BTSO_A New Turning Point.pdf

Religion, 2022

In the preface to his new book, Rebirth: A Guide to Mind, Karma, and Cosmos in the Buddhist World, Roger Jackson notes that accepting that one's consciousness goes on to another life after this one is a 'stumbling block' for many modern practitioners of Buddhism (xiv). My own interest in reviewing Jackson's book comes from grappling with the claims of the Buddhist traditions around karma and rebirth, as the two are deeply intertwined. Considering Jackson's background as a scholar and practitioner, there may be no one around today better prepared to engage with these facets of the Buddhist traditions. However, Jackson is careful to warn that 'this small book will not resolve my, or anyone's, questions about the possibility of rebirthnor is it intended to' (xiv). Rather, the aim of the book is to survey more than two centuries of Buddhist thought on rebirth. Jackson achieves this aim over the fifteen chapters of his book. Each chapter is dense with information, and as such detailed summary of each one is outside the parameters of this review given the constraints. As a heuristic of sorts, I believe the chapters of Jackson's book can be divided into five parts, each containing varying numbers of chapters. Chapters one through three, the first part, provides an overview of rebirth from three different scales. In chapter one, 'Introduction: Rebirth in World Cultures,' Jackson surveys beliefs about rebirth found various cultures throughout time and space. Following the typology developed by Gananath Obeyesekere, Jackson contrasts 'rebirth eschatologies' from 'karmic eschatologies.' Whereas the former kind typically does not ethicize rebirth, the latter does ethicize rebirth negatively. Chapter two, 'Pre-Buddhist Indian Rebirth Theories,' zooms in from the broad, global view of the previous chapter toward the context of ancient India. We are introduced here to Vedic literature, particularly the Upanishads, as well as the views of the various sramanas mentioned in the Pali Samannaphala sutta. Upanishadic Vedism and the heterogenous assemblage of sramana across northern India set the stage for the appearance of the Buddha. Chapter three, 'The Buddha on Rebirth,' considers the Buddha's views on rebirth, drawing primarily from the Pali canon. Jackson emphasizes that for the Buddha rebirth was not just a doctrine he taught but was something he experienced first-hand; it laid the basis for his teachings and his narratives of past-lives serve to illustrate the workings of karma and realities of rebirth in the various realms of existence. Considering this, Jackson finds it hard to escape the conclusion that a rebirth cosmology undergirds the Buddha's teachings. He reviews arguments to the effect that the Buddha either did not emphasize rebirth or only believed in it as a sop to convention, yet ultimately dispatches with both. For Jackson, we have no 'principled reason' accept these arguments. (47) Chapters four through six, the second part, concern the where, how, and why of rebirth. Chapter four, 'Where Rebirth Happens,' Jackson plays the part of Virgil, and guides his reader through various realms of possible rebirth. He begins with the hells and ascends up through the animal, hungry ghost, asura, human, and heavenly realms, considering the complicated place of human female rebirth along the way. Chapter five, 'How Rebirth Happens,' considers the process of rebirth, from one life to another. Here, Jackson's focus is the concept RELIGION

2005

EWCOMERS to Buddhism are usually impressed by the clarity, directness, and earthy practicality of the Dhamma as embodied in such basic teachings as the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, and the threefold training. These teachings, as clear as day-light, are accessible to any serious seeker looking for a way beyond suffering. When, however, these seekers encounter the doctrine of rebirth, they often balk, convinced it just doesn’t make sense. At this point, they suspect that the teaching has swerved off course, tumbling from the grand highway of reason into wistfulness and speculation. Even modernist interpreters of Buddhism seem to have trouble taking the rebirth teaching seriously. Some dismiss it as just a piece of cultural baggage, “ancient Indian metaphysics,” that the Buddha retained in deference to the world view of his age. Others interpret it as a metaphor for the change of mental states, with the realms of rebirth seen as symbols for psychological archetypes. A f...

https://www.istb.univie.ac.at/cgi-bin/wstb/wstb.cgi?ID=99&show_description=1, 2019

See previous volume.

Jain Digest, 2023

Every person in this world wants to be happy and this longing for happiness creates desires. It is also true that in every person’s life, a time will come when they realize that there is a cyclical pattern to the experiences of this desire. A desire which they hoped would give them happiness, is bound to make them unhappy at some point. Similarly, an unfulfilled desire will seem like a blessing after years. It leads us to these questions: Is this it? Is this all there is to life? What is real happiness? Where is bliss? This question is often the starting point of the spiritual journey and understanding of the theory of karma. The law of karma or the law of cause and effect says that every volitional thought, word, or action will bring out a similar result. We introduce the teachings of a revered Jain monk, Munishri Kshamasagar Ji, and how one can use this teachings to build a peaceful life ahead.

