Collective karma

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Queequeg
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Re: Collective karma

Post by Queequeg »

Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:16 pm
Malcolm wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 1:49 pmthe traces of other minds are sufficiently strong to generate appearances for ours.
Such a possibility would mean that one could put thoughts into another's mind, and if that could happen, then one stream of consciousness could cross another stream and become one.
No, it doesn't.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Astus
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Re: Collective karma

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Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:33 pmNo, it doesn't.
Why not? The mind stream consists of one momentary thought followed by another momentary thought. If there is a moment that is identical for two streams, it becomes the single cause of the following moment of thought, thus there is only one stream of thought left.
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
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Queequeg
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Re: Collective karma

Post by Queequeg »

Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:37 pm
Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:33 pmNo, it doesn't.
Why not? The mind stream consists of one momentary thought followed by another momentary thought. If there is a moment that is identical for two streams, it becomes the single cause of the following moment of thought, thus there is only one stream of thought left.
Here's the a more comprehensive picture of the exchange:
Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:33 pm
Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:16 pm
Malcolm wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 1:49 pmthe traces of other minds are sufficiently strong to generate appearances for ours.
Such a possibility would mean that one could put thoughts into another's mind, and if that could happen, then one stream of consciousness could cross another stream and become one.
No, it doesn't.
Your reasoning is faulty.

You equate the perception of an appearance with "having thoughts put into one's mind"

Do we need to break down how that is silly?
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Queequeg
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Re: Collective karma

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Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:24 pm
Grigoris wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 2:43 pmof course there are shared sense fields, even if we experience them individually.
As Malcolm said, what I meant was that things are experienced individually. What you see as light is not what I see as light. What you think as light is not what I think as light. Furthermore, you cannot even show me what you see, what you think.
With sophisticated brain scanning tech, we actually can see how your physical reaction to light is a similar phenomena to other people: pupils constrict in response to light stimuli; if the wiring between your eye and brain are normal, they send electric signals to the vision processing areas of the brain. Science is actually showing that we're actually not all that unique. Earlier in the thread I linked to an article that shows that brain functioning is actually similar between friends. What you are arguing is a philosophical point that presumes our subjective consciousness is some unique mystery. Its turning out, its actually remarkably mechanistic. Its true that the meaning might be different. Cue Boda to discuss the meaning of meaning.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Astus
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Re: Collective karma

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Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:45 pm You equate the perception of an appearance with "having thoughts put into one's mind"
Perception exists in consciousness. If one can make another's consciousness perceive something, that is no different from being able to put a thought into another's mind, as it means one can control another's mind.
Do we need to break down how that is silly?
Please do.
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
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Astus
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Re: Collective karma

Post by Astus »

Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:57 pmWhat you are arguing is a philosophical point that presumes our subjective consciousness is some unique mystery.
The argument is regarding the subjective experience. Brain scans and biological analysis have nothing to do with it.
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
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Queequeg
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Re: Collective karma

Post by Queequeg »

Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:00 pm
Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:45 pm You equate the perception of an appearance with "having thoughts put into one's mind"
Perception exists in consciousness.
Perception is another word for consciousness, at least in the 18 dhatus sense.
If one can make another's consciousness perceive something, that is no different from being able to put a thought into another's mind, as it means one can control another's mind.
No. You're skipping several steps.

Eye Consciousness arises at the intersection of the Eye-Object and Eye.

Mind Consciousness arises at the intersection of Mind-Object (in this case, Eye Consciousness) and Mind.

"Thought" is something that is several steps removed - its Mind Consciousness rattling around in a feedback loop with Mind.

The point is, between the Eye Object, lets say, the august appearance of the Buddha with 32 Major and 80 Minor marks, and the thought, there are many many steps where that august appearance of the Buddha ends up as a different experience between, say, the one that I see and the one that Nagarjuna sees.

