Ahetukavinasavada Non-Causal Destruction

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Onasander
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Ahetukavinasavada Non-Causal Destruction

Post by Onasander »

What is Non-Casual Destruction? I’m very good at initiating Casual Destruction but didn’t know there was a way (or is it non-way?) to commit (or not-commit) say, Arson in a non-linear way. I don’t know what to do with this idea. I came across the idea in “The Heart of Buddhist Philosophy: Dinnaga and Dharmakirti” and it is the claim of the Sautrantika School (don’t see that listed on this site, but they had to of been absorbed into Tibetian Buddhism but not sure where to post it).

So my guess just going off the name is passively watching stuff get destroyed but not knowing the origins of the destruction, but you are aware of the act of destruction. Does that imply a awareness of the thing being destroyed too? Example I can hear something thud and break in another room, but all I hear is the destruction- I only know it from that via comparison to other things that have broken and a awareness of my emotional response on a hormonal level to stimuli. But then again might have nothing to do with that and these guys just found a clever way of breaking stuff blame free, which is always entertaining. I recall in Tibet edible plants rarely grow and most Buddhist eat meat, but developed a clever karmic dodge on the issue attributing all the karmic bad on the butchers who intentionally kill for selling the meat- but people who were not involved in the killing are blame free and can indulge in the flesh markets as they didn’t intend to kill the animals. The obvious flaw is the butcher is selling a product he fully expects will pay off and the people in the butcher shop with coin in hand aren’t exactly shocked and surprised at the appearance of the meat and I’m certain no shame or disgust exists in them when they buy the meat. But that’s still blatant causality- customers in the market have a behavior of buying meat, so the butcher butchers the meat and sells it, and the Buddhist monk buys it. Cause and Effect. The Buddhist Monk kills as certainly as the butcher, more so because if the monks ate something else the butcher couldn’t earn a living killing at the scale he does. But they seem to of developed in Tibet a ethical and moral dodge and I’m wondering if this concept is the origins of that on a intellectual level? I get the need for the dodge- no plants around for the population to turn vegetarian, but seems a obvious contradiction- wouldn’t the biggest saints be the butchers for absorbing all this bad karma so society may survive and not the monks on the verge of transcendence?

Maybe it is something else entirely? Like falling asleep? If you are systematically trying to hold a thought process but other biological functions are tearing the process of focus and being awake apart? I have some OCD characteristics and this usually just carries the thought process over into the dream space- sometimes the reasoning goes on well, but usually not. Bizarre storylines pop up, unexpected thought processes and the abandonment of the idea. Besides- if you are studying, say, a statue while awake but on the verge of sleep and fall asleep, the image of statue in the dream isn’t the same as the more direct sensory observation while awake. Essentially that mode of awareness is destroyed and supplanted by another image oriented process. That can seem bewildering and nonlinear but.... seems still quite linear to me, but I am presuming I feel asleep in hindsight. The Chuang Tzu Butterfly Paradox implies you can’t always really know the process of not just reality but the presumption of transition is more implied than a conscious certainty, that you fully experience step by step same way you fully experience chewing step by step. I’m not 100% certain of how I fall asleep, when I enter into a dead space lacking awareness or the experience of oncoming REM sleep, or how it ends when it does so without awaking. I know only when I sleep, I have good dreams or bad dreams, or when I try to sleep sometimes insomnia or hypnogogic illusions pop up, restlessness or contentment- my eyes feel heavy, but casual awareness isn’t always at the highest, especially when very tired, and can be quite stumped why things happen if I suddenly awaken and am in a bizarre and groggy state.

Then again I can be missing it all and it is something else entirely.
Last edited by Ayu on Sat Jan 09, 2021 5:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Fixed typo in the subject line
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Ahetukavinasavada Non-Casual Destruction

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Non casual or non causal?
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
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FiveSkandhas
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Re: Ahetukavinasavada Non-Casual Destruction

Post by FiveSkandhas »

My understanding is that for Dharmakirti and the Sautrantikas, the idea of causeless destruction is related to the more basic Buddhist doctrine that everything is constantly changing and in flux. Thus it is part of the very nature of all produced entities to pass away. No produced entity is destroyed by "external" causes -- rather, "to be destroyed" (i.e., to pass away in the flux of ceaseless change) is intrinsic to all produced entities. In other words, the act of destruction is not something from an "outside cause" but is part of the fundamental nature of every produced entity. This is why he uses the term "causeless" or "non-causal".

"Destruction" has no ontological separation from the "destroyed entity" and thus cannot be said to exist separately from such entity.

So, for example, if a hammer smashes a piece of pottery, it cannot be said that the hammer is the "cause" of the destruction. Rather, it is part of the pottery's intrinsic nature as a produced to be destroyed...it just so happens that the inherent and inevitable destruction happens at the time and place the hammer happens to fall. The breakage is in no way "caused" by the hammer; rather it arises naturally and inevitably as part of the pottery's natural state.

Because of ceaseless change, destruction is happening all the time to all produced entities as a simple matter of course, and is not (to the Sautrantikas) ever a matter of "cause" originating somehow externally to such entities (like a hammer).

Thus, "non-causal destruction" is universally intrinsic to produced entities.

This is a somewhat alien and counterintuitive stance that has various problematic implications if adhered to rigidly (and Dharmakirti rigidly insisted). So it was hotly debated by other schools of early Buddhism. At the same time I believe it is rooted in some truth (i.e., ceaseless change).

Personally this kind of analytic debate strikes me as kind of wooden and overly dependent on word games, and has a "Hinyana-ish" odor about it. So I've never been too enthusiastic about proving or disproving propositions like this. But if such debate is your cup of tea, by all means have fun with it.

Personally I am content to write the whole thing off as a moot point because of shunyata and the absbsence of anything "external" to anything else. Both the hammer and the pottery are empty of intrinsic self-existence anyway, and they mutually interpenetrate on a fundamental level as the Avatamsaka Sutra teaches us, no?
"One should cultivate contemplation in one’s foibles. The foibles are like fish, and contemplation is like fishing hooks. If there are no fish, then the fishing hooks have no use. The bigger the fish is, the better the result we will get. As long as the fishing hooks keep at it, all foibles will eventually be contained and controlled at will." -Zhiyi

"Just be kind." -Atisha
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Aemilius
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Re: Ahetukavinasavada Non-Causal Destruction

Post by Aemilius »

AbhidharmaKoshaBhashyam, p. 553:

1. That which depends on a cause is an effect, something "done", "created". Destruction is a negation: how can a negation "be done" or "created"? Therefore destruction does not depend on a cause.

2. Destruction does not depend on a cause: hence a conditioned thing perishes as soon as it arises; if it did perish immediately, it would not perish later, since it would then remain the same.

(Discussion continues on pages 552... 556)
svaha
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