Tag: Buddhism

The Four Dharma Seals are suffering, impermanence, no-self and nirvana.

The second and third are the crucible of our lives. If we think of the self as real, fixed, permanent, then the unavoidable truth of impermanence will cause us to suffer. We are always one step closer to falling.

If we see the insubstantiality of the self, that is the liberation of all beings. Impermanence can then be seen as the dynamic functioning of interconnectedness, and we can live at peace with all sentient beings, undarkening the world by no longer throwing the dust of the self over it.

We have a choice. We either fall down or stand up. And, of course, we do both.

Question: If I do a good act, but with a conscious intention of doing good, does that negate the karma?

Answer: There are two dualistic assumptions buried in your question.

The first is that we can separate ourselves from ‘our’ experience, so there is an ‘I’ acting in ‘The World’. This is counter to our belief that practice is wholehearted action in the present moment, when our ordinary distinctions fall away, vivifying reality.

The second is that our actings take place in linear time, and that good or bad actings in the past have good or bad consequences in the future. But we say that the act and the consequence arise at the same time, the flower and the fruit occur at the same time, and this same time is all of time.

All Buddhist teachings, no matter how apparently esoteric, refer to our actual experience, particularly during zazen. If we cannot find them in our actual experience, then we cannot accept them.

The Second Noble Truth is that the origin of suffering is our attachment to desire, which is defined as greed, ignorance and hatred.

If we examine our actual experience during zazen, where is greed to adhere? Or ignorance? Or hatred? And if they have nowhere to adhere, surely this is the liberation of all things, all beings. Not at some imaginary future time, but this time.