BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

General discussion, particularly exploring the Dharma in the modern world.
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futerko
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by futerko »

Malcolm wrote:
futerko wrote:
smcj wrote: Whereas the Buddhists simply say that there is an infinite regression
No, they don't. The whole point of Buddhism is to avoid such an issue of infinite regress.
In fact, Budddhists accept certain kinds of infinite regression as a logical consequence of dependent origination, for example, the infinite regression of dependent causality.
The logical consequence of dependent origination is that nothing originates, nor has it ever, which is effectively the same as saying that there is no empirically infinite linear temporal duration.

Time and causality are "in mind" phenomena, which taken as concrete facts of existence, would render Buddhism an utterly pointless exercise in futility.
Schrödinger’s Yidam
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

futerko wrote: The logical consequence of dependent origination is that nothing originates, nor has it ever...
That doesn't sound right. In fact, it sounds nihilistic...
1.The problem isn’t ‘ignorance’. The problem is the mind you have right now. (H.H. Karmapa XVII @NYC 2/4/18)
2. I support Mingyur R and HHDL in their positions against lama abuse.
3. Student: Lama, I thought I might die but then I realized that the 3 Jewels would protect me.
Lama: Even If you had died the 3 Jewels would still have protected you. (DW post by Fortyeightvows)
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futerko
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by futerko »

smcj wrote:
futerko wrote: The logical consequence of dependent origination is that nothing originates, nor has it ever...
That doesn't sound right. In fact, it sounds nihilistic...
I'm sure Nagarjuna is tired of hearing that. :tongue:

...however I'm sure he won't fall into despair because of it!
dude
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by dude »

Nothing comes from nothing.
Anything that will always exist must have always existed in the past.
Hence Nagarjuna says "Nothing whatsoever arises."
Schrödinger’s Yidam
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

dude wrote:Nothing comes from nothing.
Anything that will always exist must have always existed in the past.
Hence Nagarjuna says "Nothing whatsoever arises."
My elementary school level educations on this was from the Gelug camp, and I think they have a different spin on this.
1.The problem isn’t ‘ignorance’. The problem is the mind you have right now. (H.H. Karmapa XVII @NYC 2/4/18)
2. I support Mingyur R and HHDL in their positions against lama abuse.
3. Student: Lama, I thought I might die but then I realized that the 3 Jewels would protect me.
Lama: Even If you had died the 3 Jewels would still have protected you. (DW post by Fortyeightvows)
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dzogchungpa
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by dzogchungpa »

From "Nagarjuna's Letter To A Friend", translated by the Padmakara group:
Although performing wrong and evil deeds
Does not at once, like swords, create a gash,
When death arrives, those evil acts will show,
Their karmic fruit will clearly be revealed.
The aggregates are not a simple whim,
From neither time nor nature do they come,
Nor by themselves, from God, or without cause;
Their source, you ought to know, is ignorance,
From karmic deeds and craving have they come.
There is not only nothingness because there is always, and always can manifest. - Thinley Norbu Rinpoche
dude
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by dude »

smcj wrote:
dude wrote:Nothing comes from nothing.
Anything that will always exist must have always existed in the past.
Hence Nagarjuna says "Nothing whatsoever arises."
My elementary school level educations on this was from the Gelug camp, and I think they have a different spin on this.
What's their spin on it?
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mindyourmind
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by mindyourmind »

smcj wrote:Where does karma/rebirth "come from"?=Where did God "come from"?
I already have that one in my reply. It seems so obvious to me.

Create your own non-answer (God did it) and then ask other religions why their answer is so "inadequate".

I see what you did there.
Dualism is the real root of our suffering and all of our conflicts.

Namkhai Norbu
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mindyourmind
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by mindyourmind »

dzogchungpa wrote:From "Nagarjuna's Letter To A Friend", translated by the Padmakara group:
Although performing wrong and evil deeds
Does not at once, like swords, create a gash,
When death arrives, those evil acts will show,
Their karmic fruit will clearly be revealed.
The aggregates are not a simple whim,
From neither time nor nature do they come,
Nor by themselves, from God, or without cause;
Their source, you ought to know, is ignorance,
From karmic deeds and craving have they come.
That has just won me a case of beer. I will send you half, thanks :cheers:
Dualism is the real root of our suffering and all of our conflicts.

Namkhai Norbu
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futerko
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by futerko »

The karmic fruit is a half case of beer?!? :thinking:
Schrödinger’s Yidam
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

From: Je Tsongkhapa's "Three Principal Aspects of the Path".

Appearances are infallible dependent arisings;
Emptiness is free of assertions.
As long as these two understating (sic) are seen as separate,
One has not yet realized the intent of the Buddha.


