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This is the crux of the matter, I follow Buddha’s path because he is a scientist, he is the first man to have said “don’t have faith on me try it out yourself and see the results for your self” this implies he want his students to do their own research and arrive at their own conclusion as oppose to blindly following his advice. Everything he thought can be practiced for few years and can see the results except for samsara because you got to die first to check it out hence my attempt to investigate kamma which would support existence of samsara.
Kamma ought to be felt by us in some shape or form if not we are going down the faith path and I’m sure Buddha wouldn’t have asked us to do so because that goes against his fundamental principles.
If you follow the ethics of Buddhism, why is that a waste of time?
Why are you attaching conditions to doing what is inherently the right thing to do, no matter what you call it and who suggested it.
Why are you stuck on the label 'scientist' re Buddha and will only fully accept his suggested path if you can solve the riddle of "karma"? AFAIK, there is no test to Buddhism that you need to ultimately pass that says figure out what "karma>next life" is and prove it.
There apparently was no proof at the time of Buddha and there is none now, or within your lifetime. Or ever? What if this whole idea of karma and pay-off is a simple construct to haul in simple minded people who need to be motivated to do the right thing -- or else?!! Similar to heaven and hell in Christianity. Who knows...? Some suggest this idea was mainly promoted after Buddha or is a hold-over from Hinduism. If there is no proof of a karma - rebirth mechanism in what Buddha said, maybe there is a good reason: he didn't know, and apparently couldn't.
You said you began meditating and following a Buddhist path in 2006 and it did wonders for you, and yet UNLESS you figure out whether someone is keeping score of your good deeds and transferring it to your next life, you're wasting your time?
The way I see it and describe, it has none of the fancy scientific aspirations or attributes, but what you describe isn't all that fancy either, if you strip it down to what you really said.
I for one do not need to be motivated or gratified with some abstract promise to know what is the right thing to do.
Let me summarize this discussion the way I understood it
• Because a cause can instigate an effect(s) we can say kamma exist (kind of obvious) • Because kamma instigated by cause-effect process can lead to mental suffering we can say samsara exist • Because kamma is merely a projection from the mind and samsara is merely the mental suffering caused by these projections we can say stop the kamma i.e. mental projections and stop samsara. • What Buddha appear to have said (I may be wrong here) is mind/consciousness of a dying brain can jump (fleeting phenomena) from the dying brain and re-establish itself on a new bourn brain just like wild fire jump across the woodland and ignite another part of the woods untouched by fire.
Conclusion
Buddha is an extremely smart person and he would have not said what he said about samsara i.e. it can extend beyond one lifetime unless he had good reason to say so however my primitive mind is struggling see it happening unless there is a mechanism/medium to facilitate this jump like behaviour (like hot air ignite parts of the woodland untouched by the body of the fire) hence my comment “ultimate question science must answer” (because I can’t see anybody else doing it).
@Jason The false dilemma is: either there is karma or everything is chance.
Only if someone says those are the only two choices, which I don't think is the case here. I think you may be reading too much into the essay, which is essentially directed at Westerners with a Judeo-Christian background who are new to Buddhism and have issues with Buddhist concepts like kamma and rebirth. Skillful means and nothing more, in my opinion.
In fact there are many very understandable relations between our actions and what happens to us after them. We don't need Karma to explain them.
But that's precisely what kamma is, i.e., the relations between our actions (kamma) and what happens to us after them (vipaka).
Science would not exist if not for people...who study other people, as well as other things. There will always be that connection to put a human spin on things, so there are some things that may never be explained,ever.
Energy exists, cause and effect exists, karma through generations/eons or instant is a product of the human imagination, much as the god concept is. It is a way of rationalizing things that we do not understand, so we can try to wrap our minds around it. Just my opinion.
Dark matter is matter that neither produces nor refects electromagnetic radiation and thus is invisible to our telescopes, interacts with normal matter and energy only through gravity, and has been inferred by the gravitational effects of light bending. It explains why galaxies spin as fast as they do and even remain intact, without stars spinning off into space.
Dark energy is a theory that explains why the expansion of the universe is accelerating. This energy would have a repelling interaction opposite to the attractive property of dark matter.
