Best Of
Re: Trauma and Buddhism
Great Ajahn Chah story from the interview — Jack Kornfield was a student of Ajahn Chah…
Ajahn Chah wasn’t afraid of working with emotions. When I was twenty-two, I went to live and meditate in a forest hut. At that time, I was a peaceful person in my own eyes. My father had been violent and abusive, and I’d been the peacemaker of the four boys. That’s who I thought I was. Then when I meditated, to my surprise I discovered I had an immense amount of anger that I’d stuffed down. The monks near me were irritating me, and all of a sudden, I wanted to, you know, strangle them. It wasn’t their fault. It was all the stuff I’d never looked at.
I went to Ajahn Chah and said, “I’m really angry.” He smiled, “Good. You’ll learn about anger. Go back to your hut, close the door and the window, and sit there. If you’re going to be angry, do it right. See how big it gets, let yourself feel it.”
Of course, I did—in the hot season and under a tin roof. After a while, it felt like the anger could burn up the whole monastery, the whole world. Then came tremendous pain—grief and sobbing and all the layers around trauma. Ajahn Chah was really instructing me not to avert my gaze.
Bringing out trauma is often misunderstood, but these are primitive reactions to real life events which make their effects felt after weeks or more, and it is only when you can bring it to the surface and hold it with loving presence that it starts to heal.
Jeroen
Re: Some troubles with new sila efforts
I too have been thinking about this thread. I started a new job and from day 1 my main responsibility has been to interact with and help an external stakeholder of the company with a track record of extremely dubios affairs in relation to the best practices of the industry. This stakeholder, while being external, is still closely related to the company and the company can fire him. It's clear to me that this stakeholder should have been fired ages ago, but he's too big and important for that, from the perspective of the company.
I'm trying hard to act professionaly and ethicaly but am becoming really pissed off by the situation.
Anger and self-rightesousness? Aha!
I think I will try to seek out counsel from someone within the industry who is both ethical and more senior than me and who is not embroiled in the situation and can thus be objective.
marcitko
Re: Some troubles with new sila efforts
For whatever reason this thread came up in my mind today. The thoughts that percolated up were that a good portion of our personality is genetic, we're disposed to being introverted or extroverted. Agreeable and disagreeable is another similar personality spectrum. Its often hard to change these traits in a deep way about ourselves (neuroticism <-> emotional stability being the most changeable I'll note as a point in favor of a spiritual practice), but we can develop skills in the other direction. I'm pretty introverted, but need to meet new people and persuade them of my ability professionally often so have developed extrovert skills.
The other reflection I had was that for much of my life people never really confronted me on certain behaviors or when work I did wasn't up to par. As such they never got corrected or improved upon and it led to problems in my life. Since, I've adopted an attitude that its often kinder in the long run to tell someone they need to use deodorant for example. But there are kinder and more tactful ways of doing that.
Then this interview on 10% Happier came up today and felt very relevant.
person
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
@Kotishka said:
@Jeroen said:
A change to my morning routine. On Friday my The Complete Calvin and Hobbes collectors edition was delivered, three huge hardcover volumes of cartoons on high-quality art paper. So now with my coffee at 5.30 in the morning I am chortling away over hours of cartoons! It’s made for a very cheerful start to the day.How is that read going?
My random share is.... hoohooo
Highly enjoyable. I’d forgotten how much I love Calvin and Hobbes, there is a certain evolution in the cartoons, we learn about Calvin’s relationship with Susie Derkins and his parents, his lazy summer days in the woods, his imaginative outings as dinosaurs, Spaceman Spiff, even a whale, and his trip to secede from his parents and go to the Yukon… it reminds you what it was like to be six years old.
Jeroen
Re: Community
Telos is a good word. New to me.
Most of the eldlings (seniors) here have a vast range of knowledge and experience.
It is something we share in different ways. Just as we welcome questions from noobs and varied quarters:
- Experts may be too advanced for some of us.
There are strange aspects to Buddhism and science and well...
sea slugs that incorporates photosynthesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysia_chloroticaKnowledge is an acquired empowerment
lobster
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
Another skinny dip morning or so I thought...It turns out there's a king tide ...Big dumper waves crashing down on the shoreline..
Just added:
On my way down to the beach I spotted my friend heron sitting on the bench.
Sitting on the beach by my beach tent
Moved to higher ground and watch the king tide roll over the area where the beach tent was.
I did venture in up to my waist, but I still got knocked around a bit. Then a young South American woman came up to me and pointed out the little rock pool. It was much safer in there…
Heading back up the track and admiring Mother Nature's powerful waves as the king tide rolls in.
Back in the day when I lived in Sydney, I loved going into the water when the big dumper waves came in. They would toss and turn you, spinning you over and over like being in a washing machine. These days I can’t get water in my ears, and I’m not strong enough or brave enough to dive into the waves anymore.
Shoshin1