Best Of
Re: What we are doing right?
@Jeroen said:
I seem to have mastered my craving for sweets. There is a small holdout remaining first thing in the morning, when I want to have some chocolate with my first coffee, but after that i can go the whole day without sweets and I don’t miss them either.
That's interesting @Jeroen , I was under the impression if you can resist the craving when you first get up, that can set you up for the rest of the day.
Thus have I heard : The first craving or urge in the morning is often one of the strongest because it’s tied to routine and conditioned behaviours. If you manage to resist that initial urge, especially with something like smoking, sugar, or even checking your phone compulsively, you’re more likely to strengthen your self-control early in the day, which builds momentum and your brain learns that you can say no, which makes it easier next time.
Shoshin1
Re: Deliberatly Ending a Human life- How can we justify it ?
During my aunts funeral reception a couple of days ago my cousin showed up with his five young kids aged 13 to just a few months. The coffin had been closed just before the reception began, but still, there was inevitable talk of the deceased and dying. In a way that was very good, to not hide the fact of death from those young kids, and to let them partake in this facet of life also.
Jeroen
Re: The Plant Medicine Path
It’s quite interesting why these kinds of chemicals occur in the plant world. Pollan’s speculation is that there must be some evolutionary advantage. His first impulse was to see if it would serve as a defense mechanism, but then what to make of psilocybin mushrooms, where the substance is concentrated in the fruiting body of the fungus, meant to be eaten, and not in the mycelium network, which would need to be defended.
Jeroen
Re: The Plant Medicine Path
I came across someone on another forum who was talking about “the well-crazy psychedelic shit that is going down in some places” and he posted this link…
https://www.ecstaticintegration.org/p/dmt-on-mega-yachts-inside-the-psychedelic
It struck me, to be combining psychedelics with other drugs like cocaine and amphetamines or to be doing the strongest substances like 5-meo-DMT weekly when it takes most people six months to a year to get over a single experience is crazy and self destructive.
You have to ask yourself what hole in your life are you trying to fill with that behaviour. What the modern science of addiction tells us is that for the most part addiction is a response to something crucial lacking in your daily life, that if you are happy and fulfilled you will not go looking for substances. And merely being wealthy does not lead to happiness or fulfilment.
There are better ways to handle a psychoactive substance, and that is to learn and to cure. The shamanic path that the Peruvian curanderos follow is to learn a plant substance, to diet it, and in that way to learn to handle its spirit, for the purposes of learning and curing. It is a spiritual path, of curing those who are spiritually ill.
Jeroen
Re: “502” error on this site
Icrontic (which shares the server with NB) is getting swarmed by bots scraping the contents for AI nonsense, which is a growing problem across the Web. I've blocked a number of them for now, which hopefully will help. I have longer-term ideas but lack the time to implement them this week.
Linc
Re: No Buddhist Quotes
“When you learn to be the witness of your thoughts and emotions, which is an essential part of being present, you may be surprised when you first become aware of the background "static" of ordinary unconsciousness and realise how rarely, if ever, you are truly at ease within yourself. On the level of your thinking, you will find a great deal of resistance in the form of judgment, discontent, and mental projection away from the Now. On the emotional level, there will be an undercurrent of unease, tension, boredom, or nervousness. Both are aspects of the mind in its habitual resistance mode.”
— Eckhart Tolle
Jeroen
Re: Not biting the hook
I love this quote from the article: "This is not to say that the world doesn’t exist; it’s just that we’ve never lived in it."
In my opinion this is a great way to explain the idea of illusion to people newly approaching Buddhism. If they hear "everything is an illusion" when they are clearly living a life in the world, there is a danger there that part of their mind senses an obvious contradiction and will close the door on it.
Re: Not biting the hook
What larger force wants to consume me?
Uroborus, the well known Alchemical Buddhist magickal dragon, gives birth to his own consumption...
Sometimes the dragon is a worm. Sometimes the rescuer of the pure.
One of the most difficult aspects of Yogacara Buddhism is the idea that we are the creators of reality/existence. The limited Trump/Dali type crazy, believe they are the center of the universe.
So what!
Some of us are crazy enough to try to do good with such a great responsibility. We are the 'mother of dragons'? Or just a minded worm?
https://www.lionsroar.com/how-do-we-create-our-reality/
lobster