Not Self and Reincarnation in Buddhism

[NikolaiI]

Alright. Let's check out PC first.



It Is caused by your 'previous lives', partly. Another important cause would be the past of your present life. Not sure whether you agree with this?



Perhaps you don't Necessarily need to do this. But in some if not many cases it helps, by comparison and contrast. 'Previous life' can be used as a source of knowledge this way, just like any other sort of history/experience.



The getting of knowledge seems to be the most difficult, especially if knowledge means true propositions. If I see the old man ditched by his children looking for his family tree, and if I fail to know the true and very real need/meaning behind his act, I might think that old age makes people funny. But if I understand him I would be Natually prompted to make him feel welcomed in this library, that is, to do the right thing. It is another issue whether this thing is right or not. For me it would not be right just because of karma, as I do not know whether karma is real.

Now I see your problem with my interpretation of no-self. You seem to think that focusing on history does more bad than good, whereas my interpretation emphasizes history.



Thank you. Nothing else is expected.



I like this meaning, because I agree that all things are interconnected. In practice this would imply that when we think about something we should pay attention to other things. When I think about 'me' I should pay attention to other things. The question is what other things? Stars in the sky, or more like the ideas of my mind and the past and present things and events by which my ideas formed?



You do not need to prove that all things are interconnected, nor that divine experience exists. Many already did.



Consequences mean everything. Proofs prepare us for consequences. I would not spend much time or effort on something that is merely asserted to grant wonderful stuff, as I see no proof. Divine experience is not necessarily proof for whatever the object is asserted. Proof is something real And sign-ificant (causally connected to the object).



Assuming that the vision/reality proves your interpretation of the idea of budda-nature, what is the use of it? What is the use of seeing a reality which is that your body is a lotus made of an infinity of a sitting Hindu man? I can see some use in this, as any poetically minded person can. But is there more?



People take cares for their purposes. My purpose here is to seek knowledge together with people who Are after knowledge. My care is taken for that end.

As I said, it means you are connected to reality. Glad you like that. Thing is we don't experience it so often in our daily lives - and our culture is not one which promotes the seeking, at least not in the mainstream. The value of the experience, I am sorry I did not explain the experience to you well. I'm afraid I have to leave off. I don't know how to explain it. The words infinite peace and existence don't quite match up with the reality they are supposed to describe.

Take care is a common thing we say in our language... There's no need to analyze it - it just means "be well," "see you later," etc....

Good luck.

[whathappened]

The problem with previous lives is that they are difficult to perceive unless one has quite a lot of meditational experience.

We know many about many dead lives. True, a Buddhist might say that none of them might be his 'previous life'. But if some of them are similar to his present life in some ways, would not he learn from them? What would be the difference between what he can learn here and what he might learn from his own 'previous live'?

It depends what you mean by knowledge. In Buddhism there's academic knowledgeof the path, but this alone will not help you along the path. You also need meditational experience and teachings from a teacher - a qualified teacher. You also need to take the meditational experience into your daily life and apply it, and reflect upon the teaching in and out of meditation.

Later - when advancedenough and properly prepared, you might want to engage in a retreat to fully focus upon your meditational tasks. This can only be done by those with the time. opportunity and funds.

If someone gives you a way to attain something he calls knowledge, and you follow that way through and attain that thing, it does not imply what you attained is knowledge. But if you can show what meditations enable you to do something useful, where academic or other types of thinking do not, please do.

Your story about the old man and family tree/ history. Onre of the things about dealing with others is to develop compassion. One of the criticisms of The Buddha's approach has been the "Why aren't you out there doing something instead of spending your time meditating" type idea.

The story meant to suggest that understanding Naturally makes us compassionate.

You can deepen your compassion, or any positive emotion by following the path, and this then helps with external issues and dealing with difficult situations and people.

Is not this saying 'think and act and act and reflect and you will be good'? I like this, but not sure about the idea that thinking, broadly defined, should be resticted to some specific way. Buddhist meditations are a bit too exclusive?

Are we talking about the same kind of history?

We do not understand 'previous life' the same way, but I have a feeling there is large overlap in our understandings, given what you said about Gautama's sayings. So I spoke of previous life with quotation marks.

I don't think focusing on personal or family history is bad, but it's not necessarily related to the spiritual path.

The greater you know your history the more likely you can understand yourself, eventually to step out of yourself. It seems this step-out is necessary for what you are after concerning no-self, and great knowledge of history is a great way to attain this necessity.

