Differing Views Cause Conflict
We may differ on what we see, but we can never differ on pure awareness. People can argue about this and that quite eloquently; humans are very good at making their views believable, but we cannot deny that which is pure observation, before words.
People who object to that have a limited understanding, and won’t be reading this anyway. 🙂
I used to be ‘Buddhist’, but now reflect on the understanding of the Buddha, who reflected on the Vedic understanding of the mirror and reflection of ‘not two’ = non-duality = the unity of opposites.
When someone tries to abuse or criticise us, consciousness brightens, and we feel alert. At that moment, we can either become upset and retaliate, creating duality and more karma, or we can realise that that brightness is pure consciousness, the unity of mirror and reflection – the maintenance of non-duality.
“Not a lot of people know that.”
🙂
BUDDHA IN THE MUD is a blog - a living book based on the Dzogchen teachings. Our teacher is life, and life is karma. We are all Buddhas in the mud of concepts. 
I have lived my whole life being under the influence of a strong belief in “Karma”, and have come across all explanations, all subtle variations ranging from Hindu to Budddhist concepts of this ‘law’. Nevertheless, yesterday, reading a book about Zen, I came across ‘Karma’ being descibed in a way that caught me by surprize. It says, that just like in this life, we live without anything ‘permanent’ being carried over from one moment to next moment, same is true after death, nothing ‘permanent’ carries over to the so called ‘next life’. There is nothing ‘permanent’ to move on to re-incarnate or acquire a re-birth. What is there, is the a continuity of ‘life force’ which manifests at birth and becomes invisible at death and re-manifests at birth and so it continues. And just as in this ordinary life, there are causes and effects, each moment conditioned by the previous moment in a sequence, so it continues beyond death of a body. The chain of causes and effects is a rule of manifestation and remains unaffected through the birth and death of the body, so it continues to condition the expression of life force (in a manner similar to within our this ordinary life). But there is nothing that continues ‘from this person’ to the ‘new (re-born) person’ as such, beyond the physical body.
If this is the case, the way I see this happening would be like a random jumble of causes and effects conditioning the expression of life force, through time (at the level of manifestation), with no discernible link to any ‘individual’ or a recognizable ‘person’ at any point. This process will balance out at the level of the whole totality of manifested Reality, importantly not resulting in accumulation of any personal ‘my karma’ or ‘your karma’ but a homogeneous expression of life force in ‘this or that’ way, to balance out the whole.
If you can, I would very much appreciate your impression and understanding on this! Thank you 🙂
This is from Ramble, sorry was not logged on, when I commented here. Please delete the duplicate comment!
Hello you,
Most of us cannot remember previous incarnations, but a tendenacy or curiosity or talent seems to come with this consciousness. This is said to be our karmic load.
I was born angry and frustrated, and a simpleton, but with a huge yearning to find out what life was about. Did it have purpose? Did I have a purpose?
We all come through with some sort of chip on our shoulders. We could have been anyone or any creature. It’s not relevant, but what is, is what we are attracted to and what turns us off. Some people do seem to be born with confused randomness, while others are more focused.
As you say, nothing is permanent except consciousness (the life force) that never changes. It doesn’t matter what we were in previous embodiment, -we could have been a parrot, a guru or a murderer – but it was the cause to be what we embody now, hopefully creating the right conditions to practise and study.
It’s a bit like thinking about infinity, it’s pointless. But, there are qualities within us that know.
It is said that the cycle of rebirths continue until we exhaust all karmic behaviour.
Please come back if this doesn’t satisfy. 🙂
Tony
I see what you mean. That “cause for what we embody now” was somewhere in the chronological past, definitely, yes. BUT, was it a “me” who had this association with a specific ‘bunch’ of causes that transferred and are now with that same “me” as effects, to carry on in this life (at least in some aspects)? OR, was it just a random assortment of causes that resulted in a random assortment of effects and purely by coincidence/chance “I” now ‘happen to’ be associated with one such ‘combination’ of conditions and identify with them as a “me” in this body mind. So, whether there is a continuation of a ‘person/ individual’ or just conditions, or is it just random assortment of conditions that are ‘labelled’ a person ? This would be relevant to whether we retain individual Karma or not…
I hope I am able to convey this question clearly?
