all? From what I was able to gather though maggots, worms belong in this category. Scientifically though, these were proven to be hatching from eggs deposited by flies. So, sounds contradictory to the teaching? Thanks!!!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/bi ... gy/maggot

https://www.piandeiciliegi.it/images/d ... dhamma.pdf

9.2. Born Or Arisen From Moisture - Samsedaja Patisandhi
Some sentient beings take rebirths in places where the fetus could cling. Larvae hatch and grow up in decaying organic matter. Queen Padumavati was conceived in a lotus blossom and Queen Veluvati in the hollow of bamboo plant. Cincamana who slandered the Buddha took rebirth in a tamarind tree. Most insects belong to this type of birth.

9.5 The Three Causes Of Birth - Patisandhi
Living beings born out of spontaneous birth and moisture birth have no parents at all.

[Bristollad]

In the same way that I don't doubt that the world is a sphere even though the texts describe 4 continents with Mt Meru in the middle on a flat plane, I don't doubt that insects are born from eggs (of course, not all: some give birth to live young e.g. aphids).

[Aemilius]

It obviously refers to insects whose eggs are microsopic, i.e. not seen with the naked eye.

In Europe they had similar ideas, here it was called spontaneous generation:
"Spontaneous generation is a body of thought on the ordinary formation of living organisms without descent from similar organisms. The theory of spontaneous generation held that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. It was hypothesized that certain forms such as fleas could arise from inanimate matter such as dust, or that maggots could arise from dead flesh. A variant idea was that of equivocal generation, in which species such as tapeworms arose from unrelated living organisms, now understood to be their hosts. The idea of univocal generation, by contrast, refers to effectively exclusive reproduction from genetically related parent(s), generally of the same species.

The doctrine of spontaneous generation was coherently synthesized by Aristotle, who compiled and expanded the work of earlier natural philosophers and the various ancient explanations for the appearance of organisms, and was taken as scientific fact for two millennia. Though challenged in the 17th and 18th centuries by the experiments of Francesco Redi and Lazzaro Spallanzani, spontaneous generation was not disproved until the work of Louis Pasteur and John Tyndall in the mid-19th century.
Pasteur invented the swan-necked flask to create an environment known not to grow microorganisms. After sterilizing a nutrient broth in these flasks, he removed the swan necks of the controls. Microorganisms grew only in the controls, refuting spontaneous generation.

Rejection of spontaneous generation is no longer controversial among biologists. By the middle of the 19th century, experiments by Louis Pasteur and others refuted the traditional theory of spontaneous generation and supported biogenesis."

[GrapeLover]

I think that trying to assign insects etc to this category is just a modern attempt at explaining things and doesn’t need to be taken as canonical or anything. If insects come from eggs then they are clearly egg-born.

You also have, for instance, spontaneously-born beings that do explicitly “poof” into existence with no parents or anything like that—hell beings and devas are the clearest examples, but even humans can belong to this category (clearly not the very same type of humans that we are). Just like we don’t tend to witness any spontaneous births with our mundane perception, I feel like there is no need to believe that any animals that we actually know of are born from warmth and moisture.

[Budai]

I've always thought this the workings of bacteria. However, I haven't been conversant in biology as to how bacteria learn, live, grow, and are born. Perhaps someone who understands exactly these workings could shed some light. Thank you.

[PadmaVonSamba]

“Sea Monkeys” (brine shrimp) ...their eggs can lie in a complete dehydrated state for years. When immersed in water, they “hatch” and are only a few millimeters in length. The one shown here is obviously visualizing itself as a many-armed Avalokiteshvara.

9DC7C4C4-1875-45EF-B07B-5008DF266953.jpeg

[karmanyingpo]

I've always thought this the workings of bacteria. However, I haven't been conversant in biology as to how bacteria learn, live, grow, and are born. Perhaps someone who understands exactly these workings could shed some light. Thank you.

Moisture born as bacteria or other organisms that are like fluid sacks makes sense to me even if strictly speaking it takes more than just moisture

KN

[Kim O'Hara]

I've always thought this the workings of bacteria. However, I haven't been conversant in biology as to how bacteria learn, live, grow, and are born. Perhaps someone who understands exactly these workings could shed some light. Thank you.