Karma is not a "thing" composed of matter, energy, dark matter, or dark energy. The only thing I see dark energy and reincarnation have in common is, neither can be directly observed and only inferred by the effects. Dark energy is needed to explain the otherwise impossible acceleration of an expanding universe, while there is nothing we observe that needs reincarnation as the cause. The world would look and act exactly the same whether or not reincarnation exists. It is a matter of faith.
Buddha certainly was no scientist and he rightly shrugged his shoulders at questions about how the universe worked. His Noble Truths are in the form of a physician treating a sick patient, starting with complaint, then diagnosis, and finally prescription. This is similar to the scientific method, but contains an element of pragmatism. All it is concerned with is, does it work? If so, then exactly why it works, and if there are other cures, are not our concern.
That makes sense. However, people have been successfully following it for over 2000 years without the question being answered. Which tells me that the question does not need to be answered in order for it to not be a waste. But that is just me. Tens of thousands of people have attained enlightenment without the help of scientific proof. Personally, I think if you are going to wait for scientific proof of karma, before fully pursuing the path, you will die before that happens. Which means you would have spent your whole life just waiting around. That would truly a waste, IMO.
Satanism, Paganism, Islam, Christianity, Hindu religions etc… they have all been around for a long time, now can you see the problem?
No, because karma is directly observable right here and now.
it can extend beyond one lifetime unless he had good reason to say so however my primitive mind is struggling see it happening unless there is a mechanism/medium to facilitate this jump like behaviour (like hot air ignite parts of the woodland untouched by the body of the fire) hence my comment “ultimate question science must answer” (because I can’t see anybody else doing it).
Seems to me that your problem is with rebirth, not with karma.
Dark energy is needed to explain the otherwise impossible acceleration of an expanding universe, while there is nothing we observe that needs reincarnation as the cause.
What about birth?
All it [Buddhism] is concerned with is, does it work?
Anger, Jealousy, desire, greed etc… can be defined as forms of thoughts i.e. Kamma, and persistent thoughts of such nature can cause stress and eventually mental illness and this is what Samsara is therefore when someone says Kamma will lead to Samsara it is same as saying persistent negative thoughts can lead to stress and depression.
If we cast our minds back to Indian society 2500 years ago, the concept of rebirth or reincarnation was practically accepted by everyone therefore Buddha must have simply applied his doctrine to this phenomena.
Now as a man who has suffered from extreme metal stress and related illnesses in the rest of my body Buddha’s teachings came very handy, as I said in one of my earlier comments meditation has improved my mind beyond recognition and now I can do silly stuff like out-of-body experience or remote viewing anytime I like and if my mind is to develop at this rate it will be matter of time before I achieve total peace(I hope).
If I were to argue logically, because I can stop my samsara here and now (stop the stress caused by thoughts) I’ll never have to worry about rebirth regardless of whether it exists or not. I know I have oversimplified things to keep things short and sweet but the bottom-line is if I don’t have kamma I won’t have samsara and hell with the rebirth.
The mistake, in my opinion, is to view kamma as a static 'thing.' Causality is a process whereby causes produce effects, where actions condition potential experiences, not something which has a permanent essence that 'survives' death and goes places.
Jason, your mistake seems to be that someone is positing that kamma is a static thing. Lankeshwara refers to it as "streaming karmic energy," which is in every way the same as "stream of consciousness" that you mention. Maybe you don't understand what he's asking?
Here, consciousness isn't seen as a static things going from life to life, but simply as one link or event in a complex causal chain, i.e., moments of consciousness arising and ceasing in rapid succession, with the last consciousness of a being at the time of death immediately conditioning the arising of a new consciousness due to the presence of craving (kind of like 'spooky action at a distance' where two entangled particles communicate with each other instantaneously, even over great distances). It's almost better to think of it as a transmission of information rather than the transmigration of some thing.
Kind of like quantum coherence? That's quite a leap! Granted they are alike in that the mechanics are unknown, but that's essentially what the question is... how does it work!
I don't think science will ever be in a position to prove rebirth or the existence of past lives; but there are many somewhat plausible (if improbable from the point of view of modern science) mechanisms for explaining these processes without having to posit things like a permanent self or soul.
By somewhat plausible do you mean stuff kind of like quantum coherence? That's no explanation at all.
