simultaneity of cause and effect

Malcolm
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Malcolm »

Minobu wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:27 pm
so lets have it then
"who heard from who and how". some sort of Dharmakaya thing?
a vision?

There are all kinds of literary strategies in Buddhist canonical texts, if you but take the time to ferret them out.
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Queequeg
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Queequeg »

Coëmgenu wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:01 pm
Queequeg wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 7:52 pm Minobu and I have been down that road.

I'm just more charming✨.
You are also, I assume, quite younger. I suspect that when I am as old as Minobu, I will similarly come off as out-of-touch with "new" things and ideas in general, for the simple reason that they are 'new' and I will not be. This goes equally for things that are "contemporarily new" and things that are "new to me".

I suspect that I will talk about things that other people are not familiar with. I suspect that I will assume any educated person is familiar with them. I suspect that I will draw greatly upon personal experience and deeply personal modes of communication, simply because I will have had a great deal more 'personal experiences' than I have now, generally.
I think that's un-generous. Minobu, as I have found over the years, has a remarkable ability to "enter" a teaching. When he enters, it is without reservation. This is remarkable and admirable, though it can have obvious pitfalls. I don't think there is a more effective way to discover the efficacy of a teaching.

I vouch for the fellow, that though he has his bones to pick, this is one of the most sincere people you will encounter.

Most of us will eventually yell at the kids to stay off the lawn, but Minobu's way of doing it is to run with the kids and while yelling, "Don't do it!"
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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Caoimhghín
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Caoimhghín »

Queequeg wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:41 pm
Coëmgenu wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:01 pm
Queequeg wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 7:52 pm Minobu and I have been down that road.

I'm just more charming✨.
You are also, I assume, quite younger. I suspect that when I am as old as Minobu, I will similarly come off as out-of-touch with "new" things and ideas in general, for the simple reason that they are 'new' and I will not be. This goes equally for things that are "contemporarily new" and things that are "new to me".

I suspect that I will talk about things that other people are not familiar with. I suspect that I will assume any educated person is familiar with them. I suspect that I will draw greatly upon personal experience and deeply personal modes of communication, simply because I will have had a great deal more 'personal experiences' than I have now, generally.
I think that's un-generous. Minobu, as I have found over the years, has a remarkable ability to "enter" a teaching. When he enters, it is without reservation. This is remarkable and admirable, though it can have obvious pitfalls. I don't think there is a more effective way to discover the efficacy of a teaching.

I vouch for the fellow, that though he has his bones to pick, this is one of the most sincere people you will encounter.

Most of us will eventually yell at the kids to stay off the lawn, but Minobu's way of doing it is to run with the kids and while yelling, "Don't do it!"
Well, I said "come off as", not "is". Perhaps Minobu can weigh-in himself here and we can all see what he thinks about this exchange about him.
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)
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Minobu
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Minobu »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:39 pm
Minobu wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:27 pm
so lets have it then
"who heard from who and how". some sort of Dharmakaya thing?
a vision?

There are all kinds of literary strategies in Buddhist canonical texts, if you but take the time to ferret them out.
Lol
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Sādhaka
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Sādhaka »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 6:10 pm
Minobu wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:24 pm
i take it from what i've read you have written that Mahayana Sutra are just myths and legends....your words you wrote once.
I once speculated that Mahāyāna Sūtras were visionary revelations, but not records of actual historical events.

However, clinging to the events described in the Lotus Sūtra, or any other Mahāyāna Sūtra, opens up an uncomfortable can of worms for those who literally believe in the text of the sūtra in question.

For example, have you ever seen Vulture's Peak where the Buddha is said to have taught this sūtra?

Image
Image

How are 12,000 arhat bhikṣus supposed to fit there? Let alone, 2,000 extra, 6,000 nuns, and 80,000 bodhisattvas? Were they all levitating in space around the mountain?
In a commentary on the Heart Sutra, the Dalai Lama implies that they all met there via dream practice or like what some would call astral projection.
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Caoimhghín
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Caoimhghín »

IMO they met always and never, both right there, and nowhere in particular.

