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Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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Mushika posted:

Yes, this is the crux of my attitude toward my practice. This also is one reason why I don't feel that I can take the Bodhisattva Vow. If I can't attain arahantship for myself, which isn't exactly one of my highest goals, how can I hope to lead anyone else to liberation? I can do what I can to help others in this life. I'm not knowledgeable or experienced enough to know that I can help them in the next.
Keep in mind that you will have a lot of chances to work on it. For a certain value of "you," anyway.

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Mushika
Dec 22, 2010

Nessus posted:

Keep in mind that you will have a lot of chances to work on it. For a certain value of "you," anyway.

Therein lies the rub: I have this life here and now. I don't know what sort of life comes next, but I have been exposed to the Dhamma in this life. I understand suffering, and I feel I would be remiss if I didn't attempt to alleviate it. Putting it off because I expect a chance to do so in a future existence is, well, horribly selfish.

Mushika
Dec 22, 2010

Whoops, sorry. Double posted somehow.

Mushika fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Feb 12, 2020

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



The Bodhisattva Vow has always been my biggest problem with Mahayana Buddhism, too. I have large doubts I'll ever be enlightened and saved so how can I hope to save everyone else in the world? How can anyone believe they can save billions of people? It's more than that, you wanna save all life so animals, too. I'ts impossible to imagine.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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Mushika posted:

Therein lies the rub: I have this life here and now. I don't know what sort of life comes next, but I have been exposed to the Dhamma in this life. I understand suffering, and I feel I would be remiss if I didn't attempt to alleviate it. Putting it off because I expect a chance to do so in a future existence is, well, horribly selfish.
This isn't, "you should put it off," it is, "do the best you can now, and expect to do more later," at least in my own view. One of the values I find in this concept is that it is comforting without being paralytic. I am a person of a certain set of assets and qualities, and I can use these qualities as best I can: I do not need to curse myself because I am also not the perfect son, the perfect political activist, the perfect counselor, etc. I need to do what I can with my karma, now, and in the 30-50 remaining years of life (not guaranteed!) I will have in this incarnation.

NikkolasKing posted:

The Bodhisattva Vow has always been my biggest problem with Mahayana Buddhism, too. I have large doubts I'll ever be enlightened and saved so how can I hope to save everyone else in the world? How can anyone believe they can save billions of people? It's more than that, you wanna save all life so animals, too. I'ts impossible to imagine.
Deep time, my friend.

Paramemetic
Sep 29, 2003

Area 51. You heard of it, right?





Fallen Rib

Mushika posted:

Therein lies the rub: I have this life here and now. I don't know what sort of life comes next, but I have been exposed to the Dhamma in this life. I understand suffering, and I feel I would be remiss if I didn't attempt to alleviate it. Putting it off because I expect a chance to do so in a future existence is, well, horribly selfish.

The fortunate thing is, if you do the good thing now, you get the better thing later.

Like I think that's maybe where my biggest contention here is: people who are focused on attaining a better rebirth do it by doing the best they can in this lifetime.

I study and practice Tibetan Astrology, and a lot of Westerners ask me about past or future lives, which Tibetan astrology doesn't do much with because, as the Tibetan aphorism goes, "if you want to know your past life, look at your present conditions; if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions."

So, yes, good, this is right! You should use the present life you have to accumulate merit by practicing the paramitas. Then you will inevitably have a more advantageous future life. If you believe in cause and effect, then there's no other way and no reason to worry.

NikkolasKing posted:

The Bodhisattva Vow has always been my biggest problem with Mahayana Buddhism, too. I have large doubts I'll ever be enlightened and saved so how can I hope to save everyone else in the world? How can anyone believe they can save billions of people? It's more than that, you wanna save all life so animals, too. I'ts impossible to imagine.

