Articles on Determinism - Dr. John Diamond

“Our Life’s Work”

I am given to believe that for each of us our life’s work, our individual Karma, is to find our Souls and then live accordingly. And, further, the Way may be to go not inside ourselves, but first outside – to our mothers.

“Beyond the Universal Law”

Accepting all that others do to me as coming through them, as the Karmic Plan. All being, in this sense, acts of God. And all not for me but for the spirit within me.

I accept all for the spirit within.

(Well, not in fact – but at least in fantasy.)

“Every Life is Poetic”

As Edith Hamilton stated, Ibsen is not a great tragedian in the spirit of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Shakespeare because his characters are of human size, whereas there’s nothing merely human of Oedipus or Lear.

“Jackson Pollock Denied the Accident”

Jackson Pollock proclaimed: “I don’t use the accident – I deny the accident.”

“We All Are Amida At Play”

Shinran taught that what we seem to do ourselves is really Amida doing through us. Our very invocation of Her, nembutsu, is Her invoking Herself through us: our nembutsu – Her play.

“I intend…”

I intend what is Intended

“God Gives Himself a Laugh”

Consider the last lines of Bacchae by Euripides: Many are the shapes the gods will take, many the surprises they perform.

“Intuition – or Guidance?”

This morning, just after waking, I recalled this incident at a seminar on “medical intuition:” A doctor who admitted he used intuition in his psychiatric practice was asked by the speaker whether he had told his colleagues.

Audio Lecture: Determinism – “I Am Given to…”

Diamond suggests that using the phrase “I am given to…” is best way of expressing the philosophy of Determinism.

“God the Eternal Dramatist”

"God, the eternal dramatist, has cast you for some part in His drama, and hands you the role." So states Gilbert Murray.