The concept of karma has been discussed from a seat of higher consciousness that is above the mundane stance presented within the matrix of 3-D Earth. It is explicated that the originally intended organic hologram of 3-D Earth has been manipulated and controlled by a horde of soul-less synthetic beings who happen to have their headquarters residing in the lowest plane of the 4th dimension (the Astral Plane) that epitomizes manifesting as the artificial satellite orbing Earth that we refer to as the moon. Accordingly, the resulting ‘blended’ program (organic consciousness contaminated with artificial intelligence or AI) is simply referred to as the ‘matrix.’ It is further elucidated that the true meaning of karma is quite distinct from what is programmed in the ‘matrix,’ which is synonymous with a debt that purportedly needs to be settled upon physical death via reincarnating back into the matrix. This, in fact, describes the basis for the negative aliens’ soul recycling program through their Astral Plane. It is elucidated that karma is a natural consequence of ‘life’ as a result of vibration about an equilibrium position that is free of karma. This state commonly referred to as the Zero-Point Field, represents the condition that has a predisposition for expanded consciousness. Accordingly, the phenomenon of karma has been illustrated through a soul representing the bookkeeping agent for the quanta of energy of our consciousness that is being modelled as a linear elastic helical spring that deflects from this static equilibrium position through a torsional vibrational motion, thus storing and recording the energetic experiential sojourns of the soul, while being attached to the SOURCE, defining a form of an umbilical cord attachment to the SOURCE. It is said that ‘resistance to karma’ can be expressed as the spring constant known as ‘stiffness,’ which is defined as a karmic resistance force per unit deflection from the SOURCE. Since resistance to karma is tantamount with the phenomenon of consciousness expansion, the spring constant (stiffness) is termed as the ‘coefficient for consciousness expansibility’ by the author in previous publications. It is clarified that 3-D life sojourns are intended to be a linear phenomenon that mandates that the deflection of the soul from the SOURCE must be an ‘infinitesimal’ occurrence, which excludes multiple or consistent accumulation of karma within the soul. Otherwise, accumulation of persistent karmas will give rise to ‘finite’ deflection from SOURCE that may challenge the linear integrity of the soul to effectively withstand the inertial potency of the soul. Under such circumstances, the elastic karmic energy stored within the soul may not be recoverable, giving rise to non-linear damage and eventual destruction of the soul. This is the situation that the bible refers to as the “falling of an angel,” which describes a condition that the soul, being completely detached from the SOURCE, is no longer able to sustain itself via benefiting from the divine energies that flow and serve to set the soul in inertia (vibration) in the first place. This depicts death and destruction of the soul, unless it resorts to parasitic act of feeding upon other divine beings. It is clarified that this, indeed, is the status quo on this Omni Earth, being run or controlled by such soul-less vampiric beings. It is concluded that although it has been most educational to repeatedly reincarnate on this Omni Earth, the time has now come to graduate from this prison that has also been referred to as the “school of hard knocks” by exiting the matrix and remembering to never reincarnate here again upon physical “death.” Finally, it is conjectured that the allowance of Omni Earth to continue under such dreadful environment of bondage could have probably been ‘purposeful’ because it has provided such a rigorous curriculum for training masters adept in the art of consciousness like no other. However, due to the negative aliens’ extensive interference in our consciousness leading to reversal of our consciousness, negating its expansion through imposition of AI machinery whose purpose is to siphon our precious energies, it has yielded that we have been plagued with mind control programming indulging in self-destructive conducts whose outcome has been being afflicted with negative karma, leading to entropic energetic expenditure, culminating in diminishing our frequency-Light quotients.

This work builds on the work of both esoteric and post-structural philosophers, presenting a jargon-free vision of metaphysical foundations for the post-foundational age. A detailed exploration of the logic of relations is used to re-envision spiritual traditions in a way true to the creative spirit of this age. It does not, however, merely rehash perennial philosophy or the cliches of non-dualism. It critically builds on tradition to pave a way forward, making possible a re-birth of esoteric science along more context-sensitive lines, making possible a more nuanced and self-aware approach to science, both mainstream and esoteric sciences like astrology—and all kinds of knowledge—as modes of creative becoming up to the task of divining and playing on the great open system of time.

Journal of Buddhist Ethics, Vol.21, 2014

Early Buddhist karma is an impersonal moral force that impartially and inevitably causes the consequences of actions to be visited upon the actor, especially determining their afterlife destination. The story of King Ajātasattu in the Pāli Samaññaphala Sutta, where not even the Buddha can intervene to save him, epitomizes the criterion of inescapability. Zoroastrian ethical thought runs along similar lines and may have influenced the early development of Buddhism. However, in the Mahāyāna version of the Samaññaphala Sutta, the simple act of meeting the Buddha reduces or eliminates the consequences of the King’s patricide. In other Mahāyāna texts, the results of actions are routinely avoidable through the performance of religious practices. Ultimately, Buddhists seem to abandon the idea of the inescapability of the results of actions.

Karma has not fared well in the course of Buddhism's transmission into the West. Or, perhaps more accurately stated, the concept of karma has not fared well in the translation of Buddhism into the social and cultural idioms of the late modern and early postmodern worlds. If anything, the fortunes of karma have fallen considerably even as general scholarly and public interests in Buddhist teachings have waxed steadily, and in some ways quite remarkably, over the past fifty years. Compared to other core Buddhist teachings and concepts like interdependence, impermanence, no-self, emptiness, and the need to alloy wisdom and compassion-all of which have found valid places within the dominant idioms of contemporary life-karma has been pressed by circumstance and by contemporary "common sense" to the margins of the Middle Way. 1 According to the canonical account of the Buddha's awakening, his realization of the Middle Way occurred with insight into the process of co-depe...