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Is this a very recent change, anataman? If so, no wonder you have so much going on in your mind! It's a time of huge change, I'm sure. But it can be done, too. I imagine a lot of people who retire feel the same. Some get so frustrated and lost that they think themselves sick. Some fill their lives with other distractions. Some simply, finally, live. The idea of not filling our time with something wholly goal oriented is pretty foreign to most of us, because we have been conditioned for generations, and longer, that that is what makes a life. But that conditioning is mostly wrong, and it's hard to suddenly be without it in a world that is continuing within it.
I don't understand entirely, no. 20 years ago I was getting ready to graduate high school. But I can foreshadow, to an extent (eventually, I will be done being a full time parent...by that time I will have been a parent for 32 years, raising underage children...not that being a parent even stops, of course). And I most certainly can care. It's obvious you are struggling a lot right now.
Are you talking about someone in particular with regards to your comment of spending 6 years in retreat and then joining a discussion forum? Or is it just a random example?
Yes, but my biggest problem with all the 'buddhist stuff', is that it really don't correlate with what I actually experience...
@anataman: I think you're addressing two problems here, though for the sake of neutrality, I'll stick to the one that brought you to initiate this thread only.
Buddhist stuff does correlate and does make sense with what you actually experience, and to judge from your posts, it looks like it has always made sense to you.
This sort of blurred limits that you have experienced during your meditation is what Thich Nhat Hanh describes as the actual interrelation of cause and effect, rather than the idea that they are separate entities, one being the result of the other. "The egg is in the chicken, and the chicken is in the egg," he states. The three marks of existence are also present. Don't look for a theorical label to validate your experiences and go with the flow, though surprisingly enough, there is a theory that describes what you have just been experiencing.
I think it's asking for trouble when people try to apprehend the Dharma only with their intellect rather than with their hearts and guts. They get lost in the theory trees, but fail to breathe soul into their knowledge of the Dharma. There is a lot of semantics blustering but failure or unwillingness to communicate or reach out to others.
Oops! I think I have addressed the second issue too... You know what I mean...
If you are looking for a detailed analysis of what cause and condition mean, beyond merely paraphrasing, then I would seriously check out Jan Westeroff's book 'Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka, a Philosophical Introduction'. It really is a gem, in that, as mentioned, it doesn't merely paraphrase like we find in so many contemporary writings on the subject (that of Buddhist philosophy), but instead goes into a detailed philosophical reconstruction, piece by piece.
All three of you have identified something, and also may be going through the same process to some degree, so wish to clarify
there are 3 things in life that are regarded as being most stressful:
Death, Divorce and for want of a better word 'disengagement' from what one calls their fabricated life (some might call it loss of status, or retirement), but for 2 of you at least you understand the first of these from my understanding, but all 3 involves giving up something, that was a lifetime ambition - and the efforts and time spent investing in that thing contrast the basis of life with what has been built up...
Forgive my ramblings, they are just me struggling to let go, but this is part of the process. Sorry to involve you all in it.
@seeker242 said:
I think it depends on how you define the terms. If you define them in a particular way, "cause" and "condition" could mean the same thing.
I think they're just describing different aspects of idappaccayata, specific conditionality
@karasti said:
Condition, to me, implies something that has happened more over time.
"Condition" can be both verb and noun, and both temporal and non-temporal.
0
personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
The issue of causality has long been a major focus of philosophical and contemplative analysis in Buddhism. Buddhism proposes two principal categories of cause. These are the "substantial cause" and the "contributory or complementary cause." Take the example of a clay pot. The substantial cause refers to the "stuff" that turns into a particular effect, namely, the clay that becomes the pot. By contrast, all the other factors that contribute toward bringing about the pot - such as the skill of the potter, the potter himself, and the kiln that fired the clay - remain complementary in that they make it possible for the clay to turn into the pot.
HHDL The Universe in a Single Atom p.131
Here's a link to an old thread that discussed this somewhat
I am not talking about the 'initial' cause, the 'divine spark', or the 'big bang', but what is a 'cause'?
From the Theravadin perspective, cause (hetu) and condition (paccaya) are used somewhat synonymously (often in conjunction with one another), and refer to "something on which something else, the so-called 'conditioned thing', is dependent, and without which the latter cannot be."
