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wasting your time
genkaku
Northampton, Mass. U.S.A. Veteran
Just an idle question:
If, as Buddhists like to assert, dependent origination is an inescapable principle, then how would it be possible to "waste your time?"
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TV is my favourite method...
@genkaku Wasting your time is just an expression of regret or judgment, not a description of absolute reality. Time isn't a commodity; it's more like a score-card, the way we use it! If you sit around on the couch all day when you could've fixed the broken hinge on the door, your wife might call that a waste of your time... again, just an expression. Nothing has really been lost -- it was just a missed opportunity to keep your wife from yelling at you (I mean to fix a broken hinge).
The question seems like a nonsequitur to me.
By posting questions like this?
In the ultimate sense, watching TV, reading this forum or staring at a blank wall in meditation are exactly equal. Nothing is happening.
Conventionally, doing any of those things when I should be working on fishing gear could be the difference between success or failure this year. Each year is an opportunity that won't be repeated.
I have to build a lot of time wasting into my schedule as my productivity decreases.
If, as Buddhists like to assert, dependent origination is an inescapable principle, then how would it be possible to "waste your time?"
Or questions like this?
@fivebells -- Sorry ... didn't mean to be abstruse. All I meant was that, assuming anyone credits or actually knows something about dependent origination, how much sense does it make to accuse self or others of "wasting time?" Wouldn't that suggest that the 'whole' could somehow be whole minus one of the aspects that nourishes its wholeness?
well, till there is a 'you' to accuse self or others of 'wasting time', till then the time can be wasted or utilized by you.
but does wholeness means it cannot be perfected any further - seems like the zen view clashing with therevada view regarding path and enlightenment.
Sorry, @genkaku. I still don't follow your reasoning. It sounds like you are talking about DO as a positive thing, for starters, something to be nourished rather than brought to an end? If that's the case, I've heard that a view like that evolved in Chinese Buddhism, but I don't understand it.
I don't think their is such a concept as wasting tine. Work, rest and play are all essential parts of a healthy life and another point the moments when i have been wasting time are often the greatest e.g will i most like remember the hours i have been hard at work this week or the moments inbetween when i have been drinking tea, chillin and chattin with my work homies lol ?
As long as there is dependent origination, there is time and there are goals, and time spent without furthering those goals is wasted from their perspective. If the goal is the end of suffering (which I think is the mark of a serious Buddhist practitioner), then most actions which deepen the attachments and cravings which feed dependent origination are a waste. The exception is craving for awakening (bodhicitta) and related mind states, meditation, etc., of course.
I can't find the original sutta at the moment, but one saying of the Buddha which Thanissaro frequently cites is "Days and nights fly past, fly past: What am I doing right now?"
A human birth is rare, cosmically speaking, so what's the rush.
The standard argument is that these favorable conditions for awakening are rare, and you never know when they're going to end.
Thich Nhat Hanh teaches 'aimlessness' as a part of Buddhism.
http://www.livinglifefully.com/flo/floaimlessness.htm
To make such an argument you would have to know that human birth is rare. How could anyone know that?
OR, you would just have to believe that what the Buddha said is true. As he did say "human birth is rare"
I think the numbers speak for themselves.
"It has long been recognized and documented that insects are the most diverse group of organisms, meaning that the numbers of species of insects are more than any other group. In the world, some 900 thousand different kinds of living insects are known. This representation approximates 80 percent of the world's species. The true figure of living species of insects can only be estimated from present and past studies. Most authorities agree that there are more insect species that have not been described (named by science) than there are insect species that have been previously named. Conservative estimates suggest that this figure is 2 million, but estimates extend to 30 million. In the last decade, much attention has been given to the entomofauna that exists in the canopies of tropical forests of the world. From studies conducted by Terry Erwin of the Smithsonian Institution's Department of Entomology in Latin American forest canopies, the number of living species of insects has been estimated to be 30 million. Insects also probably have the largest biomass of the terrestrial animals. At any time, it is estimated that there are some 10 quintillion (10,000,000,000,000,000,000) individual insects alive."
