In an email I received someone raised the issue of how anxious it can make a person if it is true that everything bad that happens to us is because of the causes we make and everything good that happens must be sustained by our causes. It is easier to believe in a God who is overall in control of everything. Or one might say, it is easier to believe that things just happen as they will and we do not need to stress about it. The Buddha actually spoke about this when he criticized some of his contemporaries who denied the law of cause and effect by teaching things like:
God controls all causes and effects, so its not up to us.
There is no causality there is just fate.
There is no causality in the moral sphere, there is only material reactions.
There is no causality, only chance.
The Buddha did his level best to convey to is contemporaries that there is indeed a law of cause and effect, and that the moral intent of our thoughts, words, and deeds do have wholesome and unwholesome repercussions that we must acknowledge and take responsibility for. This is something I have tended to emphasize to myself and others. It is one reason I keep commenting and revising my comments on the Baizhang's Fox koan. But this can be overdone. In particular, I am sometimes not sensitive enough to the fact that people can get an overblown sense of how responsible or powerful the self is (when in fact Buddhism is about selflessness) and I sometimes forget that God is a very personalized and effective shorthand that people in this culture have for relating to the bigger picture that transcends the self.
I wrote the following as a reply to this person who emailed me, but I'd like to share it more broadly as an attempt to redress any imbalances in previous things I've said that might lead people to believe that I advocate either an extreme view of a total control over reality (a kind of cosmic egocentrism) or an extreme view of just passively letting things be (the heresy of quietism). Here is the reply:
You see, my primary concern has been with people who believe in God so strongly that it becomes a burden to them. They believe that this abusive celestial patriarch is going to blast them for doing the wrong thing, or conversely that their every action is sanctioned and justified by this great Godfather type figure in the sky so they can go out and kill in the name of this God or live a very unwholesome life and then just say a few prayers and have it all forgiven. People either become nervous wrecks, or terrorists, or extremely hypocritical and immoral because of such a belief in God. What is lacking is a sense of personal responsibility, and what is lacking is what Jesus revealed about God (which is still not Buddhism but is at least a huge improvement over the popular view). Jesus related to God as his loving father (he used the intimate term abba which means something like "daddy") who wants us to grow up to be strong and independent but at the same time is there for us helping us to become more Godlike.
In the Lotus Sutra the Buddha speaks of himself as a kind of loving father, protective ruler, and caring teacher. Since the Buddha was awakened to the true nature of reality as his own true nature, this means that the true nature of reality is like this - loving parent, protective ruler, and caring teacher. In other words, the interdependent flow of causality can be related to as nurturing, orderly (and thus protective or at least reliable in its ultimate patterns), and constantly teaching us about ourselves and life.
But Buddhism also emphasizes that the true nature of reality is that it is impermanent, unsatisfactory, and selfless. With our minds we impose categories like self and other, now and then, subject and object on this flow of causality. That is necessary in order to function, but it is also just our own human perspective and way of organizing the flow of causality. We can effect that flow in wholesome or unwholesome ways. And the way we experience that flow is very much determined by our mental filters and beliefs. But it is too much to say that we could ever have total control over all this. Other people are making their own causes too and we can't override their free will and control that, and I think it is impossible for a human being to know all the facts about everything, so we sometimes make mistakes. And that's ok. Also, no matter what we do - the flow of causality means that all things (including our "self") will be impermanent because subject to change and dissolution, usatisfactory in any ultimate sense, and without a graspeable fixed or independent self. So New Agers and those who oversimplify Buddhism by saying we are in total control over our lives are simply overestating our responsibility. On the other hand, too many people underestimate our responsibility and end up making people feel disempowered with no control over life. I don't know which is worse, to feel powerless and unable to take responsibility for your life, or to have an overblown sense of control that will be ultimately frustrated and lead to neurosis or even a nervous breakdown.
Buddhism, however, really teaches the Middle Way. The Buddha realized that it is best to try to have a clear awareness and comprehension of what is going on, of the nature of things, of the nature of yourself. To weed and seed and cultivate the garden of your own mind is within our power, and it takes time, practice, and patience. We need to weed out greed, hatred, and delusion, and plant the seeds of generosity, compassion, and wisdom. And we have to do what we can in the world to relieve the suffering of all beings, including our own when we can see the right time and place to act. But even the Buddha couldn't prevent tragedy from striking. His two foremost disciples died before him (Shariputra and Maudgalyayana) which made the Sangha seem empty to him, his own cousin had tried to kill him (Devadatta), his two foremost royal patrons (King Bimbisara and King Prasenajit) were overthrown by their own sons (one was starved to death in a dungeon and the other was left in the wilderness to die), and his own Shakya clan was massacred in a horrible act of ethnic cleansing. The Buddha himself died of a painful intestinal disease and/or food poisoning. But through all that the Buddha knew how to deal with the good and the bad in an enlightened way. Even though his circumstances may have been objectively painful, he did not subjectively suffer because he had seen through the illusion of self and fully realized and more importantly actualized his Buddha-nature.
So just reflect on your own nature and your circumstances. Cultivate a clear nonjudgemental awareness, but in that also cultivate a deep compassion and caring for yourself and all beings as they arise and fall in the flow of causes and conditions. Then when you can do something positive, just do it but don't be attached to results. In fact, in Mahayana Buddhism we regularly dedicate the merits of all good actions to all beings so that we don't get too obsessed with results or "what's in it for us." And if things don't work out just try to have patience and equanimity and wait to see when the next opportunity to make positive change will come. In this way you can take responsibility for your life, but without all the unecessary angst. I think the Serenity Prayer actually does a great job of expressing the Buddhist attitude. It is addressed to "God" but really it could be addressed to the Eternal Buddha who is also your own Buddha-nature:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
So are you chanting to an outside deity (Buddha) or to awakening the Buddhahood inside yourself?
