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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Jan:
What do you make of arguments that past and current conditions (karma, if you will) lead people to unhealthy (read, unethical, socially dysfunctional, illegal) behaviors? To what extent are those conditions and causes influential or causative?
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To me, karma demonstrates free will very well. You made choices, you experience results. As the Buddha said, "if you want to know your past lives, look at yourself in the present. If you want to see your future lives, look at yourself in the present."
You may have been born into unfortunate circumstances, that's your past karma at work. What you do with them determines whether your future karma will be improved.
There's no "the Devil made me do it" in karma. You did it to yourself.
Now karma has been interpreted in different ways. There is tropical karma (typified by much of Indian culture until recently) which says we have no control over our inherited karma and just respond to it. "He couldn't help being a thief, it was his karma".
There is also cold weather karma where thinking ahead keeps you alive through the long Tibetan, northern Chinese, Mongolian, Korean and Japanese winters. This karma says if you try your best and don't succeed that was your karma. However, most people who work hard and play by the rules, get rewarded in various ways. So we have to first test our karma to see what it is and most people succeed in that way.
I lived in two villages in Nepal, one interpreting karma fatalistically and the other optimistically. The village at 6,000 feet could grow four crops a year yet the majority of children had malnutrition and everyone drug themselves about saying that nobody could do anything much to improve the situation. They attributed their poverty to karma rather than the caste system, the landlords, the dislike of manual labor. The other village at 12,000 produced only one crop a year yet they had a food surplus and communal parties 30 days a year. They believed planning ahead and working hard yielded results. As a social scientist, the superiority of one interpretation over the other was obvious.
And finally, I have heard a number of Tibetan tulkus say that heaven is like being born in a rich country. It's so pleasant that most people just kick back and enjoy it, and when they've used up their good karma, they reincarnate back into a less fortunate life on earth. Those who grow up in worse conditions are more motivated to seek permanent release through ethical behavior and spiritual practices and therefore strive for permanent nirvana. Each society has its pitfalls, but ours is to be so comfortable, we don't work on our karma or doubt that it exists at all.
As a society, if the preference for comfort prevails, that society no matter how rich in natural resources, will begin to fall behind those less gifted, who make a bigger effort. I think we're seeing that right now.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Look, I understand how certain social practices (ethics, the law, culture) become embedded and imprinted on psyche, but would you admit that social practices are expedient rather than based on any reasoning and empirical findings?
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To me, social expediency is reasonable and based on the empiricism of what has worked in the past. That is exactly why we have such different social customs around the world, and wildly different responses to some of the same environmental challenges. They all worked. Even the fatalistic interpretation of karma worked in tropical climates until very recently when over population destroyed the possibility of a laid back life style.
The tricky part is living during a time when the old structures no longer work, and the new ones haven't been been decided on yet which is where we personally find ourselves at the moment.
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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Jgill: A multiple universe model might entail reality splitting at every instant into uncountable many possibilities - beyond the human mind's ability to comprehend. But probability, heavily influenced by cause and effect, would play a significant role in predicting a particular pattern over a "timeline".
Want to see a good timeline? record an NFL game and watch it.
I don’t think I need to point out to you how the idea of free will conflicts with the idea of cause and effect.
Watching anything occurs right now. Any so-called timeline could be seen as a narrative, a static object, pages of writing, a book, a set of words. It’s dynamism comes through a mental simulation. You experience it. It’s not an existent flow.
MH2:
I don’t understand what you wrote.
(A slight often comes off as cryptic to me. I don’t get them. Perhaps I don’t have that good of a sense of humor or wit.)
Ed:
Ok, an encyclopedia could help considerably to understand what a consensus is on issues. I appreciate that. However, in things such as what we are talking about (“Mind”)—something that appears to be so very subjective and apparently undefinable—I would think that we could perhaps question among each other what our direct experiences are . . . you know, like for comparisons?
Your suggestions and pointers to shape memory are interesting. My response would be the old notion that one cannot step into the same river twice. Returning to an initial state is another state in detail specifically. “You can never go back home.”
I remember, all you "know" is what you "experience" "now"... good thing your body knows more than that...
I’m not sure what your point is here. What knows, and how it knows, I don’t know. I understand there are many theories about what’s happening right here and right now, but I must say that I don’t know. What I know is right now. Everything else is truly unknown to me, whether it be a far-distant galaxy, a photon, or my wife’s emotional state.
