Cause Entails Effect: Be mindful in all you do!
There are some fundamental tenets. One is the universal
regime of cause
and effect. The second is the idea of interdependence of all
phenomena.
The third is in understanding that there is a certain
dependence in origination
itself, that is that which originates, changes, disappears
and disintegrates.
This idea is inbuilt in origination. The 4th is the
impermanence of conditioned
things and absence of inherent existence of the cognizer and
the cognized.
The fifth is the suffering that follows from mistaken
perceptions in the
permanence of reality. In our social as well as individual
lives, we have to
encounter suffering caused by false apprehensions of reality
and happiness.
Buddhism does not believe in mortifying the flesh; it does
not believe in ignoring
the demands of life, or the potential for expanding
knowledge about the universe;
it does not deny that knowledge can help to reduce suffering
or improve
conditions of living. It has therefore no distaste for
science or technology.
On the contrary, it believes that skillful use of science
and technology can
improve the quality of our lives. But since technology
involves the choice of
goals, nature of the goals, as well as the motivation that
prompts the choice
and pursuit of goals become very important. If they ignore
or violate any of
the beliefs that listed above, they are bound to increase
individual and social
suffering, and not welfare. Hence what we believe will
contribute to our pleasure
sometimes could turn out to be the cause of aggravated
suffering.
To the Buddhist, ethics and morality are not extraneous to
the realm of cause and
effect. They are not commandments of one who is the creator,
and who functions
above the realm of cause and effect. Nor have their
observance to be induced by
a system of reward and punishment.
The belief that actions take place in the realm of cause and
effect has turned
Buddhism away from the need to look for an external source
of authority or
reward and punishment administered by an external authority.
Actions have
their inescapable consequences as they are guided by the law
of cause & effect.
Thus my motivations and actions will have their effects on
me and the social and
even natural environment in which I live. I cannot overlook
this effect, and
therefore, the responsibility to see that my conduct to what
creates a conducive
effect on me as well as my social and natural environment.
Advances in science and technology are not based on an
analysis of motives,
or the impact and chain-reactions that these are likely to
cause on the psyche
and environment. The negative consequences of this absence
of mindfulness have
now been brought to our attention. What do we do?
Persist in the mindless pursuit of individual power and
material possessions,
unconcerned with its consequences -- in other words running
the risk of a
suicide of the species?
The answer lies within us, within our minds. To a believer
in Buddha Dharma it is
this mindfulness which is the basis on which to choose the
path that leads to
freedom and fulfillment. Among the most powerful enemies of
mindfulness are
desire, greed and the ego, the desire to promote one's ego
at the cost of others
or society or the environment. The answer that Buddha Dhamma
clearly gives is
mindfulness even to protect mindfulness itself, and the
ethics and morality that
mindfulness makes imperative in a world governed by cause
and effect.
by Lama Doboom Tulku, Times of India, Dec 21, 2011
Causes, good as bad,
inevitably spread as effects, like rings in water!
More on Causality:
Dependent_Causation
Caused by
What,
The_Proximate_Cause,
Proximate_Causes,
Bound_to_Be,
