Interfaith Blog Event #7: Gender in Divinity

[Photo by jdruschke]

Welcome to the seventh Interfaith Blog Event! In each installment of this series, which we're hoping to do on a regular basis, we'll explore a single topic across five different religious traditions. I am writing from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Jon, from Jesusfollowers Journal, will be writing from a Protestant Christian perspective, and Sojourner from A Pagan Sojourn, will be writing from a Pagan/UU perspective. Jeff joins us from Druid Journal, and Matt joins us from Journeys In Between as an Evangelical Christian who borrows from esoteric movements like Wicca, Neo-Gnosticism, Yoga and Zen.

The topic we'll be discussing today is the following:

What does gender have to do with divinity?

(Links will be provided as they become available)
[Jon's Essay] [Sojourner's Essay] [Jeff's Essay] [Matt's Essay]


Before we dive into the role of gender in divinity, we need to understand divinity itself in Buddhism -- a religion without a creator god. When this life ends, our Karma conditions our next rebirth in one of six realms. The middle realm is the human realm, considered to be the most fortunate rebirth because it is especially suited for spiritual practice due to (1) human life is wonderful and happy, (2) we have the awareness and capacity to practice, and (3) we suffer, which motivates us to practice, giving us an experiential reason to practice.

The three lower levels (realms of animals, hungry ghosts, and hell beings) are less conducive to spiritual practice due to reduced mental capacity to practice and the constant bombardment of suffering. The two fortunate levels above the human realm, while realms of beauty, bliss, happiness, and long life, are also less conducive to practice because there is little motivation without suffering. These two realms are called the realm of the gods and the realm of the demigods (or devas).

These gods, goddesses, and devas -- what one might consider divinity -- deserve respect and love, just as do all other beings in all the realms of existence. In this context, gender is meaningless. Men and women can both achieve rebirth in a heavenly realm, and such rebirth can result in male or female manifestation. Gender does not convey any greater or lesser importance in the heavenly realms, just as it does not convey any greater or lesser importance here on earth, where we're all equal.

Closer to the Western mind's understanding of divinity are the numerous buddhas and bodhisattvas. Buddhas are people -- just like the historical Shakyamuni Buddha -- who attained enlightenment. There are countless such buddhas and bodhisattvas who continue to take rebirth to fulfill their vow to liberate all beings. Just like the innumerable gods and devas who, despite their fortunate lives, are still subject to the wheel of rebirth, the countless buddhas and bodhisattvas deserve our respect, compassion, and honor too. However, these buddhas, having attained the ineffable ultimate, also act as models for us to follow on our spiritual path, and we offer to them our humble thankfulness for their generosity, compassion, and wisdom.

While all buddhas have attained complete enlightenment in that they have perfected the wondrous qualities of generosity, compassion, wisdom, and love, there are several buddhas to whom we give special significance as manifestations of particular qualities of buddhahood. Of these manifestations, some are male, some are female. In that sense, gender is again meaningless in divinity in Buddhism.

In Buddhism, gender is simply a result of Karmic propensity toward a rebirth subject to the differences in gender that have evolved over the billions of years this universe has been in existence. There is no spiritual difference between man and woman. Both have, in their heart, perfect Buddha-nature, and both sexes can attain enlightenment using the gifts inherent in the evolved male and female gender dispositions.

I'd like to end this essay with a story. In an earlier universe, many billions of years ago, there lived a princess named Yeshe Dawa. Through her own personal experience, she became a devoted practitioner who took complete refuge in the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Through her practice, Yeshe Dawa developed perfect love and compassion for every single being in existence, without bias. Rather than being consumed by the luxuries of her royal family, she vowed to devote every single minute of her current and future lives toward a single goal -- the liberation of all beings. It is said that she vowed to liberate millions of beings each day before breakfast, millions more before lunch, and an additional million before going to sleep at night. Because of this life mission and the devotion with which she pursued her mission, she was called Arya Tara, which means “noble liberator.” When several religious authorities suggested to Yeshe Dawa that she work toward a male rebirth in the future, she refused. She noted that many Buddhas had already manifested as males, so she vowed to attain Buddhahood in a woman's body, and then to continuously return as a female in her quest to liberate all beings.