[whathappened]

I'm afraid I have to leave off. I don't know how to explain it. The words infinite peace and existence don't quite match up with the reality they are supposed to describe.

You described the images in the experience in exact detail. As for what those images made you feel, perhaps as you say you did not describe it well. Anyway would it be right to say that it is the feeling that is The useful thing for you here? i.e. after having this feeling you find it easier to, say, handle the frustrations in life etc?

Take care is a common thing we say in our language... There's no need to analyze it - it just means "be well," "see you later," etc...

But the need to analyze it for me was to express what I expressed.

[Paulclem]

We know many about many dead lives. True, a Buddhist might say that none of them might be his 'previous life'. But if some of them are similar to his present life in some ways, would not he learn from them? What would be the difference between what he can learn here and what he might learn from his own 'previous live'?

I'm not disputing that. History has knowledge and lessons for us, if you can find the information you want. The difference is personal experience. I don't think they are really comparable. One is an external study, the other not. The aim of Buddhism is to effect a change within yourself - initially to become a more positive person, and later to develop those positive traits to a deeper level.

[Paulclem]

If someone gives you a way to attain something he calls knowledge, and you follow that way through and attain that thing, it does not imply what you attained is knowledge. But if you can show what meditations enable you to do something useful, where academic or other types of thinking do not, please do.

Meditation is about gaining insight into yourself - understanding the mind, and changing it into something positive. One of the things you can do is to reduce anger. Anger is often a habit. A person gets used to being angry in certain situations, but recognises that they are doing more damage by being so.

First you use analytical meditation to examine, from personal experience, the negative effects of anger. You then use analytical meditation to examine the positive efects of patience.

The next step is to do placement meditation. You generate a strong feeling that you need to be more patient at your heart - in the Buddhist view the seat of the mind - and try to hold that feeling.

With practice you can lessen the effects of anger, but it is not a quick fix and needs commitment.

Academic study is unlikely to effect a change like this.

[Paulclem]

Is not this saying 'think and act and act and reflect and you will be good'? I like this, but not sure about the idea that thinking, broadly defined, should be resticted to some specific way. Buddhist meditations are a bit too exclusive?

Possibly, but Buddhism advocates meditation as part of the remedy for changing negative states of mind to for positive ones by applying antidotes such as patience for anger. What you cite is part of it, but the great leap from selfishness to unselfishness is not easy and requires a lot of work.

There are lots of meditational methods. Buddhism is not exclusive. Anyone can read about them or attend teachings, including non-Buddhists.

[Paulclem]

The greater you know your history the more likely you can understand yourself, eventually to step out of yourself. It seems this step-out is necessary for what you are after concerning no-self, and great knowledge of history is a great way to attain this necessity.

This is debateable. From the Buddhist point of view, we obviously get our bodies with its strengths and weaknesses from our parents. This may have serious medical implications for us, or we may be very healthy.

The mind is something different. It is housed in the body and has a strong relationship with it, but it is not determied by it or by our biological history. Often we hear things like - "I'm angry like my father" or whatever. This is often used as an excuse by people for excusing their bad behavior or reluctannce to change themselves. The Buddhist view is that you can gain understanding about your mind and change it.

As a consequence i disagree with your statement. Logically it would suggest that someone who doesn't know their origins would not be able to effect any positive changes within themselves - which is untrue.

[whathappened]

I don't think they are really comparable. One is an external study, the other not.

Nice posts. But not sure what 'they' refer to.

Given what you said about the meditations it seems analytical meditation is not different from ethical thinking and placement meditation reminds of psychology. But I like the way the two are combined. Yet Buddhism is not alone here. The story in Iliad aforementioned could offer something similar to the meditations. If you are interested in this possible comparison, check out the post at truefalseshadow.wordpress.com.

the great leap from selfishness to unselfishness is not easy and requires a lot of work.

There seems to be something deep in common between the selfish and the unselfish. It should have to do with being human and wanting pleasure and avoiding pain. So this, in contrast with unselfishness, might be a better rule for action.

Logically it would suggest that someone who doesn't know their origins would not be able to effect any positive changes within themselves - which is untrue.

I agree if you said 'their Biological origins'. But by 'your history' I did not mean 'your biological history'.

This is debateable.

I did not think otherwise. But I find everything debatable. It seem our difference on history is just about what kind of history 'previous lives' is. On your understanding this piece of history can be reached via a particular (and perhaps peculiar) technique only, whereas mine suggests that it is a formal part in the usual study of history.

[whathappened]

Come on Nik, are you really content in watching? Let me rephrase the question: how did the divine experience made you a different person?

