Thich Nhat Hanh pointed out that in every piece of paper is a cloud. I told this to my five year old niece the other day. And then explained to her that without clouds there would be no rain, and without the rain there would be no trees, and without the trees there would be no paper. She got it. “It still sounds strange though,” she replied. This is a revolution of thinking, of course it does.

Thich Nhat Hanh calls this Interbeing, some buddhists think this is an aspect of dependent co-arising, and I agree. In one sense we are who we are dependent on our parents, on the society we live in, on the people we mix with in our daily lives to be who we are. Moreover we participate in creating society around us, and the people around us who they are. In one breath we can say that we are responsible for everything being the way it is and also say “I am not my fault.” Neither and both.

Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, said that you can’t step in the same river twice because by the time you step in it again the river will have changed. It will be different water, different fish, different shapes on the river banks. Just as importantly it won’t even be the same you. You will have changed. The you which has co-dependently arisen will have been changed by your experiences. All that you can really say, and you can’t even say that, is that there is this massive flux. There is certainly no separate permanent you, at all, not even for a second. So don’t delude yourself.

Delusion is exactly what we do. Rather than seeing this massive flux, we particularise. We see discrete fixed objects, and we give them names. And to make things worse we make them good and bad. We cling to our objectifications like a limpet. We define ourselves in terms of our experiences, of our objectified senses, of our objectifying thoughts. As a result, we suffer. When we create good, we create bad.

Yet all the time there is this miraculous awareness. Aware of the passing thoughts, experiences, and just aware in itself. Why define ourselves at all? This awareness doesn’t need definition. Try it. Whatever you define it as, it’s not that. Some would argue that the gateway to this understanding is concentration, but held within a context of not identifying with the thoughts and experiences as they arise. Try it, but don’t become attached to it.

What can we say about it? Or in saying anything have we just objectified and created a new delusion?

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Sentient beings who sow the seeds of enlightenment
In the field of causation will reap the fruit of Buddhahood.
Inanimate objects void of Buddha-nature
Sow not and reap not.

Imagine for just a moment that we don’t die. How would that affect the way we live? It’s true that it can breed an incredible poverty inducing complacency. The belief that a person is born the way they are because of karma.

On the other hand it could give rise to an incredible sense of invulnerability. How would we live if we felt invulnerable that whatever happened? We might start making fearless choices, taking more risks.

Imgagine realising that you’ve had other senses of self that were completely different from the one you have now, that though some part of you have survived your ego hasn’t. How seriously would you take yourself then?

Reincarnation is an important doctrine in Buddhism, yet in our own personal experience it is, for most people anyway, unverified.

So why aren’t we aware of previous incarnations. Is it that we need to give each other a second chance, a fresh opportunity? Would the sense of guilt or shame as we look back be too overwhelming? Do we need to develop a profound level of compassion towards ourselves as well as towards others to be able to cope with the memories? Is compassion, like karma, a law of the universe?

If you’re interested there are some other interesting videos to watch in YouTube.

Then you look over your own life and see various patterns, karmic patterns perhaps. I suffered for twenty years from an obsessive compulsive disorder, triggered by an incredibly small incident. Was that karma? Are we rooting out more than the contents of a mind that has been conditioned in this life?

And then you do your best in a work situation, only to be caught in politics that have nothing to do with you. Yet on some level you feel this is of your own doing. Is that cogitations of an infantile mind believing itself to be more powerful than it is or a real insight into a karmic situation?

There is no doubt that we want to impose some kind of order onto what might otherwise seem to be a random life. Is the end of karma the beginning of the acceptance of randomness.

At the same time it does seem that we are beginning to anchor in a watchfulness, an ever present awareness. It is clear to me that dukka is caused by my own mind. I am awake to the extent that I realise this at least intellectually and awake enough to be doing something about it.

Is our faith that we can end the pain and suffering caused by our own minds? For the ever-present-awareness it strikes me that there is no death and certainly no physical nor mental pain.

But is there something else going on other than our own liberation? I think so and I think that it is the end of separation. A Tibetan once wrote that there is only one sin and that is the sin of separation. If that is true, and I tend to believe it is, then unity is surely the present goal. Surely that means dealing with not only our own karma but others’ karma as well because they are inextricably linked. Or perhaps that others’ karma is our karma. And that’s the root of compassion isn’t it. Don’t you think?

There is no doubt that there is group karma. If our greed, which has now cycled into global warming, continues to develop then we will have major global calamities on our hands. Group karma. Those of us who have modified our greed and our consumption patterns will be deeply involved in the consequences. I don’t believe for a second there will be some especial 144,000 secretly sequestered. We will suffer together.

And so we come back to the thought that we become enlightened not just for ourselves but for all beings. And the root of that enlightenment is compassion. Subhuti who was the other party in the Diamond Sutra, one of Zen’s foundation scriptures, before this enlightening discussion with buddha had developed his root in Metta – loving kindness.

Dhyana and Metta. It seems to be the only way through this cycle of karma that the world faces, that we the speaking monkeys have brought. Are we up to stopping this looming cycle of pain and suffering before it’s too late.