Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

General forum on the teachings of all schools of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. Topics specific to one school are best posted in the appropriate sub-forum.
User avatar
PadmaVonSamba
Posts: 9443
Joined: Sat May 14, 2011 1:41 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 10:37 pm If it is not dependently originated, then it is not interacting with anything,
You keep saying that but you don’t explain why that is true.

(Aside from the fact that no phenomena is independently originated, but just speaking hypothetically) explain why the existence of a phenomenon depends on some kind of awareness of it.
Last edited by PadmaVonSamba on Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
User avatar
futerko
Posts: 1297
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:58 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:27 pm
futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 10:37 pm If it is not dependently originated, then it is not interacting with anything,
You keep saying that but you don’t explain why that is true.
Because by definition one is inert and the other is in motion. How can there be an arising from a state which is itself entirely determined by its non-arising?

It is metaphysical hedge-betting to consider this may be the case simply due to a complete absence of dependently originated evidence. This absence of interdependent causality on the side of the "absolute" means there can be no interruptions arising from it.
Last edited by futerko on Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
PadmaVonSamba
Posts: 9443
Joined: Sat May 14, 2011 1:41 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:30 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:27 pm
futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 10:37 pm If it is not dependently originated, then it is not interacting with anything,
You keep saying that but you don’t explain why that is true.
Because by definition one is inert and the other is in motion. How can there be an arising from a state which is itself entirely determined by its non-arising?
I can give many examples of phenomena which occur, but of which no known being is aware (things occurs that nobody has any awareness of).
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
User avatar
futerko
Posts: 1297
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:58 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:33 pm
futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:30 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:27 pm

You keep saying that but you don’t explain why that is true.
Because by definition one is inert and the other is in motion. How can there be an arising from a state which is itself entirely determined by its non-arising?
I can give many examples of phenomena which occur, but of which no known being is aware (things occurs that nobody has any awareness of).
yes, of course you can. The fact of you giving them as examples means they are entirely graspable and so merely abstractly not-known, but their nature is entirely knowable by the very fact we are talking about them.
User avatar
PadmaVonSamba
Posts: 9443
Joined: Sat May 14, 2011 1:41 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:30 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:27 pm
futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 10:37 pm If it is not dependently originated, then it is not interacting with anything,
You keep saying that but you don’t explain why that is true.
Because by definition one is inert and the other is in motion. How can there be an arising from a state which is itself entirely determined by its non-arising?

It is metaphysical hedge-betting to consider this may be the case simply due to a complete absence of dependently originated evidence. This absence of interdependent causality on the side of the "absolute" means there can be no interruptions arising from it.
By the same logic, since there is nothing that possesses an intrinsic “it” quality in the first place, nothing interacts with anything.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
User avatar
futerko
Posts: 1297
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:58 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:38 pm
futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:30 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:27 pm

You keep saying that but you don’t explain why that is true.
Because by definition one is inert and the other is in motion. How can there be an arising from a state which is itself entirely determined by its non-arising?

It is metaphysical hedge-betting to consider this may be the case simply due to a complete absence of dependently originated evidence. This absence of interdependent causality on the side of the "absolute" means there can be no interruptions arising from it.
By the same logic, since there is nothing that possesses an intrinsic “it” quality in the first place, nothing interacts with anything.
Well, as you previously mentioned the term "ultimately" - what I am saying is that it is only interacting with itself and nothing is coming or going from the outside. Dependent origination could not possibly be interrupted by any actual "ultimate" then, this is due to the brute fact that it is already the case, it cannot be supplemented by anything new arriving which is not already present, no future state of more completion.
Last edited by futerko on Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
PadmaVonSamba
Posts: 9443
Joined: Sat May 14, 2011 1:41 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:35 pm
I can give many examples of phenomena which occur, but of which no known being is aware (things occurs that nobody has any awareness of).
yes, of course you can. The fact of you giving them as examples means they are entirely graspable and so merely abstractly not-known, but their nature is entirely knowable by the very fact we are talking about them.
[/quote]

You are conflating, for example, knowing that cancers exist, and knowing or not knowing that a cancer is occurring. It’s not the same thing.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
User avatar
futerko
Posts: 1297
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:58 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:42 pm
[...]

You are conflating, for example, knowing that cancers exist, and knowing or not knowing that a cancer is occurring. It’s not the same thing.
We seem to be back to Kant, empirical phenomena are subject to time and so they have some kind of timeless correlate in some ultimate dimension which is other than here...
User avatar
PadmaVonSamba
Posts: 9443
Joined: Sat May 14, 2011 1:41 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:46 pm
PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:42 pm
[...]

