The other day a friend had brought up that old dilemma about predetermination regarding cause and effect.
I have been trying come up with my own words to express it and up until a few moments ago I did not know how so I fed him some of the stuff I had found in my research on the web and an answer I had received from Nishijima Roshi on the same subject.
But a few moments ago I had a bit of an epiphany.
To explain, for those who have not been following along, I want to first say that Karma is just a foreign word for action. It might be helpful to just drop the idea of karma all together. Put it out of your head.
Now we have Action, Cause and Effect. But it is out of order!
It should be Cause, Action and Effect!!!
You see the cause is everything that brought you here to this present moment. That’s it. Nothing mystical about it at all. Stuff happens. So we could say that the cause is just the past that led you to this present moment. Now here is the Important Question… In this present moment are things predetermined? Well yes and no. You see, because Iris is not sleeping when she should be it had the effect of me being awake. Because I was awake I was pondering a thought loop, which brings me to the present moment of typing away at this blog. Sound predetermined? Maybe so when it is written. But while I am typing this now I could have just rolled over and went to sleep. In the present moment anything can happen. Limited by all those causes for sure, but not totally predetermined. For example I find it doubtful that because of this explanation you will begin levitating off of your chair, but you may for just a moment see something the way I do, or not.
So to sum up:
Cause is just because. As in: this happened because… A side note that this can be a real rabbit hole to go down since we can’t always tell the cause. Because might also be before's cause
Action is the choice you make in the present moment.
Effect is just what happens afterwards, and also the next cause.
I hope someone will find this helpful.
May you be free from suffering.
Jordan