Karma, When Do You Aquire Or Solve It

[Darknight]

When do you solve your karma, or when do you make more?

Do you solve karma by actively engaging in worldly affairs or do you aquire it ?

Or is it the other way around. Do you solve karma by not engaging?

And for the experts: What's the karmic view on " difference between good and bad"

YOur thoughts , please

[ghengis]

There are two ways to rid yourself of karma

1. Work it Off
   
2. Burn it Off
   

Work if off way is the slow way, burn it off is the fast way. Spiritual Development allows negative karma to be averted or 'burn off'. This is not the same as doing good.

[andyinkat]

Crumbs, HUGE topic - how to keep it concise?

Lord Buddha taught that behind every action and every word spoken is a thought. It is the thought that creates karma.

Now feel free if you need to to reinterpret what I write in western rationalist terms if you need to, but my view is that to really understand the workings of karma you have to understand the whole Buddhist cosmos with its realms of rebirths.

Three types of karma can be created - let's call them good karma, bad karma and pure karma.

A selfish thought or intention creates bad karma. The nature of the thought, whether it is translated into word or deed and various factors govern the 'strength' of the karma but let's keep it simple.

Such a thought/act causes 'you' to become a more selfish/deluded person. It makes it easier to repeat the thought process and behaviour. In other words, if unchecked, you become what you think. If you get into a habit of responding to situations with anger you become an angry person and the more it goes on the more difficult it becomes to break the habit. It is a process - at death 'you' take this process into your next life and the new being will have a character trait of tendency towards anger.

A good or kind act/thought creates good karma. BUT, the motivation is selfish. You treat your friends well, but your motivation (perhaps subconsciously) is that you want their friendship to make you feel good/wanted etc. You give money to charity - because you want to gain respect. This is perhaps how most people operate. Buddhism recognises that this is not a bad motivation, but it is not pure, selfless. You are rewarded, you gain lots of good karma. This will result in a good rebirth - perhaps into a human family with social advantages, perhaps even in a heaven where you can while away a few centuries in luxury and ease. But even the gods die and drop back down into the suffering realms.

If you are motivated by pure selflessness you generate pure karma. This is the karma that propels one towards enlightenment. This is very difficult, quite rare. The Buddha's teachings are mostly directed towards those who wish to develop this motivation. Thus there is 'good' and 'bad' and a state that transcends both.

Strictly speaking, once bad karmic seeds have been sown they cannot be erased or 'forgiven' - they have to ripen. When this happens you experience unfortunate external events - sickness, accident, victim or some unpleasantness. If you are aware of their cause as the karma you previously sowed you can accept these things with patience and maintain a positive mind. This is how you 'solve' your karma. If you react with anger or negativity you simply sow fresh bad karmic seeds and condemn yourself to future suffering. You cannot gain enlightenment until all good/bad karma is extinguished, thus only a person who is generating only pure karma all the time can become enlightened. However if you die with a mixture of pur and impure karma the pure karma will cause your 'new' 'self' to have selfless, maybe spiritual propensities.

So is 'pure' karma gained by engaging or disengaging with the world? I thought this question through very deeply and personally. I lived in a monastery and was seriously considering taking robes and disengaging from society. In the end I made the decision to lead a monastc-like life in the world. I felt that suited my personal disposition. It is however far more difficult to develop a pure mind without the support of a sangha and sangha discipline. It could be argued that to disengage in this life to develop wisdom and compassion would make 'you' more effective in eliminating suffering in the world in future generations. I personally rejected that view - possibly I have insufficient faith in beliefs about life after death. But good Sanghas tend to be 'beacons' - lay people come to monks for guidance and wisdom and thus monks are disengaged on one level but their wisdom is accessible and an inspiration for others to engage in the world.

[sabaijai]

Karma means 'action', from the Sanskrit root /kr/ meaning 'to act'. What most westerners call 'karma' is actually vipaka, ie, the result of karma/action.

Karma isn't something that can be acquired or solved. To avoid the unpleasant vipaka you have to avoid kamma that creates unpleasant vipaka. The only way not to commit karma - action - that creates unpleasant vipaka is to cultivate kusala citta, ie mind moments that are skilful/wholesome.

Abhidhamma (the part of the Tipitaka explaining Buddhist meta-psychology) says you can't rid yourself of karma and you can't rid yourself of vipaka. What's done is done. Even an arhat will reap the vipaka from past action.

The most you can hope for, or strive for, is kusala citta in the next moment.

3 pages with further details:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/kamma.html

http://www.tbsa.org/kamma.html

http://www.dhammastudy.com/words4.html

Edited July 15, 2004 by sabaijai

[Darknight]

sorry double post

[Darknight]

Karma isn't something that can be acquired or solved. To avoid the unpleasant vipaka you have to avoid kamma that creates unpleasant vipaka. The only way not to commit karma - action - that creates unpleasant vipaka is to cultivate kusala citta, ie mind moments that are skilful/wholesome.

