Wu Wei Zheng Dao 68
-Our lives are run by emotions! - said the 21-year-old German guy Teis, who was studying economics and politics in university, and came to Chinese Wu Wei zen temple at the summer holiday for a few weeks to train kung fu.
Foreigners sat on the edge of the training ground in the forest below the buildings of the Wu Wei Temple and rested after a long stretch.
They started an argument about emotions that control all aspects in life, and became interested in learning the Buddhist’s point of view on that topic. They asked the novice, who was also participating in the training. He said:
- Life is governed by the Law of Cause and Result, which for simplicity can be called Karma.
And this is not some karma of past lives, acquired... not clear by whom, and not clear when. This is what YOU create yourself every moment, in every act and thought.
And at every particular moment you are conditioned by a combination of many factors. Do you think whole life are controlled by emotions? Look closely, any emotion is only a consequence of some event, emotions are not born on its own out of nowhere. It’s not primary. Emotion is only a small part of the chain of causes-results, by the law of which is all happens. And in nature too. The origin of the planet is not caused by emotions, the flight of this dragonfly is not caused by emotion, yellowing of the leaf on the branch is not caused by emotion, and much that happens to a person also is not caused by emotion.
Everything is conditioned by the Law of Cause and Result. In human life emotions are not the cause, but the result - reflection of something, that afterwards will be reflected in something else.
In Chinese, the Law of Cause and Result is Yingo 因果 - can be translated as “Cause – Fruit”, and although the fruit of our actions sometimes emotionally conditioned, but if you look closely, emotions are not the cause, not the “seed”, but only the result of the fermentation of some past fruits, some past acts and thoughts.
Emotions are part of complex “fertilizers,” but not the seed, not the soil, not the fruit.
Of course, emotions play some role in a person’s life, but they do not stand at the helm.
Some Chinese will tell you that more than emotions life is affected by 缘分 yuanfen - is an untranslatable term, which some foreigners use “Destiny” as the equivalent. Ordinary Chinese use the term yuanfen in relation to a meeting a personal partner, a business partner, and any important acquaintance, they say - it was yuanfen, if meeting someone seems like intended by fate.
But in the Law of Cause and Result there is no place for both randomness and pre-determined Destiny. Buddhists use yuanfen characters to define any events, not just interpersonal meetings. For example, about any event in the future is often said “will see yuanfeng” 看缘分吧, meaning we’ll see what kind of fruits according the Law of Cause and Result will appear.
-Time to training! – yelled coach and everybody smiled.
Such conversations about the “laws and meanings of life” were often conducted in the Wu Wei temple, but Buddhists usually did not participate in them. Some, because as Buddha, kept a noble silence on such topics; some, because did not know English; and some, because they knew nothing.
And as Shifu, the abbot, would say - they were the real Buddhists.
Shifu often said that those who know nothing are wise - they are open and empty. The expression “the Grief is from the Mind” may be explained as - the more collection of paradigms, formulations, schemes a person has in the “mind”, the more he is closed to reality, being cluttered with his “knowledge”.
Almost all Buddhist practices are aimed at calming the mind - to weaken the bindings to the usual mechanical process of juggling mental structures.
To see the cluttered mind, it is necessary to slow it down a little, and its mechanical, destructing elements become visible.
And as consciousness is freed from discursive thinking, habitual mechanical structures cease to play a main role in the process of perception, which becomes direct connection with the reality.