Dharma Wheel

oushi wrote:Are you stating here, that you never possessed understanding???

Sigh...

I don't know who's blood is boiling, Oushi

In fact, I have been enjoying watching you dig yourself into a hole. I have been asking you to explain yourself this whole time, but you keep making things personal. Judging my emotions, my progress on the path, ect. has nothing to do with this conversation and the point that I am trying to discuss. You asserted that dzogchen "discards causality." I have tried to show you through examples that this is not so. Maybe we are talking about different things, I don't know, because you keep throwing stones. I guess somehow I am a liar now, too. I just pointed out that something you had written seemed passive aggressive, maybe I was wrong, I am not perfect. But then you started getting personal and now your conclusion is is that it is my fault that you are unable to explain yourself. So, without getting personal- and by that I mean without talking about my character, understanding, or emotions, what do you mean when you say that dzogchen discards causality when proper conduct and adherence to cause and effect is emphasized in the texts?

So in light of passages such as:

"The key point of conduct is to renounce nonvirtuous physical
and verbal activities as if they were poison, not overemphasizing
view at the expense of conduct by thinking that since
everything is emptiness you will not be sullied by flaws no matter
how you behave. You must be calm, restrained, and careful,
like someone who has been brought before the highest
judge.

-Dudjom Lingpa, Nang-jang

and

Such foolish and arrogant people who do not know the various meanings of the Dharma say, "There is no karma and no effects of karma. In suchness there is nothing. It is like space," and they abandon virtuous deeds and indulge in evil deeds. Those are nihilists and not followers of the Dharma.

Longchenpa, Chapter 4 Shingta Chenpo

What does "discarding causality" actually mean? I am really trying to understand you, here Oushi, but this conversation is going nowhere because you keep evading the subject. Lets try it one last time, just see if you can post without making statements about me. OK?

It should also be noted that the original comment that you made about discarding causality is not in this thread, it must have got lost when the thread split.

It is a parodox that glimpses of the natural state happens through the grace of the guru. In the end there is no difference between rigpa and the guru.

Exactly.

Here is a nice excerpt from Dudjom Lingpa's Nang- jang regarding the conduct of a dzogchen yogi:

"The key point of conduct is to renounce nonvirtuous physical
and verbal activities as if they were poison, not overemphasizing
view at the expense of conduct by thinking that since
everything is emptiness you will not be sullied by flaws no matter
how you behave. You must be calm, restrained, and careful,
like someone who has been brought before the highest
judge.

-Dudjom Lingpa, Nang-jang

Oh dear god, That sounds awful. Stop judging me!

He is addressing a Dzogchen yogi.
Unless you are one its not you that he is addressing.

Holybla wrote:Karma doesn't mean cause. It means action of a sentient being. And Phala doesn't mean effect. It means fruit of a sentient being's actions. There is no cause and effect in Buddhism as ontology. Hume's view of cause and effect is just as good here. It also leads to misconceptions about the teachings. When you start looking for causes, you are looking externally for logical connections and analysis about how things arose. What you have to do is look within at the genesis of tensions and actions. A path beyond karma and phala doesn't mean deeds will not be painful. It just means the path to realization was not gradual. Once the realization has become stable, then supposedly one would not commit a deed with negative karmic fallout as a kind of instinctive response of love and compassion.

Sounds like a lot of blah, blah, blah to me. Are you sure your name isn't holyblah?

Who ever heard of bringing Hume into a discussion on cause and effect?!

Sheesh!

gregkavarnos wrote:

oushi wrote:First of all, I am not aspiring to become anyone.

Yeah right. You had me fooled.

Monks, I don't see anyone in this cosmos.

Said the Blessed One. (SN 46.54)

oushi wrote:CrawfordHollow,

"Now, the ati-yogin of essence,
forsakes all provisional techniques
designed for straight cause and effect babes
on the lesser, ladder path,
and binds the gnostic dynamic
that supersedes all clever technique
to the yoke of the nonactive sky. - Lonchenpa"

When it comes to you long post... Fight the illusory dragon you are trying to create on your own.

You're quoting Longchenpa who is speaking from the viewpoint of the highest wisdom, fully awakened buddhahood, not our relative state.

This seems to be a common issue that arises with some practitioners. They'll read a few texts authored by great adepts who are expounding the ultimate view from the standpoint of the highest wisdom and translate it as addressing their relative condition. Whereby they'll decide that there's nothing to do and will toss out the baby with the bath water. It happens all too often nowadays it seems, there are even some individuals who claim to be teachers who fall victim to this trend. This is why it's very important to have a strong relationship with a qualified teacher, and not rely on books alone. Dzogchen does speak of effortlessness, and the 'do nothing' approach, however these notions are describing one's practice once a certain level of familiarity and integration has occurred in the natural state. Effort is required until effortlessness takes over. Integration is a process of untangling oneself from the habitual tendencies which maintain ignorance, if we 'do nothing' too early in our path, we're simply doing nothing.