Look, folks, I guess I’m not making myself very clear here. Go to Google Images and look at Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings. What do you see? Most people will say they see pain, suffering, terrible things—just as they do here on earth (Repugs, HFCS’s Middle East this or that, poverty, rapists, etc.). But it's arguable that what you see in Hieronymus Bosch’s works are representations of someone’s conceptualization of what hell looks like (religion). An even closer inspection would reveal paint on canvas. An even closer inspection reveals light, . . . just light. And perhaps an even more circumspect observation would suggest simply energy. (Beyond that, who knows?)
We make-up, speculate, construct everything. Not to see at least SOME of that is, . . . well, not all that observant.
The wont to have (and hold dear to) “answers” to “questions” might be signs of a consciousness that feels compelled to be busy, to attractions, to aversions, to the terror of raw being, . . . just being. Culture might be an addictive response to what is, to some, the stark terror of existence (see Sartre, Camus). Take away all of the illusions that one believes that are concrete and serious, and what would a person be left with?
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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I would think that we could perhaps question among each other what our direct experiences are . . . you know, like for comparisons?
isn't that, quintessentially, "objectifying"? The classic duality which is every bit a part of our "experience."
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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I would think that we could perhaps question among each other what our direct experiences are . . . you know, like for comparisons?
We went over this ground on another thread,some time ago, and I made the point that comparing subjective experiences in an otherwise objective format is largely a matter of language,semantics,linguistics.
Moreover, in response to Largo, at that time I questioned the idea that if his claim that subjective experience is not transferable to objective determinations why then were teachers required in this training if there were no assumption of common experience--therefore ,I concluded, vetting such subjective experiences, objectively, is in some ways antithetical to their so-called purely subjective nature.
Hieronymus Bosch’s works are representations of someone’s conceptualization of what hell looks like
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Bosch primarily a sort of crypto-satirist--- especially given the historical period in which he worked?
(The object in the left panel looks like some sort of fantastic water pipe/bong/hookah)
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Bosch's views of hell and Tibetan paintings of the same are remarkably similar. Does this not speak to some kind of human objectivity when considering the same subjective speculations?
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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There's no "the Devil made me do it" in karma. You did it to yourself.
To your above question. Seems to me the karma you finely described has to do with "proir lives". These prior lives do not inhabit our conscious today, and are in reality only speculation of what could be?
For a christian ""the devil" that makes me do it" in large part comes through heredity. From past lives. Jesus tells us sins we commit today can be passed down 3-4 generations. Science today is even confirming that fact.
Who is it that you subscribe that has athority to predict if a person doesn't deal properly with his prior karma his soul may return in a "lower" organism such as a Duck?
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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I don’t think I need to point out to you how the idea of free will conflicts with the idea of cause and effect (ML)
Have you forgotten the various kinds of "free will" we've discussed here? Review, please, before next class.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Colorado, Nepal & Okinawa
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Blue-
There have been many philosophical debates about this in Asia in the past just as there have been in the West, complete with different schools of thought and sects of religion being founded as a result.
Some schools of thought say that once human, you will always come back as human since human intelligence to reason, to see alternatives, complain, and regret, is more punishment than coming back as an animal that only suffers. Other schools of thought say that yes, if you behave like an animal in a human body then an animal you shall become in the next life.
It is true that so far, all accounts of karma are based on the idea of reincarnation but even here there is a vast difference in what is thought to reincarnate. Some believe in an individual personalized soul that comes back and others that it is a more abstract process. It is said in all Eastern traditions that a person can remember past lives at a certain level of spiritual maturity and I have often wondered if that was not what was going on when people in the West claim to have had visions of either heaven or hell.
In terms of a materialist interpretation, one has to wonder if these remembrances aren't some sort of familial memory passed down through the generations in the genes somehow, that one is actually seeing the experiences of one's ancestors.
As for passing down sin from one generation to the next, we do know that happens when babies are born with fetal alcohol syndrome or addicted to drugs already and in as much as it has altered their genetic material, can go further than that. We also know from psychology that family dysfunction is passed down through the generations unless a very active effort is made to stop the process.
For all of these reasons, I find the notion of karma to be very useful, whether its true in any particular form or not.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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MikeL,
I don't understand why you don't understand what I wrote.
As you said, you need to experience before you know. Whether you wish to approach memory from a science perspective or from a personal perspective is up to you. Anyone who might attempt to answer your question:
What and where are memories?
must first learn what the exchange rate is. A good way to do this would be for you to tell us what and where meditation is. Or what and where 'mind' is. Then we will know how to reply in kind.