I would just add that Buddhism can still be a beneficial path whether or not one takes the teachings on rebirth literal, and regardless of what science has to say about the matter, because its morality and methodology of practice are independent of these things.
Morality depends on many things. It's not the least bit independent.
If I were to argue logically, because I can stop my samsara here and now (stop the stress caused by thoughts) I’ll never have to worry about rebirth regardless of whether it exists or not.
Yes! And that is what the Buddha himself had also argued since he could not empirically "prove" rebirth. In the Sutta MN 60 Apannaka Sutta: A Safe Bet This particular Sutta speak directly yo this particular issue. Below is an excerpt:
"With regard to this, a wise person considers thus: 'If there is the next world, then this venerable person — on the break-up of the body, after death — will reappear in the good destination, the heavenly world. Even if we didn't speak of the next world, and there weren't the true statement of those venerable brahmans & contemplatives, this venerable person is still praised in the here-&-now by the wise as a person of good habits & right view: one who holds to a doctrine of existence. If there really is a next world, then this venerable person has made a good throw twice, in that he is praised by the wise here-&-now; and in that — with the break-up of the body, after death — he will reappear in the good destination, the heavenly world. Thus this safe-bet teaching, when well grasped & adopted by him, covers both sides, and leaves behind the possibility of the unskillful.
And some commentary from the translator.:
One of these means was the pragmatic argument, which differs from an empirical argument as follows. An empirical argument presents facts that logically imply that A must be true or false. A pragmatic argument focuses not on the facts related to A, but on the behavior that can be expected from a person who believes or rejects A. The Buddha's main pragmatic argument is that if one accepted his teachings, one would be likely to pay careful attention to one's actions, so as to do no harm. This in and of itself is a worthy activity regardless of whether the rest of the path was true. When applying this argument to the issue of rebirth and karmic results, the Buddha sometimes coupled it with a second pragmatic argument that resembles Pascal's wager: If one practices the Dhamma, one leads a blameless life in the here-and-now. Even if the afterlife and karmic results do not exist, one has not lost the wager, for the blamelessness of one's life is a reward in and of itself. If there is an afterlife with karmic results, then one has won a double reward: the blamelessness of one's life here and now, and the good rewards of one's actions in the afterlife. These two pragmatic arguments form the central message of this sutta.
In other words, he argued that if you live a good, pure and holy life right now, you can't go wrong either way, regardless of what is true or not concerning a "next life" etc.
Jason, your mistake seems to be that someone is positing that kamma is a static thing. Lankeshwara refers to it as "streaming karmic energy," which is in every way the same as "stream of consciousness" that you mention. Maybe you don't understand what he's asking?
That's certainly possible. But as it currently stands, I feel that I have a reasonable understanding of what they're asking; and that while we both use the term 'stream,' we understand the nature of what's streaming differently.
Kind of like quantum coherence? That's quite a leap! Granted they are alike in that the mechanics are unknown, but that's essentially what the question is... how does it work!
I use the idea merely illustrate one possible way in which this mechanism may work if the literal interpretations of rebirth is accepted, which no one is required to do. In quantum entanglement, we can see two particles linked together and affect one another, even over great distances. I'm simply suggesting that a similar kind of interaction may be possible between immaterial objects, such as moments of consciousness, intentions, etc.
It may not be, of course; but I don't think there's any harm in considering it for the purpose of such theoretical discussions as we're having here. And if you choose not to accept the argument or the example, that's completely fine by me.
By somewhat plausible do you mean stuff kind of like quantum coherence? That's no explanation at all.
Among others, yes. I see no reason why a similar mechanism can't at least theoretically take place between immaterial objects, and possibly even between immaterial and material ones at some fundamental level where the idea of 'solid matter' breaks down becomes no more than a conventional shorthand for stating causal laws concerning events.
Morality depends on many things. It's not the least bit independent.
Sure, and I never said morality is independent of everything whatsoever. If you take what I said in context, I think you'll clearly see that I said it's independent of rebirth (an argument I make more explicitly here).
If I were to argue logically, because I can stop my samsara here and now (stop the stress caused by thoughts) I’ll never have to worry about rebirth regardless of whether it exists or not.
Yes!
