Aww yes. I knew he quoted someone but couldn’t remember who it was
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Devas are beings with spontaneous rebirth. They born fully formed, and don’t depend on previous ancestors to be born.
Theories about the origin of biological life on Earth can be compatible with the Aggañña Sutta if we make some considerations.
Biological life on Earth would result from physical and chemical processes that took place in the oceans during the planet’s formation, as the scientific theories are supposing. These processes favored the emergence of the first microorganisms capable of reproduction. Over generations, organisms evolved and took on new forms. The first organisms were bacteria and vegetal lifeforms. Once biological structures developed enough to allow for sensory experience (i.e., sensory bases) appeared, beings began to be reborn in the form of animals.
DN 27, the Aggañña Sutta, describes the process by which Brahmas from the first jhāna realm are reborn in the sensual realms as the universe becomes habitable. It begins with the consumption of more subtle forms of nourishment, which sustain higher-ranking devas (the Earth’s nectar), and progresses to coarser foods (fungi, vines), eventually reaching the coarsest sustenance possible—food derived from biological life on Earth (rice). This sequence in DN 27 refers only to beings who retain human-like characteristics throughout the process. Beings of a coarser nature, however, are reborn as animals or other unfortunate beings before human life emerges on Earth.
In Earth’s early stages, when organic structures compatible with human consciousness did not yet exist, beings destined for good rebirths could take the form of lower-ranking devas until they could be reborn as humans. This human rebirth occurs once organisms compatible with such a birth emerge (e.g. hominid primates).
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Hello Robert. 
This is an interesting topic for me, as I don’t see a fundamental difference between scientific thinking and scriptural teachings.
So I’l offer my opinions thus:
It is kind of easy to see the differences between mammals and their inclinations. Considering a common koala-like ancestor for a moment here. Those with an inclination to hunt, would more and more favor those with sharper teeth and more aggressive demeanor, forming into wolves.
Those that are more territorial and strong, would fatten up to become bears. Sneaky ones would form into cats. Social and intelligent ones would form into monkeys. Those even more intricate and curious to manipulate external objects, evolve into humans.
I think there’s plenty of ways to reconcile the scriptural explanations with modern understanding.
I think on a creative reading of DO, it explains well how, from a common mammalian ancestor, our inclinations drove on our differences. We’re all chasing after our desires & mentality.
It’s like two children of the same parents, one of them becoming a musician and another becoming a lawyer, even though they come from the same family and same education. Later on, musician’s family is even more likely to produce artists (though with exceptions); lawyer’s kid would more likely to end up in rich schools and such places (again, with exceptions); over time, they might just end up two very different clans and very different cultures.
“Evolution” is just this process repeated for not 1-10 but 100.000 or more times over and over, and so these small differences over time end up looking massive after the fact.
Or, for example:
I don’t see why these two are not compatible. Buddha doesn’t explain every single thing he knows, he only shares a handful of leaves he considers fruitful for the holy life.
Who’s to say all cellular life isn’t a form of Brahmas devolving into crude form beings? Aggana sutta doesn’t mention animals or as such. Does that mean animals don’t exist? Or perhaps there’s a way to understand the beings that devolve on a more mystic level, explaining the birth of all biological life, appearance of gender in cellular life, so on and so forth.
There are some neurologists now considering that all matter & energy represents data accumulation/transfer/mutation and thus are conscious on some level. The difference between us and rocks is not a qualitative one in this model, but a matter of quantity and complexity.
Reading some of the hell descriptions, I do wonder if they represent some sort of consciousness within for example, the core of a planet or the heat of the sun, with the graphic descriptions matching quite literally to the chemical reactions, and duration matching up too.
They just might but we might be too dim in our understanding to conceptualise them in our current universe. Can an ant or a bacteria conceptualise how human beings arise and populate, even though we do share the same universe?
It also depends how we would define “evolutionary process”. After all, they still arise based on DO. “Spontaneously” means they just don’t have a father or mother. A certain electrical field might after sufficient amount of karma accumulated, manifest into devas. Thus we just might be limited to understand how it would apply to the physical aspects we can observe.
As far as arupa beings go, it’s all a guess park. There is dark energy & matter that we can’t even guess as to what it is, only observing their effects. Sounds like “emptiness” of space isn’t as empty as one might think.
Respectfully and cordially.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. Animals probably evolved the way scientists roughly think they did. Humans devolved from brahmas.
Respectfully, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying Aggana Sutta might well be describing how biological life, including animal kingdom and humans which are a part of it, might’ve devolved all from brahma forms.
Consider the divisions of differences and castes in the suttas as relting to the various roles animals pick up, according to their karma and inclinations.
Sometimes, applying a bit of imagination to such epic retellings might give us a fresh perspective!
Or else, why would the conditions that gave birth to humanity, be fundamentally any different from other beings who share %98 of the same genetic material, composition, etc.? How could two distinct processes arrive at such similar conclusions? Unless of course, the most obvious answer is that it’s the same process with slight differences -and those differences are explained with kamma, inclinations, all those effecting the geography, that elusive %2 that spells the difference between a human and a cow.
