simultaneity of cause and effect

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nichiren-123
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simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by nichiren-123 »

I tried using the search function to look this up but it wouldn't work, so my apologies if there is already a thread for this...

I've heard people mention the simultaneity of cause and effect but it seems very complicated.

it would be nice if someone could explain this for me as opposed to linear cause and effect.

thanks
N-123
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Minobu
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Minobu »

you smash your finger it hurts.
you steal you stain yourself
everything you do either draws you closer to the Truth or further from the Truth

you darken or lighten your life as you go

it's not about hey i stole an apple so like will someone steal mine...
narhwal90
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by narhwal90 »

For me I view the simultaneity of cause & effect from a 10 Factors standpoint “The true aspect of all phenomena can only be understood and shared between Buddhas. This reality consists of appearance, nature, entity, power, influence, internal cause, relation, latent effect, manifest effect and their consistency from beginning to end.”

The upshot being effects (ie the paper burning) are latent, needing sufficient causes & conditions (eg oxygen, dry, lit match) to arise. Clearly there is sequence but causality is more nuanced than sequence.

Nichiren wrote a gosho on the 10 factors;

http://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-2/Content/179
nichiren-123
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by nichiren-123 »

narhwal90 wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 3:09 pm For me I view the simultaneity of cause & effect from a 10 Factors standpoint “The true aspect of all phenomena can only be understood and shared between Buddhas. This reality consists of appearance, nature, entity, power, influence, internal cause, relation, latent effect, manifest effect and their consistency from beginning to end.”

The upshot being effects (ie the paper burning) are latent, needing sufficient causes & conditions (eg oxygen, dry, lit match) to arise. Clearly there is sequence but causality is more nuanced than sequence.

Nichiren wrote a gosho on the 10 factors;

http://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/wnd-2/Content/179
just read that gosho. I'm confused by this:
The hundred worlds represent the truth of temporary existence, the thousand factors represent the truth of non-substantiality, and the three thousand realms represent the truth of the Middle Way.
what is the logic behind that statement?
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Caoimhghín »

nichiren-123 wrote: Sat Dec 02, 2017 5:21 pm I tried using the search function to look this up but it wouldn't work, so my apologies if there is already a thread for this...

I've heard people mention the simultaneity of cause and effect but it seems very complicated.

it would be nice if someone could explain this for me as opposed to linear cause and effect.

thanks
N-123
I asked a similar question before but got no answers, or at least none that satisfied me. The union of cause-and-effect is a interpretation or (attempted) explaining of DO. The idea is, I think, that causes are their effects.

I used to work at General Motors. I caused many cars. "I" am in those cars, as is the factory. Tons of things are "in" those cars, as they are dependently originated, and their "innate car essence" is comprised of many things, such as me and that factory, and lack one particular thing, namely "innate car essence".

That is as best I can put it together internally. I have no clue if that is "right" by the metric of those who use the language of "union/simultaneity of cause-and-effect", or, necessarily, by the metric of the Buddhadharma.
Then, the monks uttered this gāthā:

These bodies are like foam.
Them being frail, who can rejoice in them?
The Buddha attained the vajra-body.
Still, it becomes inconstant and ruined.
The many Buddhas are vajra-entities.
All are also subject to inconstancy.
Quickly ended, like melting snow --
how could things be different?

The Buddha passed into parinirvāṇa afterward.
(T1.27b10 Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra DĀ 2)
narhwal90
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by narhwal90 »

I think the point is that distinctions between cause and effect are misleading because what is seen as a cause in one context is an effect in another. I'd go for something like a given phenomenon is simultaneously the effects of some and the causes of others, admitting the possibility of intersection of the two groups. Perhaps it is a somewhat labored elaboration of dependent origination.
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Jeff H »

Pardon me if I'm butting in ... I know nothing of Nichiren so this may be completely irrelevant. But my understanding is that it is impossible for a cause and its effect to be simultaneous, i.e. occurring at the same time. Simultaneity is not "instant karma", like touching fire and right away experiencing being burned: touching the fire is one discreet event and getting burned is an immediately successive event, not simultaneous.

I'm just wondering if the reference you heard of was talking about dependent origination which has three levels of subtlety: temporal, referring to effects following causes; contemporaneous, referring to wholes and their parts; and labels, referring to the origin of any phenomenon being its identification by a consciousness.

Of those three scenarios, the contemporaneous one could be mistaken for "simultaneous causality" in the sense that the identification of parts depends on the whole and vice versa, all existing at the same time. I don't know, but I was drawn in by the thread title.
:shrug:
Where now is my mind engaged? - Shantideva
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Minobu
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Minobu »

Jeff H wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 4:12 am Pardon me if I'm butting in ... I know nothing of Nichiren so this may be completely irrelevant. But my understanding is that it is impossible for a cause and its effect to be simultaneous, i.e. occurring at the same time. Simultaneity is not "instant karma", like touching fire and right away experiencing being burned: touching the fire is one discreet event and getting burned is an immediately successive event, not simultaneous.