I agree and take a similar attitude towards the teachings myself.
Yes! And that is what the Buddha himself had also argued since he could not empirically "prove" rebirth. In the Sutta MN 60 Apannaka Sutta: A Safe Bet This particular Sutta speak directly yo this particular issue. Below is an excerpt:
"With regard to this, a wise person considers thus: 'If there is the next world, then this venerable person — on the break-up of the body, after death — will reappear in the good destination, the heavenly world. Even if we didn't speak of the next world, and there weren't the true statement of those venerable brahmans & contemplatives, this venerable person is still praised in the here-&-now by the wise as a person of good habits & right view: one who holds to a doctrine of existence. If there really is a next world, then this venerable person has made a good throw twice, in that he is praised by the wise here-&-now; and in that — with the break-up of the body, after death — he will reappear in the good destination, the heavenly world. Thus this safe-bet teaching, when well grasped & adopted by him, covers both sides, and leaves behind the possibility of the unskillful.
In other words, he argued that if you live a good, pure and holy life right now, you can't go wrong either way, regardless of what is true or not concerning a "next life" etc.
Why don't the buddhist come clean and adopt MN 60 Apannaka Sutta as their standard position?
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
I always have.
"It really doesn't matter whether heaven exists or not. The important is to live life - as IF it did."
the quotation is from "The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying" but I could not off-hand, say wherein exactly it lies....
Why don't the buddhist come clean and adopt MN 60 Apannaka Sutta as their standard position?
Because many Buddhists have faith in what The Buddha said to be true. They have no reason to get rid of their faith in what he said. Because faith is considered to be quite beneficial.
The below is how many Buddhists regard the Buddha:
"When the Bhikkhu has eliminated all these polluting mental defilements, he then gains unwavering Faith, unshakable Confidence and absolutely immovable and imperturbable Conviction in the blessed Buddha thus: Worthy, honourable and perfectly self-Enlightened is the Buddha! Fully consummated in knowledge and behaviour, totally transcended, expert in all dimensions, knower of all worlds, unsurpassable trainer of those who can be tamed, both teacher and guide of gods as well as humans, blessed, exalted, awakened & enlightened is the Buddha!
To put it simply, empirical proof is no longer needed. So there is no reason to "come clean" because it already is "clean"
the most important question any living entity should ask themselves is does karmic energy exist if so where and how.
I disagree that that is the most important question. But anyway, the idea of karma was originally designed as a system of social stratification and social restriction. Have you heard of the caste system in India?
Bear in mind that cause & effect or action, which is what karma is said to be in essence, is meaningless without a purpose. Let me reiterate that point. Action, or causation, requires purpose. So, if you want to know the "where and how," be like a good detective and follow the money, follow the purpose.
I disagree that that is the most important question. But anyway, the idea of karma was originally designed as a system of social stratification and social restriction. Have you heard of the caste system in India?
Bear in mind that cause & effect or action, which is what karma is said to be in essence, is meaningless without a purpose. Let me reiterate that point. Action, or causation, requires purpose. So, if you want to know the "where and how," be like a good detective and follow the money, follow the purpose.
That's an interesting stand. I'm going to have to think about that for a while. I do agree that karma is used to justify social inequalities then and now, and not just in India.
I disagree that that is the most important question. But anyway, the idea of karma was originally designed as a system of social stratification and social restriction. Have you heard of the caste system in India?
Bear in mind that cause & effect or action, which is what karma is said to be in essence, is meaningless without a purpose. Let me reiterate that point. Action, or causation, requires purpose. So, if you want to know the "where and how," be like a good detective and follow the money, follow the purpose.
That's an interesting stand. I'm going to have to think about that for a while. I do agree that karma is used to justify social inequalities then and now, and not just in India.
On a related note, I recommend listening to this series of talks on karma for anyone interesting in learning more about how the idea of causality is meant to be understood and utilized in the context of Buddhism.
I disagree that that is the most important question. But anyway, the idea of karma was originally designed as a system of social stratification and social restriction. Have you heard of the caste system in India?
Bear in mind that cause & effect or action, which is what karma is said to be in essence, is meaningless without a purpose. Let me reiterate that point. Action, or causation, requires purpose. So, if you want to know the "where and how," be like a good detective and follow the money, follow the purpose.
