A Question Regarding The Cause of Suffering

"Things happen that were not caused by you..."

If something happens to you, good or bad, in traditional Buddhism it is caused by "you" ("when" is another matter). This idea that Wilson puts forth is that there is a kind of unique pool of good and bad karma for everyone and people just get something out of that pool; not neccesary that which they put in. Instead in traditional Buddhism your output will always depend on your input. Someone else's input cannot affect your output.

"I see karma as a birthrite..."

Traditionally Karma is not just limited to your birth but will remain throughout your life and this is why it is often considered fatalistic.

"As I do not speak nor read in the original language I am dependant on translations."

Yes I think translations always work fairly well as long as you look at some different ones, I just don't want to favour one in particular so just give the verse.

 

ericf- actually, i hate to tell you this, but your description of karma is quite similar to Aliester Crowley's description of the meanings Wheel of Fortune card in The Book Of Thoth... he says something along the lines of "Nature is not just, but it is fair."

And nepthys, my problem with karma being completely enacted by "you" is that as a child we tend not to have any actual memory of any past lives, (if indeed such memories we have at any point are not at least to some degree fabrications), and therefore such reinforcement of bad karma would be counterproductive as a learning tool, would it not? just saying, even if that is the way the system works, it's pretty inadequate for achieving its goal.

meagain, i look forward to hearing from you. your insights are always welcome. when i hear more from others in regards to this, i may expound my personal philosophy on the subject a little more, but i am really making an effort here to just listen, which is why i would like to see contributions from others...

much love

 

I am aware that karma affects you while you are alive and when you die... which is why I didn't think you meant it only affected you at death. My issue is that I see karma in reverse. I do not see it as past actions determining my present. I see it as my present actions determining my future. The only real difference (since this is almost reversable) is that I don't see the "self" suffering in this life for its past life. Beyond the station of its birth which is determined by the previous life. When I read about karma I can almost always see that it is described in a forward motion...

Note: This is from the same Sutra as above 17th and 18th verse. I am just using this translation because I don't have it in Pali. One day, it would be nice to learn the language and be able to read the original.

Hmm, actually explaining this is going to take me all day and get way off topic. I don't believe my understanding of this is going to harm my practice... just as your understanding doesn't harm yours. I cannot say with certainty which is correct but my reason leads me to formulate it this way. I don't believe that arguing it will benefit either of us though. It is interesting and I can understand where you are coming from. If you really want, I will try to explain my understanding but this isn't the time (I have been working all night and am worn out) nor the thread.

osiris, looks like I might have to read some Crowley one of these days. I've always wondered exactly what he had to say. I really can't refute the idea that it might be similar to what he said because I really don't know.

On the original topic, I still believe that things happen which were not directly caused by you. Of course, the limitations of "self" are mostly illusion. But that is the easy way out of this problem.

 

A BUDDHA would have transcended ass raping, not neccarsarily a BUDDHIST.

Buddha means enlightened one. A Buddhist is someone who tries as best they can to put the Dharma (teachings) that THE BUDDHA, Siddharta Gautama/Shakyamuni, taught.

Blessings

Sebbi

 

ok, let me try to put it this way: of course we can transcend the ass-raping, but by no means is our ability to transcend it a justification of its occurence.


much love

 

"On the original topic, I still believe that things happen which were not directly caused by you."

You suggested the idea of someone suffering because of someone else's Karma. I do not see how these passages support this claim. In fact they say that you suffer because you do evil and you are happy because you have done good. The idea of karma is that there is theoretically no undeserved suffering, or undeserved good.

"And nepthys, my problem with karma being completely enacted by "you" is that as a child we tend not to have any actual memory of any past lives, (if indeed such memories we have at any point are not at least to some degree fabrications), and therefore such reinforcement of bad karma would be counterproductive as a learning tool, would it not? just saying, even if that is the way the system works, it's pretty inadequate for achieving its goal."

A Buddhist would probably tell you that it might be better not to explain karma to a child in that case. It is a fairly complicated system and it is one which can lead to fatalism (even if you can argue that it is not fatalistic, it can still be misinterpreted easily that way). People "lie" to children all the time to make them happier, etc... But adults will have to accept the system, whether it is good or not. It would be better if suffering didn't exist, but unfortunately it does, and therefore we can't ignore it.

 

I think that Karma doesn't have much to do with this.

It is a well known Buddhist doctrine that shit happens. If all actions were the paying back of Karma then where does the origional Karma come from?

The abuser is accumilating themself Karma, not relieving the child of theirs (neccarsarily).

