JustARandomPanda

I wish to make one last post and then I am going to be quiet and just listen. If I seemed snappish in prior posts I apologize. The pondering of belief, intent, reality and the doctrine of karma has caused me a lot of anguish over these past few days. I won't lie. I find karma as it's described in this thread (assuming I'm understanding the explanations correctly) brutal. Brutal and sociopathic. However I had a discussion last night with a friend who helped me immensely. From what I understand from our talk there is no need for me to reach back, back, back for any kind of explanation. The Buddha gave one that works for me quite well on it's own and is directly comprehensible to my unenlightened mind as much to an enlightened one. Life is Suffering. All else, my friend said, flows from this premise. If you live eventually you will suffer. It's just that some of us experience it far sooner, more often or more acutely than others. I realized that I at least don't need any other explanation than that. Indeed any other 'ultimate' explanation will entail relying on the testimony of others rather than being directly comprehensible by myself. As such - all testimony - even if well meant - is of zero use to me. I have no memory of past or future lives, know of no one who has done the same and even if I did know of such a person since I haven't experienced it myself it becomes just words on a page or words in the air. It's spinning castles in the air. It is playing the Mysticism card just like Pietro said even if well meant. It's just like the Muslim who cornered me in a discussion once who started "proving" via quotes from the Koran how anyone who does not believe in Allah and Mohammad is condemned to Hell forever. My reaction? *yawn.* I'm sure that Muslim was convinced he had just met someone who is condemned to hell forever. *shrug* [bTW - I found an interesting, very detailed website not long ago by an Islamic scholar that is solely dedicated to slicing Buddhism to pieces. If I find it again I'll post the link here]. I can only focus on what I myself can directly comprehend. As such - "proving" Buddhism via references to one's own past lives or via pointing to some teacher who is supposedly more enlightened or saying I haven't meditated enough or saying I'm deluded so I have no intelligent basis to stand on when objecting to Buddhist thought, philosophy, etc has the same effect on me as that Muslim's arguments did. So anyhoo The things explained in this thread have given me much anguish though I suppose the people doing the explaining didn't intend such. Then my friend talked to me and he was a blessing like rain in a parched desert. As the Buddha said, Existence is suffering. I can comprehend that directly - no enlightenment needed. No further explanation (for me at least) is needed. There are the 8 Nooses which bind one to suffering - delusion, anger, greed, lust, envy, shame, fear and disgust. But fortunately for me there is the 8-Fold Path to free one from them. p.s. He's got 25 years or so in Buddhist practices and philosophy. He was also able to tell me what the heck panpsychic Brahmanism is and explained the bit about intent preceding belief. And If you're reading this my friend - if I had the power to bestow any good karma I've been lucky enough to store up - I would gladly give it all to you. Blessings to everyone

All are free to say whatever they wish.

Bless you enouch. Thank you so much for your kindness and willingness to share. *rose*

Whoda thunk there were so many Enlightened Buddhas posting at TaoBums. From the posts in this thread TB has at least 3 and possibly 4.

I am not going to argue points of Buddhist conception of reality. I don't know anything about it. But I will try to explain how I feel about the stuff in this thread at the moment. It becomes most clear for me when I see the example of just-born newborns with something like Down's Syndrome, AIDS, crack cocaine addiction or any other kind of physical, mental birth defect. To hear that Buddhism says A) you are your karma and B ) you are solely responsible for your karma I find lacking. I look at those tiny just-born newborns with all those problems, hear Buddhists explain the above and I want to howl in despair. What a horrifying thing to posit about these little tiny babies. The most innocent of all beings - and then to be told we're all responsible for our own karma and that we are our karma. These babies's karma must be so twisted it has literally twisted their physical bodies even in the womb. What an awful thing to assert as Truth - a doctrine that asserts these little babies brought this condition upon themselves. The opposite posit - that this happened to these babies purely by chance - I find equally horrifying. Do you see now - Oh Great Enlightened Buddhas of TaoBums - why I say a situation brought about by pure chance looks identical to your karmic one? Karma and rebirth is no answer. Nor is pure chance. The only difference is which story we choose to tell ourselves to explain what can't be explained. The real answer may be beyond Enlightenment, beyond Nirvana, beyond Awakening to anything or nothing. p.s. Pietro...have your questions been answered to your satisfaction?