An absolute boatload of dudes have taken vows to remain in samsara until you, personally, are liberated. You can make that vow too, or not. Ultimately we're talking about countless beings, but that's not important. It's not about the result, it's about the process. The important thing is that we keep working to liberate beings.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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Paramemetic posted:

An absolute boatload of dudes have taken vows to remain in samsara until you, personally, are liberated. You can make that vow too, or not. Ultimately we're talking about countless beings, but that's not important. It's not about the result, it's about the process. The important thing is that we keep working to liberate beings.
This is certainly angels on the head of the pin territory, but sometimes I've wondered. Some millions of people have taken the Bodhisattva vow and I imagine people on other planets have done the equivalent. Presumably at some point it will be down to all bodhisattvas. Who heads out last?

Paramemetic
Sep 29, 2003

Area 51. You heard of it, right?





Fallen Rib

Nessus posted:

This is certainly angels on the head of the pin territory, but sometimes I've wondered. Some millions of people have taken the Bodhisattva vow and I imagine people on other planets have done the equivalent. Presumably at some point it will be down to all bodhisattvas. Who heads out last?

Moved by great compassion, everyone tries to be the last one out the door, and so everyone stands around until they forget what they were doing, and we're all back at it again.

But yeah I mean because of the great compassion of bodhisattvas the ultimate liberation of all beings is inevitable.

It's like the Lama says about attaining. If we rely on the Buddha's teachings and practice the Vajrayana with devotion to the Lama, we'll definitely attain Buddhahood in one lifetime. It just might not be this lifetime.

Mushika
Dec 22, 2010

I simply can't reconcile the fact that there is work to be done here in this life with the idea that merit somehow opens up opportunities in the next. How do we know what the next existence entails? What we do know is that there is work to be done in this life. There is suffering that we can alleviate here and now. The choices that we make in this life have far-reaching consequences.

haunted bong
Jun 24, 2007


Paramemetic posted:

Moved by great compassion, everyone tries to be the last one out the door, and so everyone stands around until they forget what they were doing, and we're all back at it again.


Also known as a Canadian Standoff

Paramemetic
Sep 29, 2003

Area 51. You heard of it, right?





Fallen Rib

Mushika posted:

I simply can't reconcile the fact that there is work to be done here in this life with the idea that merit somehow opens up opportunities in the next.

Doing work in this life is how you accumulate that merit, so they reconcile pretty easily.

quote:

How do we know what the next existence entails?

If you don't acknowledge cause and effect then this is pretty uncertain, but if you do then this question is trivial.

quote:

What we do know is that there is work to be done in this life. There is suffering that we can alleviate here and now. The choices that we make in this life have far-reaching consequences.

The far reaching consequences you're talking about are exactly the "in the next life" bits I'm talking about. We all need both wisdom and method. Some people focus on one, some on the other, because of our limited capacity. So long as that accords with the Noble Eightfold Path, the ultimate result is the same.

As for the yogis, well, in the end the only suffering I have the capacity to alleviate is my own. No material offerings or improvements of conditions can free someone from ignorance or from the cycle of birth, old age, sickness, and dying. Nothing we do with our transient bodies can actually benefit anyone. Only the gift of Dharma can help someone escape suffering in any meaningful sense. This lifetime is a precious and rare opportunity to practice Dharma, and in so doing to demonstrate the benefits.

Don't give a hungry man a fruit and he suffers the suffering of suffering. Give a man a fruit and he'll eat for a day but he'll suffer the suffering of change. Teach a man to grow fruit and he'll suffer the all-pervasive suffering of conditioned phenomena. Show a man the ultimate nature of mind and he does not suffer, fruit or not.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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I think that what may be an important nuance is that the "suffering" that Shakyamuni specifically addressed does not map exactly to the term "suffering" used in the modern day. It could also be translated, I am told, to "stress" and "unsatisfactoriness" and all of these would be reasonable.

When someone is very hungry and you feed them you have done a great good. They're fed! They will live on, and perhaps you have saved their lives, or eased their burden if they know they can come to the Buddha Burger and get one with everything. You can provide housing! Now they have a safe place to live. A livelihood! Now they can care for themselves and their material anxiety will lessen.

