Some notes on karma, novelty, change, and free will

This vectorial nature of (phenomenal) experience is intentional, i.e., meaningful present acts aim toward and determine meaningful future experience.* The unique, incarnate, and meaningful circumstances of each present moment are what makes a qualitative change in future experience possible.

In this depiction of the structural continuum of experience, what some Buddhists refer to as the mental continuum (a problematic translation), there is no room for free will. If there were free will it would require input from a willing agent. This agent, a self, possessing such a will, would of necessity be unconditioned by the past and have the capability to make decisions without relying on input from the past or present circumstances or a conceivable future which would also be free of any input from the past in any conception of a future. This agent would be free of all conditioned imperatives even those which demanded the next breath. Such an agent excludes the existence of a memory in any conception of the time in which and for which a decision had to be made. One is exhausted by any attempt to even conceive of an unconditioned agent possessing free will let alone making decisions...





*This movement is 

On the Manifest and the Unmanifest...short takes

Many of us may think that silence is simply a lack of sound. However, it is only in and through silence that sound can be heard. This statement holds true for all of the other senses with their respective fields or contexts, e.g., the tastlessness of the tongue and the "lack" of feeling that skin minus the contact is touchless and the tongue is tasteless. All six of our sensations or cognitions, including the mind-sense, require their sentient opposites to originate, continue, and dissolve. This threefold process(ing) of origination, continuity, and dissolution is synonymous with time itself as experience. All three may also serve to help us take note of this process and perhaps even practice non-interference, i.el, neither attachment nor averson toward it. All three occur (as occurring) synchronously. In an abstract sense, all three make up each now as the movement of experience. In order to taste, for example, the occurring of tasting must happen as process. So, to manifest taste as tasting time as experience is always an occuring not a static taste but a movement of tasting. This is an occasion for the words more or less. Do I need more ice cream or put my fork down an toss this untasteworthy food--the play of attachment and aversion. However, when we drink pure water, we may be indifferent to its movement of taste. It is often overlooked or ignored when we may use it to wash down what we wish we hadn't eaten. It may now become clear why I call silence sentient silence, for it is a necessary element of tasting anything, liked or not. 

Axioms and Suffering (It's not very clear but I'm working on it.)

The intransigent presupposition (belief) of an independently existing reality outside of human experience, be it the world, nature, or the universe, gives rise to the compulsion to justify the alien others, such as Buddhism, Taoism, meditation, etc., by naturalizing them. This process seems, at first glance, to be a process of discovery of what is and is not affected by bias, i.e., it appears as natural and independently existent. The sciences claim to be a process of revealing the secrets of the universe, be it biology or physics and their related natural sciences.

Science is the practice that ultimately will require justification once these “alien” others are more fully comprehended and incorporated. For now, let me state that we live in worlds that are situational and not natural. By situational we mean manifest as the attempted fulfillment of human desire. So, instead of asking the question "What is?," we intend the question "What does it mean for us?" In most cases of scientific investigation, the answers looked for are driven by the intentional questions "What is it?," What is its function in the natural order of things?," and "Of what use is it to fulfill our desires?," or "What can we do with it?," following a simple progression of explanation, prediction, and control.

The overwhelming inclination, even compulsion, to justify other realms of life, philosophies, or practices by naturalizing them via science, e.g., neuro--whatever, must be examined.

The Western sciences, in light of a fuller understanding of the other(s) such as Buddhism, Yoga, Sufism, phenomenology, mysticism, etc., may very well be those who are summoned to provide more and or other justifications for their own activity.

These so-called others find their justification for adherence in the efficaciousness of their claims to either alleviate suffering and may even provide something of a foundation for the sciences and its (possible) intentions.

In marked contrast to many forms of scientism and materialism, Buddhism etc., are intended as methods different than the acquisition of theoretical knowledge for the purposes of explanation, prediction, and control. The theories propagated by sciences currently rest upon foundations and justifications that are often obscure, assumed as axiomatic, and even based on the profit-bearing motives of capitalist economy. Often our sciences serve the cruel masters of ignorance and afflicted thinking as evinced by environmental degradation, poverty, alienation and the increased suffering of all sentient beings.

The World According to the Buddha

The Buddha said: "And what is the origination of the world? Dependent on the eye & forms there arises eye-consciousness. The meeting of the three is contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging/sustenance. From clinging/sustenance as a requisite condition comes becoming. From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. This is the origination of the world."