[Buddha-l] karma or kamma

[Piya Tan]

Joy,

The European Enlightenment was evidently a great age, but I think most of us
in
urban Asia missed that. We started only with the Industrial Revolution and
have
become cog and wheels of a massive global system whose main nut is in the
USA.

On a more serious note:
In early Buddhist psychology, we can say that sa.nkhaara (formations) refers
to our
habit for filtering, reconstructng, and interpreting what we hear from
others. Indeed,
we do this to the "all" (sabba), that is, whatever is experienced through
our senses.

I read somewhere (including Eleanor Rosch of Berkeley) that many psychology
specialists today (esp those with Buddhist leanings) no more regard our
sense
experiences as being "representationalist" (like a camera obscura) but
rather "constructionalist" (like putting things together with our own mental
identikit). We
live in a virtual reality we have created.

I think the early stages of being a Buddhist saint is that these virtual
realities
coincide more and more with other like saints, and at arhathood, we see
other
arhats like two mirrors facing one another. Others apparently only see
through
coloured lenses darkly--or speak through the Darth Vader voice synthesiser
silly. (Which reminds me, mine needs a battery change.)

So Derrida & co were ahead of their times.

The other interesting Buddhist term is "mental proliferation" (papa~nca):
our
tendency to use a thousand words and thoughts, when one is bad enough.

Oh yes, I have just begun reading Cole's "Father as Text" (it came
serendipitiously,
with a double dust jacket!), and yes he tends to be a bit prolix. Also
curiously,
I notice he begins a sentence with "Too,..." at least twice (pages 5 & 50).
Too,
apparently, he is not aware of Joel Tatelman's "The Glorious Deeds of Purna:
A
translation and study of the Purnavadana" (2000) which is of the same genre:

Buddhist texts as literature. The book is not in his biblio.

Metta,

Piya Tan


On 10/21/07, Joy Vriens <jvriens at free.fr> wrote:
>
> Piya wrote:
>
>   >This is the well known debate as regards who defines the words we use:
> >the dictionary or the speaker.
>
> Montaigne said that words are defined for half by the one speaking and for
> half by the one hearing them. No rules will change that reality. Appealing
> to dictionaries, conventions or other expressions of authority is a
> different matter. They dont apply to what happens but to what ought to
> happen or is conventionally expected to happen.
>
> Joy
>
>
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