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Post by Reefs on Feb 22, 2024 22:08:11 GMT -5
Wiki says: - Karma, rebirth and anattā
The Buddha emphasized both karma and anattā doctrines.[3] The Buddha criticized the doctrine that posited an unchanging essence as a subject as the basis of rebirth and karmic moral responsibility, which he called "atthikavāda". He also criticized the materialistic doctrine that denied the existence of both soul and rebirth, and thereby denied karmic moral responsibility, which he calls "natthikavāda". Instead, the Buddha asserted that there is no essence, but there is rebirth for which karmic moral responsibility is a must. In the Buddha's framework of karma, right view and right actions are necessary for liberation.
My interpretation is that Buddha meant that " there is a non-physical essence", that " it changes / evolves", that " it is materialized into the physical", that " it is subject to successive rebirths, influenced by the change / evolvement resulted from previous experience". I think that " there is no essence", as stated in the wiki comment, which reminds of Wu Wei's interpretation of the Diamond Sutra's pattern, is a distortion caused by the misunderstanding of the concept that the physical reality (and every single thing in it) is the materialization of a non-physical reality (and corresponding non-physical "essences"). Paraphrasing the Diamond Sutra pattern: when Buddha talks about material things (matter), Buddha talks about the non-material things, from which those material things appear. In Buddhist philosophy, one aspect is part of other aspects, so you can't cover karma theory without covering no-self, dependent origins and so forth. It's just that discussions are elaborate because they have thousands of years of development. The more recent telling in the LOA discourse is more vague and ambiguous because it hasn't developed for centuries. For example, where LOA says alignment, Buddhism has a developed discourse of purification, and where LOA apparently is impersonal, Buddhism has a developed discourse on anatta, but of course, the principle is the same regardless of it being karma or LOA theory.
LOA ≠ alignment deliberate creation = alignment alignment = purification LOK = purification ergo: LOK = deliberate creation LOA ≠ deliberate creation therefore: LOA ≠ LOK |
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Post by lolly on Feb 22, 2024 22:21:44 GMT -5
Wiki says: - Karma, rebirth and anattā
The Buddha emphasized both karma and anattā doctrines.[3] The Buddha criticized the doctrine that posited an unchanging essence as a subject as the basis of rebirth and karmic moral responsibility, which he called "atthikavāda". He also criticized the materialistic doctrine that denied the existence of both soul and rebirth, and thereby denied karmic moral responsibility, which he calls "natthikavāda". Instead, the Buddha asserted that there is no essence, but there is rebirth for which karmic moral responsibility is a must. In the Buddha's framework of karma, right view and right actions are necessary for liberation.
My interpretation is that Buddha meant that " there is a non-physical essence", that " it changes / evolves", that " it is materialized into the physical", that " it is subject to successive rebirths, influenced by the change / evolvement resulted from previous experience". I think that " there is no essence", as stated in the wiki comment, which reminds of Wu Wei's interpretation of the Diamond Sutra's pattern, is a distortion caused by the misunderstanding of the concept that the physical reality (and every single thing in it) is the materialization of a non-physical reality (and corresponding non-physical "essences"). Paraphrasing the Diamond Sutra pattern: when Buddha talks about material things (matter), Buddha talks about the non-material things, from which those material things appear. Nobody really knows today what the Buddha actually taught, I think even Lolly agreed on that. What we have then is different interpretations or schools of thought that loosely fit under the umbrella called Buddhism. Notice how the kind of Buddhism Lolly promotes is totally at odds with Zen, for example. But both go under the same name of Buddhism. There is, quite obviously, an exoteric and an esoteric doctrine. And it seems to me that Lolly understands the exoteric doctrine very well and also want to integrate it with the esoteric doctrine. But that is not going to happen, because the exoteric doctrine (karma, reincarnation) represents the personal perspective, and the esoteric doctrine (no self, no creation) represents the impersonal perspective. And there's no bridging these two possible, all that can be done is talking about them separately, in their respective contexts. Also, nobody really knows if all those scriptures are actually authentic. If it wasn't for the Chinese who were well organized and very skilled in preserving things, a lot of those scriptures we like to quote these days wouldn't even have reached us. And the Chinese received those teachings several (!) centuries after they had been first taught in India. And you know a bit about the Chinese language by now and how difficult it is to translate Indo-European terms into Chinese. Actually, the point WWW makes about the Advaita traditions (be it Buddhistic, Vedantic or Taoist) is that they teach that there are no 'things' to begin with, which relieves you from the need to find a creation theory that explains how 'things' come to be and cease to be. So try reading those sutras from that perspective. This is based on an assumption that your understanding of Zen is comprehensive, but your belief that it is is just a Dunning Kruger effect. Personally I don't know much about Zen philosophy, but it's basically the same with only nuanced differences.