You are conflating, for example, knowing that cancers exist, and knowing or not knowing that a cancer is occurring. It’s not the same thing.
We seem to be back to Kant, empirical phenomena are subject to time and so they have some kind of timeless correlate in some ultimate dimension which is other than here...
What other dimension?
You are basically saying that nothing can be known that we don’t previously have a concept of.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
User avatar
futerko
Posts: 1297
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:58 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

put simply, although we say "it came out of nowhere" in fact we can rule out the idea of production out of nothing.
User avatar
PadmaVonSamba
Posts: 9443
Joined: Sat May 14, 2011 1:41 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:53 pm put simply, although we say "it came out of nowhere" in fact we can rule out the idea of production out of nothing.
That doesn’t mean it depends on awareness of it.
You are juggling two different topics.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
User avatar
futerko
Posts: 1297
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:58 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:57 pm
futerko wrote: Sun Sep 25, 2022 11:53 pm put simply, although we say "it came out of nowhere" in fact we can rule out the idea of production out of nothing.
That doesn’t mean it depends on awareness of it.
You are juggling two different topics.
what I am saying is that, prior to something coming into any specific "being's" awareness. It must nevertheless be dependently originated and thus "made of the same stuff" rather than something not previously present, but rather which emerges from a state which is other than this one.
User avatar
PadmaVonSamba
Posts: 9443
Joined: Sat May 14, 2011 1:41 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

According to your position, if a person has never directly experienced pain, therefore they cannot directly experience pain.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
User avatar
futerko
Posts: 1297
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:58 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 12:06 am According to your position, if a person has never directly experienced pain, therefore they cannot directly experience pain.
On the contrary, the very condition for any phenomenal experience is dependent origination and not any sort of metaphysical arising from without.
User avatar
futerko
Posts: 1297
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:58 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

ergo; dependent origination is the definitive condition of any experience.
User avatar
futerko
Posts: 1297
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:58 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

Couched in more Buddhist terms, are the three marks of Anicca, Dukkha and Anatta conducive to liberation or not?

the mere acknowledgement that phenomena are dependently originated is enough by itself to follow through on a view which rules out eternalism and annihilationism.
User avatar
PadmaVonSamba
Posts: 9443
Joined: Sat May 14, 2011 1:41 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

futerko wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 12:43 am Couched in more Buddhist terms, are the three marks of Anicca, Dukkha and Anatta conducive to liberation or not?

the mere acknowledgement that phenomena are dependently originated is enough by itself to follow through on a view which rules out eternalism and annihilationism.
Well, you keep going off in different directions with this conversation, and never backing up your assertions, jumping back and forth between phenomena being necessarily dependently arising, and how nothing can exist if you don’t know about it.
I’m done.
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
User avatar
futerko
Posts: 1297
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2012 5:58 am

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by futerko »

PadmaVonSamba wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 1:47 am
futerko wrote: Mon Sep 26, 2022 12:43 am Couched in more Buddhist terms, are the three marks of Anicca, Dukkha and Anatta conducive to liberation or not?

the mere acknowledgement that phenomena are dependently originated is enough by itself to follow through on a view which rules out eternalism and annihilationism.
Well, you keep going off in different directions with this conversation, and never backing up your assertions, jumping back and forth between phenomena being necessarily dependently arising, and how nothing can exist if you don’t know about it.
I’m done.
Well, the only point here is that karma is inbuilt and not coming from outside. Take care, I had fun!
User avatar
Dhammanando
Posts: 139
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2009 8:08 pm
Location: Amphoe Li, Lamphun

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by Dhammanando »

Lethemyr wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 8:03 amDoes anyone have a citation from the canons or a great master that clearly addresses this question?
In the Uttiyasutta (AN 10.95) a monk called Uttiya asks:
“But when Master Gotama, through direct knowledge, teaches the Dhamma to his disciples for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the passing away of pain and dejection, for the achievement of the method, for the realization of nibbāna, will the entire world be thereby emancipated, or half the world, or a third of the world?”
The Buddha responds with silence.

