Best motivation for actions and non-actions?

The Watercooler
42

Try always to be personal, not alienate, i feel is greatest motivation.

People might have bad/low associations with being personal. Like being personal is the same as being hysterical, drama, emotional, impulse, partial, biased, ego-minded. But it is exactly the opposite!

When people/mind are/is becoming impersonal then they become cold, distant, emotional, partial, biased, small minded and create drama. Ego is an expression of becoming impersonal. Loosing the natural sensitivity which is typical for being personal, open-minded.

Buddha was utlimately personal because he had removed all what tends to alienation, depersonsalisation, becoming distant, cold-hearted, low. Which is what grasping means in a psychological sense. Grasping makes us rigid, small-minded, distant, biased, alienated, insensitive and impersonal.

When all these inner drifts, anusaya, asava, all that blind instinctive will that gives rise to depersonalisation, is gone, one remains in ones own terrority, sensitive, connected, personal. The one is a jewel.

One can just know and see that all that greed, violence, hate, conceit is all related to the same failure…alienation from oneself, others, situations. Abandoning ones own territory is what happens and what causes misery. That is is the spirit of the sutta’s.

We can all feel, see, acknowledge that becoming distant, cold, agressive, conceited is not our own terrority.

Not even mine :innocent:

43

Interesting. I was under the impression that you did not believe the doctrine of rebirth.

Not to eliminate the sense of self, but to never have a conscious sense of self?

Does motivation matter when undertaking these precepts during the training and before “self-submersion?”

Do you hold that an arahant is incapable of lying then? Sounds like you think it does not matter if an enlightened one lies, cheats, kills as long as it is done with no cetanā; no conscious motivation?

Venerable @NgXinZhao, you agree with this?

:pray:

44

I dunno what this means, but I just like that he is speaking in accordance to the dhamma despite his personal belief.

This is talking about morality is the foundation for absorption Jhāna where 5 physical senses shut down.

Impossible for arahants to do evil. Evil is done via intention. There’s a dhammapada story about a blind arahant monk stepping on ants while doing walking meditation. Buddha declared he did not kill because there’s no knowledge and thus no intention of the ants being killed.

Clearly separate intention and motivation.

Intention is kamma. Motivation to do bad kamma can be from a good place, but often times doesn’t count in the precept breaking factor. Eg. mercy killing of mortally wounded animals out of “compassion” is still killing. Motivation is misguided, foolish compassion, but intention is still to kill.

Same as white lie, it is still a lie.

I see you have distorted view of these two terms, just know that in general, in the context of no self, we do imply this definition when any notion of self is involved.

This impersonal is not true not self realization. It’s just trying to simulate it by force but cannot. This is not what we mean by try to see not self. No self can be seen only by wisdom, which needs a mind cultivated by meditation to see clearly.

45

The view presented is one of categorical actions and non-actions that are always “bad” regardless the motivation. If you lie it is bad and it does not matter at all the motivation behind the act. You could choose not to lie based on a mistaken belief and desire that it will give you rewards and riches in the next life, right?

In your view, this is fine; it simply does not matter what the motivation is behind actions and non-actions. It could be motivated by desire, greed, attachment, hatred, whatever; as long as it is “good” action and not “bad” action, then you needn’t worry about motivation.

Let’s explore this from a different angle:

We agree that giving up and getting rid of desire and greed for these five grasping aggregates is the cessation of suffering, right?

How does your view of these categorical actions and non-actions accomplish that?

:pray:

46

See, AN1.314.

The point seems to be…behind whatever motivation, drive, intention, tendency, plan to do something, there is first a certain view or understanding of situations, or of ourselfves, others, the world. Our motivation is based upon that understanding. If this understanding is wrong, whatever intention, speech, deed …" they undertake in line with that view, their intentions, aims, wishes, and choices all lead to what is unlikable, undesirable, disagreeable, harmful, and suffering. Why is that? Because their view is bad.

Meaning, it is not our intention alone that create a certain future for ourselves and others but most of all the view behind it ! If our understanding is that sense pleasure is happiness, it is such a view that forms our world we live in. We now live in a world which is the result of this view. I do not think that our intentions were bad, but our view is wrong and has creates this world of sense-pleausure .
It is not really intention that shapes our world. View is.

My interpretation is: Buddha did not see conditioning as real change. Conditioning is how samsara works. Only freedom from conditioning is real change. This describes the difference between the mundane Path and Supra Mundane.

1 Like
47

One has to take it all into account. Doing good with evil motivation is mixed kamma, and same with doing evil with good motivation.

We are supposed to cultivate neither dark nor bright kamma, not just mix kamma.

Mix kamma is a low standard for those who otherwise don’t do good, just get them to do good first with impure motivations then gradually purify the motivation until aiming for nibbāna, then it becomes neither dark nor bright kamma.

48

Nothing wrong with my view. You think you become non-personal without ego notion. That is no true.
People have strange ideas.

You cannot change the nature of mind. In fact only suffering can get lost. Mind does not change from being personal into impersonal when it purifies. Madness. It remains the same and that is…sensitive, warm-hearted, pure, without boundaries.

Being a Buddha means being ultimatelt personal. All defilements make impersonal.

49

Thanks Venerable, but I’m afraid I’m no clearer on your answer to the questions.

It isn’t clear to me whether you believe that “not lying” when motivated by selfish desire, greed, hatred, is good or bad. Before it seemed to me you thought “not lying” was always a categorical good and the motivation did not matter. Now you seem to be saying it does matter??

