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Deep Regret
Silouan
Veteran
What is the source of deep regret after having committed a negative action since negative actions are an impediment to enlightenment?
Its lack there of is very important on determining the strength of a negative karma at its completing stage especially when there is volition and strong intent. It seems to be fulfilling an important need in the path to Buddhist enlightenment.
Its lack there of is very important on determining the strength of a negative karma at its completing stage especially when there is volition and strong intent. It seems to be fulfilling an important need in the path to Buddhist enlightenment.
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Comments
I don't disagree, but lets work together to dig deeper. There appears then to be a capacity to know what is wrong. Thoughts?
I agree in general. Is a condition or a quality?
Let yourself get too bogged down by it and you're doing yourself a major disservice.
Perhaps this is better. What of the times when in the process of or maybe even before the committing of the act, and to use a quote from the Dalai Lama, the "pangs of conscience" spontaneously arise providing a warning or regret. Is this an innate quality of the mind or just learned?
They have to meet other criteria to fit into the typically "psychopathic" disorder - anti social and narcissistic, but lack of empathy is basically the defining factor.
I'll preface my answer by saying that I have a small parrot, who has grown up without any other parrots around. It's been very interesting to see how his behaviors have parroted (pun intended) those of other parrots who were raised with other birds around. So many actions are exactly the same, even though there was no place for him to learn those behaviors.
I mention that simply to say that it continually surprises me how much innate "knowledge" there is inside of us.
However, to get back to your specific question, I would say that most of "the pangs of conscience" are really based on things that we have learned...some directly, others indirectly.
To explain it really simply, they split monkeys into groups and kept them away from each other. When a monkey in one group learned a skill, a monkey in another group would suddenly also learn it even though it had never met the other monkey.
Super interesting.
Whenever I hear of something like this it's the first thing I think of.
To me it shows a kind of interconnectedness between all of life. If we were all connected, it would make sense that maybe you didn't learn something, but someone else did and that lesson resonates in your consciousness somehow. Just spitballing here btw.
So we can say that it is an innate quality with the capacity to be strengthen? What about reduction? This innate and developed, we shall use the term conscience, can also be deadened.
I guess I go back to a famous statement that has been attributed to several different people (I had always learned it was penned by historian Will Durant -- ""If there were no God, man would surely create one." Perhaps what we see as conscience -- which is somewhat similar in most societies -- is like that: man creating a morality based on logic.
I hope we can pick this up later. I need a few hours of sleep before work. :-)
Please forgive me for the harshness I have directed at you in thought and word. :-(
It is recorded that japanese scientists placed sweet potatoes on a beach on Koshima - Koshima has a natural population of macaques - the aim was to attract macaque monkeys who inhabited the borders between the forest and the beach (the thought being that these monkies would be habituated to the sea and beach) - the particular macaque group roamed that area so they came across the potatoes - these were dug up and covered in soil - one female started to wash her potato in the water and then ate it - this skill was not previously observed in the group - it is unknown whether the concept of 'washing' was learnt already (i.e. in puddles and such) - in any event, it was assumed that this group of monkies did not usually find sweet potatoes on the beach, ready dug up with soil on it (it may be that if they dug it up themselves they would be versed at washing also) - at first only one female would wash her potato in the sea - I think the first to copy her were her children - other monkies also then began following suit - the female also then used the water to wash / season other foods - it was noted that these skills were then passed on to other monkies, most frequently the younger generation - it apeared that the female innovated the skill (or perhaps applied it in a new setting) which was then observed, learnt and transmitted to the younger generation - the skill spread across the population save for some old timers - the older generation died off and the skill was ingrained in that particular gene pool across the entire population - subsequent generations exhibited the skill though it was unclear whether the behaviour was innate or learnt.
This points to animal culture - there have been many experiments since - recent studies on chickadees have further explored how such culture is then codified in DNA as innate behaviour.
Automatic transmission of data to subjects was not observed in that study or any study since - another words, there was not any observation of a critical population mass triggering the phenomenon, let alone the phenomenon itself.
Urban myth.
We are all interconnected in an amazing way that I don't fully comprehend.
It makes me really want to get to that point where I don't have any disturbing mental wanderings anymore because in the generaly populus I don't know who around me can read minds!
That said, my brother was in a spot of trouble years ago - we were separated by about 300 miles - at the exact time it happened, I was doubled up on the floor with stomach pain like you wouldnt believe - that type of pain only happened that once - I couldn't straighten up or stand up... all I could do to just manage the pain was stay in a tight ball on the ground - I thought my appendix had exploded or I was suffering some kind of hemorrhage - I crawled to the toilet on my hands and knees and (apologies) suffered a massive and toxic evacuation... legs were shaky after and the pain passed as quickly as it had arisen - as I was wondering what the heck just happened, the phone went off with the news... however, my mum and other family members were none the wiser until they were specifically told.
Again though - I saw a story on a documentary about a chap who was out walking and answered a ringing pay phone - it was his co-worker asking a vital question about work - he asked how she knew to call him on that number as it was a random pay phone... she had dialled his employee identity number... which happened to be the number of the payphone, which he happened to be walking by at that time!
With that in mind, given the trauma of the event, I probably discounted the huge vindaloo I ate just before... I'll never know as the moment is gone and I am reliant on my memory and cognition at the time... neither of which are particularly trustworthy!!
With my ex "girl friend".. more like sex partner.. I had dreams of what she was keeping secret from me and would wake up knowing exactly what was going on and felt so terrible.
I remember laying there next to her one of those disturbing mornings processing everything and I pressed my index finger into her palm and my heart hurt until I took it off her palm.
In shiatsu the heart can be accessed via center of palms.. I wasn't consciously trying to do that with her but it certainly was interesting that I could make that correlation at the time.. most interesting afterward more like
@Silouan No worries
Thank you :-)