"Before you seek to be understood, you should seek to understand."
Your timeline is notable because your answer preceded your question.
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WBraun
climber
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Some schools of thought say that once human, you will always come back as human since human ...
Wishful thinking for the rascals so they can do anything they want without responsibility .....
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MikeL
Social climber
Seattle, WA
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MH2: As you said, you need to experience before you know.
No. I don’t remember that, and if I did, I was wrong. Forget “before.” I only know what I experience right now. Memories are imaginary objects by imaginary subjects.
I don’t know what meditation is. I said way above that I can’t find mind. I have no answers. I am talking.
Jgill:
Yes, I have apparently forgotten. There are different kinds of free will? (Is this like being “sort of pregnant?”)
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jogill
climber
Colorado
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Jun 1, 2015 04:02pm PST What is "Mind?"
OK, for those of you who - like JL - enjoy analogues, metaphors, similes, etc. describing parts of objective, subjective reality, here is a wildly inappropriate parody of Max Tegmark’s notion of a ... jgill
HFCS is better at this than me, but above is a simple analogy of one take on "free will"
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Memories are imaginary objects by imaginary subjects.
Glad to see you answer your own question again, if slightly differently than before.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 6, 2015 - 03:49pm PT
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Moreover, in response to Largo, at that time I questioned the idea that if his claim that subjective experience is not transferable to objective determinations why then were teachers required in this training if there were no assumption of common experience--therefore ,I concluded, vetting such subjective experiences, objectively, is in some ways antithetical to their so-called purely subjective nature.
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Not sure what you mean by "objective determinations."
There are universal commonalities to experiencing, especially per the perceptual nature of mind, presence, observation, awareness, focus, attention, and so forth. But the CONTENT of our perceiving varies person to person and that content, itself - the very experience of BEING Ward Trotter - is all your own and only your own.
What's more, this is not a "claim."
JL
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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JL:
Not sure what you mean by "objective determinations."
Possibly,
In the Rinzai Zen tradition, which retains traces of martial arts, anyone suspected of zoning out, usually betrayed in a lax posture, is swatted with the bamboo stick (JL)
Note the use of an objective determination (lax posture) to infer an internal state (zoning out). If teachers were not able to make use of objective determinations they would not be of much use in assisting others in experiential adventures.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Memories are imaginary objects by imaginary subjects.
interesting view point... and certainly consistent with your past statements (if memory serves me...).
But maybe we can look at shape memory alloys and use them as a metaphor.
The shape memory alloys have their properties because they are a class of materials that have a martensitic phase... that is, you can push on them and at some point they change there volume (density). We say the material goes through a diffusionless phase transformation...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusionless_transformation
It's a property of many materials, it's quite real and known for over a century, first found in understanding the mechanical properties of steel.
So the material "remembers" its shape and will relax back to its original shape as a phase transition.
But we could ask a number of questions regarding this property... for instance, where is the memory?
Or even more, how do we get a "martensitic state" from a bunch of atoms arranged in a particular order?
We know the atoms themselves to have a fundamental property of "martensite." We do know that if you arrange the atoms on a lattice, and then "do the calculation" that the interaction of the electrons with the ionic lattice produces the material property, and these arrangements can be characterized as a "phase" of the material, even though the "phase of a material" isn't embedded in the atoms, either.
However, these properties emerge as a result of the more fundamental properties of atoms and the electromagnetic interaction of the electrons with the ions.
The shape memory is there because this also depends on the "boundary conditions" set by the original creation of the material. Bending the material puts it in another state, but when the material transits back to its original state, it has to assume its original shape. That's the way quantum mechanics works in these instances.
Now the properties of this memory are "no where" in the individual constituents of the material, but they exist as a property of the particular arrangement of the material, and of the external environment (temperature, external forces, etc)
We would be confused, and woefully misguided to seek these material properties in the fundamental character of the constituents, yet the material exhibits properties that are not evident at the constituent scale.
It would sound like so much woo but for the fact that the theory works well enough to develop and manufacture materials, based on the understanding of the interaction of the constituents... and these materials are used by all of us without knowing anything about these details (sort of like the dark ages...).
Maybe you can see a metaphor there, or maybe you can't...
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 6, 2015 - 07:39pm PT
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MH2, possibly there are other objective physical aspects that jibe with internal goings on, but I was thinking more of the universal, objective aspects and phenomenon of mind. This is, IME, where the teacher earns his keep.
JL
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