Monday, June 13, 2011

3 Mental Fermentations

There are 3 Mental Fermentations (Âsavas):


The Blessed Buddha once said: Bhikkhus, there are 3 mental fermentations.
What are these three mental concoctions?
1: The mental Fermentation joined with Sensuality..
2: The mental Fermentation linked with Becoming..
3: The mental Fermentation associated with Ignorance..
These are the three mental fermentations.
The Noble 8-fold Way is to be developed for the direct experience of these
three fermentations, for the full understanding of them, for their complete
elimination, and for their final overcoming, abandoning and leaving all behind...



Comments:

1: The mental fermentation (āsava) linked with sensuality is the false assumption,
that sensing always
brings pleasure, while actually sensing also is associated with
pain and also neutral feeling, which is far the most common!
2: The mental fermentation associated with becoming is like the banal yet common
wishing: May I become rich, beautiful, and famous, not noticing that any becoming
inevitably is associated with change, decay, death and thus suffering too! 
3: The mental Fermentation associated with ignorance is the misconceptions we
make by inaccurate approximation, undue generalization and over-projection:
Ex: We make the observation: The horizon is linear. Then we assume, project and
simplify by conceptual generalization: 'The earth must be flat', which is a false
mentally ‘brewed=fermented’ misconception… For quite a while many would chop
off your head, if you suggested anything else, than that screaming error…
During biological fermentation sugar, water and yeast ferments into alcohol...
The alcohol was not there to begin with... It was made up by the fermentation!
During mental fermentation observations, mixed with ideas and assumptions
ferments into a misconception, that was not there in the raw observation data...
The misconception 'pancake earth' is not to be seen in an (almost) flat horizon!
This 'pancake round disc earth' concept is a false idea fermented and invented
by the mind desperately trying to predict the relations between what it sees...

Source (edited extract):
The Grouped Sayings of the Buddha. Samyutta Nikāya.
Book [V:56] section 45: The Way. 163: The fermentations ...
http://www.pariyatti.com/book.cgi?prod_id=948507
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/samyutta/index.html.
Have a nice & noble day!
 
Friendship is the Greatest!
Bhikkhu Samāhita _/\_ ]
http://What-Buddha-Said.net

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