Through her exalted practice, Princess Yeshe Dawa became Tara, the Buddha who symbolizes enlightened activity. May we all follow in Tara's footsteps and vow to help everyone see the untainted, unsullied perfection that lies at the heart of their very being.

---

References
Thubten Chodron. How to Free Your Mind: Tara the Liberator. Snow Lion Publications. Ithaca, New York. 2005.

Why Does Time Seem to Go Faster as We Age?

[Photo by Amanda Oliver]

"Where did the day go? Five minutes ago I was waking up at eight o'clock, and now it's nine pm and I haven't gotten a single thing done."

Why is it that life roars by faster and faster as we age? Think back to childhood. It seemed like we had time to do everything we wanted when we were children. I can't recall ever being pressed for time, nor worrying that I wouldn't be able to get a task done. In adult life, admittedly, there are many more demands for our time. Not only do we have our hobbies, but now work demands our time, as do responsibilities such as house cleaning, laundry, yard work, home repairs, and cooking. So while the number of hours in a day has not changed, the number of things we try to squeeze into our waking hours has. And yet I still have days where I accomplish responsibility after responsibility, respond to emails, read for an appreciable time, write a short essay, play a game of chess, and still have time to meditate and spend the evening with my fiance. How can we have more days like that? The answer is intention.

On those amazing days like I described above, I find that a clear intention--all too often unconsciously set--carries me through. I say "unconsciously set" because while sometimes I consciously state my intention with each new activity, many times I only notice when reflecting back on my day how intentional everything was. I observe after-the-fact that as I finished the laundry, I confidently decided to meditate for 20 minutes. After that, I resolutely chose to write for an hour.

How does this compare to a "normal" day, when we seem so pressed for time? On these days, we tend to go about our day intention-less. It's really easy to move through life without intention. We have this vague mental construct of our tasks, and as we proceed from one to the next, there is no clear delineation between them. Further complications arise in that we are usually thinking about tasks 5, 6, and 7 while we are working on task 4, and occasionally our minds drift back to task 3.

On the contrary, when we set a specific intention before beginning a task: "I will sit and write for 1 hour," this provides a structure, a frame, within which our minds can work. With resolution, we place our minds in an optimal state for completing the task in front of us. We've noted our goal, defined the specific conditions for its outcome, and know our timeframe. Given this structure, our minds are assured that once the time for this task is up, they will be allowed to think about the other tasks--this helps us be mindful and focused on the current activity. Additionally, once we have completed this task, we then set our intention for the next task, and this provides a clear boundary between activities, to which our mind seems to respond very well. This "break in the action" allows our mind to regenerate, to rest momentarily and switch gears to function optimally on the new task.

From a Buddhist perspective, such conscious intention-setting allows us to break our karmic habits and choose our next actions with mindfulness. When we allow all our activities to run together, it is extremely easy to get caught up in our habitual thoughts and actions because we haven't given any direct instructions to our mind otherwise. However, by setting our intention, we have set the stage to see our habitual responses to life and, therefore, have the ability to change our response to one we deem more skillful. Setting our intention before each activity is truly an act of mindfulness, one with immediately observable benefits. It is also an act of compassion because it gives us the space within which to examine our responses and ensure that they are motivated by compassion, not ill will. As we age, we tend to get caught up in our habitual responses. We lose the mindful curiosity of our childhood. Things are no longer "new" to our minds, and so as we gain experience, it becomes ever easier to automatically respond as we have in the past. Conscious intention-setting counteracts this tendency and gives us a tool through which to develop compassionate, mindful action.

1-Minute Contemplation: Where do you find yourself getting pulled through life, time passing you by? In what way would intention practice help in your specific circumstances? Can you resolve to set your intention in these areas, and see what effect it has on your life?

Response to My Post on Karma

[Photo from Wikipedia]

In response to my article on Karma, Alan Cook compiled a nice piece at Milinda's Questions rebutting my equation of karma and causation. I have a few short responses to several of his comments, which follow.

For one thing, the law of karma is not concerned with consequences in general, but with consequences which recoil upon the doer of the action, both in the current and in subsequent lives.

So, the author of the book Alan quotes is saying that karma equals causation applied to sentient beings. So far, it's still causality. He continues:

They especially concern its effects on the dispositions, character, passions and desires of the agent, or the creation of invisible qualities of merit and demerit which adhere to the agent. As such, the proponent of the doctrine will be as much, if not more, concerned with the invisible as well as the visible effects of a human action.

