action at the moment: the core of Buddhist teachings (Part 1)
(From the book: " encounter with the True Dragon ", released in late November 2008 in the DONA-Verlag)
Discussion in the previous chapter, the important question of action and human freedom has touched. Gautama Buddha taught us to respect the pledges. He taught us to act rightly and to do anything wrong. Such Lesson seems to presuppose the freedom of people to act, because if we are able to do right things, we must be free and we can decide. But Gautama Buddha taught us the law of cause and effect.
He taught us to see how the things of the world actually come about and how they are related. Nothing comes without cause and in isolation from other contexts. All things are connected and interdependent. Our life and the universe itself are generated by an enormous number of chains of causes and effects. Where there is such chains, expand and overlap creates an interconnected network of causal relationships, a network in which the universe itself is involved. As there can be networked in such a universe the freedom to choose and do the right thing?
This is philosophically a big problem. We have a deep feeling that we must be free, but if we look at the events of our lives and see the world around us, we will have to doubt it. Can it be that this freedom is an illusion? In the Western world is the problem of human freedom, in fact, the center of philosophical questions, controversies and discussions. For almost three thousand years the great philosophers wrestle with the conflict between free will and determinism.
Religious Guides and idealistic thinkers are usually the fact that we are essentially free. They see us as masters of our own destiny. How we choose and how we decide is the defining element of our lives. So we can choose between good and bad, right and wrong, between spiritual awakening or material desolation. The body may be subject to certain physical laws, but the spirit is free for ever. It must be, in any case, they believe.
materialist philosophers say exactly the opposite, namely, that the idea of human freedom wishful thinking and illusion. We are therefore not truly free. Our actions, our lives and even our thoughts be determined by our genes, our family, our education and our society, etc. The course of human history, according to them is only the development of the law of cause and effect, freedom is only a beautiful illusion.
The philosophers have these two schools of thought developed in each impressive and grand theories to support their view. They urge us to take sides, so that we can see the "truth . But many of us prefer not to define it because we feel that such a choice is ranging between the extremes of too dogmatic and too far. If we take the teaching of the idealistic philosopher suppose we'll have to question the explanations of natural science and the reliability of our own senses.
If we want, but on the side of the materialist philosophy and believe that the law of cause and effect is always valid, we may have to deny human freedom and the possibility of morally right action. It is indeed a difficult choice. We would like to find a compromise, a way out of the dilemma, but there is indeed no immediate way out. We need to see this fact, too. It is a fact that we can not really believe in freedom and at the same time the law of cause and effect because they contradictory and incompatible.
Some philosophers have dealt with a truth that is inconsistent across the choice and the contradictory belief in freedom or causation is. By using the logical conclusion of the dialectic, they have tried to replicate this dialectical principle of the interplay between conflicting opinions in the field of thought to the field of development of the whole world. You tried with varying success, to find an alternative to the dogmatic positions of the dualistic thinking of idealism and materialism. By
have used alternative views and approaches hoped them to come from the realm of irreconcilable differences to a more mobile and less fixed conception of reality: A one-tier approach in which the separate world of subject and object in a view of the whole is brought together to share a vision of perfection and unity.
Unfortunately, such a view is only a vision, a kind of image. Dialectical thinking is just that: a form of thinking. It is limited to the field of mind and thought. In the area of the mind but it is quite impossible to escape the dualistic world really. While the dialectic is an excellent method of logic, were the philosophers who used it, hardly in a position to which the method inherent to cross borders and avoid the associated errors.
The great philosopher Hegel used the dialectic to summarize more than a thousand years of the idealism of Western thought. He developed a model of humanity and the universe, which saw the mind as the fundamental reality of all things and called it the world spirit. On the other hand, philosophers such as Marx were based on the dialectical logic, but rejected the idea of the mind as the basis of the universe from. They argued that all things are caused solely by matter and energy and have developed in their present form by the irreducible action of the law of causation.
In this way, the controversy continued and the arguments were always more subtle and complicated, but the basic conflict remained unfortunately. No philosopher had found a dialectical method to overcome the separation of mind and body. There are with us still great confusion about these basic questions of life. The solution of the fundamental philosophical problems such as the antithesis of freedom and determinism, we are still not yet come closer.
If the great philosophers were not able to solve this problem, the question arises whether we may hope to come even further and to find the truth. In fact, I believe the truth to us all through the teachings of Gautama Buddha is accessible. He lived in a simpler time. The philosophical thinking was not developed so far and refined, but the problems faced by the people faced were not fundamentally different from those facing us today. He was an honest man who tried the conflicts that divided his heart and mind to solve. He was fully aware of the problem of freedom. He searched for many years after full freedom, which at that time was promoted by various religious thinkers, but it eluded him again and again. He could not escape, for example, the effects of past actions and he could not get the impact of the real facts in his Ignore life.
why was the central problem of Western philosophical history and the central problem in the life of Gautama Buddha. Was the spirit of asking people and looking for compliance can be the highest power in the universe, or were the people for ever by the physical laws of cause and effect established? Gautama Buddha fought a long time with this problem. His efforts to resolve this inner conflict of life led him away from the purely philosophical discussion to a materialistic experimentation phase and pure enjoyment.