This may well be true but again I ask how exactly is it that one knows this? I am struggling to find a way to put it. I am not smart enough to state coherently what I'm thinking. They aren't even really thoughts...more like...pre-thoughts? I don't know how to put it. It may be inherently ineffable what I'm thinking - like a Zen Koan. I don't know how to put it any other way than to say that even for a Buddha an act purely by chance will look identical to a karmic one. The solution is no solution. It's just a further regress. Except this time the regress is to Dependent Origination with no Self-Substance instead of some great Ultimate, Supreme Being (or Tao).

Whoa. How did I miss this gem?! I'm curious to know which philosopher said this. I must go think on what they said. What a monkey wrench to throw into the thread. edit: although come to think of it. This question is the most fundamental of all in this entire thread. It supersedes even that of karma and really gets to my original post's (albeit poorly worded) intent.

Indeed I have. I've never been one for angry outbursts though if get mad. My usual SOP is to just get stone-cold silent and stay that way for quite some time - but not in a good way if you know what I mean. I am trying something new though. Whenever that happens now I stop and just do a sort of mini-meditation. Instead of getting grumpy I decide to just focus on my breath. It seems to help. So I'm continuing with it. I would too! I had some difficulty understanding what that poster in the Kunlun poll meant but it did sound intriguing. Cheers to you too! p.s. I still wish I knew what the heck Panpsychist Brahmanism was.

Ok...maybe it was her karma to end up that way. Who knows what non-righteous use of action she'd done in her 6 years that had a rape-murder waiting to ripen. *shrug* I wasn't there so I don't know. It just was what it was. I'm not trying to lay blame, lay guilt trips or what-have-you. I'm trying to wrap my head around the doctrine of karma. Which means I also wonder about crack cocaine newborns. Or AIDS newborns. Or Down's Syndrome newborns. Or any newborn with multiple congenital birth defects. Did these just-born newborns .... ?

Now my question is...how does the above explanation apply to that little 6 year old girl? Did she MAKE her rape/murder crime come into existence? Michaelz said without her karma it wouldn't have happened. Without her karma (and I gather Buddhism asserts one is solely responsible for one's karma - both good and bad) there would not be anything to ignite the murderer's act - one of the primary conditions would remain unfulfilled.

This part sounds a LOT like Karma Now my question is - Can one's karma be avoided? Because from what I've been reading it sounds like Buddhism strongly asserts one can't. Eventually - what goes around, comes around.

Hypothetical: lets say I am in the same room as someone with bad thoughts, ill will, intentions that if acted upon are not compassionate or with loving-kindness. Let's say it builds up bad karma for them. Can their bad karma rub off on me? Maybe by osmosis or by simply being in the same room with them and no other interaction or involvement going on? ******** Perhaps I am misunderstanding Michealz (and probably Buddhism since it sounds from his post history Michaelz is a Buddhist or at least holds many Buddhist beliefs). It still sounds to me like the Buddha denied the possibility of true randomness ever being. We just think it exists because we aren't awakened to Dependent Origination with no Self-Substance. Also how does this correspond with intent preceding beliefs?

Your conception of Fate is different from mine for I never saw Fate as being bestowed by a deity, Supreme Being, Ultimate Origin or what have you. People can believe in Fate (or Karma) without needing any regress back to a ultimate origination whatsoever. The more you explain karma the more to me it sounds like how I was taught to think of fate. Or maybe call it destiny if you will. Or Wyrd. Whatever. As it stands - to me at least - karma sounds as irrational as believing only in chaos. A truly random result looks no different than a karmic one. How then is anyone - enlightened or not - able to tell which one it was? oh right - belief in everything being Dependently Originated with no Self-Substance by definition rules out the possibility of true randomness (i.e. un-dependent originated events, etc). Thanks for giving me more things to ponder (and I don't mean that sarcastically). In any case that's just a small part of what I was wondering. I'm still wondering about what that guy in the other thread meant when he said intent precedes belief. And wikipedia has no entry for panpsychist brahmanism. Anyone here know wth that is?