Of course. And the "invisible effect" is still an effect of a cause. He continues:

Since the central causal feature of the law of karma is moral, it is not concerned with the general relation between actions and their consequences, but rather with the moral quality of the actions and their consequences, such as pain or pleasure and good or bad experiences for the doer of the act.

But as no theistic ground exists for morality in Buddhism (see Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis for a well-written explanation of moral grounds), the "moral quality" of an action or its intent is ascertained from its effect. Hence, karma as causality is concerned with the general relation between actions and their consequences (internal, as defined in Alan's post, especially—I'll return to this point with respect to external effects later in this post). He continues:

[W]hereas according to the law of universal causation the production of effects does not depend on the intentions of the agent (except as they are causally related to actions) but on his action, the karmic relation depends upon both.

No. An action (cause) will result in an effect upon the world-at-large. An intention (also a cause) will result in an internal effect on the person with the intention. It is still causality operating within the person himself. Continuing:

[A]ccording to the law of karma like causes produce like effects. Right actions produce good consequences, wrong actions produce bad consequences. However, it is not obvious that like producing like is a characteristic of all causation.

Good and bad are value judgements. Causation is complex, as is karma. In the Acintita Sutta, the Buddha says, "There are these four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about them. Which four? ... The precise working out of the results of karma is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it." Hence, the Buddha himself expressed that we cannot simplify karma to the degree of "this action will produce this particular result, in all cases." It is too complex to be analyzed in that simplistic fashion. He continues:

[T]he law of causation applies to two events or things that are temporally conjoined, whereas the law of karma states that the effects are manifested at some time in the distant future, either in the next life or in more temporally remote lives. Thus, the immediacy of the temporal relation found in the causal law is absent in the law of karma.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In the Lonaphala Sutta, for instance, the Buddha says, "There is the case where a trifling evil deed done by a certain individual takes him to hell. There is the case where the very same sort of trifling deed done by another individual is experienced in the here & now, and for the most part barely appears for a moment." Therefore, the law of karma does not specifically define the temporal relation between a cause and its effect. The effect may occur immediately, or it may occur in the far off future. In this particular sutra, the Buddha is speaking of the physical observability of an effect. Hence, an action's intent does weigh in on the person immediately, but the effect may be so minimal at that time that it does not result in an observable effect by another person until much later. Hence, there is temporal uncertainty. In pure causation, as well, the time relation may be close or far. If I punch a wall, the effect is immediate, on both the wall and myself. But as water temperatures change over the Pacific Ocean, that affects weather patterns that, a week or more later, finally reach the east coast of the United States. In pure causation, as well, time relation is uncertain. He continues:

[S]uch an emphasis on originating dispositions and intentions as determinative of moral quality implies that it matters little what we do. Consequently, with respect to our accumulation of karma it would mean we could do the most despicable acts, so long as our attitude and dispositions were correct.

Nope. There are two problems here. First, with the correct dispositions and attitudes, it is nearly impossible to act in a despicable fashion. More importantly, however, this exemplifies the major problem with the analysis herein presented by the author Alan quotes. The author is examining karma, in and of itself, isolated from the rest of Buddhist philosophy. I'll return to this point at the end, but for now, notice that if a person were capable of performing a despicable act with the most perfect of attitudes and dispositions, the effect on the "world-at-large" would be one of causing pain and suffering, which violates the other core principle of the Buddha's teachings, that of compassion for others. Truly, the Buddha defined the removal of suffering in the Four Noble Truths as his "measuring stick." Hence, to cause another undue pain is grossly flagrant of this teaching, regardless of karmic results. Alan's author continues:

According to the first, karma works through us, creating dispositions and tendencies, merit and demerit, which in turn affect our desires, passions, and perspective on the world.

In short, "merit and demerit" are descriptive terms to help form an understanding of the effect of actions. Buddhist karma is NOT a bank account into which meritorious and demeritorious deeds accumulate in the credit and debit columns.

According to the second, our karmic acts affect the instruments of our experiences, from our own bodies to the world around us. They help determine, among other things, the kinds of bodies with which we are reborn, our social status, and how other persons and things in the environment act on us. These instruments mediate properly determined karma to us, so that one can say that we deserve what happens to us. Here the samskaric account by itself is inadequate.

