Cause & effect are inescapable

Do we know what causes one thing and not another?

It seems we are mostly uncertain and have many guesses about lots of things.

Yesterday while I was sitting, my dogs, Buck and Henry caught a squirrel. I heard the rush, the shuffle and the screams of a bystander squirrel. I saw Buck holding the squirrel in his mouth and screamed for him to drop it. He shook it. I got up as quickly as I could with a fractured bone and hobbled out to stop the attack. By the time I reached them the squirrel was crippled and bleeding and certain to die. We all are of this nature to die, it is the when and how that is uncertain. I was then able to get the dogs away from the squirrel long enough for it to die without more violence. It reached it paws many times in the air and struggled for breath. And then was still. This death was sudden and struck without warning.

By the time I realized what happened I also realized I couldn't put any weight on my foot. Later in the evening an x-ray showed a new fracture, longer and worse than the first. CAUSE AND EFFECT ARE INESCAPABLE. But what exactly is the cause? My hobbling out to stop Buck? Years of what? Genetics? I don't know.

The pose or posture of cause and effect is care. Just care. Care, no matter what. Care. It leaves everything else in the dust. Care, without a particular goal. Care, without anything added or subtracted. Evaluating the cause & effect is limited.

These four preliminaries are to help us be a true human being, unconditionally. We take the pose of the moment...life is fragile, death is sudden, cause and effect are inescapable...what is it looking like right now? My newly casted leg is up on the side of the desk as I write this on the computer. The phone rings and I turn to attend to it. The dog bumps my leg for a rub on his head. The door opens upstairs and I heare, "whaer are you?"

Death is Sudden, LIfe is Fragile, Liberation is Beneficial 

What is this attitude? 

Attitude

The word attitude originally comes from the Arts of Design. It means to strike a pose or posture. Strike a pose or posture suggests we practice the pose just so...so right...with little alterations here and there...subtle shifts and then hold it so a painting can be done or a photo taken or an "attitude" given...the Training the Mind practice is a practice of posture, of posing, of striking a pose just so...and the method is practicing with the slogans. The first four preliminaries set the foundation for the pose, for the work of art of every day living. My attitude, your attitude.

Here again are the four foundations to strike a pose...

1. Life is precious and especially so as a human being who is able to hear the dharma
2. Death is sudden and strikes with out warning
3. Cause and effect are insecapable
4. Suffering in the conditioned world is inescapable

So...what does that pose look like? What is your attitude? Practice with these preliminaries and strike a pose.

I consider the attiude to be "LUCKY!" What does that look like? Sound like? Taste like? Feel like? Smell like?

What is your attitude?

Intention and motivation

What is practice for you? Is it a way for you to gain more pleasure? More stuff? More praise? More good reputation? Is it to avoid pain, avoid shame, avoid a bad reputation, avoid shame, avoid obscurity? Look deeply into this? What is your practice about?

Comments on Plastic Mind

I have been thinking about plastic and how the deeper it is buried in a
landfill, where air and water and sun cannot get to it, the longer it
takes to break down. So too, my long buried hurtful thoughts and
actions and words cannot break down until they are revealed, accepted,
and cared about. Sometimes they work themselves to the surface and
there they are, waiting for my attention. Ugh, but great too.
Ansgar

Where to begin?

If you are new to this blog and want to follow along with the teachings, please click on this link and start there. Otherwise just wander around as you wish.

http://clearingmyvision.blogspot.com/2005/06/how-to-begin-training-mind.html

How Do We Remember to Include Plastic?

It is harder for me to see the plastic life, the made-up stuff that is hard, and an attempt to be permanent. Plastic almost is...permanent. How do I include the pastic lives? The plastic thoughts? The plastic feelings? Without like or dislike? How do I see through the attempts to make stuff into the artificial plastic...I do it. I get hard. I get too far to one side or another...hardening the mind into something that looks like permanent life. How do I include that? Just let it soften. See it for what it is....an attempt to grasp the world and make it into a shape I want.

Not plastic, not no plastic

It seems the very fragility of things make them valuable. Plastic is often considered durable but rather worthless...without much value. Yet, even plastic is included...even plastic is fragile. It burns, cracks, breaks, dulls...it too is perishable.

Life is fragile

Several years ago I studied the Japanese tea ceremony...which is a lifelong practice for some. It is precise, generous and mindful. It requires discipline. Freshness is required. Seeing every thing as fresh...as the hot water cooks over the heat, the tea bowl is cleaned and seasonal flower arrangements set as an offering...freshness that reminds me that life, all of it, is fragile. One of the definitions of the word fragile is perishable...every thing conditioned is perishable...This knowing is not a belief or a tenet but a reality...this body, mind, these words, this breath...perishable. What do I do with that sight? It helps me be care full...watch full...seeing the flowering of the conditioned. Fresh. As I contemplate this freshness I consider it like washing a used dish, or worn clothes, or an unswept floor...it requires washing and sweeping the delusions...the thoughts and wishes of permanence, self-centeredness...freshly swept, freshly washed, freshly cut flowers.

Flowering 

The Nature of Suffering

In order to clear my mind I need to be able to see the suffering that is there. What is this suffering? If I ask myself, "what is the nature of my suffering?" I begin to see clearer. I begin to see everything as either sticky with my shoving or pushing or freely as it is. It just is this way. Everything that happens happens to awaken the world. We keep wanting the world to be different; to be permanent, to be self-fulfilling, to be what we want. This desire is at the root of the suffering. What is the nature of suffering? What is the nature of what happens right now. My leg is in a cast, my back aches...everything falls apart. It's funny. There is nothing to hold onto...nothing to make life into something permanent. Money doesn't do it, war doesn't do it, stuff doesn't do it, love doesn't do it, food doesn't do it...my broken bone is a teacher. My aching back is a teacher. My body is not separate from the falling apart, from change, from deterioration. Nothing is. Life is precious. LIfe is fragile. Death is sudden and strikes without warning.