Best Of
Re: Experiences
@marcitko said:
@lobster Your verbal drivel is akin to a mind ensnared in the cycle of samsara, endlessly trapped in the delusion of its own significance. Like a discordant mantra, your words resonate with the cacophony of ignorance, disrupting the serenity of enlightened contemplation. May the lotus of wisdom blossom within you, washing away the debris of your misguided musings, for your utterances linger as stagnant pools in the vast river of profound understanding
Wow, that's really good! Some might say that it's close to the mark. The real deal. The straight poop. If I was Lobster (thank gawd I'm not) I would pause and reflect on my many years of actvity.
Re: The Other Elephant In The Room
This two year old After Skool video popped up on my YouTube feed....Interesting.....
"Menticide"
Menticide refers to the systematic and intentional manipulation **or control of an individual's mind, **often through psychological and emotional means. It involves the use of various tactics, such as propaganda, misinformation, coercion, and psychological pressure, to undermine a person's beliefs, values, and sense of self. The term is often associated with efforts to manipulate or control large groups of people, especially in the context of authoritarian regimes or oppressive systems. Menticide aims to break down independent thinking and foster unquestioning obedience or conformity to a particular ideology or authority.
Fear can be a significant component of menticide. The use of fear as a tool is a common strategy to manipulate and control individuals or groups mentally. Authoritarian regimes, cults, and oppressive systems often employ fear tactics to instill anxiety, uncertainty, and a sense of threat in people's minds. Fear can be used to coerce obedience, suppress dissent, and manipulate behavior. It can create a psychological environment where individuals feel compelled to conform to a particular ideology or authority in order to avoid negative consequences or harm. In the context of menticide, fear can be a powerful tool to weaken individual autonomy and foster compliance with the desired narrative or belief system.
Watch from the beginning or start at 9 minutes in....
Shoshin1
Re: Dementia and Buddism
FWIW…. I also disagree with the ‘letting go’ nature of advice/POV pertaining to this specific issue.
Common sense would mean knowing this is a complicated medical/mental health issue….not a retreat exercise. One also does not ‘lose believing’…. Having experience with both long term/terminal dementia and temporary dementia/psychosis in my loved ones…I assure you there are times they fully believe what the mind is telling them is true….contrary to reality.
ETA… in fact, it’s giving me real “thoughts and prayers” vibes. Got a serious medical issue you’re dealing with??? Just be grateful that it’s a blessing in disguise….or your effort for nirvana/salvation has been given a curve…….. SMH. Cmon guys. That ain’t it!
Vastmind
Re: Dementia and Buddism
@Jeroen said:
@IdleChater I think you’re exaggerating, considering what’s actually been said… use common sense, what’s written here doesn’t come close to ‘medical advice’, and there’s no need to come down hard on people for an imagined infraction of your local laws.
Look at it this way:
Someone here suggests a course of action to a person suffering from dementia, that includes "letting go". Let's say that person starts trying to "let go" and in so doing, without proper and considered mentoring / care, causes even more psychological problems. Ask your Dutch lawyer how the Dutch courts would deal with such a thing. I don't think you'd get off all that easy.
Re: Meditation / Zazen question
Fidgeting is a defensive response by one's ego structure when it's fiefdom feels threatened by one's meditative efforts. Fidgeting is a bluff charge by the human condition to ward off any challenge to its kingship. Fidgeting is just ones conditioned responses to phenomena being in fear of being seen for the prison, the bars, and the jailer that each of us has allowed them to be.
Fidgeting is just the precursor to either letting go or hanging on to the suffering that brought you to meditation.
Here, like anywhere else in a meditative practice, it's not about its existence, so much as it's about how you relate to it.
how
Re: Meditation / Zazen question
@how said:
If the human condition is a dream state of our ignorance, then an awakening from that dream can be described as being truly alive when compared to one's former imitations of the walking dead.
Here, the meditations that manifest such awakenings can equated to deathlessness.
It does get a bit uncomfortable and does make me become very hermit like to be able to follow precepts. The real world is truely tough but this is the epoch we live in and we all cannot/want go to the woods, abandoning the lay life, and entering homelessness; as if items in a bucketlist.