That's an interesting stand. I'm going to have to think about that for a while. I do agree that karma is used to justify social inequalities then and now, and not just in India.
On a related note, I recommend listening to this series of talks on karma for anyone interesting in learning more about how the idea of causality is meant to be understood and utilized in the context of Buddhism.
I like the way you say that, "how the idea of causality is meant to be understood and utilized," as though karma may not be consistent with causality, used properly.
Comments
If you follow the ethics of Buddhism, why is that a waste of time?
Why are you attaching conditions to doing what is inherently the right thing to do, no matter what you call it and who suggested it.
Why are you stuck on the label 'scientist' re Buddha and will only fully accept his suggested path if you can solve the riddle of "karma"? AFAIK, there is no test to Buddhism that you need to ultimately pass that says figure out what "karma>next life" is and prove it.
There apparently was no proof at the time of Buddha and there is none now, or within your lifetime. Or ever? What if this whole idea of karma and pay-off is a simple construct to haul in simple minded people who need to be motivated to do the right thing -- or else?!! Similar to heaven and hell in Christianity. Who knows...? Some suggest this idea was mainly promoted after Buddha or is a hold-over from Hinduism. If there is no proof of a karma - rebirth mechanism in what Buddha said, maybe there is a good reason: he didn't know, and apparently couldn't.
You said you began meditating and following a Buddhist path in 2006 and it did wonders for you, and yet UNLESS you figure out whether someone is keeping score of your good deeds and transferring it to your next life, you're wasting your time?
The way I see it and describe, it has none of the fancy scientific aspirations or attributes, but what you describe isn't all that fancy either, if you strip it down to what you really said.
I for one do not need to be motivated or gratified with some abstract promise to know what is the right thing to do.
I quit believing in Santa a long time ago ;-)
Let me summarize this discussion the way I understood it
• Because a cause can instigate an effect(s) we can say kamma exist (kind of obvious)
• Because kamma instigated by cause-effect process can lead to mental suffering we can say samsara exist
• Because kamma is merely a projection from the mind and samsara is merely the mental suffering caused by these projections we can say stop the kamma i.e. mental projections and stop samsara.
• What Buddha appear to have said (I may be wrong here) is mind/consciousness of a dying brain can jump (fleeting phenomena) from the dying brain and re-establish itself on a new bourn brain just like wild fire jump across the woodland and ignite another part of the woods untouched by fire.
Conclusion
Buddha is an extremely smart person and he would have not said what he said about samsara i.e. it can extend beyond one lifetime unless he had good reason to say so however my primitive mind is struggling see it happening unless there is a mechanism/medium to facilitate this jump like behaviour (like hot air ignite parts of the woodland untouched by the body of the fire) hence my comment “ultimate question science must answer” (because I can’t see anybody else doing it).
Energy exists, cause and effect exists, karma through generations/eons or instant is a product of the human imagination, much as the god concept is. It is a way of rationalizing things that we do not understand, so we can try to wrap our minds around it. Just my opinion.
Dark energy is a theory that explains why the expansion of the universe is accelerating. This energy would have a repelling interaction opposite to the attractive property of dark matter.
Karma is not a "thing" composed of matter, energy, dark matter, or dark energy. The only thing I see dark energy and reincarnation have in common is, neither can be directly observed and only inferred by the effects. Dark energy is needed to explain the otherwise impossible acceleration of an expanding universe, while there is nothing we observe that needs reincarnation as the cause. The world would look and act exactly the same whether or not reincarnation exists. It is a matter of faith.
Buddha certainly was no scientist and he rightly shrugged his shoulders at questions about how the universe worked. His Noble Truths are in the form of a physician treating a sick patient, starting with complaint, then diagnosis, and finally prescription. This is similar to the scientific method, but contains an element of pragmatism. All it is concerned with is, does it work? If so, then exactly why it works, and if there are other cures, are not our concern.
Purely pragmatic, aye?
If we cast our minds back to Indian society 2500 years ago, the concept of rebirth or reincarnation was practically accepted by everyone therefore Buddha must have simply applied his doctrine to this phenomena.
