The Violent Spirit of Love

[Kevin Solway]

Love is wisdom, because it is all that is protecting our lives. It is not laws or morals or religion apart from love, but love mainly along with people who love that keep the human race alive and some steps short of murder. And if you donnot hold that as a positive goal, this survival through love, then you are immature and underdeveloped.

If you're not going to tell us what on earth you are talking about, and if you're not going to give reasons for your assertions, then your words mean nothing.

[DHodges]

In any case, I've personally had enough of this bozo. Can anybody think of a reason why he should stay?

Nope.

All he has had to say can be summed up as, "I like love. Love is good."

I don't know if he is irrational or just a-rational on this topic, but his response to any attempt at dialog has been insults and more tedious harping about how much he likes love.

Propellerbeanie, it's very nice that you love your wife. I'm happy for you. But really, it's not very interesting to anyone else.

[propellerbeanie]

In any case, I've personally had enough of this bozo. Can anybody think of a reason why he should stay?

Nope.

All he has had to say can be summed up as, "I like love. Love is good."

I don't know if he is irrational or just a-rational on this topic, but his response to any attempt at dialog has been insults and more tedious harping about how much he likes love.

Propellerbeanie, it's very nice that you love your wife. I'm happy for you. But really, it's not very interesting to anyone
else.

I think you don't want to hear what you will figure out some day on your own: that two heads are better than one even if one is one belonging to a girl. You have to learn to make a deal. You have to find what is essential to yourself, to how you think of yourself, what you need instead of want, and be willing to trash the junk you do not need. The natural you wants to breed. The natural you wants the comforts of a stable relationship. The real you wants the wholeness of emotional perception and rational encounter with another human being that has the means to make you complete in every sense you are not now. And I hope you find her. But I do not expect my telling anyone of the benefits and joys of love is going to convince them of it. It is a step that only makes sense following the step before it, and some of you will never get that far. I just want you to know that it is there. At some point in your life you will not be exclusively you, but will be them to all others: A couple or a family. If you are lucky.

[Kevin Solway]

. . . has the means to make you complete in every sense you are not now.

"Heroin has the means to make you complete in every sense you are not now" . . . yawn . . .

I do not expect my telling anyone of the benefits and joys of love is going to convince them of it.

"I do not expect my telling anyone of the benefits and joys of heroin is going to convince them of it."

A couple or a family. If you are lucky.

"You will be together with your heroin, or with a group of heroin addicts, if you are lucky."

[Jason]

You have to find what is essential to yourself, to how you think of yourself, what you need instead of want, and be willing to trash the junk you do not need. The natural you wants to breed. The natural you wants the comforts of a stable relationship. The real you wants the wholeness of emotional perception and rational encounter with another human being that has the means to make you complete in every sense you are not now.

The characteristics of the "natural you", that you have spoken about, might be correct. But it seems to me that you leave out, or deny, many facets of the natural you. Don't you think the natural you is horny and lustful? The natural you is hateful and sadistic. The natural you is dominating and power hungry. The natural you would have sex with every sexy woman you see, punish and hurt people who offend you, have power over everyone, own whatever you desire.

[Pye]

.

Inasmuch as propellerbeanie is asked for greater explanation of the value of love than sentiment, so too could the teachers of the fundamentals of this forum do more than provide blank refutation and wicked one-liners.

There is a belief beneath the latter's viewpoint for which propellerbeanie could be unaware. I can only phrase this in traditional Buddhist-speak -- and since I am not so sure myself how much of the enlightenment posed here is aligned with the Buddhist tradition, the teachers on this forum can slice and dice what I offer here at will.

Love is an "attachment" to this passing, ephemeral bodily existence -- an attachment of the most supreme variety, propellerbeanie -- and traditional buddhist thought -- declaring this ephemerality is not the full truth -- is not down with such an attachment. Clinging to things that in the fullest truth do not matter, will not last, are illusion - is a load of unnecessary suffering for the traditional buddhist thinker, and it simply perpetuates the 'delusion' that this passing, ephemeral bodily existence is all that there is (and so we must "love" it, and everything, everyone in it). This is what is called samsara: the "continual vicious cycle of confirmation of [this] existence."

