Independence...

KnightofBuddha

Is the idea of independence a myth? Can anyone be truly independent?

For example, you rely on some guy to take away your trash, we depend on someone to keep the waters clean, we depend on a grocery store for our food, and so on...

The Dalai Lama mentioned something along the lines of this in "Art of Happiness". He called it inter-dependence or something along those lines.

:smilec:

carbonunit

As long as you know how, and are capable of taking your own trash away you will be independent.

federica

No, in the sense the DL mentions it, you will never be independent... everything you do and react to, will be as a result of someone else's actions..... How can anyone ever be independent? even a lone spaceman, up in the galaxy, depend on people down here to keep him going....

Jason

All,

Samsara = Interdepedence

Interdependence + 8fldPth = Nibbana

Nibbana = Independence



Jason

Critter

When everything is a result of what came before it, what came first?

zenmonk_genryu

There is no first. Partly this is because time itself is a construct, a conceptual framework. From the relative standpoint, there is time, there is you and me as separate individuals and there is independance. From the Absolute standpoint as it were, there is no time, no separation. Both are true at the same time. We are both dependant and independant at the same time, but not in the way we generally think we are, and there is only now, past and future do not exist.

Brigid

Also, simply put, humans are helpless when first born. Our existence is completely dependent on adults. Left to our own, we would die. (This does not apply to other sentient beings, however, it's a simple way to understand inter-dependence.)

Windwalker

In The Art of Happiness the DL gives the example of wearing a shirt. You are dependant on the people who sewed the shirt, the people who produced the material, delivered the shirt to the store where you bought it, etc. If you were the only person on Earth and were capable of coping by yourself then congratulations - you are independant. But would you be happy?

Knitwitch

Yes, that struck me the other day while eating a sandwich - following the chain all the way back to the farmer that grew the grass, for the cow to eat, to give the milk, to make the butter, to spread on the sandwich. And the farmer that grew the grain, to make the flour, to make the bread, to make the sandwich. And the fisherman that caught the fish to make the filling to put in the sandwich. And the people who transported it all the way to the local shop for me to buy the stuff to make the sandwich.

Knitwitch - founder of the Sandwich Appreciation Society!:wavey:

Brigid

"If you were the only person on Earth and were capable of coping by yourself then congratulations - you are independant."

Windwalker, you would still have been dependent on your mother for giving birth to you. And your mother or another adult for feeding and protecting you as an infant, right?

Knitwitch, that's pretty cool thinking.