Hi
AnEternalNow, thanks very much for your thorough replies. I'm still
in the middle of the first article, because I have trouble
understanding these things, I'm as much a beginner in Buddhism as
in Hinduism... :p But in the meantime, maybe I can explain myself,
and hopefully you can guide me on these issues...
I think of actions in terms of effects, particularly when talking
about lifestyles and world views... So I cannot reconcile
"non-doership" with the 'real' effects of selfishness and
indifference. That's what I meant when I said that if life were not
lived [actively], then the [passive] being that suffers this life
is a victim...
Can we say that a cruel person doesn't have the choice to change
his ways? Or doesn't the good man strive for his goal because he
somehow chooses to, and not because of circumstance?
I guess my question is, what's the Buddhist opinion on reward and
punishment? If there is no one who acts, then there is no
responsibility, much less someone who deserves...
BTW I know Hinduism is not
limited to Indians only, but just curious are you an Indian?
Daniel
Ingram says, when training in morality assume free will, on the
insight front its another matter.
Anyway,
there is karma and karmic effects, but no doer and recipient of
karma and karmic effects.
No-self
does not deny manifestation and action, it only denies an
agent/self/doer/watcher behind manifestation and action. So it does
not promote a passive lifestyle. It only removes the illusion of a
self, an agent.
In Diamond
Sutra:
The Buddha said
to Subhuti, "This is how the bodhisattva mahasattvas rnaster their
thinking. 'However many species of living beings there are--whether
born from eggs, from the womb, from moisture, or spontaneously;
whether they have form or do not have form; whether they have
perceptions or do not have perceptions; or whether it cannot be
said of them that they have perceptions or that they do not have
perceptions, we must lead all these beings to the ultimate nirvana
so that they can be liberated. And when this innumerable,
immeasurable, infinite number of beings has become liberated, we do
not, in truth, think that a single being has been
liberated,'
"Why is this so?
If, Subhuti, a bodhisattva holds on to the idea that a self, a
person, a living being, or a life span exists, that person is not
an authentic bodhisattva."
Visuddhimagga states:
"Mere
suffering is, not any sufferer is found
The deeds
exist, but no performer of the deeds:
Nibbana is,
but not the man that enters it,
The path
is, but no wanderer is to be seen."
Everywhere, in all the
realms of existence, the noble disciple
sees only
mental and corporeal phenomena kept going through
the
concatenation of causes and effects. No producer of
the
volitional act or kamma does he see apart from the kamma,
no
recipient
of the kamma-result apart from the result. And he is
well
aware that wise men are using merely conventional
language,
when,
with regard to a kammical act, they speak of a doer,
or
with
regard to a kamma-result, they speak of the recipient of
the
result.
No doer of the deeds is found,
No one who ever reaps their fruits;
Empty phenomena roll on:
This only is the correct view.
And while the deeds and their results
Roll on and on, conditioned all,
There is no first beginning found,
Just as it is with seed and tree. ...
No god, no Brahma, can be called
The maker of this wheel of life:
Empty phenomena roll on,
Dependent on conditions all.
