Best Of
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
I just feel sorry for the sane Americans who's only choice is between dumb and dumber...
What a political circus with two clown puppets and in the UK they have a similar situation ...Send in the clowns ...
Don't bother, they're here...
Shoshin1
Re: Buddhism, dream realms and the will to power
We have talked MANY times on how the impediments become more subtle.
Divesting ourselves, monastic, lay or independent, of power to live the many lives in a day... Is this dependent on unsettling clinging to [insert Klingons of choice]?
In other words, monastics give up as much as possible. If good enough, guided well, by their brothers, sisters, nature further along, they will:
- Leave the will to have power or influence and effect on others
- Be the server of others wheels to empowerment
- Effective through presence
We might say they are Nothing but everything of Real Value
- A refuge, a resource, examplars of refined quality
- Buddhas, Boddhisatvahs, Arhats and general purpose paccekabuddha.
- Samma sambuddha
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_in_Buddhism
lobster
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
I sat down to watch, knowing that debating skills are not really a necessary skill set that a president needs to do his job.
But...
I was shocked at Biden's tottering on his way to the podium and it just went downhill from there. When he started speaking I hoped someone had recently checked him for a UTI.
He was easily flustered, endlessly repeating the same phrases, losing the endings of his own sentences, and had me angry that he was the **one **who arranged a televised debate that was going to cost him an election that he might have otherwise won.
I like and respect Biden but like a lot of other Democrats in positions of power, somewhere he severely overestimated his own age-related decline to the detriment of his party. A man who cared more for his policies than his own place within them would have groomed a younger replacement and stepped aside long before it got to this point.
how
Re: Buddhism, dream realms and the will to power
I guess I kind of think of the will to power as more of a worldly thing and that some level of power in a worldly sense allows one a greater degree of control over one's life. An absence of power allows others the ability to control or even dominate you. The ability to practice at all requires some level of freedom from coercion. Power also allows people to do good in the world, you may have the purest, most heartfelt wish that others were in a better state, but without the ability to make it so that intention lacks worldly impact.
Like @how says though, the goal of the spiritual life and its kind of power lies in the ability to let go of that craving and not be controlled by its pull.
person
Re: Buddhism, dream realms and the will to power
Will to Power is like still playing the chess game and not yet seeing that in the end, all the pieces will leave the chessboard. Whether that piece is the King, Queen or lowly pawn, they all end up in the same place.
Re: Buddhism, dream realms and the will to power
In a way it is the Eight Worldly Winds continuing to blow.
Jeroen
Re: Buddhism, dream realms and the will to power
For Buddhists, a desire to rise to power is a cause for suffering.
The Buddha asked his followers to awaken from such a dream, not just try give that dream a more comfortable sleeping arrangement.
Being less hobbled by dreams or desires, is the true power of a practice, whether one is monastic or lay.
To the degree that one allows selflessness to evolve..... heavens, hells, retinues or obscurity become just the next nanosecond of a possible practice on the path towards suffering's cessation.
how
Re: There is no escape from no duality
@Jeffrey said:
I think of the idea that the future is not just determined by the past, but also by our choice in the present moment. Now maybe our choice is an illusion, but hard to prove one way or another.
The present is already determined by the past, but the present will determine the future. There is always a choice as long as there is an identification with a self aka self-determination, as is the result of those choices. It operates at the level of the conditioned or samsara.
Re: There is no escape from no duality
@sciencebuff said:
What I'm trying to communicate is 1) total enlightenment / pure consciousness is not something desirable per se but is a very neutral state and 2)it's not permanent and I don't think the Buddha tried to make that claim.
Pure consciousness is a timeless state and unless you never want anything to happen ever, I don't think you'd want to remain there permanently.
If you want something to happen, it will happen.
If you don't want it to happen, something will still happen.
That is because of identification with forms which leads to both desirable and undesirable outcomes. The price of wanting is to get want you don't want, not get what you want and to lose what you wanted!