It's really Karma and rebirth, with rebirth occurring as one moment passes to the next. Reincarnation is rebirth pertaining to death and being born. The theory points out that there is no continuous soul, or continuity of matter, or indeed, any substance at all. It's just means that the arising of one moment bears characteristics of that which just passed without any remnant of a past moment transmuting in continuously. Thus impermanance has two facets: 1. change is inevitable and; 2. existence is momentary. |
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Post by lolly on Feb 22, 2024 22:30:26 GMT -5
In Buddhist philosophy, one aspect is part of other aspects, so you can't cover karma theory without covering no-self, dependent origins and so forth. It's just that discussions are elaborate because they have thousands of years of development. The more recent telling in the LOA discourse is more vague and ambiguous because it hasn't developed for centuries. For example, where LOA says alignment, Buddhism has a developed discourse of purification, and where LOA apparently is impersonal, Buddhism has a developed discourse on anatta, but of course, the principle is the same regardless of it being karma or LOA theory.
LOA ≠ alignment deliberate creation = alignment alignment = purification LOK = purification ergo: LOK = deliberate creation LOA ≠ deliberate creation therefore: LOA ≠ LOK Karma theory as far as creation is concerned mainly pertains to creation which isn't deliberate. However, we use the terms 'karma' and 'outcomes' rather than 'creation'. In this philosophy, it can be a reap what you sow teaching, but in a more sublime way it pertains to how mind creates matter and matter creates mind. Hence with every exertion of volition, intended or unintended, a physical sensation arises in the body (mind becomes matter) - then you react to sensation (matter becomes mind) - that generates sensation (become matter) - react to that (becomes mind), and around it goes. |
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Post by Reefs on Feb 22, 2024 23:10:56 GMT -5
Nobody really knows today what the Buddha actually taught, I think even Lolly agreed on that. What we have then is different interpretations or schools of thought that loosely fit under the umbrella called Buddhism. Notice how the kind of Buddhism Lolly promotes is totally at odds with Zen, for example. But both go under the same name of Buddhism. There is, quite obviously, an exoteric and an esoteric doctrine. And it seems to me that Lolly understands the exoteric doctrine very well and also want to integrate it with the esoteric doctrine. But that is not going to happen, because the exoteric doctrine (karma, reincarnation) represents the personal perspective, and the esoteric doctrine (no self, no creation) represents the impersonal perspective. And there's no bridging these two possible, all that can be done is talking about them separately, in their respective contexts. Also, nobody really knows if all those scriptures are actually authentic. If it wasn't for the Chinese who were well organized and very skilled in preserving things, a lot of those scriptures we like to quote these days wouldn't even have reached us. And the Chinese received those teachings several (!) centuries after they had been first taught in India. And you know a bit about the Chinese language by now and how difficult it is to translate Indo-European terms into Chinese. Actually, the point WWW makes about the Advaita traditions (be it Buddhistic, Vedantic or Taoist) is that they teach that there are no 'things' to begin with, which relieves you from the need to find a creation theory that explains how 'things' come to be and cease to be. So try reading those sutras from that perspective. This is based on an assumption that your understanding of Zen is comprehensive, but your belief that it is is just a Dunning Kruger effect. Personally I don't know much about Zen philosophy, but it's basically the same with only nuanced differences.