For a person to become spiritual, enlightened, such confirmations of some sort of rock-solidity, end-in-itself physical existence are the sources of suffering and they fall short of this greater truth. The more one clings to this bodily life (in our loves and attachments and ego-certainties), the longer one suffers in it; the more distance one puts between themselves and mergence with the infinite, the truth.

I do not know if the fundamentals of this Forum go on with this to support any buddhist notion of reincarnation, but in that body of thought -- the more attached and clinging to this existence one becomes, the lower one falls into it. Each time one's energy gathers after death, it has to answer for how it lived this awareness in life as another lifeform, until it lives itself past the attachment to physical life and into this spiritual awareness. The deal is to not want to keep coming back here and reaffirming passing, ephemeral, suffering existence and escape it altogether in a final mergence with infinity, eternity.

They are looking after their "eternal souls" in this process, not unakin to Christianity in this regard. To become (we already are) the infinite and the eternal itself (of which our physical existences and beliefs about those existences stand in the way of our knowing and realizing).

Perhaps this is how propellerbeanie sees these views as "selfish"? One works for one's own enlightenment by turning one's back upon deep investment in the particular pieces of physical existence here (in theory, including "self"), in favour of living this life with this greater knowledge (and far-less, if not any attachment to this life). Even for the christian believer, acts of kindness and addresses to suffering for beings in this world are meant to secure that individual's ticket to an eternity of peace. Whom they helped will have to take care of their own souls and secure their own ticket, too. Is this -- or, how is it that you mean the word "selfish"? -- this turning away from the "continuous vicious cycle of confirmation of existence" for which love is seen as the chief attachment preventing this?

I happen to miss the boddhisattva spirit in this room, too.

.

[DHodges]

Well said, Pye. On reincarnation, I would say that most here consider reincarnation to have value as a metaphorical concept only (as there is not any inherent "self" or "soul" to get reincarnated).

The real you wants the wholeness of emotional perception and rational encounter with another human being that has the means to make you complete in every sense you are not now. And I hope you find her. But I do not expect my telling anyone of the benefits and joys of love is going to convince them of it. It is a step that only makes sense following the step before it, and some of you will never get that far. I just want you to know that it is there. At some point in your life you will not be exclusively you, but will be them to all others: A couple or a family. If you are lucky.

You seem to be making some unfounded assumptions about me. So let me fill you in a bit.

I'm 43 years old. I've lived with three different women, and gone out with many more. The last one I lived with had children; we were a family, and it worked pretty well. I have been there. I do not speak from ignorance.

Yes, love can bring you happiness. Yes, it is the natural way things are done among humans.

However, there is a cost for that happiness. That cost is often ignored, or even played up as something that makes love worthwhile, proving love is worth something if you are willing to give something up for it; the bigger the better.

But there is a real cost, and some people have weighed it and found it excessive. It is a matter of what you personally value in life.

Similarly, I enjoy riding a motorcycle. Other people weigh the costs and find the danger is too much, it is too high a cost for the fun of riding; or they have other things they enjoy more. Some people enjoy the danger; some just ignore it. Some wear a helmet or other safety gear; some don't. So the decision is made to ride or not ride, and that decision is made rationally, or sometimes irrationally.

With love, the decision is rarely rational.

[David Quinn]

Pye wrote:

Inasmuch as propellerbeanie is asked for greater explanation of the value of love than sentiment, so too could the teachers of the fundamentals of this forum do more than provide blank refutation and wicked one-liners.

Where have I not been completely forthcoming?

Love is an "attachment" to this passing, ephemeral bodily existence -- an attachment of the most supreme variety, propellerbeanie -- and traditional buddhist thought -- declaring this ephemerality is not the full truth -- is not down with such an attachment. Clinging to things that in the fullest truth do not matter, will not last, are illusion - is a load of unnecessary suffering for the traditional buddhist thinker, and it simply perpetuates the 'delusion' that this passing, ephemeral bodily existence is all that there is (and so we must "love" it, and everything, everyone in it). This is what is called samsara: the "continual vicious cycle of confirmation of [this] existence."

For a person to become spiritual, enlightened, such confirmations of some sort of rock-solidity, end-in-itself physical existence are the sources of suffering and they fall short of this greater truth. The more one clings to this bodily life (in our loves and attachments and ego-certainties), the longer one suffers in it; the more distance one puts between themselves and mergence with the infinite, the truth.

