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Re: There is no escape from no duality
@sciencebuff said:
What I'm trying to communicate is 1) total enlightenment / pure consciousness is not something desirable per se but is a very neutral state and 2)it's not permanent and I don't think the Buddha tried to make that claim.
Pure consciousness is a timeless state and unless you never want anything to happen ever, I don't think you'd want to remain there permanently.
If you want something to happen, it will happen.
If you don't want it to happen, something will still happen.
That is because of identification with forms which leads to both desirable and undesirable outcomes. The price of wanting is to get want you don't want, not get what you want and to lose what you wanted!
Re: There is no escape from no duality
@sciencebuff said:
Conditioned will is a new one and sounds interesting to me but if I'm to make any assumptions about it by its name I would say that it's will determined by conditioning and is hence not free will, but deterministic.
It is determinism that allows for a choice to be made between 2 or more determinable options so it is neither of the two extremes. Nothing is free from consequence and we can only choose that which conditions allow but we are indeed responsible for our choices. Especially once we know we are conditioned.
Re: There is no escape from no duality
@sciencebuff said:
@person said:
Buddhism talks about long lived blissful states of existence and argues that Nirvana is different than these sorts of states. They understand that enlightenment takes work and sacrifice, but argue that these efforts are the only truly reliable efforts towards a lasting relief from suffering.I'm sure I don't really understand your views here but I'd say that duality is the nature of samsara, or conditioned existence. I tend to look to the philosophy of Taoism as a framework to understand existence and Buddhism as a way to transcend it.
Thanks for your thoughts, we used to have lots of interesting speculation like this around here.
What I'm trying to communicate is 1) total enlightenment / pure consciousness is not something desirable per se but is a very neutral state and 2)it's not permanent and I don't think the Buddha tried to make that claim.
In one of Buddhism's endless lists, neutral states of mind are considered higher and more pleasant than blissful ones. I've listened to and read lots of Buddhism over the years and this is the first time I've heard the claim that the Buddha didn't say that Nirvana was permanent. It kind of goes against the whole notion of samsara being an endless round of birth and the path being the escape. I'd be interested in hearing any argument and sources you may have for this claim though.
Pure consciousness is a timeless state and unless you never want anything to happen ever, I don't think you'd want to remain there permanently.
This is, of course, entirely your opinion. I'd also add that if you do ever get there, there would be no "you", or craving to get bored from.
person
Re: There is no escape from no duality
@sciencebuff said:
@David said:
There seems to be a bit to unpack here. I do think working towards awakening or enlightenment is a noble pursuit deserving of work and commitment but then, I don't think enlightenment is a state of bliss, nor do I think Buddha was in a perpetual state of bliss even if he was perpetually and completely aware. I think once we hit enlightenment, there is still work to be done.I see duality as an illusion. Nothing is really seperate from anything else and all borders are convention. I don't believe in "nothing" so I figure there was always something going on.
I feel we have conditional will. The Middle way between the extremes of free will and determinism. We are conditional beings so we are conditioned but we also do some conditioning of our own. The Middle Way is the gift from Sujata that woke Buddha up.
I also think it's good to remember that Buddha most certainly did not leave this wife and son. Sidhartha Gautama left his wife and son. Buddha had yet to wake up through Sidhartha when he left. When he did wake up, he could have gone in any direction but he went back and his wife and son joined the Sangha.
We don't need to escape duality. It's illusion we can use.
By denying the very experientially real nature of duality, you're denying how you could exist in the first place and why anyone would come to this forum using their ego to seek the duality of relief/suffering. Quantum mechanics says that the universe is a paradox; in terms of consciousness duality is just real as non duality. A buddha like Eckhart Tolle will tell you in no uncertain terms that when you strongly identify with your ego you can virtually BECOME your emotions.
You must have misunderstood but that's ok. It's not an easy topic. Just because duality is an illusion does not mean I deny it. An illusion is a misrepresentation of reality, not a lack.
No thing exists on it's own, it can only co-exist with everything else. Emptiness is inclusive.
When you say duality and non-duality, it seems to me like you are referring to the Two Truths of convention and ultimate or subjectivity and objectivity. Non-duality to me would imply Interbeing, Dependant Origination or non-seperation.
Re: Abortion and Euthynasia- Reality Check
I remember hearing once the view that whatever happens to a person must be part of his karma, so if that includes a horribly painful death then it must be some karma ripening. By that leaf why would you do anything at all?