But when these things are present they do not prevent suffering in the general sense. The hedonic treadmill kicks in. People find new things to worry about. (I have not been able to stop this trend in my own mind but I have been able to observe it, and perhaps, to some extent, to slow it down.) That is the suffering that practice seeks to address directly.

Mushika
Dec 22, 2010

So it's spiritual Accelerationism, then. Hope that suffering in this life leads others to the Dhamma in the hope that their future lives will be alleviated of spiritual suffering. Dukkha in this life is irrelevant, only merit for the conditions of our rebirth is worthy of concern.

Am I reading this right? Because that's what it sounds like, and that sounds like bullshit. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be combative, but that's what it feels like I'm reading.

Goldreallas XXX
Oct 22, 2009

Mushika posted:

I simply can't reconcile the fact that there is work to be done here in this life with the idea that merit somehow opens up opportunities in the next. How do we know what the next existence entails? What we do know is that there is work to be done in this life. There is suffering that we can alleviate here and now. The choices that we make in this life have far-reaching consequences.

One of the common framing ideas of Pure Land practice in the Tibetan tradition is that they are your reserve chute. If you are lax in your practice (like everyone is) and don't achieve the rainbow body this lifetime, then the practices that you have performed for rebirth in Sukhavati or the Copper Coloured Mountain or wherever are insurance. Dzogchen has a similar thing going through navigating the bardo while dying and using guru yoga to clip through the floor of samsara and respawn in front of Samantabhadra.

Paramemetic
Sep 29, 2003

Area 51. You heard of it, right?





Fallen Rib

Mushika posted:

So it's spiritual Accelerationism, then. Hope that suffering in this life leads others to the Dhamma in the hope that their future lives will be alleviated of spiritual suffering. Dukkha in this life is irrelevant, only merit for the conditions of our rebirth is worthy of concern.

Am I reading this right? Because that's what it sounds like, and that sounds like bullshit. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be combative, but that's what it feels like I'm reading.

You're not reading it right.

Goldreallas XXX
Oct 22, 2009

Mushika posted:

So it's spiritual Accelerationism, then. Hope that suffering in this life leads others to the Dhamma in the hope that their future lives will be alleviated of spiritual suffering. Dukkha in this life is irrelevant, only merit for the conditions of our rebirth is worthy of concern.

Am I reading this right? Because that's what it sounds like, and that sounds like bullshit. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be combative, but that's what it feels like I'm reading.

Not at all, conditions in this life can lead to suffering being so intense that it is impossible to practice dharma in a meaningful way. If you're like an 8th level bodhisattva or something you are unconcerned with all samsara has to offer, but most normal sentient beings aren't like that. The alleviation of the coarser suffering (hunger, poverty etc) is essential to allow the more subtle obscurations (self grasping at an eternal self) to be identified and overcome.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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Mushika posted:

So it's spiritual Accelerationism, then. Hope that suffering in this life leads others to the Dhamma in the hope that their future lives will be alleviated of spiritual suffering. Dukkha in this life is irrelevant, only merit for the conditions of our rebirth is worthy of concern.

Am I reading this right? Because that's what it sounds like, and that sounds like bullshit. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be combative, but that's what it feels like I'm reading.
I feel like you're putting the frames of the early 21st century common era on top of ideas which in large part predate the constructions of modern states and capitalism. This can be fruitful if you do it moderately, of course.

I'm not sure where accelerationism here comes from. Accelerationism typically involves making things worse, or allowing them to become worse. I don't think anything in Buddhism calls for this, we just recognize that everything rises, persists, declines and disappears - this doesn't mean that the process cannot be affected by actions, or that a declining thing couldn't be renewed, but you can't make something eternal.

Paramemetic
Sep 29, 2003

Area 51. You heard of it, right?





Fallen Rib
Okay I had to go read back to make sure I hadn't lost the plot.