It's basically a choice between leading a worldly existence (i.e. being attached to things in this world) and leading a truthful one (i.e. mirroring Nature's lack of attachment). It's either one or the other. One cannot do both.

This is why the great spiritual teachers throughout the ages have always stressed the importance of "abandoning the world", "giving up everything you hold dear", "following the Tao alone", etc.

I do not know if the fundamentals of this Forum go on with this to support any buddhist notion of reincarnation,

It depends on which one. Do you mean the wise Buddhist notion of reincarnation, or the popular one?

Probably the wisest expression of reincarnation that I have come across in the Buddhist canon is this one: The Questions of Kutadanta

but in that body of thought -- the more attached and clinging to this existence one becomes, the lower one falls into it. Each time one's energy gathers after death, it has to answer for how it lived this awareness in life as another lifeform, until it lives itself past the attachment to physical life and into this spiritual awareness. The deal is to not want to keep coming back here and reaffirming passing, ephemeral, suffering existence and escape it altogether in a final mergence with infinity, eternity.

Every moment we are undergoing a birth and death process. Every moment we are changing and becoming something new. As well, we are constantly going through different phases in our lives, which is akin to going from one life to the next. If you can interpret the concept of reincarnation in this light, as opposed to the cruder idea of a soul going from one physical life to the next, then you will be getting closer to the wisdom of the buddhas.

Perhaps this is how propellerbeanie sees these views as "selfish"? One works for one's own enlightenment by turning one's back upon deep investment in the particular pieces of physical existence here (in theory, including "self"), in favour of living this life with this greater knowledge (and far-less, if not any attachment to this life). Even for the christian believer, acts of kindness and addresses to suffering for beings in this world are meant to secure that individual's ticket to an eternity of peace. Whom they helped will have to take care of their own souls and secure their own ticket, too. Is this -- or, how is it that you mean the word "selfish"? -- this turning away from the "continuous vicious cycle of confirmation of existence" for which love is seen as the chief attachment preventing this?

Well, I'm sure he would see it that way. If one is under the illusion that participating in a love affair with someone else is a selfless act, then it is only natural to regard those who reject such a lifestyle as "selfish".

I happen to see it another way. By refusing to indulge in love affairs, one is free to help all mankind without partiality or bias. All of humanity becomes one's children. There is no favouritism created by one's own emotional attachments and desires.

As Lao Tzu says:

The sage has no mind of his own.
He is aware of the needs of others.

I am good to people who are good.
I am also good to people who are not good.

I happen to miss the boddhisattva spirit in this room, too.

Are you also equating the boddhisattva spirit with having love affairs?

-

[Kevin Solway]

. . . Clinging to things that in the fullest truth do not matter

Yes, ordinary human love involves an attachment to things that do not actually exist. Hence that witty quote, "Love is what happens to two people who do not know each other", contains a deep truth.

If love is to be anything at all it should be an embracing of Reality, the All. There should be no more love for one person than any other.

Each time one's energy gathers after death, it has to answer for how it lived this awareness in life as another lifeform

In reality we are dying and being reborn each moment, since we are different from one moment to the next. The person we are of the next moment is determined by the person we were of the last moment. Causes always leads to effects.

[sue hindmarsh]

DHodges wrote:

However, there is a cost for that happiness. That cost is often ignored, or even played up as something that makes love worthwhile, proving love is worth something if you are willing to give something up for it; the bigger the better.

Yes, to be in a relationship with a woman you must give your life over to her. She will accept nothing less.

Women consider men’s lives prior to being in a relationship, malformed and maladjusted. Her job, as she sees it, is to take this underling and make it suitable to be seen out in public with. Not that this is a difficult task for women because men are always ready, willing and able to give their all for her.

Hence, another of those witty quotes, “When a woman makes a fool out of a man, she seldom does it without his cooperation”, that also contains a deep truth.

Man can’t wait to be made a fool of, so he happily enslaves himself to fulfilling every whim and desire his wife and children ask of him. Before he is picked out by a woman as ‘good marriage material’ he would have had a few of these goddesses try him out before they decided to ‘put up with him’. He would have had loads of fun being nagged and derided, as well as manipulated and belittled. The big one that men love to hear is that everything which women consider wrong or bad that has happened, is happening, or will happen in the future is entirely their fault. Men just adore the accompanying emotions of guilt and confusion.