[NikolaiI]

You described the images in the experience in exact detail. As for what those images made you feel, perhaps as you say you did not describe it well. Anyway would it be right to say that it is the feeling that is The useful thing for you here? i.e. after having this feeling you find it easier to, say, handle the frustrations in life etc?

Okay WH I'll try again.. So, first, it wasn't like this, like I saw images, and they made me feel something. That's why I didn't respond because that's not what it was like at all. To begin with, it was a meditative feeling - exactly that, a feeling. I'm sure you know the type of feeling I mean, whenever you meditate successfully.

Well, that feeling descended on me more and more, more than I had felt before. I felt that feeling deepen, and it became what I've read as states of absorption. And then I passed through several states of absorption. This in itself was very nice to feel but I was still within duality. Then came an important moment - I passed through duality. This is all I can describe it as. My whole world flipped in that instant. It was like waking up. Why I say my world flipped was this - all my life before this, I had not known what my source was - I mean in terms of feeling. Everything in my life had been within the realm of duality - and this is in terms of feeling. To experience the truth of non-duality is like to suddenly know your source, to know you are within your source - it's like knowing you are standing on solid ground, and until that point you never experienced it.

I can't begin to describe the peace of this experience. There's nothing in the real of duality - the consciousness which feels itself to be separate from the universe - that compares to the experience of non-duality. Spiritual seekers from all walks of life have come to the same realization. In Taoism it is there. There is a Native American medicine man named Black Elk who said the same: Only when men know they are one with the universe, will they know peace in their souls. Swami Vivekananda also experienced this, as did Sufi poets. Many others as well - this is what I experienced.

But that was the very beginning point of a period of revelation that lasted for about 6 hours. The next important part of my experience - the first part being experiencing my source... as though suddenly waking up - was the realization that nothing ultimately had any permanent essence. No ego, and no suffering. Another way of understanding this is that there's a part of my existence, your existence, everyone's - that is never hurt. In Hinduism it it is the soul, which is never bound. Hinduism and Buddhism are not at odds, as Paul thinks, and others think - there is only one reality, and the doctrines of soul and no-soul which seem to be opposites really describe the same thing. Not even the highest-up in the religious world really seem to grasp this.

And yet there's many poems and scriptures by the sages and poets of Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, and Taoism which describe this in different ways.

So these are concepts which I've read about - which may have been learned, taught, and carried on by many who've never experienced what I did - and in that short time I experienced what they describe. I experienced the only thing that Black Elk could have been describing. The next part that I experienced was like passing through a thousand lifetimes - it was my karma breaking away. It felt like my karma was breaking like an orange, breaking open like that. It was not as though an image appeared to me and then it invoked some feeling. It was a feeling that I can describe in no better way than to say it was as though my karma were breaking, as though like an orange. It's like - we are all in change, always. The saying goes, you can never enter the same river twice. This was kind of feeling that. And yet the feeling was also as though I were passing through many lifetimes.

There are two more points of my experience which stand out for me - the one I mentioned, and another before that. The part with the Lotus was the same way of these others - it was a feeling. I know it may sound strange, but the image and the feeling were not separate. The feeling came, and the image was there; the image wasn't an apparition. That Lotus is the very source of all of this. As for Buddha - another reason I stopped is because you called him a Hindu man. This may be the damage done by those who get into something and teach it and mess it up.

You have an idea of Buddha as a man, but that is not what Buddha is. First, there are many Buddhas - Shakyamuni Buddha, Ksitigarbha Buddha, Buddha Amitabha, the Medicine Buddha. Amitabha Buddha, for instance, is the Buddha of Infinite Light. So Buddha is Buddha-nature. Buddha-nature is the universal nature of every form in existence. It has nothing to do with man, or woman, Buddha is not man, or woman, it's universal nature. I experienced my Buddha-nature after passing through duality; realizing that form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. Realizing that no matter what, no matter what absolutely, there is no reason to worry, or fear. This is the essential part of what I experienced. Buddha-nature came after that point, as well as the point of experiencing that I am in change, and my rigid thinking and concepts do not apply to who and what I am. So then when I experienced Buddha-nature, I was basically awake at that point, not under the dream of duality. Of the different points of my experience, this one I remember but not as well as the others.

Come on Nik, are you really content in watching? Let me rephrase the question: how did the divine experience made you a different person?