First, the concept that we "deserve what happens to us" is true to a degree, but not completely. First, "deserve" implies judgment, which is absent from karma. But more importantly, accrued karma affects how I view the world, and affects my perception of the world. My karma does NOT cause a hurricane to come and destroy my house. That happens due to the causes of various weather patterns, water temperatures, etc. My karma does affect my automatic response to such a disaster. But since my karma does not cause such destructive environmental effects, the samskaric account IS adequate.

Alan wrote, in conclusion:

"True, and well said, but as I read it that still doesn’t fully include the objective, phala-producing aspect of the traditional doctrine of karma."

This is the problem inherent in attempting to philosophically dissect Buddhist karma separate from the complete Buddhist teachings. The Buddhist philosophical system functions as a whole and, when separated into component parts, is incomplete. The Buddha's Four Noble Truths focus completely on the ending of suffering. This is truly the central path of Buddhism. But to discuss the objection raised by Alan above, the Buddha's teachings on compassion reflect the Buddhist view of the phala-produced effects of our actions. We know that all beings experience pain, and we know that all non-Buddhas (just about all of us) experience suffering based on that pain. Hence, it is our prime job to avoid causing others pain because we know that they will then suffer. The karmic "demerit" arises from the effect on us, internally, from our intentions. The external phala-effect of our action violates the central tenet of Buddhism—that of removing suffering from all beings.

Thanks, Alan, for such a thought-provoking post!

Technorati Tags: Buddhism, karma, Milinda's Questions, sutra

Interfaith Blog Event #1: Karma

[Photo from Wikipedia]

Welcome to the first Interfaith Blog Event! In each installment of this series, which we're hoping to do on a monthly basis, we'll explore a single topic across three different religious traditions. I am, obviously, writing from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Jon, from Jesusfollowers Journal, will be writing from a Protestant Christian perspective, and Sojourner from A Pagan Sojourn, will be writing from a Pagan perspective.

The first topic we'll be discussing is the following:

How do you view karma, the thought that your actions in some way determine your experiences, in your spiritual path?

[Jon's Essay] [Sojourner's Essay]


Buddhism is about relationship: relationship to others, relationship to self, relationship to all sentient beings, and relationship to all insentient beings. Primary to Buddhism’s experience of relationship is what Thich Nhat Hanh terms interbeing—all of us, and by "us" I mean sentient as well as insentient beings, are interconnected. Nothing can exist without something else existing to comprise it. Thich Nhat Hanh writes,

If we look into this sheet of paper, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And we see the wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger's father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist. ... You cannot point out one thing that is not here—time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil. ... Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. [1]

Since everything inter-is, nothing exists in and of itself, independent of all else. Hence, everything exists based on prior causes and conditions. Interbeing forms the basis of Buddhist karma.

What is Buddhist karma? It is often summarized as "This is, because that is; this is not, because that is not." In the same way as all things come into being based on causes and conditions, all of our thoughts, actions, and feelings arise based on causes and conditions. In other words, if you're raised in a household in which your dad responds in open anger to many things, you are likely to develop the same trait. Or if you learn that feigned kindness gets you what you want, you'll repeat that behavior; and the more you repeat it, the more deeply a feigned kindness response will be embedded in your psyche. In psychological terms, you could say you learned this behavior through Skinner's operant conditioning. In Buddhist terms, you've accrued negative karma.

Karma does not imply predestination, however. Technically, Buddhist karma is nonlinear. Note, however, that by "nonlinear" I do not mean that future events affect the present in a circular fashion. Rather, present input—your current thoughts, behavior, and intentions—feed into, and thus combine with, past causes and conditions to affect the next moment. This present input makes karma nonlinear according to systems theory, as it (karma) is not based solely on past causes. The existence of the "present input" also eliminates predestination because we can affect, and even change, our next thought, action, or speech that our past would have made most likely.

In other words, in every moment, we will be predisposed to certain thoughts, actions, and speech. If we act according to this predisposition, we strengthen it (i.e. "greed begets greed"). But we also have the ability to be mindful of this process and act differently from our predisposition, or at least consciously choose to think or act or speak according to our predisposition. Hence, our present thoughts, speech, and behavior can work to support our karmic predisposition, or counteract it.