Yes, men have lives that women are envious of. You often hear woman complaining to each other that men have it too easy. They also add that men need to become more like them, but why would men want to? – aren't men already having the time of their lives.

Sue

[Matt Gregory]

Sue, I think your view of men is just a bit too romantic to be factual. Yes, a man will tell her that he will give his life for her. Yes, he will believe it most of the time. And yes, he will actually feel this way from time to time (usually when she's not around). But all of the time?

I don't think it's even physically possible to feel that way about a woman all the time just for the fact that women become very boring to be around. They get stressed out about things on a continual basis, but they never seem to get around to resolving them, ever. So they are compelled to talk about these petty emotional problems over and over and over again, problems that any reasonable person could solve in under 10 seconds. Who could possibly listen to that and still want to give everything to someone who obsesses over them? I just don't think it's very realistic. It's just a duplicitous act men put on to avoid escalating the situation and turning life into true hell.

[Pye]

.
David writes:

Are you also equating the boddhisattva spirit with having love affairs?

???????

no . . . .

I'd be entirely baffled by this left-field question had we not already in evidence about the place these senses of suspicion.

Thanks for the link. This, Kevin's, and Dhodges' "metaphor" above have done well to explain the view of reincarnation held by the Forum.

Before I ever had a word for these deaths-in-life - before I ever knew of buddhist thinking - I used to call this "shedding." This was how it felt. Walking, crawling, running - most painfully - out of one outer skin after another, moving through and past relationships, too. I shedded people, as well as thoughts and selves and skins.

.

[alex]

Regarding the posted link to Questions of Kuntadanta, here is my take on it, with some pasting of relevant parts and my comment in bold. It is not an easy passage to firmly come to an opinion on.

Buddha:There is rebirth of character,
but no transmigration of a self.
Your thought-forms reappear,
but there is no ego-entity transferred.
The stanza uttered by a teacher
is reborn in the student who repeats the words.

THIS STATEMENT COULD CERTAINLY LEAD TO THE IDEA THAT THERE IS NO REAL REINCARNATION. HAVING THOUGHT FORMS REAPPEAR IN A NEW LIFE, IF THEY ARE ACTUALLY THE IMPRESS FROM YOUR OWN LIFE, IS MUCH GREATER THAN SAYING A TEACHER'S THOUGHTS ARE REBORN IN THE STUDENT. THIS IS THE MOST DISCOURAGING PHRASE IN THIS WHOLE DIALOGUE. IF WE PUT IT TOGETHER WITH THIS:

Therefore, let your mind rest in the truth;
propagate the truth, put your whole will in it, and let it spread.
In the truth you shall live forever.

THEN I CAN SEE WHERE SOME PEOPLE ON THIS FORUM HAVE COME TO THE UNDERSTANDING THAT REINCARNATION IS A METAPHOR AND THE BEST YOU CAN DO IS SPREAD TRUTH BEFORE YOU DIE AND HOPE FOR THE BEST.

Budhha: Only through ignorance and delusion do men indulge in the dream
that their souls are separate and self-existent entities.
I have not come to teach death, but to teach life,
and you do not discern the nature of living and dying.

IT IS DIFFICULT TO KNOW IN WHAT SENSE HE TEACHES LIFE. BUT IT MUST BE SO THAT EITHER WE ARE SEPARATE FROM GOD OR WE ARE NOT. BEING SEPARATE FROM GOD IS NOT POSSIBLE IN A FUNDAMENTAL SENSE, BUT ONLY IN A RELATIVE SENSE. IF IT IS SO THAT WE HAVE NO REAL SELF, THEN THAT SITUATION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BIRTH AND DEATH. IT IS TRUE NOW AND SHOULD CONTINUE AT DEATH. WE HAVE NO SELF YET WE ARE CONSCIOUS.

you are anxious about heaven,
but you seek the pleasures of self in heaven,
Where self is, truth cannot be;
When truth comes, self will disappear.
Therefore, seek the life that is of the mind.

HERE AGAIN, VERY DIFFICULT TO KNOW WHAT HE MEANS. WHAT LIFE IS THERE OF THE MIND IF THE MIND IS THE BRAIN? HOW CAN HE SPEAK OF LIVING FOREVER, TEACHING LIFE AND THE BLISS OF IMMORTALITY UNLESS HE MEANS IT?