So, I think the thing here is that you've drawn a sort of dichotomy between secular and spiritual affairs, and you are very concerned about the secular affairs, and not so much about the spiritual affairs. Hence the looking to secular Buddhism, and not being a fan of the Mahayana or Vajrayana tendency towards... I don't want to say less secular, and I think really my reticence to accept the dichotomy at all is the issue.

So, you had mentioned an emphasis on "what the Buddha taught" being primary which kicked off the Jodo Shinshu Trap Card. At the very most basic level, the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path and this is a common ground for all Buddhisms.

The Four Noble Truths are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the cessation of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the cessation of suffering.

The truth of suffering is that all conditioned existence is unsatisfactory. There is no composited thing that is unaffected by this unsatisfactoriness. All sentient beings are born, age, become sick, and die. Any transient or temporary pleasures end. All conditioned phenomena are impermanent and without essence. I alluded jokingly earlier to this, but there are three kinds of suffering, called overt suffering, suffering of change, and all-pervasive suffering. I'll come back to this in a minute, let's get through the four noble truths.

The truth of the cause of suffering is that this suffering comes not from the inherent characteristics of things, but rather, suffering is caused by attachment, grasping, and aversion; more concisely, it's caused by the ignorance that leads to those things. Because we are ignorant to the actual nature of conditioned existence, and because we think that the "self" exists, and because we believe that this material reality is reality, we have grasping and aversion. Grasping is when we want things that are not the case to be the case. Aversion is when we want things that are not the case to be the case. Attachment is when we want things that are the case to remain the case (i.e., not to change). These actually parallel the causes of suffering. Grasping and aversion cause overt suffering: we want suffering to stop, we want not-suffering to come. Attachment causes the suffering of change. All of these originate from ignorance to the nature of conditioned phenomena, which causes the all-pervasive suffering of conditioned existence.

The truth of the cessation of suffering is that there is a way to stop all suffering. Because there are identifiable causes of suffering, we can stop these causes of suffering. By stopping the causes of suffering, suffering itself ceases. The immediacy of that ceasing will vary from one Buddhist tradition to the next. Theravadins, for example, do not think it comes very quickly - indeed, they aim to achieve the state of once- or non-returners, not to actually end it in their current lifetimes. Vajrayana practitioners believe it can be ended in one lifetime (though not necessarily this one! :v: ). Mahayana and Vajyrana practitioners alike believe it is selfish to end it only for oneself, but not to strive to end it for everyone else.

Finally, there's the truth of the path that leads to the cessation of suffering: the Noble Eightfold Path.

This path is comprised of: Right view, right determination, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi.

Of those eight paths, three belong to our moral behavior as actors in the world: speech, conduct, and livelihood. The other five belong to our mental activity (effort, mindfulness, samadhi) and our insight or wisdom (view, resolve).

You need all eight to end suffering. The Noble Eightfold Path is not a "pick one." It is not eight paths. It is a single path of eight parts. You must do all of the eight to actually end suffering. That is the truth the Buddha taught, that is the absolute foundation. With no grand Bodhisattvas or Buddhafields of Accumulation or Merit Gaming for Better Rebirths, the Buddha taught that it is utterly insufficient to do anything less than those eight things.

The Mahayana and Vajrayana paths elaborate on these in ways that make them operable or accessible to laypeople. The original teachings of the Buddha probably had those methods as well, but the restoration church equivalent of the Theravada does not: it's monk into arhat, or bust, for them.

Of the Mahayana paths, there are many different approaches to the Noble Eightfold Path, but all of them necessarily include the Noble Eightfold Path.

I am not a Jodo Shinshu practitioner, but of course we have Pure Land aspirations too, as Goldreallas XXX pointed out. So, I will say this: the basic idea is that Buddhas come in waves. There was talk about yugas and degenerate eras and so on, and I mostly joke about this. In many ways we live in a very fortunate era, after all!

