Nikolai H.:
If I may suggest, try looking at the process which generates the self, rather than the aggregates that which the process acts upon / within / as.
Can you elaborate on exactly how to do this?
I would be writing for an awfully long time to elaborate on exactly how to do it … and ultimately, the little details are things you will have to figure out. If you have a specific question, I will happily answer, but otherwise, here is a generalization ... understand the vocabulary terms and what they refer to in your mind and as they relate to other terms:
If you want to think about it / investigate it with reference to a buddhist framework, make sure you’re only reading the suttas, the vissudhimagga or similar old / relatively pure texts. And although it might seem odd, read and strive to understand the odd “dogmatic” things that don’t seem to make sense … check out the passages talking about: dependent origination [1], rebirth, karma, the mundane powers (recollection of past life, knowledge of the arising and passing away of beings), anything talking about feelings / passions, anything talking about delusion / ignorance, right intention, and anything that seems to be necessary to understand those topics.
If you want to think about it / investigate it with reference to the actualist framework (which I highly recommend over the alternative [2]), it wouldn’t be a bad idea to read everything you can, giving priority to the less buried pages. A good rule of thumb would be to keep a rough idea of how many clicks it takes you to find new material, which means you would want to start at the most accessible pages, moving deeper and deeper into the site, eventually (although not necessarily) ending up in the miscellaneous line-by-line correspondences. Especially do whatever you can to understand this page, even if that means just sitting with a couple of sentences at a time: http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/attentivenesssensuousnessapperceptiveness.htm
Nikolai H.:
Ok, I am interested in your take on it. Can you elaborate on how form also includes malice and sorrow and delusion?
I might be able to, but I’m not sure if I’m correctly interpreting the meaning which was intended either … as I said, I have simply found that reading “the elements” in the way I described yields relatively useful information compared to any other reading of them, hence why I mentioned it.
Nikolai H.:
Having not had any "past life" experiences yet I can't really say. Perhaps to see the amount of unnecessary suffering one has "self"-created and thus seeing the need to end that "self" created suffering?
Can you elaborate on this, Trent? What do you think the Buddha meant and why it was important? And did you have that experience yourself before or after achieving AF?
Yeah, sure. Try thinking about a ‘rebirth’ as the moment of any ‘change-of-lineage’ as it pertains to ‘being’ – moment to moment-- rather than the common usage. If there’s a transition from one jhana to another, that’s a moment of rebirth. If stream entry is attained, that’s a rebirth. If you identify with something (anything) new, that’s a moment of rebirth. If you eliminate something (anything) you previously identified with, that’s a moment of rebirth. If you're feeling happy and then feel sad, that's a rebirth.The moment all of these point to is called ‘rebirth-linking’ and the ‘past life’ is the situation as it pertains to the specific conditions of the five aggregates of the identity as it was, when it was, between the links. Think about a movie film strip and consider each frame of the self’s ‘story line’ to be a ‘past life’ and the section between each to be ‘rebirth-linking.’ Also, keep in mind that when you read about someone talking about their past lives in the suttas, they also talk about their projections ... hence why they might seem to be talking about a completely different physical person [3].
I suspect that you are quite easily able to recollect many of your “past lives” … assuming that, do you recall the moment when you began to be able to see your pre-path self(s) clearly, understanding your way of ‘being’ then from a relatively objective perspective you couldn’t before? Sometimes it really is like looking back on the life of another person, and the further one goes, the more that is the case.
With this in mind, try reading about the topics I proposed above (re: how to examine the process(…)). Oh, and I would like to hear your take on what you find, if you like … perhaps we can discuss them in new threads (although I have not had a lot of DhO time lately, so I may respond slowly).
I made several edits to this, the last one around 4:10 CST on the 7th.
Trent
[1] Not a bad place to start: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/wheel277.html
[2] That alternative being the early Buddhist texts / commentaries on them. Why do I recommend actualism over buddhism? No ambiguity due to terminology, no ‘lost in translation’ problems, it’s written by a contemporary person with contemporary knowledge (meaning it’ll make a lot more sense and a lot quicker), and lastly, because the human condition is not the same as it was 2000+ years ago. If you want to figure out how to get to a destination in a major metropolitan area, it’s a good idea to use a current map, as opposed to a relatively old one, right?
[3] "There I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure & pain, such the end of my life." http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.036.than.html