Buddha:This body will be dissolved
and no amount of sacrifice will save it.
Therefore, seek the life that is of the mind.

NOTE THAT HE DIFFERENTIATES BETWEEN THE LIFE OF THE BODY AND THE MIND.

Buddha:Self is death and truth is life.
The cleaving to self is a perpetual dying,
Kutadanta: Do I understand you correctly that Nirvana is not a place,
and being nowhere it is without reality?

HE THOUGHT NIRVANA WAS A PLACE, SO THIS SHOWS HIS UNDERSTANDING WAS POOR.
HE ALSO THOUGHt WE MUST WORSHIP THROUGH SACRIFICE. THIS WAS HIS UNDERSTANDING OF RELIGIOUS LIFE. THEREFORE, HIS UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT CONSTITUES REINCARNATION MIGHT ALSO HAVE BEEN MATERIALISTIC.

Buddha: Do you mean there is no wisdom,
no enlightenment, no righteousness, and no salvation,
because Nirvana is not a locality?

WHY DOES BUDDHA SPEAK OF SALVATION?

Tell me, O Lord, if there be no atman,
how can there be immortality?

BUDDHA DOES NOT DENY IMMORTALITY, BUT REDEFINES IT:

Buddha: It is as when a man wants,
during the night, to send a letter,
and, after having his clerk called,
has a lamp lit, and gets the letter written.
Then, when that has been done, he extinguishes the lamp.
But though the writing has been finished
and the light has been put out the letter is still there.

MEANING NOT CLEAR. BUT I THINK, BASED ON THE OTHER THINGS HE SAYS, THAT HE MEANS THOSE KARMIC EXPERIENCES AND SKANDAS ARE THERE, AND WILL BE REBORN IN A NEW LIFE.

If my thoughts are propagated, and if my soul migrates,
my thoughts cease to be my thoughts
and my soul ceases to be my soul.
Give me an illustration, but pray, O Lord,
tell me, where is the identity of my self?

IT SEEMS KUTADANTA WANTS SOMETHING MORE THAN MIGRATION OF SOUL.SOME PEOPLE SPEAK OF SOUL MIGRATION AND REINCARNATION AS TWO DIFFERENT CONCEPTS. SO IT MAY VERY WELL BE THAT BUDDHA WAS TEACHING AGAINST REINCARNATION BUT IN FAVOR OF MIGRATION (OF A CHARACTER PLUS KARMA).

BUDDHA DOES NOT ACTUALLY DENY A SOUL HERE, RATHER HE DENIES A SELF. HE ANSWERS THE IDENTITY QUESTION WITH THE DISCUSSION OF THE VARIOUS CONDITIONS OF THE FLAME.

Kutadanta: No, sir. In one sense it is not the same flame,
but in another sense it is the same flame. (IN EVERY MOMENT IF IT BURNS ALL DAY)

BUDDHA SEEMS TO SAY THAT THE FLAME IS CONTINUOUSLY CHANGING

Buddha: Suppose the flame of the first watch
had been extinguished during the second watch,
would you call it the same if it burns again in the third watch?

Kutadanta: In one sense it is a different flame,
in another it is not.
Buddha: Has the time that elapsed during the extinction of the flame
anything to do with its identity or non-identity?

THE QUESTION IS THEN, WHAT IF THE FLAME IS EXTINGUISHED, IS IT THE SAME FLAME, AND DOES THE AMOUNT OF TIME IT IS OUT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE?

KUTADANTA ANSWERS THAT WHILE THE FLAME IS NOT IN EVERY SENSE THE SAME, THE TIME LAPSED WHILE EXTINGUISHED IS NOT IMPORTANT.

BUT WHY SPEAK OF TIME LAPSING. IF SOMETHING OF THE PERSON, WHICH BUDDHA SEEMS TO CONFIRM IS KARMA AND CHARACTER, DOES NOT TRANSMIGRATE TO ANOTHER LIFE, THEN THERE IS NO TIME LAPSING AND RELIGHTING OF FLAMES ARE NOT GOOD METAPHORS.

Buddha: Well, then, we agree that the flame of today
is in a certain sense the same as the flame of yesterday,
and in another sense it is different at every moment.

