1 : Things happen.
2 : I respond to the things happening (and become part of the happening).
3 : Again.

This seems to be all there is.

Buddha is claimed to have claimed that there is a realm beyond co-dependent origination, this seems a bit fantastical to me, I've heard said that Buddhism is not a supernatural religion but this is a supernatural claim. Because one of the core tenets feels supernatural to me I find it hard to take on some of the other claims wholeheartedly.
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Thanks for your time!

Could you provide some quotes from the sutras or from some authority or something like that so we know what specifically you are referring to. 

And you don't have to believe anything attributed to the Buddha to learn about meditation, mindfulness and awakening. There are a lot of teachers who take a secular approach, Shinzen Young is one. 

 

Tony, step two in your list deserves a lot of curiousity and investigation --- it's basically the whole point of sitting meditation. How does this "I" see "what is happening" and choose it's "response"? 

There might be something going on that isn't obvious at first. 

Are you looking for a debate, or more reading options, or meditation practice methods???

Maybe you're referring to what's called "Nirvana" - the absence of every last shred of suffering? 

<br />I don't know of a specific quote but this is correct that he said something along those lines, right?

<p><br />Not really debate, reading opinions or advice, more like how do I believe that escape is possible?<br /><br />Buddhism claims the 8-fold-path will reach nirvana but I suspect to actually reach nirvana you have to really buy into that.&nbsp; Half-ass belief, half-ass results.&nbsp; If someone, even a little bit, believes that their ideals are carrots on sticks they will adjust effort accordining.<br /><br />Even you didn't believe your boss would pay you you wouldn't go in to work, if you don't really, really believe in this escape from casuality why put in your five thousand hours of meditation?&nbsp; Maybe if meditation becomes a reward in itself.&nbsp; Maybe Buddha knew if he just told them meditation was like eating their veggies no one would do it so he said "It's not just good for your health, you can be forever free of suffering"<br /><br />So maybe it was a sales pitch of sorts?</p>

I meant specificly the claim (which maybe I'm misinterpting please correct me if so) that when we reach enligthenment we go outside the range of cause & effect somehow (beyond co-dependent origination I've heard it said).

That there is a wheel of life spinning and crushing us all eon after eon but we can escape this universal process by tweaking our brains a bit thru altered beliefs & contemplative practice.

I feel like Buddism has this repuation as a more scientifc religion or at least not obviously cukoo bananas like virgin births & parting of the sea but this idea that we can literally escape basic cause & effect is on the same level really.

Ok, here is one metaphor that provides a response. Cause and effect are just stories we tell about processes and things that do not in fact have a separate enduring existence in the way we automatically believe. They are all just fabrications of our mind. Not to say that something physical doesn't exist, but chemistry and physics quickly tells us that if something does exist it is nothing like our perception of it. So awakening is just the cessation of this deluded view of the world as consisting of separate enduring things (like chairs, or movement), leading to the cessation of the ongoing angst from the mismatch between our mental delusions and our perceptual process. Funnily enough, modern science and mathematics have reached pretty similar conclusions about the world to the dharma, but the process of awakening enables these to be appreciated directly, felt personally, and incorporated in the default modes of perceptual and cognitive existence. So yes once you realise this for yourself and root up delusion thoroughly you are no longer crushed by the spinning wheel of life. You are deathless, if you like, as death is a bizarre concept that doesn't correspond to physics. There is no death, only change, and that change occurs constantly anyway, so you die every breath. You can still use words like death as they are useful approximations, but as Inigo Montoya says "I do not think that word means what you think it means". :-).  These truths are hard to appreciate, as we recoil from them a feel angst and horror at the threat to our subconscious beliefs in a separate enduring existence. So usually we produce a few rationalisations and shoot the messenger and go away. Or, we realise there is a long eightfold path to understanding and appreciating this directly - about five years of dedicated work. (And the eightfold path is also abitrary by the way, and could be construed differently). That's probably no help, but it is the answer I can provide from my dominant metaphor system.

Here's an answer from my secondary metaphor system.

The wind cries out
Why does the seagull crap on my children?
But the crap doesn't mind, as it is a fully enlightened buddha

Karma  and rebirth,  Psychic powers,devas,ghost  and  the rest where very much already  part of indo Asian  culture. Buddha was part of that culture . These things where probably simply accepted by the Buddha. You can leave it behind if you want and just use Buddhist meditation as a transpersonal  psychology  to lessen suffering. Call it secular Buddhism  or pragmatic Buddhism.  

Let's be honest about this stuff: Buddhism is a mixture of religious assumptions and beliefs and a set of practical methods for gaining a new, more awakened/enlightened view of existence/reality. It's easy to conflate these two things, and it can be very hard hard to separate them. I have used the latter part of Buddhism for many years (meditation, for example) and have mostly ignored the former part (religious beliefs about things like rebirth.)

Your question is useful - it can lead to a logical and useful way to engage in the practical, discovery-oriented parts of Buddhism. You seem to prefer that part. I suggest you just ignore the other part, the beliefs and religion, at least for now, as a purely practical matter while you pursue Buddhism as a discovery/investigation process.

As you investigate yourself and the world of your experience using Buddhism's discovery-oriented methods, going deeper and deeper, you may find that reality isn't as cut and dried as you may currently believe. That's the really deep and cool part of the whole endeavor. There's uncertainty, chaos, and serendipity at the core of things, and things are not what we believe or habitually accept. Some people adopt various beliefs to avoid these mysteries. Others learn to accept them, even use them, to gain wisdom and awakening.

Thanks everyone so far

Your claims about claims seem a bit fantastical. I've heard said by reading your post that your claims are claiming things. Because one of your core tenets feels claimy to me I find it hard to take on some of your other claims wholeheartedly.
I guess I am missing out on all the rest of your claims that you choose to claim. 
My loss,
Good luck finding perfection without doing the investigation yourself. Thinking is so much easier to speculate. Toss that baby out with the bath water, it was slightly dirty anyway.


I'm still seeking perfection but not letting flaws stop me. I learn more from my mistakes than following the followers.
~D
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Okay so my 2c in going "beyond cause and effect", I think this means getting to the deepest level of understanding with respect to emptiness and seeing that even cause and effect are mental constructs. Nagarjuna talks about this, and there is a great chapter on this in the Westeroff intro to madyhamaka philosophy book. 

But we naively think causes cause effects, but to mental segment something as an effect then creates the causes. So in some sense they create each other. But out in the "world of things in and of themselves" there aren't things like effects or causes out there. That's a thing us as observers attach to things we segment out of the stream of perception.

​​​​​​​Hope this helps!

Oh and I forgot to mention that similarly you can go beyond DO in the same way, in the sense that it is one way to breakdown and describe the unfolding process. But to segement anything is a process of the mind that is deconstructing things in a way that isn't intrinsic to the raw stuff. There's a good chapter on this in the book "seeing that frees" in case you're interested in learning more and practical exercises around the type of stuff I said in this comment and my parent comment