KARMA, VIEW, SENSE, AND INTERDEPENDENT ARISING ........ 2


As humans we share a certain range of senses. The similarity of our sensing allows us to arrive at a consensus view. We use this to construct further consensus. Watching the same television shows, and news casts, listening to the same radio broadcasts, and reading the same newsprint, constructs and reinforces similar views. In this way it becomes easy for us to agree on various issues. Unless of course, as humans, we live somewhere else, listen to different radio, watch different TV, and read different newspapers, then of course we have different views. But they are partial views, all of them.

Partial view is in fact all we have, short of Buddhahood. Many Mahayana Buddhists speak of karmic view. Karma means simply activity. The activity shapes phenomena. You are involved in activity, shaping, at all times. You are continuously building view. The way in which we view our world is determined by our involvements, past and present. There are both an immediacy and a legacy to involvements.

As humans, we share a karmic view. Similar sensing gives us a similar view with other humans. That is we don't have the view of a school of tuna. As humans that read English we share a view, different from those whose only language is Urdu. Individuals in any group will have their own karmic view, similar to others yet distinctly their own. The point is we are both similar and different. The similarities allow us to relate to one another and the differences define the particulars of an individual.

One day while waiting in a mall for a store to open, I was struck by what I felt was a profound insight. As I viewed my fellow mall creatures, I was struck by what I perceived as a sort of species adaptation. The beings in the mall that morning appeared to me to be in various levels of suffering. The depth of their suffering was, for them, too horrendous to bear. It seemed that in self defence they had reduced their ability to fully sense the extent of their suffering. This shutting down of the senses was a coping mechanism. Less sensing, less pain; but, unfortunately, less sensing, less life; a restriction of view, fewer possibilities, to make the horrible tolerable. This is understandable, but in the long run very dangerous. Not only is experience reduced, so is safety. Senses alert us to our environment. Not everything in our environment is supportive of our existence. Quickly moving traffic, for example.

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