Having a perfect day, nothing going wrong, and nothing foreseeable to go wrong, you joyfully live your life. Bam, all of a sudden something happens and everything changes. In a heartbeat or the blink of an eye your life is turned upside down and inside out or worse.
You have now been hit by an environmental cause, that is something that arises outside of your direct action. This could be a rain shower, car accident, stock market news, earthquake, canceled air flight, flat tire, crowded bus, and so on the list could go to infinity. It happens to us all and it happens all the time without interruption.
There are two ways of considering Environmental Causes, yet there is really only one way – two ways but one way.
Of the two ways they are it’s not your fault and it’s your fault. Really though it is all of your doing. The complication and the important thing to remember is you have made the cause at some time to be in the situation to experience the current environmental cause and you have no way to undo or affect it now. So in a way while it is your cause in the past and there is nothing now to do except experience it and make new causes.
Another consideration of Environmental cause is like planting a garden. The place were you live, the environmental weather conditions are beyond your control, except you decided to live there. Well, perhaps you didn’t actually have a free hand at the decision, it could have been the only alternative for your job, and yet that too is of your doing. You see there is quite a rabbit hole there to pursue, not exactly pointless, yet must be navigated wisely if navigating is desired.
It can be a lesson in the interconnectedness of our causes from past to present and learning from that can be beneficial. One must remember though that those past causes are unchangeable and so the lessons gained can only be applied to present circumstances; how not to make the same mistakes again.
So you’ve decided to plant a garden, and let’s say you live in a snowy region such as Syracuse were I live. I have fond memories of bougainvillea plants from my time in Hawaii and San Diego, they are prolific bloomers and the color range is quite large. So I decide that on thing I want for sure is one of them in my garden growing up a trellis in the back.
Sorry dude that’s going to fail.
The fact of the matter is no matter how much care I give the plant this is an environment where it will not grow outdoors. It get’s too cold and doesn’t get hot enough.
The crepe myrtle only grows in the United States below the Masson Dixon Line, above that line it’s too cold a climate. When I lived in Charlotte crepe myrtle grow prolifically and I always swore that the next place I lived would be a place where crepe myrtle can not grow. It was a measure for me of a place to warm to live if it was warm enough for the crepe myrtle.
The environment impacts us both as an effect and as a cause. The environment, and this is not only weather, it is culture, activities, any outside stimulus on our lives is an environment. A sports game is an environment, an airplane is an environment. Those environment both act upon us and also limit us and the causes we can make. They are directly tied to us and also tie us.
While you are in this moment having a perfect day something in your environment can and does impact that experience it also determines to a degree the range of options for further causes either by you or by the environment. No mater how much power you have as an entity that power will be impacted by and impacted upon by the environment you are existing in.
While it is true the environment impacts upon us and our ability to make certain causes we still have agency in that environment within reason. Just because everyone around you is angry at the clerk in Walmart doesn’t mean you to need to add to that environment of anger. You don’t need to add more energy there. But you may not be physically endowed enough to tell everyone to be quiet, so your entity is going to limit your range of possible actions, your mood will also be a consideration in your actions, and so on. Do you see how this is all tied together.
To speak of environmental causes as a separate aspect without considering how it relates to all the other aspects will lead to a misunderstanding and unskillful actions.
It is true that we could stop everything and regard all options logically, pulling a Spock or Data if you will. But the reality is life moves incredibly fast and for most of us we are acting in an auto pilot mode. Here is where a daily practice is so important.
When we gradually hone our live with the Odaimoku, we slowly chip away at the unskillful patterns logged deeply in our life that would automatically emerge in stressful situations or situations where there is only time to act and not time to think. Slowly the default mode of operation can become Buddha, and that influences all the aspects of our lives just as Hell can impact them.
Subscribe to my blog post newsletter
[amazon_link asins=’1979530815,1511592907,1978003862,1979814023,1975689763,0692257470,B01FIWRYL2,147834198X,1492886041,1508534780′ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’ryusho0a-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’97fbe168-a3f2-11e8-9539-6d448c750861′]