Abhidhamma (the part of the Tipitaka explaining Buddhist meta-psychology) says you can't rid yourself of karma and you can't rid yourself of vipaka. What's done is done. Even an arhat will reap the vipaka from past action.

The most you can hope for, or strive for, is kusala citta in the next moment.

although i don't know the original words from buddhist scriptures this comes very close to my personal experience. Karma can not be avoided but can only be understood enabeling you to rise out of that certain karmic influence.

I call this "learning your lesson in life" Thus enabeling you to react or conduct yourself different in future challenges or situations.

This will give you inside" knowledge" in to certain things in life, changing your being, moving you on to different experiances.

But i wanted to go more in to the extra question actually my statement will be "far out there" but try to comprehend it.

There are no Bad, good, or Enlightened people.

There is no good , no bad.

Actually there is no suffering only ignorance

Good or bad is a viewpoint situated in the material realm, viewed from a single point in time, Viewed from a certain position.

Overal viewed there is no bad or good, he-ll and heaven, culprit or victim.

Karma is just a mechanism to experience over and over again certain situations to enable you to "learn your lesson".

The only "suffering" buddha mentioned is the inability to understand the mechanism.

But all will, eventually... in the mean time , existence as it is in every moment is as it should be.

Any comments

[andyinkat]

DK - I think I sort of covered these issues. As I wrote, both bad thoughts/actions and 'good' thoughts/actions generate the karma that leads to rebirth, or continued existence within samsara. 'Pure' actions trancend karma, rebirth and thus lead 'out' of samsara.

Thus a 'pure' action might on a worldly level seem immoral but is actually skilful. Examples include the story in a Mahayana Buddhist scripture of an enlightened being manifesting as a prostitute because her clientele of fishermen were never going to listen to the preachings of monks (pertinent for LOS, no?)

However Buddhist teachings do tend to stress that one must start from the beginning - learn to walk before you run, spiritually speaking. Start by keeping the Five Basic Precepts strictly before engaging in 'skilful' interpretations that are only proper for highly developed practitioners.

I have come across so many instances of westerners getting so lost in their ignorance and ego that they selectively pick out certain teachings from Zen and Tantra and the episodes which involve the highly realised wisdom of exceptional masters and think that they have the spiritual authority to behave like that. They carefully pass over the bit where the Zen master spent 20 years practising zazen in a monastery or the tantric master spent 25 years in isolation in a Tibetan cave before they displayed their 'crazy wisdom'.

So I'm saying that your quotations are quite right, but that they are very open to misinterpretation and it is better to get a solid grasp on the relative realm of good and bad before looking to transcend them.

As for suffering and ignorance - I think some of the Mahayana sutras such as the Diamond Sutra discuss this beautifully. The enlightened being knows all is illusion and there is no suffering, but he/she also knows that deluded beings have the real experience of suffering and looks upon them with compassion. It would be quite unbuddhist to see the scenes on the TV of Dafur in Sudan or NE India and say, 'Well they're just deluded'. On a relative level suffering is real, and since we are all operating on that relative level we must do what we can to reduce suffering in the world.

[sabaijai]

Actually there is no suffering only ignorance

The Buddha said ignorance causes suffering. And when Right View is achieved, suffering is extinguished.

As for good and bad:

good = kusala/skilful/wholesome --> furthering the path

bad = akusala/unskilful/unwholesome --> not furthering the path

[sabaijai]

Quotations from the late Ajahn Chah, former abbot, Wat Nong Pah Pong, on kamma:

53

When those who do not understand the Dhamma act improperly, they look all around to make sure no one is watching. But our kamma is always watching. We never really get away with anything.

54

Good actions bring good results; bad actions bring bad results. Don’t expect the gods to do things for you, or the angels and guardian deities to protect you, or the auspicious days to help you. These things aren’t true. Don’t believe in them. If you believe in them, you will suffer. You will always be waiting for the right day, the right month, the right year, the angels, or the guardian deities. You’ll only suffer that way. Look into your own actions and speech, into your own kamma. Doing good, you inherit goodness, doing bad you inherit badness.

55

Through right practice, you allow your old kamma to wear itself out. Knowing how things arise and pass away, you can just be aware and let them run their course. It is like having two trees: if you fertilize and water one and do not take care of the other, there is no question which one will grow and which one will die.

56

Some of you have come from thousands of miles away, from Europe and America and other far-off places, to listen to the Dhamma here at Nong Pah Pong Monastery. To think that you’ve come from so far and gone through so much trouble to get here. Then we have these people who live just outside the walls of the monastery but who have yet to enter through its gate. It makes you appreciate good kamma more, doesn’t it?

kamma chah

[Gohonzon]

When do you solve your karma, or when do you make more?