How did it? Well in normal life only this; that my life is a little lighter, my dreams are a little brighter, I have a bit more faith and trust in myself, I have a bit more natural inclination to do the right thing. After these years I can say that is the truth of how this has affected me. In all of these things, it has made me a bit more willing to search out the truth in all things of my life. I'm not a saint or a sage - I believe we all are, but I haven't changed my life to that of a mystic or an ascetic because of this experience.

[Paulclem]

Nice posts.
Given what you said about the meditations it seems analytical meditation is not different from ethical thinking and placement meditation reminds of psychology. But I like the way the two are combined. Yet Buddhism is not alone here. The story in Iliad aforementioned could offer something similar to the meditations. If you are interested in this possible comparison, check out the post at truefalseshadow.wordpress.com.

.

I wasn't sure what I was supposed to read with the link.

You're right about psychology - Buddhism is about understanding the mind, and some methods have been co-opted into psychology - meditation for example.

[Paulclem]

I agree if you said 'their Biological origins'. But by 'your history' I did not mean 'your biological history'.

Neither did I. It would also be untrue to say that a person couldn't change if they did not know their own personal family history, unless this has led to psychological damage.

[Paulclem]

I did not think otherwise. But I find everything debatable. It seem our difference on history is just about what kind of history 'previous lives' is. On your understanding this piece of history can be reached via a particular (and perhaps peculiar) technique only, whereas mine suggests that it is a formal part in the usual study of history.

Yes i see this. I'm not saying that the study of history does not have an effect, but the meditations concern a personal development and the state of the mind.

[whathappened]

Nice post Nik. Wonderful experience. I feel tempted to take up the meditation.

to know you are within your source - it's like knowing you are standing on solid ground, and until that point you never experienced it.

Some people experience something great when they realise some generalities, say, when a general realises certain arts of war. Would you say this kind of experience is a bit similar to yours?

I can't begin to describe the peace of this experience. There's nothing in the real of duality - the consciousness which feels itself to be separate from the universe - that compares to the experience of non-duality.

The purity, certainty and peace you seem to speak of might be explained by a lack of or suppression of distractions. The meditation works you towards an idea, a vision and feeling in such a way that you get temporarily stuck onto it. Other ideas and feelings, especially contradicting ones, temporarily cease to have the power to fight for dominancy of your mind and body? If so, the power of the meditation would lie in granting clarity but maybe not comprehensiveness. Dualist ideas do not seem to be wrong or useless in their entireties.

the realization that nothing ultimately had any permanent essence. No ego, and no suffering. Another way of understanding this is that there's a part of my existence, your existence, everyone's - that is never hurt.

I recall a film in which someone in the process of being raped turns from anger to enjoyment. Would you say this person is somewhat talented? In my understanding of no-self this person does seem talented.

It's like - we are all in change, always. The saying goes, you can never enter the same river twice. This was kind of feeling that. And yet the feeling was also as though I were passing through many lifetimes.

So would it be right to say that 'previous lives' in Buddhism is meant metaphorically and not literally? Anyway, I like the river saying but also the 'man is the meter of all things' saying. Whether it is the same river depends on what the man says, or rather on what he wants to say. If he finds that saying it is the same river is useful for a purpose (geometrical or not), let his saying be a truth. It could be possible that Gautama, after making a certain net of truths intensely clear through certain meditations, thought that these truths are THE truths and perfect (maximally useful).

I experienced my Buddha-nature after passing through duality; realizing that form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. Realizing that no matter what, no matter what absolutely, there is no reason to worry, or fear. This is the essential part of what I experienced. Buddha-nature came after that point, as well as the point of experiencing that I am in change, and my rigid thinking and concepts do not apply to who and what I am.

These are great feelings, but bear a tone of defiance. One can break free of concepts but not the rest, at least not relatively as easily. If one gets a thousand arrows stuck in him, the pain that makes who he largely is cannot be meditated away.

How did it? Well in normal life only this; that my life is a little lighter, my dreams are a little brighter, I have a bit more faith and trust in myself, I have a bit more natural inclination to do the right thing. After these years I can say that is the truth of how this has affected me. In all of these things, it has made me a bit more willing to search out the truth in all things of my life. I'm not a saint or a sage - I believe we all are, but I haven't changed my life to that of a mystic or an ascetic because of this experience.

This is beautiful and great, I think. Maybe there is only this bit I feel uneasy with, that 'to search out the truth in all things'. Perhaps there should be no 'THE truth' and truths should not only be sought but also tested and remade, like bows and arrows (perhaps the Greeks and even the Hindis, who made the truths for us, held this view).

[NikolaiI]

Thanks for replying, whathappened.