Thunderstorms

[Rick]

Are human beings like thunderstorms: arising not from an individual agent (Self, Zeus), rather from a confluence of causes and conditions?

[DharmaJunior]

Can't answer the question to the best of my ability, but I revel upon that particular spirit!

[Rick]

[PadmaVonSamba]

Are human beings like thunderstorms: arising not from an individual agent (Self, Zeus), rather from a confluence of causes and conditions?

…which, in turn arise from more causes and conditions

[Kim O'Hara]

Are human beings like thunderstorms: arising not from an individual agent (Self, Zeus), rather from a confluence of causes and conditions?

Well, yes. Everything arises from 'a confluence of causes and conditions'. That makes human beings like thunderstorms and cow-turds and mosquitoes and sharks and stars and popsicle sticks and ... ad infinitum.

Enjoy it.


Kim

[Rick]

Just dominoes falling then, no spark of a guiding intelligence, of the divine? No essential treeness in an old silver maple? No one home?

[Kim O'Hara]

Just dominoes falling then, no spark of a guiding intelligence, of the divine? No essential treeness in an old silver maple?

That doesn't necessarily follow.

No one home?

If you're looking for an immortal soul you're in the wrong temple - sorry!
Try Christians'R'Us down the road, or their neighbours to either side. Any of them will sell you one as part of a package deal.


Kim

[Rick]

Just dominoes falling then, no spark of a guiding intelligence, of the divine? No essential treeness in an old silver maple?

That doesn't necessarily follow.

Explain, please.

[ThreeVows]

Just dominoes falling then, no spark of a guiding intelligence, of the divine? No essential treeness in an old silver maple? No one home?

I think, for what it's worth, that it is possible to basically say that when we remove all obscurations, everything is realized as divine, without there needing to be some 'entity' that is apart from this divinity or anything like that. This language may not be standard Buddhist terminology at this point in time, but I don't think it's unreasonable.

I've come across one quote related to Longde Dzogchen practice that in part says,

... what is important here is understand... that when the sense fields are laid to rest in their ground in Longde's practice of Dzogchen, then this luminosity is not neutral. It's completely and perfectly divine. It is brilliant wonderment and bliss beyond any imagining.

If one practices Dzogchen without the proper foundation... then one's Dzogchen practice tends to become a kind of dry, aloof, untouchability. One may really become an asshole Dzogchenpa in that fashion, filled with the conceit of conceptual enlightenment. If you are actually practicing Dzogchen, then mind becomes utterly pure and radiant and one recognizes all of appearance as divine wonderment, unbearable in its blissful quality.

FWIW.

[justsit]

I've come across one quote related to Longde Dzogchen practice that in part says,

... what is important here is understand... that when the sense fields are laid to rest in their ground in Longde's practice of Dzogchen, then this luminosity is not neutral. It's completely and perfectly divine. It is brilliant wonderment and bliss beyond any imagining.

If one practices Dzogchen without the proper foundation... then one's Dzogchen practice tends to become a kind of dry, aloof, untouchability. One may really become an asshole Dzogchenpa in that fashion, filled with the conceit of conceptual enlightenment. If you are actually practicing Dzogchen, then mind becomes utterly pure and radiant and one recognizes all of appearance as divine wonderment, unbearable in its blissful quality.

Source of your quote, please?

[ThreeVows]

Source of your quote, please?

An Opening Lotus of Wisdom by Traktung Khepa.

[justsit]

Source of your quote, please?

An Opening Lotus of Wisdom by Traktung Khepa.

Thanks!

[Kim O'Hara]

Just dominoes falling then, no spark of a guiding intelligence, of the divine? No essential treeness in an old silver maple?

That doesn't necessarily follow.

Explain, please.

Language is important and instructive. "Just dominoes falling" makes it very mechanistic and the "just" says "I don't think that is enough. I want something more!" (Yes, a lot of words out of one word. )
But our causes and conditions do include everything that's going on now and everything that led to now: lots of people doing good things when they didn't have to, living things seeking the sun, all the incredibly intricate links between organisms, etc, and they all add up to something beyond our understanding - including, I think, emergent properties which look like higher-level consciousnesses. "Just" does not apply!

I think ThreeVows said it better than I would have:

Just dominoes falling then, no spark of a guiding intelligence, of the divine? No essential treeness in an old silver maple? No one home?

I think, for what it's worth, that it is possible to basically say that when we remove all obscurations, everything is realized as divine, without there needing to be some 'entity' that is apart from this divinity or anything like that. This language may not be standard Buddhist terminology at this point in time, but I don't think it's unreasonable.