4
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'm amazed, because i think I said that..... :O
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DavidA human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First NationsVeteran
I am not talking about the 'initial' cause, the 'divine spark', or the 'big bang', but what is a 'cause'?
I'm going to say that conditions are what pull together to make a certain cause but that is also to say that all conditions are causes as well. Then again, to get technical, all effects are also causes which give rise to certain conditions.
The question then becomes, what isn't a cause?
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
A cause and effect are simultaneously arising. For example a father and son, normally we'd say that the father comes first but a man isn't a 'father' until the son is born. They arise at the same time and depend on one another for their designation.
In her book "Buddhism: its doctrine and its methods," (1939) Alexandra David-Neel, has a very interesting chapter devoted to "pratîtyasamûtpâda" (!) or "Interdependent Origins," as she calls the chapter. She explains all of the above-mentioned ideas, but I found a tiny concept very interesting.
She was discussing this theory with a graduate of Dérgé in Tibet and he pointed out to her an original example:
"A thousand things exist in that which you see as a single thing, and occupy the same space. All the past phenomena which produced the form and the mind which you call a géchès (a graduate of a monastic university)-he meant by this himself- are with this géchès, sitting on a chair, in this room. Expressing this idea more in accordance with Western mentality, one might say that all that has gone to make up the heredity of an individual is present in the space occupied by him."
She also adds "Nothing exists in itself, for every phenomenon is the product of causes, and nothing can be destroyed, since it, in its turn, becomes a cause, after having been an effect."
"No one accomplishes the action, no one experiences the results, only the succession of actions and their results revolves in a continual cycle, like the round of the tree and the seed, and no one can say when it began."
"One cannot find the effect in the action, nor the action in the effect, yet no effect exists without the existence of an action. No reserve of fire exists in the combustible, nor elswhere, outside of it; yet without combustible there is no fire. Similarly, we cannot find the effect in the action, nor outside it; actions exist apart from their effects, and effects exist separately from actions, but the effects come to pass as the results of actions. [...] The endless round of Births is not caused by any god, but the elements produced by the causes and the materials which constitute beings follow their course."
You brought up a very interesting thread here @anataman! You threw us an idea and have shown up regularly to discuss the idea of the OP with us.
When you're shot with a poison arrow, you'd have to take arrow out first then take care of the poison. Save the questions for later. Who shot me and why did they shoot me can wait.
0
Toraldris -`-,-{@ Zen Nud... Buddhist @}-,-`- East Coast, USAVeteran
@wangchuey Yep! The Buddha said the exact same thing, in more words.
@anataman said:
My problem (well I wouldn't really call it a problem, as it does not really matter if I get an answer or not) is that whilst things in everyday life appear to have a discrete 'boundary', and one discrete object can be seen to act on another in the regular causal way, in the meditative state I describe, everything is seen to be happening or acting all at once together, so that there is a blurring of the distinction between what a cause and a condition actually is. This leads me to conclude that actually there is no distinction and every cause is a condition for every other cause.
Bravo.
In fact all of life is like this. So for example the condition of a seed can be 'caused' by the need of the flower to bloom . . .
The mind condition you are describing is a kind of loosening or relaxation of the mind. Don't go crazy on us, bike rides and family will keep you sane. We need not go into nuances of interdependence, interpenetration . . . etc.
There is only one mind; it is not that there are two minds, one recognizing the other. In the very moment of recognizing, it is like a knot that is untied. We don’t have to do anything further than that, leave it untied. In the moment of looking, it is already seen. It is not that later on we come to see. Why? Because mind and mind essence are very close. The second reason is that it is not that mind essence is something that we have to get our sights on; it’s not like that. It is not that we need to hold the awareness on it for a while, like one or two minutes and slowly it will appear within our experience. Since there is only one mind, the moment you recognize, it is simply a matter of letting go. The thinker or knower of that moment is just like a new knot, like a new thought. The moment you abandon it, it unties. We are already arrived at where we need to arrive at, we are already in the nature of mind. Like a Knot That is Untied ~ Tsoknyi Rinpoche
In many way the centre wants to sustain its existence by pulling the strands and kinks closer around itself. As this ignorance is loosened the emptiness becomes apparent.
The knot is merely a self sustaining pulling and tugging. The Buddhist method is to loosen this compulsive behaviour.
