Crossing Nebraska

Back in my post entitled  Dependent Origination - Past Life and the Twelvefold Chain (Part 3 of 5) , I stated that “if you are inclined to think of ‘past life’ in terms of reincarnation [as opposed to previous moment of existence], you cannot find a more profoundly beautiful description of the process of its unfolding than in The Tibetan Book of the Dead .” My reason for considering it so beautiful is primarily related to my thinking that it is an incredibly just system in that “[the] process results in the individual actually choosing a subsequent birth that is perfectly tuned to the spiritual progress that they have yet to make – a birth that is commensurate with the nature of their attachment, aversion, and delusion.” In other words, there is no harsh and judging God and there is no eternal damnation. There is always an opportunity for redemption depending upon how we conduct ourselves in subsequent lives and what effort we put forth toward purifying our karma. T...

Okay, we can put it off no longer. It’s time to work our way through the twelve-fold chain of dependent origination link by link. This would seem to be a straightforward process, but as I stated in a comment following the previous post, as soon as you pull on one thread all of Buddhism follows! Immediately upon considering the first link, avijja , we can’t help but wonder: where do nescience, ignorance, and delusion come from? And just what is it that is deluded, anyway – an existing physical being, a soul about to be reborn? For the time being, please hold loosely in mind the possibility that the twelve-fold chain encompasses multiple cycles of physical birth and death. At the same time, though, please keep in mind the possibility that the twelve-fold chain acts within a single physical human lifetime multiple times as we continue “our” process of becoming. Regardless of the way you choose to think about what constitutes ‘past life’, the following list displays the common lines of d...

I have a confession to make. I’m really not all that much of a believer – not even when it comes to Buddhism. Oh, generally speaking, I probably still believe far more than I actually know. For instance, I believe that the sun is 93 million miles from the earth. Sure, I could do a little research and figure out how to check the veracity of such an allegation. For right now, though, I’m okay with just believing it – as long as it stays close enough to keep me warm without getting so close that it burns me up. Notwithstanding such instances of selective belief, I do try to live my life as unencumbered by it as possible; and that’s why over the course of my lifetime I’ve grown to embrace one of the major tenets of Dogen Zenji’s philosophy – namely, cultivation and verification. Zen practice for Dogen was less about belief than it was about cultivating practice and – through the actualization of practice – verifying truth. There was a time when I really tried to be a believer. I was c...