[Buddha-l] Re: on eating meat

[Mike Austin]

In message 
<7964f6db0510250816v429bff1dg31609267be73b677 at mail.gmail.com>, Hugo 
<eklektik at gmail.com> writes
>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?

Hi Hugo,

Of course, every Buddhist practitioner reflects on such things.  And yet 
we live from day to day. We do our shopping for the evening meal because 
we expect to be around to eat. That is the way it is for us because that 
is the way we currently see things.  We have to start from where we are, 
with the views and experiences we have, and gradually change it around.


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

If you do nothing to stop dukkha, dukkha will arise. Our habits are more 
often the cause of dukkha than of happiness. They need to be changed.


>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.

Birth, sickness, old age, death, can be accompanied by different levels 
of dukkha according to the mental state of the individual.


>> 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.

Quite. That is why I said it is a critical balance. Sitting on one's bum 
'in the moment' without purpose or effort, one would never reach Nirvana 
either.  And one sees concepts of the present just as easily as one sees 
concepts of the future.


>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".

That is because it is the strongest one - at that moment.

-- 
Metta
Mike Austin