Finally he found a life of simple actions, a life of work and a life of simple Actions. In such a life he discovered the solution of the problem that plagues us in the modern world still. The solution to the problem of freedom developed by Gautama Buddha directly from his own experience. His teaching was so simple and direct, but also very grounded. If we understand how the conflict between freedom of Gautama Buddha on the one hand and determination by cause and effect on the other hand, resolved, we are the core of Buddhist teaching can understand itself.
What about now bringing his solution? As I have already said, Buddha was an honest, sincere man. He was very attentive to what he can do in his life and what it should. He thought a lot about moral issues inside and discovered that the time was an important factor. When reflecting on past actions, he realized that some actions were wrong. He regretted the mistakes he had committed, but also realized that this does not regret the situation really changed. He was entitled to that prior act was not irreversible. He could never return to the past in order to avoid the previous mistakes. This was very depressing for him. drew
as Gautama Buddha his attention to the future, he became aware of another feeling. The ability to act correctly in the future seemed realistic. But he began such a hopeful to distrust feelings and found out that they were based mostly on dreams and illusions. He had many hopes and plans, but he recognized that such dreams in the future could hardly be fully realized, because the future was even an idea, a thought. It was something that existed only in his mind and had no reality and substance. You can never really live in the future.
Finally recognized Gautama Buddha that at one time, only the present moment and real. He could think about what had happened in his life that stretched from the past to the future, or would happen, but he could only live in the moment and really act. This was not only for himself properly, but for all people. In fact, everything in the universe exists only in the present moment. Therefore examined Buddha to the present moment. He studied the real-time, the time of actual existence. He studied real life, how was it moment by moment reality. He realized that thinking and feeling it most of the reality at the present moment led him away. In fact, it could only happen right in the moment of action that are broken down by past and future and the glory of being was there.
In a state of clarity, it was the time and the moment to know or to put it another way, the existence, as it really is. What he learned was now, now, now. Every moment was unique and complete and, if you like, perfect. Every moment was for the greatness and dignity in an independent, clearly separated from the past and clearly separated from the future. But a moment might never be fully captured by the mind, for he was too short and too volatile. He was just a flash, a momentary flash of something. This momentary flash was indeed all it was his life and it was the reality. It was the universe itself
This Buddha discovered that the Universe in which we live is really only at the moment and can be directly experienced. This discovery gave him a new perspective and new thinking about life and the philosophical problems he had in the past so much worried. He developed a doctrine which we may call the philosophy of the momentary universe. According to this doctrine is the time like a flash of light. When the light flashes, we appear and appear at the same time the universe. When the light goes out, we disappear and the universe as well. Our life is a long chain of such flashes of moments: a continuous appearance and disappearance of life, the universe and of ourselves
Such a doctrine is radically different from our conventional notion of time. We usually set the time before a clear line that runs from the distant past to the future. But such understanding is only a construct of the mind, an interpretation that is based on the memories and visions of the future. Such a rational interpretation focuses on the past and the future, but mostly neglect the present moment because this moment is here and now beyond our reflection and because, with the spirit and the mind can not be detected. The mind works with what he can, he travels from the past to the future and draws our attention again on the present time, although this is the reality. In fact, we live most of our lives in the spiritual world of our dreams and memories.
By staying mentally once in the past, and another time in the future, we will be dragged and in a world of ever-changing perceptions, memories and viewpoints in a world of confusion and contradictions. Philosophical doubt is to live an inevitable part of this type. We seek the truth in the patterns of past relationships of cause and effect, or dream of freedom and happiness in future days. We wonder what actually the world of our memories and the world of our dreams, the world of immutable facts or the world of unlimited possibilities real.
Gautama Buddha lived many years in this confused world of confusion. He had his own dreams and memories, his own painful doubts and philosophical questions. His life was built on similar ideas and assumptions such as ours, and he made strenuous efforts to resolve the conflicts that were caused by such ideas in his life. From a certain point on, however, he began to relax and live a simple manner. He discovered to practice the fulfillment, and through this exercise, practice zazen it reached a natural balance and a wonderful balance in clarity and peace. In this state of natural balance, he had the experience of time, as it really is. He took the real nature of time and understood them, and through this understanding, he overcame his earlier ideas and theories about his life and the universe.
He realized that in reality there is no real contradiction between freedom and the law of cause and effect. At the moment, in the present, he was free: free to choose his path, free to act or not to act. But the moment itself was not by any magic. He could only be the result a long chain of moments appear, which comes in its existence, one after the other, in the past. Thus, the past had created the opportunities that are included in the current situation and the moment here and now with the weight of the past and is influenced by it. As Gautama Buddha was thinking about the relationship between the present moment and the past, he was always the law of cause and effect are, but in real life here and now he was free at the moment. So he had the power to live according to his own intuitive decisions. His life was in this way but bound to the past, but at the same time free.
This was the solution that was Gautama Buddha for the contradiction between freedom and predetermination by cause and effect. At this moment we are both free and bound. It seems like a strange contradiction, a paradox, but it is the reality of our lives. Each of us makes such experiences in his life.
