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(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

I don’t know why I can’t listen to the whole book-on-tape from beginning to end. Jeffrey Archer is one of my favourite authors. And his book A Prisoner of Birth — given my interest in the nature of karma and “mistaken identity” — is certainly right up my alley. But I can’t get beyond the first CD. I’m a prisoner of my habitual pattern of fear.

Seems I’ve downloaded a habitual pattern that is so imprinted on my consciousness that, even knowing the ending, my fear prevented my moving beyond the beginning and the end! I am frightened of the details of the plot.

The beginning of the story — an innocent person convicted of a serious crime he didn’t committ — triggers my own anger, fear and a sense of  powerlessness. I become frightened for the main character. So frightened that I cannot listen to the rest of the CDs in order to learn the whole story.

So I go to the last CD to hear the end of the story. Am reassured by the “happy ending.” But I find I still cannot listen to the rest of the CDs.  So I get a hard copy of the book. I reason that maybe if I play the disks and simultaneously read-along, I’ll be able to cut through the fear and get the “meat” of the story.

Didn’t work. Can’t get beyond my fear. I want to ignore the details of the story, the plot, in other words, I try to ignore the “middle” part – between the beginning and the end – of the story. But I’m not prepared to give up. I listen to the CDs in reverse order: number 13 (the end) first, then number 12 and so on. But I give up on that. I still do not know all the details of the story.

What’s going on here? All I know is that the story triggers a very solid pattern of mine, a pattern I seem unable to cut through. Contact with this story is downloading my habitual fear.

The only thing I understand is that my ego has solidified itself vis-a-vis the story. Ego has made a sharp distinction between self and other: Ttere’s me. And there’s the characters in the story. I can’t seem to bridge the gap, the duality, I’ve created.

Let’s deconstruct this pattern of fear.

1. Read the rest of this entry »

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

True freedom, true liberation, is going to come from egolessness, selflessness. <Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche: Shambhala Day Address, 2004; paragraph 23>

In the post on September 06′09, part 1 in a series of 3, we raised the question of whether there is really such a thing as “free will.”

In part 2 we pointed out that as long as ego is our default position, we only have relative freedom i.e. the freedom to choose how to respond to the consequences of our past actions that have now ripened. We cannot change the consequences. In part 2 we examined a few of the 12 factors that create and maintain our karma, and where we could cut the links of the chains that bind us.

But that is just dealing with what we “see,” as it were, above ground.

How about the roots?

In this post, part 3 of 3, we will deal with the root of why were are not really free — Ignorance. That’s the most crucial factor of all. Ignorance here doesn’t refer to some mistake that we made, like a a case of “mistaken identity” where we think that ego, our manufactured self, is who we really are. For sure, that is a problem. But not the most fundamental one.

To repeat, our lack of ultimate freedom goes back to the ignorance described in the first factor.

…why does conditioning [and our karma] arise in the first place? How did the whole process ever start? The Buddha traced the root cause back to ignorance, the mind’s ignorance of its own awakened nature—the final and original link in the chain. This is the farthest back we can go within the circle of samsara [the world of confusion based on ignorance; ego’s creation]; this is where everything begins. …Ignorance means ignoring the truth of reality, shutting one’s eyes to the awakened state. Although the light of reality is ever-present, ignorance chooses to remain blind. The nature of this blindness is to believe in the existence of a separate, independent self. (source: Francesa Freemantle: Luminous Emptiness, publ. Shambhala 2003, page 28)

“…The nature of this blindness is to believe in the existence in a separate, independent self.” I was wondering what example I could use from daily life to underscore this idea when I came across a wonderful story:

…on my high chair at the dining room table, I would stare at a candle flame, seeing that it was always changing. I’d stare right into the centre of it, and even though it always had a yellow color, it was always vibrating ever so slightly. There wasn’t anything constant there that you could call the flame, as if it actually existed for some time. These childhood perceptions…led me to realize that nothing remains. The stuff of ourselves is like the flame …. What existed a few moments ago is not somehow sitting on top of the present.” (source: Jeffrey Hopkins: A Truthful Heart)

Once we’re caught up in the deluded belief in some permanent, independent self and some corresponding permanent, independent other, then “the full catastrophe,” as alluded to by Anthony Quinn in the movie Zorba the Greek (1964), follows.

So we have to replace ignorance with knowledge in order to be free. Otherwise, the only “freedom” we have is to choose now this poison, now that poison, or chose to follow this disturbing thought rather than that one!

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(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

In the post on September 06’09 we raised the question of whether there is such a thing as “free will.”

Generally speaking, as long as we are in the grip of an almost irresistible, spinning undertow as described by the 12 factors\links, there is no ultimate freedom.

Specifically speaking, there is no freedom without  understanding the concept and reality of dependence and  interdependence i.e. this leads to this leads to this and so on. On and on. It’s like links in a chain. Each link produces (makes
possible) the next link.

Why? Because we are just following the habitual patterns that have been imprinted on our minds from previous actions. Continually acting on these patterns both maintains our current karma and creates further karma. To repeat, no ultimate freedom to be found here.

Only when we go completely beyond karma (cause and effect) can we be truly, ultimately, free. That takes time. Lots of time. But we live in the relative, conventional world.

So what do we do in the meantime? That is what Part 2 of this series about free will is about. Read the rest of this entry »

(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.
I wish I could break all the chains holding me.
I wish I could say all the things that I should say.
Say them loud, say them clear
For the whole damn world to hear.
by Nina Simone.

As long as we are in the grip of the consequences of the karma that we have produced in the past, the only freedom we have is how we choose to relate to these consequences. We cannot change the consequences at this point. the seeds from past volitional actions have ripened.

The question of Free Will has occupied an important place in Western thought and philosophy. …But…If the whole of existence is relative, conditioned and interdependent, how can will alone be free? Will, or anything for that matter, …. is within the law of cause and effect. (Rahula, Walpola: What the Buddha Taught, 1974 ed; page 54)

While caught in a life based on what I call “mistaken identity” (i.e. ego), the most we can attain is relative freedom. Our next move is up to us.

ChogyamTrungpa: Karma is like a game of chess. Your particular position at any point is determined by where you were, what your moves were; but after that point, it is up to you.

Student: Then is there a continuation of karma or the effects of karma?

Chogyam Trungpa: It’s up to you.

<source: Karma and the Twelve Nidanas: A Sourcebook for The Shambhala School of Buddhist Studies, page 13>

We think we have control over our lives. But in terms of karma (actions) that we have already created, we have no choice about the consequences — except the attitude that we manifest when that karma ripens in our future.

Freedom is generally thought of as the ability to achieve goals and satisfy desires. but what are the sources of these goals and desires? If they arise from ignorance, habitual patterns, and negative emotions — psychologically destructive elements that actually enslave us — is the freedom to puruse them true freedom or just a myth? <source: Chogyam Trungpa: Myth of  Freedom and the Way of  Meditation; publ. Shambhala Publications, 1988> 

When is free will really free? Ultimately only when we go beyond creating karma (cause and effect) can we be truly free. That would mean that we have a thorough understanding  that there is no independent or permanent self, and therefore no permanent, independent “other.”We and others exist only as a product (outcome) of the coming together of certain causes and conditions in our lives.

But the point we want to stress is that in the conventional (relative) world in which we live

……we are creating future actions. We can change the course. We are not stuck in our karma. (Class Four, page 86 of the Sutrayana Transcripts

…..to be continued in Part 2 on Sep 13’09

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