I should note here that the terms "positive" and "negative" karma have no absolute value. These can only be relative terms because with no godhead to decree right from wrong, no absolute basis exists from which to dogmatically define "good" versus "bad." The question that cries out to be answered is, therefore, how do we know which behaviors, thoughts, and speech will develop what we might call "good karma."

In short, the answer is observation and analysis. The Buddha observed for himself that certain thoughts, speech, and behaviors generally led to a decrease in suffering, both in himself and others, and to an increase in inner happiness. It was on the basis of these observations that he developed the precepts not to kill, not to steal, not to engage in sexual misconduct, not to use intoxicants, and not to lie. He did not intend for the precepts to be dogmatic rules to be followed unswervingly because, as previously noted, they contain no inherent value, good or bad, in and of themselves. Rather, he observed that when one kills, one's underlying mental state is such that one's suffering increases, in addition to the suffering clearly inflicted on the killed being. Related to this, he also observed that when killing became abhorrent to a person, that person's underlying mental state was one that reflected true inner happiness, peace, contentment, and love. Additionally, not only did this reduce the suffering of other beings (since they were not killed), it also increased others' happiness because of the manner in which our non-killing person now interacted with those beings around him, in his loving, peaceful state. Similar observations underlie the remaining precepts.

In a sense, the Buddha was an early proponent of the scientific method. He observed that all beings suffered. He developed the hypothesis that suffering could be ended and true, complete, inner happiness achieved. Then he began experimenting. He trained with many great teachers of his day, and though he found value in their Hindu thought, they did not confirm his hypothesis—they did not eradicate suffering completely, nor result in complete inner happiness. Just as importantly, they did not invalidate his hypothesis because he was successful in reducing his suffering and increasing his inner peace.

Finally, after 6 years of experimentation and testing, while meditating throughout the night under the Bodhi tree, he personally experienced the affirmation of his hypothesis. He obtained direct knowledge that suffering could be ended and true, complete, inner happiness achieved. And he directly determined the path that leads to this result.

The process of karma has been shown to exist by the great psychologists of our day. Freud showed us how our experiences in childhood directly affect our thoughts, actions, and speech in adulthood. Jung showed us how archetypes function in our unconscious to predispose us to certain responses. Skinner and Pavlov gave us the means by which we actually learn many of our responses via operant and classical conditioning, respectively. Even our everyday common sense tells us that a karmic process operates in our lives. How many times have you thought, "Oh, that runs in our family!" The Buddha, however, not only observed the functioning of karma in our lives, he also personally discovered that suffering is caused by karmic influences. Through experimentation and observation, he obtained direct knowledge that we could end our suffering and achieve total inner peace, love, happiness, and compassion. And he taught us the path so that we could achieve the same.

---

The Heart of Understanding. Thich Nhat Hanh. 1988.

Technorati Tags: Buddhism, interfaith blog event, karma, Thich Nhat Hanh

Buddhism and the Afterlife (Part 2 of 2)

[Photo by Steve Bailey]

Part 2:

This seemingly simple system of cause-effect is at the heart of Buddhist karma. Thoughts, actions, and speech have no inherent "goodness" or "badness." Rather, every action, every thought, everything you say, is the result (effect) of previous causes, including free will, and will act as a cause for a subsequent effect. For example, killing incurs "negative karma" not because of some inherent "evil" in killing, but because the effect of killing is to cause suffering to another—and to yourself due to the unskillful mental states that precede killing (e.g. anger, jealousy, hatred).

Applying this to rebirth, we are not reborn as a "higher" or "lower" being due to an inherent moral or immoral sum of acts in life. Instead, Buddhism teaches that our rebirth is an effect of causes—and that may not correspond to the apparent sum of one’s actions in this life! Hence, Mother Theresa may have been reborn in a hell realm, despite her wonderfully generous life, based upon the complex of causes in her past and "current" life. However, she would also be certain to experience the effects of her saintly life as well. When and how, exactly, is too complex to predict.

The same concept shows why Buddhist karma does not result in a ladder-like rebirth system. Taking the Mother Theresa example, in a ladder system, she would have been expected to probably have progressed to the next rung, although even there it is possible that she did not learn her particular lesson for this life, despite her compassionate action. Buddhism acknowledges and accepts that the interweaving matrix of causes has many effects still operating, even if repressed in the psyche. Hence, there is a chance that Mother Theresa may have been reborn in a less-than-pleasant realm, just as it is possible that she was reborn in a god realm.