In the oneness of the pure consciousness, there are no distinctions. But law of Karma operates on the level of manifestation and accounts for the distinctions, inequalities and variability observed in the expressed manifested forms of Reality.
I am wondering whether this whole ’causes-effects’ network operates as one blanket, balancing everything in the manifested ‘whole’ rather than actually continuing with and retaining any link to ‘individual’ level of ‘personal identities and entities’ (of which there are none in Reality, except as an illusion)…
If this were the case, the whole thing negates any accountability for any given person, and becomes a random chance occurrence, as far as any single individual (in a body-mind) is concerned. So then, Karma in the now, would just be nothing but ‘chance’ for each person (although at the level of whole totality, it is indeed a continuation from the random causes of the past).
Hello Ramble,
Nothing is random. Everything is perfect. A person who ignores an icy path, falls under the laws of gravity.
-C.S Lewis.
It’s true that things can seem random and chaotic, but everything comes under the laws of attraction, repulsion and inertia.
In human terms, desires, aversion and indifference.
Tony
Hello Ramble,
Your name doesn’t do you justice! 🙂
The Buddha had previous incarnations that build the karma for his enlightenment, and so do we.
Of course, we pick up random ideas from others, but through meditation we learn to let of these influences.
In the Tibetan Book of The Bardo, it suggests that most beings are a random assortment of ideas living in confusion, and so are driven by their particular karma to reincarnate the first place that feels safe. Dung piles are popular… 🙂
For practitioners they may have more control, or favourable karma.
But then again, what seems like unfavourable conditions can be surprisingly fruitful.
Remember, the acknowledgement of suffering is the first noble truth that leads to enlightenment.
Tony
I am now wondering, if a random assortment of the most noble/ auspicious/ good causes happened to by chance result in an effect which was the person ‘Buddha’, simply to balance the assortment all those ‘effects’ that had happened to be incarnated on the numerous dung piles within the whole Totality!
‘Of what’ really was the progression in the previous lives, ‘who’ eventually became the Buddha? Was that a progression of ‘one entity’ or simply an accumulation of ‘many positive causes’ conditioning the manifested consciousness? I know religions talks about the chain of previous lives of Buddha and the rest of us…but I am wondering (once we ignore that), what exactly is there to reincarnate as a ‘bundle’ of specific Individual creature’s Karma…can it (causes and effects)not all be scattered and assorted randomly (occasionally giving rise to Buddhas somewhere, to balance all those who end up on dung piles)…
Very sorry for Rambling 🙂
If you see it all as a randomness and that makes sense to you, that’s fine. That’s your way of seeing, which is part of your process. We all interpret differently, which is the reason why there are many traditions.
Absolute truth is about the purity of just seeing, of just being aware, without any influences. This is only realised in the practice of meditation, dropping all theories and speculations.
Tony
Yes, I agree with you! I have realized, irrespective of how it is, as far as I am concerned as an individual ‘person’, my good deeds matter, they create good Karma (rather than bad karma) which continues in the future regardless of the vehicle (a ‘me’ or not, associated with an entity or not). So basically, my good Karma eventually “could” contribute to a Buddha 🙂 as much as my bad / ignorant Karma will surely contribute to the Dung Beetles…so I can now be in peace knowing this, whether “I” will continue to be a Dung Beetle or an eventual Buddha in next lives becomes irrelevant 🙂 Non-duality balances out everything!
Thank you for your patience through all my Rambling today 🙂 🙏🏼
🙂
You are correct, sir
Hello Port Moresby Hevi Toktok,
All that matters is the clarity of mind or open mind that allows consciousness to deal directly in a fresh spontaneous way.
This opens up all possibilities from the Dharma within.
Tony
Great, thank you
Hello Ricky,
It’s nice to meet you.
Tony
Its great to meet you too, Tony
Agreed