A Question Regarding The Cause of Suffering

I am aware of what is suffering and what is happiness. the question at hand was directly relating to the doctrinal implications of buddhism, really. just getting some interpretations. i'm not being snippy though. we have gotten a little off topic as it is, but then again, it's all connected, isn't it? lol.

And, eric, he was refering to nature, within which there is life. i guess the nature of the universe, er, specifically. yea, crowley can be a bit confusing. but he was also a fountain of what people refer to as "occult" wisdom. many think he was a despicable human being as well, labeled him the "wickedest man in the world" and all that, but, having studied much of him... well, that's another topic, another day.

anywho, more input from any quarter is welcome.

much love

 

haha! like "meet the new self, same as the old self"! if it's not quite right, it's is only because you attempt to describe it with the ambiguity of words. i am totally understanding what you are attempting to implicate.... i find that i am awakening to a "self" deeper than that which i at once assumed existed...

thank you for your contribution. i hope to hear more.

much love

 

Answering the primary question about the causes that result in rape. Buddhism and karma don't seek to determine or predetermine why a suffering exists because to the Buddhist all of existance is suffering. It doesn't matter if the suffering was having been raped or whether the suffering is hunger, or not being able to buy your third property on Park Place, life is suffering. Those rich will be poor, and those beautiful and famous will become old, ugly and forgotten. Nothing lasts forever, and if one is seeking just a causal answer for their own delimma then that isn't Buddhism but psychotherapy.

Buddhism is about how to remove oneself from this whole mess.

But here's a direct answer that might make some sense to you based on causes and results. First. the person raped was born on Earth, a place shaped by many conditions. Not the least of which is human crime. The human crime is propagated everywhere, and so as such will spill over into every person's life. Second, the person raped is usually a female, so having a female body is a condition. And so on, this doesn't justify the why or wherefore of rape, and Buddhism does not permit rape or condone it. Just the opposit in fact, it prohibits the causing of harm. Karma is a law of nature like sticking a finger in a wall socket and getting shocked. It just is.

Buddhism can change karma by changing the aprehension of the mind and loosening the self clinging tendency thereby making one more free of their suffering and preventing the practitioner from creating future causes of suffering.

 

so, with you, it seems to me, we are back to "nature is not fair, but it is exact." That justice is merely a human concept. That, as i myself had observed many times before any introduction to buddhism, life is suffering- it is how we deal with it that matters.

thank you for your contribution.

much love

 

The suffering brought of experiencing catastrophic events is like a negative strain of nostalga. Allowing the way we feel in the here and now to be affected by our memories. To do this when there is only here and now seems absurd. The root of most Eastern philosophies is to introduce different ways of seeing everything. I believe Buddhism focuses on the mind, how we control it, and why controlling it is merely an illusion (well, that and 10billion other things). Once you start rooting around inside your mind, you will be amazed and disgusted at yourself. Life is supposed to be fun no matter what. But without personal suffering, how would you ever know what feelgood can be?

As a person who is not a Buddhist, maybe my information is misleading / utterly wrong. As a person who is not officially affiliated with any religion or formal doctirine, I believe there are good lessons in all of them. As a psycopharmacologist I'll say 'if in doubt smoke a reefer'. Until recently I would have said nothing is better than a phat reefer. But I listened to 'Alan Watts teaches meditation', did it and feel ever so much better than stoned.

Only my opinions, I could be wrong, but I prefer to think not

How do we escape Maya? We'll use this here parachute

Compassion Eternal UniverseTraversers

 

Well, I agree except insofar as the "nature is not fair" part. Because nature is fair, in the sense of beautiful. But it's also ugly as well. Under the sun duality dominates in night and day and all other opposites. Look at the beauty of animals, and also the ugliness of them.

However in terms of degree no animal or event of nature no matter how terrific compares to the abilities of humankind for evil or good. For instance the atom bomb, and the cure for small pox. It's due to the ability to choose that humans slide downhill rapidly or mount to the heavens in a fast manner.

Some few people in a fiduciary duty to others with great power can create tremendous amounts of positive or negative energy, for instance consider the ability of an American president to effect, or even maim, torture, rape, and murder, based upon a few words and a few ideas. Not much energy spent, and yet so much harm done. This is the great power of free will.

But free will exists in a set of circumstances. I'm always thinking of the Wicca initiation ceremony where one has a bound foot and it says, neither totally free nor totally bound, or some such thing. This is the paradox that we live in, and karma doesn't change this.

Karma, as such, is a set of conditions which work based on other conditions. Like classic Newtonian physics of cause and effect. There are other playing fields as described in quantum physics, such as spontaneous self expression and collapse of a field of possibilities into a discrete point through acknowledgement, as explained better than myself in Heisenberg's rattlings.

The path to nirvana is the path of rising above Newtonian cause and effect to the state of spontaneous manifestation of the entire array of life. Either way liberation is effected through practice of Dharma.

And the sufferings of humanity are caused through ignorance, lust, envy, and covetousness.

It is said, that when people truely follow the Dharma even the seasons come on time, and natural disasters don't happen. But what population has ever truely followed the Dharma?

