Responsibility and Ownership

[Dali]

Thank you so much for the explanations and the quote from Thich Nhat Hanh. I stay away from teachers who tend to ramble on. So glad for the clarification you provided.

Dali

SatToday

[Ugrok]

I think what Brad meant is that we, in what we think is our own small life, have the power to change the whole world : which means, being responsible as to the things we do in our own small world. Because in the end everything we can experience, litteraly the whole world, is our own world. Cleaning our room is already changing the whole world. In that, we have a great responsibility in the way we lead our own small lives, which are the same as the whole world.

I did not understand that he implied that we are responsible for the drunk driver who runs over us or other random events. Everyone is responsible for his own world and at the same time we all share our worlds. The drunk driver, in that example, is responsible for his life, which, because he made a mistake, collides with our life (and our poor body, ahaha) and results in a bad situation... But yeah, it gets tricky, because maybe the drunk driver is not responsible for all the causes and conditions that led him to drink...

Uggy, sat today

[Kaishin]

Once again this bookmark comes in handy

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?10165-BOOK-OF-EQUANIMITY-Case-15&p=86307&viewfull=1#post86307

-satToday

[Zenmei]

The universe can't even make toast without your hands.

A million bows to you, Jundo.

Gassho, dudley
#sat

[Jwroberts27]

Hi All, Thank you for the great discussion. At the risk of sounding to Intellectual, I hope I can offer a more Intuitive perspective. I think one thing that is being conflated are the notions of responsibility and ownership. I think the "logical inconsistency" comes in the assumption that whatever happens is/was our fault. What a guilt trip! I think this line of thinking gets caught up in trying to define too many abstract concepts (as I do below...) instead of offering a path towards action.

But if we think of being responsible as "response-able", that is, able to respond, then we have an ethical component of action in response to everything that happens to us. Being responsible doesn't mean that our sins are the cause of a great earthquake or tsunami, but means that in the face of a great earthquake or tsunami (or car wreck, or even something mundane as choosing between the standard or upgrade model, cream or no cream) invokes our responsibility to make the more ethical choice.

Seems to me that Karma is not concerned with good/bad binaries, but a series of response-able actions that become both causes and effects for further response-able actions. Ethics, which I feel is merely our own human-centered invention, is a way to respond to events ((un)favorable in our eyes) and try to influence compassionate outcomes. This compassion, I feel is meant mainly for the world of the "individual self", but nonetheless, resonates throughout the "universal self". We are not responsible for everything, but we must be able to respond. Seems to me that right action is the "individual self" making response-able decisions at the human scale, while understanding the karmic becomings of the "universal self".

Gassho,
John
sattoday

[Koushi]

Once again this bookmark comes in handy

http://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?10165-BOOK-OF-EQUANIMITY-Case-15&p=86307&viewfull=1#post86307

-satToday

Wonderful, the Butterly Sermon indeed

Edit:

Sat|Today

[Jakuden]

Wonderful, the Butterly Sermon indeed

Edit:

Sat|Today

Great! I bookmarked it too!
Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday

[Hoseki]

Hi All, Thank you for the great discussion. At the risk of sounding to Intellectual, I hope I can offer a more Intuitive perspective. I think one thing that is being conflated are the notions of responsibility and ownership. I think the "logical inconsistency" comes in the assumption that whatever happens is/was our fault. What a guilt trip! I think this line of thinking gets caught up in trying to define too many abstract concepts (as I do below...) instead of offering a path towards action.

But if we think of being responsible as "response-able", that is, able to respond, then we have an ethical component of action in response to everything that happens to us. Being responsible doesn't mean that our sins are the cause of a great earthquake or tsunami, but means that in the face of a great earthquake or tsunami (or car wreck, or even something mundane as choosing between the standard or upgrade model, cream or no cream) invokes our responsibility to make the more ethical choice.

Seems to me that Karma is not concerned with good/bad binaries, but a series of response-able actions that become both causes and effects for further response-able actions. Ethics, which I feel is merely our own human-centered invention, is a way to respond to events ((un)favorable in our eyes) and try to influence compassionate outcomes. This compassion, I feel is meant mainly for the world of the "individual self", but nonetheless, resonates throughout the "universal self". We are not responsible for everything, but we must be able to respond. Seems to me that right action is the "individual self" making response-able decisions at the human scale, while understanding the karmic becomings of the "universal self".

Gassho,
John
sattoday

I found this idea to be quite interesting.

Gassho
Sattoday
Adam