A DSList discussion on “The Sermon of the Seven Suns” took place between April 5 and April 14, 2003 after a question on Lord Buddha's predictions as compared to Armageddon. “The Sermon of the Seven Suns” was offered as an example.Amara: I propose to look at the sutta keeping in mind that the actual point of the teachings is about impermanence and non-attachment, not to try to know what is beyond our capacity to prove right now, even though the details are fascinating also. Panna is to know and detach, not to cling to more and more concepts, when there is lobha to know more, we will have missed the point of the teachings entirely, which is why many people refuse even to talk about these matters, it simply doesn't interest them, and they find it distracts them from the here and now.
I am sorry I haven’t paid much attention to these matters myself, or to the supramundane powers and miracles, and don’t know much about them, being more interested in things I can prove with my six senses at each moment. But I do believe if the Buddha mentioned them, it must be good to know; although the context, such as in this one as well, is always to learn that there is impermanence in even what seems most ever lasting, such as the earth or the universe.
Anyway isn’t it a wonder that 2500+ years ago the Buddha already talked about the seven stages of the sun or the stars in general, the same number of stages as modern astronomy describes; red giants, white dwarfs, etc.? And they do go out in a great explosion, the final stages of which is the gas clouds such as the ‘Eskimo’ Nebula whose spectacular explosion [NASA took a fantastic picture of it which I am using as background to the Q&A section of DhammaStudy.com at http://www.dhammastudy.com/q&a.html ] has been hanging there among the stars for millions of years. It is said that our sun is heading towards the same end.
Heng Shun: The Visuddhi Magga also mentions the appearance of seven suns during the destruction of the kalpa by fire - see XIII, 32-41 or pages 456-458 in Bhikkhu Nanamoli’s translation.
Amara: Does it mention that they all appear simultaneously, sir? I seem to remember that somewhere it says that it is the same one, during different eras in samsara.
The Buddha is also called ‘member of the family of the sun’ which is traditionally a great homage.
Heng Shun: It says that they appear one after another, so that in the end there are seven suns at once.
Amara: You are right, sir; I have found a passage in the Commentaries to the Pubbenivasanussatinana Sutta that seems to indicate the suns appearing one at a time and finally numbering seven simultaneously around the earth, as you said; since from the second sun’s arrival, ‘there would be no night time, when the one sun sets, the other rises’ or something to that effect. If it resembles any scientific theory, it would sound like the description of the ‘Big Bang’ the universe exploding, matters squeezing into a funnel or galaxic/universal dark hole, before the universe reforms again.
Sermon: THE SERMON OF THE SEVEN SUNS
(ANGUTTARA NIKAYA VII. 62)
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY - 1901
Translated from the Pali by ALBERT J. EDMUNDS.THE END OF THE WORLD.
Thus have I heard. At one season the Blessed One was staying at Vesali, in Ambapali's grove. And the Blessed One addressed the monks, saying: “Monks!” “Lord!” answered those monks, in reply to him. The Blessed One spake thus:Amara: Despite our atmosphere, I understand that we lose some water particles each day, though not to the extent that a comet does, when its ice melts and forms a tail when it approaches the sun, which is why its tail shortens a little with each passage. Mars is supposed to have had water on it, long ago. It is not beyond imagination that zillions of years from now there may come a time when there is such drought that it doesn’t rain ‘for hundreds of thousands of years’ on earth as well. Even without that happening, the deserts grow on earth continually; we see evidences that the Sahara, the Gobi and the ancient Mesopotamia were once lush forests teeming with life, thousands of years ago.“Impermanent, O monks, are the constituents of existence, unstable, non-eternal: so much so, that this alone is enough to weary and disgust one with all constituent things, and emancipate therefrom. Sineru, monks, the monarch of mountains, is eighty-four thousand leagues in length and breadth; eighty-four thousand leagues deep in the great ocean, and eighty-four thousand above it.
Now there comes, O monks, a season when, after many years, many hundreds and thousands and hundreds of thousands of years, it does not rain; and while it rains not, all seedlings and vegetation, all plants, grasses, and trees dry up, wither away and cease to be.
[...]Sermon: Thus, monks, constituent things are impermanent, unstable, non-eternal: so much so, that this alone is enough to weary and disgust one therewith and emancipate therefrom.Amara: The common refrain to all the parts of this sermon is always impermanence, disillusionment and detachment, recurring throughout, so one wouldn't lose sight of the lesson behind this theme.
[...]Kongthien: Realize that the impermanence is real and the non-attachment is good but kilesas are very hard to get rid of. Eradicating all kilesas is required for attaining nibbana.
Amara: May I remark that it is the attainment of nibbana as the arammana of the magga cittas from the stage of the sotapanna onwards that begins the complete eradication of kilesas.
Sermon: And, monks, there comes a season, at vast intervals in the lapse of time, when a second sun appears.Amara: In the Thai version, this part compares the water in the great oceans dried by the increasing number of suns to the depth of the water that is caught in the hollow of a cow's footprint in the earth during the rainy season when lots of rain fall, which in my opinion means that when the fifth sun appears, there would be so little water left even in the oceans no matter how deep, only in spots that are crevices on the ocean floor, the floors of the ocean would have by then lost all water and become dry land.After the appearance of the second sun, monks, the brooks and ponds dry up, vanish away and cease to be. So impermanent are constituent things! And then, monks, there comes a season, at vast intervals in the lapse of time, when a third sun appears; and thereupon the great rivers: to wit, the Ganges, the Jamna, the Rapti, the Gogra, the Mahi,--dry up, vanish away and cease to be.
At length, after another vast period, a fourth sun appears, and thereupon the great lakes, whence those rivers had their rise: namely, Anotatto, Lion-leap, Chariot-maker, Keel-bare, Cuckoo, Six-bayed, and Slow-flow, dry up, vanish away, and cease to be.
Again, monks, when, after another long lapse, a fifth sun appears, the waters in the great ocean go down for an hundred leagues; then for two hundred, three hundred, and even unto seven hundred leagues, until the water stands only seven fan-palms’ deep, and so on unto one fan-palm; then seven fathoms’ deep, and so on unto one fathom, half a fathom; waist-deep, knee-deep, ankle-deep. Even, O monks, as in the fall season, when it rains in large drops, the waters in some places are standing around the feet of the kine; even so, monks, the waters in the great ocean in some places are standing to the depth of kine-feet.
[...]Sermon: After the appearance of the fifth sun, monks, the water in the great ocean is not the measure of a finger-joint.Amara: This would even be lower than water in a cow’s footprint in the mud of the rainy season, I imagine. So by now even the deepest hollow in the ocean floor would have become dry, except for puddles.
[...]Sermon: Then at last, after another lapse of time, a sixth sun appears; whereupon this great earth and Sineru, the monarch of mountains, reek and fume and send forth clouds of smoke. Even as a potter's baking, when first besmeared, doth reek and fume and smoke, such is the smoke of earth and mountains when the sixth sun appears.Amara: In the Thai version it is not a spark but a blast of wind that carries the flames to the brahma world.After a last vast interval, a seventh sun appears, and then, monks, this great earth, and Sineru, the monarch of mountains, flare and blaze, and become one mass of flame.
And now, from earth and mountains burning and consuming, a spark is carried by the wind and goes as far as the worlds of God;
[...]Connie: I think it is that the air element carries the fire element, but ‘flames’ certainly do give a more vivid impression of our lack of control over the strength of the destructive forces than ‘spark’. But if it is ‘spark’ one might be reminded that even the smallest bit of kilesa still ensures that one’s ‘all is aflame’ with the fires of earthly desires, etc. Even when the fire element or tendency is not actively manifesting, it exists in its latent form. And again, whether we are talking on a cosmic or human scale, the truth is the same.
Edmunds also said ‘as far as the worlds of God’ rather than Brahma realms in this translation... another reminder that this was an early English translation and that we are somewhat limited in our choices of words (and how we view the world) by our culture. The introduction accompanying the ‘sermon’ shows it being treated as an example of Buddhist/Biblical parallels. Two passages they quote are:
2 Peter iii. 10. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the heavenly bodies (or elements) shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up (or, discovered).