Now as a man who has suffered from extreme metal stress and related illnesses in the rest of my body Buddha’s teachings came very handy, as I said in one of my earlier comments meditation has improved my mind beyond recognition and now I can do silly stuff like out-of-body experience or remote viewing anytime I like and if my mind is to develop at this rate it will be matter of time before I achieve total peace(I hope).
If I were to argue logically, because I can stop my samsara here and now (stop the stress caused by thoughts) I’ll never have to worry about rebirth regardless of whether it exists or not. I know I have oversimplified things to keep things short and sweet but the bottom-line is if I don’t have kamma I won’t have samsara and hell with the rebirth.
Yes!
"With regard to this, a wise person considers thus: 'If there is the next world, then this venerable person — on the break-up of the body, after death — will reappear in the good destination, the heavenly world. Even if we didn't speak of the next world, and there weren't the true statement of those venerable brahmans & contemplatives, this venerable person is still praised in the here-&-now by the wise as a person of good habits & right view: one who holds to a doctrine of existence. If there really is a next world, then this venerable person has made a good throw twice, in that he is praised by the wise here-&-now; and in that — with the break-up of the body, after death — he will reappear in the good destination, the heavenly world. Thus this safe-bet teaching, when well grasped & adopted by him, covers both sides, and leaves behind the possibility of the unskillful.
And some commentary from the translator.:
One of these means was the pragmatic argument, which differs from an empirical argument as follows. An empirical argument presents facts that logically imply that A must be true or false. A pragmatic argument focuses not on the facts related to A, but on the behavior that can be expected from a person who believes or rejects A. The Buddha's main pragmatic argument is that if one accepted his teachings, one would be likely to pay careful attention to one's actions, so as to do no harm. This in and of itself is a worthy activity regardless of whether the rest of the path was true. When applying this argument to the issue of rebirth and karmic results, the Buddha sometimes coupled it with a second pragmatic argument that resembles Pascal's wager: If one practices the Dhamma, one leads a blameless life in the here-and-now. Even if the afterlife and karmic results do not exist, one has not lost the wager, for the blamelessness of one's life is a reward in and of itself. If there is an afterlife with karmic results, then one has won a double reward: the blamelessness of one's life here and now, and the good rewards of one's actions in the afterlife. These two pragmatic arguments form the central message of this sutta.
In other words, he argued that if you live a good, pure and holy life right now, you can't go wrong either way, regardless of what is true or not concerning a "next life" etc.
It may not be, of course; but I don't think there's any harm in considering it for the purpose of such theoretical discussions as we're having here. And if you choose not to accept the argument or the example, that's completely fine by me. Among others, yes. I see no reason why a similar mechanism can't at least theoretically take place between immaterial objects, and possibly even between immaterial and material ones at some fundamental level where the idea of 'solid matter' breaks down becomes no more than a conventional shorthand for stating causal laws concerning events. Sure, and I never said morality is independent of everything whatsoever. If you take what I said in context, I think you'll clearly see that I said it's independent of rebirth (an argument I make more explicitly here).
"It really doesn't matter whether heaven exists or not. The important is to live life - as IF it did."
the quotation is from "The Tibetan Book of Living & Dying" but I could not off-hand, say wherein exactly it lies....
Because many Buddhists have faith in what The Buddha said to be true. They have no reason to get rid of their faith in what he said. Because faith is considered to be quite beneficial.
The below is how many Buddhists regard the Buddha:
"When the Bhikkhu has eliminated all these polluting mental defilements,
he then gains unwavering Faith, unshakable Confidence and absolutely
immovable and imperturbable Conviction in the blessed Buddha thus:
Worthy, honourable and perfectly self-Enlightened is the Buddha!
Fully consummated in knowledge and behaviour, totally transcended,
expert in all dimensions, knower of all worlds, unsurpassable trainer
of those who can be tamed, both teacher and guide of gods as well
as humans, blessed, exalted, awakened & enlightened is the Buddha!
To put it simply, empirical proof is no longer needed. So there is no reason to "come clean" because it already is "clean"
Bear in mind that cause & effect or action, which is what karma is said to be in essence, is meaningless without a purpose. Let me reiterate that point. Action, or causation, requires purpose. So, if you want to know the "where and how," be like a good detective and follow the money, follow the purpose.