It's really Karma and rebirth, with rebirth occurring as one moment passes to the next. Reincarnation is rebirth pertaining to death and being born. The theory points out that there is no continuous soul, or continuity of matter, or indeed, any substance at all. It's just means that the arising of one moment bears characteristics of that which just passed without any remnant of a past moment transmuting in continuously. Thus impermanance has two facets: 1. change is inevitable and; 2. existence is momentary. If you don't understand Zen, then you have no standard by which to judge if I understand Zen 'comprehensively' enough or not. This is where your Dunning Kruger logic boomerangs. |
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Post by Reefs on Feb 22, 2024 23:35:24 GMT -5
LOA vs. LOK formula for dummies:LOA ≠ alignment deliberate creation = alignment alignment = purification LOK = purification ergo: LOK = deliberate creation LOA ≠ deliberate creation therefore: LOA ≠ LOK Karma theory as far as creation is concerned mainly pertains to creation which isn't deliberate. However, we use the terms 'karma' and 'outcomes' rather than 'creation'. In this philosophy, it can be a reap what you sow teaching, but in a more sublime way it pertains to how mind creates matter and matter creates mind. Hence with every exertion of volition, intended or unintended, a physical sensation arises in the body (mind becomes matter) - then you react to sensation (matter becomes mind) - that generates sensation (become matter) - react to that (becomes mind), and around it goes. The crux of the argument is volition. You always bring it back to volition. And volition implies a doer. And doership is deliberate creation. Which means you always bring it back to deliberate creation. What all Advaita traditions teach though, including Buddhism, is that there is no actual doer, there is only the appearance of a doer. So there is no karma, there only is the appearance of karma. Karma is just a theory, Lolly. And not even a good one. If you take away time, the karma concept collapses. If you take away volition, the karma concept also collapses. If you take away causation, the karma concept collapses again. That's why, in the NOW, there is no karma and why karma only applies to the SVP and why there is no path. Which is why the way out of that cycle is not by working on your reactivity (that's working in time, on the SVP and assuming causality, i.e. the personal context) but by leaving that context behind altogether. There has to he a quantum leap in perspective from the relative to the absolute context. Which is why liberation is always acausal and instantaneous, never causal or gradual. This is also why there are no levels or degrees of liberation. So forget karma. It's a donkey tethering pole. Zen will tell you exactly that. |
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Post by lolly on Feb 22, 2024 23:55:32 GMT -5
This is based on an assumption that your understanding of Zen is comprehensive, but your belief that it is is just a Dunning Kruger effect. Personally I don't know much about Zen philosophy, but it's basically the same with only nuanced differences.
It's really Karma and rebirth, with rebirth occurring as one moment passes to the next. Reincarnation is rebirth pertaining to death and being born. The theory points out that there is no continuous soul, or continuity of matter, or indeed, any substance at all. It's just means that the arising of one moment bears characteristics of that which just passed without any remnant of a past moment transmuting in continuously. Thus impermanance has two facets: 1. change is inevitable and; 2. existence is momentary. If you don't understand Zen, then you have no standard by which to judge if I understand Zen 'comprehensively' enough or not. This is where your Dunning Kruger logic boomerangs. When you present Karma theory superficially, but with an air of expertise, that's Dunning Kruger. Since your entire debunk of karma theory is not based on being incorrect (so I don't disagree), but based on shortcomings of understanding, it kinda sounds like a student who has that delightful youthful trait of knowing they are right. |
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Post by inavalan on Feb 22, 2024 23:57:23 GMT -5
The crux of the argument is volition. You always bring it back to volition. And volition implies a doer. And doership is deliberate creation. Which means you always bring it back to deliberate creation. What all Advaita traditions teach though, including Buddhism, is that there is no actual doer, there is only the appearance of a doer. ... Do you agree that "there is no doer?" If you do, can you explain in a few words? I make choices, so I am a doer. Even more, I am a gestalt of consciousness, whose elements are gestalts of consciousness, and who is an element in other gestalts of consciousness. I may not be what I believe I am, but in this "awake" state and in the "dream" state I make choices that determine my experience. Others (to whom I am connected) make choices that I may accept or not, but there is doership. There is action. |