Kim

[Virgo]

I think the word 'divinity' here in the way that ThreeVows is using it is fine. I understand the sense in which the term is being used. The problem is that it is a loaded term which has a lot of eternalistic baggage, and which can very easily also be used in that sense, which would be misleading in this scenario. The problem with the term is that many people will likely interpret it that way (they will use the eternalistic sense of the word). We have to consider that people with an eternalistic bent will misinterpet the term. For that reason, I don't think it is the best term.

Virgo

[ThreeVows]

I think the word 'divinity' here in the way that ThreeVows is using it is fine. I understand the sense in which the term is being used. The problem is that it is a loaded term which has a lot of eternalistic baggage, and which can very easily also be used in that sense, which would be misleading in this scenario. The problem with the term is that many people will likely interpret it that way (they will use the eternalistic sense of the word). We have to consider that people with an eternalistic bent will misinterpet the term. For that reason, I don't think it is the best term.

Virgo

The issue is, however, that I think quite the opposite often happens in that people think that Buddhism is just a sort of dry negation of everything leading to a sort of blah-ness. Like you just end up in some aloof nothing state that has no meaning, no purpose, no sublimity, nothing, just kind of inert.

I personally think we SHOULD be using this term more, as it conveys that there is a sort of plenum, a sort of fullness to realization. FWIW.

[Virgo]

The issue is, however, that I think quite the opposite often happens in that people think that Buddhism is just a sort of dry negation of everything leading to a sort of blah-ness. Like you just end up in some aloof nothing state that has no meaning, no purpose, no sublimity, nothing, just kind of inert.

I personally think we SHOULD be using this term more, as it conveys that there is a sort of plenum, a sort of fullness to realization. FWIW.

I understand your point, but this isn't the best term for that. It is dripping with eternalism. Of course, it can be used without implying eternalism, which you are doing. However, this is misleading because more often than not people will not interpret it that way. The result is they may fall into wrong views.

Virgo

[ThreeVows]

The issue is, however, that I think quite the opposite often happens in that people think that Buddhism is just a sort of dry negation of everything leading to a sort of blah-ness. Like you just end up in some aloof nothing state that has no meaning, no purpose, no sublimity, nothing, just kind of inert.

I personally think we SHOULD be using this term more, as it conveys that there is a sort of plenum, a sort of fullness to realization. FWIW.

I understand your point, but this isn't the best term for that. It is dripping with eternalism. Of course, it can be used without implying eternalism, which you are doing. However, this is misleading because more often than not people will not interpret it that way. The result is they may fall into wrong views.

Virgo

I think, FWIW, that we all essentially have our network or mandala, and we all need to find our voice within this. It may be very appropriate for some of us to use such language, and it may be very appropriate for others not to.

I'm reminded a bit of the story of one of the Karmapas, who became the guru of some Khan, and the Khan said something like, "I can just get rid of the other lineages and make everyone follow you!" The Karmapa replied, basiclally, "No, please don't do that. It's good that there are different lineages for different people with different inclinations/tendencies/etc."

I think it is good, personally, that there are different emphases that different people have when it comes to this topic and in general. Generally language, as a characteristic of language, veers towards one side or the other by its very nature, and so it's good to sometimes have things that counteract even opposite poles.

Anyway, my two cents.

[PadmaVonSamba]

Just dominoes falling then, no spark of a guiding intelligence, of the divine? No essential treeness in an old silver maple? No one home?

Explain, please

[Rick]

Just dominoes falling then, no spark of a guiding intelligence, of the divine? No essential treeness in an old silver maple? No one home?

Explain, please

Do we live in a mechanical universe, an elaborate clockwork? Is it matter and causality all the way up, all the way down? Are we (complex) machines, nothing more, nothing less? Is the 'transcendent' an epiphenomenon of the material? Is that all there is?

[ThreeVows]

Just dominoes falling then, no spark of a guiding intelligence, of the divine? No essential treeness in an old silver maple? No one home?

Explain, please

Do we live in a mechanical universe, an elaborate clockwork? Is it matter and causality all the way up, all the way down? Are we (complex) machines, nothing more, nothing less? Is the 'transcendent' an epiphenomenon of the material? Is that all there is?

FWIW I might suggest that you consider that all of these perspectives are 'fabrications', sort of 'overlays'. Tathata is unconstrained from such things.

As the Buddha said,

This Dhamma that I have attained is deep, hard to see, hard to realize, peaceful, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise... This state, too, is hard to see: the resolution of all fabrications, the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.

or

The escape from that [the conditioned] is calm, permanent, beyond inference, unborn, unproduced, the sorrowless, stainless state, the cessation of stressful qualities, the stilling of fabrications, bliss.

It seems to me, fwiw, that many people don't clearly discern what is meant by 'fabrications' here.

IMO, this is where 'divinity' is a perfectly good word when it comes to tathata. In certain contexts, one might also say things like primordial purity. But I think 'divinity' has a certain sort of... wondrous, beyond-conceptual quality perhaps to it. Your miles may vary, I suppose.