W11WGH FROZN RDS MINUS 8C

 

B “Many people are afraid to empty their minds lest they may plunge into the Void. They do not know that their own Mind is the Void.

A

A

I got into meditation for two reasons, initially: I wanted to erase myself, and I wanted to experience enlightenment, after reading about it in a bunch of books about Zen Buddhism. About those motives, I now have a little bit to say. Erasing yourself is stupid. Experiencing enlightenment is less stupid, but not without its own kind of stupidity.

A

SPKING TREE

a

Sugar followed gold and silver as the most important commodity in the New World. Sugar had long been a small-scale luxury, limited by the lack of the right soil and climate for growing sugar cane. That changed dramatically with the discovery of the New World, leading to the establishment of large-scale plantations in Brazil and the Caribbean. But the tragedy of dependence on African slaves, as well as the pattern of moving west to find new plantation venues, was well-established before this New World expansion:

a

b 

surangama sutta 

pure land

”Moreover, Ananda, if while repaying his past debts by undergoing rebirth as an animal, such a living being pays back more than he owed, he will then be reborn as a human to rectify the excess. 7:185

”If he is a person with strength, blessings, and virtue, then once he is in the human realm, he will not have to lose his human rebirth after what is owed him is restored. But if he lacks blessings, then he will return to the animal realm to continue repaying his debts. 7:185

”Ananda, you should know that once the debt is paid, whether with money, material goods, or manual labor, the process of repayment naturally comes to an end. 7:186

”But if in the process he took the lives of other beings or ate their flesh, then he continues in the same way, passing through kalpas as many as motes of fine dust, taking turns devouring and being slaughtered in a cycle that sends him up and down endlessly. 7:186

”There is no way to put a stop to it, except through Shamatha or through a Buddha’s coming to the world. 7:187

”You should know that when owls and their kind have paid back their debts, they regain their original form and are born as people, but among those who are corrupt and obstinate. 7:187

”When creatures that are inauspicious have paid back their debts, they regain their original form and are born as people, but among those who are abnormal. 7:188

”When foxes have paid back their debts, they regain their original forms and are born as people, but among those who are simpletons. 7:189

”When creatures of the venomous category have paid back their debts, they regain their original form and are born as people, but among those who are hateful. 7:189

”When tapeworms and their like have paid back their debts, they regain their original form and are born as people, but among those who are lowly. 7:190

”When the edible types of creatures have paid back their debts, they regain their original form and are reborn as people, but among those who are weak. 7:190

”When creatures that are used for clothing or service have paid back their debts, they regain their original form and are reborn as people, but among those who do hard labor. 7:191

”When creatures that migrate have paid back their debts, they regain their original form and are reborn as people among those who are literate. 7:191

”When auspicious creatures have paid back their debts, they regain their original form and are reborn as people among those who are intelligent. 7:192

”When domestic animals have paid back their debts, they regain their original form and are reborn as people among those who are well-informed. 7:192

”Ananda, these are all beings that have finished paying back former debts and are born again in the human realm. They are involved in a beginningless scheme of karma and being upside-down in which their lives are spent killing one another and being killed by one another. They do not get to meet the Thus Come One or hear the Proper Dharma. They just abide in the wearisome dust, passing through a repetitive cycle. Such people can truly be called pitiful. 7:192

• [Shurangama Sutra, Chapter 7] (http://www.cttbusa.org/shurangama/shurangama31.asp.html)

b

It’s difficult for them to. Very difficult. Not impossible, since we are currently humans and we’ve certainly been insects and worse in our infinite past lives, but that’s part of why being a human is so valuable and why we mustn’t waste it.

B

Effectively what amounts to random chance, based on their own past karma. Like a blind man finding a winning lottery ticket in a pile of trash as large as Jupiter. At the time of death, the very last thought is what determines the next birth; insects don’t have many thoughts other than of their insect life, but before they were insects they used to be humans (or animals or devas or ghosts, etc). From that far flung past, their left over good karma would come to the forefront, causing their last thought to result in a human birth

B

From what I know beings in even the lowest hells burn off bad karma and then get reborn into a higher realm, and there is much more to your potential rebirth than just the last thought before death

B

 Suffering burns off bad karma. It’s what’s happening in hell

B

. Gehlek Rinpoche says that if you are suffering greatly, you can pray : "this suffering is my bad karma. I hope and pray that this suffering may clear it." In this way, he says, you may be able to lessen the karmic burden - especially if you pray to a deity whom you have a pure karmic connection to

B

Lamas claim you’ll be reborn in a higher realm after your bad karma is burned up. Same as devas falling into lower realms when their good karma is burned up.

B

 Devas have little incentive to practice dharma, so their accumulated good karma is eventually spent and they die and get reborn in a lower realm. In hell realms the bad karma also gets spent and the being will die and be reborn in a higher realm. Most devas aren’t Buddhists, but people who who have practiced merit in previous lives. Some heavens have access to dharma, most do not.

B

“When your bad karma is all burnt up” is just a shorthand way of saying “when you happen to produce enough good karma and stop producing so much bad karma”

B 

Probably not many opportunities to produce good karma in hell. A being in hell is wired to suffer and in many cases cause harm

b

One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night. -Margaret Mead, anthropologist 

B

Yes that’s why beings get stuck in the hell realms. It’s not because they have a lot of bad karma to burn off, it’s because they keep making more bad karma

b

a

The Hindu Puranas believe there was and there will be an era called Satya Yuga, in which good preponderates over evil. A look into the depths of our own self or at the facts of the world around, shows that the world is neither all good nor all evil but a mixture of both

A

a

FCKOMIX

Dissatisfied with evil, some hope they will go, after death, to some place where there is good for aye and no evil. Such a dream may satisfy children. But is good possible without evil? If unmixed good is never in this life, the theory of unmixed good in an afterlife is absolutely baseless. So is that of eternal good, as nothing is known yet that does not die. ‘What is here, is there, and what is there, is here.’ (Katha Upanishad, 4.10) The same laws must be supposed to hold good throughout the universe until the contrary is proved by well-known facts.

A

Will evil be, in the course of evolution, gradually eliminated, leaving only good as the residuum? The history of evolution answers in the negative. The elimination would be possible if the amount of evil were a fixed quantity. The fact, however, is that evolution multiplies evil with good equally, if not more. The pleasures and pains of the savage are mostly in the senses and gross. If civilization has opened the gates to finer enjoyments of the senses and new pleasures of the head and the heart, it has created for man new sources of and bred in him a keen susceptibility to very fine sufferings too.

A

Then everyone will see the Unity running through all its manifestations, in man, in animals, in every point of the universe. All selfishness will go. Love will reign in the place of hatred and competition. Brute force will be an evil dream of the past. For when all will be One, shall one hate or kill oneself?

A

TOLERATE THE UNKNOWN 

"If the future is to remain open and free, we need people who can tolerate the unknown, who will not need the support of completely worked out systems or traditional blueprints from the past."

-- Margaret Mead

A