Basically, single-celled organisms reproduce by splitting in half when they get big enough. Each of the 'children' has all the genetic information of the 'parent' (other than random errors in copying which is how they evolve). There is a nice explanation here - https://micro.cornell.edu/research/epul ... -bacteria/ - which goes on to talk about variations of the system.


Kim

[Budai]

I've always thought this the workings of bacteria. However, I haven't been conversant in biology as to how bacteria learn, live, grow, and are born. Perhaps someone who understands exactly these workings could shed some light. Thank you.

Basically, single-celled organisms reproduce by splitting in half when they get big enough. Each of the 'children' has all the genetic information of the 'parent' (other than random errors in copying which is how they evolve). There is a nice explanation here - https://micro.cornell.edu/research/epul ... -bacteria/ - which goes on to talk about variations of the system.


Kim

But are they really children? Or a split of the previous being, like a biological expansion? Do you know the level of bodily structure from the newly born beings?

[Budai]

I've always thought this the workings of bacteria. However, I haven't been conversant in biology as to how bacteria learn, live, grow, and are born. Perhaps someone who understands exactly these workings could shed some light. Thank you.

Basically, single-celled organisms reproduce by splitting in half when they get big enough. Each of the 'children' has all the genetic information of the 'parent' (other than random errors in copying which is how they evolve). There is a nice explanation here - https://micro.cornell.edu/research/epul ... -bacteria/ - which goes on to talk about variations of the system.


Kim

But are they really children? Or a split of the previous being, like a biological expansion? Do you know the level of bodily structure from the newly born beings? Are there any interactions with them by their "parents"? Perhaps they don't. have literal ones.

[Kim O'Hara]

I've always thought this the workings of bacteria. However, I haven't been conversant in biology as to how bacteria learn, live, grow, and are born. Perhaps someone who understands exactly these workings could shed some light. Thank you.

Basically, single-celled organisms reproduce by splitting in half when they get big enough. Each of the 'children' has all the genetic information of the 'parent' (other than random errors in copying which is how they evolve). There is a nice explanation here - https://micro.cornell.edu/research/epul ... -bacteria/ - which goes on to talk about variations of the system.


Kim

But are they really children? Or a split of the previous being, like a biological expansion? Do you know the level of bodily structure from the newly born beings? Are there any interactions with them by their "parents"? Perhaps they don't. have literal ones.

"Parent" and "child" don't apply. Both of the two new beings are identical to the old one, except that they are smaller, and the old one no longer exists. "Identity" becomes a very tricky thing to talk about at that level.
If people reproduced that way we would need something like the chrysalis system that butterflies use. At the proper time, we would seal ourselves inside some kind of pod while our insides reorganised themselves in a very complicated way, and some time later the pod would split open and two smaller copies of ourselves would emerge - and "we" would no longer exist.
Except that if the smaller copies kept our memories, both of them would be "we".
Weird, huh?


Kim

[seeker242]

Who were the parents of the first living beings present on earth? Or, the parents of the first living beings present in the whole universe? They must not have had parents because if they did have parents then they couldn't be called the first. If there were only beings with parents then who was the first? There could not be any first. But there was certainly a first since since beings have not been here in this physical universe just forever. Therefore, it must be true that there are parent-less beings. Without parent-less beings, there would be no living beings at all here. There was a big-bang and now there are living beings. It simply can't be true that all of them had parents. That makes no sense. Unless some kind of organic egg came out of the big-bang, which was laid by some other being before the big-bang, then parent-less beings are an absolute requirement in order to have life here to begin with.

[Aemilius]

The last universal common ancestor or last universal cellular ancestor (LUCA), also called the last universal ancestor (LUA), is the most recent population of organisms from which all organisms now living on Earth have a common descent—the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth. A related concept is that of progenote. LUCA is not thought to be the first life on Earth, but rather the only type of organism of its time to still have living descendants.

While there is no specific fossil evidence of LUCA, it can be studied by comparing the genomes of all modern organisms, its descendants. By these means, a 2016 study identified a set of 355 genes most likely to have been present in LUCA. The genes describe a complex life form with many co-adapted features, including transcription and translation mechanisms to convert information from DNA to RNA to proteins. The study concluded that the LUCA probably lived in the high-temperature water of deep sea vents near ocean-floor magma flows.

