Anthony!!
--- In [email protected], Anthony Wu <wuasg@...> wrote:
>
> Steve,
> Â
> You say, "Nagarjuna
> said, those who try to turn Emptiness into a fixed explanation of
> reality are incurable."
> Â
> So we should not discount everything as illusion.
> Â
> You also say, "Â Gotama wasn't
> trying to explain reality to us. He was just giving us a skillful
> medical prescription to cure us of our Dukkha."
> Â
> When you have acute pain, e.g. from cancer, you would have big trouble
> convincing yourself that it is just illusion.
> Â
> Gotama also says the world is like a man hit by a poisonous arrow. The first
> thing to do is to pull it out and cure the disease. Then, I think, we should
> think about why he was hit by an arrow. It includes the question of karma.
> Â
> Anthony
>
> --- On Thu, 17/2/11, SteveW <eugnostos2000@...> wrote:
>
>
> From: SteveW <eugnostos2000@...>
> Subject: [Zen] Re: Experience Merit
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Thursday, 17 February, 2011, 2:01 AM
>
>
> Â
>
>
>
>
>
> --- In [email protected], Anthony Wu <wuasg@> wrote:
> >
> > Steve,
> > ÃÂ
> > Neither I nor my demon are responsible for your karmic misfortunes. No
> > bribes can alleviate your problems. BTW, do you believe in karma? If not,
> > what rules this universe?
> > ÃÂ
> > Anthony
> >
> > Hi Anthony. If everything is "One Bright Jewel" as Dogen put it,
> then all this talk of "my" karma and "your" karma is meaningless.
> For that matter, if the arrow of time is an illusion and everything
> is Here and Now, then karmic cause-and-effect is also an illusion.
> You think that the past causes the future, but there is no reason
> not to say that the future causes the past! (There have been physics
> experiments demonstrating this aspect of quantum weirdness.) When
> Nagarjuna wrote his famous Negations, he wasn't, imo, trying to
> give us an ontological explanation of reality, but nobody can
> that. So everybody tries to turn Emptiness into a fixed view-point.
> As I have said before, the basic Buddhist teachings on karma, the
> 12-fold chain of Dependant Origination and the teachings on
> impermanence and no-self are useful expedients for practice, but
> cannot be taken for a final and absolute explanation. I refer you
> to The Mahaparanirvana Sutra and the Dzogchen literature on this.
> The fact is that it will always be a Mystery from our finite,
> relative, rational view-points, because we cannot step outside
> of What Is in order to look at What Is. But we can rest in that
> Such-As-It-Is peacefully. So I really can't answer your question,
> Anthony, and I suspect that neither can anyone else. Gotama wasn't
> trying to explain reality to us. He was just giving us a skillful
> medical prescription to cure us of our Dukkha. But, as Nagarjuna
> said, those who try to turn Emptiness into a fixed explanation of
> reality are incurable. IMO.
> Steve
> >
>
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