Not saying that you are wrong in whole, just pointing out this view of the individual as being hermetically isolated in the mind is a biased view.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Collective karma

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Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:16 pm
Malcolm wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 1:49 pmthe traces of other minds are sufficiently strong to generate appearances for ours.
Such a possibility would mean that one could put thoughts into another's mind, and if that could happen, then one stream of consciousness could cross another stream and become one.
Well... There's this thing called marketing... It's all about putting and manipulating thoughts of a specific kind into another's mind. Everyone experiences a mass delusion, individually, but together.

There is interaction between two, but never appropriation one over another, in the sense of two becoming one... yes.
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Re: Collective karma

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Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:04 pm
Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:57 pmWhat you are arguing is a philosophical point that presumes our subjective consciousness is some unique mystery.
The argument is regarding the subjective experience. Brain scans and biological analysis have nothing to do with it.
Well, I'll admit, you do seem to need that to be true.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Queequeg
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Re: Collective karma

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Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:18 pm
Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:04 pm
Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:57 pmWhat you are arguing is a philosophical point that presumes our subjective consciousness is some unique mystery.
The argument is regarding the subjective experience. Brain scans and biological analysis have nothing to do with it.
Well, I'll admit, you do seem to need that to be true.
It has occurred to me, the things we're discovering about the nervous system, particularly the brain, and its effect we call our "mind", really ought to be welcomed and celebrated by Buddhists - its more or less confirming the gist of the Abhidharma, and its punchline: anatman.

:shrug:
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Astus
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Re: Collective karma

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Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:17 pmYou're skipping several steps.
Going with the abhidharma model makes no difference, as the external factors are not experienced, only the resultant consciousness is what is registered at all. There the moments of sensory consciousnesses are meaningless, it is only with the processing of impressions by the mind-consciousness that any basic apprehension can occur.
this view of the individual as being hermetically isolated in the mind is a biased view.
Even when the original source of a consciousness is an external object, since such objects do not possess any meaning or value, everything is necessarily interpreted and defined according to each beings mental conditioning. In what way is one not bound by one's preconceptions?
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
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Re: Collective karma

Post by Malcolm »

Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:00 pm
Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:45 pm You equate the perception of an appearance with "having thoughts put into one's mind"
Perception exists in consciousness. If one can make another's consciousness perceive something, that is no different from being able to put a thought into another's mind, as it means one can control another's mind.
Do we need to break down how that is silly?
Please do.
Simply put, minds can appear directly to each other without the need for some intermediary. This is what the ability to know the minds of others shows us. Thus is not an ability restricted to awakened folks.

How does it work? A mind which grasps signs is something which can appear to the mind of others.
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Re: Collective karma

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Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:54 pm
Queequeg wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:17 pmYou're skipping several steps.
Going with the abhidharma model makes no difference, as the external factors are not experienced, only the resultant consciousness is what is registered at all. There the moments of sensory consciousnesses are meaningless, it is only with the processing of impressions by the mind-consciousness that any basic apprehension can occur.
If you want to get technical about it, that resultant consciousness is also meaningless, except from our deluded perspective that pegs it to "I". We know through analysis that that "basic apprehension" is more or less the same as a ripple whipped up by a breeze across a pond. We just make the mistake of thinking those ripples are "I".

this view of the individual as being hermetically isolated in the mind is a biased view.
Even when the original source of a consciousness is an external object, since such objects do not possess any meaning or value, everything is necessarily interpreted and defined according to each beings mental conditioning. In what way is one not bound by one's preconceptions?
Again, without "I" distorting everything, we can equally say that one's perceptions are mere concatenated causes emanating from a particular stimuli. The sentient being could be analyzed similarly in relation to any arbitrarily identified dharma.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: Collective karma

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Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:24 pm Furthermore, you cannot even show me what you see, what you think.
Of course I can. The fact that there can be mutually understood communication is a testament to that. The fact that teaching and learning can occur is a testament to that. The fact that socialisation occurs is a testament to that.

