Omniscience and the future
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Omniscience and the future
Since buddhists don't believe that whatever happens is determined or "fate, how can Buddhas know the future?
- Johnny Dangerous
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Re: Omniscience and the future
AlexanderS wrote:Since buddhists don't believe that whatever happens is determined or "fate, how can Buddhas know the future?
I believe the standard answer is something like they are "seeing" cause and effect on a larger scale, well beyond what deluded beings see.
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Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared
-Khunu Lama
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Re: Omniscience and the future
I just feel that if they can see what kind of karma I create then they already know which choices and actions I will make in this and future lives. For me that is pretty close to determinism.
- LastLegend
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Re: Omniscience and the future
You will have to ask a Buddha if there is a future at all.AlexanderS wrote:Since buddhists don't believe that whatever happens is determined or "fate, how can Buddhas know the future?
It’s eye blinking.
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Re: Omniscience and the future
AlexanderS wrote:I just feel that if they can see what kind of karma I create then they already know which choices and actions I will make in this and future lives. For me that is pretty close to determinism.
There ARE some logical hiccups in it on the surface, especially when people say "everything is Karma", because if everything is Karma, it is basically determinism, including your practice of Dharma, it's pre-ordained. There has to be some moment of choice at some point.
There's a good Berzin article on it though, that goes a good way to answering some of these questions:
http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/ar ... birth.html
I believe it's this article somehwere, he really goes into the exact question you are asking, basically about free will vs. determinism in a karmic context.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared
-Khunu Lama
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when sad
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when you are scared
-Khunu Lama
Re: Omniscience and the future
Do buddhas know the future? Then lot of classical incidents of Shakyamuni would not have happened. Some discussed here: The Buddha and Omniscience
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"
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: Omniscience and the future
I don't think that an enlightened being can know EVERYTHING that is going to happen in the future, but as someone else mentioned, it's a matter of perceiving the depths of cause and effect. So some future events are set due to the causes that make an outcome inevitable, but a lot more are not and those are of course beyond even a buddha's clairvoiance.AlexanderS wrote:Since buddhists don't believe that whatever happens is determined or "fate, how can Buddhas know the future?
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Re: Omniscience and the future
Perhaps this question belongs to the 4 imponderables?
Re: Omniscience and the future
Maybe a Buddha could know all the possibles results of all actions, but not know wich actions people would choose.
Wich sutras could give an answer to the op question?
Wich sutras could give an answer to the op question?
Re: Omniscience and the future
From the suttas and sutras that I have read, I have not come across any that could give an answer.Nosta wrote:Maybe a Buddha could know all the possibles results of all actions, but not know wich actions people would choose.
Wich sutras could give an answer to the op question?
However, I remember reading Guru Rinpoche's predictions for his tertons taking the form of ... if terton X choose A then the outcome would be Y, else if he chooses B then the outcome would be Z. So Guru Rinpoche seemed to recognize that the outcome of his prediction is dependent on the choices that his tertons will make.
Modern science has shown that the physical world is not entirely deterministic. I think the same applies to the mental world as well.
Re: Omniscience and the future
I'm just guessing here... but perhaps it has to do with the idea of "one taste".
That if you could know all... perhaps at the root of it all you'd simply see the arising and cessation of all phenomena and the suffering of sentient beings.
Sometimes we think of possessing omniscience as being an awesome super power... but for a being of infinite compassion then I imagine omniscience would reveal the infinitely vast experience of suffering in all sentient life.
And that whole idea feels rather sad - breaks my heart just thinking about it really.
That if you could know all... perhaps at the root of it all you'd simply see the arising and cessation of all phenomena and the suffering of sentient beings.
Sometimes we think of possessing omniscience as being an awesome super power... but for a being of infinite compassion then I imagine omniscience would reveal the infinitely vast experience of suffering in all sentient life.
And that whole idea feels rather sad - breaks my heart just thinking about it really.