The human condition seems predicated on a self-serving dominance of thought, whose primary purpose has been the maintaining of its own rulings' storyline. This is a description of a coup of the mind where our thoughts have been habitually promoting themselves above all of the incoming data available from all of our other sense gates.
Meditation simply offers a level playing field where a potential reversal of such power imbalances can occur with no one sense gate getting preferential support in seeking dominance over another.
Neither attaching, rejecting or ignoring our thoughts,
a sleeper can awaken to an equanimity beyond the limits of it's former attachments.
From a me-first agenda, arising thoughts remain deeply intertwined in an identity and the self-oriented interests that they reflect.
While such thoughts may feel powerful for the emotional overlay that our identity imparts to them, they are equally hobbled by the same self-limiting interests.
From a more selfless agenda, arising thoughts, not being so tied to a self-identity, are able to unfold with freedoms that better represent the underlying fluidity of all truths.
When meditation allows one to objectively observe all of our data flows without our habituated editing of those data flows getting in thoughts way, then our interactions with life will simply reflect those truths.
Just don't confuse the detachment from thoughts with inactivity, apathy, indecisiveness or with giving it values below or above of what you also are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or feeling.
The most common difference between mindfulness within stillness and mindfulness in activity.....is one of objectivity.
Mindfulness dependent on stillness, describes an attachment to one's mentality.
Mindfulness when independent from such attachments describes objectivity.
In some Zen traditions, a teacher might suggest that you do kinhin until the objectivity in stillness is indistinguishable from that which you experience in movement.
Of course, since I've just tested positive for Covid 19 and have a fever, who knows what gibberish I'm currently penning here?
I worked in healthcare for years. My wife worked in healthcare her entire career until retiring a few weeks ago. In the critical care fields, ICU, CCU, Neurotrauma, etc it is an overwhelmingly widely held perspective among the caregivers that euthanasia should be much, much more widely available. These are people who see the prolonged suffering firsthand, and care for the patients and their families.
Every human life will end. Every single one. Euthanasia has no impact on that inevitable outcome; instead it compassionately establishes the how and when.
Cruelly and deliberately prolonging agony, pain, and suffering — How can we justify it?
@Linc said:
... I'm focused on making some new software that rethinks how moderation works and will reach out to folks when it's time.
Well that's me looking forward to a lucrative redundancy package... 😁
What do people think about the normalization of euthanasia?
Life necessitates the consumption of other life to exist.
For this Buddhist, the 1st precept is not an ideal that offers an escape from that truth.
It is a teaching that asks a practitioner to minimize the suffering caused by that necessity whenever possible. Otherwise, I'd be a Jain.
A practice that is having to address the question of euthanasia need only ask whether an individual considering euthanasia for themselves will result in more or less suffering for all concerned.
The answer is probably different for each case. Trying to reduce it to a black-and-white pronouncement of righteousness for everyone seems the more obvious breakage of the 1st precept that you expressed so much concern about.
It is not just the people of the "West" who seek to justify whatever they want.
OP, I'm going to express a radical position on karma here, and point out, that in his earliest discourses, the Buddha cautioned against projecting karma to future lifetimes (and one would assume correspondingly--from past lifetimes to the present), and simply focus on the current lifetime. He seemed to be saying, that past and future karmas "aren't relevant" to his path, in the same way he told his followers, that whether or not there is a supreme deity or deities was not a relevant matter.
Some scholars feel that the multi-lifetime karma concept seeped into the texts from an outside influence, namely--Hinduism. Karma isn't a trap, or something to bludgeon people with if they were born into adverse circumstances. It's simply the law of cause and effect applied to the current lifetime; be careful how you treat others, so you won't have to worry about your misdeeds or harsh speech bouncing back to you, basically is the idea.
And by the way, there is a therapy technique for trauma that doesn't involve talking about the incident/s. It's a miracle treatment that heals the mind by working with eye movements, helping the brain to reprocess past painful experiences. It's called EMDR: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. After treatment, you'll still have the memories, but they'll no longer be painful or debilitating. You'll be emotionally neutral and calm in relation to them.
Another option that doesn't involve talking is a certain type of acupuncture that works with psychological states. It can be a little challenging to find a good practitioner though; the acupuncture field in the US (I don't know where you're located) is dominated by a system from China, which they call "Traditional Chinese Acupuncture" (TCM), when in fact, Mao purged the traditional techniques that really work. You'd need to find someone who practiced 5 Element acupuncture, sometimes called "classical" acupuncture, from Taiwan or Hong Kong, and tell the practitioner that you need a special set of modalities called "Ghost Point" acupuncture for a childhood history of trauma. No talk, just treatment, which in your case would require a long course. You could Google "Ghost Point Acupuncture" + your locale. Also "7 Dragons" acupuncture.
I've received these types of treatments, both EMDR and Ghost Point acupuncture, on various occasions, and can vouch for their effectiveness. If you have questions you'd like to ask privately, you may message me.
Relief can be achieved, OP. Healing CAN happen! There is hope. Hugs, and best wishes.
1. Hope for happiness
2. Fear of suffering
3. Hope for fame
4. Fear of insignificance
5. Hope for praise
6. Fear of blame
7. Hope for gain
8. Fear of loss
Taken together, these preoccupations represent attachment and aversion.