This last point refutes misconception #4. Karmic effects can cause rebirth as a god in Buddhist cosmology. There is no overarching, greater God or Goddess in Buddhism. Rather, beings may experience rebirth in a wondrous heavenly realm as an effect of the causes of their thoughts, actions, and speech. It is said that, in a godly form, these beings do have some powers that we, as humans, normally do not. But Buddhism still views these gods, who were once people just like you and me, as afflicted. Eventually, the god-being will die and then causes and conditions will determine his/her next rebirth. In actuality, Buddhism views a human life as most desirable because the heavenly realms are too pleasant to give one a reason to work toward perfecting their development of skillful qualities like generosity, love, and compassion, while hell realms and animal rebirths often make it difficult to get the chance to practice—life is too difficult and distracting. How well could you practice generosity as a deer when predators are always about? Plus, your mental capacity is reduced, making it that much more difficult. Human rebirth is considered most advantageous because there is enough suffering to prompt the need for a spiritual path, enough happiness to continue motivating your practice, and the best opportunity to be exposed to teachings to guide you on the path.

All that being said, Buddhism is predominantly a pragmatic path. It is not about philosophizing about metaphysics or thinking intellectually over propositions and concepts. It is not even about being compassionate or loving or generous. It is about BEING compassion, BEING love, BEING generosity, in the here and now.

Technorati Tags: Buddhism, afterlife, karma, consciousness, atman, Hinduism

Buddhism and the Afterlife (Part 1 of 2)

[Photo by Mike, The Renaissance]

(Cross-posted to A Pagan Sojourn)

The Buddhist concept of rebirth and karma are oft-misunderstood here in the West. What are some common misconceptions?

1. People hear "rebirth" and think, "A soul that is me is reincarnated."
2. People think they can be reborn as a slug based on violating moral principles in this life.
3. People consider rebirth like a ladder—you learn a lesson in one life and move up a rung, or you don’t learn a lesson and you stay put or regress.
4. Within this framework, there may be an overarching godforce with which you are trying to become one, or that is of greater absolute status than you.

Each of these is an incorrect assumption about the Buddhist understanding of karma and rebirth.

During the Buddha’s lifetime, in the 4th century BCE, Indians predominantly practiced Hinduism. In Hindu thought, an atman, a soul, animates each person. The atman is an unchanging, permanent kernel of Brahman, the "concept of the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality that is the Divine Ground of all being in this universe." (wikipedia) Hence, Hindu practice centers around uniting one’s essence with all that is.

The Buddha refuted this principle by asserting the emptiness of all things. While that is a topic for another essay (or thousands of essays!), in short it does not mean that things don’t exist or that all things are illusions. Emptiness describes the condition that nothing exists as a permanent, unchanging, independent entity. The Buddha observed that all things are inter-dependent, i.e. we are not animated by unchanging, permanent "essence of Brahman," but rather are comprised of aggregates, all of which are also inter-dependent. Basically, nothing can exist in the world independent of other things. Everything in the world arises dependent on one or more other already-existing things.

Based on the principle of emptiness, there is no soul to reincarnate. But then what is reborn? I discuss it in detail in section 2.2.8 of my essay here. In essence, Buddhism views consciousness as a digital continuum. Each instant of consciousness is based on the previous instant of consciousness and one’s current mental state. For example, let’s say your sister tells you she’s getting married. Pretend you like the guy. :) That input, and her enthusiasm, will make your next instant of consciousness a joyful one. As you continue to talk to her about it, joy continues as a constant input from your interaction. This, combined with your previous instant of "joy consciousness," results in continued joy consciousness. Eventually, you two change the topic. The joy will then slowly dissipate as the previous instant of joy consciousness combines with a new input. Then that “reduced-joy consciousness” combines with whatever input your current mental state provides to form the next instant of consciousness.

In that same way, the final instant of consciousness of your life will act as one of the causes for another instant to be generated—in a new life! There is no soul to be transferred between bodies. There is simply cause-effect: one instant of consciousness acts as one cause of the subsequent instant, potentially modified by one’s current state.

Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow!

Technorati Tags: Buddhism, afterlife, karma, consciousness, atman, Hinduism