Muni's Play| Type of Causality | Description |
|---|---|
| Past causes Present | Linear, historical, and traumatic causality (The dominant modern view). |
| Present causes Present | Dependent arising: how our current view fabricates our current perception. |
| Future causes Present | Telos: The “angel out ahead” or our destiny calling us forward. |
| Atemporal Causality | Archetypal roots that exist beyond time, manifesting as both blessing and challenge. |
1. Past causes Present (Linear Causality)
This is the “exclusive notion of causality” in modern culture. It assumes that “something in the past—some thing or event or some set of conditions—caused the present.” In this view, our current struggles are seen purely as “a result of my history” or “societal conditioning.”
2. Present causes Present (Dependent Co-origination)
This refers to the “fabrication of perception in the present.” It is the understanding that “the conception and the view, the way of looking, in the present, in this moment, fabricates the perception.” It is not a temporal sequence, but a “dependent arising” where the mind’s current orientation creates the current experience.
3. Future causes Present (Telos)
This involves the “future calling us to something.” It is the idea of Telos, or “the angel out ahead,” calling us to “our destiny, to our fulfillment, to our living out and embodying of an image.” Here, the “cause” of an experience is the pull of an unfolding future self.
4. Atemporal Causality (Archetypal Mirroring)
This suggests “roots in divinity” that exist “beyond time.” In this framework, a current struggle and a past childhood event are “both actually mirroring an archetypal cause” rather than one causing the other. It views life events as “atemporal causality” that exists as both “blessing and as challenge.”