I'm just wondering if the reference you heard of was talking about dependent origination which has three levels of subtlety: temporal, referring to effects following causes; contemporaneous, referring to wholes and their parts; and labels, referring to the origin of any phenomenon being its identification by a consciousness.

Of those three scenarios, the contemporaneous one could be mistaken for "simultaneous causality" in the sense that the identification of parts depends on the whole and vice versa, all existing at the same time. I don't know, but I was drawn in by the thread title.
:shrug:
time is a circle///
so like everything has happened that will happen and once again after a long time you are rereading this.

oops you just read it again...and again...
it's all so meaninglessly repetitive.. i'm checking out completely and all that will be left is some impression of me in your mindstream that isn't really there anyway.

hey who turned out the lights...was that me...
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Minobu
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Minobu »

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Minobu
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Minobu »

it's like this...

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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Jeff H »

Minobu wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:56 am
Jeff H wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 4:12 am Pardon me if I'm butting in ... I know nothing of Nichiren so this may be completely irrelevant. But my understanding is that it is impossible for a cause and its effect to be simultaneous, i.e. occurring at the same time. Simultaneity is not "instant karma", like touching fire and right away experiencing being burned: touching the fire is one discreet event and getting burned is an immediately successive event, not simultaneous.

I'm just wondering if the reference you heard of was talking about dependent origination which has three levels of subtlety: temporal, referring to effects following causes; contemporaneous, referring to wholes and their parts; and labels, referring to the origin of any phenomenon being its identification by a consciousness.

Of those three scenarios, the contemporaneous one could be mistaken for "simultaneous causality" in the sense that the identification of parts depends on the whole and vice versa, all existing at the same time. I don't know, but I was drawn in by the thread title.
:shrug:
time is a circle///
so like everything has happened that will happen and once again after a long time you are rereading this.

oops you just read it again...and again...
it's all so meaninglessly repetitive.. i'm checking out completely and all that will be left is some impression of me in your mindstream that isn't really there anyway.

hey who turned out the lights...was that me...
If this is a response to my post, I'm afraid it's too cryptic for me.
Where now is my mind engaged? - Shantideva
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Queequeg
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Queequeg »

Its pretty straight forward.

There actually are no causes - because whatever is past does not presently exist. There are no effect of present actions, because the future has not come.

There is only this moment - what we conceive as past causes is nothing other than the present moment. What we think are future effects are nothing other than present action.

There are further levels of subtlety to this teaching - ie. what are the implications of there being only this moment?

In the Lotus Tradition, this is expressed in the teaching Ichinen Sanzen - Three Thousand Realms in a Single Moment of Mind.
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,
nichiren-123
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by nichiren-123 »

Found a relevant quote which explains it for me:
http://ichinensanzen.ca/dependent-origi ... ependence/
... ‘oneself’ and the ‘environment’ are a mutually co-arising phenomena of causes and conditions that simultaneously give rise each other. This transforms our basic understanding of cause and effect from one cause leading to an effect in a linear delineated fashion, to everything everywhere being both the cause and effect at the same time. This is also known as the simultaneity of cause and effect, which is in fact suggesting that there is no start or end to anything; everything is a borderless continuing process where all phenomena co-arise simultaneously ad infinitum as causes and conditions.
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Minobu
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Minobu »

Jeff H wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 3:10 pm
Minobu wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:56 am
Jeff H wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 4:12 am Pardon me if I'm butting in ... I know nothing of Nichiren so this may be completely irrelevant. But my understanding is that it is impossible for a cause and its effect to be simultaneous, i.e. occurring at the same time. Simultaneity is not "instant karma", like touching fire and right away experiencing being burned: touching the fire is one discreet event and getting burned is an immediately successive event, not simultaneous.

I'm just wondering if the reference you heard of was talking about dependent origination which has three levels of subtlety: temporal, referring to effects following causes; contemporaneous, referring to wholes and their parts; and labels, referring to the origin of any phenomenon being its identification by a consciousness.

