The Twelve Nidanas

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AMCrenshaw

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http://personal.carthage.edu/jlochtefeld/buddhism/wheeloflife/nidanas.html

Albert Camus wrote that basic truths are the ones we discover after all others. The Dalai Lama once described Buddhism as "a science of the mind." I have some issues with each idea, but they mostly echo a lot of what we'd talked about in another thread. Any thoughts? Poetic or philosophic intrepretations are welcome. The link is a starter...
 
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Ruv Draba

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This is interesting AMC -- especially from a poetic perspective. I'm sorry that nobody has responded yet. I hope that more will.

What do you like about 'em? What I like is that it's not a 'Seven Deadly Sins' kind of idea. It's a model, and the model suggests cause and effect, but also points of potential intercession.

I could see one creating quite a bit of art out of that model. It's not science I'd chase though, since I don't believe in the karmic wheel and I'm rather fond of all the pot-making and the patter of monkeys on my roof (though not so much the death and the arrows in my eye).
 

darkprincealain

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I don't think the examples given in the link are equally adequate in explaining each idea, but overall the concept makes sense.

I wish I had more to say, but I'm not sure how to respond.
 

Cyia

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I'll start by saying I've never heard of them with the pictures attached as representations, so I hope this question isn't offensive.

I don't understand the representation of #7 How is a man with an arrow in his eye representative of feeling? Is it supposed to be physical feeling, like pain? Or is it meaning emotional feeling, like love?
 

Bartholomew

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I'll start by saying I've never heard of them with the pictures attached as representations, so I hope this question isn't offensive.

I don't understand the representation of #7 How is a man with an arrow in his eye representative of feeling? Is it supposed to be physical feeling, like pain? Or is it meaning emotional feeling, like love?

There's a Buddhist parable where a man is hit with an arrow, but refuses to take it out until he knows who hit him with it.

The Buddha was sitting in the park when his disciple Malunkyaputta approached him. Malunkyaputta had recently retired from the world and he was concerned that so many things remained unexplained by the Buddha. Was the world eternal or not eternal? Was the soul different from the body? Did the enlightened exist after death or not? He thought, 'If the Buddha does not explain these things to me, I will give up this training and return to worldly life'.

He put these questions to the Buddha who replied, "Now did I ever say to you that if you led a religious life you would understand these things? It is as if a man had been wounded by an arrow thickly smeared with poison, and his friends, companions relatives were to get a surgeon to heal him, and he were to say, 'I will not have this arrow pulled out until I know who wounded me, of what caste he is, what his name is, whether he is tall, short or of medium height, what colour his skin is, where he comes from, what kind of bow I was wounded with, what it was made of, whether the arrow was feathered with a vulture's wing or a heron's or a hawk's…..' Surely the man would die before he knew all this."

"Whether the view is held that the world is eternal or not, Malunkyaputta, there is still re-birth, old age, death, grief, suffering, sorrow and despair - and these can be destroyed in this life! I have not explained these other things because they are not useful, they are not conducive to tranquillity and Nirvana. What I have explained is suffering, the cause of suffering, the destruction of suffering and the path that leads to the destruction of suffering. This is useful, leading to non-attachment, the absence of passion, perfect knowledge."

Thus spoke the Buddha, and with joy Malunkyaputta applauded his words.

I'm not sure if that's where they're going with the image.

I suppose you could link the two. Whether you're attached to an object or not, it will still fade and die.
 

AMCrenshaw

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Since I'd read very briefly about the idea of Ontogeny/Phylogeny in a book called "The Prehistory of the Mind," I'd been thinking about this theory, in terms of the Twelve Nidanas. I'd had the feeling that the Twelve Nidanas were like a 3,000 year old, even less scientific theory of recapitulation, in that they concern both the evolution and development of human experience.
 

darkprincealain

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I'll start by saying I've never heard of them with the pictures attached as representations, so I hope this question isn't offensive.

I don't understand the representation of #7 How is a man with an arrow in his eye representative of feeling? Is it supposed to be physical feeling, like pain? Or is it meaning emotional feeling, like love?

I think both a physical and emotional pain, together. There is a version of the same Buddhist parable in which instead of asking to know about all the details of his getting hit with the arrow, the man gets hit with a second arrow when he refuses to pull out the first.

The second arrow version of the parable is very prominent in the Theravadan tradition. :) People are always telling each other not to add the second arrow. They mean not to cling so tightly to circumstance.
 

AMCrenshaw

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I think both a physical and emotional pain, together. There is a version of the same Buddhist parable in which instead of asking to know about all the details of his getting hit with the arrow, the man gets hit with a second arrow when he refuses to pull out the first.

The second arrow version of the parable is very prominent in the Theravadan tradition. :) People are always telling each other not to add the second arrow. They mean not to cling so tightly to circumstance.

I like these and there are a number of versions.

Did you combine your story with 'the poisoned arrow' story? The poisoned arrow is when you're hit with an arrow and a doctor can cure you; and while the poison is killing you you start asking the doctor questions that are difficult or impossible to answer and obstruct / defer acceptance that indeed the poison is killing you. If you accept you are poisoned, however, the doctor can go ahead and deduce how best to remove it ...

(I think it's a direct parable about the Four Truths, actually, and would lead back to the chains of doing and undoing of the twelve nidanas)
 
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