MAYBE BUDDHA IS TRYING TO REMOVE SOME FALSE IDEAS OF SURVIVAL OF EGO-SELF BY TYING TOGETHER THE FACT THAT A PERSON'S IDENTITY IS EVER-CHANGING AND YET WE DO NOT FEEL THAT TO BE A DISRUPTION IN OUR SENSE OF SELF.

Buddha: Do you deny that the logic which holds good for yourself
also holds good for the things of the world?

HE IS SPEAKING OF HAVING DIFFERENT FLAMES WITH THE SAME PROPERTIES BEING IN SOME SENSE THE SAME - BUT DOES IT INDEED HOLD THE SAME FOR INANIMATE OBJECTS?

Buddha: Very well, then you agree that persons can be the same,
in the same sense that two flames of the same kind are called the same;
and you must recognize that in this sense
another man of the same character
and product of the same karma
is the same as you.

THIS WAS A LEAP THAT DID NOT SEEM TO FOLLOW. THERE ARE NO TWO PEOPLE WHO ARE PRODUCTS OF THE SAME KARMA - UNLESS HE MEANS THE SAME PERSON'S KARMA MIGRATING OR REINCARNATING. IT APPEARS THAT THE PROBLEM MAY BE, NOT THAT BUDDHA DOES NOT BELIEVE IN ANY ACTUAL REINCARNATION, BUT THAT HE IS SAYING THEIR IS A CESSATION OF THE KIND OF IDENTITY THAT KUNTADANTA WANTS, AND THAT THERE IS A REBIRTH OF SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT RECOGNIZE HIMSELF IN AN UNBROKEN WAY AS THE CONTINUATION OF KUTADANTA BUT THAT THE REBORN PERSON IS A CONTINUATION OF THE CHARACTER AND KARMIC HISTORY OF KUNTADANTA.

But he who does not recognize the identity should deny all identity,
and should say that the questioner is no longer the same person
as he who a minute later receives the answer.

THIS WOULD SEEM TO CONFIRM MY PREVIOUS COMMENT. IF YOU ARE GOING TO CLING TO AN EGOTISTIC AND MATERIALISTIC IDENTITY, YOU WILL FIND THAT YOU ARE NOT EVEN THE SAME PERSON FROM ONE MINUTE TO THE NEXT. BUDDHA MAY BE SAYING THAT KUNTADANTA IS CLINGING TO THE WRONG UNDERSTANDING OF IDENTITY.

Now consider the continuation of your personality,
which is preserved in your karma.
Do you call it death and annihilation,
or life and continued life?

UNFORTUNATELY IT IS NOT CLEAR HERE WHETHER BUDDHA MEANS THE MOMENT BY MOMENT CONTINUATION, OR A REINCARNATED ONE. PROBABLY HE MEANS REINCARNATION.

Kutadanta: I call it life and continued life,
for it is the continuation of my existence.
But I do not care for that kind of continuation.
All I care for is the continuation of self
in the other sense - the sense that makes of every man,
whether identical with me or not,
an altogether different person.

HERE IT APPEARS THAT KUNTADANTA IS NOT SATISIFED TO HAVE HIS PERONALITY REINCARNATE - HE WANTS TO HIS VERY IDENTITY AS KUNTADANTA TO CONTINUE.

Buddha: Very well. This is what you desire
and this is the cleaving to self.
This is your error.
All compound things are transitory:
they grow and they decay.
All compound things are subject to pain:
they will be separated from what they love
and be joined to what they abhor.
All compound things lack a self, an atman, an ego.

Kutadanta: How is that?

Buddha: Where is your self?

Kutadanta: (silence)

SO IT AGAIN APPEARS THAT IT IS HIS EGO/PERSONALITY THAT KUNTADANTA WANTS TO CONTINUE, NOT HIS CHARACTER AND KARMA. BUDDHA POINTS OUT THAT THERE IS MORE SIMILARITY BETWEEN A FLAME EXTINGUISEHD AND RELIT THAN HIS SELF FROM BOYHOOD TO MANHOOD, PRESUMABLY BECAUSE OF THE AMOUNT OF LEARNING, KARMA, AND CHARACTER CHANGE WHICH HAS OCCURRED.

There is no sankhara which has sprung into being without a gradual becoming.
Your sankharas are the product of your deeds in former existences.
The combination of your sankharas is your self.

THIS SEEMS CLEAR. KUNTADANTA THINKS THERE IS A THING CALLED HIS SELF, AND BUDDHA SAYS IT IS AN EVOLVING SET OF EXPERIENCES AND KARMIC DEEDS WHICH CREATES A CHARACTER.

Wherever they are impressed, there your self migrates.
In your sankharas, you will continue to live
and you will reap in future existences
the harvest sown now and in the past.

FROM THIS IT DOES NOT FOLLOW THAT BUDDHA ONLY MEANS THAT IT LIVES ON IN OTHER PEOPLE AND AS FOOD FOR WORMS. QUITE THE OPPOSITE.

Kutadanta: Verily, O Lord, this is not a fair retribution.
I cannot recognize the justice that others after me will reap
what I am sowing now.

KUNTADANTA IS STILL NOT HAPPY WITH THIS. HE FEELS THAT THESE FUTURE PEOPLE ARE NOT REALLY HIM.

Buddha: Is all my teaching in vain?
Do you not understand that those others are you yourself?
You yourself will reap what you sow, not others.

BUDDHA IS FRUSTRATED BECAUSE KUNTADANTA DOESN'T UNDERSTAND THAT IT REALLY WILL BE HIM-JUST NOT QUITE AS HE IS THINKING.

Think of a man who is ill-bred and destitute,
suffering from the wretchedness of his condition.
As a boy he was slothful and indolent, and when he grew up
he had not learned a craft to earn a living.
Would you say his misery
is not the product of his own action,
because the adult is no longer the same person as was the boy?

EVEN THOUGH buddha PREVIOUSLY STATED THAT THE RELIT FLAME WAS MORE SIMILAR THAN THE SELF OF THE BOY AND THE MAN, NONETHELESS HE USES THIS EXAMPLE TO SHOW THAT IT IS THE SAME PERSON REAPING WHAT THEY SOW

Thus, I say to you:
Not in the heavens,
not in the midst of the sea,
not if you hide yourself away in the clefts of the mountains,
will you find a place where you can escape the fruit of your evil actions.

At the same time, you are sure
to receive the blessings of your good actions.
The man who has long been travelling and who returns home in safety,
the welcome of kinsfold, friends, and acquaintances awaits.
In the same way, the fruits of his good works bid him welcome
who has walked in the path of righteousness,
when he passes over from the present life into the hereafter.

THIS PASSING INTO THE HEREAFTER DOES NOT SOUND LIKE WHEN YOUR BRAIN DIES, YOU ARE DONE. AND THERE IS NO REASON FOR BUDDHA TO ASSURE HIM THAT HE WILL NOT ESCAPE HIS GOOD OR BAD KARMA IS HIS CONSCIOUSNESS HAS NO CONTINUATION AFTER DEATH.

Walk in the noble path of righteousness
and you will understand that while there is death in self,
there is immortality in truth.

THIS IS NOT CLEAR AT ALL.

Kutadanta: Accept me as your disciple
and let me partake of the bliss of immortality.

THIS WOULD BE AN AMAZING CAPITULATION IF HE HAS SUDDENLY DECIDED THAT THE ONLY FORM OF REINCARNATION IS METAPHORICAL WHEN HE WAS SO ATTACHED TO PERSONAL SURVIVAL. HARDLY WOULD I CALL IT BLISS OF IMMORTALITY. THEREFORE I THINK BUDDHA WAS REFINING HIS UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT IT MEANS AND DOES NOT MEAN TO REINCARNATE.

The combination of your sankharas is your self.
Wherever they are impressed, there your self migrates.

THIS IS A MORE SUBTLE KIND OF MIGRATION THAN WHAT KUNTADANTA ORIGINALLY WANTED.

[David Quinn]

You're trying hard, but the Buddha's words really don't support your conception of reincarnation. His essential point was that other people in the future reap what we sow in this life (thus demolishing the idea of a soul or self reincarnating after death), but at the same time, these other people are part of our larger self. Only in this sense does our "self" continue on after death.

Wherever they are impressed, there your self migrates.
In your sankharas, you will continue to live
and you will reap in future existences
the harvest sown now and in the past.

FROM THIS IT DOES NOT FOLLOW THAT BUDDHA ONLY MEANS THAT IT LIVES ON IN OTHER PEOPLE AND AS FOOD FOR WORMS. QUITE THE OPPOSITE.