I chant from inside out to connect the rhythm of the universe within to the universe outside. Not as two discreet entities but as a continuum.
I think it is a human tendency to see self and environment as discrete entities (sorta like particle physics) instead of continuous aspects of form, time, space and the other more unknowable stuff (more like wave physics).
Ever since I started chanting in this manner, I have experienced a turn around in how I percieve problems and solutions. Life feels fuller, enjoying viewing the complexities in a different way.
Well at least it is my frame of reference and I'm stickin' to it:).
Best,
Mimi
Posted by: Mimi at January 26, 2007 06:59 PM"So are you chanting to an outside deity (Buddha) or to awakening the Buddhahood inside yourself?"
Yes, the old self-power/Other-power debate. Zen is usually associated with self-power while Pure Land is associated with Other-power. But I have found that if you push a Zen teacher or Pure Land minister a bit, they will both admit that there is no such thing ultimately as self or other, and therefore self-power and Other-power is really just our own point of view.
I really like the way that Nichiren cut through this dichotomy is a writing "The Meaning of the Sacred Teachings of the Buddha's Lifetime" (Ichidai shokyo taii):
"Now in the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, people are certainly self-empowered, and yet they are not self-empowered. This is because one's own self, or life, at the same time possesses the nature of all living beings in the Ten Worlds. Therefore this self has from the beginning been in possession of one's own realm of Buddhahood and of the realms of Buddhahood possessed by all other living beings. Therefore when one attains Buddhahood one does not take on some new or "other" Buddha identity.
"Again, in the teachings of the Lotus Sutra, people are certainly other-empowered, and yet they are not other-empowered. The Buddhas, who are considered separate from us, are actually contained within our own selves, or the lives of us ordinary people. Those Buddhas manifest the realms of Buddhahood of all living beings in the same manner as we do." (Writings of Nichiren Daishonin Volume II, p. 62)
So according to Nichiren it really can't be reduce to either self or Other power.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
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Posted by: Ryuei at January 26, 2007 10:44 PMRev. Ryuei,
Consonant with the perceived other/self dichotomy is the equally nerve-wracking, dualistic tension between notions of value (good and bad) vs. a non-dualistic "void." I just can't seem to get it through my brain that good and bad (wholesome/unwholesome, happy/sad, etc etc) really exist beyond the human dualistic purview, even though I am resigned to operate from within them as an embodied, cultural/social being. Buddhism appears to contemplate a reality that transcends good/evil and all other dualisms, yet the desire for "good" over "evil" seems to be the primary motivation for practice. Some Nichiren sects are so vested in "good and evil" that they often sound more like fundamentalist Christians than Buddhists. Can you comment, or point me in some direction with reference to this very basic and troubling issue (at least, it's troubling for me). Thanks so much.
Marjara
Posted by: Marjara at February 3, 2007 04:52 PMHi Marjara,
I think the whole idea of Buddhism as some kind of nondual philosophy beyond good and evil has more to do with the wishful thinking of hippies reading Nietzche than with actual Buddhism.
Theravadin Buddhists in particular are critical of the idea of "non-dualism." There is a whole group of Buddhists scholar-minister in Japan in both the Soto Shu and Nichiren Shu who are highly critical of the excesses of non-dualism found in Original Enlightenment thought, because it led not only to an uncricial support of the status quo in Japan (because everything is enlightened just as it is) but even led to a more positive support of imperialism and discrimination that was part of that status quo.
But let's set aside the pros and cons of nondualism and even nondualism itself. There is a more fundamental difference between Buddhist and Christian ideas about "good" and "evil."
In Christianity something is good basically because a Supreme Being who is beyond questioning has said so. And he is the all-powerful deity who will reward or punish you if you screw up and do something this deity has decided is evil (usually something the culture of that deity finds disruptive and/or distasteful). Actually, most theistic systems are like this.
Buddhism does not rely on the subjective tastes of an unquestionable cosmic authority figure who will give you an eternal carrot if you obey and an eternal stick if you refuse. Rather, Buddhism looks at the actual causes and conditions that compose life as we actually live it. When Buddhism says something is wholesome, it is not because it is wholesome according to some deity's whim or because some culture has canonized its own tastes and social system. It is wholesome because it takes the whole picture into account - not just the narrow self-interest and limited perspective of you the individual "self" or the "tribe" that you belong to. Rather, how is a particular thought, word, or deed in harmony with the whole picture so that it will bring about less suffering and more peace and happiness for all concerned. Unwholesome thoughts, words, and deeds, are those that ignore the greater perspective and pursue narrow agendas without thought for the consequences - either long term or to other people.
So basically "good" and "evil" in theistic systems all too often boil down to the canonized whims of a deity who, like the Wizard of Oz, is really just an imaginary front man for the secular and religious authorities hiding behind a curtain and cynically pulling the strings to manipulate the masses.
Buddhism, however, is a realistic and even radically empirical examination of actual causes and conditions to determine what is a wholesome activity that is in accord with the whole picture, or an unwholesome one that serves narrow agendas of self or tribe and refuses to see where such actition will lead. If there is nondualism in that - it is the nondualism of the flow of causes and conditions wherein there are no hard edges of the ego-boundaries of self and other, though provisionally there are certainly healthy boundaries that should be maintained.
A nondualism that undermines ethics is no more a reality that a cosmic chieftain in the sky. And both are thought up to serve and rationalize narrow self-interest. That's how I see it.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei