Friends:
Cause Entails Effect: Be mindful in all you do!
There are some fundamental tenets. One is the universal regime
of cause and effect. The second is the idea of interdependence of all
phenomena.
The third is in understanding that there is a certain dependence
in origination itself, that is that which originates, changes, disappears and
disintegrates.
This idea is inbuilt in origination. The 4th is the impermanence
of conditioned things and absence of inherent existence of the cognizer and the
cognized.
The fifth is the suffering that follows from mistaken
perceptions in the permanence of reality. In our social as well as individual
lives, we have to encounter suffering caused by false apprehensions of reality
and happiness.
Buddhism does not believe in mortifying the flesh; it does not
believe in ignoring the demands of life, or the potential for expanding
knowledge about the universe; it does not deny that knowledge can help to reduce suffering or
improve conditions of living. It has therefore no distaste for science or
technology.
On the contrary, it believes that skillful use of science and
technology can improve the quality of our lives. But since technology involves
the choice of goals, nature of the goals, as well as the motivation that
prompts the choice and pursuit of goals become very important. If they ignore
or violate any of the beliefs that listed above, they are bound to increase
individual and social suffering, and not welfare. Hence what we believe will
contribute to our pleasure sometimes could turn out to be the cause of aggravated suffering.
To the Buddhist, ethics and morality are not extraneous to the
realm of cause and effect. They are not commandments of one who is the creator,
and who functions above the realm of cause and effect. Nor have their
observance to be induced by a system of reward and punishment.
The belief that actions take place in the realm of cause and
effect has turned Buddhism away from the need to look for an external source of
authority or reward and punishment administered by an external authority.
Actions have their inescapable consequences as they are guided
by the law of cause & effect. Thus my motivations and actions will have their effects on me
and the social and even natural environment in which I live. I cannot overlook
this effect, and therefore, the responsibility to see that my conduct to what
creates a conducive effect on me as well as my social and natural environment.
Advances in science and technology are not based on an analysis
of motives, or the impact and chain-reactions that these are likely to cause on
the psyche and environment. The negative consequences of this absence of
mindfulness have now been brought to our attention. What do we do?
Persist in the mindless pursuit of individual power and material
possessions, unconcerned with its consequences -- in other words running the
risk of a
suicide of the species?
The answer lies within us, within our minds. To a believer in
Buddha Dharma it is this mindfulness which is the basis on which to choose the
path that leads to freedom and fulfillment. Among the most powerful enemies of
mindfulness are desire, greed and the ego, the desire to promote one's ego at
the cost of others or society or the environment. The answer that Buddha Dhamma
clearly gives is mindfulness even to protect mindfulness itself, and the ethics
and morality that mindfulness makes imperative in a world governed by
cause and effect.
By Lama Doboom Tulku, Times of India, Dec 21, 2011
Ceylon
No comments:
Post a Comment