Buddha’s teaching on seperation of human kingdom and animal kingdom need not be a fundamental separation, but it’s precisely a kammic separation. He was less interested in biological divisions, and more interested in dhammic inclinations. Animals are not able to appreciate the dhamma as humans do, so for all intends and purposes of dhamma, they’re considered as separate beings. But that still doesn’t exclude the fact that we all share the same biology.
Also consider this - what would it serve Buddha to explain how humans and animals have evolved from a same root? Several times in the suttas he tells his interlocutors to stop asking him about brahma realms and rebirths there, saying it’s not fruitful for the holy life.
There’s literally endless things about universe that can be known and seen, and only a handful are relevant to Dhamma. The teacher gives just enough to incite samvega to abandon all this, so what good is further elaboration? That doesn’t mean he didn’t see or know it, just that to him, explaining how daffodils and humans share a common ancestor is not necessary for the holy life.
Dear Dogen,
Do you mean things like bacteria could actually be alive and have consciousness?
Please clarify: you mean devas might also go through a long evolutionary process?
When someone dies do you think they are reborn as devas instantly or they evolve as devas?
So rocks might have some primitive consciousness, plants too?
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Dear Robert;
I don’t have a consciousness, and neither do bacteria. But merging both ideas, it would be that even bacterias represent khandas on a very coarse, simplest level, so effectively yes-ish.
I understand that some Vinaya texts do not consider plants as Sattā - sentient beings with consciousness. But what science uses the word is of course again, would be different from how Buddha uses the word.
So again, Buddha’s interested on a kammic level. Science is interested on a fundamental level. They’re altogether different frameworks.
That’s why I think it would be amiss to try to explain how one disproves or proves the another. They start with different axioms and have different interests.
It’s kind of like how one needs bricks to build a house. But bricks alone are not house, which is what consciousness would be. But hardness, rigidity, etc. all those properties that house has, depends on the brick having those properties. This is how I understand science to mean everything representing a basic form of intellect on a fundamental level.
I hope this clears up about my opinion.
When they die, they arise instantly as devas. But here I’m using the word “evolution” more poetically, in fact to mean precisely anicca. After all, a person undergoes many changes, die, and the consciousness arises with the rupa deva.
I’m going off the rails completely here, to give a fantastic example: For example, the moment of a supernova explosion might be the birth of a deva, instantaneous, without a father or a mother. But of course, there was a long process that preceded it, as did the human’s life who would become a deva.
Observing it from a physical, limited view, it would seem like a long process with an instant bang. Observing from the view of a human being born as a deva, they would wake up immediately, having full body and their indriya present.
Again, scientific thinking and dhammic thinking have different axioms, observing different patterns, labeling different structures.
Thus before thinking they’re incompatible, perhaps there can be a way found to understand how both perspectives are looking at a same phenomena; using different frameworks, arriving at different conclusions.
My only attempt is to find out that they don’t need be saying incompatible things after all.
Respectfully;
Also, what’s probably more important is that, if one has faith in the Dhamma, and scriptures & traditions, then one would not need the assumptions of science for their liberation. And that’s valid.
But such a person need not contest the language or the findings of science; they could be well divorced from their perspective and assumptions.
They’re different domains, and how one of them uses a language is completely different from the other.
Just as it’s hard to find a common ground, so it is to use one to disprove the other.
I enjoy doing the former perhaps even as a distraction. Likewise, a traditionalist person would be better of learning about the right view rather than trying to exhaust the inexhaustible supply of wrong view.
Wrong view as it’s defined in suttas, would literally be endless, we can come up with infinite things that doesn’t make sense from dhammic perspective.
Right view is handful of leaves. Better to focus on what matters and use discernment to know what to ignore.
I usually read more here and post much less, for fear of stepping out of my boundaries. I hope I have relayed the sincerity and the purpose of my point clearly.
“They delight in speech that promotes friendship and harmony.”
Resctfully;
It depends. I bring these points up if I think it might help someone.
For example this topic: Heart base - or brain
The person I wrote to had decided the Commentaries were not to trusted so I tried to help.
Many Buddhist are impressed by science. And that is to be expected, after all we spend decades - at school and via media- hearing of the advances in science. And science incarnates as trips to the moon, medical advances, architecture and so on.
That is all fine but some Buddhist then assume the Scientific Picture of the World , which is based on scientists opinions, as having been ‘proven by science’. This can lead to many doubts - that a voice saying “wait a minute, is this absolutely true?”, may allay.
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This might need a different topic. Sometimes as shorthand it is useful to use terms like I etc:
When a mendicant is perfected, proficient,
with defilements ended, bearing the final body:
they would say, ‘I speak’,
and also ‘they speak to me’.
Skillful, understanding the world’s labels,
they’d use these terms as no more than expressions.”
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If a bacteria is composed of the 5 khandhas, like humans and animals, then they would be born and die and be reborn again in an appropriate plane. In that case they must be classified as ‘animal’ among the various realms.
I doubt that is so.