But to a Pure Land practitioner, they look at the world, filled as it is with distractions and degeneracy, and recognize that there is no way for someone to fulfill all of the Noble Eightfold Path in this lifetime. We can do right speech and right livelihood easily enough, sure. But how can we do right effort when there is no example? How are we to practice samadhi when there is no time for leisure? How can we practice right conduct when there is no ethical consumption under capitalism? Because of the interrelations of karma there is no escaping culpability for merely living. Everything done is at the expense of others. How can we practice right effort when so many things bombard us with reasons to be distracted? How to practice right mindfulness when men in labcoats are trying to figure out how to immerse us further into atomized consumer units?

So, with that being the case, there is no hope to actually end suffering in this lifetime.

With that being the case, we should focus on alleviating material suffering in this lifetime for ignorant beings who do not know the path, while doing our best to be reborn in a Pure Land where we can attain enlightenment for ourselves and then, using the wisdom we've gained, do a much better job of alleviating the material concerns of others.

There was talk before of secular Buddhism: there's no other kind! The concept is a Western attempt to harness Buddhism into the world we're comfortable with, the scientific positivist world of matter. But Buddhism is already concerned with the world! Buddhism by its nature did not come from some divine being. It came from a human being who observed the nature of the world, that the world is unsatisfactory, and that that unsatisfactoriness comes not from the impermanent conditions of phenomena but from the interaction of the mind with those phenomena.

You cannot address suffering without addressing the mind, without recognizing its actual nature and dispelling the ignorance that causes us to regard transient conditions of phenomena as real.

It's really hard to do that while having to pay a landlord for a place to stay.

For Pure Land Buddhists, the solution is to deal with the material world now, while working to be reborn in a better world. For Vajrayana practitioners, it's to alchemically transform sufferings into wisdom while using expedient means to recognize the nature of mind, and cultivating compassion for sentient beings. For Theravadins, it's to be a monk, live your best life with hope you can be reborn as a person who can be a monk.

But you cannot alleviate any suffering at all by only dealing with material phenomena, and you similarly cannot alleviate suffering by only dealing with the mind.

So, after a billion words, the punchline is the same as it was before: you have to do both. Fortunately, until you achieve enlightenment, you get infinite rebirths to work with. Unfortunately, some are better than others. While you have this rebirth, with leisure and enjoyment, you should practice Dharma, including working to reduce the suffering of others, as this will ensure you keep getting good chances. If you don't do those things, well, you'll be a cockroach or a demon or whatever, but you'll cycle back around soon enough. We all do.

Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Feb 13, 2020

Paramemetic
Sep 29, 2003

Area 51. You heard of it, right?





Fallen Rib
That last paragraph was where I wanted to end but I do also want to say that amusingly practicing generosity and working only to alleviate the material conditions of others is how you end up getting reborn as a formed god, but to Buddhists this is a bad thing, because gods don't really experience overt suffering until the very end of their lives, when the suffering of change kicks in. Because they only cultivated method but did not practice wisdom, they lack the ability to recognize the all-pervasive suffering of suffering, and so they don't practice Dharma and fall to lower rebirths.

If you only practice wisdom, and you don't cultivate compassion, you end up rolling yourself into a ball of formless consciousness as a formless god, and you become totally isolated as a ball of consciousness until the a Buddha or Bodhisattva comes to wake you up.

Both of those are bad things. Much better to be a human, because we can practice both wisdom and method.

Paramemetic
Sep 29, 2003

Area 51. You heard of it, right?





Fallen Rib
In case I didn't clearly come back to the three types of suffering being important, the kind of suffering you're talking about addressing is overt suffering. It sucks and we should absolutely do our best to alleviate the overt suffering of beings. As Buddhists, we recognize overt suffering to be trivial, suffering in this life is impermanent. Everyone is equal when they're dead, and we all die. No single overt suffering lasts forever.

So, when we want to address suffering, we should address the overt suffering where we can, while recognizing that unless we address the underlying ignorance, a person will just find a new overt suffering.

Your car breaks down and life sucks, you cannot go to work, you have to get a new car. You take out loans and get a new car. Now you can get to work! But work sucks.

