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quake/tsunami video ... up close and personal

genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
edited September 2011 in Buddhism Today
Received in email this video clip of the Japanese quake/tsunami ... from the point of view of a driver whose car was engulfed. http://www.flixxy.com/japanese-tsunami-viewed-from-a-car.htm#.Tjhfbd6lUWQ.email

Comments

  • SpacelessSpaceless
    tsunami had never been occurred in the last 50 years or so, and was occurring several times in recent years. It was due to earthquake in the ocean. According to Buddha, earthquake was the result of an unloving and disharmony mind.
  • vinlynvinlyn Colorado...for now Veteran
    Ah...or the slippage of two crustal plates.
  • riverflowriverflow Veteran
    tsunami had never been occurred in the last 50 years or so, and was occurring several times in recent years. It was due to earthquake in the ocean. According to Buddha, earthquake was the result of an unloving and disharmony mind.
    "Some uninformed Buddhist might say that the death and injury caused by the tsunami are the result of peoples’ past bad kamma. It need hardly be stated here that this is contrary to what the Buddha taught. In the Devadaha Sutta (M.II,214, also A.I,173 ) the Buddha says that the belief that every experience we have is due to past kamma (sabbam tam pubbe katahetu) is a wrong and false view (miccha ditthi). In the Sivaka Sutta (S. IV,228) he says that the suffering we sometimes experience can be due to kamma but it could also be due to sickness, to weather, to carelessness or to external agents (opakkamikani). The tsunami would be a good example of the third and the last of these causes. All kamma, whether positive or negative, certainly has an effect, but not all effects are due to kamma."

    http://sdhammika.blogspot.com/2011/03/tsunami-buddhist-view.html

    Or, to put it bluntly, sometimes bad shit just happens.
  • tbuntontbunton
    Just to make light out of a tragedy, Did anyone notice the guy run back to the van to shut the door?? I thought that was kinda funny considering there is a wall of water coming his way.
  • tmottestmottes Veteran
    edited September 2011
    Does any body believe in a societal karma? Not that everybody that suffered in Japan due to the tsunami had some bad karma, but society as a whole reaps what it sows? I haven't come to a conclusion one way or the other, but the idea is interesting.
  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
    @tmottes -- If it's true, so what? If it's not true, so what?

    I don't mean this disrespectfully ... just literally: If you knew, what good would it do you?
  • riverflowriverflow Veteran
    Maybe, but it still has nothing to do with *natural* disasters (indivdually or collectively). The Buddha was explicit that not all bad things that happen (like natural disasters) are due to karma.

    But going back to tying karma to natural disasters: I was horrified by various people's insensitive comments earlier this year on various websites (not here) calling this "karma" for Pearl Harbour. As if having two nuclear bombs dropped on two cities were not enough...

    I do believe in the ancient Greek notion of political (and, somewhat related, cultural) hubris though-- and history is full of it, and we are seeing a lot of it today. No intentional act arises from a vacuum (whether we agree with that particular action or not). Some people tried to explain that back in 2001 and got shouted down, put in their place and labelled "unamerican."
  • tmottestmottes Veteran
    @riverflow I agree. I worked in a microbiology lab for many years and we had a saying, e coli happens.

    @genkaku didn't the Buddha see karma? Didn't he use that information to lessen the suffering of those around him?
  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
    edited September 2011
    @tmottes -- I believe Gautama offered possibilities relating to cause and effect. Eg. If you stick your finger in a flame, you will get hurt. It was good information which people then chose or refused to implement.

    When the shit hits the fan, the theory doesn't mitigate or aggravate anything. Tsunami is tsunami ... that's all. The backdrop against which a tsunami occurs -- geological, tectonic, karmic -- hardly matters to the (wo)man caught in its path.

    The flip side of imagining natural events to be karmically induced is to imagine that if we were all extra-special careful or good or virtuous or something, then the shit would never hit the fan ... an empirically-flimsy theory at best, don't you think?

    Nothing saying we can't watch our P's and Q's ... but that is a matter of nourishing an honest peace, not a matter of warding off some boogie man.
  • ShutokuShutoku Veteran
    The Buddha directly commented on the cause of earthquakes jn the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta,

    1. This earth is supported by water, the water by air, the air by space. At times great winds blow strongly and the water is shaken. When the water is shaken, the earth is shaken.
    2. A recluse or deity of great power causes the earth to shake by the power of concentration.
    3. When the Bodhisatta passes away from the Tusita heaven, mindfully and deliberately, and is conceived in his mother’s womb the great earth shakes.
    4. When the Bodhisatta issues forth from his mother’s womb, mindfully and deliberately, the great earth shakes.
    5. When the Tathāgata attains the supreme and perfect enlightenment the great earth shakes.
    6. When the Tathāgata sets in motion the wheel of the Dhamma the great earth shakes.
    7. When the Tathāgata, mindfully and deliber­ately, gives up the life-sustaining mental process the great earth shakes. (He could prolong his life by supernormal power but not being asked, he gives up the possibility and announces the time of his death.)
    8. When a Buddha passes away and attains parinibbāna the great earth shakes.

    I'm sure someone will post something about how we don't know what the Buddha actually said, but the truth is, all we know is from suttas and sutras. I don't think we are wise to just disregard them when they are not convenient.

  • MindGateMindGate United States Veteran
    edited September 2011
    I'll hold my tongue on your guys' thoughts about karma. :hrm: I like what Genkaku said, though.
  • ShutokuShutoku Veteran
    My belief regarding natural "disasters" is that ultimately all things happen due to causes and conditions, and as the saying goes, all jewels are reflected by every other jewel in Indra's net.
    My personal, or a group's collective karma may include suffering through an earthquake or other natural disaster, but natural disasters happen due to their own causes and conditions, without regard to human karma.
    Actually they are not disasters at all....just nature doing what it does. We choose to call them disasters because they do not meet up with our preferences.
  • tmottestmottes Veteran
    @shutoku :thumbsup:
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