Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
How To Resolve Conflicting Ideas In The Suttras?
Dakini
Veteran
There has been much debate here lately regarding the Buddha's teachings on karma and rebirth. Suttric references have been provided to support both sides in opposing arguments: that the workings of karma are unfathomable, or that they are clearly delineated, that karma determines all the circumstances of our lives, or that it doesn't. That karma is carried over to new lifetimes by the medium of "mind" or "consciousness", or that nothing is carried over to future lifetimes, and karma pertains to the current life only. And so forth.
What's a sincere and inquisitive seeker to do?
What's a sincere and inquisitive seeker to do?
0
Comments
Some karmic effects you can clearly see inside yourself or happening to others. You can clearly see cause and effect in certain situations. Focus on those. You can take that as truth. No need to worry about the other things you can't (yet?) understand. Are those things that you haven't seen for yourself really that important? I don't think so.
Whilst talking about how to judge a teacher, he said not to blindly believe, but to test and see if what is taught leads to a relief from suffering or not, and if so, then it can be believed.
Test out the teachings....by practice.....meditation.
A misquote because I don't read the suttas. Doesn't matter for the point I tried to make, though.
Thanks for pointing it out. It makes sense.
namaste
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an03/an03.065.than.html
The Buddha was astute in the arts of swindling.
:om:
'Moment to moment rebirth' refers to the arising and ceasing of our sense of self, the ephemeral 'I,' which is ultimately the product of what the Buddha called a process of 'I-making' and 'my-making' (MN 109). Without extrasensory perception, this is the only kind of rebirth that's readily observable in the here and now, hence my agnosticism in regard to postmortem rebirth.
That said, I don't see any contradiction between the two. According to the texts, a beginning point to samsara (literally 'wandering on') isn't evident (SN 15.3). This can be interpreted two ways — that a beginning point to the continual cycle of death and rebirth of beings isn't evident, or that a beginning point to the continual cycle of death and rebirth of the conceit 'I am,' the self-identification that designates a being (satta), isn't evident — and they're not mutually exclusive.
To put it simply, one moment of consciousness conditions the arising of next (rebirth), just as one action conditions the quality of feeling a moment of consciousness cognizes (kamma); and if one accepts the traditional interpretation of rebirth, this process doesn't cease at death if there's still craving (tahna) present in the mind (SN 44.9). Either way, the point is the same: all that really matters in the here and now is whether suffering is present, and if so, how it can be overcome.
As for the common misconception of kamma that everything we do or experience in the present is solely conditioned by past actions (i.e., the straight line theory of causality), that's actually a type of wrong view (AN 3.61) and how the Jain doctrine of kamma is portrayed in the Pali Canon (see MN 101). The Buddha, on the other hand, took the position that our experience of feelings (vedana) in the present is conditioned by both past and present actions (i.e., the non-linear theory of causality).
So, again, regardless of the extent one believes kamma has in shaping our present experience, it can only be observed and created in the present, so that's where I think our focus should be, especially for one in doubt about such things.
One thing which is constant across all schools of Buddhism is the core practices. You can't go wrong with the anapanasati sutra. And in my experience, it's the practices which really matter. All the cosmology and mythology just confuses matters.
Firstly, have faith that you are Buddha by nature, but was landed in a deluded dimension due to your karmic consequences of the past. Your sincerity ought to lead you into the inquisitiveness, and subsequently develop into your true sincerity. It is supportive among one another.
Good luck with that....
Just practise.
There was a Lama Yeshe quote on another thread, about how if students aren't able to find good teachers, good, ethical teachers, it's because they "made mistakes, or didn't cultivate the virtuous friend" in past lives. That's wrong view? It seems like it should be, it makes sense that it would be, but...well, I guess that's the ultimate test of a teaching, isn't it? Does it make sense, does it test out in one's mind.
Thanks to everyone for a pageful of thoughtful answers. this has been great. :om:
The obvious answer is ignored when you cling to the idea that OUR sacred scriptures are somehow different from all the other ancient sacred writings assembled through happenstance over centuries. And by monks and schools of Buddhism that sometimes--shall we say--were a little too certain of their own understanding.
The sutras disagree about subjects like karma, because the people who wrote them disagreed. It's that simple. Why is it so hard to admit even the great monks of the past were only human? We don't sell Revealed Truth (TM) after all. We don't claim that by some miracle, our sutras are the inviolate word of God.
That doesn't make one side, whichever you disagree with, valueless. These are minds at work, pondering the ultimate nature of reality and what it means to be human. Their words, even if they disagree with each other, are a great gift to us.
In a letter, he told me about how one day, there was an interfaith service at the temple and a local reporter began asking the head monk questions about the types of Buddhists and what they believe. The monk grabbed my old UU Minister by the arm, hauled him over, and said, "Oh, you need to ask the Reverend here your questions. He knows more about Buddhism than I ever will."
He said it was the most compassionate putdown he'd ever received, and the most effective lesson in the difference between knowing about something and just doing it that he'd ever received.