rebelrebel

Ok, it can be summed up pretty easily. First of all, nobody is denying that dependent origination is there. But dependent origination is not "dependent origination." "dependent origination" is a phrase/identification of a process that is present as a fact. It is merely a tool to point to that process. But it is NOT the process itself. Is it? Just like physical change is not the word "change" is it? "change" is just an interpretation of a fact which is obviously present and not the fact itself. Vajra thinks that one NEEDS to see the process of dependent origination in order to end suffering. So he clings to it. But if he saw what I have said above, he would realize that he is giving it too much importance. To see what I have said, to see why one suffers, you do not need to rigorously study dependent origination.

You have made an error if you think that you're thought/identification "toothbrush" is the same as that physical thing that is there. That identification is just an interpretation/translation of the thing that is there. Not it itself. I don't see how people don't get this.

Ok, analysis of dependent origination ends up in neither existence, non existence, both or neither. What does that really mean? It means that ANY identification/conceptualization that is taken to be "what is" is an error. Identification is either of an existent, non existent, both or neither. With none of those, there is no basis for taking identification to be "what is." Now, without having to look at the process of dependent origination, one can see that it is identification (taking it to be "what is") that is at the root of all suffering. It is identification which leads to hurt, fear, comparison, division, conflict, anger, hatred. For instance, why is one afraid of death? It's the word/identification "death" and all the negativity it has associated with it that causes the fear of it, not the actual fact of death. The word "death" is NOT the same as the actual fact that that word points to. And this, taking the word and the thing/the description and the described to be the same is the source of most of our problems. Not failing to see dependent origination. Dependent origination is an indirect way to come to this understanding. So saying that it is the only way is incorrect and very very limiting. But as I said back in my other post "Look, I'm not denying dependent origination. "Dependent origination" is pointing to an obviously present process. But, let me ask you this, is a tooth brush a "tooth brush?" or is it just what it is? In the same way, the words/identification of dependent origination are obviously NOT the process which is present as an undeniable fact. Unless you think a thought is the same as a process of nature/the universe. The identification of that fact is just an interpretation/translation of it and not the fact itself. If you see this, you wouldn't need so much emphasis on dependent origination because this is pointing to the exact same thing that one would get from a logical analysis of dependent origination. Well not quite exact, it goes a bit deeper. It is just a lot easier." And it is identification that causes craving. Without attachment to identification of something, craving has very little meaning. One doesn't need a master, a guru or years of rigorous study to see this.

Well vajra it's clear to me you don't understand the main cause of suffering yet and you haven't quite grasped what the true result of logical analysis of dependent origination is. Or just what it is intended to remedy in the end.

Well I have to disagree with you as well. Do you need a buddha to tell you what is right in front of your face? Do you need a teacher to tell you what is happening at this moment for you? I certainly don't think you do. Look, I'm not denying dependent origination. "Dependent origination" is pointing to an obviously present process. But, let me ask you this, is a tooth brush a "tooth brush?" or is it just what it is? In the same way, the words/identification of dependent origination are obviously NOT the process which is present as an undeniable fact. Unless you think a thought is the same as a process of nature/the universe. The identification of that fact is just an interpretation/translation of it and not the fact itself. If you see this, you wouldn't need so much emphasis on dependent origination because this is pointing to the exact same thing that one would get from a logical analysis of dependent origination. Well not quite exact, it goes a bit deeper. It is just a lot easier.

You don't even need dependent origination to see that it is not "dependent origination." There is no necessity for it. Thinking you need dependent origination to be free is another obstruction.

No you have misunderstood me. If you saw that dependent origination is NOT "dependent origination", you would not cling to it as you do. And you don't to study need dependent origination to know this.

Vajra, I've finally figured it out. I know where you've gone wrong. You're still mistaking the finger for the moon.

Truth is the simplest thing there is. It's just "what is." It's the fact of what is happening at this moment. Your thought, that sound, typing on the keyboard, etc. Truth is not a certain way. It's just the fact of what is.

Wonderful post! Glad to see someone so in tune with reality! So blunt! Keep knocking them off their pedestals!

Reading up at buddhanet, I came across this. Will someone please elaborate on how this is different from the doctrine of original sin because it sure as hell seems like it is approaching it very closely. All this is karma: What is the cause of the inequality that exists among mankind? Why should one person be brought up in the lap of luxury, endowed with fine mental, moral and physical qualities, and another in absolute poverty, steeped in misery? Why should one person be a mental prodigy, and another an idiot? Why should one person be born with saintly characteristics and another with criminal tendencies? Why should some be linguistic, artistic, mathematically inclined, or musical from the very cradle? Why should others be congenitally blind, deaf, or deformed?| Why should some be blessed, and others cursed from their births? Sounds like punishment/sin to me. And the only way buddhists can be saved is by taking salvation in buddha and his teachings alone. See where I'm going with this?