Are you denying these occur?
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Re: Collective karma

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Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:24 pm
Grigoris wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 2:43 pmof course there are shared sense fields, even if we experience them individually.
As Malcolm said, what I meant was that things are experienced individually. What you see as light is not what I see as light. What you think as light is not what I think as light. Furthermore, you cannot even show me what you see, what you think.
You are confounding interpretation/conceptualisation with experience/sensation.
"My religion is not deceiving myself."
Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."
The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
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Re: Collective karma

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Odd that people construe 'generate' as meaning to introduce from outside. Only I can generate thought, nobody else, or it is not generated but implanted or some other term.
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Re: Collective karma

Post by Malcolm »

Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:30 pm
Malcolm wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 2:49 pmThe material aggregate is defined as all physical sense organs and AND objects made of the four elements.
There are both sense-faculties and sense-objects for all 6 sense-fields, and from their meeting arises the respective sense-consciousnesses. Or this can be looked at from the experiential perspective, where there are sense-consciousnesses conceptually split into faculties and objects.
Yes. So?
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Re: Collective karma

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Malcolm wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:56 pmminds can appear directly to each other without the need for some intermediary. This is what the ability to know the minds of others shows us. Thus is not an ability restricted to awakened folks.
How does it work? A mind which grasps signs is something which can appear to the mind of others.
It is exactly direct perception that cannot happen, as that would mean having the same state of mind. What might be said is that one can conceive a representation of another mind, just as one can see only representations of physical objects.

"[Consciousness] is only said to perceive the minds of others because it is like a mirror in which appear seemingly external objects. It cannot immediately perceive [others' minds]. What it immediately perceives are its own transformations. Therefore, a scripture says, "There is not the slightest dharma that is capable of seizing other dharmas. It is just that when consciousness is born, it appears resembling images and is said to seize things." As with having the minds of others as objects, so with form, etc."
(Cheng Weishi Lun, ch 7, in Three Texts on Consciousness Only, BDK ed, p 239; in Tat: p 523; T1585p39c15-16)
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
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Re: Collective karma

Post by Malcolm »

Astus wrote: Sat Apr 21, 2018 12:46 pm
Malcolm wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 4:56 pmminds can appear directly to each other without the need for some intermediary. This is what the ability to know the minds of others shows us. Thus is not an ability restricted to awakened folks.
How does it work? A mind which grasps signs is something which can appear to the mind of others.
It is exactly direct perception that cannot happen, as that would mean having the same state of mind. What might be said is that one can conceive a representation of another mind, just as one can see only representations of physical objects.

"[Consciousness] is only said to perceive the minds of others because it is like a mirror in which appear seemingly external objects. It cannot immediately perceive [others' minds]. What it immediately perceives are its own transformations. Therefore, a scripture says, "There is not the slightest dharma that is capable of seizing other dharmas. It is just that when consciousness is born, it appears resembling images and is said to seize things." As with having the minds of others as objects, so with form, etc."
(Cheng Weishi Lun, ch 7, in Three Texts on Consciousness Only, BDK ed, p 239; in Tat: p 523; T1585p39c15-16)
The above is mistaken, and is posited on a realist perspective.
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Re: Collective karma

Post by Astus »

Grigoris wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:02 pm
Astus wrote: Fri Apr 20, 2018 3:24 pmyou cannot even show me what you see, what you think.
Of course I can.
Showing it would mean that I experience exactly the way you experience, that my visual consciousness is identical to yours, etc.
The fact that there can be mutually understood communication is a testament to that. The fact that teaching and learning can occur is a testament to that. The fact that socialisation occurs is a testament to that.
Those do not explain how within anyone's experience there can be something independent of one's mental conditioning. Even when there are group activities, each member experiences and comprehends alone, without any means to perceive with the mind of others.
1 Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek?

2 If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing.

3 Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata.

4 With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.


1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
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