Of those three scenarios, the contemporaneous one could be mistaken for "simultaneous causality" in the sense that the identification of parts depends on the whole and vice versa, all existing at the same time. I don't know, but I was drawn in by the thread title.
:shrug:
time is a circle///
so like everything has happened that will happen and once again after a long time you are rereading this.

oops you just read it again...and again...
it's all so meaninglessly repetitive.. i'm checking out completely and all that will be left is some impression of me in your mindstream that isn't really there anyway.

hey who turned out the lights...was that me...
If this is a response to my post, I'm afraid it's too cryptic for me.
ok ...it was a stretch ...

i was taught by a Rinpoche and a Nichiren shoshu priest along with reading stephen hawking that time is so long it eventually bends unto itself becoming a circle....hence once again we are reading this screen .....

now the next part is something i brought up and never got the answer for....when one attains full blown buddhahood and no longer is trapped in samsara ...what happens to that sentient...hey who turned out the lights....


but ...just now ..i think i solved this ...seriously...the time loop keeps happening for we all attain buddhahood...and well what leads up to that moment...is just part of the eternal Samsaric circle....
it's not like you go away and don't come back and like your mom is now looking for you in all your existences and your friends are waiting for you all over the circle of time to bring in the weed....

hopefully lindama does not read this and still thinks i'm ok...i'm not you know...

i'm somewhere at timestamp 1;36 the rest is whats leftover due to my genetic memory of being born on this wretched planet of hate and meanness ...

except for that bunny you could see clearly in the super moon last night...apparently Buddha placed it there for LUCK...look up at the right side and see the two ears and it will pop out at you...

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Minobu
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Minobu »

Queequeg wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:32 pm Its pretty straight forward.

There actually are no causes - because whatever is past does not presently exist. There are no effect of present actions, because the future has not come.

There is only this moment - what we conceive as past causes is nothing other than the present moment. What we think are future effects are nothing other than present action.

There are further levels of subtlety to this teaching - ie. what are the implications of there being only this moment?

In the Lotus Tradition, this is expressed in the teaching Ichinen Sanzen - Three Thousand Realms in a Single Moment of Mind.
with all respect to you "Q"...is this taking it too far into tien tai ism ....by adding "of Mind"
Malcolm
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Malcolm »

nichiren-123 wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:58 pm Found a relevant quote which explains it for me:
http://ichinensanzen.ca/dependent-origi ... ependence/
... ‘oneself’ and the ‘environment’ are a mutually co-arising phenomena of causes and conditions that simultaneously give rise each other. This transforms our basic understanding of cause and effect from one cause leading to an effect in a linear delineated fashion, to everything everywhere being both the cause and effect at the same time. This is also known as the simultaneity of cause and effect, which is in fact suggesting that there is no start or end to anything; everything is a borderless continuing process where all phenomena co-arise simultaneously ad infinitum as causes and conditions.
This is not particularly interesting. All conditioned things are simultaneously causes and effects.

Moreover, there is in Abhidharma a simple concept called karana-hetu. It simply means that everything is a cause of everything other thing apart from itself. It is one of the six causes.

Moreover, there are four conditions, the causal condition, the dominant condition (aka karana-hetu), the object condition and the immediately antecedent and simultaneous condition.

Nāgārjuna systematically dismantles these one by one. Thus, arising from conditions is merely a convention and does not signify anything real.
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Queequeg
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Queequeg »

If you like, you can substitute "life" for "mind" as Soka Gakkai does in their translations. I think its misleading. Mind is actually the Chinese.
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,
Malcolm
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Malcolm »

Queequeg wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:32 pm Its pretty straight forward.

There actually are no causes - because whatever is past does not presently exist. There are no effect of present actions, because the future has not come.

There is only this moment - what we conceive as past causes is nothing other than the present moment. What we think are future effects are nothing other than present action.

There isn't even a present moment, since without establishing a past moment, a present moment cannot come to be. Basic MMK:

Without depending on the past,
those two cannot exist.
Therefore, the present arising
and the future arising do not exist.
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Queequeg
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Queequeg »

Malcolm wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 7:08 pm This is not particularly interesting.
Groan. :roll:

What are you, putting on an Ignatius Reilly impression?
Moreover, there is in Abhidharma a simple concept called karana-hetu. It simply means that everything is a cause of everything other thing apart from itself. It is one of the six causes.

Moreover, there are four conditions, the causal condition, the dominant condition (aka karana-hetu), the object condition and the immediately antecedent and simultaneous condition.

Nāgārjuna systematically dismantles these one by one. Thus, arising from conditions is merely a convention and does not signify anything real.
Its the same thing. Same thing. Nobody's trying to take credit or obscure anything.
Malcolm wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 7:13 pm
Queequeg wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:32 pm Its pretty straight forward.

There actually are no causes - because whatever is past does not presently exist. There are no effect of present actions, because the future has not come.

There is only this moment - what we conceive as past causes is nothing other than the present moment. What we think are future effects are nothing other than present action.

There isn't even a present moment, since without establishing a past moment, a present moment cannot come to be. Basic MMK:

Without depending on the past,
those two cannot exist.
Therefore, the present arising
and the future arising do not exist.
Indeed. My misstatement.
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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Minobu
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Minobu »

yeah the whole middle way seems to evaporate around here at times...
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