Huh? See this is why I'm so confused by awareness teachings. It always, no matter what, ends up sounding like some subtle form of solipsism. At least to me. That is what I get from you saying "without you there is no earth." Could you please clarify your post. I really have no idea what you are saying.

Yes...but here is what we are trying to get at. Xabir and Thuscomeone had a discussion on non duality. This non duality supposedly means that phenomena and awareness - seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, etc. are one in the same. Phenomena cannot be without awareness. Now my question and I think thuscomeone's question is, if this awareness is present wherever phenomena are, then, for instance, when there were no sentient beings on earth, was this awareness present? If there were phenomena at that time then it would have to be. What is being gotten at that this awareness doesn't depend on sentient beings, it is merely experienced by them... Do you see the confusion here? By saying that wherever there is phenomena, there must be awareness, this is what it amounts to. Unless you go back on that statement or you are saying that sentient beings somehow create phenomena themselves. What needs to be clarified is if when we talk about seeing and the scenery and hearing and sound being one are we talking about reality solely as it is experienced by human beings (sentient beings) or are we talking about reality outside of them as well?

See though I'm not trying to reify awareness here. We have concluded that is empty yet we have also concluded that it is undeniably present. What I am am trying to inquire into now is the specifics of how and in what way it is present.

Yes that's true but what were saying is that if phenomena are non dual, meaning that they basically ARE awareness and cannot be without awareness and there must be phenomena present when sentient beings are not present, then there is a deeper awareness which makes up the phenomenal world which is present regardless of whether sentient BEINGS are present.

Hmmm I don't think that what thuscomeone is trying to get at has been properly attended to yet. I think (but I don't know!) that he is trying to say that, or ask if, this awareness - seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, - that is inseperable from phenomena and that phenomena cannot BE without was present before there were any sentient beings on the earth. If there were phenomena at that time and even without sentient beings, this awareness had to be present. Thus if that were true, it would prove that this awareness does not come into being only when sentient beings are around. In other words, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching do not only come from sentient beings. Thus this awareness would not depend upon sentient beings. If it were to be dependent on sentient beings, that would mean that phenomena themselves are dependent on sentient beings and cannot be without sentient beings. That seems absurd and can't be what this is pointing to, can it? So, anyway, this awareness would be an awareness that, one could say, is objectively present at all times. It is and always has been, whether there are sentient beings or not. Sentient beings thus do not create this awareness, it does not come into being solely with them, rather what is already ever present is experienced subjectively, or one could say "tuned" into, by individual human beings dependent upon the conditions of their ears, eyes, noses, etc... Make any sense? lol

My problem with karma is not the cause and effect aspect of it itself. It is how far people take it. Perhaps I shouldn't have been comparing karma and "original" sin, just karma and sin. The real problem I have with some people who believe in Karma is when they start talking about specific, pre determined realms that one will end up in if one does such and such action, this or that action. That is just making things too simple. Heck I think people who do this are simplifying their own theory. These people who claim to believe in cause and effect are denying and reducing the sheer complexity of cause and effect, the multiple causes that any one action has and the multiple effects that any one action has - both good and bad. I have heard vajraji say multiple times in this forum that a person will or may end up in a certain realm after death or at "the end of a cosmic eon" solely for having one specific belief. I mean, really?

And to elaborate, what if somebody does a "virtuous" action for purely selfish reasons, out of fear for their own future rebirth? What kind of seed is planted then? Or what if I let two people die in order to save five? And I don't think ralis was talking about a universal mind. He meant that we make our self created values more important in the grand scheme of things than they really are.

yes that is a great word for what I'm trying to get across here

Of course hurting someone is wrong. Everybody knows that. But it's not always that easy. you have to look at the situation. There are a million interpretations to every situation. For instance, if somebody is attacking someone I love and I end up hurting this person pretty bad in order to stop him, what is my karma in that situation? What is good, what is bad then? You have to look deeper than just "hurting someone is always bad." There is no good or bad to the universe, to the entirety of reality. There is only good and bad for us human beings. Because we invented morality. It does not have any meaning outside of us. I'm sorry. The universe is indifferent to you hurting somebody, only YOU are not indifferent. Asserting that we are going to go to hell for our actions is like saying that morality is embedded in nature. I'm always skeptical of the morality of religious people. I always question whether they genuinely care or are only being good to others out of fear of the afterlife - karma or sin. It's hard to know. You can avoid calling it punishment if you want, but I wouldn't be so quick to say that it isn't fear of punishment that is driving people who believe in karma or sin to do good things...