More on rebirth:
Do you know the story of the bhikkhu Tissa who was reborn as a louse ( due to strong attachment to his robes) then a few days later he( the louse) died and was reborn as a deva. From the Commentary to the Dhammapada verse 240.
https://www.tipitaka.net/tipitaka/dhp/verseload.php?verse=240
No series of evolving little steps.
In the Vimānavatthu ( Vimanavatthu) there are accounts of some deva born there with their mansions already waiting for them.
I appreciate your good intentions in attempting to reconcile scientific ideas and Dhamma but I think we can also be firm at times and admit that some aspects are irreconcilable.
One of my favorite subjects. 
Good point. Many people think biological evolution is about the origin of life, which is not the case. It is about what happens after that.
Yes, science is constantly changing and disproving itself. But in the case of evolution, it’s about things like this and the branches on the primate family tree and other things. It is not being disproven. There is too much evidence, fossil record, DNA, etc.
I am (usually) careful to say Buddhism is compatible with biological evolution, but don’t say it is biological evolution.
We are animals, albeit very intelligent animals (compared to most others) and there is massive evidence for evolution for animals and humans. The Aganna Sutta should not be seen literally and when seen from the overall picture of smaller, simple life forms breeding through craving and becoming more complex animals; as compatible with evolution. And samsara includes humans and animals. Samsara is not evolution, but it does show our connectedness to animals in a similar way that evolution does.
Yes I think you’re right evolution has a pretty large body of evidence. Which is why I say plants and animals probably evolved accordingly. We are still missing a link between ape and man. Granted it may be because they simply haven’t found it yet. But it’s literally just as possible it simply doesn’t exist.
Also. There’s another sutta where the Buddha says some humans are born by oppapatika. Which supports that the aganna sutta wasn’t just an intricate metaphor.
There is no missing link. That was debunked years ago. See:
That site doesn’t support the notion of there being no missing link. It just says it’s an unfair threshold of evidence. (Which I agree, but u can’t just assume evolution is right just cuz the evidence to/for it is impossible to obtain). That’s basically the reverse argument Christians use when debating atheists. You cannot disprove God with unfair thresholds of evidence, therefore God is real.
This is also strange argument to make given that EBT throws out texts on similarly unfair thresholds of evidence.
It doesn’t say it’s impossible to obtain. There have been early primates shown to be a common ancestor of all or virtually all primates.
Yeah. And bacteria are a common ancestor of all animals. I think this does support the idea that monkeys evolved from earlier primates.
I think it’s logical that scientists are extrapolating that info to say humans also evolved from early primates. I don’t think that’s actually what happened tho.
Humans have many genetic similarities with apes. But genetic similarities does not mean common origin. The pyramids of Egypt are pretty similar to the incan pyramids. But the similarity is a coincidence. Not because the Incas got the idea from the Egyptians.
One issue is the complexity of living organisms. It has been years since I had a good look at this but it brings up questions as why ‘evolution’ headed in such a direction.
Stephen J. Gould (1997, p.216): “We are global accidents of an unprecedented process with no drive to complexity” Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin
Wind back the tape of life to the early days of the Burgess Shale; let it play again from an identical starting point, and the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the replay. Wonderful Life
Jacques Monod (1972, p. 110) “Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, lies at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution …;
As I mentioned earlier even a simple cell is complex:
Carl Sagan,
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1974, 893-894:
A living cell is a marvel of detailed and complex architecture. Seen
through a microscope there is an appearance of almost frenetic activity.
On a deeper level it is known that molecules are being synthesized at an
enormous rate. . . . The information content of a simple cell has been
estimated as around 1012 bits, comparable to about a hundred million
pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Bruce Alberts, past president of the National Academy of Sciences:
We have always underestimated cells. . . . The entire cell can be viewed as
a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly
lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines. . . .
Why do we call the large protein assemblies that underlie cell function
protein machines? Precisely because, like machines invented by humans to
deal efficiently with the macroscopic world, these protein assemblies
contain highly coordinated moving parts.
That is talking about one cell. When comparing that with the complexity of an animal that has trillions of cells working in some kinds of conjunction the complexity is hard to compute.
Richard Strohman, in Suzuki and Dressel, From
Naked Ape to Superspecies ,*
Molecular biologists and cell biologists are revealing to us a complexity of life that we never dreamt was there. We’re seeing connections and interconnections and complexity that is mindboggling. It’s stupendous. It’s transcalculational. It means that the whole science is going to have to change.
So I think the formation of a single functional LUKA is already improbable and the likelihood does not necessarily increase over time. And then somehow they must go on to form more complex organisms. So say- by chance mixing of proteins in the ocean under heat or wherever - how likely is that the extraordinarily complex LUCAs came out. Even one time seems hard to fathom. And to form 2 or 3 or a thousand compounds the mathematics. And then these have to somehow mix/join/integrate/develop to form up other organisms- it looks rather unlikely.( I think evolutionary scientists would say it must take trillions of these before even a bacteria can form, by their models). . Especially as the timeframe - a few billion years- is so short.