Looking at shit happening on a different scale, an earthquake is cause by plate tectonics, part of the physical inorganic order (utu niyama [I think]). Some of the people caught up in it may be put there by Karma, but most will be in the wrong place in the wrong time. If everyone was there because their Karma you would have whole cities of people who have commited bad enough karmas to deserve death all in the same place, and to be honest I will refuse to believe that, that could be the case, the Citta Niyama (the order of things involving thought and in this case, sociological order) would most likely override the Karma niyama.

Anyway, back to the kid being molested... SHIT... I forgotten what I was going to say.

I'll post when I remember again.

Blessings

Sebbi

 

Sebbi, it looks pretty much like you are saying what I believe. Maybe it isn't karma at all behind the random good and bad things that sometimes happen. The abuse of a child is horrible but claiming that the child is at fault (be it in previous life or not) would only compound the suffering.

There are reasons I don't believe our past life karma is affecting our current lives. When we die, if we are evil we go to hell. Hell is a temporary place of suffering and the level of suffering and length of stay is dependant on how much bad karma we have. After we leave hell we are reborn of the womb. We have already paid for most of our bad karma and the last payment is the station of our birth. Those who are good go to heaven. Heaven is a temporary reward and the level and duration is again based on how much good karma we have. When we leave heaven we have been rewarded for our good karma but are still reborn in the womb. If we die free from the attachment to karma then we escape the cycle and are free. If karma affected our next life then why would we want to leave the wheel? We would have greater and greater joy with less suffering each time. I see no justification to believe that -- in reality or in the teachings. Even the Buddha had bad things happen to him... even he was caught in a thunderstorm.

I do not believe that karma knows the future. When I do something bad today, karma does not arrange a rape 20 years down the road. That bad action will follow me and I will pay for it but karma is blind to the method of payment until it is extracted. If it happens that some person is looking to rape someone (and my previous action was bad enough to warrant it) then karma might increase the odds of our lives intersecting. But karma cannot cause that guy to rape me and it cannot know that guy's decision before it happens. It can know what is likely to happen.

I do suggest that suffering is caused by other people's actions. Since karma and action are interconnected, suffering is caused by their karma. I do like the example of the earthquake as I believe it states it better and avoids the illusion of another person causing your bad fortune. But people can cause it and it can be unrelated to your karma. Was everyone in the World Trade Center so evil in a past life that they deserved to die like that? Or were they in the wrong place at the wrong time? We can believe that those with exceptional karma might have been influenced to be late for work or that the people with the worst karma found themselves more drawn to work than usual. But that leaves a large group of people who were in the middle and just ended up experiencing the bad result of someone else's action. I still don't know if this will help you understand where I am coming from. I just hope you aren't implying that my practice is fatally flawed for this understanding.

 

from the dialogue we have shared so far, i must suppose we really need a clear cut definition: what is karma? per buddhist understanding? you see, it seems that buddhists do not agree on what karma is, what it means.

so, eric and sebbi seem to believe that karma is impersonal, and nepthys believes it is personal.

where do we go from here? any intermediate explanations from another source?

much love

 

"I'm also thinking of the "subtle thread" of Buddhism, which I have to look up if I can remember where I saw it. I believe it was something about the ego not continueing but a connection remaining from life to life."

yes, yes, i want to hear more about this! refer me to any source of info! felt something... deep...

much love

 

I do think karma is personal. But I think that things happen outside the direct cause and effect view some people see. I prefer to call this karma since it is related to action. If I buy a bunch of apples and hand them out to people who are hungry... that is a good action. But the affect of that action is much farther reaching than affecting only myself. Each person who was given that apple has a new positive event in their life. This may cause them to create more good and thus influence even more people. Even if it stops with them, my action goes good for more than myself. And, just because I have done that good thing, I cannot expect some cosmic law is compelled to repay me. It might be more likely that good things will happen in the future but the universe is not compelled to even the scale -- while I am alive. I believe in death the scale gets balanced determined by where we go if we don't reach nirvana.

I think karma is personal in that it does affect how likely something is to happen and it affects what happens to us when we die. No one's actions but our own play a part in our death. Does that make sense to anyone but me? Am I still thinking in an "occult" manner.

 

I think that Karma is the result of actions that occur and how we deal with these events. Lets look at the victim of violence.

There are those who say that they suffered violence because of something they did to set up those circumstances. I think that this philosophy simply blames the victim and lacks compassion.

I believe that individual events can be the result of a random chaos. You happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Is it “your karma” to suffer? Not necessarily. I think that you create karma in how you choose to react.

If you carry a lot of bitterness and anger, others around you will feel this vibration coming from you and react negatively. This is why the Dali Lama never expressed anger toward the Communists who invaded his country. This is why Jesus said to offer the other cheek.

I think the teaching here is don’t let bitterness create bad karma for yourself.

I could be bitter because I have MS. What good what this do me? I’ve been to support groups and there are a lot of people who are very bitter. Yeah it sucks, but it’s teaching me something about impermanence.

Christopher Reeve isn’t bitter. He’s a great example of someone who is using his experience to help others and thereby helping himself.

I think the same can be true for victims of violence.

As Buddhist we need to transcend the illusions of this transitory existence.

 

as buddhists? man, as people. i dig your line bro... but i'm still looking for something a little more in-depth from someone else that gets deep into the doctrinal implications, or their interpretation thereof, at least. i appreciate all of your contributions so far, though, most assuredly.

much love

 

Osiris - I suggest you read "Exploring Karma and Rebirth" by Nagapriya. It's published by Windhorse and is an A3 green book that is roughly the same width as a video game box (at least my copy is, I don't know whether it is different where you are, you never know these things).

This questions Buddhist doctrines of Karma and Rebirth critically and deepened my understanding of the Buddhist version of the doctrine by ALOT. My aunt Locana (who has been a practicing Buddhist for 21 years and has recently been ordained) recommended it to me and she thought it clarified these teachings very well.

It seems that many have a pretty Hindu interpretation of Karma which is, in many ways, different to the Buddhist version. I'm not saying that the Hindu version is any more or less valid, I'm just saying it doesn't quite fit in very well when talking Buddhism.

Can I point something out about the way I will talk about Karma and that is if I say "karma" in the same sort of context of "a karma", I mean an action that contributes to our Karmic activity. If I say "Karma" I mean either the doctrine or I mean someone's Karma as in "it is my Karma that this should happen".

On morality and Karma, I don't believe in good Karma or bad Karma. I think it is simply, if you have instigate a certain ammount of happiness in someone, one way or another, be it externally, by people acting towards you in a way that will make you happy, or internally, by satisfaction of the deed, you will recieve the same ammount of happiness back. Working the other way: if you have instigate a certain ammount of suffering in someone, one way or another, be it externally, by people acting towards you in a way that will make you unhappy, or internally, by guilt of the deed, you will recieve the same ammount of suffering back.

I think there is no scale you could draw. 0 being neutral, minus figures being suffering, plus figures being happiness. According to this model, if you commit a karma worth -1, then commit a karma worth +2 then your Karma will equal +1.

I don't believe in this model. Go slag someone off (hypothetically worth -1) then donate £1000 to Oxfam (hypothetically worth +200 for example) you will still feel shit for slagging the person off, no matter how much you did to make up for it.

Blessings

Sebbi

Blessings

 

sebbi, if i get the chance and funds i will most certainly take your helpful suggestion...

meagain- "When the non-substantial nature of the self is seen through liberation, The "karmic" cycle ends."

yes! i feel something there... but in regards to the memories, the specifics.... could it be said, perhaps, that, it not being the ego-self that transmigrates, but the spirit that animates each ego-self passing through many ego-selfs, as in an energy flowing through a pathway, water through a riverbed for analogies sake, that some of the residue of each ego-self must be carried on to each successive culminative point?

much love

 

and eric- i erred in saying that it was crowley's description of the fortune card that resembled your philosophy.... it was the card that was in medeival times refered to as "Justice", which he changed into "Adjustment", and moved from number 11 to number 8(which is certainly fitting) and this is his reasoning as to why:

"This card in the old pack was called Justice. This word has none but a purely human and therefore relative sense; so it is not to be considered as one of the facts of Nature. Nature is not just, according to any theological or ethical idea; but Nature is exact."

I placed the italics there for emphasis on the exact line that was trying to come to mind before. whatta ya think?
much love

 

Hmm, I know absolutelly nothing about tarot or Crowley's reasoning behind that statement. It is something I will have to look into for the future. Basically I cannot say I completely disagree with the statement. I don't believe that life is "fair" but I can't say I completely believe it is "exact" (whatever that means) either. I would have to know more about what Crowley means when he says stuff. I went and looked up some of his writing and most people agree that he writes things in a very confusing manner... which made me even less comfortable trying to dissect his meaning from my standing in ignorance.

 

If --love-- was here he could explain it the best. Here is my opinion though.

What is suffering? Every morning we wake up. We create our own happiness as well as our own sufferings. To find the cause of suffering, you must first find what suffering is. How can you study a bicycle if you don't know what a bicycle is? Suffering is in our mind. Its what we call something that generally brings sadness.

I hope you don't get confused by what I'm about to say here though. It might contradict what i previously said but oh well. Suffering is the absense of happiness. Happiness is the absense of suffering. When both are present, the mind tells us which one out weighs the other.

You can say that there is a definite suffering, however you can go on to say that because you consider everything to be "Happy" that the existance of suffering is not.

May you be granted Good Luck on your journey of Life.
-Peace