Maybe you are really rich. Your car is old and sucks. You buy a brand new car or I dunno lease or whatever rich people do. Great! Now you have a new car, you really love it...for a few weeks. Then it needs maintenance. Then it gets scratched in the parking lot. Then you get a flat tire. Now you are sad again.

Overt suffering is everywhere but unless you address the underlying ignorance, you can't actually get rid of it. You can only change the degree of it. Maybe make it a bit less. But what does that matter? Who cares? We all age and get sick and die. You can't make death a bit less! So we can spend all our time reducing overt suffering, but then we die and are reborn. Start over! More overt suffering. Back in gradeschool and middleschool and highschool a thousand times over. Again a cricket, being eaten by a spider, no means to escape this overt suffering, no means to escape this suffering of death.

Ah, so those formed gods I spoke of; their lives are wonderful, they do not know any overt suffering because of their ability to manifest anything they want by will alone. It's really great...until the merit runs out and they start to die, their miracle powers fail, they ultimately die. Alas, if they had realized this could happen to them, they would have practiced Dharma, but they didn't.

For Buddhists, you want a little suffering. Just enough to recognize that you need to practice Dharma, but not so much that you can't practice Dharma.

The Pure Land contingent thinks that this is unrealistic for most people.

It might be.

We focus on the next life because this one is already over. We're gonna die. You are born hosed. Focusing on this life is dumb. If you get a good next life, you can make some progress.

How do you get a good next life?

By focusing on this life.

Paramemetic fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Feb 13, 2020

Yorkshire Pudding
Nov 24, 2006



Paramemetic, you are so unbelievably good at explaining these concepts in an easy to digest way.

Mushika
Dec 22, 2010

I must apologize. I've been having a rather bad time lately and it has been reflecting in both my practice and how I approach discussing it. I need to address some personal issues. You've all been very patient and with your answers to my questions and explanations. Looking back on my posts, I think I have been approaching the discussion with baited questions and loaded statements, and for that, I am very sorry.

I'll try to return to the discussion when I feel I have my head back in the right place.

e: and I agree, Yorkshire. Thank you, Paramemetic.

Mushika fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Feb 16, 2020

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

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I tried looking for this and I apologise if this is a sore subject, but is there any overt anti-disability prejudice inside of Buddhism? Also, does the idea of reincarnation have to necessarily correspond with a kind of "just world" phenomenon.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

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Josef bugman posted:

I tried looking for this and I apologise if this is a sore subject, but is there any overt anti-disability prejudice inside of Buddhism? Also, does the idea of reincarnation have to necessarily correspond with a kind of "just world" phenomenon.
I'm guessing you mean in the sense of, if you're disabled you deserve it because of karma? I don't think that that concept has come up in any teachings, though I could see how it might emerge as the expression of poo poo-rear end bullying in a Buddhist culture. In the sense of, "disabilities would be a fruit of bad karma," that is I suppose believed, in the sense that all kinds of bad things are the fruit of bad karma. But that isn't the same as deserving them.

That said, there's a deeper understanding in the theological materials I've read than literally "Karma causes everything." To copy these categories out of this article: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/karma.htm

quote:

Utu Niyama - physical inorganic order, e.g. seasonal phenomena of winds and rains. The unerring order of seasons, characteristic seasonal changes and events, causes of winds and rains, nature of heat, etc., all belong to this group.
Bija Niyama - order of germs and seeds (physical organic order), e.g. rice produced from rice-seed, sugary taste from sugar-cane or honey, peculiar characteristics of certain fruits, etc. The scientific theory of cells and genes and the physical similarity of twins may be ascribed to this order.
Karma Niyama - order of act and result, e.g., desirable and undesirable acts produce corresponding good and bad results. As surely as water seeks its own level so does Karma, given opportunity, produce its inevitable result, not in the form of a reward or punishment but as an innate sequence. This sequence of deed and effect is as natural and necessary as the way of the sun and the moon.
Dhamma Niyama - order of the norm, e.g., the natural phenomena occurring at the advent of a Bodhisattva in his last birth. Gravitation and other similar laws of nature. The natural reason for being good and so forth, may be included in this group.
Citta Niyama - order or mind or psychic law, e.g., processes of consciousness, arising and perishing of consciousness, constituents of consciousness, power of mind, etc., including telepathy, telaesthesia, retro-cognition, premonition, clairvoyance, clairaudience, thought-reading and such other psychic phenomena which are inexplicable to modern science.
By this understanding, a physical disability would only be the direct fruit of karma if it were due to an intentional act of whatever kind. Now there is obviously some complication and everything has a bunch of causes, but not literally everything goes back to karma.

