Ambarsaria ji,
As I said before, it is pointless to try and identify a particular cause and its corresponding result. … to understand different experiences and come to see how some are of the nature of cause and some resultant.
Confused ji give me an example of the following,
“nature of cause”
“resultant”
Causes are experiences such as a moment of anger, sensuous attachment, pride, miserliness etc. on one hand, and kindness, compassion, generosity and understanding etc, on the other.
Resultants are such as the experience of seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting.
====
Confused ji, explain to me if one cannot map cause-result incidents then how can “tendencies” be so observed.
Didn't you refer to this as common sense in your last post?
Today I express anger towards my wife's cooking, tomorrow I do it again, chances are that at another time she cooks the same dish, I will react with anger. This is reflection of tendency. Indeed if I get angry easily at one particular kind of experience and you don't, this shows that I've accumulated from the past one kind of tendency and you another kind.
===
I believe you make a big deal out of it as though Sikhism rejects that people can have habits, tendencies, etc., gained through actions and supporting results whether they like such 100% or do so for much less than 100% satisfaction to sustain these.
No, in fact I pointed out twice in my last two messages, that these are common knowledge. And this I did so that you will consider the possibility of another mental function, namely karma.
So tell me now, why do you believe in the function of mentality which is accumulated tendencies, but deny the possibility of another function by “intention” namely karma? Is it because you can observe one to the satisfaction of your intellect and not the other?
===
Quote: Originally Posted by Confused
Understanding the nature of mental phenomena, particularly the complexity of conditionality, shows how unlikely it is that a deed will produce instantaneous results.<>
Confused ji you are the one with sustained emphasis on rising and falling instantaneous volitions in mind.
But rise and fall away is not what is meant by cause and effect?! It is simply the characteristic of impermanence inherent in all conditioned existence, this means that causes are impermanent in nature and so are the resultants.
===
Rest of the world works by observing the macro impacts as in “as you sow so shall you reap”,
Give me one example and I will show you how that is not a case of moral cause and effect.
===
“controlling five deficiencies as in Kam, karodh, lobh, moh and ahankar”. You are telling all to focus on mental rising/falling instances (micro) and saying the macro like “as you sow so shall you reap” being too hard to validate.
What I am saying is that while the mental states are realities with definite characteristics, function and proximate cause and that these can be known by wisdom, a conventional idea about cause and effect is just that, an idea. You will hit or miss, but in either case, it does nothing in the way of developing wisdom. Indeed if you do not know what the mental reality behind any outward activity is, you will end up not only increasing ignorance and attachment, but also wrong understanding.
===
Indeed much is too hard to validate and absence such validation the evil merchants invent Karma so that they can control the masses with smoke and mirrors.
See what you are doing? You are insisting on proof when in fact what is required is understanding, and this is got through studying different states of mind. And btw, do you require proof for your belief in God or does that in fact involve a particular way of thinking about things? If someone has used the concept of karma incorrectly, instead of helping by pointing out the correct way of understanding it, you are instead going along with your own perceptions and then trying to dismiss karma altogether. This from my point of view, places you in no better position than those you are criticizing. Both come from a wrong understanding about Karma.
===
Mega businesses including some of the largest religions which teach them to avoid bad karma, give potions to correct bad karma, sell shells and stones to wear to avoid bad karma, etc. Such list is so long it is a joke that person astute as yourself somehow does not see practical impact of Karmic thinking as the mega trap that it is.
Or maybe unlike you, I do not allow other people’s thoughts and actions decide what to accept as Truth and what not to. Practical? The only practical thing to do is mind one’s own mind.
===
Quote: Originally Posted by Confused
But not beyond? Would there not be more number of deeds which will not bear fruit than those which do? So why even believe this “you sow so shall you reap” as a general principle? Why not believe in chaos or blind chance instead?<>
Confused ji you raise a very good point. Fundamental in Sikhism is the interplay of elements. “You sow so shall you reap” is not a stand alone concept.
And according to Buddhist teachings, for both karma and its resultant there must be a coming together of several conditions, some in the present and some from the past. But karma itself is one kind of phenomena and so is the resultant. The question is not what conditions karma and its fruit to arise at any given moment, but what these actually are. I gave examples of these in the beginning of this message. So you might like to also do the same with regard to what you propose. What is the reality that is sow / sowing and what exactly is reaped?
===
It goes along with much other to be raised in wisdom acquisition. “Consonance” with rest of creation is also very fundamental.