Do you solve karma by actively engaging in worldly affairs or do you aquire it ? 

Or is it the other way around. Do you solve karma by not engaging?

As the causes and effects of Karma is both inherent cause (the mind) and latent effect: It is inherent cause that determines the physical world that one inhabits.The law of cause and effect operates like this:Inherent Cause=IC (ten basic life states or worlds-earthly desires caused by our environment.) External Cause=EC (external action-the vehicle for the inherent cause to produce its effect.) Latent Effect=LE (lodged in the depths of our life the moment that the external cause is made.) Manifest Effect =ME (appears on the surface of life when time and circumstances are 'ripe'.)Therefore,changing ones circumstances does nothing to change ones karma.In effect ,wherever we may go we take our personal baggage with us.

Let me offer an example.

I once knew a Thai woman that used to just sit (not in the Zen sense) for hours per week in her local Wat.She actually thought that this would change her karma (accumulate merit) and she would be forgiven her supposed 'transgressions'. The reality was that there was no fundamental change in what was causing her latent effects of bad karma.Her Hunger within,in certain areas of her life,attracted Hunger.Hunger had thwarted her true desires and caused her to operate in a continual cycle of cause and effect unbroken.A cycle of creating manifest effects in her life that were in effect causing her unhapiness.Thus her feelinga of need to escape the environment that she was creating for herself by her own habitual life tendencies.No amount of time sitting in a Wat,bowing to Buddha images,offering insense,flowers,etc.Could alter the problems that manifest themselves in her daily life.No lasting and ongoing change was manifest for her.

That is:IC & EC,because the inherent cause of the effects arose from a fundamental life tendency,the effects when produced,in turn, triggered off similar causes.This created the chain reaction of destiny.A vicious circle of dulled karmic consequences.

The only way to break-or alter-our destiny,or karma (LE & ME) permanently is not by escaping from the environment -as she herself had done in periods-but to change our fundamental life-condition to the Buddha state which is present in all Ten Worlds from H ell,Hunger,Anger... through to Buddhahood (all the worlds are mutually possessive,Buddhahood contains the seeds of He ll:He ll,Realization:Anger,Tranquillity,and so on throughout all of the ten worlds of existence.) For practicioners of the Buddhism, as taught by Nichiren Daishonin, tapping into ones own Buddha nature (and thus radically changing ones karma) is achieved by chanting Nam-myho-renge-kyo.

As the Shinjikan Sutra states:

'If you want to understand the causes you have made in the past,look at the effects as they appear in the present.And if you want to know what results will appear in the future,look at the causes that you are making now.'

The fact is that by chanting Nam-myho-renge-kyo,the shackles of of one's karma are progressively weakened until they are finally severed.

Nichiren Daishonin wrote:

'Such persons, who honestly discard expedient means, puts faith in the Lotus Sutra alone, and chants Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, will transform the three paths of earthly desires, karma, and suffering into the three virtues of the Dharma body, wisdom, and emancipation.'

So it follows that by engaging in the world and by changing our poison (heavy or bad karma) into medicine that we can both radically affect our environment and begin to enjoy the results of our calling on Buddhahood from within our own lives-wherever it is that we may dwell, or inhabit, at any particular time.

[sabaijai]

The fact is that by chanting Nam-myho-renge-kyo,the shackles of of one's karma are progressively weakened until they are finally severed.

Not being very knowledgable about Soka Gakkai, I have a couple of questions about this notion.

1) Must the phrase be chanted in Japanese? Could it be chanted in English, Thai, Sanskrit or Tibetan, for example?

2) Is there a discrete number of times one must chant this phrase to reach severance?

[Gohonzon]

1) Must the phrase be chanted in Japanese? Could it be chanted in English, Thai, Sanskrit or Tibetan, for example?

2) Is there a discrete number of times one must chant this phrase to reach severance?

Actually,sabaijai,I think that I'm right in saying that Nam-myho-renge-kyo is Chinese (forget which particular dialect at the moment).As are the two chapters (parts) of the Lotus Sutra ,recited twice daily during Gongyo-although using Japanese phonetics.

Indeed one could chant 'I devote myself to the Lotus Sutra' in English,or any other language for that matter,but it woudn't have the same rhythmic ease in doing so.Also the characters of Nam-myho-renge-kyo,when broken down into their constituent parts,are vastly far more profound (in an elaberated sense) than only the base phrase itself.

I'm not sure what you mean by a 'discrete number of times' to chant.But as soon as one begins to chant one creates inherent causes for change that will undoubtedly be manifested in everyday life.