Comments
Is this a very recent change, anataman? If so, no wonder you have so much going on in your mind! It's a time of huge change, I'm sure. But it can be done, too. I imagine a lot of people who retire feel the same. Some get so frustrated and lost that they think themselves sick. Some fill their lives with other distractions. Some simply, finally, live. The idea of not filling our time with something wholly goal oriented is pretty foreign to most of us, because we have been conditioned for generations, and longer, that that is what makes a life. But that conditioning is mostly wrong, and it's hard to suddenly be without it in a world that is continuing within it.
I don't understand entirely, no. 20 years ago I was getting ready to graduate high school. But I can foreshadow, to an extent (eventually, I will be done being a full time parent...by that time I will have been a parent for 32 years, raising underage children...not that being a parent even stops, of course). And I most certainly can care. It's obvious you are struggling a lot right now.
Are you talking about someone in particular with regards to your comment of spending 6 years in retreat and then joining a discussion forum? Or is it just a random example?
@anataman said:
@anataman: I think you're addressing two problems here, though for the sake of neutrality, I'll stick to the one that brought you to initiate this thread only.
Buddhist stuff does correlate and does make sense with what you actually experience, and to judge from your posts, it looks like it has always made sense to you.
This sort of blurred limits that you have experienced during your meditation is what Thich Nhat Hanh describes as the actual interrelation of cause and effect, rather than the idea that they are separate entities, one being the result of the other. "The egg is in the chicken, and the chicken is in the egg," he states. The three marks of existence are also present. Don't look for a theorical label to validate your experiences and go with the flow, though surprisingly enough, there is a theory that describes what you have just been experiencing.
I think it's asking for trouble when people try to apprehend the Dharma only with their intellect rather than with their hearts and guts. They get lost in the theory trees, but fail to breathe soul into their knowledge of the Dharma. There is a lot of semantics blustering but failure or unwillingness to communicate or reach out to others.
Oops! I think I have addressed the second issue too... You know what I mean...
If you are looking for a detailed analysis of what cause and condition mean, beyond merely paraphrasing, then I would seriously check out Jan Westeroff's book 'Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka, a Philosophical Introduction'. It really is a gem, in that, as mentioned, it doesn't merely paraphrase like we find in so many contemporary writings on the subject (that of Buddhist philosophy), but instead goes into a detailed philosophical reconstruction, piece by piece.
@dharmammom, @karasti, and @atiyana
All three of you have identified something, and also may be going through the same process to some degree, so wish to clarify
there are 3 things in life that are regarded as being most stressful:
Death, Divorce and for want of a better word 'disengagement' from what one calls their fabricated life (some might call it loss of status, or retirement), but for 2 of you at least you understand the first of these from my understanding, but all 3 involves giving up something, that was a lifetime ambition - and the efforts and time spent investing in that thing contrast the basis of life with what has been built up...
Forgive my ramblings, they are just me struggling to let go, but this is part of the process. Sorry to involve you all in it.
Metta
Anyway, I'm going off for a 2 hour bike ride... The birdsong here is beautiful at the moment, can't miss nature...
I think they're just describing different aspects of idappaccayata, specific conditionality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idappaccayatā
"Condition" can be both verb and noun, and both temporal and non-temporal.
The issue of causality has long been a major focus of philosophical and contemplative analysis in Buddhism. Buddhism proposes two principal categories of cause. These are the "substantial cause" and the "contributory or complementary cause." Take the example of a clay pot. The substantial cause refers to the "stuff" that turns into a particular effect, namely, the clay that becomes the pot. By contrast, all the other factors that contribute toward bringing about the pot - such as the skill of the potter, the potter himself, and the kiln that fired the clay - remain complementary in that they make it possible for the clay to turn into the pot.
HHDL The Universe in a Single Atom p.131
Here's a link to an old thread that discussed this somewhat
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/14778/substantial-cause-and-contributory-cause
I don't understand if there is a cause in Buddhism. But there is definitely an effect.
If there is definitely an effect, there is definitely a cause. If you see a flower, there was a seed.
for an object to be seen, there must be a see-er. Something cannot arise without the perception that something is arising....
From the Theravadin perspective, cause (hetu) and condition (paccaya) are used somewhat synonymously (often in conjunction with one another), and refer to "something on which something else, the so-called 'conditioned thing', is dependent, and without which the latter cannot be."
I'm amazed, because i think I said that..... :O
I'm going to say that conditions are what pull together to make a certain cause but that is also to say that all conditions are causes as well. Then again, to get technical, all effects are also causes which give rise to certain conditions.
The question then becomes, what isn't a cause?
A cause and effect are simultaneously arising. For example a father and son, normally we'd say that the father comes first but a man isn't a 'father' until the son is born. They arise at the same time and depend on one another for their designation.
May I introduce a little humility into this discussion, which is really just a reflection of how I am feeling at this moment.
I have not acted wisely on this forum, I apologise...
When you throw away the lock to your cell, hopefully you have kept the key...
In her book "Buddhism: its doctrine and its methods," (1939) Alexandra David-Neel, has a very interesting chapter devoted to "pratîtyasamûtpâda" (!) or "Interdependent Origins," as she calls the chapter. She explains all of the above-mentioned ideas, but I found a tiny concept very interesting.
She was discussing this theory with a graduate of Dérgé in Tibet and he pointed out to her an original example:
"A thousand things exist in that which you see as a single thing, and occupy the same space. All the past phenomena which produced the form and the mind which you call a géchès (a graduate of a monastic university)-he meant by this himself- are with this géchès, sitting on a chair, in this room. Expressing this idea more in accordance with Western mentality, one might say that all that has gone to make up the heredity of an individual is present in the space occupied by him."
She also adds "Nothing exists in itself, for every phenomenon is the product of causes, and nothing can be destroyed, since it, in its turn, becomes a cause, after having been an effect."
"No one accomplishes the action, no one experiences the results, only the succession of actions and their results revolves in a continual cycle, like the round of the tree and the seed, and no one can say when it began."
"One cannot find the effect in the action, nor the action in the effect, yet no effect exists without the existence of an action. No reserve of fire exists in the combustible, nor elswhere, outside of it; yet without combustible there is no fire. Similarly, we cannot find the effect in the action, nor outside it; actions exist apart from their effects, and effects exist separately from actions, but the effects come to pass as the results of actions. [...] The endless round of Births is not caused by any god, but the elements produced by the causes and the materials which constitute beings follow their course."
You brought up a very interesting thread here @anataman! You threw us an idea and have shown up regularly to discuss the idea of the OP with us.
Effects can arise long after a cause.
The cause doesn't become a cause until there is an effect.
chicken, meet egg....
But then the cause is also the effect to another cause... Chicken, meet egg, meet chicken, meet egg...
And so the egg chickens out...
And the chicken eggs out...? Sheldon is frowning...
When you're shot with a poison arrow, you'd have to take arrow out first then take care of the poison. Save the questions for later. Who shot me and why did they shoot me can wait.
@wangchuey Yep! The Buddha said the exact same thing, in more words.
Bravo.
In fact all of life is like this. So for example the condition of a seed can be 'caused' by the need of the flower to bloom . . .
The mind condition you are describing is a kind of loosening or relaxation of the mind. Don't go crazy on us, bike rides and family will keep you sane. We need not go into nuances of interdependence, interpenetration . . . etc.
There is only one mind; it is not that there are two minds, one recognizing the other. In the very moment of recognizing, it is like a knot that is untied. We don’t have to do anything further than that, leave it untied. In the moment of looking, it is already seen. It is not that later on we come to see. Why? Because mind and mind essence are very close. The second reason is that it is not that mind essence is something that we have to get our sights on; it’s not like that. It is not that we need to hold the awareness on it for a while, like one or two minutes and slowly it will appear within our experience. Since there is only one mind, the moment you recognize, it is simply a matter of letting go. The thinker or knower of that moment is just like a new knot, like a new thought. The moment you abandon it, it unties. We are already arrived at where we need to arrive at, we are already in the nature of mind.
Like a Knot That is Untied ~ Tsoknyi Rinpoche
In many way the centre wants to sustain its existence by pulling the strands and kinks closer around itself. As this ignorance is loosened the emptiness becomes apparent.
The knot is merely a self sustaining pulling and tugging. The Buddhist method is to loosen this compulsive behaviour.
Yes we are a knot. Know we are not.
That comment was awesome @lobster... Straight from and to the heart...
thank you
Yes, great post, @lobster. And look, not a cushion in sight. Bravo.
(And no, that wasn't a hint/prompt....)
He was being a cushion @federica. lol
true dat.