What do you think about the following?
The Five Cosmic orders are;
1. The caloric order.
2. The germinal order.
3. The moral order.
4. The psychical order.
5. The phenomenal sequence.
Number 1 refers to the laws that governs material objects from a chemical compound to a star.
Number 2 refers to the laws governing plant life.
Number 3 is karma.
Number 4 is the laws according to which consciousness and its mental concomitants rise and fall in succession.
Number 5 is a general law encompassing all the other four and more.
Number one, what is relevant is that which is experienced through the five senses and this can be known directly. With regard to 2, a conceptual idea is all that we can ever have. Numbers 3 and 4 is what we need to understand more than anything else. Number 5 we can begin to understand through studying the other four. All this can be understood only by way of understanding that which appears “now” to experience.
Do you find this reasonable?
Is there anything else that needs to be done?
===
Many a Japanese getting swallowed by the Tsunami while the birds fly merrily above the waves is not Karma. It is an interplay of “you sow so shall you reap” as well as “consonance”.
Karma is intention of a particular intensity which accompanies volitional consciousness. The results of karma are fleeting instances of consciousness which include pleasant / unpleasant experiences through the five senses, birth, life-continuum and death consciousness.
I build a house by the sea and one day get hit by a Tsunami, which parts of this is karma and which are results of karma? When seeing a pleasant object, experiencing pleasant bodily sensations, etc. as in looking towards the sea and feeling the breeze, these are karma results. I then think about these experiences with attachment and proliferate on to the idea of “living by the sea”, these are an examples of cause. It is therefore wrong to say that karma led me to live by the sea and then to be hit by a Tsunami.
===
If one were to not built a house so close to shore, one would not be swallowed by the sea.
Many perceptions are involved and many experiences both pleasant and unpleasant each associated with much volitional activity through body, speech and mind. The object of wisdom would be any one of these experiences and their objects. For someone who continues to take seriously his thoughts about the past and future, this kind of understanding will be extremely remote.
===
Can we acquire perfect wisdom to be in total control of all unknowns that we are never surprised and live happily or as we please every moment of our lives.
The idea of control aside, understanding the different experiences and their objects through the five senses and the mind, counters the tendency to think in terms of stories about the past and future. And since in the end, no matter where we are and what we are doing, there is just the one experience at a time, and all of them equally fleeting, what then is there to be concerned and surprised about?
===
Sikhism suggests we continue to gain such wisdom while with eyes, ears and mind wide open that there will never be a gaining of all wisdom that affects all. The magic potion of Karma is just an illusion which in practicality is addressed front and centre this way as nothing more than height of extreme ignorance.
Understanding the eye, ear and mind itself would be a great achievement. But this won't happen if along the way there was no understanding about certain mental realities as being cause and some other as being result.
Please tell me; based on what knowledge do you judge moral cause and effect or Karma as illusory? I have provided my reasons for believing in the concept. Can you provide some concrete reason as to why you reject it apart from saying that it cannot be observed or that it is an invention by a particular group of people? One impression I get is that these protestations is due to fear of appearing superstitious…..
===
Quote: Originally Posted by Confused
…. This is the kind of thinking that has led some Buddhists to believe in for example, the idea of collective karma. It is the failure to understand that there is only one moment of consciousness at a time, either a cause or resultant. And that all that is ever involved and affected is within that one instance of experience which rises and falls away in an instant. <>
It is the falsehood premise of Karmic thought that is an issue. I believe such Buddhists rightfully extend the true statement and exposition of Karma as described and postulated. So I say they are right and in their righteousness of understanding and postulation they are proving how Karma is bogus concept like a banana leaf tainted with pesticides used to serve pure food.
So you think the majority view is evidence of the rightness and wrongness of any concept. I would like to hear your explanation regarding Guru Nanak pointing out the wrong practices of the millions of Hindus and Muslims of his time…
But do attempt to prove wrong my suggestion about other Buddhists being wrong based on what I said. I had suggested that they are wrong based on the fact that there is only one moment of consciousness at a time and that all causes and conditions involved are within that very rising and falling away.
===
Quote: Originally Posted by Confused
…. Interconnectedness is a wrong perception, a metaphysical nonsense held also by the Mahayana Buddhists.<>
Confused ji if I were to take an assessment of how many Buddhists you have put down, I believe it will approach about 100%. I do believe you made statements like that in other posts but I have no problem being held to error or be corrected.