Is that cryptic enough?
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)
Malcolm
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Malcolm »

Sādhaka wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:48 pm In his commentary on the Heart Sutra, the Dalai Lama implies that they all met there via dream practice or like what some would call astral projection.
So to reinforce Nichiren's POV, the Lotus Sūtra is does not depict a literal historical event, but rather, vision in a dream?

That is not really what I took Nichiren to mean from Q's comment. I took it to mean that the ordinary perception of beings is a dream. This still leaves it open to being a literal historical event.
Last edited by Malcolm on Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Queequeg
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Queequeg »

Minobu wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:27 pm did the Stupa come out of the ground as some huger than huge thing with Buddhas inside it ....did certain qualified people see this in some sort of Samadhi happening.
Some people don't think the following is authentic. I tend to believe it is authentic.
At present the entire body of the Honorable [Minobu] is composed of the five elements of earth, water, fire, wind, and space. These five elements are also the five characters of the daimoku. [Minobu] is therefore the treasure tower itself, and the treasure tower is [Minobu] himself. No other knowledge is purposeful. It is the treasure tower adorned with the seven kinds of treasures—hearing the correct teaching, believing it, keeping the precepts, engaging in meditation, practicing assiduously, renouncing one’s attachments, and reflecting on oneself.
Nichiren, On the Treasure Tower
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 »

Coëmgenu wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:42 pm
Queequeg wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:41 pm
Coëmgenu wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:01 pm

You are also, I assume, quite younger. I suspect that when I am as old as Minobu, I will similarly come off as out-of-touch with "new" things and ideas in general, for the simple reason that they are 'new' and I will not be. This goes equally for things that are "contemporarily new" and things that are "new to me".

I suspect that I will talk about things that other people are not familiar with. I suspect that I will assume any educated person is familiar with them. I suspect that I will draw greatly upon personal experience and deeply personal modes of communication, simply because I will have had a great deal more 'personal experiences' than I have now, generally.
I think that's un-generous. Minobu, as I have found over the years, has a remarkable ability to "enter" a teaching. When he enters, it is without reservation. This is remarkable and admirable, though it can have obvious pitfalls. I don't think there is a more effective way to discover the efficacy of a teaching.

I vouch for the fellow, that though he has his bones to pick, this is one of the most sincere people you will encounter.

Most of us will eventually yell at the kids to stay off the lawn, but Minobu's way of doing it is to run with the kids and while yelling, "Don't do it!"
Well, I said "come off as", not "is". Perhaps Minobu can weigh-in himself here and we can all see what he thinks about this exchange about him.
it caused me to make the post
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=27200&p=422664#p422664

everything i read from...well certain people.....i ponder ...sometimes react to and post too soon...it's all a learning expirence for me...

i have a skin like a crocodile that has been bronzed a few times...

as far as out of touch...that hurt...for i always tried to stay in touch and admit when i grow from change and rejoice...

so it's not my fault that the whole Buddhist paradigm seems in my eyes to have changed since i was first introduced...

i was taught there is no god the Creator...Samsara has always been and leave it at that....

heck i'm still trying to see this whole SEMI God Creator thing and what is being TAUGHT now in Buddhism along the lines of how it all comes about...

do you totally get it yet... yo i'm talking to you youngin....lol...

we are living in the palm of Buddha Mahavairocana ....now thats a twist for me....and i read that like what last year...
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Queequeg
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Queequeg »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:51 pm
Sādhaka wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:48 pm In his commentary on the Heart Sutra, the Dalai Lama implies that they all met there via dream practice or like what some would call astral projection.
So to reinforce Nichiren's POV, the Lotus Sūtra is does not depict a literal historical event, but rather, vision in a dream?