The Bodhisattva ideal is to save everyone, not to let them all suffer until their karma extinguishes itself.
Jeroen
Re: Abortion and Euthynasia- Reality Check
@Jeroen said:
Those are pretty exceptional cases though. There is a long series of interviews you have to go through to be allowed euthanasia in the Netherlands if you’re relatively healthy, it takes years. Basically you have to convince people that your suffering is “unbearable” and that there are no prospects for its relief.
I think there is a good case to be made for the individual in the article, there's also a good case against it, I'm just saying I think it a valid case to be made. Why I ask where you draw the line is as something like her case becomes accepted and normalized, less clear cases will start coming up and new norms may be developed to the point that we could end up in a place that might shock people's sensibilities today. That's a bit of a slippery slope worry. But having some sort of clear idea of where a line may exist helps us avoid said slope.
person
Re: Running on Karma (2003) HK movie - a question on karma
@Lostie said:
Thanks for the replies.
What other causal factors are at play here? Is Karma one of the causal factors? Any examples?
TIA
I seem to remember seeing simple lists of the factors of about half a dozen or so things, such as environmental or mental conditions. I'm having a hard time getting google to find it for me. Its not something I've ever been very familiar with, I believe it is more of a Theravadin teaching.
This is the wiki to study to get a taste of causality in Buddhism, though it is a bit scholarly and dense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratītyasamutpāda
Related to your OP though I did find a piece that may be relevant from the wiki.
According to Richard Gombrich, the East Asian interpretation of dependent origination as the idea that "all phenomena exert causal influence on each other" does not follow from the early Buddhist understanding of dependent origination.[242] He further argues that this interpretation "would subvert the Buddha's teaching of karma." This is because "if we were heirs of other people's deeds, the whole moral edifice would collapse."
So the interpretation of karma presented in the movie seems to be only one interpretation tied to that region and judging by the quote sounds controversial.
Edit: This opened up a whole line of inquiry and curiosity for me. It seems a universal view of karma is in line with the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism. @how might come from that lineage, at any rate I'd like to ask him if he does?
person
Running on Karma (2003) HK movie - a question on karma
In the movie, the female lead had to die because of the bad things (eg beheading) a Japanese soldier did during WW2. In fact she was beheaded by some crazy guy.
That means karma debt is not individual specific but shared among all. We can pay for what others have done. However, what we can do in the present life is still to do good to accumulate good karma but we may or may not enjoy the fruits.
Is that the right view on karma? i.e. Karma is universal and not individual specific. Thanks.
Lostie
Re: There is no escape from no duality
@sciencebuff said:
If my own meditations are anything to go by, or probably more importantly, physics and the creation stories of the major religions, COMPLETE formlessness is associated with an absolutely irresistible urge (pain even) for form/creation.
I tend to shy away from such strong statements, a lifetime of science has taught me such absolutes are unlikely. Although I find it hard to conceive of consciousness without form it may possibly exist.
I don’t know if duality is the nature of conditioned existence, it may be more a matter of perception. Our mind seems to separate the world into subject and object, us and them, almost as a matter of course, but quantum mechanics seems to say the real is made of the unreal and the universe is a mysterious process at heart, and in fact a nondual nature of reality may reveal itself once one goes beyond the mind.
Certainly there seem to be people who have experienced the universe as nondual, which often goes along with the dropping away of personality. So unless they were all fooled by the minds infinite capacity for imagination, you’d think there might be something there. I don’t have any personal experience in this, I’m happily residing in don’t know mind.
Jeroen
Re: There is no escape from no duality
There seems to be a bit to unpack here. I do think working towards awakening or enlightenment is a noble pursuit deserving of work and commitment but then, I don't think enlightenment is a state of bliss, nor do I think Buddha was in a perpetual state of bliss even if he was perpetually and completely aware. I think once we hit enlightenment, there is still work to be done.
I see duality as an illusion. Nothing is really seperate from anything else and all borders are convention. I don't believe in "nothing" so I figure there was always something going on.
I feel we have conditional will. The Middle way between the extremes of free will and determinism. We are conditional beings so we are conditioned but we also do some conditioning of our own. The Middle Way is the gift from Sujata that woke Buddha up.
I also think it's good to remember that Buddha most certainly did not leave this wife and son. Sidhartha Gautama left his wife and son. Buddha had yet to wake up through Sidhartha when he left. When he did wake up, he could have gone in any direction but he went back and his wife and son joined the Sangha.
We don't need to escape duality. It's illusion we can use.