i am unclear how the fact that this is a public discussion board has any bearing on the manner in which i respond to posts. if you do not appreciate clarifying questions then i shall happily proceed with my assumptions and respond accordingly. i would, however, prefer to know what you are actually meaning and thus attempt to clarify points which are confusing to me.
You have my permission to read my posts, digest and interperet them as you will, and then respond to the whole. This is actually how I prefer to go about business on boards like this, rather than responding point-by-point, which to me seems very tedious and pedantic. It also is my experience that point-by-point responses tend to get mired in a hashing-out of details that aren't necessarily relevant to the discussion. I acknowledge that point-by-point discussions can be useful, and I have used that format myself many times on this board in the past. I've kind of become disillusioned with it as a form, though, as it often does seem to degenerate into what I percieve as quibbling or pedantry, rather than a robust discussion of ideas.
Vajradhara said:
if my style of writing is not straightforward enough for your taste chalk it up to my lack of understanding of English.
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perhaps you should consider that not every poster on this forum is a native English speaker, yes?
Is English not your native language? I was under the impression that it was. If it is not, then please let me know and I will take that into consideration in the future.
I am also under the impression that you are an American, and were born in the United States. This is nothing more than an assumption on my part, and please do correct me if I am wrong.
Vajradhara said:
you said that guilt can be a functional emotion and it is to this end that i am querying you. in what manner can guilt be functional? i.e. as a emotional response to spur one to action or as a general sort of thing without any specificity or some other way?
Thank you for clearing your question up for me. I did not understand what you were asking before. Guilt can function as a flag. If we pause to examine the guilt and contemplate its origins, it may indeed give insight into actions that we can take as individuals to live our lives with more integrity. Guilt is not the only emotion that can be functional in this way. Many negative emotions, including despair, anger, frustration, and grief, can be approached in this way, I believe.
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You and I seem to have vastly different visions of what Buddhism is about, which I suppose speaks to the diversity of Buddhist thought and the appeal of Buddhist teachings to many different people. It really does seem as if we are talking about two entirely different approaches, both valid. My perspective is that there are larger realities than individual beings--such as ecosystems, communities, nations, etc.--and that individual beings do not exist separately from these larger realities. Therefore, any attempt to focus solely on one's personal karma seems really short-sighted. I'd go as far as to call being held in thrall to an illusion.
I can understand and agree with your assertions that we are all responsible for our own actions, and that we should resist if some other person is attempting to scapegoat us for their own actions. The issue of blame and scapegoating seems to have arisen in this thread through some miscommunication, largely my own fault.
Let me clarify now that I do not think that anyone is responsible for any but their own actions. We can leave it at that, if we like. We are all just trying to sort out our individual karma, and good luck to us all! Where my thought and approach diverges from this is that I believe that there comes a point, maybe a moment of insight even, when beings realize that they are embedded in very complex and rich systems of karmic feedback, if you will. When beings see that, when that is acknowledged and experienced, the context of "I" widens. Who am I, and what have I done? Where am I in all of this suffering, and what can be done about it?
Recently I read a book by Chellis Glendinning entitled
My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization. In one section of the book, the author talks about the interdependence of all beings and phenomena, and starts with an exercise used by Thich Nhat Hanh in which he "holds up a piece of paper and invites his students to see the clouds and rain and sunshine that make that piece of paper what it is." She then deepens the exercise by acknowledging that it is not only "clouds and rain and sunshine" that comprise that piece of paper. She links the production of the typical piece of paper in our modernized, industrial world to the chemical industry and dioxin and other contaminants which "remain in the paper. They are also released into the air and water at the mill site, sometimes as much as fifty tons in a single day." (Glendinning, 104) Using Thich Nhat Hanh's exercise and looking deeply, she extrapolates the production process of paper and paints a dark picture, imagining and describing how the chemicals used in the paper making process are dumped into a river and then flow into the ocean and evaporate into clouds and rain and even bird eggs, which she speculates will never hatch.
I do not work at a paper plant, but I use paper to write. I buy books printed on paper. Whether or not I like it, I am compelled to participate--on a small scale, granted, compared to the owners of the paper plant--in the process of pollution that is required in paper production. Only if I chose never to touch or look at a piece of paper again in my life--an impossibility--would I be able to extricate myself from the karma of paper production.
This is only one example of the interdependent co-arising that I would like to discuss in this thread.
There are a few options when one is confronted with this kind of reality. One is to become an extremely ascetic person in attempts to extricate oneself from these troubling karmic bonds of life in the world. Another option I see is to participate in the world, but to do so in such a way that minimizes one's personal damage (thereby minimizing the creation of unwanted karma and suffering), and also strive to correct the institutions and people that are, through their actions, inflicting suffering on other beings. I don't think that the two approaches are necessarily mutually exclusive; indeed, a certain amount of asceticism would seem to be required in order to seriously practice the second approach.
And I'm not trying to be nasty or rude; I really appreciate your punning. 