So I guess Tsongkhapa thinks things do arise, of a sort…

From Malcolm in another thread:
The Gelug commitment to arguing essenceless existence is fruitless because there are is no such thing as an essenceless existence.
I like the idea of essenceless existence. It's the only way I can swallow any of the Mahyamaka. And personally I'm a Shengtongpa anyway, so I really don't care.
1.The problem isn’t ‘ignorance’. The problem is the mind you have right now. (H.H. Karmapa XVII @NYC 2/4/18)
2. I support Mingyur R and HHDL in their positions against lama abuse.
3. Student: Lama, I thought I might die but then I realized that the 3 Jewels would protect me.
Lama: Even If you had died the 3 Jewels would still have protected you. (DW post by Fortyeightvows)
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mindyourmind
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by mindyourmind »

futerko wrote:The karmic fruit is a half case of beer?!? :thinking:

Sounds fair to me
Dualism is the real root of our suffering and all of our conflicts.

Namkhai Norbu
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futerko
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by futerko »

mindyourmind wrote:
futerko wrote:The karmic fruit is a half case of beer?!? :thinking:

Sounds fair to me
Karmic fruit beer, tastes ok at the time but leaves a bitter aftertaste. :tongue:
muni
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by muni »

In space‘spaciousness (emptiness-interdependence, form-emptiness/emptiness-form), there is no cristallizing, no substantial samsara. But the creating mind is a magician.
Whether samsara or nirvana, Longchenpa: “the source is endless beginningless uncreated field of reality”. When a thought tries to understand this, cristallizing is a fact. Woopsee.

Oh, a master said on a travel to a religious one ( when he asked from what religion the master was) something like: "my God is from where your God is coming from" :smile: A created God as a thought its source is the uncreated field of reality.
Schrödinger’s Yidam
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by Schrödinger’s Yidam »

Whether samsara or nirvana, Longchenpa: “the source is endless beginningless uncreated field of reality”. When a thought tries to understand this, cristallizing is a fact. Woopsee.
Longchenpa and Nagarjuna do not necessarily agree with each other.
1.The problem isn’t ‘ignorance’. The problem is the mind you have right now. (H.H. Karmapa XVII @NYC 2/4/18)
2. I support Mingyur R and HHDL in their positions against lama abuse.
3. Student: Lama, I thought I might die but then I realized that the 3 Jewels would protect me.
Lama: Even If you had died the 3 Jewels would still have protected you. (DW post by Fortyeightvows)
muni
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by muni »

smcj wrote:
Whether samsara or nirvana, Longchenpa: “the source is endless beginningless uncreated field of reality”. When a thought tries to understand this, cristallizing is a fact. Woopsee.
Longchenpa and Nagarjuna do not necessarily agree with each other.
No any importance for own practice. In constructed teachings are many seemingly contradictions about how all is.
tatpurusa
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by tatpurusa »

smcj wrote:
Whether samsara or nirvana, Longchenpa: “the source is endless beginningless uncreated field of reality”. When a thought tries to understand this, cristallizing is a fact. Woopsee.
Longchenpa and Nagarjuna do not necessarily agree with each other.
There are many contradictions arising during attempts of uttering the ineffable, conceptualizing the non-conceptual.
This is why philosophies are secondary to practice and experience.
dude
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by dude »

tatpurusa wrote:
smcj wrote:
Whether samsara or nirvana, Longchenpa: “the source is endless beginningless uncreated field of reality”. When a thought tries to understand this, cristallizing is a fact. Woopsee.
Longchenpa and Nagarjuna do not necessarily agree with each other.
There are many contradictions arising during attempts of uttering the ineffable, sconceptualizing the non-conceptual.
This is why philosophies are secondary to practice and experience.
Exactly.
Without a determined effort to find out what the whole truth is for ourselves and resolve the contradictions, contemplating and debating abstract theory is nothing more than a frivolous pastime.
Rasko
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by Rasko »

mindyourmind wrote:Along come the Buddhists, "believing" in karma and rebirth, but not in a creator god. To put it in its simplest form, where does karma / rebirth "come from"? Who created such an exquisitely complex system, if there is no god?

Please be as technical and detailed as you can, I have been bet a case of beer that the Buddhist cannot meaningfully answer this, and that the best we can do is to ask questions like "Who's asking" and "ask your teacher".
The beginning:
"From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. Long have you thus experienced stress, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries — enough to become disenchanted with all fabricated things, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be released."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
The end:
"I tell you, friend, that it is not possible by traveling to know or see or reach a far end of the cosmos where one does not take birth, age, die, pass away, or reappear. But at the same time, I tell you that there is no making an end of suffering & stress without reaching the end of the cosmos. Yet it is just within this fathom-long body, with its perception & intellect, that I declare that there is the cosmos, the origination of the cosmos, the cessation of the cosmos, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of the cosmos."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
hop.pala
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Re: BASIS FOR KARMA / REBIRTH

Post by hop.pala »

smcj wrote:Just a footnote; one definition for 'God' in christian thought is 'the uncaused cause'. In other words they don't have an answer to the infinite regression question of 'where did God come from', so they answer it by saying, in effect, that God caused himself. That of course is a paradox. Whereas the Buddhists simply say that there is an infinite regression, also a paradox. So either tradition's answer is a paradox.
http://propositionzen.wordpress.com/201 ... -the-enso/
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