The severance from past causes and effects of previous accumulated karma is ongoing.Although it has been suggested chanting over a number of years will produce enlightenment.Maybe later,or maybe sooner.Who knows? The thing is to enjoy the benefits from the conditions that you are creating in your present situation.Chant to your hearts content!

Slightly off ,of the immediate topic.Do you think Buddha was subject to te karmic laws of cause and effect even after reaching the first nirvanic state,that is before dying (being the second nirvanic state)?

[sabaijai]

Nam-myho-renge-kyo is Chinese

Having studied Chinese myself, I'd say it looks to be a Japanese pronunciation of a dialect of Chinese. Certainly no dialect of Chinese I've ever heard contains the phoneme /kyo/.

The Mandarin name for the Lotus Sutra is Liánhuā Jīng. The Chinese version of the Lotus Sutra was originally translated from Sanskrit (and the Sanskrit version itself translated from Prakrit), so why not chant the phrase in Sanskrit?

The Skrt name for this book is Saddharma Pundarika Sutra.

For Theravadins, no amount of chanting has any direct effect on kamma. According to the Tipitaka, the citta (mind moments) that act or create kamma (which simply means 'action', nothing more) can't avoid the vipaka (result of kamma, mistakenly called kamma/karma by many Westerners). It's like the law of gravity, whatever goes up must come down.

As for the Buddha, by the time he reached the fruit of the path there was no vipaka left.

[Gohonzon]

Having studied Chinese myself, I'd say it looks to be a Japanese pronunciation of a dialect of Chinese. Certainly no dialect of Chinese I've ever heard contains the phoneme /kyo/.

Interesting comment.But it has left me wondering how,when a Hong Kong Chinese friend came to visit he instantly recognised the following as being Chinese :

Myo ho renge kyo

Hoben-pon.Dai ni.

Niji seson.Ju sanmai.Anjo ni ki

Go shari-hotsu

Etc...

I am pretty sure that it is one of the 'dead' Chinese dialects (much as Sanskrit and Pali are dead languages) which may explain your unfamiliarity with the phonetics?

I'll look this up later and let you know precisely which one.

As for your asking as to why the recitation of the Lotus Sutra is not practised in Sanskrit.The teaching of our tradition has in its essence the discovery by the great Great Teacher T'ien-t'ai (538-97) who employed the theory known as 'ichinen sanzen'-3,000 thousand worlds in a single moment (lit.)

'Life at each moment is endowed with the Ten Worlds.At the same time,each of the the Ten Worlds is endowed with all the others,so that an entity of life actually possess one hundred worlds'

T'ien-t'ai

'Each of these (one hundred) worlds in turn possess thirty realms,which means that in one hundred worlds there are 3,000 realms.The 3,000 realms are all possessed by a single entity of life.If there is no life,that is the end of the matter.But if there is the slightest bit of life,it contains all the 3,000 realms.'

On the True Object Of Worship,Nichiren Daishonin

However,Myho-renge-kyo (mystic law of the Lotus Sutra) translated into the Sanskrit title would be-'Saddhamharmapundarikasutra'-quite a mouthful for the first line I think that you'd agree.The meaning of Nam (devote ones life) is a term of devotion and is indeed a verbal contraction of the written Sanskrit word namu or namus.

Therefore,it follows that seeing that Nichiren Daishonin would have studied both the Sutra's and the works of T'ien-t'ai in the Chinese,and that to recite parts of the Lotus Sutra in its original Sanskrit would be cumbersome -to say the least-then it is of no suprise that the Chinese dialect was adopted.

"The importance of the title of the Lotus Sutra can be judged by the fact that the first of T'ien-t'ai's three major works,The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra (Hokke Gengi) is devoted entirely to explaining what the five characters of Myho-renge-kyo mean.Partly,this is because written Chinese is an extremely concise language in which each seperate character can subtly convey a variety of different,though related, meanings."

The Buddha In Daily Life,Richard Causton,p.99.

With reference to the chanting of mantra's.Of course this is common practice in the differing Mahayana traditions and can be, amongst other things,an aspect of mindfulness training in itself.

'When one chants the daimoku* bearing in mind that there are no distinctions among those who embrace the Lotus Sutra, then the blessings one gains will be equal to those of Shakyamuni Buddha'~Nichiren Daishonin.

*Nam-myho-renge-kyo

[sabaijai]

I checked the phrase with a friend of mine who is a Japanese scholar and he recognised it as Japanese pronunciation of common kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese). 'Kyo', for example, simply means 'text' or 'book' in Japanese (minus the usual honorifics), according to her.

I also have found a line-by-line translation of the Japanese version of the Lotus Sutra, with the phrase myoho-renge-kyo clearly described as Romanisation of Japanese kanji.

"The translation is preceded line-by-line (102 lines within the verse) with the linguistic pronunciation (shown in yellow) of the Japanese kanji as written in roman characters (long characters are annotated with dashes {-} following vowels):"

line by line translation of Japanese-language Lotus Sutra

I think your visiting Hong Kong friend may have been referring to the written characters, no? Japanese kanji is taken directly from Chinese, with some modification. If you're suggesting that Japanese itself is a lost Chinese dialect, I doubt the phonetics of Chinese, even 'dead dialects', could have changed that much, considering that the phonetics (and more than that, the root vocabulary) of Sanskrit - much older than 6th-century Chinese - are still quite common in various Indian dialects today.

On the issue of simple pronunciation, just as the Japanese have rendered T'ien T'ai as Tendai, getting rid of the pesky palatal in T'ien, why not reduce the daimoku further to 'na-mo-reng-ko' or even just 'nam'? If simplicity of pronunciation is the point, that is. The meaning would still be there, for those who had been taught, as you have, what it means.

BTW, as I understand it, T'ien T'ai is the name of a 6th-century school of Buddhism, not a teacher's name. T'ien T'ai Buddhism was founded by Chih-I, who lived and taught in 6th C southeastern China. The T'ien T'ai school became Tendai in Japan.

Another interesting China-to-Japan transfer was the Chen Yen school, based on the teaching of Bengali and Javanese Tantric Buddhist teachers who taught in central China around the 10th C (as I recall, could have been a century earlier). 'Chen yen' was the Chinese translation of the Sanskrit 'mantra', and after it flourished in Japan, the Japanese had come up with their own pronunciation, 'shin gon', the basis of Shingon Buddhism in Japan today.

The meaning of Nam (devote ones life) is a term of devotion and is indeed a verbal contraction of the written Sanskrit word namu or namus

The Sanskrit is nam, namo or nama (depending on context). 'Namu' is the Japanese pronunciation of 'nam'. I studied Sanskrit for two years at university and came across the word NAM daily in texts related to religions born in India. When introducing a sentence NAM means '(I/we) salute,' 'Homage to ...' or more literally 'In the name of ...' -- not 'Devote one's life to'. The meanings are similar, but strictly speaking 'paying homage' to something is not the same as 'devoting one's life' to something.

nam.h = to salute

namaH = a salute

namati = to bow

namaskaara = Salutation

namaskaaraniichamanii = Salutation to evil minded

namaskuru = offer obeisances

namaskR^itvaa = offering obeisances

namaste = offering my respects unto You

namasyantaH = offering obeisances

namaamyaham.h = namAmi+ahaM, bow+I

nameran.h = they should offer proper obeisances

namo = salutation

At university one of my research projects looked at the way six different English versions of the Bhagavad Gita translated the simple verse yoga-stah kuru karmani. It's a very simple verse for a first-year Sanskrit student to translate, all you need is a basic command of the grammar and a dictionary. Yet the interpretations varied according to the religious sect translating the phrase. The Hare Krishna translation of 'yoga', for example, was 'Krishna Consciousness'.

None of this matters of course, if you believe that the daimoku phrase has mystical power to cleanse. liberate, etc. If Nichiren/Soka/Tendai believe the phrase has supernatural power that transcends translation and rules of language, there's no debating the point.

Back to the topic of this thread, kamma, in Pali Buddhism the chanting of mantras, use of visual cues for concentration, counting the breath and so on are all techniques of samatha or samadhi. The name basically means 'one-pointedness' and the general results of such techniques are calmness and concentration.

According to the Pali sutras or discourses of the Buddha, samadhi alone cannot generate the wisdom necessary to break the bonds of conditioning. Chanting/breath-followong/candle-gasing, etc are used to prepare the practitioner for a second kind of meditation meant to develop vipassana or 'essential perception'.

The Buddha prescribed a specific set of practices for developing insight, namely satipatthana, literally 'awareness development' in Pali, but most commonly translated as 'mindfulness'.

From the satipatthana perspective, sound is simply sound, and one sound is as good as another for developing mindfulness. In fact the Abhidhamma says that as soon as you discriminate one sound from another - as an object for mindfulness, that is - then awareness is not present. When awareness isn't present, akusala citta (unwholesome mind moments) arises, kamma is formed and vipaka will ensue.

Edited August 23, 2004 by sabaijai

[Suthep_Steve]

If you have negative karma on your mental continuum can you realise emptiness?

[Gohonzon]

T'ien-t'ai (344-413) was indeed a teacher who had changed his name from Chih-i,hence the latter T'ien-t'ai school .Further ,he (T'ien-t'ai) translated a vast body of Buddhist writings.The Lotus Sutra (Miao-fa-Lien-hua Ching) was tranlated by Kumarajiva and is considered the best translation into Chinese.Miao-fa-Lien-hua Ching is prounced in Japanese as Myho-renge-kyo.The reciation of parts of the Lotus Sutra -that we practce twice daily (gongyo)-is written in classical Chinese and (as I mentioned above) is pronounced in Japanese.That is,a classical,literary and ancient form of Japanese.

I fear that your friend is very mistaken in saying that 'Nam' is not a word of devotion in Japanese:

As Nichiren Daishonin informs us:

'People place the word Nam before the names of all deities and Buddhas in worshiping them.'

'Namu" is a transliteration that is derived from Sanskrit, and "Myoho Renge Kyo" is the Japanese pronunciation of the "Kanji"/ ancient Chinese characters/ ideograms of It.It is all written in Chinese/ Kanji and spoken in Japanese.'

In April 1253, before an audience of priests and students he proclaimed that Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, the invocation of the title of the Lotus Sutra, is itself the source of enlightenment of all Bhuddas. More than simply a title, he explained, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is the essence of the Lotus Sutra and the supreme law of life itself.

'Nam derives from the Sanskrit word as devotion, to devote oneself to, or fuse one's life with, the eternal and unchanging truth, Myoho-renge-kyo comes from Chinese. myo, meaning unfathomable or beyond conception, ho or law, its phenomenal manifestations. myo indicates the life-essence and ho, three thousand, indicates darkness or delusion Renge means the lotus flower. The lotus blooms and seeds at the same time, and thus represents the simultaneity of cause and effect. In addition, the lotus grows and blooms in a muddy pond, which symbolizes the emergence of Buddhahood from within the life of a common mortal. Kyo literally means sutra, the voice or teaching of a Buddha, thread of logic, reason, eternal and unchanging truth. Sat or sad, the original Sanskrit for myo or mystic, is interpreted as perfect endowment. benefit of chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo includes the benefit of conducting all virtuous practices.'

Regarding Buddha Shakyamuni's enlightenment and the practice of meditation.As I understand it he sat under the Bodhi Tree and entered into a grand(Skt.) samadhi-sammai (Jp.) A deep mediative trance.He instantly (simultaneously) became enlightened.This realizationof the practice and teaching that he had used in the infinite past.That is,that he he had been a Buddha since the distant past.(cf.The Lotus Sutra - It's History & Practice,World Tribune Press.)

It,therefore follows that if theLotus Sutra is to be believed the Buddha had actually been enlightened from lmitless time:'He experienced self-awakening under the Bodhi tree. "The time

is limitless and boundless --- a hundred, thousand, ten thousand, nayatuaeons --- since I actually attained Buddhahood" (ibid)

He did not then need to use the provisional teachings,or use expedient means in his teaching, as his full enlightenment was revealed in the Lotus Sutra.It was only in the Lotus Sutra that Buddha Shakyamuni revealed his enlightenment and by so doing rendered all the provisional teachings as being inferior.

As Nichiren Daishonin writes:

'All Buddhas in the universe,ranging across past, present and future, have attained Buddhahood with the seed of the five characters of Myoho-renge-kyo'.

Thus that devoting oneself to the Lotus Sutra is to both to venerate the Buddha by using the same means as he used to teach,i.e.by mouth.And to invoke the Buddha nature in us all.This is not so much a supernatural phenomean.More a means of invoking our Budda nature and instigating a more harmonious 'oneness' with our environment.

"Both the beings and the environment of the Avichi h-ell exist entirely within the life of the highest sage [buddha], and what is more, the life and the environment of Vairochana [buddha] never transcend the lives of common mortals."

And:

The Buddha who is the entity of Myoho-renge-kyo, of the "Life Span" chapter of the essential teaching, who is both inhabiting subject and inhabited realm, life and environment, body and mind, entity and function, the Buddha eternally endowed with the three bodies. . ." Nichiren Daishonin.

[Gohonzon]

If you have negative karma on your mental continuum can you realise emptiness?

The simple answer has to be no.

But how do you understand 'emptiness'?

[sabaijai]

Regarding Buddha Shakyamuni's enlightenment and the practice of meditatio.As I understand it he sat under the Bodhi Tree and entered into a grand(Skt.) samadhi-sammai (Jp.) A deep mediative trance.He instantly (simultaneously) became enlightened.This realizationof the practice and teaching that he had used in the infinite past.That is,that he he had been a Buddha since the distant past.(cf.The Lotus Sutra - It's History & Practice,World Tribune Press.)

According to the Pali canon, Buddha attained nibbana/bodhicitta when he realised that samatha/samadhi was insufficient means, and it was in the act of abandoning samadhi in favour of sati (awareness) that he attained realisation of the noble truths, etc. This is one of the more substantial differences between Mahayana and Theravada.