No, that is exactly what he means. He is explicitly repudiating the idea that anything identifiable or personal survives death. It is only in our sankharas (i.e. the causal consequences of our actions) that we continue to live. This is just as true now, while we are supposedly "alive", as it is in the future.

Kutadanta: Verily, O Lord, this is not a fair retribution.
I cannot recognize the justice that others after me will reap
what I am sowing now.

KUNTADANTA IS STILL NOT HAPPY WITH THIS. HE FEELS THAT THESE FUTURE PEOPLE ARE NOT REALLY HIM.

Yes, he is still seeing things from an egotistical perspective.

Buddha: Is all my teaching in vain?
Do you not understand that those others are you yourself?
You yourself will reap what you sow, not others.

The Buddha is showing that you don't need to invent contrived notions such as "subtle streams of consciousness" and "isolated streams of rebirth" in order to affirm the reality that other people in the future are yourself.

Walk in the noble path of righteousness
and you will understand that while there is death in self,
there is immortality in truth.

THIS IS NOT CLEAR AT ALL.

The Buddha is refering to the only form of immortality there can be - namely, the truthful realization that life and death are an illusion. That is the bliss of immortality - knowing with crystal clarity that you have never been born in the first place, that you don't really exist at all, and that there is really nothing there that can die. This contrasts with the ego's conception of immortality, which is to continue living indefinitely.

Naturally, Kutadanta, being an egotist, finds this view of things rather hard to stomach.

-

[David Quinn]

Pye wrote:

DQ: Are you also equating the boddhisattva spirit with having love affairs?

p: ???????

no . . . .

I'd be entirely baffled by this left-field question had we not already in evidence about the place these senses of suspicion.

Do you think we judge you negatively simply because you are biologically female? Do you think, in your case, we make an exception to the usual practice of judging people on the quality of their minds?

In any case, my question arose because you seemed to be linking your remark about the lack of boddhisattva spirit in this place to propellerbeanie's views that people who reject love are selfish. Thus, for clarity's sake, I was asking you outright whether you were equating the boddhisttva spirit with love.

Thanks for the link. This, Kevin's, and Dhodges' "metaphor" above have done well to explain the view of reincarnation held by the Forum.

Before I ever had a word for these deaths-in-life - before I ever knew of buddhist thinking - I used to call this "shedding." This was how it felt. Walking, crawling, running - most painfully - out of one outer skin after another, moving through and past relationships, too. I shedded people, as well as thoughts and selves and skins.

All we ever are is sheddings, created by past sheddings.

-

[sue hindmarsh]

Matt Gregory wrote:

Sue, I think your view of men is just a bit too romantic to be factual. Yes, a man will tell her that he will give his life for her. Yes, he will believe it most of the time. And yes, he will actually feel this way from time to time (usually when she's not around). But all of the time?

I don't think it's even physically possible to feel that way about a woman all the time just for the fact that women become very boring to be around. They get stressed out about things on a continual basis, but they never seem to get around to resolving them, ever. So they are compelled to talk about these petty emotional problems over and over and over again, problems that any reasonable person could solve in under 10 seconds. Who could possibly listen to that and still want to give everything to someone who obsesses over them? I just don't think it's very realistic. It's just a duplicitous act men put on to avoid escalating the situation and turning life into true hell.

It’s true, Matt, that men get frustrated and upset with the way women treat them, but usually not enough to want to be completely free of them. If a bloke decided he wasn’t going to waste the rest of his life enslaved to a female emotional parasite, he’d discover that there was only one way out.

You may not be surprised to hear that the only cure for the sickness of ‘man’s need for woman’ is for him to become Wise. There is no other alternative. Even if a man lived his entire life alone on a deserted island, if he wasn’t Wise he’d still long for the love and comfort found in a woman’s arms, and thereby continue to foster the Feminine. Even if he had put himself onto the island to harden his heart against all women, that too would be an act of enslaving himself to Woman. Nothing short of knowing the Truth of all things, including the Feminine, and living according to that knowledge, can a man be truly free.

Sue

[Matt Gregory]

Yes, it seems that way. He could probably take drugs all the time to forget about Woman, but that could be considered enslaving himself to the Feminine as well, albeit in a different way.

.