Best Of
Re: What movies are you watching?
On YouTube I watched "Alpha Gateway" an Australian Si Fi movie about parallel worlds ..
Shoshin1
Re: Going to the Gym
@Jeroen said:
The other thing I found about gyms is that exercise and getting muscled tends to give the testosterone production a big push. So if you suddenly find your thoughts turning to women it may not be craving or the gym atmosphere, but perhaps simple biology. If you can find it in yourself to be gentle and kind with yourself about these things, so much the better…
I'm just going to keep moving, nothing intense or weight lifting. So I'm not too worried about that.
I've been away for a while with Thanksgiving weekend and a cold since. Its given me some insight. While I do have these tendencies in me, I'm sure its the energy in the gym that I'm taking on.
So what I'm taking away is that the craving for relationship is painful. Not that relationships are painful, that the craving and pursuit of it are. So I think I'm back to where I started with a bit more conviction, that the mindset needed to end up where some part of me longs to be isn't worth it.
I'm undecided whether I should stay open to the possibility should it knock, or put effort into letting it go entirely.
person
Re: So HUNGRY to NOT CRAVE
@lobster said:
It is a bit like opening a Christmas present from the inside... and finding the world is the present...
Nice image!
Re: Blessings
May all dangers be averted and all disease be gone. May no obstacle come across your way. May you enjoy fulfillment and long life. For all in whose heart dwells respect, who follow the wisdom and compassion of the Way, May your life prosper in the four blessings, of old age, beauty, happiness and strength.
Jeroen
Re: So HUNGRY to NOT CRAVE
Thus have I heard...
Om Mani Padme Hung ....The Jewel is (already) in the Lotus
What you crave for, you already have. it's your craving which is keeping you from it.
Don't have expectations, just practice, forget about trying to achieve something and things will eventually fall into place....
The Dalai Lama once said "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
That's the weird and wonderful Dharma for ya...
Shoshin1
Re: So HUNGRY to NOT CRAVE
@Shoshin1 said:
Don't have expectations, just practice, forget about trying to achieve something and things will eventually fall into place....
Years ago, one of the first times I received meditation instruction at a Zen center, the instructor said gently before we started that "you're not trying to achieve anything." I thought it was good advice but also out of left field, since we had just met and she didn't know my motivations.
But of course she did know, even if I didn't yet.
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
Well it's officially the 4th day of Summer. Skinny dip time 
Shoshin1
So HUNGRY to NOT CRAVE
Shameless solidarity grab here. 
Does anybody else get fired up thinking about the equanimity that is possible in an imagined future on the Buddhist path?
I guess Christmas is an appropriate time to consider this, because it's not unlike waiting for Christmas morning. As a child I was so ready to be out of school and to get gifts. There was an excitement with a little bit of frustration. Like, I CAN'T WAIT.
The irony of feeling similarly about Buddhist practice is not lost on me. 
Re: Not chasing pleasure nor avoiding pain
Thanks @lionduck …
I came across a lovely passage in Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, where he talks about inner nonresistance to what is, and thus being in tune with the present moment. It gave me a bit of a lift, it was like just accessing a higher frequency of being where a lot of problems had resolved and dissolved.
When you react against the form that Life takes at this moment, when you treat the Now as a means, an obstacle, or an enemy, you strengthen your own form identity, the ego. Hence the ego's reactivity. What is reactivity? Becoming addicted to reaction. The more reactive you are, the more entangled you become with form. The more identified with form, the stronger the ego. Your Being then does not shine through form anymore – or only barely.
Though nonresistance to form, that in you which is beyond form emerges as an all-encompassing Presence, a silent power far greater than your shortlived form identity, the person. It is more deeply who you are than anything in the world of form.
Jeroen