As for a just world, I don't know quite what you mean. Buddhism has been used to buttress various institutions and political orders, but it's also protested them; within a period of fifty years, some Buddhists advocated for the Japanese imperial project and other Buddhists committed suicide to protest the south Vietnamese government. I don't think any part of Buddhism would say this is the best of all possible worlds! Or that our current order of society is somehow intrinsically good - though a Buddhist might hold other beliefs that would not be incompatible with Buddhist practice, that did make such claims.

Josef bugman
Nov 17, 2011

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Nessus posted:

I'm guessing you mean in the sense of, if you're disabled you deserve it because of karma? I don't think that that concept has come up in any teachings, though I could see how it might emerge as the expression of poo poo-rear end bullying in a Buddhist culture. In the sense of, "disabilities would be a fruit of bad karma," that is I suppose believed, in the sense that all kinds of bad things are the fruit of bad karma. But that isn't the same as deserving them.

It's more that someone at work said to a colleague whose son had just passed away that "He must have done something wrong in a past life" and, whilst the person in question is not a theologian by any stretch of the imagination, it did get me thinking.

Nessus posted:

As for a just world, I don't know quite what you mean. Buddhism has been used to buttress various institutions and political orders, but it's also protested them; within a period of fifty years, some Buddhists advocated for the Japanese imperial project and other Buddhists committed suicide to protest the south Vietnamese government. I don't think any part of Buddhism would say this is the best of all possible worlds! Or that our current order of society is somehow intrinsically good - though a Buddhist might hold other beliefs that would not be incompatible with Buddhist practice, that did make such claims.

More like, due to the way karma works, you would be more likely to be nobility if you had paid attention in a previous existence. Is there a cross over between a belief in an "easier" material existence having some intersection with past actions?

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Josef bugman posted:

It's more that someone at work said to a colleague whose son had just passed away that "He must have done something wrong in a past life" and, whilst the person in question is not a theologian by any stretch of the imagination, it did get me thinking.
That person's being an rear end in a top hat. By being born as a being able to learn and practice the dharma, that son must have done something right in past lives to accumulate merit, or so it is often held. What's more, that person's doing real bad on the "right speech" axis, because saying this isn't even a neutral time-waster!

quote:

More like, due to the way karma works, you would be more likely to be nobility if you had paid attention in a previous existence. Is there a cross over between a belief in an "easier" material existence having some intersection with past actions?
There is some general belief/thought that if you do good things - like, things that just about anyone would recognize as good, such as being kind to children, treating others fairly, refraining from theft and arson - you will probably be inclined to be born into better circumstances in your next life, possibly to the point of being a god or deva or something with a much easier and more joyous life than a human could ever have. I don't know if on a formal basis a distinction was ever really made between different gradiations of "human lives able to practice the dharma." I know a lot of the basic structure of lay-monastic interaction in Theravadin stuff had a sort of root idea of, "Support the monastery and live righteously; return as someone able to become a monk; become a monk; achieve paranirvana; get the real thing when your clock runs out."

e: reading about it there is some reference to "noble families" but I sure don't know enough about Pali or Sanskrit to comment further.