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Post by inavalan on Feb 23, 2024 0:05:44 GMT -5
If you don't understand Zen, then you have no standard by which to judge if I understand Zen 'comprehensively' enough or not. This is where your Dunning Kruger logic boomerangs. When you present Karma theory superficially, but with an air of expertise, that's Dunning Kruger. Since your entire debunk of karma theory is not based on being incorrect (so I don't disagree), but based on shortcomings of understanding, it kinda sounds like a student who has that delightful youthful trait of knowing they are right. can be said by anybody that disagrees to some degree, including Jesus, Buddha, you, me. There is no absolute reference for truth is it? As Bentov humoristically said, the most evolved tail of the human evolvement distribution is in the loony bin, put there by the consensus establishment. |
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Post by lolly on Feb 23, 2024 0:31:26 GMT -5
Karma theory as far as creation is concerned mainly pertains to creation which isn't deliberate. However, we use the terms 'karma' and 'outcomes' rather than 'creation'. In this philosophy, it can be a reap what you sow teaching, but in a more sublime way it pertains to how mind creates matter and matter creates mind. Hence with every exertion of volition, intended or unintended, a physical sensation arises in the body (mind becomes matter) - then you react to sensation (matter becomes mind) - that generates sensation (become matter) - react to that (becomes mind), and around it goes. The crux of the argument is volition. You always bring it back to volition. And volition implies a doer. And doership is deliberate creation. Which means you always bring it back to deliberate creation. What all Advaita traditions teach though, including Buddhism, is that there is no actual doer, there is only the appearance of a doer. So there is no karma, there only is the appearance of karma. Karma is just a theory, Lolly. And not even a good one. If you take away time, the karma concept collapses. If you take away volition, the karma concept also collapses. If you take away causation, the karma concept collapses again. That's why, in the NOW, there is no karma and why karma only applies to the SVP and why there is no path. Which is why the way out of that cycle is not by working on your reactivity (that's working in time, on the SVP and assuming causality, i.e. the personal context) but by leaving that context behind altogether. There has to he a quantum leap in perspective from the relative to the absolute context. Which is why liberation is always acausal and instantaneous, never causal or gradual. This is also why there are no levels or degrees of liberation. So forget karma. It's a donkey tethering pole. Zen will tell you exactly that. Karma literally means volition in Buddhist philosophy. As I said, since volition is a reactive exertion, it's not deliberate or intentional.Because in English intention and volition mean the same thing, it's hard for the brain to see how vilotion is exerted unintentionally, but it almost always if not always is. This means your first premise regarding deliberate creation is not valid. It is also the reason that I have not described deliberate creation in my presentation at all.
The reason volition implies a doer is, volition is the 'energy' that perpetuates rebirth. It's pretty much the same story as the non-dualist SVP, but with more elaboration.
Of course the whole is the cessation of karma, but it's really not that cut and dried because the primary caveat is, goodwill or metta also influences outcomes without the exertion of volition. Indeed this non-volitional principle underpins the entirety of purification.
Karma theory says, as we experience the 'aggregates' we assume there must be an enduring me that is consistent throughout the changes. That assumption is incorrect.
This is pretty standard, so I'm pretty sure the Zen discourse says the same thing (though I don't know that), and even without delving into the sublime, it shows that every premise you use to debunk is invalid. Not that I disagree, but what you are is,not wrong as such, but a lacking comprehension of what karma theory implies.
The subtext of these established principles is more the sublime nuances that not everyone agrees on, and in that debate I can also see why another person sees it differently to me. Hence I can see how the LOA retelling connects with the Buddhist philosophy rather that contradicts it. LOA is too easy to make fun of and I just can't help myself, but I now realise there is more too it than I was led to think having watched The Secret.