Ānanda then starts worrying that the Buddha's silence will cause a loss of faith in Uttiya and so he gives a teaching of his own:
Then the Venerable Ānanda said to the wanderer Uttiya: “Well then, friend Uttiya, I will give you a simile. Some intelligent people here understand the meaning of what is said by means of a simile. Suppose a king had a frontier city with strong ramparts, walls, and arches, and with a single gate. The gatekeeper posted there would be wise, competent, and intelligent; one who keeps out strangers and admits acquaintances. While he is walking along the path that encircles the city he would not see a cleft or an opening in the walls even big enough for a cat to slip through. He might not know how many living beings enter or leave the city, but he could be sure that whatever large living beings enter or leave the city all enter and leave through that gate. So too, friend Uttiya, the Tathāgata has no concern whether the entire world will be emancipated, or half the world, or a third of the world. But he can be sure that all those who have been emancipated, or who are being emancipated, or who will be emancipated from the world first abandon the five hindrances, corruptions of the mind that weaken wisdom, and then, with their minds well established in the four establishments of mindfulness, develop correctly the seven factors of enlightenment. It is in this way that they have been emancipated or are being emancipated or will be emancipated from the world.

Friend Uttiya, you asked the Blessed One from a different angle the same kind of questions that you had already asked him. Therefore the Blessed One did not answer you.”


And what were the earlier questions asked by Uttiya? They were the familiar ten avyākata questions:
1-2. Is the world eternal or not eternal?
3-4. Is the world finite or infinite?
5-6. Are the soul and the body the same or different?
7-10. Does the Tathāgata exist after death, or not exist, or both, or neither?
Lethemyr wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 8:03 amWhen this question is alluded to, I've seen roughly three responses:

1) No. The number of sentient beings is infinite and so, while every being will become enlightened, there will never be a time when there are no more beings in need of enlightening.

2) Yes. Eventually, there will be no more beings in need of enlightenment. Every sentient being will have crossed to the other shore.

3) It doesn't matter. Focus on things that matter.
May I propose a fourth?

4. Whether all beings will eventually be liberated from samsāra, or whether some beings will eventually be liberated, while others will never be, is intrinsically unknowable. That is, it falls outside the sphere of knowables (jñeyyadharma ) and as such it's something unknown even to Buddhas.

What makes these things intrinsically unknowable is that they are uncertain. To say that it's certain that all beings will sooner or later decide "to abandon the five hindrances and develop the four establishments of mindfulness and the seven factors of enlightenment" is to say that all beings are predestined to do this. That is, it's something that's certain to happen by the mere elapse of sufficient time. But this would be akin to the fatalism (niyatavāda) of Makkhali Gosāla, which the Buddha said was the most evil of wrong views:
“Bhikkhus, a hair blanket is declared to be the worst kind of woven garment. A hair blanket is cold in cold weather, hot in hot weather, ugly, foul-smelling, and uncomfortable. So too, the doctrine of Makkhali is declared the worst among the doctrines of the various ascetics.
To say the opposite, that it's certain that some beings will eventually make this choice but that other beings never will, is likewise to say that these things are predestined. In this case the view would arguably be even worse than Makkhali's – a sort of non-theistic variant on the predestinarianism of Jansenius and Calvin.

On another forum I recently posted a similar answer to a similar question. A Mahayana poster then PM'ed me to warn me that it's a terrible slight on the Buddha's omniscience to say that he didn't know whether all beings would be liberated or not. I answered that it was no slight at all to say that an all-knowing being cannot know something that in its very nature is unknowable, for the impossibility in this case is a matter of logical necessity rather than cognitive obscuration.
User avatar
Hazel
Former staff member
Posts: 2090
Joined: Mon Sep 23, 2019 11:15 pm
Location: she/her

Re: Will there be no more sentient beings in saṃsāra one day?

Post by Hazel »

You can assign each sentient being a unique natural number (1,2,3...). The set of all such numbers is of a size known as "countable infinity". What this means is that each member of such a set can have a 1 to 1 correspondence with members of another countably infinite set.

Similarly, you can number each being that becomes a Buddha and you have another countably infinite set. And because of the equal size of these sets, you can have a 1 to 1 correspondence between them. Meaning every person in the first set can become a Buddha!

Meaning, it is possible that infinite beings can become Buddhas.

This of course may take an infinite amount of time ;-)

Disclaimer: I'm still in school for mathematics and know very little. This was meant purely for entertainment purposes. It's all absurd when it comes down to it.
Happy Pride month to my queer dharma siblings!

What do you see when you turn out the lights?
Post Reply

Return to “Mahāyāna Buddhism”