To be honest, during my own personal sufferings I have always wondered what I did to get into this mess. And even now I hate to own up to causes and conditions. For instance I am a cook, who can't get fine jobs because I have burned too many bridges. I have forged a shitty reputation and I have no good references. And yet, I'm a really good cook, and I'm a really caring, nice guy. Just I keep opening my big mouth to the wrong people because I don't see others in authority as being authorities. I'm insubordinate. This is my fault and yet, the conditions that made me have forged me into something which cannot be contained. But I can't even see that far back. Someday things just must work out, or I will die a broken man and a loser. But even then, am I to blame? Partially? Fully? Or not at all?

None of this thinking matters as far as the Dharma goes because noone can fathom the workings of karma. How many millions of conditions work together to bring the man in the car and the moose into a headlong collision. Not only local circumstances but 6 billion years of evolution. It's all too much.

So when karma is touted at the answer, well it is! But it's not a good answer for specific instances of experience. The law of karma is something that exists like electromagnetism, but that doesn't explain how the radio gets into the bathtub and electrocutes the baby.

Better minds than mine have tried to explain. All I can do is give the baby my sympathy, and try to never place a radio near the tub again. This was a good question. I feel I have wasted my time, and your eyes with my answer though. So Be Well.

 

Quote from Chodpa (who didn't wasted anything )
"Look at the beauty of animals, and also the ugliness of them. "

Do never forget there is one to think it's beautiful or ugly

I think:
Nature is


and not : "nature is fair or not"

Observe experiment and Explain all what is

It's our job, becuase this is what we are given
Love (really, do no take a hurt)

Blessings

 

Nature is fair. It is just our human perspective that warps the meaning of the word 'fair'.

 

after returning here from one of my lil sabbaticles, i find an answer to the question posed that warms my heart. thank you, chodpa, hardly was it a waste of time. as for nature not being fair, but exact, the way you explaigoes right along with crowley's. he wasn't using fair in terms of beauty, but in terms of justice, or the human concept thereof, which pretty much dovetails with 8d's last comment, really.

"I think:
Nature is"
-spiritforce

indeed, i feel the same way. and i think this statement makes all the above postulations now less true- lol, how could it? there comes a time, i suppose, when we must stop attempting to define what nature is, and just accept that it is.

tear in my eye, smile on my face, doing what i can.

much love, many blessings, healing vibrations

 

I'm not Bhudist, but, what I read in that phrophsy (SP) is meant as a GENERAL warning for humankind...
Mankid, craves status, wealth, Fame, and above all else, POWER. Those may be the downfall of mankind.

 

It not the wealth, fame or whatever that causes the suffering. It is the craving. It is craving for anything.

Suffering manifests on many different levels, not just the big ones. Craving anything causes suffering on one level or another.

As does rejecting anything, or being ignorant.

Blessings

Sebbi

 

The cause of suffering is the label, or the word, which leads to interpretation in accordance to the ego, which itself has been created by the word. We learned language, we learned thought, but we clung to the thought, and we began thinking in terms of ourselves, "how can it help us". The only positive use of thought is for logical thinking and communication, but we invented our "self"s, the I, with our thinking, only because we were not aware of the suffering it would cause. To be aware of something, without interpretation, triggers the subconcious to take action rather than allowing the I to make the decision. This action is pure, genuine. The only thing that hinges this action is the minds own awareness. Without the I, without the ego, the mind isn't forced to bias anything, and it sees everything as equal. It does not desire anything for it to remain content, because it is already aware that any desire will only lead to suffering. Any negative action onyou or another person will only lead to their suffering, which may consequently lead to your own. You are aware of this, yet the only reason for negative action is for the I to get its way. Without the I, you are your awareness, you are everything. There can be no negative action if you are aware that it will only cause suffering. This is what is meant by Karma in Buddhist terms. You take negative action, you are worse off. Your reincarnations are the Karma in effect. If you are your awareness, you are aware of constant change. Consequently, you constantly change, you are reborn every second. By creating negative karma, you reincarnate, suffering more than before. By being liberated from suffering, you cannot create negative karma, and you will not be affected by negative karma, from you or anyone else. You are simply aware, and nothing can break through the wall of pure awareness. There is nothing on the other side but suffering, which was not necessary in the first place.

 

I am what I think about what I eat.

 

Ah, that this discussion was resurrected from its long internment in the graveyard of this particular forum is quite nice.


Her, then, is my reply:

There is no justification for rape, being that it is a violation of will, in every sense both specific and general.

Much Love

 

My daughter has already been molested. She is eight. What can I give to her besides what I have experienced, and the liberation that it is all good in the greater scope that it is all spirit; sometimes darkness is what allows us to find the light and hope within, that will allow her to be gentle with herself and potential partners. I honor her by my unchanged presence.

I will be cast down again and again for my Self knows its will only result in an astral orgy to rise before it is time.

 

I was not in any way implying that lack of justification should result in uncompromised bitterness on the part of the victim. Quite the contrary.


Much Love