[Buddha-l] Re: on eating meat

[Hugo]

Hello Mike,

On 10/23/05, Mike Austin <mike at lamrim.org.uk> wrote:
> It is because these 'future lives' have some connect with "I" that it is
> important to consider them. What is the point of being concerned with an
> "I" that exists right now?

What is the "I"?

Does the "I" exist continuously at every single moment?

Are there times where the "I" doesn't manifest?


>  I could be the best I can now but, should it
> be unsustainable, for what purpose would I do that?  The "I" that is now
> is already gone. It is with an "eye" to the future that one improves the
> "I" now.  What is the purpose of being the best person one can be now if
> there is no time over which this 'best' can manifest - or even be deemed
> to be a 'best'?

If you try to be something, be either the best person, or the worse
person, dukkha will arise.

Why does something dies? because it was born, ergo when  "a good
person" is born, it will get sick, old and die, which is not a path to
the Deathless.


> It seems to me this is the critical balance for any practitioner: how to
> balance how one is at present with how one will be in the future - be it
> seconds, years or lives away. It is how one behaves now and how one will
> behave in the future.

If one keeps looking at the future, thinking "I need to do this or
that so in the future I will attain Nibbana", one will never reach
Nibbana because one is conceptualizing Nibbana, thus one is seeing a
concept, not reality.

I think it was Luang Po Atulo who was asked "Which defilement should I
get rid of first?", his reply: "the one that appears first".

Greetings,
--
Hugo