What I meant by uncomfortable is realising, in my experience, automatic and unwholesome traits, conducts. Self-criticism becomes ripe and the burden of sin and blame. I know these last concepts are very far from Buddhist knowledge, but ingrained in my cultural upbringing.
Very intellectual the understanding, but at practice level still fidgeting.
Time to practice right now 
Kotishka
Re: The Other Elephant In The Room
@Shoshin1 ….. my respects to you for all the UN/news postings and keeping this thread going.
✌🏻
Vastmind
Re: Experiences
Hi everyone, 
I thought I'd talk a little bit about the concept of evil or wickedness as a spiritual stage or a spiritual quality. Most people don't understand this. It's very easy to misinterpret it or to use it in such a way that it excuses bad behaviour. It doesn't. It is a quality or a state of service, if you like, that is recognised in many mystical traditions. It's one of the higher, degree Masonic revelations or extra teachings of one sort or another.
It's also recognised in Islam, Sufi Islam, where the qualities of the deity, the 99 qualities, include things like hate and negative, things that seem to be evil but of course they are qualities or attributes that are utilised as a form of service. So, for example, in Sufism, they say that to do good to evil is the same as doing evil to good, and there is a truth in that, and you have to understand it in that way and on that level, and it does not excuse any form of behaviour, as I say, that most people would understand as, I don't know how to say it, demonic or totally inexcusable or hateful, and there are people who are completely hateful through mental imbalance, through their own pain, through their own suffering, through their own experience or whatever, and they will be in this state because they can't be anywhere else ...
They've got nowhere else to go. It seems quite natural to them. They hate themselves, they hate their situation, and so on and so forth, and this leads to them being very negative, so this is the first thing to understand, the difference between something that is progressive and a natural outcome of a form of behaviour that empowers others.
In Tantric Buddhism, it is seen as an advanced teaching or a teaching of compassion at a very high level, so we use the negative states of mind, the wrathful states of mind in a positive way, in a way to break through people's conditioning.
Again, this has been open to abuse by abusive lamas or idiots or immature people or people who are in themselves not able to understand or make the best use of this. It is a progressive unfoldment, so it is something that comes about quite naturally. Anyway, that's all the warnings in place, let's talk a little bit about it. How does it manifest? Well, an obvious example is where you are trying to improve people's situation by giving them something to oppose and saying, no, no, that's wrong, that's bad, that's terrible, so you introduce this idea for them to fight against because that is the opposition, the contrary position is something that very easily can be exorcised or manifested in others, so they will take a quality that they see in you and say, no, I'm not going to be like that, what that person is doing is wrong.
So it is, again, in Sufism, it is a very old practice known as the blameworthy, people taking on attributes of negativity upon themselves in order to produce a particular effect in others. So you have to be aware of that, you have to understand that, and as I say, it is quite a developed teaching, but it is there, and it is something to be aware of if you have moved into that direction quite naturally through age, maturity or whatever, then you are able to understand what I've been saying to you and make some use of it.
lobster
Re: Experiences
Your post reminded me a bit of the Shadow...
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.”
~Carl Jung~
"The shadow represents the unconscious and repressed aspects of an individual's personality. It consists of elements that the person finds undesirable, unacceptable, or morally objectionable. These could include qualities, emotions, desires, or traits that society or the individual themselves deem as negative.
According to Jung, acknowledging and integrating the shadow is crucial for personal growth and individuation. By confronting and understanding these hidden aspects, individuals can achieve a more balanced and authentic self. Ignoring the shadow may lead to projection, where these repressed qualities are attributed to others rather than recognized within oneself. Jung believed that embracing the shadow could lead to a more holistic and harmonious life."
When I see what could be perceived as unskilful behaviour in others, I'm also aware that I am not immune from such behaviour...
The key point is having "awareness" that this is the case... Which in turn, allows me to explore what it is in me/them that may lead me/them to behave in such a manner....what past experience shaped the energy into the present form of behaviour pattern ...
"The self is a vibrating bundle of energy flux held together by karmic glue...that interprets Samsaric experience which dictates what this process will do."
Shoshin1