This argument looks suspiciously like something I learned early on to call by another name - Fate. So it was the girls fate to be raped and murdered - it just so happened to be by that one guy but if not by him it would've been the same result by anyone else who 'ignited' her latent fate.

Hmm... Believing one is responsible is separate from whether one actually is. I'm asking about what actually is... Example: Did that little 6 year old girl (for whom the federal law was passed) who was abducted from her bed at night, beaten, raped and buried alive (she was found in the makeshift grave still clutching her little blue stuffed animal)...did she also cause that crime to occur? I consider 'deserved' a separate issue. I'm not asking whether someone deserved it, just whether they caused it? If I understand the doctrine right - because of Karma - she did. Thus there is no such thing as a true victim. The "victim" is also the ultimate cause every time. That rapist who murdered her was the instrument of karma. p.s. can anyone tell me what the heck is Panpsychist Brahmanism?

I have an online friend who went to a Matrix Energetics workshop where they did something called 2-Pointing. From reading over the website I swear it sounds like Qi Kong type Chi work just dressed up in a suitably Scientized lingo (matrix, quantum fields, etc) to lure in people who would otherwise get the heebie-geebies if it were called Chi, Kundalini, etc... My friend wasn't able to explain to me what 2-pointing is or how to do it. Does anyone here know?

Here's a nice PDF chart of the chakras and some of the assorted energy bodies keyed to yin / yang , musical notes, organs, etc. http://www.healer.ch/ChakraRefEnglish.pdf

Wow. Fascinating stuff DH! I wish you would post more detailed expositions on each of your points. Either here or maybe on a blog you have somewhere? I suck at math and yet find it fascinating despite always having to struggle with it. Having recently read a Jocelyn Godwin book I've become interested in how and why Pythagoras said Number is a basis of the universe. IIRC Pythagoras also dealt with music. Can anyone direct me to some MP3s or CDs of music that uses non-western (non-equal temperament tuning) ratios? I've only read about them. Now I'd like to actually HEAR what they sound like.

Well I still wish I'd had the chance if only so I could actually experience it first hand instead of just hearing about it. I'd be lying if I didn't admit I have that sense of 'missing out'. Oh well... I may have missed Kunlun but I confess I am delighted with the KAP 1 class. I hope djs racks up a ton of good karma for his generosity.

To this day I wish I'd had the chance to learn Kunlun/Red Phoenix from Max. It's such a bummer he's calling it quits on teaching anyone anymore.

What a weird turn this thread has taken from Ralis's question. All this My-Realization-is-Higher-than-Yours...going on. how... curious

Have enjoyed this thread. Thanks everyone.

Ah yes. A Nassim Taleb book. I like him. He has a lot of good things to say. Stuff people need to be reminded of. I really enjoyed his book The Black Swan although I've not read Fooled by Randomness. I can at least in one instance think of a clinical trial which might demonstrate the kind of Placebo effect I was thinking of more directly than the examples you've stated. Though I agree most researchers sweep unknowns under the tidy word Placebo. In fact that is probably the norm and the examples I'm thinking of are the rare exception. But anyhoo...to get back to one example I was thinking of. Several years ago there was a physician who wanted to run some clinical trials for a certain type of surgical procedure on the knees of patients with degenerative arthritis. So he applied to NIH and got it approved. Half the enrollees would receive the actual operative repair to their knees. The other half would only believe they'd had it done to them. All the patients spent a real 3 hours in surgery. It's just that some got the real deal while others were just under anesthesia. The guy who was running the actual trial I think wasn't permitted to do any of the surgeries - probably as one of the conditions for it being double-blind. I don't remember exactly how the physicians made it double-blind but I remember reading they did. After the surgery all patients were treated identically. All had the usual post-operative care. Here's the weird thing. When the physician finally studied the results from the surgery the patients who had not received the actual surgical procedure (but thought they had) actually improved more dramatically than those who really got it. Many of these "Placebo Patients" had such striking improvement they were able to walk again where before the fake surgery they had been wheelchair bound. X-Rays confirmed the healing was real, not fake. I remember reading how shocked the physician was by the results. He admitted he'd been expecting the exact opposite. He was really disappointed to see that the Placebo operations blew away the real ones. And that is why I wonder if at least in a few instances if the Placebo Effect might be Chi doing some healing - just by another name?