Samadhi - the absorption states reached using mantras, visual objects, etc - had been around in India and no doubt elsewhere for centuries, and had become especially well developed during the Upanishadic/sramana era when Siddhartha Gautama abandoned the worldly life to become a wandering yogi. The Buddha's innovation, in his realisation and subsequent exposition of the Buddhadharma, was to suggest that samadhi could not bring about the cessation of birth, old age, illness and death.

fear that your friend is very mistaken in saying that 'Nam' is not a word of devotion in Japanese

Neither my Japanese-speaking friend nor I said it wasn't Japanese, quite the opposite. You had mentioned it coming from 'namu' and I pointed out that 'namu' is the Japanese pronunciation of'nam' (regardless what language 'nam' hails from, though we know in this case it hails from Skrt).

It's a word of devotion in Skrt/Pali as well. There's a difference, however, between 'devotion' and 'devote one's life to', the former relating to the moment and the latter, obviously, a much stronger statement.

How the Japanese or anyone else choose to translate the Skrt 'nam' to fulfil sectarian objectives is up to them, of course.

'Namu" is a transliteration that is derived from Sanskrit, and "Myoho Renge Kyo" is the Japanese pronunciation of the "Kanji"/ ancient Chinese characters/ ideograms of It.It is all written in Chinese/ Kanji and spoken in Japanese.'

So Nichiren agrees with my original supposition, that nam myoho renge kyo is a native Japanese pronunciation of kanji, not a dialect of Chinese.

Re T'ien T'ai being the name of a teacher, I googled and found roughly 6000 mentions of T'ien T'ai on the Web, and nearly all of them use the term solely as the name of one of the 13 schools of Buddhism in China & Japan, and founded by Chih-I (Zhi Yi in pinyin romanisation). The name itself was taken from the name of a mountain near where patriarch Chih-I lived.

The only instances where I see it used as the name of that teacher is by Nichiren sects. Again, no argument against any sectarian use of a name that may differ from the ecumentical and academic mainstream, such as the following entry:

Tiantaizong (天台宗, Wade-Giles: T'ien T'ai) is one of the thirteen schools of Buddhism in China and Japan, also called the "Lotus Sutra School." It was founded by the patriarch Zhi-yi (538-597) during the Sui dynasty in China.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/T'ien-t'ai

So the name for a mountain later became the name of a school of Buddhism, and later again, according to one lineage (Nichiren), the name of a teacher.

Edited August 24, 2004 by sabaijai

[Gohonzon]

I will get the hang of this.I will get...

[Gohonzon]

Holy Mother of Jesus

For the last time,T'ien-t'ai was the name of a mountain,a school of Buddhism,the founder of that school and The Great Teacher was named T'ien-t'ai

Nichiren was a monk in the Tendai tradition and studied the writings of T'ien-t'ai extensively.

If you go to the the Writings of Nichiren Daishonin Concordance,you will find indirect and direct quotes of T'ien-t'ai to the number of no fewer than 478.

http://www.sgi-usa.org/cgi-bin/browsewords...=T%27ien-t%27ai

May I suggest ,that rather going to an extremely sparce encyclopedia for a reference point,it would be far more relevant and beneficial to go to the actual lineage and primary sources themselves.I realise that you probably know this. However...

.'He spent eight years there at Wa-kuan-ssu temple. In 575 Chih-che moved again to Mt. T'ien-t'ai which would become his name sake and the name of the school of Buddhism that he founded.' nichirenscoffeehouse

Scroll down to the paragraph under 'Namu Tendai Daishi' and there you will find reference to The Great Teacher named T'ien-t'ai.

http://nichirenscoffeehouse.net/ShuteiMandala/lineage.html

Nichiren Daishonin wrote:

'In the time of the Ch'en and Sui dynasties (557--618) in China, there was a lowly priest called Chih-i, who later became teacher to the emperors of two dynasties and was honored with the title Great Teacher T'ien-t'ai Chih-che.'

In the unlikey event that it can be proven to the contrary: let's then put an end to this bizarre notion, that seems to infer, that somehow T'ien-t'ai Chih-che was the invention of either Nichiren Daishonin or the Nichiren sect.

The only instances where I see it used as the name of that teacher is by Nichiren sects. Again, no argument against any sectarian use of a name that may differ from the ecumentical and academic mainstream...

I note- from the (above) quote- that Theravada practice seems to do little to lessen the hold of appetites and aversions then.

"By observing the fury of the rain, we can tell the greatness of the dragon that caused it, and by observing the flourishing of the lotus flowers, we can tell the depth of the pond they grow in."

T'ien-t'ai

[Suthep_Steve]

If you have negative karma on your mental continuum can you realise emptiness? 

The simple answer has to be no.

But how do you understand 'emptiness'?