Rev. xxi. 1. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more.
Amara: Apparently the beings in the brahma worlds remembered these eternal upheavals [although to be burnt up or to be discovered seem a bit of a puzzle to me, it must be the linguistic similarities that sometimes happen.]
Connie: In a paper on “Cosmology and meditation”, Rupert Gethin talks about how the extent of the destruction depends on whether it is by fire, water or wind and relates the different realms to the various jhanas. Thus, fire would destroy through the form realms corresponding to the first jhana whereas the other two forces would wreak more havoc, but ‘the seven realms corresponding to the fourth jhana and the four formless realms are never subject to this universal destruction.’
Amara: I find this interesting, thank you for these studies, and perhaps some of it is logical if you think that the formless realms would be hard to destroy through any kind of rupa changes.
Less easy to understand is perhaps why rupa brahmas who arise only as rupas for eternities in time without ever having any nama, or with the namas suspended until their cuti citta arises after many universes have arisen, exploded and arisen again, would be left untouched as well. It may have to do with the fact that their rupas arise from great kusala jhana cittas that protect them, since their extremely long lifespans are the results of these extremely pure and powerful mental kammas. Although one must note that even this would keep one in samsara, when panna has not developed enough to sever all ties to life and rebirth.
Even less easy to imagine why the ‘fourth jhana worlds’ are spared, unless this is the fourth jhana classified by the system of four jhanas and not five. If it were the last and highest jhana, [called fourth or fifth according to the two systems] to which the rupa and arupa brahma worlds also belong, it would seem that all who attain this level of kusala are spared this upheaval. And as I understand it, some of the hell worlds are also spared. [Unless the hell worlds are already suffering this intense heat and pressure? Perhaps not, since it is said to be as packed as the surviving brahma ones.]
Connie: I think Gethin was talking about the 4 jhana system, but have to admit I didn't even think about it... I don't have a very good grasp on those subjects. He describes the fourth jhana as a state of ‘purity of equanimity and mindfulness’ (upekkha-sati-parisuddhi) and ‘the final active state of mind to be experienced by a living Buddha’.
I just assumed the rupa brahmas were above the level where the fire stopped.
As to the hell worlds, there was some discussion as to whether the beings in the lower realms, including hells, were reborn in the higher (2nd or above) jhana realms due to ‘kamma to be experienced at an unspecified time’ (aparapariya-vedaniya-kamma) or whether they were reborn in the hells of world-systems that wouldn't be going through the destructive/contraction cycle at that time.
Amara: I seem to remember a description somewhere that during the great destruction, beings are packed together like ‘flour in a sack’ or something to that effect. Talk about the dukkha of devas! It seems that if you were born in the wrong place in the wrong time even the higher realms can have its less pleasant moments! Have you ever come across this in your readings?
Connie: I’ve seen something about how the few survivors of some ‘holocaust’/end of civilization get together after some time and as we rebuild a peaceful world, we end up living all crowded together with ‘84000 cities so close together a chicken can fly from one to the next’ or with a population covering the earth ‘as a jungle is by reeds and rushes.’ I think that would have to be after some other kind of destruction, though and not the fire in the seven suns story for people to be left on earth... and don’t know whether it’s from anything in the Tipitaka or not.
Amara: In any case whether you are packed in heaven or hell worlds or survive unscathed or in ignorant bliss this universal catastrophy in the arupabrahma world for example, it is still kamma that dictates each individual’s potential ‘fate’ and in the end bring you back to samsara and all that life brings, endless cycles of birth, impermanence and death, over and over, ceaselessly.
Sermon: and the peaks of Mount Sineru, burning, consuming, perishing, go down in one vast mass of fire and crumble for an hundred, yea, five hundred leagues. And of this great earth, monks, and Sineru, the monarch of mountains, when consumed and burnt, neither ashes nor soot remains. Just as when ghee or oil is consumed and burnt, monks, neither ashes nor soot remains, so it is with the great earth and Mount Sineru.Amara: It would seem that all substance of the rupa have transformed into ‘energy’ collective rupa, the ‘Big Bang’ that destroys one universe and creates the next.