Yes, it approaches 100% of those who call themselves Buddhist today. Can you explain to me what might be the problem with this?
===
You have clearly stated to Tejwant Singh ji that there was nothing written by Buddha. So somehow you have made a connection of purity to Buddha through a silken thread of unknown thickness. I am starting to doubt that.
I doesn't interest me to look at the Buddha from the historical standpoint. The Buddha is Buddha as in “the One who knows and sees”. Unlike others, he taught to see that which is the Truth, one which is not an abstraction, but can be understood right here and right now. And with this as reference point, I have come to see gradually more clearly, how others are wrong.
Anyway, although the Buddha did not write anything, his teachings were passed down via oral tradition involving large number of monks in different parts of India and elsewhere, reciting together. And this is much more reliable than written texts.
===
Quote: Originally Posted by Confused
I think even during moments of great inspiration, your own actions follow a path that go against such thinking. When you act with moral restraint or with kindness towards someone, you do it with the knowledge that this is better than acting with hatred. The reference point at such times is not any idea about ‘interconnectedness’ or ‘ripple effect’, but something about the person in front of you. Indeed you’d push away any thoughts about what others might think or what happens later on, preferring instead to put all your heart into that one activity.<>
Sikhs have very strongly as a community or in greater preponderance shown this aspect. Do you believe it has anything to do with the teachings of our Guru jis and Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji!
We all like to belong and we all fear change. This is due to ignorance and craving, and lack of wisdom which appreciates Truth as the only worthy aim.
I don’t see how your question relates to my comment, please explain.
===
Your caring examples and statements I don’t care too much about. We fail sometimes and we succeed sometimes and there is no one perfect in this regard.
You mean thought about the person with whom you are interacting is a mistake and that ideally one should be thinking in terms of the bigger picture?
===
Quote: Originally Posted by Confused
It is funny though, that you should judge karma as encouraging ego. Even when seen through self-view as the Hindus and Jains do, given that the concept points at the fact that human birth is extremely rare as compared to those in lower planes, what is there then to be proud about?<>
Sikhism does not disapprove of Darwin's evolution and natural selection aspects. I assume you do and believe that we just happened as in Adam-Eve and like garbage stories that forms basis of other religions you mention.
I thought that you were dust before your birth and will be dust after your death. Now you are saying that you come from an amoeba or whatever that existed a billion years ago?! So the one amoeba or paramecium is the great forefather of you, me, Einstein, Guru Nanak and the Buddha, and perhaps we should all once a year pay reverence to it? Just kidding.
But seriously, do you see how this tendency to identify is a problem? You identify with the whole of creation, with being some part, with humanity, with other Sikhs, with animals from the past. It is hard enough with this identification as me, mine and I, it becomes much harder when these become “we”. And you consider this as getting at the Truth?
I don’t deny evolution. I think it is the story about life in this planet we call earth. It simply points at how the planet changed and able to sustain different life forms as time passed. But to identify oneself with the amoeba, the caveman or even one’s own father as means to understand who we are is completely misleading.
That your parents provided one a sperm and the other an egg which resulted in you being born or that this planet at one point had only one single-celled life form and later diversified into a great many different species, says nothing about who “you” actually are. The former only gives us an idea about a particular set of material conditions for birth. This and what happens after, between your parents and you, plays a part in your accumulated tendencies. The latter however, is a story that has absolutely nothing to do with your birth, life or death. On the other hand, this Karma which you consider garbage, explains much of what constitutes life and also what birth and death are. And the important thing is that it actually encourages you to examine your life from moment to moment, whereas the other things you have recourse to, in leading you away from what is "now", in fact encourage more ignorance, attachment, wrong understanding, and as you've shown, also conceit.
And by the way, identification is conceit at work, and strong identification and strong conceit is what madness in fact is.
===
Brother false foundations cannot support a house of truths so do a retrospection. Our Guru jis did and hence Sikhism.
Tell me one Truth that you know and I’ll show you how it’s just a belief.
===
Quote: Originally Posted by Confused
On the other hand, God impresses upon me as the ultimate ego. Whether one identifies with, or thinks oneself as only an insignificant part of, both involve comparing and identification which are expressions of conceit, therefore feeding ego. So the more successful one is in merging with, or loosing oneself into God, it is in fact ego that wins.<>
Poor God! If you were to state that creation can be perversely equated to ego you may have a point. Creation is perhaps laughing at all of us for our stupidities and approaches as we look for the magic key (Karma) or such other magic potions.