That is not really what I took Nichiren to mean from Q's comment. I took it to mean that the ordinary perception of beings is a dream. This still leaves it open to being a literal historical event.
This might be an imperfect analogy, but, consider Dutch Realist painters and Impressionists. The Realists tried to depict what they saw as accurately as possible, with some remarkable results. But, even though someone might mistake the painting for a real scene, it is always an abstraction. The impressionists accepted this aspect of paintings and liberated themselves from having to depict the subject matter with strict faith (pun intended). Instead, they could indulge in capturing more than a perfectly corresponding image and infuse it with subjective experience. Monet is still painting water lilies, though, they're not quite water lilies when you look really close. This might reveal me to be a sentimental fool, but no Dutch Realist work ever reduced me to tears, but certain works by Monet have.

There are some essays in A Buddhist Kaleidoscope that discuss the Lotus Sutra in this way. When I am back in my library, I'll try and dig up some specific remarks.

Buddhist teachers tell us, being ignorantly awake and conscious is as unreal as a dream. Once you understand that, a whole range of possibilities opens up. Then you understand how the Buddha promising deer, goat and ox carts to lure us out of the house is not a lie, how the Buddha's parinirvana is not a lie. They're deformations of the dream world that induce us to expedient thoughts, words and deeds.
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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Caoimhghín
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Caoimhghín »

Minobu wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:55 pm as far as out of touch...that hurt...for i always tried to stay in touch and admit when i grow from change and rejoice...
I said "come off as", I meant "seems", not "is". But my apologies if I insulted you. Believe it or not, that was not my intention.

It just means Queequeg was right to reprimand me, I suppose.
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)
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Caoimhghín
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Caoimhghín »

Minobu wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:55 pm do you totally get it yet... yo i'm talking to you youngin....lol...
Most certainly not. Alas.
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)
Malcolm
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Malcolm »

Queequeg wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:10 pm Buddhist teachers tell us, being ignorantly awake and conscious is as unreal as a dream. Once you understand that, a whole range of possibilities opens up. Then you understand how the Buddha promising deer, goat and ox carts to lure us out of the house is not a lie, how the Buddha's parinirvana is not a lie. They're deformations of the dream world that induce us to expedient thoughts, words and deeds.
I really wonder what Zhiyi would have made of Dzogchen texts. Pity, we'll never know.
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Sādhaka »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:51 pm
Sādhaka wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:48 pm In his commentary on the Heart Sutra, the Dalai Lama implies that they all met there via dream practice or like what some would call astral projection.
So to reinforce Nichiren's POV, the Lotus Sūtra is does not depict a literal historical event, but rather, vision in a dream?

That is not really what I took Nichiren to mean from Q's comment. I took it to mean that the ordinary perception of beings is a dream. This still leaves it open to being a literal historical event.
I was only addressing your questions. I'm not particularly interested in Nichiren. Maybe there is a good reason they think the Lotus Sutra is so important? I would be interested in reading a Tibetan commentary on it with all the root text as well. It looks like Erick Tsiknopoulos is working on one; but it does not look like it has come to fruition yet.

Here's a link to the page in the Heart Sutra book by the Dalai Lama that I made reference to:

https://books.google.com/books?id=n0A6A ... 48&f=false
Malcolm
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Malcolm »

Sādhaka wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:28 pm
I was only addressing your questions. I'm not particularly interested in Nichiren. Maybe there is a good reason they think the Lotus Sutra is so important?
There is no question that the Lotus Sūtra is an important text. Dogen, for example, esteems it above all other sūtras in the Shobogenzo.

I would be interested in reading a Tibetan commentary on it with all the root text as well. It looks like Erick Tsiknopoulos is working on one; but it does not look like it has come to fruition yet.
As far as I know, there is only a short text by Chogyal Phagpa refuting the Tientai idea of sudden awakening which revolves around the daughter of Nāgārāja Sāgara.
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Queequeg
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Queequeg »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:27 pm
Queequeg wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:10 pm Buddhist teachers tell us, being ignorantly awake and conscious is as unreal as a dream. Once you understand that, a whole range of possibilities opens up. Then you understand how the Buddha promising deer, goat and ox carts to lure us out of the house is not a lie, how the Buddha's parinirvana is not a lie. They're deformations of the dream world that induce us to expedient thoughts, words and deeds.
I really wonder what Zhiyi would have made of Dzogchen texts. Pity, we'll never know.
Reading some Longchempa and other Dzogchen texts, I've wondered the same thing. I can't think of specifics right now, but I actually wondered if Zhiyi's ideas might have drifted up into Tibet, or alternatively, and more likely, there were common sources.

I admit that a lot of my reading of Zhiyi is distorted by having to look back through Japanese Buddhism and piecemeal translations, but the impression of Zhiyi, you can still smell and hear the Silk Road Caravans that connected Chinese Buddhism and Indian Buddhism. In a lot of ways, I see that he was closer to India than Kamakura Japan...
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 »

Coëmgenu wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:14 pm
Minobu wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:55 pm as far as out of touch...that hurt...for i always tried to stay in touch and admit when i grow from change and rejoice...
I said "come off as", I meant "seems", not "is". But my apologies if I insulted you. Believe it or not, that was not my intention.

It just means Queequeg was right to reprimand me, I suppose.
maybe this will give you a better idea of ME.
it did not come off as an insult ...it came off as something below what i think of you as an intellectual.
it hurt the idea of you as well as how you view me....but not an insult...for i know what i am...

but i ask you this...

has Buddhism changed in the modern world?

due to superior forms of the study of languages and archaeological interests has the west tried to retain Buddhist thought whilst realizing (or thinking they are a realization and only myth) that it wasn't as the masters of old thought...
Although the passage Q gave us and how Nichiren saw it would fit quite well with the modrenistas.
lol.

but it is like the moderns have to go through a few intellectual hoops in order to retain a semblance of the Buddha's intervention in all the Mahayana
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Minobu
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Minobu »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:27 pm
Queequeg wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:10 pm Buddhist teachers tell us, being ignorantly awake and conscious is as unreal as a dream. Once you understand that, a whole range of possibilities opens up. Then you understand how the Buddha promising deer, goat and ox carts to lure us out of the house is not a lie, how the Buddha's parinirvana is not a lie. They're deformations of the dream world that induce us to expedient thoughts, words and deeds.
I really wonder what Zhiyi would have made of Dzogchen texts. Pity, we'll never know.
I don't know dzogchen...but if it uncovers what is there in nature then maybe he uncovered and experienced what is there as well.

a rose by any other name eh

at the end of the Day We are supposed to be uncovering and realizing what is there...
Malcolm
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Malcolm »

Queequeg wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:41 pm
Reading some Longchempa and other Dzogchen texts, I've wondered the same thing. I can't think of specifics right now, but I actually wondered if Zhiyi's ideas might have drifted up into Tibet, or alternatively, and more likely, there were common sources.
No, not likely. The real gist of Dzogchen is so different than Lotus Buddhism and every other form of Buddhism that it really cannot be related to texts of the lower yānas at all, while at the same time incorporating their meaning fully.
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Minobu
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Re: simultaneity of cause and effect

Post by Minobu »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:51 pm
Queequeg wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 9:41 pm
Reading some Longchempa and other Dzogchen texts, I've wondered the same thing. I can't think of specifics right now, but I actually wondered if Zhiyi's ideas might have drifted up into Tibet, or alternatively, and more likely, there were common sources.
No, not likely. The real gist of Dzogchen is so different than Lotus Buddhism and every other form of Buddhism that it really cannot be related to texts of the lower yānas at all, while at the same time incorporating their meaning fully.
so like then it really isn't Buddhism...
it came out of Bon...

you sound like what ever you experience is something only a dzogchen can...

that makes it out of the bounds of nature...and something produced...

for buddhism is the way to see and experience what is there....
if you are going to negate buddhist realities and say dzogchen goes further....

maybe the whole experience is just some trip ...with a Buddhist man made wrapper to make it palpable to people studying Buddhism...

i'm not hassling you...

you still never answered my other big question ...

this is just a political style empty answer
Malcolm wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:39 pm
Minobu wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2017 8:27 pm
so lets have it then
"who heard from who and how". some sort of Dharmakaya thing?
a vision?

There are all kinds of literary strategies in Buddhist canonical texts, if you but take the time to ferret them out.
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