:pray:

50

Buddha teaches, i believe, that selfishness is an sich not good or bad but selfishness is not yet pure.
But he does not insist that all our deeds are pure. That would be not realistic.

Selfishness is connected to passion.
Purity with dispassion.
Dispassion is unmade, uncreated, unconditioned.

51

Selfishness leads to suffering. :pray:

52

Yes, kamma is the realm of impurity, of passion, and even good kamma does not make an end to suffering. Also the vipaka of good kamma ends. Still Buddha says we must not fear good kamma .
I believe in Tibetan buddhism good kamma is compared to wood that keeps the fire of the wish to become enlightend burning, and the practice to become enlightend.

I see in mahayana the wish to go directly to this root of selfishness. Many teachings are about ego-attachment, or selfishness as the root of all problems. Adressing directly this selfishness. For example, in not focussing on ones own welbeing but that of others. Not oneself as the center of the world but others.
Christians go even further and put the Absolute Truth/God in the center of the world. Not even the other persons. God first, then the others, then myself. I like that most. I do not see God as being. I also believe Buddha had Truth in the center of his world. But i embody failure in view, as you know.

53

What counts is the intention. Wrong view (greed, hatred, illusion) is on the list of 10 unwholesome deeds.

Next question.

54

Look back to the context which I said this. In terms of precepts factor, some precepts does not take into account motivation.

Precepts is not the same as kamma. Keep that in mind. That’s why we have the letter of the rule and the spirit of the rule. But to purposely break precepts is bad kamma due to disrespect and it hinders the progression on the path.

Sorry for making it confusing to you, good that you keep on asking to clarify all these.

I think you mean mind is going to be good when purified. Because your definition of impersonal is not really… helpful.

Anyway, I also hope you don’t take that to mean that the true self is the mind and no amount of ego (self delusion) removing is going to change the fact that the true self is the mind.

That’s exactly the danger of using such terms as personal to describe the natural brahmavihara attitude of arahants. It can too easily make people think that it’s a true self. Also dangerous to have this notion of mind as unchanging sea. Really makes people identify with it like Brahman.

55

When adventitious defilements are removed from water, only the appearance of water has changed but not the water! Muddy water, water with colour, oil etc. People do not seem to understand this fact of life. Defiled water may have a different appearance but in essence it is the same as pure water. It is H2O. But purified… only H20! It is not that water changes.

The same with mind. Minds nature cannot be changed, but how it appears to us can change!
Defiled mind has the same essence of emptiness then an impure mind.

Like H20 does not become CH4 after purification but remains what is always was, H2O, minds essence does not change at all due to the proces of purification. Its essence remains emptiness. This emptiess we internally touch as the stilling. What changes is suffering, the burden. The burden gets lost.
“They only thing i teach is the cessation of suffering”.

This emptiness, this stilled essence of mind, is a constant factor in our lifes, right? We touch it any moment. Can you really say that it was not present while you were a kid?
We have touched it while being a kid and we will touch it being old.

An element or aspect of what is not arising, ceasing and changing is always present.

Mind is perceived as a problem when one does not know the nature of pure mind, which is not vinnana nor a stream of vinnana, but its essence is emptiness.

56

Sounds like brainwashing to inplant fake memories of it and constructing a mind out of nowhere to just fit into your conception of it.

Anyway, the real disappearance, cessation, Nibbāna, emptiness is where the water too is gone. No mind. The end.

57

For me it is not fake at all that there is that element of no-change. And i do not claim any realisation. I just cannot understand that people have the idea that all has changed, or changes in their lifes, from moment to moment. Is this really what people experience or is this how they brainwash themselves?
I choose for the last.

Because people rely on the theory that all changes, they start to believe there must be something wrong with their sense of no-change. They start to believe this must be due to ego conceit or whatever reason they find.

I see this different. No change is the asankhata aspect or element that is truly an aspect in our lifes.
I feel, rejecting this aspect or element in our lifes, is like rejecting Buddha-Dhamma.
Because Buddha teaches the Path to the stable, the constant, the not-desintegrating.

I believe this all refers to this element of emptiness that is part of our lifes. This emptiness is not constructed and that cannot desintegrate. This emptiness is also not an experience.

This is because you think about mind as a stream of alternating sense moments (sense-vinnana’s/perceptions). This i do not consider as mind. These are the projections of the mind. Like the frames of a movie are also projections.
Mind processes info and that leads to projections, vinnana’s, but this constant stream of projections is not mind itself but are the result of how mind processes info. There is no reason to believe that when this stream of projections ceases, such as when we are in deep sleep, mind has ceases.

58

Mind is temporary. Easily washed away by the flood of death or transmigration.

59

When your statement contradicts the sutta, you should reconsider your understanding of the dhamma.

60

No change does not contradict the sutta’s. Not at all.

But, your conception of mind is very different from mine,

The conception of mind in the sutta’s differs. From inclined to uninclined. From directed to undirected. From without limits to limitless. From attached to 5 khandha’s, to detached. From sensing to knowing.
From immeasurable to measurable. From passionate to dispassionate, from monkye mind to being stable, from tamed to untamed, from restless to at ease, from pure to impure, from burdended to burdenfree etc.

61

Like i said before, seeing all arising and ceasing cannot from something that itself arises and ceases any moment. If people really are able to see how in biljons of seconds mind moments arise they have surely arrived at something that must approach stabilty.