It's not just human birth, it's having reached a point in your life where the dharma makes sense to you, having sufficiently peaceful and bountiful circumstances forr practice, and the guidance to do practice effectively. Much fewer than 1% of people have had those circumstances, and you never know when they're going to end.
Where, exactly, did he say that? Maybe he actually didn't say that, or perhaps it's a bad translation. And in any case, he was only a man wasn't he? and could only know what a man can know? No man can know that human birth is rare, in fact, but any of us can make assumptions based on our experience.
The known numbers speak, yes, that's true. But in truth the universe could be lousy with humanoid lifeforms. We simply don't know how rare human birth is, in fact.
Not true at all. There are many other religions to chose from. All religions are fundamentally the same.
How do you identify the Christian and Buddhist soteriologies?
Soteriokiigyy... what? Well, whatever that means, they both have one!
Really?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soteriology
Serious question here to all - does Buddhism have any salvation doctrine? Or rather do Buddhists view it as such given that the Buddha was a man and not a God?
@dhammachick -- Whether Gautama was a man or a god is not something I can do anything about outside of speculation. Still, the words attributed to him seem to pan out in experience and so I am willing to say thank you ... whoever strung the words together.
It's said a couple of places in the Pali Canon. Masters throughout history and masters currently alive express the same sentiment.
A Buddha knows more than an ordinary man, that is why he's called a Buddha to begin with.
@genkaku - I don't doubt that people are grateful for the teachings. I know I am. I was asking more from a.... scholarly doesn't seem to be the right word... point of view. Soteriology points to a doctrine that attributes its salvation to a divine being. Since Buddha was not a god but was "awake" (his definition), I was/am genuinely curious to see how that can be tied together. Especially since the Buddha stated not to take his word for it but try it for yourself. To me that seems to be the opposite of soteriology.
Seriously?
Let's see, promising the cessation of suffering, hmm... could that be somewhat of a salvation?
A Buddha undoubtedly knows the Four Noble Truths, but beyond that...
Uh...isn't the Buddha dead?
Yes, seriously.
Yes but in Christianity salvation is by accepting Jesus as your Saviour and not having to do anything yourself. Buddhism doesn't have that so you saying Christianity and Buddhism are the same doesn't quite gel. Judaism however, that and Buddhism are closer to the mark.
I don't think all religions are the same, by any means, but I think most of them have a very similar foundation for moral behavior.
I have never seen where Buddhism (except maybe Pure Land? but I don't know much about that at all) where salvation is a topic. But in essence, isn't Nirvana a salvation from Samsara? It won't save you, you have to save yourself, but really, Nirvana is extinguishing, which could be viewed as salvation.
How I was taught in Christianity (lutheran) wasn't that it was so simple as to say you believe in Jesus, but that it be true in your heart that you believe those things, and that Jesus knows yours true heart. Some sects of Buddhism say people have (and others still can) achieve enlightenment/liberation at a moment's notice, by hearing a sutra, or realizing an understanding. Do those 2 things differ that much? If per some Christian belief, belief in Jesus can liberate a person immediately at their death by accepting the truth in their heart...and enlightenment/liberation can be achieved immediately by an individual...
Hmm. Interesting to ponder.
@karasti - the evangelical sects of Christianity claim once you accept Jesus as your saviour you've been saved. In fact, I have heard some of them get so het up over certain verses in scripture - particularly the good deeds without faith passage, that i expected them to get into a punch up (Glad I don't work there anymore).
I've not questioned the idea of salvation from Samsara via Nirvana. My understanding is that since soteriality involves a deity then it's quite different from Buddhism. They quite often have similarities, Thich Nhat Hanh speaks about it very eloquently in Living Buddha, Living Christ. But even he does not view Jesus as a personal saviour. That was what I was getting at.