Nessus fucked around with this message at 10:14 on Feb 16, 2020

zhar
May 3, 2019

I've heard it particularly in regards to the 6 perfections, eg generosity leads to good material resources, ethical conduct leads to a good rebirth, patience / fortitude leads to physical attractiveness, good health and so on. You can be reborn as a human due to fantastic ethical conduct but you may be bringing very little merit (from generosity etc) with you, and when that runs out you will be unable to survive. For example someone who leads an ethical life but is impatient may be reborn as a human who dies young of ill health. I don't think this even has to come about due to unwholesome actions but just running out of positive merit. Motivation is important too, which is why bodhisattvas don't just end up as devas all the time.

This is not prejudice against disabled people, poor people, animals or the ugly though. Karma is akin to something like the laws of thermodynamics: no one made it, the Buddha just observed and explained it. I have little doubt we all have latent negative karmic impressions in our mindstreams, and if I start thinking myself superior to people in a wheelchair or whatever that's just going to reinforce self-cherishing mental distortions leaving me stuck in samsara.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



zhar posted:

I've heard it particularly in regards to the 6 perfections, eg generosity leads to good material resources, ethical conduct leads to a good rebirth, patience / fortitude leads to physical attractiveness, good health and so on. You can be reborn as a human due to fantastic ethical conduct but you may be bringing very little merit (from generosity etc) with you, and when that runs out you will be unable to survive. For example someone who leads an ethical life but is impatient may be reborn as a human who dies young of ill health. I don't think this even has to come about due to unwholesome actions but just running out of positive merit. Motivation is important too, which is why bodhisattvas don't just end up as devas all the time.

This is not prejudice against disabled people, poor people, animals or the ugly though. Karma is akin to something like the laws of thermodynamics: no one made it, the Buddha just observed and explained it. I have little doubt we all have latent negative karmic impressions in our mindstreams, and if I start thinking myself superior to people in a wheelchair or whatever that's just going to reinforce self-cherishing mental distortions leaving me stuck in samsara.
Right, and it's not the only thing going on. Appealing to karma to explain literally every single event that happens in its completeness is just as much of an error, I figure, as thinking that everything is rooted entirely in a totally mechanistic way, or attributing everything to the specific will of either ourselves or a god.

What I think can be agreed is that disability is not a moral judgment on the incarnation it has happened to. This will not prevent humans from being lovely about it, but people will find ways to do that under any ethical system.

Goldreallas XXX
Oct 22, 2009
Birth as a human, regardless of ones disabilities or circumstances, is the result of unfathomable meritorious activities in previous lives. Further, the true "fortunate human birth" is one in which one comes into contact with the dharma. Someone with severe physical and mental disabilities who practices the dharma is more meritorious than someone without who acts like an rear end in a top hat.

The texts say that all sentient beings have at some point been one's parents. To look at this another way, there isn't a single illness, disability or unfortunate circumstance that you haven't had at some time or another. To say that these people "deserve" such a thing due to previous actions is to assume that samsara has a purpose and rationale behind it, when the whole point of the buddhas teaching is that it doesn't. Samsara isn't like hell or heaven or whatever, it has no moral point to show. It's unfair, that's why the point is to escape it.

Finally, only buddhas know the true path and flowering of ones karma. Where you see a disabled person, a buddha may see a fellow bodhisattva manifesting for the benefit of beings. Or perhaps this person is a once-returner purifying the remnants of their negative karma. The point is that you cannot tell, so all sentient beings should be honoured with the respect due the Tathagatha.

Mushika
Dec 22, 2010

Goldreallas XXX posted:

Finally, only buddhas know the true path and flowering of ones karma. Where you see a disabled person, a buddha may see a fellow bodhisattva manifesting for the benefit of beings. Or perhaps this person is a once-returner purifying the remnants of their negative karma. The point is that you cannot tell, so all sentient beings should be honoured with the respect due the Tathagatha.

This is beautiful.

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Paramemetic
Sep 29, 2003

Area 51. You heard of it, right?





Fallen Rib
I was asked to post us a new thread, and so the cycle of post, shitpost, lock thread, and gas or goldmine must continue.

Find the new thread here.

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