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Post by lolly on Feb 23, 2024 0:37:27 GMT -5
When you present Karma theory superficially, but with an air of expertise, that's Dunning Kruger. Since your entire debunk of karma theory is not based on being incorrect (so I don't disagree), but based on shortcomings of understanding, it kinda sounds like a student who has that delightful youthful trait of knowing they are right. can be said by anybody that disagrees to some degree, including Jesus, Buddha, you, me. There is no absolute reference for truth is it? As Bentov humoristically said, the most evolved tail of the human evolvement distribution is in the loony bin, put there by the consensus establishment. The difference here is I don't disagree. Reefs is right. It's just that his rightness is partial and superficial, so he is led to wrong conclusions, but fortunately, I'm correcting the misapprehensions  . |
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Post by inavalan on Feb 23, 2024 0:58:23 GMT -5
Karma literally means volition in Buddhist philosophy. As I said, since volition is a reactive exertion, it's not deliberate or intentional.Because in English intention and volition mean the same thing, it's hard for the brain to see how voiltion is exerted unintentionally, but it almost always if not always is. ... कर्म karma, vocative of कर्मन् karman link
कर्मन् kár-man n. action, work, deed; function, business; rite; effect; direct object of an action (gr.); fate (result of an act done in a former birth) |
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Post by steven on Feb 23, 2024 1:02:07 GMT -5
It's strange, because in all my narrative, there was no deliberate creation theory. Rather, it's a discussion about volition and the cessation thereof. Caveat being the more sublime notion of metta or goodwill. Of course volitions are exerted in dreams just as in wakefulness. In a more expansive sense, the universe runs on karmic law (it's a mind/matter thing), while the theory extends beyond mind and matter and indeed details the cessation of karma (volition) itself. It's just karma theory has been developing since prehistory and LOA theory is the most recent retelling. It's simply a revised lexicon. We have a parable about many sided crystal. A very close view gives detail of one small facet, while a very far view has no detail, but covers the whole thing. If you have looked at all the facets closely, and then you take the far view, you understand how the tiny details together make up the entire crystal. Actually, Reefs hasn't understood this properly. But that's okay. To clarify, the process isn't about actively creating something. When an individual chooses to embark on the creation journey, they utilize techniques like visualization and affirmations. However, it's essential to note that this isn't about bringing something into existence; instead, it signifies that the creation has already set in motion towards the desired reality. As one envisions that reality, it is already happening in their focus. Essentially, we aren't initiating creation; we are already part of the ongoing flow. I ‘sorta’ agree there, but I would say that with LOA we are not creating experiences as individuals, rather we are entering experiences but shifting our attention to the desired aspect of already existing creation. |
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Post by andrew on Feb 23, 2024 2:10:08 GMT -5
Actually, Reefs hasn't understood this properly. But that's okay. To clarify, the process isn't about actively creating something. When an individual chooses to embark on the creation journey, they utilize techniques like visualization and affirmations. However, it's essential to note that this isn't about bringing something into existence; instead, it signifies that the creation has already set in motion towards the desired reality. As one envisions that reality, it is already happening in their focus. Essentially, we aren't initiating creation; we are already part of the ongoing flow. I ‘sorta’ agree there, but I would say that with LOA we are not creating experiences as individuals, rather we are entering experiences but shifting our attention to the desired aspect of already existing creation. Almost precisely how Bashar explains it. Maybe you have spent time on Essassani   |
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Post by andrew on Feb 23, 2024 2:11:18 GMT -5
That's very interesting. The way I see it, if something unusual happens, then the science must expand to explain it. Just because something hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean that it will be unexplainable after the event. The power of 'mind' (in the broadest sense) is infinite, and while the 'individual mind' is necessarily limited so that we can have a finite experience, I'm sure...as humans... we haven't gotten anywhere close to maximizing our mind-potential. It doesn't even seem to me that there's much in the way of resources put into investigating the idea of 'placebo/nocebo', which I find very odd really. Think about it, what if there has been done a lot of research already, and what if it is all well documented but no one wants to peer review it. Would you still be able to read about it in mainstream science journals? Pertinent question! |
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Post by lolly on Feb 23, 2024 6:40:46 GMT -5
I ‘sorta’ agree there, but I would say that with LOA we are not creating experiences as individuals, rather we are entering experiences but shifting our attention to the desired aspect of already existing creation. Almost precisely how Bashar explains it. Maybe you have spent time on Essassani Same as my 'look for flowers' idea, but I stole the idea from Monte Python's 'bright side of life'. Profound stuff. |
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