Studies from 2000 to 2018 have suggested an increasingly ancient time for LUCA. In 2000, estimations suggested LUCA existed 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago in the Paleoarchean era, a few hundred million years before the earliest fossil evidence of life, for which there are several candidates ranging in age from 3.48 to 4.28 billion years ago. A 2018 study from the University of Bristol, applying a molecular clock model, places the LUCA shortly after 4.5 billion years ago, within the Hadean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_univ ... n_ancestor

[Budai]

Who were the parents of the first living beings present on earth? Or, the parents of the first living beings present in the whole universe? They must not have had parents because if they did have parents then they couldn't be called the first. If there were only beings with parents then who was the first? There could not be any first. But there was certainly a first since since beings have not been here in this physical universe just forever. Therefore, it must be true that there are parent-less beings. Without parent-less beings, there would be no living beings at all here. There was a big-bang and now there are living beings. It simply can't be true that all of them had parents. That makes no sense. Unless some kind of organic egg came out of the big-bang, which was laid by some other being before the big-bang, then parent-less beings are an absolute requirement in order to have life here to begin with.

Read here from the Aganna Sutta, it may shed some light on what you are thinking about:

10. ‘There comes a time, Vasettha, when, sooner or later after a long period, this world contracts.825 At a time of contraction, beings are mostly born in the Abhassara Brahma world. And there they dwell, mind-made, feeding on delight, self-luminous, moving through the air, glorious — and they stay like that for a very long time. But sooner or later, after a very long period, this world begins to expand again. At a time of expansion, the beings from the Abhassara Brahma world, [85] having passed away from there, are mostly reborn in this world. Here they dwell, mind-made, feeding on delight, self-luminous, moving through the air, glorious826 — and they stay like that for a very long time.

[tkp67]

I've always thought this the workings of bacteria. However, I haven't been conversant in biology as to how bacteria learn, live, grow, and are born. Perhaps someone who understands exactly these workings could shed some light. Thank you.

Basically, single-celled organisms reproduce by splitting in half when they get big enough. Each of the 'children' has all the genetic information of the 'parent' (other than random errors in copying which is how they evolve). There is a nice explanation here - https://micro.cornell.edu/research/epul ... -bacteria/ - which goes on to talk about variations of the system.


Kim

I think this basic division encoded in cellular production is the first process in the "algorithm" of rising thought. The senses/mind parse information at first in two to and perceived reality falls in between the two poles it dictates as conceptual boundaries. It seem to add spectrum and dimension from there. Nature has this wonderful economy of use in its mechanisms.

[seeker242]

Who were the parents of the first living beings present on earth? Or, the parents of the first living beings present in the whole universe? They must not have had parents because if they did have parents then they couldn't be called the first. If there were only beings with parents then who was the first? There could not be any first. But there was certainly a first since since beings have not been here in this physical universe just forever. Therefore, it must be true that there are parent-less beings. Without parent-less beings, there would be no living beings at all here. There was a big-bang and now there are living beings. It simply can't be true that all of them had parents. That makes no sense. Unless some kind of organic egg came out of the big-bang, which was laid by some other being before the big-bang, then parent-less beings are an absolute requirement in order to have life here to begin with.

Read here from the Aganna Sutta, it may shed some light on what you are thinking about:

10. ‘There comes a time, Vasettha, when, sooner or later after a long period, this world contracts.825 At a time of contraction, beings are mostly born in the Abhassara Brahma world. And there they dwell, mind-made, feeding on delight, self-luminous, moving through the air, glorious — and they stay like that for a very long time. But sooner or later, after a very long period, this world begins to expand again. At a time of expansion, the beings from the Abhassara Brahma world, [85] having passed away from there, are mostly reborn in this world. Here they dwell, mind-made, feeding on delight, self-luminous, moving through the air, glorious826 — and they stay like that for a very long time.

Yes, and the beings that are first born back into this world at the beginning of the expansion are not born from parents that are already here, because that would be impossible. Therefore, they must be parent-less.

[Aemilius]

From Mahasihanada sutta:

Katamà ca sàriputta saüsedajà yoni?

(ven.Sariputta, What is birth from wet environment)

Ye kho te sàriputta sattà påtimacche và jàyanti påtikuõape và påtikummàse và candanikàya và oëigalle và jàyanti, ayaü vuccati sàriputta saüsedajà yoni.

(ven.Sariputta, If a being is born in putrid flesh or putrid body, impure water placement or cesspit, it is called Birth from wet environment)