The Buddhist concept of time and the universe that exists only in the present moment is part of the broader doctrine of Buddhism on the action. Gautama Buddha said that life is essentially out of action in the here and now is. The life and action are therefore determined by two variables: time and space. "Here" is the determination of the place. "Now is the determination of the time. Our real life can not exist outside of the specific place and specific time. In other words, the situation is here and now our real life. Of these two parameters determining the time is harder to understand than the city and for this reason, the doctrine of a universe that continually arises in the moment, so important.
Master Dogen saw this theory as the foundation of Buddhism in general. In his writings he illustrated the doctrine of awkward angles and points of view and illuminated so all significant problems. It often seems as if it is a subjective and objective interpretation of the Reality rejects to a transcendent realism to make room. Such realism sees all things as they are right now here and now. Sometimes the theory is only implied, but often Master Dogen speaks directly from the moment of life and the universe. Such a passage is given in the chapter of the Shobogenzo entitled " The revival of the Bodhi-mind "
"In general, based the awakening of the mind and the attainment of truth on the instantaneous growth and decay of all things. If (all things) are not created instantly, and would pass again, could the injustice in the previous moment committed, was not going away. If the wrong that was committed in the previous moment had not yet gone away, the rights could not be realized at the moment. Only the Tathagata knows very clearly the duration of this moment. (They say) that the mind can create a spoken word at a time and that the language can express a written word at a time. This doctrine is also only the Tathagata, it is beyond the ability of other saints. Around the time when a man can even snap his fingers, there are sixty-five ksanas (moments), (in which each) of the five components of the human (skandas) comes and goes, but no ordinary This man has ever seen or knows it. Even ordinary people knew the length of time one hundred and twenty ksanas (moments). In the course of a day and night there are 6,500,990,980 ksanas (moments). formed (in all of them) and pass the five components of the human (skandas), but normal people do not exercise and do not know this. Because they do not perceive or know they do not give the Bodhi-mind. Who the Buddha-dharma does not know and does not believe in the Buddha Dharma believes not in the principle of momentary arising and passing away of all things and phenomena. Who the treasury of the true Dharma eye of the Tathagata and the wonderful spirit of Nirvana has been resolved, believes in the truth of the inevitable momentary arising and passing away of all things and phenomena. If we encounter the doctrine of the Tathagata now, we feel like we have not clearly understood, but we are aware only of the (long) periods of tatksana (one hundred and twenty moments) or longer periods and we only believe that the principle of true was.
Our inability to resolve all the dharmas of the world honored and our inability to know all the Dharma to the world Dear has taught is the same as our failure, the length of a ksanas (moment) to know: Students should never be proud of neglect. We are not only ignorant of the extremely small, we are extremely ignorant about the Great. Even ordinary beings see the three thousand times the world if we build on the strength of the truth of the Tathagata. In summary, it can be said: If we assume the existence of living in the center of existence and the average in the next living existence, all things move in a continuous chain, Ksana (moment) to Ksana (moment). How it ahead of the cycle of life and death, without stopping a moment, drawn independently of our intentions and desires and from the previous action in life.
with the body-mind that by this way the cycle of life and death is swept, we should immediately give the Bodhi-mind. The Bodhi mind is the desire to free others before we attain self-liberation. Even if we are on the way to give the Bodhi-mind, (but) give our body-mind is reluctant to be born will be old, sick and dies, in the end it is not our own possession "
. The words of Master Dogen seem rather harsh and uncompromising, but in fact his message is very compassionate. He shows us our real life situation. He urges us to wake up and see things as they really are. It is of course not easy, the habitual nature of our thoughts aside To check and it is not easy to overcome the usual notion of time, but the truth has a great power. If we use the power of the teachings of Gautama Buddha, the way we can, as we see the world change and we can also begin to turn our lives for the better really.
We live in the moment of the present. This is really a very simple doctrine. It is at first view but not so easy to see why such a simple theory that changed our lives. If we examine this statement, however, more closely, we will find it difficult to get many previous assumptions and beliefs about our lives straight. The present moment is Our lives, our reality. There
The past and the future only in our brain, they are memories or hopes, fantasies and fears, but not a reality. The present moment is all. At this moment we can live and act as we can. If we act, there is no difference between body and mind. If we act, are the acting subject, the object and the external world a unit. These are the essential content of the teaching of Gautama Buddha. If we begin to see these key points of doctrine in our lives as well, we certainly need to change our previous view.
mind and body, mind and Matter, free will and determinism - they are all dualities, the only spring from our thoughts. At the present moment there can be no such dualities. There is only this place, this time, this act, this life, this existence and this universe, now, now, we jetzt.Wenn apply this doctrine in practice, we can I believe that the conflicts of our great cultures solve much better. If we use this theory, we can find the unity of body and spirit, mind and matter. If we use this theory, we can find a new way to overcome the contradictions between idealism and materialism, and both together. If we teaching to make this a natural part of our daily life, we can powerfully and yet live in peace in the knowledge that our lives are both free and determined. We can start a new life, a new life in a new universe.