Doesn't the fact that we have the delusion of grasping at an inherently existent self within our mental continuum mean that all our actions and hence karma are contaminated and therefore to some extent negative.

So that would make it impossible to remove delusion permanently from our mental continuum because we could never realise it's ultimate antidote emptiness or the wisdom that realises lack of inherent existence.

[sabaijai]

Holy Mother of Jesus

For the last time,T'ien-t'ai was the name of a mountain,a school of Buddhism,the founder of that school and The Great Teacher was named T'ien-t'ai

Nichiren was a monk in the Tendai tradition and studied the writings of T'ien-t'ai extensively.

If you go to the the Writings of Nichiren Daishonin Concordance,you will find indirect and direct quotes of T'ien-t'ai  to the number of no fewer than 478.

http://www.sgi-usa.org/cgi-bin/browsewords...=T%27ien-t%27ai

May I suggest ,that rather going to an extremely sparce encyclopedia for a reference point,it would be far more relevant and beneficial to go to the actual lineage and primary sources themselves.I realise that you probably know this. However...

.'He spent eight years there at Wa-kuan-ssu temple. In 575 Chih-che moved again to Mt. T'ien-t'ai which would become his name sake and the name of the school of Buddhism that he founded.' nichirenscoffeehouse

Scroll down to the paragraph under 'Namu Tendai Daishi' and there you will find reference to The Great Teacher named T'ien-t'ai.

http://nichirenscoffeehouse.net/ShuteiMandala/lineage.html

Nichiren Daishonin wrote:

'In the time of the Ch'en and Sui dynasties (557--618) in China, there was a lowly priest called Chih-i, who later became teacher to the emperors of two dynasties and was honored with the title Great Teacher T'ien-t'ai Chih-che.'

In the unlikey event that it can be proven to the contrary: let's then put an end to this bizarre notion, that seems to infer, that somehow T'ien-t'ai Chih-che was the invention of either Nichiren Daishonin or the Nichiren sect. 

The only instances where I see it used as the name of that teacher is by Nichiren sects. Again, no argument against any sectarian use of a name that may differ  from the ecumentical and academic mainstream...

I note- from the (above) quote- that Theravada practice seems to do little to lessen the hold of appetites and aversions then.

"By observing the fury of the rain, we can tell the greatness of the dragon that caused it, and by observing the flourishing of the lotus flowers, we can tell the depth of the pond they grow in."

T'ien-t'ai

Your quotes all come from one source, Nichiren, which only serves to support my 'bizarre' point.

As I mentioned in my reply to your claim that the patriarch Chih-I had changed his name to T'ien T'ai, I perused 6000+ Internet entries and as far as I could tell, only Nichiren adherents call that teacher "T'ien T'ai". No other heirs to the T'ien T'ai/Tendai tradition, including modern Tendai, appear to do so.

I only know that it looks to me as if most sources refer to that teacher as Zhi Yi/Chih-I and to the school of Buddhism he founded as T'ien T'ai. It's just an observation, I didn't mean to start a tempest in a teapot.

I note ... that Theravada practice seems to do little to lessen the hold of appetites and aversions then.

If you see my disagreeing with a point you've made as aversion, then there's little hope for rational discussion.

[Gohonzon]

If you see my disagreeing with a point you've made as aversion, then there's little hope for rational discussion.

Actually,I had more in mind your referring to the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin being sectarian.If this thought pre-occupies you, then of course that would hinder open dialogue.Having doubts-or disageement- is one thing,cynicism quite another.

Nevertheless, the fact that you cannot trace any other evidence that Chih-che changed his name to T'ien T'ai actually proves next to nothing: I've attempted to povide you with the facts,dates,etc.That you cannot accept these without further verification is somewhat irrelevant as to whether Buddhism in the tradition of Nichiren Daishonin- has at its source- the same revelations as that of Chih-che T'ien T'ai : especially, of the Ten Worlds and of 3,000 realms in a single moment of life (ichen sanzen.) and the law as handed down by Shayamuni Buddha in the Lotus Sutra .These are probably the more impotant issues here,and could be verified by going back to the original sources

I do in fact need to contact the Oriental Phiosophy European Centre in the near future on another matter; and will at the same time attempt to overcome my profound embarrassment of poor pronunciation in asking them whether they can direct me to further verification of the Chih-che T'ien-t'ai name change-other than from within the actual lineage itself naturally.

[Darknight]

QUOTE (sabaijai @ Wed 2004-08-25, 17:08:10)

If you see my disagreeing with a point you've made as aversion, then there's little hope for rational discussion. 

Actually,I had more in mind your referring to the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin being sectarian.If this thought pre-occupies you, then of course that would hinder open dialogue.Having doubts-or disageement- is one thing,cynicism quite another.

mmmmm, A buddhist flame war