Also I don't think any human, no matter how they have lived their life and how bad they have been, deserves to suffer and endure sick, disgusting, unspeakably horrible acts conjured from the human imagination in a "hell realm" for any period of time. The human imagination can be a truly scary thing.

Well an important question still stands. Hell and heaven in buddhism are the results of particular actions done in life. That is undoubtedly an absolutist/black and white sense of morality. This is absolutely good and will lead to heaven/a better rebirth and that is absolutely bad and will lead to hell. This requires somebody to set in stone what is good and bad, absolutely right and wrong. And life is just not reducible to black and white like that. "Morality" is always relative and completely arbitrary. Like somebody else said, this is a child's sense of morality. In terms of afterlife beliefs, I lean toward rebirth to be honest. But I have a very very hard time accepting karma as it is supposed to relate to rebirth. If rebirth is true, I tend to think it would just be random.

Jiddu Krishnamurti once said "You may say: 'I'm full of love, I'm full of truth, I'm full of knowledge, I'm full of wisdom.' I say: 'That's all nonsense. Do you behave? Are you free of fear? Are you free of ambition, greed, envy and the desire to achieve success in every field? If not, you are just playing a game. You are not serious." And Siddartha Guatama once said "I teach one thing and one only: that is suffering and the end of suffering." I am a student of religion, Buddhism in particular. One of the questions that I have always pondered is "what is religion?" I have come to the conclusion that true religion is inquiry into suffering and ending that suffering. It is not the accumulation of knowledge, it does not involve getting enlightened and you do not need anybody to tell you how to be religious. Or rather it can involve these things but it does not need to and the end of suffering will be prolonged until one gives up their dependency on all things in order to be happy, even their precious knowledge. This is not to say that knowledge is bad. The most important knowledge to me (and the only important religious knowledge) is the fact that we suffer, the cause of suffering and the way to end suffering. J krishnamurti would always say that we suffer because of attachment to identification. And I think he is 100% correct. It is attachment to identification (and thus knowledge) that causes fear, conflict, division, hurt, worry, stress, comparison, constant seeking/striving, feeling incomplete, the endless desire to become/arrive/acquire things and or knowledge. If we examine our own lives, we can find that this is the root of what keeps us suffering. K would often say as well that if you see directly the cause of your suffering, you avoid it like you would avoid a deadly animal. You simply don't go near it. No dependence at all on knowledge of laws of the universe. Just seeing what is deadly and staying away from it. Many who rely on knowledge of the universe to be free may not be entirely free. What if your knowledge were proven wrong tomorrow? You would be right back to suffering again. The happiness of this one is chained to the laws of the world. Whereas a man who doesn't even depend on more knowledge than is necessary in order to be free is completely immune to the changes of the world. This is why I always loved hearing how the Buddha, in the old days, never engaged in answering questions (usually metaphysical) that did not directly lead to the end of suffering. It is such a practical, pragmatic approach. Cut right to the point. Avoid the unnecessary bullshit speculation and fix your goddamn life. What use is knowledge and even enlightenment to you at the end of your life if you are still suffering? Some will probably come in and say, well the buddha did answer these questions later on, well blah blah blah Another point that I have been pondering is this. If we look at Buddhism as purely pragmatic religion, the only goal of which is to get people to the stage where they are truly not suffering anymore, doesn't it expand more than we could imagine? The whole thing opens up in ways never thought possible. Now it is anything goes in order to end suffering (I don't mean things like killing). Not believe this, believe that, follow these tenets and only then will you be liberated. It becomes whatever works. If it ends your suffering, if it makes you happy, why not? Who cares if it is true? You should use whatever means you need to reach the end of suffering - fantasy, truth, whatever. The ultimate goal in this new buddhism would be that no matter what means you use, they would be only used temporarily (one might even call them skillful means) in order to help you reach that place inside yourself where there is no suffering at all. We all have that potential pure nature inside of us waiting to come out. That nature that suffering has never touched is just waiting to discovered and brought about by each one of us. It is part of our nature. No teacher has to give it to us, nor do we have to get it from a book, nor do we have to get it by becoming enlightened. This pure nature free from suffering is there in us solely because of the fact that we are human. Then of course, there is always knowledge nagging at you, saying that you won't be satisfied until you get more and more of me. Perhaps one must remember the famous taoist story of the stone cutter...

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