[...]Sermon: Thus, monks, impermanent are the constituents of existence, unstable, non-eternal: so much so, that this alone is enough to weary and disgust one with all constituent things and emancipate therefrom. Therefore, monks, do those who deliberate and believe say this: ‘This earth and Sineru, the monarch of mountains, will be burnt and perish and exist no more,’ excepting those who have seen the path.Amara: The Thai is slightly different, this part translates as ‘Behold, Bhikkhus, the sankharas too are thus, impermanent, not lasting, unpleasant; to be weary of, to be detached from, to be emancipated from. ***Concerning all sankhara, who would ever know, who would ever believe, that this earth and the Sineru mountain would ever be burnt, completely destroyed, but the savaka who has seen the path.’*** but the essence is much the same.
[...]Again, an essential reminder that all this future as well as past description of the end of the universe and the start of a new one should serve to remind us of the universal characteristic of all rupadhamma and namadhamma, as true in the cosmic scale of tilakkhana as in our tiniest cells and cittas and cetasikas. All are indeed impermanent, subject to changes, uncontrollable, belonging to no one, not the self nor anyone or anything in the least.
Indeed it must be difficult to believe in the old days even more than now, that the earth, the rocks and mountains can burn up and be annihilated, that the universe can be destroyed. But impermanence is real even at the cosmic level, galaxies to clash as in some fantastic shots by NASA, also used as background in one of the Q&As in <http://www.Dhammastudy.com> [with link to the NASA page where there are clusters of galaxies in multiple collisions!] and matters in space are funneled, squeezed together in a narrow dark tube to emerge in another new galaxy that is forming [another shot of same also in the background of another Q&A]. The ‘rebirth’ of galaxies and when the explosions involve a multitude of galaxies, possibly the much of the universe merging and reforming, the big bang from which another ‘universe’ is born.
Nothing but nibbana is permanent, not even the eternal universe, in which Mount Sineru is only a part of our galaxy, a round mountain like body in a sea of fried egg shaped formation in the middle, as described below, ‘eighty-four thousand leagues in length and breadth; eighty-four thousand leagues deep in the great ocean, and eighty-four thousand above it.’
But those who have experienced the arising and falling away of realities, from conditions, would be able to understand how things great and small are indeed all impermanent, subject to changes and not be attached to as eternal or the self or even the universe.
To continue our reading of the Sermon of the Seven Suns:
Sermon: “In olden times, O monks, there was a religious teacher (or Master) named Sunetto, founder of an order, and free from indulgence in lusts; and he had several hundred disciples. The Master Sunetto preached to his disciples the doctrine of fellowship with the world of God;Amara: In the Thai version this is ‘the doctrine towards fellowship with the devas of the brahma world level’.
[...]Sermon: and those who understood all his religion in every way, when he preached this doctrine, were born again, upon the dissolution of the body after death, to weal in the world of God. Those who did not understand all his religion in every way, were born again, upon the dissolution of the body after death,--some into fellowship with those angels who transmute subjective delights into objective and share them with others;Amara: The Thai: devas of the level of Paranimmitavasavasti heaven.
[...]Sermon: some into fellowship with the angels who delight in subjective creations;Amara: The Thai: devas of the level of Nimmanarati heaven.
[...]
Sermon: some into that of the angels of Content (Tusita); others with the Yama; others again with the angels of the Thirty-three; others into fellowship with those of the Four Great Kings; and yet others into fellowship with Warrior magnates, Brahmin magnates, householder magnates.Amara: The Thai: develop ‘metta citta’.“Now Sunetto the Master, O monks, thought to himself: ‘It is not fit that I should allow my disciples to have such destinies as these repeatedly: what now if I practise the Highest Love?’ Whereupon, monks, the Master Sunetto practised Benevolence (or, love-meditation) for seven years,
[...]Sermon: and for seven æons of consummation and restoration he did not return to this world. Yea, monks, at the consummation of the world he became an Angel of Splendor,Amara: The Thai: Abhassara Brahma.
