Archive Page 5 Home Page 6 Dharma Library
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Are we the heirs of our actions?
Do we need to accept the doctrine of rebirth in order to
practice?
Am I a 'second class' Buddhist if I don't meditate in my
practice?
Does eating meat implicate me in the killing?
Q. I
have read statements attributed to some Buddhist teachers suggesting that
various contemporary and historical examples of human suffering are the
result of the Karma of those who endure that suffering. Does this mean that
people who endure great suffering were deeply unskilful in previous lives and
that those who lead otherwise pleasant lives were skilful people, and if so how
is Karma different from the ideas that underpin Caste structures?
A.
It is believed as the general rule of the law of karma that we are bearing the
fruit of our actions, whether the result of actions that bring fruit instantly, or
actions at any time in the past, or actions in past lives. But always bear in
mind that karmic law is not the simplistic two-dimensional principle that we
often think it is. Karmic law is more often than not the expression of
multi-dimensional forces that mysteriously interpenetrate and is way beyond the
mind's ability to comprehend.
Caste systems are man
made, whilst the law of karma is an innate law of nature.
Q. I
attempt to sincerely practice the Dharma but have never been able to accept the
idea of re-birth either in principle or as a matter of faith. I accept that
the nature of reality is not limited by my capacity to comprehend, but I cannot
make sense of the idea that we are reborn or experience re-becoming. Do you
think this is likely to undermine my efforts to practice and my spiritual
progress? Should I just ‘sit with it and see'?
A. I
don't think you have to make a problem out of it and feel that you are not practising
properly. Practice is about dealing with where your feet are at this very
moment, and therefore you could say that is all that is necessary. From my own
experience of getting to know myself over the years of practice, it became obvious
that, with all goes that to make me up, with my strong habits and powerful
attachments, it would be quite absurd to imagine that they just materialised out
of nothing at birth. You could argue these days that genetics may be an
answer, but there is a lot in me that cannot
be applied to that simple idea. And
besides, what creates the genetic map in the first place?
In my own personal
practice the idea of being born over and over again in the lottery of rebirth
and suffering has always been a prime motivation to practice because of the consequences of my actions taught by Buddhism if I chose to
ignore them. To believe that life is a one off seems to me to negate the
whole motivation for Dharma
cultivation. Yes, we could be motivated to do good for others and humanise our
own conduct, but if it all comes to nothing in the end why should we put the
extra effort into changing ourselves that Dharma practice demands?
Definitely 'sit with it ',
and if you are still enough you may well get to see the principle of becoming
being created and acted out inside your own mind and body, and the continuous accumulation of karma which demands
becoming sooner or later. In the time that you have to wait for this
understanding to show, take the leap and make room within yourself for the
indispensable act of faith. Faith in the Buddha, the teachings, and all the
great sages that have arisen throughout the ages, who
have continually reaffirmed this law.
Allow this to support you
in your practice.
Q.
How important is meditation in the spiritual life? The ground of my practice is
to be found in ethics, and, given the emphasis on meditation, this sometimes
has the effect of making me feel like a second-class Buddhist.
A. People
who have this idea that practice is all about sitting merely display
their lack of understanding of the complete process that needs to be put in
place for the changes that practice brings about. Yes, you can say that of all
the parts that go toward make a
complete practice, sitting meditation would be the most important part, but
sitting will not reach its full potential without the support of the rest of the
eightfold path. So it is wrong to think
that if you can't sit you can't practice. There are many people dedicated to
Dharma practice who have difficulty with sitting meditation.
So
rather than get
disheartened learn to focus on the rest of the path. Ethical practice is the
obvious one to focus on, for it is the gateway into the Dharma. Come
to realise that while you are refining this aspect of the path you are
cultivating the mind in the same way as sitting practice.
Restraining and containing
actions, whether they are your thoughts, words or deeds, is possible only by
self-awareness. Putting new thoughts, words and deeds into action is only
possible with that same self-awareness.
To do this you need application born of concentration and the understanding that
your unskilfulness needs to change. Is this not working with the eightfold path
of sila, samadhi, and prajna? What meditation practice will bring to this is a
deepening of what you are already doing, but fundamentally there is no
difference.
If you wish to come to
meditation sometime in the future, then adding a devotional practice to an
ethical one will help bring you more speedily to that roundedness. Devotional practice helps to soften the heart and
introduces us to the side of ourselves that we need to learn to get in contact
with in order for the deeper Dharma to arise. Devotional practice usually starts
by projecting outwards to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, but you should soon realise
your relationship with this form of external practice is very much conditioned
by the inner relationship you have with yourself, and therefore should make you
reflect more and more internally.
Change that takes place in
practice does not come from the head but rather from a part of us that we are
for the most part cut off from, that deep emotional seat buried within our body.
It is this that we need to become
familiar with, and make friends with all that is contained there. There is
little ‘logic’ here. It takes faith
and trust, becoming familiar with the reality of Dharma practice – which is
the willingness to surrender our profound attachment to the self that imprisons
us in our head and creates the restlessness that prevents quiet meditation being
possible. Devotional practice allows us to start that process of becoming
whole. By combining this with your developing ethical stability and skilful
means born of self-awareness, you will be transforming the emotional and mental
restlessness that prevents you from sitting now. You will be laying the foundation for a fruitful sitting practice
in the near future.
Q.
Would you agree with the view that buying meat and fish are the same as eating
something that has been killed for
you – meat and fish are made available for consumers. If you buy it and eat it
then all that you have done is avoided the messy business of killing by paying
an anonymous person to do the work for you. So, doesn't buying meat and fish
amount in practice to the killing?
A.
The Buddha wasn't a vegetarian, nor were his vast sangha, including countless
arhants who, like the Buddha, had finished their training and gone beyond the
creation of karma, reaching the pureness of thought, word and action. The
numerous traditions that sprang up in
the East over more than two thousand years since the Buddha have never
been vegetarian, and I don't recall any of the prominent saints and sages of
Buddhism saying that to follow the
Dharma you must be vegetarian. To suggest, as many do, in the West that
the first precept is violated by eating meat is to suggest that all those who
have practised traditional Buddhism, including the Buddha and the arhants, have
been in violation of the first precept. I can best suggest you read the recent post
concerning vegetarianism for my general view on the subject.
If you wish to create a
'moral' view for vegetarianism (or anything else), then it should be based first
on the cultural background, and always be a personal view for you alone. Do
remember, there will be many sincere
spiritual people, and many
fine human beings that don't have a spiritual path, who will disagree with
whatever new ideas you come up with. That's why if you really seek guidance as
to what is right and wrong it is best to stay with ‘rules’ that are part of
the natural laws that govern nature, which are always conditioned by the laws of
karma.
If we decide to set up new
ideas and propagate them in the name of Buddhist
morality, we will be setting up a duality, which will always create
problems. This will inevitably
bring conflict with those who disagree, thus
violating the basic spirit of Buddhism, which is to accept things the way
they are. Remember, never has there been a conflict in the name of Buddhism in
2500 years; do you think that fine record is in place through mere luck?