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Is the task already done?
The buddha speaks of realizing upon enlightenment that the task is done, that there is no reason to come back into this world. Is that already the case? Like. I think all there is is to realize that it is complete. All becoming is is ignorance. There is ultimately no becoming. As we go from life to life, really they aren't separate lives. I mean, they are but they aren't, if you catch my drift. All karma that you build affects not only yourself but everyone. This is why we act compassionately. To help others is to help ourselves. Thus, to help ourselves is to help others. The results of karma are simply reactions to what has been done, not a reward/punishment to you. When you do something negative it creates negativity. That is the result. The result is not that you experience negativity, it's that "negativity comes into existence." I don't know if i'm expressing my thoughts clearly, hell I don't know if I even understand what i'm thinking. Who is there to become, and what is there to become? All there is is what is, and karma simply represents what is as a stream from what "was" to what "is" to what "will be." It's not personal. So, if you are a result of past and present karma, then is your next life really you? Or is it just the result of your actions. As we pass from life to life we simply manifest as reactions to what has been done. I'm really not sure that it's "us" that manifests, rather "it" manifests. I'm having a hard time wording it, and maybe i'm not understanding anything and i'm just talking myself into confusion, but I think that last sentence summed up my thoughts best.
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Can you say that you have been released? I know that I cannot.
Can you say that you not only live the holy life, but that you have finished it? I know that I cannot.
Don't get me wrong though, Journey. What you come to understand from reading Buddhism is important. But the importance is not intellectual. Knowing the sutras and shastras backwards and forwards is impressive, but it is superficial.
When you reach a tranquil state in meditation, it is then that you need to bring to mind what you have learned of Buddhism. This is insight and the development of wisdom.
The discussion of points of doctrine outside of the practice of insight is merely academics. It has its place, but it is not the finished work.
I have to agree with upalabhava on this one.
Yet I would be very careful about claiming that the task is done. Ask yourself honestly, have you overcome the perception of subject and object? Is this realisation that you have had the supreme realisation, or is it just a step forward? Neither one is bad obviously, but better to see these things for what they truly are.
And returning to what the Buddha says above, is the task ever done? Even if they are perfect deep down, people (and all sentient beings) still suffer greatly at the hands of their own perceptions. How long does it take to save all living beings if not a single being is saved? :eek:
Part 1 The Way to stream Entry
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/stream.html
Part 2 Stream Entry and After
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/stream2.html
I would make no claims that I have or have not made any particular realization. To me there is nothing to realize, nor person to realize it, so it's silly to make any claim, as me making even the most modest claim can give someone the wrong impression, and the bigger the claim the more harm that can be done.
And that's a good point "is the task ever done," one that I was kinda thinking about before getting on to check the forum. Ultimately "done" and "not done" are not separate things, and as such we are neither done nor not done, nor could we ever be either. Something else to think about. How can one person be done and another not? That would only be possible if there were a separate self.
thanks for the links. I'll check it out!
I think this sounds like an unwarranted assumption that on the conventional level there are not separate selves- there are. This is obvious, as evidenced by the Buddha's advice not to cling too tightly to other people. And I think it's spurious, as in too speculative, to assert that we are somehow not-separate on the "ultimate" level. It's a nice elegant theory, but it is not provable that we are all somehow a unity on the "ultimate" level. I mean, if the work were already completed there would have been no need for the Buddha to undertake his mission to teach freedom from grasping, again, grasping at other people, among other things.
There is no basis to assert non-separateness of persons on the conventional level. It's an elegant theory, but in the end it's idle speculation. The Buddha would not have taught the way to liberation from grasping at such length if the work were indeed already done.
See the first point I made in the post above. It is never either done or not done, I think. That implies separation. As it says in the diamond sutra, all beings will be liberated, and yet not one being will be liberated. Of course if you disagree you are more than free to do so.
So then why did the Buddha undertake to teach at such great length? Why were something as extensive as the Pali Canon or all the Mahayana and Vajrayana commentaries written? If it's as simple as "all beings will be liberated yet none will be liberated", then why all this teaching activity? Why bother?
There is danger in the teaching of temptiness and non-separation. This is why I truly don't care if people believe in it.(I don't care if anyone believes in anything, but especially this) If you don't understand it properly it can lead you to very dangerous conclusions. "Why do anything good? There is no good. Why try? There's noone and nothing to try." Emptiness and non-separation doesn't remove the need for the conventional truths. You can't have emptiness without the aggregates. You can't have the ultimate truth without the conventional truths.
Excuse me?
What? I'm not saying you don't understand anything, or that I do understand anything. I'm just saying that misunderstanding emptiness and non-separation can be dangerous. This is why it's not taught in the pali canon, for the lesser vehicle. Some people aren't ready to hear it. It is only taught in the mahayana sutra, the greater vehicle. I mean that as no offense to theravada, theravada is a perfectly valid path that leads to great things, i'm just trying to explain the differences. If you understand it properly it is beneficial to the path, but if you don't it is possible that it could harm you on your path.
Think of it in terms of emptiness. Form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form. They share a nature. This means that emptiness cannot exist without form. So too do nirvana and samsara share a nature. As such nirvana cannot exist without samsara. All things depend on each other for existence. Without one thing existing, whether it be one of the aggregates, time, anything, if anything doesn't exist than the true existence/nature no longer is what it is. Therefore nothing that exists can cease to exist. It can appear to, but that is it's nature. The nature of change is non-change. The nature of non-change is change. So all beings will achieve liberation, enter nirvana, but in so doing not one will enter nirvana.
I speak from personal experience. I first started out trying to understand emptiness intellectually, working through the ins and outs just as you are now. I thought I had a good grasp of things, and then woke up one morning to find that my carefully constructed worldview was being totally undermined by my experience. That which I had 'discovered' now no longer seemed to apply. Of course it didn't, everything always changes. All I'd really gained from holding on so tightly to my conceptualisations was a massive headache.
The intellect is a great gift and it can be used for many wonderful things. But you reach a point where you realise that it can only take you so far.
What did I eventually come to believe? That having an understanding of emptiness is in fact having no understanding of emptiness. Emptiness is not a thing to be understood, like words in a textbook. It is something to be experienced and lived. Some days I 'get' emptiness, some days I dont.
And that's okay. That's just the way things are.
I wish you all the best in your journey.
With kindness,
_/|\_
I think I find a logical fallacy here. I don't think it can be said that nirvana cannot exist without samsara. We only attribute the name "nirvana" in order to differentiate it from samsara. It's like saying the sun can't exist without the planets, and we know that many stars exist without planets. What we call "nirvana" is of a nature that is unconditioned and to which attributes do not apply, whereas samsara is the state of conditioned existence, which places "nirvana" and "samsara" in two different ontological categories. Again, "nirvana" is simply the state of the Unconditioned, whereas "samsara" is the ultimate state of the conditioned. Therefore it cannot be said that nirvana cannot exist without samsara. Nirvana is a concept used to differentiate it conceptually from samsara, but "nirvana" can exist without samsara. In Mahayana and Vajrayana at least, "nirvana" is the primordial wisdom, and does not need anything else to "exist". I see this as a logical fallacy which may refute the whole premise. Primordial Wisdom is just Primordial Wisdom, and could "exist" without any conditioned existences "co-existing" with it. Nirvana is Ultimacy whereas samsara is by its very nature Non-ultimacy. They are in two different ontological categories, and the ontological categorization only takes place in the human mind out of human necessity.
When it comes to Theravada versus Mahayana, I like Ajahn Brahm's quote:
"It's not the 'smaller vehicle', it's the 'environmentally friendly' vehicle"
In Vajrayana, the inseparability of samsara and nirvana are often talked about particularly in the Lamdre teachings though of course this is presaged by the Madhyamaka of Nagarjuna in the MMK and related works. Ultimately, "conditioned" and "unconditioned" are all just conceptual categories created by confusion and hence conventional truth only. If we say that there is an actual referent to these terms as implied by making ontological claims for one or the other, then we fall off the corner of 'existence' in the catushkoti. We can't say that nirvana exists, does not exist, neither exists nor doesn't exist, nor both exists and doesn't exist.
I have not found any doctrinal support for equating Primordial Wisdom ( I am assuming you are referring to "yeshe") with nirvana. Nirvana is meaningful as a goal for those in samsara, however from the point of view of awareness itself it has the same function as Rolaids. It may spell relief to suffering beings, but it has nothing to do with the healthy state. Ultimately both nirvana and samsara must both be given up and gone beyond. Ultimately there is nothing at all to point to.
Given that, how does it relate to the OP's question about "the work already being done"?
Saying that "It is already done" is just venturing an opinion. The problem is that while those of us on the path may intellectually understand that what we experience are mere appearances based on confusion, we have neither clearly recognized our true nature nor definitively put an end to the kleshas that lead to further suffering. Hence this opinion is little better than a rumour about something we have not seen.
We must *recognize* our nature and then we must *abide* in that recognition until even the idea of recognition and abiding fall away into primordial wisdom. In a sense, that is all there is to do to accomplish all of the activities of a buddha. In point of fact, we likely have to engage in various skillful means to purify our obscurations.
We can't formulate the equation as:
Buddha became enlightened. All beings are one, therefor all beings are enlightened.
I agree with you that ideas of oneness are mere speculation. What is necessary is prajna and jnana, not vikalpa; clear seeing and primordial wisdom, not mere mental imputations.
Thanks for the advice. I try not to think of it intillectually, but when I come into a new understanding I like to try to think of what exactly it is that I am understanding. Perhaps a mistake, but old habits die hard.