[...]Sermon: and at the world's restoration he rose again in the empty palace of the Brahmas. Yea, then, O monks, he was a Brahma, the Great Brahma (or, God), conquering, unconquered, all-seeing, controlling. And thirty-six times, O monks, was he Sakko, the lord of the angels; many hundreds of times was he a king, a righteous world-ruler and emperor, victorious to the four seas, arrived at the security of his country, and possessed of the seven treasures. Moreover, he had more than a thousand sons, heroes, of mighty frame, crushers of alien armies; he dwelt in this ocean-girt earth, overcoming it, staffless and swordless, by righteousness. But even the Master Sunetto, though thus long-lived and long-enduring, was not emancipated from birth, old age, death, grief, lamentations, pains, sorrows, and despairs; I say he was not emancipated from pain.Amara: The Thai: dukkha.
[...]Sermon: And why? Because of not being awake to four things (dhamma), and not seeing into them. What four? The Noble Ethics, the Noble Trance (Samadhi), the Noble Wisdom, and the Noble Release (or Emancipation). When these, O monks, known in their sequence and penetrated into, the craving for existence is annihilated, its renewal is destroyed: one is then reborn no more.”Amara: No matter the long and splendid the lives and achievements of even the highest brahma, all are subject to the tilakkhana, impermanence, change and uncontrollability, in all the unsatisfactoriness of samsara.Thus spake the Blessed One, and when the Auspicious One had said this, the Master further said:
“Morality, Trance, Pure Reason, and Supreme Release;
These things are understood by the celebrated Gotamo,
Thus enlightened (buddho) by supernal knowledge, he told the doctrine to the monks.
The Master, who made an end of pain, the Seeing One, hath passed into Nirvana.”
[End Sermon]
To connect it with ‘the Agganna-sutta from the Digha Nikaya (Mahayana Ekottara-agama from the Anguttara)’ that Connie posted in Message 1779, one finds that the Abhassara Brahma world gradually evolves back in to human births, and the cycle continues eternally:
[...]This reminds me of a recent article from NASA: a connection between supernova star explosions, and gamma ray bursts [and therefore black holes]:
There comes a time, Vasettha, when, sooner or later after a long period, this world contracts. 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, 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, glorious -- and they stay like that for a very long time.At that period, Vasettha, there was just one mass of water, and all was darkness, blinding darkness. Neither moon nor sun appeared, no constellations or stars appeared, night and day were not distinguished, nor months and fortnights, no years or seasons, and no male and female, beings being reckoned just as beings. And sooner or later, after a very long period of time, savoury earth spread itself over the waters where those beings were. It looked just like the skin that forms itself over hot milk as it cools. It was endowed with colour, smell and taste. It was the colour of fine ghee or butter, and it was very sweet, like pure wild honey.
[end quote]It’s a Supernova A bright explosion two billion light years away is the missing link between supernovas and gamma ray bursts.
April 10, 2003: Scientists have discovered that one of the brightest gamma ray bursts on record is also a supernova. It's the first direct evidence linking these two types of explosions, both triggered by the death of a massive star.
[...]Gamma ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe, and they likely signal the birth of black holes. Bursts occur at random locations scattered across the sky. Few last more than a minute, making them hard to study.
A supernova is the explosion of a star at least eight times as massive as the sun. When such stars deplete their nuclear fuel, they no longer have the energy to support their mass. Their cores implode, forming either a neutron star or, if there is enough mass, a black hole. The surface layers of the star blast outward, forming the colorful patterns typical of supernova remnants.
Previous observations, particularly from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, have provided convincing indirect evidence of the gamma ray burst/supernova connection. The Chandra Observatory detected iron and other heavy elements, which are formed in supernovas, in the vicinity of gamma ray bursts.
But this latest burst has provided a direct link: light from the afterglow itself exhibits the same patterns as light from a supernova.
[...][End quote]
This is only one star’s explosion; One can imagine how powerful and massive the explosion of an entire universe and the resultant black hole would be, and the gradual reformation of the next ones.And to think that the Buddha taught the suttas over 2500 years ago...
Thank you for this interesting subject, it has expanded my horizons infinitely.
Amara-Varee
April 20, 2003