Although only as a joke, do you see how you can’t help thinking about God without some level of comparison. And if this is not conceit, what is it?
===
In the mean time the ice age cometh with or without the existence or non-existence of Karma
.
The problem is in the way you think about the different ideas and theories out there. You end up so identified with those stories that you have no clue as to what is really going on right now.
===
Why so! Because that is consonance and that is creation we are part of. As Luckysingh ji posted, we are just objects none more rare than any other nor can we judge so on behalf of creation.
And you love that particular story. You think that conceit is addressed when you make yourself an insignificant part, just like any other. But conceit in fact is not only when one thinks oneself greater than, but also both when lesser and equal to. Apparently what you consider truth has led you to consistently think in these terms, not only with regard to creation, but other things as well, re: “we” as humanity, as Sikhs, as product of our forefathers, as coming from the amoeba…..
===
Quote: Originally Posted by Confused
The process of aging begins the very moment one opens one's eyes to the world, and all experience falls away constantly, why then perceive anything as beautiful? To do so is a perversion of perception and of view. Matter disintegrates is due to the very nature of matter itself and not some overarching controller. Likewise the phenomena of birth, aging and death, these lie in the fact of realities being *conditioned* and not because it was created and then destroyed by some greater power. The idea of a “super controller” is rooted in the individuals own unwillingness to see that there is no “self” who controls anything.<>
Sikhism supports your observation and debunks your so called “super controller” argument as it only says we are of one and in one creation.
This is what you had said:
Quote:
“Creation churns all to ashes and particles so fine that something totally wonderful could be created all the time”
Now the super controller does not have to be separate from that which it creates and destroys. The idea is that there is a controlling force that reaches out to affect everything. This goes against the understanding that the causes and conditions for the arising of every physical and mental phenomena lie within that very phenomena. Indeed were this not so, then impermanence would not be a general characteristic, there'd have to be something that exists over time both in order to condition something else to arise as well as causing it to fall away.
===
Quote: Originally Posted by Confused
Karma has very specific meanings as I cited before. Why do you have to insist on your own meaning and then try to dismiss it?<>
Confused ji you can keep calling white black till the cows come home. It does not change anything. Your unique view of Karma is not how it is understood by 99.99999+%. You change those 99.99999+% before you change the definition or common prevalent understanding.
Again you are saying here that the majority view is correct. And you are suggesting an impossible and senseless task for me to undertake before you can start to consider my point of view as possibly valid. This reminds me of the simile of the man who attempts to cover the world with leather instead of simply wearing shoes. Why don't you just discuss with me about the concept to find out if in fact I am right or not? Are you having so much fun being the critic that you don't want to know what the Truth is?
===
It not work to call the whole world as wrong. If you want to call your understanding something else perhaps there will be more coincidental, cordial and synergistic dialog.
How can you expect me to call it something else when every part of it impresses upon me as coming from a particular set of teachings, namely the Pali Tipitaka, and this has been attributed to the Buddha? From my point of view it would be silly to call it anything else.
====
I have no idea myself other than to call it as a “model of the brain activity as per rising and falling volitional states conditioned over time that act as catalyst to such states and modify these”. Perhaps you can simplify it.
Your characterization is off the mark. And since as I said above, any characterization by me can be traced back to something written in the Tipitaka, in order to satisfy your wishes, let's just call what I have been saying as “Ism”. How is that?
===
Quote: Originally Posted by Confused
….. You are saying to the effect that anger now is cause and more anger later is the fruit.<>
Confused ji your ability to paraphrase is pretty pathetic considering the italics I have highlighted above. Give people a break they are not as stupid as you may think!
Sorry about that. I actually hesitated a bit since I realized my memory regarding the Pavlov experiment was quite vague. But you have not been precise, so perhaps you can tell me now, what exactly you refer to.
===
Quote: Originally Posted by Confused
This is *not* the cause and effect which is karma and its result. It is formations and its nature to accumulate, which is one aspect of mentality but not Karma. (1)Karma is intention and its (2) result are particular class of consciousness known as resultants.<>
The 1 and 2 I flagged appear to have nothing to do with any definition of Karma I have ever read.
It would be good if we get into a discussion about this. However if you don't wish to, but instead like to continue to express your criticism, then just as you suggested me do with regard to Buddha, you should make it clear that your criticism is directed at only a particular interpretation.
