Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness by Reynolds John Myrdhin

Author:Reynolds, John Myrdhin [Reynolds, John Myrdhin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Tibetan Buddhism
ISBN: 9781559397360
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
Published: 2010-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

4. The Law of Karma, the Human Condition, and Salvation

Nevertheless, we should take a look into what the Buddhist tradition actually says with respect to God. For his part, Evans-Wentz goes on to write:

This yogic treatise [the translation we have here] , like the Gospel of St. John, teaches that one needs only look within himself to find the Truth … the ancient teaching that the Universe is the product of thought, that Brahmā thinks the Universe and it will, when meditated upon, lead the meditant to the realization that the only reality is Mind, the One Mind, of which all the microcosmic minds throughout the Cosmos are illusory parts, that everything conceivable is, at root, idea and thought, and thus the offspring of Mind.… [As for] the Sangsāric being, the dream-product of the One Mind, its illusory reality is entirely relative; when the One Mind no longer sustains Creation, its Creation ceases to be.… In the True State of the One Mind, the pluralistic Universe has no existence.…29

As we have said already, the Buddhist view may be described as non-theistic. It does not assert that God, here called Brahmā, thinks or otherwise brings the universe into existence as its Creator, or that his thinking sustains its existence, or that, if he ceases to think (or dream or breathe, as the case may be), his creation, the universe, ceases to exist. On the contrary, according to the Buddhist teachings found in both the Sūtras and the Tantras, our universe is the aggregate result of the actions in their past lives of all the sentient beings who inhabit our universe. When the world appears in the same way to a group of sentient beings, such as the human race, for example, it is because all the members of that group share a common karmic vision (las snang), that is to say, a particular way of perceiving things determined by a karmic cause. To the first question found in the catechism, “Who made the world?,” the Buddhist teachings unhesitatingly reply, “It is karma that has made the world.”

What is the origin of our present condition? It has come about as the result of the actions which we have committed in our previous lives. This is known as the principle of karma (las), a Sanskrit word meaning literally “action”; but in this context it also implies the effects, results, or fruits (Skt. phala) of our actions (las rgyu ’bras-bu). It is said that their consequences follow our actions as inevitably as the shadow follows the body. The causes and consequences of karma are one of the principal themes for reflection and meditation during the preliminary practices for Vajrayāna Buddhism. This principle of karma is fundamental to the Buddhist view of life at all levels. What is called wrong view (Skt. mithyā-drishti) primarily means denying this teaching concerning karma. Indeed, the entire universe and all its diversity in terms of both physical environments and living beings is explained in terms of karma. According to the Abhidharmakośa,30 “All the diversity of the world is produced by karma.

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