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Vows and Non Existence

FairyFellerFairyFeller Veteran
edited July 2013 in Philosophy
A thought that passed through my meditation yesterday, how can break my vows if I don't exist?

I took some vows a few months ago and have been sticking to the faithfully but how appropriate are they when I am no longer the same person that actually took those vows in the same way that I am no longer the same person I was ten years ago?

Comments

  • zenffzenff Veteran
    We can only express our present intentions; not our future intentions.
    riverflow
  • SabreSabre Veteran
    edited July 2013
    If you hit your head, who is in pain? You or somebody else?
    If you break your vows, it's you who will get the results, not some other person.
    Jeffrey
  • genkakugenkaku Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
    edited July 2013
    The importance of vows/precepts/promises lies not so much in keeping them as in making necessary corrections when you (guaranteed) don't keep them.

    Or maybe I'm all wet.
    lobster
  • SabreSabre Veteran
    edited July 2013
    Just to say a bit more than my initial post: The Buddha did not teach non-existence. He also didn't teach the opposite, of eternalism or "I exist". What he did teach was no-self, but that doesn't mean non-existence.

    Non-existence means nothing exists, or you as a person don't exist. No-self says, you as a person exist, but nothing in the person is constant or is the central pillar, or soul. A person is a process, a stream of sorts. But this process has a certain orderly connection in it (I don't know how else to put it now), it is not totally random or unconnected. So what 'you' do now is connected with the future. Not through a soul or self, but through cause and effect.

    A seed in the ground can grow into a flower. The flower and the seed have no central 'being' but still they are connected by the same process.

    There are a million other ways to explain no-self is not non-existence but in the end the only way you will get an understanding is by meditation and following the path. An intellectual approach will not do it; there are enough examples on this forum alone. By your very questioning it seems to me you are right now also trying to get things by the intellect, by thinking. My advise is: don't. ;)
  • lobsterlobster Crusty Veteran
    FairyFeller said:

    I took some vows a few months ago and have been sticking to them faithfully but how appropriate are they when I am no longer the same person that actually took those vows in the same way that I am no longer the same person I was ten years ago?

    oh dear
    :-/
    Try keeping them faithlessly as I do.

    Before entering the spiritual path, we dwell in the supposedly impure state of samsara, which is governed, in relative terms, by ignorance. When we are engaged on the path, we pass through a state where ignorance and knowledge are mixed, and at the end of the path, at the moment of awakening, nothing remains but pure awareness. But throughout the entire course, though it appears that a transformation has taken place, the nature of the mind itself has never changed; not corrupted at the beginning of the path, it is not improved at the end.
    http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/web-archive/2003/6/1/never-born-never-ceasing.html

    I swear by Allmighty Buddha to be the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing
    but the Truth. So help me Buddha.
    (vow of Lobster)
    I broke that as soon as I wrote it . . . and that's the truth . . . :dunce:
  • aMattaMatt Veteran
    edited July 2013
    Perhaps the vows are to help provide a continuity to our intentions, precisely because we're ever changing. Its not as though the Buddha will come to you and paddle your bottom for breaking your oaths. :) Rather, as we vow, it is like the drawing of a bow and loosing of an arrow.
    riverflow
  • riverflowriverflow Veteran
    edited July 2013
    aMatt said:

    Perhaps the vows are to help provide a continuity to our intentions, precisely because we're ever changing. Its not as though the Buddha will come to you and paddle your bottom for breaking your oaths. :) Rather, as we vow, it is like the drawing of a bow and loosing of an arrow.

    On that note, I read this book recently (from a Soto Zen perspective) which I got a lot out of:

    Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts
    by Shohaku Okumura

    He writes with a great deal of clarity. I recommend it.
  • footiamfootiam Veteran
    FairyFeller said:

    A thought that passed through my meditation yesterday, how can break my vows if I don't exist?

    I took some vows a few months ago and have been sticking to the faithfully but how appropriate are they when I am no longer the same person that actually took those vows in the same way that I am no longer the same person I was ten years ago?

    When you take a vow, you exist.
    If you are no longer the same person, then who are you? A better person?
  • JeffreyJeffrey Veteran
    The vows appear as real. Yet 'existence' is vast. The vows help us because there is so much opportunity to create negative karma. With the vows we find a trajectory of awareness feeding off of awareness in a virtuous spiral. But the vows themselves are based on our intention to become enlightened.
    EvenThird
  • pegembarapegembara Veteran
    edited July 2013
    FairyFeller said:

    A thought that passed through my meditation yesterday, how can break my vows if I don't exist?

    I took some vows a few months ago and have been sticking to the faithfully but how appropriate are they when I am no longer the same person that actually took those vows in the same way that I am no longer the same person I was ten years ago?

    Can you breathe if you don't exist? Sure you can even when "you" are not there. Why? Because you are not your body.

    In the same way vows can be made and broken. Actions still have consequences. Unskillful choices still cause painful results.
    There is the deed but no doer; there is suffering but no sufferer; there is the path no one to enter it; and there is liberation but no one to attain it. Vism
    http://www.palikanon.com/english/wtb/a/anatta.htm
    riverflowEvenThirdkarmablues
  • seeker242seeker242 Zen Florida, USA Veteran
    edited July 2013
    FairyFeller said:

    A thought that passed through my meditation yesterday, how can break my vows if I don't exist?

    By you engaging in killing, stealing, lying, etc. Even if you didn't exist, would it then be ok to go steal your friends money when he isn't looking? Of course not! So if you do exist or you don't exist, stealing friends money is still wrong action either way. The question of existence becomes irrelevant because wrong action is still wrong action.
    I took some vows a few months ago and have been sticking to the faithfully but how appropriate are they when I am no longer the same person that actually took those vows in the same way that I am no longer the same person I was ten years ago?
    Depends on what the vows are. Vows like the 5 precepts? If so, they are always appropriate for anyone regardless of who they are or how they have changed. Vows like this are universally and always appropriate. Now if the vow was to "never watch any TV at all", or something like that, then it may no longer be appropriate since just watching TV is not really "wrong action" :)

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