MalaBeads wrote:

Holybla wrote:Karma doesn't mean cause. It means action of a sentient being. And Phala doesn't mean effect. It means fruit of a sentient being's actions. There is no cause and effect in Buddhism as ontology. Hume's view of cause and effect is just as good here. It also leads to misconceptions about the teachings. When you start looking for causes, you are looking externally for logical connections and analysis about how things arose. What you have to do is look within at the genesis of tensions and actions. A path beyond karma and phala doesn't mean deeds will not be painful. It just means the path to realization was not gradual. Once the realization has become stable, then supposedly one would not commit a deed with negative karmic fallout as a kind of instinctive response of love and compassion.

Sounds like a lot of blah, blah, blah to me. Are you sure your name isn't holyblah?

Who ever heard of bringing Hume into a discussion on cause and effect?!

Sheesh!

It's all blah blah blah if you don't know how to relate it to wisdom. Who ever heard of bringing Buddha into a discussion of cause and effect? Buddha never once spoke of causes like billiard balls bouncing together. Actually, Hume did write quite a lot about causality and demonstrated there's no such thing. So the Buddha's main teaching wasn't cause and effect. It was the mechanics of a human action, which is internal to one's mind like urges, feelings, ideas, etc. These are all demonstrated to be nonexistence. To understand dharma it is easier to leave aside scientific questions of causality and look directly at the mind's illusion-manufacturing plant. It is itself beyond cause and effect in the sense that nothing is making these illusions appear. They just do so according to karmic attitudes. It's a nonexistent amorphous attitude that makes them, not a bit of undigested sausage or external factors. Before one has the target in sight, emptiness, discussing all the finer points of archery is a lot of blah blah blah, and it might seem like you are talking about a science or something, but actually all these talks are for nothing, and they are not about anything at all.

Nothing wrote:

Monks, I don't see anyone in this cosmos.

Said the Blessed One. (SN 46.54)

Here is the quotation with a bit more context:

"Being asked in this way, the wanderers of other sects will be unable to respond and, on top of that, will fall into vexation. Why is that? Because it lies beyond their range. Monks, I don't see anyone in this cosmos — with its devas, Maras, and Brahmas, with its people with their contemplatives & brahmans, their royalty & commonfolk — who would satisfy the mind with their answer to these questions, aside from the Tathagata, a disciple of the Tathagata, or one who had heard it from them.

from http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

So, what is your point?

Sprung, big time!

Well done dzogchunpa!

Dependant-origination, which is Buddha's teaching is definitely about cause and effect. The twelve links of dependent-origingation, which is propelled by ignorance is what makes samsara go round. It is not that this elaborate show of cause and effect is non-existant, as if nothing is there, it is mere appearance, illusion. What is dependently arisen is empty, and vice versa. This does not mean non-existant, though. So cause and effect is for sure part of the Buddhist teaching. Once again (I think for the fourth time?) I will post this quote that I have become quite fond of at this point:

Such foolish and arrogant people who do not know the various meanings of the Dharma say, "There is no karma and no effects of karma. In suchness there is nothing. It is like space," and they abandon virtuous deeds and indulge in evil deeds. Those are nihilists and not followers of the Dharma.

Longchenpa, Chapter 4 Shingta Chenpo

I guess I don't follow you. Who was talking about "scientific questions of causality?" The only point that I was trying to emphasize is that the highest and most esoteric teachings, the teachings of dzogchen, do not tell practitioners to neglect karma and virtuous conduct. We are affected by karma right up until the end, even if the intricate web of cause and effect is nothing more than illusion.

To emphasize this point, here is a nice little snippet from the incomparable King of the Dharma, Dudjom Rinpoche:

Even though you might have exerted yourself at the practice
like that of view, meditation, and conduct, your vows and
samayas could degenerate because of not being skilled in
post-attainment’’s activities. If that happens, along the way
there will be obstructors to the attainment of the levels and
paths and there will be obstacles in general, and, ultimately,
it is certain that you will fall into the hell of unremitting
torment, Avichi. Therefore, it is absolutely important that
anything you do is always connected, through never being
separated from the watchman of mindful awareness, to unmistaken
adoption and rejection. The great acharya said,
Overall, your view might be loftier than the sky but
Your karmic cause and effect must also be finer
than flour
-Dudjom Rinpoche, Alchemy of Accomplishment, aka Mountain Retreat

The "great acharya" here is Padmasambhava

Here is what he says about those who do not adhere to proper conduct:

And then there are the types who have inferior accumulations
of outflowed merit, who are loose in their samayas and
vows, who have strong wrong views, have many doubts, and
who make high promises but have feeble practice. Let them
sit there with their stinky farts hanging over the guru’’s oral
instructions on the reading stand before them! When they
are gripped by death, they will follow along after those bad
conditions of theirs and mara will easily lead them down the
path of rotten migration. Oh how horrible this is! Supplicate
the guru that this sort of thing will not happen to you.
-Dudjom Rinpoche

CrawfordHollow wrote:Dependant-origination, which is Buddha's teaching is definitely about cause and effect. The twelve links of dependent-origingation, which is propelled by ignorance is what makes samsara go round. It is not that this elaborate show of cause and effect is non-existant, as if nothing is there, it is mere appearance, illusion. What is dependently arisen is empty, and vice versa. This does not mean non-existant, though. So cause and effect is for sure part of the Buddhist teaching. Once again (I think for the fourth time?) I will post this quote that I have become quite fond of at this point:

Such foolish and arrogant people who do not know the various meanings of the Dharma say, "There is no karma and no effects of karma. In suchness there is nothing. It is like space," and they abandon virtuous deeds and indulge in evil deeds. Those are nihilists and not followers of the Dharma.

Longchenpa, Chapter 4 Shingta Chenpo

I guess I don't follow you. Who was talking about "scientific questions of causality?" The only point that I was trying to emphasize is that the highest and most esoteric teachings, the teachings of dzogchen, do not tell practitioners to neglect karma and virtuous conduct. We are affected by karma right up until the end, even if the intricate web of cause and effect is nothing more than illusion.

The main point I agree with you, one cannot give up virtuous conduct. My point about cause and effect is that dependent orig is not a cause and effect like chemical reactions or something happening in a petri dish looked at under a microscope. Here one's own mind is the microscope and one's own mind is the objects being looked at. So it's a totally different thing. What I was getting at is it seems Buddha didn't get into what is a cause and effect. Again I say in disagreement though, karma does not mean 'cause' it means 'action.' That's a different meaning. Action doesn't mean acting upon or because of something else necessarily. Like dep orig, these twelve factors are simultaneous. They are all in the mind. They are like facets of a jewel, not really something going on out there. That's why they are illusions; they only appear to be acting like something. These twelve factors are only feelings more or less. Sure they can have consequences... What's different is that people want to cross-ref buddhism and science all the time. I see that in this thread. People say cause and effect, cause and effect, and it sounds scientific. But Buddha meant something completely different. He's saying, we are self-generating this whole dream. Not that it comes from somewhere.

So, if it doesn't come from somewhere, then dharma newbies think it can be disregarded and one can do as one likes. But then they are missing the point about self-generation of the dream. If the mind is polluted you get deranged appearances. When the mind is pure, there are pure appearances.

I summarize: the key is not to look outward at facts, or semi-inward at ideas and analysis. But to look inward at the mind itself. That's where all these teachings become about something.

Dear Holybla, of course we look inward, where else would you find any truth?

/magnus

Sure,

I never equated "cause" with "karma," for some reason the discussion turned from talking about karma to causality. Either way, my point still stands about dzogchen and karma. You look inward and recognize rigpa, you stay as long as possible in that state, integrate it with everything that you do, all the while observing your actions and their consequences. My point is that dzogchen incorportes all of this. That's all.

Holybla wrote:What I was getting at is it seems Buddha didn't get into what is a cause and effect. Again I say in disagreement though, karma does not mean 'cause' it means 'action.

Yes, karma means "action." But there are other terms to consider. It might be useful to differentiate some of them. In the Nikāyas and Āgamas we find the terms hetu and paccaya (Skt. pratyaya) often used as synonyms. They are commonly translated into English as "cause" and "condition" respectively. For example in DN 15 we find these terms used together in the explanation of dependent origination as follows:

• Therefore, Ānanda, just this is the cause (hetu), the source (nidāna), the origin (samudaya), the condition (paccaya) for ageing and death, namely, birth ... the condition for birth, namely, becoming, etc.

In the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma the terms hetu and pratyaya are further developed into the six causes and four conditions.

Other relevant terms are phala (fruit) and vipāka (result).

Holybla wrote:People say cause and effect, cause and effect, and it sounds scientific. But Buddha meant something completely different. He's saying, we are self-generating this whole dream. Not that it comes from somewhere.

Right but that is precisely the cause and effect: because of our ignorance (cause), all the myriad originations apparently arise and are attributed validity (effect).

as Nagarjuna states:
"When the perfect vidyā sees,
That things come from ignorance as condition,
Nothing will then be objectified,
Either in terms of arising or destruction."