Judaism would be closer to Buddhism as there is no original sin belief in Judaism (well, not Orthodox Judaism. That's the path I have learnt on). In fact many Jews who turn to Buddhism call themselves JuBus.
well, the human race is rare - this is said in Shreemad Bhagwad Geeta by Lord Krishna in Hinduism (since i am a Hindu and i have studied Shreemad Bhagwad Geeta, so i know it) - now if the point is raised that since you are not a Hindu and what is the proof that Lord Krishna took birth on earth in human form, then obviously even though archeologists have found some evidences that show Mahabharta (the epic) might have occurred, but there is no proof that Lord Krishna actually took birth on earth and whatever is written in Shreemad Bhagwad Geeta were actually said by Lord Krishna. In Shreemad Bhagwad Geeta, it is said there are 84 lakh species, out of which human birth is one and is the topmost - so human birth is rare.
anyways, even Buddha said that human birth is rare - now Buddha became enlightened and so he got transcedental wisdom, which is beyond normal human being's knowledge - he got knowledge of previous lives, physic powers etc - so obviously, he knew more than a normal unenlightened human being. i think in one sutta, Buddha taught that human birth is rare, having a person who have understood and explained dhamma is more rare and then being a human coming into contact with Dhamma is even more rarer - so now since you are born as a human being, a Buddha has arisen who has understood and explained dhamma, and you have known about Dhamma, the only thing left is to practice it - so don't waste time, rather being mindful to try to end this cycle of suffering once and for all.
metta to you and all sentient beings.
Pureland salvation came to mind for me too . . .
http://www.nembutsu.info/kaneko.htm
Heaven or Nirvana, there's no real difference.
I suspect that since many on this bulletin board live in a Christian country -- I mean the general outlook, not whether everyone goes to church -- there is a tendency to equate Gautama with Jesus... Jesus, the mythological wunderkind who, only on occasion, is allowed to be a man.
For my own purposes, I like to remember that the word "buddha" just means "awake." Man, woman, happy, sad, profound, shallow, tender, testy, smart, dumb ... all such things require the quality of awake, but awake does not require and cannot be limited by broom-stick-riding, marriage, a new job, changing water into wine, or other magical and ordinary characteristics. Anyone capable of reading this post is awake ... not because it's holy or elevated or wondrous but because it goes with the territory.
Awake ... I wonder what that would be like.
Exactly ... since they're both false, lol.
I keep clicking on this thread. Must be self-fulfilling prophecy.
So what is your point here? There is no real difference between you and Betaboy either, ultimately.
No true Scotsman, either, right?
The point is that all religions are fundamentally the same. They have the same purpose etc. That's probably why they are all categorized as "religion."
Rewinding the tape further back, religion is available to the vast majority of humanoids and not less that 1%, as @fivebells seemed to claim.
You keep saying that, but don't seem to have much of an argument beyond "Yeah, no real difference there," when it's clear that there are significant differences between nirvana and heaven, for instance. I think you have to be more specific about what "fundamentally the same" means, because you seem to have a rather peculiar interpretation of it.
As I mentioned, they have the same purpose etc. They have the same fundamental components, such as some sort of "salvation."
Try thinking of hammers for instance. It's meaningful to say that all hammers are fundamentally the same, even though there may be many variations. Hammers hammer stuff. If a hammer couldn't hammer stuff it wouldn't be hammer, or maybe it would just be a really lousy hammer.
What is that purpose?
Expectations not met?
Do you TRULY misunderstand me? Or are you deliberately being a dick?
As @fivebells pointed out
If you're going to keep rambling to "see" the words on the screen, that's all good. But if you can't/won't answer then say so.
Meaning, essentially.
If you can give me citations of Buddha and Christ demonstrating that the purpose of their teachings and practices was "meaning," I will go home.
Are you saying that we shouldn't worry about wasting our time?
@wangchuey -- I guess I'm saying that with practice it becomes difficult if not impossible to discern precisely what could be a waste of time.